Prince of Tennis: The Emperor's Eye

Chapter 89: Chapter 89: Attention from U-17

In Hyōgo Prefecture, Kansai, Japan’s largest prefecture in the Kansai region, there were bustling cities, rural mountain villages, and offshore islands, offering everything from beaches to skiing and hot springs, earning it the nickname ”Japan in miniature.”

Makinofuji Academy, which had achieved an unprecedented two consecutive national middle school tennis championships, was located here. Today, all schools qualified for the national tournament would gather here for the tournament draw ceremony.

At the entrance of the largest conference hall in Makinofuji, a large sign was erected, reading: ”National Middle School Tennis Knockout Tournament National Championship Draw Ceremony!”

Since the training camp had just ended, the six schools’ representatives agreed on a time to head to Makinofuji together. Of course, Akashi had already contacted Tezuka and the others the day before.

A group of twelve got off the shuttle bus and noisily entered Makinofuji Academy. The noise mostly centered around Akashi and Atobe; for some reason, whenever the two met, they were destined to face off, and the others were used to it by now.

Before long, the representatives of the six Kanto schools gathered at the conference hall entrance: Fudomine—Akashi and Tezuka; Rikkai—Yukimura and Sanada; Hyōtei—Atobe and Oshitari; Seigaku—Yamato and Fuji; Yamabuki—Sakata and Minami; Rokkaku—Kurobane and Saeki.

Among these players, apart from Yamato and Sakata, all were first-years. Such a lineup naturally drew everyone’s attention at the venue, especially that of Makinofuji’s representative, Kitahara Ryōta, who frowned at the sight of so many first-year representatives.

As last year’s national champion, although Makinofuji’s overall strength had dropped significantly after the graduation of third-years like Byoudouin, they still held onto their Kansai dominance, preventing Shitenhōji from taking the top spot—but Kitahara knew that was just luck.

This year, Shitenhōji’s regulars, except Taira Yoshiyuki and Hara Tetsuya, were all first-years. In the Kansai final, Shitenhōji seemed to deliberately train their first-years by not letting Taira and Hara play the first three matches, which gave Makinofuji their chance.

Even so, Kitahara had almost lost the third singles match to that first-year rookie named Shiraishi Kuranosuke. It left him very frustrated. Many schools now had genius first-year players, but at Makinofuji, only Kadowaki Satoru was barely worth mentioning.

Seeing two first-years chatting away after entering the conference hall, Kitahara’s face darkened and he barked out:

”Quiet! You two ignorant brats! This is the national tournament draw ceremony—if you want to chatter, do it somewhere else!”

Akashi and Atobe both froze for a moment, then turned to the voice’s source, seeing a student wearing Makinofuji’s uniform. They immediately understood: the host wanted to show off.

”Heh. Just a relic of a bygone era—who gave you the guts to yell in front of me?” Akashi’s gaze was icy as he looked at Kitahara.

”Last year’s champion? Don’t make me laugh. You won’t last fifteen minutes against me—right, Oshitari?” Atobe sneered at Kitahara.

The other school representatives started watching eagerly. This kind of instant hostility was rare even for them.

”You two rotten brats! Do you know who you’re talking to?” Kitahara was so furious he was nearly losing his mind.

Atobe turned away dismissively, ignoring Kitahara completely as he strode to an empty seat, sat down with his head resting on one hand, and watched everyone with an amused smirk.

Akashi, however, slowly walked up to Kitahara, his voice cold as ice.

”Could you please shut up? Your voice is annoying me.”

”Is that any way to talk to your senior? Don’t get too cocky!” Kitahara snapped, his tone harsh.

”Is that so?” Akashi murmured softly. Then he pulled a pair of scissors from his pocket and, without hesitation, thrust them at Kitahara. Kitahara narrowly dodged, but a shallow cut still appeared on his face.

”Ah, you dodged beautifully. With reflexes like that, I’ll forgive you this time—but there won’t be a next time,” Akashi said with a cold smile, then continued.

”When I say shut up, you shut up. In this world, only victory matters. The victor rules everything; the loser is denied everything. I’ve never lost at anything, and I never will. As the victor, I am always right.”

”Anyone who defies me—even my own parents—I will never forgive.” Akashi’s tone was calm, but his words were terrifying. Kitahara was so overwhelmed he couldn’t utter a single word.

Everyone around was stunned by Akashi’s actions, even Tezuka and the others weren’t an exception. The only one unfazed was Atobe—he knew Akashi’s temperament very well. Although Akashi had become much gentler recently, that didn’t mean just anyone could act brazenly in front of him.

”So that’s the new Kanto champion Fudomine’s captain, Akashi Seijurō? How interesting,” the representative from Shitenhoji said with a smile.

”Is he really the same year as me? His behavior is way too overbearing...” Shiraishi said with lingering fear. Akashi’s first impression on him was summed up in one word: domination.

That’s right, Shitenhōji’s representatives this time weren’t Taira and Hara Tetsuya, but Taira and Shiraishi. It seemed they had already started grooming Shiraishi.

Seeing Kitahara remain silent, Akashi nodded in satisfaction, turned, and walked back to sit beside Tezuka. Because of what had just happened, the atmosphere in the hall felt oppressively heavy.

Luckily, a staff member from the tennis association noticed everyone had arrived and hurried forward to announce the start of the draw ceremony. Although he’d seen what Akashi did moments ago, considering Akashi’s background, he dared not offend him and chose to look the other way.

The eight seeded schools for the national tournament were announced first: Makinofuji, Rikkai, Hyōtei, Fudomine, Shishigaku, Maikozaka, Nagoya, and Kabuto.

Seigaku and Shitenhōji weren’t among the seeded schools and would need to play in the first-round knockout matches. Looking at these eight schools, Akashi still couldn’t figure out the organizers’ selection criteria.

But it was good news that Fudomine would skip the first round, meaning no time wasted on cannon fodder schools. Akashi thought the whole national tournament probably wouldn’t be much different from the Kanto Tournament—thanks to his influence, the strength of Kanto schools this year was clearly on another level compared to other regions.

Aside from Kanto, the only two schools worth Akashi’s attention were Shishigaku and Shitenhōji.

As for Shitenhōji, there was no need to say more. Besides Shiraishi and the other first-years, the two legendary captains Taira and Hara Tetsuya also had important roles.

As time passed, the draw results soon came out. Akashi glanced at the final match schedule: Seigaku, Yamabuki, and Shitenhōji’s first-round opponents were all minor schools with no scenes in the original, so as long as Oishi didn’t do the draw, Seigaku’s luck seemed decent.

Rokkaku would face Rokurikyū. Maybe because both schools’ names started with ”Roku,” fate paired them together. But since the original never described Rokurikyū’s strength, Akashi didn’t know how it would turn out.

A week after the draw ceremony, the national tournament would start. All schools would head to Osaka for the matches, and the Osaka organizers were reportedly taking the event very seriously, selecting the most luxurious local stadium as the venue.

This one week was also a perfect time for the schools from the camp to settle down and solidify their new strength. Akashi took this opportunity to share the training method for Ashura Path with Akutsu. Now that he fully understood the U-17 situation, he planned to speed up everyone’s progress.

Of course, Akashi didn’t demand Akutsu start training immediately—he just wanted him to get familiar with it and begin after the nationals.

Thanks to the training camp, Kite’s strength stabilized solidly at national level—and not just ordinary national level. He could even pull off a rudimentary Dark Side, though the power was still lacking.

Tezuka had reached the point where he could freely activate Ten’i Muhō no Kiwami, which made Chitose extremely envious. However, Chitose and Tachibana Kippei had also become proficient at their Beast Synchronization.

Krauser had been working hard to enhance the power of Wirbel Taufe, and in his spare time had even learned Glowing Shot, though its power still couldn’t match Akutsu’s.

Akashi was quite pleased with everyone’s progress. He was sure that once the main story began, their strength would leave Ryōma doubting reality. He couldn’t wait to see if Ryōma would still say, ”Mada mada da ne~” then.

A week later, at the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium’s central court, the organizers of the national tournament were making final preparations for the opening ceremony. All the participating schools had already arrived and were waiting for their turn to enter.

Before long, staff members began guiding each school onto the field one by one. The first to enter was last year’s national champion, Makinofuji. Kitahara led his team onto the court with a dark expression—though the scar Akashi had left on his face was no longer visible.

Right after, Maikozaka, Rikkai, Hyōtei, and other top eight schools from last year all made their entrances one by one. Fudomine followed later, with Seigaku arranged at the very end.

Then the representative of the organizers gave a speech. After a long string of clichés, the opening ceremony finally ended, with everyone looking half asleep.

Since Fudomine had no match in the first round, everyone started observing the other schools’ true strength. Akashi went to Shitenhōji’s match venue, wanting to see what level Shiraishi was at now.

Unfortunately, the opposing school was too weak, and Shiraishi defeated them with ease, so Akashi couldn’t gather complete information. Still, his Emperor Eye grasped a rough idea of Shiraishi’s strength.

Meanwhile, Ishida Gin had already developed Hadoukyuu at this stage, but it was clearly just the basic version, far from the advanced 108-shot form, and he hadn’t yet mastered Hadoukyuu Nullification.

Akashi had already decided that after nationals, he’d give Shiraishi and Ishida Gin a good power-up. He was quite eager to see how things would look if Ishida Gin could face off directly with Duke limited to sixty percent strength. But whether Duke would join the Japan team this time was still unknown to Akashi.

The first round matches ended quickly. As Akashi expected, most schools won without surprises—except Rokurikyū. That’s right: Rokkaku lost in the first round. Even after their training at the camp, they couldn’t escape an early exit, and Akashi was speechless.

But seeing Ojii’s calm demeanor, sipping hot tea without a care, Akashi realized he wasn’t bothered at all. Meanwhile, Rokkaku’s players were slumped in disappointment, only to be comforted by Ojii instead.

Akashi didn’t fully understand Ojii’s coaching philosophy, but that didn’t stop him from respecting him deeply. Ojii was a man who sincerely wanted kids to enjoy tennis, teaching them to purely love the game without worrying too much about wins or losses.

Fudomine’s next opponent was Kamiyama University Affiliated Shimizu, a completely unknown team. It looked like Fudomine would cruise straight into the quarterfinals.

After a brief lunch break, the second round began quickly. Many schools complained it was unfair—they had just finished a morning match while their opponents had rested—but nobody paid them any mind.

Akashi led the whole Fudomine group to the venue. The sight of over a hundred people made the spectators instinctively clear a path. This time Akashi brought all the tennis club members, plus many non-club students and school administrators came to cheer them on.

In previous years, the nationals were something Fudomine students couldn’t even dream of. Yet now, their tennis club had won the Kanto championship and entered nationals as a seeded team.

Akashi gave no special instructions for this match, using the usual lineup. But as always, the first match in nationals would be played out fully—forcing Kamiyama to endure five matches in a row, just like their previous round.

Nationals used the same match order as the original: starting with singles three, then doubles two, singles two, doubles one, and finally singles one, alternating through.

The match process was a complete one-sided affair. Akutsu casually returned shots, leaving his opponent unable to keep up, finishing singles three in just ten minutes—a truly miserable experience for the other side.

In doubles two, Krauser and Kite didn’t use any special techniques, only basic tennis, yet their opponents couldn’t even respond, prompting gasps from the audience at the sheer gap in level.

The remaining three matches were no different. Tezuka didn’t even break a sweat before winning. Tachibana Kippei and Chitose also quickly overwhelmed their opponents. As for Akashi, he never even stepped onto the court—the opposing team forfeited directly. After what happened at the draw ceremony, word had spread, and everyone saw Akashi as extremely dangerous.

After the match, Akashi noticed two familiar figures: Irie Kanata and Mitsuya Akuto. Mitsuya’s presence didn’t surprise Akashi, since he was an official U-17 analyst collecting data. But seeing Irie there was unexpected.

The two of them noticed Akashi’s gaze as well but didn’t approach. Instead, they simply smiled at him before leaving with the crowd. It looked like, thanks to Akashi’s influence, U-17 had begun fully observing the middle school tennis scene.