Five days evaporated into pure repetition.
Eat.
Train.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Kogure lived in the gym.
Eight hours minimum, every single day.
The crossover and pull-up jumper became extensions of his body—dribble, gather, rise, release.
Thousands of reps until muscle memory eclipsed conscious thought.
He even dribbled on his way to and from school, drawing stares from pedestrians.
Let them look.
Every touch counted.
The monotony should have been crushing.
Instead, Kogure found it meditative.
Each session brought tangible progress—proficiency bars creeping upward, attributes ticking higher.
Hard work couldn’t replace talent, but what if hard work revealed talent?
The system guaranteed rewards for effort.
Like grinding levels in an RPG, except the character getting stronger was him.
The price was constant hunger.
Training at this intensity torched calories faster than he could replenish them.
Five meals a day became standard.
Every two and a half hours, fuel the machine.
His body responded.
Muscle mass increased.
Movement felt lighter, more explosive.
Height ticked up a centimeter—still growing at fifteen.
The numbers told the story:
SYSTEM: Hard Work Pays Off (Highschool Basketball Version)
Name: Kogure Kiminobu
Age: 15
Height: 174cm | Wingspan: 180cm | Weight: 58kg
Physical Attributes:
Strength: 55 | Speed: 66 | Stamina: 69 | Flexibility: 75
Reaction: MAX | Injury Resistance: MAX
Explosive Power: 59 | Bounce: 57
Offensive Skills:
Ball Handling: 70 | Passing: 59 | Layup: 75 | Close Range: 63
Mid-Range: 68 | Three-Point: 71 | Free Throw: 73 | Driving: 64
Defensive Skills:
Steals: 55 | Perimeter Defense: 58 | Defensive Rebounding: 51
Skills:
Crossover: LV5 (1900/2000)
Pull-Up Jump Shot: LV5 (700/2000)
Status: Good
Overall Rating: Strong Team Sixth Man
Both skills at Level 5.
Crossover just one hundred proficiency points from Level 6.
His overall evaluation had jumped an entire tier—from weak team starter to strong team sixth man.
Roughly equivalent to canon Kogure in the original timeline.
Five days.
Twenty attribute points of total growth.
One evaluation tier.
The grind was working.
That afternoon during club activities, Coach Anzai finally graced them with his presence.
Face placid, expression serene.
As if the chaos of the world couldn’t touch him.
Kogure watched him approach and felt…
complicated.
He understood Coach Anzai’s importance.
In the original timeline, Anzai’s tactical genius had been instrumental in Shohoku’s miracle run.
His coaching ability exceeded Taoka, Takato, Kitano, Domoto—all the prefecture’s best.
But that Coach Anzai belonged to the future.
This Coach Anzai?
Lazy.
Absent.
A mascot collecting a paycheck.
According to Captain Ikeda, Anzai rarely showed up.
When he did, he sat in his chair and delegated everything.
No actual coaching.
No player development.
No team building.
Just…
existing.
Completely noninvolvement.
Players left to fend for themselves.
With or without him, what’s the difference?
The comparison to Coach Taoka was stark.
Taoka was everything a grassroots coach should be—ten years at Ryonan, actively recruiting and developing talent year after year.
He’d discovered Sendoh in Tokyo, transformed Uozumi from a raw prospect into one of the prefecture’s best centers, personally developed Ikegami, Uekusa, even young Hikoichi.
When Uozumi wanted to quit basketball as a freshman, Taoka had a heart-to-heart with him on the school lawn.
That conversation saved Uozumi’s career.
When Fukuda punched him in public, Taoka reflected on his own mistakes, forgave the kid, and brought him back.
Fukuda became Ryonan’s leading scorer.
When Ryonan lost, Taoka took responsibility.
Never blamed his players.
Taoka’s coaching ability might not match Anzai’s peak, but Kogure knew which one he’d rather play for.
Taoka cared.
Taoka tried.
Taoka coached.
Anzai just…
didn’t.
In the original timeline, after Akagi became captain, Shohoku survived purely on Akagi and canon-Kogure’s passion.
Without those two, the team would’ve disbanded.
That’s why by the plot year, only Akagi and Kogure remained from their class.
Three years of teammates quit or transferred.
Even with Mitsui’s return, that made three total.
The Five Tigers of Shohoku seemed connected to Coach Anzai—Mitsui and Miyagi both joined because of his reputation.
But Anzai contributed nothing to building them as players.
For Sakuragi and Rukawa, Anzai became a mentor.
But for Mitsui, Akagi, and Miyagi?
They were diamonds dropped in mud and left to rot.
Akagi—Kanagawa’s top center, personally recruited by Coach Karasawa of Fukasawa Sports University alongside national team member Sugiyama Shota.
Obvious elite potential.
Irony was, Akagi taught himself everything.
No guidance meant countless detours, fundamental flaws that persisted for years.
Scoring range limited to the paint.
Choked under pressure.
Couldn’t recover from setbacks.
If Anzai had been a real coach these past two years, he would’ve identified and corrected those weaknesses.
Instead?
Nothing.
Uozumi got Taoka’s careful development.
The more talented Akagi got silence.
Miyagi—third-best point guard in the prefecture behind Maki and Fujima.
Short guard with explosive speed but no shooting ability.
That weakness should’ve been addressed immediately.
Wasn’t.
And Mitsui.
Junior high MVP.
The player Taoka desperately wanted.
Convinced three Takeishi teammates to join Shohoku with him out of loyalty to Anzai.
When Mitsui got injured, when he was confused and spiraling—did Anzai visit?
Offer support?
In all the flashbacks, Kogure couldn’t remember a single scene of Anzai checking on him.
That neglect, combined with the knee injury and two years of being ignored, drove Mitsui to delinquency.
Two years of development lost.
Preventable if Anzai had shown even minimal concern.
You could excuse it as “respecting student choices,” but coaches had responsibilities.
Anzai failed his.
The pattern was clear: Anzai only cared about supreme talent.
Akagi, Mitsui, Miyagi—all excellent, but not enough to interest him.
Then Sakuragi and Rukawa appeared, and suddenly Anzai became diligent again.
Focused entirely on those two.
Talent-only coaching.
Maybe acceptable in professional basketball.
But this was high school.
Applying pro standards to teenagers was absurd.
Still…
Kogure needed to work with what he had.
Changing Anzai wasn’t possible.
All he could do was compensate.
The players lined up quickly, standing at attention.
Coach Anzai settled into his special chair, thermos in hand.
Didn’t stand.
Didn’t address them directly.
“Ikeda,” he said mildly.
“Arrange a scrimmage.
Freshmen versus upperclassmen.”
That was it.
Delegation complete.
Ikeda didn’t flinch—clearly used to this.
“Yes, Coach.”
He turned to face the team, voice steady and commanding.
“Listen up!
To build team chemistry, we’re running a freshmen-versus-seniors scrimmage.
Line up for assignments!”
Kogure felt his pulse quicken.
First real test since his transformation.
Time to see how far five days of grinding had taken him.