Miyagi ignored him.
His eyes sharpened as he suddenly exploded forward.
Left-side drive!
He was unbelievably fast, streaking forward like a bolt of lightning!
Itakura was shaken off by half a step.
"Got him!"
Miyagi's heart leaped with excitement as he prepared to attack the paint.
Then, suddenly, a dark figure came charging in from the side.
Toyotama No. 8, Mitsuaki Iwata.
The big man looked honest and harmless enough, but his methods were anything but clean.
He wasn't going for the ball.
He was going for the man.
BAM!
Iwata's body slammed into Miyagi like a moving wall, his knee making a subtle, vicious strike against Miyagi's thigh.
"Ugh!"
Miyagi groaned.
A sharp pain shot through his body, and half his leg immediately went numb.
His balance disappeared.
The basketball slipped from his hands.
"Nice!"
Iwata shouted as he casually scooped up the ball from the floor, wearing an innocent expression.
The referee didn't blow the whistle.
That level of contact was simply being treated as "physical defense."
"Fast break!!"
Iwata swung his long arm and sent the ball flying upcourt once again.
Itakura.
Again.
That same despair-inducing fast-break rhythm.
Two-on-one.
Mitsui desperately raced back on defense.
But against Itakura and Kishimoto's polished coordination, his efforts looked utterly helpless, like a clown being toyed with.
Pass.
Return pass.
Another pass.
Finally, Toyotama's shooting guard, Ohkawa Teruo, casually finished the layup.
6–0.
Less than two minutes into the game, Shohoku had yet to score a single point.
"Oh, no, no, no!"
On the bench, Kiminobu Kogure practically jumped out of his chair, his glasses nearly sliding off his nose.
He clutched his head, his face pale.
"Six to nothing in less than two minutes!"
"We've completely lost control of the pace!"
"This is bad! At this rate, we'll get blown apart!"
Coach Anzai remained as steady as a mountain.
Only the teacup in his hand betrayed him, the tea inside trembling ever so slightly and sending ripples across its surface.
"This style of play..."
Ayako bit her lip, squeezing the paper fan in her hand until it creaked.
"They're playing like street thugs!"
"They deliberately seek out physical contact, push the rules to the limit, and use it to destroy the opponent's mentality. This isn't basketball!"
"The strength we've built during training camp isn't showing at all!"
On the court.
Miyagi pulled himself up from the floor and fiercely rubbed his thigh.
It hurt.
A deep, stabbing pain.
But the fire in his eyes burned even hotter.
"Bastards..."
He gritted his teeth and glared at the Toyotama players who were high-fiving each other.
"Don't get too cocky."
But Toyotama's momentum had already reached its peak.
A bloodthirsty excitement spread across every player's face.
They were like sharks that had caught the scent of blood.
Kishimoto sprinted back upcourt.
As he passed Sakuragi, he suddenly stopped.
He spread his arms and shouted toward the ball-carrying Itakura, loud enough for the entire arena to hear.
"Itakura! Over here!"
"Pass it to me!"
Kishimoto pointed toward Sakuragi standing in front of him.
The contempt in his eyes was absolute, as though he were pointing at nothing more than empty air.
"This No. 10 isn't even in my league!"
"He's just a basketball amateur!"
He was practically rubbing it in Sakuragi's face.
Hanamichi Sakuragi's eyebrows shot straight up.
A vein popped on his forehead.
"What did you say?!"
Sakuragi was so furious that he actually laughed, his teeth grinding together.
"You damn ponytail bastard..."
"You looking to die?!"
Kishimoto merely sneered.
He completely ignored Sakuragi's furious shouting.
He established his position and called for the ball.
Itakura understood immediately and lofted a high pass.
Kishimoto caught it and went to work with his back to the basket.
"Come on, redhead!"
"Let's see what you've got!"
Kishimoto leaned his body backward with force.
BAM!
Muscles collided.
Sakuragi didn't move an inch.
He stood there like an iron tower, not even wavering.
"Hm?"
Kishimoto's expression changed slightly.
I can't move him?
Is this guy's lower body welded to the floor?
If he couldn't overpower him...
Then...
Kishimoto suddenly spun around, pretending to shoot.
Sakuragi reacted instantly.
His beastlike instincts kicked in, and he leaped to block the shot.
"Die!!"
His terrifying vertical leap sent him rocketing upward.
His enormous shadow instantly swallowed Kishimoto beneath it, blotting out the light.
"Idiot."
A mocking smile curled across Kishimoto's lips.
He pulled the ball back in midair.
He hadn't intended to shoot at all.
A fake.
He landed.
His wrist flicked with almost imperceptible subtlety.
Instant pass!
The basketball slipped beneath Sakuragi's armpit and flew straight toward the corner.
Standing there was a man who had barely spoken all game, almost like a ghost.
Toyotama's captain.
No. 4, Tsuyoshi Minami.
Rukawa's rotation was half a beat too late.
Minami caught the ball.
No adjustment.
No crouching to gather himself.
The instant the ball touched his hands, his body was already rising.
His release point was extremely low, and his shooting motion was so fast it resembled a quick-draw sword technique.
There was barely enough time to blink.
"What?!"
Mitsui's pupils shrank as he rushed over to defend.
Too fast!
That shooting form...
It doesn't even give the defender time to react!
The basketball traced an almost perfectly flat arc through the air.
There wasn't even much rotation.
It flew like a precisely fired bullet.
Up in the stands, in the section occupied by Kainan University High School.
Shinichi Maki's eyes widened.
"That's fast!"
As Kanagawa's elite marksman, Shinsoichiro Jin was extremely sensitive to shooting speed.
"That kind of release speed..."
"Give him even the slightest opening, and he'll shoot immediately..."
"Is this the scoring ace of Osaka?"
Swish!
The crisp sound of the net snapping echoed through the arena like the tolling of a funeral bell.
Three-pointer.
9–0.
The numbers on the scoreboard changed.
Bright red.
Blinding.
Suffocating.
"RAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"MINAMI! MINAMI! MINAMI!"
"TOYOTAMA! UNBEATABLE!"
The stands went completely insane.
The deafening roar came crashing down like a tsunami, wave after wave pounding against the court, as if the entire arena intended to smash Shohoku's tiny boat to pieces.
Three minutes into the game.
9–0.
Shohoku had been stunned into silence.
The court was eerily quiet, broken only by the Toyotama players' unrestrained laughter.
"Hey, hey, hey. What's wrong?"
Kishimoto spread his arms, wearing an unbearably smug expression as he looked at Sakuragi and Akagi.
"Is that it?"
"C-rank teams need to know their place."
He pointed at the scoreboard and laughed like a man who had suddenly found himself on top of the world.
"See that?"
"That's reality."
"That's the level of the National Tournament."
"Go ahead and pack your bags. Then go home and cry to your mommy!"
Hanamichi Sakuragi stood beneath the basket, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles cracked.
His head lowered.
Shadow covered his eyes.
His body trembled slightly.
It wasn't fear.
It was anger.
Pure, overwhelming fury, like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
"Bastard..."
The word was forced through Sakuragi's clenched teeth, dripping with murderous intent.
"Unforgivable..."
They had yet to score a single point.
This wasn't merely a crushing deficit on the scoreboard.
It was an execution of their pride.
Toyotama High's tempo was ridiculously fast, as though someone had hit the fast-forward button, while their physical play was filthy enough to resemble an underground brawl.
On the court, Hanamichi Sakuragi's muscles were drawn taut like a bow pulled to its limit.
A burning pain spread through his ribs.
Just moments ago, that ponytailed bastard Kishimoto had delivered a vicious elbow into him while retreating, disguising it as ordinary contact.
And the most infuriating part was that casual little insult afterward.
"Loser."
"Bastard..."
Sakuragi's teeth ground together.
His eyes were bloodshot.
His body suddenly leaned forward.
He was just about to charge over and deliver a "headbutt execution" to that ponytailed bastard.
"Sakuragi!"
A lazy yet extraordinarily penetrating shout rang out.
It forcibly stopped Sakuragi in his tracks.
END OF CHAPTER
The King Of Slacking Off - MrBehringer's Secret
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