Chapter 2

Hikoichi walked down the school hall to the gym; inwardly he sighed, looked at his book and silently recapped the series of events that had happened over the past six weeks.

Five weeks ago, a fourteen year old with a super high I.Q joined the team as their assistant team manageress.

Two weeks later, she officially took over the post of team manager and became the team manageress.

A week after that, she came up with fifteen 'award-winning' plays that were so simple no one believed that they would work. But they did.

Four days after that, she managed to convince coach Taoka to give them a three-day break from training.

Five days ago, she re-planned their entire training sessions to ones that were easier and simpler that actually helped them to improve.

Two days ago, she took on the training sessions all by herself. Impossible as it seemed, Bairyn had actually managed to convince coach Taoka to a short break from team training and go for a short holiday, with the promise that the team would get better.

Two days ago, the team was still practicing their old routine.

Five days ago, they started the new routine, which may ultimately kill them.

Today, they were going to start the second part of their training, which was a match against Shoyo.

How Bairyn managed to convince the Shoyo's to play a training match against them was still a mystery to them. Still, it would be interesting. Fujima Kenji was still the playing coach of the Shoyo B.C and Hanagata, according to Bairyn, would be coming back to help with the match.

Today would be Hikoichi's first time on court as a starting member. He hoped that it would all go smoothly. But since Shoyo was the fourth seed in the Kanagawa prefecture and Ryonan was third, he didn't doubt that they couldn't win, but since Uozumi was no longer with them, they might have a problem with the rebounds. Since the Shoyo's were known mostly for their height, the rebounds could prove to be a problem.

Hikoichi walked to the courts immersed in his thoughts. He seldom got to do much out of school time because he spent so much time practicing. Still, he hoped that Bairyn had collected information about the new players just the way he would have.

Speaking of which, or rather thinking, Bairyn was nothing like himself. He was always running all over the place trying to get more information and always getting scolded by his seniors, not that he minded, mind you, just that he felt funny that for a change he was the one who could, would shout and scold his juniors if he wanted, but for some funny reason, although, his seniors had stopped scolding him and all that, he was still constantly being bullied by his juniors and always had to depend on Sendoh or Koshino to save him.

Hikoichi tapped his pencil against his chin thoughtfully as he ran through Bairyn's training plan. None of them had the exact same training plan. Though they still did the basic training together, Bairyn had come up with training plans for each specific player. And she knew how to play up to each of them.

For example, she knew that Fukuda liked to be praised and hated to be criticized. So what she did was that instead of criticizing him, she would suggest different ways of doing the moves that he was doing wrong and made sure that she never left him out of anything. She also knew that some of the first years had either little or no experience on the court and had forced them to be on the starting them. That was basically the reason that he was on the starting team as well. Her reason was that she wanted all of them to gain some court experience and gain some confidence.

Sendoh and Koshino, being captain and vice captain worked closely with Bairyn most of the time and usually left everything to her. Just before he had given up his post as team manager and joined the team as an official player, Sendoh and Koshino were already confiding in Bairyn more then they were in him. She obviously had more of their trust in such matters than he did, but it did not matter because he was now a team member and was more important than her in a lot of ways.

As he neared the gym, Hikoichi heard voices coming from the other hallway, being curious, he wanted to investigate, but then he looked at his watch and realized that the match was about to start and chose to ran off instead, in the direction of the gym.

Hikoichi listened intently as Bairyn ran over the plays for the last time.

Basically, it would start with Hikoichi, Ishida, Yukishiro, Kamiya and Shiakusu, another year one on the starting team. In the second quarter, Sendoh and Koshino would take over Hikoichi and Shiakusu. And they would play until third quarter when Fukuda would take over Yukishiro. Leaving Sendoh, Koshino, Ishida, Fukuda and Kamiya to finish and save the game.

Hikoichi was surprised, the least to say, to find out that he was playing shooting guard. It was pretty obvious that Ishida would play small forward, and that Kamiya would play point guard. It was easy to see during training that the pair would make another Sendoh and Koshino. Yukishiro, for reasons known only to Bairyn, had been made center and Shiakusu had been made power forward. Even though it was pretty obvious that Shiakusu would have made a better center because of his height. Being a head shorter then Sendoh, Shiakusu was the tallest amongst the year ones. And Hikoichi thought it was obvious that he would center, but Bairyn had insisted on him being power forward. Oh well, who knew what she was thinking about.

It was pretty obvious that Bairyn was counting on Ishida and Kamiya to last through out the game. She obviously had high hopes for them. It was also obvious that she was depending on Sendoh, Koshino and Fukuda to save the game if necessary.

"Listen up," said Bairyn, "This is the first match of the year for both Shoyo and us. I want you to do your best. Being third seed in this prefecture, it means that we have to beat Shoyo. If not, we'll become fourth seed in the prefecture. And Kainan will be watching as well, so don't slack in the game. Never the less, just have fun in the game. That is the most important thing and you must never admit defeat or give up hope, or else the game is over. Just do your best and live the saving of the game to Sendoh, Koshino and Fukuda okay?"

"Why Fukuda, Sendoh and Koshino?" asked Yukishiro. Bairyn smiled and said, "Simply because they've played against Kainan, Shohoku and Shoyo before. This, thus, makes them more experienced and gives them the edge over you first years."

"Why is our first match against Shoyo?" asked Ishida.

"That's because we don't want to bite off more then we can chew. I was going to ask Kainan instead, but let's just handle one team at a time okay?"

"Oh."

"By the way, if you lose this game, you'll have to go back to doing coach Taoka's training. So if you want a simpler life, win the game." Upon hearing this, Sendoh, Koshino, Fukuda and the other year twos and threes shuddered and looked away. Coach Taoka was not at the game because he was still away. But just the thought of going back to his training was enough to make them determined enough to win the game. They all remembered how horrible his training was and did NOT want to go through it again.

"All right let's this game started!"

"YOOSSH!!"