One Point

It was brought to my attention that I made a story-related error in my last chapter by Tony_Robinson_9859 (thank you for that) where I stated that Akira's growth was unbalanced, which contradicts the wish that he made with God. Sorry.

I have changed it and rewritten that section of the chapter to be more in-line with the story. I also will change Akira's Perfect Vision ability so that it will now list out numerical stats and his phone will give a range of how much an average person's stats will be at his age.

[A/N: "Think of Aida Riko's ability to quantitize stats in KnB."]

If anyone else notices any inconsistencies like please don't hesitate to point it out as I stated in my aux chapter.

Sometimes when I write/come up with my stories, I forget some stuff especially if it's over a couple weeks ago. I already plotted out how the story will go in my head, but writing it down, figuring out how many chapters each section should take, and jotting out small details is really hard.

I am also busy with real life and I do not hold chapters for mass releases or anything like that. So when chapters come out, it is only after I just finished it and read it over (In this case I need to do a better job at the second part).

---------- Chapter Start ----------

Even though he was a few minutes from being late for registration and he had just played a game with someone, Nanjiro still dominated the tennis tournament and won in spectacular fashion. However, when Rinko came home and Akira saw her face, it was hard to tell who was more happier from Nanjiro's victory, her or him.

With a smile stuck on her face, she handed him her phone and told him that he could play against Nanjiro tomorrow afternoon. She then walked into her room and closed the door not even waiting for Akira to respond.

He just sat on the couch with a blank look on his face by how unnatural she was behaving. But he soon got over it and navigated towards the video section of Rinko's phone.

Since he couldn't be there personally, Akira asked Rinko to record videos of Nanjiro's matches so that he could have an idea of the type of opponent he would face. He was watching it on her phone up close, afraid of missing a single detail.

Just from looking at the first match and from what he saw when Nanjiro played Smith, he could tell that Nanjiro's style of tennis is purely aggressive. He would overwhelm his opponents by attacking continuously without even thinking of defending. But the thing was, he didn't need to defend.

The biggest weakness to an aggressive tennis playstyle is that it drains a lot of the player's energy at a fast pace. If the opponent is successful in draining your energy and making the match last longer, the player would now be in a severe disadvantage. Sure you may be able to win games and increase the score to 5-0, but all that effort would be for nothing if you lose 5-7. However, Nanjiro was able to bypass this weakness through sheer talent.

Just from looking at the first few minutes of Nanjiro's matches, Akira was able to tell that each of hit shots were filled with incredible power, which sometimes caused his opponents to drop their rackets or forced them continuously swap their rackets because of the damage he was doing to their strings.

This was amazing feat in itself, but what was more impressive was that he hardly looked tired hitting these continuous power shots. It could've been that he was faking it, but that was quickly debunked when he maintained his aggressive style throughout the tournament. This means that along with hard-hitting shots, he also possessed near endless stamina.

[A/N: "At some places, tournaments could be held as often as once every week, usually lasting only one day. This means that players would only have a small amount of rest between matches when competing in these tournaments."]

No matter how much a person trains their body, they will always be limited by said body and the only way around this was to be one of the rare few that was born with natural talent. And Nanjiro was one of these rare few people and maybe much more.

The only way Akira could see himself scoring any points would be to make it so that Nanjiro would be forced to hit the ball out of bounds or to make it so that he couldn't hit the ball in the first place, both of which were easier said than done. All the other options were off the table since he lacked both strength and stamina compared to him.

In summary, what Akira now needed was to up his control over the rotation of the ball. Although he had pretty good ball control due to his chosen style and from practicing in other sports, he could tell that he still wasn't at the level he needed to be to even begin to competitively contend with him.

He watched the video over-and-over again before loosening his posture and lying head back on the couch, closing his dry eyes.

Akira: "It's impossible. Even if I completely master my tennis, I can't see me ever winning against a monster like him. Haaa~ It also seems like I'll have to step up my training regiment another level."

He paused for a few seconds.

Akira: "But that's the perfect opponent I could ever ask for."

Contrary to how most would feel, Akira was instead getting excited for his upcoming match against this monster of a player. This was exactly what he wanted and what he needed. Only through playing against strong people could a person grow and overcome his limits.

Akira: "Welp. Nothing I can do now except rest up. I can't wait for tomorrow's game"

After saying that he went to his room and fell asleep.

--------------------

Akira: "Where the hell is that pervert!!"

Akira yelled on the tennis court after waiting there for over half an hour.

At first he thought that he would be only a little late, not surprising considering he had played multiple matches yesterday, so decided he just warmed himself up with Rinko before he came. But after not showing up when Akira had just finished one set-worth of rallies, he couldn't help but explode.

Rinko: "Now, now. He probably overslept and I sure he'll be here soon. Also, I didn't really tell him what time the match was specifically."

Akira: "Do you really think that? Maybe he forgot about us and is hooking up with some one."

That really ticked off Rinko because she thought that that would be something that he actually could be doing when she remembered how he was close to a blonde wearing revealing clothes. But she tried to stay positive.

Rinko: "Let's just wait a little bit longer. If he doesn't come in a few minutes, then I'll play a match with you. It'll make up for how we couldn't play yesterday."

Not being able to find any other option, Akira gave up.

Akira: "Haaa~ Fine"

Once more Akira was warming himself up, praying that Nanjiro would come soon so that they could play already.

And as if God was granting it, Nanjiro did finally show up, but not without hopping out of a truck with three pretty white ladies waving at him.

Before Akira could speak up, he was interrupted by Rinko.

Rinko: "Nanjiro! What took you so long!? While we were waiting here, you were messing around with those women weren't you!?"

Nanjiro: "Oh Rinko! Sorry about that. I overslept and lost track of time."

Rinko: "Really? You're not late because you were messing around with those women were you?"

Nanjiro: "I wasn't. I just overslept, really."

Rinko: "Haa~ Whatever. Hurry up and get ready. Akira's been waiting for you for a long time."

Nanjiro: "I got it. I got it."

He turned and faced towards Akira with a smirk.

Nanjiro: "Sorry to keep you waiting kid."

Akira: "Just get warmed up and get on the the court. We'll play a one-set match."

Nanjiro: "Heh. What a cheeky boy. I don't need to warm up and I'll let you have the first serve. Let's finish this quick alright?"

He said as he walked onto one side of the court. Akira walked to his side and took a ball out of his pocket.

Rinko: "Akira! Do your best!"

Akira: "I know."

He turned towards his opponent.

Akira: "Don't complain to me if you pull a muscle because you didn't warm up old man."

Those last two words irked Nanjiro a bit.

Nanjiro: "Just hurry up and serve."

He said as he stood there with his wooden racket over hit shoulder. Although he looked completely unprepared with the way he was standing there, Akira knew that he shouldn't underestimate someone as skilled as him.

He threw the ball into the air and served a standard overhead serve. To which Nanjiro effortlessly returned, obviously not with all his strength. The rally then continued with Akira seriously trying his his best to keep up with Nanjiro's shots, while the person himself was more curious than he was serious.

Nanjiro: 'Hoooh~'

Nanjiro was a bit surprised by their rally. For a 9 year old child to serve a near perfect overhead serve was rare, but what was even more rarer was how he was hitting all of his shots, even those that were aimed at the corners and his drop shots. Sure he gave Akira some breathing room to catch up to those shots, but do so continuously takes more than some skill. He was able to confirm that Akira had either mastered or nearly mastered all the basic forms of tennis.

The first rally ended when Nanjiro drop shotted the ball towards the bottom right after Akira returned it from the far left corner. Akira tried to reach it, but was caught off guard and was too slow.

Nanjiro: "15-Love, you aren't that bad. But you're 100 years too early to be able to beat me."

Akira: "Zip it old man. The match isn't over just yet."

Him saying that again ticked him off.

Nanjiro: "You know, I'm still in my 20s. So can you not call me old man? It's getting on my nerves."

Akira chuckled.

Akira: "No way. I kinda like calling you that. I think 'old man' really fits you. Don't you think so too Rinko-nee?"

Rinko thought about it for a second before nodding. She didn't know why, but the term 'old man' really seemed to stick to him.

Nanjiro's face was visibly twitching. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a hair band, and started tying his hair up in a ponytail.

Nanjiro: "How about this. If you score even one point against me, you can keep calling me that, but if you can't then you can't say those two words to me ever again."

Akira: "It's on!"

From then on, Nanjiro proceeded to dominate the match. His balls were much faster compared to before and Akira had to switch to using both his hands to return all his much heavier shots. Sometimes he couldn't even properly return the balls and they would end up flying out-of-bounds.

Soon the score became 4-0, 15 serves after their first rally and only 10 minutes into their match.

Akira: 'Oh crap. If this keeps up, I really won't be able to score even one point.'

Akira planned on stretching out the game so he could have more time to find any of Nanjiro's weakness, if he had any, but that was now impossible with him stepping up his game a couple of notches.

Akira: 'It's too hard to return his serves, so I only got these 4 four serves to score and ordinary ones don't seem to work.'

Akira thought about his options and sighed.

Akira: 'It seems like I got no other choice but to try and do 'that'. I haven't used it in a match before and the backlash will be harsh, but I really don't want to lose a match without at least scoring a point.'

As he made up his mind, Akira took up his serving stance, but this time he was a few feet from the baseline.

Nanjiro: 'Hmm? What is up to this time?'

His question was answered when he saw the fire within Akira's eyes.

Nanjiro: 'Interesting. Are you really trying to score a point against me? And from that distance... A running jump serve? Well then, let's see what you got.'

Akira took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and calmed his mind. With his current body, he'll only be able to do it only once, so this was a do-or-die situation.

After taking a moment, Akira gently opened his eyes and started walking forward. He then sped up and tossed the ball into the air in an unnatural way. Crouching before the baseline, he extended his body upwards and jumped as high as he could. While he swung his racket as hard as he could, his mind was completely blank. Half a second later, the ball left his racket and he fell onto the court.

When he saw the ball approaching his services square, Nanjiro's first noticed how slow the ball looked to be moving, like it was a feather falling from the sky. However, as gentle as the ball looked, Nanjiro's instincts were flaring. He ran up and swung his racket to return the ball just after it bounced, but then he noticed that his racket swing felt weird. He didn't hit the ball.

He looked down to see it rapidly spinning in place, not moving and not bouncing. A serve that fell like a feather, landed like a feather.

Both Rinko and Nanjiro were in shock by what they just witnessed and soon turned their heads towards Akira who was slowing getting up and clutching his right arm.

Akira's body was covered in sweat, but he still had enough energy to chuckle at both of their reactions.

Akira: "Feather serve."

[A/N: "This technique's name may or may not be final. I'm on and off about how it sounds. If anyone got any suggestions, let me know."]