A/N:… huh, I seriously thought I uploaded this… guess I didn't.
Yep, I think that's long enough for a break. My mind is all refreshed (^_^) So where was I… oh yeah, I'm creating some mayhem…
Hmm… okay. All is well but this chapter gets a bit… weird, but what do you expect from Yokoishi-chan?!
Disclaimer: If your name is Takeshi or Konomi, Prince of Tennis belongs to you. Yep, that's any and every Takeshi and Konomi. Lucky, lucky people! Bonus ownership if your names is Takeshi Konomi! (Randomness.)
Chapter Thirty Three
She didn't know what she wiped from her eyes as her partner carried her from the court. Tears? Sweat? It all ran down her cheeks and chin to drop on the back of her hand. She could barely lift her head once her feet stepped off the courts.
Nariko held Kikumaru up the best she could. It wasn't easy, especially after their match. They lost. The two didn't even want to think about the final score. Ryuzaki-sensei sighed quietly as she watched the two of them walk off. She thought she made a good choice by putting those two together… if anything she wanted to see how they played off of each other. Never in her years did she think it would end that horribly, and all because Kikumaru ran out of steam and Nariko didn't have the strength to go at it alone. Nariko, though good at singles, wasn't strong enough to play against two very good players. Ryuzaki-sensei gazed over at the Miura girls wondering just how strong they had gotten since last year. Jinhana and Arai's barely won their match. Miura's double's two were leading from the start and led all the way into the tiebreaker. It was a couple of lucky shots from Seishun and arrogant shots from Miura that gave Arai and Jinhana the 7-6 win. Pity the same couldn't be said for her double's one pair. She wanted to ask herself 'ifs' and 'maybes' but it was too late for that.
"Sorry, Fuji-chan. I feel so useless." Kikumaru sobbed.
She covered her eyes with her arm. Her loss not made any easier with Oishi and the boys watching.
"It's okay Kikumaru-senpai. It's not as if we didn't do our best." Nariko tried to ease the pain but Arai rubbished her efforts as she walked over and held Kikumaru's shoulders.
"Don't say such things Nariko-chan. She knows what her weakness are and she didn't improve on them." This only made tears roll down Kikumaru face. "Instead of saying sorry, make sure you do better next time and train harder, all right? I'll be there with you so don't dwell on it."
Kikumaru nodded while keeping her head hung low. Fuji stepped forward and placed a towel over Kikumaru's head and told her not to worry, which only annoyed Arai as their approaches conflicted.
"At least we know what to work on now, right?"
"…Yeah… I guess." She wiped her eyes under the towel.
"It's okay Kikumaru-senpai, me and Taichi will avenge you." Yokoishi swung her racket around ready to give the Miura girl's a good beating.
There came an unwanted chuckle from the crowd behind. When they turned they were surprised to see Sai walking towards them with his sunglasses on and his hands in his pockets.
"Well, what did you expect?" He said, with no level of sympathy in his voice. "Magpie-chan can't support the weight of an injured tabby on her tired wings. Though, that I will say lays on the sensei's shoulders and the captain's shoulders for not spotting the ill-suited pair before hand."
"GO AWAY!" Kikumaru yelled, pulling the towel from her head and showing everyone her puffy eyes.
As soon as Sai saw her face, he pressed his thumb between the eyes. Kikumaru blinked back. "Neko-chan should use that more often on the court. Be cute with mummy. Be irate with someone in another school-"
"S-sorry everyone! I'll take his fool back with me! Excuse us!" Iwara cumbered over and dragged Sai away from the team.
"He really should mind his own business." Shikawara thought aloud.
Arai, Jinhana and Nariko took Kikumaru over to one of the benches to cool off. Fuji thought over Sai's words. As annoying as he is, there were some truths to what he said. The burden of Kikumaru's weakness really were too much for an already tired Nariko… Not only that, instead of worrying about Atobe and Tezuka and her sister, she should have noticed those small things and corrected them long before they signed in. After all, she knew her players better than Ryuzaki-sensei who only really watched the team from a far. Yeah, some of the blame did fall on her shoulders. She really needed to get her mind on the right things before anything could get worse. She turned to Yokoishi, who stretched vigorously, and walked up to her.
"Hey, do you feel confident about your match?" Fuji asked.
Yokoishi glanced at her captain a little surprised by the question. She didn't say anything for a while.
"You seem a little unsure Fuji-senpai. Don't worry. Aneki trusts your judgement and feels confident about her match. I won't lose and neither will Taichi." She turned to Fuji. "Aneki understands your worries. You want some advice?" Fuji thought about it but was told anyway. "Don't upset him."
Before Fuji could question the advice, Yokoishi went into her over zealous state and started cheering for herself and jogged onto the court. Fuji dropped her shoulders and waited on the side with the rest of her team.
Once she placed her stuff by Ryuzaki-sensei, Yokoishi hummed thoughtfully. The energies around were very weak and doubtful. Not a lot that she could use, especially that they were horribly entangled and knotted.
"Be careful out there Yokoishi-san. I may have made a mistake with this one." Ryuzaki-sensei murmured.
"Don't worry Sensei, it's just a game."
She walked away before Ryuzaki-sensei could correct her gross misjudgement. But she didn't need to hear it. She saw the matches before her's and knew that it wasn't just a game. Her pride and hard work were all on the line. She knew it wasn't just a game, but it was a lot easier to say that then to get serious when she didn't feel the need to.
"Oh well, I'll have to use my own strength today. Unlucky…" She sang, to clear the air.
Miura cheered their next player on. Seira Aihara, a shy girl who admired the game. Yokoishi remembered seeing her at the tournaments last year. Well, her energy at least. Aihara didn't play. She was only a first year at the time, which only made her more egre to play.
"Let's see what you got." Yokoishi whispered.
She watched her opponent step onto the court. There were no colours around her. Yokoishi had to raise an eyebrow. Everyone had a colour, why not this girl?
They both met in the middle and shook hands. Even with skin-to-skin contact, Yokoishi didn't feel anything special. She felt something but nothing she had to worry about.
"I look forward to our match, Aihara-senpai." Yokoishi said as she usually did.
"Oh, erm… okay. Let's… let's have fun." Aihara said awkwardly with a smile.
"Yay! The fun ones are always the best!"
"Miura's Seria Aihara to serve. One set match." The umpire called.
They took to the baseline. Yokoishi stood ready while Aihara took the ball in her hand. Instead of serving the ball Aihara bent down, closed her eyes and placed an open palm on the floor.
Yokoishi stared at her. She looked between the net to see what Aihara was doing. Is she praying? She's pra-
Yokoishi was suddenly engulfed by a warm aura that emitted from Aihara and poured from Aihara's mouth. The air twisted and pulled away from Yokoishi. She couldn't move. What on earth is this? Yokoishi could feel this power suck the breath and energy right from her before replacing it with Aihara's own breath and energy. Something else was mixed in it. Something outrageously powerful. So powerful that Yokoishi tensed up. I can't fight this. The warm energy kept growing the more Aihara prayed.
"What's wrong with her?" Shikawara said.
Fuji held the fence between her fingers. So she was right to worry.
Yokoishi collapsed. She hit the floor hard and didn't move.
"Yokoishi-chan!" Her team panicked.
Ryuzaki-sensei jumped up. She didn't rush on to the court. She had to stop herself from going beyond the double's line.
"If… If Yokoishi-san is unable to play, the match will be defaulted." The umpire said.
Seishun fell silent. Yokoishi couldn't give them such an easy win?
"Get up, senpai!" Arai yelled from the bench. "Don't make our win be in vain!"
Yokoishi could hear all the voices but she still couldn't move, not until she controlled the energy around her. There was too much. Too much for her to take in. All she could do now was absorb most of it. Once it got beneath her skin she understood what took control of her. A guardian. It was amazing… Yokoishi had felt a guardian's influence and power before, but it was on her side and not this great. She couldn't even say that the colour was black… it was a spectrum of seven pastel colours.
Her eyes shot open. The guardian around her eased back. Yokoishi rolled into a seated position, and sat there as if she didn't just faint.
"…Ow…" She rubbed the back of her head.
"Are you okay Yokoishi-san?" The umpire called to her.
She turned to him slowly, holding her hand up. "Yeah. Sorry. I'm fine now."
"Stop messing around!" Jinhana yelled, she as worried as the rest of them.
Yokoishi turned to her team. "Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you… but I don't think I can win this one!"
"What?" They all called at once.
Fuji walked around the side of the fence closes to Yokoishi and asked her if she was really okay. Yokoishi ignored her for a moment.
"I might lose. I didn't realise she that thing up her sleeves. It's not something a normal person can sense, but… trust me to be me?"
Aihara didn't like Yokoishi reaction but she didn't bring attention to herself. "Hey," she called "you seem okay enough to continue, so lets go. I'm ready."
Aihara tested the ball on the floor and Yokoishi jolted twice. Too much energy. The umpire repeated himself and they began.
Yokoishi breathed out but she only released the heavy energy in and around here. Aihara served the ball and ran to the net. Bad idea! Bad idea! Yokoishi couldn't control the energy. It told her to do all sorts of puzzling moves. Yokoishi surrendered to the power and couldn't help but smashed the ball straight at Aihara. It was so fast and such a powerful hit that it grazed Aihara's cheek, burning her skin, and dented the fence. Yokoishi tutted. Murmurs developed around the courts.
"What the heck was that?" Arai yelled.
Yokoishi wanted to release a little of her serious side but she kept smiling. "My bad! I did say I couldn't win this one."
She turned back to the court and waited for Aihara's next serve. Yokoishi warned her not to do a serve and volley just yet. Having witness such a shot and had a near miss, Aihara listened to Yokoishi and tried something else. Even so, it didn't help Yokoishi as she punched three more holes in the fence and damaged four balls. The first match went to Miura. They didn't know whether to cheer or be mindful now that Seishun were to serve.
"What's gotten into you Yokoishi-san?" Ryuzaki-sensei shouted at her when they swapped sides.
"It's her fault." Yokoishi mumbled "How am I meant to go against a guardian?"
There was still too much energy within the courts. It wasn't increasing but neither was it depleting. She felt such a pulse once before. She wondered how she handled it. Oh yeah, she surrendered to it. Even she knew that she couldn't do that now. Yokoishi served her ball and four times it fell outside the service court. With each serve she couldn't figure anything out.
"Time out!" She called and even before the umpire okayed it, she walked off to the side and sat on the floor in zazen.
"What are you thinking, Yokoishi-san? Get it together and stop messing around."
"I'm just a little tired, is all, sensei."
Ryuzaki-sensei didn't say anything but wiped her hands down her faces. Yokoishi immediately blocked everything out to realign her senses. All six of them. Her heart had been disarranged by Fuji's worrying and Kikumaru's tears, her body had moved without her command and her mind was being fuelled by someone else's energy. See breathed deeply for that one minute and jumped back onto her feet.
"All right. Let's win this."
She served once Aihara got in place. The ball faulted four more times making the score 0-2. Aihara served again. Yokoishi wasn't worried. She had to lose those balls to get the energy out from under her skin or so she thought.
"This isn't fun Yokoishi-san." Aihara said as she served.
Yokoishi noticed something annoying as Aihara's ball bounced into play. All of Aihara's hits were pretty average. There wasn't any power behind her moves. Her serves were weak and her returning shots were hardly noteworthy. If that was the case, Yokoishi wanted to know why her shots flew here, there and everywhere? It didn't matter if Yokoishi hit the ball softly or normally, the energy would force her to smash it out of bounds and in the wrong direction.
"Oh, I see… it makes sense now. Silly me. I really am awesome!" Yokoishi giggled. "Aihara-senpai!" Aihara looked up. "You actually scared me for a bit, but I know how to beat you know now."
As she said before the start of the match, Yokoishi would use her own moves. She stepped to her left and returned the serve and finally it landed in play but just far enough for Aihara to miss.
"Fifteen - love." The umpire called.
"Sorry if it wasn't fun before Aihara-senpai, but it's hard to play you with that guardian around."
Aihara readied her serve. "I don't believe in guardians."
Yokoishi eyebrow twitched. "Good. Me neither. But in saying that, it doesn't help when you called one down." Yokoishi returned the shot and they got into a comfortable rally. "Have you lost any of your matches up until now?"
"Nope, not one." Aihara answered.
"As expected. Your guardian is interfering with my game. Do you think l'il ol' me can really damage the park fence with my own strength?"
Aihara thought about it. She hit the ball diagonally, making Yokoishi run for it.
"You call him all the time?" Yokoishi asked, catching the ball and accidentally lobbing it.
"Yeah, I pray before a match, so what?" Aihara volleyed the ball.
She didn't expect Yokoishi to be directly in line with her shot. "I'm curious… can't you win without it? I mean, it's cheating, don't you think?"
"What?" The thought threw Aihara off.
Yokoishi hit the ball out of Aihara's reach. "I mean, this is singles. It's like I'm fighting one mortal and a god… ah, but, I am awesome so it's okay, I'll allow you to cheat."
It was at this point that Yokoishi slide a curious eye to Aihara to see how she would react. Aihara jolted in her step.
"Don't call me a cheater?"
Just the reaction Yokoishi wanted but the distraction didn't last long. Miura warned Aihara not to get coaxed into Seishun's taunts. Aihara, clearly flustered, served a sharper ball. Yokoishi readied herself
"It doesn't matter how you play now because I'm going to use your own energy against you."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You will."
They stopped talking and got on with the game. The spectators watched with excitement and cheered when a point was scored. Nobody really understood what happened at the start of the match, with Yokoishi fainting and all, then to go from losing the game to being the better player of the two. There were moments when Yokoishi did some erratic shots that went flying or fell dead in the court. For a short while her team thought she was merely playing her 'usual' game but they realised she was really struggling. They noticed that she got serious every now and then. That ever-happy face would suddenly grimace when she lost a shot.
At least the first years from Seishun Academy had the benefit of seeing Yokoishi real game. Not a lot of people have ever really seen her use her own strength. She would –as she put it – use other people's energy to form a combo of moves. And every time her expression turned sour, she showed her team a new technique that they never knew she had.
"Advantage point, Seishun."
Though an advantage point, with the score being 40-40, Miura only needed the point to win the match. Both girls neither looked tired. If they had to call it, they all agreed that Yokoishi would waver first.
Seishun were baffled. They too could see that Aihara's moves weren't anything special but why was Yokoishi making foolish mistakes?
"You think she hit her head too hard when she fell?" Kikumaru murmured to Fuji.
"You know how Yokoishi-chan is, she probably sees something the rest of us can't."
Yokoishi glanced the scores… wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. 3-5. All Aihara needed to do was win the advantage back to win the match. Yokoishi didn't watch the ball or Aihara's racket. She could only watch Aihara's lips. Any second she would pray and enhance the energy around her.
For the first time in ages Yokoishi couldn't believe that she was ill-suited for a match. What bad luck! To be pitted against someone who could disrupt the flow so horribly. Sure enough she could control a little of the energy but she was already an over flowing bowl. With more being added just by Aihara's thoughts allow, Yokoishi could do nothing but surrender her control and power. The guardian rapped it's hands around her grip and took hold of her stance to make her returning shot low and weak. The ball travelled low into the net.
Yokoishi grimaced again. The guardian freed her, but once Yokoishi got comfortable with the freedom, the guardian held her down.
"Advantage point Miura. Match point."
"I pray that I can win this." Aihara murmured but was heard loudly in Yokoishi inner ear as the guardian leant against her spine.
Yokoishi could do nothing. Like at the start of the match she froze suddenly. It sickened her when Aihara tossed the ball in the air with no skill or effort. The ball came down slowly. If she could have moved she would have smashed it out of Aihara's reach to win the advantage back, but because of her unappreciated 'partner' Yokoishi could only watch the ball hit in serve and jump away from her. She could neither flinch nor react. Yokoishi glanced across and saw Ryuzaki-sensei hold her hands at either side of her temple.
"Game, set and match to Seira Aihara of Miura Academy with six games to three."
The guardian vanished and Yokoishi slumped forward. She breathed slowly and the normal energy returned to her… too little too late… To think Miura had such a player up their sleeves… no wonder they were so confident earlier in the day. And they still had Uki Ito. Yokoishi closed her eyes and finally sighed.
The roars of the crowds carried the two girls to the net to shake hands. Yokoishi felt nothing special. That guardian had completely disappeared.
"Good game Yokoishi-san." Aihara said first.
Yokoishi smirked. She pulled Aihara closed to her so she could whisper in her ear.
"You can't fool me, I know a temple guardian when I see one and it seems you knew that, right, Aihara-senpai?"
When they pulled away, Aihara smirked too. The gesture said everything but she chose to act ignorant "I don't know what you're talking about Yokoishi-san, but I had fun. You're an odd player. I hope we get to play again."
Aihara was the first to walk off to rejoice with the team, while Yokoishi took in her first loss.
…tbc…
Thanks for you patience. Weird chapter but… ANYWAY!!!
Chapter 34: Shikawara's vs. a disturbing memory. (Another weird chapter)
