This Shot Can Go In from the Baseline?!

Shirakawa's voice was not loud, but in the silent gymnasium, it reached everyone's ears clearly.

"Wait."

"Coach, everyone."

"Next, I'll show you something interesting."

Everyone stopped in their tracks and turned back in confusion.

They saw Shirakawa pick up a basketball. He did not head toward midcourt or the three-point line, but walked straight beyond the baseline of his own half.

Behind him was the wall.

Before him stretched the full length of the basketball court, and at the far end stood a hoop so distant it looked like a tiny white dot.

"W-What is he doing?"

A substitute blurted it out instinctively, his voice full of confusion.

"Who knows? Why is he standing so far away? Is he going to show off a long pass?"

"You've got to be kidding. From that distance, it'd be hard for him to even throw the ball to the opposite backboard, wouldn't it?"

The players whispered among themselves, their faces full of question marks.

Ryota Miyagi frowned. He could not make heads or tails of Shirakawa's intentions. "What is this guy trying to pull now?"

Hanamichi Sakuragi crossed his arms and put on an expectant look. "Hmph, white-haired fox. He's definitely trying to show off. Let's see how this genius laughs at him when he makes a fool of himself!"

Even Takenori Akagi wore a grave expression. He knew Shirakawa well. This kid never did anything meaningless. If he was standing there, he had to have a reason.

Kaede Rukawa said nothing. He merely watched quietly, curiosity glinting in his cold eyes. He wanted to know where the limits of the man who had just defeated him truly lay.

The only person in the entire gym who seemed to have guessed Shirakawa's intention was Coach Anzai.

"Ho ho ho..." Excitement flashed in Anzai's eyes. "Could it be... he wants to..."

Amid the looks of confusion, anticipation, and disdain, Shirakawa moved.

He spread his feet slightly, lowered his body, and steadily raised the basketball above his head.

It was a... shooting stance!

A standard shooting stance, perfect enough to be printed in a textbook!

Boom!

The instant everyone recognized that motion, it was as if a bomb had exploded in their minds!

"S-Shooting?!"

Ryota Miyagi's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "Has he gone crazy?! Shooting from the baseline?!"

"T-That's impossible!" Kiminobu Kogure pushed up his glasses, his voice trembling. "That distance... is a full twenty-eight meters! Even professional players couldn't possibly..."

"Hahahaha!" Hanamichi Sakuragi burst into exaggerated laughter and pointed at Shirakawa's back. "Idiot! Total idiot! That's not how you play basketball! From that distance, are you trying to throw the ball into the ceiling?!"

Even Kaede Rukawa's eternally impassive face showed the slightest crack.

He could not understand it.

This had already gone beyond the realm of basketball. It was more like acrobatics—or rather, a terrible joke.

Yet Shirakawa, standing at the center of everyone's attention, was deaf to everything around him.

In his world, only he, the basketball, and the hoop twenty-eight meters away remained.

In his vision, a perfect green parabola formed from data and instinct extended from his fingertips all the way to the center of the hoop.

He could feel the wind speed, the humidity in the air, and the weight of the basketball.

Everything was within his calculations.

This is the spot.

Shirakawa murmured inwardly.

His knees bent slightly, then he exploded upward!

A surge of power rose from the soles of his feet, traveled through his waist and core, passed into his arms, and finally gathered at his fingertips!

His wrist flicked lightly.

Whoosh—!

The basketball spun gently as it flew from his hand.

Everyone instinctively raised their heads.

The orange-red basketball traced an unbelievably high arc through the air.

It flew so high and so slowly that it seemed about to touch the gymnasium ceiling.

Under the lights, the ball was like a tiny sun, drawing every eye toward it.

Time seemed to slow infinitely at that moment.

The gymnasium was silent.

Everyone craned their necks and stood with their mouths open, like believers awaiting divine revelation, staring blankly at the basketball flying through the air.

Where would it land?

Would it smash into the backboard? Or fly straight out of bounds?

Or would it, as Sakuragi had said, hit some unlucky person on the head?

No one knew.

By everything they knew about basketball, a shot like this could never go in.

Shirakawa did not look up.

At the instant the ball left his hand, he did not even glance at it.

He simply lowered his arms slowly, then...

Turned around.

With his back to the hoop that was about to reveal the answer, he wore a faint smile, as though he had merely completed the simplest shooting drill.

And the basketball, which seemed to have flown through the air for an entire century, finally passed its highest point.

It began to descend slowly.

Its target was unmistakably Shohoku's distant hoop!