Nationals, Begin!

When the Kyōsen Private Middle School's team arrived in Tokyo and settled down in a designated hotel, coach Chu Lin was given their group designation during the group stage of the Nationals. During this stage, each team was divided into 16 groups, 3 teams in each group that will battle in a round-robin match for a single spot to the National's playoffs.

Each team will battle the teams in their group once, meaning, each team will have two matches. If two or even three teams have the same wins, the winner will be decided by their scores during their previous two matches.

It was unknown whether it was due to a manipulation or just sheer coincidence but none of the main contender teams were pitted against each other during the group stages. Each main contender teams from different prefectures were placed on different groups that everyone would be suspicious as to how that happened.

After this piece of news arrived, Chu Lin immediately gathered all of his players in the hotel's lobby.

"Today, the schedule and groups we were assigned finally got announced. We are placed in the fifteenth group out of sixteen, with Yurisei Junior High from Nagano Prefecture and Yako Academy from Hyōgo Prefecture as our opponents."

*[A/N: Academy means that the school have both Middle School and High School. In Japanese, they are called 'gakuen', if I'm not wrong.]

"Yurusei is from that popular region of Chūbu who's preliminaries format is very similar to the Interhigh, a major tournament in the High School basketball league. We're already in the Nationals so don't go complacent and think that the enemies are weak…"

Chu Lin then looked at each and every players present in the eyes before continuing.

"…We're already in the Nationals so don't expect weak teams to be here. If they are in the Nationals, expect that they are one of the strongest in the prefecture or region. This way, you won't be caught off-guard by their strength or anything of the sort."

"""Yes coach!"""

"Good. Now, since it's already pretty late, you guys should go and sleep. We will be watching the videos of our enemy's matches so that we can learn more about them."

Once Chu Lin announced this, everyone went to their respective rooms and hit the sack.

※・※・※・※

While the whole team of Kyōsen Private Middle School is sleeping soundly, the teams who are in the same group as them could not. The coaches of those teams are having a major headache as to how they're going to beat Kyōsen who is rumoured to be many times stronger than their past roster.

'If only this is the quarter finals and not the group stage,' both of them couldn't help but have such a silly thought.

However, they immediately dispelled such thoughts inside their heads as they thought that they didn't have the time to leisurely think of such things. So, they watched all of the matches of Kyōsen with their scrutinizing gaze.

This made them come up with some sort of plan after some time. Why don't they just try to keep the score close during the first half and then take the lead when the players like Hyuuga and Fukuda enters the game?

However, this made them think twice. With Hyuuga and Fukuda on the floor, the offensive game of Kyōsen will take a huge leap and they will probably have a problem keeping up.

In fact, even them have second thoughts on whether they could keep up with Kyōsen's scoring ability as, even without Hyuuga and Fukuda on the floor, Kyōsen's scoring ability is still one of the best in the entire middle school basketball scene. With Seiji inside the court for the most part of the game, Kyōsen doesn't seem to need that much offensive power.

This thought solidified even more when they saw the exhibition match against Tōdaiji and Kyōsen. The fact that he developed a shot from beyond the arc that could not be blocked, does not even miss, have such an astonishing shooting range, and could do almost everything inside the court, the coaches of Yurusei and Yako almost fainted out of despair and spite.

How could that forever Top 8 team recruit such an amazing young talent? Does Chu Lin have such dogshit luck? Did he save an entire universe in his past life?

Even though the situation is like this, these coaches refuse to tell their players something like, "You guys should just give up, go home, and cook some rice for your family in order for you to do something more meaningful other than playing a match against them. This match is not something we can win…"

Thus, they spent the remaining time before the competition to research the Kyōsen Private Middle School, all the while thinking of what they could do against them.

※・※・※・※

「Nationals(Junior High Division), Day 1, Opening Ceremony」

All 48 teams from every region of Japan have gathered in one spot for the opening ceremony of the Nationals. Different arrays of colors could be seen as each teams lined up, attending the ceremony.

Players from each team are looking around, searching for their rival team or for potential rivals. Despite them being a force to be reckoned with, no team paid attention to Kyōsen other than five teams.

These five teams are:

Tōdaiji Private Middle School, a team from the same prefecture as Kyōsen; Yurisei Middle School, a team that Kyōsen will be facing in the Group Stage; Yako Academy, a team which Kyōsen will also be facing during the Group Stage; Teikō Middle School, a tournament favorite; and Shiratorizawa Middle School, the defending champions.

These five teams have seen, heard, or experienced how powerful Kyōsen is this year and they all have varying degrees of emotions. Tōdaiji doesn't want to face them anymore, Yurisei and Yako is having seconds thoughts about facing them, while Shiratorizawa and Teikō is looking forward to facing them.

On Teikō's side, the starting small forward of their team, Aomine Daiki, is already shaking in excitement while looking at Seiji who's just a few meters away from them. That's why, after the opening ceremony concluded, he immediately approached the players of Kyōsen, addressing Seiji among all of them who's watching him with their curious gazes.

"Yo! Long time no see!"

This was the first thing that came out of Daiki's mouth when he approached Seiji. Of course, Seiji was left puzzled for some time before he saw a familiar hair color enter his peripheral vision.

"Oooh! You're that Dai-chan from when I was five! It has indeed been a long time."

Seiji's way of address made Aomine pause as he shakily pointed his index finger on Seiji.

"Don't freakin' address me in that stupid nickname, ya hear!? That's only Satsuki's stupid way of calling me when we were kids! It's Daiki! Aomine Daiki!"

As Aomine fumed in anger, with veins popping out of his temples, an aura with malicious intent suddenly loomed over him.

"…What did you just say…?" Although the voice is quite low, Aomine could hear it loud and clear.

As he was trying to use the little bit of brain cells that he have to think of an excuse, someone saved him from his predicament in a timely manner.

"Aomine is just joking, Momoi-san. Don't take it to heart."

This immediately caused the malicious aura to disappear from the pink head who's just standing behind Aomine. He is currently sweating buckets of cold sweat from the close call.

After that short episode was over, the teen with bright crimson red hair and eyes who spoke a moment earlier extended his hand towards Seiji for a handshake.

"My name's Akashi Seijūrō from the Akashi Family. You must be that Arisugawa Seiji from that famous Arisugawa Clan, right?"

Seiji took the handshake and, while smiling brightly, introduced himself to the opposite party.

"Yes, my name's Arisugawa Seiji. However, it's been a while since I've been addressed as a member of that clan. You must be someone who attended my birthday. Wait… let me think…"

Seiji paused for a few moments before continuing, "You're that boy who's accompanied by that stiff and strict looking uncle, huh. Just one look at him and I could already tell that he's not someone I'd want to associate myself with so I just introduced myself briefly to you guys and moved on…"

With Seiji's narration, Akashi started to vividly remember the face of his father who got totally ignored by a little boy who looked upon him coldly before shifting his expression back to a smile. After saying some pleasantries, the boy turned away from them.

Looking at the current Seiji, Akashi could not see even a trace of that cold demeanor. Such a huge contrast.

Before any of them could say anything more, Seiji seems to have remembered something as he looked back and realized that his team already went on their way.

"Ah! It seems that I'll be left behind if I don't go now. I'll talk to you guys at a later date! See you guys around!"

With that, Seiji slipped away in a flash.

"He'll be a difficult opponent to beat…"

Midorima heard Akashi's quiet murmurs and couldn't help but ask, "Why do you say so, Akashi?"

"I just feel like, he's on a different level than all of us."

※・※・※・※

To be continued…

[A/N¹: Nationals is already starting! As this will be my first time writing such a tournament, I want to leave the complicated stuffs for later so I placed important teams on different groups.]

[A/N²: I ran out of school names to use so you guys couldn't see the matches from the group stages except for Seiji's team. This is the second reason why I scattered all the important teams to different groups.]