© 2007 Gold Original Storyline

Disclaimer: When I'm not on PoT, I'm on crack. (Credited to my sister)

Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Oujisama was created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san and/or any other entity holding any legal right(s) associated with and/or arising out of The Prince of Tennis. It was written purely out of fanservice and is not to be used for profit or any association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.

Title: Blame It On Echizen

Notes: This started out because of the music video for the song Birthday by Aozu, where Seigaku as The Band of Princes go on a road trip! I loved the way they looked, but I wanted it with tennis. So I decided I'd try to write something tennis-based and fun... and just different. I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it.

P.S. Uh, I imagined that they all went on to Seigaku high school together. It's my little flight of fantasy.

Part I – Echizen's Great Idea

It was all Echizen's idea, to begin with, and he was duly credited—or blamed—for it. In his defence, it has to be said that Echizen had always been a bit of a loose cannon where tennis was concerned, and when you added Momoshiro Takeshi and grape-flavoured Ponta to the mix, you got something of an explosive device just waiting to be detonated. It didn't matter even if Momo had truly nothing to do with it; somehow apparently his very presence at the scene of the crime tilted things heavily in favour of the preposterous. (There were actual statistics that proved this—just ask Inui Sadaharu).

It was a gorgeous day. An unbroken blue sky, sun shining down as if there were no tomorrow, tennis with Momo-sempai (although they were actually playing doubles)—and Echizen and his Momo-sempai had just won a two-set match, 7-5, 6-4, against Ibu Shinji and Kamio Akira at the street tennis courts. Admittedly Kamio was playing with a strapped knee and Shinji had developed cramps in his right leg in the middle of the first set all the way to the end of the second set, but hey, this was the first time Momoshiro and Echizen had beaten them in a doubles match. All's fair in love and tennis, after all.

The only fly in the ointment, in Echizen's not-very-humble opinion, was that the Seishun Gakuen School's tennis courts—all sixteen of them in the junior high, senior high and university divisions—were being closed for two whole weeks for refurbishment. Fine, so it was the summer holidays, and in some quarters (i.e. the school administration) that was regarded as the best time to do whatever the workmen were going to do to the tennis courts, but it meant no team practice for the whole of the next two weeks. It was very, very disturbing. Members of the exalted Seigaku's boys' tennis club (senior high division), ever optimistic, had each decided to treat it as a sort of long-overdue, well-deserved rest period in which they would Do Their Own Thing. Usually that involved more tennis, which was why Momoshiro and Echizen were at the street tennis courts.

Momoshiro, flushed with victory, was in an especially good mood. "Oi, Echizen, d'you know, Tezuka-buchou is trying to see if that tennis place up in the mountains is available next week! You remember, the weird place we went to last time in junior high?"

Kamio Akira looked up sorely from where he was sorely nursing his sore knee (he had banged into something stupid while doing stunts on stupid Momoshiro's stupid bicycle the other day). "What, you got thrown off your own school's tennis courts?"

Momoshiro snorted. "We're not that dumb."

Kamio gritted his teeth, feeling even more out of sorts, because Momoshiro hadn't risen to the bait. Maybe the idiot's co-captaincy of the tennis team with Kaidou Kaoru a couple of years ago in junior high was working wonders. "Hey, we got thrown off our school's tennis courts before. See where it got us?"

"What, the street tennis courts?" asked Momoshiro, all innocence, as if he didn't know that Fudomine's tennis regulars had become a famous fearsome fighting team as a result.

Echizen watched in a leisurely manner as Momoshiro and Fudomine's Kamio got into another one of their squabbles. It was less heated this time round, probably because Tachibana An wasn't around for Momo-sempai to show off and Kamio-san to get all hot and bothered over.

"... what, and hold our practices on the street tennis courts? Are you mad?!"

"What, now you think you're too good for the street tennis courts, huh?"

The argument was beginning to sound a bit ridiculous, as always. To give them credit, though, it was better than the time they came to blows over the colour of their grip tape and which one looked cooler.

Echizen tilted his head back and let the Ponta flow down his throat in one long, ice-cold draught. He thought hard about what Momoshiro had said. Oh, yes, he certainly remembered those tennis courts in the mountains… sloping courts, tennis balls that flew back in your face when you hit them, or else went bouncing in wrong directions, at bizarre angles... He liked playing tennis, sure, but he also liked tennis balls that he could understand, and tennis courts that were level, thank you very much. He preferred to avoid any weird science if he could.

"Momo-sempai."

Momoshiro Takeshi turned immediately, swatting away Kamio like some pesky fly. "Yeah, Echizen?"

"Tezuka-buchou wants to go to the mountain place again?"

"Yeah." Momoshiro grinned down affectionately at Echizen. "Remember those weird courts?" He reached out to snatch the eternal little white cap off Echizen's head.

Echizen neatly avoided him and Momoshiro's hand slapped the empty air instead. It was the twentieth time in two hours that Echizen had successfully avoided Momo-sempai's roving hand, though it didn't stop Momoshiro from trying again and again, ad infinitum. It made Echizen feel like Karupin, forever batting away Momo-sempai's itchy fingers.

"Momo-sempai..."

"Hmm?" Momoshiro was still engaged in trying to steal Echizen's cap—unsuccessfully, it might be said, but not for want of trying.

"I want to play tennis."

Momoshiro's hand halted in mid-air. He understood that Echizen was trying to say something. Handling Echizen was a bit like taking care of a temperamental, but very cute kitten. You had to let it have its say, even though it didn't make sense half the time. "Okay..."

"Momo-sempai." Echizen turned to face Momoshiro, his eyes a brilliant olive-gold in the sunlight. "I want to play tennis on every street tennis court in Tokyo."

Momoshiro narrowed his eyes, wrapping his mind around the enormity of that concept. Then his face broke out into one huge, blazing grin. "Echizen, what a great idea!"

Echizen blinked. "… really?"

Momoshiro continued to beam at him like a polished copper pan. "Of course! Why didn't we think of this before?"

Echizen wondered about that, too.

Kamio Akira stared at the two Seigaku boys in growing disbelief. Didn't these two bobble-headed dodos get it? Every street tennis court in Tokyo? There were probably hundreds of them! They'd be playing until winter set in! Plus at least three-quarters of those courts were impossible to book in the summer! They were always fully booked! The very idea was madness! Enough to commit them into an asylum for years! What were they thinking! Plus, hadn't Momoshiro just said that holding their tennis practices on the tennis courts was a mad idea?!

Now, Kamio was sort of fond of Momoshiro and Echizen. They were pretty good friends, after all, once you looked past their frequent arguments and attempts to show each other up. Still, you'd never get Kamio to admit that without sousing him with a couple of barrels of quality sake. Like the good friend that he was, Kamio considered himself proper authority to give advice, if only to ensure that his rivals (in love and tennis) didn't end up someplace where he couldn't even challenge them to tennis matches. Whereupon Kamio, with all the wisdom of the sages through the ages, pronounced:

"Mad, mad, you're both mad..."