The second-half whistle barely cut through the roar when a new thing settled over the floor: expectation. Aomine had burst out of the locker room like a cyclone; now everyone wanted to see whether that cyclone could keep burning.
Meisei wanted to show it could not.
Rui Hachimura walked onto the court with the same blank calm he'd worn all game. But beneath that calm was work – months and months of it in the States, drilling with coaches who did not humbly admire his highlight reels but rebuilt players. Whatever warmth or curiosity had shown in his half-time smile had turned into a precise instrument.
The kid who stepped onto the third-quarter floor carried the weight of hundreds of corrected mistakes.
Tōō tried to feed Aomine and ride the Zone. Imayoshi searched, Sakurai cut, Susa rotated – the ball moved as if it belonged to a single man. Aomine reacted faster than the universe could parse. He split defenses, threw his body into lanes, came up with steals and impossible finishes. For a while it felt as if the Zone would carry them again.
Then Rui made the first answer, quiet and clinical.
He didn't only block; he erased angles. He timed contests so precisely that Aomine's sudden flight paths met air. When Aomine exploded left, Rui closed the pocket with two steps and a vertical that read like a solved equation.
When Aomine tried to float over a defender, Rui met him at the rim with a hand that seemed to appear from nowhere and sent the ball into orbit. Those weren't merely athletic plays – they were the byproduct of hours spent learning to position, to read the opponent's intent, to use leverage instead of just force.
Meisei's offense stepped into a new gear. Rui began to push the floor not brute-force style but like a general who'd mastered every rank: he drew a double, then delivered a backside pass with the kind of timing that made you feel the shot was inevitable before it left the corner. Allen and Sato started to find rhythm off Rui's gravity; Suzuki orchestrated the spacing so the ball slid from pocket to pocket and landed in unsuspecting shooters' hands. Tanaka cleaned the glass and curled for threes as a safety valve, making Tōō's help defense choose between several punishments.
Aomine's Zone burned bright and furious – he scored in flurries, pulled steals that left people breathless, and dragged Tōō back into the lead with a series of impossibly fast finishers. The crowd chanted his name like a prayer.
Kagami in the stands bared his teeth and leaned forward until his voice was rough with wanting. Kise watched with a glittering hunger, the kind that makes imitators try harder. Across the arena, Midorima and the Shūtoku players watched with clinical interest. Even Murasakibara's mouth was ajar.
But Rui's response was not panic; it was accumulation. He took Aomine's energy and turned it into openings. When Aomine drove and the defense collapsed, Rui stayed calm and composed and swatted the ball.
He didn't fight to dunk every time – he read the rotation and punished with patience, delivering kickouts that were already catching nets.
When Aomine stole and countered with a burst, Rui met him with containment and then answered by getting his hands on the ball and carrying the other end of the court.
Midway through the third quarter, the game changed shape. Aomine's instinctive ferocity began to meet a steady, muscular intelligence. The Zone gave him half-steps and lightning reactions – Rui took those half-steps and stretched them into a full court schematic. It was not just one man playing – it was a team that let their star magnify his impact without collapsing around him.
And then Rui spoke to Aomine.
It happened after Rui denied Aomine at the rim – a rejection that made the ball pop loose and sent Suzuki sprinting back the other way. Rui jogged to half court on the return, and Aomine, chest heaving and eyes on fire, stayed staring. There was no preamble, no taunt, only an even cadence that stopped Aomine's fire for the fraction of a breath it takes to reconsider a move.
"You think that state is everything?" Rui said, voice low but audible across the court. "Last year, against Rakuzan, I was in it. I thought it meant something. At World U17, we faced teams who didn't play like us – teams that were bigger, faster, tougher, more skilled, and smarter. We were destroyed. I was destroyed." He paused, unflinching. "That hurt. I had to go away and strip myself down. I trained in the States. I learned things that don't look like highlights: how to make my body predictable, how to make the game predictable for me, how to make teammates predictable for each other. This isn't my final version. I'm still building. But I learned humility there." He stepped closer, eyes locked on Aomine. "You dream of fire. I learned how to build a furnace and control it. Today, I'll show you why that matters."
It wasn't taunt so much as fact – a calm statement that emptied the space between them of illusions. Aomine's scowl tightened, the flame in his chest flaring into something keener.
What followed was not spectacle alone but anatomy. Rui attacked the glass with the same brusque grace of a grown player: rebound, pivot, push, score. He punished any overcommitment. When Aomine tried to force rhythm into a Zone finish, Rui's team collapsed just enough to reroute the ball into a corner triple. When Aomine hit, Rui hit harder. When Aomine stole, Rui's push became a dunk through bodies that seemed to bend to his will rather than the other way around.
By the end of the third, Meisei's lead tightened, then opened. The scoreboard, which had fluttered like a coin for most of the game, slid solidly Meisei's way. Aomine's muscles burned from exertion; his eyes had a manic light. He had taken over the game with the purity of the Zone, and Rui had answered with the patient breadth of someone who'd rebuilt himself in sections – technical, physical, mental.
The fourth quarter was Rui's coronation ceremony.
He transformed from a cold-blooded half-court bully into a prime, full-package attacker: power through contact, soft touch on the midrange, pull-up threes with the backspin of a surgeon's hand, and a passing vision that kicked back the very definition of Aomine's improvisation.
On defense, Rui rotated mechanically, timing jumps, sealing lanes, and rejecting attempts that had looked certain when Aomine launched them. Each rejection seemed to come with an editorial comment: not today.
Tōō tried everything. They increased screens. They ran two-man games to free Aomine's initial steps. They tried to throw the ball into Wakamatsu to change the attack axis. But Meisei had prepared counters to each of those fits – small adjustments learned in the cold grind of American camp: slip the screen earlier to draw a collapse, flare a wing to punish overhelp, force rollers into weak hands.
With nine minutes left the gap stretched. Within six minutes it became a chasm. Within two minutes it was insurmountable. Rui's stat line read like a highlight reel compiled by a methodical editor: points in the paint, threes off the catch, steals that led to putbacks, and the kind of presence that made sections on the court stop being lines and start being his territory.
When the buzzer finally ended it, the scoreboard reflected more than a win:
Meisei 108 – Tōō 76
Meisei dismantled Tōō.
The margin was decisive enough that silence hung longer than noise when Aomine dropped to his knees at midcourt, chest heaving, sweat plastered like rain. He lay back on the polished floor, the lights glaring down. For the first time in his life, the Zone had not been an ascent – it had been a punishment.
Rui walked over the polished hardwood with the slow, practiced gait of someone who knows the weight of every step. He didn't shout, didn't celebrate. He crouched down beside Aomine, close enough that the two of them were a single, exhausting frame.
"This is what I learned," Rui said quietly, almost gently. "You thought the Zone was a way to be untouchable. Once, I thought the same. Last year when I felt it, I thought it meant everything. Then the U17– we were gone. I had my head broken. My heart shattered. I had to rebuild from the ground up in the States. I did it wrong at times. I fixed it. I kept the parts that mattered and burned the rest. I am still growing, Daiki. This isn't the end."
Aomine didn't lift his head. His breath hitched in a staccato. The rage in him had become a raw, exposed thing – something not even he could fully direct now.
Rui's voice sharpened, the pity gone. "You can stay here in this pond with your little miracles, delusional that a single burst makes you a king. Or you can go further, learn to carry your game like armor, and then maybe prove you're worth the mountain." He straightened. "If you ever want to be crushed again, you'll find me in the States when you think you're good enough. But know this first: as things stand, your Generation of Miracles looks like a puff of smoke. Fragile. Pathetic. You are not finished. You're weak where it counts. It is an evil world we live in."
It was cruel, but it landed like an honest strike. Not a boast so much as a provocation: go be better, or be forgotten. The words stung, but they were not empty. They carried the logic of someone who had been broken and rebuilt, and who knew the cost of the work.
For a long while Aomine lay there, breathing hard, the crowd a distant ocean. He felt everything: fury, shame, hunger, a single ember that the speech had only fanned. Eventually he pushed himself up, chest heaving, eyes bright but not entirely the same as before. He met Rui's gaze for a single long second.
"You'll see me again," he said. Aomine's voice was thin, almost a rasp.
Rui simply nodded once, the faintest curve crossing his face – not a smile of triumph, but the dry recognition of two players who had traded more than points. They had traded philosophies.
On the benches, coaches and scouts scribbled notes like surgeons charting wounds and strengths. In the stands, murmurs rolled: some in awe, some in fear, many in the rapture that comes with seeing a talent turning into something larger.
Meisei left the court that night having proved more than they'd wanted to say aloud – that the Fortress was a product of sweat, correction, and relentless refinement, not destiny. Tōō left with the honest ruin of one of their brightest stars, and also with a prize they couldn't yet name: the knowledge that the Zone could be entered – and that entering it did not guarantee immortality.
~~~~~
They sat together in the stands – Riko, Kagami, Kuroko, Hyūga, the whole team – frozen. No one spoke.
Kagami's jaw was locked tight, eyes wide. He had seen power before – but not this. Not this kind of dominance.
Riko's clipboard was limp in her hands. "...He crushed him," she said quietly, disbelief trembling in her voice.
"Aomine-kun… couldn't even react." Kuroko didn't blink. His eyes were fixed on the court, where Rui had just walked past Aomine.
Hyūga exhaled through his teeth. "So this is… the gap."
Kagami leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice low. "We couldn't beat Aomine… and that guy just–"
He couldn't even finish. The words died in his throat.
Riko didn't look at him. "That," she said flatly, "was the difference between a prodigy and a professional."
No one argued.
A few rows away, Kise Ryōta had gone pale. He wasn't smiling. Not even close. Kasamatsu tried to break the tension, "Guess the hype about that Hachimura kid was real…"
Kise didn't answer. His eyes stayed glued to Rui.
He'd seen Aomine blow past entire teams – even copying him once felt impossible. But Rui didn't need to blow past anyone. He didn't move faster. He didn't move flashier. He just moved right.
Kise swallowed hard. "He… he didn't even break a sweat," he said finally. "Aominecchi gave everything… and it didn't even matter."
Kasamatsu looked at him, uneasy. "You think you could copy that?"
Kise shook his head slowly. "No… not yet. That guy's built different. Like… he doesn't play the same sport anymore."
Midorima hadn't moved for a full minute. The crowd's buzz faded around him. Takao leaned back, trying to breathe, but the air felt heavy. "Yo… Midorima… He blocked Aomine's Zone like it was nothing!"
"He knew where it would go." Midorima's hands were clasped tight around his knees. His voice, when it came, was thin but steady.
"Man, that's crazy. Who even reads Aomine?" Takao forced a weak laugh.
No answer.
Midorima pushed his glasses up slowly, the light reflecting off them. "If Aomine – the fastest among us – can be made to look that slow…" He stopped. The silence said the rest.
Even for Midorima, logic didn't help here. For the first time in years – he was afraid.
Up in the upper seats, Murasakibara stopped chewing mid-bite. His half-eaten snack bar hung limp between his fingers.
"...Mine-chin," he muttered. "Got squished."
Himuro, beside him, said nothing. His eyes were on the scoreboard, watching the digits freeze in time.
"That guy," Murasakibara continued, tone oddly quiet, "is taller than me."
"No," Himuro corrected softly, "he's not. You're still bigger."
"Then why," Murasakibara said, "did it feel like he was?"
Rakuzan's entire bench had come to watch the opening match. Reo's grin was gone. Hayama leaned forward with his hands pressed together. Even Mayuzumi's expression had shifted – not surprise, but calculation.
Akashi stood, arms folded. For once, the red-haired captain's poise had cracks. Not visible ones – but small enough that his breathing changed.
"Akashi," Reo said carefully, "you saw it too. That wasn't… normal."
"He's not normal." Akashi's gaze stayed fixed on Rui's retreating form.
Hayama frowned. "So what now?"
"Now… we adapt." Akashi's eyes narrowed.
Every corner of the crowd murmured like a current. The cameras stayed locked on Rui as he left the court – his calm face, his unshaken pace, the sweat barely visible on his brow.
He had just dismantled a legend – with control so complete it felt inhuman.
The announcer's voice cracked through the noise, trying to sound composed but failing:
"Ladies and gentlemen… the final score once again: Meisei High School, 108 – Tōō Academy, 76."
"Rui Hachimura finishes with forty-nine points, sixteen rebounds, eleven assists, twelve blocks, and ten steals – a performance that will be remembered in Winter Cup history!"
~~~~~
The scoreboard dimmed, but no one from Tōō moved. The gym was too bright, too quiet.
Aomine lay on his back at center court, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the rafters. The light above him blurred into one long white streak. Sweat pooled around his neck. His fingers twitched against the hardwood, as if still dribbling a ball that wasn't there.
All around him, his teammates stood frozen in different shades of disbelief.
Momoi's clipboard slipped from her hands and clattered against the floor. She didn't even flinch. Her face – usually all smiles – was blank.
She stared at Rui's retreating form, then at Aomine. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She wanted to shout something, anything – to tell him to get up, to fight, to not let it end like this. But she couldn't.
Because she knew what she had just seen. And she knew there was no fighting it.
"Aomine…" Her voice, when it finally came, was small.
No response. Just breathing. Shallow, steady, heavy.
She looked away. For the first time since joining Tōō, she felt completely powerless.
Imayoshi was the first to move. He crouched near Aomine and wiped sweat from his temple with his wristband, letting out a slow exhale. His trademark smirk was gone.
"Guess that's what it feels like," he muttered. No one answered.
He looked at Aomine – his ace, his wild card – the unstoppable force of Japanese basketball, now motionless on the floor. He wanted to say something witty, something to break the tension. But nothing came.
He had led this team with confidence and cunning, always a step ahead. But today, there hadn't been a step to take. Every trap had failed. Every adjustment had fallen apart.
So instead, he just said it quietly, more to himself than anyone: "We got humbled."
Sakurai stood near the bench, trembling hands pressed together, eyes wide.
"I–I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I missed those open shots… if I'd just–"
"It wouldn't have mattered." Imayoshi cut him off gently.
Sakurai's mouth opened, then closed again. He looked down, shame flooding his face. The tears threatened to come, but he held them back.
Susa was pacing near the three-point line, fists clenched. His body still buzzed with adrenaline that had nowhere to go.
"Damn it," he hissed. "Every time we thought we had him– he'd find a new way. A new something. Who even plays like that?"
At the far end, Wakamatsu punched the padding on the stanchion so hard it echoed. "We ain't weak!" he barked, his voice cracking. "We ain't!"
The words bounced back to him, hollow.
He turned, glaring at the scoreboard as if it had personally insulted him. His breath came out ragged. "How… how the hell do you stop something like that?"
Still on the floor, Aomine finally moved. Not much – just a shift, a small turn of the head toward the stands where Meisei had already disappeared down the tunnel.
His eyes weren't wild like before. They were still – dangerously, quietly still. For the first time, Daiki Aomine had nothing to say.
He sat up slowly, the gym lights harsh against his face. He didn't look at his teammates, or Momoi, or the bench. He just stared at his hands.
Hands that had once made basketball look effortless. Hands that had just been blocked – again and again.
Rui's words replayed in his head: "You dream of fire. I learned how to build a furnace and control it."
His hands clenched into fists. His nails dug into his palms.
Momoi finally stepped closer, kneeling down beside him. "Aomine…" she whispered. He didn't look at her. His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke.
"He was better." Simple. Honest. Final.
Momoi's eyes widened – she had never heard him say that about anyone. Not once.
He stood, unsteady, and grabbed his towel. His legs wobbled as if the floor itself was pushing him down. But he stayed upright.
When he spoke again, it wasn't anger – it was something quieter. Something heavier.
"I thought I was done growing," he said. "Guess I was wrong."
He walked past his team, through the tunnel, head low. No one stopped him.
Back on the court, Imayoshi turned toward the others. "Let's go," he said quietly. "The game's over."
The words stung more than they should have.
One by one, Tōō followed – slow, silent, drained. No one talked about the crowd still watching, or the cameras, or the whispers that would follow.
They knew what everyone would say: Aomine Daiki, crushed. Tōō Academy, dismantled. The Generation of Miracles – human after all.