About ten minutes or so had passed, and this one-on-one streetball game was finally over.
His opponent was lying helplessly under the basket, completely lost in a spiral of self-doubt.
Eleven offensive possessions.
Eleven times he’d been fooled by Aizen’s various feints.
No matter what he did, no matter how hard he concentrated on defense, Aizen’s feints would always manage to shake him off, allowing Aizen to drive to the basket for a score.
He had never seen feints like those before—every single movement looked absolutely real, practically forcing him to react defensively.
But in the end, it was all like a dream or an illusion.
Once he committed to a move, something completely unexpected would happen.
Aizen would glide past him like a ghost, effortlessly slipping by while his opponent was left questioning the very nature of reality.
Aizen gained 11 proficiency points from this match, bringing his badge evolution progress to 11/30000.
Which meant he still needed 29,989 more!
‘OH COME ON!’
‘At this rate, when in the world would I ever evolve this badge into Kyoka Suigetsu?’
‘I need to find some easy targets to farm.’
Aizen looked at the third-year student lying on the ground and couldn’t help asking, “Hey, how about we go another round?”
‘This bastard wants to humiliate me again?’
The third-year student had already seen the massive gap between them—why would he willingly sign up for more abuse?
He shouted back, “See you at the district preliminaries!” and fled like his pants were on fire, terrified that Aizen might drag him back for another game.
This encounter had left him completely devastated.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
‘The world was so big, yet finding a willing opponent was proving so difficult?’
Aizen scratched his head in frustration.
“Screw it, I’ll just practice my shooting instead.”
He decided to work on improving his abysmal shooting attributes as much as possible.
In those 11 possessions earlier, he hadn’t made a single jumpshot—even missed one layup.
Most of his points came from dunks.
He couldn’t just rely on winning games for the bare minimum experience points forever, could he?
He still needed to score points—otherwise, how would he level up quickly?
Junior high games actually weren’t that numerous.
Even with the district preliminaries and the national tournament, over the course of an entire year, you really didn’t play that many games.
The Tokyo district was the largest, with anywhere from 200 to 300 teams competing.
They were divided into groups through a draw.
With four groups, each one had about 75 teams.
The format was a single-elimination tournament like the NCAA.
After one round, each group was down to 38 teams.
After another round, it dropped to 19.
Another round, 10.
Another, 5.
Aizen calculated that making it out of the group stage would take about five games—maybe six if they were lucky and didn’t get a bye.
Then came the final showdown for the national tournament qualification spots.
Four teams would play in a round-robin format, with spots determined by points, meaning three more games.
That added up to about nine games before Teiko even qualified.
Then came the national tournament itself, which wouldn’t have many more games than the district preliminaries. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
For a major district like Tokyo, there were two qualification spots.
Smaller districts only had one.
Across all of Japan, there were about fifty or sixty districts in total.
In terms of team count, it was similar to the group stage of the district preliminaries—around seventy teams.
All the way through to the end meant about five more games.
So from preliminaries to the national tournament finals, a team could only play at most about 13 games in an entire year.
That was way too few—nowhere near enough for Aizen to grind experience.
Just as he was thinking about how to get more games in to level up faster, the streetball court welcomed a new group of visitors.
The guy leading the group was about the same height as Aizen, with fiery red hair like fresh blood.
Behind him were several junior high students of various shapes and sizes.
The moment he spotted Aizen, he charged straight over without saying a word, looking like he was ready to start a fight.
“What do you think you’re—”
BANG!
Before Aizen could finish his sentence, the guy headbutted him straight in the face.
Aizen felt the world spin for a moment, then immediately felt blood trickling down from his brow bone.
“This bastard.”
Being attacked out of nowhere, Aizen’s anger skyrocketed instantly.
His father had always told him to be practical, not to go looking for trouble, and especially not to get into fights with classmates.
He had never listened to his father’s advice his entire life!
So without a second thought, Aizen threw a punch back without any hesitation.
“Don’t just attack people without saying anything, you jerk!”
WHAM!
A completely unrestrained punch sent the red-haired guy’s gums bleeding.
“Sakuragi!”
The friends who had come with him were completely shocked.
This was the first time they’d ever seen anyone make the notorious brawler Sakuragi Hanamichi bleed so easily.
Aizen’s counterattack only further enraged Sakuragi.
He roared and swung his fist again.
“Don’t give me that crap!
You’re the scumbag who played with Sakura’s feelings!”
“What the hell are you talking about?
I don’t know anyone named Sakura!”
Aizen thought this guy was absolutely crazy.
Seeing another punch coming his way, he immediately grabbed Sakuragi’s arm and, with one powerful motion, executed a textbook over-the-shoulder throw.
Bang!
Sakuragi’s sturdy frame slammed violently onto the court, making him groan in pain.
“Sakuragi!”
When his friend, Noma Chuichirou, saw this happen, he was shocked by Aizen’s combat ability.
He couldn’t believe someone could take down Sakuragi so easily, and he quickly rushed in to help.
But he was stopped by Mito Yohei.
“Yohei?”
“We’ve got the wrong guy.
‘Wait, WHAT?’
‘We got the wrong person?’
They exchanged glances, saw Sakuragi pinned to the ground getting pummeled by Aizen, and immediately rushed over to intervene.
“Let me go!
Let me go!
I’ll kill this scumbag who played with Sakura’s feelings!”
“I already told you, I have no damn idea what you’re talking about!”
Aizen spat to the side.
He wasn’t afraid of numbers—he’d been in plenty of fights like this.
He just focused on the guy named Sakuragi and went all out.
“We got it wrong, Sakuragi!
He’s not Kobayashi Go!” Mito Yohei frantically held back the rampaging bull that was Sakuragi, quickly explaining the situation to him.
“We got it wrong?!” Sakuragi froze.
…
A moment later.
Aizen sat on the sidelines with Mito Yohei and the others, finally understanding what had happened.
“So you’re telling me that this guy failed four confessions in less than a week since school started?”
Aizen was absolutely shocked, ‘A week only had seven days, and this guy had already failed four confessions?’
‘Were you just confessing to every girl you saw?’
‘Who’s the real scumbag here, you jerk?!’
“That’s why he came charging at me with a headbutt?” Aizen looked at them like they were complete idiots.
Mito Yohei nodded and explained, “Sakuragi was genuinely serious about Sakura.”
“What about the first three who dumped him?”
“Ah, well…
those were serious too.”
‘Unbelievable.
So you, Sakuragi Hanamichi, are the actual scumbag here.
And you’re trying to defend this Sakura girl?’
“Anyway, we’re really sorry.” Mito Yohei apologized sincerely, then asked, “By the way, have you seen Kobayashi Go?
At this rate, Sakuragi won’t calm down until he gets a piece of him.”
“No clue.
We played a game of one-on-one, and he ran off right after.”
‘Basketball?’
Sakuragi’s eyes snapped wide open the moment he heard that word.
“You play basketball too?”
“Of course.
I’m a genius.”
“DIEEEE!”
‘What the hell—this guy is insane!’
Aizen got kicked by Sakuragi again, shook off Mito Yohei and the others who were trying to break it up, then lunged at Sakuragi and unleashed a flurry of wild punches on top of him.
First day in this new world, and he hadn’t accomplished much else—but he’d already beaten up two people.
He wondered if there’s something gone horribly wrong with his Isekai Transmigration?