All the Difference - Chapter Five
Chapter Summary: With the Master's approval in hand, the only obstacle remaining in Fuji's path is the Emperor. What must Fuji do to earn the recognition of the final member of the Rikkai Big Three?
Chapter Five: Emperor
Chapter Five Author's Notes:
~Opening/Irony - Figuring out how to start this chapter had me hitting a wall for the better part of a few weeks - and that was before my hiatus, when I was still immersed in the story. (I think part of my reluctance of coming back to this chapter was knowing that I was probably going to rip it shreds again. Thankfully, it survived.) I knew details of what I wanted to include, but I couldn't wrap the pieces together into a cohesive package. Then, there's the irony of that segment. I spent a good chunk of space complaining about the anime in the last chapter's notes. So how do I follow-up on that? I got it stuck in my head to base the opening scene to this chapter on a scene that is given more screen time in the anime than the manga.
I also realized something when I got stuck - I feel like I've let Fuji's desire to play equally with Tezuka get a little out of hand. It's almost to the point where it's the equivalent of Ryoma's drive to defeat his father, which I'm not so sure I like. It wasn't my intention for Fuji to be obsessed with Tezuka. Fuji strikes me as the type of character that drifts unless he's presented with a challenge. He found one in Tezuka, but it was pulled away from him before he had a chance to immerse himself in it, so he's stuck on it. It's a little late to change it, but I think I'll try to tone it back. Maybe it'll flow better once I have Fuji and Tezuka actually talk to each other next chapter.
~"...the intense discipline of his training regimen had allowed him to detach himself from unnecessary emotions while he focused on a game." - I hadn't intended for this to happen when I originally sketched out this part of the outline, but this could be read as an inadvertent reference to Sanada's ability to enter Muga. ("My heart has become empty.")
~Nicknames - In my original draft, I had Fuji refer to Momoshiro as "Momo-chan", but when I thought about it, I don't remember ever seeing him call Momoshiro that. Maybe just Momo, but not with the "-chan" attached. Something to double-check.
~Magic Pockets - It has no bearing on the story, and it'll probably continue in the future, but I had a laugh at myself for how many tennis balls the boys manage to pull from their shorts. I promise they're not conjuring the balls from thin air, nor are their shorts the equivalent of a clown car - even though I rarely write that portion of the scene because I figured some details are too tedious for even me to include, they walk around the court in between games picking up the balls they've already hit so they can be used again.
~"Low-lidded gaze" - This is another concession I'm trying to make to realism, although I need to come up with some more ways to describe it before it gets too repetitive. Basically, I don't think it's very realistic to think that characters like Fuji, Yanagi or (to an extent) Ishida Gin really walk around with their eyes closed all the time. The manga somewhat addresses this with Fuji - his eyes aren't depicted as closed nearly as much as they are in the anime.
~Fuurinkazan - I had a nice and long debate with myself about which part of the Fuurinkazan Sanada would use against Fuji. Since they make such a big deal about him using two elements against Echizen in a single match, I felt like I had to limit myself to only one for the majority of the game. (Although Sanada uses all four against Kirihara when he answers his challenge in the Rikkai OVA.) I forgot exactly where I found the following, but I had the following notes for the first three parts: (1) Fuu is a speed return, (2) Rin softens the spin on the ball, and (3) Ka is a ground smash. Zan really mystifies me. In the Rikkai 2nd Service musical, it looks like Sanada demonstrates a drop shot while he's singing about Zan, but I'm not sure what about a drop shot would qualify as "immovable". Also, in the Rikkai Another Story OVA, Yukimura says that Sanada had already invoked Zan, but no one else seemed to have noticed. That makes me wonder if Zan is more of a footwork technique than a racket stroke. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to completely hold back Kirihara as a first year, but it was sufficient to contain Atobe until he developed his Koori no Sekai.
Anyway, since Fuji's style doesn't normally contain a lot of "attacks" and is more defensive, I don't think a defensive style would be the best counter. That's why it doesn't appear. Yanagi says that he can't overcome Rin no matter what technique he uses, and he's also a counter-puncher, but I think Fuji would respond well to it because most of his counters involve manipulating the spin on a ball. Fuji did not manage to seal the real Rin in that last game, but given enough time and practice I think it's possible. Fuu is all about speed. Again, if you're faced with it long enough, I think you can start to catch on to it even if your name isn't Echizen. Maybe not 100% of the time, but possible with the right training program. Heck, that's how Shishido trained until he could keep up with Ohtori's scud serve.
Kirihara remarks at one point during the Fuurinkazan introduction that he still gets completely overwhelmed by Ka, so between that and the process of elimination, I was satisfied that Ka would be Fuji's stumbling block. He struggled with Sanada's regular ground smashes, but Fuji doesn't actually face a Ka until the fourth game of the match. This was to keep with the canon observation of how unusual it is for Sanada to pull out the Fuurinkazan early in the match - by game four, the match is usually more than half over for Sanada.
Sanada doesn't use Rin and Fuu in the final game because he needed to - he's kind of showing off at that point. Except Sanada's not exactly the type for "showing off" - so it's more like educating Fuji on how much further he needs to evolve - again, like with Akaya in the Rikkai OVA.
~"Fuji wouldn't have been surprised if Sanada could leap over the net in a single bound." - Another Tenimyu reference. Shortly before the second chorus in Samurai, the choreography has Kanesaki Kentarou (Sanada's actor) jump over the net to get back to Echizen rather than, say, running around the net. There are a lot of moments I love in Rikkai Second Service, and although that's minor it stands out in my mind.
~"Scary Fairytales" - Reference to bonus content from Perfect Edition Volume 4. Konomi's description of the sort of dreams the Fuji brothers had after Fuji read from that storybook was pretty amusing.
~Evolved Counters - Fuji's evolved counters pop up a lot earlier than they do in the regular series. He's pretty quick to manipulate the counters once he "wakes up" during the match with Shiraishi. Since playing a serious game with Sanada has to be at least as challenging as playing Shiraishi (what with Shin PoT dropping the bombshell in a recent chapter that Shiraishi was holding back a bit more than anyone had anticipated), I think it's reasonable that he feels the same pressure to evolve here. And, as some reviews pointed out, he was already starting to feel insecure about the various Rikkai players breaking all three of his counters, so the thought was already in his mind that he needed to do something to recapture his specialty.
I read some pretty interesting articles about the mythological connections between the three beasts the evolved counters are named after in Japanese culture. I tried to incorporate that into Fuji's thoughts.
~The Match's Outcome, Part Two - I worried that I might have spoiled the outcome of this match with last chapter's notes about Fuji not going to be the best tennis player, but the outcome of the doubles match bothered me too much when I was writing it to wait until this chapter to acknowledge that. Fuji needed to have a lopsided match here. At this point in the timeline, Sanada is still training as if they're in the middle of the tournament season. Fuji has been training with the Seigaku club and a little bit on his own, but it's just not to the same level as Rikkai's program.
That's not to say that I think Fuji is incapable of playing at Sanada's level. If you look at the end of the original manga timeline, I think Fuji could play an even match with Sanada. I'm not sure who would win - most likely Sanada, but depending on how the game developed it could be close. Sanada and Tezuka are evenly matched. If Fuji's not daydreaming about the first year match against Tezuka, I think he's evenly matched with Tezuka too. (His match against Nioh both supports and undercuts that theory - he defeated Tezuka!Nioh easily enough when he started paying attention to the game, but even Fuji pointed out that Nioh was incapable of executing some of Tezuka's signature moves.) So, using the transitive property of equality (yay math!), whereby Sanada=Tezuka and Tezuka=Fuji, Sanada and Fuji could be evenly matched. Sanada's probably still stronger, but Fuji's trickier.
Since Yukimura destroys Sanada in Shin Prince of Tennis, he's in a category all by himself. Hands down, he would win against anyone in the series. (Except sparkly Echizen, evidently.)
This game was originally closer. Not the final game count, but I had more than one game drawn to a deuce. (Fuji was also going to be hitting the court a few more times, which didn't fit into the narrative as well as I'd hoped.) As I was planning it out, however, it just didn't feel right. If you compare this to the match with Shiraishi, Fuji was arguably at his peak condition during that match and he still didn't take a single point until Shiraishi was at match point. So, Fuji did pretty good for taking a game off Sanada right off the bat and getting a handful of points here and there. Looking at it that way, the fluke actually becomes why Fuji was able to win a game against Sanada so early in the match. My rationale - Sanada isn't pushing himself because he didn't fully warm up, whereas Fuji is pretty much throwing everything he's got in his standard bag of tricks at Sanada right off the bat.
~Doubles vs. Singles - In a way, I think I enjoyed writing the doubles match more than this singles match, which just about killed me considering how much trouble I had finishing last chapter. To paraphrase Kikumaru, doubles has infinite possibilities. The singles match felt a little lonely after juggling four characters on the court at once, which I think contributed to the trouble I had with the pacing in the early parts of the match.
~Education note - As I was preparing for one of the earlier chapters, I read something about the education system in Japan that indicated there are transfer exams held for students prior to each school year. I couldn't find that exact article again when I went back to look for it, but the logic seems sound and I found a different article that discussed how some private elevator schools require transfer exams for each grade instead of the more general entrance exams.
~Sanada - Two points. (1) I didn't have a chance to go too deep into Sanada's thoughts, but the reason he accepts Fuji goes back to a quote he said in the Rikkai OVA regarding Kirihara: "Talent is not something I can let alone." Despite being the same age as Fuji, I see Sanada evaluating Fuji the same way he views Kirihara - capable of amazing potential that will go to waste unless someone is there to coax it out to its fullest. Sanada wanted to make sure that Fuji had as much potential as Yukimura suspected. Now that he's sure, he'll pitch in to make Fuji stronger.
(2) Originally, Sanada was going to dance around the idea of Fuji transferring to Rikkai a bit more before handing over the partially completed paperwork, but as I was writing the dialogue, I realized that didn't fit Sanada's personality at all. He's a straight-shooter! He doesn't have time to play guessing-games or think things over.
Which leads me to...
~"Tarundoru!" - I think I've been pretty good about sticking to English to this point, but this was one phrase I did not want to translate because I've seen it used in so many different ways. ("Mada mada da ne" will probably be another, partly because Echizen also uses it to imply so many different things and partly to differentiate it from when he does say it in English. But that should only come up a lot if I decide to tell Seigaku's side of the story. Echizen just won't be appearing that much, otherwise.) Literally, it incorporates the verb that means to slacken or relax. In the context of this chapter, I'd say Sanada is basically criticizing Fuji for slacking off and not considering what transferring entails.
~Yukimura - Near the end, Yukimura exhibits a couple symptoms of myasthenia gravis. Nothing too extreme, but I wanted to include some reference that showed that he's still ill to counterbalance that he spent all day outside being tangentially involved in the tennis matches.
~Record player - I did a double-take when I first saw it, but Fuji really has a traditional record-player next to a computer in his bedroom according to Fanbooks 10.5. It was such a neat, random fact that I had to throw it into the chapter.
~More geography notes - supposedly, according to the Perfect Edition Volume 1 interview with Konomi-sensei and short story featuring a pre-1st year Akaya, Hyotei is near Rikkai. More evidence that, although Rikkai is in Kanagawa, a daily commute from Tokyo wouldn't be too far-fetched.
~Names: Part I've-Lost-Count - So, the cast intros for Dream Live 7th have given me agida once again. Just when I've gotten Jackal's name sorted out, they decide to throw out that "Yuuta" should be spelled "Yuta," with only the one "u". I honestly can't remember seeing anyone spell Yuuta with only one "u," and it's going to irk me to switch spellings this far into the story. I'd rather just admit I'm spelling it wrong than use inconsistent spellings or edit the old chapters.
~Next update - The next chapter, featuring the various Seigaku reactions to Fuji's decision, is the second of the two chapters that I wrote a chunk of before I convinced myself to stop playing around and write the full story. Because of that, and a (gasp) lack of tennis, I'm hopeful it will come together quickly. It'll probably be shorter, although every time I think that I end up writing a monster of a chapter. (Case in point, this chapter clocked in several hundred words longer than the doubles match that went into tiebreak.) Either way, I'm still anticipating not posting it for two weeks. In order to avoid another hiatus like over the summer, I'd rather stockpile a chapter for a few extra days and release it according to a regular schedule. The chapter after it also lacks tennis (at least, right now it does), but I have a lot more I need to prep for it.
Next chapter: A decision is made. In order to forge new bonds, sometimes old ones must be broken. Exactly how will Fuji's choice affect the other members of the Seigaku tennis club? The time has come to reveal to them what their tensai has been up to.
Chapter Five: Emperor
Chapter Five Author's Notes:
~Opening/Irony - Figuring out how to start this chapter had me hitting a wall for the better part of a few weeks - and that was before my hiatus, when I was still immersed in the story. (I think part of my reluctance of coming back to this chapter was knowing that I was probably going to rip it shreds again. Thankfully, it survived.) I knew details of what I wanted to include, but I couldn't wrap the pieces together into a cohesive package. Then, there's the irony of that segment. I spent a good chunk of space complaining about the anime in the last chapter's notes. So how do I follow-up on that? I got it stuck in my head to base the opening scene to this chapter on a scene that is given more screen time in the anime than the manga.
I also realized something when I got stuck - I feel like I've let Fuji's desire to play equally with Tezuka get a little out of hand. It's almost to the point where it's the equivalent of Ryoma's drive to defeat his father, which I'm not so sure I like. It wasn't my intention for Fuji to be obsessed with Tezuka. Fuji strikes me as the type of character that drifts unless he's presented with a challenge. He found one in Tezuka, but it was pulled away from him before he had a chance to immerse himself in it, so he's stuck on it. It's a little late to change it, but I think I'll try to tone it back. Maybe it'll flow better once I have Fuji and Tezuka actually talk to each other next chapter.
~"...the intense discipline of his training regimen had allowed him to detach himself from unnecessary emotions while he focused on a game." - I hadn't intended for this to happen when I originally sketched out this part of the outline, but this could be read as an inadvertent reference to Sanada's ability to enter Muga. ("My heart has become empty.")
~Nicknames - In my original draft, I had Fuji refer to Momoshiro as "Momo-chan", but when I thought about it, I don't remember ever seeing him call Momoshiro that. Maybe just Momo, but not with the "-chan" attached. Something to double-check.
~Magic Pockets - It has no bearing on the story, and it'll probably continue in the future, but I had a laugh at myself for how many tennis balls the boys manage to pull from their shorts. I promise they're not conjuring the balls from thin air, nor are their shorts the equivalent of a clown car - even though I rarely write that portion of the scene because I figured some details are too tedious for even me to include, they walk around the court in between games picking up the balls they've already hit so they can be used again.
~"Low-lidded gaze" - This is another concession I'm trying to make to realism, although I need to come up with some more ways to describe it before it gets too repetitive. Basically, I don't think it's very realistic to think that characters like Fuji, Yanagi or (to an extent) Ishida Gin really walk around with their eyes closed all the time. The manga somewhat addresses this with Fuji - his eyes aren't depicted as closed nearly as much as they are in the anime.
~Fuurinkazan - I had a nice and long debate with myself about which part of the Fuurinkazan Sanada would use against Fuji. Since they make such a big deal about him using two elements against Echizen in a single match, I felt like I had to limit myself to only one for the majority of the game. (Although Sanada uses all four against Kirihara when he answers his challenge in the Rikkai OVA.) I forgot exactly where I found the following, but I had the following notes for the first three parts: (1) Fuu is a speed return, (2) Rin softens the spin on the ball, and (3) Ka is a ground smash. Zan really mystifies me. In the Rikkai 2nd Service musical, it looks like Sanada demonstrates a drop shot while he's singing about Zan, but I'm not sure what about a drop shot would qualify as "immovable". Also, in the Rikkai Another Story OVA, Yukimura says that Sanada had already invoked Zan, but no one else seemed to have noticed. That makes me wonder if Zan is more of a footwork technique than a racket stroke. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to completely hold back Kirihara as a first year, but it was sufficient to contain Atobe until he developed his Koori no Sekai.
Anyway, since Fuji's style doesn't normally contain a lot of "attacks" and is more defensive, I don't think a defensive style would be the best counter. That's why it doesn't appear. Yanagi says that he can't overcome Rin no matter what technique he uses, and he's also a counter-puncher, but I think Fuji would respond well to it because most of his counters involve manipulating the spin on a ball. Fuji did not manage to seal the real Rin in that last game, but given enough time and practice I think it's possible. Fuu is all about speed. Again, if you're faced with it long enough, I think you can start to catch on to it even if your name isn't Echizen. Maybe not 100% of the time, but possible with the right training program. Heck, that's how Shishido trained until he could keep up with Ohtori's scud serve.
Kirihara remarks at one point during the Fuurinkazan introduction that he still gets completely overwhelmed by Ka, so between that and the process of elimination, I was satisfied that Ka would be Fuji's stumbling block. He struggled with Sanada's regular ground smashes, but Fuji doesn't actually face a Ka until the fourth game of the match. This was to keep with the canon observation of how unusual it is for Sanada to pull out the Fuurinkazan early in the match - by game four, the match is usually more than half over for Sanada.
Sanada doesn't use Rin and Fuu in the final game because he needed to - he's kind of showing off at that point. Except Sanada's not exactly the type for "showing off" - so it's more like educating Fuji on how much further he needs to evolve - again, like with Akaya in the Rikkai OVA.
~"Fuji wouldn't have been surprised if Sanada could leap over the net in a single bound." - Another Tenimyu reference. Shortly before the second chorus in Samurai, the choreography has Kanesaki Kentarou (Sanada's actor) jump over the net to get back to Echizen rather than, say, running around the net. There are a lot of moments I love in Rikkai Second Service, and although that's minor it stands out in my mind.
~"Scary Fairytales" - Reference to bonus content from Perfect Edition Volume 4. Konomi's description of the sort of dreams the Fuji brothers had after Fuji read from that storybook was pretty amusing.
~Evolved Counters - Fuji's evolved counters pop up a lot earlier than they do in the regular series. He's pretty quick to manipulate the counters once he "wakes up" during the match with Shiraishi. Since playing a serious game with Sanada has to be at least as challenging as playing Shiraishi (what with Shin PoT dropping the bombshell in a recent chapter that Shiraishi was holding back a bit more than anyone had anticipated), I think it's reasonable that he feels the same pressure to evolve here. And, as some reviews pointed out, he was already starting to feel insecure about the various Rikkai players breaking all three of his counters, so the thought was already in his mind that he needed to do something to recapture his specialty.
I read some pretty interesting articles about the mythological connections between the three beasts the evolved counters are named after in Japanese culture. I tried to incorporate that into Fuji's thoughts.
~The Match's Outcome, Part Two - I worried that I might have spoiled the outcome of this match with last chapter's notes about Fuji not going to be the best tennis player, but the outcome of the doubles match bothered me too much when I was writing it to wait until this chapter to acknowledge that. Fuji needed to have a lopsided match here. At this point in the timeline, Sanada is still training as if they're in the middle of the tournament season. Fuji has been training with the Seigaku club and a little bit on his own, but it's just not to the same level as Rikkai's program.
That's not to say that I think Fuji is incapable of playing at Sanada's level. If you look at the end of the original manga timeline, I think Fuji could play an even match with Sanada. I'm not sure who would win - most likely Sanada, but depending on how the game developed it could be close. Sanada and Tezuka are evenly matched. If Fuji's not daydreaming about the first year match against Tezuka, I think he's evenly matched with Tezuka too. (His match against Nioh both supports and undercuts that theory - he defeated Tezuka!Nioh easily enough when he started paying attention to the game, but even Fuji pointed out that Nioh was incapable of executing some of Tezuka's signature moves.) So, using the transitive property of equality (yay math!), whereby Sanada=Tezuka and Tezuka=Fuji, Sanada and Fuji could be evenly matched. Sanada's probably still stronger, but Fuji's trickier.
Since Yukimura destroys Sanada in Shin Prince of Tennis, he's in a category all by himself. Hands down, he would win against anyone in the series. (Except sparkly Echizen, evidently.)
This game was originally closer. Not the final game count, but I had more than one game drawn to a deuce. (Fuji was also going to be hitting the court a few more times, which didn't fit into the narrative as well as I'd hoped.) As I was planning it out, however, it just didn't feel right. If you compare this to the match with Shiraishi, Fuji was arguably at his peak condition during that match and he still didn't take a single point until Shiraishi was at match point. So, Fuji did pretty good for taking a game off Sanada right off the bat and getting a handful of points here and there. Looking at it that way, the fluke actually becomes why Fuji was able to win a game against Sanada so early in the match. My rationale - Sanada isn't pushing himself because he didn't fully warm up, whereas Fuji is pretty much throwing everything he's got in his standard bag of tricks at Sanada right off the bat.
~Doubles vs. Singles - In a way, I think I enjoyed writing the doubles match more than this singles match, which just about killed me considering how much trouble I had finishing last chapter. To paraphrase Kikumaru, doubles has infinite possibilities. The singles match felt a little lonely after juggling four characters on the court at once, which I think contributed to the trouble I had with the pacing in the early parts of the match.
~Education note - As I was preparing for one of the earlier chapters, I read something about the education system in Japan that indicated there are transfer exams held for students prior to each school year. I couldn't find that exact article again when I went back to look for it, but the logic seems sound and I found a different article that discussed how some private elevator schools require transfer exams for each grade instead of the more general entrance exams.
~Sanada - Two points. (1) I didn't have a chance to go too deep into Sanada's thoughts, but the reason he accepts Fuji goes back to a quote he said in the Rikkai OVA regarding Kirihara: "Talent is not something I can let alone." Despite being the same age as Fuji, I see Sanada evaluating Fuji the same way he views Kirihara - capable of amazing potential that will go to waste unless someone is there to coax it out to its fullest. Sanada wanted to make sure that Fuji had as much potential as Yukimura suspected. Now that he's sure, he'll pitch in to make Fuji stronger.
(2) Originally, Sanada was going to dance around the idea of Fuji transferring to Rikkai a bit more before handing over the partially completed paperwork, but as I was writing the dialogue, I realized that didn't fit Sanada's personality at all. He's a straight-shooter! He doesn't have time to play guessing-games or think things over.
Which leads me to...
~"Tarundoru!" - I think I've been pretty good about sticking to English to this point, but this was one phrase I did not want to translate because I've seen it used in so many different ways. ("Mada mada da ne" will probably be another, partly because Echizen also uses it to imply so many different things and partly to differentiate it from when he does say it in English. But that should only come up a lot if I decide to tell Seigaku's side of the story. Echizen just won't be appearing that much, otherwise.) Literally, it incorporates the verb that means to slacken or relax. In the context of this chapter, I'd say Sanada is basically criticizing Fuji for slacking off and not considering what transferring entails.
~Yukimura - Near the end, Yukimura exhibits a couple symptoms of myasthenia gravis. Nothing too extreme, but I wanted to include some reference that showed that he's still ill to counterbalance that he spent all day outside being tangentially involved in the tennis matches.
~Record player - I did a double-take when I first saw it, but Fuji really has a traditional record-player next to a computer in his bedroom according to Fanbooks 10.5. It was such a neat, random fact that I had to throw it into the chapter.
~More geography notes - supposedly, according to the Perfect Edition Volume 1 interview with Konomi-sensei and short story featuring a pre-1st year Akaya, Hyotei is near Rikkai. More evidence that, although Rikkai is in Kanagawa, a daily commute from Tokyo wouldn't be too far-fetched.
~Names: Part I've-Lost-Count - So, the cast intros for Dream Live 7th have given me agida once again. Just when I've gotten Jackal's name sorted out, they decide to throw out that "Yuuta" should be spelled "Yuta," with only the one "u". I honestly can't remember seeing anyone spell Yuuta with only one "u," and it's going to irk me to switch spellings this far into the story. I'd rather just admit I'm spelling it wrong than use inconsistent spellings or edit the old chapters.
~Next update - The next chapter, featuring the various Seigaku reactions to Fuji's decision, is the second of the two chapters that I wrote a chunk of before I convinced myself to stop playing around and write the full story. Because of that, and a (gasp) lack of tennis, I'm hopeful it will come together quickly. It'll probably be shorter, although every time I think that I end up writing a monster of a chapter. (Case in point, this chapter clocked in several hundred words longer than the doubles match that went into tiebreak.) Either way, I'm still anticipating not posting it for two weeks. In order to avoid another hiatus like over the summer, I'd rather stockpile a chapter for a few extra days and release it according to a regular schedule. The chapter after it also lacks tennis (at least, right now it does), but I have a lot more I need to prep for it.
Next chapter: A decision is made. In order to forge new bonds, sometimes old ones must be broken. Exactly how will Fuji's choice affect the other members of the Seigaku tennis club? The time has come to reveal to them what their tensai has been up to.