Chapter 10: Finals Ahead

It was Day 4 of the Tokyo preliminaries, and the quintuplets had just returned from school. The seniors needed a break from the matches yesterday, so the coach told them to have a day off to rest their bodies.

The quintuplets didn't plan to follow his advice. After all, while it might be slightly more tiring than usual games, it didn't tax their bodies much.

After school ended, they immediately went to their father's company and joined the basketball training over there.

A good thing about having parents that owned sports-related stuff was that they didn't need to pay extra money to attend the training.

After their daily training, three of them went home while Asashi and Sora decided to continue playing at the nearby basketball court in the streets.

Asashi and Sora were the two most active brothers amongst the five, and while the other three were by no means lazy, the two did over and beyond what they were supposed to do.

"""Tadaima"""

"Welcome back. How's training?"

"Same as usual. Sora and Asashi are out playing even though we should be resting for tomorrow's match." Seiya replied as he arranged his shoes neatly.

"Yeah...those two active dogs only play about all day."

"Don't call your brother's dog." Then, lightly tapping Tsukio's head, Mama Takahashi reprimanded, "You're calling yourself a dog as well."

"Tch...bad things about being quints. If you insult your brothers, you would be insulting yourself as well."

"Hahaha, you five are brothers. I would expect nothing less from my sons!"

"And as per usual, I have no idea what you're saying. So I'm going to rest." Tsukumo yawned and walked straight up to his room.

"Take a shower first! I doubt you would be going out later." Mama Takahashi yelled as Tsukumo just waved his hands.

"Hai, hai."

"Sigh, what am I going to do with your brother..."

"You don't have to worry too much about him."

"If I don't worry about my children, who else will I worry about?" Mama Takahashi replied as she looked up towards her two relatively maturer children.

Papa Takahashi, who was sitting beside Mama Takahashi, raised his hand and spoke excitedly like a child replying to his teacher's question, "Me! Me!"

"Shut up, Papa. You should be the one who is worrying about my children and me."

"Shouldn't it be 'our' children? No?"

"Nah. They're my children."

Leaving the couple alone to flirt with each other, Seiya and Tsukio went upstairs and took a bath after Tsukumo was done with his.

By the time both of them finished with their school work, Asashi and Sora had returned just in time for dinner while Tsukumo had just woken up from his nap.

"Good morning, everyone."

"It's already evening, Tsuku-chan! Go wash your face and join us for dinner!" Just as the six of them were about to start eating, Tsukumo came downstairs while rubbing his eyes. His hair was also spiked all over, creating an image of a person who just woke up from a good night's sleep.

"Sigh, Tsuku-chan, your mother is right, you know? You sleep way too much."

"What can I do about it? I get tired easily."

"Says the one who runs the most in our games."

"Says the one who doesn't do anything else apart from basketball."

"Says the one who..." Sora wanted to continue the trend, but he couldn't find anything else to add on.

"Pft...haha. Just know that Tsukumo won't do anything else apart from basketball." Asashi laughed out loud as he munched on the fish.

"Don't eat and talk at the same time."

"Hai, hai..."

It was rare for families with both working parents to have dinner like this with their children, especially when one lived in Tokyo. Tokyo was a place where the competition and prices for everything were high, and each adult tried their best to earn as much money as possible to support their children financially.

Through simple actions like having their dinner and having a conversation, the Takahashi family had a great bonding time.

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Day 5 passed by in a flash, and day 6 soon arrived.

The finals of the Tokyo preliminaries are situated in the Tokyo Metropolitan Arena.

The stadium was more crowded than usual, with today being a Sunday and the finals of the junior high preliminaries. As a result, more people had come to watch the two games and the three teams that were said to have many freshmen playing.

"Super rookies" was what everyone had called them, where 11 freshmen had rampaged through the entire Tokyo preliminaries almost too easily.

5 came from Teiko from block B, 5 came from Kiyose from block A, and the final one came from Tokiwadai, also from block A.

As for the last team, sadly to say, no one paid attention to them. After all, no one had confidence that the last team would win against Teiko and enter the nationals. Instead, everyone had come to see the match of block A. Whether the rookie from Tokiwadai would win or the quintuplets from Kiyose, everyone was curious about it.

Weirdly enough, block B's match was chosen to go first before lunch, while block A's match was after lunch.

It did spark some questions amongst everyone, but since it didn't really affect the matches themselves, it was left alone.

Though, some people did notice that block B's match would be treated as an exhibition match, an appetizer, for the more 'exciting' match from block A. Since Teiko's match would attract many people who were curious about the first years, it would build up the excitement and atmosphere for the second match after lunch.

Arriving early in the morning to watch Teiko's match, Kiyose junior high could already see Teiko on the court, warming up and preparing themselves for the game.

Needless to say, their appearance had caused a few commotions. After all, it was not every day where a totally trashy team managed to destroy so many teams all of a sudden just because of five new members.

This year was just an exception.

"Wow...although it's just a junior high school match, it attracted a lot of attention, huh?"

"Yep~. After all, Teiko may look all sporty only, but it's just like us, an elite school."

"But the difference between their school and ours..."

"Only the basketball team in our school are still in the competitions. Baseball lost in the first round, soccer lost in the second, as for swimming..."

"We didn't even send out a swim team this year."

"Ouch...rest in peace, Kiyose. Ne, Seiya, do you think we will be able to attract more sportsmen and sportswomen into our school next year?"

"I hope so. If we still don't get any freshmen for the next two years, we will have to play next year with just 7 members and our third year all by ourselves."

While the quints were conversing within themselves, another wave of commotion appeared, and the quints stopped their conversation temporarily and looked at the source.

"Oh...is that Tokiwadai?"

The huge, massive crowd of players wearing their signature Tokiwadai tracksuit sparked lots of attention - especially the front five players, where a silver-haired boy appeared.

"So that's Kageyama Shun? He looks weak..."

"Shut up, Asashi. We looked at his videos and talked about him before. He is by no means weak."

"I know, I know..." Asashi replied half-heartedly.

"Sigh, don't get overconfident."

"Tch, who's overconfident? I never slack off in an actual match unless you're telling me to go easy on others."

"Well, I don't think we can afford to go easy on their team anymore. After all, Tokiwadai is a -"

""""National-level team with strength almost unbeatable in whole Japan junior high school level. Yes, we know, Seiya. You don't have to repeat it so many times."""" The other four brothers all replied in synchronization.

Seiya was speechless but didn't bother to reply to his younger brothers.

"Well, we already know everything we needed to know about Tokiwadai yesterday. So all we have to do is try our best and play to the best of our abilities, and we'll win. We haven't played basketball since we were five for no reason." Tsukio said.

"We will now begin Tokyo's preliminaries final match for Block B. Both teams, please send your players to the court."

"Oh, it's starting already."

"Let's see how Teiko looks like in an actual game."

Teiko's team was colorful. Apart from their captain, who had black hair, the other four first years had a wide variety of hair colors. From their shortest member having red hair, the member wearing glasses has green hair, the tanned blue-haired guy, and the tallest purple-haired dude.

"Our team color is pretty consistent, huh?"

"Duh. We're paternal quintuplets; it would be weird if we didn't look alike."

While they were conversing, the game had already begun with Teiko's possession. The purple-haired giant was about 185cm tall, give or take a few centimeters, and that height difference easily got him the jump ball.

Throughout the game, Teiko showed why the four first years genuinely deserve to be on the starting team and why they were determined to be one of the potential winners even on the national stage.

Their play was flawless. Teiko was fast, strong, and durable. Their shooting guard never missed a shot, while their center collected every single rebound.

Despite being the shortest among all ten players on the court, their point guard played with intelligence and wits, diffusing almost every defense the other team tried to put up. Likewise, their small forward was fast and dexterous, having insane dribbling skills and speed that no one on the other team could play against.

And needless to say, as their final member, Nijimura had the reputation of the strongest power forward in the league. He was so famous to the point that even Tsukumo knew of his name. Moreover, being the captain of Teikō, Nijimura had undoubtedly proven himself to be an excellent player all-round. As the power forward, Nijimura has a high-speed and strong drive.

Reaching all the way inside to the basket, he is also seen switching to a pass lightning-fast and swinging it to the free man. Together with their tanned small forward, their drives are very effective, enough to easily drive through anyone.

"They really are good, aren't they?"

"Not only are they skilled individually, but they also display good teamwork, especially with their captain and the red hair."

"Do you think we can win?"

"Obviously."

"Confident much, huh?"

"Of course! No one can beat our teamwork if we choose to do so. Plus, our individual skills are also strong, so I don't know how we will lose against people our age."

"Maybe our teamwork is strong, but individually? We are only just 'strong', not 'very, very strong'. I've seen Kageyama's play, and he's even better than Aomine individually. In fact, if not for his small physique, he might have been the best player individually."

"He's that strong?"

"Yes, but one person cannot defeat an entire team that has a similar skill level as him. So, he might beat us 1 on 1, but he won't be able to defeat us together."

"What about his team, though?"

"Apart from Otsubo and Aone, the others pose no threat to us, and when we get taller, even those two won't pose a threat to us anymore."

"So in the end, it's all about height, huh? Then what about the first-year purple giant from Teiko who's almost dunking on everyone?"

"We'll come to that when we come to that."

"So you don't have a counter to that, huh? So the great strategic Seiya can't think of anything."

"First of all, I only put in more dedication to researching other teams. If you guys actually do what I do, you guys would come to the same conclusion as me. Second of all, if the purple giant can destroy us offensively, then all we have to do is beat them offensively as well."

"So head on brawl?"

"Yes. Because unless we can defend for sure, we would be basically wasting our energy trying to defend something undefendable."

"So only the purple giant is a threat on Teiko?"

"Only him and their captain. As for the others...they have talent, but..."

"Not awakened yet, huh?"

"I hope we can awaken ours soon. Our coach's ability is awesome!"

"Yeah, that ability's basically cheating! Perceiving time slower is ridiculous!"

"Alright, that's enough."

The quintuplets stopped their discussion here and continued watching the ongoing match.

By the third quarter, the score had already reached 70-30, and by the time the game ended, Teiko got a final score of 90-40.

"Not bad, but we could have done better."

"Well, let's talk after we get lunch. I wanna eat Macs!"

"No fast food before a game. It's salad time."

"What the..."

"No one likes salad. Give me my protein, and we'll be able to last the game."

"So it's decided, huh? Let's eat rice then."

"No one talked about eating rice!"

And so, Kiyose's basketball school team had an enjoyable lunch together, and before long, the time for their match had arrived.

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A/N: Yeah, I decided to make Kageyama Shun appear as well. So fanfic about fanfic. If you want to support me or/and want more chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere