Advancing Triumphantly

Coach Harada had been unbelievably lucky with the draw, placing Miuradai in Group D, which was packed with weak teams. As a result, Miuradai had an easy time in every game over the next month.

After crushing Ohkita High School by over a hundred points in their opening game, Miuradai grew more brutal with each of the next three matches.

Second week, second round of the Prefectural Tournament group stage: Miuradai vs. Nanbin High School.

Beep—!

With the referee's whistle, another merciless slaughter came to an end.

"158:33, Miuradai wins!"

The standout stars of the game were Naito Tetsuya, who scored a game-high 42 points, and Wu Yufei, who racked up 21 assists.

Third week, the third day of the Prefectural Tournament.

"They're so strong... Miuradai is insanely strong!!"

By the end of the first half alone, Miuradai had already scored 83 points, while their opponent, Iwakura High School, had managed only 14.

Before the first half had even ended, Wu Yufei had put up a flawless Quadruple-Double of 31 points, 15 assists, 10 rebounds, and 10 steals. He was subbed out to rest in the nineteenth minute of the first half.

The fourth week brought the second-to-last group-stage game. As long as they won this one, their next match would be the group Finals against the top seed.

The spectators had thought that by this point, Miuradai surely could not be as ruthless as they had been in the previous three games, right?

However...

"Monsters... What kind of monsters are these people...?"

Deji High School's coach slumped helplessly onto the bench.

The scoreboard by the court clearly displayed the current score.

With 2 minutes and 35 seconds left in the first half, Miuradai led Deji 70:20.

When the final buzzer sounded, the score stood at 151:45. Miuradai High School had marched into the group Finals in triumphant fashion, having slaughtered their opponents by more than a hundred points in four straight games.

Wu Yufei once again became the best player to the cheers of the entire crowd, thanks to his stellar stat line of 36 points, 12 assists, 8 rebounds, and 7 steals.

With his explosive performances over those four games, Wu Yufei had firmly established a name for himself in Kanagawa's high school basketball scene. Many spectators were already comparing him to Kanagawa Prefecture's two elite point guards, A Maki and Fujima, and some even claimed that Wu Yufei might be stronger than A Maki!

At the same time, Miuradai High School's News Department spared no effort in heavily promoting the basketball team's accomplishments. After all, among all of Miuradai's school teams competing in the Prefectural Tournament, the basketball team was unquestionably performing the best.

As a result, the basketball team's popularity at Miuradai High School temporarily surpassed that of the soccer and baseball teams, becoming the focus of the entire student body. That was an extremely rare occurrence in Japanese high schools.

June 5th finally arrived, bringing the highly anticipated Prefectural Tournament group-stage Finals.

The four group Finals were held at the same venue. Groups A and C played in the morning, while Groups B and D played in the afternoon.

The four matchups were:

Group A: Kainan vs. Martial Garden

Group B: Shohoku vs. Shoyo

Group C: Ryonan vs. Dongfengke

Group D: Takezato vs. Miuradai

Although Miuradai's game was scheduled for the afternoon, everyone arrived at the arena early.

After all, for the Miuradai Basketball Team, the game involving the opponent they had sworn to defeat—Kainan University Affiliated High School—was the first game of the day.

At eight thirty in the morning, amid the cheers and shouts of the spectators, the Kanagawa Prefectural Tournament group Finals—the quarterfinals—officially began!

The first game was a showdown between King Kainan and Martial Garden, a longtime quarterfinalist.

Ever since their crushing defeat at Miuradai's hands, everyone on Martial Garden had reflected deeply. They tucked away their daily boasts of conquering the nation and devoted themselves to grounded, diligent training. After every regular team practice, a group of core players led by Oda would voluntarily remain in the gym to train until late at night before finally leaving.

That was precisely why Martial Garden had performed better and better in each of their past four group-stage games. Their scorelines might not have been as brutal as Miuradai's, but every win had still been a one-sided rout.

Oda had also averaged a near Triple-Double of 30 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 assists over those four games.

Naturally, today's match drew tremendous anticipation from the spectators.

Though the crowd did not believe Martial Garden could defeat King Kainan, they trusted it would at least be an exciting game. Surely it would be a little more entertaining than the past month's games, where the point difference had casually reached seventy or eighty, or even broken a hundred, right?

Yet once the game officially began, its course did not unfold as the audience had expected.

When they saw that Kainan had sent out only Jin and Muto, two starters, alongside three substitutes, Martial Garden's entire team was fired up. They swore they would force A Maki and Takasago, who sat calmly on the bench, onto the court.

However, although Martial Garden did keep pace with Kainan during the first five minutes of the first half through Oda's outstanding play, the game became completely unwatchable once Jin found his rhythm and Kainan figured out Martial Garden's simplistic offense, which could rely only on Oda to score.

By halftime, Kainan led 78:40. With only Jin and Muto leading three substitutes, Kainan had already beaten Martial Garden beyond recognition.

Was Martial Garden too weak? Or was Kainan too strong?

"Strange. Martial Garden shouldn't be this weak."

In the stands, the Miuradai players watching the game were thoroughly confused. Why had Martial Garden looked formidable for less than ten minutes before being completely overwhelmed?

"That Oda looks a little off. Were his movements that sluggish when he played against us?"

"His foot's injured."

Wu Yufei spoke in a calm tone.

Even though the butterfly effect caused by my arrival made Miuradai and Shohoku miss each other, it still couldn't change the plot where Oda injured his foot?

Wu Yufei thought helplessly.

Having read the original manga and watched the anime more than twenty times, Wu Yufei naturally knew why Oda's performance now was so different from the first five minutes of the game.

He had originally hoped that, because of the butterfly effect he had caused, Oda might avoid getting injured. It seemed he had been overthinking things.

Even if Oda had been healthy, defeating Kainan would have been nothing more than a fantasy, let alone now, when he was playing through an injury.

When the second half reached the tenth minute, the injury Oda had been concealing was finally discovered by his teammates. A small incident also occurred at that moment: Sakuragi suddenly appeared on the court.

After Sakuragi encouraged him, Oda decided to continue playing despite his injury.

In Wu Yufei's eyes, Oda's decision was incredibly irrational, even foolish.

He could no longer continue playing at high intensity because of his foot injury, yet he still insisted on staying on the court.

Oda was only a first-year student. He still had two more years to fight for his goals.

If this irrational decision affected his future, he would really be losing out badly.

However, Wu Yufei did not have much of a relationship with Oda. He could not possibly run down there in front of everyone and say something as foolish as, "Since your foot is already like this, don't keep playing!"

In the end, Kainan used its two-starter, three-substitute lineup to end Martial Garden's dream of conquering the nation with a 150:78 victory, stopping them in the Kanagawa quarterfinals.

Even the score was the same as in the anime. Wu Yufei could only shake his head and sigh helplessly. There was ultimately only so much this little butterfly could affect.

The second game followed immediately after: Shohoku vs. Shoyo.

Shohoku was another dark horse the spectators had high hopes for.

With the arrival of super rookie Rukawa Kaede and the return of former national MVP Mitsui Hisashi, Shohoku had delivered stunning performances in each of their past four games. At this point in the group stage, Shohoku's point differential was second only to Miuradai's.

As for their opponent, Shoyo, there was hardly any need to say more. They were widely acknowledged as the strongest team in the prefecture after Kainan University Affiliated High School.

After watching Kainan slaughter Martial Garden in the previous game, the spectators who had once been confident that Shohoku could continue their dark-horse run now felt somewhat less certain.

Much like Kainan, Shoyo did not field its strongest lineup from the start. Fujima Kenji, acting as coach, sat comfortably on the bench.

But Shohoku was not Martial Garden. Shohoku did not have just one ace!

Although the slightly nervous Shohoku was indeed suppressed by Hanagata's Shoyo in the opening minutes, and Shoyo's 11:0 start briefly made the audience think this would be an even duller slaughter than Kainan versus Martial Garden, Rukawa Kaede soon stepped up to score first and break the deadlock.

After that, every member of Shohoku was fired up, and the two teams launched into an evenly matched offensive battle.

In the second half, Sakuragi Hanamichi, empowered by the Rebound King buff, became the team's stabilizing pillar.

With someone helping him shoulder the burden of grabbing rebounds, Akagi Gorilla could focus on battling Hanagata offensively, while Mitsui and Rukawa Kaede could shoot with confidence.

On Shoyo's side, however, their repeated loss of rebounds left Takano and Hasegawa afraid to shoot freely. They could only pass the ball inside again and again for Hanagata to attack.

Back and forth, Shohoku gradually gained the upper hand.

In the fifth minute of the second half, Shohoku successfully turned the tide with a powerful dunk from Rukawa Kaede.

That dunk also forced Fujima onto the court after he had rested for an entire first half plus five minutes of the second.

What Fujima brought to Shoyo after taking the court was not only the confidence of an ace, but also relief from the burden resting on Hanagata's shoulders.

As a player on A Maki's level, Fujima was exceptional both at organizing the offense and scoring.

Under Fujima's leadership, Shoyo once again displayed the standard of one of the prefecture's top teams.

Ten minutes. Under Fujima's leadership, Shoyo needed only ten minutes to stretch the gap back to twelve points. At that point, less than five minutes remained in the game.

Just when most people in the arena believed the outcome had been decided, Mitsui Hisashi unleashed an unreasonable rain of Three-Pointers on the court.

In two minutes, he went four for four from beyond the arc and three for three from the free-throw line, scoring a wild 15 points by himself and tying the game with two and a half minutes remaining.

In the end, the result was no different from the original story. Although Mitsui and Sakuragi left the court one after another, they had successfully built momentum for the team.

Riding that momentum, Shohoku protected their two-point lead until the final buzzer.

Shohoku had finally pulled off the upset, advancing to the Prefectural Tournament round-robin Finals for the first time in school history.