At this moment.
The Hiroshima Sports Arena seemed to have fallen into complete silence, as if the very air had frozen solid.
Everyone's eyes were forcibly drawn toward the figure wearing Shohoku's No. 16 jersey.
Makino Juro held the basketball in one hand, his posture so casual that he looked like he was simply taking a stroll around his own backyard.
But that steal just now...
It had been too fast.
Too dirty.
Too unreasonable.
It was like using a max-level account to return to the beginner's village and stomp on low-level mobs.
A completely different level of domination.
Kishimoto Minori was sprawled on the floor, his head buzzing.
He stared at Makino Juro's utterly emotionless eyes and suddenly felt as though he were nothing more than a low-level monster that hadn't even made it out of the tutorial area.
"Give... give me the ball!!"
Kishimoto roared as he desperately tried to push himself back up, using both his hands and feet.
His mentality had completely shattered.
He refused to believe it!
He was the second-leading scorer in Osaka, Toyotama's ace power forward.
How could he possibly be toyed with like a monkey by some first-year brat?
This was humiliating!
And yet...
Juro couldn't even be bothered to raise an eyelid.
"You're too noisy."
Three light words.
Little damage.
Maximum humiliation.
The next second...
Bang!
The basketball hit the floor.
Makino Juro exploded forward.
No fancy change of direction.
No unnecessary setup.
Just pure speed.
So fast that it left afterimages on the retina.
[Daiki Aomine · Super High-Speed Dribbling]
The wind howled.
Kishimoto had barely pushed himself halfway upright when a gust of wind seemed to slash across his face, leaving his hair in complete disarray.
In his field of vision, that red-clad figure was already long gone.
He couldn't even see the taillights.
"Get back on defense!! Stop him!!"
Toyotama's coach screamed from the sidelines, his voice cracking.
Minami Tsuyoshi and Itakura Daijiro sprinted back like madmen.
Especially Minami.
As Toyotama's "ace killer," his eyes were vicious as he locked onto Makino Juro's path.
As long as this kid dared to enter the paint...
Even if it meant crippling him, he would stop him!
That was Toyotama's creed.
For the sake of victory, they could throw away their principles.
They could throw away their dignity.
Makino Juro reached the three-point line.
Minami had already established his position.
His knee was subtly raised, like a sinister bear trap waiting to snap shut.
It was a move designed to injure.
If the offensive player collided with it, his career could effectively be over.
"Come on..."
Minami sneered inwardly, a cruel smile curling across his lips.
"Let's see whether your bones are harder..."
"...or my knee."
However...
While moving at full speed, Makino Juro suddenly performed a maneuver that completely defied the laws of physics.
A dead stop.
There was no deceleration.
No buffer.
It was like a supercar traveling at 300 miles per hour suddenly having its brakes welded shut.
Inertia?
Didn't exist.
The soles of his shoes violently scraped against the floor, producing a shrill scream.
Screeeeeech!!
Minami's defensive prediction went straight to hell.
His entire body was still being carried backward by momentum.
He could only watch helplessly as Makino Juro stopped one step beyond the three-point line.
He hadn't attacked the basket at all.
Makino Juro simply stood there, looking utterly relaxed.
He even had enough time to adjust his wristband, as if he were saying:
I'm standing right here.
Come bite me.
Then...
He jumped.
His form was so textbook-perfect that he looked like a shooting machine with no emotions whatsoever.
[Shintaro Midorima · Full-Range Shooting]
Minami tried to rush forward and contest the shot, but he'd already been sent flying nearly two meters away.
He couldn't even touch the edge of Makino Juro's jersey.
All he could do was watch helplessly as Juro released the ball.
The basketball traced an absurdly high arc through the air.
So high that it looked like it wanted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the arena's ceiling lights.
The entire crowd once again tilted their heads upward.
They might have just cured years of chronic neck pain, but not a single person dared blink.
That Logo Shot from earlier was still playing on repeat in their minds.
And now this shot...
Swish!
The sound of the ball passing cleanly through the net was crisp and beautiful.
Like the tolling of the Grim Reaper's bell, ringing with deadly precision over the heads of every Toyotama player.
14–9.
"Again...?! It went in again!!"
"A three-pointer! Nothing but net!"
"This guy's cheating is way too obvious!"
"Is this guy even human?!"
The stands exploded.
If the previous shot had been luck, then this one was a merciless slap of pure ability across everyone's face.
Makino Juro landed and immediately turned to run back on defense.
As he passed the dazed Minami, the corner of his mouth curled upward.
A smile that struck straight at the heart.
"That's your run-and-gun?"
"Too slow. You're moving like an old lady crossing the street."
"If you want to beat us, go practice for another hundred years."
BOOM!
Those words were like dumping a bucket of high-octane gasoline directly onto Toyotama's already raging fury.
"You bastard!!"
Itakura Daijiro was trembling with rage, looking like his CPU was about to burn out.
"Get the ball in! Hurry!"
"Run! Run yourselves into the ground!!"
Toyotama had gone completely berserk.
They stopped caring about tactics.
Stopped caring about tempo.
They only wanted to put the ball into that damn basket.
They only wanted to claw their way back into the game.
And yet...
That was exactly what Makino Juro wanted.
For the next two minutes.
The Hiroshima Sports Arena witnessed a one-man show called despair.
Toyotama inbounded and immediately pushed the fast break.
Makino Juro activated [Emperor Eye], essentially turning on a cheat code for the entire court.
He predicted the passing lane and cut it off midway.
Fast break.
Pull-up three.
Swish!
17–9.
Toyotama attacked again.
Kishimoto tried to overpower Akagi, but failed.
The ball bounced away.
Makino Juro appeared at the landing point like a ghost and snatched the rebound.
A full-court pass.
Rukawa Kaede caught it and threw down a vicious dunk, finishing the easy feed like he was feasting at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
19–9.
Toyotama's mentality completely collapsed.
They began throwing up shots at random, as if they were playing an arcade shooting game.
Makino Juro stole the ball from Itakura and went coast to coast.
Iwata Mitsuaki rotated over to help.
Makino Juro didn't even slow down.
He simply rose for an utterly unreasonable tomahawk dunk over the defender.
CRASH!
The rim let out a mournful groan, almost as if it were screaming:
Somebody save me!
21–9.
...
Just two short minutes.
Or rather...
One hundred and twenty seconds of public execution.
The numbers on the scoreboard changed so rapidly that they made everyone's heart pound.
25–9.
From being down 0–9 at the beginning...
To leading 25–9 now.
Shohoku had unleashed a monstrous 25–0 scoring run, turning Toyotama into little more than a collection of helpless NPCs.
And the mastermind behind it all...
That boy wearing No. 16.
At this moment, he was standing at center court with his hands on his hips.
His chest wasn't even rising particularly heavily.
Sweat?
What's that?
He looked like he'd just finished a few rounds of morning exercises, his expression practically screaming:
That's it?
I haven't even warmed up yet.
"Tweet!!"
The referee's whistle finally pierced the arena.
It sounded almost like an ambulance siren.
Toyotama called timeout.
If he didn't call one now, Coach Kanpei felt his players might actually collapse on the court.
Or suffer a cerebral hemorrhage from sheer rage at the hands of that No. 16.
When Kishimoto Minori walked off the court, his legs were trembling.
He looked like he'd just finished running a marathon.
He stared at that red-clad back.
There was no trace of the contempt he'd shown earlier.
In its place...
Was deep, instinctive fear.
The kind of trembling that seized a human being when confronted by a max-level boss.
"That guy..."
Kishimoto's lips trembled as he accepted the towel from a teammate.
His hands shook so badly that he could barely even drink water.
"What kind of monster..."
...
Shohoku Bench
The atmosphere wasn't nearly as celebratory as one might expect.
Everyone was staring at Makino Juro as he walked back to the bench with the same expression one might use when looking at an extraterrestrial.
Strong.
Way too strong.
So strong that they couldn't help wondering whether this guy had secretly hacked the game's stats.
"Whoo..."
Makino Juro walked over to the bench and dropped heavily onto his seat.
He accepted the water and towel Ayako handed him and casually wiped his face.
"I'm exhausted."
He yawned.
In an instant, he seamlessly switched from the "God of Death" mode he'd displayed moments ago back into his usual "lazy fish" mode.
"This kind of high-intensity back-and-forth running is seriously inhuman."
"Coach, I can't do this anymore."
"I need to rest."
"I want to lie down and do absolutely nothing."
END OF CHAPTER
The King Of Slacking Off - MrBehringer's Secret
👉 patreon.com/MrBehringer