Grak was holding the ball. The two centers, Grol and the shirtless mountain from Raizo's own team, Borin, steady and ready to jump.
Grol was a beast. A wall of muscle and ill-temper, his beard a tangled mass of iron rings. He didn't look at the ball. He looked at Raizo, a smirk playing on his lips. Then he stamped his foot.
A faint brown light, the color of dried mud, pulsed from his worn leather boots. The dirt vibrated.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: [EARTH-SHAKER] (C-RANK)]
[EFFECT: USER'S NEXT JUMP WILL HAVE +30% HEIGHT AND LANDING AREA WILL CAUSE MINOR TREMOR, STUNNING NEARBY OPPONENTS.]
Raizo didn't need the system's pop-up to tell him something was wrong. He felt the vibration through the soles of his thin boots.
Grak tossed the ball. "Go!"
Borin, drunk and swaying, was a half-second too slow. Grol exploded upwards. It wasn't a jump; it was a launch. His body rose, impossibly high, his massive hand plucking the Leather Ball from its apex with an ease.
Raizo didn't jump. He didn't even look at the ball. His eyes were locked on Grol's landing spot. On his knee. In this world, in this game, they might have magic and skills, but a blown-out knee was a blown-out knee.
He launched himself forward, staying low.
Grol landed. The [EARTH-SHAKER] skill hit. The ground trembled and buckled. A shockwave of dirt and force radiated outwards from the point of impact. Raizo, already committed to his lunge, was thrown off balance. His foot hit a soft patch of dirt, and his momentum carried him sideways.
He was a fool, stumbling into a giant's path.
Grol didn't even seem to notice him. He didn't look down. He just shifted his weight, a casual, contemptuous movement, and shoved him. It was like being hit by a truck. An open-palmed shove to the chest that threw Raizo a few inches away.
Raizo hit the ground hard, skidding for a meter before his back slammed into the solid stone base of the wall. The air exploded from his lungs in a painful whoosh.
[PHYSICAL TRAUMA: CONCUSSIVE IMPACT]
[STAMINA -20%]
[GRIT CONVERSION: +3 GP]
He lay there, gasping, his vision swimming with red text and black spots. He heard the thud of the ball, the heavy tread of Grol's feet, and then the satisfying swish of the ball hitting the makeshift net.
"Point!" Grak bellowed.
The crowd roared. A wave of laughter that washed over him, hot and sharp. He saw Grol casually turn and jog back to his side of the court, not even looking back.
Score: 1-0, Red Dogs.
Raizo pushed himself up onto his elbows, his chest aching with every breath.
The next possession was a repeat of the first. The Red Dogs' point guard, a wiry man named Rugh with cruel eyes and a jagged scar across his nose, brought the ball up. He dribbled low and fast, the ball blurred.
He looked at Raizo and smirked. Then he was gone.
One second he was ten feet away. Next, he was five. A faint green light shimmered around his feet.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: [WIND STEP] (D-RANK)]
[EFFECT: USER'S SPEED INCREASES BY 20% FOR 3 SECONDS.]
Raizo's instincts reacted, but Darius's legs were too slow. He tried to turn, to plant his feet, but it was like trying to stop a river with his bare hands. Rugh blew past him, a gust of wind, and laid the ball in for an easy two points.
Score: 2-0, Red Dogs.
More laughter.
The Suicide Kings got the ball back. It bounced towards Raizo. He caught it, the rough leather familiar in his hands. Now what? He looked for his teammates. Borin was stumbling near the sideline, arguing with a heckler. Finn, the Mute, was practically hiding in the corner of the court, his back pressed against the wall.
Raizo had no plays. He had no plan. He just had a ball and two useless teammates. He saw Borin break away from his argument and start lumbering toward the basket.
He threw a chest pass.
It was a bad pass. Telegraphed from a mile away, wobbly, and slightly behind its target. Rugh, the Red Dogs' point guard, didn't even have to move. He just stuck out his hand and intercepted it. He turned, took two steps, and scored again.
Score: 3-0, Red Dogs.
The jeers were louder now. "Suicide Kings? More like the Suicide Jokes!"
Raizo felt a hot, familiar anger bubbling up in his gut. The anger that got him into fights back in Tokyo, and made him stupid.
He got the ball again. This time, he wasn't passing. He saw a clear lane in the basket. No one was between him and the iron rim. He lowered his shoulder, lowered his stance, and dribbled low, and charged. It was pure instinct. The bull-rush. The move that sent bullies flying.
He slammed into the Red Dogs' forward, a solid wall of a man. He expected the man to fly back. Instead, the man stood firm, and a red light flashed from the hexagonal Emblem on his leather tunic.
[FOUL DETECTED: CHARGING. PLAYER: RAIZO VISIONE.]
Raizo's body locked up.
It was the most unnatural, terrifying feeling he had ever experienced. His muscles seized, frozen by an invisible force. He couldn't move, or breathe. Couldn't even blink. He was a prisoner in his own body, stuck in mid-stride, his face inches from the smirking defender.
The crowd erupted. This was better than a knockout. This was humiliation.
The two-second penalty felt like an eternity. When it lifted, Raizo stumbled forward, his legs suddenly weak. The Red Dogs had the ball. They scored again, easy.
Score: 4-0, Red Dogs.
Raizo stood in the middle of the court, his chest heaving, the echoes of the crowd's laughter ringing in his ears. He wasn't just losing. He was a joke.
---
Score: 6-0, Red Dogs.
The last ten minutes had been the same suffering. Raizo had been elbowed, shoved, and tripped. He'd been faked out of his shoes so many times he felt dizzy. He was covered in dirt, his lip was split, and his body was a collection of aching bruises.
He was on one knee near the sideline, gasping for air that wouldn't come. His vision swam. The red text of his system was a constant, scrolling condemnation of his failure.
[STAMINA: 8%]
[DEBUFF: EXHAUSTION - ALL STATS REDUCED BY 15%]
[GRIT POOL: 21 / 135]
The crowd's jeers had faded into a dull, oppressive roar. They were bored now. The spectacle was over. They were just waiting for the final, pathetic point.
Then, he remembered. Sharp and clear, cutting through the fog of pain and exhaustion.
This morning. Isolde. Her face, pale and thin, her hands wringing a rag as she watched him eat the gray, lumpy porridge. The look in her eyes—not pity, but a desperate, fragile hope. The image of the cold, empty hearth. The memory of the debt collector's boot splintering their door.
The memory hit him harder than Grol's shove. It was a punch to the soul.
[MENTAL TRAUMA: GUILT / PROTECTIVE INSTINCT]
[WILLPOWER STAT TEMPORARILY OVER-RIDING FATIGUE DEBUFFS.]
Something inside him clicked.
He'd been trying to play their game. To score points. To be clever. He was an idiot. That wasn't his role. The system had told him what he was. He was an S-Rank player trapped in an F-Rank body.
His role wasn't to score. His role was to absorb pain. To accumulate pain into power.
He pushed himself to his feet, his legs trembling. The Red Dogs had the ball. Grol posted up deep, his back to the basket, calling for the ball with a bored arrogance. He was going to end this with another easy dunk.
Raizo didn't try to front him. He didn't try to box him out. He walked directly under the hoop, positioning himself between Grol and the basket. He was small, scrawny, and offering himself.
The pass came. Grol caught it, turned, and leaped.
He didn't even look at Raizo. Why would he? Raizo was nothing. An insect.
Raizo braced for impact. He didn't try to block the shot. He didn't try to take charge. He made himself smaller, tighter, and focused every ounce of his will on staying upright.
The impact wa radiated through his entire body. Grol's body, amplified by skill and muscle, slammed into him. Raizo heard a sound like a bundle of dry sticks snapping—his ribs. The force lifted him off his feet, and the back of his head cracked against the iron post of the hoop with a sound that echoed through the sudden silence of the cellar.
He collapsed onto the dirt, a heap of broken limbs and shattered pride. The world went gray, then black, then resolved into a haze of red text.
[CRITICAL BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA]
[MULTIPLE FRACTURES: RIBS, COLLARBONE]
[STAMINA: CRITICAL]
[GRIT CONVERSION: +25 GP]
[PASSIVE SKILL: [PAIN SIPHON] ACTIVATED]
[STAMINA RECHARGED: +50%]
[STRENGTH TEMPORARILY INCREASED BY 5%]
The pain was blinding. A white-hot fire that consumed everything. But beneath it, a cold, electric current. A surge of raw, painful energy that flooded his limbs, forcing his muscles to contract, knitting his broken will back together. It felt like drinking battery acid.
He pushed himself up from the dirt.
One arm. Then the other. He got to his knees. Then, slowly, shakily, he stood.
A trickle of blood ran from his temple, tracing a warm path down his cold cheek. The entire cellar was silent. The crowd was staring, their jeers caught in their throats. The Red Dogs were frozen, their smirks replaced by looks of disbelief.
He was still standing.
Raizo looked at Grol, who was staring back, his face a mask of confusion and fury. He had hit the scrawny kid with everything he had. And the kid was still standing.
Raizo smiled.
It wasn't a smile of joy or triumph. It was the grin of a predator who had just discovered his prey's weakness. The grin of a boy who had finally found a way to fight back.