Nationals Qualifiers Epilogue

After the match the team was resting in the changing room when suddenly Kanai rushed in to look for Hideki, she saw that Hideki was okay, but the boys were shocked and Hideki weakly asked "Mom, what the heck are you doing here?" Kanai told her son, of"Of course, my mom's senses were tingling and it felt that something bad happened, so I rushed here after a minute you entered the tunnel."

Hideki was staring at his mom for a second and sighed in surrender, it do be like that. His mom has this so-called "Hideki-sensor" that activates if Hideki is in pain or danger. Considering Hideki's own safety protocols and high pain tolerance, his mom's "ability" became very accurate and precise, even if she's working and Hideki gets banged up in practice, surpassing his pain threshold. 

So his mom asked him "Can you tell me in detail what happened?" Kanai asked with a dark aura surrounding her, even Coach Yoshida could not handle this situation and clapped his hands in prayer to send Hideki's soul to Heaven. 

Hideki couldn't hide his fear from his mom's "Maou Aura" so he told her in detail that he felt that he can face the twin towers of Koukou Middle School so he exerted more stamina and effort than usual and the accumulated fatigue of the qualifiers "broke" his body. 

Kanai nodded at Hideki's explanation with a slight sound of "Humu humu". In truth Kanai didn't understand what Hideki is saying but, she knew that the tournament was long and rough so it accumulated and his body broke down.

Coach Yoshida saw Kanai's aura receded and told Hideki "Well, this is your first time playing this tournament format. We'll train your stamina more and the other factor is better taught by experience." Hideki nodded at Coach Yoshida's words.

Tanaka Sensei told them "It's good to rest your body and train afterwards. That's because the Nationals Tournament will be held in more 1 month time, since there are other areas that are still holding their tournament, we will have to wait for them to finish and then wait for 1 month for the Nationals."

Everybody heard this and nodded. After 30 minutes everybody left the changing room, Hideki left with his mom, since it was still early in the evening, like 6PM, Kanai told him. Hideki-kun, since we haven't cooked dinner, let's eat at the cafe. Hideki nodded and said, "Okay, let's walk to the cafe" 

While walking Hideki asked his mom "By the way mom, you only watched the finals match right?" Kanai didn't answer immediately, and feigned ignorance but heard Hideki, so, Hideki asked again "Right?" Kanai then feigned hearing the question and said "I watched all of your matches, of course you're my baby boy, I'll watch all of your matches!" Hideki was shocked and asked, "Wouldn't the owner be ad you're absent from work?" Kanai gave Hideki a peace sign and said "Of course he told me to watch all of your matches, since my job's mostly on a managerial level I can even be out and still be paid. But you know I love to see our loyal customers eating at the cafe." Kanai gave her a serene smile that tells him she still loves to serve customers.

After a short walk, they arrived at the cafe, the mother and son sat at one of the tables and the server recognized Hideki and Kanai, this server was one of the OG servers of the cafe and is the head of all of the servers, and the head server asked Hideki how was his game, before Hideki answered Kanai answered instead and said "Hideki was soooo good at the game and he did something unbelievable and defeated the opposing team he did this and that and whoosh and whish all shots that his enemies did." Kanai oly knew some basketball due to Matt's teaching but forgot some things but even though she doesn't know about basketball, she 100% supports Hideki's wishes to be a player.

After a short chat, they ordered a big meal that was rarely served at the cafe and Hideki ate most of it as he was still a growing boy, even though he's as thin as a stick, he ate 3 people's worth of food, where does it go? We don't even know, as his body doesn't really get fatter, only gains a small amount of muscle. I say small but it's really tiny.

After that dinner data / celebration, HAnabira and Hideki continued on their training and as all that was happening 1 month quickly passed and it was already the Nationals.