How the hell did we get to chapter 17 already! I swear we aren't half way through the story yet! Dang...okay...I'm apparently wasting too much time with pointless details or something...like wth..just how...come on Akashi, kill this sucker already!

I'm so sorry this is moving so slow but I appreciate your patience and support and all your comments. I promise we will get to Kuroko soon.

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"Boss?" A brunette stepped into the room and bowed respectively.

"What is it, Furusawa?" Akashi kept his eyes on the photo, not bothering to look up at his secretary when he spoke.

"Nothing sir. Is something wrong sir? You seem distracted…."

"It seems it's a small world."

"Excuse me sir?" Furusawa arched his brow in confusion.

"An opponent I faced in basketball in high school is now dealing with our enemy it seems." Akashi gave a small twisted chuckle. "It's like this man is pulling every enemy I had in back then in to his ranks."

"Maybe he is."

Akashi's head shot up and his eyes nearly bore a hole in the man before him. "Are you suggesting?"

"Is it not possible sir? I heard that Haizaki fellow and you didn't get along too well either."

A pair of scissors flew passed the man, the second pair of the evening, and Akashi's left eye glowed amber. "Do NOT say his name in my presence again! Next time I'll have your head."

"I'm very sorry sir. I was out of line." Furusawa bowed deeply again. "If there is nothing you need then I shall take my leave."

Akashi waved his hand in dismissal and Furusawa left. The red head continued to stare at the photo a moment longer before calling Aomine.

"Hello?" Aomine answered.

"Do you still have Satsuki's number?"

"Of course."

"I need you to call her."

"What for?"

"I need information on all of my enemies from high school."

"Uh….Akashi…that's basically like asking for information on every human on the planet."

"Aomine Daiki!" Akashi growled. He was not feeling like a patient person, not that he often was. "I'm being serious! It's possible Okazaki is using people from back then who had a grudge with me. Haizaki and now even Hanamiya and his crew appear to be involved."

"That's still a lot of people."

"I don't care, Daiki! Get it done if you don't want to be at the bottom of Tokyo Bay tomorrow!" Akashi yelled, surprising Aomine and the men outside his door.

"Geeze. Someone is cranky."

"Do. Not. Test. Me."

"Hai. Hai. I'll get right on it." Aomine hung up and turned to the pale shaking blond beside him.

"Akashicchi sounds angrier that usual." Kise observed as Aomine clicked on Momoi's number.

"What do you expect?"

The call to Momoi was quick. He explained the problem and she accepted to help.

"I'll do the best I can. A lot of people hated all of you back then….but there were some who hated you more than others. There were some with personal grudges against Akashi too. I'll focus on those individuals first. Just give me a few hours."

"Only a few hours?"

"I'm the queen of information gathering Dai-chan."

"Hai. Thank you your majesty. I'll talk to you later." Aomine ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket. "Let's go check on Tetsu…I don't like leaving him alone."

"I agree." Kise nodded and the two headed back to Kuroko's room.

Kuroko was asleep, but he looked anything but peaceful. His face had a pained expression and one of the nurses had strapped him to the bed to keep him from moving and aggravating his wounds. Kise and Aomine took the couch in the room and Murasakibara took a chair. They sat watching the small figure helplessly.

"What do you think Kurokocchi is seeing right now?" Kise wondered aloud.

"Darkness?" Murasakibara suggested.

"Maybe we should try talking to him? Like uhh…." Aomine drew blanks and turned to Kise. Kise was a natural chatterbox.

"Eh? Well um….uh…." For possibly the first time ever, Kise had no words, but surprisingly, Murasakibara did.

"Kuro-chin, did I tell you I've been studying in France. I've learned lots of new things and a lot of recipes with vanilla. When you get better, I'll make you lots of vanilla pastries! There's vanilla cakes and…"

Aomine and Kise stared as the giant started listing off every vanilla flavored pastry concoction known to man. They didn't even understand half of it and eventually realized the purple haired giant had switched to speaking half French half Japanese! He was getting quite enthusiastic over the whole ordeal and slowly, the pained expression on Kuroko's face seemed to melt away into a more neutral one.

Aomine just shrugged and pulled Kise close. The blond let him and rested on his lovers shoulder letting his eyelids droop until they closed completely and he drifted off to sleep listening to something about some vanilla something or other that the giant had stopped his rambling to explain each ingredient of. Aomine relaxed as well and closed his eyes wondering when Murasakibara became so talkative, not that it mattered.

"Mine-chin. Mine-chin, wake up. Your phone is ringing." Murasakibara shook Aomine till the navy haired man opened his eyes.

"Huh? What is it?" He replied groggily.

"Your phone."

"Oh. Shit!" Aomine cursed as he pulled out his phone suddenly wide awake and scowling.

"Hey Momoi. Got the info I asked for?"

"Yeah. Akashi isn't going to like it though. By the way, thanks for telling me you all found Tetsu-chan and he's in the fucking hospital!"

Aomine gulped. He forgot….."Uh…yeah….about that…"

"We will talk about it later Dai-chan. The information first." Momoi sounded pissed.

"Right. What did you find?"

"I found a common factor among quite a few of the generation of miracles enemies. It's probably related to whatever is going on with you all and it's not good. The name of a gang keeps popping up. Does Kintatsu-kai sound familiar to you?"

"Familiar? They are the whole cause of this fucking mess!"

"Then it is related. The gang seems to be involved with Hara, Seto, Yamazaki, and Hanamiya from Kirisaki Daīchi High's basketball team. Matsumoto was probably involved too, but he died in an accident two years ago. Furuhashi was involved as well but he left the country. Haizaki from Teiko also appears to have been in contact with the gang. Arato from Teiko's baseball team, you probably don't remember him, also popped up. He hated Akashi but left Teiko during our third year before Tetsu-kun disappeared. I don't know what he was doing for three years, but the next time his name pops up among a group of Kintatsu-kai members who were arrested for arson two years ago. They were released due to lack of evidence, or so the reports say."

"Can you slow down? I'm having trouble writing all this down fast enough." Aomine grunted as he typed the info on a message in his phone.

"Sorry Dai-chan."

"It's okay. Any more information?"

"Yeah. Inoue and Hyata from Kamizaki, who also happen to hate your guts specifically, Dai-chan, are apparently working under the Kintatsu-kai as well. It's like the Kintatsu-kai went hunting for members among high school sports teams advertising they would crush the generation of miracles one day and got all your enemies on board!"

"Well most of our enemies were other basketball teams."

"Yeah, but who would have guessed they would end up working with or in a gang! I thought sports were supposed to keep kids out of trouble like gangs!" Momoi huffed.

"Obviously not. Is that all?"

"It's all I've found so far. I'll call you if I find anything else."

"Thanks. And I promise I'll explain all of this later."

"You better Dai-chan. I want answers!" Momoi practically hissed before hanging up the phone.

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You know, originally, this was supposed to be about the effects of the four years of captivity, abuse, rape, and trauma Kuroko suffered and the effect it had on his former teammates. Somehow though, it turned into gang wars, revenge, yakuza boss's, underworld conflicts, and old enemies.

uh...so I veered off topic slightly?

Anyway, once Okazaki and Akashi straighten out their shit, it will go back to the original focus of the story. So just wait it out please!