Fandom: Slam Dunk
Genre: General/Comedy/Slight Romance
Rating: PG-13
Type: Sequel to 'Lost & Found'. Multi-part; Chapter 1?
Time-line: After Nationals in the series, when the third years graduate...
Summary: After Akagi, Kogure and Mitsui left the team -- what would happened to the Shohoku Basketball Club? Will Miyagi be able to lead them to Nationals again? What of the other schools? What happened to Shoyo, Ryonan, and Kainan?
Author's notes: Hi everyone, I'm back with a new fic on Slam Dunk. I am in the process of re-watching Slam Dunk for the 3rd time, and this idea just sort of came to me ... So Everyone, please do enjoy!
Disclaimer: No, I do not own Slam Dunk.
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Chapter 1 -- New Beginning!
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The air in the gym of Shohoku was stifling, the new captain of Shohoku basketball team, Miyagi Ryota, was perspiring. Practise was hard, but he could not afford to slack now. Following the retirement of Kogure, Akagi and Mitsui -- Shohoku was at a lack of players. With Sakuragi Hanamichi still in the hospital recovering from the injury, and Rukawa still away at the 'All - Japan team'; it was up to him, alone to train the rest of the team members.
Today is the last day that the third years was going to be around; after all, it was their graduation day. Miyagi was really glad that the third years had dropped by to pay them a visit. After their loss in the Nationals, all the third years were busy preparing for their leaving examinations and thus, had no time for practise.
"Hey, how's it going for you? Miyagi-Captain?" Kogure asked.
Miyagi looked over to the ex-vice captain and shrugged. "Honestly, I had no idea how we are going to cope with you guys leaving... With Sakuragi still in hospital and Rukawa away, I really had no idea how to train a new team from scratch with the current members that still remains. "
"Well... I'm sure, there will be a way to resolve this problem. Maybe, there might be some talents among those newcomers?" Kogure suggested.
"I certainly hope so... otherwise, we might not be able to make it to Nationals, this year. Ever since we defeated Shoyo last year, we had been classified as a 'seed' team -- but if we were to lose simply to others, this time around..." Miyagi trailed off, not daring to think so far ahead.
"I'm sure that you would be able to find someone from the newcomers, tomorrow, when they joined the practise." Kogure assured Miyagi with a smile on his face.
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The following day, Miyagi had the newcomers lined up in a straight line and introduced themselves to the seniors, and reveal their positions on the court. Sad to say, they were still lacking a center player -- none of the members had the height of 190 or above. The tallest among those newcomers was, Mikami Shuuhei, with a height of 184 cm.
That was when the doors to the gym opened, and entered a tall body with dark coloured hair. Upon closer inspection, Miyagi realized that it was Rukawa Kaede. Before Miyagi could said anything in response to Rukawa's appearance, another person with red hair stepped into the gym. Miyagi could barely registered the red hair before he found himself nearly tackled down by the said person.
"Sakuragi?" Ayako, the basketball team manager, asked.
"Yeah?" Sakuragi responded, as he let go of Miyagi -- whom was nearly strangled by his tight grip.
"When did you come back?"
"Oh... the doctor released me from the hospital, last weekend." Sakuragi replied, non-chalantly.
"Last weekend? And you decide to make an appearance only now?" the manager, Ayako frowned.
Grinning wryly, Sakuragi replied simply that he wanted some time to re-adjust to his body before coming back to practise. To which, Ayako merely nodded in silent agreement.
"And your back? Is it alright now? Can you still play basketball?" Miyagi gushed out all in one breath, knowing that they might had a chance of winning if Sakuragi was back on the team for good.
As if sensing Miyagi's anxiousness, Sakuragi smirked. "Honestly, Ryo-chin ... do you think that the doctor would release me before I fully recover?"
"So does that means...?" Miyagi prompted.
Sakuragi nodded, as Miyagi let out the breath that he had been holding in. Everyone stepped forward and slapped Sakuragi on the back, welcoming him back on the team -- everyone but Rukawa Kaede. The rest of the first-years merely looked on in bewilderment.
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That was when Miyagi noticed something strange about Sakuragi, he then called out to Rukawa and Sakuragi -- drawing their attention. He get the two to stand side by side, and instantly, he realized what was 'off'.
"Sakuragi, have you grown taller?" Miyagi asked, knowing for a fact that Rukawa's height was still the same as the time he joined the team.
"Huh? Yeah, I think so... I should be about 195 now..." Sakuragi replied absently, he did not really care of his height. That did not matters to him; likes it does to others.
That was when Miyagi noticed that the first years was at a loss of what to do, looks like he had neglected the newcomers with Rukawa and Sakuragi's return to the team.
Calling out to the attention of the first years, Miyagi introduced both Sakuragi and Rukawa to the newcomers. That was when they noticed Sakuragi eyeing a certain first year member strangely, but the first year appeared to be ignoring Sakuragi on purpose. Deciding to leave the matter alone for now, Miyagi called for practise to start -- he needed to see if Sakuragi's skills had gotten worst during the time whereby the former had been hospitalized.
Miyagi suggested for them to practise one-on-one, just to see if Sakuragi had the ability to defend against the attacker. Before Miyagi could even named himself as Sakuragi's opponent, Sakuragi had went on ahead to challenge one of the first year, much to the surprise of Miyagi. He would have been expecting Sakuragi to challenge Rukawa, but to go against a first year -- was something he did not expect from the red-head.
The first year was more than willing to oblige, after all, it seems as if it was a natural routine to him. Miyagi had yet to catch all of the first years' names, but he was sure that he could remember it, soon.
"Renji, do your best and come at me..." Sakuragi said, looking solemn all of a sudden.
"Well, if that's what you want ... that's what you will get." The first year replied.
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After a while, it was apparent to everyone that Sakuragi knew that first year. In fact, they seemed to know one another inside-out, since there's hardly any communication between them. Finally, unable to bear with the mysterious feeling anymore -- Miyagi called out to the both of them for their attention.
Upon noticing Miyagi's frustration, Sakuragi simply pointed a finger at the first year and stated. "This guy here, was called Renji. I know him pretty well, although, I still cannot fathom why he choose to come here instead of going over to Shoyo."
"Huh? Shoyo? Why would you want him to go Shoyo?" Yasuda, a fellow senior asked.
Sakuragi blinked, before his eyes widen with realization. "What! Don't tell me you people had no idea of his identity?" Sakuragi exclaimed, his eyes reflecting the shock and disbelief.
Miyagi frowned, and questioned Sakuragi on his strange reaction. Whereas Sakuragi merely shook his head in disbelief, and introduced the first year, once again. Jabbing a finger at Renji, whom was trying his best to ignore Sakuragi and the others -- by practising his dribbling.
"Fujima Renji is the name of that first year... do you people understand now? That was why I said I cannot fathom why he choose to come here, instead of going to Shoyo." Sakuragi stated, throwing a mock glare in Renji's direction.
Everyone was stunned by the news, even Rukawa -- even though, his reaction was nowhere as big as Miyagi. Sakuragi watched as Miyagi's jaw slacked, before turning wild eyes onto Renji. "Good Gracious, that little guy down there was the younger brother of Fujima Kenji, coach of Shoyo's team?"
Fujima Renji looked up at his captain, and shrugged. "So? I am not my brother, there's no need to fear me... Besides, I'm not even playing your position."
To which, Sakuragi merely rolled his eyes and muttered 'bull-shit' under his breath. Turning to Miyagi, Sakuragi told the former to leave Renji alone.
"That guy over there choose to come over here, because of stress... He simply cannot stand having Kenji as both his coach and brother." Sakuragi claimed, much to Renji's annoyance.
However, Renji did not retaliate to Sakuragi's assumption; since he did choose to come here because of his reluctance to play under Kenji. That, was simply one of the reason, another reason was that -- he did not want to be on the same team as his twin, Shinji.
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"Heh? Fujima Kenji's younger brother? I did not even know this in prior... How is it possible for them to slip through my research..." The voice of Aida Hikoichi, a fellow Ryonan player, rang out in the Shohoku gym -- catching everyone's attention.
Everyone blinked once, then twice -- before everyone started talking at once. Sakuragi sighed and called out to Hikoichi asking the latter's reason for being here at Shohoku. To which, Hikoichi merely replied that Coach Taoka had wanted to drop by and pay a visit to Coach Anzai -- he simply tagged along. With that said, Hikoichi then headed towards the newcomers of Shohoku basketball team and proceed to survey them from top to bottom.
The newcomers appeared baffled, while the current members of Shohoku merely rolled their eyes in response. However, Renji merely smiled in response before answering Hikoichi's previous question -- which everyone had forgotten about until he spoke up.
"Are you Hikoichi from Ryonan?" Renji asked.
"Huh? Yeah, but who are you?" Hikoichi frowned, since he had only heard snippets of conversation between the Shohoku members and had not met Renji, himself -- he had no idea how Fujima Kenji's brother looks like.
Renji smiled, "I am Renji, the younger brother of Fujima Kenji. To answer your query, the reason why you had not being able to find out anything about me in prior was simply because I was away -- in America."
"Oh... so you're away in America..." Hikoichi started jotting down in his notebook, and was about to ask more questions when Coach Taoka and Anzai came through the gym doors.
"Hikoichi, our business here are done. We are leaving." Coach Taoka called out to Hikoichi, whom in turn bade everyone farewell and left with the Ryonan Coach.
Meanwhile, Coach Anzai called for the members to gather around. He then revealed that Coach Taoka had approached him in an attempt to fix a practise match between their teams -- as an effort to see how far their new players could do; going up against one another. Anzai confessed that he had agreed to the idea and the date of the practise match had been fixed, it would be one week from now.
Turning to Sakuragi and Miyagi, Anzai told Miyagi to start training Sakuragi from basics again -- in case, Sakuragi forgotten all the basic moves. Miyagi nodded in agreement to Anzai's words, while Sakuragi merely shrugged.
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to be continued
Date started: 6 August 2006
Date ended: 7 August 2006