Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis doesn't belong to me. Obviously.

This Means War

Ayame

A rare occurrence happened on a sunny Saturday morning in early March. I woke up early on a weekend.

It wasn't on purpose, but I found myself staring at my ceiling at only 7:30 in the morning. Deciding that getting back to sleep was futile, I climbed out of bed and got ready to face another day. Until about 11:00, I stayed restlessly in my house, alternately working on homework I should have started days ago and fiddling with various programs on my computer.

At last, I decided that I needed to get out or I was going to literally drive myself insane. I pulled on a jacket and left the house, my parents wouldn't care. I usually wandered on the weekends anyway, and they knew I could take care of myself. Normally I would hang around with friends, or spend the day in the library in the 'how-to' section reading all of the instruction manuals for dummies. Unusual reading material, I know, but it's what I've always preferred from the usual teenage romance novels. I'd tried reading them once, and had quickly decided the characters and plots were one-dimensional and pointless. They seemed like a meaningless waste of time to me.

Today, though, I wasn't in the mood to read. For a moment, I considered visiting Kondo, but then remembered that I wasn't speaking to him at the moment.

Thinking of Kondo, however, made me think of tennis, and I remembered that he had a match today; against some rich school whose cheering squad was pretty infamous. That ought to be amusing; I decided and walked through the streets, weaving through the small crowds of people hurrying along the sidewalk. I arrived at the bus stop just as the bus was about to pull away, but luckily the bus driver saw me and stopped.

I was on good terms with this particular driver, because this bus was his regular route and I often used it to get out of the inner city where I lived to school and other places on the outskirts and suburbs. He waited for me to climb on the bus, greeted me cheerily, and drove away from the sidewalk. I settled in a seat halfway to the back of the bus, looking out the window at the threatening clouds.

As the bus pulled around to another stop, before the one I intended to get off on, a cluster of boys about my age, maybe younger, entered the bus. There were eight of them, and they entered in groups of two and three, chattering at each other loudly.

My 'tennis player' senses started tingling.

Seriously, though, I could tell just by looking at them that they were cut from the same cloth as the Seigaku Regulars. I automatically tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible to avoid catching the attention of these unfavorable, though oddly familiar, people.

Unfortunately, luck wasn't going my way. I simultaneously realized where I'd seen the boys before and saw Tachibana An board the bus. She recognized me, as well, and grinned like I'd just made her day. "Ayame!" she called cheerily. I did my best to give everyone but An the cold shoulder while I acknowledged her.

"Morning, An," I said, "You're going to the tennis match, too, I assume?" She nodded and smiled, then turned to the boy behind her.

"Nii-san, this is Ayame. You remember her? She came to visit once," she introduced me. I looked at the boy for a moment, trying to place his face, and then realized with a start who he was.

"Ah ha! You're Kami-taichou*," I said, "I didn't know An was your little sister." If An is the younger sister of the god of the Fudomine cult worship, what does that make her? A demi-god? A spirit? I wondered.

The boy with red hair certainly looked at her like she was a demi-god. Kami-taichou looked at me, confused. "What did you just call me?" he asked.

"Well, your team kind of treats you like a god, so . . ." I shrugged. "You will be Kami-taichou." An was bent over laughing, the tennis team was staring at me with expressions ranging from thinking I was the devil incarnate to utterly confused. Kami-taichou himself looked lost, he clearly didn't know what to say.

An recovered and plopped down next to me, with Kami-taichou sitting across the aisle. "Yep," she said, and then, "But what are you doing going to a tennis match? I thought you didn't like tennis."

"I never said I didn't like tennis," I shrugged, "Only that I didn't like the players. Either way, the team Seishun is playing against are supposed to be world-class arses, so it should be funny, if nothing else." Kami-taichou started laughing, and I shot him a dry glare. "What?"

"You would know if you had met Atobe," he smiled, "World-class arse is an . . . interesting description." I assumed Atobe was a player for the opposing team, and I hadn't met him, so I let Kami-taichou have his fun and shrugged it off.

"I think this is you kids' stop," the bus driver called, pulling up to a stop about a block away from the tennis courts. I thanked him and hurried off the bus, with An dogging my steps. It couldn't be helped, I supposed, because we were going to the same place. As we approached the tennis courts, I heard screams of "The winner will be Hyotei! The winner will be Hyotei!" over and over. I turned to An and asked, "What's a Hyotei?"

"Hyotei is the opposing school," An said, shaking her head at my ignorance. "The 'world class arses?'"

"Yeah," I said as we walked into the view of the tennis courts and I saw chanting sea of blue and grey uniforms, "I'd say I was right on target, wouldn't you?" An laughed, but didn't say anything else. She led me to the other side of the courts, which were more sparsely populated by Seishun students.

Among the small crowd of students from my school, I saw one pleasantly familiar face. "Taka-san!" I called, waving to him. I hadn't spoken to him for awhile, but he didn't look like he'd changed much. Only he was a lot . . . bigger. Taka was tall and strong; he made me feel like I was standing next to a skyscraper, or something.

He smiled when he saw me and waved me over. I turned to An and asked her, "Want to come support Seishun with me? Kami knows Hyotei had enough cheerleaders already."

An laughed, "I was planning on it. Tezuka's my older brother's friend, sort of, and I really don't have much to do the Hyotei." I lead An over and sat on Taka's open side, An next to me.

"How have you been, Taka?" I asked him, glancing at the D1 match that was currently going on. It seemed that we had gotten there a little bit late. Seigaku had won the first match, 7-5. I imagine it was pretty dramatic, because the tennis club is better at creating a scene than the drama club themselves.

Right now the doubles match was in Hyotei's favor, 4-2. Momoshiro and Kaidou had become a very efficient doubles pair sometime in the past few years, and they were now trying to take on a short, skinny red head that seemed to have a lot of unnecessary movements in his playing and a blue-haired boy with glasses that the Hyotei fan girls kept squealing over.

"Oh, you know," Taka smiled, answering my earlier question. "I'm doing well in my chef training, my dad says, but I miss tennis."

"Ah," I said. I didn't understand the feeling at all – I never missed a club once I abandoned it. "I see you still come to the games, though."

"I do whenever I can," Taka admitted, "The team is really strong this year. It's like the revival of Seigaku's Golden Generation."

Golden Generation had become a common nickname in the tennis world for the sudden growth of powerful middle school tennis players that occurred three years ago. Anyone who had been a regular on one of the national-level schools at the time had become nicknamed a 'Golden Generation' player.

"Sort of looks like it, doesn't it?" I said, "All their missing is Oishi – and you, of course."

"Kondo's doing well, though," Taka smiled, "He's got the same sort of congenial personality as Oishi – he and Kikumaru make a fine doubles pair."

"Huh," I said. Once again, I was out of my league. I know nothing about tennis other than 'Hit the ball to the other side and try to keep the other person from hitting it back.'

The doubles match ended in Hyotei's favor, though for a second it had looked like Momoshiro and Kaidou were going to make a comeback. There was a generally dramatic course of 'good game', and singles 3 started. It was Fuji versus a strange fellow that had been sleeping on the bench since I got there, but then suddenly acted like he was on a sugar high as soon as he got on the court.

Taka was analyzing the game to me, and I was just sort of grunting, pretending to understand.

Taka, Kami-taichou, An, and I chatted as Fuji (dramatically) claimed singles 3. As Tezuka started Singles 2, I heard my name from behind me.

"What are you doing here?" Kondo asked, sitting on the bleacher behind me. I spun around and folded my arms defensively across my chest.

"Nothing better to do," I snapped, "Got a problem?"

"Not at all," he said, in a relaxed tone. "More pleased that you're speaking to me again, actually."

I growled at him under my breath, and then said, "I've already had my revenge, after all."

"Hmm," Kondo said, "I've already survived, then, good. You'll get distracted soon again, won't you?"

"Distracted?" An interrupted, "What do you mean?"

"A lot of this pranking and stuff," I explained, "Was for my entertainment. Tezuka and the tennis team just made a good target because they're annoying."

"Is that really okay?" An said, "Picking on people for your entertainment?"

"Probably not," I shrugged, "But they deserved it, anyway. It's about time someone showed them they're not the center of the universe."

"I suppose," An said, not sounding sure, "They're not that bad, though, are they? They've always seemed friendly, helpful, all that stuff."

"They don't seem to realize there's a world outside tennis," I decided, "People like that annoy me. Besides, Tezuka called me a fan girl."

"Geez," Kondo said, "You're still angry about that?"

"Of course," I said, "Not necessarily angry, anymore, though. I'm sort of bored with them now."

"Figures," Kondo said, "You have no attention span. Maybe it's for the best, since exams are coming up soon."

"Don't remind me," I instructed him, "Still, I'm planning something special for Tezuka before I give up entirely."

"Like what?" Kondo asked.

"I'm not sure," I said, "I could put itching powder in his shoes, or break into his locker and fill it with porn. Or both."

"Poor Tezuka," Kondo said, shaking his head, "He never really did anything to you, you know."

"He's too good," I told him, "And he's got a holier-than-though attitude, and he should be off playing professional tennis, not at a high school bothering me."

"He can't play professional tennis," Kondo said, "At least not full time."

"Why not?" I asked. It intrigued me that Tezuka might have such a serious weakness. I wondered how I could exploit it.

"His arm," Kondo explained, "It can't take the constant stress. It's okay for a tournament or two, but if he pushes it to hard he'll just hurt it again."

I scowled. Not only was that a weakness I couldn't exploit, it gave him a martyr look that ascended him to domains I wasn't supposed to pick on. "I really am going to put itching powder in his shoes," I announced, throwing all respect for his hardships out the window.

"Where are you going to get itching powder?" An asked. The others around us had been alternating between listening to our conversation and watching the tennis matches progress.

"I know a place," I smiled mysteriously. Taka shivered.

Seigaku had won, 3-1, rather to the pleasure of the lazy little freshman playing Singles 1. (And less to the pleasure of 'Ore-sama', who I had learned was nicknamed Monkey King – I thought it suited him.)

I took the subway and then ducked through an alleyway on one side of town. It lead to a raggedy little collection of shops – a ramen shack, a racquet stringer, and, most importantly to me, a small joke shop.

Sliding open the thin paper door, I walked in. An old man sitting at the counter looked up. "May I help you?" he asked with a smile.

"I need itching powder. Something powerful," I told him. He moved, with surprising agility for someone his age, across the shop and handed me a small, black shaker.

"That will be 850 yen," he told me, and I paid him.

"Thanks," I told him. The old man was Kazuko's uncle. Her parents hated it when she went to see him, because he was a shameless prankster and had caused Kazuko to be the way she was now.

A pretty cool old dude, if you ask me.

It was the next week, on Sunday. The tennis team and I had pretty much avoided clashing because of their tournament and the upcoming exams had kept us too busy for anything else. It was also about 1:00 AM. I snuck out of my room, slipped on my shoes, and snuck through the streets.

The city at night is a livelier place than you'd expect. It had started raining on Friday and hadn't stopped since, but I was running out of time, so I put up with it. There were a variety of people that it would be a bad idea to associate with littering the streets, hurrying along with their heads down and their hands in the their pockets.

Do not try this at home, kids. It's dangerous to wander the streets at night, even if you can take care of yourself in a fight like I can. I had a backpack that contained my supplies for the night and a variety of surgical knives stored in my coat to use as weapons.

I moved quickly down the streets, avoiding the sleepy curfew police, and soon arrived in front of the school. I climbed over the wall, and made my way towards the mudroom. There was a small camera by the door, but that was easily dispatched by cutting the unconcealed wires leading to it.

Using lock picks borrowed from Kazuko earlier in the week, I slipped into the locker room, and located the locker I was looking for.

This time, I had done my research properly. Spying on the tennis club members as they retrieved their belongings had made me certain which one belonged to Tezuka. I opened it without much difficulty.

His indoor shoes were there, as I expected. I inconspicuously coated the inside with the white itching powder, and carefully replaced them.

Then I made my way through the hallways. I found Tezuka's school locker, which happened to be quite near mine, (so I knew who it belonged to) and opened it. I set the contents of the bag I was carrying right in the front of the locker, closed it again with a smirk.

Gathering my things, I snuck back out of the school. The clouds had eclipsed the sky, and the rain was coming down harder now, filling the gutters with rushing little rivers. Hurrying through the pelting water, I made it home by 1:45, with no one the wiser.

When I crawled back into bed, I was still smiling to myself.

Kondo

I waited outside Ayame's house as she made wandered out of her house Monday morning. She walked sleepily out and muttered, "Sorry, overslept."

"Doesn't matter," I said, "But we better hurry, or we really will be late." She nodded, shook her head to clear it, and marched quickly off towards the school. I followed her, catching up easily.

We arrived at school just in time to rush to our respective classrooms and slide into our seats.

In second period, Tezuka looked oddly fidgety, which was extremely out of character for him. I knew why, from Ayame's suppressed giggling. I had to respect him, for being able to put up with whatever Ayame had done to his shoes. She looked like was a little disappointed at his reaction, but enjoying what she could.

Ayame followed Tezuka out of second period to his locker. At first, I didn't see anything wrong with it, and then I realized what Ayame had said about putting porn in his locker.

I spun around, ready to stop Tezuka, or at least warn him. But I was too late. He had already opened the locker.

To my surprise, a variety of perverted magazines did not come pouring out of his locker. Instead, he paused for a moment, before lifting out a pink-painted tennis ball. Written on the side were three words – "Act your age!"

Tezuka looked around, and it didn't take him long to find Ayame and meet her eyes. She stuck her tongue out childishly and flounced off. I walked over to Tezuka's side. "Don't worry," I told him, "This is her way of calling a truce."

"I see," he said, but his real thoughts were clearly visible (clearly being a relative term) on his face. Weird way to do it.

Ayame came and watched tennis practice after school. Tezuka had to skip practice today due because something was wrong with his feet, so there was no one to tell her off. She spent most of practice taunting the non-regulars because she could hit harder than they could. Arai started to shout at her at one point, but showed unpredicted intelligence by shutting up after she hit his nose and made it bleed.

As the days passed, she and Eiji started to get along unexpectedly well. They shared the common bond of Oishi's sister, as well as the love of tricks (though Eiji was considerably more good natured than Ayame.)

Through out the last months of high school, Ayame became a fairly diligent supporter of the Seigaku tennis team. We went all the way to the championship, where we lost to Rikkai Dai. (It had to happen some time. They proved to be considerably more difficult to beat after Yukimura had fully thrown off his illness.) She and Tezuka never really hit it off, but they learned to tolerate each other's presence.

We took our final exams, and went our separate ways. Tezuka went to Germany, and the third years of the tennis team scattered across Japan. Ayame went to med school, and graduated surprisingly high in her class. Her parents wanted her to stay close to home; because her brother travelled all over the world and they wanted one child to stay by them.

She promptly started looking for a job in Europe, and eventually found one. I would be moving to Sendai in a few weeks, but I took time out of my schedule to see her off. When I asked her where she was going, she was vague. "Some rehab center for injured athletes," she said, "Sports medicine."

It wasn't until she'd already gotten on the plane that I realized she'd neglected to mention which country the rehab center was in.

Ayame

Germany is a surprisingly sunny country. It's quite a bit farther north than Tokyo, but it was warm. I left my apartment, wove through the tourist-y town that I had moved to, and to my new place of work – a large center that focused mostly on tennis players. It was a place where professional players that had overstressed their bodies tended to gravitate, though there were also more severe cases.

I met my new boss, who I initially decided was not entirely unpleasant. He was a slightly pot-bellied man that looked as though he'd been very strong a long time ago, but had dropped his exercise regime as he hit middle age. He was very accommodating of my still-developing German.

A little too accommodating, in fact. "You're working as a physical therapist, and a doctor," he told me with a smile; "The athletes that you work with will also have a coach, for when they reach the later stages of their recovery. One of our coaches, who also works as a professional player, comes from Japan like you."

I suddenly got a really horrible, inexplicable sinking feeling in my gut. "He'll be your partner," my boss told me, "And he'll be able to help you learn the language, as well. He should be here any minute."

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. My boss called for the person to come in, and as soon as the door opened, my breath caught in shock. God must hate me, I decided, as I watched a tall, brown-haired man enter the room.

"Ayame, this is Tezuka Kunimitsu," my boss introduced me new partner. As all the blood finished draining out of my face, and I finally regained my powers of speech, I said the only three words in the world that could properly encompass the situation.

"What the hell?"

*Ayame is calling Tachibana 'Captian God.'

A/N: And so it ends. As you may have noticed from reading this chapter, I really, really suck at ending stories. As such, this is a temporary ending. That's also why it took so long – I suffered much writers block.

Contact me about loose ends, and I will do my best to edit this to tie them up. A sequel is not impossible, but extremely unlikely, and if I were to write one, it would certainly be quite unlike this one, because it would probably mostly end up being set in Germany. Which is why a sequel is not in planning. Please, please review. Because I finally managed to finish this.