Beasts Within
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Prince of Tennis. I do not own anything besides the original characters that are included in the fanfic.
All the Jinchuuriki are around 12-15 years old to stay within the middle school category along with the rest of the PoT cast. I know that the ages are wrong; I'm just making them fit into the storyline. All of the canon characters will most likely be OOC considering I can't stay to a certain personality of a canon character no matter what I do. The Jinchuuriki have total control of their Bijuu but can still talk to them whenever. When they release the chakra of their Bijuu they become stronger of course and their voices are a mixture of their voice and the bijuu they contain, therefore 'Demon Enhanced Speaking' when they do activate their powers.
"Chat" Normal talking
'Chat' Thinking
'Chat' Telepathy between Jinchuuriki
"Chat" Demon enhanced speaking
Well this is the end of this story. I can't believe it's finally over. I had so much fun writing it even with all the writers' block. I hope you all liked to read it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Now then, this chapter is longer than the others. It's just that I think the last chapter needs to be longer than the rest because it's the end of it all. Special thanks to everyone for all your support for the fanfiction and enjoy the last chapter everyone!
Tail 33: Memories Last Forever
Three years had passed from the Nationals. Every one of the tennis regulars went to the same school in order to keep in touch with each other. They were still a bit sad that the Jinchuuriki had to leave, but tried to not show their sadness to the other students in the school.
They all went to a combined school that was created after the incident. It was named Suits Academy. Every one of the tennis regulars were accepted into the school as well as several other close friends and teammates.
The third years in middle school were now third years in high school. The same went for the second years and first years.
Marui was often seen looking out the window, but the others didn't know why he would. They thought that he was trying to get over the sadness of Rose leaving as he kept looking out the window.
The tennis regulars all decided to move out of their homes, which their parents surprisingly agreed to. They all thought that moving out would be a good way of learning to be an adult which would happen in a year or three depending on their ages.
They didn't know where to stay until they all decided to stay in Rose's old mansion. They wanted to remember the Jinchuuriki and felt it would be appropriate to help.
The entire group was glad when the house unlocked for them without them doing anything special. A few months before Rose and the Jinchuuriki left them, Rose had let them enter the house without her permission by asking them to wipe a bit of their blood on the gates while it was enhanced with her chakra.
The blood allowed the gate and house to recognize who they were and let them in whenever they liked which they found to be helpful and amusing at the same time.
They all moved into the house the summer when most of the third years had entered high school. It was a little harder to get the second and first years to move in, but it still happened.
Everyone was at tennis practice again. Many of the teens took on self-defense classes as an extra reminder of the friends that had left them three years prior. They couldn't help but miss the ten kids who worked their way into their hearts. They hoped they were doing alright considering it had been three years.
They all had refused to think of any negative thoughts about what could have happened to the ten Jinchuuriki. It would have hurt immensely if anything did happen to the group.
"You working on that move of yours again Marui?" a voice asked the boy who was pivoting on his foot while hitting a…peculiar shot.
Marui stopped and caught the tennis ball with his hand before turning toward the speaker and said, "Hello Yukimura-buchou, and yes I am."
"She would be proud of you Marui-kun," Yukimura said placing a hand on the teen's shoulder. "After all…you did create that move for her."
"The shot will be done after awhile…I still need to find a good name for it though," Marui commented before moving back to the wall to practice the shot once more.
Yukimura smiled and chuckled as Marui kept shooting at the wall. He turned to leave but shot over his shoulder, "We'll all help to come up with a name for it." He saw a slight nod of Marui's head before he left the court completely.
"Is Marui-senpai still practicing that new shot of his?" an emerald-haired teen asked Yukimura.
Looking down, Yukimura saw Ryoma staring into the practice court that Marui was using. He nodded when he caught Ryoma's eye and saw the boy smirk.
"We are all waiting to name the move after those ten aren't we?" Yukimura asked the boy.
"Many of them have ideas for the names…just…they aren't really that good," Ryoma said walking in step along with Yukimura towards the club house.
Everyone had heard of the move Marui was trying to create and immediately started to come up with a name. The move looked interesting enough to them to get their attention right off the bat.
Pretty soon, practice was over and everyone got changed to go to their morning classes. Many of the tennis regulars had the same lunch which they would spend working on homework, deciding what to do for tournaments, practicing tennis, or trying to come up with a name for Marui's new technique.
During class, Marui was seen staring out the window once more. The teachers didn't like to be ignored but they understood the situation as well. The teachers that were hired at this academy happened to be many of the others teachers at their old middle schools. They were also sad about the ten Jinchuuriki leaving their lives, so they understood the pain and loss.
During lunch, everyone was inside a classroom at one end of the academy. Only they were allowed inside because they were the only ones with access to the room.
"Have you figured out a name yet Marui?" Niou asked the red-head while snagging another rice ball from his lunch.
Marui shook his head and looked out the window again before starting to eat.
"Do you think they are alright nya?" Kikumaru asked staring at the lunch on his lap.
Oishi put his arm around the boy to comfort him and said, "I'm sure that they are fine Eiji. I'm sure they are fine."
Everyone was still a little worried about the ten. Not as much as they were when the Jinchuuriki first left, but they were still a bit worried…
Kirihara, Ryoma, Hiyoshi, Momo, and Kaidoh were all working on their homework from their classes, so they wouldn't need to bring much schoolwork home. They already had to carry enough with their tennis and training gear.
Fuji, Inui, Sanada, Yanagi, Oshitari, and Choutarou went over to help so that the group could finish the homework early. They didn't want anyone carrying more than absolutely necessary.
They learned from the Jinchuuriki that having too much to carry could be a bad thing considering…
~Flashback~
"You carry too much Sanada-fukubuchou," Rose commented looking at the two bags that Sanada was carrying.
She could hear someone scoff before muttering, "You should be one to talk Rose-chan…"
"Fine," she said with a turn of her head, "But don't blame me if he goes falling down a hill from all that weight."
Before the team knew it, a car sped by and created a lot of wind to push Sanada down the hill they were on.
Rose reached out and grabbed the strap of one of Sanada's bag and held on tightly yelling, "I told you so!" She turned her head over her shoulder to yell, "Someone help me get this lug back up!"
~Flashback End~
The group couldn't help but chuckle at the memory of when Rose was straining to pull Sanada back up from nearly falling over the hill when that car sped by. They were good memories…with their precious people.
"Everyone done with their homework?" Yukimura asked looking around the room. He got a nod from everyone in reply except for one which happened to be Marui. He was staring at the window again. Yukimura wasn't really worried…he knew Marui had something on his mind. The only thing bothering the former Rikkaidai captain was that he didn't know what Marui was thinking right now.
"Let's start with the naming of that technique then," Atobe said already getting out one of the boards hidden in the room filled with previous names they had come up with.
"I can't think without seeing the move again," Kirihara commented rubbing at his head trying to think of a good name for the trick that would be perfect for the move. It was modeled after the way one of the Jinchuuriki moved during the last fight.
"After school, why doesn't Marui go ahead and practice it while we try to come up with a name along with the others?" Gakuto suggested while staring at Marui from the corner of his eye.
Marui was still staring out the window thinking about the dates he had with Rose before she had to leave. He wanted to see her again…heck, all of the tennis regulars wanted to see those ten trouble-makers again.
Kintarou missed his prank buddies, Saeki missed his sparring partners, and pretty much everyone had missed the Jinchuuriki they had come to bond with closely.
"Anyone want to practice sparring while we wait for lunch to end?" Saeki suggested already standing up and stretching for the mock fights they would have occasionally to keep in shape.
Everyone nodded before they got up and moved all of the desks and chairs to the walls of the room in order to create a large fighting area in the middle of the room. They set up the desks and chairs in order to act like steps whenever one person would nearly crash into them.
They all sparred against each other for the rest of lunch before the afternoon classes started. It was the same thing as the morning classes, and the entire club couldn't wait to get outside and practice.
Once school was over, the group went into the clubhouse to start on homework first. They always tried to finish their homework first before anything else to avoid carrying any extra baggage.
After everyone was done with their homework, they all decided to have races around the courts in order to work on their stamina. They still had a lot of work to do to catch up to the Jinchuuriki…
~Flashback~
"If you're so fast, then why don't you guys prove it?" Kirihara taunted the ten Jinchuuriki while flicking Rose on the nose.
"You know we can beat you hands down Akaya-kun," Rose remarked with a smirk on her own.
Kirihara scoffed before leaning back and saying, "Like I said…prove it."
Inui stepped up next with two full pitchers of something black…
"What is that?" Yugito cautiously said while eyeing the liquid in the pitchers. She didn't like the drink one bit just with one look.
Everyone besides Inui and Fuji couldn't help but gag when Inui said it was his new and improved stamina juice. Once he started listing off the ingredients, some people actually ran off in order to throw up their lunches. It was that bad…
"The last person in the camp to make it last in the race will have to drink a half pitcher," Inui explained putting the two pitchers on a nearby table. He pulled out a stopwatch before saying, "Time limit is two minutes considering the size of the courts. The time will shorten by five seconds every ten laps. On your mark, get set, go!"
Everyone set off running besides the Jinchuuriki who were jogging behind the group. Everyone else was too far ahead to see the smug smirks on the Jinchuurikis faces.
Everyone ran like the devil was after them while the Jinchuuriki jogged just fast enough to make it within the time mark by just a second.
When it came to the 60th lap, nearly everyone was on the ground from the run, and the time limit was now down by a half minute. The remaining runners had to get the lap within a minute and a half.
All of the Jinchuuriki were left as well as some of the best runners in the club.
When it came to the 69th lap, Inui yelled out, "Next lap will be last! The last one here will have to drink the half-pitcher!"
Everyone started running faster missing the smirk that Rose sent off towards them along with the other Jinchuuriki.
Rose tilted her heads toward the Jinchuuriki before inclining her head toward the finish line. When she received nods, she leaned forward along with the rest of the Jinchuuriki before they all started sprinting towards the finish.
They sprinted past the remaining runners with smiles on their faces and waves from the girls. They saw Fu stick her tongue out at them childishly before they all took off towards the finish line and finishing at the same time.
The remaining runners couldn't help but gawk at the speed the ten were going on. One minute they were behind by a half lap, and in the next second they were already finishing the lap…Dang, that was impressive.
Kirihara was panting on the ground after recovering from the juice when he had given up on the 50th lap. "Alright," he was able to say between pants, "I give…you guys are fast…"
They all saw the Jinchuuriki smirk before giving them each soldier pills in order to help regain some of their energy which helped when they had to do practice matches right after to show the coaches their improvement.
~Flashback Ends~
Again, it was a fond memory of theirs. They were working hard to catch up to the Jinchuuriki in some way or form whether it be intelligence, strength, stamina, stealth, or just plain old fighting.
They wanted to remember the ten Jinchuuriki as much as they could.
Whenever they were in Rose's mansion, they would always go through the Jinchuuriki rooms that Rose had finally let them see once she had uncovered who she was at the training camp. She had finally felt that the entire group should know what the Jinchuuriki were really like and told them everything…from her past of when she met the Jinchuuriki to the present time.
They always looked through old photos of when the entire group, including the Jinchuuriki, was together during middle school.
How much they wanted to be together again. To help each other; to support each other; to care for one another…they wanted it back once more.
After the races around the courts, the teams decided to play practice matches before Marui would practice his new technique. They felt that if they got their blood pumping, they would be able to think better.
Everyone paired up and started playing matches against the other whether it was singles, doubles, or sometimes when they felt like it, triples. Triples was fun occasionally when the group was bored and wanted to make a contest about who would bump into who first.
Many agreed that having Eiji, Gakuto, and Marui on the same side was a bad idea as the two acrobatics would always bump into each other while Marui would accidently hit one of them in the back of the head when trying to return a shot.
They felt like Fuji, Yuuta, and Choutarou was a good combination however. Fuji used his returns effectively while covering the back area of the court. Yuuta covered the middle area with his Super Rising shot while Choutarou was able to successfully determine who the shot would go to before calling out the name to warn them.
The captains of the former middle school teams were also a good combination to have. Tezuka would cover the back area with his Tezuka Zone technique. Atobe would cover the front with his technique Hametsu No Rondo. Yukimura would cover any empty area which happened to be a lot since Tezuka kept staying in one spot. Yukimura would occasionally use his own technique in order to confuse the opponents making it easier for Tezuka and Atobe to finish it.
Another good pairing was Niou, Ryoma, and Saeki. Niou was able to mimic any player which would be helpful against anyone the three couldn't handle regularly. Ryoma was an all-round player which meant he could cover a lot of ground when the other two were trying to piece something together to break through the opponent's plan. Saeki was able to use his ability earned from Kendo to predict where the opponent was going to go and warned whoever was closest to the shot.
Many of the schools were intertwined because of these triple matches. They were fun to play and fun to bet on whoever would crash into each other first. During a match, the clumsy ones were usually the ones people bet on first…
They wondered how the Jinchuuriki would handle triples considering the teens created the idea when the group of ten had left. They had been inspired by the way that the Jinchuuriki were able to pair up with their respective Bijuu as well as another pair.
They all still agreed that playing with four on a team would be quiet difficult and decided to stick with just having three people on a team until they could play it well.
Finally the practice matches were done. Before Marui could practice however, all of the former middle school captains seemed to remember that they had to pick the best 24 representatives for the next tournament.
Suits Academy was separated into teams for each gender when it came to sports tournaments. It was separated into King, Queen, Jack, and Ace. Every once in a while, the team named Joker would pop up occasionally for the sports. Kings and Queens represented the team that the players thought would be the best out of the teams depending on the gender of the club. Jack and Ace would be the runners up just in case something happened. Joker was the back-up in case anything went really wrong.
Speaking of really wrong, the teams didn't need to especially worry about the ten Jinchuuriki. Yukimura hadn't gotten another attack because of his disease, so they assumed that either he was really lucky, or Rose was alive. They hoped it was the latter as they truly missed the ten Jinchuuriki.
After choosing the teams, they finally were able to let Marui practice his shot on an opponent. He chose to practice against Kirihara since he was the second closest friend to Rose…after him of course.
They started playing the match with Kirihara's serve. The new technique that Marui had come up with was designed for low shots as well as smashes which Kirihara did.
Kirihara hit a smash every chance he got to and hit low shots. Marui tried to use his new technique and somehow messed it up slightly. He had been practicing the move ever since he had entered high school. It had been a work in progress as he had to work on his flexibility along with Kikumaru and Gakuto.
"One more time Akaya!" Marui yelled once again failing to get the technique perfectly and how he wanted it.
"Alright," Kirihara panted out before getting in position once more to serve.
The watching spectators had come up with many names for the imperfect shots which Marui rejected until they came up with a name for the perfect shot he was trying to get.
Kirihara hit another smash, and Marui finally saw his chance to get it right. Rushing towards the falling tennis ball, Marui pivoted on his foot and hit the ball with a backhanded swing before it touched the ground. Instead of spinning out of control, the ball bounced off the racket and to Kirihara's court.
The boy tried to return it only to get a surprise.
The tennis ball bounced onto the court before spiraling up and around the boy before it spiraled down and landed on the opposite side of Kirihara.
Everyone recognized the movement that Marui was trying to perfect and smiled. They recognized the swirl drawn in the air as the one that Rose had drawn with ink around her body in her last fight with the Akatsuki in this world.
"Congratulations Marui-senpai!" Kirihara yelled excitedly. "You finally got it, and man is it perfect! It looked exactly how Rose moved her hands to get that swirl in the air!" Kirihara was giving Marui a huge grin on his face along with many of the spectators.
Marui smiled before it dropped into a frown. Before anyone was able to ask, they heard him mutter, "It still needs the perfect name though…"
"How about a Pivot Spiral?" Gakuto suggested. He only thought of that because Marui had pivoted on his foot to get the spiral.
Marui shook his head in response. Everyone started to give out their own ideas only to have them shot down by Marui shaking his head. They were close to giving up on the name until they heard someone else.
"How about Winding Hearts?" a voice said from the top of the bleachers.
Everyone turned their attention to see who had spoken. They all widened their eyes in shock and surprise once they saw who it was.
At the top of the bleachers were ten people all dressed up in the school uniforms.
There were three girls and seven boys in the group. The males had yellow hair, black, grey, or red hair. The girls had blonde hair, green hair, or white hair.
The tennis regulars couldn't help but smile soon after at the people staring back at them.
Marui dropped his racquet and stared at the leader of the group who had a fond smile on her face as she stared back. He started walking over to the girl before running over and pulling the girl into a tight embrace.
Marui couldn't help it as a few tears started to fall along with the other tennis regulars who were finally happy to meet their precious ones again. Looking around, the tennis regulars saw many of the teachers crying at the windows with many other students doing the same. Everyone in the academy had one thing in common…they all held ten people precious in their hearts…
Marui kept hugging the white-haired girl tightly and kept whispering, "You're back…you're finally back."
"I promised didn't I?' the girl responded returning the embrace and kissing the side of Marui's head.
"You're finally back…Rose," Marui said one final time before pulling away and kissing the girl in front of everyone.
Everyone smiled as the two held each other close after three long years of waiting.
When the two pulled away, they both remembered the promise they made to each other.
~Flashback~
"I'm sorry," Rose started as she hugged Marui tightly before letting go and saying, "But I have to go. You remember what the fortune tellers said don't you Bunta?"
The boy nodded in response, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Before Rose could turn away, he grabbed her arm gently and spun her around to kiss her.
When the two broke apart, Marui whispered something into her ear which she nodded to.
Marui had whispered into Rose's ear, "When you do survive the fight…please come back to me…"
"I promise," the team heard her whisper back before she gave Marui a peck on the cheek goodbye. "Hope to see you all again," she said waving back to the group as she slowly let go of Marui's hand.
~Flashback End~
That was one promise that Rose had nearly died to keep…literally. She and the other Jinchuuriki had fought against the Akatsuki and had finally won against them. There weren't any deaths as the Jinchuuriki were trying to keep the casualty count to a minimum even if they were the enemies. Konan had switched to their side once she realized she didn't like to fight and that she wanted to live a normal life…she had decided to work at orphanages along with Pein who joined her after seeing what he had done to the people he cared for most.
Rose leaned forward and placed her forehead against Marui's while intertwining their hands together. She said loud enough for everyone to hear, "That was very sweet of you Bunta to create a move modeled after me. I hope the name 'Winding Hearts' is to your liking."
"What made you choose that name?" Marui asked giving Rose a peck on the forehead before placing his forehead back on hers.
Rose just chuckled and looked at him with a fond look in her eyes as she answered, "Because…we all found a way to wind ourselves into your hearts. Isn't that right?" She asked the question while turning her attention to the tennis regulars on the courts and got nods in return.
Turning Rose's attention back to him, Marui asked Rose, "Do you remember what we said when you broke down at the park?" When he got a nod from the girl, he smiled before he pulled away and looked for something in his pocket. He glanced over and saw the confused look in everyone's eyes besides Kirihara who was smiling at him and nodding.
Pulling something out of his pocket, Marui took Rose's hand and opened the box in front of her while asking, "Be mine?"
Rose gasped as she saw what was inside of the box. Tears welled up in her eyes until she yelled 'yes' and hugged Marui tightly with her arms around his neck. She was crying in happiness as she hung onto Marui and then kissed him on the lips before burying her head in the crook of his neck.
Marui held the girl close to him after she buried her head into his neck. When he saw the confused looks from his team as well as the Jinchuuriki, he turned the open box to them.
What they all saw made them gasp as well. The Jinchuuriki started crying in happiness for their friend while the team smiled at Marui for making her happy.
Inside the box were two intertwined rings with a message above it…
I have loved you for as long as I met you. For now until we part, I will never leave you. Be forever mine, and I will keep this promise of a lifetime…
It was finally the end of it all…the end of the curse of the Jinchuuriki who spent their lives in suffering and loneliness. All saved by one group of at first strangers…that turned into something more…