That Manager - Kuroko no Basuke (Book 3)

第62Q

Another time out was requested, and both teams returned to their benches once more. Yasu took out an ice bag from the cooler, and placed in on the back of Kuroko's neck while he sat on the bench, trying to catch his breath. "Are you okay, Kuroko?" she asked concernedly.

After heaving a long sigh to calm his breathing, he gave her a reassuring nod before looking at his teammates. "I got a good grasp of how Kise-kun tends to play." he said.

"Seriously?" asked Furihata. "So if everything goes well..."

"It's still incomplete." added Kuroko, not wanting to get everyone's hopes up too high. "To narrow down his next play, I need to watch Kise-kun even more closely."

"It's more than enough, Kuroko." said Yasu, getting everyone's attention before beginning to explain, "Thanks to Kuroko, I noticed that Kise has two quirks. One is when he's on the spot, copying Aomine, which he does best, is extremely likely. The other is that he subconsciously avoids using the same copy in succession. Due to the time remaining, I don't have enough data to say for sure, neither does Kuroko, but from those two quirks, we could induce a certain play.

"First, we'll have Kuroko do something to put him on the spot to draw out a copy of Aomine. And by making him penetrate inside, we negate a copy of Midorima. Then if Kagami immediately helps, he'll dodge by copying Akashi and end up under the basket for sure. Of the copies left, the move with the highest firepower from there can only be Murasakibara's Thor's Hammer."

Yasu then gently pat the Phantom Player's head and grinned. "What do you think, Kuroko?" The said boy only stared at her with his mouth slightly agape, before giving her a small smile, nodding to agree with what she said.

"You're amazing, Yasu-chan!" praised Koganei. "It's still incomplete? It doesn't sound like that at all!"

"You got to where you and Kuroko can determine Kise's move, so if we aim for that moment..." trailed off Tsuchida confidently.

"We might be able to stop them, but this is only if he was back to his middle-school self where he did everything himself." said Kuroko, thinking otherwise which surprised his teammates. "Kise-kun isn't like that now. When passing is an option, I can't narrow down the play no matter what I do. I'm really sorry. I did use to tell him that I wanted him to become a player that could fight for the team. But I honestly didn't think he'd get so out of hand. So the one request I have is to not stop Kise-kun."

Once the time out was up, both teams returned to the court, with Seirin looking more determined than before despite Kaijo being in the lead, something that caught Momoi's attention. "Such determination." she said with amaze. "I guess they found their resolve?" Kise seemed to have noticed the same thing when he took note of Kagami's expression.

The game resumed with Seirin on offence. As soon as Hyuga passed the ball to Izuki, the Seirin players dashed across the court in their usual play style, appearing not affected by the limited amount of time where they were supposed to be careful about their next play. 'Run-and-gun?' questioned Kobori, who were as surprised as the rest.

'What's this about?' questioned Kasamatsu. 'With this score and time, they should be more cautious!'

'What's needed now isn't spirit or momentum.' thought Reo. 'This looks like they're being reckless.'

Izuki passed the ball to Kiyoshi, and the latter got around Kobori before attempting to score with a dunk. As soon as Kobori followed to block, Kiyoshi used his Right of Postponement to pass the ball to Hyuga at the last minute. Hyuga got into his shooting motion and attempted to shoot with Moriyama leaping up high to block the shot, but Hyuga felt his body tire out due to the fall he had earlier.