Getting rid of shadows: PRINCE OF TENNIS

Ch.9

It was a good day, and morning classes, accompanied by a peaceful lunch on the library roof, dangling my legs over the edge, and finishing one of my more tedious proofs, was refreshing and gave me a good feeling of pleasure for afternoon classes.

I should have known it was too good to last.

My eyebrow twitched, I closed my eyes. All of the pleasure from lunch dissipated, replaced with an itchy, annoying feeling to scratch my own eyes out.

In front of me stood a human boulder.

There was really, no other way to describe her. if it even was a her.

Veins bulged out of her illuminated arms, and her shiny forehead. She was wearing a yellow jersey with a black stripe across her bulky chest. Her legs were squeezed into thin black jersey shorts, that were stuck against her biceps. Every single strand of her hair was slicked back into a thick, brown, straight ponytail. She had a huge roman nose, straight teeth, and small beady black eyes.

For the last 10 minutes, she had been following me, her clique surrounding her verbally abusing me for the last 20-something minutes. Her insults were the saddest, and most unoriginal in the universe,

But I was able to not kill her.

Yet.

"Hey little brat, watcha, scared?"

"Is your brother the only one worth talking to?"

"Nerd."

"How'd you get Yukimura to get so interested in you, little whore?"

That was it.

I slowly walked to the courts, grabbing a spare racquet off of the bench. It made a screech as the top of the net rim scratched across the cement, and I got into position on the base line.

Who did this girl think she was.

I would destroy her.

She served, and I felt my eyes turn into an extreme focus, losing colour, but making everything sharper, like a quick calculated turn of a camera shutter.

Everything outside the courts seemed to fall away, and I felt me eyes morph into their awakened state, turning a molten silver, instead of their usual Aztec golden colour.

The boulder's serve was strong. A straight beam to the back of my court, it flew close to the ground, and was fast for a regular person.

To me it seemed a bit boring and slow.

But out of practice, it took me a few tries to get into the groove.

Eventually, I hit it back, a perfect pin-point to her blind spot, making the ball disappear in her vision, before bouncing, and stopping, in the same spot.

The first ball was kicked out of court bounds, and the score was announced by some kid in the empire's chair.

Love-15.

The captain, Fuuko, smiled, her polite, nice, enjoyment smile.

Suddenly her veins bulged even more, and her eyes widened. Her smile turned into a wide open mouth.

"Aww, the little girl got lucky."

It was picture perfect moment.

A textbook moment.

There was a reason that no-one ever spoke about the other Echizen twin (me) before I dropped off the radar.
My victims, I didn't just beat them, I destroyed them completely.

No mercy.

Ever.

And this Fuuko girl was no exception to my golden rule.

This was when I started my strategy, usually,

When the opponent thought I was just lucky.

I gave one of the tiniest of smirks at the muscle girl's side of the court.

The ball once again sailed into my range.

I brought my arm back into position, slamming the ball back the way she had just done.

Step one: physchological discombobulation.

******

The muscle captain was reduced to a pile of sweat and human at my feet.

She was crying, her ponytail hanging onto only one of the strands of her greasy brown hair. Her veins pulsed like strangulated worms under her skin, and several of her banded muscles were torn in multiple places. Her eyes were empty, and her racquet lay, defeated, only two of its strings remaining intact. The ground was damp around her, as snot as well as tears ran down her blubbery face.

Disgusting.

I glared down at her, passively. My eyes reverted from their 'focus' state. I closed my eyes, and they returned to their golden sheen, colour returning to my world.

As I turned away from the pile of female tennis captain on the ground I noticed how silent it was. I sensed the presence of bodies on the bleachers.

The bleachers were packed, but no one even dared breath.

There was absolute silence.

I turned around, and gave an elegant, fake, over-accented bow to each of the bleachers, still in my uniform, breaking a sweat. Damn. Didn't think that through.

With a smirk, and a flourish of the practice racquet, I disappeared, walking away quickly.

I was out of sight by the time the lended racquet touched the ground.

I zeroed in on a spot in the bleachers, right behind several yellow uniform jackets, and a familiar head of blue hair.
I settled into the seat behind the team, crossing one leg over the other, and crossing my arms over my chest.

"So, Yukimura." I started in a bored drawl. "Did you get what you wanted? I don't enjoy being manipulated."

The team turned around, their eyes still on the racquet on the ground.

Yukimura was slightly astonished, for a split second, before he saw me situated on the bench behind him.

The boy next to him wasn't.

As a split second reaction, a racquet struck to bleacher where my head would have been had I not shifted slightly to the left.
A frown crossed my face. "Well, that's not very nice, is it" I muttered, to myself.

"How did you..." Yukimura trailed off, looking at me, then shaking his head.

I smiled, cocking my head to the right.

"I hardly know what you mean, Yukimura." I said, letting loose a closed-eye smile.

There was a long moment of shared silence, as I stared down at him.

The tension could be sliced with a butter knife.

"Oh, I'm sure you do, Akira." Yukimura said back to me with his own, slightly too-wide smile.

"I'm sure you do."

And there was the proof Yukimura needed. Pinpoint accuracy and copying racquet movements. They just happened to be my specialty.