~Chapter 5 Part 2~
Amiko panted and struggled to return a Snake shot from Kaidoh. The game count was 5-3, Amiko's lead, but even though she had the point lead, she didn't feel like she was winning at all. She could barely return his balls, and although she had started off well with a 4 game lead, she had started to fall into the Viper's trap. Amiko hadn't felt so helpless, so weak, well, since her grandfather had died. That is why they had moved in the first place, to honor his dying wish that his grandchildren would go to the school he had always loved, Seishun Gakuen. Aki, Amiko's twin brother, had stayed in America because he went to a prestigious boarding school on scholarship.
She had worshipped her grandfather, ever since her elder sisters had started to play tennis. Gifted with natural finesse and talent, they were considered geniuses, tensais. Their parents had shunned Amiko, since Aki was intellectually superior, and the older girls excelled at tennis. Every time Yumiko and Sumiko had a tournament, Amiko was left to stay with her grandfather, who told her that if she wanted to make a name for herself in tennis, like her sisters, she would have to work harder than anyone. So, from an early age, she learned to have a determined attitude, and started to train every day with her grandfather. Slowly, she raised her stamina and endurance, and learned to always bounce back. Under her cheerful and bubbly personality was a fire, burning bright to win.
Even when their family moved to America to make more opportunities for the Sapphire pair, as Yumiko and Sumiko's doubles partnership was called, leaving their grandfather behind, Amiko didn't get disheartened. Instead, she started to play more and more tournaments, winning match after match, finally getting her parents to notice her. She had finally gotten her ranking to 49th in girl's 12 singles for the nation, when their parents had told her that her grandfather had died. Crushed, she had wanted to give up tennis, which she and her grandfather had shared together, made sacred. Then Yumiko and Sumiko asked her to play matches with them, which they had never done before. They had always been sisterly, but distant, having each other and always being away from home at tournaments; Amiko was closer to Aki, until he received a scholarship for his boarding school.
After being utterly crushed by her own sisters, Amiko's fighting fire had been relit. Of course, she didn't hate her sisters since she knew that their intentions were good (cough fuji yuuta cough). Instead, she resolved to become Seishun Gakuen's Singles #1 girl and junior ace.
Remembering that, she felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. With a yell, she hit an extremely fast and hard down-the-line forehand approach shot, the followed up with an overhead smash, making it 40-15 in her service game. The score had shifted; it was now 6-5 Kaidoh's lead. Amiko summoned all of her power in one serve, making an ace. Both Kaidoh and Amiko dropped to their knees, extremely tired. . Then suddenly a yell came from the woods next to the street tennis court where the two were playing.
"Oi, look! It's Mamushii! And he's playing a girl!?"
It was Momoshiro.