Okay, okay, I haven't written for about a month and i am REALLY REALLY sorry. Summer suddenly just seemed to pick up and I didn't really have time, that and I also could have taken this story in SO many different directions from here and being indecisive to almost the point of being impaired, I stalled a long time, trying to figure out what I was going to do. I'll try to update sooner, I promise! Because...*drum roll* i got a laptop and can FINALLY ditch typing on that little iPod touch, not that I don't love it. I love my lappie just as much *hugs computer* okay maybe not that much but I did pay for it myself so i'm allowed to be a little obsessive right? Just nod, It'll make me feel better. Also I made this chapter extra long, well okay only like 500 words longer, but I tried right? Okay, I'll really shut up now. Enjoy!

Oh, and as further penance, I've been working up some character sketches that I'll have up on my profile pretty soon, okay so maybe it's just Azumi so far, but I'm working on the rest of them. i've never really drawn anime before so it's slow going but I think they should give you an idea of what they look like.

.miss: Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad you're having a good laugh reading it :)

AkimotoAyumu: Oh thank you for pointing that out! I'll have to go back and change it (but considering how long it took me to upload this don't hold your breath for any time soon hehe). I saw that in a lot of other stories so I thought that Fuji might just be a shortened nickname. Thank you for the clarification, it is much appreciated :)

Stelra Etnae: I'm glad you like the flow. I'll try to keep it moving.

Disclaimer: - you'd think that that would be rather self-explanatory, but i just to be safe, i don't own prince of tennis

(Azumi POV)

I stared enviously down at Tezuka, sleeping peacefully in his bed. Sure he had a fever of 104 and a case of pneumonia but he sure looked more rested than I felt right then. It was not an unusual feeling for me, I had gone through rather intensive (and unpleasant) training that made staying up for around 55 hours a relative breeze but I had not slept in more than 96. I had been on the run for a day in which I ruined a car, got my new disguise and found this rehab center. The next day was spent in evaluations where I got this ludicrous and, at this moment, rather unwanted job. Then Tezuka had come and had had enough common courtesy to FAINT ON ME, which resulted in yet another tumultuous night.

Remember when I had listed the reasons that could possibly explain why I was assigned only one patient? I was wondering whether the staff thought me incompetent, he was a superstar, or he needed tons of care because he was coming in a full body cast. Well I found out which it was. Between the ENTIRE staff coming to fuss around him and every possible authority figure in the rehab center coming down to yell at me (for something I could not have prevented and most certainly did not cause), I was pretty sure that Tezuka was a pretty huge deal. And I do mean huge. Like, being one of the best junior tennis players in all of Japan kind of huge. And everyone thought I just nearly killed him.

Great.

My lids felt heavy as I sat down in an unoccupied chair next to Tezuka's bed. An IV was attached in his arm. A heart monitor beeped quietly announcing his relatively good health. Now that he had been diagnosed, everyone realized what a FRIGGIN' OVERREACTION THEY HAD HAD and left me in charge, since he WAS my patient.

I gazed once more at Tezuka as the sun streamed in from the window, illuminating his face. His glasses lay on the bedside table, away from their usual post perched on the bridge of Tezuka's nose. Somehow, he looked less stern with them off, though his stoic facial expression extended even into his sleep.

Tch. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less.

The expression still bothered me, but in quite a different way. As I had talked with him, he hardly seemed dangerous or conniving and definitely not like a shell with an evil, sadistic storm raging on the inside. No, I could rest easy knowing that Tezuka Kunimitsu was not going to knife me in my sleep. However, I now was fairly certain that the origin of his particular lack of emotion lay in arrogant boredom.

That irritated me...a LOT.

My brother, a master of said expression wore it often. Though never much around me. I wasn't around enough for him to dismiss all that often or with any amount of ease. However, it was his default expression in dealing with ANYONE else, and as a rule, I turned a blind eye to it to keep my sanity/keep me from going and giving a big lecture to my brother. Mainly, because it would most likely earn ME one of those stares which would most likely turn into Ryoma being killed in a rather gruesome/extremely unpleasant way.

Tezuka, on the other hand, not being my brother made it so NOT okay to use that expression. ESPECIALLY on me.

Instead I concentrated on the reassuring rising and falling of his chest that proved his relative good health. Laying my head on the side of his bed, still in my chair I fell into a deep (and well-deserved may I add) sleep.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Regular POV)

Four figures cowered behind various large (and they hoped flying projectile proof) objects, trying to make themselves invisible presumably from the figure in the middle of the room from which the flying projectiles were coming.

NIshimura had just about had it. If being assigned to a covert and somewhat morally sketchy assignment wasn't enough, he was appointed to the team that was even more reluctant about it than he was which resulted in them all degrading themselves to the obedience level of two year olds and paid him NO mind whatsoever! And if that wasn't enough, between the aforementioned imbeciles incompetency and social maturity of dung beetles a computer glitch had caused him TWO, count 'em, TWO whole days of delay. And then, just when things had begun to run smoothly again, he found that the video had been tampered with. TAMPERED WITH! It made no sense! There wasn't anyone around to do the tampering! Or at least there shouldn't have been...

(Meanwhile, behind a large case of costumes)

"That was a nice move with the video, Koga" Mochizuki whispered above Nishimura's temper tantrum, ", though giving me a heads up would have been nice. Then I wouldn't have had to embarrass myself like that." He turned a little red just remembering what he had forced himself to say.

"I was about to congratulate YOU..." she confessed looking a bit confused, "I haven't done anything to the video."

They both looked at each other, confused and the same question in their minds. Then who tampered with the video?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_(Azumi POV)

I woke to first a soft nudge immediately followed by a loud cracking noise. My eyes were wild as I took a quick and rather frantic stock of my surroundings. Had someone snuck in? I had fallen asleep in Tezuka's room (as wrong as that may sound), that much I remembered. There didn't seem to be anyone around, so the soft nudge must have come from Tezuka stirring. And the crack…I turned doing a double take only to be plagued by a rather acute pain in my back. The crack must have been my spine as I had jumped from the chair into a defensive position.

Ugh, I felt pretty awful.

My eyes were all dry from wearing the blue contacts while I had slept and everything felt stiff from staying up MUCH too long. Then to make matters worse I had fallen asleep slumped over in a chair. Not exactly ideal. The cricks in my neck rivaled that of rusty hinges that had never been graced with oil…ever.

After stretching and moving around a bit, loosening up my tight muscles, I turned my attention back to Tezuka. He was still sleeping, much to my relief. The last thing I wanted him to wonder was how spastic his trainer was. Actually it wasn't the last thing. The last thing I wanted him to wonder was probably whether or not his therapist was actually a cross-dressing spy. Yeah, that was probably number one on that list. But wondering how spastic I was would have to be at LEAST in the top ten I'd have to say.

"Jukodo-san?"

I jumped about ten feet in the air and once again took up a defensive position, facing Tezuka's bed where the voice had come from. As I turned to his bed, I saw his eyes slightly open, squinting. His arm was stretching out from under the covers over to the side table, and was feeling around for his glasses.

Oh, so maybe he was awake. Just resting his eyes or something. I really hoped that he couldn't see…like at all without his glasses or he really was going to think that I was spastic.

I immediately stood up out of my crouch and walked over to the chair by his bed as he put on his glasses.

"Tezuka-san? How are you feeling?" I inquired, trying to portray the quiet confidence that you always seem to get from the doctors when they are trying to get you to calm down.

"Ah, I am feeling fine. Why are you here?"

So much for quiet confidence. He seemed to not to be into the whole politeness thing and cut straight to the chase.

"You fainted when I brought you back to your room last night."

Silence. He seemed to be trying to recall the event. I sure remembered, or at least every person in the whole facility made certain that a big enough deal about it was made, that I wasn't about to forget it any time soon.

"Ah, I remember."

Well I'm so happy for you, what you don't remember is being LAUDED ON FOR AN ENTIRE NIGHT, WHILE I GOT YELLED AT. Not that I was bitter or anything. But I thought he should know all the same. Keeping professionalism in mind though, I guess that it was good that I just thought it.

"After some analysis and some x-rays of your lungs, I'd say that the best diagnosis for the condition that you have is pneumonia. It's an infection in the bronchial tubes. Tezuka-san, you have to know that when there is a lower lung infection, it is pretty serious."

I didn't know how good of bed side manner it was to be this straight with him, but he seemed to be the type who was able to take this sort of thing without melt downs, sobs, or pity parties. Though, I had misjudged his character up until now…

Much to my relief, he simply nodded his head solemnly, just as I had already seen him do several times. His face as usual, remained stoic though his eyes seemed distant.

"Jukodo-san, do you mind if I make a phone call?"

I thought for a moment. I didn't want him to strain his voice, especially since it was probably weak form lack of use anyway. But it also might help his spirits, not that he had much personality to get spirited.

"I don't think that that's such a good idea quite yet." I thought out loud. "You need to rest your voice, though you are welcome to borrow a laptop to write an e-mail if you need to communicate with someone far away."

He nodded again.

"Ah, I would like that."

"Good, I'll go get you one." I said, standing up to leave "If you need anything or start to feel light headed, be sure to call me with this."

I pointed to the button on the side of his heart monitor, before turning and heading towards the door. Just as I was about to walk out the doorway, I heard the same cracked, low voice that had already startled me once that day.

"Jukodo-san?"

I turned.

"Yes?"

"Arigatou."

I smiled, turned, and then continued walking as the door closed behind me. Maybe he was polite after all too.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I soon returned with the laptop and handed it to Tezuka.

"Ah, arigatou." He said as I handed him the laptop.

His movements were slow and shaky. It hurt me a little to watch him struggle. It was almost as though he were crippled, though I suppose he was in a way. Like a bird with a broken wing. So used to being able to fly but now made to struggle to even hobble around on the ground.

I decided to busy myself with other things so that I would not have to watch. I heard the slow tapping of keys on the laptop and the faint beeping of the heart monitor as I checked some readings.

I was just looking over some x-rays when I noticed another abnormality in his bronchial tubes. That couldn't be good.

"Tezuka-san, I'm going to go check some of these charts over with Dr. Peters. So, if anything comes up," I gave him a pointed stare, bordering on glare, as I motioned towards the heart monitor, "the button."

He was most certainly not the type of person to ask for help. That much I could tell from his demonstration last night where he pushed himself until he had fainted and I did NOT want a repeat of that. One scolding per week was more than enough for me.

And maybe…I wanted him to be able to fly again.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Dr. Peters."

He looked up as I shut the door behind me.

"You might want to take a look at these."

I slid the file of new x-rays onto his desk.

He raised an eyebrow but opened the file anyway. As he looked through the pictures, quite a different expression came over his face. And the x-rays dropped to the floor.

I composed my face before stepping into Tezuka's room. He had had enough trauma for one day I decided, so instead I was going to let him recover a bit before I dropped a particularly heavy and traumatic piece of information on him…again.

I opened the door softly, expecting to see him tapping slowly on the computer. Instead, I was greeted by the slow steady pulse of the heart monitor and a light snore.

Haha! So he DID have some human-like qualities.

His face was lit by the soft glow of the computer screen, left open on his lap. I picked up the computer so that it would not fall if he shifted in his sleep. I was about to close it when I noticed that he had not sent the e-mail.

Being a spy and all, I had extensive surveillance experience. There was no such thing as a line of privacy. Unless of course you happened to be another spy, in which case there was no question that was safe to ask. But that's another story.

As an agent on the run, it was my duty to myself to read the e-mail just to be safe that he wasn't contacting anyone to come and kill me. Either that or I was just satisfying my curiosity. But we'll stick with the first one. It allows my conscience to rest easier.

"Dear Oishi,

Don't let your guard down. I trust that everything is in going well in preparation for tennis season. I am sorry that I am not there to be the captain that I should be. I'm afraid that I have not been fair to the team this year; this injury is the result of letting my own guard down.

Keep an eye on Ryoma, make sure he shows up on time to practice and be sure to make sure he is always challenged. Keep Momo on court one and Kaidoh on court three. That should make practices run smoother. Maybe another practice match between Ryoma and Fuji would be a good idea too. Say hi to Taka at the sushi shop for me. Take care of yourselves.

Sincerely,

Tezuka"

I pressed the send button for him and began to tend to Tezuka so that my thoughts could not wander to my brother, though it was nice to know that Tezuka did have a heart. Maybe he had only written about tennis, but I thought that just maybe I could see a little concern show between the lines. At any rate, it was nice to know that he cared about them. Someone had to be around to take care of Ryoma, because my father was certainly not around to.

I sighed and began to once again place my hand over Tezuka's brow.

Even as my hand burned hot, I found myself unwilling to pull my hand away. It lingered there, feeling so strange and yet so natural. My lips began to curl into a small smile. It felt good, right.

And then I caught myself.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. WHAT?!? That made NO sense. I quickly withdrew my hand from its perch on Tezuka's head as though it were going to burn up with his fever. What a strange feeling, it defied the fact that I hated his face, and his attitude, or lack thereof and-and, well everything about him.

I brushed it off as I continued to tend for Tezuka, this time being careful to avoid direct contact with his skin.

I wet a washcloth and placed it on his forehead to try and cool the heat that threatened to burn away the one cell of sentimental feelings he was bound to have, though perhaps not for long. Not that he got much use out of that side of his brain anyways. I quickly took my hand away before the feelings (whatever they were) could come again.

Maybe it was cooties.

I shook my head, chuckling at my own foolishness.

A groan interrupted me as Tezuka rolled over, and his eyes opened slightly.

"E-e-echizen?" He managed in a low, cracked voice.

$#*?!?

Um…what exactly did he just call me?

As though answering my question, he reached his hand out toward my face, and muttered "Echizen?"

I froze. All mental processes in my head (the few that had been working anyways) stopped abruptly. Well, actually the side of my head that controlled dirty language seemed to be in better than working order at the moment.

"Wh-what are you doing here?"

Um….

"You look…all wrong. Even your eyes…you eyes are the right shape, but its like there's a film, a block, what is goin–"

He stopped there abruptly.

Maybe it was because I had hit him in the back of the head. Not hard mind you, but I had to stop him. Stop him from making too many connections. I had had no choice. I didn't even hit him too hard. But hopefully, it was hard enough to make him forget what he had almost just figured out when he was drugged enough to say exactly what he was thinking. Perhaps Tezuka wasn't as dense as I thought. 10 minutes ago I would have thought of that as a good thing. But now my guard was going to have to go up around him. He might be dangerous to me after all. Even if he DIDN'T knife me in his sleep. Accidentally blowing my cover around him would be just as bad.

It made me sad.

I was just getting to know him.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Regular POV)

Dr. Anton Peters was in his office, shaking his head as he checked over and over a series of papers as he scrawled all over them. He looked a bit more than frantic, and less than hysterical.

Okay, calm down.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath pausing his somewhere between hysterical and frantic writing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

He opened his eyes, calm. For the moment.

He looked back down at the stack of papers in front of him. Sighing, he put down his pen and pushed the intercom button in his office.

"Jukodo-san? Please see me in my office."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Azumi POV)

"You're exporting me?" I demanded in maybe not the most polite of tones, but I wanted to shriek it. In other words, self-control-wise I was doing well.

He shook his head.

"Not exporting Jukodo-san. We simply think that Tezuka-san will be treated better in an actual hospital. This," he gestured at the building, "is a physical THERAPY clinic. We're not equipped to deal with…other problems."

I glared at him. Oh, and trust me I am a good glarer. My glares got my point across quickly and efficiently. They sent the perfect message: "Uh…die."

"So what you're really saying is you're scared. That you care no more about Tezuka-san than your flippin' reputation. You don't want the world famous tennis star to die on your hands so you want to MOVE HIM when he's SICK, one of the worst POSSIBLE things you could do, JUST so that you can not have the BLAME ON YOUR OWN WORTHLESS HEADS?!?!?!!"

Okay, so maybe I wasn't doing all that well on the whole self-control thing.

He looked back sheepishly at me.

Good, he should at LEAST be sheepish. I may not have like Tezuka very much, but he was a human being, a life. And not just any life, but a life that happened to be important to my brother, so as far as I was concerned, I could at least make this man feel guilty about endangering it.

"Now Jukodo-san, I know that this is not a good move. But it's the best move we can make right now. Our center simply isn't equipped with the facilities or staff to deal with cancer."

I supposed that was true, but I was still uneasy about some other things.

"And I'm going with him? Why?"

His face turned serious as he folded his hands in front of him.

Uh-oh, not a good sign. When adults did that, it meant that they were about to talk to you like you were 8.

"Jukodo-san. You are by far one of the best-trained therapists I have ever seen. And this is one of the top facilities in Germany. His parents have made it clear that the money they have given as a down payment to our establishment is to go towards him having his elbow healed. They will be VERY put out if there are no results from this facility. So, you are to go with him and heal him in the hospital we're sending him to. That way it will be under our name his elbow will be fixed."

"So in other words I'm there to claim credit for making his elbow work better but far enough away from you that you can cover your asses if he dies."

He shifted uncomfortably.

"Right."

"So where are you transporting him to?"

"Tokyo General Hospital."

Silence.

Tokyo? I could NOT go back to Japan. First place my team would look for me. Plus if my team found out that I had been working at this clinic, then they could track me to wherever this coward sent me. I would have to make my exit earlier than I planned.

"Thank you for letting me know."

I bowed and turned to leave.

"Oh, and Jukodo-san? The plane is coming tomorrow at 3pm. be packed and ready to move out by then."

3, huh? I was going to have to move fast.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Normal POV)

"Falcon? This is Blue Jay come in. I'm doing reconnaissance on the North side of Bremen on Hepstedt."

"This is Blue Jay coming in from the East side on Berne."

"Have you found any trace of her?"

"No, though I wasn't expecting to. She's in a disguise and we have no idea what it looks like. Plus she's one of the best."

"Neither have I."

"Keep a sharp eye out."

Silence ensued between the earpieces.

"So, who do you think screwed with the video?"

"I don't know, but it must have been someone from our team. The video was magnetized in just the right spot, for just long enough. Only someone trained in sabotage would know where the information on the computer would be stored and how to disable only the chunk of it. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that Nishimura is beginning to suspect."

"Suspect who?"

"I don't know. We're going to have to be more careful. Maybe lay low on the sabotage for now."

"What are you saying Mochizuki!?! You're going to give up?!?!"

"No, no! Now keep your voice down and don't say my name. There's a REASON we're using code names, falcon."

"Oh, don't be such a worrywart, Mochizuki. I've switched the channels on our communicators, wherever the others are, searching the city, they can't hear us."

"I said don't call me by my name and I meant it falcon. And…did you seriously just use the word worrywart?"

He heard a giggle from the other line.

"You know it."

He could just envision the smile on her face as she said it, and from a city away he smiled at the thought.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Somewhere on the south side of Bremen)

Nishimura, glared down at the communicator in his hands, knowing what he had to do.

This is what it means to be a leader. Doing the hard stuff.

He just couldn't believe that Mochizuki and Koga would betray him like that. And that was all he could think as he picked up his cell phone.

"Yeah, headmaster? We have a situation."

Thanks for reading! Now go review! That's an order! If you don't I'll send Azumi after you hehehe mwahahahahahaha! Just kidding, she's a bit preoccupied right now, but review anyways :)