Teiko's basketball

Battle's eve

Author's note:

Thank you readers for all your support! At this juncture, I should probably thank one of my friends ( who is a hard-core anime addict) for helping me out with the school names. Without her help, the story would have probably gone into a hiatus. The names of the schools may be from some other anime....... But they have no connection to that story and are merely names.

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Chapter 14:

Battle's eve

Finally, it was two days before the inter-school tournament began.

The teams had progressed from a state of utter frenzy to a 'calm before the storm' mode. The girls' team sat in one corner of the AV room reviewing the tapes of their first opponent - Yorukei middle school.

Sora counted it to be the twentieth time reviewing the same tape. But then again, they were aiming at actually memorizing every move of the opponent. Half the team had given up after the tenth time. As for Sora, she felt that she had already gotten all that could be used from that tape and contented herself with devising counters for every move.

Yorukei basically seemed to be an average team who concentrated too much on defence rather than dividing their attention. So this match would probably be a breeze as long as they focused. But Honami-senpai seemed to be taking no chances. Apparently the coach had dropped by and had given her a good review of the team. Honami-senpai had no idea of wrecking that belief by losing the first round.

In the other corner of the AV room, the boy's team were intent in their own issues. Their first opponent was Yomiyama middle school. Although it probably wouldn't be anywhere near difficult for them, they too were taking no chances.

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It was well into the evening before the two teams were released. Sora and Akira rushed to the exit. But Sora remembered that she had left her bag in the class. So, she asked Akira to go ahead and went to retrieve her bag. Inside the class, she found Akashi and Midorima playing shogi. This suddenly reminded her of that first encounter. Midorima acknowledged her with a nod and Akashi smiled at her before they continued to play. Sora didn't know much about shogi but she decided to watch anyway. Finally their match concluded.

"What are you still doing here?" asked Akashi.

" I came here to get my bag and sort of ended up watching you two play..... What about you guys."

"We wanted to discuss tactics for tomorrow. Anyway, playing shogi or chess before that has become a sort of ritual for us. And today seems to be a fairly good day for Leo, nanodayo," said Midorima.

"You are playing against Yorukei tomorrow, right?" inquired Akashi.

"Yup. And you guys are playing against Yomiyama..... How good are they?"

Akashi shrugged. " Fairly good but it shouldn't be too hard."

Just then, Aomine and Kuroko entered. Aomine seemed to be in extremely high spirits. "I just can't wait until day after tomorrow!" he proclaimed loudly.

Akashi rolled his eyes. "Keep yourself under control, Aomine. It's only two days."

"That's just too long! Let's have a dare!"

"Not a chance!" cut in Midorima "You'll end up doing something rash and get us all into trouble. Unlike you, I want to play the match in one piece, nanodayo."

"Hey, Tetsu, you coming?"

Akashi narrowed his eyes. "Aomine this is not the time for this. I forbid you from doing anything silly until this tournament ends."

Aomine smirked. "Can it be that Akashi-sama is scared?" he said in a mocking tone. "Don't worry, my challenge won't be too hard..."

Akashi was successfully gaoded by this.

"Oh, is it Daiki... I'll take you on then. What do you propose we do?"

"It's easy. I bet that you can't lift one of the spring rolls from the cafeteria. Everyone should have gone home by now, so I've actually made it way easy for you."

"That's common thievery!"

"Fine, then stand on the roof's rail for five minutes."

Akashi cocked his head. "Done. I'll do it in thirty minutes when all the teachers would have left."

Making this stupefying statement, he calmly left the class. The others looked at each other completely shocked. Aomine was the first to open his mouth, "What... Why... I swear I didn't think--"

"Of course you don't. Now look where that has led to. There's no doubt that he'll actually try to do it, nanodayo," said Midorima.

"Although Akashi-kun might somehow pull it off, that was a bit too much Aomine-kun," said Kuroko.

Aomine looked helplessly around at everyone. "What the hell do we do now?" he said.

"We go steal a roll..." suggested Sora. Everyone looked at her.

"Why?"

"Because we can complete Aomine's original challenge instead of him. And then give it to Akashi. Aomine-kun, pretend that you didn't help us and admit defeat."

Aomine, who was clutching at straws now, agreed immediately and so did Midorima and Kuroko. The four of them combined successfully pulled off the stunt together. Midorima and Sora stood watch while Aomine picked the lock. Kuroko left money on the counter and took one of the rolls. Sora, Midorima and Kuroko went hunting for Akashi and found him on the roof. Midorima gave the roll to Akashi and asked him to give it to Aomine. Akashi refused to.

"Why not? We left money, so it's technically not stealing. And there's no way you are going to stand on that rail. So you might as well do this."

Akashi shook his head. "You three pulled this off. Not me. So this is not fair."

Just then, Aomine came up to the roof and put up quite a decent act of accepting defeat. But Akashi merely smiled and walked up to the rail. Then Sora lost it. "Akashi- san! There's no way you are really going to do it!"

"Watch me."

Sora snapped. "Fine. We can't stop you. Accepted. But our homeroom teacher always stays in late. She'll be in the staffroom now. So if you don't come away from the edge now, I'll go to her."

He smiled. "So you are going to tell on me is it?"

"Watch me. There's no way you are taking a stupid risk like this..."

He just shook his head and continued towards the rail.

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Sora ran to the staffroom as fast as she could. Even if he never spoke to her after this she had to stop him. She finally reached her destination, but someone suddenly stopped her from behind. It was Akashi. "Were you actually going to tell her?" he asked. Sora nodded.

"Did you think I would do it?" he asked in an amused tone. "Fine, let's go," he said dragging her with him.

"No way!" protested Sora. Akashi rolled his eyes. "First off, I was never going to do it."

"Yeah, right..."

"Truly! What's with you and your lack of trust..."

Sora, Aomine, Midorima and Kuroko ended up escorting Akashi to the gate just in case he got funny ideas. He had insisted on doing the penalty of fifty push-ups even though Aomine told him it was unnecessary.

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Sora reached home really late that day. She checked her phone and found that she had ten missed calls. They were from Akira. So Sora called her back. "Hello? Akira-san, did you call?"

"Sora you baka! Are you alive? Your mom said you weren't home yet! I left you all alone --- *sob*--- if something had happened..."