Rolling Memory (Prince of Tennis Fanfiction)

Chapter 21 : Seigaku VS St.Rudolph (1/3)

"Seigaku regular, gather around!" calls Sumire and the group start gathers around to Sumire. Chiharu already standing next to her. Looking everyone face with a satisfied smile, Sumire holds up a paper on her hand. "Okay, we're playing St.Rudolph in the quarterfinals. This is the line-up. If we win this, we get ourselves a ticket to the Kantou tournament. Chiharu, read it."

"Hai," Chiharu answers and takes the paper from Sumire. "Singles 1, Tezuka-buchou. Singles 2, Fuji-senpai. Singles 3, Ryoma. Doubles 1, as usual, Kikumaru-senpai and Oishi-senpai. Last, Doubles 2, Momoshiro-senpai and Kaido-senpai."

The team get surprise to hear the announcement of doubles 2. Chiharu can see Momoshiro and Kaidoh are glaring each other.

"St. Rudolph is gathering all of the famous players in the region. They are a lot better than they were last year," Inui says opening his sacred book. "Captain Akaza, who plays singles, is still around. He is a strong opponent who beat our regular senpai last year."

"I'm also worried about Yuuta-kun, Fuji's younger brother," Inui adds. "He has been thoroughly trained to attack left-handed players. People even started to call him the left-hand killer."

"Left-hand killer? Did he aim to Tezuka-senpai?" Chiharu asks.

"I heard he is after his brother," Inui looks to Fuji who has his usual closed-eye smile on his face.

"I'm not left-handed," Fuji says.

"Which means, he after Tezuka," Inui states.

"Or maybe Ryoma too," Chiharu adds to make the regular look at Ryoma. "However, they must not know Ryoma's skill. He is a new regular after all."

"I agree with you," Inui says and pushes his glasses. "It looks like the new manager is controlling them well."

"Manager?" Kikumaru asks.

"Mizuki Hajime, right? He introduces himself to me earlier," Chiharu says remembering when she met Mizuki and Yuta.

"Yeah, he's a member of the reinforcement group. A pretty tough opponent," Inui says.

Hearing that, Chiharu take a glance to other team to find Mizuki talking to a boy with brown hair and dark skin which she assumes is captain Akaza. She also notices that Yuta has a small argument to one of their members. However, Chiharu can't take off her eyes from Mizuki. She kinda feels off to him since he walked to her. It feels weird when he introduced himself like he knows Chiharu before. From his smile, Chiharu feels that Mizuki plan something in this match.

"-haru... Chiharu!"

Chiharu jolted to hear Sumire calling at her with a frown face. She can see the regulars starts to walk inside the court.

"Oh... Sorry. I'm lost in thought," Chiharu says and rubs her neck.

"I don't know what you're thinking. Right now we need to focus to St.Rudolph," Sumire says and pats Chiharu's head.

"Got it," Chiharu replies with a nod. Sumire gives her a satisfied smile before walk into the court too. Chiharu following her from behind.

"Sumire-san is right. I shouldn't think about anything. What I can do now is encourage my team," Chiharu says to herself and slaps both her cheek.

Both teams already stand at the center of the court and greet each other. For the match of Seigaku and St.Rudolph, Sumire asks Chiharu to watch from inside the court together with her. Therefore, now she sits next to her on the bench, while the other regulars watch outside the fences.

"Eh, Chiharu-chan not watch from here?" Haruka asks to Oishi.

"Well, it's seemed Ryuzaki-sensei want her to observe the match closer," Oishi answers.