Chapter 9: Semi-finals (II)

Now, it was Shoei's turn to go back on the offensive, and their point guard, Tarou, started with the ball as he dribbled down the court.

However, as he was getting ready to make a play, he could not determine a player to pass to as none of his teammates were free from their marks.

"God damn it."

"God damn what?" Tsukio's calm voice rang out beside him, and startled, Tarou instinctively changed his ball to the other hand on the opposite side of Tsukio.

"Don't be too distracted by my team." Tsukio continued talking as he maintained a good distance between Tarou and himself, ensuring that he would be able to react no matter which type of play he was going to make.

"Kiyoshi!" Tarou called out and did a high pass towards Kiyoshi, utilizing the fact that none of the quintuplets would be able to snatch the pass from above their heads.

Tsukio immediately tried to stop the ball before reaching Kiyoshi, but his fingers only managed to touch the ball, not completely stopping it.

"Abusing height is my favorite way to play this game." Tsukio bitterly smiled as he prepared himself to start the next round of offense.

And as expected, even after Sora and Seiya double-teamed Kiyoshi, he still managed to put the ball in the basket.

3-4

Tsukio got the ball once more, and upon dribbling past the half-court line, only one player was defending him this time.

"Aw...only one this time?"

His mark, Tarou, didn't reply to him and continued staring at the ball.

"No matter..."

Tsukio immediately passed towards Sora, who was dashing towards him before running past Tarou.

However, Tarou didn't stop marking Tsukio and continued to follow him.

Sora dribbled the ball quickly and made his way towards the inside. He wanted to shoot from the free-throw line, but Kiyoshi was already there, ready for him.

Giving up on the idea, as soon as he jumped, Kiyoshi jumped as well, but Sora didn't shoot. Instead, he bounce-passed towards Asashi, who was right beside him.

As soon as Asashi got the ball, he did a layup.

But since Nakamura had jumped, Asashi decided to do a reverse layup instead, causing Nakamura's' wall' to be useless.

5-4

Like this, both teams went back and forth on the court, scoring and defending. Seven minutes into the game, the score was 30-20, with Kiyose in the lead. Because Shoei couldn't always rely on Kiyoshi scoring, they couldn't score as much as Kiyose since Kiyoshi was always being double-teamed hard.

On the other hand, the quintuplets were having a great time scoring baskets after baskets. After all, removing Kiyoshi from the equation, Shoei's team wasn't as good as any of the quintuplets.

With the gap widening slowly but surely, Shoei called a timeout.

"Phew...defending Kiyoshi is hard," Sora muttered as he drank some water.

"I agree, so let's pick up the pace of the game a bit. It isn't our style to play around."

"Um...you guys were playing around?" The coach asked.

"Yes. We are having fun playing against Shoei. That should be more than enough motivation. Any more, and it'll seem like we're looking down on them."

The coach didn't know what to say, so he just kept his mouth shut.

"We'll be focusing on offense rush this time. We need some height to defend against Kiyoshi's layups, so two of our seniors will sub for Tsukumo and me. Any questions?"

"No, captain!"

"Alright, let's substitute after one more basket."

The game continued with the ball in Kiyose's possession. Tsukio dribbled it up to the half court and immediately passed it off to Asashi.

Asashi tried to race his way inside but was met with Nakamura.

Asashi raised his body a little, and he looked at the rim. Nakamura thought he was stopping to shoot, but as soon as he relaxed his body slightly, Asashi lowered his body back down, and he rushed towards the right of Nakamura before changing directions sharply with a fast crossover.

Nakamura couldn't stop him as his ankles were tangled up within themselves.

Although he didn't fall, he did stumble for a moment. And that moment was enough for Asashi to score.

A simple hesitation dribble plus crossover was enough to pass Nakamura.

The whistle blew, and two of the quints were subbed out, replaced by two taller seniors.

The game resumed, and the ball was now with Nakamura. Again, he was faced by Asashi, only this time he was the team on the attack.

Nakamura tried to pass Asashi, but he couldn't succeed. Nakamura tried faking Asashi out, but he still couldn't move ahead. He cursed in his mind when he saw Asashi gloating before he charged forward, earning himself the first foul of the game.

"You got frustrated and did something down. Calm yourself down because if you keep this up, the coach is going to pull you out of the game." Kiyoshi saw the state that Nakamura was in and advised him.

Hearing his friend's word of advice, he tried to calm down. But from that time all the way to halftime, Nakamura got repeatedly shot down by Asashi, whether because Asashi was purposefully provoking him or just stealing his passes.

And when none of that happened and miraculously managed to pass Asashi, he was then met with the 1.8-meter tall seniors on Kiyose. The two seniors had nothing but height, so they abused the shit out of it.

Nakamura wasn't that tall compared to the peers his age on the court, so he had no choice but to pass as he didn't want to get stopped by Kiyose's seniors.

The score at halftime was 60-35, with Kiyose in the lead. Now that Kiyoshi's defenders were a pair of 1.8-meter tall dudes, his ability to score was lowered by quite a bit.

After halftime, Shoei started with the ball. Tarou dribbled to the half-court and immediately passed it to Kiyoshi. Kiyoshi then charged his way through the defenders and was met by the two seniors under the hoop.

However, unlike before halftime, Kiyoshi didn't just use force this time. He did a quick spin on his pivot foot and moved past both of them to score points for his team.

"Oh? Kiyoshi is starting something new this round? Our seniors still haven't learned much about the game; they only have the minimum physique to play, but they can't defend someone as good as Kiyoshi..." Seiya muttered to himself before turning towards the coach.

"Coach, it's time for us to sub back. Kiyoshi can't be stopped by those two anymore. It's time to up our game once more."

Hearing the captain, the coach nodded his head and went towards the referee.

Shoei kept passing to Kiyoshi, who kept scoring using various tricks with a dexterity that didn't match his physique for the next minute or so.

After the score reached 62-41, Seiya and Tsukumo were subbed back in, causing Kiyoshi to raise his eyebrow.

"Quints. 50%." Seiya didn't say anything further as he prepared his position.

Although Shoei wandered what the 50% meant, they didn't stop dribbling the ball. But as soon as they reached the half-court, Nakamura shuddered as he looked at the quintuplets.

'What is this feeling...?'

As he shook off the shudder, he passed it towards Tarou, but to his shock, it was immediately intercepted by Tsukio, who immediately tossed the ball towards Shoei's empty end of the court.

"What?!" Everyone's cheer and screams immediately turned into confusion.

Tsukio had a good intercept, but he threw the ball towards an empty area and didn't bother to run after it. This made everyone confused.

Shoei immediately tried to get the ball back, but before they could even reach the ball, someone was already there dribbling the ball towards their basket without any defenders.

Tsukumo's face didn't have his usual bored expression. He looked serious; even when facing no one in that area, he didn't relax his guard at all.

After scoring, none of the quintuplets cheered and silently remained in their place, waiting for the game to continue.

"What is happening..." Nakamura muttered to himself. The atmosphere around the quintuplets was heavy, and even Kiyoshi was frowning.

"Kiyoshi..."

"It's fine. Let's just play first, and we'll see how."

"Okay."

Nakamura passed the ball towards Kiyoshi at the half-court line and tried finding an area free from defenders.

The quintuplets just stared at him without moving, causing Kiyoshi to feel weird.

Since the quintuplets were spread out around the half-court, Kiyoshi decided to dribble straight towards the post.

Seiya and Tsukio were present there and waiting for him. Seiya was having trouble pressuring Kiyoshi in the post because Kiyoshi kept pushing Shun around with pure power, something that Seiya didn't like.

A competition of power against a fellow center was not his cup of tea now, but having no other choice, he decided to do his best until Kiyoshi decided to make a play instead.

Under the post, Kiyoshi decided that he was now in a good spot and jumped, trying to put in an overhead layup.

But while Seiya was pressuring him, Tsukio came from behind him and snatched the ball away while Kiyoshi was trying to bring the ball up above his head.

He passed towards Sora, who was waiting at the three-point line, who then passed towards Asashi towards the other end of the court.

And within 5 seconds, the tables have turned, with Kiyose earning another two points.

'He intercepted me while I was bringing the ball up?!' Kiyoshi was now very shocked, but his smile remained.

'Yes. There would be more fun in this game!'

Only Asashi, Tsukumo, and Sora would run past the half-court line from then on. Tsukio and Seiya stayed at their side of the court to defend and pass the ball.

Although this would increase the burden on the attackers, it also provided the fast-paced turnarounds that the quintuplets were very good at abusing.

Although Kiyoshi and Takamura knew that Seiya and Tsukio would use the same tactic of distracting and stealing/intercepting against them, neither of them could actually defend against that. Kiyoshi got some balls in due to his height and wingspan advantage, but Takamura got crushed entirely, causing him to commit another 3 more fouls before the coach took him out of the game.

The competition between the two teams was thrilling to watch, people liked that Kiyoshi alone was going against two of the quintuplets, and people also liked the fact that the quintuplets were basically stomping on their entire team.

It was just a human's trait to enjoy people who aren't related to you to suffer. Except for a few kind souls, almost everyone was like that.

Shoei's morale was down from being crushed by three people alone, and the fact that their two best players, Kiyoshi and Takamura, were being put down repeatedly didn't help in the slightest.

The quintuplets noticed that their opponents were running slower and playing half-heartedly, and their mood dimmed as well as their 50% gradually disappeared as well.

The score gap kept increasing to the point where Shoei couldn't make a comeback, but even in that situation, Kiyoshi was the only person on the opposite team who was still trying his very best and smiling.

Asashi, Sora, and Tsukumo were slightly jealous of their two brothers as they were having fun against Kiyoshi while they had to play against 4 other people who were not even trying their best.

The referee blew his whistle when the clock went down to 0 seconds, indicating the end of the game.

Kiyose won the semi-finals, and they were qualified to enter the finals with a score of 103-69, winning with a 34 point lead, the lowest lead they had in these four games.

"Thank you for the game!" Both teams bowed at the center of the court and shook their hands.

"It was a good game against you," Seiya spoke while Tsukio nodded with a smile.

"Thank you, but we got crushed. You guys are really talented. I hope to play against you some other time." Kiyoshi smiled as he offered his hand to the other quintuplets, who all took it.

"Yes! And next time, I'm going to be the one to defend you! Your teammates don't even feel like playing..." Asashi grumbled as he walked away.

"Sorry about my brother's attitude, but your team's will is pretty weak. I don't want to insult your team, but you should get a better team in high school. Basketball is a team sport. If you don't have the correct players on your team, you won't be able to win even if you're outstanding."

"Thank you for your words, but until then, I think I'm going to stick with my teammates. As you said, basketball is a team sport. Winning is only the end goal. I've decided to enjoy the journey of team spirit rather than focus on the end goal. I love my current teammates, so I"m not changing school any time soon.

"Your attitude is...admirable." Seiya smiled and waved goodbye, "Likewise, I hope we'll be able to play again in the future."

The other three quintuplets waved goodbye as well as they followed their older brother.

Seeing their leaving backs, Kiyoshi sighed.

'Ha...this year is a scary year for us basketballers. So many freshmen have all popped up as monsters. First Teiko, then a random dark horse like Kiyose...'

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A/N: Note that all names that are not the leading players are created by FictionOnlyReader. I'm way too lazy to think of any good names, so I'm just going to copy his and give him credit. And before anyone else complains about me plagiarizing or copying, this fanfic will mostly follow FictionOnlyReader's plot as well, so just know that everything here belongs to him except for my paradigmatic quintuplets and quintessential quintuplets.

I didn't make this fanfic to piss anyone off, I did this to let people enjoy more stories because the original author didn't complete his story, and I felt sad. So if you don't like me copying his plot, you can just not read it. As for those who enjoy it, I hope you guys will continue to do so.