Blood Tennis

Summery: Back in America Ryoma gets caught up in a dangerous type of street tennis called "Blood Tennis". When his parents find out they decide to move the family to Japan to split Ryoma from that scene entirely and give him a "fresh start". Will the Seigaku tennis regulars be able to save him? Does he even want to be saved? And how can they when they don't even know Echizen Ryoma exists?

Disclaimer: If you recognize it I don't own it.

Chapter two:

I glare at the brunette standing in front of me in such a way that he literally has me cornered, the spiky haired guy behind my target flinching but said target himself simply smiling away.

"Saa... It took a while to find you." The closed eyed teen comments, making me wonder just how long the two had been trying to corner me and why it just had to be while I was on my way to the music closet? (There is no way that "band room" was actually built to be a room in the original layout of this place. It was way to small for that to be the case.) Said teen's smile seems like Echo's when he was either up to no good or Hawk had just given him permission to truly unleash his level six form on his opponent. "Saa... we have a few questions for you if you don't mind." I minded, in fact I minded a lot. Blue orbs try to pin me in place but only manage to send a shiver down my back, Echo's was a whole lot worse considering the albino wasn't actually sane. Shifting my weight I jump, flip over the Echo wannabe and, (using Spiky haired guy's shoulders as a second platform to right myself in the air) land perfectly on my feet like the cat I was named after. I feel one shocked bewildered gaze and one piercing interested one on me as I walk (Read: Run) away from the duo.
"Mada mada da ne."

Warning to any new students attending Segaku: Never underestimate the tennis regulars here.

This statement should have been included in the handbook. Considering it would have been nice to know before I was dragged from my classroom by an overly hyper red head and chained to one of the court fences by the brunette Echo. It had been a week in this hell, and two days since my encounter with the second and third year, yet their data player had already gotten his hands on my name, age, weight, class number, and physical description. (I don't want to know how he found out my exact data. The saying "Ignorance is Bliss"... Yeah, the person who said that was referencing Data players' collecting techniques at the time. ) Chip would have managed it faster but then again the younger German of our "Clockwork" pair relied on his fast collecting skills to keep both siblings alive and with the upper hand on the court. Though not heavily, Hawk would never allow for that to happen since you need to be ready for anything and there is a chance for information flaws. Watching the regulars makes me see parts of my teammates in them. Not completely, just enough that I can delude myself for I little while.

Health stood over by the main bench for the regulars fussing over Bat who has gotten injured yet again but tried to play anyway despite his sprained ankle. Chip is standing by the gates spouting statistics to our captain who is waiting for me to arrive (late as always). Demon was leaning against a fence scaring everyone near him, more than likely something happened at the orphanage again but he won't let us know for a few more days. And Echo was talking to Kevin with that smile on his face that never meant anything good.

But then my illusion is broken as Echo returns to being the closed-eyed brunette and walks towards me.

"Saaa... How are you doing Ryo-chan?" he asks and I don't know whether to ignore him or snap at him for the definitely unwelcome nickname. Only Demon was allowed to call me by the suffix chan and even that was only when we were fighting (yet again).

- around four years ago -

"Everyone gather round." the fourteen year old brunette commands sharply and the five people immediately stop their warm ups to obey him. It would be funny how they almost seem to arrange by match order even when in a circle but I'm so nervous and scared out of my eight year old mind that I can't truly appreciate the true power this teen holds over the others.

"This is Ryoma and Kevin, for the next few practices we're going to try them out got it." He says and there is a collective "Understood!" from the others, later we would find out that the military type act is to try and scare off people before the team's time is wasted on them. (Funny really, I thought that was what training solely with Hawk over the past two months had been for...) Already though I could tell that the team's attention to our names was false. From what Hawk had told us on the way we would be getting new names for use around the other teams by the end of the month and that was also when we would learn the second name of our teammates...

If we lasted that is...

And I was going to last. This was my chance to once and for all become better then aniki and oyoji at tennis and gain their attention after all. Plus I had already managed the last two months (somehow).

Hawk starts naming off the people in front of us and I glance at Kevin as his grip on my hand tightens a bit to much. For some reason his terrified gaze was locked on some empty bottles that had been thrown carelessly into a bucket in the corner of the warehouse we were in. Tugging slightly I regain his concentration. We were going to do this together until the day came that we weren't so annoyingly even in terms of tennis skills.

First, obviously, was fourteen year old Captain Hawkeye "Hawk" Andor. He didn't tell us his real name but threatened us with hell if we ever used it. He had waist length brown hair that was kept back in a neat high ponytail and despite his seemingly weak build had the fierce golden brown eyes of a Hawk . (Probably what had made the animal his namesake.) He wasn't overly tall but no one could ever call him sort either (He's around Yukimura's height) and their was an accent to his speech that unknowingly to us proclaimed him to be Hungarian. He was Singles One, though he would pair up with Bat to help out a doubles pairing every once in a while.

Next was previously mentioned Bat. A fourteen year old Scot by the name of Angus Gaurdin. He was the vice captain, Singles two, and occasionally doubled with Hawk. Wild red hair framed his face and ended at his shoulders and one of his green eyes was covered by an eye patch. Apparently he and Hawk went to school together though he would't say which one.

Next was the only Japanese guy currently actually on the team. He had black hair that reminded me of what Oyoji's looked like in some of the old photos I had seen of him and his eyes were a cold calculating grey as he glared down at us like the two year age difference actually MEANT something. He wasn't formally introduced to us by name though because the happy go lucky albino next to him pulled on his sleeve before pointing at me once he had the ten year old's attention. Red eyes silently communicating the sentence that would condemn me it seems.

Hawk rolls his eyes, Kevin smirks in laughter, Angus holds his head like he has a headache, one of the blondes freaks out and tries to pull us apart mumbling about safety, and the identical boy next to him starts writing things in a notebook. Why? Because this stupid rat just smirked and dared to call me Neko-chan...

...and I pounced at him...

- Preset -

A horrible smell calls me from my memories and I blink a bit to see that the brunette Echo (I needed to find a new identifier for him...) was squatting down in front of me now holding a cup.

"Saa... it isn't nice to ignore people Ryo-chan." He says as he sips on the questionable drink. For the rest of practice I continue to do just that. After all, cats are known for their ability to sleep.

Regarding the warning I had just decided should be in the handbook I really shouldn't have...

- POV Tezuka-

Sighing I look over at the first year that had managed to attract my tensai and my headache instantly doubles. Originally I had put up a fight about it but as soon as Ryuusaki-sensei got a look at him my protests were useless. Apparently he was the son of some past student that was going through a rough patch.

How that had anything to do with her allowing Fuji to chain him to the fence during practice I have yet to figure out.

To make matters worse Eiji had been late by five minutes because he had to go back and grab his things from his classroom, this in turn had caused Oishi to panics because he was absolutely sure that he had seen his doubles partner at practice before it started. Fuji and Inui were more interested in the green haired boy then practice also, Kawamura kept debating going over and talking to him. Momo had managed to sprain his ankle, some of the sophomores were picking on the freshman, one particular freshman had him considering kicking the boy out (for his own safety. Kaido and a majority of the upper years looked about ready to murder him) and he had yet to finalize the brackets for this month's competition. Shouting arises as Fuij gives Kawamura a racket...

...It was times like these that I wonder why I had accepted the role of team captain.

Hello Everyone! I hope you like this story so far. To answer some of your questions, blood tennis is actually my version of extreme street tennis. It has the six levels, though the sixth level is categorized strangely and you'll read about that later in the story. (Ryoma has already vaguely touched upon them and as he is both the targeted main character and thinks in terms of the levels a lot so if you absolutely don't understand it in a few chapters ask again. I'll type out the layout of the levels for you.) The players have the same "super human" abilities however they don't necessarily wear special uniforms outside of what you would normally see for the average club or team. The courts are about double the size of an average "school yard" court and caged in. There are different levels of play each with differing rules. But the regular "matches" between the teams are unusually what happens. The question really in determining which level of play is to be used is how the challenge is presented. (I'll put these in previously mentioned layout later since it should be touched upon in the story soon but until then I'll give you basic descriptions.)

School yard would be the every day tennis we get in PoT and is by far the most forgiving.

Match play is basically what is seen in EST and is the most used in actual scheduled tournaments. For those who don't want to go searching it is basically School yard on steroids. It was durring one of these that Kevin ended up in the coma that Ryoma mentions in the prolog.

Agility is when you try not to get hit by a ball while trying to hit your opponent.

First blood is quite literally playing until one of you bleed. Points aren't necessarily accumulated in this, as they don't decide the winner, but the referee does keep track of them as a winner is supposed to be decided by the time one side would win in a school yard match.

Endurance is when they play until one side cant continue for some reason or another

Actual blood tennis would in fact be like what the other story had except that the winner is declared by which side is still breathing/conscious.

(Extreme Streets Tennis by mel92 found abandoned on for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about. I actually got the idea for this fic while reading it but it shouldn't be too similar since EST was never finished and I'm planning to go in a completely different direction than it seemed to be anyway.)

Reviews, comments, suggestions, requests, and other helpful criticism is welcome as always. Until next time...

...Bye!