Chapter 12: Preliminaries

Yesterday, heavy down pour suddenly happened, thankfully, Tanaka and Aisaka already got home when it rained.

It was 9 PM that they both went to sleep on their own rooms but at 9:50 the sound of the thunders came like a it was slapping a thot.

This caused Aisaka who was sleeping in her room to be startled and be scared.

She maybe fierce but she was scared of thunder, it was normal for girls to be scared of thunders, at first she tried hiding under her blanket and covering her ears.

But she still felt scared and everytime the sound of the thunder came to say hello, she will still jump from the sound.

With nothing else to hold on, Aisaka decided to use her new trump card, she picked her pillow then opened her door and kicked Tanaka's room door.

In which startled Tanaka who was sleeping, seeing Aisaka, he could not help but be surprised.

"What's up?" Tanaka asked.

"Shut up, I'm going to sleep here" She said then took the other side of his bed and slept there.

Tanaka scratched the back of his head confused in what is happening, "Change beds?" He asked.

"No, just stay there and sleep" She said.

"..."

Tanaka was silent for a while since his brain couldnt process what is happening, but he found nothing wrong sleeping beside Aisaka so he just shrugged and continued sleeping.

And now back to the present, he already knew Aisaka is a chaotic sleeper, she could literally reach the ends of the world when she is sleeping.

Tanaka sighed and poked Aisaka in the cheeks lightly.

*Poke! *Poke! *Poke!

It was not until the 3rd poke that Aisaka reacted and groggily opened her eyes, she was surprised at first seeing Tanaka's face in the morning but then she remembered what happened last night.

She turned her head immediately as her face turned red.

"Good morning princess" Tanaka said with a sweet smile then stood up, and left towards the kitchen.

Aisaka still had her head turned away from him but when she saw the sweet smile of Tanaka her heart could not help but take a leap out seemingly wanting to jump towards Tanaka.

Her face turned redder, "Damn that guy, he is teasing me again" Aisaka murmured and calmed herself down.

She then slumped back to the bed and hug the pillow near her, "The pillow smells nice" she thought, then hugged it tighter.

"Wait... this is not my pillow!" She immediately jumped away from the pillow and looked at the pillow.

It was Tanaka's pillow, she then turned her head towards the door and saw Tanaka there leaning on the door frame with a smile.

"Heh" He smirked.

"What are you smirking about!" Aisaka yelled and picked up her pillow and threw it towards Tanaka.

*Swoosh!

Tanaka ducked towards the ground and dodged the pillow, "You are far too young to fight me" Tanaka declared with a smirk.

"Tsk, just you wait" Aisaka said.

"Well, that is done, immediately go get changed, I will prepare the breakfast" Tanaka said then left towards the kitchen.

Aisaka clicked her tongue once again before taking her pillow but she suddenly stopped then turned towards Tanaka's pillows.

"..."

She returned back to her room and put away the new pillow she got, then started changing her clothes, today is friday.

After they finished eating breakfast and changing their clothes, they made their way towards the Ousai Academy.

Tanaka was still thinking on how to improve his teammates, as they arrived at school, the class went as usual and there was a surprise quiz in which Tanaka easily topped.

Aisaka could only look at him with hatred, after all, Tanaka suddenly started taking her throne away from her.

After classes, Tanaka went to the gym and met up with his teammates and just as usual they did their personal training.

Just then, Koro-sensei sat beside Tanaka, "Tanaka-kun, I was wondering why are you so harsh in training? with your team skills, it will be easy to reach the finals" Koro-sensei said.

"Haha, its because reaching the nations is not the only goal of our team, its to win the nationals and become the champions, everyone in the team knows that, Sensei, I want to build a strong team, so strong that people would not even know who the boss is" Tanaka said.

"I see, its like that famous saying, I'm not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep, im afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion" Koro-sensei said.

"You got it sensei, but I dont have any points to give you for that" Tanaka said

"Nyuhuhu, that saying really suits your team, when I first came and saw them play, I only thought that they looked like a group of sheep that could be slaughtered but looking at them now, you the lion have really taught them well, if your team really wins the nationals, it will bring great honor to our school" Koro-sensei said.

"Thank you sensei, we will not let you down" Tanaka said.

Koro-sensei nodded and didnt say anything anymore, and just continued watching the team practice.

"..."

In a blink of an eye, it was already the start of the preliminaries has arrived, Tanaka and the team gathered in the clubroom waiting for Ono-sensei.

It didnt take long for her to arrive carrying the schedule of their team.

"I will now explain about the nationals, the Nationals - Middle school division. Unlike high school where there were two significant tournaments; Inter-high and Winter Cup, Middle school only has one significant tournament.

Japan has forty-three proper prefectures, two urban prefectures(Osaka and Kyoto), one territory(Hokkaido), and one metropolis(Tokyo). In total, there are forty-seven prefectures who send out forty-nine schools(Two from Hokkaido because of its massive size and two from Tokyo because of the number of schools in Tokyo).

Preliminaries for Tokyo has two blocks(A and B). Winners from each block get the ticket to the Nationals. Each block has three initial rounds, semi-finals, and finals.

Top eight teams from the last preliminaries get seeded and skip the first initial round." Ono-sensei finished explaining.

Ousai Academy was located in tokyo so they were part of it.

"Here is the bracket, check it out and also I compiled the strongest school in this paper, even though I dont have much knowledge about basketball, I still looked through the internet" Ono- sensei said.

"Thank you sensei!" The boys thanked her, Ono- sensei waved her hand and went back to her office.

The boys gathered around and curiously looked at the paper, Ousai Academy was at Block A.

The preliminaries in Tokyo had two blocks, so the schedule regarding matches was a little different, and the preliminaries went a little longer than preliminaries in other prefectures.

The schedule in Tokyo for this year was.

Day 1: Block A; Round 1 and Round 2. (Seeded teams enter in Round 2)

Day 2: Block B; Round 1 and Round 2. (Seeded teams enter in Round 2)

Day 3: Block A; Round 3 and Semifinals.

Day 4: Block B; Round 4 and Semifinals.

Day 5: Rest Day.

Day 6: Finals for both Blocks.

Their first opponent was the school called Yukigaoka Middle School.

The preliminaries in Tokyo had two blocks, so the schedule regarding matches was a little different, and the preliminaries went a little longer than preliminaries in other prefectures.

Tanaka dont have information about them but that was easy, he turned his head and looked at Hiruma.

Hiruma smirked and took out a stack of paper and gave it to them, Yukigaoka Middle School was a fairly weak school, even though their school has been active for many years now, they dont have any notable achievements.

What the group have to look out for were the well known school such as Teiko Middle School which was an elite school for sports, there was also Ohashi Middle School which was the champions last year, there are also the schools from other prefectures.

Unfortunately these elite schools were placed on the Block B, well, at least, there is an elite school that was on Block A which is Iwatobi Middle School which is also an Elite School.

The preliminaries will start a week later and everyone had the time to adjust, Tanaka didnt let his teammates train hard for the remaining days and let them do everything leisurely.

But of course, the nervousness again stuck their nerves and they could not calm down at all.

Tanaka could only let his friend Hiruma do his thing, this time he didnt carry a machine gu n but a rocket.

This continued everyday just to calm down the team but of course, Tanaka knew this wont work in a long term.

But Tanaka was sure when the games started, they will slowly get used to the pressure and finally calmly play.

It didnt take long for the scheduled date to arrive, the members of the Ousai Boys Basketball team wore their jackets and carried their bags towards the bus owned by the Academy.

The girls basketball team will also go with them since the stadium they will use were the same.

Sitting at the bus, Tanaka calmly looked out the window of the bus and saw Aisaka looking at him.

Tanaka smiled and waved his hand to her, he then saw her move her mouth, Tanaka understood her word.

"Good luck" she said.

Tanaka smiled, and finally the bus started and drove away.

-*-*-*-*-*-

Here is the extra chapter!

200 stones on my novel Alter Online = extra chapter for KnB fanfic

I should really start stacking up chapters here, but... but....

Tip me to give me the family power PayPal.Me/LazyTanaka.

Quotes:

"It doesn't matter" -an old man who groped a trap.