Extra Basket-Chapter 155 - 142: Loan Shark (18)

Hi everyone,

Please forgive me for posting this, but I’m really at a breaking point. I’m a college student doing everything I can to stay afloat, but things have become too much. With exams coming up, daily expenses piling up, and no safety net to fall back on... I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t truly desperate. If there’s any way you could help even just a small amount it would mean more to me than I can ever express.

Landbank Account: 1746 3587 72(Please... anything helps. Even just a few dollar.)

I know everyone has their own battles, and I don’t want to be a burden. But if you’ve ever believed in me or my writing, or if you’ve ever been in a place like this... I hope you’ll understand why I’m asking.

Even just sharing this post is a huge help. Thank you for reading this. I’ll keep doing my best, even when it’s hard.

From someone who’s just trying to keep going, Thank you, truly. 🙏

.....

Score: 98–97 — Blazing Fox Leads

The arena buzzed like a living thing a hive of noise, breath, and pressure. Every dribble, every heartbeat, felt magnified.

Vorpal Basket’s ball.

Evan held it at the sideline, eyes scanning. Across from him, Leonel Blaze crouched low, ready to pounce like a lion off the leash.

Brandon raised his hand. Lucas darted around a screen. Ethan motioned once, calm but

his voice cut clear through the roaring crowd.

"RUN PLAY C — INITIATE WITH LOUIE!"

Evan inbounded to Louie, who caught it mid-stride.

"Let’s go, let’s go!" Louie shouted, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he was on fire.

He drove hard left. Jace was there. Too close.

Louie... smirked.

Behind-the-back.

Spin.

Step-back — no, crossover again!

"Where the hell is he going!?" Jace shouted, stumbling.

Louie broke through the gap and dished it off — not to Brandon like before — but to Ethan, slipping behind Noah.

Ethan caught it near the top of the key. Leonel rotated, fast.

(He’s already reading me—)

But Ethan didn’t shoot.

He passed.

Quick. Sharp.

To Lucas on the right corner.

Lucas caught. No hesitation.

Pull-up. Three.

SWISH.

Score: 100–98 — Vorpal retakes the lead.

The crowd ERUPTED.

Ayumi jumped from the bench, clipboard nearly flying from her hands.

"LUCAS!!!"

Coonie and Kai tackled each other in celebration.

Louie screamed, flexing.

"EYYYYYY! THAT’S HOW WE DO!!"

But Ethan... didn’t celebrate.

He turned. Watched Leonel.

Leonel took the inbound, walking the ball up. The light over the court cast long shadows behind him and none of them touched his feet.

(They’re ahead.)

Leonel smirked slightly. "Interesting..."

Then, aloud, he said: "Let’s switch it."

Jace gave a sharp nod.

Malik cracked his knuckles like a boxer preparing for a final round.

Noah leaned toward DeShawn and whispered something low and precise.

The entire defense rotated.

Like clockwork re-aligning mid-spin.

They didn’t just change assignments.

They changed their very structure.

A hybrid zone triangle-and-two. But mobile. Fluid. Adapted.

Lucas’s brows furrowed.

"Wait—what’re they doing?"

He stepped to the left a defender followed.

He faked back right another covered the lane.

"They’re ghosting us," Brandon muttered, unsettled.

"Like shadows. Wherever we move, they’re already there."

Ethan’s eyes sharpened.

(That’s not a usual Blazing Fox set... that’s... that’s new.)

(Leonel’s pushing them beyond their limits. And... changing too.)

Then Brandon shouted from the post, voice high:

"Yo, Ethan! What now!?"

Ethan’s brain surged with fire.

His Clarity Card was long gone.

But instinct that inner compass forged from hours of watching, failing, learning — remained.

Ethan yelled:

"SWITCH! Stay low! Stay talking! TRUST THE ROTATION!"

It was too late.

The ball had already moved.

Leonel passed to Jace.

Evan shifted preparing to close out.

Lucas bit the screen.

But it was a feint.

Jace lobbed it BACK immediately soft, arcing right over the top.

Leonel was already cutting baseline.

Louie chased, quick but not quick enough.

Noah’s screen landed clean.

Evan scrambled, arms high, but Noah was a wall.

Leonel popped out.

Right corner.

Feet set.

No hesitation.

Catch.

Elevate.

Release.

Perfect form. Picture frame follow-through.

Ethan’s eyes tracked the arc.

He already knew.

SWISH.

Score: 101–100 — Blazing Fox takes the lead.

The arena erupted.

Flashes. Cheers.

Even Coach Rios clenched a fist quietly from the sideline.

Ayumi stood still, clipboard forgotten at her side.

Kai whispered from the bench:

"Damn. That was clean."

Coonie muttered, "That was death in rhythm..."

...

But Ethan?

He didn’t blink.

He smiled.

"So that’s your ace card."

Then he looked at the scoreboard.

Time: 1:34

Possession: Vorpal

Game: Still on.

Ethan thought:

(This isn’t over. You can bend rhythm all you want, Leonel... but rhythm can bend back.)

"Let’s move." he said.

And Vorpal rose again.

..

Big King sat on the edge of his seat in the shadowy bleachers, the glare of the court lights reflecting faintly off the jagged scar on his left eye. Smoke curled lazily from the cigarette between his thick fingers, untouched for the last minute. His focus was absolute.

SWISH.

The net snapped clean.

Score: 101–100. Blazing Fox leads again.

The crowd roared.

Big King didn’t flinch. His single good eye narrowed, watching the scoreboard light up like the glow of a judge’s gavel.

"Tch."

He grunted low, cigarette finally meeting his lips.

Jeremy Park sat beside him, stiff and small, eyes wide with nerves, knuckles white around his knees.

Big King didn’t look at him. He just exhaled a stream of smoke and muttered under his breath, voice like gravel scraping asphalt:

"That boy Leonel’s cold. Ice-cold."

Brick, standing nearby with arms crossed, snorted.

"Vorpal looked like they had it for a second."

Big King still didn’t blink. Just let the ember at the tip of his cigarette smolder.

"They’re good," he said finally. "But that Blaze kid? He’s the devil with a basketball. Makes a goddamn deal with gravity every time he jumps."

Jeremy flinched slightly at that, guilt still sitting in his chest like a stone.

Big King finally turned his head, eyeing the kid.

"You better hope that blond-haired boy you call ’Ethan’ has more than words and spirit in him."

"Or your team’s gonna drown."

He looked back at the court, voice dark and final:

"And when that happens, debt or no debt... somebody always pays."

Jeremy’s throat tightened. But even as the words hit, he didn’t look away from the court.

Because somehow even under all that pressure he still believed.

Still hoped.

And Big King, despite the coldness in his words, didn’t stub out the cigarette.

Not yet.

..

Time Remaining: 1:34

Score: 101–100 — Blazing Fox leads

The ball was inbounded to Ethan Albarado, who caught it like a conductor claiming his baton. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, but his breathing was steady. Controlled. Measured.

Across from him, Leonel Blaze crouched low again — predator still, even after striking. His white sneakers squeaked once against the polished floor, but everything else about him was still. Eyes unblinking. Waiting.

The gym felt like it shrunk.

The court was now a cage. No exits. No excuses.

Ethan dribbled up with slow rhythm, watching how the defense reformed. That triangle-and-two was back, but it was morphing again. Morphing with them.

"Switching reads mid-play... it’s like they’re mirroring our creativity," Ethan thought, scanning every movement. "But mirrors can be shattered."

He nodded once.

"LOUIE — WING CURL. LUCAS, SLIDE. BRAN, WAIT ON THE SHORT CORNER."

No shouting. Just firm instructions. Trusted commands.

Louie cut sharply toward the elbow, dragging Jace with him. Lucas drifted left, bouncing low to the ground, testing the invisible perimeter of Noah’s shadow. Brandon lingered quietly at the short corner, knees bent, hands low, like a predator in camouflage.

Evan passed the ball to Ethan, then backpedaled wide. The defense shifted again — they weren’t just guarding men. They were guarding zones of potential. Reading not the players, but the possibilities.

And yet...

Ethan kept moving.

He passed to Lucas.

Lucas, jab-stepped, but didn’t shoot. He passed to Louie curling back.

Louie caught, looked up defenders rotated too fast.

Nothing clean.

So, he gave it back.

The ball spun back to Ethan’s hands, leather hissing through the air like a whispered secret.

(Damn it... they’re absorbing every angle. We can’t rush this. We need a gap. A crease. A fracture—)

"Trust the delay," Ethan muttered under his breath. "Let them over-read it."

He bounced once. Twice.

Lucas suddenly cut.

Then doubled back.

And that...that was it.

A flinch.

Malik bit the wrong way. Just half a step. A twitch in the wrong direction.

It was all Ethan needed.

BOOM a laser pass straight into the low post. Brandon caught it mid-stride, spun left—

But Leonel rotated.

Too fast.

Like he knew before Brandon even moved.

"NO YOU DON’T!"

Brandon roared, pump-faked hard and Leonel didn’t bite.

So Brandon dished it behind a sneaky bounce to Lucas who had ghosted into the dunker spot.

CATCH.

UP.

FLICK—

BLOCKED.

NOAH VANCE soared from the weakside, his long arm like a guillotine, slamming Lucas’s shot off the glass so hard it ricocheted halfway across the court.

The arena ERUPTED in shock.

"NOAH WITH THE HELP! What a block!!"

Coonie gasped from the bench.

"How’d he get there THAT fast?!"

Lucas rolled back, breath ragged, his hand thudding the floor in frustration.

Ethan didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He was already analyzing.

"Noah was cheating off Brandon. He predicted the pass and committed early..."

"...So he’s trusting Leonel to cover two options next time. They’re betting on instinct now."

He inhaled deep, as the ref handed the ball back for the baseline inbound.

Time: 0:58

Still Blazing Fox 101, Vorpal 100

This was it.

Ethan’s eyes turned sharp, hard like steel pressed under fire.

"Okay... one more time," he whispered.

"We draw the shadow. And we set the spark."

Inbound: Lucas to Ethan.

Leonel lunged. But Ethan pivoted away, dribbling left, pulling him wide like stretching a string near its breaking point.

Louie slipped up the left side again, but this time instead of curling he reversed. Slipped behind the fake screen.

Lucas rotated out.

Evan cut inside.

Too much motion.

Too much misdirection.

The triangle defense was rattling. You could feel it in their delayed second-steps.

Brandon moved now.

Like thunder rumbling under the play, late but massive.

Ethan didn’t pass. Not yet.

He drew the coverage with him.

"NOW!" he shouted.

Brandon planted.

Screen.

Lucas flared right.

Louie hit the breaks. Faked inside.

Leonel hesitated.

And that was enough.

Ethan lasered the ball to Louie.

Caught it.

Wide open.

Corner three.

"FIRE!" Ethan shouted.

Louie rose.

Shot — high. Arcing. True.

SWISH.

Score: 103–101. Vorpal leads again.

The crowd detonated like a bomb.

Ayumi leapt from the bench, clipboard falling to the floor with a loud clack.

"YESSSS, LOUIE!!"

Ryan smashed his fists together.

"THAT’S VORPAL!!"

But Ethan...

Still didn’t celebrate.

He turned.

Watched.

Leonel.

Who was... smiling again.

But not mocking.

Just calm.

Dangerous.

"(So he’s still not done...)," Ethan thought, "He’s... waiting. He’s been waiting this whole time."

Coach Rios barked from the bench.

"GO. NOW."

No timeout.

No pause.

Leonel took the inbound and started walking it up.

Only this time—

The court seemed to walk with him.

No fans.

No noise.

Just the sound of his shoes.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And his voice.

"I see what you are now, Ethan."

Ethan tensed. "Then you should know we’re not stopping."

Leonel tilted his head, almost kindly.

"No. You’re not. That’s what makes it beautiful."

He stepped over half-court.

"But even beauty ends eventually."

And then —

He moved.

Faster than any previous drive.

Faster than instinct.

Like a code breaking itself open.

Jab-step.

Snatch back.

Spin.

Hop.

Into the paint.

Brandon slid over. Lucas collapsed the help. Ethan dropped from the elbow to cover the lane.

Leonel leapt.

Up.

Hung.

Pivoted mid-air.

Twisted.

Then—

A no-look dump-off to Malik.

SLAM.

Score: 103–103

Time: 0:34

Ethan stared.

Not at the scoreboard.

Not at Leonel.

But at the rim.

(He didn’t even want to score. He’s making a statement...)

Leonel turned as he walked back.

And with a final glance, he said:

"Next one decides it, Ethan. You ready?"

Ethan exhaled.

"I was born ready."

To be continued.

New novel chapters are published on fr(e)ew𝒆bnov(e)l.com