Chapter 5: Glimpses of The Raven
Finally time to play some basketball, I walk toward the side where the yellow mesh jerseys are and they are all in terrible condition and stink like you wouldn't believe. 'Does nobody wash these?'
Looking over at Tao I see him smiling a huge smile, it's obvious he did this on purpose, but at least pretend like you don't know. Sigh well if they are going to make me wear this disgusting thing then I guess I'll show them a little bit to get this farce out of the way.
My 3 teammates have an equal level of disgust on their face, but one has despair as well. Deciding to take the captain of the team role I walk up to them and introduce myself.
"I'm Aida Ryosei, why don't we all introduce ourselves. I play point guard, but I can play any position we need. Next Ikehara." I say, pointing towards Ikehara. He starts with a bow before shouting.
" I AM IKEHARA KICHIROU! I DON'T KNOW WHAT POSITION I AM! PLEASE GUIDE ME! ALSO YOU CAN CALL ME KICHIROU!"
I would facepalm but currently both hand are occupied with covering my ears.
"Uhm thank you Ikehara, but next time let's not shout when we are next to each other wouldn't want to lose my earring when I'm still young."
He at least had sense to look sheepish before rubbing the back of his head and grinning. Shaking my head I turn towards the next guy and motion for him to begin.
"I'm Otake Michio starting Power Forward."
I nod at the short introduction and then finally look towards the last player, the one who had despair on his face when he heard the teams.
"Teshima Tadashi, bench" he says with tears building up I'm his eyes. I was taken aback by the sudden tears, but Otake waved away my concern.
"This is just how he is, he cries about everything no matter what it is."
Grrreeaattt, I have a loud mouth and my own personal water fountain and a guy who seems like he could care less if he was here or not. I mean that as here as in living not just playing basketball.
"Alright, since I'm the tallest and the most knowledgeable I'll play a combination of center and point guard, you guys just do what you can. I'll get you the balls and any shots you miss I'll rebound them. Alright let's win!"
"YES!" Ikehara shouts
"Okay." Otake mumbles
"I'll try to live up to your expectations." Teshima says with tears pouring down his face and a little bit of snot dribbling down his nose
"Uh, thanks." I respond awkwardly.
Walking to half court we see the other team ready and waiting for us.
"About time, delaying your inevitable defeat won't make it come any faster." Tao says haughtily
...
....
Kawahara facepalms and I just kind of scratch my cheek with a chuckle.
"Sorry captain, just getting to know my teammates. Wouldn't want to delay my inevitable defeat." I finally respond
"Good that you know where you stand. Now the match will be first to 21 or who has the highest score after an hour whichever comes first."
An hour?! They can't score 21 points in an hour? My eyes widen and I can feel a pain deep in my chest. 'Why didn't I just go to a strong school. Ugh'
[Tao POV]
Hah look at his despair I knew he was all looks, he's probably never seen someone score 20 points in a hour before hahahaha. This will show you to try and trick me first year.
[Back to Ryosei]
"Since we don't have anyone to throw the tip off we'll just inbound as if you guys had scored." Tao says out loud before mumbling "Like that will ever happen."
"Alright sounds good to me, start whenever you're ready." I respond casually
This guy, did he not see me hit that 3 or does he think it was a fluke. I'm really going to have to shit him up. I'll go about 10% that should be more than enough for these guys.
Arata inbounds the ball to Tao who dribbles down the court. Kawahara is already marking Otake, I guess seeing him as the next biggest threat. Arata quickly moves up and Teshima closes in on him tears still falling. How does keep his tears flowing for so long? Lastly Otani sticks close to Tao, but eventually Ikehara comes up to guard him as well.
Leaving me with Tao, who still has this smirk on his face like everything is in control. I keep my aloof expression with the tiniest of smiles because I can't wait to see his reaction. I love winning and helping my teammates, but what I love more is tearing down the cocky guys who think they are good when they aren't.
I take in his stance, and it's all wrong. Feet too close and body leaning too far over, his eyes keep looking back at his dribbling hand every time it leaves his hand. Not confident in his dribbling and his stance leaves him for one misstep to send him tumbling. Lets see him try to drive or shoot.
He does an agonizingly slow right to left hand cross while staring at the ball before taking a step back and grinning at me. I want to feign surprise, to stroke his ego, but I can only grimace. He's starting his shot off balance, his feet have no coordination and he's holding the ball directly on each side.
He got the shot off because his form disgusted me so much. As someone who prided himself on being fundamentally sound in his past life I hated absolutely everything about his form. In this life I've started being more loose and getting used to street ballers in preparation for Aomine, but this went past formless and was just garbage.
Following the ball I planned out it's arc and as expected it was going to miss in front of the rim by at least a foot and a half not to mention being off to the right by a foot as well. Tracking the ball to where it will fall I jumped and rebounded it.
I immediately start dribbling when Kawahara comes up and tries to stop me. I jab with my left foot and ball in my left hand leading to the left and as soon as I saw his body make the slightest movement that way I pushed off my left foot to the right and rolled the ball behind my back to my right hand. Kawahara tries to stop but he had committed and with his clumsy size he tripped over his own feet.
Now Tao comes up to me and he's playing it aggressive reaching in, but every movement is so obvious and telegraphed. As soon as he reaches in with his right hand I half step back with my left foot and open up my side. He tries to recover by bringing his left foot forward and regain balance. But I just follow my momentum into a spin on his left side, in his inexperience he tries to step with his right foot instead of shuffling and he trips himself by crossing his legs and falls on his ass.
It was free range from there and I could have easily went for a layup, but I stopped outside the arc and shot a 3. As soon as the ball left my hand I stared down Tao until I heard the swish of the net and seeing the widening of the eyes of all the player let me confirmed what I already knew, it went in.
The game continued like this mostly but I incorporated my teammates and let them shoot while focusing more on defense and rebounds. The final score was 21-2. 2 points coming from Kawahara who was being guarded by Teshima at the time, and Teshima would not stop crying and apologizing to me when it happened that I had to end the game quickly.
"Now that all this stupid superiority shit is out the way, I'm going to tell you all something. I'm serious about basketball, and I'm going to take this team to the nationals and play against all the best teams. Potentially win. You can continue you to play how you want I don't care, if you want to get better I'll help you but I won't force people to play a way they don't want to."
As I finish I peel off that disgusting yellow jersey and look at my teammates. They are all breathing heavy and pouring sweat, while I barely feel warmed up. The match that was thought could take an hour had ended in 10 minutes and it felt like the toughest practice they had ever had.
I look around the gym and see the students that had gathered during the match, most looking on in awe and surprise others talking amongst themselves while sneaking glances at me. Looking down I notice I don't have my shirt on, a little to my right I see my practice shirt in a pile with the yellow jersey and I grimace.
I guess I unconsciously smelt the terrible smell on my shirt and pulled it off too. So now I don't know how many of the students are talking about my body or the game, but seeing numerous blushing girls makes me think it's not the game. Sighing I reach down and untangle the abomination that is the yellow jersey and sling my shirt over my shoulder and walk back towards the bathrooms.
As soon as I make it inside the hallway I hear multiple "kyaahs" and then the whole gym erupted into talking students. Shaking my head I get changed back into my school clothes and grab my 2 bags. When I make it back out, most of the students of have left and a few of the basketball players have left except for Kawahara, Ikehara, Otake, Teshima, and Arata.
I nod to them and start to walk to the exit where I see a familiar brown haired girl, her hair is currently a little long reaching to just below her shoulders. But most would recognize her short hair cut and signature pins in her hair. Yup it's my sister Riko Aida.
I hear footsteps behind me so I turn around and see the remaining players walking toward me. Kawahara breaks away from the pack and stands in front of me.
"We want to get better, for some of us this is our last year of middle school and we know at our current skill we won't make a high school team. Not only that but it would feel great to beat these teams that always laugh at us after matches. Please teach us." He finishes with a bow and the other 4 bow alongside him.
""Please guide us!"" With one Ikehara being the loudest of the bunch.
I give a small smile and soften my eyes giving off calming aura, before giving a nod.
"I will do my best." I turn around and head towards my sister.
"Ryooooo hurry up it's time to go home!" Riko yells in fake anger.
"Coming Riko, I'm coming." I wave to soothe her pretend annoyance.
"What was that about?" She asks as I finally make it to her.
"Hmm? Oh them? Just making friends, you know like you told me to." She looks back at the 5 guys standing in the court and glares at them, they didn't see the glare but they could feel a shiver go down their back similar to when Ryosei stared them down earlier. Looking around frantically they couldn't find the source of the bad feeling except for a smiling Riko and Ryosei, which might actually be scarier.
"You know Riko you don't have to come pick me up, I know your school is a 20 minute walk from here."
"I know I know, but it was your first day of middle school so I wanted to surprise you, but imagine my surprise when I walk into a gym full of blushing girls and you standing in the middle of the court with not shirt on." I felt her hand grip my shoulder a bit tighter than was necessary.
"Come on Riko I couldn't help that, the jersey they gave me to wear smelled so bad I thought someone had died in it, I just didn't notice I took off my shirt as well."
"Mhm suuure. Anyways why did you have to pick this school, Kamata West has a way better team and not too mention we could have went to the same school. Those guys in there had terrible stats, while I can't compare them to you because for some reason I can't read yours. Well I can, but what I get is obviously wrong seeing how good you are at sports and how I'm shape you are."
"I'm a mystery dear sister, can't have people knowing every little detail about me. What if I play against someone with a similar ability as you and dad and they can see all my "stats" that would be terrible. Regarding my team, well you know I've always been the one to root for underdogs."
I say while looking up at the sky with my hand in my pockets. It's nice having an older sister, it's like a natural deterrent against girls, which helps me because they're too young right now. Maybe in high school my thoughts will change, but I won't know until then.
I'm brought out of my thought by Riko pulling on my shirt.
"Ryosei."
"Hm?"
"Ugh you always space out when I'm talking to you." She puffs
"No. Well yes, but I know you were trying to give me data on your schools team so I tuned it out. You know how good I am at basketball, and you know I how competitive I am. I don't want handouts."
"Fine fine, I won't talk about them. Anyways how do you plan on getting your team ready for nationals, the preliminaries are in 2 months!"
"Yep and if we somehow don't make it into nationals there, there's also the Summer championship where the winner gets invited to the tournament as well as a fall tournament before the nationals in the winter." I respond
(AN: I have no clue if that's how it works, I just made it up.)
"But you're in Tokyo which means Teiko, Kamata west, and Shoei are going to be in those tournaments." She complains back to me.
"Yes and I'll have to beat all those teams if I want to win nationals anyways. Don't you have any faith in your dearest little brother." I say while giving my saddest face.
She gives me a punch on the arm in return and pouts before saying.
"Of course I do, I just hate that you had to choose the hardest way to do that."
"Hardest? No that would be going to a school with no basketball club and having to start my own from scratch. I do like a bit of a challenge though." I give a soft laugh.
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Author's Note
This went longer than I meant it to, but I wanted to build a little bit more of the world and their road to nationals. I'm not going to give a practice training montage or anything, I'm just going to say what Ryosei helped them get better at and maybe a little match to show their improvement.
This FF as much as I would like to go day to day, I know as a reader myself I would want them to hurry up and get to the juicy parts. So I'll continue to sprinkle in slice of life stuff, but I mainly want to get through middle school and get to the high school section where the anime starts. And that's where I'll really hit more day to day slice of life and not do as many skips that are about to happen.
PS after watching the anime I kinda of want to make another FF based on Kuroko where after middle school he actually trains and gets better. Because theirs so many points in the anime where he says something cool and acts like a badass, but he can't do anything but pass. And I know that's his whole thing, but they could have taken his misdirection a step further instead of it only being possible because of his low presence. Love Kuroko, would love an OP Kuroko even more.
Hope you enjoyed.
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