35Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Hatori Bisco-WAIT! That doesn't seem right….oh yeah, it belongs to Konomi-sensei (gome..)
1989
The crowd all over the coliseum was hyper over the breathtaking extravaganza. They cheered in a hyperactive manner, one thing for sure is that they're cheering for one tennis player.
"Tennis Legend!" was the title given to his cheerleaders.
They were deeply overwhelmed by the young junior high school lad standing right in front of them. He was known as Japanese with his auburn hair attached to his head which shows his delicate care on his hair, his eyes were brown—same color of color chocolate and his skin is tanned white of purity. He wears the white uniform of his school, stripe of navy blue on his shoulders. He got an earring on his left ear as his what he could say—his lucky charm.
As people kept cheering on him, his play was even better than ever. It was for the Nationals, he smirked, and that was his dream.
He did many incredible moves, techniques and anything that could beat all his opponents, he tried his best to seal his weaknesses and prove to them that he was serious of gaining his dream. After his long battle, he won. But still, his team didn't win for the Nationals.
All of his teammates shed tears as their opponent won the game. It was a tough game and they reach this far but still, in the end they lost...
But the Tennis Legend smiled at them and told them that his dream was yet again, come to wait for that time comes.
It was really unbelievable of him to smile even after they lost. He didn't really mind at all and he really believed that there is still hope for him to win for the Nationals, for his school to win in the Nationals for the first time. Seigaku. Yeah, he loves his precious school.
And right after he left for the bleachers headed towards the exit of the coliseum with the crowd still cheering for him even after their lost, he then, Oshiteru Shigeru, the Tennis Legend, suddenly disappeared.
Genius One: The Tennis Legend
Inoue was in his office, drinking his usual favorite coffee as he re-read the article from a very long time. It was another well known Japanese tennis player after Nanjiroh Echizen disappeared from the tennis world. He wondered why no one knows about the "Tennis Legend's" sudden disappearance. Could it be that the journalists were forbidden to write his sudden disappearance in the newspapers?
He takes another sipped in his coffee. It was still hot but nevertheless, he still loves feel hot sensation in his palm on the ceramic warm cup.
"Inoue-senpai…" A knock came in his front office. A woman's head came out from the corner with a smile on her face. It was Shiba.
"Shiba, you have those pictures for the front cover?" Inoue stood up from his chair as he poured coffee for his assistant.
"No…." She sounded calm as she spoke. Inoue gazed at her and place the container aside. This was completely un-Shiba-ish of her. Whenever she forgets she would just punch lightly on her head and stick her tongue out but this time, she sounded so calm and yet serious as if something is going to happen.
"About that Tennis Legend that you told me a million times." She sat on the usual visitor's seat and let her legs crossed in a feminine way.
She then let herself formed a grin in her face. "I met one of his teammates from 12 years ago."
"EH?!"
(-)
"Sakuno!" Her grandmother called her from the kitchen. Sumire was indeed annoyed over Sakuno's usual routine. "I am really going to leave you if you won't wake up." It wasn't actually Sakuno's fault that Sumire have to wake up very early, it was because, everyday, they always have this tennis practice. As the Seiguku's coach, she must not be late for the sake of her dear students. Plus she had test papers to check.
"Sakuno!" She called again and again with the same routine; there was still no response from that door upstairs.
Muttering over her granddaughter's lack of discipline, she headed upstairs and called her again. She barged her door without even a knock and called her name, this time her blood was rising up even with that old cranny age of hers.
Because of that sudden burst of noise (more louder than Tomoka, I guess) the petite 12 year old girl raised her head up with sweat fell over her face. It was like her soul came back to her abandoned body from her dream world. She stared at her grandmother who tapped her finger on her arm with a brow raised.
"U-uh… I'm sorry!" She whined as she quickly jumped out from her bed and undressed her bunny patterned pajamas. She took her Seigaku uniform from her closet and quickly dressed herself up.
After she was done dressing, she could see Sumire frowning at her. She couldn't understand that at first but when she looked at herself on the mirror, she understood now.
Her uniform was inside out.
"EEEEEEEEEH!"
(-)
"Geez, Sakuno, you don't need to scream that out loud, at least you're on your room." Sumire rubbed the inner passageway of her ear canal as she and her granddaughter walked heading towards the school.
"Sumimasen…." She said, apologetically, bowing her head down as they walked.
"It's fine, fine…" And on with their destination until they stopped on the front gate of Gakuen Seishun.
"We're here." She smirked.
"Wah, Sakuno!" A loud screeching voice made the Seigaku coach tilted.
Sakuno turned around to see Tomoka waving at her. Tomoka Osakada, her one and only best friend.
She waved back as the pony tailed brunette ran towards them. "Sakuno, who never thought that you can also be so early!" When she saw Sumire standing besides Sakuno, she couldn't resist but to be frightened over her monstrous scary face but tried to her greet her in a respectful way.
"Jaa, I'm going to the tennis courts now." Sumire said as she walked towards the Seigaku Tennis courts.
After the grandmother left, Tomoka was back with her hyper mode again, she clenched her fist as she gave a wide smile on her opposite. "Since you're here, Sakuno, let's check at the tennis courts! I know that you wanted to cheer Ryoma-sama, ne?"
Sakuno blushed. "To-Tomo-chan!" Her blush deepened. Whenever she heard Echizen's name, she couldn't help but to blush. After all, Echizen is her long-time crush.
"So what are you waiting for, Sakuno?" Tomoka grinned.
"B-but…b-but…" She stuttered.
"I... we have m-morning assignments o-on E-English, r-right?"
"I just copied Rie's notebook awhile ago since Rie is the earliest girl in school. So I'm all done! But you can copy mine so you can have enough time to cheer Ryoma-sama! Gambatte Sakuno!"
"T-Tomo-chan…"
(-)
Waking up so early in the morning pissed him off.
Echizen Ryoma, Seigaku's first ever Regular freshman yawned as the rest of the freshmen started picking up balls. If he didn't become a Regular, he would end up like them nor wouldn't he dare do such a boring job. He took a simple warm up before taking a match against his senpais.
He ended his warm up when the trio came to him. They're Horio, Kachiro and Katsuo.
Of course Horio will brag him about his two years of tennis experience again, Echizen grunted.
"Echizen, are you done with your English morning homework?"
Echizen nodded, it was an obvious answer and Horio should expect him to finish his homework in times of English. English is always a piece of cake for him since he used to live in America.
But knowing Horio, could he be-?
"Then I was wondering….ne, Echizen, could you-?"
"No way." He wouldn't dare Horio to copy his homework. If he does, then he will get a perfect score like he does. Why wouldn't Horio do things by himself anyway?
"Oh come on, Echizen!" Horio screeched trying to hit Echizen if it was even possible. His two friends tried to confront him. Typical.
After his noisy bickering, Echizen stood up from the cemented wall and headed towards the bleachers.
"It's not over yet, Echizen!" Echizen tried to ignore the idiot even though it cannot be ignore because of his loud tone that can even make a toddler go deaf.
"RYOMA-SAMA!" Oh no, another noisy one came out in the morning.
This might be the end of the world.
With Horio with his loud bickering and that noisy girl that Echizen couldn't even remember her name, called his name so many times, he wondered if he really needed an ear check up.
And even after the times he have endure the pain of his ears, he suddenly realized that that meek girl who was always with that loud-mouthed woman over there, wasn't in present. Of course he knew her name very well of course since she was the granddaughter of their coach.
Ryuuzaki.
Come to think of it, he hasn't recalled her first name.
But he was Echizen Ryoma, he would never check on his so-called cheerleaders because one of them was absent. He wouldn't even dare to ask one of them about her, or even go 1 centimeter near them.
Perhaps, the meek girl was doing her English morning homework, too. Since she had difficulty in English and even had the worst English test paper scores had ever seen in Echizen's entire life.
Ignoring his useless thoughts, he went to the tennis court to have a "friendly" match with Momo-senpai.
(-)
Five minutes before the bell.
She better finish copying Tomoka's last question. Actually, this is the only question that she could only copy from her best friend. After all, she needed some effort on her assignment.
And she realized then, is she the only person in class who haven't finished her homework? (A/N: She doesn't know that Horio haven't started his)
But she was almost done now, smiling to herself, she ended her English homework with a dot. She was so slow in writing English Alphabets.
But now she finished her least favorite subject.
She looked at the window and saw that the tennis Regulars left the courts.
So the whole practice thing is over, huh?
She let herself make a long heavy sigh as she sat down on her desk; her eyes were still glued on the outside of the window.
Right before her bottom rested on the solid surface, a sudden slow motion suddenly made the petite girl froze.
A golden object, not far from the window, fell from the sky. She was not mistaken about it—it was a tennis racket.
Her gaze didn't look anything but the golden racket in its fall.
She ran towards the window and looked down to see the gold spark in the campus grounds. It wasn't her imagination at all!
She looked around to see that her classmates didn't notice that racket from the sky. With deep curiosity, she ran off, leaving her homework in her desk, heading towards the door, just then she bumped into someone and fell on the ground. Since she had a weak body and the one she bumped to was kind of masculine and strong, she fell on the ground with her butt hit the hardest.
She massaged her butt and tried her best to stand up, without looking at that person, she bowed apologetically and ran passed by him.
(-)
"Ryu-Ryuuzaki…?" Echizen blinked. Sakuno just ran past by him without even stuttering towards him. This was unlike of her.
Usually, when she sees him, she would just gaze at him and talk to him some simple and yet short sentences that came out from that girl. To him, she was the only girl who doesn't give him a damn of taking some ear plugs or ignoring her. To him, he feels comfortable for her silent presence and the way she stutters on him. He always accepts her cooking—and only her, who can give him free meals and in return he could give her bad compliments on her said cooking. He kept on giving her mean advices in her tennis skills—her knees are over bend, her arms fold, her grip isn't tight enough and her hair is too long. Usually, she would stammer about her hair, for he knew, that her long chestnut braided hair of hers was very precious to her and wouldn't dare to cut it.
He realized then he was thinking of her for too long and decided to remove that one aside as he sat on his chair. He took out his English notebook and decided to start writing.
He smirked, he lied to Horio. He hasn't started his morning assignment yet. And he can finish this within a minute for his forsaken knowledge on that particular subject. Just then he saw another notebook in the desk not far from his. He knew that it belongs to Sakuno.
He stood up to check her assignment if she finish all of it. He flipped her notebook to the latest page and read.
His eyes twitched after reading all of her answers. Though her last answer was alright but the rest of them are really comical.
If he wasn't cocky and anti-social, he would dare to laugh this one out like Momo-senpai would do if he can read this.
He sighed as he torn the paper out from her notebook and began to write it in proper way. After he finished her assignment less than a minute, he smirked to himself and went back to his original seat.
"Mada mada dane."
(-)
Sakuno thought that the one she bumped was somehow familiar, but she ignored that fact and headed towards the stairs to the grounds. Her mind was overwhelmed by that falling racket and she wondered why it fell from out of nowhere.
When she was in the grounds she passed by the Seigaku Regulars—Momo, Kawamura, Kikumaru, Fuji and Oishi. They tried to greet her but she doesn't have the time for that.
"Sumimasen, I'm in a hurry…" She said, quickly as she went outside the campus.
"B-but the School door will be close before you'll come back!" Oishi called her but tend to ignore him for awhile. The strong sensation she felt on that racket was really strange. She wasn't sure though but somehow that racket keeps calling her even without hearing its voice. It was just a sensation, Sakuno thought. But I should trying finding that racket.
She roamed around to search for that racket.
Finally, she found that golden racket from the sky.
She took the racket from the solid ground and look at it. Her smile faded. She thought it was really pure golden but when you look closer to it, it doesn't look gold but it was just an old rusty tennis racket.
Maybe as it fell from the sky, the racket might be shimmered from the sun to make it think that it's gold. How stupid can Sakuno be?!
She looked beneath the racket to see the letter "O" on it. Could it be that it's Oishi-senpai's racket? Maybe it fell out from the large tree. Maybe this strong sensation she had awhile ago was just her imagination.
She is really an idiot. Wasting her time coming down in here just to check on the racket, depressed over her time, she went back inside but decided to go to the tennis courts to return this racket if ever Oishi is looking for this one.
She was lucky enough to see that the tennis courts were still open, she wondered if the freshmen forgot to lock the courts. Turning left, she headed towards the boys' locker room. She wasn't afraid of entering there since knowing that they took all their stuff in there, she can enter without any hesitation. But she grunted as she tried to open the door. It was locked.
Now what is she going to do with this tennis racket?
Just then her hand suddenly felt numb. A sudden tingling in her nerves as she looked at the racket again. It was shimmering with white light, Sakuno blinked as the light grew and the whole court suddenly shimmered from that strong light.
And the light disappeared with a lifeless body in the ground. Just then Sakuno lost conscious on herself.
(-)
It's weird…
This warmth, this feeling… I haven't able to feel something for a very long time….
Sakuno heard words from her ears but tend to ignore it for her head felt aching and her mind was overwhelmed by strange dreams.
Little girl, wake up… you have to regain your consciousness, knowing that you can't just stay in somebody's mind.
This made Sakuno's eyes flickered. The voice seemed gentle but she doesn't know who it belongs to. Her vision was still blurry as she saw a blurry face right in front of hers. She was sure that it was a guy, with his short auburn hair and also with that smile. After she regained her vision, she can see that man completely.
The boy has the same auburn hair as hers, with also the same brown eyes as her but with the obvious color of a chocolate bar. He smiled at her as he helped her on getting up.
"T-thank y-you…" She said. Then she remembered that light.
"A-Ano…" She said. "Awhile a-ago, there was with this l-light, even though you wouldn't b-believe me but the racket I j-just held, s-su-suddenly shimmered right before my very own eyes!"
He smiled at her. It's the very first time I've seen someone stuttering over a stranger, huhThis made Sakuno formed an anger look on her face added with a blush. But somehow when he talked to her, she just thought that his voice was somehow echoing throughout the whole dark place. Wait a second? A dark place? She looked around to see that everywhere she looked, there was nothing but darkness.
You realized that everywhere in here is only darkness, huh? Well, this is my home… actually, the only place where I could only stay for a very long time. It's been a long time since I've talked in this way.
"So in other w-words, you live here alone?"
It seemed so. I don't know why….but if you couldn't believe me, I'm stuck in something that I don't know, like I was trapped in an object. I don't know when was the last time I've seen light again. Anyway, how did you get in here?
"I…" She lowered her head. "I don't know… the last thing I remembered is that that white rusty racket suddenly shimmered right before my very own eyes and then I lost consciousness, that's all." She looked at him who sat down on the floor or if that what you call a floor.
Thousands of questions and zero answers. He muttered under his echoing breath. I don't really get it. If this couldn't happen I should be in the tennis courts again.
"Y-you pl-played tennis?"
Yeah… tennis is always essential in my life. It's always been my passion and my first love. He craved a smile on his face. Don't tell me, you also play tennis?!
Sakuno couldn't help but to smile. He was fun to talk with, even though she wasn't sure if he was really stuck in something or perhaps… he might be ghost from the living dead. She shrugged. That can't be, or even though he maybe a ghost but she find him comfortable to be with.
"Yeah, but I still have problems with the basics." She doesn't stutter around him anymore.
Ah, I see….then maybe someday that we could start training in order to improve our tennis skills…I will do anything for you now, as my thanks.
Sakuno's smile faded. "What? What did I do to you?"
He laughed hysterically. Don't you get it? You mentioned to me that you held a racket awhile ago and there's this sudden light, maybe I was trapped in a racket—perhaps my racket that is. I have no idea or remembered how I got inside my racket. But thanks to you, you freed me from this darkness and let me have a temporary stay in your body, from now on. So in return, I will protect you from any danger. He thrust his chest, showing his overconfident side.
"Y-you're in my-?!"
Yeah, in your body….in other words, our souls are inside in one body, just… JUST LIKE FROM THE MOVIES! He grinned.
She blushed, backing herself from him.
Ne, I won't do something to you…. He gave a sheepish sighed. Besides, I am not really a pervert. Do you believe that all men are perverts?
She shook her head. Of course not all men are complete perverts! She knows so many guys who are nice to her and protected her with care. Her senpais, of course! They were considerate of her and wouldn't be obvious of being perverts. Well, there is also one who wasn't even a pervert and at the same time who doesn't show any affection on her nor cared for her. Echizen Ryoma, she grunted, is the only Regular who didn't care of her presence.
Good. Now, I ask you to wake up now…
"Eh? But I'm al-already awake!"
No… you're still asleep. I guess you can't force yourself to wake up from your slumber…. He said, scratching his head.
But…I was wondering," He smirked. "Can I take over your body while you still regain your self conscious?" He said, hopefully which made the girl hesitated.
This guy hasn't been in the real world since he had been stuck in the racket for God knows how many years had he remained in the darkness. And Sakuno felt sorry for him for staying in the darkness without feeling anything at all. But if he really lived in the darkness, why is he still smiling like that?
"Okay…" She decided. "But after my classes this-"
OKAY! He beamed and jumped many times. He sounded like Kikumaru but more mature. Oh yeah, I didn't know your name!"
"Ryu-Ryuuzaki. Ryuuzaki Sakuno!" She bowed her head in a respectful manner. "I'm from the freshmen junior high from Gakuen Seishun!"
"Nice to meet you-"
Oshiteru…. He said, calmly. Oshiteru Shigeru.
End Chapter
A/N: Hello there! My first ever Prince of Tennis story! I started writing stories ever since I've kept reading your fanfics. It was really fun to read POT! LOL
Anyway, since this is my very first POT fanfic, I kept wondering if I made them in character since I didn't know Sakuno and Echizen that much. It's hard to make IC if you just started watching Prince of Tennis. Yeah, I started watching it last four months ago… and started to make a fanfic of this. BELATED MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR and reviews and criticisms are all welcome!
ukyouchrono "Alyssa"