Blood Tennis

Summary: 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 Four

"Is there a reason you won't talk to us Jason?" One of my psychiatrists, Anthony I believe, asks and I wish I had the ability to shout YES! at him. Instead I curl up into a ball on the couch in his office and rest my head on my knees. I wish Nezu was here. He always understood what I wanted to say. Even back when I could talk but instead chose to speak very little and in circles he was able to immediately strip my words of the games and know what I wasn't saying. I smile thinking of all the insults he would be thinking up right now about the black haired guy sitting in front of me.

Said guy continues to go on and on about how it was OK to talk and that everything I said would be confidential (yeah right). It appears that he is playing the "Concerned adult" card this time. I don't know which is better, I can ignore the concerned act a lot better than I could ignore the pissed off one. But pissed off was more amusing and kind of reminded me of Nezu when he was fighting with Kitten.

Nezu came by as soon as he herd that my uncle had stuck me in here but they wouldn't let him see me. Uncle has them all completely convinced he's my abusive (now ex) boyfriend, or something as equally obsurd. He isn't my boyfriend. Those are unimportant, replaceable, no.

He's my grounder.

Like Hawk and Bat, the twins, and Kev and Ryo, we look out for each other. Blood tennis was dangerous, we all knew that, passing farther than the third door left the possibility of never coming back. Someday Hawk would forget to land, Bat would be lost to that black void, Health wouldn't wake up, Chip would forget the world beyond the seemingly endless numbers, Kevin would lose sight of Ryoma, Kitten would remain falling from that cliff, Nezu would be trapped in that blood covered world, and I would be unable to pull myself away from the noise. It had already almost happened once.

I don't think Nezu ever forgave himself for that day.

- Five years and some odd months earlier -

The game was over. The 17 year old that had dared to comment on me (I don't even know WHAT was said that set Nezu off like this, I'll make him tell me later.) lay in a pool of his own blood on the opposite side of the net from Demon. Had for a while now if we were honest about the situation. Nezu however, hadn't come down and it was worrying Hawk. Out of balls the other team goes to attend to their more than likely critically injured player while our own seethes and Hawk makes his way to the cage, Angus right behind him as always.

Then I did something stupid.

I ran.

Fear engulfing me from the sad green and pitying golden gazes that rested on MY Demon I rush onto the court, past the two elder players, and plead Nezu to come back. The words not even seeming to faze through the bloody haze that has taken away one of my only friends. Angus grabs me before I can reach out and touch him though, trying to hold me back as other teams assess the situation and more players start appearing on the court to help.

One of the newbies doesn't heed Hawk's orders not to touch Nezu and the seething Demon whirls around to face his "attacker". Tennis racket rises...

... And the world goes black.

- Present -

I had woken up in the Warehouse two days later. An exhausted looking Nezu sleeping around me as if he were a little kid and I was his teddy bear. Bandages were around my neck and I heard the others debating if they needed to take me to the hospital.

I would never to talk again.

With the way Nezu carried on about it it was as if he had actually LIKED the sound of my voice despite the fact that he used to complain about that very same thing. Still, I didn't mind being mute. Everyone who mattered could understand me without words anyway and a voice was a small price to pay if it gave me Nezu back in return.

Now if only he were here.

-Line-

"01100011 01100001 01101100 01101101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01001000 01100101 01100001 01101100 01110100 01101000 00101100 00100000 01100101 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01100101 00101110" (Calm down Health, everything's going to be fine.) Chip says and Health looks over at his brother with a slight smile but doesn't loosen the death hold he has on his doubles partner's hand.

"You do realize that no one else here can understand Binary code right? Großer Bruder only bothered to learn it well enough to get Father off his case. Besides, how can I possibly calm down! There's a 75 percent chance that Kitten has killed himself by no-"

"10 percent chance he killed someone else, 5 percent chance he has run away from home, 3 percent chance he has convinced his parents to move back, and a 2 percent chance that he managed to actually get a fresh start and make satisfactory friends." Chip cuts in, finishing his twin's percentages.

"And taking into account the Echizen factor, which clearly states that any and all predictions shall be defied no matter how impossible it should be, we should actually flip those calculations." Continues the two minutes younger blonde even before his brother has completed his question to himself if he should argue. Seeing the point the human data player sighs as he turns away and sulks.

"You still shouldn't be talking in Binary, remember elementary school? I'd rather not have a repeat." Chip raises an eyebrow at that. Of course he remembered elementary school, it was scientifically prove that the harder you tried to make yourself forget something the harder it would be.

No one would talk to them.

The Klien family had come over from Germany years ago after the Second World War Despite the extreme prejudice and opposition they had built a company that centered on most things technical (at least they had spread to that by now. Before it was simply computer programming) and has remained at the top of the charts ever since. Being traditionally a family run company it only made sense that their Father had worked there after school and then proceed to choose from their Grandfather's list of the employees he had deemed 'suitable' for him to marry. Right? That was what they were brought up to believe was expected anyway. Though their older brother seemed to be completely against it, and had been for as long as they could truly remember.

Being in that kind of family created problems.

First, their parents were constantly fighting about absolutely everything all the time. Or at least all the times the twins had actually been around them. Second, in order to avoid these fights, at least according to Health who actually did seem to understand the human psychology pretty well for a thirteen year old, they buried themselves in their work. A seven month record stood for the longest time period the twins had gone without even catching a glimpse of either parent while the adults were living home. Three years was the record for "business trips" by the way. And no, they never contacted any of their three children while away. Chip had firmly believed they didn't even realize they had children until someone "embarrassed" them by not meeting standards or what had happened a month ago. Though it might have actually been just the servants and their parents didn't know they were out of the country...Third was that they couldn't seem to go anywhere without someone knowing them, at least in the United States, and constantly had to make sure that nothing that would set off their parents could be written about them. Fourth, but not last even if this is the end of the written list, was the fact that they had basically grown up at their future workplace. At first it had been for good publicity, Dedrich Klien presenting the image of the busy father still making sure to share his time with his offspring, but later the servants had simply found it easier to allow them to go. The toddlers had loved it, and the employees certainly never complained. It wasn't stopped since the workers seemed to get more accomplished faster and at better quality in an attempt to impress their charges and if it was all they knew they couldn't stray from the Path of Klien like their brother had.

Thus, at seven years old Gabriel Klien had only known how to speak in Binary. It had been cute for a while when he was younger, acceptable when he got older since he rarely left the building and everyone inside knew the code used to program computers like the back of their hands.

It was not, however, acceptable in the eyes of their first grade teacher Ms. Brick.

They had lasted about a day before she had realized that. To this day Health believes it to be their greatest accomplishment. Between her and the other children though, Chip had refused to go to school after about a month. Taking to hiding out at work or at home, it might not sound successful but since only Mitchel could find him at any given moment in time and refused to out the other blond, it had worked rather well. The twins starting homeschooling only two months later, Health's continued attendance only having lasted about three weeks longer then his brothers had been.

Until a month ago when they had been boarded onto a plane to Germany and forced by their older brother to attend a nearby university prep school.

"01001000 01100001 01110111 01101011 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 01100101 01100100 00101110" (Hawk learned)

"Hawkeye isn't here."

"01001000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00101110" (He should be.)

"Is the computer actually having human emotions?"

"..."

"Don't go silent on me Chip, I'm already bored out of my mind since I can't study to be a nurse. I won't survive without you."

"01000010 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01100001 01100010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110000 01110000 01101111 01110010 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101100 01100100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01101101 00101110" (Brother would probably support you in that if you told him.)

"There's too high a chance that Father would find out. You know what he thinks about me wanting to be a nurse."

"01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01101101 01100001 01101110 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101010 01101111 01100010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101100 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100101 01101100 01110011 01100101 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101110 00100000" (That it's a woman's job and you already have a calling elsewhere.)

"Exactly. Now stop using Binary."

"01001110 01101111 00101110" (No.)

- Line -

In a hospital somewhere in California an orangey-blonde boy sleeps away in his comatose state. Completely oblivious to the fact his world had gone to ruins. Though I guess that's a good thing, since if he did know he would make sure to never wake up again.

Hey everyone! First things first...

Binary codes are curtesy of .com

Anyway... I hope you liked the glance at the rest of the team, I'm probably going to switch back to Ryoma next chapter though. Obviously every one of those kids are messed up in some way... Would you like me to have them more involved with the story? If so, how do you think they should be worked in? Reviews, comments, and suggestions are always welcome! Until next time...

...Bye!