Kishimoto froze for a moment.
He clearly hadn't expected this little "shrimp" to dare speak to him like that.
"Huh? What did you just say?!"
His expression darkened as he raised a fist, ready to throw a punch.
But Hikoichi wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he shouted back at full volume.
"A loudmouth like you isn't even one ten-thousandth as good as Sendoh-senpai!"
"If Sendoh-senpai got serious, you wouldn't even be able to see his taillights!"
"And Makino Juro!"
"He's a real monster!"
"You frogs at the bottom of a well have no idea what true terror looks like!"
"When you finally face them..."
"It'll already be too late to cry!"
After unleashing that torrent of insults...
Hikoichi looked at Kishimoto's face growing darker by the second, on the verge of exploding.
His heart skipped a beat.
Uh-oh...
I think I overdid it.
I pulled way too much aggro.
The Thirty-Six Stratagems—retreat is the best option!
"Aki! You've got terrible taste in friends!"
With that final parting shot, Hikoichi turned and bolted.
He ran even faster than during his hundred-meter sprint tests, leaving behind what almost looked like an afterimage.
"You bastard! Don't run!"
"If you've got guts, stand and fight!"
Kishimoto took two furious steps forward before Teruo grabbed his arm.
"Senpai... let it go."
...
Hikoichi didn't stop until he had sprinted across two entire city blocks.
Only when his lungs felt ready to explode did he finally come to a halt.
Bent over with his hands on his knees, he gasped desperately for air.
Sweat streamed down his face, mixing with tears he hadn't even realized were falling.
"Damn it..."
"Damn that Toyotama High!"
"I'll remember this!"
He wiped his face hard, his eyes burning with unprecedented determination.
Pulling out the notebook he never left home without, he flipped it open with force.
His pen scratched furiously across the page, nearly tearing through the paper.
"I'll never forgive you!"
"You dared insult Sendoh-senpai."
"You looked down on Ryonan."
"You mocked Kanagawa basketball..."
Grinding his teeth, Hikoichi's eyes blazed with vengeance.
This was the moment the data analyst went completely dark.
"I'll scout every last one of you!"
"I'll strip away every secret you've got!"
"Every play."
"Every weakness."
"I'll even find out what you had for breakfast and which one of you has athlete's foot!"
"And then..."
A sinister smile slowly crept across his face.
The smile of an intelligence specialist preparing for war.
"I'll personally package all of that information..."
"...and send it straight to Kainan and Shohoku."
"Just wait."
"You frogs from Osaka."
"The terror of Kanagawa..."
"...will soon descend upon you."
"Hehehe..."
"When that day comes..."
"I'll show you exactly what 'information is power' means!"
Under the afternoon sun, Hikoichi's tiny shadow stretched far across the pavement.
He might not be able to fight on the court.
But in this war...
As the team's ultimate support...
He would never be absent.
...
Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium.
The air conditioning might as well have been broken.
The entire arena felt like an enormous sauna.
The shrill squeal of sneakers against hardwood...
The screech of abrupt stops...
The thunderous Kansai-accented roars pouring down from the stands...
All blended into a suffocating wave of heat that seemed ready to blow the roof off the building.
On the scoreboard...
The crimson numbers were impossible to ignore.
51:61
Toyotama High trailed by ten.
"Run!"
"Did your legs fall off?!"
"Move your asses!"
Kishimoto Minori roared while sprinting back on defense, spraying spit at every teammate within earshot.
He was furious.
Utterly furious.
He was even itching to punch someone.
Toyotama's trademark run-and-gun offense...
Today, it felt like throwing punches into a pile of cotton.
No matter how fast they pushed the pace...
No matter how aggressively they pressured...
No matter how physical they made the game...
The team in dark green jerseys across from them remained completely unhurried.
Steady.
Composed.
Like a group of seasoned veterans taking an evening stroll.
Daiei Academy.
"Defense!"
"Quit standing around!"
"Someone stick to Number Four!"
Kishimoto locked onto the tall player advancing the ball, grinding his teeth so hard they nearly cracked.
Atsushi Tsuchiya.
Daiei Academy's captain.
Number Four.
Despite standing well over 190 centimeters tall...
His dribble was as smooth and controlled as an elite point guard's.
Faced with Kishimoto's relentless, mad-dog pressure...
Tsuchiya barely even glanced at him.
His expression remained calm.
As if he were simply walking through his own backyard.
He merely lowered his center of gravity slightly.
"Slow."
His lips moved almost imperceptibly.
Only a single word escaped.
"What did you say?!"
A vein twitched on Kishimoto's forehead.
Just as he prepared to initiate body contact—
In that split second...
Tsuchiya's wrist flicked almost invisibly.
Like a magician performing sleight of hand.
The basketball didn't drive in the direction Kishimoto had anticipated.
Instead...
As though guided by an invisible GPS...
It zipped past Kishimoto's hip and shot directly toward the blind spot in the paint.
A Daiei player had already cut into position.
Catch.
Takeoff.
Bank shot.
Score.
Every movement flowed together seamlessly.
There wasn't a single unnecessary flourish.
It was textbook basketball.
Cold.
Efficient.
Merciless.
51:63
The lead grew to twelve.
"Damn it!!"
Kishimoto punched empty air before turning toward the paint and roaring.
"What the hell are you guys doing?!"
"Daydreaming?"
"Or did you buy front-row tickets to watch the game?!"
"Rotate on defense!"
...
High in the corner of the stands...
Hikoichi's ballpoint pen flew across his notebook, leaving streaks so fast they were almost afterimages.
The paper was nearly punctured.
"Terrifying..."
"This is complete domination."
He muttered under his breath.
A thin layer of cold sweat formed across his forehead.
To ordinary spectators...
That last play simply looked like excellent teamwork.
But to someone obsessed with basketball data...
What Hikoichi saw was a gap so overwhelming it inspired despair.
"It isn't that Toyotama doesn't want to defend."
"They simply can't keep up."
His eyes locked firmly onto Daiei's Number Four as he leisurely jogged back on defense.
"Kishimoto may have a terrible personality and an even worse mouth..."
"But among Osaka's power forwards, he's unquestionably one of the best."
"And yet..."
"In front of Atsushi Tsuchiya..."
"He's nothing more than an elementary school kid being toyed with."
Hikoichi flipped to another page in his notebook.
The page where he had planned to gather information on his old friend, Okawa Teruo.
But now...
He glanced toward Toyotama's bench.
The same Teruo who had boasted,
"I'm a genius."
"I'm dominating Osaka."
Was now curled up at the very end of the bench.
A towel clutched tightly in his hands.
His eyes were vacant as he stared at the court.
He didn't even have the energy to cheer for his teammates anymore.
"...Aki."
Hikoichi sighed.
His expression grew complicated.
"So much for Osaka's incredible level of basketball..."
"In the end..."
"You're just another benchwarmer."
"The one truly holding up Osaka basketball..."
Closing the page dedicated to Teruo, Hikoichi flipped to a fresh sheet.
With utmost seriousness, he wrote three bold characters before circling them heavily.
[Atsushi Tsuchiya]
"Daiei Academy isn't a team that wins because of overwhelming overall strength."
"More accurately..."
"They're a single-core battleship."
"Everything revolves around Number Four."
Hikoichi narrowed his eyes.
Another figure unconsciously appeared in his mind.
The spiky-haired young man quietly fishing along Kanagawa's shoreline.
"Tall..."
"Elite court vision..."
"Can organize the offense..."
"Can score..."
"And unbelievably composed..."
"Isn't this..."
"...the Osaka version of Sendoh-senpai?"
END OF CHAPTER
The King Of Slacking Off - MrBehringer's Secret
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