Chapter 111 - Yagami Sorato
Out of bounds. Ryonan ball.
Yagami Sorato caught the baseline inbound, stared down Aomine Daiki, and threaded a direct pass into the paint. Ikegami Ryoji used Uozumi Jun's screen to curl free, and the ball hit him in stride. He turned and went up for the layup, but Wakamatsu Kosuke got a piece of it from the weak side and the ball glanced off the rim.
"Rebound!"
Uozumi roared it like a battle cry. Sandwiched between Susa Yoshinori and Wakamatsu, he wrenched the offensive board away from both of them on pure will, rose off the floor a second time, and hammered the ball through the net.
Ryonan 37, Touou 33.
"That's the way, Uozumi!" Coach Taoka bellowed from the sideline.
Touou's transition came fast. Imayoshi Shoichi pushed the ball upcourt, read Ryonan's backpedal, and decided there was no opening for a run. He signaled with his right hand. Sakurai Ryo used a screen off the ball and curled out from the corner.
Imayoshi found the pocket and delivered it.
Koshino Hiroaki fought through the screen and dove at Sakurai. He was a step too late. Sakurai's release was already gone, the ball leaving his fingertips in the same instant he caught the pass, before Koshino's hand could get anywhere near it. The shot climbed on a high, clean arc.
Swish.
Three-pointer.
Ryonan 37, Touou 36.
"Damn it." Koshino grimaced as he turned back upcourt. He had closed out as hard as he could. Sakurai was just faster.
Yagami jogged past him without breaking stride. "Next time, commit to fouling him if you have to. Don't let that shot go."
"Yeah. You're right."
Possession change. Ryonan on offense.
Yagami brought the ball up and slowed to a deliberate walk at the top of the arc, working the dribble in easy, unhurried rhythms. Aomine Daiki spread his arms wide and lowered his hips, eyes burning.
"Come on. Show me something different from last time."
Yagami tested him with a between-the-legs dribble, watching for a shift in Aomine's weight. Nothing. He tried a crossover. Aomine's feet didn't move, but his hands were already in the right place, sealing off the lane before the first step ever arrived. Yagami cycled through every option in his toolkit - a stutter crossover, a direct drive, a behind-the-back fake - and each time Aomine was exactly where he needed to be.
Aomine's defense wasn't built on study or preparation. It was pure instinct operating at a speed that made the word "instinct" feel too small. He didn't analyze. He just knew.
"Not enough time," Yagami muttered under his breath, grinding his jaw.
His body had genuinely improved. The leg work he'd put in with Chinatsu Kazushi had added real pop to his first step, and his coordination had evolved enough to make techniques that once lived only in theory into actual weapons. But the thing stopping him from blowing past Aomine Daiki right now was the one thing he had always trusted most.
His speed.
Just as Kazushi had told him: without a true signature weapon, when a hard game arrived, you'd find yourself limited at every turn.
"Is this it?" Aomine grinned, wide and hungry, drinking in the spectacle of Yagami's search. "That's all you've got?"
Yagami exhaled slowly.
And the moment Aomine's lips moved on his second word, Yagami exploded right.
Aomine shuffled across instantly, body squaring up, cutting off the lane.
Yagami planted his left foot and spun hard - but he didn't finish the spin. Halfway through the rotation he hit the brakes, used the torque to pull the ball through his legs from his right hand to his left, and stepped back in the same motion, creating just enough space.
Aomine blinked. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
Yagami didn't hesitate. He rose straight up and let it fly, the ball arcing on a beautiful, clean line toward the basket.
The ball rattled in and out.
Aomine went after the miss aggressively, climbing over Wakamatsu and Uozumi's tangled bodies at the rim to grab the rebound himself.
"Looks like luck's on my side today."
He ignored the teammates streaking ahead on the break and took off up the court alone.
Yagami watched the ball fail to drop and felt something release in his chest. A strange sort of calm. He turned and immediately picked up Aomine.
"Fine," he said quietly. "Defense first, then."
Aomine decelerated as he crossed the free throw line, but there was no anxiety in his movement, no hesitation. He went up off two feet at the elbow and threw up a shot - if you could call it that. As Yagami rose to contest, Aomine tilted his entire body hard to the right until his torso was at a forty-five degree angle to the floor, completely off-balance by any technical definition, and in that position he flung the ball at the basket with his right hand.
The crowd had just watched two completely opposite basketball plays. Yagami's drive had been textbook - fluid, technically precise, elegant in its construction - and it had rattled off the rim. Aomine had been defended to his physical limit and still produced what could barely be classified as a shot, and it was going in.
The ball slammed the top right corner of the backboard square.
Then dropped cleanly through the net.
Ryonan 37, Touou 38.
Touou retook the lead.
"Unbelievable." Coach Taoka's brow furrowed tight. Aomine was shifting the game almost single-handedly.
On the Touou bench, Coach Harasawa sat with his arms folded, completely unsurprised. "For him, basketball has never been something logic can contain. That's exactly why that kid has earned the privilege of training the way he does."
Ryonan came back with Sendoh. High-ball screen with Ikegami at the elbow, Sendoh caught the dump-off and backed Wakamatsu down before flipping a soft hook over his near shoulder.
Ryonan 39, Touou 38.
Touou ball.
Imayoshi pushed up the right side. Sendoh stepped into his path.
"Hey, are you guys really letting a first-year guard Aomine?" Imayoshi said pleasantly, eyes narrowed. "I mean, if it works it'd be a hell of a morale boost. I just wouldn't recommend it personally."
He pulled back and whipped the ball to Aomine on the wing.
Yagami was already in position. Knees bent, weight forward, arms out wide, eyes locked.
Every set of eyes in the gym found the same spot on the court.
Aomine moved.
No fakes, no misdirection. Pure velocity. He took one hard dribble right, his body launching off the first step at a speed that made the crowd's breath catch.
Yagami's pupils contracted. He was already moving - feet cutting left to seal the lane - and he was fast. Fast enough that he got there. But Aomine's combination of speed and raw momentum shoved him a full half-step sideways on contact, and Aomine had the angle.
"He's quick!" someone near the baseline gasped.
Aomine drove into the paint. Uozumi rotated over to cut him off. Aomine didn't slow down. He went up in full stride, and somewhere between leaving the floor and reaching the rim he produced a pull-under - the ball appearing to hang on his hand like it was velcroed there - threading it right through Uozumi's armpit and up against the glass with a feather touch.
The ball rolled through.
Ryonan 47, Touou 49.
"Keep this up and that cute rookie of yours is going to get broken," Imayoshi called back cheerfully as he retreated on defense.
Sendoh glanced over his shoulder at Yagami.
"I can get faster," Yagami said, almost to himself. His face hadn't changed. His eyes had gotten sharper. "My read can be a beat earlier."
He had nearly matched Aomine's first step on that last drive. Nearly. What followed - the body control in full flight, the absurd touch at the finish - that was something else entirely, and Yagami knew it. But the first step, the trigger, that gap was shrinking.
Possession change. Ryonan on offense.
Sendoh dribbled right up to Imayoshi and without a word of warning launched a pull-up jumper from the wing.
Swish.
Three-pointer.
Ryonan 50, Touou 49.
Imayoshi stared at the net for a beat.
"A word of advice," Sendoh said, and his tone was completely sincere. "You might want to start thinking now about what you do if Aomine's offense gets shut down."
"That's not going to happen." Imayoshi smiled without concern.
Possession change. Touou on offense.
Aomine received the ball on the right wing again.
This time Yagami crowded him tighter from the start, hand active at the dribble, staying higher on his body to disrupt the rhythm before it built.
Aomine worked the ball low, fast then slow, his shoulders rolling wide to create false reads. Yagami held his ground with short, precise steps, staying half a man in front, funneling each potential path closed.
Then Aomine raised the ball in one clean lift.
Shot fake.
Yagami's center of gravity twitched upward out of reflex - his body had been loading that response since the first time Aomine attacked him.
The ball came crashing back down. Aomine accelerated right.
"Got it!" Something clicked in Yagami's brain - he caught the hitch in Aomine's movement as his follow-through changed, the slight shift in the pivot foot, and drove his weight back down through his heels. He cut right, lateral step tight and low, and planted himself in the lane again.
But this was Aomine Daiki. The formless player.
He didn't go through. He stopped on a coin - both feet digging, hips dropping - and stepped back in the opposite direction, instantly creating breathing room between them.
"Not done yet!" Yagami pushed off and closed.
Aomine's eyes lit up. This was what he'd been waiting for. His body fell backward, wrist snapping downward, and the ball left his hand on a low, flat trajectory toward the rim.
The crowd was already rising to react to the shot.
Then a sound rang out.
Clean. Sharp. A single crack of palm against leather.
In the fraction of a second that Aomine raised the ball to release it, Yagami had used the half-step he'd fought to take away, launched himself forward, and got his right hand exactly on the ball.
"What?!"
Imayoshi. Wakamatsu. Momoi Satsuki on the sideline. Coach Harasawa in his chair. Midorima Shintaro in the stands, reaching up to push his glasses. Kise Ryota with his mouth open.
Every single one of them wore the same expression.
Aomine Daiki stripped clean in isolation. One on one.
"HE STOLE IT!" The announcer's voice cracked.
The ball came free.
Aomine froze for a half second, staring at his empty hand. Then his head snapped up and he found Yagami already ten feet away and accelerating, the ball tucked and gone.
Yagami pushed it to the limit. He could hear Aomine behind him - that roar, low and furious, the sound of pure competitive rage unleashed - and then the footsteps, fast and closing, because Aomine Daiki at full sprint was a terrifying thing.
Yagami hit the free throw line and went airborne. Aomine arrived a beat later, launching from behind with everything he had, his enormous hand sweeping toward the ball.
Yagami transferred the ball from his right hand to his left in midair.
It went down through the net.
Ryonan 62, Touou 65.
Yagami landed, turned, and found Aomine's eyes.
One beat of silence.
Then the Ryonan bench exploded. Aida Hikoichi launched off his seat. Coach Taoka's clenched fist hammered the air.
Yagami's chest was heaving. Sweat carved lines down his face. But his eyes were bright - lit from somewhere inside - and his voice carried the particular joy of a man who has pressed himself to the edge of what he thought was possible and found there was still more room.
"Again?"
Aomine bared his teeth. The lights caught them. His grin was wild and brilliant and completely genuine.
"Bring it, Yagami Sorato."
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