© Gold

Title: Beyond: A Tribute

Interlude III: Momoshiro's Story

Author: Gold
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis . It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.

Author's Notes:

1. Dohoku is the name of the company service that provides the buses for several routes around Hokkaido, including the route that starts from Asahikawa, Hokkaido and ends at the Shirogane onsen. Creative licence: having never been on that bus route, I don't know what bus-stops there may be along the way. For the purposes of this story, we will assume that they are where I want them to be…

2. In my Prince of Tennis world, the boys move on, together, to the same high school, i.e. Seigaku. It's evidently a good private school with a perfectly decent academic record, so I don't understand why they would want to go anywhere else. Besides, education is important, and in real life, they should keep up with their education even if they wanted to turn pro. A pro's life is short; they need to plan for what happens after they've retired from professional tennis.

3. It's nice to know that there are a lot of people out there who like Momoshiro. Personally, I've got a very strong affection for him – he's one of my two favourite characters in PoT.

4. I originally wanted to post this up later, but I've got this funny feeling that it should go up...

Interlude III: Momoshiro's Story

Saturday, July 24, 2010

It's been said that when you are close to death, your entire life flashes before you in an instant.

Momoshiro Takeshi never had time for that instant.

Everything happened too fast; all he could feel was the way the air rushed past him as he fell, and how the rocks and trees tore off his flesh and skin and broke his bones cruelly as he tumbled down, head over heels, his arms flailing madly as he tried to grip on to something, or to protect himself…

Then, merciful blackness…

Momoshiro Takeshi shaded his eyes with one hand as he peered upwards.

Perfect was a strong word to use, but he thought that it was the only word that fitted the description of the weather. The sky was an incredible colour, so brilliant a shade of blue that he couldn't stop looking up at it in wonder, and the sunshine poured down lavishly, so bright in some spots that he wisely chose not to look directly at it. The air was pure and clear, and transparent for miles around; he had the oddest feeling that if he looked through a telescope, he might just be able to see all the way across the Pacific Ocean – or, if he looked in another direction, all the way to Russia.

He was all set.

It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and he, Momoshiro, was about to add a brand new title to his name – Momoshiro Takeshi, explorer du jour.

On this day, he was far away on the beautiful island of Hokkaido, together with his team-mates from Tokyo's Seishun Gakuen University Tennis Club. They were there to take part in a two-week-long tennis clinic being held for primary school children all over the island. Biei, a rural township somewhere in Hokkaido, was their last stop before they returned to Sapporo, and from thence, to Tokyo. It was Saturday; they would be leaving the next day. Fortuitously, the schedule had freed up several hours for the tennis club members for Saturday, and Momoshiro fully intended to exploit all that leisure time in order to explore the township of Biei, Hokkaido, and the area that lay beyond it.

In a fit of zeal, Momoshiro had woken up extra early that morning, determined to make the most of the time he had. Now, Momoshiro had always been a great believer in sharing good things with his friends, so he did his level best to drag along some of his team-mates from the Seishun Gakuen University Tennis Club on his planned expedition around Biei… but everyone seemed to be too tired to get out of bed. Waking up at a quarter to eight in the morning was just too early, particularly on a holiday. Really, Momoshiro clucked privately to himself, they were no fun, no fun at all! That, however, wasn't going to stop him from going ahead on his own. He had scrounged together some food and drink, had a map in hand, and the whole world at his feet. He felt courageous, adventurous and very manly.

All trips began from the JR Biei station, which was where Momoshiro eventually found himself that morning. The JR Biei station building was built in a quaint, if somewhat European-influenced style, which was very pleasant to look at, although a little plain. The handful of buses which passed by the station were all specifically designed to assist tourists to get to the prime tourist attractions in and around the area. Momoshiro, of course, had the alternative of taking the railway, if he so chose.

After a few minutes of deliberation, he decided that he would take the bus. Most attractive to his eye was the route that ended at the Shirogane onsen. The idea of an adventurous trek over hill and dale, through forest and mountain, and then finishing up with a relaxing dip in an onsen,was very appealing to Momoshiro. Shirogane onsen. It had a pretty good name, too. He could hardly wait to tell Echizen about the onsen – that is, if the brat wasn't too busy trying to win another ATP title to talk to him. What was it now – the Cincinnati Masters, wasn't it? The problem with Echizen was that he was always too busy playing tennis. Tezuka-sempai, now, no matter how busy he was, always took the time to send cards twice a year, and handwritten to boot. Now that was friendship for you. Echizen still had lots more to learn – mada mada da ne.

Momoshiro snickered a little at the thought. Then he determinedly hauled his mind back from whence it had wandered, firmly drawing its attention back to the list of attractions afforded on the route he had chosen. Yes, he had been right – that route would take him past a couple of waterfalls. There was the Fudou Waterfall – ha, he was going to take photographs and show 'em to his good friend Kamio Akira, who used to attend a school with almost the same name as the waterfall – and oh, look, there was another waterfall further up, the Shirohige Waterfall, practically next to the onsen. Momoshiro had always had a soft spot for waterfalls. He had spent many a precious day with his good friend, Taka-san, doing strength training in the mountains, back in the good old days when they were team-mates on the junior high and high school tennis team. Those halcyon days were long past, and Momoshiro was alone now, in the university that had been affiliated to their junior high and senior high schools…

Momoshiro clapped his hands to his face. Now wasn't the time to get all sentimental, he told himself sternly; he had a real adventure before him, and he intended to enjoy every minute of it.

The Dohoku bus that plied the Asahikawa-Biei-Shirogane onsen route was already carrying a fair bit of a crowd by the time Momoshiro got on that morning, although it was barely a quarter to nine then. Momoshiro found himself a seat, next to a ruddy-faced, middle-aged man, who was fast asleep, and put his backpack in the compartment above his head.

There were several other people on the bus and Momoshiro couldn't help eyeing them with great curiosity. There was a large group of about seven or eight young people whom he knew had to be Korean; one of his closest friends in the university was an ethnic Korean and Momoshiro had heard the Korean tongue at his friend's house often enough to recognise the sound of the language, even if he didn't understand what was being said. There were also several Caucasian tourists (Momoshiro couldn't tell which country they came from and they all looked alike to him) with their Japanese guide, a young woman who carried on a nearly non-stop flow of patter in English. This impressed Momoshiro very much, since his own command of the English language was practically non-existent, despite his years of toil in school. The rest of the bus was filled with the usual local folk.

Nearly twenty minutes into the bus ride, Momoshiro arbitrarily decided to hop off the bus. The sky seemed to be getting bluer, the rolling green hills and fields looked too tempting to resist, and the bright sunshine beckoned to him invitingly. It was just too fine a day to spend the entire journey on a moving vehicle. Besides, didn't proper explorers journey on foot?

Momoshiro wandered along the road, drinking in the beauty that was all around him. The landscape was lush with smooth green hill upon smooth green hill, and fields in neat bands of brilliant colours were patterned across the surrounding lands, separated now and then by a wide copse of deep green, leafy trees. The sweet scents of the flowers were carried adrift by warm winds that stirred the air and travelled across the open fields, taking the fragrance into the small homes that dotted the landscape. The mountain range loomed in the lofty distance, its imposing outlines softened in the mists that shrouded its many peaks in mystery.

A curious feeling of tranquillity stole slowly into him, seeping in until it seemed to touch all the corners of his soul. His shoulders relaxed, and the tension in his frame drained out of him. Standing underneath that blue sky, surrounded for miles around by wide open spaces and incomparable beauty as far as the eye could see, Momoshiro felt as small as a grain of sand on the beach of the world. For the first time in his young life, he had a glimmer of understanding of his place in the great universe.

Momoshiro reached into a pocket for his wallet. From within the inner flap, he drew out a broken keychain, artfully made in the shape of a pink peach festooned with a couple of pale green leaves. He turned it over in the palm of his hand. The back was made of metal, which glinted a dull silver in the sunlight. The pink of the peach had faded over time and the metal links of the chain had broken; on its back, there were two characters etched into the dull silvery metal: Tokyo.

Momoshiro looked down at the broken keychain fondly. There were good memories tied up with this keychain. He was in his first year of senior high school then, and they had gone together to a Tanabata fair… him, Echizen – who was then finishing up his final year in junior high – and all the sempai: Tezuka, Oishi, Fuji, Eiji, Inui, Taka-san… There were all the usual games at a Tanabata fair. Echizen had won the keychain at one of the stalls; Momoshiro had won a week's supply of cat food at another. Consequently, it had seemed perfectly reasonable to exchange their prizes.

Momoshiro drew a deep breath. The keychain had broken after years of (mis)use, and the first time it had fallen to the ground, he had picked it up and shoved it into his wallet without much thought. He had not touched it since.

He knelt down in the middle of the road. There were grooves and cracks in the mixture of asphalt, tar, cement and other ingredients that had gone into making the surface of the road. Slowly, he pushed in the little broken keychain, so that the metal peach slid into one crack, and the metal links lay quietly in another groove.

"I was here," Momoshiro said to himself, looking down at the keychain as it caught and reflected the sunlight, a tiny, barely noticeable sparkle that was like a spot of bright gold-and-silver on the road.

And I will remember.

Some day, he thought, he would return to this very spot. Perhaps he might bring someone along with him. The keychain would probably still be here, lying forgotten in this patch of hidden, not-very-well-travelled road.

But until then, he still had two waterfalls and an onsen to get to.

Momoshiro edged his way carefully along the trail. The air was surprisingly cool; he supposed that it was due to the fact that it was deep inside the forest. Great arching branches of trees stretched overhead, forming a canopy through which the sunlight filtered and gathered in little pools of gold on the ground. There was birdsong all around, and the rustling of leaves and occasional crack of branches showed that there was other life in the forest. Momoshiro could also hear the sound of running water, which meant that there was probably a stream or two in the vicinity. He glanced at his watch. It was well past eleven, which meant that it was time for a bite – and his stomach growled loudly and hungrily in agreement. He realised, with some surprise, that he had been so drawn in by everything around him that he hadn't paid attention to his appetite in quite a while.

Momoshiro walked on, looking for a suitable rest spot. And then, quite suddenly, the trees seemed to part before him, revealing a curious little clearing. It was an unusual spot, jutting out like a narrow shelf along the rocky trail, and both below and all around was a huge profusion of vegetation and rocks, over which a stream of water ran like a mini-waterfall, leaving a small trail of wet that splashed across the rocks and leaves.

Momoshiro found himself a convenient rock to sit on and began digging into his backpack. The first thing he pulled out nearly made his eyes fall out of his head. It was an old brown leather jacket that was too small for him, and had a profusion of zipped pockets plastered all over it.

"What the…?" Momoshiro stared at it. He couldn't for the life of him remember packing this into the backpack – especially as it certainly didn't belong to him! "Probably Onoda put it in for a joke – I'll kill him when I get back," Momoshiro grumbled to himself. His team-mate Onoda Hiroshi was a dreadful jokester (though nowhere near as brilliant as one Niou Masaharu whom Momoshiro had been acquainted with during his younger days many years ago).

Momoshiro continued to dig into his backpack, getting gradually more bewildered when he couldn't find his bento. Nor could he find his mobile phone, his towel, etc. And where in the name of all that was good and holy were the anpan and melon breads he had personally packed?! What were all these things – a compact umbrella of the type an oyaji carried, three spare, carefully folded handkerchiefs, a broad-brimmed hat that was folded into quarters, a small notebook, a bento box, a small bottle of water, and so on.

"Argh!"

Momoshiro sat back, mussing his hair in frustration and feeling extremely irritated. Here he was, all hungry and thirsty – and it looked as if someone had swapped everything in his bag for other things that weren't his at all! Exactly how had that idiot Onoda done it?! He'd packed his bag himself and he was dead sure that Onoda had been fast asleep – the guy couldn't have gone near his bag at all!

Then a sudden thought struck Momoshiro.

Was this really his backpack?

Momoshiro swore under his breath as he seized the backpack and stared hard at it. It was a very ordinary backpack – and that was the problem, Momoshiro realized ruefully. It was the type one could buy in any decent shop – and it could have been anyone's. There were probably millions of people in Japan who owned a backpack exactly like this one. Now that he was looking more closely at it… where was his new peach keychain, the one he had bought just a month ago? Wasn't it supposed to be dangling from the loop in the zip fastener…?

Momoshiro delved one hand into the backpack again—and this time he pulled out a wallet that was obviously not his. His hands trembling, he flipped open the wallet. There was a driving licence in it, some money, a couple of credit cards and the usual wallet-sized photographs. There was also an amulet for protection, which looked to be several years old – the little embroidered pouch that contained it was faintly yellow with age, and the colour of the embroidery threads had faded over time, so that it showed up half-dark, half pale against the cloth .

"Ito Matsuki," Momoshiro read from the driving licence. He looked at the photograph of the ruddy-faced man on the licence. He swore again, loudly this time. He certainly didn't know who this Ito Matsuki was. –Although the photograph did look vaguely familiar…

He dropped the wallet back into the backpack and began to scrabble about frantically, retrieving the leather jacket, umbrella, handkerchiefs, hat, bento box, etc. that he had so unceremoniously dumped out of the backpack, and threw them into the backpack, one by one. The small notebook slipped and dropped from his hands, falling open as it hit the ground. Cursing, Momoshiro reached to slam it shut and put it back, but then a familiar name somewhere on the page caught his eye.

Echizen Ryoma.

Astonished, Momoshiro ran his eyes down the rest of the page. It was part of a rather detailed report on Echizen Ryoma. He sat there for a long time—he didn't know how long—reading not just that page, but the contents of that entire notebook. It was filled with a lot of information—perhaps too much information. Momoshiro read with great interest details about Echizen, his daily schedule, his diet, his coaches and medical appointments. There was similar information about several others whose names Momoshiro recognised – Yukimura Seiichi, Sanada Genichirou, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Kirihara Akaya, Ibu Shinji… the notebook had the least information about Kaidoh Kaoru, whose daily training, daily diet and so on were marked down mysteriously as 'self-preparation' with big asterisks next to the entry.

Momoshiro rubbed his nose in a perplexed sort of fashion and stifled a sigh, shaking his head. Obviously this fellow was some kind of stalker… Momoshiro thought, regretfully, that this tended to happen when one got too famous.

"Ito Matsuki," Momoshiro muttered to himself, filing away the name in his memory. He was going to call Echizen – and if the brat didn't answer, he was going to call Tezuka-sempai. They had to be warned about this weirdo.

But before Momoshiro could do anything, a hand suddenly appeared in front of him and snatched the notebook away.

"Hey!" Completely startled, Momoshiro looked up. "Hey – it's you!"

It was the ruddy-faced man whose photograph was on the driving licence. Coincidentally, he was also the gentleman who had shared a seat with Momoshiro on the bus. Well, Ito Matsuki sure didn't look like one of those stalker-types and Momoshiro certainly hadn't pegged him for one when he'd sat down next to him on the bus. He had looked like any other sleepy fellow who had had to get up early in the morning to catch a (tourist) bus.

Without a word, the newcomer unslung the backpack he had been carrying and let it drop to the ground.

Momoshiro blinked. That was his backpack—witness the shiny peach-shaped keychain ornamenting it. "Oh… sorry about that, by the way," Momoshiro said, remembering that he owed the owner of the backpack an apology. "I didn't mean to take your backpack. It was an accident. You know how all these backpacks look alike – there must be millions of them. I guess I wasn't really looking when I took it. Sorry!"

The man silently picked up his backpack – the one Momoshiro had been busy emptying earlier—and went rapidly through its contents.

"I haven't eaten your lunch," Momoshiro assured him, waving a hand expansively. "I haven't taken anything either. It's all there," he added, somewhat unnecessarily. "I'm an honest person!"

The man continued to ignore him.

Momoshiro, who didn't like to be ignored, suddenly remembered that this was a stalker who had too much information. Feeling somewhat worried, he cleared his throat. "… you know, it's not good to be too obsessed with things."

Now he had the man's attention. The man halted his movements and turned his head slowly, staring over his shoulder at Momoshiro.

Momoshiro began to feel a little unnerved, but persevered. "Look, I didn't mean to peek, but your notebook fell open… Like I said, you shouldn't be too obsessed with things. It's good to have something so important to you, but you shouldn't do harm to other people—" He choked suddenly. "Eck—"

The man had seized him by the collar with both hands, choking Momoshiro with a surprisingly strong grip. "Who are you?"

But Momoshiro was strong, too – far stronger than the man. He gripped the man's wrists with both hands and forced them away with so much might that both of them were propelled backwards, in opposite directions, by the momentum. The man staggered backwards and landed, bottom first, in the middle of a copse of bushes. Momoshiro, on the other hand, was not quite as fortunate. He found himself stumbling backwards, but not on terra firma – instead, he was stepping into empty space –

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, he was toppling off the edge of that narrow little shelf, and into nothing. The leaves, bushes and moss that grew over the rocks gave way beneath him as he crashed past them, rolling over and over, right through the mini-waterfall/stream and down into the unknown far below. The sharp branches and twigs cut him; the rocks spared nothing as they delivered abrasion after abrasion, and ripped flesh and skin from him in small, painful handfuls and long slashes; his bones, which Nature had not built for the purpose of withstanding ceaseless pounding, held up as much as they could, but eventually gave way when faced with a particularly hard beating at the hands of the rocks.

Then his head struck something – and there was darkness.