AN: Created from the thought that the GoM don't actually seem all that close. I don't know, it was just speculation. But it really does show in their third year at Teikou. And in comparison, Seirin is ridiculously tight knit. Future speculation ahoy! Because I think the Winter Cup championship for three years like that might be improbable, but possible.
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Forge
Seirin isn't Teikou and will never be. But maybe, that's why they won.
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Teikou Junior High is a very prestigious school, boasting over two thousand students, top notch academics, and the strongest teams in almost every sport. The facilities are state of the art, the sprawling campus is gorgeous, and the equipment is of the highest quality. Teikou is like a grand castle full of royalty- only the best for the best.
But Teikou is so much more than a school. Teikou is victory personified, all sweat and tears and blood for triumph and glory. After all, the school motto is "Ever Victorious". It suits the Akashi family quite well. (Victory is everything, victory in everything, everything for victory).
Just a little too cold, just a little too cruel for the children it is supposed to raise, Teikou takes and molds and shapes children into geniuses and leaders of their generation. It hones potential and talent and polishes until they shine brighter than the sun. And Teikou has no respect for weaklings. Every day is a survival game- the best rise to stand at the top, the weak are crushed without mercy- for what does a conquering emperor need mercy for? Teikou is ruthless and harsh and unforgiving, and leaves its mark on every student.
Out of everyone, it changes six genius basketball players the most. After all, it is where the Generation of Miracles is forged and created, heated and hammered and shaped into a weapon made solely for victory. Teikou pressures Akashi until he is always calculating, always scheming, forces Aomine to grow until he burns with something he can't quite name, pushes Midorima to his very limit. It makes Murasakibara ever bored and apathetic, challenges Kise and then rips away everything he loves, and it breaks Kuroko.
(In all honesty, Kuroko is almost completely crushed. He is weaker than the others, not able to stand the pressure as well, crumbling to his knees while the others stood tall. It is only his misdirection that gives him enough worth for Teikou to spare him, and that only barely).
Anyone who has ever been to Teikou knows this, shares this. It is impossible to understand what Teikou is like if you have never enrolled. It is impossible to know what Teikou does to you if you are an outsider.
(In the future, the Seirin team will think Kuroko was close with his ex-teammates. In truth, Kuroko never speaks with them about matters unrelated to basketball, not even Aomine. They are six strangers playing together, friendly but not friends. What lies between them is merely an understanding of what Teikou truly is and what it has made them.)
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Kuroko doesn't hate Teikou, surprisingly. For him, Teikou developed his style, brought out his potential and made him something more than a pathetic third string player. But it also broke him and broke his team, and he doesn't think he can ever forgive the school for that.
(He can remember the despair, the devastation on Aomine's face as he said, "I can't even remember what it's like to catch your passes, Tetsu.")
Because it's him that had to regret that he wasn't good enough to pull them back together, to stop them from crumbling. Akashi and the others didn't really care, but as Kuroko watched his heart tore apart, agonizing inch by inch, because no team should be able to crush their opponents so thoroughly (198 to 8 says the scoreboard, and Kuroko wants to choke). No team should be able to walk away bored of victory, so flippant and not-guilty it made him sick (Aomine asks to sub off because the other team are trash and not worth it, and Kuroko cannot meet his opponents' eyes in shame). No one should be able to make others quit something they love (Shigehiro looks at him, and the defeat in his voice is suffocating- "I'm quitting basketball."). His team destroyed others, and then destroyed itself, cracking at the seams until they fell apart.
(For the Generation of Miracles, victory had become tedious. For Kuroko, it tasted like ash in his mouth, despair in his eyes and hopelessness weighing so heavy in his heart, until he could not remember why he was playing anymore.)
Kuroko's a little grateful, though, because he's the one that had to be strong in the aftermath, strong enough to quit the team and patch the shattered pieces of his heart back together, strong enough to try again at Seirin and pick up a basketball for the first time in six months, strong enough to make his ex-teammates see how Teikou had twisted them. And when he finally beats Akashi, all of them see how strong Kuroko really is. To have broken and then reforged himself into something greater than all of them takes more will than anybody has the right to have. It was painful, but Teikou made him strong.
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Kuroko wonders, sometimes, what Teikou might have done to Kagami. Bright, passionate Kagami Taiga, as wild as his name and as fierce as a storm, with as much potential as any of them (the miracle who wasn't). He wonders if Kagami would have burned like Aomine, or been pushed like Midorima, or been challenged and disappointed like Kise. He wonders if Teikou might have broken Kagami just as he himself broke.
(He hopes and wonders- might Kagami have remained unchanged through it all? Unlikely, he thinks. Teikou doesn't let people go unscathed.)
Kagami will never know how lucky he is. He found a place where the word team meant something, where triumph was beautiful but losses still treasured, with people who loved basketball with all of their hearts and their teammates like family. He is so very lucky, because he didn't go to Teikou and he found Seirin. Kuroko supposes he is a little bit lucky for finding them too.
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If Winter Cup is a war and each match a battleground, the Generation of Miracles are killers of the finest quality, each with a sickening body count to their name. It is the first time they have stood against each other, and they can only hope their new teammates are strong enough to survive getting caught in the crossfire. Teikou's greatest are not to be trifled with.
The thing is, though, anyone could tell of their monstrous strength, but such power is very hard to communicate with words. It is one thing to say they are strong, and another to face them and be defeated by them. And it is entirely different to have played with them on the same team, to have worked with them and kept up with ease. That is why, on the rooftop at 8:45, Kuroko is the only player in Seirin who understands the mountain they have chosen to tackle, the monster they will be facing, the incredible, breathtaking challenge of Kagami's. Defeating all of the Generation of Miracles? Near impossible- their chances would be like one in a million. But maybe, just maybe, Kagami has the fire and Seirin has the drive and Kuroko- well, Kuroko is one of those monsters too, different, but still unreachable. Kuroko knows Seirin isn't Teikou, and thinks that they may have a shot.
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(Kuroko doesn't know, but after the Winter Cup, he is the most respected player on the team. He was the only one who really knew what his ex-teammates were like, the only one who knew what Teikou had made them. He was the only one who really knew, and he still stepped out onto that court, without a shred of fear.
"Kuroko was from Teikou. He's the Phantom 6th Player of the Generation of Miracles," they tell their new freshmen quietly. "Whatever his style, he is strong. You will understand when you face the others.")
...
This is how Seirin earns its glory: they go head to head with the top teams of Japan, all of those that boast a member of the Generation of Miracles, and they come out on top. Only two years into its existence, Seirin's basketball team is no joke. Anyone who has seen the Winter Cup finals knows that their champion title is no beginner's luck.
And this is how Seirin earns respect from every team it faces: every time Seirin is devastated, every time they are brought to their knees by their opponents, Seirin gets back up with unrivaled stubbornness and throws everything it has into beating them. Seirin, for all its newness and no name status, does not know how to give up and will never learn how. Unlike any other school, Seirin's genius lies in the tenacity of its players. And that is why, for three years straight, Seirin claims the Winter Cup championship, standing, undefeated, as number one in Japan.
(Seirin becomes a revolutionary legend, the new name for a dark horse contender, always redefining limits and possibilities. Seirin inspires where Teikou would destroy- "Look, we did it, we became the best when we used to be weak, and you can do it too, so keep trying." Unlike Teikou, Seirin needs no victory, does not condemn losses. Defeat is mere setback, a lesson to be learned. In Kuroko's second year there, their official motto becomes, "Never give up", and it is so fitting that Kuroko doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.)
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fin.