Training For The Tournament...Or Making Them Stronger

Life or Death training exercises. But an enemy lurks inside the forest.

The sun rose into the sky. In the tennis dorms, the players were sleeping peacefully. As they slept, a hatch opened for the ceiling between their beds. It was a black speaker. The, a cough was heard from it.

Finally, a trumpet sounded.

This surprised the players. Some shot up while others fell out of bed.

"What the heck?!"

"What hurt…"

And other various whining sounds and comments. (A/N: Too lazy to write other comments.)

Once the trumpet stopped, a familiar voice came unto the speaker.

"Good morning everyone!" It was Ciana, "Breakfast starts at 7! Get ready or you won't get any energy for this day's training!" she announced.

In Echizen and Momo' room, Momo looked at the clock. He jumped back up in surprise, "What! It's 5:30!"

"I know! That's why I woke you guys up!" she replied, scaring the players who wondered how she heard Momo's question.

Ciana giggled, "There are microphones and cameras in your rooms. That's why I heard you." she explained, "Now get ready for today!"

During their breakfast, the Ancient siblings came to give them their assigned groups.

Carlo's group consisted of: Tezuka, Fuji, Yuushi, Ootori, Sanada, Tachibana, Yanagisawa, Minami, Ota, Saeki, Chitose, Kouichi, Shiranui and Michael.

Marina's group consisted of: Oishi, Kaidoh, Atobe, Yagyuu, Shinji, Mori, Akazawa, Muromachi, Wakato, Kurobane, Davide, Kite, Billy and Arnold.

Apollo's group consisted of: Inui, Hiyoshi, Shishido, Renji, Kyosuke, Kaneda, Higashikata, Shinjo, Koishikawa, Chinen and Tom.

Paulo' group consisted of: Momo, Kawamura, Kabaji, Ishida, Nomura, Sengoku, Akutsu, Daichi, Shiraishi, Gin, Kai, Tanishi and Bobby.

Diana's group consisted of: Eiji, Gakuto, Yukimura, Sakurai, Mizuki, Atsushi, Ichiuma, Nitobe, Kajimoto, Itsuki, Ryo, Marui, Jackal, Zaizen and Terry.

Lastly, Ciana's group consisted of: Echizen, Jirou, Kirihara, Niou, Yuuta, Kamio, Aoi, Kenya, Kintaro, Koharu, Yuuji, Yohei, Kohei, Hirakoba and Kevin.

The arrangements made the players happy, sad, confused and curious. "Probability of Carlo arranging this is 96 percent." Inui stated. "Ciana randomly rearranging them is 100 percent." Yanagi added.

"I got a bad feeling about this…" Oishi murmured. Ciana jumped on top of the table, "Okay! Training begins after you eat!" she cheered. "Yeah. I'll enjoy my training with these losers." Marina stated.

The players shivered, getting a strong negative feeling right after she said that.

********************Carlo's training*******************

"Uh Carlo-san? What is this?" Tachibana asked. Carlo's group arrived at a base of a mountain in the academy's vicinity. He laughed, "This where you're going to train of course." The mountain reached beyond the clouds, no one knowing how far it goes. "Isn't this a bit dangerous?" Yuushi asked.

He laughed again, "Of course not. You'll just go up the mountain and find the flag pennants that have symbols of the six elements." he explained, "And what are the six elements?" he asked the nearest person which was Chitose. "Earth, water, wind, fire, light and darkness." He replied. Carlo clapped, "Good. Good."

Yanagisawa looked around, "Where are the equipment for mountain climbing?" Carlo looked at him, "I didn't bring any." "What!" they exclaimed. "You're going to face harsh winds, steep cliffs and molten lava." He stated. "I thought this was a mountain?!" Kouichi questioned.

Carlo laughed yet again, "This isn't a mountain. This is a volcano. You can't see the top because of all the smoke." He told them, "Since it's your first training, I'll let you use gloves." He passed pairs of gloves to each player. "What if something bad happens to one of us?" Saeki asked.

"Don't fret. Ciana said that this place is safe-Wait!" he paused, "Was it just Ciana's perspective of safe or everyone's perspective of safe?"

The players, except the calm ones, started to sweat. Fuji chuckled at this type of 'training'.

*********************Apollo's training***********************

Meanwhile, Apollo's group started their training. "Don't lose your balance!" Apollo shouted up to the players.

Apollo made the players stand on 20 meter tall poles. Each player stood on the pole on one foot while balancing three rackets on his other foot and the palm of their hands.

Some of them started to lose balance. "Are you sure that you shouldn't get something that will break our fall if we fall?" Inui questioned. Apollo thought about and said, "Nope. You need a life or death situation." "But we're training for a tennis tournament! How's there a life or death in tennis!?" Shishido exclaimed.

Apollo shrugged, "Meh. You never know what might happen."

***********************Marina's training*********************

Marina's group were terrified. Eight out of fourteen of them were unconscious. Marina's training was fine, but the consequence of failure scared them.

Her instructions were: "You need to hit the tennis balls into the holes in the wall over there." she pointed to six different holes varying in size, "It gets smaller and you'll have to stand at the assigned distance." Then she turned menacing, "If you miss one, I'll hit you with a frying pan."

They thought it was an empty threat, but turns out she was serious. "Aghhh!" Kaidoh cried out and fell. Behind him was an evil Marina holding a frying pan. "Next!" she called. Oishi nervously stepped forward, "Is this necessary, Marina?" he asked.

She smirked, "No pain. No gain."

(A/N: I'm sorry if Apollo's and Marina's training scenes were short, maybe even Carlo. But if the whole training was there, this chapter would take forever.)

***********Diana's training***************************

Diana's group stood in a facility. With them was Diana, who was hiding behind Luther. He sighed, "Unfortunately, Diana's shy and doesn't like being around so many people without her siblings or Kevin." Terry chuckled at the mention of Kevin being Diana's confidence trainer.

"So what are we going to do?" Mizuki asked. "First," Luther said then pointed to a door, "Get in that room." The players followed his orders and went in the room. There, everything was pitch black. The door closed behind them. "Uh, Luther?" Kajimoto called.

The sound of a microphone being turned on was heard. "Don't worry. Diana's gonna give you the instructions now." Then they heard a little scuffle. The speaker's voice changed to a small, petite voice.

"Um…Each of you needs to stand on the glowing circles." As she said this, fifteen circles on the floor glowed. The players chose a circle and then waited for the next instruction. "N-Now you have to get to the circle across from you." Another circle glowed across from each of them. "This seems easy." Zaizen remarked. "Too easy." Yukimura added.

"While avoiding the lasers." She added. Red lasers appeared around the room, making sure to cover the whole room except the circles.

****************************Paulo's training*************************

"Paulooooooo!" Momo called. Paulo's group has been standing for a while now, waiting for their instructor. So far, the 4th child hasn't arrived yet. "Where is he?" Sengoku questioned. They've been told by Cordelia where Paulo's training would be held. They arrived there to see a giant circle of giant rocks compressed together.

Akutsu stood up, "I don't need some pipsqueak to train me." he sneered. "Okay! I'm awake!" a voice stated. The players looked around to the find the source to no avail. "Who was that?" Kai asked. "It's me! Paulo!" it told them.

They followed the sound of the voice towards the rocks. Shiraishi put his ear against the rocks, "Paulo? Are you in there?" "Yes!" he replied. This shocked the players. Kawamura put his ear against the rock too, "How did you even get in there?"

"I wanted to surprise you guys by digging under these rocks and getting inside it. But then I realized that the hole got caved in and I panicked. I panicked so much that I hit the wall and got knocked out!" he explained. "So how do we get you out?" Gin asked.

Paulo was silent for a moment. "Aha!" he yelled. "This is your training: You have to use your power to get me out of these rocks!" "I don't think that's possible." Shiraishi commented.

"You have to get me out of here! I'm losing air! And Marina's gonna kill you if I die!" At that statement the players started to break the rocks.

**********************Ciana's training************************

Ciana's group was standing on a track field. There the players were standing at the starting point. "Okay! All you guys need to do is run 30 laps in 40 minutes!" "What?!" they cried out. "We can't do that in 40 minutes!" Kamio commented.

She giggled, "You can if you were being chased by a lion!" "What!?" they cried out again. Yuuta laughed nervously, "She's joking, right?" "I don't think she is." Kenya answered. She raised her hands in the air, "Start!"

The players started running normally until they heard a roar. The turned their heads to see a large, male lion running after them. "Ahhhhh!' They yelled and started to run faster.

Ciana grinned, "This is fun!"

********************After training*****************

The players were at their dorms, tired from today's training. "And she let out a lion! I mean what school has a lion!?" Niou told Yagyuu. "Well, it certainly beats training with Marina." He remarked.

"Not only is Marina crazy, her whole family's crazy!" Eiji exclaimed. Most of them nodded in agreement. The Tezuka, Fuji, Yukimura, Atobe and Echizen stayed silent. "There is one thing that makes me curious." Yukimura stated. Sanada turned to him as well as the others. "Which is?"

"Their training methods aren't like normal ones." He explained. Kai scoffed, "Like we haven't noticed that." "Ciana's speed is inhuman." Echizen commented, "And so is her appearance." "Echizen has a point. This school has no information known to outsiders." Atobe stated.

The others believed it was true, but then Eiji remembered something. "But Ciana literally meant that she was going to kill us if we try to find the school's secrets!" "How's an 11-year old girl going to kill us?" Zaizen questioned. "I know how to use weapons!" Ciana's voice exclaimed.

They jumped/flinched and saw said girl on top of a wooden cabinet, holding two daggers. Oishi nervously stepped forward, "Who taught you how to use them?" She grinned, "Marina." "We're gonna die." Wakato wailed.

Unknown to them, beyond the dorms was a forest. The foret hides many things. Including creatures whose bodies are of shadows and red glowing eyes.

Yeah. I'm not sure on how long this training's gonna continue. But the training will last a few days then the new chapter comes where people die (Just kidding).

~StardragonElementalist