184 The Last Season Begins

Every basketball player from every middle school wanted to participate in the Nationals. The stage that allowed teams to showcase their mettle to the fullest. A stage where the strongest of teams from all around the country converged to compete. But, how could every team be allowed to play at the Nationals? Weaker ones had to be eliminated for the strong teams to rise from the survivors. And thus, preliminaries were held in every prefecture of Japan to weed out the weak, unprepared ones.

Middle School teams around Tokyo had patiently waited for the day to come. Today was the day when Tokyo preliminaries were going to begin. The tournament that granted two schools from Tokyo the ticket to the glorious Nationals as representatives of Tokyo prefecture.

Two middle school teams, one from each block of the Tokyo preliminaries, would advance to Nationals. And this year, only two teams were elected by the youth sports media to be the favorites for winning the Nationals. Only two teams from the myriads of teams from all over the country of Japan.

Both teams were based in Tokyo; One was the defending champion and two-time consecutive winner of the Nationals, Tokyo's Teiko Middle School. The second was the champion before Teiko and the rival school of the current champions, Tokyo's Tokiwadai Middle School.

The first school hosted a team that consisted of five prodigies, the team that had no apparent weakness to exploit, a unit that excelled in all areas of the basketball court, the team that was known as the Generation Of Miracles. The second school hosted a team that every year produced National level players, and this year was no different except for one, which was that the team was led by The King Of The Court.

Last year, both teams were placed in the same block of the Tokyo preliminaries tournament bracket, causing only one of the teams to advance to the Nationals. But this year, both teams were placed in separate blocks, which meant that if both teams were to meet, then it would be in the Nationals. And, as it was to be expected, the rest of Tokyo schools weren't happy to see the tournament bracket.

But, this wasn't just any other prefecture. This was the Tokyo prefecture in the time when both Generation Of Miracles and King Of The Court were active in the middle school scene and were in their third year. The atmosphere and vibe of Tokyo preliminaries were not the joyous, competitive that one would expect from a competition of the prefectural level. The atmosphere was one of resignation coming from all of the teams other than Teiko and Tokiwadai. Such was the reputation of Teiko and Tokiwadai in Tokyo.

It was a depressing time for the Tokyo Middle School basketball scene.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

On the first day of the Tokyo preliminaries, teams sorted in Block-A, half of the total number of teams participating in the preliminaries arrived at the Tokyo Metropolitan Arena for Block-A's Round-1 and Round-2 games of the preliminaries. In the lobby, many players from different gathered, looking at the court assignments, mingling with players from other teams, having a jolly time before the competition started.

It was that time when a club dressed in black and purple entered the lobby. For a moment, the lobby went silent before the sound returned in the form of murmurs and discussions. All the people in the hall watched as a single person separate from the group dressed in black and jog towards the court assignments, and then return to the group. The group didn't stop to greet anyone and exited the lobby leaving the people with a topic to discuss.

A first-year member from a low-level school turned to his seniors and asked.

First-Year: "Senpai. That was Tokiwadai Middle School, wasn't it?"

The second-year member of the team glanced at his junior and nodded to show that he was right.

Second-Year: "Yeah, that was Tokiwadai."

First-Year remembered the number of people in Tokiwadai's group and chatted.

First-Year: "They have a deep team, don't they?"

The second-year hummed in response before opening his mouth to speak.

Second-Year: "They are a famous school, it isn't a surprise for them to have a deep bench. I heard that Teiko Middle School has over a hundred members in their club."

The first-year whistled in awe after hearing that Teiko had over one hundred members in their club. The first-year was about to ask another question when he heard two people beside him talking. He heard one of the people say.

Person-A: "So, Teiko and Tokiwadai are going to go to Nationals this year."

The first-year noticed that the tone used by the person was not the tone used when making a prediction, but the tone used by a person when they were stating a fact. The first-year heard the other person reply.

Person-B: "I heard that Tokiwadai played a lot of practice games with other schools, and won every single one of the games."

The first-year turned his head towards the chatting duo and saw the first person furrowing his brows and speaking.

Person-A: "So, they are on a different level. No way, they are going to lose."

Person-B glanced towards his companion and revealed the full story of the practice games.

Person-B: "I know that, but what you don't know is that apparently, Kageyama Shun didn't participate in any of those practice games. Even without that monster, Tokiwadai is plenty strong to be a top-level team."

The first person was surprised hearing that, but when he digested the information, a sigh escaped him. He looked at his friend a spoke in a self-mocking tone plaguing his voice and words.

Person-A: "This is going our last year. Why did we have to be born the same year as those guys? It is just unfair."

His friend patted his shoulder and comforted him.

Person-B: "Now-now, don't be down in the dumps. Let's play our best till we meet Tokiwadai. Even if we can't beat them, we can still beat others. Let's set our goal as meeting Tokiwadai and not get eliminated by anyone but them."

The two laughed and walked away after ending their little chat about how their final tournament was going to end.

The first-year listening on their conversation thought about how strong was Tokiwadai as he had never played against them. He had asked his seniors, and the only reply he got was that they were too strong.

He was lost in his thoughts when he heard his senior call out to him. It was time time to head to their assigned court. He discarded his line of thought and turned to follow his team to the first official game of his middle school days.

The young, first-year, like any young gun, wasn't convinced with Tokiwadai's strength and wouldn't be convinced without seeing them play. What he didn't know was that the two people's conversation he listened on, well, they were no random players. They were starting members of Shoei Middle School, and a fun fact about Shoei Middle School was that they were one of two Tokyo representative of last year. [1]

A school that had been to Nationals last year had such thoughts about how the tournament will go showed how depressing the state of Tokyo's middle school basketball scene had become.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

[A/N: Shoei Middle School is Kiyoshi's Middle School. And, as we know he is graduated and gone to Seirin High School. The boy grew up.]