Chapter 75: Chapter 75

"...just a little more," Dirga whispered, eyes glassy, locked somewhere between the real and unreal.

A thousand rhythms collided inside him.

Footsteps. Screeches. The crowd.

Every sound became a signal.

Every motion a melody.

If he could find the thread—

He wouldn’t just read the court.

Dirga waved off the set.

The gym held its breath.

The air between them pulsed.

Two visions of the game.

Asahi stepped in, close—too close.

Hands low. Shoulders tense.

His stance was perfect.

The foul wrapped in formality.

The illegal dressed in technique.

The ref swallowed his whistle—

And rebuilt itself—faster, wilder, free.

The ball danced like jazz.

Chaotic. Untouchable.

Gasps. Echoes. Silence.

A blur of sweat and hunger.

Dirga saw the outlet—

Hiroki was wide open.

Bodies tangled in mid-air.

Dirga crashed down hard, then shot up like a spark.

Alive. Awakened. Unleashed.

Asahi’s breath caught in his chest.

Something primal inside him said:

Not because of the foul.

Not because of the crowd.

Not even because of the score.

But Horizon had more than just Rakuzan to worry about.

There was another shadow creeping behind them—

It wasn’t just numbers on the board.

A ticking bomb hidden beneath the floorboards.

Rei, Hiroki, Aizawa—two each.

Kaito? Still spotless, the only one untouched by the whistle.

One more and he was gone.

And with him, Horizon’s last wall in the paint.

They had no backup center.

Taiga could fill the gap, maybe—

but Horizon’s interior would be exposed, vulnerable, bleeding.

Rakuzan didn’t need to be told.

Like sharks circling the wounded.

The next play hadn’t even begun—

and everyone already knew where the knife would go.

The war wasn’t just tempo anymore.

And Horizon was running out of time...

The gym felt tighter now.

Like the walls were closing in.

But from the weight of awareness.

They didn’t talk about it.

Asahi called the set with a single glance.

Tsukasa brought it up, casual.

Reiji moved like a shadow, dragging Hiroki with him.

Screens set. Curl action.

But none of it mattered.

The real play was happening under the rim.

But it was a fake cut.

Right into Rikuya’s zone.

Tsukasa lobbed it high.

He floated next to Kido like wind over stone.

No foul. No contact. Just pressure.

Kido twisted mid-air—

Rikuya punched it out to Dirga.

But Dirga slowed it down.

He wasn’t done watching.

Saw Kaito walking up calmly, unfazed.

That’s why he was there.

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The kind of player who didn’t get headlines—

Meanwhile, Asahi stared down the court.

Kaito had slipped between the cracks of their plan.

A crack—small, sudden, and deadly.

Just enough for Horizon to breathe again.

Just enough to remind Rakuzan that they weren’t the only ones with blades.

It belonged to Dirga.

The ball kissed his hands, and the court seemed to hold its breath.

His eyes flicked left and right—not searching, seeing.

This wasn’t the same Dirga from the first quarter.

This was the Maestro—Tempo Sight wide open.

A new rhythm spun beneath his feet.

The court wasn’t a battlefield.

He brought the ball past the three-point line.

Taiga came up to set the screen—solid, wide, a wall of muscle.

But Dirga didn’t use it.

Reiji stumbled, slipping on the weight of his own mistake.

But before he could breathe—

Like a shadow moving without wind.

Pressure slammed into Dirga’s side.

Legal? Maybe. Maybe not. The ref wouldn’t call it.

Dirga’s mind spun—no hesitation.

Needle pass. No-look.

Through a gap the size of a heartbeat.

Pure creativity. Pure instinct.

Hiroki caught it in stride.

Tsugawa pumped his fist.

Momentum was shifting.

But slightly was enough.

the tension snapped back.

Because even as Horizon surged forward, their greatest enemy lurked beneath their own jerseys:

Rikuya was sitting on four.

Just one more and he was done.

Their paint would collapse.

They couldn’t body up.

They couldn’t fight with hands or hearts.

One wrong reach. One wrong screen. One wrong breath—

He smelled blood in the rhythm.

He didn’t bark commands.

He didn’t call for brute force.

Instead, he let Rakuzan glide.

Slip cuts. Ghost screens. Delayed pin-downs.

Like silk through a blade.

Every move was designed to bait Horizon into fouling.

And with the referees still leaning Rakuzan’s way, they didn’t need to hit hard.

Just hard enough to get Horizon to flinch.

And under his lead, Horizon didn’t collapse.

They played a different song.

Each pass intentional.

Each screen surgical.

Each shot calculated.

They weren’t running plays.

They were writing symphonies.

Conducted in real time.

And while Rakuzan scored with cold calculation—

Horizon answered with poetic precision.

They danced a razor’s edge.

But the final seconds of the third told the truth:

Rakuzan 57 – Horizon 55.

The crowd buzzed, breath held between quarters.

On the scoreboard, the numbers glowed like fate.

The fourth quarter wouldn’t be basketball.

The climax is coming.

And only one rhythm would survive.