[Prologue]

A piercing whistle had sounded.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Nishinoya had watched a blue and yellow striped ball spin past overhead, barely skimming the top of the net.

The other team had been ready, a passer already moving to intercept the ball. It wasn't perfect, but the ball had gone up into the air, with plenty of time for the setter to reach it. Dyed blond hair had fluttered softly as the ball was sent soaring in a high arc to the ace of the team.

Three steps. Three players. Three steps and the battle had been in midair; three players weightless and no longer tied down to the ground.

She had loved to read books as a child, her parents teaching her the first symbols at a young age. This was a different kind of reading though, a flashed moment of reading the body language of an attacker.

Had anyone been close enough to see her eyes in that moment, they would have seen a glimpse of glowing gold.

The spiker had jumped about half a metre too much to the left, and the blockers had removed any possibility of a cross. Of course a tip was always a possibility, but she doubted it. This particular ace knew the importance of a kill at the moment; the importance of a move that could change the course of a match.

When the hitter had finally finished his arm swing and made contact with the ball, Nishinoya had been ready, about an arms length away from the edge of the court, swaying ever so slightly on the tips of her feet.

Not that it mattered.

The red haired blocker had guessed his intentions at the last moment and shifted his block to cover a straight. What would have been a powerful hit was completely and utterly stopped, before it had even crossed the net. The ball had been slammed back down on the other side of the court, and the height of the spiker's jump had turned from an advantage to a disadvantage in a single instant, unable to land soon enough to save the ball.

The piercing whistle from before had sounded again.

Nishinoya had heard cheering from the stands, and the bench players had run onto the court. Someone had been hugging her, she had no idea who, but they had been screeching.

She had turned her head to the scoreboard.

25 : 6

They'd won.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't this. Her body felt numb, was she still in shock?

No, it wasn't shock.

The first year Shiroyama Junior High Volleyball Club had won nationals, it had been like a dream come true. Nishinoya had yelled when they scored the final point, and shortly after begun crying, holding onto her teammates. She'd still had tears running down her cheeks as she'd smiled at the various reporters' cameras during the team photo half an hour later.

The second year they'd won, she'd still felt the same joy, just more subdued. It hadn't felt like a true victory; it hadn't felt like they had regained the title of national champions. No, it had been more the type of feeling she got after winning a fun scrimmage.

So what exactly was she feeling now?

To her horror, she didn't feel anything. Not pride for playing well, not the exhilaration which came from finishing a challenging match.

Silently, she removed her grasp from the enthusiastic first year substitute player who had been hugging her, and quickly ran into the team's shared change room. No one noticed her fleeing, too focused on the win and the announcers talking excitedly.

Opening the door and stepping inside, Nishinoya noticed a few of her teammates were already there, taking off their gear and pulling on sweatpants in silence. Quietly, she sat down in her space and started to unlace her shoes, feeling tense with how chatterless it was.

She brushed away a strand of hair of hair sticking to her forehead, and wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of sweat filling the changeroom. The air was thick with silence, and Nishinoya even felt like coughing or doing something to break the awful quiet when suddenly a brown haired boy burst out.

"The other team didn't stand a chance! You hyped me up for nothing Nishinoya, with all your talks about how you'd been looking forward to playing them for years!"

Nishinoya didn't speak for a moment. "You're talking about my friends, Oikawa-kun" she whispered quietly. The setter didn't hear, talking over her.

"I almost started laughing, they looked so frustrated near the end. And Tendou-chan, did you see the stupid look on the ace's face when you blocked his spike?"

The red headed blocker sitting nearby growled and glared at him. "Shut up Oikawa. Your sets were messy today, and it's your fault they got as many points as they did."

"Are you kidding? Did you see that one set I did while half falling? All you did was block a few easy spikes!" he retorted.

Tendou didn't react to the insult, and instead laughed. "The ace was so easy to read, and the sets were so high and slow. How did they even make it to the finals?"

"Pfttt," Oikawa chuckled as well. "All the teams were pretty weak this year. Probably spent all their practices lazing around."

Nishinoya stood up angrily, her shoelaces still half untied. "Will you guys shut up?! Those were my friends you just crushed, and you could at least show some respect for their effort instead of making fun of them!"

Sakusa glanced up from his position on the bench across her at her outburst, and Oikawa sneered, annoyed.

"Jealousy doesn't become you, Nishi-chan."

"You think I'm saying this because I'm jealous of you guys?" Nishinoya asked incredulously.

The other didn't respond and Oikawa scoffed.

Nishinoya's face grew hot and she finally felt all her pent up emotions showing. "What? Just because Oikawa aces his serves half the time, and Sakusa seems to get a kill with every single spike!" She said bitterly. "Oh yeah, and if the opponents somehow even manage to make a decent attempt at an attack, Tendou immediately shuts them down with a block!"

There wasn't an answer from any of her teammates. "You think I'm jealous that you guys don't even need me as a libero anymore? Yeah. Of course I am," she yelled. "It's frustrating beyond belief to only be able to stare at your backs! But I'm not saying this cause I'm jealous. I'm saying it because I'm the only one who's seen what monsters all of you have become!"

She could feel her eyes growing damp and tears gathering, and despising having to show any weakness, she hurriedly grabbed her volleyball bag and almost sprinted towards the door, eager to leave.

A moment later, Oikawa stood up and crossed the changing room in long strides, taking hold of her upper arm before she could escape.

"Where do you think you're going? We have a press conference in half an hour," he said.

Nishinoya didn't turn around, and hoped her unbound hair covered the tears her eyes were starting to release.

"For some reason, I don't feel like celebrating at the moment," she said bitterly. "And it's not like you want me there anyways. I'm just another jealous player after all, not one of the legendary Generation of Miracles."

"Of course we want you there," Tendou spoke up. "Wasn't it obvious by the way we played today?"

Oikawa made a small noise of protest, trying to get Tendou to shut up, but the redhead continued obliviously. "We know you want to switch to Nekoma with your childhood friends," here he sneered, "next year. We want you to stay with us so we had to crush them… it was necessary to show you the mistake you were making."

Nishinoya's body trembled a bit as she finally turned to face the three members of her team, letting them see her red rimmed eyes and damp cheeks.

Her voice cracked. "Tendou-kun. I can't believe how far you've gone. From the sweet boy who helped me with defense, to someone who honestly believes they're doing me a favour by making sure my only real friends will never want to touch a volleyball again."

Oikawa narrowed his eyes, still not letting go of her. "So now we're not considered your friends anymore just because we didn't go easy on our opponents and didn't want you to leave us? You can't just take everything out on us, just because you-"

"Oikawa, let go of her," Sakusa finally spoke up, interrupting him. "And Nishinoya, I expect you to be at the press conference. It would be bad for our image to have one of our members not show up," he said with finality.

The setter's grip on her arm loosened, and Nishinoya immediately took it as an opportunity to flee the changeroom.

She sprinted through the sports complex with blurry eyesight, feeling tears starting to streak down her face. Turning round a corner into the main foyer she could feel people starting to stare and whisper. She thought she heard mentions of her name, and 'why is she crying?'.

She stopped and ran in the opposite direction, her mind focusing on the singular through of getting away from all those burning stares, getting away from everyone. She got lost at some point, but she didn't stop her frantic run until she was outside the huge arena, and could see the sun again.

Nishinoya collapsed next to a fountain, and curled up into a ball. The last thing she remembered hearing was the sound of rushing water and a strangely gentle voice she'd never heard before.

Half an hour later, Nishinoya had still not shown up for the press conference, and her teammates had to regretfully inform the reporter that she wasn't feeling well after the game.

Four hours later, the bus couldn't wait any longer, so they left Tokyo without her.

A week later, Nishinoya had neither stepped foot in the gym nor been seen at school, and tensions grew between the other members of the team.

"That was your fucking ball, you fucking dimwit! Move your fucking feet!"

A month later they had a practice match against the Tier 2 team, which ended in punches and a broken nose.

"That's it. I'm done."

By the end of the year, only one of the 6 regular players on the Tier 1 Shiroyama Junior-High Volleyball Team had applied for the school they had all been planning to go to together: Itachiyama High.

The official, press released reason, was that they "wanted to compare their strengths against each other instead of dominating the circuit".

Yet still, rumours flew around that there had been a falling out, that they had not parted on good terms, that one of the members had been spotted crying and leaving the building after their win at nationals.

A/N: Hi everyone! So basically I decided to rewrite the Haikyuu fic I started a while ago, since I thought it was really unrealistic. This story is still based around the exact same idea (Haikyuu with a Kuroko no Basket theme), and therefore the first few chapters will probably be relatively similar. A bit of background info since the prologue doesn't really explain that much:

The Generation of Miracles are the 6 regular players of the Tier 1 team of Shiroyama Junior-high (I assumed that just like Teiko, Shiroyama had a bunch of people in their volleyball club and would therefore have different tiers)

Basically each of the Generation of Miracles starts becoming too powerful, and they don't find playing the game fun anymore. This is basically what happens here, and all of them (except Nishinoya), start only caring about winning and become horrible people.

The members are:

Kiyoomi Sakusa (captain/ace)

Tooru Oikawa (setter)

Satori Tendou (middle)

Kotaro Bokuto (left side hitter)

Yuji Terushima (right side hitter)

Yuu Nishinoya (libero)

I may explain a little bit about the different positions in the next few chapters, but most likely not. If you're curious, they're playing in a 5-1 rotation, basically what most of the teams in Haikyuu played (I think?)

I know that technically in a 5-1 there are 2 middles who rotate on and off. However, since that would mean adding yet another character I'm just gonna ignore the problem and assume Tendou is the only middle.

The team they were facing is the unnamed junior-high in Tokyo which Kuroo and Kenma went to, and those two are Nishinoya's childhood friends

At the beginning, the Generation of Miracles had plans to all go to Itachiyama together for high school (except Nishinoya who was going to go join Kuroo and Kenma at Nekoma), but as explained in the last sentence they all decided to go to different schools in the end