Tokiwadai vs. Teiko, Part 1

Basketball was not a sport for everyone, it requires height to play, and the people who don't have height require overwhelming skill to succeed.

Shun had played basketball since he was four years old. His love for the game was indescribable.

And, today was the day that he had reached another milestone in his new life.

Shun: 'Today is the day I finally get to play against the generation of miracles.'

Shun took deep breaths as he took his position on the court, the tip-off was going to start shortly. He looked at the players on the court.

Otsubo was standing at the center with his eyes closed, concentrating on the tip-off and the game. Opposite to him was Murasakibara staring into space.

Both of them were of equal height. When Murasakibara's talent bloomed, the thing he got was overwhelming physical growth. Murasakibara's growth in Middle School was twenty-two centimeters. It was not just height, Murasakibara also gained power with that height, and Murasakibara's body proportion's (long arms and legs) made him the most suitable for playing basketball.

Aomine was stretching his body and jumping up and down, Aone had his eyes on the hoop in front of him looking ready to score.

Midorima stood still looking at his hands and fingers, while Mibuchi was humming a tune while also looking at his fingers.

Akashi had his eyes closed with his arms folded, and Ishida looked serious yet relaxed like he looked before every match.

Nijimura was looking at the ground near his feet, concentrating his mind for the match.

Shun turned his eyes to the positions of the players on the court.

Teiko's positioning for the tip-off was Murasakibara in the center of the court for the tip-off, behind him was Midorima standing just ahead of the three-point line, in front of Murasakibara was Nijimura ready the ball if Teiko won the tip-off.

Near the half-court line on either side were Aomine and Akashi ready to be fed the ball by Nijimura for a two-pronged attack.

[A/N: Teiko's positioning for the tip-off (Double Tap) will be in the comment section. Like the comment, so it stays on the top.]

On Tokiwadai's side, Otsubo was at the center for the tip-off, behind him were Ishida and Mibuchi ready for rushing forward to attack, while in front of were Aone and Shun ready for both a direct attack or a pass play.

[A/N: Tokiwadai's positioning for the tip-off (Post Split [Box Allignment]) will be in the comment section. Like the comment, so it stays on the top.]

Announcement: **The game for Finals of the Nationals for Middle school division, between Tokyo Representative, Tokiwadai Middle School and Tokyo Representative, Teiko Middle School, will start shortly.**

The referee came with the match ball and looked at all of the players, and then he looked at Otsubo and Murasakibara, and signal them to be ready.

Murasakibara was still looking in the space and Nijimura, who saw that screamed at him.

Nijimura: "Murasakibara, you big loon pay attention dammit."

Murasakibara snapped out of his stupor and became focused.

The referee narrowed his at Murasakibara but sighed the next moment.

The referee then tossed the ball up, and the centers from both teams sprang into the air for the ball.

Otsubo touched the ball first and tipped it towards Aone.

Aone was guarded by Aomine, and Ishida covered by Akashi.

Aone looked at the court and saw Murasakibara falling back towards Teiko's basket and Nijimura choosing to block Mibuchi, leaving Otsubo and Shun open.

Otsubo moved forward to the low post to be in the position for a pass or a rebound. Shun also moved forward to a position for a pass.

Aone looked at Akashi and pulled a crossover dribble on him, but wasn't able to pass, form the corner of his he saw Shun, so he passed the ball to him.

Shun caught the ball in transition, and the one who came to block him was Midorima.

Shun got low and started dribbling he faked Midorima by leaning towards the right and pulled back this caused Midorima to lean towards the right. Shun again faked in the right direction, this time stepping one step in the direction, causing Midorima to fully committing to that direction.

Finally, Shun turned on his pivot foot spinning to the left, passing right by Midorima.

Viewer: "A double fake into a roll to the opposite side, that guy is good."

Midorima, who was past behind, also thought the same thing.

Midorima: 'He made me commit to the right side, and then crossed me from the another, he had enough speed to make sure that I couldn't catch up.'

Otsubo screened Murasakibara from going in for defense, leaving a clear path for Shun to score. Shun jumped up and scored with an easy finger-roll layup.

Shun returned to Tokiwadai's side of the court, but not before winking and smiling at Aomine.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The ball was in Teiko's position, Akashi dribbled the ball past the half-court, passed the ball to Nijimura, immediately passed the ball to Aomine, who scored with a reverse layup, with Aone trying to contest for a block.

Viewer: "Wow, Teiko immediately got back the points scored on them."

Viewer: "Did you see that speed, the was ball relayed to the scorer so quickly."

Ishida: 'That truly was a high-speed play, the ball was already in the low-post before I knew it.'

Shun's eyes met with Aomine and saw him mouth the words.

Aomine: 'Got you back.'

Shun couldn't help but laugh at that.

Shun: 'Hoho, this is good. Winning wouldn't be fun otherwise.'

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Ishida dribbled the ball to the half-court and passed it Shun. Shun dribbled forward and entered the area inside the three-point line, from the corner of his eye he saw Mibuchi ran past behind him.

So he passed the ball to him and stepped back at the same time to act as a screen to stop Akashi, who was following him.

Mibuchi caught the ball, stopped just before the three-point line, and shot the ball.

The ball grazed the rim and spun around a few times, and finally falling inside the net, scoring three-point for Tokiwadai.

Teiko's head coach, Shirogane Kozo, couldn't help but admire the play.

Shirogane: 'That was some excellent court awareness displayed by Kageyama, he not only passed the ball to the shooter but also stopped Akashi-kun from following.'

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Nijimura picked the ball to pass it from the outside he passed it to Akashi and said.

Nijimura: "Akashi, give me the ball."

Akashi did as he was told and passed the ball back to Nijimura. Nijimura ran full speed towards the basket, as soon he passed the half-court, Ishida intercepted him, but Nijimura cut right past him into the three-point line.

Mibuchi tried to block him but was faked out by a pass attempt, and Nijiumra scored with a mid-range shot.

The crowd went wild at Nijimura's speed and skills.

Viewer: "Did you see that speed, he got by two defenders and scored so fast. His name is Nijimura Shuzo; he is the best forward in the middle school level."

Even Shun was affected by Nijimura's play.

Shun: 'That play was so sharp, yet so smooth and flowing. So, cool.'

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The ball went back and forth on the court with neither team gaining a significant lead until half of the first quarter, Teiko called for a substitution.

Shun looked to find Nijimura being substituted for Kuroko.

Viewer: "What is Teiko doing substituting their star player, do they want to lose the game. What is their coach thinking."

Shun: 'Teiko must be planning to establish a lead before the second quarter.'

Shun looked at all of his team, especially Ishida, and all of them nodded.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

(Flashback)

During the meeting in which Shun revealed Kuroko to the team, Shun also revealed the solution to stopping Kuroko.

Shun: "I will need sometime before I can actually guard against Kuroko Tetsuya, I have seen him play on videos, but I want to see him play from the court. From my estimate, I would need three passes from Kuroko before I can lock down on him."

Shun looked towards Ishida and said,

Shun: "Ishida-senpai, I would be counting on you to guarding Kuroko for the three passes. I don't want Teiko to know that we are trying to disable Kuroko's passing right off the bat. I will only guard him after those three passes when I do finally guard him that itself will make a huge disturbance in Teiko's plans."

(Flashback ends)

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Shun's suspicions were right, Teiko used Kuroko right of the bat.

Akashi dribbled the ball past half-court and passed it to the place where there was no player.

Shun: 'Here it comes.'

Viewer: "What is that first-year think-"

Before the people in the audience could finish their sentence, they saw the ball curve and head towards Midorima, who caught it and shot it effortlessly to score three-points.

The crowd went wild.

They just saw the ball curve, and suddenly Teiko had scored.

Shun exhaled deeply and got ready for the offense. Shun went straight to the low post and marked Murasakibara.

Ishida passed the ball to Aone, who dribbled it past three-point line and relayed it to Otsubo, who jumped up to slam the ball inside the hoop. Murasakibara tried to stop him, but Shun him stopped just enough so that he couldn't reach in time.

Murasakibara: "Grrr."

Otsubo scored, and Shun celebrated out loud.

Shun: "Dunk! Whoop! Whoop!"

Many people in the crowd stood up at Otsubo's dunk and cheered loudly.

The game continued, and Kuroko again showed up, passed the ball over everybody's heads to Aomine, and Teiko magically scored yet again.

Shun: 'I have almost got it, come on, one more time.'

And the third time came, Akashi passed the ball to Kuroko, and he passed it back to Akashi, which caused a lot of confusion, and surprise. Akashi took advantage and shot the ball from mid-range.

Viewer: "How in the world are they doing that, the ball keeps getting at incredible angels."

A smile bloomed on Shun's face as he was finally ready for stopping Kuroko.

Shun: "Let's blow some minds, shall we?"

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Kuroko Tetsuya was playing, as usual, today was the finals of the Nationals, and he was happy that he got to play in the match.

Teiko now had a four-point lead on Tokiwadai, Kuroko was ready to make sure that Teiko didn't lose the lead.

As he was a little lost in his thoughts, Kuroko heard a voice he recognized.

Shun: "Yo! Kuroko-kun, we meet yet again. I will be marking you from know on, so let's have some, shall we?"

Kuroko wasn't sure why Tokiwadai had changed marks, he thought because Ishida was the player who scored the least in Tokiwadai, they had chosen Ishida to mark him.

Kuroko: "Maybe it's because Kageyama-kun could leave me any time to support where there is a need."

His thoughts were interrupted yet again as he heard Shun speak again.

Shun: "Kuroko-kun, just remember it's nothing personal."

Before Kuroko could think about the statement or ask a question, he saw Akashi-kun passing the half-court line.

Kuroko crossed eyes with Akashi.

Kuroko needed to meet eyes with players before receiving a pass or passing to a player.

Akashi threw the ball towards him, as Kuroko got ready to palm the ball towards Murasakibara, something happened that shocked Kuroko and Teiko from their core.

Kuroko distracted Shun with misdirection and left him behind and palmed the ball towards Murasakibars, but the ball didn't reach Murasakibara.

Kuroko saw Kageyama catch the ball just after it left his hand and took the ball towards their basket and scored with no defenders in sight.

Tokiwadai's bench cheered at the steal and turnover.

Teiko could only watch as Shun had stopped their unbeatable pass work from their phantom sixth-man.

Kuroko recalled what Shun had said just a moment before.

Shun: 'Kuroko-kun, just remember it's nothing personal.'

Teiko had reached a major setback as Kuroko had been stopped for the first time since he joined the team.