OK, so Goston has gone down, and Shohoku is in trouble without a center. How will a motley outfit consisting of a redhead, a punk, a quiet dude, a powerful player and a Mohawk dude fight against people much taller than them? It's all in…
Chapter 7: Interest, 100 returned
(PS: If you can read Chinese, good for you. It's all good clean fun.)
"Teeheehee," snorted Murasame, glad that he's poised to take down yet another victory.
"Chen and Maverack are doing their 'jobs' well enough. I just lifted their hopes so they think they can go to the States, but well, I don't think the colleges will want violent players. Still, we're all perfectly en-route to the Inter-High. Then, we get our title of National High School Champion. Employing them in play has never been easier with these buffoons… Now, what can they do with a Mohawk punk?"
Meanwhile…
"Shinichi, I have a plan. It's not going to sound really nice, and it might land you a serious foul… Then again, you want to return them the favor?"
"Sure do, Uchiro. What's the plan?"
And so…
The second half went underway. Shoyo leads by 45-42. By this time, many high school basketball pundits had arrived on time to witness a game. What most of them did not realize, was that it has become a free-for-all. By the thirty-minute mark, both teams are still drawing level, much to Murasame's surprise. Uchiro assisted the team with his three pointers, to make up for lack of in-the-paint firepower due to Goston's absence. Rukawa is trying hard to cover Sakuragi but Sakuragi is finding himself pinned down badly.
At the 8-minute mark, the score was 73-69.
Shinichi and Uchiro were on defense as Chen and Maverack moved in for a two-on-two. The ball went to Chen, who was preparing to lay-up the shot. Uchiro made a defense maneuver – or so everybody thought.
Then Chen landed without laying up the ball and was crying out in pain as his whole being crashed to the floor. Kakuta stopped the game and the medics promptly rushed over to see what was going on.
"Uchiro?" Sakuragi eyed Uchiro with suspicion.
"What? Hey, he fell down on his own accord and started bellowing like a madman."
"他妈的！臭小子，你出老千！"(Dammit! You sonofagun, cheater!)
Chen Guang was swearing in Chinese as blood flowed from three deep scratches on his arm.
"彼此彼此。你敢说咱们的中锋不是你弄伤的？"(Same to you, buster. Didn't you injure our center as well?)
"Hey, Uchiro, you knew Chinese?"
"Sort of. I spent 6 years in China and spent my other 6 elementary years in a Chinese school here in Japan."
"What was he saying?" Shinichi moved up and queried.
"Ah, well, he was just swearing. OK, so Shinichi, now it's your turn to deal with that Englishman."
"Count on me."
Kakuta was once again, unable to determined who caused the scratch, but it seem like Chen grazed himself on a rough patch of the basketball court that the school hasn't fixed yet, so that could be a likely answer. Murasame wasn't convinced, though.
"Hey, referee, aren't you blind?"
"Kakuta, that's a technical!" Mai shouted from across the court.
The whistle was blown again, but not to signal play on. As Murasame was caught on the arms by in-house security personnel and thrown out of the school compound, Shoyo is caught without a coach on the bench, and soon their formations became pretty useless.
(Henceforth English conversations are noted in italics)
"Koshiro, you're not doing anything!"
Shinichi knew English and caught wind of what his English opponent was saying. Koshiro… Aoi?
"The guy with multicolored hair?" Wondered Shinichi. "He's not doing much today, anyway… But it seemed extremely deliberate that this Koshiro was trying hard not to do anything…"
Shinichi flashbacked to the start of the game and started replaying the game in his head. He came to the conclusion that his hunch was correct. Shinichi had been doing through passes, assists, whatnot. The only thing he didn't do was shoot, even when he caught Shinichi and Uchiro off-guard.
"Denzel, I absolutely refuse to help if you're not prepared to play fair."
"Fine, you pea-brain. I'll take down all these red mamas myself."
"Let's see who gets the last laugh, eigo-nan(English-speaking dude)!"
Denzel got the ball and literally charged at Shinichi. The charge was intended not to do a slam-dunk…
"What the… Shinichi, careful!" Sakuragi bellowed from across the court.
But before the dude could even reach Shinichi to do damage, Shinichi side-stepped and tripped him conveniently. He was sent flying out of bounds and crashing into the scoreboard, knocked out.
Now Shoyo is without their violent players, and without a proper formation, things turn completely into Shohoku's favor. The last five minutes seem very one sided and if not for a certain Koshiro Aoi, who constantly broke through the Shinichi-Uchiro defense, Shohoku could well have scored hundred before the whistle. However, one man is not a team, and Shoyo finally lost out in the end with a score of 95-87.
"Teams, bow! The match ends with Shohoku High School as the victor, 95-87!"
As Shoyo was prepared to leave, Shinichi approached Koshiro by tapping him from the back. The tall, lanky dude whom he stole the ball from during game start, turned back to see who tapped him.
"You are…"
"I'm Shinichi Kawasaki."
"I'm Koshiro Aoi. Now, since you speak English…I guess you overheard whatever Denzel was talking about, huh?"
"Rightly so. Tell all your friends that Shohoku High School is an outfit not to be messed about by such shameful tactics. And tell your coach Murasame that if he dares to try anything funny in the Inter-High preliminaries, we won't hesitate to report this matter to the sports association."
"You think I like playing shamefully? I'm about to report Murasame to the school's board of directors soon."
"Really? I hope that the next time we meet, you will be holding the armband and then, we can play more respectfully."
"Sure. Until next time then. Team, let's go."
"Hey, before you go…"
"Yea, Mr Shinichi?"
"Tell Murasame that we paid him back with interest, hundred percent."
"I'll be sure to do so. In any case, he's not going to be on this particular job for long. Tata, then."
Before long, the courts quietened down again as the small crowds and the visiting teams left the courts.
"Gotta go wash my fingernails," grinned Uchiro.
Shinichi looked at his fingernails. They seem to be stained by human skin and blood. So Chen's injury was deliberate after all. Then again, that speaks volumes of Uchiro's dark past.
"Hey, Uchiro."
Uchiro stopped in his tracks with a screech.
"Yea, what? Ya gonna tell me not to use that cheat in Inter-High?"
"Rightfully so. The rest doesn't know what went on, and I hope we won't ever have to resort to this, again."
"Saa… we won't use this again. It's not even a basketball-originated form of injury-causing, so it wasn't fun."
"Uchiro!"
"Just kidding man, don't be so uptight."
"I hope so. Now, let's go see how's… whoa, Goston?"
Across the corridor heading to the rest area, Goston was staggering out.
"So, did we win?" Goston tried to grin, but the pain was still bad. Behind him, Haruko was half-yelling, half-pleading as she asked him to stop moving about.
"You bet. C'mon, let us share with you what's going on. It's a long story about debts owed, and interest paid back at a hundred percent…"
TO BE CONTINUED…