3

A series of lonely courts dispatched next to each other. All separated from each other by a green barbed wire fence. All resting, still and silent. Only one of them seemed eager to play, spitting balls that kept bouncing on its surface. Along with the boy hitting them.

He took the time to pose himself, before the next yellow projectile reached his side. He returned the ball without much effort. This was barely warm-up. He still had his weighs on, yet he didn't feel them.

Before the next ball came, he walked to the machine. 1.3.0. 10. :08. -

New speed set.

He walked back to the opposite side, facing the machine, racket in hands.

The ball came to him with what he thought was still a slow motion. He raised his racket to knock it.

Nine of its kind were to come. He dismissed them with ease.

1.4.0. 10. :04. -

The ball popped out of the hole, surprising him a little. He jumped to the left, receiving it in the center of his racket. The next one came four exact seconds later, its fly uncontrolled as the machine's head kept swivelling from left to right. He had to pull on his arm to return it.

The real training was beginning.

He plunged forward to hit the projectile before it bounced on the right corner of the court. It went crashing on the other side of the court.

The next one would be at 150km/h.

He bent his knees, ready to catch whatever would dash at him.

The shot rang in the deserted court, the massive bullet passed past his guard to shake the fence behind him with in an electrifying sound.

His eyebrow jerked up on his forehead.

The next one was already coming at him, he returned it with the framework of his racket.

Pure chance. He did not rely on chance. Never.

The machine's head made a negative motion again before throwing the ball at him.

He moved his right leg forward to smack the yellow offense away, but he didn't see the other one happily dive at the other side of the court. Just as he realized his fault, another ball brushed past his face, almost knocking his glasses off.

With these kind of random trajectories, there was only one way to stay in control.

He quickly position his legs at each side of the middle line.

The next assaillant came to hit at his left. He followed its movement and sent it back to where it came. The following ball was aiming at the center. Thanks to his long legs it only took him four steps to stop it in the middle of its mischievious action.

The clicking of the machine announced the beginning of the next round.

He took a deep breath.

His body was sweating. The weighs heavily hung on to him, keeping him from increasing his speed. But he still didn't want to remove them. It wasn't time.

He would take on the 160km/h balls like this. He knew it would tired his body and especially his knees. But this was the only way he found to work on his speed. And get better results.

In an instant, ten balls would be targeting his territory, following each other by three short seconds each time. His brain was already whirling in anticipation at the idea of elaborating the appropriated strategy against the future attacks.

-

He walked away from the court of his now over match.

He took a towel out of his bag, removed his glasses as he sponged his face, only to put them back as soon as he was done. As he would usually do after a match, he started to write down various petty notes in his record book.

Like everyone, Kawamura's skills had sharpened.

It wasn't only about his power increasing. His approach of the game was different. He had grown reasonable in the way he uses his strenght, his speed and -as surprising as it may seems- his stamina.

It was true that whenever he was in Burning Mode he would shine bright with energy, but this energy would always fade away as the game went on. During their match, he had shown him this wasn't a problem to him anymore. Which -considering his powerful play- made him one serious opponent.

He adjusted his glasses.

There was no time for relaxing while in this team everyone was making his way to the top.

He removed the towel from his neck and walked to the left corner court.

"Myah, Fuji, don't you think it's a difficult situation?" Eiji asked suddenly.

"Difficult?"

"I mean, I don't know who I should cheer for...Oishi or Echizen?"

"Oh, that..."

"Oishi and I are a pair, we're supposed to support each other. But, Ochibi is so much fun to watch..." The acrobatic player mumbled for himself.

"...not to mention an interesting player." A voice said from behind.

"Myaaaah! Inui-baka! Stop popping out of nowhere, it's scary!" Eiji scolded, trying to regain his composure.

Inui shifted his gaze towards the game, acting as if he had heard nothing.

"You came to update your datas, didn't you?" Fuji's voice asked, as softly as ever.

"You're only half-right." he said, already writing.

The genius player's smile was radiating on his right cheek, like some wicked sun.

Once again, he choose to ignore that fact.

It wasn't only about his datas. It was also about checking his teammates' rate of improvement. Among all of them, Echizen was the one who had the highest rate, he could easily improve his play by 15% in one match.

Also, he felt the others regulars had been personally putting a lot of effort in their training lately. He had to be sure he wouldn't be left behind. He had to be sure his own training weighed as much as the others'.

"Eiji, are you alright?" Fuji's voice sounded worried.

"Myaaaaa I can't take it anymore. Forget about it! I'm going to do some ball-hitting alone."

Fuji sighed, amused. Then turned to the game.

Inui took a quick glance at Eiji's figure walking away, shaking with frustration.

As always, the double player was taking things dramatically.

It was Echizen's turn to serve. Which give him the occasion to check the year one's control of the twisting ball, and also to observe Oishi's reaction to this.

According to his notes concerning the rotation of the ball, there were high chances it would be returned at Echizen's left, which gave the opportunity to the other player to use his regular arm to hit the ball back.

He frowned.

Echizen had used his right arm instead.

He pushed his glasses up his nose.

For the past fifteen minutes the year one had kept running from left to right. As if he was completely underhis opponent's control.  But Oishi hadn't been using any special moves. He hadn't even pulled out his volley play. Something was strange in the way they played. It was as if neither of them wanted to win the match. It was as if both of them were inflicting themselves a handicap.

Of course.

Echizen was running so much because he intended to hit reverse shot only. He had to stay as close to the ball as possible, which at the same time allowed him to work on his stamina. And Oishi kept hitting long balls to increase his ball-control and his power. He was like testing his arms in long exchanges.

They were both considering each other like a training partner.

He threw some words in the notebook.

Still, Echizen had a great advantage over Oishi. By running round the court, he was giving him the impression he controlled the game. Therefore, the year three was most likely to be caught off-guard later on. Whether he wanted it or not, Oishi was psychologically manipulated by his opponent.

He closed his book.

It wasn't 15% this time. But 25%.

That boy was definitely full of surprises.

-

The ball thrown to the sky shamefully dropped down, feeling it couldn't reach its goal. Before it hit the rough concrete, it was once again sent towards the clouds. It had almost succeeded, until a vicious breeze pushed it away from its road, sending it tumbling and falling miserably to the ground.

He bent down to pick it up, then considered it for some minutes, his eyebrows close to each other.

He didn't understand it. He was hitting it the right way, but it kept going down the very wrong way. It kept going against his calculations. Wasn't this Tennis? There was nothing in Tennis he couldn't understand. He had learnt to understand any ball. Just by seeing one, he could easily guess where it would fall or how it would bounce. But this one ball was just absolutely unreadable. He knew how he should hit it, he knew how he wanted it to fall. It was all written down in his book: the position of his body, the angle of his arm, the grip on his racket, the speed of his swing...everything had been calculated.

Then, why wouldn't it work?

For the past twenty minutes he had been practising this move. But nothing seemed to go as planned.

He had checked his diagram at least three times already. It was perfect. It was flawless.

This was illogical.

He gripped the yellow fur tightly, his fingers sinking in the ball's flesh. This time it was thrown mercilessly to the wall. As a response, it raced towards his face with dangerous speed, but with a swing of his racket the ball was forced to change its plan. It ended choked between the barbed wires of the fence. 

For a long moment everything in the court completely froze.

Silently, the racket slipped out of his grasp to clatter on the floor. The ball went down, bouncing happily several times on the ground, mocking his failure and savouring its victory.

His left hand raised slowly to reach his right shoulder.  It travelled along it, touching here and there. Everything was fine.

Then why was his shoulder hurting so much?

He hadn't been pressuring his muscles...He knew better than that. He had only been swinging his arm to hit the ball. It was nothing more than a simple swing to hit a curved ball. Why was it affecting his body so much? Why was this training feeling so wrong?

It could only mean one single thing. It could only mean that his body wasn't simply fit for this kind of training. He had never been good when it came to technique. He had never had a strong constitution. His muscles's mass was barely useful when it came to power or speed, not to mention ball control.

The ball would never go according to his calculations, simply because his body couldn't follow his calculations. His diagram was perfect. His diagram was flawless. He only was.

He calmly adjusted his glasses on his nose. They seemed to be heavier than usual.

The ball pushed back and forth by the raging wind, his fallen racket laying dead on the ground, the still coldness of the court, this voice in his head...Everything was screaming 'let go'.

Which he did. 

-

He watched as Eiji plunged to his right, extending his arm to reach the yellow projectile. The ball flew to Momoshiro's right. Caught off-guard, he couldn't return it.

"Gotcha!"

"Ehh, your acrobatic play isn't fair..." The year two stated.

"Your play isn't easy to deal with either, and I didn't complain!" 

"Maa, maa. Let's just continue." Momoshiro said, seeing is sempai was already on hyperactive mode.

Momoshiro was right. Eiji's play was more than Tennis. It was more like a show. The way he hit the ball, the way he managed his body were both stunning and unnerving. Stunning because it was something impressive to witness and unnerving because it would always make his opponent lose concentration and therefore weaken his play. His acrobatic moves were as perfectly executed as a professionnal gymnast's, yet they perfectly fit Tennis. It was just the perfect style for someone like him who always enjoyed being in the spotlight...

"Ya-hoo! One game for me!"

...Not to mention winning.

It was Momoshiro's turn to serve and he didn't seem to be in any sort of pain. He was even smiling.

Getting thrilled and all excited because playing some though opponent. This was just like him. He wasn't a fool...just a die-hard player.

Certainly the two of them played a very different kind of Tennis. Yet each seemed to be enjoying the match as much as the other. They were beaming.

He wondered if it was the same thing for him when he was on the court. He couldn't tell. He didn't remember having enjoyed any of his matches. He didn't even remember having played a match. Playing a match implied fighting to win. He had never cared about winning. He was more interested in gathering informations. He never considered the people standing at the other side of the net as opponents. They were more like people he could collect data from. Because his tennis was all about knowing the people he was playing, to the point of becoming them...somehow. In that case, victory was the natural outcome. Maybe that was the reason why he had never bothered winning. Because strategically, his Tennis was one step ahead from the others' style.

His glasses gleamed gloomily.

But was it even Tennis? Tennis was all about releasing a positive energy through one's play, something Momoshiro, Eiji, every player would do. But the will to win, the excitement of a match, the joy of playing Tennis...those were feelings he felt he didn't know.

No, that wasn't quite true. He had always wanted to win against Tezuka and Fuji. Ever since he was a freshman. Ever since he entered Seigaku's team. But he had never managed to. No matter how much data he had, no matter how much training he had done, he just couldn't beat them...

He froze, suddenly realizing.

His data Tennis didn't work on them and it never would. Because there was more in Tennis than the angle of the swing or the speed of the ball. There was more than whatever could be registered in a notebook. There was more than whether you played with your heart or with your head.

There was something else. Something he didn't have...and would never have.