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One night, during Tobio’s first year of middle school, he had forgotten his shoes at the gymnasium after practice.
Coincidentally, Tobio found that the gymnasium’s lights were still on. Knowing that Oikawa likes to practice late at night, Tobio poked his head to watch.
However, instead of watching Oikawa practice volleyball, Tobio caught eye of something else instead.
Straight from Oikawa’s hands was a stream of clear water. He stretched the stream long and wide, as far as his arms could stretch. Then, when the stream could not get any longer, Oikawa moved the water like a ribbon; it flowed gently around him with no difficulties.
The stream of water then circled Oikawa, creating a cage-like sphere. His arms moved fast, but calmly to create more and more of the sphere’s bars. After that, the sphere suddenly bursts, transforming into little ringlets that spin above Oikawa’s head. The ringlets then slowly come together in his hands, converging into a small water ball.
Oikawa raised the water ball into the air as if he was about to make a serve.
He hits it.
And the ball flies directly into Tobio’s face.
.
The next time Tobio witnessed Oikawa and his water power was around the last days of school.
“I want to try something. Bring me some dirt” Oikawa said to Iwaizumi.
Iwaizumi grumbled but went outside to get some dirt anyway. It seemed he was aware of Oikawa’s water powers considering how he didn’t show any surprise when Oikawa bubbled the dirt.
However, instead of leaving it at that, Oikawa began to move the water bubble up and down. His hands moved as if they were conducting an orchestra. Oikawa had his eyes closed at the time, but Iwaizumi watched the whole thing. He turned around and spotted Tobio watching from behind a door. They said nothing to each other and turned their attention back to Oikawa.
At that point, the dirt that had been swirling around in a bubble of water had suddenly become one with the liquid and turned green.
Oikawa raised his arms and suddenly a beacon of green energy sprouted from Iwaizumi’s hands. Neither Tobio nor Iwaizumi could say anything as they watched Oikawa lead the string of plant energy. It seemed that Oikawa was having trouble controlling the plant energy, but with enough focus, he was able to manipulate the line of light in whatever form he pleased.
Amazing. Tobio thought.
Then, the plant energy suddenly separated back into mud and water.
The water was then shot directly into Tobio’s face.
.
“What’s up with that dance routine you do?” Hinata one day asked.
Tobio turned around and raised an eyebrow. It was after practice. No one was in the gymnasium except for Tobio and Hinata.
“What dance routine.”
“That dance routine you do before we have a game. The one where you like, dance all gracefully and the white, sparkly stuff comes out of your hands” Hinata explained, mimicking how Tobio would “dance.”
“I do that to calm myself down” Tobio explained.
Hinata stopped dancing and tilted his head.
“How? Is it the glittery stuff that comes out of your hands?”
Tobio shook his head and looked down at his hands.
“That ‘glittery stuff’ is the ice energy that comes out from my body. When I weave with my ice elemental powers, I am taking my mind off of the outside world. It’s resetting my head before I do anything else.”
“Oh, that’s why you never notice me watching you,” Hinata said.
Tobio puts his hands down and gives the shorter a glare. Hinata jumps back in defense.
“What!? It’s cool to watch! You also make all of these interesting shapes and stuff!” he exclaimed.
Tobio glared at Hinata with a pout before looking back down at his hands.
“Yeah, I know. I watched Oikawa-san do the same thing the night before we had matches and exams. I even saw him make new elements.”
“Huh?” Hinata said.
“Oikawa has the elemental power of water. He’s able to make new elements by combining them with others by focusing on the spiritual energy within them. It takes a massive amount of focus to do that” Tobio explained calmly.
Hinata hummed (though he didn’t understand the concept too well).
“Can you do that?”
Tobio shook his head.
“Ice is a secondary element made from water and wind. I can’t make any other elements.”
“Can you separate them?” Hinata asked.
Tobio looked up from his hands and at Hinata. He stared at him, examining the genuine curiosity on his face. Then, his eyes looked out of the window, at the night sky outside.
Can he?
.
Today is the day of the Miyagi qualifiers for the Spring Tournament.
“Try it! Try it!” Hinata exclaims.
Tobio slaps his mouth shut. The last thing he wants is for this idiot to reveal to the entire gymnasium that he has elemental powers.
In the little time they had before they needed to go against their opponent, Tobio and Hinata walked outside to a secluded area.
This isn’t the first time Hinata watched Tobio weave. He’s been there ever since Tobio decided to try to separate his elemental into its two original forms. There were times when he almost succeeded, but others were a complete failure.
“Just pretend I’m not here,” Hinata says.
“Don’t worry, you don’t even exist to me right now” Tobio says without turning to look at the other.
Hinata clenches his teeth but relaxes once Tobio starts. His eyes are trained on the trail of ice that follows Tobio’s hands.
Tobio moves gracefully, just as he practiced when he watched Oikawa during middle school. His footsteps move swiftly through the grass with his arms and hands following from above. Tobio’s movement is a bit more angular than Oikawa’s. That’s because of the nature of his element. Usually, ice is quite sharp and hard to break. However, in its pure energy form, it is lighter than water itself. Thus, Tobio has no problem weaving the energy around as if he were weaving water, or even wind, itself.
His mind is in focus, and no distractions are made. Hinata watches, his toes and fingers clenched as he anticipates a specific move.
Tobio brings the ice energy up into the air.
Then, his arms separate them into two separate elements, wind and water.
Hinata cheers, but slaps his mouth shut to keep Tobio focused. Though, it’s not like Tobio heard, he’s too deep into his mind to notice.
This is why he didn’t anticipate the water stream he made to be suddenly taken by him by an individual watching from the side.
Tobio opens his eyes and looks up. Oikawa is standing next to Hinata. His hand is open, and the water that Tobio created is in its bubble form, floating above his palm.
He can feel he’s losing control of the wind element he’s made. It’s slipping from his arm.
“Well don’t just stand there and gawk at me. Take control of your elements” Oikawa says.
He shoots the water energy back towards Tobio. The younger uses his other hand to catch it. He succeeds but in a very messy way.
“If you want to handle two elements at the same time, you need to exert control over both. Forget that I’m here and refocus. No one’s attacking you” Oikawa says.
Tobio closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He searches for the water and wind energy circling his arms. When he finds them both, Tobio repositions himself into a more stable pose. The wind and water energy are now spherical, floating above his hands.
In the meanwhile, Hinata spots Oikawa reaching his hand into the sky. A small blob of water forms around his fingertips. Oikawa closes his eyes and lets the water energy he’s created merge with the breeze above him. Once they turn into ice, Oikawa brings his hand down and starts to play with the new ice energy he’s formed. Instead of keeping it that way, he separates them just as Tobio did.
Oikawa walks over to Tobio. The younger looks up and immediately starts to panic when he sees his upperclassman wielding the same elements as him.
“We are not playing volleyball right now. You and I are on the same side. Cooperate with me now will you?” Oikawa says.
Tobio stares up at Oikawa. Never in his life did he think this particular upperclassman would ask to weave elements with him, nonetheless in a very difficult form.
Now, instead of watching Tobio weaving alone, Hinata watches with excitement as both Tobio and Oikawa begin to weave together. They dance around each other like butterflies, the energies they wield swirling in and out like pieces of thread tangling up together.
With each step, they start to become closer. Eventually, they are back to back and the energy is surrounding them both in a spherical cage. Together, they mix all of the elemental energies into ice. Once converged, the ice energy swirls around them, dancing high in the sky and low near the ground.
Then, Oikawa steps away from Tobio and allows him to take all of the ice energy.
Tobio, without turning around, feels the rush of cold coming towards him. He takes the element he’s given and begins to spin them into a ball of ice. They change into different shapes as Tobio’s hands move up and down, left to right. Once the sphere is to the size of his liking, Tobio opens his eyes.
He turns around. The ball of ice is shot towards Oikawa’s feet, freezing them to the ground.
In turn, he gets a ball of water to the face.
“Hah! You thought you were being smart, didn’t you? I saw that coming from a mile away!” Oikawa exclaimed haughtily.
The older began cackling until Tobio, drenched and pouting, started to walk away.
“Hey! Hey! Unfreeze me gosh darn it! I got a game to play in a couple of minutes!”
Tobio stops in his tracks. He turns around and raises an eyebrow.
“But you can free yourself can you?” Tobio asks, before turning back around.
Oikawa stares at him, his mouth agape. He turns to look at Hinata, but the latter shrugs and follows Tobio back to the gymnasium.
“Hey! Come back here! HEY!”
“KAGEYAMA TOBIO YOU BRAT!”