Chapter 017
Murasakibara turned to look at Oda Kumazawa with obvious contempt: "No matter what you do, you're all going to lose. Teiko Middle School never loses, so you might as well give up now."
"Damn!" Oda Kumazawa immediately flared with anger upon hearing this dismissive comment.
Murasakibara smiled with disdain. Aside from Kenichi Okamura, who possessed some legitimate skill, the rest of these players were completely unremarkable. After securing possession, Kenichi Okamura immediately rallied his teammates: "Don't worry—we'll get those points right back."
Murasakibara heard this and sneered internally while moving to defend Okamura beyond the three-point line: "Bring it on then."
Okamura dribbled the basketball purposefully—he wanted to test Murasakibara's true abilities. He executed a convincing left-side fake before explosively driving right. Murasakibara looked mildly surprised and thought to himself: 'His movement is genuinely quick!'
Murasakibara immediately recovered defensively and positioned himself in front of Okamura again, who promptly jumped up for a layup attempt.
Seeing this, Murasakibara jumped as well, but Okamura immediately adjusted his movement mid-air, using his wrist strength to release the basketball in an altered trajectory.
A pull-up shot. Murasakibara watched this and sneered—the guy was seriously underestimating him! Against someone else, that lever motion might avoid a block, but defense was one of Murasakibara's strongest skills.
As the basketball left Okamura's hands, Murasakibara's middle finger barely grazed it, causing the shot to hit the rim and bounce away.
Oda Kumazawa watched in amazement as Okamura's layup got blocked: 'This guy jumped incredibly high! He could still touch a shot like that.'
With Kenichi Okamura out of position under the basket, Ranki easily secured the rebound and immediately pushed for a fast break.
"Damn it! Get back on defense quickly!" Kenichi Okamura hadn't expected his shot to be blocked. While he'd known from the opening jump ball that Murasakibara had exceptional leaping ability, he hadn't anticipated it reaching this level.
Two Senko players converged on Ranki, but he passed without hesitation directly to Murasakibara. After receiving the ball, Murasakibara looked at Okamura defending him and thought playfully: 'You really think you can stop me? If you can manage it, go ahead and try!'
Murasakibara executed a left-side dribble fake before immediately breaking right. Kenichi Okamura watched with shock: 'That's the exact move I just used!'
The rest of Senko's players were equally surprised: 'Unbelievable! That was the captain's technique—did he learn it after seeing it just once?'
However, while Okamura was internally shocked, he quickly recovered. Since this was his own technique, he understood its mechanics perfectly.
Seeing the defense recover so quickly and position to prevent his layup, Murasakibara sneered internally: 'You're really underestimating me! Besides, who said I was planning to copy your technique?'
Mid-drive, Murasakibara suddenly stopped and spun around. Okamura looked stunned, but by then Murasakibara was already airborne.
One-handed slam dunk.
Teiko scored two more points: 4-0.
'That's... a slam dunk.' Kenichi Okamura stared at Murasakibara's movement in genuine shock. While he'd heard rumors that middle school students at Teiko could dunk, Okamura had always dismissed such claims contemptuously.
Among middle schoolers, he was relatively tall, yet he couldn't dunk. But Murasakibara, with that incredible frame, was actually capable of slam dunks.
Murasakibara looked at the Senko players' suddenly changed expressions and addressed Kenichi Okamura: "You didn't think I was seriously trying to copy your move, did you? While your technique is decent enough, since it's your signature move, you might be able to block it even if I imitated it perfectly."
Seeing Okamura's increasingly ugly expression, Murasakibara continued: "However, when it comes to dunking, there's absolutely no way you can stop me."
"I hate losing, so I have to win—and it has to be overwhelming."
"Damn you, brat!" Okamura immediately exploded with rage.
In the subsequent game, Okamura realized he couldn't stop Murasakibara alone and began employing double-teams or even triple-teams. But even then, they could barely contain Murasakibara, and they couldn't stop the rest of Teiko's players at all. In terms of individual strength, Kenichi Okamura was at most slightly superior to Ranki, but significantly inferior to Murasakibara.
The remaining Senko members matched the second-string players in ability—overall team strength wasn't dramatically different, but none of them could handle Murasakibara. The first half ended with the score at 38-23.
The second half became a complete blowout in Teiko's favor. When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read 88-54—Teiko Middle School victorious.
"Thanks for the game," both teams called out respectfully.
After leaving Senko Middle School, several second-string members excitedly discussed the day's performance: "Murasakibara's dunks were so incredible! If I didn't know he was from our school, I would've thought he was a high school student!"
"Not just that—Murasakibara-san's rebounding was dominant too. No wonder the upperclassmen let him play in the middle school league tournament."
Akai Sakura walked ahead of the second-string group, looking at Murasakibara's towering figure and thinking: 'Atsushi Murasakibara seemed intimidating but unreliable when I first met him. I never expected him to become a completely different person on the court.'
Ranki listened to the second-string players' commentary and remembered similar conversations from two months ago when Teiko won the middle school league. Back then, he'd been talking about Murasakibara and the others the same way, desperately wanting to play basketball alongside these prodigies. Looking at Murasakibara, who had resumed snacking the moment they left the school grounds, he seemed like a completely different person from the dominant player on the court.
"Come to think of it, this might be the first time I've actually played basketball with you, Atsushi," Ranki said with a slight smile.
Murasakibara turned to look at him: "That's true, but anyway, now that you and I are both in first-string, we'll have plenty of time to play basketball together in the future."
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