Kuroko: Mahoraga - Chapter 74: The End. Pinnacle of Perfection! (Patreon)

The third quarter came to an end.

It had easily been the most exciting quarter of the entire game.

The offensive and defensive displays from both teams had forced many spectators to completely rethink what middle school basketball could look like.

Amid the roaring cheers, the players returned to their benches to regroup.

...

Masato had burned through an enormous amount of stamina.

The moment he left the court, he dropped into the seat that had already been cleared for him.

Breathing heavily, he twisted open an energy drink and gulped down several mouthfuls before draping a towel over his head.

He wanted to shut out every sound around him and think.

His mind kept turning over possible ways to deal with Teikō.

Seeing him like this made the rest of Kawari uneasy. They all knew how much energy Masato had already spent.

Ishida and the other starters felt it even more strongly.

They exchanged glances, guilt obvious in their eyes.

Kenji felt it most of all.

A major reason Teikō had closed the gap so quickly was Midorima's scoring explosion, and Kenji was the one directly responsible for guarding him.

The feeling in his chest was difficult to put into words.

At last, Kenji understood exactly how Ishida had felt earlier in the tournament.

He opened his mouth as he looked toward Masato, but in the end, no words came out.

Masato was well aware of his teammates' state of mind.

But he was already exhausted, and he still needed to figure out what to do in the final quarter. He simply didn't have the energy to deal with everyone else's emotions right now.

The break passed quickly.

Just before the team had to return to the court, Coach Nakamura gave everyone a short, forceful pep talk.

Masato remained lost in thought from beginning to end and never said a word.

...

...

The final quarter finally began.

Under the expectant eyes of more than ten thousand spectators, both teams returned to the floor.

The game immediately continued in the same rhythm as before.

With Akashi directing them, Teikō's coordination was smooth and relentless.

Meanwhile, fatigue was catching up with the Kawari players, making Teikō's attacks feel even more overwhelming than they had in the third quarter.

The balance tilted further and further.

As one side grew stronger and the other weakened, Teikō had already taken the lead and continued pulling away.

94-96, 96-102, 98-108...

Before long, the deficit had reached double digits.

Teikō's offense spread across the court like flowing mercury, smooth, continuous, and almost impossible to contain.

The question was no longer whether the game had tilted in Teikō's favor.

It was whether Kawari could hold on long enough to keep the final quarter from turning into garbage time.

The crowd had been driven into a frenzy, each wave of cheers louder than the last.

Then Midorima buried another three.

That shot felt like the final straw.

Many spectators couldn't help marveling at the gap in overall depth between the two teams.

No one blamed Masato for the situation Kawari was in.

...

After Midorima's three went in, Masato finally stopped trying to devise another careful countermeasure.

He looked at the deficit on the scoreboard, felt the exhaustion weighing on his body, and thought back over Kawari's entire run through the National Tournament.

Every opponent they had faced had built its game plan around stopping him.

But Teikō was the first team to actually make it work.

Masato admitted it.

They were strong.

So what?

The game wasn't over yet.

His eyes gradually sharpened.

He refused to let things end this quietly.

He wanted one last fight.

All the strategies he'd been constructing in his head were discarded at once.

They were too cautious.

Against a team as strong as Teikō, the only answer was to meet them head-on.

A clever trick might work for a possession or two, but it would never last.

Fine.

Masato's expression twisted slightly.

He was done following conventional logic.

If normal thinking couldn't produce an answer, then he'd throw normal thinking away.

Why the hell did he always have to chase after other people and adapt to them?

"Then fucking adapt to 'victory' itself!"

Masato stopped trying to control it and handed everything over to his talent.

With only the conditions available to him right now, he wanted [Adaptation] to find a route, any route, that could lead as close to victory as possible.

...

From that moment on, Masato's presence on the court changed.

He began calling loudly to his teammates, demanding that they stay focused and keep moving.

The shift in him pulled Kawari out of the gloom that had been slowly settling over the team.

But Teikō's offense wasn't going to stop just because Kawari had found new energy.

The gap kept widening and soon pushed beyond twenty points.

At the same time, Masato gradually entered an eerily calm state.

It resembled what Aomine had experienced earlier.

Fortunately, Masato didn't have to wait nearly as long.

During one offensive possession, the same sensation he'd felt when awakening his Animal Instinct suddenly returned.

Click.

Something in his mind seemed to turn, like a wheel finally rotating into place.

In an instant, the movements of all four of his teammates appeared with extraordinary clarity in his awareness.

Masato had the strange but undeniable feeling that he could connect with them on a much deeper level.

Following that instinct, he began guiding them through simple team actions.

Pick-and-rolls, give-and-go exchanges, off-ball cuts...

After only two possessions, something changed.

His teammates seemed to form a deeper connection with him, instinctively understanding what Masato wanted before he even said it.

Kawari's teamwork suddenly rose to another level.

Movements that had once been stiff and delayed became smooth and fluid.

On their next possession, the thought of a screen had barely formed in Masato's mind when Ishida stepped up to set it.

Immediately afterward, Kenji cut exactly where Masato expected him to go.

Masato sent the ball over.

Their timing was so precise that Kenji and the pass arrived at the same spot almost simultaneously.

Masato began moving as well.

Following the direction of his cut, Kenji returned the ball to him without hesitation.

For the first time, Teikō's defense revealed a clear opening against Kawari's coordination.

Masato finished the play himself.

The entire sequence had unfolded exactly as he'd imagined it.

He hadn't exchanged a single word with his teammates during the possession.

They had simply known.

The feeling left the Kawari players themselves amazed.

For the first time all day, Kawari had truly played team basketball.

The crowd fell silent in shock after the basket.

No one had expected it.

Kawari had looked finished, yet somehow the team had suddenly come alive again.

Every player on the Kawari bench shot to his feet.

They were just as stunned by what they were seeing.

The Generation of Miracles were even more surprised.

As Kawari's opponents, they understood the difference better than anyone.

They had spent the entire game measuring the level of these players.

That was exactly why this sudden change seemed so unbelievable.

Still, Teikō wasn't about to abandon its own game because Kawari had changed.

They attacked again.

Kawari maintained the same state.

Even on defense, Masato only needed the smallest thought before his teammates seemed to understand where they needed to move.

For a while, the synchronization genuinely caused the Generation of Miracles trouble.

But Kawari's players were still limited by their basic physical and technical level, and their stamina continued to fall.

It didn't take long for Teikō to adjust to the new intensity.

Soon the two teams were trading blows possession for possession.

Neither side could completely suppress the other.

The scores kept climbing.

98-108, 105-122, 115-128...

The game continued at that pace all the way to the end.

The final score settled at 125-140.

Kawari still couldn't defeat Teikō.

When the final buzzer sounded, most of the spectators remained frozen in their seats.

The furious exchange over the closing stretch had left them stunned.

Then they came back to themselves and the arena filled with applause.

It had been an incredible game.

Most of them knew they wouldn't forget it for a very long time.

On Teikō's side, the players finally relaxed once it was over.

It had been far too long since any opponent had made them feel that kind of relief after a win.

...

Back on the court, Masato had already pushed his stamina far beyond its limit.

He wanted nothing more than to lie down where he stood and recover.

Only sheer willpower kept him on his feet.

With the game over, his Kawari teammates also slipped out of the strange synchronized state they'd entered earlier.

They all looked just as frustrated by the loss.

Even so, the first thing they did was walk toward Masato.

When he saw the guilt in their expressions, Masato simply shook his head.

"You all played well. There's nothing to blame yourselves for."

He didn't say anything else.

Masato had no desire to remain on the court and watch Teikō celebrate its victory.

As for the polite postgame greetings and formalities?

They could fuck right off.

Ignoring everyone around him, Masato walked straight off the court.

A few players on Kawari's bench started to follow, but Masaki Nakamura stopped them.

"All right. Leave him alone. Let Masa go by himself."

Nakamura watched Masato's retreating figure for a long moment.

He understood that for a prodigy, defeat wasn't always a bad thing.

...

Masato headed toward the players' tunnel.

As he approached the entrance, spectators on both sides of the stands leaned over and reached toward him, trying to get his attention.

Masato ignored every one of them.

All he felt was irritation.

He kept walking.

Once he entered the tunnel, the light around him gradually faded, leaving only a handful of staff members scattered along the passage.

Masato wasn't moving quickly.

His mind wandered as he walked.

He thought about his previous life, about being reborn into the world of Kuroko's Basketball, and about the thing he was always telling his teammates.

Enjoy being on the court.

Yet now that he'd actually lost, Masato realized something uncomfortable.

He was the one who cared most about winning and losing.

The realization gave him pause.

That wasn't the kind of person he remembered himself being.

Joy had always mattered more than the result.

He could never forget the afternoon he'd first touched a basketball as a child and how happy he'd been playing with his friends.

So when had that changed?

Masato began turning the question inward.

As he thought, his mind drifted farther back, and memories buried deep inside him slowly resurfaced.

His previous life...

During his final year of high school, he'd led his team against powerhouses from across the country.

In the end, they achieved the best result in school history in the National High School League.

The entire team had been ecstatic.

When Masato graduated, the No. 7 jersey he'd worn was raised to the rafters and retired.

He could still remember how hopeful everyone had been back then.

They had believed the road ahead into professional basketball would be wide open.

Reality had been far crueler.

Masato's talent had never been truly elite to begin with, and then a devastating injury struck on top of that.

He had been forced to leave the court.

The No. 7 jersey that had carried so many of his greatest memories was sealed away with that part of his life.

Fate really was strange.

The more regret he'd carried from the past, the more excited he'd been when those memories awakened in this life.

Masato had realized that fate had given him another chance.

He wanted to hold onto that chance with everything he had.

What he hadn't realized was that the obsession had planted a fear deep in his subconscious.

He was afraid to lose.

Afraid that if he lost, all of this would turn out to have been nothing more than a dream.

...

The moment he understood that, Masato finally stopped walking.

He stood motionless in the tunnel for a long time.

Then a relieved smile slowly appeared on his face.

"I never thought I was still carrying something like that."

Masato turned and looked back toward the court through the dark tunnel.

Now he understood completely.

This defeat wasn't a bad thing for him.

Teikō had forced the fear he'd kept buried in his subconscious to finally surface, and now it could disappear for good.

The moment that weight came off his shoulders, Masato felt lighter than he had in a long time.

He stopped looking back at the court.

Turning away, he continued toward the exit with a smile.

"I told you. Basketball only brings joy!"

His steps grew lighter and lighter.

Masato never noticed the soft, radiant glow beginning to gather around him.