Summary: An all-star team is selected to represent Kanagawa in the National Sports Festival. Sendoh, Maki, and Rukawa are all part of it. What could go wrong?
A/N: Based on the event that is alluded to in Slam Dunk: 10 Days After. If you haven't read it yet, go and read it now. I started writing this last summer. Now, four drafts later, you have this crap. Feel free to flame, because I expect nothing less.
The National Sports Festival
Chapter 1
"National…" Sakuragi began.
"Sports Festival," Miyagi finished.
"Ho ho ho," Coach Anzai laughed. "The National Sports Festival is one of the three big events in high school basketball. It takes place in the fall and is less competitive than the Summer Inter Highs and the Winter Tournament. Each prefecture sends one team to compete in a series of exhibition games. We have decided to sign you up for it."
Coaches Anzai, Taoka, and Takato had arranged to speak to their respective teams, plus Shoyo, at Kainan's gym on this lazy Saturday morning, when everyone was likely to be too groggy to give things a whole lot of thought before agreeing to them.
"Now—er—I realize we didn't give you a whole lot of notice for this thing, but we're heading out on Monday," Coach Takato began tentatively. He hadn't prepared his remarks. "Coach Taoka and I have come to the decision—after much deliberation, I might add—that this year we ought to mix it up a little and send an all-star team comprising the best players from region. Historically Kainan has always had the great honor of representing this prefecture, but I figured, Why not give the other teams a chance? After a lot of thought, we decided that the starting lineup for Team Kanagawa will be Maki, Hanagata, Jin, Sendoh, and Rukawa. Of course, Akagi was named in the original all-star team from the spring tournament, but between entrance exams and… Well, the long and short of it is that Hanagata will have to do. As for reserve players, we'll only be taking a few other guys along with us—mostly from Kainan. Kiyota, for instance. Miyagi would make a decent backup point guard for Maki, so we'll take him along, too, but that's going to be all. Train tickets aren't cheap, after all. And—er—that's it for Team Kanagawa, I suppose. And—"
Several angry voices went up in protest.
"What about us?" Sakuragi roared, gesturing to Mitsui and himself.
"Oh, yes, Mitsui's going, too," said Coach Takato, adjusting his glasses. "Jin has bad days, too, believe it or not, and we're going to need to cover all the bases. We can't lose because our shooting guard wasn't in good form and we didn't have a replacement for him."
Mitsui smirked at Sakuragi. Jin looked crestfallen.
"What about me?" Sakuragi began pulling at Coach Anzai's many chins in his frustration. "What about the Tensai? Why does that dirty Kitsune get to go but not me? I'm ten times the player he is."
"Why am I a fucking benchwarmer?" Kiyota wailed, extending his hands, palms up, like a man seeking divine explanation for misfortunes.
Coach Takato raised an irenic hand, but doubted whether he could restore peace among his audience before lunch.
"Now, now, everyone," he said. "There's no need to get upset. And mind your language, Kiyota. This was not an easy decision." He coughed. "But I think, to our credit, we made the best decision we could have made under the circumstances."
"I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go!" Sakuragi whined.
"We need you here for the Winter Tournament, if we are to stand any chance of winning," Coach Anzai croaked patiently as he struggled to extricate himself from Sakuragi's grip.
The chin pulling ceased immediately. Sakuragi's face lit up.
"Why didn't you say so before, Old Man?" He puffed out his chest. One could almost hear the swell of a triumphal victory march in the background. "This Tensai is indispensable to the team. I will lead Shohoku to victory in the tournament that really matters. You can call me Winter Champion Sakuragi. We don't need Rukawa. He's dispensable."
The rest of the Shohoku team stood as far from the redhead as possible.
"Anyway," Coach Takato went on as if this disagreeable interlude had never happened. "Coach Taoka and myself will be your coaches—er—jointly I might add, since we didn't exactly reach an agreement on who was going to be head coach. But I think we can all agree that you guys have been exceedingly well provided for in the coaching department."
"Why aren't you going, Old Man?" Sakuragi began tugging at Coach Anzai's chins again, but more gently this time.
Coach Anzai's face assumed an expression that clearly said, "I'm too old for this shit." Aloud he said, "I think it would be best if I stayed back and helped you boys out at Shohoku."
"All right." Coach Taoka clapped his hands in his usual business-like manner. "If you're not part of Team Kanagawa, you're free to go now." Several pairs of feet shuffled dejectedly out of the gym. "As for the rest of you, I trust everyone knows what the National Sports Festival is by now?"
Blank stares.
Coach Taoka sighed.
"I have a question, Coach," said Sendoh.
A vein throbbed in Coach Taoka's temple. It was just as he had dreaded.
"Yes, Sendoh?" he said, not sure whether he wanted to hear what the Ryonan ace had to say.
"Can you tell us what the National Sports Festival is?"
The vein became more pronounced.
"As Coach Anzai so kindly mentioned earlier, the National Sports Festival is… You know what? Just ask someone who paid attention. Any more questions?"
"I have another question, Coach."
Coach Taoka looked ready to explode.
"What?"
"Are we going to have to get up early?"
"If you're thinking you can pull your usual tricks and show up late to practice, you can forget about it now," he said through clenched teeth. "If you show up so much as a minute late, even once, you're going straight home. Understand?"
Coach Takato leafed through his notes, as if he had just remembered something.
"This applies to you, too, Rukawa," he said, glancing down at his notes. Rukawa looked confused at being thus called out. "We're your coaches now, and we're not as forgiving as Coach Anzai." Satisfied that his words had made an impression on Rukawa—in dream form, if nothing else—, he turned to the rest of the group. "Any more questions?"
Hanagata raised his hand high in the air. Raising it halfway would have sufficed for someone of his height, but he was of the school of thought that one either raised one's hand all the way or one did not raise it at all.
"When and where?"
"Oh, yes, of course." Coach Takato leafed through his notes again. He should have organized them better. "Third week of this month in Nagoya, of all places. Obviously we don't have a lot of time. We leave here on Monday, spend a couple of weeks practicing all we can—you get the idea. These are your teammates for the next few weeks." He waved his notes around in the air in front of him until he was satisfied that everyone present had been pointed at. "Feel free to mingle with them and get to know them better."
"This is going to be tough," Sendoh whispered to Rukawa.
Rukawa raised an eyebrow.
"Taoka-sensei and Takato-sensei training us together, I mean." He gave a nervous laugh. "They are perhaps the two toughest coaches in the history of the world."
Rukawa said nothing. Sendoh realized that the eyebrow had been a false alarm: Rukawa was asleep.
Miyagi, like Kiyota, was not a little peeved at being relegated to the bench, but his foul mood quickly evaporated when he realized that Ayako was going, too.
"Aya-chan! You're going, too?"
"Of course," said Ayako. "Seeing as I'm the only decent manager in the prefecture."
Coaches Taoka and Takato retired for a much-needed tea break, supplemented no doubt with the booze that Coach Takato kept in his desk against days such as this.
"All right, listen up," said Maki assuming his position at the helm of Team Kanagawa without delay. "The honor of representing a prefecture typically goes to the team that wins the spring tournament. That would be us. The rest of you are here today purely out of the goodness of our hearts. As a result, you play by our rules—Kainan's rules. You don't like it? Too bad."
Kiyota was thrilled.
"You're not the boss of me, Maki," said Hanagata with asperity.
Quietly Rukawa was thinking the same thing.
"Get over yourself, Maki," said Mitsui, crossing his arms.
Miyagi was already plotting ways to remove Maki from the scene so that he could take over as point guard and captain. A bottle broken over his head, perhaps, or a gentle nudge down a flight of stairs.
Sendoh alone was fine with this arrangement. He was reasonable that way.
It appeared that Maki had noticed this, too, because he said, "Sendoh's going to be my vice-captain."
"What!" This was the straw that broke the camel's back for Hanagata. "You… you worse than senseless thing!" he bellowed, quoting Shakespeare in his distress. "I have seniority."
"Yes, Hanagata," said Maki coolly. "But you failed the first test—namely not questioning my authority."
Hanagata scoffed.
"Besides, Sendoh's just better," Maki went on, rubbing salt into the wound with glee. "As you know, Kainan's training regimen is the toughest in Kanagawa—perhaps in the country. Which means many of you are already behind. We're going to start with some basic training today. First we practice some layups."
"What the fuck, Maki?" said Miyagi. "This is insulting."
"Tch," said Rukawa.
"I think he's just threatened by Fujima's natural good looks," said Hanagata irrelevantly.
"What's the matter?" Maki smirked. "Scared you won't be able to do it? Scared Kainan might see you at your weakest?"
Kiyota burst into laughter.
"Look at you losers," he said through tears. "Doing basic training like a bunch of rookies."
"What are you laughing at?" said Maki. "You need it more than any else. Or have you forgotten how we lost in the Nationals?"
Kiyota's laughter ceased and his face darkened as he received flashbacks of the final game.
Kainan was one point down with three seconds to go. The ball had found its way into Kiyota's hands during this last stretch. Kiyota made a mad dash for the basket, outrunning his opponents with ease. The field ahead of him was clear. It was a gift from the heavens. He could score a layup shot with his eyes closed.
In fact, why didn't he?
It would make for a stunning end to the Nationals.
He could already see the headlines: "Super Rookie Makes Basket with Eyes Closed to Win Game." It could use a little polish, but it captured the essence of the event, which was the main thing. He was a basketball player, not a journalist.
He closed his eyes as he breached the key. The last thing he saw before he leapt into the air, commencing his ascent to Olympus, was the look of horror that appeared on the opposing center's face as he realized that defeat was imminent for his team.
Idiot, thought Kiyota. There was no way he could jump high enough to block his shot. This was destiny. Could one stop the sun rising tomorrow? Obviously not. Same thing here.
Kiyota released the ball, relishing the warm glow of the stadium lights on his eyelids.
Suddenly the lights were blocked out, and the next thing Kiyota remembered was waking up in the hospital with a splitting headache, surrounded by furious members of the Kainan basketball team.
Kiyota shuddered.
"Yes, Maki-san." He joined the others on the court without another complaint, looking faintly green.
"I take exception to this," said Hanagata.
"Oh, don't worry, I treat Kiyota like this all the time."
"I wasn't talking about Kiyota," said Hanagata coolly. "I was talking about the indignity of doing basic training at your command. And when did you turn into such a megalomaniac? I always took you to be one of the few level-headed high schoolers in Kanagawa."
"You probably don't know this, Hanagata," said Maki. His eyes became glassy and oracular, as if his body had suddenly become a vessel for something otherworldly. "I'm like this all the time."
"I can attest to that," said Jin. "He's like this all the time at Kainan."
"It's why we're Number 1."
Hanagata scoffed.
"It wasn't long ago that Shoyo gave you a run for your money."
"You probably don't remember this, Hanagata, so let me refresh your memory. Kainan made it to the finals last season. Shoyo wasn't even in the top sixteen in the prefecture."
"You have us to thank for that." Miyagi smirked.
"Let me refresh your memory, Maki," said Hanagata, ready to play his trump card. "Two years ago. Osaka. You know what I'm talking about. Kenji and I were both there. But I'm willing to bet none of your team knows about it."
Maki's eyes widened. His lips curled into a silent "No!"
Hanagata was killing it.
"So unless you want me to spill the beans—and these are some big juicy beans!—I suggest you kick it down a notch and give us the respect we deserve."
Maki admitted defeat.
"All right," he said weakly. "You guys can go home now."
Team Kanagawa dispersed.
"What's he talking about, Maki-san?" said Kiyota, prancing around Maki as he trudged to the locker room.
"What was that all about?" said Sendoh as the non-Kainan players wended their way to the train station.
"My lips are sealed." Hanagata grinned. "There's still a couple of weeks to go before the Festival. We may need to use this again. Hey, don't forget: You owe me now."
Working with these guys was going to be… interesting, Sendoh thought to himself as he stepped out of the train at Ryonan station. That wasn't to say that he wasn't looking forward to it. He had always wondered what it would be like to play alongside the top players in the region; and now he was about to find out.
tbc.
A/N: The attentive reader will remember that I conceived the idea of writing this in an author's note in Wintry Games. One of the drafts was SenRu, but I scrapped that before I finished rereading it, because it was too maudlin. I can't write from Rukawa's POV without sounding like J. Alfred Prufrock. As it stands, there are no pairings in this fic, but if you have one you'd like to see, I will consider putting it in.