Kuroko: Mahoraga - Chapter 38: I’ll Lead You Straight Through Them! (Patreon)

The whistle sounded to end the first quarter.

The scoreboard froze at 36–28.

Kawari was ahead, but only by eight points.

Since the qualifiers began, Fujii was the first opponent they had faced that could genuinely fight back.

The weak teams from Kawari’s earlier games had crumbled almost the moment pressure was applied.

Fujii, on the other hand, had played an excellent first quarter and executed its game plan extremely well.

Even Masato, standing on the other side, had to acknowledge that.

After returning to the bench, the Fujii players barely spoke to one another.

They sat in their seats under a heavy atmosphere.

Fujii’s original plan had revolved around targeting Masato alone.

They wanted to drag him into a fast-paced game and burn through his stamina.

At first, seeing Masato willingly play at that pace had delighted them.

They had believed he had walked straight into their trap and would soon run himself empty.

But the longer the quarter went on, the stranger things became.

Masato did not look tired at all.

If anything, he became more dangerous with every possession.

And as the number of exchanges increased, cracks had actually started appearing in Fujii’s coordination.

Masato kept finding weaknesses that none of them could understand.

Then, on the final possession of the quarter, he delivered the clearest warning yet.

The thunderous sound of that block felt almost like an announcement that the game was about to change.

The players were not the only ones troubled by it.

The Fujii coach sat with his brow deeply furrowed.

The game was no longer developing the way they had expected.

Masato’s stamina had not been affected, and worse, he seemed to be adapting to their system little by little.

The coach suddenly remembered the newspaper article that had described Masato as a player on the level of the Generation of Miracles.

He had dismissed the claim at the time.

Now he was beginning to believe it.

...

Kawari was leading, so the mood on their bench was naturally better.

Still, if you looked closely, several players seemed uncomfortable.

That was understandable.

For most of the first quarter, they had contributed almost nothing and had been outplayed in nearly every direct matchup.

The only reason the team had not collapsed was Masato.

Relying on him was nothing new. That had happened in earlier games too.

But this time, some of them could barely receive a pass without being swallowed by Fujii’s pressure.

They had been painfully ineffective.

More than a few players had begun doubting themselves.

Masato noticed immediately.

Sitting on the bench, he picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face.

“Hey, Ishida.” His tone was steady.

“Huh? What is it, Masa?” Ishida was one of the players caught in his own doubts, and he looked distracted when Masato called him.

“Remember what that level of pressure felt like.” Masato took a sip of water.

His expression remained calm.

“Because from here on out, this game is going to be one-sided.”

Ishida froze, then scratched his head.

Everyone nearby heard Masato’s confident declaration.

Little by little, the atmosphere around the team began to change.

His confidence spread through them.

After all the time they had spent playing together, the Kawari players had already come to trust Masato almost unconditionally.

“When we go back out there, keep moving and find space.”

Masato looked across the bench.

“I’m going to lead every one of you straight through them.”

...

The break between quarters ended quickly, and the second quarter began.

The moment both teams stepped back onto the floor, loud applause rose from the stands.

The short break had done nothing to cool the crowd’s enthusiasm.

If anything, everyone was even more eager to see what came next.

The first quarter had featured excellent basketball on both ends.

The two teams had displayed completely different styles.

The spectators expected that clash to continue.

Instead, the entire shape of the game changed on the very first possession.

Masato altered his approach immediately.

He no longer insisted on attacking by himself.

With the ball in his hands, he faced Fujii’s double team and once again used the same efficient, stripped-down style.

The defense might as well not have existed.

Masato tore open a gap almost instantly.

Everyone expected him to finish the possession himself.

Instead, he whipped the ball out to a teammate.

[Adaptation] had already seen through Fujii’s system during the first quarter.

Masato had caught the exact instant when the rotation broke down.

“Smack!”

His teammate caught the pass cleanly.

Sure enough, no Fujii defender was able to close out immediately this time.

He even had enough time to set his feet before shooting.

“Swish!”

The ball dropped cleanly through the net.

The arena reacted in shock.

Even the spectators fell silent for a brief moment.

Nobody had expected Masato to play the possession that way.

His pass had been like a blade driven directly into the weak point of Fujii’s defense.

Quite a few people realized what that meant.

The rhythm Fujii had maintained for the entire first quarter might already have been broken.

The Kawari player who had scored off Masato’s assist was ecstatic.

He pumped his fist and roared, releasing all the frustration he had built up in the first quarter.

Then he ran straight toward Masato and jumped into a chest bump.

“Great pass, Masa!”

“Nice shot.”

One possession was enough to bring Kawari’s energy roaring back.

Everyone sprinted back on defense and waited for Fujii’s response.

Seeing them celebrate so loudly irritated Fujii’s players.

It was one lucky basket. What were they getting so excited about?

Fujii attacked through the same system as before.

The ball moved quickly from player to player as they tried to create another clean finish.

But the opening they saw was only an illusion.

Masato had already adapted to the way their offense operated.

He identified the weakness perfectly and shut the possession down again.

The Fujii coach’s expression changed completely.

If the first play could still be dismissed as luck, the second proved something much worse.

Masato had found the answer.

The Fujii coach’s thoughts raced as he tried to come up with a way to deal with him.

In the end, however, there was nothing he could do except trust his players to hold on.

Masato pushed the pace higher and higher.

Fujii was dragged along with him.

Once their system stopped working, they could only be led around by the nose on both offense and defense.

On another possession, Masato looked at the player assigned to guard him.

The boy’s face had gone blank, and there was even a trace of fear in his eyes.

The contrast amused Masato.

“At least you know when to stop talking.”

The line was almost humiliating, but the defender said nothing back.

There was simply no point anymore.

He remembered how arrogantly he had mocked Masato earlier and wished he could crawl into a hole.

Seeing that the boy had completely lost the will to argue, Masato lost interest too.

He attacked immediately.

A few more possessions later, he had dragged his teammates into the action and Kawari was overwhelming Fujii across the board.

The style of play was completely different from the first quarter.

The crowd loved it.

“He’s way too strong!”

“Yeah! Since the second quarter started, Fujii hasn’t been able to contain Masato at all!”

“Contain him? They never contained him in the first place!”

“Exactly! Fujii was just hanging on before. Now they can’t even do that!”

“This is insane. Kawari might really ride this dark-horse run all the way!”

“...”

The noise inside the arena kept rising.

The Fujii coach sat on the sideline as though every second hurt.

Finally, he could not wait any longer and called another timeout.

If he let the game continue like this, the score would get out of hand and they would enter garbage time far too early.

On the floor, Fujii’s players actually let out long sighs of relief when they heard the whistle.

Masato, meanwhile, was already calculating his numbers in his head.

He had not forgotten the mission the system had given him.

Winning the game was not enough.

He also had to finish first in every statistical category.

That meant one thing was already certain.

Masato’s stat line was going to be absurd.