Iris Potter loved Tennis. She loved it with a ferocious passion. Enough of a passion for her to turn a so called tennis team of nothing but fangirls into something worthy of attending the Japanese Nationals. It was time for Seigaku's female tennis team to take centre court!

000

Last time: "What's going on here?" Tezuka demanded shortly as he approached, seeing several regulars and that red haired girl Ryuuzaki-sensei had praised in tears.

"From what I was able to get out of her, some members of the girls' team took exception to her being friendly with one of their idols and saw fit to... discourage her friendship with the use of scissors and," his face twisted in rage and disgust for all of a heart beat, his brown eyes slitting open threateningly as his hands clenched and unclenched, "the threat of urinating in her mouth."

Kaidou hissed explosively, racket creaking with the force of his grip on it.

Tezuka's face came over stormy, "Names?" he demanded curtly.

Fuji's smile was sharp like broken glass and unpleasant, "She gave none. But I can guess. This isn't the first time this has happened if you recall."

Yes he did. The one girlfriend he almost had in his second year, the only one he had actually been interested in at that, and she had gotten unceremoniously threatened away from him by having a box of thumb-tacked poured into her mouth by the former Captain of the girl's team, Yukimoto Sango. It looked like the girls' team had not changed much under Inoue-san's captaincy.

Momoshiro was pale though, "I'm... I'm the only one of the regulars she's been in contact with," he stated weakly.

"It isn't your fault," Fuji told him shortly, glaring.

"But - "

"Did you want this to happen?" he bit out, gesturing to where the first year girl was still sobbing and shaking against her friend's shoulder, Echizen with a hand on her head muttering to her in English, trying to calm her down. Momoshiro shook his head, sick and horrified, "Then it isn't your fault. It's theirs and theirs alone. And when... Ayame-chan, was it? Once Ayame-chan has calmed down, we will have Ryuuzaki-sensei do something about it."

Numbly, the tall second year nodded.

Tezuka nodded, before glancing at Echizen, "Kaidou, do you mind delaying your match for a bit?" he asked, looking over to the surly second year.

"No. Take as long as she needs," he stated sharply before turning on heel and walking away.

Most would have thought it rude but the Regulars knew what Kaidou was like, he had a real weakness for crying girls and small animals. He would be back in a few minutes, likely as not with almost every kind of sweet flavoured drink from the vending machine in an effort to try and cheer the girl up.

000

Ryoma and Horio quickly hustled Iris a little further away from the courts, getting her to sit under a near-by tree not far from the Ranking Table where Second Year Regular, Inui-senpai, was watching with inscrutably gleaming glasses. Iris sniffled miserably, Horio's arm around her shoulder, no one daring to comment on the sizeable wet patch on the first year's shoulder where she had cried.

"Leaving England was a mistake," the girl muttered bitterly, "I thought the Japanese took sportsmanship too seriously for bullying incidents like that to happen," she admitted, giving a mighty sniff, and grimacing.

"We do. But I can hardly call the girls' team anything approaching legitimate sportsmen, or women," the Third Year that had pulled her from hider hiding place said in heavily accented English as he knelt down in front of her, offering a packet of tissues. Hesitantly, she took one and dabbed at her sore eyes. She had cried so hard her eyes burned and the skin around them was swollen and stinging. She probably looked absolutely horrible. How embarrassing. All because of some worthless bullies. She was pathetic.

A few more tears dribbled down her cheeks and she quickly wiped their shameful appearance away.

It was at that point that Kaidou returned, with one of the first years trailing behind him, both of them with armloads of drinks from the vending machines. Kaidou knelt and began to set them out with awkward silence as everyone stared at him with the exception of Fuji, who just smiled as always, eyes slit shut happily.

"Here. Drink," the Second Year grunted in embarrassment.

Iris looked between the drinks and the older boy, not quite sure how to react. She was still too shaken from the encounter, and thoroughly ashamed of herself and embarrassed about crying all over her new friends, even though she knew, she damn well knew, the Japanese looked down on large public displays of emotion. It made them uncomfortable. And she'd tried to hide, deal with it herself and now here she was, and they'd spent their own money to get drinks to try and cheer her up and...

More tears dribbled from the corners of her eyes, "Thank you, Senpai," she croaked, wiping her eyes again. "That's... very kind of you. Thank you."

He hissed at her, looking uncomfortable, and sharply got to his feet, stalking off angrily. Iris swallowed, drawing back.

"Don't worry. He's just embarrassed, not angry," Fuji assured her, "Kaidou is notoriously bad with girls, but his heart's in the right place," he added, voice coloured with amusement.

It took a further five minutes before she stopped trembling, and it took Kachiro, the first year Kaidou had dragged off to help him get drinks, physically pressing one of the bottles into her hand before she would take one. She watched Ryoma's match against Kaidou carefully. They weren't bad. Kaidou's insight and perception could do with work, he went in expecting the match to go one way and didn't account for anything else, even the temperature of the day. A foolish mistake. His ability with the Buggy Whip Shot, apparently called the Snake in these parts, was good. Very smooth, but he didn't have a full range of movement with it. All in all, he was a fair player, he could go far with the right training as an endurance player – if he upped his speed and perception, he could very well be a tough opponent for her to face, one of the worst actually. Stamina had always been her Achilles heel.

Ryoma however had both impressed and depressed her. He was good. Phenomenally good for his age. He walked in with no expectation and adapted far more quickly to Kaidou's gameplay than she expected, perhaps because he went in without expectation? His insight was good, he laid a trap and played it through perfectly. The problem was, he could have kept his ruse going considerably longer if he had not made those sly comments. Then there was using his own technique against him. Grandstanding was one thing, rubbing someone's face in it was another. His arrogance was an issue, and it would get him into trouble before too long.

Kaidou lost, understandably so. But his reaction...

Iris gasped, immediately recoiling from the chainlink as he repeatedly slammed the rough-side of his racket into his knee, hard enough to split the skin. Oh god, that had to have hurt! He stormed off the court, ignoring Ryoma when he offered to shake (well what did you expect after humiliating him like that?), he hissed something low and violent to the other regulars as he passed.

"He's crazy," Horio wheezed, watching as he stormed off towards the water fountain. "You should stay away from him, Ayame-chan," he said, looking down at the girl – who wasn't there. "Eh?! Aya-Ayame?" he squeaked looking around for the red headed girl, unaware that she had already run for the first aid box in the office.

She found him with his head under the water fountain, liquid striking and washing down from the back of his head to drip from his chin, bandana in hand, and blood snaking down his shin to stain his socks a dirty shade of copper-red. His eyes were shut, and he was breathing steady and deep, as if trying to regain some control of himself. She hovered awkwardly. He had been nice to her, but they weren't friends, and she was admittedly ignorant of a great deal of Japan's more delicate etiquette, especially between teenagers, males and females, and senpai and kohai. She didn't want to cause offence by being presumptuous. But on the other hand, that was a lot of blood too. He had really torn the skin on his knee.

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," she finally blurted out as she took a step closer.

Kaidou jumped, jerking upright so fast he accidentally sprayed her with water from his hair, not that she cared over much, and then froze like a deer in the headlights when he realised what he'd just done. She casually brushed the water droplets from her front and set the first aid kit down on the edge of the water fountain, "If your knee okay? You were hitting it pretty hard," she pointed out, nodding down to it when he twitched and glanced down in surprise. Apparently he had completely forgotten is the startled hiss was an indication.

"...I'm fine," he finally rasped out at length.

She nodded slowly, "Do you want me to look at it for you, or would you rather handle it yourself?" she asked, tapping the green box with a fingertip so he knew what she meant.

There was a long, semi-awkward silence as the older boy thought it over before holding a hand out, "I'll do it," he grunted. Iris smiled and handed it over, glad that he was doing something about that knee rather than offended that he hadn't let her help. She watched as he sat down and popped the box open, swiping his chin with a wrist to shake off a few offending water drops before tearing open a few alcohol wipes to start cleaning himself up.

"Your Snake Technique is pretty good. You have a good grasp of it," she said, trying to find the right words to help him improve without upsetting him or seeming like she was lecturing or talking down to him. Boys got surprisingly sensitive about that when they were teenagers, she recalled.

"Not good enough," he hissed unhappily, giving the torn flesh a thorough cleaning, his nose wrinkling when flaps of skin lifted under his touch, causing fresh blood to well up from the abraised flesh.

She hummed in agreement, "There's always room for improvement," she allowed, "it's pretty clear you're a heavy endurance and technical player, improving your aim would be the first step to improving the Snake. Being able to send it to every corner of the court from any corner of the court. Focusing on speed and technique would change the spin allowing for sharper, higher, wider, or lower angles on the curve. A few counters wouldn't go amiss either, for aggressive players who go immediately full throttle to end the match as soon as possible. There will be a lot of ruthless players in the future, and a lot of them won't allow you to draw a match out into your favoured endurance set," she explained as she crouched down beside him and dug out a tube of antiseptic ointment, "Here. They don't look deep, they should be okay to let scab naturally," she said as he took it from her.

"Thanks," he grunted, allowing her to collect the soiled wipes and wrappers, moving off to throw them in the trash before returning as he finished smearing the ointment on his knee.

She tilted her head somewhat, sighing through her nose. He was still upset about the loss. She imagined he would be less so if Ryoma hadn't been quite such a little shit about it though. What to do?

"Everyone loses, Senpai. You shouldn't beat yourself up over it," she told him gently, calmly meeting his vicious glare without flinching. "I've learned more from when I've lost than I ever have from an easy win. We learn our limitations, our weaknesses, and where we need to focus on as Players to improve. Just, take this as a learning experience and move on. Get stronger. Nothing is ever really over in Tennis. There's just the next opportunity to face one another in the court," she quoted, Adam's words echoing back into her head after her first real loss in the British Tournaments. She had lost more than once in the beginning, enough so that she doubted she would ever be good enough to stay with Adam, that he would get fed up of her being such a waste of time he would throw her into an orphanage. But it didn't happen. And when it came up in her Therapy sessions, her therapist was quick to call a group session and have those insecurities cleared up post haste. Without that anxiety weighing down on her, without being so terrified of failure, she was free to enjoy the game as she wished. And, unsurprisingly, she won. Again, and again, and again.

She loved tennis.

It saved her life, and her sanity. It brought her to Adam. But now, she knew she didn't need to continue with tennis in order to keep him. It was something they could share together, but it wasn't the lynchpin of their relationship as much as some may believe it so.

"But not in real life?" he questioned with narrowed eyes. She paused for a moment, wondering what he meant before she recalled earlier, that incident with the girls.

"Facing someone on the Courts is different," she muttered, "You aren't supposed to hurt people on the courts. If you do, you're not playing Tennis, and you don't deserve to be there." Rackets were not weapons. People who used them as such weren't fit to hold them, never mind use them. Scum. "Thank you, by the way, for the drinks. That was very kind of you," she said bowing to him.

Kaidou flushed slightly, looking away with a dark scowl on his face, grunting in acknowledgement.

000

Iris ended up sticking around to the end of the day, long after the Ranking Matches had ended as the other first years cleaned up the courts. Horio had been particularly insistent on making sure she got home safely after what had happened earlier. She was glad she made friends with him, he was a good guy. She listened in to the boys gossiping with half an ear as she helped them sweep (she wanted to go home quickly so had pitched in so they would get finished faster). And while it was surprising to hear that Ryoma continued to lose everyday, she was assuming that was to his coach. Good, he was lucky that he had a coach that he could go all out against and still lose. Adam, while she loved him dearly, couldn't keep up with his injuries. She had surpassed him some time ago, something that depressed the both of them when it happened.

After cleaning, she and Horio bid the other three goodbye at the school gates, Ryoma would be walking, Kachiro took his bike, and Katsuo was heading to the bus stop. Throughout the train ride he kept trying to get the names of the girls who had attacked her earlier that day, but because Iris didn't know half of them, she couldn't answer. Well, she didn't anyway. She didn't want to cause even more of a fuss than she already had, and it wasn't like they bullied anyone else. Just her. She could handle some bullies. Yes, she would cry and have the shakes afterwards, but she had broken one girl's nose. Really, she could defend herself. Easily. They couldn't hurt her. So. There was no need, really, to kick up a fuss.

And it wasn't like she was going to be continuing with Seishun's Girls' Tennis Team anyway.

It was painfully obvious they wouldn't be going to any kind of tournaments, so she was just wasting her time with them. She would continue her private training, focus on her studies, and attend whatever independent tournaments she could find either locally, nationally, or world-wide. Often times there would be a fund for athletes such as herself to attend championships if they were on foreign soil, and if need be, she would... urgh, even sign an advertising contract in order to get the funds.

Thus far she had avoided such need for sponsorship through school, they were quite content to foot the bill for her attendance to tournaments as it brought them quite a bit of prestige, and as a winner, her bills were paid for by the Tournament officials, so it wasn't like the school missed out or anything. She had offers of sponsorship before. Wear this or that logo and they would pay for her equipment, appear in this advertisement and be paid 'x' amount of money, etc, etc. Boring, degrading, and humiliating stuff. But if she had to, she could do it. Adam wouldn't let them take advantage of her, he was still in contact with his old PR manager, if need be he would happily get in contact with him and hire him to work on her behalf.

It wasn't the end of the world. But, perhaps, it was the end of her dream to have a normal school life. Once again she would be skipping weeks of education at a time in order to attend foreign championship tournaments.

She bade Horio goodbye at her stop, having to quite firmly tell him that she was fine and no, if he followed her home her Dad might get the wrong idea and kick his ass on principle. He quite quickly backed off after that and said he would see her later tomorrow.

She didn't have a chance to correct him before the train doors slid shut.

She had no intention of returning for tomorrow's Ranking Tournament.

The less she saw of Seishun's Tennis Courts, the happier she would be, she decided.

She didn't tell her Dad what had happened, though he knew almost immediately something had happened because she spent most of her time locked up in her room until he dragged her out for her evening training. They packed up and headed for the swimming pool where she changed, strapped on her weights and jumped in.

For the first half an hour she would be swimming continuous laps without pause. One lap with just legs, the next with just arms, and so on and so forth, one set of both arm and leg laps would be done at a slow pace, the other as fast as she could, before having a slow lap, followed by another high-speed one. There would be no pauses or breaks, just half an hour of constant fast-slow-arms-legs motion. She felt like a particularly waterlogged noddle by the end of it, floating belly up in the water rubbing her arms and legs in discomfort. After that, came the diving, and the running.

Adam would drop heavy weights into the pool, and she had to dive down, grab them, and then run along the bottom of the pool to the other side without surfacing, before she was allowed to swim back up and drop the weight on the edge of the pool. Wearing jelly shoes with rubber grips on the sole meant that she could actually perform the exercise, it was supposed to be a resistance/endurance training, not only upping her speed and muscle strength, but also increasing her ability to be oxygen starved for longer, meaning that being out of breath wouldn't be much of an issue. It was brutal training. Which was why she only did sets of ten with five minute breaks in between. After ten lots of ten, she took the weights off and did five cool down laps of the pool before being allowed out to go and spend half an hour in the sauna, baking the aches from her body. A shower and fresh change of clothes, and she was wobbling back home, Adam carrying her bag as she was way too rubbery to do it herself.

Tomorrow would be more of the same, she would wake up early and go on her morning run before Adam would take her to one of the courts and they would run practice drills. After drills he would come up with some imaginatively brutal and strangely effective training regimes. And at the end of the day, they would go swimming again.

She was always exhausted in the evenings, but it was a good tired. The kind of tired that foretold a good night's sleep.

She got up early, made her lunch, Adam's. And got on the early train to school, not particularly wanting to answer Horio's loud questions about why she hadn't shown up the previous day.

And yes, when she got in, her first stop was Ryuuzaki-sensei's office. She wasn't in, likely down at the boys' Tennis courts. Iit was very cowardly of her, but she just didn't want to explain herself, not to anyone. She didn't want to cause a fuss, and she didn't want to deal with those insipid fanbrats anymore.

She dropped off her club-resignation forms on the woman's desk and walked out, heading to class with a bitter taste in her mouth and a heavy heart.

There was no point staying in a club that didn't want her, and was going three-hundred miles in the opposite direction she wanted to. This wasn't letting them win, this was looking after her own interests. And her interests had nothing to do with boys.

000

She ignored Ryoma's stare as Horio immediately rushed over, loudly asking if she was alright, why didn't she show up yesterday, and various other questions. She calmed him down easily enough by citing her that she took Saturday training off, but couldn't really skip Sunday, yes she was fine, just the usual aches that came after a Sunday Session, and she got the early train in this morning so she could hand in some paperwork.

"The same paperwork that had Coach Ryuuzaki cursing to high hell ten minutes ago?" Ryoma asked in English.

She shrugged a shoulder, "Probably."

"I never took you for a quitter," he stated coolly.

She sniffed, "Why stay in a club that A) doesn't want you, B) isn't doing anything you're interested in, C) hasn't a hope in hell of reaching nationals, and D) hazardous to your future career and personal health? Really, Echizen, I would have thought you were mature enough to take a step out of a poisonous situation that doesn't benefit you. I never took you for an idiot," she retorted sharply, brown eyes gleaming as she tilted her chin up, somehow managing to look down on him even as he stood over her.

There was a moment of silence before the other first year nodded shortly, and moved off, acknowledging her point and the reprimand she just hit him with. He didn't apologise though. He thought she was in the wrong, and that was fine, he could think what he wanted. She wasn't there to please him.

"Err," Horio trailed off, looking between them awkwardly. Kami-sama, Iris could be scary when she was upset, that was icy.

She smiled up at him, "Don't worry about it, Horio-kun. You'd best get to your seat, Sensei will be here soon."

"Ah, right!"

At the end of the day, she didn't allow Ryoma or Horio to drag her to the Courts where Ryuuzaki-sensei would no doubt demand an explanation, or try and reinstate her into the girls' team. Instead, she gave them the slip by going into the ladies toilets and leaving via the reception doors instead of the main gate. She immediately went home and changed, before heading to the Street Courts. Last time she had been there she met an interesting girl by the name of Tachibana An, hopefully this time they would be able to have a match before her brother's teammates showed up and monopolised the Courts for their Doubles Dick-Waving Matches.

000

And an update. Holy crap! Try not to die of shock.

I found my notes, which includes who the fuck everyone is and the plans for the next few chapters XDDD so yeah, inspiration returned! Plot returns!

Now, for those asking: No, Iris won't be joining the boys' team. That isn't actually allowed because Tennis Tournaments are always split by gender unless you're under the age of ten. Having Iris join the boys' team would actually be grounds for them to be disqualified from Tournaments. So yeah, not happening.

Everyone expecting bad stuff to happen to the bullies, I'm so sorry. But this is Japan. And they have one of the worst bullying problems in the first world. Not even America is as bad compared to them. That situation with someone getting thumb-tacks down their throat happened to Asuko-sensei's friend when she was in school. (Asuko-sensei being my College Japanese teacher, we actually met the lady in question's husband, though not her sadly. He owned a hotel in Hiroshima that we were allowed to stay at)

As for pairings: I've said repeatedly, Iris is twelve. She's not interested in boys. All that's running around that raspberry coloured head of hers is Tennis. (Wait until the 'New Prince of Tennis' series rocks around. Then I might look to pairing her up beyond a crush or puppy-ish handholding and cheek kisses).