Joining Middle School

The Kageyama family (Shun's last name is Kageyama) lived in Tokyo, so the middle school Shun joined was also in Tokyo. Shun joined was Tokiwadai Middle School it was the current reigning basketball champions in the middle school division, and direct competition to Teikou Middle School.

[A/N: Remember that Teikou had three consecutive victories which mean, there had to be a different champion school before them, so I made this school to take that position and enrolled Shun to this school.]

The practice at Tokiwadai was tough; the school had an excellent coaching staff and motivated players, which kept everyone on their feet and pushed the members to find ways to improve their skills.

As Shun suspected; there a few members he recognized from the anime, the third year, Center, Ōtsubo Taisuke who would later go on to play for Shūtoku High or, third year, Point Guard, Ishida Hideki who would later play for Fukuda Sōgō Academy with Haizaki Shogo, and most importantly he saw the uncrowned king, second-year, Shooting Gaurd, Mibuchi Reo.

In Tokiwadai, all freshmen were temporarily placed in the third-string for a month. Based on their performance they would be sorted into an appropriate string, and the day for re-sorting came, and the head coach personally announced the results.

Head Coach: (...) finally for the first string, Kageyama Shun. That will be all, resume your practice.

Everybody in the gym was looking at Shun as he was the only freshman to join the first-string right after the temporary period in the past few years.

The intensity of practice in first-string was much harder than that of third-string, combine it with yoga and pilates with his mother, and the Calisthenics exercises that he picked up last year were just right for his age and body.

Shun's decision to pick up calisthenics routine was because of two reasons; first, during his last life the in the late 2010s many young rookie NBA players during their high school career decided to only work on the muscles that were used in basketball and neglected the rest of the body, this caused them to have a greater output but the rest of the body remained weak, this caused serious problems in the form of injuries because when the players collided, the player with the weaker physique got gravely injured and the attendance of young rookie players dropped to fifty percent in their rookie year.

[A/N: This is a fact.

The NBA Has a BIG Problem And No One Is Talking About It - Jxmyhighroller:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcCICa6nkb0

Great channel for basketball/NBA related content.]

The second reason was according to a study in bodybuilding the importance of muscle memory was proven which was, that if you worked your muscles once then even if you lost the muscle once it would be easier to bulk up next time, and maximum amount of muscle memory could be accumulated during adolescence and youth, so Shun decided to start early for the safety and conditioning of his body.

[A/N: Online article regarding Muscle Memory:

https://www.popsci.com/what-is-muscle-memory/

]

Even though Shun had joined the first-string he was not a regular and was part of the bench. The coach had ordered him to join the second-string practice matches for gaining more experience. Shun had informed that he wanted to play the position, point guard.

Shun enjoyed playing with second-string because of the level of players in the team; they were much more skilled than the people he played along in the basketball camp. His assists got more points as his teammates could make the baskets with more skill.

Shun loved the feeling of creating the perfect rhythm in the form of teamwork. The sight of being able to make his teammates play better than they usually play was pure bliss.

The coach noticed that in the short breaks between the practice Shun would stare intently at the players of the first-string, so he decided to ask what he was doing.

Coach: "Kageyama-kun, why do you keep staring at other members. Is there something wrong?"

Shun: "No sir, I want to play as a point guard on the team which means, I would be in charge of making plays. So, I should know what are my teammate's strengths and weaknesses."

Shun had found another way to use the ability, Perfect Copy; Perfect Copy allowed Shun to learn any move he wanted to learn after seeing it once, which meant if he used it on his teammates, he would know how they play and that would translate into knowing all their strengths and weaknesses. Combining this knowledge with the speed and reflexes provided by God-Speed Impulse, he could optimize his playmaking to the best degree possible.

Shun: 'As I thought, Perfect Copy is a broken ability, after all.'

Coach: "That is excellent thinking Kageyama-kun, seeing your results with second-string practice matches and in-house matches, I would put you in the upcoming first-string practice match for a quarter, and if you show results you may even become a regular soon."

Shun: "Yes sir, I will not disappoint you."

Shun looked at the regulars on the first-string;

Center, Ōtsubo Taisuke, Senior.

Point Guard, Ishida Hideki, Senior.

Shooting Gaurd, Mibuchi Reo, Junior.

Power Forward, Aone Takanobu, Junior.

[A/N: Aone Takanobu is a character from the anime, Haikyuu, he is tall and quite quick for his size. So, I made him a power forward in this fic.

Aone Takanobu:

https://haikyuu.fandom.com/wiki/Takanobu_Aone

]

The position of small forward was still open, and Shun decided he would go for that position, he had skills to play the position, and he could just make plays while performing duties of a small forward and the next year he would take the point guard position when Ishida-senpai graduate.

Shun knew he could take the point guard position for himself if he tried, but there was no need for it, and he wasn't the type that would show of, and neither did he like to sow discord within his team, as Akashi did by once telling Kuroko to keep passing to Aomine, it was that game that started the downfall of Aomine if Akashi had regulated the passes he would have at least delayed the breaking point.

Shun looked forward to his first game with the first-string.