A scene that might come just after issue 339. Kirihara angsts a bit until his team makes him see reason.
Yukimura-buchou didn’t look away from the game. “Did you hear what they were calling you?”
Kirihara Akaya
Yukimura’s reaction to his team’s behavior during his absence.
“Too many of those games were sloppy, and too many were aimed at cheap victories that were unworthy of you. We are Rikkai. We are the best.” His eyes narrowed. “We don’t need to win by default. Ever.”
Kirihara’s relationship to Sanada and his temper.
The first time wasn’t really a surprise. Even one summer of observation was enough to tell anyone that Sanada-senpai had no sense of humor.
The new year begins and Kirihara suffers a bit of culture clash.
“What are you doing here?” Akaya exclaimed, wide eyed.
Suzuoki blew a stream of smoke at him. “The coaches drew straws to see who would stay with each division this year. I got the short one.”
Kirihara finally gets that serious match he wanted out of Tachibana.
Akaya flipped restlessly through the pages of his book, cursing the English language and the educators who thought it was a good idea to make Japanese schoolchildren learn it. The voice that interrupted him wasn’t one he especially wanted to hear, most times, but at the moment even Seigaku’s terrifying old lady coach would have been welcome.
After the tennis season ends, and the third years retire, Kirihara finds himself at irritatingly loose ends.
Akaya toed the door open and leaned in the frame. “Have I forgotten anything?” he asked, unable to keep the plaintive note out of his voice.
Kirihara’s second spin through Regionals, and Nationals, as a captain this time.
The pace of what Akaya couldn’t help but think of as the real tournament season had two very different parts. There was the daily practice with his team, which, while demanding and sometimes intense, had a smooth swoop to it. And then there were the actual tournament matches, that sprinted along like a heartbeat after an adrenaline spike.
Tournament season starts, and Kirihara gets a present from his coach.
Akaya turned a glower on Suzuoki, silently demanding to know what he was up to this time. Suzuoki smirked at him. “You got to play exactly once this weekend and last. You should unwind a little. Besides, you could use an actual challenge.”
The start of the new year gives Fuji some new problems to deal with. Yamato-buchou is his mildly evil self.
Shuusuke regarded the lineups for the first ranking matches of the year as though the board might bite him.
The new year starts, unsettling Kirihara a bit until he talks with Jackal.
The second years he could handle; he had earned what he saw in their faces when they called him Kirihara-buchou. Respect or fear or pride, he had earned it. But the glow in the first years’ eyes, the awe in their voices when they whispered to each other about him, that made him twitchy.
Kirihara sets up some practice matches with Fudoumine, to the general annoyance of most concerned.
What was it, he thought crankily, with pushy senpai who couldn’t retire properly when they were supposed to?
Kirihara deals with a stressful practice and finally snaps. In a good way.
Akaya tried to unclench his teeth before he gave himself a headache. “Both of you be quiet,” he growled.
Kirihara meets Yanagi while out studying, and they chat about literature, history, psychology and teammates.
Of course, in the past few weeks Akaya had also learned that if he didn’t look up when the door opened he was liable to find himself lassoed by Niou-senpai’s scarf or pounced on by Marui-senpai, who turned out to be a lot more solid than he looked.
Kirihara in Hell.
"You… you… you ate Tash!" Jadis declared, pointing a shaking finger at Akaya. Or, possibly, at the cloud of smoke in front of him that had, until very recently, been one of Jadis’ inferior demons.
Kirihara has a problem with spillover.
No one had told him that he was signing up for this.
Possible answers about Kirihara’s proclivities.
Niou’s eyes narrowed. “So,” he drawled, “it’s one of yours that makes him do that thing with the red eyes and the violence?”
When the third years retire from the club, Kirihara has to deal with taking over.
It was an obvious truth that few, if any, of them could become what Yukimura or Sanada or Yanagi was. Akaya nodded, and raised his voice. “It doesn’t matter. What we are is Rikkai. We will win.”
Tezuka and Echizen settle in with each other.
“But, really! I never thought, in a hundred years, Echizen would actually catch him…”
Just before the end of Chapter Ten Kirihara comes to talk to Yukimura about his final match at Regionals.
If a hawk could smile, it might smile the way Yukimura-san was now.
