~~~

Now, at the school gym, I distributed the list of championship league matches among the team.

"As you can see, A block is us, B block is Touou Academy, C block is Meisei, and D block is Seishinkan. These 4 schools will compete to represent our region." Riko explained.

"This is a fresh league chart." Hyuga commented.

"Until last year, the Tokyo representatives always included the three kings, Shutoku, Seiho, and Senshinkan." Izuki said.

"I've been thinking... We beat two of those teams, right? Do you think this year we could make it all the way?" Koganei said.

"You!"

"You said it!"

"Even if we lose to Momoi-chan and Aomine, if we beat the others..."

"It's not Senshinkan." Riko said.

"What?"

"Those two go to Touou Academy." I said.

"What?!"

"I thought all the Generation of Miracles went to well-known schools!" Koganei said.

"I thought he would have gone to a strong school like Midorima." Izuki said.

"I already found the information, so I'm sure." I said.

"That's unheard of." Hyuga said.

"Their history isn't impressive, but they've been putting energy into their scouting efforts recently, recruiting promising athletes from all over the country. In the last few years they've rapidly gained power and this year's line up is comparable to Shutoku's. Especially Aomine.." I explained.

"I don't believe it..."

"Hey!" Someone called.

It's Taiga, he finally arrived at gym.

"Kagami..."

"You're late."

"Sorry! Cleaning up took longer than expected."

Nigou then barked at him.

"Nigou?" Riko confused as she looked at Taiga.

Ah.. she must know it.

She approached Taiga. "Kagami-kun, did you play basketball?"

"N-No."

You're such a bad liar, Taiga...

"You've gotten worse."

"Well, I... A little-"

Before he could finish, Riko grabbed his head. "You idiot, Kagami!"

"Sorry, ow!"

"How many times did I tell you?! Are your ears just for decoration?! Are they just holes in your head?!"

"O-Ow!"

"You'll just be watching today! Got a heating pad from the nurse's office! Since you can't sprint, walk all the way there on your hands!"

"Seriously?!"

Well, good luck, Taiga..

***

Today... Riko gathered all the members and especially the first year to bring their midterm exam papers.

"Man, our coach always drags us around like this. What's with bringing all of our midterms to her? I hope she's not planning something crazy again." Taiga said.

"I'm not sure. All I've heard is that you can't play in the Inter-High if you fail a test." Kuroko said.

"Oh, yeah. I also heard about that too." I replied.

"Huh? Seriously?!" Taiga asked.

"That's why I always told you to study, Taiga." I said.

"Yo, Kuroko, Kagami, Eliza." Furihata called.

"Oh, Furihata, Kawahara, and.. Fukuda." Taiga said.

"You finally remembered our names." Fukuda said.

"I wonder why we're doing this now?" Furihata asked.

"It might be related to the proficiency tests in 2 days." Kuroko replied.

"But aren't those totally unrelated to our grades?" Kawahara asked.

"Then, what's the problem? We should just focus on practicing." Taiga said.

It could probably be more than that...

Then we arrived at the school gym.

"There's a huge problem. As you all know, the proficiency tests are in 2 days. And yes, they're unrelated to your grades. But.." Riko trailed off.

"We have about 300 students in each year here. The tests tell you exactly where you are placed." Hyuga said.

"The bottom third have remedial classes next saturday, and that's the problem." Izuki said.

"Next saturday? Oh, it's our final league!" I replied.

"Huh?! No way!" Taiga exclaimed.

"Right. If you screw up the tests, you can't play. You've gotta deal with that before winning or losing." Koganei said.

"And that's why we decided to check out who got poor midterm results. Anyone who does will face special training at Coach's house, starting tonight." Hyuga said, made everyone surprised.

"We're just gonna be studying, okay?" Riko said with a blush on her face before change into the scary one..

"Idiots who miss the games because of this shouldn't expect any late night fun from me."

"Coach, you scared them all stiff." Izuki said.

"Alright, take out your midterms." Hyuga said.

The first is Furihata, Kawahara, and Fukuda, they're all passed.

"And Eliza- Wait! What is this?" Riko said.

"Y-You've got almost all perfect scores on the exams?!" Hyuga exclaimed.

"E-Even the Japanese is 100..." Izuki said.

"Oh, that... I actually love learning language." I said.

"Eliza! I'm glad you're on our team!" Riko said and then turned to Taiga and Kuroko.

"Okay, let's start off with Kuroko-kun." Riko said and it turned out that Kuroko's exams result is on average.

"63 points on Japanese history.. Kuroko, are you a genius or something?" Taiga asked, made the seniors shock.

"No.. don't tell me.."

The papers revealed Taiga's score that.. below than normal..

"So bad!"

"I knew you were an idiot, but I didn't think that you were this dumb!" Riko said.

"It's actually amazing how you can get 0 on everything." Tsuchida said.

"How are you even this bad at English?!" Izuki asked, referring to the 41 English scores..

"Kagami-kun, aren't you and Eliza-chan live overseas? Then what happened to you?" Kuroko asked.

"Japan's English is too formal!" Taiga excuses.

"Yeah, yeah, I know it is but I kinda expect you to get higher than that.." I replied.

"I got by just fine with feeling and instinct." Taiga said.

"Don't you get uppity with me!" Riko said as she slammed Taiga down.

"Oh man.. we're all gonna have to work together for this one.." Hyuga said.

"Are y'all... really that smart?" Taiga asked.

"Know your place!" Riko said as she kicked him.

"Of course we are! At least more than you." Hyuga said.

"Then let's take this opportunity to announce how all of us did on our proficiency tests. First up is our captain, Hyuga Junpei, rank 112 out of 305!" Koganei said.

"Good enough for me." Hyuga said.

"Izuki Shun, rank 71!"

"A high schooler with a high score. Good job, me." Izuki said.

"Ignoring that, Tsuchida Satoshi, rank 81! Mitobe Rinnosuke, rank 74! And finally me, Koganei Shinji, rank 52!"

"You're all amazing! Especially you, Koganei-senpai!" Taiga said.

"Last up is our coach, Aida Riko, rank 2!"

"HEHH?! Coach.. second? You're that smart?" Taiga asked.

"That's right."

"But even though the captain wears glasses, his rank was..."

"Don't go believing everyone with glasses is smart! And getting above average is plenty good itself!" Hyuga said.

"Damn, who cares about grades when I can play basketball just fi-"

"Well, you'll ended up in the remedial classes if you keep that attitude." I said.

"That's right! Even an idiots can play basketball. But an idiots can't win!" Riko said.

***

Then it's decided.. Taiga started to get study at Coach's house.

"Is this Coach's room? It's clearner and girlier than I expected." Taiga said.

How could you say that, Taiga...

"Sit your butt down, Kagamidiot!" Riko shouted.

"Let's jump right into your training. There are 5 subjects on the proficiency exams. I've formed a special team of people with different specialties. First is Mitobe-kun with science. Kuroko-kun has Japanese. Izuki-kun on math. Social studies with Hyuga-kun. English with Tsuchida-kun and Eliza-chan." Riko said.

"Then, what about you, Koganei-senpai?" Taiga asked.

"I'll be smacking you awake if you doze off. With my specially-made paper fan!" He proudly said.

Then Nigou barked, made Taiga surprised. "N-Nigou! Where'd you fome from?"

"He'll be playing guard dog to make sure you don't try to escape." Hyuga said.

"Here's your schedule from now until the test!" Riko said.

"Where'd that come from?! And isn't staying up supposed to be inefficient?" Taiga asked.

"Ditch efficiency if you want to enter society! You can't even spell it right in kanji! All right, start with math!" Riko said.

***

At school... I was teaching Taiga before Kuroko called him.

"Kagami-kun.. this is a last resort. Use this if all else fails." He gave him a pencil.

"What is that?" I asked when I saw there's some numbers on the pencil.

"Midorima-kun gave it to me in middle school. The Pencil of the Lazy God: Rolly Pencil."

"Like hell I need this!" Taiga said as he threw the pencil but ended up the pencil bounced back to him.

"It attacks any non-believers." Kuroko said.

***

Then it's finally the day. It's only 3 hours left until the tests.

"Hmm.. I really wanted to let him try some of last year's problems, but oh well... Not great. There's still one subject left. His Japanese isn't getting better at all." Riko said.

"Forgive me, there's nothing more I can do." Kuroko said.

Riko sigh. "I just wish that Eliza-chan can share some of her brain to that Kagamidiot."

"Well.. I kinda wish that too.." I replied.

"Okay, let's do it. We're sacrificing Japanese. All the tests are multiple choice with 4 answers. You should be able to get at least 25% choosing randomly." Riko said.

"I guess if you just look at probability..." Tsuchida said.

"We'll have to improve his other 4 subjects to make up for it. Let's get to it."

Then Hyuga came back from the convenience store. "I'm back with the snacks- huh? Where's Kagami?"

"Didn't he just go to the bathroom?" Riko asked.

"I was just out front, but I didn't see any lights on.." Hyuga said.

"Did he really- that Kagami!"

"He fled?!"

Koganei then woke up from his sleep. "What was that? It's finally my time to shine! Let's do this, Nigou! Lead us to him!" Koganei said.

We're all then running to search Taiga. Nigou led us to the street basketball court.

"Isn't that..."

Then we found Taiga were playing basketball.

"That little... How many times did we tell him that he can't play if he fails his tests?" Hyuga said.

"I can't believe this... He'll be Kagamidiot until the end.." Riko said.

"But.. it looks like he's mumbling something.." I said.

Taiga mumbled the historical people's name while playing basketball.

I guess that's his way to study...

"I.. I figured that I wasn't gonna get any better if I just hated studying, so I thought about what I could do, and I thought that maybe I'd be able to remember if I did it while playing basketball. I'll definitely play in our games." Taiga said, made everyone smile.

"Man, now I can't even get angry with you but... Kagami-kun, your legs!" Riko said.

"Right, didn't it still hurt?!" Hyuga said.

Then we change the plan.. Taiga will just keep moving the ball around his body instead.

***

The next day.. where the result of the exams has came out.

"Kagami! How'd you do?!" Hyuga said when he arrived at our class.

Then Taiga showed his paper, it was written, rank 90/308.

"No way! How?!" Riko couldn't believe what she saw.

"Forget bottom, he made it to the top 100!" Izuki said.

"98 points in Japanese?!" Koganei exclaimed.

"How did you do that?" Tsuchida asked.

"Um, well.. he used that pencil..." I replied.

"Huh? What pencil?" Riko confused.

Tsuchida then took the pencil. "What is this? Lazy God.."

"It's Midorima-kun's special Rolly Pencil." Kuroko said.

"You got a 98 score with this thing?! Midorima's scary."

"Well, either way, you all managed to make it out of remedial classes, right?"

"I'm good." Kuroko said.

"So am I." I said as I showed my paper.

"Rank 1/308?!"

"Eliza-chan!" Riko hugged me.

"I'm really glad that I have an successor.." She said.

***

The day of the match arrived. Everyone was getting ready for it.

"It's almost time! Is everyone ready? Only three out of the 4 schools will be going to the Inter-High! Just like Koganei-kun said, it doesn't seem difficult at first glance. However..." Riko trailed off.

All of the seniors holding Koganei as Riko slapped him using paper fan.

"If you think we can lose one because it's a league game, we're finished!" Riko said.

"Why me?" Koganei said.

"It comes down to now! We will win this game! Seirin, fight!"

"Yeah!"

Everyone left the locker room high spirits.

At Touou's bench, Aomine was missing. The captain of Touou, Imayoshi said, "He would show up around the second half. I guess you could call us the opening act. Go easy on us."

How could you act like that... You tried to fool us, huh?

~3rd Person's POV~

The match began. The game plan was to score as much as they could before Aomine would show up. But things don't always go as planned. Touou was pretty strong even without Aomine.

"You're quick, aren't you? We have no choice, then." Imayoshi said as he passed the ball to Sakurai.

"We'll start by having our Kamikaze captain pave the way for us."

Sakurai then shoot a three-pointer.

"Calling yourselves the opening act was evil." Hyuga said.

"What? I wasn't lying. You'll know once Aomine gets here. We're cute little kids compared to him. I told you, we're just the opening act." Imayoshi said.

~~~