I Died on the Court, Now I'm Back to Rule It-Chapter 82: The Rhythm of Data

Dirga glued his eyes back to the court.

Something was different now.

The game didn’t look the same anymore. Every movement, every pause, every slight hesitation on the court—he could see it. Feel it. The tempo of the game was no longer just noise and motion. It had a beat. A rhythm. And he could read it.

The third quarter had barely begun, but Wakayama Seiryuu was already dominating.

Completely.

"Why were they even losing in the first half?" Dirga asked himself, puzzled.

And then it clicked.

Because they let themselves.

Because Wakayama Seiryuu Institute wasn’t just playing basketball—they were analyzing it.

The reason they lost the first and second quarters... was by choice.

They were gathering data.

Every movement. Every pass. Every chaotic play from Kōbe Minami Tech.

And Dirga understood now—that was what made Wakayama so terrifying.

Their coach, a prodigy in his own right, was more than just a tactician. He was a data analyst, barely out of graduate school. A genius with a Master’s in data science who could have joined any major tech company or analytics firm.

Instead, he brought his mind to the world of sports.

And Dirga knew.

"In five years," he remembered from his previous life, "he’ll be analyzing strategies for NBA teams. And not just that—NFL, FIFA, and analysts across every major sport will be studying his methods."

That was the terrifying truth. This man wasn’t just shaping a team—he was shaping the future of the game itself.

But for now... he was here. At a high school bench. Quietly shaping monsters.

And those monsters—Wakayama’s players—reflected his thinking perfectly.

Because to them, the first half wasn’t failure.

It was observation.

And that’s the thing about chaos—it feels unpredictable, but even chaos follows rules.

Even the most instinctive players move with patterns their brains don’t realize they’re repeating. Foot angles. Passing windows. Preferred pivots. Tendencies. Biases.

"No matter how wild you move," Dirga thought, "your mind repeats what it believes works."

And that’s all Wakayama needed.

The first two quarters were reconnaissance.

The third quarter? Execution.

Suddenly, the court became a storm—and Wakayama was the eye.

Their press turned suffocating. Defensive rotations sharpened to a blade. Passes that Kōbe Minami made earlier with ease were now being intercepted or cut off entirely. Their chaotic offense, once so free-flowing and improvisational, was now trapped in a maze.

Wakayama had solved them.

And Kobe Minami Tech?

They were crumbling.

Their swagger drained minute by minute. Their free movement now looked frantic. Instead of dancers in sync, they looked like children being scolded for misbehaving.

Dirga could see the panic on their key player’s face—the so-called "Unruled."

His eyes were darting around. His dribbles, once confident, were hesitating.

"He’s frustrated."

Wakayama didn’t just shut down the lanes. They read him. Predicted his next pass, his fake, his spin. The chaotic genius was no longer unpredictable.

He was transparent.

The buzzer rang.

End of the third quarter.

Wakayama Seiryuu Institute: 54 – Kōbe Minami Tech: 45

A nine-point turnaround. Just like that.

The lead wasn’t overwhelming—but the shift in momentum? It was seismic.

The air in the arena had changed.

The swagger of Kōbe Minami Tech faded fast, replaced by frustration and panic.

Their bench sat stiff, stunned. Their coach paced like a lion in a cage, torn between screaming and surrender.

And in the middle of it all, Dirga leaned back in his seat, watching with narrowed eyes. His lips twitched—part smirk, part sheer admiration.

"This... this is high-level basketball," he muttered under his breath.

This wasn’t just about skill anymore. Not handles or hops.

This was about systems.

Rhythm. Data. Pressure. Control.

Wakayama had turned basketball into a science—and now, a weapon.

On the court, their captain moved like a machine—a calm storm in the middle of the chaos. Their offense now flowed like water, their defense tightened like a trap.

Kōbe Minami’s chaos was gone. Their creativity—neutralized.

They weren’t improvising anymore. They were panicking.

Then—

"Wakayama is really good," someone said beside Dirga, casually but firmly. "Their captain’s sharp. But that coach? He’s terrifying."

Dirga blinked, slightly startled. He turned, checking left and right. Was that comment aimed at him?

"Yes, I’m talking to you, Dirgantara Renji," the man clarified, a small smile on his face.

Before Dirga could respond, the stranger slipped a card from his shirt pocket and handed it over.

"Takahiro Lucien Arakawa," he introduced. "Scout for a European development team. I’ve been following this tournament for a while now. You’ve got presence, kid. Vision. Tempo control."

Dirga glanced down at the card. Clean design. Bold black letters.

Real.

"There’s a training camp in Spain, right after the national tournament," Takahiro added. "Top youth prospects. Good exposure. If you’re interested, give me a call. The future isn’t just in Japan."

Dirga’s brain buzzed. Spain? Europe? Him?

"Anyway, I’ve seen what I came to see."

Takahiro gave a final nod and stood up, slipping into the crowd before Dirga could ask a single question.

And then—the buzzer.

The fourth quarter.

Only... it didn’t feel like a fourth quarter.

It felt like credits rolling.

Kōbe Minami Tech was done.

Whatever fire they’d had in the first half had turned to ash. Their key players looked frustrated, exhausted, lost.

Wakayama didn’t just win—they dissected them. Broke them down.

Play by play. Dribble by dribble.

By the final two minutes, Wakayama had subbed in their bench—and even they held the line with surgical precision.

Wakayama Seiryuu Institute: 88 – Kōbe Minami Tech: 64

A twenty-four-point beatdown.

Dirga slowly stood, still processing everything he’d seen. The court, the system, the scout’s words.

Spain. Camp. Exposure. Opportunity.

But he didn’t linger.

He turned and made his way straight back toward the Horizon booth.

Ayaka was waiting.

She gave him a small smile as he jogged up. Without a word, he joined her, helping pack up the last boxes of leftover merchandise, folding the shirts neatly, taping the crates shut. Their movements were quiet, but comfortable—like they had done this dozens of times before.

As they closed the last box, a familiar burst of energy rolled in.

"Dirgaaa!" Taiga’s voice came first. Loud, dramatic. "You didn’t watch the game, did you?! Bro, it was insane! Wakayama just—blam, bam, boom! Like a full-on slaughter!"

"I did watch it," Dirga replied, not even turning around. "I just couldn’t find you guys in that crowd."

"Yeah, right," Aizawa grinned. "You were glued to something, alright. Or someone."

Before Dirga could respond, Sayaka slid into the scene, arms crossing with a sly grin.

"Onee-san, how are you holding up with this guy? He didn’t do anything stupid, did he?" she asked teasingly, immediately wrapping her arms around Ayaka in a hug.

Ayaka blinked, slightly flustered, then shook her head.

"No! What are you saying?" she laughed, giving her sister a gentle squeeze back. "Dirga’s been helping me the whole time. Like a proper assistant."

Dirga scratched his cheek, pretending not to hear the snickering behind him from Taiga and Aizawa.

The group stood there a while longer, the tension from earlier games melting into shared jokes, light teasing, and tired smiles. Horizon’s team—once scattered in different parts of the arena—now walked together again, unified and steady. They had watched their next opponent.

Wakayama Seiryuu.

And tomorrow... it would be their turn.

As the sky deepened into twilight, the team made their way back to the hotel. Heads down. Hearts up.

The real fight was about to begin.

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