Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis or their characters..

Author Notes: A new story to make up for the ones I stopped, because of not enough reviews.. :( I sound horrible, don't I? "Not enough reviews." Anyway, this story is completely make up, with no relevant details to the real world. Pls reviews for those who like it. I think I am the only one who started writing a spy content for the pairing of Ryoma and Sakuno.. Am I? By the way, I avoided using Japanese words. It sounds weird for Sakuno to call her grandmother, granny not Obasan, but I would like to standardize everything here, so... ENJOY! :)

Chapter 1: The Beginning

12am Tokyo, Japan
Hotel Royale – Japan, Spy Academy, Basement 8, Dorm

A 12 year old girl stirred slightly in her bed with her fist clenched hard about her blanket, her face contorts into in to an image of fear. Beads of sweat rolled down from her forehead as she issued a light moan of fear.

Suddenly, she bolted out of her bed, breathing heavily. Her brown eyes wide with fear, present within the orbs, her heart beating wildly against her chest. The torture of her nightmare was over, but the painful truth still sinks in her heart.

She turns her auburn head, her slender hand pick up the worn out frame. She had fallen asleep looking at it. The picture depicts a young couple smiling, the mother carrying a young girl of about two, waving to the camera. The background overlooks the city of Paris where the Eiffel tower could be faintly spotted at the fading background.

A string of words engraved at the frame. Sakuno finger's traced the craved letters of English delicately, "Love never dies."

Quietly, she set the frame back its original place, her bedside cabinet, just below the sleeping lamp. She reached and gave dangling switch a light tug, and the lamp flickers back to life, shining a weak but warm yellow light about Sakuno's single bed.

With sufficient lighting, Sakuno's eyes sought out the time on her alarm clock. Sitting not far from the lamp, the face of the clock have both of its hand pointed to number 12.

'Midnight' Sakuno reads.

Beyond Sakuno's bedroom, gentle snores were heard from her roommate, Osakada Tomoka. Not wanting to wake her friend up at such an ungodly hour, Sakuno grabbed herself a jacket and tiptoed out their shared dormitory.

She stepped into the brightly lit corridor of the academy and slipped the door of their rooms shut. A click venerated in the silent corridor and Sakuno continued her silent journey down the 'already-very-familiar' corridor.

Sakuno looked wistfully at the lights above her head. Clearly the academy isn't making effort in saving cost, not that it ever need anyway. Everything here is all 24/7 all year round, people or machines.

And it will soon be her turn to be on alert and ready 24/7. Sakuno sucked in a deep, chilling breath of the night. She had never felt so nervous and jumpy before, not even that very fateful day that landed her in this very special school.

One month ago…

6.45am Tokyo, Japan
Ryuzaki residence, Ryuzaki Sakuno's bedroom

"Sakuno!"

Her eyes snapped open. She blinked her brown orbs, rolled over and wearily pushes herself upright. As usual, her bedroom was neat and tidy, but this time, it is also empty. For a moment, 12 year old Sakuno glanced quizzically at her empty bookshelf before memories rushed back.

They are moving.

Someone rapped smartly on the door, "Sakuno? We're going to be late!" The voice of the elderly Sumire sounded clearly through the wooden door.

Stifling a yawn, Sakuno's sweet voice answered back, "I'll be ready in a few minutes!" She had not been able to fall asleep last night, brooding over the fact that last night will be the last night she spent in the room where she had grown up in the past nine years.

Sakuno walked to the bathroom and began the usual morning routine. After giving her teeth a good brush, she splashed some water on her face. The coldness of the water did certainly give her a good shock to wake herself up entirely. Finally, she pulled on the white flowing dress her grandmother had prepared last night. She was about to meet someone important.

Giving her long auburn hair a brush, her mind reviewed what had happened hectically through her past month.

Three months ago, her grandmother suddenly announced that her health was failing her and that she would not be fit enough to look after Sakuno, much left her own self. So, she 'casually' voiced out to move to somewhere where there will be people that her grandmother trusts, to look after them. Sakuno had brushed the startling comment aside, thinking that it was a joke since her grandmother wasn't anything but jubilant when she mentioned it.

Since then, her grandmother had visitors in dark formal clothes visiting her every week or so, always coming late at night and left somewhere in the middle of the night when Sakuno is sleeping. When she asked her grandmother who were they, the same answer is always given: "Ex-students of mine."

Even though Sakuno knew her grandmother had been teaching middle school students for the past many years, she had doubts that all students her grandmother taught are mysterious and late visitors. Then the final shock came when she opened a mysterious letter meant for her.

As Sakuno twisted her hair into braids, she recalls how outraged she was when her grandmother hadn't told her that she would be enrolling into a whole new school. Because of the incident, she spent one week being cold to her grandmother. Doing her chores and work as usual, ignoring her grandmother as much as she could. It was a stubborn move, for nothing could made her grandmother changed her mind.

She wondered even now if she could accept the fact of going to a whole new school in a whole new place. In fact, as Sakuno gathered her bathroom accessories and dumped them into the empty box stood outside her door, she was about to meet the principal of the new school.

"Ex-student," Her grandmother had explained.

Walking her final time down the old set of stairs, Sakuno knew that she would missed her home very much, she was to move into the high end part of the city, abandoning all of her childhood and dearest friends, Sakuno's eyes brimmed with tears at the very thought. She made her way into the kitchen and spotted her grandmother sitting alone on the dining table.

"Good morning, granny." Sakuno greeted, it is not like being cold and unfriendly would help to change things that have been fixed.

"Sakuno, sit down," Sumire acknowledged.

Sakuno obediently sat opposite her grandmother waiting for her usual caution speech of a new school year.

But it didn't come.

"Sakuno, I have something secret to tell you. It had always been the darkest secret I ever had, but it's time to tell you the truth."

"What truth?" Sakuno asked, her fear rising at the unusually seriously tone her grandmother used.

"Sakuno, I am a spy; used to be at least. And so were your dead parents."

Sakuno was about to retort at her grandmother for cracking a silly joke at such an early morning but stop when her grandmother mentioned her parents. Her grandmother had never really told her anything that regards to her parents. It was like she was trying to wipe off Sakuno's memories of being loved and cared by two parents who had died in a freak car accident when she was three.

Ryuzaki Sumire took her opportunity of silence to continue, "And soon, you will be one too. It is time for you to attend the right school, the Spy academy."

Sakuno sat there, numb with shock. She didn't know what to say. The first thing that blurt out from her mouth was, "That is my new school?"

The kitchen door slide open, admitting a man in black suit with green black hair. In the background, he was accompanied by several similarly dressed others with dark sunglasses. For a moment, Sakuno felt like a character in a movie set.

"That is your new school. For now, you are a student of Spy Academy."

"You are early, Nanjiroh," her grandmother address the green haired man who spoke just now.

"Aren't you, old lady?" he retorted, the mysterious aura diminished instantly by his not very polite behaviour.

The man called Nanjiroh, turned his head slightly backwards and nodded back to the others. One by one the dark spectacled men stood forward and bowed towards the pair of women and lay something on the table.

First was a covered black coat. Second, another covered white blouse along with a black skirt with a single white strip running near the bottom of her skirt. The final man laid a total of 3 white boxes on the table, the largest one at the very bottom. Then together like uniform squad, they bowed towards the pair of sitting woman and left. Sakuno could hear them moving and shifting her packed boxes down.

Sakuno looked questioningly at the man who seems to be in charge, Nanjiroh. "This would be you new uniform for the school. The rules will be explained once you reach school. It will take you a while for you to be familiar with it, but your mentor will guide you. Now, while the SF team packed up the belongings of this house, you might like to change into your new uniform first."

Sakuno numbly nodded, wondering what does 'SF' stands for.

"Oh and by the way, I am Echizen Nanjiroh, the Principal of your new school."

7am Tokyo, Japan
Ryuzaki residence, Kitchen

"These are my new uniforms?" was the first thing Sakuno said when the Principal left the pair alone.

"Uniform," Sumire corrected. "Come, I shall help you with it, the Royals might not be particular about attire in school grounds but first impression do counts." Sumire unzipped the cover for the white blouse and black skirt. "It doesn't help when the uniform is rather complicated," she muttered.

After slipping on the blouse and skirt, Sakuno held up the school tie, "A pure silk tie? This uniform must be really expensive!" Sakuno exclaimed as she examined the soft velvet-y feeling of my skirt.

Sumire laughed at her granddaughter outburst, "You seem to be taking this spy business rather well don't you? Well, I do earn quite an amount being a teacher in that kind of school you know? And your parents didn't leave you with nothing!"

Sakuno kept her silence, her head whirling with much information. All she could do now was her usual self as the adults bump her from one place to another without her consent.

She finished tying her black tie which had a single white strip across it diagonally under embroidery of an owl perched on some books, the symbol of the academy.

Suddenly, all the strings that seem to hold Sakuno snapped, she flopped back onto the kitchen seat and said, "Please granny, I… I just don't know what to do. I am not sure about all these and… and I am not a cue ball on a billiard board to be bumped about like that. I want PROPER information!" The last few words came out as a shout and Sakuno regretted instantly.

Sumire put her wrinkled hand to her forehead, for once; she looked old with emotions heaving in drastic peaks and troughs through her. Everything seem so clear but so difficult to explain, she didn't even know where to begin.

"Maybe I should do the explaining?" Echizen Nanjiroh had return. "Please, Ryuzaki Sakuno, your grandmother have had a tiring life, would you care enough for allow me to relate your family history?"

Sakuno observed now tired Sumire looks and nodded. Her grandmother gave her a weak but thankful smile and allowed herself to be supported by 2 SF men out to the living room.

Echizen Nanjiroh took Sumire's seat and began the story:

"Your parents, Ryuzaki Syuchi, your father and Ryuzaki Sakura, your mother were outstanding agents serving the World government. They often complete their missions in Asia, making quite a capture of dangerous criminals and terrorists and made themselves quite a number of enemies.

Then when they got you, they decided to retire and being their lives fresh as normal civilians, they took you on a holiday, something that we, agents, find hard to have, enjoying a peaceful life. Somehow the enemy got the wind of their real identities and…"

Nanjiroh paused for a moment before continuing the tragic story.

"Well your parents died in a car accident when they were trying to outrun them in a car chase. Thankfully, you survived."

Sakuno closed her eyes, remembering the childhood nightmare she had about the same car skidding before it flipped over and caught up in flames. For a moment the world spin about her and she felt rather alone and lost.

"What about granny?" Sakuno finally asked, after maintaining a few minutes of silence.

"Ryuzaki Sumire was raised and trained at the original spy academy in America. She was an orphan but one government official took her in when your grandmother was about 8. She was hardworking and eventually a rather professional agent who thwarted many evil plans and also a great help especially in times of war."

"Eventually she had a son, you father, who was also raised up at the very same academy at America. She herself retired as an in-field agent and took up the job of being a trainer in the academy for 15 years before moving to the Japan Spy academy alone. After 8 years, she finally quitted her career officially to look after you who had survived the car accident. And when you were old enough to be independent, she came back as a part time trainer."

Sakuno nodded, slowly taking in the right history of her family. But even after the real truth about her parents, she resent it.

"And why do you need me for? I don't want to be a spy and study at that Academy, I just want to be a normal girl, grow up and have a peaceful life!" Sakuno asked, tearing up, realizing that her life had turned upside down. There is no way she could live like the previous Sakuno from yesterday.

Echizen Nanjiroh leaned close, his tone full of concern, "We have a reason to believe that whoever is after you parents 9 years ago found out that they haven't done a clean job and left you, a witness of all accounts. Ryuzaki Sakuno, your life might be in danger."