Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ Elfen Heritage ❯ Meeting ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis.

Ryoma Echizen was laying on his bed in a cheap room he rented. He could have afforded an expensive room but he preferred to keep his money for interesting information. In other words, bribing people for info.

At the moment, he was quite upset about a certain Fuji Syuusuke. (upset,mad,pissed,angry,unpleased,disturbed, etc if you wish for more definitions, please open your thesaurous.) He knew that he couldn't trust that Archmage but he never thought that Fuji would cast a tracking spell on him and everyone knew how unpleasant it was to know that you're constantly being stalked. Luckily, he found out about it but unfortunately, removing it took all his energy and he could barely stand up now. Fortunately, he could cast a spell to accelerate his recovery speed.

At first, he hadn't noticed it, because he had cast other spells on himself so he could blend into his surroundings, but after he cancelled the spells, he still felt residues of magic and he was stupid enough to let it slip until an apprentice magician kindly pointed it out to him...

`Calm down,' he kept saying to himself. `I must recover before that Archmage and his friends arrive and confront him...'

And with that, he slowly fell asleep only to wake up when the sun was setting.

A bell rang as a young boy stepped into the bar. There was a cheerful atmosphere everywhere with people chattering about the deterioring situations in Illyria.

"Ah! Ryoma-kun! It has been a while! How have you been?" a brown haired waitress asked as she rushed by to nuzzle him.

"Oi! Isn't he a bit too young?" a client asked waving his foaming mug of beer.

"He's a relative," the tall bartender answered while cleaning a few mugs. "He's my late cousin's nephew's mother's friend's great-great-great granddaughter's-" and he continued like that but the drunk man has already lost interest in the conversation and returned to his mug.

"Oho! It always works even after all this time," Shiba grinned as she led Ryoma to the backroom. "Inoue! I'll leave the rest to you!"

Venitia was a very lively town even after sunset. There were colorful lanterns everywhere and merchants kept bragging about their products on the main street. Kids were running everywhere shouting and laughing while their parents tried to haggle. Of course, there were some pickpockets that would occasionally steal the purse of an unawared lady before disapearing in the large crowd.

Tezuka, Fuji, Eiji, Oishi, Inui, Momoshiro and Kaido arrived a little after sunset and decided to stay the night at an Inn. After they found a suitable Inn, they spread out to gather information in case Fuji couldn't find the boy or if he didn't qualify. The said tensai hid his staff so he wouldn't attract too much attention and started his search by asking around to see if anyone had seen a boy with green hair only to fail miserably. As he was entering a small market to buy something to eat, he didn't notice he was being closely followed by a small silhouette.

`Too bad for you, Fuji Syuusuke,' thought Ryoma as he kept following Fuji. `I used a few spells so that no one would remember me in this town. You're wasting your time.'

The boy thought that it would be wise to follow Syuusuke until they arrive at a less crowded zone in Venitia before questioning him because he didn't want any attention or cause any trouble to the citizens bye damaging some buildings if he had to fight...not that he cared.

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Fuji Syuusuke was getting more and more impressed by that boy. He used everything he knew to try and locate him but failed since he didn't know anything about him and no one in this town remembered seeing a green haired kid around the age of twelve. 'How odd!' He thought. 'I'm pretty sure that he was in Venitia when he removed the spell so someone MUST have seen him. This is illogical.' (A/N: Does that mean that magic is illogical? Well yea it's illogical.)

He was now in the richest part of Venitia where only wealthy people could afford buying the expensive villas. He kept thinking and thinking about it. Then it hit him.

“Of course! Why didn't I think of that earlier?” he said to himself while walking through an empty park. “He must have used magic, maybe a memory spell cast on everyone he met so that no one can remember him.”

“Mada Mada Dane. Congratulations for figuring that out so soon,” came a sarcastic voice.

He spun around, ready to fight, only to see Ryoma leaning against a tree drinking a cup of grape juice (cans don't exist nor does artificial flavor...yet?) with a wide grin on his face.

“And exactly how long have you been following me?”

“Hmmmm…Since you and your friends arrived in Venitia,” Ryoma answered flatly while finishing his drink.

“I must say that I am very surprised,” the brunet said with a little smile after slightly lowering his guard. “You managed to deactivate my spell without draining all your energy and followed me all this time without me noticing you, even when I used magic to try to sense you. How did you do that?”

“That's none of your business! I've learnt to do that since I was a child. Now it's my turn to ask you questions. Why did you cast a tracking spell on me?” he asked, quite annoyed by the everlasting smile the Archmage was wearing…again.

“Well, since you didn't tell me your name and I wanted to meet you again, I didn't really have another choice. Didn't you know that to locate someone you needed to at least know his name?” Fuji answered calmly, obviously amused.

“Well, that's exactly the point. I didn't want to meet you again so stay away from me,” the kid growled as he started to walk away.

“Wait. Would you reconsider joining our party? You're pretty strong for your age and with proper guidance you can become very strong and we really need your strength. It won't be for a long period just for a while. After that, you can leave and we won't bother you anymore.”

“I already told you that I don't want to. There's no profit for me in joining you guys”

“Fine, but let me tell you that we're skilled treasure hunters just like you and most treasure hunters these days work in groups. It benefits everyone since we can go after very rare treasures guarded by powerful guardians. If you stay alone, you won't stand a chance if you confront another group and will get your findings easily stolen.”

Echizen froze. `Treasure hunters? So that was why there were in the Forest. They must have taken all the valuables. Damn them but he does have a point but still, I don't feel like giving in that easily.'

“What makes you think I'm a treasure hunter and as you might have noticed, I'm not the social type that would join anyone. I work alone and even if I was a treasure hunter, why would I join you if the gains will be splited even if one did more then others? ” he asked hoping his voice was as nonchalant as he wanted it to be.

“If you weren't a treasure hunter why would a kid like you enter a dangerous place such as the Enchanted Forest?” Fuji answered, feeling he hit the jackpot when he realized that he had the boy's full attention for once and couldn't help but smile at that boy's confidence. “Besides, the treasure we're searching is the Dragonite Chest(1) and I'm pretty sure you're aware that a single piece of what the Chest contains is worth a fortune and grants unthinkable power and alone, you don't stand a chance.”

“Unthinkable power…” Ryoma whispered to himself. “Do say more…”

TBC…

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(1): In the previous chapter, they said Dragonite Scepter and now Dragonite Chest. This is just to tell you that the Dragonite Scepter is one of the treasures that is IN the Chest.

Yay! I finished chapter 3! R&R plz. Suggestions are always welcomed and thnx again to my betas.