The night before the ranking matches
Inui finished reading his notes about his possible opponents at the upcoming matches, including what he had gathered about Echizen. It was the first time he studied his dear data so half-heartily. Something else was nagging for his attention.
Flipping some pages, he reached the page containing two new inserts: the sisters Alexis and Adelheid von Rosenthal. At first, judging by Alexis physical built, he calculated a 72% of her being a tennis player. After seeing her younger sister today, the probability rose to 90%.
Ah yes, the younger sister. That afternoon, Inui quickly finished his training and left to gather more data on the mysterious transfer students. Unfortunately, Alexis was nowhere to be seen, so he went after Adelheid and saw her amazing performance.
The girl's team isn't that strong and is fairly laid back (most of the members are in for the fun), but that doesn't invalidate her victory. 'Adde-chan' had good accuracy, great power, and almost infinite stamina (she jumped around as much as Kikumaru and didn't break a sweat after 8 straight matches). During her match against the captain, she even used the split step to reach some of the faster balls. In a sense, she was as good as their freshman Echizen.
The Rosenthal sisters are also rich, to say the least. He saw when they left in a limo, with a butler in tow. Wealthy, german and excellent player. Why would they leave Germany for Japan? That didn't make any sense for him.
Sadaharu leaned against his chair and glanced at the alarm clock at his bedside.
"I still got some time"
Turning his computer on, he opened a search website and inserted some words. He wasn't surprised when he found out that the Rosenthal family made the European economy go round. After some searching, a gossip journal about the famous and rich caught his attention:
"Adopted, uh? That explain her half-japanese looks…"
A tabloid also had some old archives about the Rosenthal: "Oh, I see… Quite a scandal… Ii data…"
Next, he decided to check if there was anything about them winning tennis tournaments. Nothing appeared under the Adelheid von Rosenthal name.
"Odd."
Next was Alexis Kaoru von Rosenthal. This time, lots of websites were listed and most of them were in german. He found one in English (he dominated this language quite well) and opened it. It was a British fansite dedicated to Alexis, listing quite a lot of feats. Inui blinked behind his glasses. Doubting the info in that particular site, he searched others. All said the same things and the forums were particularly insightful.
Jotting down the last of his notes, he glanced at his clock again and cringed. Now it was past his bedtime and he wouldn't be able to sleep his healthy 8 hours. Not good when he had important matches tomorrow.
Sighting, Sadaharu lied down on his bed, put his glasses aside and arranged his pillows to a better position. That night he had a weird dream about a small sentient notebook with legs and arms running after his favorite green notebook and ripping it apart.
Notes: I love Inui and I love picturing (or should I say calculating?) his actions – there is a 100% probability of him making this kind of 'data gathering'. By the way, the manga hints too much on a certain relationship involving Inui… I'm a fan of that pairing as well xD