Special Thanks to yellowoctopus333 for doing the coverart for this fic!

Lightning And Shadow

"Chi-chan! It's you and me!"

Hayama glomped Mayuzumi so hard, the silver haired teen nearly fell over. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of learning that Akashi was being paired up with Aomine. From what he knew about Aomine, that was a match made in hell. Mayuzumi had half thought he himself had been brought there to be partnered up with Akashi, and that was almost certainly what Akashi himself had suspected. That was surely why Akashi had invited him to play basketball the previous night.

"Don't call me that," said Mayuzumi said on reflex, but in truth, he'd gotten used to Hayama's annoying way of addressing him. And he was . . . glad. Glad that he was being paired up with Hayama. And not Akashi. The thought of Akashi freaking Seijuurou in his head was nothing less than a nightmare and had kept him up all last night.

But, to be honest, even if Akashi hadn't been in the equation at all, Mayuzumi was still glad to be paired with Hayama.

Yes, it surprised him too.

"Here, Chi-chan! Look! I brought you a stick!" Hayama cheered, and tossed Mayuzumi one of the staves they were supposed to practice fighting with.

Mayuzumi sized up the distance between them and the barrel where the practice staffs were kept, and had to admit, he was impressed with Hayama's speed. Two years playing on the same team as the Raiju, and he was still impressed by how fast Hayama could move when he wanted to.

He caught the stick that Hayama tossed to him, then met his partner's eyes. "You were listening when they explained the point of this?"

"Mmmhmmm," said Hayama, bouncing with excitement. "Let's start."

Mayuzumi held up a hand to stay him. "So you know the point isn't to hit me."

"I wouldn't hit you anyway, at least not on purpose," Hayama said with a pout that he was at least ten years too old to pull off.

"You know I'm not going to be able to keep up with your speed, don't you?" Mayuzumi said, because he'd learned that it was important with Hayama to make sure that he really got things. Sometimes that meant repeating himself several times, but he'd stopped minding that early on in their second year together, after Hayama had dragged him out of retirement and into their university's first string.

Mayuzumi had been surprised by how dogged the speed demon was about playing with him again, given how less than stellar they'd gotten along during the last game they'd played together in high school.

It started when Hayama ran into Mayuzumi. Literally. Mayuzumi was in the dining hall between classes, minding his own business, planning to start reading his newest light novel while he ate his lunch, when Hayama raced in, in a hurry for absolutely no reason, and slammed into him at full force.

Mayuzumi went down hard. Hayama landed on top of him, like they were in some freaking shojo manga. Mayuzumi saw the surprise and recognition in his kouhai's face as he realized who he'd run into. He expected a disinterested sneer, and a lightning fast dismissal. He hadn't expected Hayama's eyes to start watering, or for the younger boy to hug him, while still lying on top of him, shouting, "Mayuzumi! Mayuzumi, it's you!"

Hayama, it turned out, had been struck with . . . not quite homesickness. Well, kind of, in a way. Mayuzumi learned, as he was roped into eating lunch with Hayama, and listening to the younger teen's problems, that it was the first time Hayama had been without Nebuya and Mibuchi since his first year of middle school. The two of them had gone off to another university, one with a higher standard for their education, where Hayama would never have been able to keep up. Mayuzumi had known that Hayama decided to attend the same university as him, but hadn't been under any illusions that the younger teen had come there because of him, especially since he'd retired from basketball and was working hard on his computer sciences degree. But it seemed that Hayama was looking for any port in the storm of his loneliness, and a familiar face from Rakuzan seemed like a safe haven to him.

It had clearly been a mistake to let Hayama know what dorm he was living in, because the next morning, Hayama showed up there and knocked on every door until he found which room was Mayuzumi's to inform him that he was now a member of the basketball team and that he needed to hurry or they'd be late for morning practice.

"What?" Mayuzumi asked, staring blankly at his kouhai.

"You're a member of the basketball team now, and we need to hurry or we'll be late for morning practice!"

"Hayama . . . it's five-thirty in the freaking morning."

"Five thirty-three! Already? Practice starts at six, and the gym's on the other side of campus, so hurry up and get dressed!"

Mayuzumi tried to shut the door on him, but he'd forgotten about Hayama's damn speed. The slightly smaller boy stuck his foot in the door and gave him a snaggletoothed grin.

"Don't you even want to know how I got you onto the first string so fast?"

"Not really."

"Yeah you do. Go on and ask. You know you want to. Go on. Go on."

Mayuzumi gritted his teeth. "Fine. How did you do it?"

"I did my best Akashi impersonation!" Hayama said, and puffed himself up, standing perfectly straight with the impeccable posture Akashi always used, lifting his head at a regal angle, and suddenly looking at Mayuzumi as though he was gum on the bottom of his shoes. "Mayuzumi's presence on our team will be essential to winning. What we need is a trump card. Someone who can change the flow of the game. Mayuzumi is that someone. Don't question me, I am absolute!"

Mayuzumi stared. And stared some more. That . . . was actually a pretty good impersonation, he had to admit.

"So hurry up, Mayuzumi! You can't be late on your first day!"

"Hayama, I'm retired –"

"So unretire!"

"I don't have any training clothes here."

"I thought as much." Hayama tossed him a duffel bag. "Some of my biggest things, since you're a little taller than me. Now hurry! Get changed! We've got to get to practice! We're going to have to run! Don't forget to put on deodorant! There's some in the bag in case you don't have that anymore either!"

"Hayama!" said Mayuzumi sharply. "I don't play basketball anymore. I told you, I quit."

"But I want to play with you again!"

Mayuzumi froze at the intensity of Hayama's statement.

"Didn't you have fun when we played back at Rakuzan?" asked Hayama, looking at him almost desperately. "I know it wasn't perfect, but didn't you enjoy it? You said you wouldn't play if you didn't enjoy it, and you played all season. So you enjoyed it, right? We were a good team! I want to play with you again, Mayuzumi, so please come to practice with me!"

The kid actually looked like he was about ready to cry right then. And though Mayuzumi didn't like to admit it, he was a sucker for anyone's tears. He sighed and opened the door to let Hayama in.

"Give me two minutes and I'll be ready."

Mayuzumi only meant to go that one day and make some excuse to Hayama for why he wouldn't be going anymore after that, but once he'd started again, he found it hard to stop. Before he knew it, he was fully submerged back in the sport, and even though his role was supposed to be that of the shadow, he felt like he'd acquired a shadow of his own. Hayama refused to leave him alone and hunted him down every chance he got. It didn't take Mayuzumi long to figure out why. The other guys on the team didn't really get Hayama. They were a little jealous of his speed and skills, yes, but mostly, they found Hayama's hyperactiveness annoying. He'd gotten so used to Mibuchi and Nebuya, who'd accepted him despite his quirks with no question, and whose support made everyone else do the same. Without them, Hayama felt lost. So when he'd run into Mayuzumi, who was a remnant from a time when he was accepted, he latched on and refused to let go.

And look where it's gotten us, thought Mayuzumi, focusing on the here and now again – that being the second gym of Japan's Jaeger Program Headquarters, where Aida freaking Riko herself was standing by with a clipboard, and the famed pilots Furihata and Fukuda were lounging against the wall, watching with mild interest. They were in the presence of heroes, and had been since they arrived. Kagami and Kuroko, Kiyoshi and Izuki, and all the others. It was Hayama who'd brought Mayuzumi here. There wasn't a single doubt about that in Mayuzumi's mind.

"Don't worry, Chi-chan, I'll match my speed to yours! Come on, let's hurry and start! Reo-nee and Ei-chan are getting their sticks! We can't let them beat us. Ready? Go!"

Mayuzumi just barely managed to block Hayama's strike, and only managed that because he knew Hayama well enough to know just where he was going to strike, and had known Hayama wouldn't be able to stay still much longer. But he knew that if Hayama had really been trying, he wouldn't have been able to block it at all. Hayama was already making good on his promise. And Mayuzumi was grateful. For more than just that.

The clatter of wood sounded again, and again, and again as Mayuzumi successively managed to block each of Hayama's attacks, then launched one of his own, which was promptly blocked as well. They were already at about a dozen moves before any of the other teams even started, and still going even after most of the others had already given up a point.

(The idea of Hayama being ADHD, and of Mayuzumi being the one to figure it out is borrowed from Akurai's Shadow Girls fic and used with permission.

And apparently the Uncrowned Kings weren't actually middle school teammates in canon, but I mistakenly thought they were when I started writing this, so I'm just sticking with it.)

Absolute vs Unbeatable

"Ouch! Damn it Akashi!"

Akashi looked coldly at his "partner."

"You should have been able to anticipate that strike," he said in a voice that let Aomine know just how displeased with him he was.

"Shuddup! I'm relying on my instincts –"

"Which is exactly why I keep hitting you! Something as crude and imprecise as instinct won't help you anticipate my attacks! Not when I can read exactly which move your instincts are warning you for and do the opposite!"

"So what, I should do the exact opposite of what my instincts tell me to do every time?"

"No," said Akashi slowly, like he was speaking to an idiot. "Only the times that I actually hit you."

"Meaning that the majority of the time my instincts work!" said Aomine, like he'd won something.

"Only because I'm letting them work, you fool. You heard Furihata-san and Fukuda-san said. This is supposed to be a dialogue, not a fight. If it were a fight, I would end it with one decisive strike!"

Aomine sneered. "If you know exactly what I'm going to do, why not just keep it going then, huh?"

"Because that defeats the purpose of the exercise for you! You're supposed to be anticipating my actions as well, you fool, and you're not doing that if you can't account for the fact that I can read your every movement and decide to randomly deviate from my originally intended course!"

"If the point of this is to keep the fight going, then that makes absolutely no sense!"

Akashi fought against the urge to give Aomine a good hit to the head with his staff. He didn't want to call down the wrath of Aida Riko on himself.

It was difficult to keep his composure when he and his partner were being out-performed by every other pair in the room. And all of them were either former teammates or defeated rivals. All people who he'd believed himself far superior to for far too long. Even though Akashi had come to see the flaws in his logic, it still didn't sit well with him to be outperformed by them all.

Initially, he'd believed Mayuzumi was to be his partner. Looking at all the candidates, anyone could see that they'd all been brought there to be paired up with a former teammate. Some of the pairs were obvious, like Midorima and Takao, whose bond of trust and impeccable sense of shared timing allowed them to pull off many truly miraculous plays on the court. Other pairings, Akashi would probably have been able to guess if he'd been given a few days to observe everyone. Touo's alumni would have been the most difficult since five players from their team had been recruited for the Jaeger program. Five of them were Rakuzan alumni as well, so Akashi had guessed that one from each of those teams would be the exception and be paired with each other, or that possibly some of them had been middle school teammates and might have compatibility that had been scouted from those days.

Unfortunately, both of those guesses had been right, while his guess about Mayuzumi had been wrong.

Watching Mayuzumi and Hayama now, out the corner of his eye, was awe inspiring. Hayama was fast, as always, though Akashi could tell he was toning down his speed to a level where Mayuzumi could keep up, but he was still so fast that his arms and staff were a blur. Meanwhile, Mayuzumi used his experience with the Raiju to anticipate his movements and block them. When Mayuzumi attacked, Hayama, it seemed, depended more on his reflexes to block. While that wasn't entirely in the spirit of the exercise, it was the best that team could manage. The drill wasn't a perfect exercise, since gaps between the different recruits' physical abilities existed.

Maybe, Akashi thought as he and Aomine started another round, he was overthinking this. He and Aomine could keep the exercise going indefinitely, as long as Akashi didn't actually try to hit him . . .

Immediately, Akashi banished that thought. Not actually trying went against the entire purpose of the drill. They were supposed to be getting in each other's heads, trying to anticipate them, and Aomine wasn't even trying to do that. He was relying entirely on instinct and reflexes, not giving a single thought, or even half a thought, about what Akashi was actually planning.

"Agh! Akashi! That was my shin!" shouted Aomine.

"I'm well aware," Akashi said coolly. "It was what I was aiming for, after all."

"Well how about I crack your shin?" Aomine launched an attack with no further warning, but toward Akashi's shin, which he'd just announced, defeating the purpose of a sneak attack entirely. Akashi blocked it then rammed his staff into Aomine's just below the center, so that his staff hit Aomine's fingers.

"OWW! Damn it, Akashi!"

Shuutoku's Light And Shadow

After analyzing the other teams, Midorima determined that only one other pair was any real competition for him and Takao. Mayuzumi and Hayama excelled at this drill. Midorima had a hard time determining if they were better than he and his partner were. If he was being completely honest, he truly believed that he and Takao were slightly better than they were, but he was aware that might have been his own ego.

Midorima wanted to be the best. He had gotten used to being in the top of all his classes, now that Akashi wasn't around to flaunt her perfect scores in every subject. And finally defeating Akashi on the basketball court had been sweet indeed. He would have preferred it to be in a championship match, but since it was a victory over Akashi he would take what he could get.

But this victory over Akashi, in this drill . . . just seemed so lacking. Like it wasn't even a fair fight.

"They're really bad at this," Takao stage whispered, watching with his eyes lit up with glee as Aomine and Akashi made a complete mess of the exercise.

"Don't gawk, Takao. It's rude and unseemly," said Midorima, even though he himself was having a hard time not doing just that.

"It's not that difficult, Daiki! You should be able to do this by now!"

"I'm blocking most of your strikes, damn it, Akashi! It's not like we can keep this going forever!"

"We should be able to keep it going for more than ten attacks! Shintarou and Takao made it past sixty, going at a faster pace than we've been going. Koutarou and Chihiro made it to fifty-seven at a breakneck pace. I expect better from myself and my partner."

"Then stop changing your mind after you've already decided on an attack, idiot."

"Stop relying solely on instinct, fool!"

"Stop yammering and get back to the drill, recruits!" ordered Riko. "You only have another ten minutes of practice before the time trial."

"Time trial?" Takao asked.

"Oh? Didn't I mention it?" asked Riko sweetly. "Anyone who can't keep the dialogue going for forty-five seconds gets to run four laps . . . around the base."

"Eep!" said Takao.

Midorima did some quick mental calculations, and determined that distance would be well over a mile. The base was huge. It was built to accommodate a couple dozen giant robots, their pilots, maintenance crews, trainers, transporters, strategists, and various other military personnel. That made for a very large complex. Midorima had noticed the gravel track around the inside of the perimeter fence when he arrived, but he hadn't thought much about it. Until now.

"We knew this training wasn't going to be easy," he said. "But I'd just as soon skip this penalty."

"So keep doing what we've been doing?" Takao asked brightly.

"Exactly."

"I guess we should get back to practicing then," said Takao. He gave Midorima a look as though to say, Not that we need it. But he kept that part quiet.

Midorima smiled a little bit, inside, remembering the brash freshman Takao used to be, who wouldn't have been able to hold his tongue on that remark. But when Ootsubo and the other regulars had all retired, it was Takao who was named Shuutoku's next captain, even though he was only a first year at the time. Leading the team for his second and third years in high school had forced Takao to act a little more mature. That meant mouthing off less, much to his chagrin.

"Ahhhh, it felt so good, not having to run penalty laps. I feel so bad for the people who did. They must be exhausted now," Takao literally crooned as the five pairs who hadn't passed the time trial staggered into the lunch hall.

Many dirty looks were sent his way. Midorima just shook his head. Some things, it seemed, didn't really change.

But secretly, he really didn't want them to.

Current Training Schedule For New Recruits

7:00 – 8:00 AM: Pre-breakfast workout (Warming up, stretching, and various light exercises)

8:00 – 9:00 AM: Breakfast

9:00 – 12:00 PM: Morning training (Teamwork and drift compatibility training)

12:00 – 1:00 PM Lunch

1:00 – 6:00 PM Afternoon training (Basketball and endurance training)

6:00 – 10:30 Cool down, Dinner, and Free time (Cafeteria closes at 8:00)

Next Chapter there will be more with the Seirin Six, and about what Kuroko and Riko are scheming. I'd wanted to write a microfic on each of the new pairs, but I think that I'll spread the rest of them out. I think I slowed the story down too much with three in a row. (Sorry!)

And I have some exciting news for anyone who liked my oneshot "Kuroko no Graffiti Artist." For the past month, I've been collaborating with the talented artist yellowoctopus333. We've been doing alot of planning and together, we're writing and drawing a series of both pictures and fics that go together, set in the Kuroko no Graffiti Artist AU.

YellowOctopus333 is on DeviantArt, telling the story of Kuroko's elementary school and middle school years through Kuroko's street art. Each of her pictures illustrates of one of Kuroko's creations, and just by looking at them in succession you can tell what was happening in Kuroko's life as he was painting them, and how things began to change, both for better and for worse.

Meanwhile, here on this site, I'll be posting the written part of the project, a fic called "Kuroko no Street Artist," where, for an art class project, Midorima and Takao begin putting together an art survey of work by the famous, elusive street artist known as The Shadow. At first Midorima is reluctant with their topic, but the more he sees of The Shadow's work, the more hauntingly familiar the story it tells starts to seem. If all goes well, I'll have the first chapter finished and posted by this Friday.

But make sure to check out Yellow Octopus 333's pictures on DeviantArt too! She is illustrating every single picture described in the fic, and each one is going to be accompanied by a microfic, written by me, that is being posted exclusively alongside her artwork. The first one is already posted and can be read at the link in my profile!