"Go Marui!" said Eiji excitedly as he made his way to the bench and Marui stood up.

"We believe in you!" exclaimed Gakuto.

"Yeah!" said Choutarou. "Good luck!"

"Like you'll NEED it!" said Momo.

Marui eagerly gripped his racket and ran out onto the court. Mizuki was already standing there with his own racket of course.

"What's your record so far?" Marui asked.

"My record?" inquired Mizuki.

"In this tournament." Marui clarified. "Have you won twice? Lost twice? Won once and lost once? Who'd you play against?"

Mizuki twirled some hair around his finger.

"My first match was against Yukimura." Mizuki said.

"Oh really?" said Marui. "You must have lost that match!"

"Actually, I won." Mizuki said.

"You did?" gasped Marui.

"Yeah, because Yukimura had to forfeit." Kirihara called from the sidelines.

"Oh." Said Marui with a frown. "Well, that makes sense then."

"Nevertheless." Said Mizuki. "I still won that match."

"You didn't win against Tachibana though!" Kirihara laughed.

"Will you just shut up?" Mizuki demanded angrily as he shook his fist at Kirihara. Kirihara only laughed in Mizuki's face, and Fuji was ABOUT to slap Kirihara five but then he realized that he hated Kirihara too so he just randomly turned around and slapped Taka five. Taka instinctively slapped Fuji five right back just because no one can resist a high five, but in retrospect he pondered the random high five and wondered if maybe Fuji was plotting to kill him for drugging his orange juice.

"Well, I played against Jirou first and I beat him!" said Marui as he bounced the ball he was holding since he had the first serve just in case you didn't know. "I had to forfeit my second match because I had to search for one of my teammates, but I bet I would have won that one too!"

"So we have the same record." Mizuki said. "One loss and one tie."

"Hardly." Said Marui, raising an eyebrow. "My loss was because of a forfeit. Your WIN was because of a forfeit."

"Just serve the ball!" Mizuki ordered, getting frustrated.

"All right!" said Marui as he served the ball in some kind of Marui-specific way.

Playing Doubles With Five People cheered enthusiastically for Marui for every hit and had the token side commentary in which they explained everything they saw and all the moves that were taking place. Meanwhile, SHATS were all sitting around seeing who could balance a racket on their foot the longest.

"Game! Change courts!" said Ryuuzaki.

Mizuki came back to the bench and his team looked up quizzically from their mini competition.

"It's over already?" said Yana.

"No." said Mizuki. "We're just switching courts."

Mizuki took a sip from his water and headed to the other side.

"Notice how he didn't mention whether he won or lost." Kirihara said.

"Poor Mizuki." Said Fuji.

"It's strange that you're pitying him." Taka commented.

"Why are you even pitying him?" Yana questioned. "He seems all right."

"Wait." Fuji said as a shadow covered half his face.

His team all moved away from him and decided to pay attention to the game a little bit more.

Mizuki decided it was time to prove everyone wrong because they were all giving him crap about failing to beat Tachibana. So therefore, he had to beat Marui, or at least get a point against him since he had yet to score a single point in the entire tournament. Granted, he only played one game and it was against freaking TACHIBANA but…whatever.

"40-15!" Ryuuzaki said.

"You've suddenly picked up your game!" Marui commented.

"So you've noticed!" said Mizuki as he served.

"Game!" said Ryuuzaki as the ball bounced past Marui and landed outside. "SHATS!"

"One more game…" said Momo. "This'll decide it."

"It's important for us to win this match." Said Eiji. "Because if we win it then we only need to win one more and we win the tournament. But if we lose, then we'll have to win the last game just to be able to take it to a tiebreaker."

"Don't worry!" said Choutarou. "We'll definitely be able to do it!"

"Because we are…" Gakuto said, putting his hand in.

"PLAYING DOUBLES WITH FIVE PEOPLE!" they all shouted, jumping up into the air.

Marui caught sight of his team's cheers, got inspired and then started glowing yellow.

"I didn't want to reveal this until the nationals…" Marui said.

"Oh no…" said Kirihara, leaning forward.

"What is it?" Taka asked.

"It's…THE MARUI ZONE." Said Kirihara dramatically.

"MARUI ZONE?" gasped everyone.

"Is it anything like the Tezuka Zone?" asked Fuji, looking intrigued.

"No." said Kirihara. "It's just a coincidence that they are both referred to as a zone."

"Oh." Said Fuji, looking less than interested.

As it turned out, the Marui Zone was essentially just Marui pretending like he was going to hit the ball forehand and then leaping to the other side of the ball and hitting it backhand.

Everyone who was watching used the collective eyebrow raising sound effect.

"What's the point of that?" Yana said, his eyebrow still ultra raised.

"It's confusing." Kirihara answered as they watched Mizuki be SO confused that he missed the ball.

"15-0!" said Ryuuzaki.

"That seems like more trouble to Marui than to Mizuki." Eiji whispered to Momo.

"And why does he call it the Marui Zone?" Momo whispered back. "That's just pointless."

"The deadly Marui Zone…" said Mizuki to himself as he watched Marui look so very focused. "I have to keep an eye out for that…"

The match continued, but with Marui's new MARUI ZONE, Mizuki couldn't win another point.

"Game set and match!" said Ryuuzaki. "Playing Doubles With Five People!"

"All right!" cheered the aforementioned team as they celebrated.

"I suck." Said Mizuki sadly as he dropped his racket.

He looked around as no one objected, and felt even sadder because he realized that fishing for compliments among this group wasn't exactly going to work out in his favor.

"Singles 1!" said Ryuuzaki. "Momo from Playing Doubles With Five People versus Kirihara from SHATS!"

"Kirihara, you have to win this match or else we can't even go to the tiebreaker." Said Yana.

"Me?" said Kirihara confidently. "Lose against MOMO? Oh please!" He stood up and walked to the court.

Momo looked at his team. "Guys," he said. "This is going to be my first game in the tournament! And I'm playing against KIRIHARA."

"Don't worry about it." Said Gakuto. "You'll do FINE!"

"You really think so?" said Momo with a sparkle in his eye.

"Of course!" said Gakuto as he pat Momo on the back. Momo skipped off to play in his match and Gakuto leaned over to Marui. "He's not going to win, is he?"

"Not a chance." Marui answered.

"Momo, you can serve first." Said Ryuuzaki pleasantly.

"Thanks coach!" said Momo.

"But their team served first last time!" Kirihara pointed out.

"Calm down, you'll get your turn!" Ryuuzaki snapped.

"BIASED REF!" yelled the rest of the coaches.

Well, the match commenced. In the end, even though Momo got to serve first and had the referee on his side, he didn't end up winning. Alas. Kirihara pretty much pwned his arse. That's right. He didn't just OWN him, he PWNED him.

"Told you." Said Kirihara as he went back to his team. "No problem."

"Whatever." Said his team.

"Sorry guys…" said Momo sadly but his entire team comforted him tenderly.

"Let's move right to the tiebreaker so you guys can all head home!" said Ojii as he gestured for the other coaches. They all came running in with a portable basketball hoop that stood at about eight feet and set it up in the middle of the tennis court.

"Are we playing basketball against each other?" Momo asked.

"No." said Ojii. "Each team will pick one person from their team to play a game that we like to call The-First-Person-Who-Misses-Loses."

"Ohh…" said both the teams.

"But I bet there's a certain requirement for who we pick…?" led Mizuki.

"Yes." Said Ojii. "Please, the person on your team who has won the most of the four challenges we have had!"

Playing Doubles With Five People all looked at each other. "Well, I've won one." Said Momo.

"I've won three." Choutarou said as if that didn't mean that he was obviously the one that had to play.

"YES!" cheered everyone so Choutarou jumped in surprise.

"What?" he said.

"Ootori, obviously you're tall." Said Eiji.

"Yes, I know." Choutarou said.

"Well just look at that basketball net." Said Gakuto. "You can reach it flatfooted."

Choutarou observed the basketball net. "I don't know about flatfooted. I would probably have to jump a little bit, or stand on my tiptoes."

"WHATEVER." Said the rest of the team.

Meanwhile, SHATS was still trying to establish who had won the most.

"Well, I remember I definitely one the first challenge." Said Taka.

"And I won the second." Fuji added.

"I won the most recent one." Kirihara said.

They all paused.

"So…who won the third one?" Yana asked. "I didn't."

"Me either." Mizuki said.

There was another pause. "Oh wait." Said Fuji, raising his hand. "That was me. I remember now."

SHATS stared at him. "You're going to do our tiebreaker AGAIN?" said Kirihara.

"I suppose so." Fuji smiled pleasantly.

"Could we have the person from each team step forth?" said Ojii.

Choutarou came forward, as did Fuji.

"Ahh…Ootori." Said Fuji, putting his hands together like Mr. Burns. "Once again it's down to you and me."

Choutarou froze and suddenly remembered the musical chairs incident.

"Oh…you're not still mad are you?" Choutarou asked.

"Mad?" Fuji chuckled as Ojii handed Choutarou a basketball. "You should know. I don't get mad."

"That's a relief!" said Choutarou as he turned to the basketball net to make his first shot.

Fuji waited until the second before Choutarou was going to release the ball and then he made a scary eye opening noise. "I get even." He said in an equally scary voice.

Choutarou immediately freaked out and the ball sailed about seventeen feet over the net.

Everyone on his team just stood there in shock.

"And…so…" said Ojii slowly. "Ootori misses his first shot, so if Fuji makes this shot then SHATS officially wins."

"My turn." Fuji said as Sakaki retrieved the ball and handed it to him. Fuji stared at the basketball. "It's heavier than I expected." He commented.

"Even though Ootori missed the first shot, there's no way Fuji's gonna be able to get one in, right?" Yana asked Taka quietly, as if Taka should know about Fuji's skills in basketball.

"You'd be surprised." Taka admitted.

Fuji stared at the basketball net for a little bit, then at the ball. Choutarou was woeing in the corner because of how much of a failure he had been recently.

Finally, Fuji turned his back to the net and closed his eyes. Everyone watched curiously as he threw the ball over his head, it sailed straight towards the net and SWISHED.

"Nothing but net!" Taka exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air.

"Oh Taka." Said Fuji, looking ultimately pleased with Taka's reaction.

"Winners!" said Ojii. "SHATS!"

"Nice job, this team." Said Ryuuzaki to SHATS. "You all performed very well, and the fact that you won the entire tournament certainly showed that."

"Yeah well, we do what we can." Shrugged SHATS.

Then everyone stared at each other.

"Well, you can leave now." Sakaki said. "NOW."

"Okay, okay…" said the young people, looking dejected as they walked off.