Disclaimer: See previous disclaimers.

This Means War

Ayame

I stayed after school on Friday to serve my detention for being late, because I had to bring Sachiko to school tomorrow and stupid Sensei forgot to give me a pass. There was one good thing about that, though: it gave me an opportunity to slip tomorrow's gushy card on Kondo's desk, and I could no long be associated with them because I wouldn't be coming into the classroom early if I was escorting a handicapped person. On Monday, I brought Sachiko from her room in the hospital to school, and despite my efforts (which maybe weren't quite as much as they could be), didn't make the first bell.

"Late again, Ayame," sensei chided, "Detention. During lunch or after school?"

"Not this time," I said triumphantly, because I had served a multitude of detentions for math class after oversleeping and morning detentions tended to be harsher than other detentions, "I've got a pass."

I had begged the pass off of Sachiko's first period teacher, who had been sympathetic about the whole thing because I was helping a student who couldn't walk properly on their own. I slapped it down on sensei's desk, grinning like a Cheshire Cat for a moment before making my way to my seat, ignoring the eyes that followed my through the aisles of seats. Flopping down in my seat, I pulled out my math book and ignored my growing dread about the upcoming science tutoring.

Deciding that I should actually pay attention for once, I tried to focus on the lesson, but my thoughts wandered. How can I turn that dumb old study session in my favor? I wondered. Other than the obvious, cheating off of Tezuka's homework, I also wanted to use the too-perfect excuse for a prank. Not enough to really cause him trouble; just shake him up a little bit, make him react. Like the calculator.

I recalled the veins you could see practically popping out of his forehead during that incident, and had to work to stifle my spontaneous laughter. Dragging my attention back to the board, I snuck a glance over at Kondo, whose ears were still a nice shade of red.

Ah, fan girls, I sighed to myself, Can't live with them, can't live without them. This entire stunt was based off of Osakada Tomoka, better known as Tomo-chan, Fan Girl Extraordinaire, who had pulled something similar on Ryoma in their last year of middle school. Of course, Ryoma had made her stop. And Kondo couldn't make me stop, because he didn't know who I was.

Sensei finally concluded his lecture, and moments later the bell went off. I internally moaned to myself, next period today was Home Economics. I hated that class. Cooking was way out of my league: I always seemed to get distracted at the wrong time or miss a crucial direction that spoils the whole thing. By seventh grade, I'd pretty much given up any hope at being able to cook, build, or anything like that. When we did group work, I always made sure I got clean-up duty, because living in a hospital had made me clean to the point of obsessed.

And I'm very good at what I obsess over.

Unfortunately, there was no merciful group work today. "Since Valentine's Day is coming up," sensei told us, "I was thinking we'd all make chocolate today." My initial reaction was the horror of the idea of cooking by myself, and then to frantically check the date: I'd completely lost track of time, and it came as a bit of a shock to realize we had exams in three months. Sensei started to write basic directions on the large chalk board, and I went back to considering the prank wars. In the end, I decided that the chocolates I would make today would end up with Momo: because he'd be stupid enough to eat them, and he would probably be too flattered that a girl would do that to bother wondering why and shoving them off onto someone else like the others would do. I, for one, knew that the regulars could never eat all the chocolate they got: on several birthdays and Valentine's Days, Kondo had used me as a means of disposing of the piles of chocolates. Some of them were very tasty.

Sensei gave us all our supplies and I considered the best possible way to make them taste bad. I didn't have Inui's talent for repulsiveness, and they needed to see like normal chocolates, so I decided to stick to adding a little wasabi and Tabasco I'd found at my station. My greatest triumph, though, was that they only came out slightly burnt.

At lunch, I slipped into the clubroom and slipped them into the locker I knew was Momo's, having encountered it during the hair-dye prank. Though my main focus right now was working out the details of who would be where for the spray paint tomorrow, I figured smaller pranks like that couldn't hurt.

The rest of the day passed quietly, and I was forced to stay behind in the Science room for my tutoring session. Tezuka came in, not looking much happier than I was feeling, but he was patient. And, though I'd never admit it to anyone aloud, he was a pretty good teacher.

Who cares? I told myself crossly, finishing the last problem on the worksheet Sensei had left for us to fill out; He's still an annoying narcissist. And thus I survived my first tutoring session with Tezuka with minimal difficulty. I rather wanted to see what Momo had done with the chocolates, so I made my way past the club room as I left school.

My timing was perfect. As I walked by, he had pulled them out of a weird look and was joking with Eiji. Momo pulled open the wrapping, tossing one to Eiji (even better) and taking one for himself. He popped it in his mouth: and choked. Reeling for the spiciness, he grabbed the nearest water bottle – which unfortunately for him, belonged to Inui. Momo was out cold.

Eiji, luckily, had also eaten the chocolate, but he was faring slightly better than Momo, having gone for the water fountain instead. "What . . . was that?!" Eiji coughed, I could hear him through the partially open window. I tapped on the glass, and grinned at Momo and Eiji.

"Payback," I told them, "Just the start." Then, because Momo had started to recover and looked like he was going to come after me, I ran away from the club room and back to my house. By the time I'd made it back, I was gasping for breath. Definitely need to work on my endurance, I decided, internally groaning at the thought. Sachiko had caught a ride with her uncle, and she wouldn't be back at the hospital until later tonight.

I spent the next few hours scowling over my homework, and when Sachiko arrived back, I caught her to tell her about the chocolate and fill her in on the details of tomorrow. "I'm going to pick you up after your last class tomorrow. If we move fast, we'll be able to get there just as the tennis club is in the clubroom."

"I'm not good at moving fast," Sachiko pointed out.

"I already factored that in," I informed her, "Inui is giving a strategic lecture and new training menus tomorrow, so they'll all be inside for longer than usual." I held up a roll of silvery duct tape, "I'll help you cover the edges of the door with this. I have the spray paint, which I'll then use to coat the tennis balls. All I need you to do is sit next to the door and make sure they don't get out. I'm going to run by when I'm done, and then I'm going to get off campus. About five minutes after you see me, pull the tape off, and tell them you found it that way and pulled it off to help."

"Are they going to believe me?" she asked, considering punishments if we were caught.

"They'll believe you," I told her, "You're the younger sister of one of their friends, after all. You wouldn't do that. Plus, you're in a wheelchair. All the blame would fall to me, but without any kind of proof, no one's going to get into trouble."

"One more question," Sachiko said with a sigh, "Why aren't we doing this over a weekend or overnight like you did last time you tampered with the tennis balls?"

"Because," I told her, "The school's gotten smarter. There are now cameras watching the supplies room."

"Oh," she said, "You'll make sure no one sees you right? It'd be sort of hard for me if everybody was afraid of me."

"Don't worry," I told her, "I'm careful. I haven't been caught yet, have I?" I tipped my head to one side, and smiled. "Everything's going to be just fine."

"Ready?" I asked Sachiko, who was waiting outside room 2-2. She nodded. I grabbed the back of her chair and hurried towards the elevator. We were soon outside, and there was nobody around. I grabbed the duct tape and quickly slapped a few long pieces over the sides of the door.

Handing the tape to Sachiko, I told her, "Secure that, I'm going to grab the tennis balls." They were sitting out on the courts in green plastic baskets, and I ran over to them. Grabbing the baskets, I moved quickly behind the clubhouse and spread them out over the grass. Looking back and forth, I scanned and made sure no one was around.

Fishing through my bag as fast as I could, I pulled out two cans of spray paint: one light purple, and the other sort of dark pink. Starting with the purple one, I quickly shook it and lightly covered the top sides of the tennis balls. Since I didn't really care if the paint got messed up, I rolled them over and sprayed the other side. The ground was now covered in purple paint, but I didn't mind. I just had to make sure I hurried.

Leaving those baskets of balls to dry, I grabbed the remaining baskets and tipped them on their side, and they thudded against the grass. Shaking the pink spray paint, I covered the next basket in the same manner as I had covered the previous ones. Finally, I loaded them carefully back into the baskets. Because spray paint is so thin, they had begun to dry, but I didn't want any incriminating paint of my shirt or arms.

I set the tennis team's newly colored tennis balls unceremoniously back on the court, washed off the paint that had gotten onto my hands, and rushed back over to Sachiko. Grinning and giving her a thumbs-up, I turned toward the gate and ran, occasionally dodging out of my way to make sure nobody saw me. The less people who knew I had stayed late on campus today, the better.

As I darted inconspicuously behind a tree as a couple of freshman walked past, it took an absolutely astronomical amount of self control not to start singing the Mission Impossible theme to myself. I hurried outside the gates, running halfway home. Ideally, I would have gone all the way back to my house, but I had to pick up Sachiko. I'd call her in a few minutes, I decided, and settled on the bench next to the bus stop. The other kids from school had already been picked up, and I was alone except for a few passerby hurrying down the street.

Mission Impossible: Accomplished.

Kondo

I was the first one to notice that the door wouldn't open. I grabbed the handle and shoved it, expecting it to swing open easily, but it didn't. That's weird, I thought, pushing and pulling it, checking the handle. It moves, I frowned, moving the handle up and down, So it's not locked, after all. But the door won't open! With growing confusion, I slammed into the door with my shoulder. It moved a fraction of an inch, and then went back to its original position.

Slamming the door had called the attention of the rest of the tennis club. "What's wrong, Taro-chan?" Eiji said, "Did the door call you an insulting name?" I looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"It won't open," I told him, shoving the door one more time, to no avail.

"Don't be ridiculous, senpai," Momo said, "How could it not open?" I stepped back, gesturing at the door.

"If I knew, I would have opened it already," I snapped. "Want to try yourself? Be my guest."

Momo shrugged, and tried, but didn't have any more success than I'd been having. His purple eyes widened in panic, as he exclaimed, "Something's holding the door shut! We're trapped!" I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes at his countenance, even though his words were probably correct. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing what was holding the door closed because the only windows in the place were so small a cat could barely fit through them, and facing opposite the door.

While I stood calmly, thinking about the best way to get out of the club room, Eiji grabbed an old desk chair that was sitting in one corner of the door, and abruptly slammed it against the door like a battering ram. He succeeded only in knocking the ends off of the chair legs. "Kami, Eiji!" I shouted at him, "What do you think you're doing?"

He looked at me like I'm the one who had just gone crazy. "I'm getting the door open," he explained.

Echizen, who had been plucking at the strings of his racket in the corner until now, spoke up. "I think you better not, senpai. You won't get it open before you destroy the chair, and maybe not after either." Normally, he really doesn't talk that often, but I think he commented at this moment just because he wanted to sound infuriatingly superior, as he so loves to do. Luckily, his intervention got Eiji to hesitate, which lead to him putting the chair down after less than subtle glare from Tezuka.

"We need to think about this logically," Inui said, "What could be outside blocking the door? Can we move it, or will it be moved in its own time?"

"Perhaps it's Ayame," Fuji smiled. "She did seem rather angry about the Inui juice, ne, Kondo?"

"Of course she was angry," I sighed, "If that's the case, though, she'll let us out eventually. Unless anybody else wants to try the door?" I offered, looking around. After Kawamura had left the team, Momoshiro had become the primary power player on the tennis team. Since he had shoved frantically and failed to move it an inch, nobody else was eager to waste their energy.

Tezuka stood scowling next to the wall of lockers. To anybody who didn't know him, his face would have been perfectly impassive. But I could tell, just like the rest of the team could tell, that he'd just about had it with Ayame's pranks. She does need to stop before she gets herself into real trouble, I sighed, she's making some very powerful enemies.

An awkward kind of silence hung in the club room for a few moments before a strange ripping noise came through the door. There was a slight knock, and a soft female voice calling, "Is anybody in there?"

Tezuka approached the door and quickly took charge. "Yes. Is there something in the way of the door?"

"It was taped," the voice came, "I'm trying to get it all off right now." That explained the ripping noise. "Please wait for a few minutes."

We could hear the tape being systematically ripped off, and then the door slowly opened. "We're saved," Momo smiled, throwing his hands into the air. Our 'savior' waited in the doorway – it was a young looking girl, probably a freshman. She sat in a wheelchair, and looked as though pulling the tape off had been difficult for her: her long, dark hair was messed up, and her cheeks had turned pink with exertion.

"I'm sorry that took so long," she said, "I'm sort of sick, and I can't get out of this chair. Some of the tape was too high for me, so I just took off what I could and pulled the door." She struck me as the very sweet type, who would always go out of her way to help people, perhaps with a motherly personality towards those younger than herself.

Eiji jumped around Tezuka at the door, crying, "Chiko-chan! What are you doing here?" It appeared as though they were already acquainted – like they knew each other rather well, in fact.

"Eiji!" she smiled, "I'm a freshman here. Is this the tennis club, then?" The girl Eiji called Chiko-chan smiled and looked around us, as though she knew us already.

"This is Oishi's little sister, Sachiko" Eiji smiled, "I've met her before when I was visiting Oishi's house." Sachiko nodded to all of us. Looking at her again, I realized she bore a distinct resemblance to her brother.

"I know all of you, at least by name," she smiled, "I came to watch my brother at Nationals." That made sense; tennis was such a huge part of her brother's life. Of course she would have heard about us, particularly the middles school regulars.

"Did you see a girl with black hair a little past her shoulders and brown eyes around here, wearing the school uniform?" I asked, wondering if Ayame was behind the mysterious taping of the club room's door.

"You're talking about Suzuki-senpai, right?" she asked me. "I'm staying at her family's hospital, so I know her. And I know what's going on between her and the tennis club. But, sorry, I didn't see her."

"That doesn't necessarily mean she's not behind it," Echizen commented scornfully.

"We'll see," I said. Personally, I agreed with Echizen, but I didn't like jumping to conclusions, either. The entire tennis team filed out of the club room, prepared to proceed with basic practice like normal – only to discover that, once again somebody had sabotaged the tennis balls.

They were all messily painted pink and purple, like the culprit had been in a hurry. The paint was still drying, and the different colors had started to rub off onto each other, creating a magenta tye-dye. I walked over and picked one up, some of the paint smearing onto my hand. "Well," I frowned, "These could be interesting to practice with."

Tezuka closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. You could practically see him counting to ten in his head to calm down. He looked at me. "Did she do this?" he asked. He didn't have to identify who 'she' was.

"Absolutely," I said, "This has Ayame written all over it. Best of luck finding proof, though. She'll deny the whole thing." Tezuka scowled and nodded, cancelling practice for the day.

"Regulars, stay," he commanded, "Try to get the color off before it dries." With Kaidou and Inui, I carried the baskets of balls over to the hose. Eiji, unfortunately, grabbed the hose before anyone else could, and would not relinquish control.

Needless to say, with in the next twenty minutes, everybody was soaked to the bone. Tezuka had been intelligent enough to stand by and 'supervise' so he had only been hit by back splash, and was the only dry one there. Eiji truly had no mercy. Our sacrifice, unfortunately, was in vain. We were able to get just enough paint off the dye the grass on the side of the club room pink, but the tennis balls certainly did not revert to their normal yellow. In the end, we gave up and left.

"Where's Sachiko-chan?" Eiji wondered aloud, as we packed up to leave. I thought back, trying to remember where she'd gone.

"I think she left with the other club members, after somebody called her. Something about being picked up," I recalled. That was good enough for Eiji, who happily skipped off to try to guilt Momo into paying for their daily after-school burger splurge.

I walked into the classroom Wednesday morning, and internally groaned. Kami, why do you hate me? I thought. The persistent but anonymous admirer that had started leaving chocolates and cards shortly after giving Ayame Inui Juice had become more and more flamboyant. It had become great entertainment for the other students in the class to see what appeared on my desk every day.

Today it was a bundle of roses, a very dark shade of pink, and a frilly card that read 'Lots of love 3'. I sighed, shoving them off my desk in irritation. All of the tennis regulars put up with this to a certain extent, but none of the others had anything to this degree. Some of my classmates watched with a smile, smirking at my predicament.

I was restless throughout first period, because I was used to storing energy for morning practice, which had been cancelled because the coach, Kito Rin, still hadn't replaced the tennis balls. She was also quite bent on finding out who had repeated sabotaged the tennis club – but she didn't have chance. Coach Kito seemed to think it was a rival tennis club, or something along those lines, but I knew who it really was.

Glancing at Ayame, my eyes caught hers for a second before I dragged my gaze back to the chalkboard. She was very good at covering her tracks, even better at feigning innocence. I sat in the back of the room, and could see all that went on in class. Tezuka had slowed his usual diligent note taking, and appeared to be thinking hard about something. His head turned slightly Ayame's direction, and I could guess what it was – he was going to try to make her stop disrupting the club. Fuji was smiling out the window; Inui was looking through his green notebook and not paying attention to sensei at all.

I couldn't help but idly wonder exactly what they were planning for retribution. Tezuka might be a perfectly reasonable person, but Fuji and Inui really weren't. They weren't going to calmly discuss anything.

The person responsible for all of the chaos had her head resting in the crook of her elbow, down on her desk. She appeared to be finishing yesterday's homework assignment that she had neglected to complete last night.

Sensei finished the lesson, and the bell rang. I eagerly leapt out of my seat, moving towards my next class.

A little over six and a half painfully boring hours of school later, I was released from my final class of the day. Unsure of whether or not tennis practice was scheduled, I had gone to find Tezuka. After being sent around the school because I had mistakenly asked for his location from people who had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, I finally found him in the science room.

I was quite surprised when I found that Ayame was with him.

"Yeah, I got it," Ayame said, sounding a little bit bored, "I know everything I need for the test now, right? I'll leave then. You have tennis practice, right?"

"It's cancelled," he said. It looked to me like he had been tutoring her – she'd been slacking off in Science, no doubt. I now knew that there would be no practice, but I stayed and listened all the same because Tezuka, who never talks more than is absolutely necessary, had started to speak.

"I wished to discuss that with you," he began stiffly, like always. "The tennis balls were sabotaged again."

"Really?" Ayame smiled, but I could hear the mocking maliciousness in her voice. "That's too bad."

Tezuka looked at her like she was a fish that had been left in the sun for a week. "Everybody knows you are responsible. Vandalism is a crime, you realize."

"I didn't do it," she said, her voice flat. "I don't care what you think; I'm not going to admit anything. Innocent until proven guilty, right, Tezuka?"

Tezuka frowned perceptibly. "Please do not interrupt practice again," Tezuka said. "I don't know what quarrel you have with the regulars, but please make sure it doesn't interfere with their tennis."

Sensing an end to their conversation, I turned away from the door and started to walked away. But, as I left I could help but smile a little at Ayame's sarcastic, mocking parting words.

"Don't let your guard down."

A/N: It's been a while since I updated . . . I have no excuse, except mild writers block. I will keep updating, promise - I hate it as much as anyone when a story is stopped in the middle - but it might take awhile. This chapter was about 4,200 words, which is good for me. I'm afriad I don't have the patience for chapters much longer than this, sorry. Thank you so much to all the people who have been kind enough to review my story, I owe you all. Thank you for all of your help, I'm still looking for ideas, critism, or anything that, on an off chance, I might have done well. I want to be able to post again before too long - it depends entirely on the level of writers block I'm encountering.