When the World Turned Upside-Down

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The sun had set and after a few hours' waiting, a new day was born. Every single day for the members of Seishun Gakuen's tennis club was no difference from the other because they would always find themselves running errands their captain ordered them to do – same, old errands. There were so many businesses that they should provide so much attention.

However, for the regular players of the team, only one (and similar) task was there for them to do every single dreary day.

Every one of the club could only guess what had done by the regulars to their team captain, whose indomitable migraine crammed his head. It was an unwritten rule, however, that there would be no sharing of the said wrongdoing of the regulars against the captain, as it was an ultimate secret.

One thing was for sure: Tezuka Kunimitsu was highly, highly infuriated. Each one of them could sense it – even Ryuuzaki Sumire could – by merely seeing the simple twitch of Tezuka's eyebrows, which, by the way, had not twitched for a decade's time.

Someone might now think that the regular group had done some deplorable things to the aforementioned captain, and now believe that Tezuka would not let them run away without punishment. For that, the bespectacled boy made his regular team members run one hundred laps around each court for he knew (just as he memorised the back of his hand) that his team never really appreciated such job.

The punishment did not simply finish there. He added some additional ten laps around the school itself.

The penalty of the doing – something which stood lower than an idiot's doing – the group had done was enough to make the people involved lying breathlessly on the ground, limbs stretched out, chest heaving up and down, and groans coming from their mouths.

'All right!' called Tezuka's booming voice that made the club members halt from their businesses. 'Practise is over. Freshmen – go keep the equipment and, afterwards, go to your respective classrooms. The same should be done by the rest of you.'

'Hai, buchou!' responded the club members, who immediately started fixing the court. However, certain seven members who wore the regulars' jersey and a tall boy who sported thick eyeglasses remained sprawled on the dusty ground, sweat sprouting from their foreheads' pores.

Witnessing that the members followed his orders, Tezuka turned to the regulars and glared at them all.

'As for you,' he started, watching as they slowly sat up, 'go and take necessary rest now. I wouldn't want you straining yourself just to win in the Kantou Tournament.'

He casually leaned on the borders of the tennis courts with his arms crossed over his chest. Echizen Ryoma, who instantly recovered from the exhaustion, did the same while drinking from a can of grape Ponta. Kikumaru Eiji was on his other side, sitting on the ground with a water jug in hand.

'Kami-sama, Tezuka ... please ... we have lives of our own ... We're ... not yet supposed to die,' the bouncy redhead panted without averting his gaze to the bespectacled captain.

Tezuka merely closed his eyes and ignored Kikumaru's complaints, when all of a sudden an ear-splitting cry filled the grounds, shocking the members of the team who were fixing the equipment.

The tall captain turned to see Kikumaru jumping up and down with tongue stuck out.

'Kikumaru, what –' started Tezuka before being cut off by the redhead.

'Inui – nyaah!' cried Kikumaru, enough to get Inui's attention. Echizen merely blinked at the commotion created by his bouncy senpai and ignored the forming mob around them.

The raven-haired genius turned his attention to the bouncy redhead when it screamed again.

Kikumaru accidentally slipped when he misbalanced himself and hit his head with that of Echizen's who involuntarily hit his head with that of Tezuka's. Tezuka fell and hit his head once again with Kikumaru and the three said people fell flat on the ground. Alarmingly, they lost consciousness in that instant.

The same thing happened with a pair of club members who were picking up balls. One of them accidentally jolted at Kikumaru's second cry and bumped on a cart of tennis balls. This cart hit Kaidoh who was sitting and resting, but was paying attention to the mayhem. The cart was speeding up to him with force that it was able to push Kaidoh forward and hit his head with Ryuuzaki Sakuno who was helping some freshmen on picking up balls.

Noticing her best friend slipping, Tomoka ran towards her best friend in hope of saving the girl.

'Sakuno-chan!' she cried. Sakuno looked up and involuntarily hit her head to the approaching Tomoka. Poor girls, involved in an accident that was supposed to be only for the club members. No one could blame them, though. They wanted to help in any way they could aside from just being in one corner, cheering for their Ryoma-sama.

Fuji, who was trying to concentrate, was so very stunned to see a flying Tomoka making way to his direction.

'Ah!' Fuji blurted as his head made contact with that of Tomoka's. His legs wobbled and he bumped onto someone who turned out to be Inui.

'Fuj – what the –?' The suddenness of Fuji's head hitting his had Inui's statement cut off in midsentence.

Oishi witnessed this and the worrywart that he was, he ran his way towards the falling brunet and raven only to hit his head with Inui's in the process. He scrambled without direction as his world was running wild that he did not notice he tripped onto something.

'Oohp,' groaned Kaidoh. Oishi tripped onto his legs and fell flat on him … of course with Oishi hitting Kaidoh's head with his own.

Panic arose in Kawamura's chest while he watched in horror as his teammates abruptly lost their consciousness. Wide-eyed, he spun around only to hit his head with an approaching Momoshiro.

'Ah!' they both cried before they themselves lost perception caused by the force they hit each other.

Chaos.

That one word rang into the minds of the innocent members who watched with horrific views the stunning event that took place.

'Is this real?' muttered a first year student with paled-face, involuntarily letting go of the folded net from his arms.

A friend that was just beside him nodded unconsciously, mouth agape. 'Maybe?'

The club members blinked and stared, blinked and stared, blinked and stared, but the reality that their regulars and some two innocent girls with pigtails being unconscious made them think the unbelievable.

They all fell silent, just standing there, watching as each of them groaned.

'Agh,' moaned Kawamura as he scratched the side of his head.

The rest of them who were involved in the untimely mini-accident each woke up, their consciousness making the club members sigh in relief. Just in time, Ryuuzaki-sensei arrived, frowning at the disorder in front of her eyes.

'What happened here?' she demanded. Her eyes travelled around the courts then to the newly waken-up regulars and two girls.

'Saa, Sakuno, have you got any idea on what happened?' asked Tomoka to her friend flashing a very wide smile and partially closed eyes.

The club members eyed her suspiciously before turning to the braided girl. Their eyes widened as Sakuno beamed excitedly at her friend.

'Ryoma-sama~!' she suddenly screamed.

'Sakuno?' called Ryuuzaki-sensei with incredibility in the tone. Worriedly, she made her way towards her and dragged her hand into her forehead. 'Are you sick?'

'Eh? I wanna see Ryoma-sama!' Sakuno merely replied.

Tomoka chuckled softly. 'Saa, Sakuno, settle down,' she said coolly.

Ryuuzaki-sensei turned to Fuji to ask him what happened when …

'Ii data … Ryuuzaki-chan starting to express her undying love for Echizen; I have to jot this down in a notebook as possible,' Fuji immediately stated while nodding thoughtfully to himself.

Ryuuzaki-sensei cocked her head to the side and turned to Oishi who happened to be scary this time. His eyes were murderous of a type, and he was undoubtedly hissing.

'Fssshh,' he hissed.

Not knowing what entirely happened, Ryuuzaki-sensei creased her eyebrows and turned ominously towards the club members who merely shrugged at her demand.

'Inu –' she started once again but she could only mouth hang agape when she eyed Inui worriedly helping a blushing Kaidoh up.

'T-T-Thank … you s-s-senpai,' said Kaidoh with a blush tainting his bronse cheeks.

'Just be careful okay? Avoid being a klutz,' said Inui in a mother hen-ing tone.

Kaidoh amiably and coyly nodded at his senpai's worried request.

Ryuuzaki-sensei merely gulped. 'What's happening?' she desperately thought with cold beads of sweat trickling down her neck. 'Ryo –' she started again, turning to Echizen (because she believed that only him could give her a rational explanation) but was immediately cut short by Echizen's gloomy yet impassive state.

Echizen massaged the bridge of his nose then sighed. 'Sensei, everything would be fine,' he finally said in a stoic voice.

'A-Aa,' replied Ryuuzaki-sensei unconsciously. Feeling desperate to the maximum state, Ryuuzaki-sensei finally turned her attention to Tezuka who had had his back turned on her. 'Tezuka, have you got any idea what's happening?' she asked, laying her hand on Tezuka's shoulder.

She undoubtedly felt his shoulder quiver and when he turned around, she was definite that the world turned upside-down.

Tezuka.

Tezuka.

TEZUKA.

THE Tezuka Kunimitsu was actually smiling? Or more on … beaming?

'Nyah, Ryuuzaki-sensei, we thought you're in a meeting nyah?' he happily beamed, jumping up and down like a psycho, smiling widely at the old woman, draining all her colours.

Tezuka's beam evaporated as he eventually noticed the woman spacing out. 'Nyah, sensei? Oishi! Sensei's been murdered, nyaaah~!' he cried moping on the ground.

'Buchou, don't worry for obaa-chan, ne?' Kawamura casually said as he dragged his arm around the bespectacled shoulder and grinning widely. 'Obaa-chan is just … amused?'

'Well … she'll be fine buchou …' Momoshiro coyly said, scratching the back of his head.

Kikumaru, amased at his stunned sensei, smirked cockily with all might. 'Che, mada mada dane sensei,' he coolly said, making the attentions of club members turn on him.

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Rumours that the Seigaku Tennis Club regulars and two girls have drastically changed in just some few minutes became the talk of the whole campus that day. On the same day, it spread over to the other schools – making them, especially St. Rudolph, confident enough to win the championship of Kantou tournament.

But did you ever think that the Seigaku team coach would eventually lose her hope just because of that preposterous accident? N-O. No.

They even won the championship. Osakada Tomoka disguised as a young boy since Kaidoh Kaoru lost his talent in playing tennis. She had proved enough that she could be a tensai in her age and gender. She won the games in the tournament, using mainly the triple counters and the disappearing serve.

Kaidoh just remained in the background, cheering coyly with the presently loud Ryuuzaki Sakuno.

Momoshiro became the power player of the team, using his new technique: hadokyuu. Kawamura on the other hand subsequently played doubles with Oishi Syuichiroh using his new dunk smash and Oishi's boomerang snake and … snake.

Fuji Syuusuke then played in the singles three in the finals against Yanagi of Rikkai Daigaku who instantly recognised the data tennis playing style. A disguised Tomoka played in singles two against the devil Kirihara Akaya.

Ironically, it was Kikumaru who played in singles one against Sanada Genichirou using his number one serve, twist serve. Ryoma was the captain who just watched in the bench, saying he had an arm injury.

And the doubles one? Let us just say that Inui performed the mother hen and Tezuka then became the resident acrobat of the team.

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'Nyah~' Tezuka beamed happily, showing his set of pearly white teeth.

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Their win in the tournament might have been such a chaos and confusion to opponents. No one knew the reason that caused the unbelievable actions and change of personality among the regulars; but one thing was for sure. The mayhem started with Inui's very own, vegetable juice.

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The End

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Authoress' Note: I am so happy to present to you an edited version of this fanfiction. :) It is also re-posted for everyone to see so I do hope you'd give it a try and actually review. Thanks! :)