Chapter 141 : Back to Training Again

Three days later, the first training session after their game against Yosen finally started. Furihata dragged his sluggish body into Seirin's gymnasium, still feeling stiff after the last game. However, it didn't dampen his spirit to come, especially after he figured out his shortcomings earlier.

When he arrived, he could hear the sound of the ball bouncing and the sneakers hitting the floor frequently from the gym, indicating there were a few players who had been training earlier than everyone. Furihata nodded silently, satisfied with the attitude of those players.

"Furihata-kun!" The greeting from the players in the gym snapped him from his thoughts. "Is it time to gather already?" Hyuga approached him with a face full of sweat. Seeing Furihata, almost everyone stopped their activities and greeted him too.

"It is still a bit early. Are you going to do an extra training with us too?"

"Wait! Are you okay? Why are you walking that awkwardly?"

"Do you get any injury?"

Furihata smiles wryly at his teammates' concerns. He thought he would be the earliest. However, who would thought that 5 players have already been training hard this early? They are Hyuga, Koganei, Kagami, Tsuchida, and Izuki.

To be honest, Furihata was quite surprised. At first, he thought there would be an awkward atmosphere between him and the other players after their last conflict. However, except Kagami who decided to keep his mouth shut in the background, all of his teammates took the initiative to approach him first, and he appreciated it.

"Don't worry, Senpai." Furihata waved his hand nonchalantly. "I am still feeling a little bit rough. But I already expected that. There would be no problem for training."

"Good." Hyuga nodded, happy with the answer. "Go warm up first. Let's train together."

Furihata just did what Hyuga said, moving his body for a series of warm-up exercises while watching everyone from outside of the court. He could see the determination from all of the players there which surprised him a bit. Even though he wouldn't deny his teammates' self-discipline, he would think they would be depressed after losing the game against Yosen.

"They don't want to burden you, you know?" Hyuga suddenly muttered beside him as if he could read Furihata's mind. "They recognized that you carried us so hard against Yosen, and they didn't want to hold you down. Moreover, Izuki told me, after watching the game between Kaijo and Too, they wanted to be like Kaijo players who could support their star in every moment."

Furihata raised his eyebrows at the last part. "And Red agreed with that?"

"Of course, no." Hyuga snorted. "To be honest, I don't know his mood. But since watching the game between Kaijo and Too, he went crazy with his training and would always be the one who came earliest and went back the latest. He seems motivated, which is good for our team."

Furihata was a bit skeptical. However, he didn't raise his opinion on this matter. After he was ready, Hyuga clapped his hand to gain the other's attention.

"Okay, everyone! Listen here!" After the other four gathered around them, Hyuga began speaking. "Seeing that there are already six of us, why don't we go for 3v3 while waiting for the other? This would be better than training aimlessly."

"Oh, that's a good idea!"

"But don't play too hard!" Hyuga warned sternly. "We still need energy for the next training session, so don't be too tired or Riko will kill you!"

"Yes, Sir!"

After a quick discussion, it was determined that Izuki, Hyuga, and Kagami would be on the same team against Furihata, Koganei, and Tsuchida. That was a good matchup considering the first team was filled with offensive-minded players and the second team was basically the three best perimeter defenders on Seirin. Because they all know each other pretty well, this little game would expose their shortcoming, and this would help them improve themselves in the future.

"Okay, who will start first?" Izuki asked, dribbling the ball slowly. Tsuchida, Koganei, and Furihata looked at each other for a second before they shrugged nonchalantly.

"It doesn't really matter. But since this was the arrangement, let us do the defense first." Furihata spoke confidently. In his mind, it would be better to play their best strength first before exposing their weakness later. And since Kagami saw Furihata's confidence, his fighting spirit burned out of the sudden.

"Well, since you say so, we will not be polite," Kagami spoke for the first time. Seeing the slight nod from Hyuga, the red-haired boy prepared himself quickly. "Okay, we will serve first."

After quick preparation, all six of them are ready to play, with Izuki holding the ball in the middle of the court. However, the second-year point guard frowned at Furihata's outrageous defensive stance.

'Are you looking down at my shoot?'

Furihata was three steps away from him while opening up his body toward the right, inviting Izuki to break through the paint with his left hand. It was quite insulting, but well-reasoned defense by Furihata. Izuki's main threat was his passing and organization skills. However, Izuki didn't have many offensive threats.

In fact, besides wide-open layups and mid-range shoots, almost all of Izuki's points came from breakthroughs with his right hand. He never used his weak hand in a confrontational battle, and Furihata also knows about it. That's why he dared to open up the left side and gave Izuki space and chose to completely focus on Izuki's main strength. With the help of Tsuchida and Koganei, they were able to limit Hyuga and Kagami's movement, making it harder for Izuki to organize.

Even though Izuki didn't like it, he had to admit Furihata was quite right. Even with an open space in front of him, he didn't dare to take a three-point shoot. This limited offensive threat is also one of the concerns he needs to fix during this summer training. However, it would have to wait for later, and now, he needs to find a way to take action.

He gave Hyuga a quick signal, and within a second, the Seirin's captain had already moved toward the paint, giving Kagami an off-the-ball screen to free the red-haired boy from Tsuchida's tight defense. This would also create a mismatch, and with a huge difference between Kagami and Koganei, Hyuga believes there is no way Koganei would be able to restrain the power forward.

"Senpai, here!" Kagamo shouted, asking for the ball.

However, before Izuki could pass it, he saw with his eagle eyes Furihata was moving slightly toward Kagami's direction, ready to intercept the ball. Seeing that, Izuki made a quick decision, faking a pass before he broke through the paint forcefully.

Unexpectedly, Furihata had already anticipated that. Or to be more specific, his movement toward Kagami before was a feint to fool Izuki to drive forward. This was also the weakness of the eagle eyes. If the opponent is smart enough, he could trap Izuki with this kind of small feint movement and control his movement even without tight defense.

Seeing that Furihata was not swayed by his fake pass and still stuck into him, Izuki gritted his teeth, making an emergency stop in the free-throw area, ready to pull up a mid-range jumper. Even though he didn't have too much confidence with his jumper, this free-throw area is his hot zone, so he still dared to take a bold decision here.

Furihata himself didn't want to let Izuki take an easy shot. Even though Izuki's sudden break threw him away, with his quick reflex, he recovered his position quickly and jumped to block Izuki's sight.

And just like Furihata knowing Izuki's style pretty well, it was the same for Izuki. He knows how tough Furihata is in defense. So, when he saw his kouhai recovered quickly, instead of forcing a shoot, he dropped the ball to his back where Kagami started taking a big step to drive forward.

"Nice pass, Senpai!"

Kagami is ready to break through. Even though Koganei's defense is tough, the almost 20 cm difference in height and wingspan between those two put the second-year small forward at a disadvantage. However, before he could do it, the shout from the paint attracted his attention.

"Koganei-senpai, back down! Don't let him go forward! Let him shoot!"

As a statistic freak, Furihata knows that almost all of Kagami's points came from the breakthrough. Even though Kagami had a 54% field goal percentage from mid-range, it came mostly from a pick-and-roll game or Kuroko's pass that let him shoot from a wide-open position. Knowing that Kagami only had a 50% percentage from a wide-open position, Furihata rather let him do that instead of having to face Kagami's breakthrough.

'Tch! This bastard is looking down on me again! I will slap his face!'

Kagami gritted his teeth, decided to answer Furihata's challenge. He stopped dribbling at the left high post, ready to pull up a mid-range shoot. However, before he could even take a stance to shoot, another hand came from behind, slapping the ball out of his possession.

*Slap!*

"Oooh! Good steal, Tsuchida!"

"Yeah! Nice defense, Tsuchida-senpai!"

"Hahaha! It's okay! Without your instruction, I wouldn't be able to do that, Furihata-kun."

Yeah, it was Tsuchida who stole the ball from behind. However, the mastermind behind his brilliant defense is still Furihata. The first-year point guard knows once Kagami is provoked with an outrageous defense, the red-haired boy will never pass the ball. So, he just needs to put a bait to tangle Kagami up and use Tsuchida to do the rest of the job.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, Hyuga patted Kagami who was lost in thought, trying to reassure his kouhai.

"Don't worry, Kagami-kun. It was just a simple mistake."

"Yeah. We all know Tsuchida is a tough bastard. Don't think about it too much." Izuki added.

Kagami nodded silently, still thinking about the last play. Since he learned all about defense from Tsuchida, Kagami knows it was not Tsuchida's style to do an outrageous thing like abandoning his responsibility to guard Hyuga just to sneak behind his back. The second-year power forward is a stable player who wouldn't like to take a risk like before. So, why would he do that?

Kagami still doesn't know that he has already danced into Furihata's palm. And for the next few minutes, it was an utter nightmare for him. Furihata would expose all the flaws in his playing style, beating him right black and blue.

*Clank!*

"Nice defense, Senpai!"

"Furihata-kun, left side!"

*Slap!*

"Nice steal, Koganei-senpai!"

"Yeaaah!!!"

The supposed 3v3 game suddenly turned into Kagami's nightmare. Even though Izuki and Hyuga tried to help, Koganei, Furihata, and Tsuchida would always close their pass route and force Kagami to take a shoot by himself. And there, all of Kagami's flaws were exposed.

He would always prefer to do a breakthrough, would always hesitate for one or two seconds before pulling up a jumper, and would never take the initiative to pass the ball. There were also a lot of tiny details that Furihata noticed, like even if Kagami is proficient with both his hands, he would always finish the ball with his right hand. Even though the position is favorable for the left hand, Kagami would choose to do an unconventional finishing move like an up-and-under just to hide his left hand.

Furihata didn't know why Kagami avoided finishing with the left hand. For all he knows, the red-haired boy is proficient in using both hands, at least for dribbling. However, since he could see it, Furihata wouldn't show mercy and use this weakness to kill Kagami. And no, it wasn't because of his fight with Kagami. He just tried to help Kagami realize his shortcomings.

"Come on, Red! We locked you down since the beginning!"

"Shut up, Bastard!"

Furihata could see Kagami's face reddened in anger. This is also one of Kagami's biggest shortcomings. When he was in a bad state, he couldn't stand the trash talk from the opponent. Hell, even in a good state, Kagami's volatile temper would always be a hidden danger for the team. The difference is, when he is in a good state, Kagami would rather vent out all of his anger into his game. He would dunk on anyone in front of him just to calm himself down.

But right now, facing three tough defenders who wouldn't allow him to go to the paint area? His temper started to boil up to the point where he started to get physical against Koganei.

"Okay. Let's stop here!" Hyuga suddenly spoke, stopping the game prematurely.

"What? Why?!" Kagami sounds dissatisfied. As the answer, Hyuga just pointed his finger at Koganei who just got bodied by Kagami and fell to the floor.

"This is just a warm-up game. Why do you get so aggressive?"

"Tch." Kagami clicked his tongue in annoyance. However, he knows he was at fault this time. So, he offered his hand to Koganei who was still on the floor. "Sorry, Senpai. I got carried away."

"Aah… Don't worry about it." Koganei grinned cat-like, accepting the offer.

"Good." Hyuga nodded, satisfied with Kagami's attitude. He knows a lot of people misunderstood Kagami as an arrogant brat. However, Hyuga could see that Kagami just uses his arrogance to hide his awkward social ability. Deep down, Kagami is just a good boy who yearns for a good time in high school just like himself and the other players.

Just like what Furihata said in the past, Kagami is just a big tsundere guy.

"Okay, everyone! Let's clean up first! If Riko knew we played aggressively like this, she would kill us without mercy."

"And indeed, she would." A voice from the door suddenly sends a chill to everyone's spine. Just like in a horror movie, they turned their head around slowly and hesitantly, only to find out Riko stood up there with an unhappy face. "So, can anyone tell me why you a bunch of idiots played so seriously in a recovery time like this?"

Seeing the dark aura emerging from Riko's body, all six of them have the same thought,

"Crap! We're screwed!"

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Author note :

If you want to support me more, you can visit my Patreon page on patreon(.)com/ZetaFaes

You can read this fanfiction up to chapter 161 on that page. Also, you can read my other fanfiction, Diamond no Ace: The Prince of Hitter up to chapter 22 too.

Thank you! :)

-Zeta Faes-