Chapter 5: Preparations...

The quintuplets were the type of people who gave importance to following a routine.

They liked to wake up at the same time every day, no matter if it was a school day or weekends, though each person had their own respective timings to wake up.

The first person to usually wake up, apart from their parents, was Sora. He usually slept the earliest and woke up the earliest to eat a hearty breakfast and join his parents in yoga.

The next in line was Seiya and Asashi, who usually argue first thing in the morning to see who would use the bathroom before joining Sora and their parents for a little bit of yoga.

The next was Tsukio, who preferred to do his own flexibility exercise in this own room before going to the bathroom and have his breakfast while he watched his family complete the last few yoga poses.

The last one would always be Tsukumo. He just likes sleeping, so he often tries to get as much sleep as he possibly can. Though his sleeping posture could be pretty unique, it did help him remain flexible, though not as much effect as active yoga would have had.

"Oh? Is there something special happening today?" Mama Takahashi curiously asked as she saw Tsukumo already present when she finished her yoga session.

"I couldn't fall asleep." He replied with a small smile as he munched on an apple.

"Are you okay, Tsuko-chan?! Do you have a fever? Do I need to bring you to a doctor?" Papa Takahashi anxiously asked as he proceeded to bring a thermometer and some pills for him to munch on.

"You're overreacting, dad. Chill."

"Today's the day of the preliminaries. That was why all of us woke up slightly earlier than usual."

"Little Tsuko is just too excited for the game."

"Yea! I couldn't sleep either!"

"Nope. You just never sleep, you hyper nii-san."

"Haha, I'm just kidding. No children of mine should ever be sick."

"Don't be stupid, dad. No one can never be sick."

Hearing their usual banter, Mama Takahashi smiled. This was the life she had dreamed of many years ago. Now that it was actually happening, she was already plenty happy.

What more could she ask for apart from five healthy sons and a stupid but amazing husband? What more could she need?

"Good luck, sons. I'll be rooting for you."

"You don't have to come to our match." Asashi hurriedly stopped his parents from embarrassing themselves at their first match of the season. Because he knew that with money, the possibilities of being embarrassed by some weird stunt increases exponentially.

"Aww...my baby Asa-chan is growing up already. He doesn't even want his parents to come to his match now..." Mama Takahashi faked a sob, causing Asashi to panic from the various gazes by his brothers and dad.

"No, no, no. That's not what I meant. I mean, if you really want, this match isn't worth your time. You might as well wait until the finals before coming to support us..."

"Then that we shall do. No going back on your words now, Asa-chan." Hearing her son's confirmation, Mama Takahashi immediately recovered to her usual self and went to wash the dishes, causing Asashi to just sigh.

Even if he knew that his mother was acting, there was nothing he could do about it.

And for God's sake, his mother was 40! Why was she acting so childishly?!

"Ouch!" Asashi wailed in pain as a flying broom came from the kitchen and smacked his head.

"You're thinking of something rude, aren't you? And don't bother asking how I knew this. I'm your mother. There's nothing I don't know about you."

'Well, you don't know why we all suddenly decided to change one day...' Asashi thought to himself.

*****************

The preliminaries in Tokyo had two blocks due to the immense number of schools present in this region, so the schedule regarding matches was a little different. It also caused the preliminaries to last a longer time than the preliminaries in other prefectures.

"Well, I have already explained to you the schedule beforehand, but I'm going to explain it once more just in case any of you don't get it.

Day 1: Block A -> Round 1 and Round 2. Seeded teams enter Round 2 directly.

Day 2: Block B -> Round 1 and Round 2. Seeded teams enter Round 2 directly.

Day 3: Block A -> Round 3 and Semifinals

Day 4: Block B -> Round 3 and Semifinals

Day 5 will be a rest day for everyone, while the last day would be for the finals for both blocks. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know how far we can go this year due to our new freshmen, but let's keep the goal small by at least entering round 2.

Kiyose junior high is definitely not one of the seeded teams, so, unfortunately, we have to play two rounds today. I hope all of your stamina can last."

"Don't worry, coach! By following the kouhai's training plan, we would definitely be able to last at least 1 game and 1 quarter." One of the seniors spoke confidently.

This was a drastic change from last year when all seniors just mopped around while training half-heartedly. Undoubtedly, the difference was due to the quintuplets. Even though they only entered for slightly longer than a month, their impact on the basketball club wasn't small.

"Good. Now, I have the bad news for you. As you can probably tell, there will always be one top dog of each region. As for our area? We have two top dogs, one in Block A and the other in Block B.

Tokiwadai from block A and Teiko from block B will not be someone we can fight against, but even so, I don't want you to lose hope, alright? Just try your best!" The coach tried to encourage them, though the fact that he was not very energetic could be seen.

Tokyo Metropolitan Arena hosted the Tokyo preliminaries every year. The crowd for the games was usually just parents, classmates from school, or the few hardcore fans who liked watching junior high school level basketball.

In Japan, basketball was most popular at high school and college levels, simply because the junior high school players lacked the skills or the physique to play at an enjoyable enough level for people to watch.

"Anyway, Seiya-kun, please thank your parents for us for the jersey. It's truly an amazing product." Over time, the coach had slowly learned how to communicate with quintuplets. Just simply call them out by their names without actually focusing on one so that the correct person would reply.

"No problem. It's what our family does, anyway."

Soon, it was time for the Arena to open its gates, and everyone soon flocked inside. Kiyose wasn't one to be left out and followed the crowd in as well.

In this small group of nine players and one coach, they were inconspicuous in the large masses. They only drew a small amount of attention because of their white and navy light blue tracksuit that looked pretty amazing. But since basketball skills don't correlate with tracksuit awesomeness, that small amount of attention soon disappeared as well.

As soon as they entered the scene, they were ushered to a locker room before being informed that they only had 15 minutes before their game would begin.

"Sigh, let's just get this over and done with. So, what's our plan, captain?" A senior asked Seiya. The seniors in this club don't have any superiority complex. In this club, or in their school in general, the one with the most skills does the talking.

Thus, the student council was usually occupied by the most intelligent people, while the captains of the various clubs were all best at their own respective activities.

And since the quintuplets never actually showed their full strength, they just allowed the oldest among them to be the captain.

"Coach? Who is our first-round's opponent?"

"Iwatobi junior high. It's a school famed for its swimming department, but their basketball skills are nothing to scoff at either."

"Do they have any prominent players?"

"Not as far as I can tell. All of them are just above average in skills and at least 1.7 meters tall."

"Alright, so here's the game plan." Hearing all the information that Seiya needed, he started assigning, "My brothers will be going out for the first quarter and the second quarter."

"Is there any reason?"

"Yes. To change the opinions of our school, we need to leave them an impact that they will never forget. After half-time, three of us will swap out to save some of our strength for the second round, and we decide from there onwards. Is there any problem?"

Everyone just shook their heads, and Seiya smiled, "Good. We're going to win this, alright? Have faith in us. Hands together!"

Nine different hands were placed in the center of their small huddle, one on top of another.

"3, 2, 1! Kiyose!"

*****************

Before every basketball game, the teams that were going to be playing usually had time to warm up beforehand.

"Oh, what school is that? Their jersey looks damn awesome!"

"Hahaha! Just because the jersey looks good, it doesn't mean that the school is good!"

"Kiyose junior high! Good luck getting destroyed!"

"Hope you can actually do better this year!"

Since there were only nine players on this team, which was pretty pathetic even compared to other weaker schools, Kiyose was now at the center of attention. Negatively.

Still, the quintuplets didn't let any of the mocks get into their head. Sure, they were pissed as hell, especially Asashi, but all it did was reinforce their mind to completely annihilate the opposing team even more than they had already planned to.

The warmups that Kiyose did were pretty standard. It consisted of two parts: The warming up of the body, which included variations of jump rope, leg swings, reaches, single-leg squats, quick skip, backward to forward runs, and forward to backward runs, and the skills drills, two-line lay-ups, and shotting drills.

This was to ensure that the players were comfortable at the start of the match without any stiff muscle.

This warmup was comparable to the regular training they had before the quintuplets. But now, with the new and improved training routine, this was considered nothing for them anymore.

Seiya occupied the jersey with the number 1, Asashi was 2, Tsukio was 3, Sora was 4, and Tsukumo was 5. The four seniors occupied the two digits numbers.

Because of the N.C.A.A.'s longstanding Rule 1, Section 22, Article 7, Clause b. 2 — the little-known statute that prohibits college basketball players from wearing any of the numerals 6, 7, 8, or 9, the four numbers were skipped.

"Haha, now that I'm warmed up, I can't wait to destroy them. My first basketball match in junior high, let's see how would Tokiwadai and Teiko fare."

The quintuplets' expectations were vastly different from their coach or seniors. They didn't plan to just win the first round and end there. They planned to win the entire national stage.

This was how ambitious their dream was, and for a good reason as well. No one had ever seen the quintuplets play at their best; no one could force them to.

Even alone, any of the quintuplets could quickly destroy one entire team by themselves, let alone all five together in one court. The only reason why they chose to enter the stage at the same time was that they needed to leave an impact on the audience and everyone.

They wanted to make their presence known.

No more were the weaklings of Kiyose junior high school.

Now, it's time for the reigns of the championship to change owners.