Due to making the top eight in Tokyo's inter high, Nekoma didn't have to go through the preliminary rounds of the spring tournament, meaning that they had until late October to prepare themselves for their second, and final, tournament of the year. Taking on all the advise they had been given the team pushed forward to implement new tactics and moves, all in the hope that they could make it to nationals this time, "Let's hope all the good teams have to play each other first," Kuroo joked.
"That's be nice," Kai nodded. Meanwhile Yamamoto, Inuoka, Yaku and Shibayama eyed each other.
"Today we have one match to get through first," Yaku whispered, "Unless we match up with Itachiayma today, we won't need to inform Hinata of Sakusa's existence if we lose,"
"What happens then?" Shibayama asked.
"He'll still find out about him at some point, you guys saw how close he got with Bokuto on the camp, Bokuto's going to complain about Sakusa at some point," Inuoka replied, "So he'll still find out, and potentially freak out: meaning that the bet's still on,"
"What are you four whispering about?" Kuroo asked them.
"A bet we have going," Yamamoto explained.
"Of course, well as long as it doesn't ruin our chances of winning, continue," Kuroo said shrugging as he went to join Haiba, Hinata and Kozume. Haiba had surprisingly decided to start hanging around the three of them more than he did with the other first years.
Just before the match Kozume caught Kuroo lost in thought, "What're you thinking about Kuro?" Kozume asked.
"I'm deciding whether leaving Hinata off for this game will be worth it," Kuroo explained.
"Eh," Kozume shrugged, "Nossure,"
"On one hand, having him act more as a surprise player would be beneficial, but he's also a good decoy,"
"Who would you play instead?"
"Probably Haiba, he's got better - not as good as Hinata has,"
"Then you have your answer,"
"What do you mean Pudding Head?"
"You've said that Shouyou has improved more than Haiba, and since you were considering asking to play Haiba instead of Inuoka, that means that both could probably play as regulars,"
"Yeah, let's hope the other two don't take this the wrong way,"
"I'm sure they'll understand, haven't they seen Shouyou play?"
"Yeah,"
"It'll be fine, we'll make it to nationals,"
"Even if we have to scrape by?"
"Even if we have to scrape by,"
The team were told the starting order, "I'm starting?" Hinata stared at the team in shock, the rest nodded at him, "Wow," the first match went well with Nekoma winning it and proceeding onto the second day of matches.
"Tomorrow, we're going to make it to the semi-finals," Kuroo declared.
"No, we're going to win the semi-finals too so that we get a guaranteed place for nationals," Yaku corrected Kuroo, the two looked at the other, both wanted to win nationals, and they were getting close to making that dream a reality, a few more pushes would be all it would take.
The team were told to rest for the night so they would be fit for their, hopefully, two matches the next day.
Once again Nekoma were lucky that they weren't up against a school like Fukurodani, instead they had matched up against another top eight team from the previous tournament, they pulled through and won the match, meaning that they had made the semi-finals.
"We've almost made nationals Kenma!" Hinata exclaimed.
"Yeah," Kozume nodded in reply.
Only four teams remained: Itachiyama, Nohebi, Fukurodani and Nekoma; one of them wasn't going to make it to nationals, none of the teams wanted it to be them.