Chapter 11:

A/N: I just noticed that the Chapter 10 was too much of a cliffhanger… That's why this chapter is going to be longer, fortunately.

P.S.: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I absolutely love you guys and gals 3 Lot's of hugs and kisses to everyone who followed, favorite, subscribed, and of course, read this fanfiction. You guys are my absolute inspiration.

P.S.S.: Please review, it makes me so happy, and it turns up my mood, a lot.

P.S.S.S.: I just watched the NPOT OVA 2: Child of God vs. Emperor. It was really good, since it was mostly Rikkai-centric. It also has the Fuji brothers. (-STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS-) On my opinion, the manga version of the fight is way better, at least there Yukimura showed absolute superiority. In the anime, Sanada had the first 2 points advantage, it was degrading Yukimura. I also disliked the fact that they made Yukimura ran around and making him lose the points, and Sanada hasn't even pulled out Shadow. The only time Yukimura ran was when Ryoma was all TmK, but Sanada was normal mode and everything. It was depressing, since Yukimura was a little degraded, but at the very least, they showed a bit of his childhood, plus hearing Yukimura's snarky one-liners was… plain bliss. So, I think that the manga version was better because I'm a Yukimura-slave, and he was all mighty and superior there, but the anime's pretty good, too.

P.S.S.S.S.: I think I'm going to make a Yukimura fic, showering his almighty snarky one-liners…

P.S.S.S.S.S.: Starting from this chapter, I will start Italicizing the taken excerpt from the chapter before the present one.

P.S.S.S.S.S.S.: I am very sorry for my super long author's rambles. -_-ll

Disclaimer: POT isn't mine, if it was well a lot of things will change, and I assure you that Rikkai will be the main team if it was me. (Not that I detest Seigaku, I just LOVE RIkkai.)

"Akaya can go for you." Yanagi immediately blurted out. Both Atobe and Sanada raised their brows at this.

"What..?" Atobe asked, irritated.

"There's a 100% percent chance that he will be able to protect your cousin from any present danger and is not needed in the conversation." Yanagi quickly added.

"…" A small cold wind passed by, and all four pair of eyes were staring right at Kirihara. Atobe was glaring at him pointedly with a twitch.

"Akaya, is that fine with you?" Yukimura asked his kouhai, absolutely politely.

"…It's fine." Akaya replied, looking down at the floor.

"Atobe..?" Yukimura inquired, looking at the twitching figure.

"Ore-sama is fine with it, but if ore-sama finds the brat doing stupid things to my cousin…" Atobe lowers his tone, glowering.

"Don't worry, Akaya is smart enough to avoid unpleasant incidents." Yanagi states as he looks at Akaya for confirmation, his eyes, slightly open.

"Of course." Akaya replied with a mock salute, before turning around and catching up to the girl.

"That brat…" Atobe and Sanada simultaneously muttered as soon as Akaya was out of sight. Yukimura chuckled softly and Yanagi began noting some data.

~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/

"Keigo is such a… such… such an idiot." Cherrim muttered, her soft voice a little venomous.

"That idiot should have known not to go to a tennis facility IN Kanagawa… Now… now… How can I explain that I know some of the Rikkaidai regulars, not to mention the arrogant devil, Kirihara. If he knew that Kirihara was the boy I talked to him about, when I complained about the little dumb but nonetheless playful partner I have was him…" She shooks her head, and took a large breath in. She scans her palms, looking at it, as if answers were written there, but instead sighs, unable to think clearly.

"And, and, the buchou, Yukimura-sempai… He's the boss of the tennis club, I'm sure that if by some chance I got in the regulars because of" She stops to think of an appropriate word "my prowess, wait, that sounds wrong… That sounds like something Keigo would say." She shooks her head once, clears her throat and continue where she left off "my inane ability and superior reflexes, I would need to interact with him daily, not to mention even the scary fukubuchou, and there's the other regulars, too." She stopped once again, catching her breath.

Then, she gives out another long-winded sigh and continued "And with what I've gathered, they're quiet the crazy, if not insane, characters. Haaah." She sighs once again, and then almost automatically her eyes steeled with pure coldness, and the black orbs of hers looked darker than darkness.

She slows down her pace, and emotionlessly let her eyes wander around the storage which was a little far from her. She continued to stare, and she wiped a slight trickle of sweat she has received from the now scorching sun. Then she looked at the sun, and stared again.

"Why did you slow down..?" A low, very familiar voice, whispered behind her. She closes her eyes, it was such a familiar voice, where did she hear it again..? She stares at the source of the voices, and she saw… her vision was hazy.

"Hello..?" Kirihara Akaya said in a slightly irritated tone as he waves one of his hands in front of her.

"..!" Cherrim broke out of her silent reverie, her black orbs shining brightly once again as she looks at the curly haired boy waving his hand in front of her. She looks at him impassively, and bit her lips. She wondered what the feeling she felt before was. It was familiar at the same time that it was not, she decided to forget about it as she mentally shrugs it off.

"Why are you here?" She asks, her voice soft, as usual. Looking at the boy, she decided that she will have a lot of questions for him.

"I was… following you?" Akaya replied, almost automatically trying to look sheepish. He grins at her arrogantly, as if he knew a secret or two about her.

"And why were you following me?" Cherrim asks again, her eyes narrowing as she lets out the statement. Then, her eyes gleamed, and she faked a loud gasp as she said "Oh, don't tell me you were stalking me, Kirihara-kun!"

Akaya raised his brows a bit, and tried to play the game, as he said in his most unaffected, arrogant tone "Yes, I was. I didn't expect you to find out this early." He also faked a shrug, and Cherrim's lips formed into a small smile.

He shrugs impassively once again, as he motions his hand for another topic, and he starts "Our role playing aside, it's unfortunate, but I was asked by Yukimura-buchou to go with you."

"What's so unfortunate about it..?" She muttered a bit, before she starts asking again "And, why did Yukimura-sempai asked you to go with me…?"

"It's probably because he has something to say to Atobe-san. And, well, Atobe-san was SO worried about you, he wanted a replacement." He said with a slight shrug and adds "Yanagi-sempai volunteered me, probably because it was a junior thing, and then Yukimura-buchou thought it was a great idea and he saw me off."

"Hmm.." Cherrim nodded in response. She then cocked her head, slightly to the side, as she comments "Yukimura-sempai seems like a very…" She pause a bit, thinking for an appropriate word "…likable person, at the very least."

"Well, he's our buchou." Akaya replied with the shiniest gleam in his eyes. "It's only natural that he will be likable." He stated, and nods at his own statement, and he continued "There's no one like Mura-buchou. He's like… the deity of the tennis courts. His title is even more awesome, the Demigod. There's no tennis player from Japan who doesn't know his name. He's very charismatic out of the courts, too. He just pawns everyone else, and no one disobeys him, ever. I guess Yukimura-buchou was just born awesome." He stops abruptly and nods his head at his speech again, not noticing the slightly amused expression of his single audience, Cherrim.

Cherrim lets out a small smirk as she agrees, saying "He must be very good, excellent even. I don't think that anyone else can rein both you, the devil of the courts, and your fukubuchou, the hotheaded and passionate emperor, like he does."

"Of course, he's the only one who can re-" Akaya stops, and narrows his green eyes ever slightly, his eyebrows twitching in suspended motion. "What kind of word did you use, rein? Honestly, it sounds like we're… animals or something." Akaya looked at her, an arrogant air crowding him, as he looks with slightly narrow eyes.

Cherrim let out a pleasant smile, and in a very polite manner, she says "But, I thought that the word rein suits both you and Sanada-sempai. Acting like animals, wasn't it your nature?" She looks at him, ever so innocently, with her wide, black eyes gleaming.

"Acting like animals?" Akaya pulled out a face, as he asked the question a little childishly disgusted. His arrogant air lessened when he saw the girl smiling at him brightly as she nods briefly. "We aren't animals at all." He said with a slight piercing glare. And then as he continued to intensify his glare, he added in a serious tone "We're from Rikkaidai." He left some unknown words in the air, suspended with them in the moment.

".." Cherrim looked at Akaya's serious expression as she let a small tense period of silence pass by. She smiles, this time a little more genuine and sincere than usual, as she coughs a bit and decided to take the time to agree with him "You're from Rikkaidai. Of course…" She smiles a little more nostalgically than pleasantly as she adds "I guess that comparing you to animals is a bad idea, because… no matter what kind of attitude or character you have now, animalistic or not, it will still disappear and be gone once you start any match or face any challenge."

"…" Another silence passed as Akaya worked what Cherrim said through his slightly dazed head. Cherrim, for her part, continued as she said "It's Rikkaidai. The place where losing is unacceptable and winning is a law."

Akaya's eyes widened as he gives a nod of acknowledgement, the girl looks at him, her calmly cold eyes staring at Akaya's widened and surprised ones. She gave a little chuckle as she smiles coldly and said "Rikkaidai is such a wonderful place. Enigmatic and disciplined."

"Haaah." She sighed again as she shakes her head and gave a slightly pleased grin, and looks at him with gleaming eyed. She said, her voice becoming soft and sincere, "We've said enough, don't we..?" She smiles a rather nostalgic smile as she lets the sentence pass her lips.

"Y-yeah." Akaya nods hurriedly in order to shake away his dazed amazement and confusion to the girl that has shown different sides of her in the conversation. He wondered where the real her may be, but shrugs it off, considering that their only interaction will be in the classroom.

"Well, it's there." Cherrim said as she pointed 2 rackets lying on a couch, on storage. Cherrim suppressed a laugh from her system. Keigo must have asked the employees to give the racquets special care.

"Wow." Akaya commented with both humor and exasperation, as both he and Cherrim walked to the racquet, wrapped in golden cloth, sitting elegantly on the couch. He smirks as he looks at the impassive expression of the girl as he comments "Atobe-san is really.." he stops to think of a good, different from normal vocabulary "…extravagant." He inwardly nods at the way he used such an uncommonly used word.

"Yeah. He's also very protective, possessive and pompous." Cherrim said in agreement, as she smiles pleasantly while she carefully unwrap the racquets. She smiled at the thought of Atobe being so careful and protective and possessive with everything as she adds "This isn't even his extremities. He really gives his racquet the best attention."

Akaya looks at her and catches her eyes as he smiles smugly and shook his head. He started to disagree, saying "It's not by extravagance that the racquet receives the best attention. It's in the owner." Cherrim smiles at this, and looks at him for confirmation. "Take Yukimura-buchou for an example, take fukubuchou, Yanagi-sempai, even me for an example." He states with an arrogant smirk.

Cherrim shakes her head in amusement. She smiles as she keeps her mouth shut, she knew well enough about the obsession of Kirihara about the Three Demons of Rikkai, since it was a widely known rumor, a fact, even.

"Hmm.. I guess." Cherrim saids with a slight tilt of her head. She gently places the racquets in her arms, and looks at Akaya "We should go, they're waiting for us." She began to walk, speeding up her pace, leaving the curly haired boy running after her.

OoOoOoOoO

"Cherrim!" Atobe shouted loudly at the nearing figure of the girl, even though the distance wasn't that great. He was smiling, considering the fact that the little devil brat of Yukimura wasn't very close to his precious cousin.

"Oh, don't mind me." Akaya commented, rolling his eyes, as he heard the yell of the Hyoutei tennis regular. He looks at him and shakes his head, thinking that the other guy was seriously too happy to see his cousin.

Cherrim heard Akaya's comment and let out a soft chuckle. "He really is protective, right? I'm sure that he didn't mean it." She says softly, in a barely audible whisper. This statement was only heard by Akaya, who looked at her with a smile, a real one, not one with arrogance.

"Keigo!" Cherrim yelled back after smiling, waving her hands in the process. She gave a small, sideway nod to Akaya on her side, and ran off to Atobe's side, who was smiling contentedly. Akaya followed, increasing his pace until he was at Yukimura's side.

"Well… Shall we start our little practice?" Yukimura said with a slight predatory smile. The others looked at him, and nodded. They knew well enough that playing with Yukimura will train them. Cherrim grips her racquet and nods, but gives sideway glances to Atobe as he starts a practice match with Sanada.

A/N: And that, dear readers is the end.. Hahahaha! You might have noticed the slight change in my writing style, and please suggest if you want the one in the previous chapters or if you want this one. Personally, though, I want this one. Ha!

So, the next chapter will be released on an indefinite timeline because I think that I'm becoming more stressed on school, exams our coming up within next week, and projects are piling up as well. So… I'm not sure if I will be updating early on, but rest assured that I will update this fic (and my other ones) eventually….