How to fly with clipped wings (English ver.) HAIKYUU!! FAN FICTION

Chapter 6: The Study Session

They all gathered in the gym after practice. Yachi thanked the team for having her, and they responded with a lot of enthusiasm, scaring the small blonde girl. Mikaela wanted to laugh. She rubbed her right thigh- her leg was acting up again. She shook it out.

"Now," Sawamura said, his voice low and serious, "All we have left are the tests..."

Kageyama and Hinata visibly gulped and hung their heads. To Mikaela's surprise, Tanaka and Nishinoya's faces went blank, and they pressed their hands together in front of their chests as if they were praying to a god. Mikaela smirked at them all. She'd been excused from this set of tests due to her timely arrival at Karasuno. After the practice was over, Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi and herself made plans to study at Yachi's house on Saturday.

Studying was actually highly entertaining. Hinata struggled with nearly everything, and Kageyama was clueless. Mikaela lost her patience close to the beginning, and if it wasn't for Yachi, she probably would've lashed out at the freak duo without meaning to. Yachi helped Hinata work on word answers while Mikaela went through kanji with Kageyama over and over again to drill it into his head.

They finished up after two hours or so. Hinata was excited to finish. "With this, we'll ace the tests!" Mikaela didn't miss the "probably!" he threw on the end. "Thanks for helping us, Yachi-san and Mikaela-san!"

Kageyama bowed slightly. "Thank you."

"Just Mikaela is fine," the raven-haired girl scolded Hinata. Yachi beamed and said it was no problem at all.

"Hey," the setter wondered, "this place is near Shiratorizawa, isn't it?"

Mikaela's eyes widened. She hadn't noticed, and she was surprised that Kageyama had. Yachi nodded. "Oh, yeah. I think it's two stops before ours by train." Shiratorizawa was home to Ushijima, the famous volleyball ace. Mikaela looked up to him a lot, and found herself seeing a lot of similar traits: he was the ace for his team, a lefty, and had incredibly strong spikes, from what she'd heard.

She pondered this. Ushijima...

"Do you have some business with me?"

Hinata must've said his name out loud. Slowly, and with an aura of terror surrounding them (temporarily, of course), Kageyama, Hinata, and Mikaela turned around, finding themselves facing a slightly sweaty yet still good looking Ushijima Wakatoshi. Her eyes widened- she never thought she'd meet him in person.

"If not, I'll be on my way," he said, moving on.

He was so humble. So... Normal.

"We came here from Karasuno," Kageyama called suddenly, breaking into a jog after Ushijima. "Would you let us do reconnaissance on Shiratorizawa?" Mikaela was tempted to smack her cousin- they didn't know the guy! For the sake of professionalism around a role model, she held herself back.

"Karasuno," the ace mused, thoughtful, "the team that uses a strange quick strike."

So he knows about that.

"Do whatever you want. No matter how capable you lot may be, you'll see that we never weaken." Ushijima kept running. "I'm returning to school. If you want to watch us, follow me. If you're able to keep up, that is."

Mikaela's jaw dropped. One, he had agreed. Two, he wasn't as humble as she thought.

She expected it, but it was still funny to see her cousin's face scrunch up. Hinata's face went blank. Then, they both shrugged, and started stretching. Yachi was gaping in disbelief. "We're going along," Kageyama declared, lunging forwards in a stretch. "They're an opponent we'll defeat at Spring High, so there's no harm in looking-"