The Shadow and the Lights

Chapter One: Transfer

Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroko no Basuke

It was a nice day, sunny and warm without being sweltering, with a light breeze bringing fresh air through the open windows. You couldn't have asked for a better first day of school. In fact, it was one hundred times better than Aomine's actual first day of high school at Touou had been. His classroom, 1-C, was big and roomy with new furniture and his homeroom teacher had let him get away with the bare minimum of an introduction and then sent him to sit the the back row next to the big windows.

Aomine shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his school uniform, feeling a bit out of place in his Touou tie and blazer in the middle of the milling sea of Seirin students in their black and pale blue uniforms. Still, he ignored the discomfort and wound his way through the throngs of students enjoying the start of their lunch break until he reached the faculty office.

Just inside the door there was an argument going on, well, maybe it was less of an argument and more of the tall redhead student being harangued by a short balding teacher with a bad comb-over.

"—and if I catch you sleeping in my class again Kagami-kun that will be the least of your worries! Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Y-yes sensei, I am really, very sorry, it won't happen again. Sorry." said the redhead, hurriedly backing out of the room with an awkward series of low bows.

He raised his head from his bow only once he was passed the door frame and in the relative safety of the hall and when he did his gaze fell directly on Aomine. He was an intimidating looking guy, almost as tall as Aomine with a foreboding expression and a direct gaze made even more unnerving by his reddish eyes. He paused in his headlong flight from the faculty office to nod at Aomine.

"Hey."

"Yo," Aomine greeted with a lackluster nod in return.

"You're new, right? I would have noticed it before if a guy as strong as you had been in this school since the beginning. You're in first year? Do you play basketball?"

Aomine couldn't contain a snort. This guy was almost too much. He'd taken one look at him and already he was asking about basketball.

"Yeah, I play."

Immediately he grinned and the expression transformed his face.

"Great. I can't stick around but I'm Kagami Taiga, class 1-B. Come and find me some time and we'll play one-on-one."

Before Aomine had a chance to disabuse Kagami of the idea that he'd play with him, or that if they did play that they'd be in any way equally matched, the redhead had joined the flow of people in the corridor and was moving away.

"Whatever," Aomine muttered.

He glanced down at the paper in his hand with a sigh. Did he really want to do this? He could just quit basketball for good and not have to deal with the disappointment that welled up within him, more bitter with every opponent who refused to even try to face him. Something always clenched in his chest at the thought though, stopping him from going through with it at the last second. He loved basketball, he couldn't imagine never playing again even if it wasn't exactly fun anymore. He really didn't want to give up on that last flicker of hope that somewhere there was a player strong enough to challenge him, and the only way to find that player would be to play his way to the top.

Besides even if he didn't find his own rival there was still the rest of the so called Miracles to square off against. And Touou had a good team and it would only get better with Satsuki to back them up so there might be some challenge from that quarter. No, he couldn't give up now when for the first time in months it looked like there might be a real game waiting for him.

He shook his head and shoved the paper into his pocket carelessly. Squaring his shoulders and smoothing the discontent from his expression Aomine knocked politely on the doorframe of the faculty office.

"Ah, Aomine-kun," his homeroom teacher greeted, with a benevolent smile, "How are you settling in?"

"Ah, fine, Fujihara-sensei. I was actually looking for Takeda-sensei, I wanted to see about joining the basketball club."

"Ah, I am Takeda," said a diminutive old teacher with a crop of thinning white hair rummaging around on his desk and coming up with a few forms.

Aomine blinked a bit, "Uh, are you the basketball team's coach Takeda-sensei?"

"Oh, no my boy, I'm just the teams advisor, no, the person you want to be talking to about joining is Aida Riko, she's the coach. Fill out those forms and hand them in to her. You can usually find her in her classroom, 2-A, at around this time."

"Right, thank you sensei. Please excuse me."

Takeda-sensei just waved him off with a vacant smile.

Aomine could admit that he was more than a little surprised. Seirin was a new school but it wasn't weak by any stretch, they'd made it to the Inter-High preliminary finals last year after all. To find out that the coach was female was a surprise. He shrugged a bit to himself, well, he knew better than to assume that just because she was a woman she couldn't coach a sports team, Satsuki had trained him that much at least, and who knew, maybe if she was pretty enough he'd actually turn up at practice and matches.

Quickly Aomine dug a pencil out of his book bag and smoothing the paper up against the nearest wall scribbled in the minimum required information on the forms Takeda-sensei had handed him. He then flagged down a purposeful looking student with glasses and got directions to classroom 2-A.

The second year classrooms were on the third floor of the school along with the science and technology labs, but they were laid out in the same order as the first year classrooms just below them so it was easy to find classroom 2-A even with all the traffic in the halls.

"Hey I'm looking for the basketball team's coach, Aida-san," he said after a perfunctory knock on the classroom's doorframe.

"Ah, that's me."

Aomine blinked, he seemed to be doing that a lot today, the coach was not a teacher as he'd assumed but a second year student. A fey little slip of a thing with short brown hair and assessing whiskey colored eyes. She looked up from what seemed to be some sort of training regime. Behind her loomed a lanky spikey-haired guy with glasses.

"Uh, hey, right, I talked to Takeda-sensei and he said that you were the person to talk to about joining the basketball team."

"That's right," she said briskly flicking a quick glance over his body, her mouth quirked up into a small smirk, "You're a transfer student? Did sensei give you your papers?"

Aomine handed them to her and wordlessly.

"Aomine Daiki, transferred out of Touou, and your middle school was…hmm, Teiko."

That gave her pause and she flicked a pointed glance over her shoulder to the spikey haired guy who was frowning thoughtfully. Aomine leaned against the doorframe and let his eyes hood lazily, supremely confident in his acceptance since he could tell from their expressions they'd heard of at least the Generation of Miracles if not him specifically.

"Why did you transfer here?" asked the guy, "It's still pretty early in the year and Touou's got a strong team this year by all accounts."

"My Dad got transferred to a different branch of his company, it was just too far to commute to Touou every day," Aomine shrugged.

Not that he hadn't tried to argue with his parents about it. His set up at Touou had been almost ideal, and of course Satsuki was there and they hadn't been in separate schools since they were toddlers. His mother had scolded him for being inconsiderate, told him that they weren't made of money, and pointed out that he would have to be awake at four in the morning if he wanted to take the train to Touou in time for morning practice and Aomine wasn't about to tell her that he never went to morning practice.

Well, either way it was fine. It didn't matter what team he played for. Victory for him was assured. Still he wouldn't want to have to carry Seirin forward the whole time. That would just be tiring and boring.

"Well, I don't have a problem accepting you into the club," said Aida tucking his forms away, "This is our captain Hyuuga Junpei, we also have some room on the bench if you're interested in trying for a regular position. We lost most of our new candidates in the first round of testing so you won't have too much competition."

Aomine managed to stop the surprise from showing on his face. Well, mostly. They weren't even going to give him a bench spot? What was with that? They had to know that with a member of the Generation of Miracles on their team their wins were assured, so, what the hell?

"What did we do to deserve such an arrogant crop of freshman?" Hyuuga commented with a smirk.

Apparently he hadn't done all that great a job of masking his shock and annoyance.

"If you want the chance to play in proper matches Aomine-kun you'll have to show me your resolve. I don't care how good you are, I won't coach a team of half-hearted players," Aida warned, "Do you have a change of clothes and shoes with you?"

"Yeah."

"Good. You can join us for practice after school today in the second gym and then we'll see what you're made of. Come on Hyuuga, we're going to be late if we don't hurry, did you get the bread money from Koga-kun and Mitobe-kun?"

"Yeah, I can't believe we're doing this again this year, isn't it a bit too ridiculous?"

"It's good to torture the first years a bit so that they don't get ideas above their station. I want to do this every year!"

"Eh, should we make this one come along then?" asked Hyuuga, eyeing him with a measuring gleam to his eye.

Aida paused, as though she were considering the idea and then shook her head.

"Nah, it's only his first day at Seirin so we'll cut him some slack, as a welcome to the school gift," said Aida with a wicked grin.

Aomine winced internally, feeling a brief pang of sympathy for his fellow nameless faceless first years.

"Alright then, count yourself lucky Aomine-kun. We'll see you at practice later. Don't be late."

And with that Aida and Hyuuga left him standing in their classroom doorway without a backward glance, still a bit shell-shocked and gawping after them like some kind of an idiot.

AN: I've seen a couple of Kuroko or Kagami goes to Touou stories, but I've only encountered one other Aomine goes to Seirin story so I wanted to try my hand at one.

Please review if you guys have suggestions for areas where I could improve or ideas about the plot you'd like to share and let me know what you think.