"Oh my god, a dunk on the very first possession? They're starting this hard?"
"This is exactly the matchup I've been waiting for. It's incredible!"
"Why do I get the feeling these guys could actually make it to the NBA?"
"Damn, man, I was thinking the same thing!"
The spectators kept talking among themselves, voicing their thoughts one after another.
On the court, possession changed.
Teikō Middle School's ball.
Teppei Kiyoshi stood out of bounds and received the basketball from the referee. With a flick of his wrist, he passed it to Seijuro Akashi.
Seijuro Akashi caught the ball with one hand and began dribbling up the court.
He made his way into the frontcourt and found Makoto Hanamiya waiting for him.
Seeing that Seijuro Akashi seemed intent on taking him one-on-one, Makoto Hanamiya immediately started running his mouth.
His words came pouring out like a Gatling gun, firing off insult after insult without pause.
Seijuro Akashi paid no attention to any of it.
After training with the Dragon Slayer team, he had already become practically immune to that sort of thing.
At this point, Seijuro Akashi's resistance to trash talk was exceptionally high.
He continued dribbling, flicked the ball from his right hand to his left, then stepped forward with his left foot and quickly drove past Makoto Hanamiya on the right side.
All the training he had done recently had noticeably improved Seijuro Akashi's driving speed.
At the same time, he had taken Nash Gold's advice and started drinking milk.
Not only that, he had also hired a professional nutritionist to manage his diet.
The old Seijuro Akashi had never even considered things like that.
Back then, it wasn't exactly that his father refused to support him. As long as Seijuro Akashi remained number one, his father simply wouldn't interfere.
But neither would his father provide him with any help.
At the time, Seijuro Akashi had only played basketball because he enjoyed it. He had never had a clear goal for his future.
If things had continued that way, he probably would have grown up and obediently returned home to inherit the family business.
But things were different now.
Because of Miyamoto Tokima, and because of his match against the Black Dragon Team, Seijuro Akashi had finally discovered what he truly wanted to do.
He wanted to become a professional player.
And now, his father had begun supporting that dream, even providing Seijuro Akashi with the resources to pursue it.
Seijuro Akashi was intelligent enough to understand why.
His father was helping him because he wanted to strengthen his connection with the Miyamoto Family.
At the same time, Seijuro Akashi himself wanted to keep pace with Miyamoto Tokima.
So in a sense, he and his father were working toward the same goal.
After everything that had happened, combined with the carefully planned diet provided by his nutritionist, Seijuro Akashi had grown to 1.81 meters.
He was only a second-year high school student at most, which meant he still had plenty of room to grow.
If things went well, he might even reach around 1.9 meters, easily meeting the height standard for an NBA point guard.
Back on the court, Makoto Hanamiya immediately chased after Seijuro Akashi once he broke through.
But Seijuro Akashi hadn't driven because he intended to score.
He had done it to draw the attention of Kirisaki Daiichi's other defenders.
Sure enough, once Seijuro Akashi broke through, Shuzo Nijimura's attention instinctively shifted toward him.
Seijuro Akashi didn't hold anything back.
He immediately used his strongest passing technique.
The incredible passing move he had secretly learned from Nash Gold.
No Motion Pass!
A flash of white light flickered from Seijuro Akashi's left hand.
In the next instant, the basketball vanished.
What?!
Shuzo Nijimura froze.
He hadn't expected Seijuro Akashi to know Nash Gold's No Motion Pass!
Wait.
Something was wrong.
Shuzo Nijimura reacted and turned his head, only to realize that Ryota Kise had disappeared.
He quickly looked back again and saw Ryota Kise slipping past him and breaking into the paint.
"Whoa! He's fast! He got into the paint in an instant!"
"The game just started and it's already this intense!"
On the court, Ryota Kise reached the paint, planted his feet, and rose into a pull-up jumper.
Thud, thud, thud...
Atsushi Murasakibara rushed over, appeared in front of Ryota Kise, and leaped into the air to cut off his shooting path.
"Murasakibara's fast too! He got there instantly!"
"Yeah. In the previous games, Murasakibara practically guarded everything inside the three-point line by himself. His defensive range is terrifying!"
"He's going to get blocked, right?"
On the court, the corner of Ryota Kise's mouth curled upward.
He raised the ball as though he were about to shoot, only to suddenly pull his hands back.
Then, under Atsushi Murasakibara's shocked gaze, Ryota Kise grabbed the ball with his left hand and flung it past Murasakibara's side.
Clang!
The ball struck the backboard and somehow dropped straight through the net.
Off the court, the spectators erupted.
"Whoa! That actually went in?!"
"What? How the hell did that go in? That had to be luck!"
"Come on, man. Luck is part of the game too!"
On the court, Ryota Kise landed with a smile.
"What do you think, Murasakibaracchi? My Formless Shot isn't bad, right?"
"Tch." Atsushi Murasakibara pouted. "You won't make it next time."
Ryota Kise merely chuckled, then turned and headed back on defense.
...
Possession changed.
Kirisaki Daiichi's ball.
Once again, Makoto Hanamiya brought the ball up the court toward Teikō Middle School's side.
When he reached the frontcourt, he continued staring warily at Seijuro Akashi's eyes, afraid that Seijuro Akashi might suddenly activate the [Emperor Eye] without warning.
"You really don't need to be that cautious," Seijuro Akashi said with a helpless smile. "I promise that if I activate the [Emperor Eye], I'll tell you."
"How do I know you're not lying?" Makoto Hanamiya clearly didn't believe him.
"Look carefully into my sincere eyes and you'll know whether I'm lying," Seijuro Akashi said earnestly. "Don't worry. I would never lie to you."
"If I activate the [Emperor Eye], I'll definitely tell you."
Makoto Hanamiya carefully studied Seijuro Akashi's eyes and expression.
He really did look sincere.
There was no obvious sign that he was lying.
After spending so much time around Shoichi Imayoshi, Makoto Hanamiya had picked up a bit of psychology.
He had even learned a little about reading microexpressions.
And right now, he truly couldn't see any trace of deception on Seijuro Akashi's face.
So Makoto Hanamiya stopped worrying about it and dribbled forward two steps.
The next second...
Smack!
"The Secret to the Akashi Dynasty!!!"
...