Kyōsen Private Middle School Vs Tōdaiji Private Middle School; First Half

「Nara Preliminaries, Day 5, Winners of Both Blocks, Round 5: Exhibition Match.」

After the match against Kishiyamoto yesterday, coach Chu Lin addressed his team about their shortcomings and how they could improve on it. In the end, after that meeting, it was decided that the whole team will undergo some sessions of training at the Aida Sports Gym after their match with Tōdaiji Private Middle School, one of the most prestigious schools in Nara Prefecture.

On his way to the rows of school buses that will head for the Sika Deer Arena, Seiji was intercepted by his homeroom teacher, Chihiro. As usual, she's wearing the teacher's uniform that makes every teenage boys with lots of hormones in their body to drool over her.

"I heard that you'll be going to Tokyo after this finals game? Here, this is my cousin's picture. Be sure to pick her up at the airport 'kay?"

Saying so, Chihiro handed over the picture of a girl around 7-8 years old wearing a pink dress and a straw hat.

"Umm… Isn't she too young to travel by herself going by this picture?"

"Oh, that? She's around your age so don't worry. Just look for her at the airport 'kay?"

"Do I have a choice in this?"

"Nope? We already talked about this, remember?"

"Yes yes, will do."

While he agreed on the outside, Seiji still felt quite helpless. Why did his parents even agree to all this?

After that brief conversation between him and his homeroom teacher, Seiji boarded the bus designated to their team and waited for their departure. Today, it isn't only the regulars that will go to the Sika Deer Arena but also all of the members of the entire basketball club.

※・※・※・※

At the Sika Deer Arena, many people gathered to see who will win the finals in Nara's prefectural preliminaries. Everyone is looking forward to Kyōsen getting beaten by Tōdaiji. Everyone except those who already heard of the news about Kyōsen's current strength.

Along with an entourage of students carrying huge banners, pompoms, and some things that could be used to make noise, Kyōsen Basketball Club entered inside the Sika Deer Arena. They say that there is strength in numbers and they are indeed right.

Those who planned on ridiculing Kyōsen's team got intimidated by the sheer amount of people heading towards the arena. They obediently let Kyōsen pass without even so much as a squeak.

While the teams are getting ready with some warm up drills and exercises, the audience seat got filled up by fans of each team. There's an overwhelming number of fans for Tōdaiji while Kyōsen have only half of Tōdaiji's fans.

Before the match even began, cheers and jeers flew all over the arena as the fans discussed amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, Seiji and his team is still wearing their tracksuits while doing some shooting drills and one on ones after their other drills were over. They're ears are plugged with headphones or earphones to cancel out the noise of the crowd.

While Seiji and his team is warming up, a confident youth who's around Akagi and Kogure's age approached them, greeting Akagi and Kogure. He is already wearing their team's jersey, a black and violet colored one.

"Yo, Akagi. It looks like you have quite the strong team this time, huh?"

"And it seems like your school is still as bad as ever when recruiting teammates for you, Mitsui."

At Akagi's rebuttal, the guy known as Mitsui just shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. Akagi just ignored his nonchalance and peered at the teammates of Mitsui. The only notable ones in their data is Koganei Shinji(SF) and Rinnosuke Mitobe(PF).

"Well, I don't really need teammates to win. I've gotten to this point with just myself alone."

"You are too overconfident Mitsui. I think I'll be in for a rude awakening once you face our team's own ace."

Once again, Mitsui just ignored Akagi.

"I haven't faced anyone who could rival me."

"That's because you never went out of Nara."

After the warmup was over, Seiji and his team took off their tracksuits and revealed their jerseys that has white and blood red colors.

"Let's go team! Line up!"

"""Oh!"""

With Akagi's shout, everybody in the starting five proceeded to line up at the centerline of the court.

"The game between Kyōsen Private Middle School and Tōdaiji Private Middle School will now begin!"

"""Let's have a good game!"""

With the sound of the referee's whistle as the queue, everyone took their positions while both centers positioned in the middle of the encirclement. Once the referee threw the ball, Akagi and Tōdaiji's center waited before jumping for the ball.

"Huaaaahhh!"

Akagi easily won the tipoff with Tōdaiji's center not even coming close. With the ball in Izuki's hands, Kyōsen blitzed towards the enemy side of the court and scored an easy layup after that fast break.

The next possession, with Tōdaiji having the ball, Mitsui asked for the ball from their point guard. The point guard carefully passed the ball to Mitsui, trying to avoid Izuki's steals.

In this possession, Kogure is the one marking Mitsui. Kogure personally asked Chu Lin that he wanted to try guarding Mitsui, which Chu Lin agreed to.

However, he told Kogure that it would only be for two possessions. If he could not stop Mitsui, Seiji will be the one guarding him.

*dang* *dang* *dang* *dang*

"It seems that you will be guarding me, huh? You never learn, Kogure."

"I just want to see if I improved even if just a little."

Mitsui smirked at him before saying his own piece.

"Well, no matter how much you improve, you wouldn't be able to stop me from scoring."

*dang*

With that said, Mitsui started to dribble the ball, doing some crossovers and between the legs dribbles. When he didn't see any opening in Kogure's defense, Mitsui stopped his crossovers and resorted in jab steps and ball fakes.

*skit* (sounds of shoes squeaking on the court)

When Kogure's defense is still not letting up, Mitsui passed the ball to Koganei. Koganei couldn't really find an opening in Seiji's defense so he once again passed the ball to Mitsui.

Right after receiving the ball, Mitsui's expression turned serious while Kogure closed up on him in a flash.

With an exaggerated lunge, along with a swing of his upper body and the ball, seeming like he wanted to drive to the right, Mitsui moved his body. Kogure, thinking that he really will drive, backed out a little, waiting for the drive to come.

His feet was planted on the ground as he tried to anticipate an upcoming drive. However, the drive didn't come.

Mitsui just retracted the right leg that he moved forward to sell that fake and shot a three. He looks so comfortable at taking the shot, probably because of the tons of practice he put into that shot.

*swish*

After the shot went in, it's Kyōsen's turn to have the ball possession. Izuki passed the ball to Seiji as he is just guarded by Koganei who looks extremely harmless in his opinion.

When Seiji got the ball, Koganei immediately closed up on Seiji with his arms raised up and a serious look replacing his nonchalant expression earlier. The aura he is emitting gave Seiji a sense of déjà vu.

'This is… the same as me?'

With Koganei closing in on him, Seiji have little room to dribble so he backed out a bit before starting to dribble the ball.

Koganei would bite every ball fake he throws at him but he would immediately recover and try to guard Seiji once again with a serious expression. This reminded him of himself when he was training with Fukuda a few months ago.

Even though Koganei could keep up with Seiji in his normal speed, that wasn't the case when he took his speed up a notch. With a series of simple dribbles, Seiji easily made separation between them for a shot.

※・※・※・※

After two more plays, Seiji switched marks with Kogure. Seiji marked Mitsui and picked him up after they crossed the half court line.

"Looks like you will be my defender from now on. Let's see if you're really as good as what Akagi told me."

*dang* *dang*

Mitsui started dribbling the ball with float in his dribbles. He would sometimes change the pace of his dribbles, trying to trick Seiji. After a series of dribbles, Seiji still didn't budge.

"You're really tough. I guess I have no choice."

"Hmm?"

After Mitsui said that, the irises of his eyes turned from black to gray color in the blink of an eye.

"Let's see if you can still stop me from scoring."

After saying so, Mitsui suddenly pulled up for a three-pointer. It was quite sudden so Seiji was a beat slower.

Even though Seiji tried to block him, Mitsui released the ball at a point where Seiji's hands is just a few millimeters away from tipping the ball.

The point of release and the timing is so unnatural that Seiji couldn't help but give Mitsui a once over. Then, he remembered what their coach said at the bus.

'He owns an ability that allows him to see multiple trajectories of his shots, huh. Paired with his great touch, the ball never misses. He also could take touch shots because of this ability. If he could somehow increase his range, that will be a really great ability. Unfortunately, he's really too full of himself and he's not making use of his fullest potential that much.'

When his thoughts arrived to this conclusion, Seiji looked at Mitsui once again.

"You're wasting so much of your talent by doing just that. Let me show you how to use it…"

"Ha?"

"I'll show you how to use it. Your ability, that is."

※・※・※・※

To be continued…

[A/N¹: In the fandomwiki, Mitsui's stats was like this:

Physical Ability: 7/10

Technique: 9/10

Stamina: 9/10

Mental Strength: 9/10

Special Ability: 10/10

So I had to think of a pretty insane ability that would boost his game a notch. With that in mind, I gave him the abilities; 「Eye of Odin」 and 「Soft Touch」. The ability 「Soft Touch」 allows him to have a soft and feathery touch when using the ball, allowing him to have great shots even when it is a hard one(basically like Kevin Durant's touch). While the ability, 「Eye of Odin」, allows him to see the multiple trajectories that the ball could take upon release. He could lock in on specific trajectories and then more varieties of those trajectories will show up(kinda like Eye of Death Perception but you could see trajectories in this one). It's a really handy ability for a shooter. With these abilities, he'll be on par with the GoMs in terms of talent.]

[A/N²: Now, I want you guys to imagine a Midorima with this kind of talent. 「Perfect Accuracy」, 「Soft Touch」 and 「Eye of Odin」. With these talents, you don't need high projectile to knock down those long threes. Even if someone tries to block him, he could just choose another trajectory and shoot. Damn… that sounds like it's unstoppable. Now, imagine Seiji having all of those. What monster have I created?]