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Chapter 154 ~ Versus Kaijo

With some sort of “normalcy” returning to his life, which for Yuuji simply meant that no missions came to the group chat or various problems happening in his friends’ worlds, Yuuji enjoyed his time with his family and friends, and also enjoyed his high school life. 

Spending his time in school with his friends was a nice change of pace after living a double life as a terrorist in Lelouch’s world. And after school, he’d either tutor the quintuplet or participate in the Basketball Club’s activities. 

Though… After just one club session, it was already clear to everyone that there wasn’t a need for him to go through their training or any of their drills. 

With Yuuji’s physical prowess, he wasn't even sweating when the rest of the club members were laying down on the ground in their own pool of sweat. 

And with his learning speed, he had already far surpassed the skill of the captain and ace of the basketball club. 

Even when going against a whole team in a match meant to try and measure how absurd he truly was, the result shocked even onlookers frozen…

No one was able to stop him from scoring. And… no one was able to score against him. 

And from then on, Yuuji was tasked to help the others improve and practice teamwork instead. 

Days passed by in a breeze, and the last day of school was finally about to end. 

The school bell rang, and Shuu immediately turned to Yuuji the moment the teacher exited the room. 

“Yuuji! It’s time for your match, right?”

“Hm? Ah, yes it is.”

“Alright~! Then what are we waiting for~?”

“...You’re coming?”

“Of course I am!!! Raku, Ai, you’re coming too, right?”

Shuu turned towards the two, who were busy cleaning up their desks and putting their books and stationeries into their bags.

“Yes, I’d like to watch.”

“Me too. Will that be okay, Yuuji?”

Yuuji nodded with a smile.

“Of course. Let’s go together.”

As they were about to exit the class, Viktoriya, Chitoge, and Yotsuba quickly came up to join them. 

Then, Yuna and Nina also came from their class, and the group made their way to the gym where the friendly basketball match between their highschool and Kaijo would be held. 

--------------------------------X--------------------------------

Upon arriving at their destination, the Kaijo Basketball club members alighted from their bus. 

One of the first people to alight was a rotund, middle-aged man with roughly shaved beard named Takeuchi Genta that is their coach, and a young, young man with short, spiky hair and a pair of sharp stern eyes named Kasamatsu Yukio that is their captain, made their way to the gym building of Bonyari High School.

And following them, a group of tall highschool boys, dressed in track jackets and pants with their school color, blue and white, alighted from the bus and followed after the two. 

With their coach, a total of 10 people were present, with 5 being the core and starting members of their team, and the other four being substitutes. 

All ten seemed relatively calm as they made their way relaxedly to the building. 

The Bonyari High School basketball team was… never one to be in the news within the high school basketball world in Japan, to put it lightly. They had never stood out amongst the high school basketball teams; simply average. 

On the other hand, Kaijo’s basketball team was a relatively famous powerhouse, especially with one of the extremely famous generation of miracles joining their team at the start of this school year. 

Considering the disparity between their respective strengths, there shouldn’t have been a spar between the two high schools. 

Originally, Coach Takeuchi wanted to arrange a spar with one of the more established high school basketball teams within the province to measure the skill level of the new first-year students in their ranks. However, most were unavailable, leading him to one of the last options, which was Bonyari High School. 

He didn’t expect much, and had already planned on simply moving the date to a month later. After all, he doubted Bonyari high school’s basketball team would accept an invitation to a spa where they would, most likely, be decimated. 

But to his surprise… they accepted. Which led to this situation.

He turned his head slightly and glanced at his students. They all seemed relaxed and… bored. Perhaps aside from the captain, the hot-blooded Mitsuhiro, or the quiet Kobori who were the most serious members of the team, they were all quite laid back.

The first year students seemed slightly nervous, but he could see that they seemed to be more nervous about making sure they would perform their best rather than their opponents. 

And the most relaxed of them all… was the golden-haired generation of miracle members, Kise Ryota, who was playing with his phone and yawning from time to time. 

At first, Kise was quite excited to play in a game against another school so soon after entering high school. But after hearing about the opponent, he deflated quite quickly. In fact, he wanted to skip this sparring match and go have a modeling shoot or something instead. But, he was forced to join by his coach and had no choice but to go. 

So… he could only hope the match would end faster so he could just go home and rest for the weekend. 

They slowly approached the gym building, and as they got near it, they could hear sounds and voices coming from within it.

It… sounded like people. But not just a few… many. It was strange.

They soon arrived at the gym building, and the moment they opened the door, all of them widened their eyes in shock.

“What the…”

The gym building they thought would be empty of people aside from Bonyari High School’s basketball team… was instead packed. 

The outer sides of the basketball court. The stands on the second floor of the building. They were all filled with students. 

They did not expect this small sparring match, which they believed they could easily, to have so many people watching… Was Bonyari High School’s basketball team that popular? 

Moriyama Yoshitaka, one of the third year students currently still in the team and a shooting guard, couldn’t help but look at the crowd in shock, just like the rest of his team. 

But soon, he noticed something that made his eyes lit up and enthusiasm returned. 

“Ooohh! Oi, Kise! Look at that! There’s so many beautiful girls! Ooooh, there are also foreign beauties too! I didn’t know there’s this many beauties in Bonyari! If I knew, I would’ve asked for a spar match here long ago!!!”

He slung his arm around the blonde-haired former member of the Generation of Miracles and forced him to look at the direction he pointed at. 

And Kise’s eyes widened in shock as well.

“W-Wow… I didn’t expect it either…”

As a popular high school model, Kise had met and worked with plenty of beautiful female models in his career. 

But… he could truthfully say, most of them wouldn’t even hold a candle to the beauties he saw gathered on the stands above. 

The mature, sisterly beauty with black hair and black headband would’ve been enough to put him in awe… But now, there were also foreign beauties, twin beauties, and even five beautiful girls who looked similar to each other, all gathered in one place.

How could he never have heard of such beautiful girls…? 

Kise looked around… and although there weren’t more beauties on their level, he could still find a few beauties that would be extremely popular in their school. 

The rest of the first year students, who heard Moriyama and began looking around, also became even more enthusiastic to show off their skills. Now, they didn’t want to only impress their coach, but also the beauties. Perhaps if they’re lucky, they could get one of them to be their girlfriends!

“O-Oi, I-I didn’t expect I’ll be playing in front of girls that beautiful!”

“Alright! I’ll do my best for this!!!”

“Hey hey, do you think I can get one of them as my girl?”

“I call dibs on that sexy senpai!”

“I’ll go for the twins!!!”

“Hehe, then I’ll take that blonde girl with a bombshell of a body!”

Being so near, although they were “whispering” to each other, Kise could still hear them clearly, and he couldn’t help scrunched his face at their words… 

‘Seriously… this is why you guys are still single… stop being disgusting…’

He shook his head. But then, his body jolted from a sudden shock to the stomach. 

“Gufuu!”

“Oi, Kise…”

He held his stomach where his captain had elbowed him, which although didn’t hurt, still shocked him quite a bit.

“W-What is it…?”

“There… Do you see him? Have you ever seen that handsome kid there?”

“Huh…?”

Kise turned towards where the direction his captain was pointing at.

His finger pointed at a certain figure in the midst of a group of people in skyblue and white colored basketball uniform, which he assumed to be Bonyari High school’s basketball team, and saw a super handsome man with an otherworldly radiance around him.

Kise had seen plenty of handsome men before. Models, artists, singers… Many had beautiful appearances, but few had charisma that attracted people, which ultimately separates the average, and the successful models and artists. 

But that guy… He had both an unmatched appearance and charisma…

Even when he was in the midst of a crowd, all his attention simply went to him as if there were no one else there with him. His presence overshadowed the rest, just like the sun. 

“N-No… I’ve never seen him…”

With his face alone, he could easily become a top model all major companies, not only fashion, would fight tooth and nail for. Sparing none of their budget to hire him as their model and ambassador. And his clearly muscular physique and tall stature could also easily make him the poster child to any sport-related brand in the world. 

Adding to it his charisma… How could such a person not be known to the world?

‘What a waste of a face…!’

If he becomes a model, he could instantly make it big!!! 

Kise couldn’t help but clench his fist in frustration and disappointment as he continued to stare and glare at the stupidly handsome guy. 

And then to his shock, he actually turned towards him and met his gaze. 

He tilted his head confusedly, before giving a nod in a greeting. 

Kise panicked and flustered for a moment. And before he could nod back in greeting, a tall, large-built, muscular man in the sky blue and white basketball uniform approached them. 

“Ah, good afternoon! You must be Coach Takeuchi. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am the captain of Bonyari’s High School Basketball team, Yanagi Kenjiro.”

Coach Takeuchi nodded with a small smile, which was already considered courteous for a man of few expressions such as himself, and took the large, young man’s hand in a handshake.

“A pleasure. Thank you for the welcome. Though, I seem to not see Coach Haguchi…”

“Unfortunately, Coach Haguchi had fallen ill recently and couldn’t make it for this match. He had left this matter to me. I hope you won’t mind.”

“I understand. I hope he recovers quickly.”

Coach Takeuchi simply nodded his head understandingly.

“Thank you. Please, come this way. We’ve prepared a locker room for you to use.”

“Thank you.”

Yanagi led the members of Kaijo’s basketball team to the locker room to get change. And as they followed after him, Kise still had his eyes locked on the stupidly handsome dude until he could no longer see him. 

They all got changed, and Yanagi was once again there to lead them back to their bench. 

“Well then, I suppose we can start the match after a brief warm up?”

Yanagi asked Coach Takeuchi.

“Sure.”

“Very well. Then, we shall begin the match in 20 minutes. Please feel free to use your side of the court to warm up.”

“Thank you.”

Yanagi bowed courteously to Takeuchi before leaving them to their own devices, and as he did, Takeuchi turned towards his team.

“Alright. You guys go ahead and warm up. And remember, although this is a sparring match, I’ll be watching and observing all of you closely. Don’t be distracted.”

Takeuchi emphasized his words with a glare, and especially emphasized his last three words and directed his gaze towards the first years, who he clearly heard wanted to use this chance to pick up girls.

And his glare was tremendously effective, as the first years all tensed up and stood stiff like a rod.

““Y-Yes!!!””

“Good… And one more thing.”

Takeuchi shifted his gaze towards Kasamatsu, the third-year team captain of the team.

“Kasamatsu… Be careful of that guy. Keep a close eye on him.”

“That guy…?”

“The stupidly handsome one.”

“Oh…”

They all turned to look at the only guy who would be appropriate for that term. After all, if he wasn’t the handsome one, then no one is.

“Is he a prodigy we’ve never heard of?”

“...No. I know nothing about him as well. I’ve never heard of Bonyari having a player like him. But… My gut feeling tells me to be careful of him.”

“...I understand. We’ll keep a close eye on him.”

Takeuchi nodded and crossed his arms.

“Good. Now go and warm up.”

Kasamatsu, Kise, and the others all began to stretch and head to their half of the court to begin doing layup and shooting drills. 

And as they did, they soon heard the cheering and shrieking of girls from all around them, and looked to the other side of the field. 

There… as if they were looking at a promotional video of a high school drama show revolving around basketball, they saw the handsome guy their coach told them to be careful of, shooting a basketball with perfect form in mid-air. 

The ball traveled through the air in a beautiful arc as time seemed to slow down, and when it reached the ring, it hit nothing but net. 

It was… mesmerizing to watch. 

His form… was the ideal form they would imagine in their heads when shooting. It was the form they’re trying to replicate in real life. 

And the moment it went into the ring, they were violently snapped out of their daze from the deafening cheers and shrieks of female students in the crowd.

“...Hey, Yukio. Did you see that…?”

Koji slowly walked up to his close friend and captain, and asked. Their eyes still not leaving the figure that made that mesmerizing shot.

“Yeah… I did…”

“... I have never seen someone shoot so perfectly. He’s even better than that shooting guard from the Generation of Miracles”

Kasamatsu clenched his hands into fists and let out a deep sigh.

“... Guess the coach’s guts were right. We need to keep a close eye on him.”