Finals: #5

Teiko immediately called for a time-out, they wanted a minute of stop in the game to process what they just saw.

They were in shock after seeing Shun copying their team members.

Akashi turned to the expert in the field of copying and questioned him.

Akashi: "Kise, what did you think after seeing that?"

Kise sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.

Kise: "I... I can't do that. I didn't think what he did was possible. That was the last thing I was expecting seeing today."

Kise took a pause, and everybody waited with bated breath for him to continue.

Kise: "What he did out there, that was not copying."

Shirogane was extremely interested in what Kise just said.

Shirogane: "What do you mean by that? We all just saw him copying Aomine."

Kise shook his head and explained his reasoning.

Kise: "I noticed two things that were out of the norm."

Kise raised his index finger and said.

Kise: "First, if you looked closely, you would've noticed that Kageyama-cchi's shooting form and Midorima-cchi's shooting form looked similar, they were quite different."

Midorima nodded at that and gave his opinion.

Midorima: "Kageyama's shooting form may have looked similar to mine, but that wasn't my copy. He didn't use my high-arcs, and I think he had Mibuchi Reo's elements included in that shooting form.

His shooting form prioritizes speed of release over the range of the shot."

Kise totally agreed at Midorima's observation.

Kise: "Midorima-cchi's is right, what he did, that was not straight out copying."

Murasakibara frowned as he pointed out.

Murasakibara: "What about Mine-chin's formless shooting, that was completely copied."

Kise groaned and took a moment to formulate his words.

Kise: "Well, you see from what we all can agree is that Aomine-cchi doesn't have a form, his moves may be heavily influenced by street-ball, but at the base, he doesn't have any semblance of what we describe as a form."

Kise looked at all of them and declared.

Kise: "What we just saw was at another level from copying."

Kuroko asked the question that everyone wanted to know the answer to.

Kuroko: "Then, what was that?"

Kise took a deep breath and gave an explanation.

Kise: "I think Kageyama-cchi memorized all your moves at times when he saw you guys play. I have done that too, I remember every single step you guys have taken on a court in front of me.

Now, what I do is just straight out copy the moves I see and copy.

What I think Kageyama-cchi did is that he integrated elements of your style in his own style. We saw elements of Midorima-cchi's shooting form in his shooting form.

He abandoned everything he didn't need or things he couldn't do. We saw that he abandoned the high-arc because he didn't need, and he couldn't imitate Midorima-cchi's perfect accuracy, so he didn't try that and just got what he could get out of it."

Kise looked at Aomine and explained that case.

Kise: "Aomine-cchi's formless shooting at it's the base is just randomly throwing the ball at the basket that goes inside the basket at high accuracy.

I think what Kageyama-cchi did was learn shooting like that from scratch. He didn't try to match Aomine-cchi's speed, so that was abandoned and he just took what he was able to do.

That is a lot of work. A. LOT. OF. WORK.

But, at the same time, I am willing to put money on Kageyama-cchi's formless shooting has limited range.

And, I don't know if you guys notice, but his dribbling skills are also not structured, I think he can freeform them as he wishes."

Akashi nodded and gave his own experience.

Akashi: "He used Aomine's change-of-pace in the first quarter."

Satsuki asked a question that he had in her mind.

Satsuki: "Kise-kun, can you do what Shun-kun does?"

Kise ruffled his hair and groaned.

Kise: "I honestly don't know. Simply copying something is easy for me, but integrating as he did takes a lot of time and practice. I personally think that it is not worth the effort.

It just takes a lot of time to integrate things into your natural style. We can copy moves after seeing them once, but for the moves that we can't copy after seeing once, we need to put a lot of actual training and time to master them.

I have personally never tried to do that in my entire life, and I can't copy these people's moves no matter how much I try."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Akashi moved on to the second problem.

Akashi: "Tokiwadai's first year, what is his name?"

Satsuki replied to that question.

Satsuki: "Kurumatani Sora."

Akashi continued after hearing his name.

Akashi: "Kuruamata Sora, he blocked Kuroko from passing the ball."

Aomine sighed and commented.

Aomine: "It is last year all over again."

Midorima pushed up his glasses and spoke.

Midorima: "Just this time, it is not Kageyama not doing it, which means he will be free from Kuroko's bind."

Akashi agreed and continued.

Akashi: "We pulled out Midorima to give Kise and Aomine full-reign on the court, Kuroko stays outside as he is not useful on the inside except when passing, that would've kept Kageyama on the outside and furthermore Kuroko wouldn't need to run the full length of the court if he stayed outside.

If we kept Midorima on the floor, we would've given Kageyama ample chance to block Midorima."

Coach Shirogane spoke for the first time in this conversation.

Shirogane: "But know with Kageyama Shun free, there is no difference from before, he could defend Kise and Aomine at the same time."

Akashi stayed silent for a moment and a plan formulated in his mind.

Akashi: "When we go out of this time-out, we will take Midorima in, and Kise will move to the bench.

This way, Midorima would only have a single defender on him, and he can have more shooting opportunities and Kageyama, would have to sprint every time he wants to block him."

Aomine looked at Kuroko and grinned.

Aomine: "Tetsu somehow always end up making problems for Kageyama when we play against him. Even though this time, he isn't directly affecting Kageyama."

Akashi stood up and declared.

Akashi: "We will be going full-on offense, so be ready to get passes the moment you get are free."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

On the other hand, Tokiwadai's bench was not in a panic, and they were listening to Shun speculating about Teiko's strategy after this.

Shun played with a bottle in his hand as he spoke.

Shun: "I wasn't surprised when they pulled out Midorima for Kuroko instead of Kise. That was a better choice for them offensively, but that was when they didn't know that Sora had the Hawk-Eyes.

Now, I think they will bring in Midorima instead of Kise."

Yuki agreed and commented.

Yuki: "Midorima Shintaro's double team would be eliminated with Kuroko Tetsuya on the court."

Shun placed his bottle on the bench and stretched his feet.

Shun: "The game will probably turn into a score out."

Shun got up from the bench and head to the court.

Shun: "Let's wreak some havoc."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The ball was in Teiko's possession with Akashi in control of the ball, thinking about the play he needed to score.

Akashi: 'Let's take advantage of the obvious.'

Akashi gave the signal, and Midorima ran away from Mibuchi for a shot.

Midorima ran from Akashi's left to his right, and when he crossed over to the right, Akashi passed the ball to him at the best time possible.

Midorima stopped at 7 meters (23.03 feet) from the basket and confidently shot the ball.

Sora almost lost sight of Kuroko because he was startled by the long-distance high-arcing shot.

Sora: "He is attempting from there?!"

Shun looked at the ball, traveling a high-arc and thought.

Shun: 'I finally understand what the canon characters felt when they saw Midorima's high-arching shots. They really are bad for the mental state.'

The ball went into the net without any contact with the rim.

Commentators were mighty impressed by Midorima's shooting.

Commentators B: "What was that, 7 meters? Midorima-kun just showed us an extraordinary feat of long-range shooting. His perfect accuracy was enough of a threat, now he is showing extended range.

Midorima Shintaro deserves the title of the strongest Middle School shooting guard."

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Shun was not going to be outdone. He decided to go for a play that he usually didn't do.

Shun passed the ball to Sora, and both of them moved forward to the inside.

Shun's defender was Aomine, and Sora was being guarded by Akashi.

Shun set up a screen for Sora to screen out Akashi.

Now, with Shun covered with Akashi, Aomine changed his mark to Sora.

Commentator A: "A well-placed screen by Kageyama-kun, but Aomine shows quick thinking by switching marks."

But then, Shun suddenly left Akashi alone and quickly backed away a few steps.

Akashi was confused and was thinking about who to follow when Sora passed the ball in a no-lock pass to Shun.

The commentators finally understood the strategy.

Commentator B: "Kurumatani-kun was never going to score, it was always going to be Kageyama-kun, who was going to score. A common yet well-executed pick-and-roll play."

Shun backed away to the three-point arc and took an easy three-point shot.

Aomine remembered Satsuki's word that she said when they separated from Shun after playing one-on-ones with him.

Satsuki: "Passing is his bread and butter. With his teammates on the court with him, he could use fake passes to fake you out."

Aomine followed Shun with his eyes, as he thought.

Aomine: 'He knows how to manipulate his defenders by using his teammates.'

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Midorima started out with the ball and passed it Aomine.

Aomine dribbled the ball a step or two when Shun appeared in front of him arms spread wide.

Shun looked like he had no intention of Aomine passing him.

Aomine, of course, wasn't going to give up before trying.

Aomine stepped ahead of the free-throw line, but the moment he proceeded to free-shoot the ball, Shun reacted and moved in the way.

Aomine took a sudden deep breath and bit his.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Akashi getting away from his mark, so he passed the ball to him.

Akashi didn't wait for a second and threw a perfect pass to Murasakibara, who caught the ball and immediately proceeded to jump to the basket.

But as he jumped, a figure collided with him sending him back to the ground, he didn't fall but did stumble back a step.

Murasakibara looked at the figure and saw Shun standing there looking at him.

The referee called a foul on Shun for defensive charging.

-*-*-*-

Juliet looked around and saw except Teiko's student, and a few other people no had much of a reaction seeing Shun foul.

She looked at Inuzuka and asked.

Juliet: "Inuzuka-kun, why aren't people more upset at Kageyama-kun's foul?"

Temari was also interested in that and questioned.

Temari: "I also wonder that. From what I saw, that foul wasn't a mistake, and he intentionally fouled that other player."

Inuzuka turned to the girls and explained.

Inuzuka: "Basketball is a contact sport. It is not unusual for players to collide with each other, so fouls are common.

Fouls have become a commonplace thing in the sport, players use it in defense, and players use it in the offensive. Using fouls is a legitimate strategy in basketball.

That is why players have persona five fouls."

Hikiagaya chimed in with his own knowledge.

Hikigaya: "Tall players like the one Shun fouled aren't usually good at shooting, so players often foul them to make them shoot, and miss the shots.

But, I think Kageyama fouled him too early. From what I remember, Kageyama told me that you should only foul players after the first half."

Shikamaru gave the answer to that question.

Shikamaru: "Kageyama wants to keep up the momentum and increase the point gap as soon as possible, so he decided to foul this early in the game."

Juliet and Temari nodded as they took the information in.

-*-*-*-

Murasakibara was awarded to free-throws.

He stood at the free-throw line and got ready to shoot the ball.

Murasakibara: 'I am not good at these.'

He got the ball from the referee and got into position.

He raised his hands and shot the ball, and unexpectedly it went into the net.

Commentator A: "Murasakibara-kun made the first one. This releases a lot of pressure from his shoulders."

Murasakibara took a deep breath and once again shot the ball.

This time it didn't go in and collided with the base of the rim.

Shun was waiting for that. He felt the jolt of reflexes the moment the ball collided with the rim and ran ahead of everyone and jumped before everyone.

Shun caught the rebound, and immediately moved to the side of the court, and ran from there.

Midorima was immediately in front of Shun to stop him.

Shun took in Midorima's defensive posture, the distance between them, and other things, and god-speed impulse enabled him to react to all that information.

He moved his right hand, which had the ball behind his back, wrapped the ball around his back and released it forward from the left side.

Shun did a sharp turn to the left, caught the ball with his left hand, and flashed past Midorima.

Shun's movements were so quick and smooth that Midoima wasn't able to react to it quickly enough and was too late when he turned to follow Shun.

Shun charged ahead with no defenders in front of him, but he saw Aomine closing in from behind.

Aomine didn't have to dribble the ball and was naturally more agile than Shun, so he caught up to Shun at the top of the key, and overtook by the time they reached the free-throw line.

Shun did a spin-move in the right direction, but Aomine wasn't one to give up and pivoted himself to the left and kept up with Shun.

Shun jumped for the score, and his posture clearly showed that he was going to dunk the ball.

As he brought the ball down, Aomine inserted his hand in between the ball and the basket.

Shun's god-speed impulse reacted fast enough, but Shun didn't have the time to change his move.

Shun: 'Then I just have to force it.'

Shun put more power in his arm and hand and pushed the ball down with force. The ball met with Aomine's hand, but Aomine wasn't able to stop the ball.

Aomine: 'Too Strong!'

Aomine's hand was pushed aside as Shun jammed the ball into the rim.

The stands lit up with the sounds of cheers and celebration as Shun forced a dunk into the basket.

Shun got to the floor stably, but Aomine stumbled a step or two before stabilizing.

Aomine stared at Shun and thought.

Aomine: 'It wasn't clear, but he is physically stronger. Though, nowhere near as strong as Murasakibara, but he has more strength than me.'

~ To Be Continued