The Road to Perfection

In the matches that followed, Seigaku and Hyotei continued to steamroll their opponents, advancing through every round.

Their winning streaks made more and more teams realize just how strong Seigaku had become.

They weren't merely a team of first-years.

"Hyotei's terrifying. Every match has ended six-zero."

"I don't think the most terrifying thing is the six-zero scores. It's the time. They've played several matches, and not one has lasted even an hour."

"Doubles Two, Singles Three, and Singles Two were all over in around ten minutes. Atobe needed just eight minutes and forty-three seconds to finish his match. Hyotei really is strong this year."

"Maybe they can beat Rikkai Dai this year. I heard Rikkai Dai has six first-years, so they're much weaker than last year."

Hearing the other schools whisper, Atobe looked down on them. They still underestimated first-years.

Hopeless fools!

Before long, the Metropolitan Tournament was nearing its end. In Group A of the semifinals, Seigaku would face St. Rudolph, while in Group B, Hyotei Academy would take on Yamabuki Middle School.

Unlike the earlier knockout rounds, the Metropolitan Tournament semifinals and finals were scheduled close together.

The two rounds wouldn't be separated by a long break as before. The champions and runners-up would be decided over the next two days.

Saeki Muneyoshi had finally stopped training. With his tennis bag on his back, he mingled with the crowd, arriving at the venue early that morning.

"Oh, Seigaku against St. Rudolph, and Hyotei against Yamabuki..."

"Those matchups are so familiar."

Looking at the draw displayed prominently, Muneyoshi felt a sense of déjà vu. In the original story, these schools seemed to face each other for the next few years.

By comparison, as someone who'd crossed into this world, he could only be a spectator in his first year. It was undeniably embarrassing.

And when he thought about it, this was already his third time watching from the sidelines.

He'd been a spectator once at the Junior Tournament, before starting middle school a few months ago, and again at the regional preliminaries. Now there was the Metropolitan Tournament...

If Muneyoshi kept wandering around Tokyo like this, the Kanto Tournament and National Tournament were still to come.

He wouldn't be able to participate in any of those major events. He'd already accepted that, but when he thought about it carefully, he still felt a little unwilling to let it go.

But given Fudomine's condition before, how far could they have gone even if he'd been given a prominent role?

He might as well give up one year, tear out the festering problem in Fudomine's Tennis Club, and wait for the next two years.

After all, Tachibana Kippei would transfer to Fudomine next year. A whole group of first-years would join too, and Muneyoshi had already decided to recruit a few more players himself.

Once everything was in place, Fudomine would finally have the chance to bare its fangs.

Besides, that didn't mean he had nothing to do right now.

As the two teams gradually assembled on the courts below, a few familiar faces among them brought Muneyoshi the satisfaction of beating up geniuses.

It felt wonderful.

At the same time, Atobe was rallying his team on the court when he suddenly sensed a hostile gaze. He turned to look.

At once, he spotted the familiar figure he remembered so well. His brow furrowed.

His confident speech came to a halt.

"Go get ready!"

Atobe dismissed everyone with an air of pride and stopped paying attention to Muneyoshi.

"Atobe... Oshitari... Fuji... Akutsu... They're all geniuses!"

A hint of emotion colored Muneyoshi's voice as he looked at these future standouts among Japan's middle schoolers.

Too bad he'd already beaten them all!

Now, in the entire Kanto region, only Tezuka, Yukimura, and Sanada remained.

He didn't know how strong Yukimura was, since they hadn't faced each other yet. But as for Tezuka, Muneyoshi didn't have an absolute advantage over him.

Darkness wasn't light. The Shining Shot's powerful, outward force could not only cause immense destruction, but also release one's own strength and abilities several times over.

After all, the Shining Shot required one to reach a certain threshold of basic ability before undergoing a transformation.

Darkness, on the other hand, required growth. Muneyoshi hadn't grown enough yet, and he hadn't gathered enough nourishment.

Muneyoshi's thoughts drifted back to the day he'd sought out Tezuka after his match against Akutsu at Seigaku.

They'd played a tiebreak.

Tezuka had improved noticeably since three months earlier. The many ways he was developing Zero-Shiki were beginning to take shape, and he'd delved more deeply into the State of Selflessness...

As expected, Muneyoshi had lost again. Though it had only been a tiebreak, he'd still felt Tezuka's progress.

An uninjured Tezuka in his first year was almost certainly Japan's strongest middle schooler, apart from Yukimura.

Even in the future, at the U17 World Tournament, he'd rank among the strongest middle schoolers in the world.

There was practically no stopping his progress.

Of course, Muneyoshi had grown even more than he had since their first match.

The gap between him and Tezuka was no longer as impossible to bridge as before. As long as Muneyoshi kept chasing him, he believed he'd catch up soon.

The biggest thing he'd taken away from their match was that, perhaps because he'd been influenced by the original story, he'd underestimated the path of the State of Selflessness.

The path Echizen Nanjirō had popularized and made famous around the world.

Now that the gap between Muneyoshi and Tezuka had narrowed, the barrier obscuring his view had been torn away.

Only by facing Tezuka, who had entered the State of Selflessness, had Muneyoshi understood its true power.

His preconceived notions had been misled by the original story all along.

Somewhere in his subconscious, he'd believed the State of Selflessness was inferior to the Different Dimension Realm's Asura Path.

He'd been completely wrong!

In the world of Prince of Tennis, because Coach Mifune had devoted himself to developing and refining the Asura Path system, it held a unique status within Japan's U17 program.

But in truth, both were among the ultimate paths in the world of Prince of Tennis.

And if they were ultimate paths, they were paths one could follow from the beginning all the way to the end.

At their core, every path was really about exploring the most fundamental forces—power, technique, and speed—to a deeper level.

Power Force, Technique Form, and Speed Extreme.

Of course, now they might also need to add the even more mysterious field of mental strength.

A breakthrough in any one of these areas could earn a player a certain standing in U17 and a place in the First String.

These were the players commonly known as world-class U17 competitors.

By this measure alone, Muneyoshi, Tezuka, and Yukimura had already reached the threshold and entered that level.

But with only this degree of strength, they were at the very bottom of the ranks.

The State of Selflessness had already touched this level from the moment it was developed.

If one insisted on comparing it with the Asura Path, the State of Selflessness was a technique that was easier to master.

The Asura Path was much harder to unlock, and much more difficult to follow.

But only after truly pushing open all three gates could one be said to have fully entered the State of Selflessness.

The ultimate forms of Tempered a Hundred Times and Brilliant Talent were both deeper applications of the State of Selflessness. But neither greatly increased one's strength.

Nor could they raise one's abilities to a level beyond the reach of ordinary players.

But once someone pushed open the third gate and reached its third stage—Cloudbreak Limit—

the resulting increase in ability could nearly match that of someone who had just entered the Different Dimension Realm through the Asura Path.

By comparison, the radiance of Cloudbreak Limit came in three forms.

When someone awakened the second kind of light and fused the two, the increase in strength was comparable to a further advance along the Asura Path, reaching its second stage.

When all three forms of light were fused into the Ultimate Light,

that level of strength could match the third stage of the Asura Path, the final realm.

Unfortunately, Muneyoshi didn't truly belong to this world, and he'd never been able to comprehend the mysterious State of Selflessness.

And as things stood, awakening the Asura Path wasn't an option for him either.

Without repeated experiences of failure and pain, along with the guidance that went with them, it simply wasn't possible.

With no other choice, he'd had to find another way and choose light and darkness.

Light and darkness were the third path.

It was an ancient path that had never truly been perfected.

Before Echizen Nanjirō emerged, back when Mifune Nyudo was still young, this path had been the mainstream of the world.

It was also a path that could lead to the gate of the ultimate realm.

But compared with the well-established State of Selflessness and Asura Path, light and darkness were more difficult to master.

That was because fully comprehending either light or darkness on its own and developing it to a deeper level could bring one up to the level of a true professional player—but it wasn't enough to make one the very best.

After all, even a fully mastered Shining Shot or Darkness Shot could only reach the second stage of the Different Dimension Realm.

The second stage was roughly equivalent to the strength Oni Jūjirō would have in the future, fighting at full power.

This path was incomplete, and the route the world of tennis had once envisioned—fusing light and darkness into one—had never been successfully achieved by anyone.

But for Muneyoshi, who had already set foot on this path, there was no turning back.

PS: "I've briefly sorted out a few of the more common paths. This is the author's personal take on the world's rules. If other paths appear later, I'll bring them up when appropriate. Also, please vote for me~"