Return: The Princess
A Prince of TennisFanfiction
By: GoldenDragonClouds

"Holy fuck. Ryoma?"
"Heh. Mada mada dane, senpai."

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis.

Chapter 1: Return

It was a sunny March day with sparse clouds and without much wind when Japan Airlines flight JL7014 from LAX landed at Narita Airport. One of the passengers, an American teenager with blond hair, shook awake the slumbering teenager next to him, a girl with slightly messy emerald-black hair. She stretched as she awoke, opening one eye to peer out of the window at the familiar sight of the Narita Airport before her.

"Heh," She commented, turning to the boy next to her. "I guess we're finally back!"

"What?" A very confused guard asked aloud, a scant twenty minutes later. The emerald-black haired girl was standing outside his box, golden eyes staring intently. She sighed, annoyed at giving the same answer many times over.

"Yes, it's a fact that I'm a girl, but it would be very inconvenient for everyone to know and oogle over my so-called secret. So please, try and stay quiet."

She glared and the guard nodded quickly, stamping the necessary confirmations to let her pass. She spared him a thankful glance as she left.

Once downstairs in the baggage claim area, the girl searched the crowd for her friend. It was easy enough to find one of the only tall blond males in the area.

"Oi, Kevin!" She shouted, making her way over to him, "Did you get all of them?"

The blonde boy smirked.

"Yes of course, princess," He replied in a mocking tone, "We had so many bags that I had to search the entire country for them!"

The girl looked at him, annoyed. "Stop that."

A chuckle. "You secretly like it when I tease you."

"No, I don't."

He grinned.

The girl only scowled at him, grabbed her own luggage to stalk over towards the customs area. Kevin followed her, still grinning.

Outside of Gate A they stopped at a mini-store for drinks, Pocari Sweat and Ponta, and went to sit on a bench in the waiting area outside the airport.

"Tch, the weather's just as I remember…"

Kevin laughed. "And you'd think you'd be used to it by now. But we're both going to go to school here so deal with it. Besides, it'll get warmer soon. Really. Soon."

His Japanese was near-perfect, startling the passers-by. He then hit the groaning girl on the shoulder, only to be punched back in the stomach twice as hard. The two stared at each other for a moment and burst out laughing. It was a friendly scene between two teenagers.

The girl stretched her arms, reaching high. "Maa, I wish Nanako would come soon. I'm getting tired of waiting."

"It hasn't even been five minutes."

"Still."

"Have you even turned on your phone?"

"I never turn it off in the first place."

"I meant your Japanese phone."

"Oh. That too." A yawn. "I'm tired."

"You just woke up!"

"It was an eleven-hour flight. I was going to be tired anyway."

"Humph."

They fell into a comfortable silence, leaning against each other as if without a care in the world. It was good to be back, even if they had two whole weeks until school started. They'd seek out old friends anyway. Boy would they be surprised.

Kevin abruptly turned to the girl, who looked back at him expectantly.

"Hey," He said, matter-of-factly.

"Yes?"

"Get off my shoulder."

A grunt. "No."

"Looks like Nanako's here."

"Oh? Okay." She took a deep breath and stood up straight, jostling a tennis bag up to her shoulder. She then looked up to the sky and smiled.

"Look out Japan, Echizen Ryoma is back!"

It was lucky that the area around them was empty so that they avoided major public confusion.

Echizen Ryoma, tennis prodigy and son of the famous Samurai Nanjiro, was in fact, a girl, and was back in town.

"Kevin-kun! Ryoma-kun!" A young woman with long black hair ran over to them eagerly, waving.

"Nanako!" Ryoma ran up to hug her cousin, dropping her bags halfway while crossing the distance between the doors and the young woman. Nanako, startled, blinked before hugging Ryoma back.

"Hello Meino-san," Kevin said, hefting over the bags Ryoma had left as well as his own luggage. He had grown taller over the few years Nanako had not seen him in, Ryoma and Nanako both having to look up to see his face.

"Drop the formalities Kevin-kun. We're going to live in the same house from now on, and I can't have you calling me that all the time, can I? Call me by my given name."

"Sure... Nanako-san."

"Good. Are these all your things?" Nanako waited for them to nod an affirmative before grinning at them. "Now lets go."

They stuffed the bags into the trunk and got in, Ryoma, as usual, falling asleep on Kevin's shoulder as they sped away from the airport.

An hour and thirty minutes later they had arrived at the house Ryoma had lived in during her freshman year in middle school, spent a full five minutes squabbling over the choice of rooms in the house, ultimately deciding on Ryoma keeping her old room and Kevin taking the spare, and lugged up their bags to their respective rooms to unpack. They had hardly started unpacked, however, when Ryoma announced her intents to "go play street tennis!"

After some further squabble between the two females of the house on whether or not Ryoma should be resting after a long flight or not, the two had disappeared into Ryoma's room to "choose an outfit."

Hence why Kevin was currently waiting in the living room for the two of them to come downstairs, fiddling with this new Japanese phone.

When Ryoma finally trudged down the stairs with Nanako right behind, Kevin dropped his phone in surprise.

"Since when was that ever in your closet?"

"Shut up," Ryoma hissed at him, tugging at the tennis skort she had on. Kevin blinked at Nanako.

"Did you put her up to this?"

"Well I knew she would just throw on the first tennis-appropriate clothes she had if I hadn't intervened, and these are my clothes. So there we go."

Kevin whistled, Ryoma frowning at him.

"Can we go now?"

Kevin and Ryoma walked away from the house with nearly identical smirks on their faces. Street tennis would be fun; they had both improved in doubles, especially with each other as partners. But first, they needed to scare a few people.

Ryoma pulled out her phone and called the only other teenage girl in Japan to know her gender; Ryuzaki Sakuno. They would need some help in this, but this would be fun.

Author's Note:

After a nearly two-year long wait, here it is. For those of you who have waited, thank you. To those of you who couldn't, I don't blame you.
Thank you for holding on for so long while I got this story sorted out. There's no definite story line yet and I'm still working out the kinks, but hopefully this will be a better story overall than what was on fanfiction before.

Again, thank you all.

Ja Ne,
~Golden