Was Seiya Hiding His Strength All Along?!

"Forty-love!"

"This game goes to Wenren Seiya. The match is over. Final score, six games to one..."

When Ishida, acting as the referee, announced the final result, everyone present was stunned.

The spectators outside the court stared at Seiya, who was still casually swinging his racket without even breathing hard, their faces filled with disbelief.

As for Seiya's opponent, Kamio Akira, he was now sprawled flat on the ground, gasping heavily.

"You've got to be kidding me. Akira actually lost to Seiya by such a huge margin, six games to one!"

"And didn't you notice? Other than the first game he lost and the few points he dropped at the start of the second, Seiya didn't lose a single point from the second game onward. Even when Akira had already found his rhythm, Seiya controlled the match several times just by scoring directly off his serve."

"Was Seiya always this strong? Don't tell me that guy had been hiding his strength all this time?"

"Why is Seiya so strong? If I'd gone on instead of Kamio just now... Why didn't I beat Kamio to it? Seiya was supposed to be my practice partner today..."

Everyone simply chose to ignore Shinji's muttering. They were all incredibly shocked by the strength Seiya had displayed today.

They had all risen from their first year together, so they knew each other's abilities inside and out.

Seiya had always been a little stronger than Shinji and Kamio, but not by much.

In their previous practice matches, the scores had generally been seven to five or six to four.

And Shinji and Kamio had been improving quickly. Recently, they had even occasionally managed to beat Seiya in practice matches.

But none of them had expected a situation like this to suddenly occur today.

"Seiya's movements today are completely different from before, yet they're incredibly natural. They look as though they've been tempered through countless repetitions. Does that mean he'd actually been hiding his strength before? Then what could have made him decide not to hide it anymore?"

Watching Seiya crush his opponent six games to one, Tachibana Kippei, the captain of Fudomine's tennis club, stared seriously at Seiya's back.

That was right. Compared to everyone else, he was more inclined to believe that Seiya had been hiding his strength rather than suddenly improving.

After all, Tachibana Kippei simply could not believe that someone could grow that much in such a short time.

Moreover, although Seiya's movements and reactions just now differed somewhat from before, neither his serves nor his returns showed the slightest hint of awkwardness.

That could only mean Seiya had long since known how to do those things. He had simply never used them before.

Tachibana Kippei did not know why Seiya had hidden his strength, but everyone had their own secrets. Wasn't he, one of the Twin Heroes of Kyushu, the same?

As for what had prompted Seiya to reveal his strength...

Tachibana Kippei glanced at his younger sister An, who was cheering excitedly nearby, and seemed to imagine something else entirely.

Seiya's practice match opponent today had originally been Shinji.

But when Kamio saw An entering the tennis court while affectionately tugging on Seiya's arm, he immediately stepped forward to challenge Seiya.

And then this scene unfolded.

Tachibana Kippei had quite the headache. In his eyes, both Seiya and Kamio were outstanding juniors. He had no idea whom he should support.

If only he had another younger sister...

If Seiya had known what Tachibana Kippei was thinking at that moment, he would definitely have cried injustice.

He had originally planned to go home and try incorporating kendo into tennis, but An had inexplicably dragged him to the tennis court.

Then Kamio had inexplicably become jealous and proposed a showdown between men.

Since he was already at the tennis court, Seiya figured that an opponent was an opponent, so he accepted Kamio's challenge.

At the start, because Seiya was still getting used to the difference between swinging a racket and swinging a sword, Kamio took one game from him.

But once he gradually got used to the sensation, and with his physical abilities and reactions having skyrocketed, Kamio was quickly beaten senseless.

It was no surprise that Tachibana Kippei thought he had been hiding his strength. After the power-sharing, Sword Art Online Seiya's kendo insights and memories felt as though they had been born with him.

Naturally, there was no awkwardness in using something he had already mastered.

And to say something that would truly sting Kamio, after adapting to his own abilities, Seiya had not even used thirty percent of his strength, yet Kamio, his opponent, was already lying on the ground.

As Seiya looked at the exhausted Kamio and walked out of the tennis court with both hands in his pockets, he recalled a particularly famous pretentious line from his past life.

Back then, with both hands in my pockets, I had no idea what an opponent was. The moment I made even the slightest move, I already knew the limit of this rank.

"Seiya, hurry up and tell us! What kind of special training did you do to become this strong?"

After watching Seiya utterly crush Kamio, An finally snapped out of her stunned, open-mouthed state. She ran onto the court and eagerly questioned Seiya.

"Didn't I tell you before? I'd been playing games and trying to incorporate some of the techniques from them into tennis. My fundamentals were always quite solid, but I never had a style of my own, right? But now, I think I've found a tennis style that suits me."

Upon hearing Seiya's words, An and the rest of Fudomine were all dumbfounded.

Seriously? Playing games could make you stronger? Did he even believe that himself?

"What game were you playing?"

Although he felt Seiya was talking nonsense, Tachibana Kippei still asked the question on everyone's mind out of curiosity.

"Uh, I couldn't understand the name because it was a foreign game. But it was a combat adventure game. The movements I used just now were all based on the kendo movements from the game. I seem to have quite a talent for that sort of thing."

At the mention of kendo, Tachibana Kippei finally remembered why Seiya's earlier movements had felt so familiar.

Seiya was not the first person to incorporate martial arts into tennis.

Leaving Shitenhoji aside, Sanada of Rikkai and a second-year newcomer at Hyotei also seemed to be that type of player.

But Tachibana Kippei did not believe Seiya's claim that he had learned all those kendo movements from a game.

With such skilled swings and returns, Tachibana Kippei would rather believe that Seiya was also a kendo master who had been tempered through countless real-life practices.

Otherwise, merely playing games could never give someone that kind of physical memory.