"Kojiro, Kentaro, you two take care of that purple-haired guy. I want him unable to walk out of Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High School!" Makoto Hanamiya said viciously, glaring at Kojiro Furukawa and Kentaro Seto.
"Yeah, got it." Kojiro and Kentaro readily agreed, clearly having done this sort of thing before.
Teiko Junior High had just scored, so Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High had possession.
Makoto Hanamiya slowly dribbled the ball across half court. Looking at Ken Kaneki in front of him, he knew that pulling any dirty tricks while Ken was on guard would be nearly impossible.
"Going to try to get past me, senpai?" Ken Kaneki asked, looking at Hanamiya with a faintly mocking smile. The scornful expression on his face was especially grating to Hanamiya.
"Damn brat..." Hanamiya fought the urge to punch him and passed the ball to Kojiro Furukawa in the paint.
Hanamiya wasn't expecting Kojiro to take on Atsushi Murasakibara head-on. He was signaling that Kojiro could make his move.
Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High's two-man frontcourt wasn't particularly skilled, but under Hanamiya's tutelage, they'd mastered setting screens and taking cheap shots where the referee couldn't see.
"Hey, big guy." Kojiro Furukawa gave Murasakibara a vicious grin. "We don't have any personal grudge against each other, but Captain Hanamiya gave the order, so all I can do is wish you luck."
"Huh? Is that the trash talk Ken-chan was talking about?" Even the airheaded Atsushi Murasakibara thought Kojiro seemed kind of dumb. "You seem really weak. Are you going to play or not?"
"Tch." Seeing Murasakibara look down on him, Kojiro's expression turned vicious. He pretended to play fair, then secretly drove an elbow into Murasakibara before deliberately tossing the ball wildly toward the hoop.
Angry after taking the elbow, Murasakibara saw the ball bounce off the rim and prepared to grab the rebound and teach them a harsh lesson.
Just then, Kojiro Furukawa and Kentaro Seto sandwiched Murasakibara between them like the filling in a hamburger, ready to take him out while going for the rebound.
"Hah, you big brat. Being tall doesn't mean you can play basketball well. After you've healed up, remember to learn your lesson!" Kojiro's voice grew so excited it almost cracked, as if he could already see Murasakibara lying injured on the ground.
"Huh? What are you saying? Don't you know what a difference in talent looks like?" Murasakibara's anger finally erupted. He stopped holding back. Ever since he was little, he'd feared hurting others with his great strength, so he'd always set a limit on how much force he used. Now he leaped with all his might, grabbing the rebound while Kojiro Furukawa and Kentaro Seto clung to him. The two men, who had been squeezing him tightly, flew in opposite directions as if a bomb had gone off between them.
"Ken-chan!" Murasakibara tossed the ball to Ken Kaneki and sprinted toward the other end of the court.
"Ah, sure." Ken caught the ball without moving, then immediately tossed it into the air.
"What are you doing?" Hanamiya stared in disbelief. "That was less a long pass than a random throw..."
"You wouldn't understand, weakling." Ken Kaneki looked at Hanamiya with disdain. "Watch closely. Compared to your dirty, underhanded tricks, this is a real combo move, full of friendship and bonds!"
As Ken finished speaking, Murasakibara leaped from just inside the free-throw line, grabbed the ball with one huge hand, and slammed the two Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High players out of bounds as he dunked.
"Bang!"
"Bang, bang!"
"Creak—crash!"
First came the sound of Murasakibara's dunk, then the two frontcourt players hitting the ground, and finally the basket giving way under the strain and crashing down.
"Gulp..." Shoichi Imagawa swallowed, stunned beyond words. "I still don't know how good the blond guy is. I can only get a glimpse from the pregame shooting practice and that block just now. But that purple-haired giant... he's got the strength of a god of calamity!"
Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High didn't take the Basketball Club very seriously, so there was no replacement hoop on hand. The practice game had to end there. Teiko Junior High didn't want to put up with any more humiliation at Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High, either, so they quickly packed their bags and left the gym.
"Whew, they're finally gone." Watching the Teiko players walk away, Shoichi Imagawa breathed a sigh of relief.
To be honest, Kirigi First Affiliated Junior High's players weren't especially talented. The team had only recently started showing promise, and Hanamiya deserved much of the credit. But Hanamiya's personality had Imagawa seriously worried.
"You really need to change the way you play, Makoto. If things had gotten serious today, we might not have been able to beat those two big guys," Shoichi Imagawa said.
"Tch. They wouldn't have made it out." A poisonous glint flashed in Hanamiya's eyes. He didn't give Imagawa a chance to persuade him and left the gym with several others.
"Man, those guys from Kirigi First are awful. If the basket hadn't broken, we would've crushed them today... But you still owe me my fries, Ken-chan." In the bathroom, Atsushi Murasakibara spoke to Ken Kaneki, who was sitting in a stall.
"I'm not going to short you, Murasaki." Ken Kaneki was at a loss for words. "But we're in the bathroom right now. Could you not bring that up here? Can't we talk about it after we get out?"
"Nope. What if you try to wriggle out of it?" Murasakibara said solemnly.
Just as Ken was about to retort, they heard the bathroom door lock. Then came Hanamiya's arrogant shout: "Teiko brats! Get out here! You two aren't getting away today!"
Hearing the commotion, Atsushi Murasakibara and Ken Kaneki stepped out of their stalls. Hanamiya and a group of players were blocking the entrance. They didn't look like they'd come for a friendly chat.
"Murasaki, be careful. They're up to no good," Ken Kaneki warned him.
"This is such a pain. Playing basketball was exhausting enough. Now we have to fight, too?" Murasakibara's expression grew even more irritated.
Back on Teiko Junior High's bus, Naoto Sanada noticed that Ken Kaneki and Atsushi Murasakibara still hadn't returned from the bathroom. A sense of foreboding came over him, and he quickly sent the others to look for them.
Ken Kaneki had no idea what was happening outside. He was busy beating up Hanamiya.
"Please, have mercy! I know I was wrong..." Hanamiya cowered in a corner, staring at the two towering figures before him. This time, he was genuinely afraid. The eight people he'd brought with him had been taken down in no time. The blond guy especially had targeted their weak spots; he'd taken down five of the eight.
"You don't know you were wrong. You just know you're about to die!" Ken Kaneki grabbed Hanamiya by the hair and punched him. Hanamiya collapsed unconscious.
"Let's go, Murasaki. Coach is going to start worrying if we don't." Ken Kaneki straightened his clothes and strode off, leaving the bathroom in complete disarray...
After listening to Hanamiya recount, through tears, how his plan to bully Ken Kaneki had ended with him getting beaten instead, Shoichi Imagawa adjusted his glasses and narrowed his eyes. "Just what kind of monsters does Teiko Junior High have..."
Before you continue