Mirai (Future)

It was the first practice since the ranking matches that the former members of the boy's tennis team had come back to help out. Much to Sumiko's chagrin, it naturally resulted in half of the girl's club in the wrong court. Sumiko stared dubiously at the bottle that Inui had given to her the last time they met. The data player had given her a sample of each and every Inui Juice he had even concocted, apparently. The first Inui Juices and Penal Teas had been slowly used up, and now it had reached the next stage... Sumiko shivered inwardly. She had heard stories of this particular concoction.

"Arashi-sempai, could you please lead the students back to the girl's tennis courts?" she said sweetly, displaying the bright blue liquid in the clear bottle for all to see. Everyone's face blanched, including the boys who happened to look over in their direction. The malicious power of Aozu (1) was undoubtedly renowned.

When she arrived back at the girls' side, she found Eiji and Fuji leaning against the wall just outside the court. They were definitely gaining some stares. She sighed. "Eiji-sempai, Syuu-nii, if you want to be here could you at least help out instead of standing there looking like models for my members to gawk at? You're distracting everyone."

"Sure thing, Fujiko-chan! But you shouldn't use that. It's evil, nya(2)~!" Eiji indicated the blue bottle still in Sumiko's hand. Next to him, Fuji's face looked rather dark. In the boy's court, Inui wondered at the murderous intent radiating from the other side.

A commotion nearby caught their attention.

"Kikumaru-sempai is better and so much cooler!"

"Mukahi-san is better!"

"Kikumaru-sempai!"

"Mukahi-san!"

"Ara? What's going on?"

"Kikumaru-sempai! Yuzuyu said Hyoutei's Mukahi Gakuto is better than you! That isn't right, is it?!"

"Nani?! Gakuto?! Of course I'm better! That show-off can't match up to me! I'll prove it the next time I play him! But before that, let's have a match!" The three acrobatic players sprinted for the nearest empty court.

Sumiko grinned and set the bottle of Aozu carefully out of her brother's sight. At that moment, Arashi appeared behind her with her gang of girls.

"Why is Wakana allowed to stay on the boy's courts?!"

Sumiko glanced over to where Wakana Michiko sat with her laptop open. "Unlike you, Wakana-sempai is collecting data. If you can beat her in a tennis match, I'll allow you to do whatever you want. How about it, Arashi-sempai?" she said with venomous sweetness. Arashi stormed off.

The truth was that Sumiko was actually very much in awe of her vice-captain. She was the only member of the current regulars who was from last year's set. She was a formidable opponent, definitely. Her data-collecting skills were good, undoubtedly, but the way she used it was the scariest part. The more data she had, the stronger she became. So it was best to leave her to observe others.

Hasegawa Tsuki and Muranaka Suzume, their Doubles 2, were playing each other. Even though their playing styles were different, they complimented each other. Having a match between doubles players was good practice for both of them. Tsuki had to try to overcome the fact that Suzume's speed could catch up to her unpredictable returns, and Suzume had to prevent the running around from sapping her strength.

Karino Izumi could be considered a power tennis player, but her tennis play depended much on service aces. Her shots were strong and fast, to the extent of knocking the racket straight out of her opponent's hand should one catch up to the ball. She was occupied with practicing her shots against an empty court. Sumiko watched as Fuji offered to have a match with Izumi. That would be interesting to watch, but Sumiko focused her attention on the last regular instead.

Ume Natsumi was a strange one. There wasn't anything particularly impressive about her play style, but when you play against her... You feel frustrated. Something about her style forces one make more mistakes than usual. She had just finished off her warm-ups and was heading for a wall. But her strageties won't work on an inanimate object. Sumiko grabbed her racket. Time to have a good match.

How is it? I tried to give them their own specialities and personalities instead of copying off the canon characters. Hope it turned out alright. Review please!

Oh, and I want to ask if you readers would like some pairings in the fic? I don't want to spoil anything for you guys by adding some unwanted romance in the story, so I would like your opinion. RyoSaku anyone? Or canon character x OC? No Yaoi, please...

(1) Aozu: ...One of Inui's concoctions, name means 'Blue Vinegar'...

(2) nya: The 'meow' of a cat. Eiji likes to say that.