Beta: Fayah
A/N: This is a serious problem: Which is Kachirou and which is Katsuo? I can never remember!
Comments, critique, feedback of any kind welcomed. Especially on the Katsuo - Kachirou issue
After eating Ryoma returned to his room and took out the diary again. There had to be something in there that would help him settle in this world until he got back home. And he would get back home, there had to be a way.
But until then he could only hope he'd been more active in keeping his diary during the last few days and weeks. There was sometimes over six months without a single entry, so it was no surprise that the diary had lasted for so many years.
Out of fear of saying something wrong Ryoma had answered with just a shrug when Ryoga or his mother had asked him something during dinner. Both had seemed satisfied with that and had left him alone, but Ryoma knew he couldn't keep it up forever.
'Math test. Passed. Club was boring.'
"That was helpful," Ryoma mumbled. He looked for more but it was all the same, two or three words for a day. What was even the point of keeping a diary, if that was all he ever wrote there.
Finally he just decided to give up, take a long bath and wing it. He could always just glare at people if they started to get too pushy.
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Rikkai AU
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"What happened to my son?" Nanjiroh was ready to strangle the doctor if he didn't start spilling and Rinko was too upset to soothe her husband like she usually could. Nanako wasn't fairing any better.
"There was an accident at his school. We do not have the details, I'm afraid. According to the teacher some kind of experimental machinery was involved but even he doesn't seem to know any more." The doctor tried to keep his voice level, so Nanjiroh wouldn't get even more aggressive. "His condition at the moment is stable. He is able to breathe without the help of machines and there seems to be no brain damage. He could wake up at any moment."
"Then why isn't he awake," Nanjiroh growled and pointed at Ryoma who lay unconscious on the hospital bed, a monitor hooked up to him, displaying his steady heartbeats.
The doctor readied himself to face the devastation of the family when he would reveal the flipside. "It is also possible that he will never regain consciousness." Rinko's feet seemed to fall from under her and she had to steady herself on Nanjiroh, who stood frozen in place like a stone statue. "All we can do is wait and hope for the best." the doctor ended his sad news, attempted to think of something else to comfort the family, but when he could think of nothing, he left them alone with the boy.
"Oh, Ryoma-san," Nanako stepped next to Ryoma's bed and squeezed his hand in the hope that he would feel it and come back to them.
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Rikkai AU
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"Echizen!"
Ryoma twitched when he heard Horio's yell. He could run. The school was enough of a maze that it was possible to lose Horio. The only thing stopping him was the fact that he'd probably get lost himself.
"What!" He snapped and turned to glare at Horio.
"You going to join the tennis club next year?" Horio asked. "Almost all the regulars are leaving, only Kirihara-sempai's going to stay. We could both make it to the regulars!" Horio grinned.
"I haven't played in years," Ryoma gritted his teeth in aggravation.
"But you could start again! You were pretty good. Of course nowhere near my level, but you were a passable tennis player." Horio couldn't obviously say anything with out bragging about himself.
"No I couldn't," Ryoma said.
"If this is about your dad, Echizen, don't you think it's been long eno-" Horio never finished his sentence. The look Ryoma sent him would have evaporated an iceberg in a nanosecond.
"Don't say a word about my dad, Horio," Ryoma growled at Horio.
"O… Okay, Echizen, sure. I… I'm sorry, I just thought… It's been years!"
Ryoma didn't answer him. To Horio and everyone else it had been years, but for Ryoma his father had died just yesterday. He'd lost everything worth anything in his life yesterday and gained nothing of equal value in return.
"Just don't mention it ever again," Ryoma told him.
"Tennis or your…"
"Neither," Ryoma answered.
"Fine," Horio said but didn't disappear like Ryoma had wished. "So, seen Ryuzaki-chan today?"
In this universe too? There was no need for his dad! Horio seemed more than capable of creating a fictional relationship between him and Sakuno.
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Rikkai AU
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"Echizen-san," the nurse placed her hand on Nanjiroh's shoulder and spoke in a hushed voice, her compassionate gaze sliding towards Rinko and Nanako who sat on the other side of the unconscious boy's bed. "There are people who wish to speak with you in the waiting area."
Nanjiroh looked at Rinko from across the bed, and she nodded silently before turning her eyes back to her son. They had spent the night there, Rinko calling her work, explaining the situation. She couldn't have worked now and nearly without having to ask, she had been given a month long vacation.
"I'll bring you some tea. The both of you," Nanjiroh said and stood up.
"I can go and get tea for all of us," Nanako said and stood up too.
"No, you sit down. I'll bring it once I know what those people want," Nanjiroh insisted and Nanako sat back down. She had already done more than enough, in Nanjiroh's mind. Yesterday when Nanjiroh and Rinko had decided to stay at the hospital, she had returned to their house, taken care of Karupin and brought a change of clothes for both of them and returned today once her classes were over.
At the door, Nanjiroh looked back at his son. Ryoma looked peaceful; there wasn't a frown or a smile on his face. It wasn't like his son at all. Ryoma never slept peacefully, not even when he was toddler. Always fussing, kicking his covers, face showing a multitude range of emotions that it never did when he was awake. Ryoma had always been more expressive while sleeping.
There were two unfamiliar men waiting for him. The other one was dressed in a brown suit that looked worn and had oval glasses. He bowed at Nanjiroh and introduced himself. "Echizen-san, I am Yukimoto Kaii, Echizen-kun's teacher. I was present yesterday during the accident." Nanjiroh bowed back, eyes on the other man, bearded and much older. "And this is professor Yamata. His machinery was involved in your son's accident. He claims that he can help Echizen-kun."
"Help? Is he a doctor?" Nanjiroh asked. "And what machinery? What happened to my son?" Nanjiroh nearly yelled. All they'd heard yesterday was that Ryoma had collapsed. They had been too worried about Ryoma to look for answers and no one had provided them voluntarily.
"Echizen-san, I am sorry for what has happened to your son, but it was an accident," professor Yamata said. "The machinery Yukimoto-san keeps referring to is the pinnacle of my lives work, the result of years of research and sleepless nights. It shall change the way we see the universe once unveiled to the world."
"It put my son in to a coma!" Nanjiroh yelled and took a step towards the man, fists raised.
"Echizen-san, please, listen to him! Perhaps he really does have a cure for your son!" The teacher pleaded, stepping between the other two men.
"Your son is not sick, Echizen-san, or harmed in any way," professor Yamata claimed. "I have come to the conclusion that he is merely travelling."
"Travelling?" Nanjiroh barked. "My son is lying there," he pointed behind him "unconscious, in a coma, from which, the doctors have said, he may never wake up from! And you are telling me that he's travelling! Who is this man?" Nanjiroh demanded from the teacher. "Did you bring him here from a mental institution?"
The teacher was also staring at the professor as he was insane. "He is a professor," Yukimoto said. "I checked his credentials, he does work in an institution that does advanced research in areas that concern…" his voice faded. "He researches parallel universes Echizen-san!" The teacher finally shouted, enthusiastic.
"Parallel universes?" Nanjiroh asked. "You mean my son could be…"
"In an alternate universe, Echizen-san. First human to have ever travelled between the worlds," professor Yamato announced in a proud voice.
For a moment all Nanjiroh could do was stare wide eyed at the man, and when his brains had finally processed the words, he yelled "That is not a good thing. If that is true, bring him back. You sent him there, you can bring him back!"
The professor coughed, his fist covering his mouth. "Unfortunately, that is a little more difficult. We do not know where he has gone to, you see, so we can not simply bring him back."
"Find a way!"
"Of course, of course," the professor hurried to convince Nanjiroh, hands patting the air before him in a placating manner. "I have already begun the calculations and many of my colleagues are assisting me. It is only a matter of time before we pinpoint your son's exact location and we will be able to return him here, to his body."
"So he's somewhere out there, in an alternate universe flying around without his body!" Nanjiroh yelled. "He can't play tennis without his body. My poor boy!" Nanjiroh nearly wept at the concept of no tennis. It horrified him.
"Is that really what worries you about this, Echizen-san? That your son might not be able to play tennis?" Yukimoto asked.
"Echizen not being able to play tennis? That'd be like a nightmare to him!" Nanjiroh turned to see who had yelled out the obvious truth and saw a group of teens, his son's team mates on Seigaku's tennis team. The one who had yelled seemed to be a tall boy with spiky hair. Nanjiroh couldn't remember his exact name, but knew it had something to do with peaches.
"More like hell, fshuu," another boy who seemed to be slumping said.
The snake dude, Nanjiroh thought.
"That's what I said, mamushi!"
Nanjiroh was expecting a fight to break out between the two, but just then another one of the kid's team mates rushed between them and hushed them both. "You two, remember we're at the hospital to see Echizen. And this man in front of who you're behaving immaturely is his father," a boy whose head-shape reminded Nanjiroh of an egg, spoke.
"Oh, Echizen-kun can play tennis. I mean he has a body," professor Yamato said.
"Thank the gods!" Nanjiroh shouted and placed his hands on his chest with sincere gratitude towards anyone who watched over his son.
"I thought O'chibi was in a coma? How can he play tennis if he's in a coma?" a redheaded boy asked. Kikumaru, Nanjiroh thought. His son had sometimes grumbled about his Kikumaru-sempai with the deadly glomps. "Oishi, nya, you said he was in a coma. He's awake! O'chibi's awake!" Kikumaru grinned and rushed towards the corridor behind Nanjiroh but the boy whom had calmed down the fight between the other two boys stopped him by shouting,
"Eiji wait! You can't just rush in to someone's hospital room! You don't even know what room he's in!"
"But Oishi, I wanna see O'chibi!" Kikumaru pouted at the boy Nanjiroh had decided was Oishi.
"Unfortunately Echizen-kun is still in a coma," Yukimoto told the boys.
"Yukimoto-sensei," Ryoma's captain, Tezuka greeted his former teacher and bowed. The other boys followed his example, bowed and murmured their greetings.
"Not in a coma, Yukimoto-san. Simply residing in an alternate universe," professor Yamato corrected the teacher.
"How does that work?" Nanjiroh asked. "Because his body's still here. Did the machine create a body for him?"
"Of course not!" Yamato laughed. "That's a ridiculous concept! Simply laughable!"
Nanjiroh twitched, and fisted his hand. He still hadn't abandoned the possibility that knocking out Yamato might bring Ryoma back and return everything back to normal. At least it'd make him feel a whole lot better.
"He has simply taken over the body of the Echizen-kun that lives in that particular universe. We made many experiments on it with animals and though the results varied much, depending on the universe, that was the one constant. The body of the subject was never transported, nor did it ever attain any damage. The subject simply transformed to the body of its counterpart in that universe. The only times this did not work was when there was no body for the subject to teleport to. The cause in those cases was always immediate loss of life."
"What if Ryoma is in one of those worlds, where he has no body?" Nanjiroh shouted, ready to punch the professor.
"If that was the case, Echizen-kun would be dead now," the professor hurried to explain. "And he is alive and his vital sings are stable, are they not? A clear sign of a successful travel."
"Echizen-kun has travelled through your machine, uncle-Yamato?" Inui asked suddenly and snapped open his notebook. He started flipping through pages and murmuring to himself. "This is good data, the first human to ever have reportedly travelled through time and space."
"Ah Sadaharu, you're here?" The professor smiled jovially at Inui and then returned his focus on Nanjiroh. "My nephew might have more answers for you. He has been studying my creation for the past month. It is why it was temporarily at your son's school. I was taking it back to my laboratory when the accident occurred."
Nanjiroh turned to stare at the boy who would soon be a high school freshman. A kid, studying complex stuff like travel between alternate universes. Impossible! Or the professor was just an idiot who allowed anyone to poke at his machine.
Inui was busy scribbling on his note book, grinning idiotically and murmuring words like 'good data' and 'excellent' to take any notice on his surroundings. Therefore he did not see Tezuka stepping to stand in front of him. Inui froze when Tezuka took his notebook and closed it with a loud 'SMACK'.
"Inui, concentrate. We must return Echizen." Tezuka told him.
"Of course Tezuka," Inui pushed up his glasses. "I apologize, I got carried away."
"It's alright Inui, we understand you're a bit different," Fuji smiled at him. "Just get him back. After all, you should always clean up your own mess. And this is your mess. Without you the horrid thing wouldn't even have been in Seigaku."
"Of course," Inui gulped at seeing Fuji's smile and the promise of infinite pain and torment in the tennis genius's blue eyes, should he fail.
"We know you'll do your best, Inui," Kawamura patted Inui's shoulder and smiled encouragingly at him.
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Rikkai AU
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Ryoma took out his schedule and wondered if they'd had any homework for math, and if the teacher asked him for it, if he'd done it. He hoped he always did his homework. Otherwise he needed to have a little talk with himself about getting him into trouble with the teacher.
His eyes were on the piece of paper as he walked so he didn't notice the older boy walking towards him. He nearly fell when they bumped in to each other. "Watch it!" Ryoma snapped, not bothering to look who he'd run in to and headed for his class hoping he wasn't late.
Sanada frowned at the rude freshman's back. It was the other boy's fault, he should have apologized. More importantly, Sanada was his sempai. Freshmen should be polite to those older than them. He decided to keep the boy's face in mind.
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After his classes Ryoma went to watch tennis practice. There was less of a crowd today, but Ryoma figured there was at least ten people there, among them Tomoka, who wasn't squealing today and looked depressed. The reason for that was easy to figure out; Kirihara wasn't anywhere to be seen. Probably hiding from Tomoka, either inside the club house, or somewhere around a corner. Ryoma didn't blame him.
Yanagi was playing against a boy Ryoma didn't recognize and he saw right away that even though the other boy was taking the game seriously, Yanagi was just using the match as a warm up. And winning. Ryoma knew he would have made Yanagi play seriously. He could've won.
"You gonna join?"
Ryoma looked at his right at Niou who grinned at him. He was leaning against a tree, hands in his pockets, a lazy grin on his face. "No," Ryoma said and turned back to the courts.
"'Cause you look like you wanna play," Niou said.
"I don't play tennis," Ryoma gritted between his teeth. There wasn't anything worth watching. So he went home.
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When Ryoma came home, he was assaulted.
"Chibisuke!" Ryoga yelled and tucked Ryoma in to a protective, crushing hug. "You didn't come home straight from school? Why? What happened? Was someone bullying you, did they hit you, are you alright? What's wrong, why are you hitting me?"
If Ryoma could have talked, he would've said he was hitting Ryoga because he couldn't breath with his nose and mouth pressed against Ryoga's chest. But he couldn't, because Ryoga was apparently trying to kill him!
He finally managed to push Ryoga off him. "I'm fine," Ryoma glared at his brother. "You're acting like I never go anywhere," he muttered.
"But… you don't," Ryoga said, looking confused. "Unless Ryuzaki comes to pick you up, and forces you to go with her. She's a nice girl and I know you've been friends with her for ages because dad knew her grandmother but I still think it's weird your best friend's a girl."
"Not your business who I hang around with," Ryoma said. Then it hit him. "Ryuzaki's my best friend?"
"Fine, sorry, I won't talk about it anymore," Ryoga said, thinking Ryoma had made a statement, not asked a question. "Auntie said she wants to make dinner, so we'll have to wait for her to get back before we can eat. But I won't tell her if you wanna grab an orange."
"Che, I don't like oranges."
"Whaat? So far it's been the only fruit you eat!"
Ryoma gulped. "I can change my mind if I want," he snapped and walked pass Ryoga to the kitchen and opened the fridge door. "Where's the Ponta?" he asked.
"Ponta? Why would we have that? You always say sodas are full of crap that's bad for you."
"Well now I want Ponta," Ryoma closed the fridge and wondered just how messed up was he in this reality. No tennis, no Ponta and Ryuzaki was his best friend.
"You're acting really weird, Chibisuke. You got a fever?" Ryoga came over to feel his forehead and Ryoma jumped. "You don't feel warm," Ryoga frowned and Ryoma couldn't have said anything even if he'd thought of anything to say. He was too shocked to see the genuine worry on Ryoga's face.
Ryoga had never been anything but fuzzy memories, a near stranger he'd briefly met on a cruise that'd turned into a catastrophe. He hadn't spoken about Ryoga with his father; never saw the need for it. Truthfully he'd almost forgotten the older boy once back home. There was too much to think about; the Nationals, beating Tezuka and his father, returning to America.
But here Ryoga had never left but stayed with the family and Ryoma couldn't help but wonder was the reason for his staying and his father's death connected. Maybe it had been Nanjiroh who had caused Ryoga to leave, or Nanjiroh's death had made Ryoga take responsibility of the family that had taken him as one of its members.
Ryoma wondered what it would have been like to grow up with a big brother.
"When's mom coming home again?" he asked.
"In a few hours, remember? I just told you. You sure you ain't sick?"
"I'm fine," Ryoma stepped back so Ryoga wouldn't try to feel his forehead again. "Just wondered if…"
"What?" Ryoga asked.
Ryoma swallowed. It was still hard for him to believe. "Can you tell me about dad, when he was still… when he was alive…" Maybe Ryoga would tell something about the two of them too and Ryoma would find out what it would have been like to have grown up with an older brother.
"Sure," Ryoga grinned like it was a request Ryoma made every day. And who knows, maybe he did.