CHAPTER EIGHT.

Kise woke to a clear white ceiling. Blinking the grogginess out of his eyes, he attempted to sit up but winced at the pounding in his head.

"Don't try that," came a voice to his right.

He looked over, and his eyes widened when he saw the familiar face of his former captain, Nijimura Shuuzou.

"Nijimura-senpai...? What are you doing here?" he asked.

It had been almost half a year since the former Teikou captain had graduated from school, and even longer since he had left the basketball team for his third year. Kise's memory was a little messed up right now, but he was sure that he hadn't met Nijimura before he landed himself in the hospital. Speaking of which...

"I brought you here after you blacked out. Be grateful, brat," Nijimura said.

I blacked out? Kise frowned. What... Then it all came back to him. Leaving the hospital to confronting Fukuda. And yes, getting hit in the head.

"How did you find me?" he asked.

"To be honest with you, I was already on my way here. Then halfway there I met your friend Matsumoto, who explained the situation to me. Luckily we got there in time or you'd be dead."

"Wait." Kise paused, letting the information sink in. "Why would you be going there?"

"I needed to check on things..." The dark haired boy let out a sigh. "My dad's part of the Yakuza."

. . .

The warehouse was silent. The blond boy was on the ground, a pool of blood around his head. Around him stood a few individuals who, not too long ago, were caught in a scuffle with the unconscious boy. Now, all were tense with worry.

"Is he... dead?" one of them asked.

"Shit. No way," another stared.

"Shut up," Fukuda snapped, the bat which had knocked the blond down still in his hand, the tip stained a dark crimson. He wasn't particularly concerned about Kise as a person, but if the boy was indeed dead, then that would be a problem. "Oi," he kicked at unmoving figure, "get the hell up."

He cursed inwardly, unwilling to show any sign of worry or fear in front of the others. After a few seconds of thinking, he decided. "Let's go," he told them, already striding for the doors. Whatever happened, he wanted none of the responsibility.

Just then, the doors swung open violently, and a group of boys stormed in.

"You. You're Fukuda," one of them strode forward. It as a statement, not a question.

Despite his nerves, Fukuda steeled himself and glared up the tall, black haired boy. "Yeah, you looking for me?"

Without a word, the boy socked him square in the jaw.

Fukuda stumbled, then he looked back at his attacker, surprise evident on his face. His expression turned to a scowl as he charged forward to return a blow. But before he could reach the boy, another two had intercepted him, effectively keeping him at bay as one of them punched him in the gut.

With the aggressive bastard down, the boy looked around at the others, who were now already being held down by his own. Then, he spotted the heap by the floor. A closer look, and he saw a shock of blond hair. Kise.

Rushing over, he knelt down and inspected the fallen boy's condition.

"Nijimura-san," said a boy with long brown hair. "Should I call the ambulance for this one?"

"Yes. Quick," Nijimura ordered. It wasn't good, from what he could see. His former teammate had lost a lot of blood. Hopefully, the ambulance would arrive quickly, and the doctors could save him before it was too late.

. . .

After a long explanation, Kise relaxed back onto his bed, his mind at ease with the situation. As it turns out, Nijimura was born into a Yakuza family, and after his father had fallen ill, he had to be set to step up to fill in the empty shoes. Luckily – and Kise was glad to hear this – his father recovered, and was back in the business, with Nijimura working under him. The team was told the story of his father's condition a while after Nijimura had stepped down as captain, and all of them, though not familiar with the man, wished him well. After all, it was Nijimura's father, and the boy had always acted as an older brother, as well as a captain to them.

It would seem that Nijimura's underlings had caught whiff of Fukuda's gang's activities and decided to inspect, especially when he heard that someone matching Kise's description was involved. It was his job to keep the little mobs in line afterall, because it just wouldn't do if the Yakuza had to have trouble with small rogue gangs as well as the police.

"So you work full time as a mob boss now?" Kise grinned.

"Shut up, kid," Nijimura clicked his tongue. "It's not that we're doing anything seriously bad. Actually I've been working to get more support from the guys. My father doesn't know this yet but I'm going to attempt to legalize our businesses."

The conversation carried on till late evening, what with all the catching up they had to do, especially now that they had a newfound similarity relating to the underworld. Kise was impressed – Nijimura working to change his faction of the Yakuza wasn't a small feat. It was daring, and there was both the risk of physical and financial harm, but he trusted his former captain to accomplish it.

"Oh," Kise paled, suddenly remembering something. "This is the GH isn't it?"

"Yeah, why?" Nijimura raised an eyebrow.

"Aomine-cchi is here too," he said, then proceeded to explain the whole situation.

"Well you're lucky no one saw you." Nijimura checked the time, then looked back at his friend. "I'm leaving now, and I might just come back to visit you, if I have time," he smirked at Kise's look of mock hurt. "And just thought I should let you know that Fukuda and his goons aren't going to be troubling you again. They'll be under my reign, and I'm sure you know what that means."

Kise supressed a shudder. When Nijimura was their captain, he was tough. Now those guys were going to be under his control, but there were differences – he didn't like them, and he was now part of the Yakuza. The blond closed his eyes and silently thanked the heavens that it wasn't him.

"You should come clean with them," the former captain advised as he was about to go through the doorway. "Actually, I'm not going to give you a choice," he grinned. Then he left.

Kise wondered what, exactly, had he meant by that, but one thing was clear: he would still suffer Nijimura's wrath, even if the boy wasn't their captain anymore. Ah, well.

About an hour later, Kise found out what Nijimura had meant about not giving him a choice. A doctor and a couple nurses entered the room and had him transferred to another room. He had been wheelchaired right into a conversation about why there was a room switch, discussed by none other than his fellow teammates.

Aomine had a scowl on his face, obviously complaining about being moved, but his expression, as well as everyone elses', dissolved into shock and worry at the sight of Kise.

"Ki-chan!" Momoi cried. "What happened?"

"Now, now," the doctor scolded. "Let him lie down first." The nurses helped Kise onto a bed next to Aomine's – now he knew why they needed to transfer him to a bigger room. After a few minutes of fussing over him, the trio left, and the room now consisted only of high school students with their eyes fixed on him.

Kise gave a sheepish laugh. "Well, guys. You see..."

. . .

"I never thought Kise-chin was that type of person," Murasakibara said between chews.

"That's right," Kuroko added. "He's usually such an annoying person."

"You'd think his younger days only consisted of sunflowers and rainbows," Midorima commented as he rewrapped his fingers.

"Hey! You guys!" Kise protested.

Waving her hands, Momoi gave a cheeky grin. "Calm down, Ki-chan. You need to lie still and recover."

"You could've gotten a concussion, Ryouta." Akashi gave a slight frown, his opinion on the matter clearly different to those of the others. "Then you would be of no use to the team." At Kise's comical look of shock, the captain smiled. "Don't take that seriously. I'm just glad you're alright. Though I'm also slightly disappointed that you didn't tell us what was going on."

"That's right, Ki-chan. You really should've come to us," the girl scolded.

"You guys are annoying," Aomine growled, his head resting in his hands, eyes closed but brows furrowed. "Not like you could've really done anything about it anyway."

"Though maybe if we had known, you might've avoided being beaten up like that," Midorima smirked.

"Hey! You! Shut up!" Aomine's eyes were now open and glaring.

Akashi smiled at the behaviour of his teammates. Then he turned back to Kise with a blank expression. "To make up for all this, when you return, you're going to have to practice double time for two weeks."

"Sure," Kise was still smiling. Then his captain's words registered. "Eh?!"

. . .

The room was quiet now. Visiting times were over, and after the huge fuss that the group had created earlier in the day, there clearly wasn't a chance for special exceptions for any of them to stay overnight. The remaining ones were the patients – Aomine and Kise.

Kise had a basketball – courtesy of Kuroko – in his hands, and he busied himself by throwing it up and catching it, or spinning it on his finger or knuckle. The tanned boy, on the other hand, had a bunch of magazines piled on his bed, one already open as he scanned through the pages.

"So," Kise sat up, putting the ball down on his lap. "You get to leave this place before me."

"Of course, idiot," Aomine said, not bothering to look at him, his attention captured by a woman's slightly exposed cleavage on the magazine. That was the extent of what he would get, as Momoi had refused to buy him any of his preferred magazines. "You look like you got run over by a truck."

"Hey! That's not really nice," he protested. "I'm supposed to be a model."

"And you had to go get beat up," Aomine dropped the first magazine and picked up another one.

"It's not my fault that— Oh, that's me!" Kise smiled happily when he saw his own picture in the centrefold of the magazine Aomine was browsing through.

The other boy abruptly flipped the page, ignoring and eliciting a pout from the blond. He couldn't help but smile to himself at Kise's hilarious behaviour.

About an hour later, the lights were off, and both of them were tucked under their blankets, resigned for the night.

"Kise," Aomine said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah?" Kise mumbled, half asleep.

Ah, he had almost drifted off. "Nevermind." Aomine lay in bed for a few more minutes. Looking over, he was sure that Kise had fallen asleep. "Get well soon so we can play basketball again," he said quietly before letting his own mind rest.

Little did Aomine know that Kise wasn't asleep, but when he finally did submit his conciousness, he did so with a smile on his face.

. . .

"Man, the stadium's packed again," Kise commented as they walked onto the court. It had been three months since his stay at the hospital, and it was now already the final match of this new tournament. Their opponent was a rather new school, Seirin High, but since they were here at the finals, Kise guessed that they were at least a formidable opponent.

As the team did their usual warm up, a duo caught the blond's attention as they walked towards him. It took a few seconds for him to realize who they were.

"Oh, it's you guys!" he smiled.

"Nice to see you again," Himuro Tatsuya shook the blond's hand.

"Thanks for the other time. I never introduced myself; I'm Kise Ryouta."

"Oh we know who you are," Kagami Taiga walked up and grinned. "You're part of the Generation of Miracles, and I bet those are the guys," he gestured to the team. "We just joined the basketball club at this school, and we're going to beat you guys." His words were filled with confidence.

This amused Kise. "Interesting. That declaration of war won't go ignored," he smirked. "You want a match? I'll give you one."

As he waited for the buzzer to go, Kise almost trembled with excitement. Interesting, and seemingly strong opponents were ahead, and he was free of his past. Now he had his friends, basketball, his career – he had his life back. Everything was perfect. Sure, there was always the chance of something going wrong in the future, but for now, he had everything he could ever ask for. A fire was burning in him.

The buzzer sounded.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

And that is the end, folks.

I thought of having Nijimura's father as a Yakuza because they seemed to have a close relationship, what with his worrying and all. It seemed more natural as opposed to having his dad be like, an office clerk. Plus, Nijimura was quite a badass. I mean, he beat up Haizaki, so I guess him having a Yakuza background isn't too far fetched.

To be honest, I never thought of having something bad happening to Kise. This was the original ending I had planned, though I must say, after reading BlankAngel's comment, I considered amnesia or something like that. Heh.

A very big and last thank you to all who read, followed, favourited and reviewed this piece, and for sticking with the story from start to finish.

Well, so long. I hope you all enjoyed this story!