News of the new female manager of Seigaku reached the ears of many rival schools in the Kantou region. Being the national champion, each and every occurrence in Seigaku seemed to interest the schools in their area.
Ryouko however, didn't really care what they think of her. It wasn't as if she'll gain anything with their opinions and comments.
She looked at down at the notebook where she was scribbling something down. She almost got all of the data completed. She remembered her other notebooks she filled during her stay at the girls tennis club.
She stood up and scanned the players for Inui.
"Senpai..." She called as she approached him.
Inui turned around and faced her.
"What is it, Ryouko?" Inui asked. During Ryouko's three-day stay in the boys tennis club since that not-so-pleasant first impression that happened four days ago, the boys certainly began noticing how beneficial it is to have a female manager.
Many of them accepted her gladly, and they began to get used to her presence every practice sessions. Some of them, although secretly, began to look forward to practice more since the day she arrived.
"These can be useful." She said, handing him the three medium-thick notebooks.
Inui took them. "Data?" He asked.
She nodded.
"Of the regulars?" He asked, looking at the pages.
"Of all the Seigaku members." She replied.
Inui's eyebrows almost jumped out in surprise. "When did you collect these?" He asked, turning one of the notebooks page to page.
"Since I've transferred." She answered simply.
"Hmmm... These are very detailed..." He said.
"What are detailed?" Kikumaru asked playfully, prying as he always did. What he saw in those notebooks were nothing but a name at the top and a bunch of mathematical equations. "Nyaa." He said cluelessly with a question mark on his forehead and was forced to retreat.
"Please make good use of it." Ryouko told Inui.
"Gladly." Inui answered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It twinkled as it hit the light.
Meanwhile, outside the court, Shiba and Inoue arrived.
"It's because you forgot to take the car for maintenance that we weren't able to come earlier..." Inoue told his kouhai.
"Sumimasen... (I'm sorry...)" Shiba said.
"Oh, Inoue... How come I haven't seen you for quite a while?" Ryuzaki-sensei asked, greeting them.
"We were a bit busy in the office." Inoue answered.
"Sensei, there's a girl on the court. Isn't she lost? The girls tennis club is on the other side." Shiba said, pointing at the girl with her long, dark hair tied up in high twintails.
"She's not. She's Ryouko, our new manager and assistant coach." Ryuzaki-sensei replied.
"Eh?" Shiba said disbelievingly.
"A girl for a manager?" Inoue said, not believing his ears.
"It's about time that that reaction gets old..." Ryuzaki-sensei sighed.
"Why did you take a girl for a manager? And assistant coach, you said... In my opinion, Seigaku doesn't need an additional coach. And an extremely young one at that..." Inoue commented.
"She's tad useful, and she's more than you think she is." Ryuzaki-sensei answered.
"Hmmm." Shiba said thoughtfully and looked at the girl with the lens of her camera. She zoomed it to her face.
She went pass by a senior and said something. The senior smiled appreciatively, timidly corrected his position and said something back.
"Not because she's good-looking and she can control the players with her looks?" Shiba said bitterly.
"Ryouko is pretty good-looking but the reason I brought her here isn't that." Ryuzaki-sensei told her.
"Hey! She's that girl who crushed the captain of the girls tennis club. You remember her, Inoue-senpai?" Shiba said.
Inoue squinted and nodded. "She is that girl."
"What's so special about her that she gets taken in by the boys tennis club? I do admit that she showed promise on the day of her evaluation kedo sonnani sugoi janai wa... (but it wasn't that amazing...)" Shiba said.
"Perhaps those opinions will change once you get to know her better." Ryuzaki-sensei smiled.
~~~
Smash practice began. The spectators watched in awe as the practice proceeded.
In the middle of the court were nine clay doughs, one for each of the members of the regulars.
"They're clay doughs, air dried for three days." Ryouko told them.
Momoshiro picked one up. They were the size of big rocks, about ¾ of the size of his head. He held it with both hands. "Whoa. They're pretty hard. Children won't play with these anymore... What do you want us to do with them?" He asked.
"Direct your smash at it. We can calculate the power of your smash by looking at the depth of the dent the ball will make on the clay dough." She explained.
"That's really interesting..." Kikumaru said.
"It is. It looks fun." Fuji commented.
"And there's another catch. After the first smash, I'll measure the depth. I'll measure up to your third smash. Then you have to keep on smashing on the dough until it's flattened. You're not allowed to stop, not until you have your clay dough totally plastered on the ground." She told them and smirked.
The regulars eyes widened. Certainly, smashing on the clay dough until it's flattened will be a hard ordeal. Smashes take quite a bit of endurance. Power isn't the main point on how well you will be a ble to flatten the dough. Your ability to throw as many smashes as you can, your stamina to stand those number of smashes and the pinpoint precision needed to hit on the parts not flattened yet. You have to combine them all.
Ryoma picked up his clay dough. "Hmmm." He said thoughtfully as he felt its hardness.
Ryouko turned around and was starting to go to the side of the court when she took a double-take and said, "I forgot to say... The time limit is 5 minutes. It will start at the fourth smash after the measurement of the first three smashes."
"5 minutes???" Kikumaru and Momoshiro chorused in shock.
"That's a bit short, don't you think?" Oishi told her.
"Nope. Not at all." She said.
Fueling their determination, the regulars went to their places.
"Kawamura-senpai..." Ryouko suddenly said.
"What is it, Ryouko?" Kawamura asked. He was just about to get his racket.
"You're excluded from this exercise." She said.
"Eh?" Kawamura asked, confused.
Ryouko made a meaningful gesture with her wrist. "You're not supposed to use your wrist too much, remember?" She portrayed the sentence silently with eye contact with him.
"But there are nine clay doughs." Kawamura said.
"Yes, there is. The last one is for me." Ryouko answered.
Everyone suddenly became alert. They watched as she took her racket from her personalized black duffel bag with 'Fujioka R.' written in blue letters on its side.
She stooped down to tighten the knots on her sneakers and straightened up to walk into the court and join the regulars.
She stopped right beside Ryoma then she placed her fingers on the netting of her racket and checked if they're wounded tight enough. Satisfied, she looked at her left where Ryoma and the other regulars are standing.
"Ready?" She asked.
"Uh... Yeah." Momoshiro replied. He hadn't anticipated that Ryouko will actually join their practice, and he wondered why Kawamura-senpai wasn't allowed to participate in the exercise.
Seeing Ryouko hold her racket with her right hand, Ryoma rolled his eyes and switched his racket to his right hand too. If she's not going to use her dominant hand, then he isn't gonna use his either.
"First smash up!" She announced. The regulars threw their tennis balls up in the air, jumped and smashed with all their might.
Ryouko, of course, did too.
They were surprised by the result. The depths of the clay doughs of Momoshiro and Ryouko were equal. Momo is by far their strongest smasher since he's a power player. Apart from that, Ryouko used her right hand.
Fujioka Ryouko is left-handed. All of them knew that fact from the incident in the girls tennis club. And yet, she gave such a result with her non-dominatnt hand. The vein in Echizen Ryoma's temple throbbed in annoyance. Since when did her right hand get that strong?
The second smash was thrown and the depth measured. The same happened with the third.
Ryouko held her racket with her right hand and took the timer with her left one and set it to five minutes.
Ryouko was still planning on using her right hand. And there's this fact that if Ryouko is the one setting the timer, then she'll start several seconds later than them.
She will be starting several seconds late to try to flatten her clay dough within the 5-minute-time deadline.
Ryoma switched to his left hand. This is no time to be childish. He has to present the best results or he'll lose to that girl.
"Ready..." She said. "And start!"
A hailstorm of tennis balls can be seen raining down on the other side of the court as the regular players and Ryouko bombarded the poor clay doughs with their powerful smashes.
The seconds ticked by as the freshmen busily loaded the baskets with more tennis balls. They were disappearing quite very fast. "So this is why Ryouko-san asked us to get ten baskets of tennis balls in the storage room for today's practice..." Kachirou thought.
"I haven't seen practice like this..." Inoue commented. "Such an innovative way to fire up the players and challenge them to exert their best efforts..." He added.
"Nevermind that, Inoue-senpai! Look at her clay dough!" Shiba exclaimed.
There were still 45 seconds to spare but among all the clay doughs, Ryouko's own is by far the one almost totally flattened to the ground of the court, next to Tezuka and Echizen who were about half-way there.
"This is hard, it is..." Momoshiro thought as he let fly another ball.
"How can such a simple thing be so difficult?" Fuji thought to himself, sending another ball on its way.
The timer on Ryouko's pocket sounded, a sound very similar to the buzzer used to signal the start and end of basketball games.
All the smashes ceased. Exerting all their energy in such a short period of time made their chests heave up and down. They didn't do any running around, but the exercise actually dragged their physical and mental capabilities to their limits.
Ryouko on the other hand, was breathing perfectly fine. The mental stress didn't show at her face and demeanor at all.
"Let's examine the clay doughs." She said, advancing towards the other side of the court.
They started with Kaidoh's which was flattened on the ground but still a bit thick. Ryouko took a metal ruler out of the side of her duffel bag and held it perpendicular to the ground. The thickness of the clay dough measured half an inch.
"Not bad, Kaidoh-senpai." She said. "I see that you have the habit of making your smash shots land on the left side than the right." She commented as she measured the right side of the clay dough which measured 3/4 inch.
Inui's eyes showed relevant alertness. The purpose of this exercise... It's not just the smashes.
"Tcch." Kaidoh said in silent frustration.
"Mine is?" Kikumaru asked.
"3/4 inch on both right and left sides." Ryouko said, measuring it. "It's amazing how you can even it out like this, senpai. But still, it lacks power."
Tezuka's was already plastered on the ground but still measured the quarter of an inch on both sides. Perhaps he didn't exert his best efforts.
Fuji measured half-inch on both sides but the middle was still protruding a quarter inch higher than the sides.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" Ryouko asked with narrowed eyes.
Fuji laughed uncomfortably under her glare. "I wasn't. I was supposed to flatten it out with three to five consecutive balls but then time was up." He explained.
"It's interesting to know that a genius like you have the tendency to leave out the pinpoint. Most players will aim at the center first." Ryouko commented. "And then again, that is the reason why you're a genius."
"What do you mean, Ryouko-chan?" Kikumaru asked.
Ryouko gritted her teeth at the 'chan' at the end of her name, but nevertheless, she still answered politely. "Because Fuji-senpai thinks in a perspective not commonly used by normal people, he becomes more unpredictable. You'll know where a normal person will be going by guessing the path most travelled by, but you won't have an easy time trying to figure out which path Fuji-senpai will take, that is because, he thinks differently. Whether he will take the path less travelled or more travelled, the chance of predicting his choice is 50-50 because you'll have no idea how his head works. He can even abandon both and open upa new path by himself..." She explained.
"Souka! (I see!)" Mizuno said. The freshman trio were listening near them, as well as Shiba, Inoue and Ryuzaki-sensei.
"Momo-senpai's is quarter inch on the left, half an inch on the right. I see. The same problem of Kaidoh-senpai's frequent hitting on the left side..." Ryouko said.
Momoshiro and Kaidoh glared at each other.
"How is it that we're the same??" They seethed quietly.
"Nevertheless, the power is amazing, Momo-senpai..." She added.
Momoshiro smiled victoriously at Kaidoh while Kaidoh cringed in frustration.
"Oishi-senpai is an inch on the left, and ¾ inch on the right. Now that was surprising, since Oishi-senpai is right-handed..." Ryouko commented.
"Why is she talking as if it was supposed to be the other way around? I mean, Kaidoh-kun and Momoshiro-kun had the problem of hitting on the left more and less on the right and they're both right-handed..." Shiba said.
"Right-handed players have the tendency to hit the ball at the opposite side of their dominant hand. Since you slash at the ball diagonally in an up-to-down direction with a forehand during a smash, the ball will fly away from your racket all the way to the opposite side of the hand that fired the shot." Inoue explained. "That was a basic. I can't believe you don't know that..." He added, scolding her.
"Sumimasen..." Shiba said.
"But then, even though it's a basic, to test the foundation of the players with such an innovative practice, I'm starting to think that Fujioka Ryouko is indeed a unique girl fit for a coach." He thought to himself.
"Eiji and I are both right-handed. Because Eiji's acrobatic shots mostly land on the left side, I made it my focus to land my balls on the right one to equalize the number of shots on both sides." Oishi admitted.
"Oh? Really?" Kikumaru said.
Oishi nodded. "I thought I told you. You just play comfortable with your acrobatic shots, and I'll cover for you." He said good-naturedly.
"That's my partner!" Kikumaru said.
"Now, to Echizen's..." Inui said.
Ryoma's clay dough was the same as Tezuka's, but it was plastered on the ground measuring a quarter inch on left side and completely flat on the right side.
"A! So Ryoma-kun's shots are concentrated more on the right because he's left-handed!" Shiba chimed in.
"That's right. So it was amazing for Tezuka-kun and Kikumaru-kun to actually produce completely even ones." Inoue said.
When they went to Ryouko's clay dough, everyone gaped.
Forget being completely plastered thinly on the ground, it looked as if it was incorporated in the court in the first place. Oishi crouched down to try and peel it off. He got the side but wasn't able to peel the entire dough away from the ground because it was stuck completely on the surface of the court.
"Sugoi. (Amazing.)" Oishi breathed.
"That was supposed to be the end product but I guess none of you did it." Ryouko told them. "So all of you will be subjected to punishment." She added. (She referred to 'punishment' as batsu geimu (batsu game) 'batsu' literally translated as 'X' and 'geimu' from the japanese pronunciation of the english word 'game')
"Batsu geimu?" Momoshiro echoed.
"That's right, senpai." Ryouko said and pulled out a clear container behind her duffel bag filled with what looked like a mud-like liquid inside it.
"What the heck is that?" Kikumaru asked, horrified at the look. He's guessing what's coming.
"I heard about Inui juice and so I made my own version of it. It's nutritious though..." She told them as she poured some on a paper cup. The murky liquid flopped down noisily.
Kikumaru's intuition proved true.
Momoshiro and Kaidoh gulped.
"I'm not sure I can handle that since one of Inui's drinks already got me." Fuji said, but he was still smiling.
The faces of the other regulars showed complete disgust and fear of the murky fluid. Even poker-faced Tezuka had his eyebrows twitching.
"Here then. You can drink together. Perhaps that will make you feel better." She told them.
They went to get one cup each and looked at each other.
"Should we count?" Oishi asked.
"You should lead, Oishi." Tezuka said with a straight face, although he was losing his cool inside.
"Three..." Oishi said. "Two..." They all held the cup near their lips.
"One!" They gulped the fluid down their throats.
"Eh?" Kikumaru thought, shocked.
"It's not disgusting at all... It's actually..." Momoshiro thought.
"Quite delicious." Kaidoh thought.
They all finished the drink.
"Oy, Ryouko. This actually tastes good." Momoshiro told her.
"What?" Ryouko asked, confused.
"It was yummy. Weird but yummy..." Kikumaru said.
"Sweet, a bit sour and has a weird aftertaste." Fuji said. "But perfectly taste-bud friendly." He added.
"How can that be?" Ryouko said and poured herself a cup. She drank it and puckered her lips.
"Hmmm." She said thoughtfully. "I thought mixing Moringa oleifera leaves with all kinds of citrus, carrots, and a bit of bitter melon will taste disgusting..." She mumbled.
She sighed. "I guess I'm too much of a good cook to be able to make something disgusting..." She said.
"Ryouko. Are you perhaps, insulting me?" Inui asked, thinking of his Inui juice.
"No, senpai. Not at all... On the contrary, I wish for you to spare some time and teach me how to come up with a hideous, nauseating and totally disgusting mixture that can make anyone faint." She told him.
"You ARE insulting me." Inui complained.
Everyone laughed.
"I guess she's a good addition after all..." Inoue told Ryuzaki-sensei.