Ari got the ball from the referee. Team 7s first offensive possession. The first possession for the white bib team. Ari took a deep deep breath. They needed to use this opportunity to score. They couldn't let the ball fall back in team 8s hands, Specifically in Ethan Carter's hands.
Shota the lockdown defender came for Ari. And just like that Ari saw all possible openings being /LOCKED DOWN.
Ari had zero chance of dribbling past Shota. Right, left, feint. He didn't have enough skill in his bag to go past such an aggressive angry one on one specialist.
But even worse: Shota wasn't watching the ball. His angry eyes bored directly into Ari's pupils. He was reading intention before action. It was Pure Competition Hatred
The aura of Watanabe Shota did very well force AriToru to retreat deeper. A cautious dribble, the want to create space from something you could not defeat. So AriToru motioned for Haruto to approach. A simple gesture that's as beckoning. Then he suddenly PASSED the ball before Haruto could even begin his approach.
The ball hit Haruto's hands with surprise timing. He fumbled ever so mildly before he managed to recover his control over that ball. Then he began to dribble. Ethan Carter shadowed him immediately. He wasn't a lockdown defensive specialist like Shota but he was NOT by any means weak.
Haruto turned his back to Ethan suddenly and while he was still dribbling the ball. POW ....POW....POW.
He backed him down with his mass.
"Tch—Nngh—" Ethan grunted with effort and indignation. He was taller and more athletic yet he couldn't resist being pushed. Haruto's weight was a concentrated low. A center of gravity like a freakin bowling ball.
"You fat dummy_"Ethan gritted his teeth and pushed back. But that sweaty, plump mass possessed the real GROUND strength.
RUSH.
Ari rushed as quickly as he could towards the ball. Towards Haruto. And Shota who was like an angry large chewing gum, reacted so fast and instantaneously. He ran along with him. "Where do you think you're going?!" A shout that sounded like a curse. A wish for peril to the one it was directed at.
But Ari maintained focus, and opened up his hands. Haruto delivered the handoff without looking. Ari collected the ball and kept moving without pause. Slower now because he had the ball.
Ethan stayed with Haruto, and trusted Shota to track Ari who was with the ball.
Ari ran toward the wing inside the three point line. It was a gangly stride that ate distance. Then he kept moving till STOP—his right leg planted him dead static and that same leg...Ari kept the ball raising it up to his chest...that same leg shot AriToru to heaven.
//HEAVENLY SHOT
*Why is it so high!* Shota leaped up. Up to put a hand up. But it was futile before heavens shot. Shota himself was a very good jumper who had a 46 inch vertical in the vertec test so *Why can't I fucking reach this thing?!*
The ball was released and flew up floating then falling.
It hit the inside of the rim with violent impact. Oh it rattled then oh it fell through.
(Team 8) 8 - 5 (Team 7)
The Yoshimura students BOOED and jeered in great wounded anger. Their heroes were being challenged by the villains. How dare these frauds score? How dare that cursed, unnatural high-release jump shot find success?
"I HATE THAT BOY!"
"STUPID UGLY JUMP SHOT!"
"FUCK YOU!"
Ari landed from his heavenly jumper like a cat and walked back to get the ball again. He didn't acknowledge Shota. Why he did not even glance at him.
Haruto rushed over to high five Ari
"Good jumper Ari."
Ari smiled back...*I'm actually playing basketball aren't I. Competitive basketball*
But these thoughts were thoughts Ari surppressed at the moment. He couldn't let himself lose sight of the goal. To win this match and the two that came after it.
The entire Pavilion radiated hatred. The jeers reached such near blasphemous levels that words were being outed. Words that would elicit any adults intervention if taken without contest.
For here, morality was gone. The Pavilion.. was a place of competency and natural selection. No one cared about etiquette nor manners.
Ari received the ball again from the referee. Their second possession. He sighed internally, *Why is this guy's defense so suffocating?* Shota immediately LOCKED HIM DOWN.
The aggressive boy had now an increased ardor. He refused to give the same space that had yielded the previous two points for team 7.
Ari's eyes flicked toward Haruto. It was misdirection
One that did nothing. Shota's instincts told him the real target was ...Santiago Cruz. The giant lurks near the basket.
Ari bounced the ball toward Santiago's direction, the PASS was fast. Shota lunged and it almost ..almost reached the ball. There were mere centimeters between his finger tips and the surface of the ball.
Santiago collected it with his side faced at Shingo. The 6'10" power forward was growling like an animal. He lunged with savage aggression. Arakawa Shingo aimed to use speed and violence for the difference in strength was much too high.
Santiago grunted as contact forced him out of the paint. His massive frame absorbed Shingo's assault, but the pressure was a real threatening thing. So he raised the ball up and decided to search for Ari.. or Haruto. The one element Santiago had always been told he lacked....was aggression. So now faced with such an unrelenting foe he wondered if a kick out pass would be the best option.
Then he headed his name.
"SCORE IT, SANTIAGO!"
Ari's voice cut through and it split the great tumult in Santiago's mind. What a terrible pronunciation still. But the poise in those words was very absolute. You couldn't help but wonder.
What sort of player was Toru Ari?
Santiago felt that trust that came off his pale pale teammate. *When one places such assurance in you...*
He looked back at Shingo, and the 6'10" power forward felt an ancient imminent danger. An angry giant.... *How could you let them down.*
DOOM.
Shingo was sent back with an aggressive BODY. It pushed him far like a child being bullied by an adult.
Santiago ate up the space Shingo was forced to give and powered the ball in. Shingo could do nothing except try not to fall from the collision, his arms reached up desperate and useless as Santiago threw it up.
The ball hit the backboard before it went down and rolled around the rim once, then fell through.
BASKET.
(Team 8) 8 - 7 (Team 7)
Ari was completely shocked. He'd never seen a 6'10 guy get so overpowered like that. He'd never even seen a 6'10 guy before. Yori the vice captain was the first. Santiago really was something else. "So easy when you're seven-two."
Now there was a subdued confusion in the basketball wing. It seemed like the wrong script was being said. This was supposed to be a massacre. The frauds were supposed to be humiliated and sent off with their tales between their legs and the realisation of where they stood in the hierarchy.
And yet.
And yet.
Imai. Her red lips was opened up in a perfect O. And her large almond eyes expanded up. The straw of her milk lake rested on her bottom lip. It was a sight that the boys around her fawned over.
What caused this utter bewilderment I wonder.
*When did he get this good?*
The tall boy with a basketball deficiency was ....doing this?!
A friend of Imai nudged her to life. "What's wrong Imai." The girl leaned forward to get a better view of Imai's face. "You look like you saw a ghost."
Imai's expression shifted to something between excitement and disbelief. She set down her milkshake with exaggerated care.
"That boy—" She pointed at Ari like he had committed treason"—was never ever this good"
"Soo...?"
"So he was awful at basketball." Imai groaned loudly. "Historically bad. Worst player I'd ever seen....everrr!"
The ears of the students sat around her vibrated quick. They drew nearer to get a better ear on it.
But Imai's friend was shocked at her intensity. And she remained skeptical. "But it's only one shot. And it wasn't from that far"
Imais big eyes glared at her friend. They squeezed together like she was regarding her with ever shrinking patience. Even with such a beautiful face Imai's expression was always intimidating. "You're not paying attention."
"Since the start, Toru Ari has been orchestrating everything."
She turned her head and gestures with her chin.
"The intentional foul on that big nosed boy," Imai continued with an excited breath.
Watanabe Shingo: *B...big nosed Am I?!*
"All of it was intentional. He's telling his teammates what to do by leading them to do it.
Her face warped into a reverent mien. "AriToru...."
Her friends looked at eachother in silence then back at her.
"You're excited about him," one teased.
"I am not—"
"You totally are. Look at your face."
Imai wanted to argue back but she just opened her mouth slightly and took the straw of the milkshake inside. Drinking quietly. She ignored her friends but her blush consumed her face.... *Please*
Suzuha Goro made an impressed sound—somewhere between a huff and a chuckle.
"This is all possible because they played directly into the slender man's vision,"
"Into his trap." Yori agreed.
"They were down by eight points in a game to twenty. Traditional defense would take too long, and team 8 might have just kept scoring. So he choose an opportunity through chaos."
Goro's analysis continued, each word precise: "He gambled that the angry baldie would miss free throws.He aggrevated him to compromise his mental state, turning a percentage shooter into someone fighting their own emotions. Then he exploited the rebound rules and trusted the giant would dominate, and that chubby blondie would capitalize."
"And now Team Eight is rattled."
"Completely." Goro's didn't smile. He kept looking and watching Ari,u "He really is playing like a villain."
The referee collected the ball with visible displeasure etched across his face. His favoritism was obvious now—he wanted Team Eight to win, wanted the frauds exposed and eliminated. Especially that pale, gothic boy who'd committed an intentional foul and somehow made it work.
He checked Ari with barely-concealed hostility and passed the ball harder than necessary.
Ari received it for their third possession. Shota didn't waste a microsecond—SWIPE—his hand darting toward the ball with serpent quickness.
Ari retreated entirely, pulling the ball back, his heart hammering against his ribs. Shota's lockdown defense was like approaching a wall lined with blades—get too close and you'd be stripped, dismantled, humiliated.
So Ari stayed there, very close to the center of the court, standing upright with controlled posture. The ball bounced rhythmically in his right hand: POW POW POW POW—deliberate, methodical, infuriating.
The crowd BOOED, their
"GET ON WITH IT!"
"STOP WASTING TIME!"
'PLAY BASKETBALL, COWARD!"
Shota's annoyance escalated to fury. "Are you going to run around all day?!" Voiced cracked with RAGE.
Ari continued bouncing the ball with a patient face. Then he spoke with a raspy voice, "Relax..."
He bounced the ball slowly between his legs.
"I'm getting there."
His body lunged forward and he leaped—//HEAVENLY SHOT—his frame rose up and the ball was about to be released at the at the top of his hea_
"RARR!" Shota roared. He launched upward to fight. To block
But Ari suddenly switched mid-air, and redirected a PASS to Harutos direction.
It was a terrible pass. Not off target but it was much too weak to reach. Ari wasn't Ethan Carter; his passing stat of [31] meant he was no Jason Williams.
So Ethan lunged and used his superior reach and speed to get the ball before it even got to Haruto.
*Shit* Ari cursed as he landed back down.
Ethan executed a step-back movement, and got out the three point line. Haruto immediately closed the distance, he refused to give Ethan Carter an inch of space. Ethan already shot his first two threes and got them. He was a dangerous ranged player like Haruto himself.
Ethans face was annoyed. So he raised the ball and moved it up for a sh_
PUMP FAKE.
It sent Haruto up high chasing a phantom shot that never came to be.
Ethan dribbled laterally. POW POW POW. Quick. Tight. To the Side. Now he was totally open.
Ari hesitated for exactly one second—a second too long—and ZIPPP.
Shota was already a meter away from him. So so fast. sprinting toward the rim with this terrifying great hast.
Ethan didn't shoot. But gave held the basketball PASS to Shingo, who caught the ball just outside the paint near the baseline, his back was to the basket. Santiago guarded him closely, his massive frame and raised arms creating an intimidating obstacle.
But Shingo smiled and ....SWING! Shingo moved the ball behind his waist. BACK no-look PASS.
It was pure feel. And the pass found Shota's running path.
Shota collected it at full sprint, never did he break his momentum. Ari had finally recovered position and had reached defensive proximity. Santiago's movement couldn't cover that angle. He could not protect the rim from that direction.
Shota's right leg planted, absorbed force, then his left leg hit the ground—BOOM—and he elevated with violent intent. The ball was palmed in one hand.
Ari jumped to challenge. Shota's BONE-HARD BODY COLLIDED with him, legal contact but DEVASTATING IMPACT. His balance was obliterated and he was mid air for a short time before he crashed down to the floor.
Shota brought down his hand and DUNKED with an angry roar.
BASKET
He jumped back down and declared "FUCK YEAH! YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH ME, YOU CORPSE!"
(Team 8) 10 - 7 (Team 7)
He chest-bumped Shingo. They both were feeding off the energy.
The Yoshimura students cheered and cheered for their heroes.
Kaneko Imai also cheered along with everyone else, her voice joined the cacophony. Then her friends rolled their eyes. They regarded Imai with skeptical expressions.
"Who are you actually supporting?"
"Team Eight!" Automatic words. They were defensive..
"Are you sure? Because you seem pretty interested in that pale boy."
"I'm—" Imai paused, and took a deep breath. "I'm willing to be impressed." She gestured with her hands, "There's a difference."