DISCLAIMERS: (See Chapters 1 and 2)

Enjoy Reading!

(Unedited; Un-beta'd)

"I heard from Sayuri and Coach-chan that you sustained a serious injury last year Iron Heart,"

"Please, Naruto-senpai you can call me Kiyoshi or Teppei. We've been playing together for more than a month now."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the deliberate avoidance of the topic. "Fine. But you still haven't answered me though."

Kiyoshi resisted the urge to heave out a sigh at the persistence of his blonde senior and simply relented. He knew from the past few weeks that Naruto would not stop until he got what he wanted and that blonde knew ways to persuade him or Riko to tell the half-Japanese the story behind his injury. "I guess I'll have to tell you then, the reason why I was in the hospital for more than a year."

Naruto simply nodded.

Kiyoshi stared at the ball on his hands as he recalled the events of the previous year. "It was during the Interhigh prelims finals last year, when we played against Kirisaki Daīchi. We were actually playing a good, clean match against them but it was towards the end of the game that I got injured. One of the Uncrowned Kings, Hanamiya," Naruto's eyes narrowed at the mention of the name but said nothing. He'd heard of the dirty exploits that Hanamiya had done during their middle school but Teikō hadn't exactly played against them during his stay so he had no first hand experience to prove it.

"Was suddenly subbed-in near the end after not playing the whole game. He wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary or suspicious but then during that one play when I went for a rebound, my match-up jumped too late and landed hard on my knees. After that I remember being carried-out of the game and Hyuga confronting Hanamiya."

There was a brief silence between the two before Naruto spoke up. "Do you think it was on purpose, you injury I mean."

Kiyoshi looked at the ground, dropping the ball as he did. "I...Yes, it was." The center finally said with a hesitant low tone.

"I see..." Kiyoshi stared at the tall blonde as he picked up the ball he dropped. "Do you know why I agreed to return to Japan?"

Kiyoshi didn't know what Naruto was trying to say and where he was going to go with it so he slowly shook his head. "No. Not really."

Naruto dribbled the ball with one hand stuck to his back and did single-handed crossovers and maneuvers with it. "I actually came here because of three reasons," He caught the ball with both of his hands and shot it from the three-point line. "The first is because I missed Japan and wanted to meet-up with my grandparents again. The second one is kinda personal but I'll tell you anyways, to show you my gratitude for your honesty."

The blonde walked towards the ball's direction and picked it up before passing it to Kiyoshi who caught it with a single hand. "The second is because of Sayuri." Kiyoshi's eyes widened slightly at the revelation but kept silent. "The last is because I wanted to play against the Generation of Miracles. The supposed absolute geniuses that came to the Japanese basketball scene when I left. I wanted to test their mettle, their skill. But most of all, I wanted them to enjoy basketball again, just as what Tetsuya wanted."

"What does that have to do with what happened to my injury?" The passing center couldn't help but ask. He was really confused with the direction the conversation was going to.

"From what I heard from your story and the ones I heard during middle school, Hanamiya doesn't enjoy basketball the way you and I do, slightly similar to the current mindset of the Generation of Miracles. He's a sadist, he enjoys the suffering that people like us, who love basketball, incur. That's why when we face his team, I want you to put your whole trust into me."

"...Why?"

"Basketball is suppose to be something that a person enjoys, not something someone uses to make others suffer. I'll destroy him in the court, where he thinks he's most dangerous. He won't be doing that stuff again to others, never again. That's a promise."

—TGCB—

Kuroko silently watched as Kagami bounced the orange basketball on the pavement. He and the redhead were on their way to the team's basketball court after having finished their Math examinations half an hour ago.

It had been five weeks since Naruto had arrived, five weeks since the grueling training regiment that the blonde and Riko developed begun. The teal-haired teen and the rest of Seirin's basketball team felt that they had all grown in different facets of the game, especially their defense, under the supervision of America's top high school basketball player and the strict Riko Aida.

They entered the gym and saw Kiyoshi shooting a ball from the three point line with Naruto hanging around the ring, possibly to get the ball for either a rebound or just to pass it back to the Center. The rest of team was running around the court, lead by the hazel-haired coach.

"Tetsuya! Cagali! How was your Math exams?"

"Ugh. Don't remind me of that exam." Kagami groaned out, not even reacting to how Naruto called him. Naruto guessed that Kagami probably did really bad.

"I think I did fine." Kuroko droned with his signature monotonous tone.

"Well that's good. We're going to have offensive drills today, as suggested by Coach-chan. So you guys better get ready and warm-up."

Both Kuroko and Kagami nodded as they went to the locker room to change to their practice attire. Soon enough they joined the rest of the team that was running.

Naruto looked at the stopwatch clasped on his hands as the team circled for the court for the umpteenth time before he called out Riko. "Hey Coach-chan! I think it's about time to start the drills."

"Alright!" Riko stopped on her tracks, quickly being followed suit by the other ten players. She looked at them briefly before shouting. "Line-up near Naruto-senpai and Teppei!"

The team, excluding Kiyoshi and Naruto, quickly filed themselves into a line and stood still on their places.

Naruto went in front of the group, cleared his throat and started. "Today were going to try and improve our offensive games with different drills for different parts of the game. We'll be working with our dribbling, free throws, three point shooting, mid-range, post game and passing game. Everything to do with your offense we'll do, and since we've focused on defense and the fundamentals for the past month we're going to use this whole week to improve the teams overall firepower."

Naruto paused and looked at Riko who nodded replaced him at his spot. "We'll be starting with three point shooting. Do you those cones over there?" The female coach pointed at the bright orange stationed at different spots around the three point line and a few others inside it.

Seeing the team nodding she continued, "What we're going to do is a Drive and Kick drill that'll help in our decision making and floor spacing and also not to be too dependent on Kuroko's misdirection. Both Naruto-senpai and Teppei will defend. The post players won't be required to practice this but I suggest you watch so can learn how to defend it as well." She then looked at Kagami who was about to leave the line."Kagami you're not exempted from this by the way. Naruto-senpai and I agreed that it'll be good if you can develop a dependable perimeter game."

"Shun, Kōichi, Junpei. You'll be the first trio." Naruto pointed out the three quickly.

The trio nodded with a determined expression as they approached the the area with cones.

"First, Izuki will be positioned..." Riko watched as Naruto positioned the trio to their respective places as the blonde and Kiyoshi placed themselves near Izuki and Kawahara while Hyuga was left open at the corner. She knew the drill would be a more effective way to improve their shooting in-game as compared to mindlessly shooting the ball. It was more dynamic and would only improve their teamwork. She looked at the remaining players who watched by the sidelines as Naruto instructed the three players.

"Hey!" She shouted at the other seven who immediately turned towards her direction. "You guys go to the other side of the court and do a mini half-court scrimmage. You can sit that out Kuroko and just observe them for the time being." She nodded in satisfaction as the seven quickly went to the other side of the court.

"You guys are working hard." Riko turned her head towards the source of the voice and saw the familiar face of the student council president.

"Uchiha-kaichou. It's surprising to see you here, you haven't visited the past few weeks." She long had accepted the fact that Sayuri, with or without her permission, would enter and leave the court as she pleased and she also didn't wanted to get to the bad side of the black-haired beauty.

"Finished the workload earlier today. Decided to just watch you guys train."

"Are you sure that's the only reason?" Riko asked teasingly.

"Why is everyone teasing me about this," Sayuri whispered to herself which Riko, fortunately enough, didn't hear. "Shut up please."

Riko laughed lightly at the flustered expression on the president's face. "Just kidding Uchiha-kaichou."

"You better be then," The Uchiha replied threateningly, causing Riko to gulp faintly. Seeing that, Sayuri's expression quickly changed to a friendly one as she asked, "I heard that the preliminaries in the other regions just finished earlier this day. Seirin's are next week right?"

"Yeah. We've been practicing a lot this past few weeks and Naruto-senpai's presence is practically godsend. He seems to really know how to effectively train the skills of the guys."

"That's because Naruto was trained by both his parents, who by the way are both famous retired athletes."

Riko was pleasantly surprised at the information but it did make sense to her. Like Naruto, she herself grew up watching his father train other people which helped her develop the ability to 'scan' the physical attributes of the person with only a glance. The information of course made her a bit curious at Naruto's family. "So he grew up in a family of athletes. That actually makes a lot of sense seeing how athletic Naruto-senpai himself is. But it makes me wonder who his parents is."

Sayuri on her side was actually surprised that Riko still hadn't figured out who Naruto's family were seeing that the girl had managed to research on Naruto herself beforehand. "Minato Namikaze, famously known as the Yellow Flash—Football legend. Kushina Namikaze a.k.a Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Hot-Blooded Habenero—WNBA legend. They don't ring any bells to you?"

"Minato Namikaze...Kushina Uzumaki...Wait they're his parents! Then his practically born to play sports. With genes like that..." Sayuri sighed at the reaction, having seen multiples times before whenever he accompanied Naruto and he was asked about his parents. That was probably the reason why Naruto didn't even bother telling them about his parents. He probably grew bored of seeing other people act so surprise whenever they found out about that peculiar information about him.

"I wonder if Naruto-senpai could get me an autograph from Kushina-sama..." Riko saw the face that Sayuri was giving her as a slight pink adorned her cheeks at being seen at such an embarrassing state. "Sorry about that Uchiha-kaichou."

"It's no problem. Anyways what we were talking about again before we went to talking about Kushina-obasan and Minato-ojisan?"

Riko racked her for a few seconds as she tried to recall their conversation before raising her face and looking at Sayuri. "Ah! I was talking about how effective of a trainer Naruto-senpai was."

"Oh, that's right. Hmm. I guess you could say that aside from his parents' help, Naruto really was talented at playing basketball. He showed the aptitudel when we were still very young. I think I told you this before, but he started playing when he was five years-old."

Riko nodded at the last information as she did remember Sayuri telling her that before. "I can imagine Kushina-sama being happy about that."

Sayuri gave Riko smile before replying. "She was. From Naruto's stories, she's actually still gloating about it to Minato-ojisan."

"They sound like fun people to be with."

"They are." Sayuri nodded with a knowing smirk. Riko stared at the black-haired beauty who opted to observe the teen males training and decided to follow suit after a few seconds. The two girls watched in comfortable silence as Seirin's basketball team practiced. Both of them knew just how important the next seven days for the team would be.

Seven days till the Winter Cup preliminaries.

Seven days to practice.

Seven days till they showed Seirin's Basketball.

Seven days till his return debut.

Author's Note:

A short interlude chapter before the start of the preliminaries.

Till the next update I guess.