"Want to play basketball together?"
"Here, this ring. I bought it at a general store. From now on, it'll be proof that we're brothers."
"If we lose the next match, I won't be able to treat you as my little brother anymore, Taiga."
"Why did you miss that last shot? Are you looking down on me? I already told you, no holding back."
"There's no other choice then. Let's use this ring as the stake."
"In the next game, we'll bet these memories and decide it once and for all."
·····
On the basketball court.
Countless memories surfaced in the minds of Himuro Tatsuya and Kagami Taiga, only to finally return to reality.
"So… we finally meet again, Taiga."
"Yeah. Long time no see."
"The promise we made back then, let's settle it completely today."
Kagami Taiga fell silent. After a long pause, he finally spoke again.
"To be honest, Tatsuya, I never wanted to become your opponent. But… none of that matters anymore. I absolutely can't lose to you right now. So, come at me with everything you've got!"
Himuro Tatsuya smiled faintly.
"Good. Looks like you've made up your mind. In that case, I can finally fight without holding back."
The two stood facing each other beyond the three-point line.
Outside the court, every gaze converged on them. Everyone knew that this duel between Kagami and Himuro might very well decide the flow of the entire match.
thump, thump, thump…
Himuro Tatsuya lightly dribbled the ball. The sound of the basketball striking the floor carried a strangely hypnotic effect, making people unconsciously relax.
And in that very instant, Himuro moved.
He suddenly gathered the ball and assumed a shooting posture…
"A shot?!"
Kagami Taiga's heart jolted, and he immediately leapt up to contest it.
But just as Kagami left the ground, Himuro abruptly crouched again, returning to his previous stance, then dribbled straight past Kagami's side.
"A fake? Are you kidding me?! Kagami got blown past that easily?!"
The other Seirin players were shocked and rushed in to help on defense.
Yet before they could even get close, Himuro's figure seemed to split into two before their eyes, then vanished altogether.
When he reappeared,
Himuro Tatsuya was already beneath the basket, behind Hyuga Junpei and Kiyoshi Teppei. With a simple layup, he gently sent the ball floating into the hoop.
The entire arena fell into sudden silence.
Not a single sound could be heard.
After a long moment, someone finally spoke in disbelief.
"Was that… really just a fake?"
"So, so incredible. I've never seen such a realistic feint before. It looked like a beautiful dance."
"Who is that guy, exactly?"
Himuro Tatsuya became famous in a single play.
Those stunned by that fake weren't just the spectators, even teams that possessed members of the Generation of Miracles were left astonished by the level of skill Himuro had displayed.
"Mmm~ That really was an exceptionally refined fake."
"Purely in terms of technique, Yosen's number 12 is already not inferior to any member of the Generation of Miracles."
"He feels like the complete opposite of Aomine. Aomine's style is wild, free-form streetball, while this guy is a super orthodox academy-type who polished his fundamentals to the extreme."
·····
BEEP~~~
Seirin immediately called a timeout.
The consecutive explosions from Murasakibara and Himuro had completely shattered Seirin's morale.
Even Kiyoshi Teppei, known as the Iron Heart, found a trace of despair creeping into his heart under the dual pressure of Murasakibara and Himuro.
Still, having earned the nickname Iron Heart, Kiyoshi's ability to withstand pressure was no joke.
He quickly forced himself to regain his composure.
But the others weren't so mentally resilient.
For players, despair isn't the most terrifying thing. Doubt is.
The moment a player begins to doubt themselves, or their team, defeat is already close at hand.
And right now, the members of Seirin were experiencing an unprecedented doubt in their own strength.
·····
"Looks like Seirin is about to hit their limit."
Tsutomu Iwamura stared at Seirin's bench and calmly pronounced their sentence.
"Is that so?"
Akashi Asuka didn't quite agree, or rather, he didn't completely agree with Iwamura's judgment.
Under normal circumstances, the situation Seirin was facing right now would indeed be enough to crush any team.
But Seirin was never a normal team.
Other teams might refuse to yield in adversity, but Seirin was a team that could awaken in desperate situations. And not just occasionally, either, their success rate was frighteningly close to ninety percent.
Sure enough,
After a burst of sounds resembling angry shouts and heated arguments came from Seirin's bench, the momentum that had already collapsed began to faintly gather again.
Because of the distance, Akashi Asuka couldn't hear exactly what they were arguing about.
But from their lip movements, he could vaguely make out phrases like "for our teammates,""this is our last chance," and "we absolutely can't lose."
"Mm… looks like Kiyoshi Teppei's leg injury is giving them strength again."
As a transmigrator, Akashi Asuka naturally knew that this Winter Cup was Kiyoshi Teppei's last chance to compete.
Because his leg injury had never fully healed. After being seriously injured by Hanamiya Makoto last year, the doctors had given Kiyoshi two options.
One was complete recovery, but it would take a very long time. Long enough that returning to the court during his high school years would be impossible.
The other was rapid treatment. Recovery would be fast, but the injury would never fully heal, at best, it would last about a year.
Kiyoshi Teppei chose the second option.
Under normal circumstances, he would still have been able to play in his third-year summer tournament.
But unfortunately, during the previous qualifiers, his leg was seriously injured again by Hanamiya Makoto, worsening the damage. As a result, this Winter Cup became Kiyoshi Teppei's final high school tournament.
To ensure that Kiyoshi would have no regrets at the end of his high school career, Seirin had gambled everything on this Winter Cup.
Akashi Asuka could understand this kind of pure, youthful friendship.
After all, he had experienced it before, and was still experiencing it now…
But somehow,
When it came to the reason Seirin was using to struggle and fight with all their might, he couldn't help but feel an inexplicable sense of irritation.