Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to these characters.

It was a beautiful morning, there were no clouds in the sky, birds were singing, and few people were already beginning to move about and start their day. Kuroo felt light and happy as he and Kenma walked to school for their morning practice. He wouldn't say that he was walking on air or anything, but the elation he was experiencing was close enough.

All right he was strutting and he knew it. Could anyone really blame him? He found his old childhood sweetheart, got her to go on a date with him, provoked her wannabe suitor, and somehow was able to survive his mother when he returned home. There was plenty for him to feel smug about, and he had no desire to hide it.

"You're in a good mood. I take it that things went well with Kagome yesterday?"

Kuroo hummed in agreement, "She's going to be stopping by our practice this morning." He glanced down and gave Kenma a smug grin. "Got her to agree to join the club as our manager."

Kenma's eyes widened in surprise at that. He knew that Kuroo and the other second years were planning on ways to help the team grow and improve, but the third years were an obstacle that they couldn't quite surpass. A manager could possibly change the power dynamics of the team if you found the right one. Taking Kagome's innate ability to subtly lead and guide their class, and wrangle himself and her little brother where she wanted them into consideration—she could make things very interesting.

"I wonder how she'll blend in with the team, and how they'll react to her. Tora might pass out."

Kuroo cackled, "That would be fun to watch!"

Inside the gym Kuroo, Kai, and Yaku began going through their stretches as they waited for the first years to finish changing in the club room.

"What's got you in such a good mood, Kuroo? Plotting against the third years again?"

Kuroo smirked at Yaku as Kai sighed and prepared himself for another squabble to break out. "You could say that I'm plotting against them. I found us a manager."

"A manager?"

"Yup, she's going to stop by to meet everyone this morning."

Kai raised a brow at that, "You mean meet everyone, but the upperclassmen. You know that they don't participate in the morning practices."

"Yeah, well that's the beauty of it. They'll be blindsided. And she's been tasked with committee work for most of this week. So, she won't be able to come to our practices after school."

"You are some kind of twisted, Kuroo."

"Yaku, your words wound me."

"Enough you two. What's she like Kuroo?"

"And spoil the surprise?" Kuroo took a moment to relish in Yaku's sigh of exasperation. "I won't say much more than that she's a first year, and I have full confidence that she'll make quite the impact on the team."

As the rest of the team began to trickle into the gym, the boys began to focus on the task at hand. They had less than a month before the Inter-High prelims started, and while the majority of them would not be starting they still wanted to be at their best.

While they worked on their receives, the door was pulled open, causing them to pause and look at the intruder. Grinning widely, Kuroo jogged over to the raven-haired girl and tugged her into his side as he guided her to the others.

"Everyone, this is Higurashi Kagome. She's going to be signing on as our new manager today."

Kagome smiled and greeted the boys. She was a little concerned when she saw that several seemed like they were frozen in shock. Especially the boy with the mohawk, he looked like he was about to fall over and pass out with how red his face was. Before she could ask them if they were ok, Kuroo continued with the introductions and explained that she would only be able to be present for their morning practices. "Since I didn't have a club, I was tasked with some committee work this week. I should be done on Wednesday." Receiving nods in understanding, Kagome noticed that the headcount seemed a bit low. "Ano, this isn't everyone on the team is it?"

"The third years declared that since they were more advanced in terms of skill, that we underclassmen are the only ones that need to participate in morning practices."

The atmosphere in the gym was grim and Kagome blinked in shock. She remembered Sesshoumaru and how he was a master of the sword and strategy, but he still trained daily for hours. Paling a bit, she contemplated that if any of his generals or soldiers ever tried to use such a foolish excuse, he would have slaughtered them for stupidity. 'Probably would say that such idiocy should not be allowed to breed while he did it, too.'

Snapping back to the present, she saw the looks of cautious curiosity on the faces before her. "Sorry! I was just thinking that if my old sensei ever heard that excuse that heads would roll. He had a distaste for laziness and those who lacked dedication." The team smirked a bit and relaxed, then it occurred to her that they were probably concerned that she was paling at their perceived lack of skill.

"Hey Kago-chan, you think that we could get your old sensei to be our coach for a few days?"

She looked up at Kuroo and frowned playfully, "You just want to see what he would do to the third years."

"Well yeah."

The gloomy atmosphere dissipated and gym was filled with snickers and laughs. Kagome shook her head and shared a smile with Kuroo, this was how the boys should be. As the team got themselves under control, they returned to their practice. Kuroo remained standing with Kagome and watched the others practice their receives. The two discussed the practice sessions and future training schedules before Kagome had to leave. She waved goodbye to the team and headed out to the main school building.

Kagome gained a lot of patience after dealing with Inuyasha's attitude, and Miroku's perverted nature. And it was that vast amount of patience that she had cultivated that was keeping her from exploding at this very moment. The now former advisor for the volleyball club had handed her a stack of paperwork and directed her to the Vice Principle as the new temporary advisor.

Then sitting down with the Vice Principle once she finished her committee work, they began to wade through the mess that was the current state of the volleyball club. The captain of the team had not been taking care of the paperwork and scheduling of the club's activities as he was supposed to. In fact, all of the rookie members were not even considered as actual members of the club because the forms were not marked as such.

She wasn't sure if it was a power play by the third years that left the first years marked as 'temporary members' or just carelessness. Regardless, it was an error that she immediately corrected. If it was some kind of ploy, then it was one weapon in the third years' arsenal that she wanted removed. Thanking the Vice Principle for his time and promising that she will work on getting the rest of the disaster straightened out, Kagome left the staff room to get ready to leave for the day.

Pulling out her phone she saw that the team was finished with practice and Kuroo sent her a text seeing if she was still on campus. She typed out a quick confirmation and headed out to the gates of the school to meet him and Kenma to walk home. As she wandered outside, Kagome decided that she would keep her suspicions about the member statuses to herself. She didn't have proof and for all she knew it really was just a clerical error.

Kami-sama knew that she caught a few crazy errors in her grandfather's paperwork for the shrine while he taught her the ropes so she could help him and possibly take over in the future. Though she also suspects that he created those errors to see if she would catch them. 'Sometimes grandpa takes the senile act a little too far. But it is fun to watch people try to figure out if he's being serious or messing with them.' Shaking her head with a laugh she greeted the two boys as they all began their journey home for the night.

The next morning found Kuroo, Kenma and Kagome in the gym about an hour before practice was supposed to begin. Kuroo decided that they should get a jumpstart on dusting off the cobwebs of Kagome's volleyball skills. Kagome had no problem with the time since she always woke up with the sun anymore and goes through her own training routines first thing in the morning. Kenma on the other hand, was not amused with Kuroo's enthusiasm and could not stop yawning between frowns in the beginning.

As the three began to fall into a rhythm for Kagome spiking and Kuroo blocking, the boys noticed that steadily the hesitation in Kagome's movements began to lessen. There was an excited and calculating gleam that began to emerge in her eyes, and suddenly Kuroo began to feel that the flow of their practice could change. In order to throw her off balance, he began to tease her about her height once more.

Scowling playfully at the middle-blocking-pain-in-the-ass, she grinned sharply and called Kenma away from the net. Curious he walked over to her to see what she had up her sleeve to deal with their mutual irritant.

Lowering her voice to make sure that she couldn't be overheard she laid the foundations for her surprise. "Kenma, with this next toss, could you make it higher than the previous ones?"

He nodded in agreement though he was confused by the request. Returning to his spot by the net he could only assume that she knew what she was doing and prepared to toss her the ball once more.

Kuroo prepared himself and watched Kagome's movements carefully, as the ball flew up in the air he was shocked at the height. Looking back to Kagome he saw that how she placed her feet before she jumped was different. Jumping up to block her spike, he was baffled to see that the height of her jump had increased significantly. She glanced to the left for where she would hit and he adjusted his arms to cut her off, but instead she hit the ball to the right.

Kenma and Kuroo's eyes widened in shock and they all turned to watch as the ball flew and hit the floor just outside of the line. "Out."

Kagome slapped her forehead in despair. "Aw man! I seriously need to work more on my aim." Kuroo gave a nervous chuckle as Kenma eyes gained an intrigued gleam. Before they could continue further the rest of the team began to arrive.

Kuroo and Kenma brought out the table for their receiving practice while the other members made their way through their stretches. Once everyone was ready, Kagome took a moment to notify them of the change in their advisor and that the Vice Principle informed her that their new coach was scheduled to arrive next week.

Gathering everyone on one side of the court, Kagome was nominated to be the one to spike the ball for the team to receive and the boys would switch out who would be handing her the ball to hit. As she climbed up onto the table and Kenma got ready to hand her a volleyball, Kuroo gave her a cheeky smirk, "Hey Kago-chan. If the table isn't tall enough for you to reach over the net, we can find you a box to stand on."

Scowling at him as he sauntered off towards the others, Kagome reached for the ball Kenma held out for her. Making sure that she didn't put too much strength into her swing, she hit the ball in his direction.

Kuroo jerked forward as he felt himself get hit in the back of his head by a ball. There was silence in the gym as he placed his hand where he had been hit and turned to scowl at the perpetrator.

Receiving a smug smile in return, "I think this height will do just fine, thanks." And with that the team broke out into laughter. Yamamoto fell to the ground holding his sides and tears streamed down his face.

Shooing Kuroo to get in line with the others, Kagome began hitting the ball for the boys to receive. From what she could tell, their ability to receive was really good but there was something off about their movements. Narrowing her eyes, she watched them closely and aimed further away from them so that they were forced to dive and stretch even further with their reach.

It was there that that the issues in their moves were more obvious to her. They were reaching the ball, but the way that they placed their limbs and weight threw off their balance enough that their ability to recover was compromised. 'Well, there's something that we can work on. Maybe some of the lessons that Sesshoumaru gave me could help them.' Tucking away the idea to think over later, she refocused on observing the boys and how they moved as the practice progressed.

Author's Note: Thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to review! And thank you to everyone who has followed and favorited this story!

Just to answer a quick question about the timeline that I will be following. There will be some time jumps later on, but I think I'm going to explore this school year for now. There are moments and bonds that I want to explore and develop first before jumping to where Karasuno gets brought in.

Until next time!