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‘Tesshin’: from the kanji iron and heart. A strong core that won’t weaken. Found in the proverb ‘tesshinsekichou’: iron heart and stone guts. It doesn’t fit Kiyoshi at all.
He doesn’t even know how it got started, or who first decided it was a suitable moniker for him. Obviously it comes from his first name, but does he really look so unwavering? That strength in his beliefs indicated in the name, does it really look like it fits him?
Something like that should better be given to people like Izuki and Mitobe, who went through the crucible of Junior High School Basketball under the shadow of the Generation of Miracles just as willing to play as they always have been; or someone like Koganei, an outsider who saw the consequences of the whole sorry mess but still wants to take his chances.
People like him, like Hyuuga, who have lost the ability to face basketball straightforwardly and without artifice, people like them have been broken by basketball and by the Generation of Miracles.
In the end, iron breaks too easily.