A/N: Before reading the chapter below, I want you to know that I adopted this story from Hikari Tsukishi's Elements of the Earth. So the plot is not mine, it is hers. And also, sorry for the late update. I was really happy I got the first rank in class until I totally forgot about this story. Sorry.. *smiles nervously* By the way, MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis? No, I do not own it. I mean, hell would collapse first before I even touched the raw version of the superb anime/manga. XD

Chapter 02: Fuji's Suspicion

At Tennis Practice After School...

One Fuji Syusuke was leaning against the fence of the tennis courts, watching the tennis match that was currently happening. Particularly, it was Echizen against Momo. Nothing was strange about it, actually, except for one small differentia. Only Fuji noticed about this difference, not even Inui or Tezuka noticed. Fuji, in fact, was extremely observant, more than Inui even, although no one knew about it.

'It's the time again,' thought Fuji. 'Time when Echizen is being more aggressive than usual, although only slightly. It happens every month or two. I wonder why.'

Fuji broke his smiling demeanor and opened his eyes, observing the game once more. Echizen completely trashed Momo by 6 games to 2. Momo was panting heavily, sweating here and there, but Echizen hardly broke a little sweat. Panting, yes, but Fuji suspected that it was forceful. It was always like that, even when he played against Tezuka, though Tezuka would always win. But Tezuka would also practically make his shirt wet after playing against Echizen.

Sometimes Fuji couldn't help but wonder if Echizen never played seriously against them all this time.

Suddenly a piercing shout could be heard through the tennis courts. Apparently Momo was the one who just screamed as he drank a cup of 'Marvelous Surprise Inui Juice Excellent'. Fuji, surprisingly, paid no attention to him, contrary to his sadistic nature. The brunette kept inspecting Echizen, who was drinking water from his bottle. He (Fuji) narrowed his cerulean eyes when he saw many droplets of water surrounding the bottle, some dripping to the floor, making a small puddle. 'The water should be lukewarm at this moment since today's weather is really warm. Strange.'

Fuji obviously didn't know that Ryoma was using a little bit of her powers just then. She had made the temperature of the air inside the bottle to drop, so the water will be cooler than before. Ryoma could control the air much better than water as air could make fire to be strong and big but water could extinguish fire, which is the reason why Ryoma chose to lower the temperature of the air instead of the water.

"All members, assemble now!" Ryoma heard the tennis club's buchou, Tezuka, ordered. She looked at Ryuzaki-sensei for a while, the latter nodded to her, before leaving the tennis courts to change clothes. Ryuzaki-sensei was the only one in the school who knew of her real gender as both of them had met before when Ryoma was still five years old, being her father's ex-coach. This, of course, didn't go unnoticed to Fuji.

Ryoma could transform her body into a boy's one, but she didn't want to see others changing clothes in front of her. She was still a girl despite of her transform, and she valued privacy.

She hurriedly went out from the locker room and waited for Momoshiro to finish changing. Momo already promised to treat her some burgers after school yesterday, and Ryoma was not the type to reject such offer, especially if it involved food.

"Momo-senpai," Ryoma greeted Momoshiro when he went out from the room along with the other regulars. "Let's go."

"Go? To where?" Momoshiro asked, scratching his head in confusion.

Ryoma rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Don't tell me you've forgotten the promise to treat me burgers today."

"Oh yeah, I forgot," Momoshiro laughed weakly.

"Hoi hoi! I want to eat burgers too nya!" Kikumaru said as he glomped onto Ryoma in a bone crushing hug for the fifth time on the day, making the crossdressing girl to have a hard time to breathe, again. Ryoma could see snippets of her life flashing before her eyes as she gasped for air. She couldn't help but regret not drinking more grape-flavoured Ponta and hugging Karupin more often.

"Ki...Kikumaru-sen..pai, can't bre...breathe!"

"EIJI! Yamette! Echizen is turning blue!" Oishi shouted in a desperate attempt at saving Ryoma who had recently acquired a bluish tinge on her face.

"Nya? Sorry, Ochibi!" The said 'Ochibi' finally was released from the deathly hug, taking the air as much as she could greedily. She glared at Kikumaru angrily, which made the latter to hide behind Oishi.

"Oishi, Ochibi is being mean to me again nya!" Ryoma just intensified her glare at Kikumaru.

"Ma, ma, so who's going to join us?" Momoshiro asked anxiously, trying to convert Ryoma's attention to something else.

"Me! And Oishi's gonna join too, desho?" Kikumaru said excitedly and showed Oishi the most adorable puppy eyes known to the world. Oishi couldn't help but to surrender.

"Hai hai," Oishi gave in, sighing tiredly.

"Saa, I'm in," Fuji said and as fast as he finished the sentence, many stares were directed at him. Fuji just looked at them innocently with an equally innocent smile on his face."What? I just want to eat burgers." 'And if possible, find out the truth about Echizen's strange behaviour, whatever it is.'

"It's just... unexpected from you," Momoshiro managed to stutter out. "You've never come with us to eat burgers with us before."

Fuji's smile widened even more as he replied, "There's first for everything, isn't it?"

"Well yeah, but.." Momoshiro instantly shut his mouth up when he saw Fuji glared at him dangerously, daring him to say more. Then, Fuji asked, "Anyone else wants to join?"

"The probability of this being a good chance to gather more data is 86.8 percent. And the probability for me to not join is only 3.02 percent. The last 10.18 percent is the probability..."

"So, Inui-sempai also joins," Ryoma cut him short. "Anyone else?"

Kawamura shook his head. "I can't. I have to help my father preparing the sushi shop."

Tezuka and Kaidoh shook their heads in negative as well. "Not liking to eat burgers" being the stoic buchou's reason and "Not wanting to be with Baka Momoshiri" being Kaidoh's. Momoshiro was about to insult Kaidoh back but was stopped by Tezuka's stern glare. Tezuka didn't have any aspirins again as he used up his last one, so he wanted to prevent as many fights as he could to not happen.

They parted at the school's front gates and went to the burger shop, except for Tezuka and Kaidoh. They went to the counter to order.

"Welcome to XXX Burgers!" chirped the employee. "May I take your orders?"

"One Cheeseburger for me, and green tea for the drink," Oishi stated.

"Veggie Wrap, make it two and one small cappuccino," Inui said.

"I want one Chicken Royale with Cheese, nya! And a large cola!" Kikumaru told the employee happily.

"Sa, I want one Sweet Chilli Chicken King Deal. Oh, and please add wasabi in it," Fuji said. The others were already used to Fuji's unusual taste for food, so they weren't shocked when Fuji said he wanted to put wasabi in burgers. This, however, didn't make the employee feeling any better. He was as shocked as hell, if you wanted to know. 'Who the hell wants to put wasabi, WASABI of all things, in burgers for Kami-sama's sake!'

Fuji added, "As for the drink, Inui, please prepare one glass of Inui Juice." Inui nodded.

"Okay, wasabi, isn't it?" Seeing Fuji nodded in approval, the employee faced Momoshiro and Ryoma, whom he immediately recognised, being the regular customers in the shop. "And you two?"

"Five Double Cheeseburgers for me with three large fries and two medium cola," Momoshiro replied. The others, except Ryoma, were shocked hearing the undeniably large amount of food.

"Ten Bacon Double Cheeseburgers, seven medium fries and three vanilla shakes," Ryoma listed. She turned her head to face Momoshiro and smirked. "Don't forget that you're the one who will pay for me, Momo-senpai." The tennis regulars, sans Fuji and Ryoma herself, sweat dropped at that blunt statement. Momoshiro inwardly cried. 'Oh, my poor fat wallet!' he thought.

"Hai! The orders are here," the employee said. The regulars took their food and paid for them. They took a sit and began to eat while chatting and talking.

'Take my hand tonight, let's not think about tomorrow. Take my hand tonight, we can find some place—'

Everyone stopped eating and stared at Ryoma, who put down her seventh burger and took her cell phone out from his pocket. She stared at the screen. 'Oyaji called. It must be serious since he rarely calls someone..' Ryoma thought. She, then, answered the call.

"Hello? Oyaji?"

"Ryoma, is that you?"

Ryoma fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Yes, Oyaji. Who else?"

"Ryoma, there's a serious problem in the city." Nanjirou's voice currently sounded like Tezuka's: demanding, strict and exigent.

Ryoma's expression showed nothing but seriousness at the moment. "Nandesuka?"

"Rinko detected evil powers not too long ago, but the powers are not too strong. It seemed that the enemies had summoned some low-leveled demons. You won't have any problem fighthing against them. But I'll send Nanako in case. Also, the demons are heading to the street tennis court you're usually playing at. There's no one in there luckily."

"Alright, I'll kil- solve the problem as soon as possible," Ryoma replied softly, not wanting her senpais to catch the word 'kill' as she knew that they were listening to her now. Then, she hung up. She looked at her seniors apologetically. "Senpai-tachi, there is a.. problem with my family right now, so I have to leave first," Ryoma lied and took her bag. "See you tomorrow at school. Oh, Momo-senpai, you can have those," Ryoma pointed at her unfinished food and with that, she went off.

"I have to go too, minna," Seeing his friends staring at him, Fuji continued, "Yuuta will be home today, and I don't want to make him wait for me." Everyone, with the exception of Inui, shuddered. They knew how protective Fuji was to his brother, and they didn't want to interfere him from meeting his otouto. Therefore, they just nodded and immediately after that, Fuji went off to the direction Ryoma was heading.

-tsuzuku-

A/N: So, how's the chappie? I really had a hard time in this chapter, even more than the last one. I've decided to not include Fujiwara Akahama in this story since I don't really like OCs. I mean, there's incredibly a large number of characters in Prince of Tennis, so why should I use an OC? *wink* Also, thank you very much, minna, for reading this story! XD

Anyway, as usual, I'll be happy to take constructive criticism and reviews. If I mess up on something, like grammar, please tell me through your reviews... But please, no flames.. XD I'm still a beginner after all, and you know that this is my first story. Moreover, English is not my mother tongue... *smiles*