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17- Push yourself to greatness

~Your POV~

I hadn't been at the boy's practice for about a week. We were keeping busy with training. I got up and walked to practice like normal. My muscles were extremely sore but we always push through the pain.

"Ok let's get this morning started." We trained for about an hour, doing ladder drills, dribbling drills, and some alternating wave circles with weighted ropes. I looked up to see the girls had stopped and were staring at something by the benches. It was a person.

"HEY BUDDY, THIS IS A CLOSED PRACTICE YOU NEED TO LEAVE" I shouted. They didn't move, instead, they got closer. "DID YOU NOT HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME?" I told the girls to get back to practice while I approached the person. "Hey, look you can't be- Coach Ukai?"

Bruh, now I looked like a dumbass. But in my defense, he looked spookier than normal. Being a creep, not saying anything, just standing on the field with a hood hiding his face. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" "I noticed you haven't been to the gym in a while. The boys seemed to notice too." I scratched my neck. "I came to ask if you could give them a pep talk. They could really use it."

I sighed as I looked back at the field, the girls hard at work. "I can try coming by later tonight, but it's not a guar-" "Thank you." 'Did he even hear- ya know what nevermind'

He left and we wrapped up practice. I wasn't attending classes today, instead, Coach was taking me to a professional game. She wanted to show me how they function as a team, how they play, how agile they are on the field. It was an advantage the other teams didn't have.

---

The game was amazing, but it also set new expectations for being a captain.  "So, today" I clapped my hands together. "We're running the mile." All the girls looked at me like I had officially lost my mind. "Hang on, hear me out. We've been running while dragging 150-pound weights. And we've been doing 5-miles a day, and 100-yard sprints, and that's just the running portion. Do any of you know why we've been doing those?" 

Everyone remained quiet. "I'm a third-year, just like Kagami and Cho. If we don't make this year count, we don't get another shot. The rest of you do. I got the privilege of seeing Japan play this afternoon, and they are absolutely astonishing. You all know the feeling of being on the field, the crowd cheering so loud your ears hurt, the sweat dripping down your skin. I want you all to have every opportunity you can. We're pushing ourselves to greatness. You all want to rank Number 1, you want the spotlight to shine on us. Right now, we're ahead of everyone else. We're the only team training this hard. I want you to see just how much your work has paid off." 

---

"Time yourselves. See how much faster you are." 3...2...1...We all took off, running as fast as we could. What we didn't realize is that we were fast, like FAST.

Y/N- 5:50:18 → 4:17:20
Kagami- 6:40:30 → 5:20:19
Cho- 6:52:08 → 5:12:16
Kira- 7:20:16 → 6:02:13
Mariko- 7:05:21 → 6:05:02
Mika- 6:50:19 → 5:40:20
Nori- 7:15:10 → 6:10:07
Himari- 7:40:32 → 6:03:04
Saki- 6:58:17 → 5:31:23
Hanako- 6:45:20 → 5:06:08
Ayame- 6:59:40 → 6:01:02

"Holy SHIT" Coach yelled. Coach wasn't one to freak out over small things but this was HUGE for us. We were all screaming excitedly. "THANK YOU Y/N!!!" They said as they hugged me. "We all did it together. I told you all that hard work was going to pay off." Every day we were the literal definition of "Blood. Sweat. and Tears."

We practiced for a few hours now. It was pitch black outside. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and realized what time it was. '8:45?!' 

I yelled as I took off towards the gym. 'Please be here. Please be-' The gym lights were off and the doors were locked. "DAMN IT" I yelled as I kicked it. 'I'll go see if Coach is at the store' I thought as I ran away from the building.