I Died on the Court, Now I'm Back to Rule It-Chapter 75: Horizon VS Rakuzan : Against the Beat 2

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

"Maestro state."

"Tempo sight."

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—

The perfect tempo—

He wouldn’t just read the court.

He would own it.

Next play.

Dirga waved off the set.

No play. No help.

Isolation.

Silence.

The gym held its breath.

Just him.

And Asahi.

The air between them pulsed.

Two generals.

Two monsters.

Two visions of the game.

Asahi stepped in, close—too close.

Hands low. Shoulders tense.

His stance was perfect.

Too perfect.

Dirga felt it.

The foul wrapped in formality.

The illegal dressed in technique.

The ref swallowed his whistle—

Again.

Dirga didn’t blink.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t care.

His sight changed.

His tempo shattered.

And rebuilt itself—faster, wilder, free.

Step-over.

Hesi.

Shoulder drop.

Crossover.

Flash. Feint. Flick.

The ball danced like jazz.

Chaotic. Untouchable.

Asahi reached—

Dirga vanished.

Drop.

Asahi hit the floor.

Gasps. Echoes. Silence.

Dirga surged past.

A blur of sweat and hunger.

The paint.

Kido stepped in.

Tsukasa rotated.

Dirga saw the outlet—

Hiroki was wide open.

A simple dish.

An easy two.

But Dirga...

chose war.

He attacked.

Contact.

Shoulders slammed.

Bodies tangled in mid-air.

Whistle.

And one.

BOOM.

42 – 41.

The gym exploded.

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

Alive. Awakened. Unleashed.

He didn’t scream.

He didn’t gloat.

He just turned—

Eyes met Asahi’s.

And Dirga smiled.

Not arrogance.

Not celebration.

A promise.

Asahi’s breath caught in his chest.

Not fear.

Instinct.

Something primal inside him said:

"You’re prey now."

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—

The foul count.

It wasn’t just numbers on the board.

It was pressure.

A ticking bomb hidden beneath the floorboards.

Dirga had two.

Taiga—three.

Rei, Hiroki, Aizawa—two each.

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

But Rikuya...

Four.

Four fouls.

One more and he was gone.

Gone.

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

They had no backup center.

No second titan.

Taiga could fill the gap, maybe—

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

Rakuzan didn’t need to be told.

They could feel it.

Like sharks circling the wounded.

The next play hadn’t even begun—

and everyone already knew where the knife would go.

Straight at Rikuya.

The war wasn’t just tempo anymore.

It was attrition.

It was strategy.

And Horizon was running out of time...

and bodies.

Back on the court.

The gym felt tighter now.

Like the walls were closing in.

Not from the crowd—

But from the weight of awareness.

Everyone knew.

Rikuya had four.

Rakuzan knew.

They didn’t talk about it.

They didn’t have to.

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.

Kido slipped inside.

Aizawa switched.

But it was a fake cut.

Kido looped again.

Right into Rikuya’s zone.

The trap had teeth.

Tsukasa lobbed it high.

Kido jumped—

But so did Kaito.

Fast. Silent. Clean.

He didn’t swipe.

He guided.

He floated next to Kido like wind over stone.

No foul. No contact. Just pressure.

Kido twisted mid-air—

Lost it.

The ball bounced.

A scramble—

Rikuya punched it out to Dirga.

Fast break.

But Dirga slowed it down.

He wasn’t done watching.

He looked back.

Saw Kaito walking up calmly, unfazed.

Dirga smiled.

That’s why he was there.

Not just a shooter.

Not just support.

Kaito was insurance.

The kind of player who didn’t get headlines—

but saved games.

Meanwhile, Asahi stared down the court.

He wasn’t angry.

But he noticed.

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.

But the next play?

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.

It was a piano.

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.

He rejected it.

A blur to the left—

Reiji bit.

Wrong move.

Ankle.

Snap.

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

Dirga had space.

A wide open lane.

But before he could breathe—

Asahi appeared.

Like a shadow moving without wind.

Silent. Sudden.

A wall.

Pressure slammed into Dirga’s side.

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

Not now.

Dirga’s mind spun—no hesitation.

He saw the shift.

Hiroki cutting in.

He didn’t even look.

Needle pass. No-look.

Through a gap the size of a heartbeat.

Pure creativity. Pure instinct.

Hiroki caught it in stride.

Layup.

42 – 43.

Horizon led again.

The bench stood.

Tsugawa pumped his fist.

Momentum was shifting.

Just slightly.

But slightly was enough.

Still—

the tension snapped back.

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

Foul trouble.

And worst of all—

Rikuya was sitting on four.

Just one more and he was done.

And with him?

Their paint would collapse.

They couldn’t press.

They couldn’t body up.

They couldn’t fight with hands or hearts.

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

And Asahi?

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.

They didn’t attack.

They flowed.

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.

No wild rushes.

No hero plays.

Each pass intentional.

Each screen surgical.

Each shot calculated.

They weren’t running plays.

They were writing symphonies.

Composed in rhythm.

Conducted in real time.

And while Rakuzan scored with cold calculation—

Horizon answered with poetic precision.

Point for point.

Cut for cut.

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.

And the players?

They knew.

The fourth quarter wouldn’t be basketball.

It would be war.

The climax is coming.

And only one rhythm would survive.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is fre(e)novelkiss