Kagami and his friends sensed the hostility as they watched from their spots in the front row.
"Three against five seems hardly fair, we can set up a handicap if you like." The Swedish captain offered. His politeness was overbearingly arrogant.
Mitch smiled just as sweetly, and dragged the stool she was sitting on till it stood at the top of the key, where the three point line and the key overlapped. The sound of metal scraping the court caught people's attention, and Kise looked around to see many people sitting back down.
"This could be interesting." He smiled.
Mitch's own sweet smile turned to a challenging snarl, "Here's the handicap you asked for."
"What's that supposed to be?"
"Ah! The way this works is whoever gets to 30 first wins!" Stephanie happily interjected as Mitch sat down on the seat, facing the basket in front of her, "We get to start all the time, but only because she'll keep at least a part of her body on the stool the whole time, and that's if she decides she wants to not sit anymore!"
"You can't be serious." The Swedish captain looked back at his teammates, who highly doubted the girl's ability to beat them, and that was standing up. Sitting down? Well, an easy victory is an easy victory.
They agreed, and Kiyoshi looked over to his kouhai.
"Oh, Kagami, did you say how good they are?"
"What they're doing is insane." Kagami was just as bewildered as his friends and the spectators.
Stephanie dutifully covered the left of Mitch, and Natasha the right. The three of them were clearly at a disadvantage against five, but were even more so at a disadvantage because the wingspan of each man could practically guard two zones at a time. That, and the boys had height, while Stephanie barely got up to Kuroko's shoulder and Mitch was stuck to a chair.
Her challenged look never wavered as the captain stepped in front of her, smirking and bouncing the ball lightly at her.
"Let's have-"
The ball left Mitch's hands just as soon as she held it, and the swish of a net prompted him to turn around to where the spectator's gazes were directed.
"Three to zero." Mitch brought her arms down, and looked up at the captain with a cocky grin, "Let's have a good match."
"I'm not so worried anymore." Kagami shrugged his shoulders, his grin mimicking Mitch's.
She bounced the ball on her right side, it's rhythmic bounce slow and purposeful as she examined the court.
Thump...thump...thump...thump...
Stephanie and Natasha were standing in their places at the sides, testing how the Swedish team reacted to their movements.
Mitch smirked, and began dribbling faster.
Thump, thump, thump, thump...
She crossed the ball over to her other hand, dribbling the ball under the stool as it transferred from left hand to right, and the ball's bounces became almost undiscernible.
"Michelle-chan's ball handling is around the same level as Hayama-san's," Kuroko said, "But she reminds me of a cross between Kagami-kun and myself."
The ball had suddenly become an orange blur as she dribbled, head still facing forward but arms shifting as she smirked.
Th-th-thump-th-th-thump-th-th-thump-th-th-thump-
The captain of the Swedish team wanted to wipe that smirk off her face. Was her smirk just pressuring him into hyper-focusing, or was the ball getting even faster?
Th-th-th-thump-th-th-th-thump-th-th-th-thump-
"Captain!"
He had been concentrating on the ball and on Mitch's unreal dribbling so much that he didn't realize Natasha had run behind and the ball had somehow gotten into her hands.
"Six to zero." Mitch counted. She grunted when the captain bounced the ball to her with more force than necessary. They'd gotten the idea quick enough and knew that the effort they'd need to exert was more than just standing around guarding some girls.
But Mitch's dribbling was throwing them all off. She was too fast for the Swedish captain to steal the ball from her, though it should have been easy. Reaching out to intercept was impossible when Mitch kept the ball low to the ground and dribbled under the stool or behind her, even then he could only see the ball in a blur before realizing that Mitch had already passed the ball.
"She's improved." Kagami nodded, a grin plastering his face as he saw his friend play. Her improvement was much more apparent now that he was watching as an outsider.
Five more blurred passes, five more sudden three pointers, and the score was 21-0.
Mitch smirked, and her head cocked to the side when she saw that instead of just the one man guarding her, she now had three.
"Like that would stop us." She grinned, happy at the challenge coming her way. The pace of her dribbling increased as she crossed over under the stool, unable to dribble behind or in front of her, or even at her sides as the three Swedish members were ready to steal the ball.
"Michi-Michi!" Stephanie waved with her right hand.
Mitch could only glance before she felt a swipe from her right. She rolled her eyes at the Swedish captain's grin after he made a three pointer.
"21-3." He noted.
Mitch caught the ball from him, and felt the pressure increase immediately as the three opponents crowded around her. They were able to take the ball and shut her down, taking another five points.
"Charity points are better than no points, right?" Mitch asked Natasha.
Natasha shook her head, "Behave, Michelle."
"Yeah, yeah... Fine."
"Who are you to talk? A little pressure and all of a sudden your specialty is shut down." The Swedish captain scoffed.
'A little pressure? Anyone would find a little trouble with three giants guarding them!' Her eyes narrowed, and Stephanie giggled happily.
"Don't forget to keep an eye on the ball!" She said to the other team, "Or... just keep up!"
Before they could even reply Mitch was already dribbling, stance on the chair lower as her dribbling came closer to the ground. The grip on her shoes pressed against the lower bars of the stool, and she took a small breath before increasing the speed of her dribbling.
A swipe from the right, and they expected to steal the ball and take another shot. No one was expecting the screech of metal against the ground, and for Mitch to spin around the captain and take a three pointer while sitting.
"24-8." Stephanie kept track of the points with a smile.
Mitch, however, pouted, "I don't know how I'll top that shot, but we can try."
"Cocky little shit..." One of the team members muttered as Mitch started at the top of the key again.
They were being completely annihilated by three girls; one of which was on a stool. Their sexist thoughts were interrupted when Mitch began to dribble.
'I'm not gonna be embarrassed any further!' One of them rushed forward to try to steal the ball, prompting the other forward to attack from the other side.
'We won't lose to a bunch of girls!'
Mitch smirked and pushed her foot off the ground, sliding the stool forward. The captain took that as his chance, and rushed forward, not expecting Mitch to swivel around from her seat and dribble so that her back faced him. She tossed the ball behind her as he moved to try to steal the ball, and Natasha came up and waited for the ball to hit the backboard so she could rebound and pass it to Stephanie for a three.
The score was 27-8.
"Did it go in?" Mitch asked the captain. He scoffed in reply, kicking her stool back so she'd reset to her starting position, "Touchy..."
Her lopsided grin shrank as Stephanie bubbly skipped to her side.
"So... When we're done Neechan wants you to work on your shooting skills. She didn't like that you missed and she had to rebound."
"Seriously?" Mitch grimaced when Natasha shook her head, and glared at the captain, "You guys got me into trouble. It's time to end this."
"Thanks for playing!" Stephanie waved as Mitch started dribbling again.
"You're not getting rid of us that easy!" One of the members said as he practically attacked her, his arms spread out and disabling Mitch to find a proper position to pass to her right. The member on her left did the same, but this time covered her left and behind her, equally distributing the space between him and the other member. The rest of her view was blocked by the captain himself.
"You don't have to worry about us~" Stephanie tapped the shoulder of the member that was guarding her, "She's not gonna pass the ball anymore."
"What- how do I know you're not tricking me?"
"Look for yourself." Stephanie pointed.
And it was true, as open as Natasha was Mitch refused to just toss the ball over their heads and have Natasha finish the game. She was hellbent on getting out of the situation herself.
"It's a good strategy." Riko shook her head, "Focused on an ace to steal the thunder during a tournament."
"Huh? What do you mean, Riko-chan?" Izuki asked.
Riko pointed at the two girls, who were very laid back. "Natasha-chan and Stephanie-chan are nowhere near as tired as Michelle-chan, they're not even sweating. Focusing everyone's attention on Michelle-chan, an obviously excellent athlete, means no one will take their team lightly. It also means that they'll focus their attention on Michelle-chan more than those two. They're also exceptional players from what we can tell of the data, so no one will expect them to round up the points and everyone will be too busy shutting Michelle-chan down."
"Sacrificing an ace player's abilities to hide and save the others... It would make gathering data much more difficult." Momoi agreed.
Kagami chuckled, and slapped Kuroko on the back, "It's like a Misdirection Overflow, but put into strategy form. I see what you mean, Kuroko."
Michelle hooked her calves around the stool's legs, and stood on the steps of the stool, dribbling the ball with lightning speed as she pivot the stool around and tried getting away from the three players. She finally grinned as she realized how she'd get out of this.
Deftly maneuvering her way around the captain, she dribbled the ball between his legs and pivot the stool around the team member on her left. Somehow, the ball had curved and bounced towards her direction as she kicked the stool out from under her so it was upside down. She landed on the steps of the stool, caught the ball, and shot it into the basket from outside the three point arc.
"And that makes thirty!" Mitch laughed, her friendly demeanor coming out again as she sent a thumbs up to Kagami and flipped the stool back to it's original position and sat down on it, "Ha! You're next, Taiga!"
As the Swedish team slunk away in shame and hurt ego, Kagami jumped over the barriers between the seating area and the court, prompting everyone else to do the same as Natasha and Stephanie approached Michelle.
"You didn't have to come off as arrogant." Natasha chided gently.
Michelle spun around in the stool, tipping it on each of it's legs as she grinned, "We should play an official game like this, it'd make it more fun!"
"And more susceptible to injuries." Natasha rolled her eyes as Stephanie tipped the stool up while it was on three legs, skipping away innocently as Michelle tumbled backwards.
"Ow!"
Kagami snickered, "Nice game."
Michelle sat up, her grin lopsided as she looked at the arena of teams that were leaving, "If someone underestimates us again, I'll make sure they don't even score."
"They're expecting that from you now." Riko said, "It was a good strategy, putting all the attention on you so Natasha-chan and Stephanie-chan can still have their specialties behind them."
"Strategy...?" Michelle asked.
Natasha and Stephanie shook their heads and shrugged.
"We were simply playing." Natasha told them.
Stephanie nodded, "Michi-Michi always ends up attracting a challenge. We've learned to deal with it."
"I-it wasn't a strategy? To misdirect everyone's attention to her so your own talents wouldn't be known?" Hyuuga asked.
"Hey if they aren't good players, it makes for a boring match, right?" Michelle asked, "Besides, the only reason you and Satsu-chan can't find my data is because when I play, it doesn't make sense to document more than 'exceptional ball-handling.'"
She smiled and waved off Riko and Momoi's shock, "Steph told me she saw you two looking up our data. My ball-handling is usually overlooked because the Gemini Twins are such a good duo." She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the two blondes.
"...twins?!" Takao exclaimed.
"Un! Neechan decided to skip a grade, but I liked to stay in my grade cause we have more interesting people~" Stephanie smiled, "Neechan is the older twin, of course."
"If you ever see us play a real match, you'll end up finding their duo play much more interesting." Michelle nodded, "Now then... Let's find out who you guys play against."
