Sorry that it is taking me so long to update! I have been busy with my school work, preparing for my new job, and just keeping my life in order. Since I am officially home for summer break, I can probably get a lot of work done when I'm not busy. I decided to take a little of a jump and have a little of character growth and change for Kira in this chapter after she started playing again.

Well I hope you like it!

Phoenix

The camp was over and the team was selected. All Kira could do now, was wait till the matches started. There was one day left, and she was prepared to help the team out as much as she could, but without really watching anyone from the opposite team play, she was really out of luck.

"Kira, come on, we have to go now," her mother said as Kira came down the steps.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about something. Daddy would be proud to know that I am still doing all that I can with tennis and that I started playing again," Kira said. As much as she wouldn't admit it, she was a daddy's girl and even with her father gone, she still felt like it.

Kira and her mother took a bus to a cemetery. Kira felt her stomach drop as she walked up the long winding hill to where her father's grave was. Every year on his birthday and the day of his death, her and her mother would visit him. Kira knew her mother went more than that, but so did she, but with everything going on in her life, Kira just seemed to forget to visit him. Kira was the first to kneel at his grave and just look at it. She felt her eyes water up and she lowered her head just as the first tear fell from her cheek. Her mother did the same as they placed flowers in front of it.

Kira stood and still with tears in her eyes she spoke to her mother, "I want to take professional lessons again. I want to become what father wanted me to become. I can't stand this feeling of I have let him down. It's taken me seven years to get over it and four from the time I quit tennis to realize that all father wanted from me was to become the best. He invested all of his time in me, and I have let him down by quitting. I won't do that again to him."

"I'll give your old coach a call. Ironically enough, he called a few weeks ago asking if you wanted to come back. He heard a rumor that you were back in town," her mother said.

"Wouldn't surprise me, but sure, give him a call."

When they got back, her mother called her old coach and he told her to get right over to his place. Kira sighed and realized that it was going to be a long night now that he wanted to train with her. She wouldn't say that he was the most orthodox coach, but he was damn good. He left when she was younger, but when he came to Japan he would give her lessons. When he wasn't there, she took lessons from other coaches, and her mom called them too and let them know that she will be taking lessons from them as well. She picked up her bag and walked over to the place where she was going to have her lesson.

"Hey, Old man! Are you going to teach me or what?" Kira said.

"Yeah, yeah, give me a minute! Let me-," he said but couldn't finish because a ball went through his magazine.

"I meant it."

"Fine, so what do you want to learn that you already don't know?"

"Make me stronger and better."

"Well, I have to see where you are at right now. Seeing as how you haven't played in a few years, you might have fallen back."

They started off with a small game to just test where she was, but she noticed him getting stronger as the game progressed. By the end, she felt her arms get weaker and she stood there.

"What do I need to fix?" Kira asked.

"You need to evolve and not rely on what I taught you and your father," he said.

"Yeah, yeah. Can you tell that I'm trying? I can't seem to do anything special. That's why I have you."

"Play my son."

"You're insane."

"Do it."

Kira sighed and agreed to play his son. She knew that she was gonna get her ass handed to her. As she played, she realized who she needed to really face if she wanted to evolve.

"You get it now?" Her coach said.

"Yeah, but the person who I need to play, can't for a while," Kira said.

"There has to be another person who would help you evolve."

"Possibly, but right now, that one person will do. Thank you again Echizen-san. I gotta go now. I'll be back when their match is over," Kira said.

She got back to her house and sighed, that man hasn't changed. He was good friends with her father and when her father came back to Japan, he promised her father that when he had children, he would teach them tennis for free.

In the morning, she woke up and got ready for the goodwill games. She knew that Ryoma would keep quiet about her taking lessons from his father, but she knew that the moment Tezuka was better, she would challenge him to a game to prove to herself that she was meant to play tennis. She got her things ready and she went downstairs and ate a quick breakfast before she went to the arena.

As she arrived she noticed the American team and how they looked. Her eyes started to immediately think up of a game plan in her head. From what she saw and could gather, they were something to be taken seriously.

"So what do you have in mind?" Tezuka asked.

"I'm trying to figure out who would be best in this situation. We have the line ups done, but I can feel where this game is going," Kira said.

"What do you guess?"

"Be prepared for a long game."

And Kira was right, the matches kept on getting longer and longer. Finally it was down to Kirihara and Kevin Smith. Her eyes watched the match with great intensity. She has seen how far he has come and she know what he will do to become so much better and defeat Sanada.

Flashback

"Kirihara, you need to calm down. You can't keep going like this. You'll end up doing more harm than good. Believe me when I say that," Kira said when she left the tennis office one day and found Kirihara still practicing.

"You don't understand, I need to defeat them. I need to do that to make me feel like I am worth something here. I blew my match in the finals of regionals. Do you think that makes me feel any better?" Kirihara growled.

"Well, what you are doing is not the right thing to do. You need to come at it with an angle of how would you know how to beat them? There have to be multiple ways of doing so?"

"They are too good at everything for their own good. They put me to shame my first year here, and now I have to face next year without them. That is just not fair to me. They can't do this to me and leave me with such a legacy to uphold!"

That was the moment that she was looking for this entire time. She found the source of the anger that he held deep within him. She has felt that pain in wanting to become great and live up to what people wanted her to live up to.

"Now you are getting somewhere. You feel anger against them for what they are going to do to you in the future. Anger won't make you play any stronger or better. It will only make things worse. If they know you are angry at them, then they take that anger and use it against you in the cruelest of ways. Now if you come at them with the attitude of everything will be just fine when you leave, so stop pushing me so hard. Then they will let their guard down just enough for you to win. Trust me, I know what I am talking about and I know from just watching that those two do that but they don't realize it."

"You really think that they really do that?"

"Yes, now get out of here before it gets too late."

End Flashback

She snapped out of her flashback to see Kirihara sliding on the ground and into the post.

"Akaya!" Kira yelled to the second year as he slowly got up and walked over to the bench. "Let me have a look."

She looked and saw that he really damaged his shoulder.

"You can't keep playing like this," Kira said.

"What, and forfeit ht the match. Not in hell," Kirihara said.

"And damage your shoulder to hell and back and never play again. I won't allow it!"

"Let me do this. I'll be fine. I know my limits to my body."

At that moment, Kira saw a change in him. She saw the change that she mentioned to him. It wasn't just him saying the words that she told him to say when he was going to play a match against Sanada, but it him letting her know that he is changing and he want to show that no matter what he will prevail.

"Fine, if it gets too bad, I am going to pull you from the match, you hear?" Kira said.

Kirihara nodded to the girl. After a few more rallies, he couldn't take the pain anymore. He had to leave the game but didn't want to forfeit the match. They allowed Ryoma to play in his place.

"Kunimitsu, I'm going to take Akaya to get looked at. I assume you have everything under control here," Kira said.

Tezuka simply nodded to the girl.

As she was leaving, she looked back one more time at her friend and prayed that they would win these long matches. When she got Kirihara to the athletic office room and sat him down and got some ice and some ace bandages.

"I know you didn't want to leave that match, but I can't risk not having you for Nationals. Here put this on for ten minutes and then take it off for twenty. It will help with the pain till a doctor gets in here," Kira said.

"Thanks," Kirihara mumbled.

"It's my job, and by the way, you played great our there with your strategy at first. You have really come a long way since the beginning of the season. No doubt about that."

Kira left the office and went to catch the end of the match between Kevin and Ryoma.

"How is he?" Sanada asked.

"His pride is hurt a little, but that will heal with time. In terms of his shoulder, I hope he didn't damage it too much," Kira said.

"Why did you let him play after he got injured in the first place?"

"If you saw the change I saw, then you would have. Even if it meant he injured himself further."

Sanada just stared at the girl and saw something in her eyes that he hadn't noticed before, sadness.

"What really happened the day you got your knee injury?" Sanada said.

"It was a championship match. I was creaming my opponent and I saw a stray ball going to the opposite back corner from where I was. I started to run back and I dove to reach it, but my knee hit the ground hard when I dove. I didn't think anything of it and I just kept going with it. Little did I know, my opponent was intentionally making me run and dive for balls. When I realized that my knee was in intense pain, she had already taken the match to a tie breaker. My body couldn't move, so I had to forfeit the match right there. That match was my last one I played. That injury was just too much for me to handle anymore. Seeing Akaya do the same thing that I did brings back that sadness of not playing again, but I knew I had to let him do it," Kira said.

The match ended in a win for Japan, but Kira knew that the bonds that were created at the camp would fade because of Nationals coming up. As she was leaving with the team and coaches, a person caught her eye. They were tall, but they were built. The woman had long blond hair and she was dressed to play tennis. She knew that person from a while ago, but she couldn't remember their name. The person walked up to them and directed herself to Kira.

"Long time no see. I heard from your one coaches that you were back," she said.

"I am, but I am starting slowly. I missed quite a few developmental years," Kira replied.

"Willing to take an annoying Barbie back?"

"Actually, I was thinking about it since the old man is just too strange for me. When do you want me to meet with you?"

"Now."

Kira felt all the color drain from her face, "You have to be kidding me right?"

"No kidding, get ready, I have many things to teach you. And what are the rest of you looking at? I was one of Kira's old coaches, Fukushimi Inari," she said as Kira grumbled away to get her stuff.

"She just got out of coaching matches, and she is in no condition to practice," Kirihara said.

"I was there, she did nothing special, and I am her coach, so what I say goes," Inari said.

Kira came out to find Rikkai still standing there with her coach, "You guys can go. I'll be fine with Inari-san. She won't let anything too bad happen to me. I'll see you all tomorrow."

They left knowing that she wasn't going to do anything, but they did worry about her physically since they don't really know her strengths for playing. Sanada went to deliver the news of the win to Yukimura.

"I though Kira would be with you," Yukimura said when he noticed that the girl wasn't there.

"She was approached by her old coach and she is practicing with her at the moment," Sanada said.

"Really now? She is getting back into playing?"

Sanada nodded.

"Well this could prove to be interesting for when Nationals is over," Yukimura said with at small smile.

"Why?"

"The independent league starts up right after that and that would mean she would have ranking matches. Knowing her, she will want to be in them this year."

"You really think that she would leave to play if she wanted to?"

All the boy could do is nod.

Meanwhile, Kira was getting back into the swing of things when she realized what her purpose as a tennis player actually was. She couldn't believe what she was thinking, but she knew that she had to do this sooner or later.

"Inari, I'm ready for what you were really wanting to teach me. I know you are holding back on me for something," Kira said.

"I will teach you soon, but I just needed to see where you were standing with all of your development. I am warning you though, I really don't want you to ruin what you have. I want to develop this almost inhuman side of you that I see."

"And what would that truly be?"

"You rising from the ashes like a phoenix. Everyone noticed your absence when you decided to stop playing. I want them to think that you were holding out this entire time as a player and didn't want people to think of you rising too quickly like that Echizen boy."

"Got it. So act like a completely new person when I play."

"Pretty much."

"That shouldn't be too hard."

Inari then dismissed her and she went to her house and collapsed on her bed. She was finally going to fulfill what her father wanted her to fulfill. She was going to become a professional tennis player no matter what the cost, and her only way to achieve that is to rise from the ashes.

So I changed a little of what I was doing, but I still like where I am taking this. Remember to read and review!