A/N: Yeah~ time sure is a funny thing. There's never enough of it and it goes by quickly while never changing its pace. Hm.

It's true, no one corrects the mix-up, but doesn't it go without saying…? I was reading over my other chapters seeing if I gave Nishi-chan a first name, and it appears that I haven't! Weird. Well, no sense in breaking the trend. ^_^

In case you forgot:

Yoshiko is Chise's real name; She's also Sai's half-sister.

Fuji's a girl;

Kikumaru's a girl;

Iwara is Fuji's replacement;

Sai is Kikumaru's replacement;

Happy dayz!

(Someone has been overly enthusiastic with chapter 16…)

Disclaimer: If you look through the looking-glass, you'll no doubt see Takeshi Konomi working on Prince of Tennis. (super-random)


Chapter Seventy Four

Fuji sneezed into her hand and glanced up at her opponent, Nishi, a year eight student who had been supporting the team since the beginning. Nishi was, like most, a sweet and balanced girl who liked baking. Her tennis was fair and she played, in ability, the same as Shikawara, meaning she had the basics down, with power and speed but lacked that spiritual energy to take her further.

Luckily for Nishi, they were doing volley training to sharpen the mind and their reflects, which is what saved her from Fuji's lighting-quick returns.

Once training was over, the two shook hands. Fuji sniffled a little and turned to the regulars, who were continuing with their training. Nishi glanced Fuji. Despite witnessing what happened in the changing rooms, she still had great respect for Fuji. Not being captain didn't weaken her ability. If anything, Fuji's skill was growing. Nishi was grateful for the training session.

She felt guilty for thinking it lucky that Fuji was no longer captain, but a lot of the non-regs now got to spend more time with her.

"Erm, Fuji-senpai, what are you up to after practice?"

Fuji turned back to her teammate and held up her left hand. "Need to get these stitches out."

Nishi's eyes followed the bandaged hand, remembering back to that day.

"Fuji-senpai, does it hurt?"

"Yeah. Every movement causes a lot of pain. It was a deep gash."

"Oh, I see. Sorry if I caused you to feel pain. I was excited by the match."

"Don't worry, I've felt worse things."

Nishi didn't know what to make of what Fuji said but it didn't sound like a good thing, like she would burden the pain because she could. Nishi peered over to the others who were cleaning away the balls. On turning back, Fuji had already walked off. She shouted out to her senpai that she was a brave person. Fuji nodded, letting Nishi know that she heard and carried on. Brave? Of all the characteristics, brave was a new one.

"Pfft. This isn't right. Why does it look as if Fuji-chan is having more fun then us?" Umeko, who should have been training held her racket over her shoulders, watching the non-regs.

"For once I'm in agreement with Umeko-senpai… something is not the same." Shikawara added as she crossed sides with Jinhana.

This made the other girls glance over.

"Hey, come on guys, can we focus for a bit. There's nothing new over there. Same courts and same people. We've got a tournament to train for." Arai instructed them, but how long could they deny this change for. Even the air felt wrong - as they breathed it in, it didn't feel as if they could use it anymore – if they did, it would hinder their future games.

"I think what Arai-chan is trying to say is we need to be more diligent than we have been." Suzu added, in case the girls' took the chance to misinterpret Arai's words. She turned to Arai. "Don't you think we should work on personal techniques?"

"What for?" Arai said.

Suzu was taken aback. "What?"

"What good is personal technique over the basics?"

Suzu hesitated. "I just thought you would do what's more beneficial for the team."

"Let's work on the advance techniques then." She didn't wait for Suzu to respond. "Okay, line up!"

Arai walked off to start a new method, to Suzu's dismay. Arai was completely ignoring the spiritual aspects to the game. Physically, girls weren't so strong. The strong ones like Arai and Shikawara were so far and few between. An unspoken rule deemed the strong ones as useless against the power of a girl's energy. Arai knew this! She explained the concept to the boys when they were down at their city games, so why was she ignoring it? It didn't make sense to Suzu but she had to go along with it. She didn't want to rebel so soon near the next big games.

Kikumaru glanced over at Yokoishi and didn't know what to make of her expression. Kikumaru glanced the other girls and they reluctantly got on with the training. She tried her hardest to not turn to Fuji and carried on with the rest of them. Ryuzaki sensei wasn't with them. The regulars wished they had her with them. Fuji on the other hand, was feeling a little better. The non-regulars were really taking the opportunity to ask her all the questions they wanted to ask throughout the year. They didn't seem to mind that she officially wasn't the captain, but Fuji still had an air of wisdom and authority. She was more than happy to help them and Fuji was grateful to them because they took her attention away from herself.

By the end of practice Fuji left the girls to pack away so she could get changed. As she was walking back not only she, but the rest of them forgot she wasn't a regular and now had the same responsibilities as the rest of them. Never mind. She carried on walking and entered the changing rooms alone. She wiped her arms across her brow and glimpsed the tournament board by chance. She was going to carry on walking to her locker but chose to change direction and get a better look at the next schools they were to play. First they knocked out St. Rudolph. A match she's sooner forget! The girls just played against Fujimi Jrs. Fuji didn't like how they struggled against them, so when her hand traced across to Bunsei Academy a discomfort in her chest started to grow. Of all the schools to go up against. She looked over to the other groups. No surprise that Miura made it thought, the school who beat them to first post in the city games. Ofuna High and Toke High School were yet to play, who ever won from group A would play Miura in Group D. She didn't know too much about Toke high but Ofuna were a good school from what she could remember from the games last year. Fuji scanned back over to Bunsei and read the small text. Seems they won all their previous games 3-0 3-0 3-0. Strong doubles, strong singles. Singles 2 and 1 didn't get a change to play… they were that good.

Fuji didn't know how long she was staring at the board for but someone entered the room. Fuji peered over her shoulder to see Nariko and Shikawara. At first no words were exchanged. Fuji asked how their training went and the two hesitated.

"Erm, we don't think it was helpful." Nariko murmured.

"Why not?" Fuji stepped away from the board.

"Well, Arai-senpai… she focuses on the basics and strength when only a few weeks ago… you were teaching us about the energy so I'm kinda confused right now."

"And you, Shikawara-chan?" Fuji asked her.

She rolled her shoulders. "Doesn't bother me either way!"

"What about that thing Yokoishi-chan was talking about?" Fuji sai?"

"Tsk. Senpai, I want to leave that alone."

The girls wondered off to their lockers. They could feel a strange distance in the room. Fuji knew what it was but didn't care to bring it up. Shikawara cleared some of it away.

"Fuji-senpai, why are we avoid each other? I mean, the regs and you?"

Fuji tried not to react to the question, but she felt her brow twitch. She blinked it away and faced Shikawara. "Why would you say that?"

"…Because ever since you came back-"

"If I participate with you guys I'll be expelled."

They didn't know and the silence provided it.

"Why?" They asked together.

"I… I'm surprised no one has told you but I hurt Sai-kun. He's in hospital because of me."

Nariko stepped forward. "We heard stuff but it just didn't fit the picture. Why would you do that? It's not like you at all."

It would seem that this mask Yumi always saw was starting to be realised by Fuji. Did she really allow Tezuka so much control over her that he could hid her truth self so no one could recognise her at all? Fuji didn't know what to say. Everyone mistook her for a nice person. She was sure she told some of them that she liked to see people suffer… The only few who knew were her sister, Arai – apparently – and then the few who saw and felt her presence by accident.

"Unfortunately, I am like that. Sorry for disappointing you."

"We're not disappointed senpai, just… we never expected it. It's no different to how I am without my medicine. You guys didn't know about that side to me." Shikawara added to ease the mood and share that the two were on common ground.

Fuji wanted to smile but it wouldn't form. "Something like that." But my medicine is a teenage boy who's 1.79m tall, incredible handsome and difficult at the best of times.

While she spoke with them, Fuji got changed quickly. The girls noticed this and thought it was because she didn't want to be in the same room as Arai. It wasn't until Kikumaru rolled into the room with Jinhana and Suzu, did Kikumaru ask the question, as she wanted to walk home with her.

"I need to go to the hospital."

"Why? What's wrong with you?"

She now lifted her hand. "Because of this. Hopefully I can have the stitches out."

"When did you get stitches in?" It was one question everyone seemed to ask.

"Same day. My brother was waiting for me and dragged me to the hospital."

Kikumaru asked. "Can I come?"

Fuji didn't know if that was such a good idea. Yes, she loved Kikumaru but the truth was she hadn't exactly explained what had happened when she ended up at Echizen's place two days ago. No doubt it would come up again.

"Erm…" Fuji looked away.

"You even have to think about it?"

"It's not that… I was kinda hoping to speak to Sai-kun while I was there."

She perked up even more. "I still wanna go with you."

Fuji hoped that much would put her off. It had the opposite effect. "Okay. But, I'm leaving now. My brother is waiting for me."

The other girls in the room glanced around. "You have a brother Fuji-chan?"

"Yeah! Have I never told you? He's twenty-four and annoyingly sharp."

"We didn't even know you had a sister, now an older brother! Can we see him?"

She started at them indifferently. "If you hurry up you can see him, but I'm leaving right now."

Fuji gathered her stuff and headed out the door. A head she saw Umeko and Arai. Strange. She no longer felt the need to bother her – that could be due to spending much time with Echizen and his father. Now, she just wanted to knew why – Why go through all that trouble to hurt Tezuka just to spite me?

Before they got close to Fuji, she walked on. Kikumaru caught up with her by the school gates. Yukio was sat on the side of the car, sparkling as he does. He was chatting on his phone when he saw Fuji and Kikumaru walking towards him. He also noticed a small group of girls following behind her. He ended the call.

"Erm, Sumiko?"

"Only me and Kikumaru-chan are going. They didn't know I had an older brother and wanted to see with their own eyes."

He smirked. "That's because I'm able to hide my presence." He looked up to them. "Ladies." He greeted.

They didn't mean to, but they blushed and giggled within themselves.

"Where's Leiko Arai?" He asked. They were surprised he knew her by name and left the answering to Fuji

"She's locking up." Fuji walked around the other side to get in the car.

Yokoishi stepped forward, annoyed that she didn't know about him. "How come I couldn't sense you at all?"

Yukio flicked his hair back and looked to the sky. "Because I'm sublime."

Only Yokoishi could take that as some kind of compliment. To think he was saying he was one thousand times better than her, and she would have twinkling eyes for him.

"Aniki, hurry up." Fuji moaned. She and Kikumaru were already in the car.

"We'll make our next meeting a date Tamika Yokoishi."

Everyone reacted to that and he slipped into the car, waved and drove off.

"Stop teasing my friends." Fuji told him off.

"She's cute." He replied, which made Kikumaru giggle.

For the journey they made small talk, mostly between Kikumaru and Yukio. Fuji stared out the window, she couldn't wait to get these stitches out. She couldn't feel them but the knowledge that they were there made it even more of a burden. They turned into the car park and since Kikumaru was with Fuji, Yukio stayed in the car. He said he was planning where to take Yokoishi.

Fuji didn't know how true that was but she got out of the car before he became absorbed with the idea. Kikumaru was right beside her and the two went up to the GP's office. They sat outside the room waiting to be called in. Fuji tested her hand and it really hurt. It made her feel dubious.

"Is this where Sai-kun's being held?" Kikumaru asked as she teased the curls in her hair.

Fuji nodded and lowered her hand. To her surprise Kikumaru didn't bring up any topic of conversation. Nothing that she thought she would have wanted to know. This was new. Fuji wondered if Kikumaru was wanting for her to start the topic first.

Fuji was about to bring up her match with Echizen when the GP's door opened. A young boy walked out with his mother. He had an eye patch over his left eye. The other was sore.

"Ah, poor guy." Kikumaru sympathised with him as they walked past. "Doesn't make sense to me."

"What doesn't?" Fuji seemed overly curious to hear what Kikumaru had to say.

"Why he wants to be a doctor… maybe I do."

"Who?"

"Oishi."

Kikumaru leant back on the chair and the two didn't say anything to each other. They listened and watched the atmosphere of the hospital.

"You know Fuji, I'm not happy on the team anymore."

That was the conversation Kikumaru was hoping for. Fuji finally heard it. And as much as she wanted to talk about it to her, she didn't have time to start as the nurse called her into the room to be looked at. Fuji took a hold of Kikumaru's hand and the two walked in.

The old nurse smiled warmly and asked Fuji to sit down on the bed. She brought up some paper work on the computer and confirmed with her that she was to have her stitches out. The nurse put on her gloves and took a pair of scissors and tweezers began to remove the bandages.

"Oh, dear." She reached over to her tray for some tissues to clean Fuji's hand. "What have you been doing Fuji-san? The gap hasn't closed at all."

Fuji watched the whole things and couldn't believe that after two weeks it was still open. No wonder it hurt and left her hand numb.

"Fuji-san, have you been taking you antibiotics and resting?"

"…Not really."

"Goodness me." She continued to clean the wound and moved the flesh aside to see if there was any infection under the skin. "This should have closed by now. Have you been eating regular meals?"

"I haven't had much of an appetite."

"Have you had any reason to be stressed or depressed?"

She never thought to categories her feelings as one or the other. But if she had to call it something she would say depression. The nurse shook her head, dismayed by the results. The bandages were covered in pus and fluids but they weren't healing at all. It was unusual for the body not to have healed over his period of time.

"Fuji-san, if you want this wound to heal, you're going to have to take it easy. Whatever you're doing, until this had closed, stop it." She began cleaning around the stitches, taking out the sticky liquids around them. She wouldn't remove the stitches and began to dress Fuji's hand.

Before sending Fuji on her way with another tray of antibiotics, the nurse asked if she could weight her. Fuji obliged to it and stepped on the white scales. The dial flickered round and they waited until it came to a stop.

"You've lost a bit of weight Fuji-san. 6kgs you've lost. Not a healthy sign at all. Please eat and take it easy. No PE or active sports. That's a order young lady?"

The nurse lightly tapped her hand over Fuji's. Fuji couldn't refuse but the thought of not being able to play tennis; She was already denied playing in the tournaments, now she was being told to give it up all together… Could she really sit on the sidelines and do nothing? It was for her health but to do nothing…? Sitting around at home was boring and that was only for four days. To do the same things at school? She didn't have a choice. She nodded and the nurse went to her computer to write a note for her school to exempt her from any PE lessons until the hand had healed.

Soon after handing Fuji the note, and telling her that they had emailed a copy to her school, the two left the room. Fuji held the note, forcing herself not to screw it up in her palm. This definitely wasn't working to her benefit. Because Kikumaru was with her, Fuji did not try to cover over her face with her hair or even the piece of paper. Instead, she kept her head high and tapped the light sheet over her other hand.

"This is starting to get annoying." She wanted to fix things before Tezuka came back. That didn't look like it was going to happen. Gosh! She couldn't bare the thought of him seeing her like this. She almost felt like she was floating on rock bottom. Not quite in amongst the rocks, just above them.

"What is?" Kikumaru asked, seeing that Fuji was getting flustered.

"Everything."

Fuji didn't say more about the matter and went to the reception to find out where Sai was being held. After some time of throwing questions back and forth they came to the understanding that he was in the emergency ward, as he needed to be monitor frequently. They didn't know what to expect when they followed the colour areas to get to the ward. The nurse at the reception in that area asked what they wanted, saw that they had a uniform on and knew they where here to see Hisoki Sai. The young nurse told the two that, in Sai's room, there were already two people. Fuji know one of them would be Yoshiko, Sai's half sister who had been spying on her for him, but she didn't know who the other one could be. She hoped it wasn't one of his parents. Fuji couldn't bear to face them.

"Onee-chan!"

The two looked to their side to see Yoshiko making her way towards Sai's room. She had some food in her hand and stopped to stare at Fuji. "You finally came!" There was not malice in her words. If anything, Fuji could hear the on set of tears. Rushed over and hugged Fuji.

"How is he?" Fuji asked.

Yoshiko wiped some tears from her eyes. "He's getting better slowly…"

Fuji could feel Yoshiko hands shaking. She was over doing it and Fuji held her shoulder and said if she could see him. Yoshiko nodded and led the way into the room.

The curtains were all open. The evening sun bled into the room while two dim lights shone softy over the bed. Over Sai. He had the room to himself. The only other person to be with him was Iwara. Though they were surprised to see Iwara in the room they could not keep their eyes off Sai. Kikumaru held a gasp back. Fuji stood in silence. They didn't know what to expect once they saw him. Ryuzaki told her he was eating but not talking. But how could he eat with so many tubes going into his nose and throat. Some kind of machine was hooked to those tubes breathing for him. They didn't know if he was so stable that a nurse shouldn't be in the room with him. He didn't look to be in any discomfort but he had to be. Fuji's eyes ran down to Sai's arms and he had needles and tubes going into each main vein.

Had Kikumaru not placed a shaken hand on Fuji's shoulder, she didn't think she would be able to walk into the room. She only took two steps towards the bed.

"Oh, wow." Kikumaru covered her mouth.

There was no way he could talk to her. She was hoping he would be able to but with all those tubes… why did she bother coming in the first place? Yoshiko went over to Iwara and he cuddled her tightly, probably hiding her tears that could fall easily. Fuji could feel her gaze falling to the side of the bed. She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to see what she did to him… she didn't mean to… she didn't think it would be so serious. She could feel her hand slowly raise to pull at her shirt in bitterness but she held her hand down. She wouldn't act like that in front of so many people.

"S'up?" Iwara, said almost too casually.

"What do you mean, 'what's up?'" Kikumaru said sharply. "When did you get here?"

"About ten minutes ago." He looked to Sai. "He's a mess, ain't he?"

Iwara gestured for them to get closer, even telling Fuji that he was awake. How! How could he be awake in that state? While they looked over him, Iwara took it upon himself to apologise to Fuji, on Sai's behalf. He stood up and bowed deeply and didn't rise until he finished.

Fuji and Kikumaru didn't know that he and Sai attended the same primary school or that his mother messed him up as a boy. Iwara didn't go into great detail, only that his mother never treated him as her son. When she finally left both him and his father, Sai finally understood that he was hated.

Fuji heard the words Iwara used and blinked several times with a new understanding. His mother hated him. She locked her fingers together, thinking about what that could look and feel like and felt a sadness come over her. Sai never told her about his past but she wished he had told her sooner. His behaviours were slowly starting to make sense… but that shouldn't be reason enough to over look what he did to her. It didn't excuse Sai's behaviours for that day. To say she was loathsome and not special to him, did he really understand how much that hurt her? She didn't need to know what his mother did to him to know that he was speaking from his heart at that moment. Fuji reached her hand over to catch Sai's. Like Iwara said, Sai was awake. His cool hands curled loosely around hers. She darted her gaze up to his eyes but he kept them closed. His shades where by his side, snapped in half. They must have been his favourite pair. Fuji felt unsure by her actions, finding that she couldn't remove the desire to hold his hand tightly. Are you really sorry? She sat down on the chair closest to the bed.

"Sai, when he had enough strength wrote down for us that you only hit him twice, Fuji-chan." Iwara now sat down, with Yoshiko on his lap.

"I did." She answered.

"Why?" Both Iwara and Kikumaru asked.

How to tell them he pinned her to the ground with his hand up her shirt while kissing down her neck. She now squeezed Sai's hand.

"Erm… I just punched him… and kicked him."

"I don't understand Fuji, why would you-"

Iwara interrupted Kikumaru. "Don't ask Kikumaru-chan. Like I said, he's a bit messed up."

Did Iwara know? Fuji turned to him. "You mean this-"

"Yeah, if I'm right it's not the first time he's, erm… you know." He interrupted Fuji with good reason.

"He-he promised he wouldn't do it to you onee-chan. Not you." Even Yoshiko understood. Iwara rocked her in his arms.

Kikumaru wanted to ask but even she could see that they were hiding it.

"Looks like Fuji-chan stopped him before he did something stupid."

"How far did he go before?" As far as Fuji was concerned, Sai crossed the line from when he said she was loathsome.

"Did you come to forgive him onee-chan?"

Fuji felt a ping in her chest… Looking at him, she could easily feel sorry for him but if she thought about what he was going to do and did do, she couldn't forgive him… She wanted to have a heart like Tezuka, who was angry but waited long enough to speak about the problem. Yet what Sai had in mind to do to her… She wondered if Tezuka would forgive him.

"He deserved it." Fuji said and let go of his hand.

Iwara understood. Yoshiko didn't. "Why onee-san?"

"Now looking at him… they should have expelled me. I'm not going to blame Sai-kun for all that took place because I was beside myself at the time, but he knew what he was doing." She looked to Sai. "He just didn't know my darker side was greater than his. I'm gunna go now. Tell him I came by."

Yoshiko wanted to stop her but Iwara covered her mouth to let both Fuji and Kikumaru go. He waved to them and smiled. "See you ladies tomorrow."

Only Kikumaru turned back to Iwara and gave a weak smile by lifting the corner of her lip. Once Fuji left the room she felt her knees go weak. She pressed her hand against the wall. There was something both horrible and beautifully about Sai's current condition. She could see his pain and suffering, and a part of her delighted in it. But when she thought about Tezuka forgive him, her heart sank because she knew he would and she couldn't forgive Sai.

She pushed herself off the wall before Kikumaru caught up to her.

"Fuji, what where you guys talking about? How come you haven't told us anything?"

"It's not something I can take about… but that's the reason I got excluded for a four days. You saw he. I could have killed him."

"I can see that. But I want to know why. Why did you hit him? What did he do and what did he say to move you?"

Fuji ran her thumb over her sore hand. She could feel her old habits creeping up again.

"I don't want to talk about it now."

Kikumaru shook her head. "Fine, okay. I won't ask."

Fuji understood that she wasn't being fair. The girls witnessed something without any background information. And Kikumaru saw something that was beyond her understand, so of course she would want to know what Fuji did to Sai and why he deserved it. Kikumaru knew of Sai's antic, so what could he have done to push Fuji so far?

Fuji wouldn't say anything. Not unless he asked her. Not unless Tezuka asked her. And as long as he didn't know nobody else would know.


tbc…

A/N2: Was that end to abrupt? After all this time I'm still not good at 'em.

Poor Sai, will he get better? I doubt it! And why's Iwara so calm about things?

Chapter 75: Filler-spiller-chapter-episode-segment: Fuji takes the distant call!

Thanks for reading fan_readers from around the world. (^-^)