To Win
Hello Akashi-kun. Is there a reason that you called me out right now?
How did we win? How straightforward of you, I had expected a greeting at least.
Oh no need to be so snappy. We played a game and Seirin scored more points, even if it is one point. That is all. Basketball's concept is so delightfully simple.
But you want to know more than that, don't you Akashi-kun? I guess that is to be expected of course.
How could a brand new team like Seirin defeat all these top-tier schools and the famed Generation of Miracles? That is the question that has blasting across Internet forums and magazine articles for the past week. I am guessing that is your question.
. . . me? You are interested in me? Why such a strange question Akashi-kun, it was Seirin that became champions and not me alone.
No, the world does not work that way Akashi-kun, I am sure that you are superior to me in every way. But that does not mean you are guaranteed a victory. Seirin has just as much a chance of winning, even if its less than one percent, as Rakuzan had.
Victory. It is something you are born to, isn't it Akashi-kun and a concept that is so foreign to me until now.
Now don't give me that look, it is perfectly normal to never receive an award or win a race if you are a perfectly average boy like me. Only the best are rewarded after all.
But that is why you are here, aren't you? To find out what had gone wrong with the way the world worked so that it gave me the gold and you the silver.
It's a long story, so make yourself comfortable. You curiosity is quite intriguing, Akashi-kun but I cannot promise that you will be satisfied with the answer.
Why am I telling you my secrets, Akashi-kun? Did you not ask me for it?
Let it go so easily? How I defeated you is not a secret, something to be hoarded and hidden, it is the truth that you are too blind to see.
-o-
How is someone considered a genius? It is a tricky definition for sure. Is being a genius someone who is born with exceptional talent or someone with the determination to create something new?
You and the Generation of Miracles are true prodigies, born with the abilities to be the best. But you are not the only genius in the world.
No, I am not bragging, Akashi-kun. I am simply defining the word. To be a genius is to have exceptionally creative or intellectual, to be able to create something new instead of following the standards set by before us.
I am sure you see where I am going with this. Genius is not like being a prodigy, genius is simply to accept your limit and still do something extraordinary.
At least that was how I had always seen it.
But to be a genius is not the source of my strength or even any of your strength. To use that creativity to achieve your end, that is strength.
Please stay. This story is no where near over yet.
100 battles. 100 victories. It's a phrase you are far to familiar with, isn't it?
I did attend Teiko with you though I doubt you remembered me. You were always in the top classes and I was struggling to get decent grades, after all Teiko is a world that is only for the strongest.
Even that first year of basketball before I quit, I was a mere third string and you were the respected vice-captain of the first string.
But we did meet, Akashi-kun.
I take it from the look in your eyes that you remember. After Seirin's win over both Shutoku and Kaijo and the rumors that their strange freshman was from Teiko, your interest was caught. I'm sure that you tried to find all you could about me, and found nothing.
But I remember. That first year, when I was still lost and confused and chanced upon Aomine Daiki that I also met you. I was someone so pathetic back then that you told me that it would be impossible to reach first string and soon after that Aomine-kun lost interest.
I should thank you, Akashi-kun. It was that disinterest that led me to find a way to prove you wrong.
I think I did pretty well didn't I, Akashi-kun?
-o-
Teiko is a strange place, is it not? It is a school that does not nurture those who are weak, but those who are destined for high places. And if it is one thing that Teiko knew correctly was that only those who reach for the sky are able to make it there.
Yes, Akashi-kun. That was the only thing that Teiko was right about.
Teiko was where I discovered misdirection, you know. It saved me, gave me a purpose and worth to a previously useless boy. It is a technique that is created by me and can be used only by me.
Mayuzumi Chihiro? Don't make me laugh.
Copy is the highest form of flattery, Akashi-kun, but it is still a counterfeit as real as a forged piece of art. Even Kise Ryouta, with his copying skills cannot truly develop misdirection even if he has been able to replicate your skills.
Misdirection is mine alone.
Though I could still remember the first time a showed off my techiniques to the third-string coach and what he told me afterwards.
He told me, emphatically I might add maybe even with a little pity, that misdirection will not take me anywhere. That to do something so strange will not bring me the victory I wanted so dearly.
Funny how the world turns out somethings, isn't it. Misdirection did not bring me victory, but it brought my team the gold trophy and to me that is enough.
To Teiko, I am an anomoly. To a school that preaches individual strength someone like me manage to develop a style that is for the team.
But Teiko nurtures only the strong, and for a boy like me who is neither weak nor strong they did not what to do. So they tried to stop me, but their creed lit a fire in me that will not go out. For Victory.
Maybe in another world, I could have been your teammate Akashi-kun. What a strange thought.
-o-
After that I quit the basketball club, partly because I can not master my misdirection there but mostly because I disagree with their policy.
Absolute victory. Fight 100 battles and win 100 battles. No loss is permitted, nothing less than perfect victory.
You who are raised on that concept must find it normal. After all no one is more powerful than the person standing over enemies that could not even find the will to stand, are they?
And that, of course, is where Teiko is wrong.
I've seen what happened to the Generation of Miracles and what you have done to your opponents. It disgusts me, but to you it must have been normal.
Who even notices when you flick an insect off your arm other than the other pitiful insects?
Do not tell me that you regret your actions back then. Maybe you regret them now, but not then. Never then. Not in all your glory, complete domination and power did you feel regret at your actions.
Back then, he world in the grasp of your fingers with no one even able to challenge that claim.
How strange is it that Seirin was the one carrying the golden trophy of the Winter Cup this year isn't, Akashi-kun?
Oh please don't get angry, Akashi-kun. I am merely stating facts after all and a winner has their privledges of course. That is what you always say, is it not?
Now do you see it Akashi-kun? The simple truth that you are too great to even notice?
Even Kagami-kun sees it. Though in a less eloquent way of course. Do you know what he told me, when we first swore to defeat the Generation of Miracles?
He said that he wanted to be a challenger, not a champion. That is something that you did not understand and maybe still haven't understood.
Have you ever heard of the quote, "Judge a man by the quality of his enemies?"
Is a man strong because he completely dominates his enemies or is he strong when he barely wins against enemies that should by all means have won instead?
To Teiko and to you, Akashi-kun, the answer is the first one. And there is truth in that statement, but to me it will always be the second.
Because I wasn't born with genius and never tasted victory until I've fought for it with sweat and tears. And so has Seirin.
Stories have always loved an underdog, a nobody that manages to overthrow government, kings, and emperors. And you think they are just stories, but all stories have a basis on truth.
If you stop yourself at the peak of a mountain because there is no one that is even close to you, so assured in your dominance that you unfallible, you will fall. Because there is always someone looking further than your little mountain peak. If there is someone trying to scramble up to where you are, there is another that has their eyes set for the stars for higher than where you are.
Teiko and the Generation of Miracles' mistake is written in the creed the are so proud of. 100 battles. 100 victories. But what after that? After you have slaughtered your enemies and won all your battles is left? You look down on your enemies instead of ahead to where new challenges will always be.
And maybe now you can see why Seirin won and why I beat you. In order to win, you must have a goal and ours is simply far higher than yours.
To accept defeat, as a setback and not an end. To learn from that defeat and fight to see what victory feels like. To love victory and not be bored of it.
And that is the meaning of strength, that so many people live their lives with realizing. Why climb a mountain when you are perfectly happy with where you are? Everyone is obsessed with finding contentment and not the thrill of challenge. Why try so hard at something you only have a sliver of winning? To see the odds stacked against you and still emerge victorious.
Me? I'm nobody and even in history and I will probably not be remembered, but so are the hidden geniuses in the world.
Why remember a boy who could barely win as opposed to boy who doubled his opponent's score? You are a victor that will be remembered in history and I am the one forgotten, but I know that you will always remember that there is no doubt that I am the stronger one.
It was a pleasure talking to you Akashi-kun. Maybe this conversation will stay in your head or you'll forget about the next time we see each other.
May the next time we fight, you shall be stronger than ever before. I so do enjoy a challenge.
Written from my need for a badass Kuroko and fancy prose. I wanted to try writing a story entirely of dialogue and this is what happened. Not sure what I was going with it, its one of those stories you have randomly and wrote it down only to find that its completely different from what you've imagined.
Kuroko might be a bit OOC but that's because its an alternate universe so please ignore that if you can. Anyways thanks for reading and please leave a review!