Chapter 134: Let's Get Along
When Aida Yayoi returned to the main gymnasium, the third quarter had two minutes left.
"Senpai! You missed it!" Nakamura Heisuke waved her over frantically the moment he spotted her. "Aomine went off in the third quarter! Twelve straight points by himself!"
Yayoi looked up at the scoreboard.
Touou 66, Rakuzan 65.
They had actually taken the lead.
She slid back into her seat and took Nakamura's notes, reading quickly.
Aomine Daiki. She thought about Sawakita Eiji, who would be leaving for the United States after this tournament. If that was the case, would the title of Japan's best high school player land on this explosive first-year? And if the national final ended up being Touou against Sannoh—
BOOM.
A heavy, dense sound snapped her out of her thoughts.
Aomine shook free of his defender and drove cleanly to the basket, finishing with a powerful slam.
Touou 68, Rakuzan 65.
"Don't think two defenders are enough to stop me, Akashi." Aomine landed and turned back upfield, something wild and satisfied playing at the corner of his mouth.
Beep.
"Rakuzan calling timeout."
The Rakuzan players walked to their bench with tight expressions.
"How is this happening?" In the Rakuzan cheering section, a boy named Fujimaki Chu stared at the scoreboard in disbelief. "Since Akashi joined Rakuzan, I have never once seen them trail in the second half."
"Is that weird?" the classmate beside him asked. "Teams fall behind all the time."
"No." Fujimaki's face was serious. "You don't understand. Akashi would never allow this."
Rakuzan bench.
"Calling the timeout wasn't strictly necessary, was it?" Coach Shirogane Eiji asked Akashi quietly. "There's only one minute left. You could argue it was a slight waste."
"No." Akashi accepted the water bottle from the equipment staff and drank before responding. "This timeout is necessary. At minimum, I do not intend to enter the final quarter trailing."
"Understood." Shirogane nodded. He felt the same.
"I know stopping Daiki at his current level is genuinely difficult for you." Akashi's voice was even, but the air around the bench seemed to drop several degrees the moment he began speaking.
"But that does not mean your offense has to be this disorganized."
His mismatched eyes swept slowly across the players beside him. Wherever his gaze settled, the temperature felt like it fell further.
Hayama Kotaro felt the chill before the words even reached him. The back of his neck rose instinctively. That cold, absolute, non-negotiable pressure—it brought him straight back to when Akashi had first arrived at Rakuzan. He had used this exact presence to make every single person on the roster understand who was in charge.
"Starting now," Akashi said, "I will handle Daiki myself."
No one spoke.
"As for offense, I will give each of you one turnover. Use it however you need."
A pause.
"Do you think that's enough?"
It was phrased as a question. It was not a question. Every person on that bench understood that negotiation was not on the table.
Mibuchi Reo pressed his lips together. Nebuya Eikichi stiffened. Mayuzumi Chihiro kept his head down.
"Yes."
"Understood."
"Got it."
The answers came in sequence, every trace of hesitation gone.
Akashi gave a single nod and said nothing further.
Beep.
The timeout ended. The Rakuzan players stood, and as they moved back toward the floor, there was something almost like relief moving through them. The pressure had been applied. Now they knew exactly what was expected.
Play resumed. Rakuzan ball.
Akashi pushed the ball up the floor with no urgency on his face.
Past half court, Imayoshi moved up to apply his familiar defensive read. Akashi shifted the ball left with a fake drive right, pulling Imayoshi's weight with it, then snapped it behind his back into his right hand and cut hard left with his whole body.
Imayoshi was completely wrong-footed.
"Screen!" he called out immediately.
Susa Yoshinori rushed up to cut off the path.
Akashi didn't slow down. He arrived at Susa in full stride, planted, and launched into a light skip step—his body completing a full, graceful 360-degree spin in the air.
Susa had no position left to speak of.
Akashi turned through the air, wrist cocking toward the basket—
"Watch out!" Mibuchi called from the wing.
But the ball didn't go to the rim.
In the fraction of a second before release, Akashi's peripheral vision caught Aomine Daiki coming from behind at a speed that shouldn't have been possible for someone already on defense. Akashi adjusted instantly.
SLAP.
Hayama Kotaro cut in from the right and caught the redirected pass, converting the running layup without breaking stride.
Touou 68, Rakuzan 67.
"Daiki." As Akashi dropped back, he asked the question quietly. "Can you maintain this level until the final buzzer?"
"Easily." Aomine dismissed it without a second thought.
Transition. Touou offense.
Imayoshi wanted to bleed the clock, limit Rakuzan's final-quarter opportunities. He pushed through half court and found Hayama switching onto him.
"Thought so." Aomine's eyes lit up immediately, hand already extended for the ball. "Give it here."
"Let's go, Daiki." Akashi's voice came from the other end of the court, flat and ready.
From a purely tactical standpoint, Imayoshi keeping the ball was the correct decision. But telling his own ace no when he's locked in like this wasn't something Imayoshi was about to do either.
"Aomine is the best!"
He fired the pass.
Aomine caught it at the right wing, forty-five degrees from the arc, Akashi directly in front of him. Plenty of clock.
He didn't wait.
CRACK.
One hard dribble and Aomine drove right, his first step arriving so fast that Akashi's sideways shuffle barely got there, and their bodies collided for the first time, a dense muscular impact.
Aomine pulled back left, chaining a behind-the-back rhythm change with a brief, barely-there hesitation baked into the movement.
Akashi's feet stayed light, his eyes never leaving Aomine's dribbling hand.
CRACK.
Aomine's eyes sharpened. The probing was done. Every ounce of explosive force he had loaded into his body detonated at once, left foot driving hard off the floor, body surging right with a tiny shoulder drop woven into the change.
Their bodies collided a second time.
Now.
Aomine stepped back half a step, pulled the ball in, and rose to shoot.
But in the very instant the ball came up and his body began to leave the floor, Akashi lunged forward.
He had targeted this exact sliver of time. The moment between effort ending and new effort beginning. The mandatory instant where a body in motion cannot redirect itself.
SMACK.
A clean, sharp sound.
Akashi stripped the ball.
It bounced off Aomine's hand and skipped behind him.
Akashi didn't pause. He dropped his weight, bent low, and scooped the ball from the floor in stride, going immediately.
Eight seconds left in the quarter.
Rakuzan in transition.
Hayama and Mibuchi were already moving like two blades cutting into Touou's half court. Aomine and Imayoshi were sprinting back.
Three on two at the front.
Akashi showed no intention of passing, driving toward the rim alone. And behind him, the figure that should have been left far back was closing in at a pace that made no physical sense.
Aomine, dispossessed, was running faster than he had been on offense.
Akashi reached the baseline and went up. In the corner of his eye, he caught Mibuchi Reo on the right. The ball was nearly off his fingertips.
Pass or layup?
Imayoshi had his eyes locked on Akashi's wrist. He couldn't read it.
Pass.
But in the same instant Akashi's arm moved through the passing motion, his wrist turned the ball upward. He had chosen to finish himself.
SMACK.
Aomine hadn't even considered that Akashi might pass. His palm came down and hammered the ball flat against the backboard.
A thunderous rejection.
"COUNTER!"
Aomine ripped the ball off the glass, turned to push—
Beep.
The third-quarter buzzer.
Touou held their one-point lead.
"Hm." Aomine tossed the ball aside without looking. It hit the floor and rolled lazily toward the baseline with a hollow bounce.
Akashi turned and looked back at him. His heterochromatic eyes were unreadable, carrying only a quality of depth that had no bottom.
Akashi had stripped Aomine Daiki cleanly. And Aomine had blocked his finishing attempt in return.
"Now that's more like it, Daiki."
Two minutes later, both teams were back on the floor.
Neither lineup had changed. Fourth quarter. Final stretch.
Rakuzan ball. Akashi brought it up steadily.
Aomine stepped up to defend. "Last quarter. Let's settle this."
Akashi did not engage with him. He dribbled wide, opened space, and passed.
CRACK.
The ball curved through the air and found Nebuya Eikichi at the low post, who caught it, stepped through with a skip step, and released a close-range layup.
Touou 68, Rakuzan 69.
"What?!"
"How did that—"
"Now I understand why he's out there." Sendoh Akira sat up straight in the Ryonan section, his interest fully lit.
"So to get Akashi into that other gear, you have to go through this first." Yagami Sorato turned it over quietly in his head.
"Akashi, you didn't—" Aomine was already staring at Mayuzumi Chihiro with narrowing eyes. When he spoke, his voice had gone cold. "You didn't just put someone out there who plays exactly like Tetsu."
"Similar, but not identical." Akashi's explanation was calm. "You could see it for yourself through the first three quarters, couldn't you? Even without using that particular style of passing, he contributes at the level of a solid regular on the floor."
"He shares Tetsuya's characteristics, yes. But outside of passing, there is nothing he cannot do."
"To put it simply. Tetsuya is the prototype. Mayuzumi Chihiro is the upgraded version. Every capability raised one level higher. The new phantom sixth man."
"Akashi, you really are something." Aomine looked away. "But you're right about one thing. Tetsu and him are different."
Transition. Touou offense.
Imayoshi pushed through half court. Hayama was on him.
"Finally, a little breathing room." Imayoshi smiled pleasantly.
Hayama's irritation flickered, and in that half-second Imayoshi used Susa's screen to cut sharply into the paint. Mibuchi collapsed immediately to help.
Imayoshi didn't attack the rim. He pulled up into a sharp reverse bounce pass that sent the ball to the corner.
Sakurai Ryo caught it in open space. No hesitation. Up and away.
SWISH.
Three points, pure.
Touou 71, Rakuzan 69.
"That's the one, Sakurai!"
Touou scrambled back on defense.
Transition. Rakuzan offense.
Akashi walked the ball up against Aomine's pressure, then made a small hand gesture.
Rakuzan's off-ball movement activated. Mibuchi looped off the baseline, Hayama cut to the paint, Nebuya posted at the block.
Akashi released the ball in a way that looked casual. It passed within centimeters of Sakurai and then bent subtly in the air.
SWISH.
Mibuchi caught it one step beyond the arc and fired immediately. Susa threw himself at the contest and got nowhere near it.
The ball dropped through.
Three. Rakuzan answers.
Touou 71, Rakuzan 72.
"This can't keep going like this." Imayoshi adjusted his glasses. The pressure was building in a way he had to respect. Even with Aomine locking Akashi down, Mayuzumi's presence was keeping Rakuzan's secondary scoring options alive.
Transition. Touou offense.
Imayoshi crossed half court and Hayama picked him up.
"Good. A chance to breathe." Imayoshi's smile widened.
Hayama suppressed his reaction and bore down into his stance, mindful of the half-court buzzer-beater. He lowered his center of gravity and spread his arms, completely focused.
Imayoshi raised the ball in a shot fake. Then his first step fired forward.
"Tch. He's got so many more tricks than when he was guarding Akashi." Hayama ground his teeth and shifted laterally to cut it off.
Imayoshi used the fake to pull Hayama's weight, then reversed direction immediately—crossover right, ball moving from left hand to right, body following.
Hayama wrenched himself back and lunged to seal the path.
The bodies made contact. Imayoshi absorbed the bump without stopping, planting his left foot and spinning through a full three-sixty rotation with smooth footwork.
Hayama lost half a step.
But Nebuya Eikichi's help timing was precise. He was already filling the lane.
"Don't worry, I know my finishing isn't the scary part."
CRACK.
A perfectly disguised bounce pass, tight to the floor. Wakamatsu Kosuke caught it at the low block, leaped, and hammered it home with both hands.
BOOM.
Touou 73, Rakuzan 72.
Touou retook the lead.
Transition. Rakuzan offense.
But Touou's defensive alignment had shifted.
Imayoshi Shoichi was now locked onto Mayuzumi Chihiro.
"I remember now!" Hikoichi shot to his feet in the Ryonan section. "In Touou's game against Seirin, he was the one who shut down Kuroko Tetsuya completely!"
If Imayoshi could cut off Mayuzumi's involvement, Rakuzan's second playmaking option disappears entirely.
Down on the floor, Imayoshi moved alongside Mayuzumi and let a quiet, serpentine smile settle on his face.
"So you're the new model, huh."
He let the words land, then tilted his head in mock invitation.
"Let's get along."
patreon.com/Twilightsky588 - 50 advanced chapters