An Unstoppable Divine Skill, from Behind the Backboard!

Time seemed to have been put into slow motion at that very moment.

Everyone in the arena focused their eyes on the white-haired boy soaring through the air.

What was he doing?

Had he gone insane?

Why was he flying behind the backboard?

That was a dead end!

Coach Taoka's mouth hung wide enough to fit an egg inside. In all his years coaching basketball, he had never seen such a bizarre aerial maneuver.

Jun Uozumi stood with both hands raised, frozen in place. He had been ready to deliver a earth-shaking block, yet his opponent had vanished right before his eyes.

It felt like throwing a punch with all your strength, only to hit nothing but air—an indescribably awful feeling.

Akira Sendoh had just turned to chase after him when he witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

He saw Shirakawa's body, in midair, twist in an unimaginable posture and completely move around to the side and behind the backboard.

From that angle, scoring was absolutely impossible!

He could not even touch the rim!

Yet just as everyone thought Shirakawa's attack would end in a ridiculous blunder—

Shirakawa shot.

At the instant his body began to descend, nearly parallel to the floor.

With an utterly twisted, utterly casual posture, he flicked the basketball one-handed toward the hoop.

It did not look like a shot.

It looked more like he was tossing away a piece of trash.

Daiki Aomine's signature godlike skill—Formless Shot!

From behind the backboard, the basketball traced a bizarre arc that utterly defied common physics.

It curved around the edge of the backboard, and beneath the dead-silent gaze of the entire arena—

"Swish!"

It dropped cleanly through the net!

It went in!

The ball... actually went in!

"..."

"..."

"..."

The entire gymnasium fell into deathly silence.

You could have heard a pin drop.

Everyone seemed to have been hit by a freezing spell, locked in their previous poses without moving an inch.

Their eyes were wide as saucers.

Their mouths hung wide open.

Their minds were blank, with only that incomprehensible basket replaying over and over.

What... what was that?

Magic?

Special effects?

Was that even fucking basketball?

"Beeeep—!"

At that moment, the sharp whistle ending the first half pierced the air, shattering the eerie silence.

The scoreboard finally settled at 36:36.

A tie.

But at that moment, no one cared about the score anymore.

Every eye was locked onto the white-haired Number 1, who was slowly rising from the floor.

As though they were looking at a monster from another planet.

Coach Taoka collapsed onto the bench, still clutching his red tactical marker. But his eyes were vacant, as if his soul had been sucked away.

He muttered to himself, "Impossible... This is impossible... This isn't scientific..."

His entire understanding of basketball had been mercilessly crushed to pieces at that moment.

Jun Uozumi still held both hands high in the air, frozen in place like a statue.

Only one thought remained in his mind:

Was I... defending a human just now?

Akira Sendoh stood there blankly, watching Shirakawa dust himself off with a calm, unconcerned expression. For the first time, Sendoh felt something called helplessness.

His prized talent, his flashy skills, his exceptional court vision...

Before that miracle-like basket, they seemed so pale and laughable.

The Shohoku players were all petrified as well.

Though this was not their first time witnessing Shirakawa's godlike skills, every single time still shook them beyond words.

"H-He... did it again..." Ryota Miyagi's voice trembled.

"M-Monster..." Takenori Akagi could only squeeze out those two words through clenched teeth.

Kaede Rukawa silently watched Shirakawa and clenched his fists.

He felt that the distance between himself and that man had not shrunk at all. Instead, it had only grown farther.

Only Hanamichi Sakuragi, that single-celled organism, was the first to snap out of it after a brief period of bewilderment.

He rushed in front of Shirakawa, his eyes sparkling with stars as he asked with a worshipful expression:

"Lord Shirakawa! Lord Shirakawa! What was that move you used just now called?!"

"Was it called 'Genius-Only Art of Scoring from Behind the Backboard'?!"

"That was so cool! Teach me! Please! You have to teach me!"

Shirakawa looked at this living treasure and did not know whether to laugh or cry.

He rubbed Sakuragi's fiery red head, then turned and headed toward the players' tunnel.

As he brushed past Akira Sendoh.

He stopped, turned his head slightly, and softly said in a voice only the two of them could hear:

"I told you."

"The warm-up is over."