Tangent | Soukoku; AU [✔]

67 ➳ underdogs // n.c

huh. i don't know if it's just me, but there are a lot more people here at the arena today compared to the previous days. i was actually expecting less people now that the bigger and more popular teams have been eliminated for playoffs. take the Mad Dogs, for example; they're japan's biggest league team that consists of the most valuable players, so it's obvious that they got the biggest fanbase. 

well, they're not playing for the finals now though. the ada somehow defeated them during the semis, so now it's the ada that we're facing. i'm not sure if that was a huge bullet that we dodged by not facing the mad dogs, but i'm pretty sure that the ada won't be easy either.

that aside, now that the bigger teams with the bigger fanbases are gone, i wonder why the crowd is unusually big today.

"are these people really going to watch two underdog teams clash against each other?" xyren whispered to herself, but not too quiet not to be heard. it was as if she was reading my mind and gladly answered the thoughts in my head about the crowd.

"well, to be fair, whoever wins today gets to rep japan in the asia-wide tournament," kajii answered with pride and confidence. "they're probably all here to see how two 'underdogs' will perform in the finals."

tachihara and akutagawa nodded to that statement -- and i agree. that has to be the reason why. hundreds of thousands of eyes watching our every move in the game. the fate and pride of the japanese league lays at the hands of today's champions.

i am determined to give everything i've got today, but saying that i'm not feeling uneasiness is quite the understatement. for once, i do not want any further rifts with my teammates and especially my duo partner in lane.

the programme for the finals have begun with the opening act, followed by a somehow formal introduction of both teams and their respective members. we have practiced our introduction act during the team building that we had in tokyo, thinking that it would be a cool and unique idea. looking at it now, the entire team just laughed it off and treated the introduction for fun, since the opposing team of ada just got on stage like normal people.

that made us a bunch of weirdos, but whatever. we'll see the reaction of the fans later over social media.

☀

the banning phase for game one has begun and we chose the red side to play, giving the ada the freewill to ban champions first. we got the idea that this team has its strongest points within their young prodigy jungler and mid laner based from their previous games, so we know that our champion bans will focus on those two. we expect that in return, they will ban xyren's champions, like what previous teams have done.

but to our surprise, as the banning phase goes on, the ada have been mostly getting rid of... my champion pool.

"whoa, this is new," tachihara talked within our voice comms. "i guess the ada learned from the other teams that were banning supports to daunt the woman didn't work so far. and they're right, that didn't work."

"it's also because hayakawa plays adc's for supports, you know." akutagawa added. damn it, the latter was right! i forgot all about that game. ugh, these bans are hurting me more than it's hurting xyren. at this point, xyren can whip some pocket pick under her nose and be unfazed, while slowly my champion pool gets smaller.

and yet again, as if the woman has been reading my mind, xyren spoke over the voice call. "you can play support if the ban restricts you, nakahara. i'll play adc for you."

"that may not be such a bad idea," tachihara commented, followed by a 'yeah' from kajii. "we can put you both on last pick and let us know what you think, chuuya."

we waited until the last ban phase to confirm whether the opposing team were going to push through with their plan of banning all my champions -- and indeed they did. i agreed to play support for this game just to see how the ada will play and adapt from there.

may the odds be in our favor in this best of five.