Niou and Yagyuu become a doubles pair, and the game continues.
Masaharu opened his mouth to ask a pointed question about why it was Yukimura making all these decisions and announcing them, and not the captain standing, silent and uncomfortable, behind the Trinity. He closed it again, with a smooth look, at Sanada’s burning glare.
Stress in school gives Niou the break in the game he’s been looking for.
Yagyuu was eyeing him like a tiger trying to decide whether some sharp-clawed creature would be more trouble than lunch was worth. Masaharu gave him a brilliant, wolverine’s smile, and he snorted.
Niou and Yagyuu settle into their partnership.
“You do realize,” Masaharu murmured, “that you can be polite while still smashing them into jelly.”
Niou coaxes Yagyuu into more intimacy; or perhaps it’s the other way around.
He reached out and, delicately, removed Yagyuu’s glasses. A signal, a symbol, a talisman, but more than anything else an intense desire to see Yagyuu Hiroshi’s eyes.
Disaster strikes for the whole team.
After such a golden autumn, no one expected what happened in the heart of winter.
Jackal and Marui on a hot afternoon, and Jackal’s attempts to convince his partner to take it easy.
Bunta knew perfectly well what Jackal was doing, of course, but he rarely turned down the opening. It was one of the reasons Jackal found his partner endlessly entertaining; his dramatics were always perfectly sincere and entirely deliberate, at the same time.
A small snafu leads to some practice time between Rikkai and Seigaku, just before the end of Nationals.
Momo cast his erstwhile opponent a thoughtful glance. “You know, Marui-san,” he said, slowly, “all of you are acting really different, today.”
Marui cocked an eyebrow at him. “Of course we are,” he responded, easily, “Yukimura’s back.”
The long awaited last match of Nationals.
Seiichi’s smile changed, undiluted pleasure added to the satisfaction. It was the last round of Nationals, and they were ready.
Belial gets a tennis team.
"Absolutely no interfering in the games in any way, shape or form, or the whole deal’s off," Sanada declared, firmly.
Belial leaned hir chin in hir hand. "Doesn’t that conflict with the clause about injury-proofing, though?"
The seal of the contract.
Seiichi remembered when Belial had set the seal of their contract.
Some embarrassment over the seal.
Genichirou, Renji noted, seemed unwilling to look anybody in the face—no, that wasn’t strictly accurate. There were specific people he wasn’t looking in the face, and all of them had just signed the same contract.
If the seal broadcasts sensation…
"Niou," Sanada said, carefully, "are you really suggesting an… orgy?"
Some friendly bickering within the Rikkai team.
They were all getting off the bus, stretching and exchanging dinner plans, when Masaharu heard Yanagi ask Kirihara, softly, “So which are you going to be, Akaya? A tiger cub, or the boy who swallowed a dragon pearl?”
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?”