I Died on the Court, Now I'm Back to Rule It-Chapter 73: Horizon VS Rakuzan : The Rhythm

Horizon locker room

Horizon entered the locker room with happy, cheerful faces and a buzz of energy.

"Nice play out there. And nice thinking, Dirga. I didn’t know you were such a bad boy," Coach Tsugawa teased, grinning.

"Well, I am a bad boy, Coach," Dirga replied, doing an awkward, exaggerated "bad boy" face.

Laughter followed.

"Okay, for the third quarter, I’ll let Hiroki play. Rei can take a breather," Tsugawa added.

"Yes, Coach! I’ll make you proud," Hiroki replied sharply, like a soldier snapping to attention.

"Okay, okay—don’t be too tense. We still don’t know what Rakuzan will bring, but we’ll anticipate anything and everything, so stay ready," Coach Tsugawa warned.

"Yes, Coach!" all of us answered in unison.

Dirga knew they would come.

Especially Asahi.

He let Reiji run wild in the first half—

Maybe, just maybe, he’s hiding something else in the bag.

...

Rakuzan locker room

"FUCK!"

Reiji slammed his locker shut.

His face was twisted—murderous.

"That fucker—I’m gonna kill that guy," he spat.

"Be calm," Asahi said in his usual, unreadable tone.

"But that fucker—" Reiji tried to argue, but stopped.

Asahi’s stare pierced him, sharp and silent.

Reiji swallowed his words.

"...Okay. So what do we do now?"

"I’ll run the team," Asahi said, voice cold and controlled.

"So... we’re doing that formation?" Tsukasa asked quietly.

"Tsk. I thought we were saving it for the final," Reiji muttered.

"Well," Asahi said, his voice low and serious,

"If we don’t use it now...

We’re dead."

...

Rakuzan 25 – Horizon 33.

The third quarter began with a silence that didn’t settle—it tightened.

No buzz, no cheer, no nervous shifting. Just a strange stillness, like the gym itself was holding its breath.

Rakuzan emerged from the tunnel like they weren’t athletes—but instruments of execution.

Not fueled by adrenaline.

Not lifted by momentum.

But sharpened by calculation.

Gone was the smirking flair of Reiji. Gone was the chaos.

Now?

Asahi led.

And he didn’t march out like a player ready to compete.

He walked like a general entering territory he already owned.

Every Rakuzan player followed his rhythm—heads low, eyes calm.

Asahi didn’t need to yell.

He didn’t need to flex.

He brought something heavier.

Certainty.

Tsukasa brought the ball up. Reiji curled off a screen—just like before.

But this time, the motion was hollow. A decoy.

A distraction meant to pull Horizon’s eyes where they didn’t need to look.

Because the real threat?

Moved in shadows.

A whisper of motion on the weak side—Asahi, subtle, smooth—barely even a shift.

But for Rakuzan, it was a trigger.

Back screen.

Slant cut.

Lob.

SLAM.

Asahi detonated above the rim—violently clean.

No wasted motion. No celebration. Just gravity doing its job.

27 – 33.

The gym shook, but Rakuzan didn’t.

No cheering. No grins.

Only Asahi turning his back on the rim like the play bored him.

Dirga clenched his jaw.

He’d read it. Too late. Again.

Next possession.

Horizon ran movement, trying to get Hiroki or Rei open—nothing clean. Reiji and Tsukasa pressed like vipers, arms high, feet just close enough to force contact.

And then it happened.

BUMP.

Reiji’s chest collided with Hiroki’s shoulder.

Whistle.

Offensive foul.

"What?!" Hiroki’s voice cracked.

The bench erupted, but Coach Tsugawa just exhaled—sharp, through his nose.

Dirga’s eyes narrowed.

There it was.

Not just a new formation.

A new manipulation. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

Asahi wasn’t just calling plays.

He was calling boundaries.

Push the refs.

Nudge them.

Not outright violence—but pressure. Constant, suffocating pressure.

On defense, Rakuzan pressed chest-to-chest, cutting every lane with just enough physicality to draw flinches—but never look dirty.

On offense?

They baited contact.

Slip-screens that just grazed.

Delayed cuts that lured defenders into overreaching.

Every whistle was a crack in Horizon’s focus.

And every no-call?

A message: You don’t control this game. We do.

Next play.

Dirga danced through defenders. He saw the double screen coming—split it. Reiji stepped in.

Dirga leaned in for the layup—BANG.

Body contact. Obvious. Hard.

No whistle.

Play on.

Ball clanged off the rim. Asahi grabbed it and rocketed the outlet pass.

Reiji sprinted.

Layup.

29 – 33.

Coach Tsugawa raised both arms. "That’s a foul!"

But the ref didn’t budge.

"Play through!"

Dirga clenched his jaw.

Because now it was undeniable:

Rakuzan wasn’t just playing harder.

They were playing smarter.

Cleaner—to the refs.

Screens that bruised without leaving fingerprints.

Contact hidden beneath the choreography of precision.

Every bump disguised as balance. Every shove masked by timing.

Asahi hadn’t just changed the formation.

He’d changed the perception of the game.

And worse—

He changed the rhythm.

Dirga could feel it. The court was slippery—not with sweat, but with illusion.

They’d start a possession at Tempo A—structured, methodical, almost predictable.

Then—

Snap.

Without a signal, without a shift in posture—

Tempo B.

Sudden. Violent. Vertical.

Like a jazz solo erupting in the middle of a classical concerto.

Dirga’s mind lagged a second behind, caught between reading the notes and reacting to the music. Every instinct pulled him to step forward—but by the time he moved, the space was gone. The pass already made. The gap already exploited.

It wasn’t chaos. It was orchestration.

Asahi’s orchestration.

The illusion of pattern.

The betrayal of tempo.

And Dirga?

He wasn’t behind physically.

He was behind conceptually.

A full second off the rhythm.

And for someone like Dirga—

Someone who’d reading the game like a conductor reads a symphony—

That second was a lifetime.

His internal clock—normally so precise—was misfiring.

He couldn’t read the tempo.

Not like he usually could.

Not like he needed to.

And it hurt.

Like trying to sight-read a score that kept rewriting itself mid-performance.

But even as the game slipped through his fingers—

Dirga didn’t panic.

He adjusted.

He would adjust.

He had to.

And if he could shorten that delay—if he could find the seams between Tempo A and Tempo B—

He’d crack it open.

He just needed time.

And in games like this?

Time was everything.

He exhaled.

Reset his feet.

Reset his mind.

Find the rhythm again.

Before Rakuzan pulled too far ahead.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l