Konoha High’s Hotblooded Sports Festival: U Can Do It!

Serve it, set it, spike it.

For years this was what Fuuka lived for. First year she was the team’s rookie of the year, and now in her third year, she captained Konoha High’s very own volleyball team. Somewhere along the way, she picked up the moniker “Breeze Dancer.” It was like she danced on air around the court when she played.

Smack!

The sound echoed through the empty gymnasium as the blue-eyed blonde started another set of drills. Her focus was solely on the ball, determined to prove herself and her team as the best. As the captain, she had to work hard. There was no letting down her teammates, and so there was no time for a break until she was satisfied with her results.

The ball bounced from the wall back towards the blonde, who was ready to return it. What she was not ready for, was a petite hand stopping the ball halfway. She blinked in confusion for a moment as her mind caught up with what just occurred. Pretty blue eyes followed the ball as it was pulled to the chest of another girl. Blue hair and dark cobalt blue eyes set into a familiar face. Oh, it was her cousin, Aoi, or as she was known on the gymnastics team, “Azure Fang.”

The blue haired cousin smiled patiently as she kept a firm hold of the volleyball. “Everyone’s already gone home. You should too, before you wear yourself out.”

Painted lips pouted as Fuuka crossed her arms. “You’re still here.”

“My team was having a meeting about the sports festival,” Aoi explained as she moved to return the stolen ball to it’s rightful place with the rest of the equipment.

The blonde cousin followed, eyeing the ball. “And I’m here because of the sport festival too.”

The Interscholastic Sports Festival. It occurred twice a year and involved the participation of multiple neighboring schools. They would all come together to compete against each other. Officially, it was to improve relations between the schools, but everyone knew it was really a way for the schools to one-up each other. With so many different sports, the events had to be separated into two days, once at the beginning of the school year, and again in the middle of the year. This time around it was taking place at Konoha and the volleyball, gymnastics, baseball, football, and basketball teams would be competing. It was only a few days away, starting early Monday morning.

After returning the ball, Aoi positioned her body to block Fuuka. “Don’t try to make it seem like it isn’t different.”

“You don’t understand! Your team wants to win, but my team has to win,” The blonde childishly whined.

There was something about the situation that made Aoi not want to ask, but she did it anyway. “And why does your team have to win?”

A manic glint appeared in those pretty blue eyes as the taller cousin giggled. “If we win, we get new uniforms! I already have it designed and they’ll be so cute! We just need to win!”

Aoi deadpanned and then sighed in defeat. Her cousin, the fashionista. The blonde never worried about her clothing, because she always had it planned out from the get-go; all the way down to the accessories. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the thing to motivate Fuuka so thoroughly about be a promise of new custom clothing.

With a shake of her head, Aoi snapped her fingers to return her cousin—likely from her fashion fantasies—back to reality. “Listen, no matter how much you want those new uniforms, you can’t carry the entire team by yourself. Drilling for hours after practice on your own won’t help.”

Another pout appeared on the blonde bombshell’s pretty face. With arms crossed, she tried to argue, “Volleyball’s a team sport. I know that, but what if that little bit of practice makes a difference? I can’t risk that!”

“And what if that little bit of practice is too much? Burning out won’t help your team win.” Her cousin was stubborn, that much was common knowledge. That was why Aoi had to be the voice of reason.

Tense shoulders drooped, and the blue-haired cousin knew that she had won this round. Fuuka nodded after finding that she couldn’t argue with her cousin’s logic. Despite the fact that the blonde wanted to keep practicing and it would make her feel better to do so, she didn’t have an excuse to continue. Why did Aoi have to be so smart?

Knowing that the blonde needed a distraction, she pushed her towards the locker room. “Girl’s night at my house?” Luckily it was the beginning of the weekend.

“Yes!” Fuuka giddily skipped into the locker room. Aoi was such a tomboy at times that any opportunity to have quality girl time with her was a call to drop anything and everything.

With that solved, the rest of the day and even the weekend, passed easily. Before Fuuka realized it, Monday had arrived, and she was gathered with her team to greet the visiting volleyball teams. Suna High was the first to arrive, lead by their captain Temari. Sparks flew as Temari and Fuuka made eye contact. Since first year, the two had been rivals. Off the court they were surprisingly great friends, but on it? That rivalry was up there with the likes of Naruto and Sasuke from the Konoha baseball team. It was truly terrifying to some, to watch the two strong-willed teens face off against each other. Shikamaru, as Temari’s boyfriend, certainly knew he’d be hearing about it, win or loss notwithstanding.

The atmosphere seemed to tense once the two rivals moved to the court. What started out as a quiet match soon turned loud as the competition heated up. The spectators—students who weren’t involved in the participating sports teams—cheered for their school or their friends. Fuuka had no problems raising her voice to call commands to her teammates. Confident. Light on her feet. Powerful. She was in her element directing her team to one score after the next. Her teammates trusted her judgement full stop. It was just the sort of person she was. A true leader on the court.

One win and then another. Soon they had reached the finals of the tournament. Suna versus Konoha. Photography and media clubs had set up everywhere they could to record what they believed would be the zenith of that sports festival. It was just so perfect. The only tournament to have ended up with the top two teams facing each other in the finals and not a moment earlier.

Fuuka and Temari stepped up to shake hands before the start of the match. Unlike boys, those two had the self-control to refrain from white-knuckled grips.

Temari smirked, confidence, perhaps even overconfidence, dripping from her words as she spoke. “May the best team win.”

Pretty blue eyes narrowed but her easy confidence never wavered, “Let’s both remember that when this is over.” Fuuka was a people person, and she knew her rival captain inside and out. Temari worked on countering her opponents, but there was one problem with that.

With a single wave of her hand, Fuuka’s entire team switched out. Gone were the usual players and in their places were the B team. A team was for the big competitions, but that didn’t mean B team was allowed to slack. They did just as many. Not that anyone really paid attention.

Temari’s eyes widened at the sight. Fuuka’s counter for Temari’s strategy? Unpredictability.

B team had a completely different dynamic than A team. Most importantly? Fuuka didn’t lead, her vice-captain did.

Having thrown Suna’s team for a loop, Konoha was able to take a large lead at the beginning. Temari’s plans didn’t leave much for the unexpected, but once she figured out what she was up against, she called for a timeout to regroup with her team. Knowing that Temari’s team was going to make a comeback, Fuuka switched out the teams again. B team gave them the lead they needed. No need to waste that by being stubborn.

Suna began to quickly gain points as they used their original strategy. When Fuuka noticed the closing gap, she put her team on the defensive. They had the lead, they just needed to keep it until time ran out.

As the last seconds of the clocked ticked down, there as a single point difference in favor of Konoha. They had to prevent an evening out. If they were to go into overtime, Suna would surely get that one last point needed to win.

Five seconds.

A Suna player spiked the ball sharply into Konoha’s court.

Four.

“Got it!” Fuuka called.

Three.

She dove, arms outstretched to stop contact between the ball and the floor.

Two.

She made it.

One.

A teammate sent it over the net.

Smack!

Zero.

Cheers erupted from the stands. Konoha had won by two points.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, a grin stretched itself across Fuuka’s face. Before she could pick herself up off the ground, her teammates did it for her. Squeals of delight and rang in the blonde’s ears as the girls did their best to include all of the team in a group hug, with their captain in the center. Unable to move to express her excitement, the blonde instead laughed and cheered loudly along with them.

Two weeks later, their new uniforms arrived and Fuuka couldn’t be happier. Her team on the other hand…

“Captain?” Sakura’s eyes stayed locked on her new uniform as she called for Fuuka’s attention.

The blonde captain was currently on cloud nine and replied dreamily, “Yes?”

“Tell me this is a joke,” Sakura urged, her eye beginning to twitch the longer she stared at the—could it even be called clothing? It barely covered anything! It was basically a sports bra and underwear.

“Aren’t our new uniforms cute? I got to design them you know, and even got to add these adorable visors!” Fuuka squealed and her eyes sparkled as she looked towards her teammate, waiting for approval.

Instead, Sakura only got angrier. In a fit, she threw the new uniform at her captain, “We aren’t a beach volleyball team! We play inside!” Sometimes the blonde was harder to deal with than Naruto!

Fuuka pouted prettily with crossed arms, “But they’re cute!”

Fed up with their air headed captain, the majority of the team followed Sakura’s example and launched their new uniforms at the blonde. Time to rally together against their captain’s bad idea… Again.