Indeed, Akashi didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in the first minutes of the second half of the match. The two puppies continued running around like crazy, scoring baskets and nearing the twenty points. But the purple one was somehow catching up, the three point lead that the reddish pup had was disappearing right before Akashi's eyes. And he couldn't figure out why.
Murasakibara's pup seemed to play like before, following an occasional command from his human. There didn't seem to be anything different in his game. Except Akashi was human so he couldn't hear the different part. But every other puppy on the court could so they all suddenly got up, worried. Their humans quickly told them to sit and not interfere and soon after the puppies themselves understood what was going on.
The purple pup whimpered quietly from time to time so only the puppies could hear them, not the humans. After all, their hearing was better. But that whimpering, like the pup was in pain, confused and then worried the reddish puppy. He tried to ask what was wrong but the younger pup wouldn't tell. He even pretended his leg was hurt.
So Akashi's pup went easy on his opponent, not running as fast and not guarding as much. Suddenly he was too worried to really play. And so his lead disappeared and soon Murasakibara's pup was in the lead.
Akashi still didn't know what was happening while the tall boy on the other bench happily munched on some chocolate.
