Chapter 2: Rukawa, Shohoku’s Ace.

It's been a week since Sakuragi have rejoined the team and they were twice practicing hard than before.

After the match they had between First Years against Second Years and Third Years, with of course the Second Years and Third Years end up winning by a lot of points.

It motivated the first year's to work harder than ever before.

The return of Kaede Rukawa to the team was announced by the school in the bulletin board and the student's become exited to see the ace of shohoku who is returning from his duty in the National Team.

And the first year's was anxious whether they will live up to the expectations of such an amazing player in Kaede Rukawa.

On the other hand, Sakuragi was mad and jealous of what attention did Rukawa was receiving from the entire school, because his return was like curse to the school but for Rukawa, it was something else compared to him.

At The School Gym after the school day ends.

When the rest of the team is about to start the practice, when they open the doors gym, they saw Rukawa sitting on the floor and tying the laces of his Jordan 5 Black Metallic shoes.

Rukawa saw them and told them that they were tad late and it makes Sakuragi mad and told him to stop acting cool and important.

Rukawa took a deep breath and said before walking from Sakuragi…

[RUKAWA: Red headed monkey moron.]

Sakuragi was angry at the remarks of Rukawa, and Miyagi cooled him off, and Miyagi turned to Rukawa and welcomed him back although Rukawa brushed aside his greeting and told Miyagi to just start the practice right away.

Miyagi was piss off of Rukawa's attitude and just starts the practice right away.

Rukawa couldn't seem to be tired at all, he came straight to the gym after landing on the country.

Rukawa, is still flawless and he is the scoring machine that he is known to be, but he was seen more calmer than before and he was able to read the defense better than before.

And during their scrimmage.

Rukawa dribbling the ball, he dribble between his legs and blew past his defender, and he was surprised to see that Sakuragi was at the perfect spot to score and he pass the ball to him, Sakuragi jumps as high as he could and he was met by Daichi at the top, but, Sakuragi powers him and dunk the ball over Daichi with his two hands.

[RUKAWA: Monkey, you seem to able to jump higher.]

[SAKURAGI: You noticed? You fox?.]

[RUKAWA: Yeah, you look more like a monkey now with that jumping ability.]

Rukawa walks away and gets back on defense. Sakuragi was saying sort of things to Rukawa while running back to the defense.

The second unit point guard, Satoro Sasaoka, was handling the second unit well until Miyagi decided to put pressure on to him, and he threw a turnover pass, it was picked off by Shota, and he pass it to Miyagi, Miyagi decided to set a play and he pass it to Shota. Shota sets his feet and shoots a three pointer but he missed.

[MIYAGI: Don't shoot recklessly, First Year!.]

But, Rukawa follows it by dunking the ball.

Everyone in the gym was surprised to see what Rukawa did, he jump much faster than Sakuragi, who is known has one of the fastest jumping abilities in the country. And he make sure to surprised everyone with how fast he develops in this past months he spent on the National Team.

Coach Anzai who is watching at the sideline was observing him very carefully and ask Ayako if she noticed the improvement of Rukawa.

[AYAKO: Yes coach, I have notice Rukawa's improvement, He is more relaxed and comfortable passing the ball with great ease and precision. Plus, he can now push the tempo in the fast break, and…. His agility alongside his speed and jumping ability have improved also.]

Haruko heard it and ask Ayako on why she think that Rukawa, is now can push the temp in the fast break and she ask also what is a tempo is…

Ayako replied that Rukawa is very explosive player, and he is the type of player that once there is a fastbreak he will ignore all of his teammates and just runs the fastbreak on his own. And a tempo is simply a way of looking at how fast a team plays, or how fast a basketball game was played.

Meaning Rukawa now knows how to read or where he was teammates were inside the court.

This sudden improvement of Rukawa was very noticeable and mysterious to everyone, as they know that Rukawa wasn't the type of player who will improve his playing style if he knew he can play well. But, now they are asking the same question…

What the hell have happen in the FIBA Asia Under-17 Tournament? And what made Kaede Rukawa decided to improve himself?.