Slam Dunk Fan Fiction ❯ When enemies become friends ❯ 07: The start of a heated battle ( Chapter 7 )

Revised by Meeksins, 290409.

 

Disclaimers: Slam Dunk belongs to Takehiko Inoue sensei. I, on the other hand, own nothing except for this fanfic ^^;

A/N: This is NON-YAOI. Story takes place after Shohoku's match against Sannoh. Their match against Sannoh can be found in the last six volumes of SD.

07: The start of a heated battle

The whistle was blown.

And they were off!

Akita Shoten had the ball and in possession of it was their point guard, the number one point guard ace player in Japan, Fukatsu from Sannoh. Guarding him closely and tightly in front of him and on all sides was Sendoh, one of Kanagawa's own ace player.

Fukatsu inconspicuously looked from left to right then all the surroundings as much as possible of what was behind his guard's back without moving his head.

On his left not far off from him stood Sawakita, the No#1 high school player in Japan and who was currently closely guarded by Kanagawa's raven haired Super Rookie, Rukawa. Fukatsu tried to catch the eye of his teammate but Rukawa was saying something to him, distracting Sawakita's attention.

Fukatsu grinded his teeth, wondering with irritation what the heck they were talking about at a time like this.

Further away from Sawakita stood Kawata who was guarding under the basket. Standing, match to match, eye to eye with him was Kanagawa's No#1 centre, Akagi. Both of them were scrambling with each other trying to get the other behind the other's back resulting in an almost silent tug of war.

'No help there', thought Fukatsu, aware that he was wasting the 10 seconds as he still had the ball in his possession. Sendoh eyeing the ball as well as his own eyes didn't help him make his decision any easier either.

Then suddenly he saw an opening to his right. Mikio Kawata, Kawata's little brother, was wide open. No one was guarding him.

Without hesitation and without contemplating why he was unguarded, Fukatsu feigned moving to his left. Sendoh intercepted him there but realised his mistake when Fukatsu suddenly gave him a slight smile and threw the ball through the space that Sendoh had carelessly left wide open on his right.

"Shimatta!", said Sendoh as he dashed neck to neck with Fukatsu who was running around in the opposite direction that the ball had been thrown.

Knowing that he couldn't leave the point guard unguarded he yelled for his other teammates. "Rukawa! Sakuragi! Kiyota! MOVE IT!".

"AKAGI!", Sendoh called out in warning at the gorilla like centre of Kanagawa who was practically wrestling with Akita Shoten's own version of Boss Monkey for the perfect position for possible rebound.

"DAMMIT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? GET THAT BALL!", yelled Miyagi and Mitsui together on the sidelines. Jumping up and down and waving their arms frantically towards Mikio Kawata as if telling their teammates where the ball was headed.

The ball which was still in the air because of the high arc that Fukatsu had executed, was now falling and zooming down rather fast and it was headed straight for Mikio.

In a blink of an eye, Sawakita ran towards Mikio but Rukawa thinking in the same line as he was, was neck to neck with him.

The second the ball was within reach, Sawakita jumped from where he was, which was only a few steps away from Mikio who had also jumped and had his hands raised for the ball. However, the second the ball was about to reach either outstretched hands, Rukawa stepped in between Mikio and Sawakita and leaped higher than both...

'Shimitta!', cursed Rukawa inwardly.

Upon leaping one of his feet had slipped on the floor and he was now in a state of imbalance in the air.

But luckily he managed to tap the ball enough so that it bounced back into the air too far from the clutches of either Mikio's or Sawakita's hands.

The audience around and above them gasped.

"HOLY SHIT!", yelled both Mitsui and Miyagi, relieved and yet a bit high strung on the close call.

Similar curses and various expressions followed suit that waved around the court like a small tsunami.

"The ball! The ball! DON'T FORGET THE BALL!", yelled both Taoka sensei and the normally calm Takato sensei as if in a singing chorus.

Then out of nowhere Kiyota's hand appeared and it was closing around the ball that was still high up in the air.

"WHAT THE?!!!", cried two or three of the players from the Akita Shoten team from the sidelines.

Upon seeing their junior making for the ball, both Maki and Jin abruptly stood up from their seats forgetting their earlier fatigue and letting their forgotten uncapped bottle drinks splashing towards the ground.

"IKKE, KIYOTA!", both of them shouted, with Maki punching his fist into the air above him while Jin cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his shout.

"YOSH!!!", shouted the Kanagawa team members in a near roar that thundered throughout the whole indoor stadium as Kiyota successfully caught the ball in his hands.

He was still up in the air and was about to land on his two feet when someone's hand snaked in between Kiyota's hands that held the ball and slapped it away.

"DAMMIT!", yelled Kiyota at Sawakita who had stolen the ball away from him.

"RUKAWA!", yelled Kiyota but Rukawa was already in hot pursuit of Sawakita.

It was then Sendoh decided to take a chance and left Fukatsu unmarked as he dashed after Rukawa and Sawakita who were heading straight for the net.

"KYOTA! GUARD FUKATSU!", yelled the normally cool spiky haired player, as he ran past him.

"Nani?!", cried Kiyota but immediately ran after Fukatsu who was running around outside the three pointer line to mark him.

Seeing the blur figures of three black haired players heading straight towards them, both Kawata and Akagi struggled to dominate the other in position, bracing themselves either for offense or defence.

Sawakita made an abrupt jump then, near the goal post and made his infamous shoo-in high arched jump shot.

But..

A finger suddenly appeared out of nowhere and it had managed to touch the ball!

"What the...", said Sawakita but he then suddenly came face to face, eye to eye level with Rukawa's face, a grim and deadly half smile hanging at the edge of his lips.

"I WILL become the No#1 player in Japan", said Rukawa in a near growl and with it gave off a cool sharp stare at him as if challenging him to throw the words back at him. Then in a blink of an eye. He landed onto the ground before Sawakita did and he dashed off, already after the ball.

Taken aback a bit by Rukawa's sudden menacing attitude, Sawakita smiled then as he landed towards the ground, coming after Rukawa. "Not when I'm still here, pal", he muttered, accepting the challenge.

Back under the basketball hoop, two primate like players pushed each other around with their full weights trying to get the perfect execution position for the rebound.

The ball hit the sides of the ring and both Akagi and Kawata leaped off!

As a result of both getting the perfect positions for the rebound, they both caught the ball at the same time and was now having a power struggle as to who was going to have the ball.

The referee seeing it was going to be a possible 'held ball' was about to blow his whistle when suddenly he blinked back in his tracks, frozen and dazed and was taken aback at the sudden whoosh of orange-red figure that had just zoomed past him like lightning.

"What the..", thought the referee. However, he was not left to wonder when...

Akagi and Kawata were still in the air and about to land down onto solid earth when they found themselves hugging thin air.

"What the hell?!", yelled Kawata, not comprehending what the hell happened to the ball that was in his grasp earlier.

Akagi who had caught sight of a flash of red didn't have to guess what had happened.

"NYA HA HA! BAKA KING KONG NO SANNOH! (King Kong of Sannoh)", yelled Sakuragi who suddenly decided to appear out of nowhere.

Holding the ball under one arm while pulling down the lower part of the skin beneath one eye, he stuck his tongue rudely out at Kawata and said.

"TENSAI BASKETMAN SAKURAGI HANAMICHI PRESENT-O!", announced Sakuragi needlessly with his infamous tensai grin and headed off. "Later, Gori", he said to Akagi with a smirk earning him a glare and a gorilla-like roar from Akagi.

"URUSEE, BAKA!", roared Akagi. " SOKKO (Fast break), MINNA!", he blasted at the other players who were already running towards the other end of the court.

"CHIKUSO! I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT, GORI!", yelled Sakuragi as he zoomed towards the other half of the court easily surpassing half of the players there.

"HELL YEAH! OFFENSE! OFFENSE! OFFENSE!", yelled Mitsui, Miyagi, the normally quiet Fukuda, Koshino and Uozumi at the bench area of the Kanagawa team.

"GANBATTE, HANAMICHI!", yelled Sakuragi's gundam at the top of their lungs, and making as much noise as possible with their empty bottles at hand that were hitting maniacally on the rails in front of them.

"OFFENSE! OFFENSE! OFFENSE", screamed Haruko and her two friends beside them, all of them jumping up and down from their uncontained excitement.

"Sakuragi over here!", yelled Sendoh above the noise level of the court, waving his arms out to catch Sakuragi's attention but he was being blocked off roughly, borderline foul style by Fukatsu who still had his calm and collected expression on him.

"AKAGE SARU! I'M OPEN. I'M OPEN!", yelled Kiyota jumping up and down and who was not far away from him.

"CHIKUSO!", yelled Sakuragi in confusion and in frustration at the solid block of wall that was blocking him, namely Sawakita.

Which meant that a certain raven head was on the loose but the red head didn't notice this because he was still busy trying to get away from the persistent top player that remained stuck on his path.

"CHIKUSO!",yelled Sakuragi again in frustration after five seconds had past and he was still nowhere near the net or even passing the ball to anyone else.

"SAKURAGI! NANI YATTENDE?! YAROU! YOUR TEN SECONDS ARE ALMOST UP!", roared his Shohoku teammates from the bench area throwing curse words at him.

"CHIKUSO!", yelled Sakuragi again for the third time. He felt like going over there at his team's bench area and head butt both Miyagi and Mitsui off to hell but he knew that was not going to happen.

The crowd chanted the countdown then...

"5.."

'SHIT!'. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he felt himself being compressed even more by the invisible walls of pressure that surrounded him.

"4.."

Sakuragi looked desperately around him. None of his teammates were within reach and if it was possible, Sawakita made his defensive wall even more tight and impossible to break.

'SHIT!'.

"3.."

He closed his eyes then trying to calm himself down. However, it was easier said than done. Grinding his teeth together in a death crunch, thoughts of every possible thing he could think of stumbled through his mind one after another but none of them were calming him down.

Then...

"How about you, Sakuragi-kun? Why are you here?", he heard a familiar voice inside his head said then. It sounded vague and dim but it was loud enough for Sakuragi to hear through his jumbled thoughts.

It was then that he realised that that voice belonged to his respected coach, Anzai sensei.

The thought was then followed by his own voice. "Nanda yo, Oyaji. Tensai Basketman Sakuragi Hanamichi's here to kick some butt and conquer the world of baskteball!".

Then he remembered something else after that..

 

~FLASHBACK~

Shooting a pointed glare at Rukawa who pointedly gave him no heed then added. "And I am the one who will become the No#1 basketball player in the world!".

~END OF FLASHBACK~

But then another voice went through his mind.. a voice that he was also familiar with...

~FLASHBACK~

Rukawa rolled his eyes at that and said, "That is not going to happen, do'aho".

"TEMME! You think this TENSAI can't do it?", yelled Sakuragi angrily at his rival.

Rukawa gave away the slightest of smirks, "You'd have to beat me first, do'aho".

~END OF FLASHBACK~

'Ah, that's right', thought Sakuragi to himself as he jerked his eyes open as the crowd shouted out that he only had 2 seconds left in possession of the ball.

He levelled his eyes with Sawakita's then, new found determination gleamed inside of them.

'I have to beat that kitsune off first before I could even think of giving up!', yelled Sakuragi inwardly.

Then without warning, Sakuragi jabbed an index finger rudely in front of Sawakita's taken aback face.

"OREWA TENSAI BASKETMAN SAKURAGI HANAMICHI!", said Sakuragi into his face, his infamous grin already forming on his face. "Remember that because I AM GOING TO BE THE N0#1 PLAYER IN THE BASKETBALL WORLD!".

With one second away from allowing him to be in possession of the ball, he suddenly sidestepped Sawakita in a blur and completely broke Sawakita's iron wall of defence.

"What..", said Sawakita turning to stop Sakuragi but he was too late. Sakuragi was already off!

This time it was Sawakita's turn to curse. "KUSO!".

"SENDOH!", yelled Sakuragi as his time was about to be up and he threw the ball at the spiky haired player.

His throw was so fast and so powerful that Sendoh almost missed catching the ball but he caught it, though just barely. Besides, there was no way in hell that he would give a chance for Fukatsu, who was guarding him like stubborn persistent overgrown vines, to get it. He had enough of the powerful player pressurising the hell out of him.

The minute the ball was in his possession, he immediately threw it at his side to...

Rukawa!

"NANI?!", yelled Sakuragi, pissed as hell. His earlier efforts were back in the hands of his rival!

Everyone ignored the pissed Sakuragi who was now yelling obscenities at Sendoh first then at Rukawa, all the while stomping his foot repeatedly onto the ground.

Rukawa who suddenly decided to appear onto the scene out of nowhere, focused onto the scene around him (excluding the still pissed and stomping Sakuragi) and assessed his surroundings.

Two guards were on him now. Apparently, both Sawakita and Fukatsu weren't planning to go easy on him.

But that was not a problem.

The edge of Rukawa's lips curved a bit in what could have been a smile. It wasn't a Mr Nice guy smile, however.

No.

It was a smile that showed that he loved the challenge presented before him.

After all, he was being given the honour of being guarded by two of the best players the nation had ever seen.

And he was not going to back down from it.

~FLASHBACK~

Anzai sensei just smiled and repeated. "Why are you here, Rukawa-kun?".

Anzai looked expectantly at his student for his answer.

It was a while before Rukawa answered slowly almost muttering to himself, "I will become the No#1 player in Japan".

~END OF FLASHBACK~

'No.#1 player', thought Rukawa, giving both guards in front of him a levelly cool but expressionless look.

He smiled inwardly just then and gave Sawakita a pointed look.

Rukawa held up a single finger in front of him while still dribbling the other ball in his other hand.

"This is me", said Rukawa, coolly, his lips slightly half curved which could have been a smile but wasn't and said, "I am going to be the NUMBER 1".

This time Sawakita was not taken aback by his action and in fact was grinning at the insolence and arrogance of the 'kid' in front of him. However, he didn't take him lightly on it because, even though Rukawa was only a year younger than him, his skills and talent was, admittedly, on par with him.

And Fukatsu, being the calm and cool point guard that earned him the title of the no#1 point guard in the nation, didn't give out any sort of reaction and in fact was the first person to notice the careless opening that Rukawa had made.

Seeing his chance, Fukatsu acted on it.

He lunged for the ball in front of him and was about to steal it away from Rukawa's possession when he found himself ploughing into thin air instead.

The ball along with Rukawa was nowhere in his sight.

"What the..", said Fukatsu, baffled. He immediately turned to his side where Sawakita had stood beside him but only to find him already running off almost neck to neck with Rukawa who was dribbling the ball skilfully under one hand.

Seeing that Akagi had his hands full under the net with Kawata and his little brother, Mikio Kawata, and Kiyota and Sendoh was nowhere near the net, he took his chance.

Abruptly, Rukawa stopped in his tracks and immediately jumped and executed a high arc jump shot. Screeching to a halt in front of Rukawa, Sawakita jumped twice as high as Rukawa did but the ball was too high for him to reach.

Seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere near to the ball, Sawakita cursed under his breath and immediately opted to land onto the ground and headed for the rebound instead.

Rukawa who refused to be left behind, ran after him, determined to prevent Sawakita as much as possible from getting anywhere near the ball which was now heading towards the hoop.

Just then when the ball was surely going to go through the hoop, a sudden yell erupted followed by a blurred swipe on the ball with a massive and loud 'bang!'.

"'STEAMBOAT' block!", roared Kawata, his infamous block made the ball zoom in an orange miniature meteorite heading towards the ground and away from the hoop.

Groans and cheers erupted through the crowd but a second later it was crushed by the sounds of cheers for the Akita Shoten team player who had made the incredible move.

"KAWATA! KAWATA! KAWATA!", yelled the crowd, cheering for the no#1 centre player of the nation.

But then..

"EAT THIS KING KONG!", yelled an orange figure, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, caught the orange meteorite against his hand and heading straight for the hoop!

"TENSAI BASKETMAN SAKURAGI HANAMICHI, SLAM DUNK-O!", shouted Sakuragi in a near roar as he gave an almighty dunk.

WHAM! The ball went through the net.

And like a dream put in slow motion, the ball swished through the net and Sakuragi slide off the ring of the hoop towards the ground with the ball landing with a 'thud' on the floor next to him.

The faces around him, including Kawata who was seriously in need of repairing his loose jaw, were that of shock and disbelief at the sudden turn of events and could not believe their eyes at just who had made that possible.

If anyone had made that shot, perhaps it wouldn't have been as shocking to them but this was not just anyone. This was Sakuragi, a beginner, for crying out loud and one who was well known for his lousy shots be it dunk, lay up or whatever shots he's capable of doing. Besides that, he had caught the ball right after Kawata's powerful 'Steamboat block' attack. And also besides THAT no one had anticipated that Kawata was going to use THAT attack in the first place.

Sakuragi seemed oblivious at the sudden silence around him. He just wiped off the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and ran off to the other side of the court yelling behind his back, "BALL'S NOW ON THE OTHER TEAM! LET'S GO, MINNA!".

At that everyone snapped off from their shock, with the players all running to their respective positions and resuming back to defence and offense. Meanwhile the crowd resumed to their deafening cheering.

Only this time, the cheering of the crowd consisted of both of the teams' names.

+++

TBC...

As always, reviews are always appreciated! Thank you for reading!

Email: yuki_ne@hotmail.com for shiyuchiyuki or meeksins (^-^)