CH 53

[ED: The POV’s were killing me, so I decided to try and make this as Third Person and/or Sei-chan’s view as I could. I apologize if there are any issues.]

As soon as the game began, Tojoin-san’s team had already scored a point.

Three of the five players on the opposing team were players on the basketball team and they also have the advantage of having the very athletic Tojoin-san.

It was too difficult to stop the attack coming from them.

It was an easy shot to make.

With that, Sei-chan’s team proceeded to make an attack.

After bringing the ball to half court, the pass goes to Sei-chan.

She got the ball just outside of the three pointer ring.

The person defending there was, of course, Kaori Tojoin.

“Were you serious about following through with the order you said earlier?”

She asked Tojoin-san whilst holding the ball in place so that she can move immediately depending on her actions. 

“Of course, I never lie after all.”

“Well, then I can’t afford to lose.”

With that said, she kept the ball on herself as she searched for the right time to launch an attack.

However, she couldn’t hit a three-pointer because Tojoin-san was defending the area near her.

(She’ll block my three-pointers.)

As she had thought, Tojoin-san was wary of her three-pointers.

That’s why she was guarding her so closely to prevent her from scoring a point.

(Shimada-san is trying to score more points with three-pointers. Then it’s just a matter of not letting her score at all.)

With that, Tojoin-san was defending against Sei-chan.

And then… she set off.

She dribbled forward, trying to drive by Tojoin towards the hoop.

Her defense makes it easier for her to defend against Sei-chan shooting but being closer means that she can get past her much easier.

With Tojoin-san’s physical ability, even an average professional basketball player can’t easily pull it off.

But her physical abilities have surpassed Kaori Tojoin.

In a blink of an eye, she tried to pass Tojoin-san.

“Ku…”

Reacting just in time with her speed, she tried to keep up with Sei-chan.

Even though Tojoin-san tried to keep up with her, she took a step forward following a dribble and suddenly lunged back.

“What?!”

Tojoin-san certainly wasn’t expecting for her to fall back.

She was already in a shooting stance and Tojoin-san was too far ahead to try and stop her.

With a beautiful form, the ball was shot with a perfect arc, with the ball looking as if it were being sucked into the hoop..

She just scored a three pointer.

In other words, she shot from outside the three point line. 

(A step back… THREE POINTER!)

A step back, was a technique of moving forward whilst dribbling ahead and then immediately stepping back to shoot the ball into the hoop.

It’s very easy to pull off the move but it’s incredibly difficult to land the shot. [PR: call her Sei Curry]

Your body would be off balance which would make the shot much harder to land.

The difficulty increases even more when it becomes a long three-pointer shot.

Such a shot was chosen to be used against Kaori Tojoin.

After the shot went in, there was a moment of silence and then an explosion of cheers in the gym.

“Shimada-san, you’re so cool…!”

“That was insanely fast! Is she really an amateur?”

“Hey, you’re on the basketball team, right? Can you do the same thing?”

“No. no. It’s impossible to land a step-back three with such a tightly packed defense.”

Everyone watching, boys and girls alike, were amazed by the shot Sei-chan just played.

“You’re doing great.”

The three pointers that they were most wary of and made measures so that she wouldn’t land were easily taken care of by Sei-chan.

“There’s more to come, so don’t get downcasted by something like this, Tojoin-san.”

Sei-chan said fearlessly.

“COOOL…! Ah, Sei-chan, as expected of Sei-chan! I’m going to fall in love with you! Oh wait, I’m already in love… I’ll just fall deeper in love with you instead.”

“Tsukasa, you’re mumbling to yourself and it’s getting a bit loud here.”

Neither Sei-chan nor Tojoin-san would know that such a conversation was currently ongoing at the audience stand.

A basketball match in the school generally takes about 20 minutes or so.

A normal basketball game consists of four quarters of ten minutes each, but they don’t have the time nor energy to do that.

The first half of the match between Sei-chan’s class and Tojoin-san’s class was over.

The score was twenty to fifteen.

Tojoin-san’s class was currently winning.

As expected, it was hard for Sei-chan to take on 3 experienced basketball players along with Tojoin-san by herself.

No, if Sei-chan was on the offensive the entire time, she might have been able to win.

But, this was a team game, so of course, there were other players besides Sei-chan, so she had to pass the ball to them as well.

If they were in a serious match and really wanted to win, all the balls would just be given to Sei-chan. But in the end, it was just an interclass match.

In a game that was meant to be fun, if Sei-chan had the ball all the time, it would indeed be too boring for the other students.

In the first half, the ball went to her 5 times.

And in all of those five times, Sei-chan managed to score all of them.

She had 3 three-pointers and 2 two-pointers.

She scored 13 out of the 15 points that her team had scored. So it was obvious to everyone that without her, her class would have been steamrolled.

The break was almost over and the second half was about to begin.

However, Sei-chan was nowhere to be seen.

If you exerted the most amount of effort for a long enough time, a normal girl would have reached her limit.

But Sei-chan was still fine.

The reason she wasn’t in was because it was still a normal match and there were other players present as well.

If Sei-chan was on the entire game, she would have taken up one of the five slots on the team the entire duration of the game.

“Fuu~”

Sei leaned against the wall and drank some water as she watched the rest of the game unfold.

AN: If you are not familiar with basketball, you can watch Step Back Three, etc. on YouTube to help you fantasize about how cool the Saint is.