Chapter Three: A Challenge

"We have to tell him," Eiji stated simply as Fuji violently shook her head. The three had decided to slip away after Oishi had gone back to tell Tezuka what was happening, and was now currently trying to force Fuji into allowing them to tell Tezuka about the situation. So far, their persuasion hasn't been going well at all.

"No. Besides, Tezuka will never believe it!" Fuji insisted as she tried to tie her bow properly for the eighth time.

"Well, before that," Inui began, "we should figure what to do with uh… Fujiko here once night comes. I doubt uh…. her parents will believe she's actually their son."

"Nya! He can stay at my place! The old Fuji use to do that all the time when he helps me study for tests!" Eiji offered.

"Eiji, I don't think your family will recognize me," Fuji pointed out, examining herself once more and shuddering at the sight. It was horror I tell you, horror! "They'd think I'm your… girlfriend or something."

"Nya! Don't say that Fuji! It's too weird!" Eiji exclaimed, fighting away the bad thoughts from his mind. A sadistic smile hung from Fuji's lips just like it did when she was a he. It would seem the old Fuji was coming back, at least the mental part.

"Sorry, Eiji. I guess I can't stay at Inui's either, huh?" Fuji continued, sighing.

"I'm sorry, my room is full of test tubes and other lab equipments, and the rest of the house is very messy. I think my parents would suspect something was up also," Inui said, pushing his glasses up. Fuji sighed. This was not going to be easy.

"Hey, why don't we ask that girl who's always around Ochibi?" Eiji said suddenly. "I'm sure she'd be willing to!"

"Yes, but might I remind you that she's the granddaughter of the coach? There's a twenty-five percent chance she'll recognize you," Inui explained.

"Then what about her friend?" Eiji asked.

"She's her friend, simple enough," Inui shrugged. The three sighed and continued thinking.

They had already passed countless streets and were walking at complete random to no place in particular. The sun was starting to hang low in the sky with a wistful glow. Time was ticking, and the three knew it. They had to think of something and soon.

"By the way," Fuji brought up as a spark of anger flickered in her eyes. "Fujiko Suzume?"

Eiji laughed nervously as he decided to walk a little farther away from Fuji. Inui did the same. "Uh, well… I nearly said 'Fuji', so there weren't a lot of options, and it just so happens your pet name was the first thing that popped into my head, ehehehe…" Eiji said.

"I thought you'd like it, seeing it sort of refers to one of your favorite moves," Inui said because 'Suzume' literally meant 'sparrow'. Fuji sighed yet again, something she found herself doing a lot of today. Why couldn't they have picked a better name!

Suddenly a loud cheer erupted towards the trio's right, startling the bunch. Without having much to do, the three decided to check it out, seeing that no ideas were sparking in their brains at the moment. After climing up a series of stairs that lead to the street tennis place. Eiji spotted what was happening first.

"Hey! Aren't they Shinji and Kamio from Fudomine?" he asked. The three went farther ahead until Eiji reconized their opponents.

"Look! It's Ochibi and Momo! Let's go say hi!" Eiji said happily as he began trotting towards them.

"Are you crazy?" Fuji hissed as she grabbed Eiji's arm. "What if they recognize me?"

Eiji stopped short and took a few seconds to examine Fuji again. She still had the same colored hair, though now it seemed a bit shinier and seemed to have magically grown an inch or two longer. Her overall frame was slimmer, she seemed to have shrunk a couple of centimeters, and her voice was of a higher pitch. The rest… do I even need to explain?

"They won't!" Eiji announced after a couple of moments.

"Eiji's right. There is a zero percent that they will believe you have turned into a girl," Inui said logically as Fuji reluctantly followed the two towards the courts.

"Let's hope you're right, Inui," Fuji mumbled.

"And a ninety-five percent chance that they will recognize you and think you're cross dressing," Inui said under his breathe, because he was sure Fuji would not want to hear those words.

"Oi! Echizen! What do you think you're doing?" Momoshiro hollered at the freshman regular. "Go left! Left!"

"I am going left!" Ryoma retorted as he sent the ball flying back to the other side of the court.

"No! You're going towards the right!"

"I'm going towards the left! And so are you!"

"No, I'm going towards the right!"

"Left!"

"Right!"

"LEFT!"

"RIGHT!"

"15-0", An announced.

"Are you two going to play or not?" Without waiting for an answer, Shinji served the ball. Ryoma and Momo immediately quit their bickering and dove for the ball. Unfortunately, forgetting their strategy as to what to do when the ball goes through the middle, the two ended crashing into each other and landing in a heap.

"30-0" An called.

"Echizen!" Momoshiro called out with frustration, glaring at the boy.

"Momo-sempai," Ryoma returned, also glaring. Shinji decided it was a good time to put his two cents in.

"If you two won't stop fighting, I'm going to serve the ball, and since you two are fighting, you won't be able to return it, but you probably couldn't return it anyways because you two are not as good as we are, because we-"

"SHUT UP!" Ryoma and Momoshiro yelled in unison. "Just serve the ball!"

Shinji served, and as soon as he did, more problems arose for the Momoshiro-Echizen pair.

"Right! It's coming right, Echizen!"

"Left! It's left!"

"Echizen! It's-"

"40-0." An sighed as she finished her commentary and dared to sneak a peek at Momoshiro and Ryoma. She immediately looked away after seeing them in utter wreck. Must be embarrassing for them… she thought.

"Echizen! I thought I told you to go right!" Momoshiro fumed.

"I did go right! You went right too!"

"I went left!"

"Right!"

"Left!"

"Momo-sempai, are you directionally challenged or something?"

"Echizen! How dare you speak to your sempai like that?"

"Hoi, hoi! Are you two fighting again?"

Momoshiro stopped halfway into putting Ryoma into a headlock and looked up to see Eiji looming over them with Inui and a really nervous girl by his side.

"Eiji-sempai! Inui-sempai!" the two exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey! Can you three get off the court so we can finish this?" Kamio asked. Eiji and Inui apologized while Fuji kept her mouth shut. Shinji decided once again it was a good time to put in his two cents.

"Who is that girl? I have never seen her before. Could it be that she is one of you two's girlfriend? Or are you actually dating both of them and cheating on both of them? That is a very dirty thing to do because people from then on will look down upon you, your parents would disown you for doing such a horrible crime, you could then move on to become a stalker or a pedophile and then the whole society will-"

"Shinji! The first sentence was enough!" Kamio told him as Shinji finally shut his mouth.

"Eiji-sempai, Inui-sempai, that isn't true, is it? Is she one of you two's girlfriend?" Ryoma asked with amusement as the two's face twisted in disgust.

"Ochibi! Of course she isn't!" Eiji exclaimed as he gave Ryoma a light bonk on the head.

"Eh? Is she Inui-sempai's girlfriend then?" Momoshiro teased. Inui shook his head and whipped out his data book so that no one would be able to disturb him any further.

"Then who is she?" Ryoma and Momoshiro asked in curiosity.

"Eh…"

"Uh…"

"And why does she look like Fuji?" Momoshiro noted. Eiji, Fuji and Inui's inside did a back flip.

"Eh? Don't tell me it's Fuji-sempai is cross-dressing!" Ryoma exclaimed as the wild idea hit his head. He moved closer as if to inspect her.

"Hey, you got a point, Echizen!" Momoshiro agreed as he too moved closer to inspect.

"Um…"

"Er…"

Eiji and Inui didn't know how to react, and Fuji, who hadn't said anything, was starting to panic a bit. Only a bit.

"What do you mean? Who is this 'Fuji-sempai' you are talking about?" Fuji asked, trying her best to act oblivious. In truth, it was kind of weird pretending not to know.

"Are you sure you're not him dressed up as a girl?" Momoshiro asked, unconvinced.

"I don't really get what's going on," Fuji said with a strained innocence. Inui and Eiji weren't helping one bit.

"Hmm… Any proof? Because you look and strangely sound just like him," Ryoma pointed out.

Calm down, Fuji, calm down… Fuji thought. It's going to be all right, it's going to be all right, it's going to be all right…Oh, who am I kidding? This is Momo and Echizen! Of course it's not going to be all right!

"Uh, what do you mean proof?" Fuji asked with a nervous laugh. Ryoma was a little too close to her face for her comfort. Then she felt a racket being not so lightly pushed into her chest and immediately jumped back, flinching and twitching.

"Nope, it's not Fuji-sempai," Ryoma announced calmly as he pulled down on his cap, turned around and walked towards the net. Momoshiro looked after him with a stunned face as Eiji tried to prevent himself from laughing. Inui didn't really notice anything as he had just recently accepted the fact that Fuji was now a girl, and returned to scribbling down data as if it were normal for boys to turn into girls every day. (Though he was smiling in amusement.)

"Yo! Echizen! Do you have no shame whatsoever!" Momoshiro yelled after him.

"I just poked her with my racket," Ryoma frowned as if doing such things were normal. Momoshiro gave up. Echizen was one heck of a guy. "You would've done it if I hadn't eventually."

"No I wouldn't have!"

"Give me 'proof'!"

"ECHIZEN!"

"Can we just get on with the game?" Kamio spat as Shinji served. Momoshiro and Ryoma immediately digested what was happening, and dove for their rackets. However, Fuji got to Ryoma's first.

"Uh… 40-15?" Ann spoke uncertainly.

"Wait! That isn't fair!" Kamio stated, pointing at Fuji. "She wasn't playing!"

"Sorry, but it was going to hit me. Did you really expect me to just simply let it hit my pretty innocent face?" Fuji said sweetly, covered in sarcasm. Turning to Ryoma, Fuji gave him a whack on the head with his racket and not so nicely said, "Here you go, little boy."

"Hey, you must be pretty good to return that serve of Shinji's. Do you play tennis?" An asked. Fuji had decided to sit next to her versus Eiji and Inui who had now taken up a liking to annoy her.

"Yes," Fuji answered simply as she watched another brawl break out between Momoshiro and Ryoma. "Do you?" she continued, even though she already knew the answer was yes as well. Pretend you don't know anything. Pretend you don't know anything. Pretend you don't know anything…

"Yup! My older brother's the captain of the Fudomine tennis club. Those guys are in there too," Ann said, gesturing to Kamio and Shinji, who were clearly annoyed that both of them had zero attention directed to them from their bickering opponents.

"Oh? And why are they playing so viciously?" Fuji questioned as An laughed.

"Well, Momoshiro wanted me to help him with his homework for who knows what reasons seeing we don't even go to the same school, and Kamio wanted me to help him go out and pick a present for his mother's birthday, even though it just passed last month, so…" An sighed.

"Ah… they're fighting over you," Fuji laughed. She already knew both their requests were just excuses to spend time with An. An just shook her head.

"By the way, you're not related to Fuji Syusuke are you? You look just like him," An noted as Fuji froze. And Inui said no one would recognize me…

"N-no! I'm Fujiko Suzume, nice to meet you!" Fuji forced out. She literally wanted to gag at the sound of her words. An blinked a few times, but bought the lie.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Tachibana An. You're from Seigaku?" she asked, pointing at Fuji's uniform. Fuji reluctantly nodded.

"Are you in the tennis club?" she pushed further. Fuji nodded again, though she wasn't really sure if it was true anymore.

"Want to have a match after they're done?"