The autumn wind was blowing through the halls of the Seiryuu Institute like a sigh from days gone by.
Dry leaves crunched under the students' feet, and the gymnasium, though more modern, was still more modern.
it retained the echo of the voices that once screamed his soul on the field. Haruki was watching
from the gallery, with his hands folded behind his back and his heart beating to the rhythm of his
memories.
Weeks had passed since the first "Samurai Basketball Spirit" workshop, and the results were
they were beginning to see. In villages where there used to be only a forgotten court, there were now children
designing impossible plays, girls inventing strategies as if they were choreographies. That which
It had been born as a tribute, it was gradually transformed into a movement.
But that day, Haruki was back in Seiryuu for another reason. The institute had invited him to
To lead a special meeting: a commemorative match between generations. Current students
against former players. Past and present sharing the field.
"I never thought I'd wear this again," he said as he smoothed his old No. 11 shirt, which he had already worn
it didn't fit like before, but it still had that invisible power to transform it.
Riku appeared behind him, bouncing a new ball.
-They say that talent ages, but the soul of the game does not. Ready to prove it?
Haruki let out a light laugh. There was something comforting about the way Riku always found
The perfect tone, that balance between nostalgia and future.
Chapter 17: The Last Play
-What do you think of the current players? Haruki asked as they went down to the locker room.
-They are fast, daring, but they still do not understand the true weight of a well-thought-out move. Them
lack... history.
"Then let's teach them a lesson," Haruki said with a spark in his eyes.
The gym filled up fast. Teachers, families, alumni. Ami, sitting in the front row, was drinking
You feel like in the old days. Souta, although he no longer played, had come from another city
just to see the reunion of the original team.
And in the audience, like a gentle shadow, was Coach Daichi, wrapped in a scarf
gray, observing without judging, just feeling.
The match started with energy. The young people were fast, aggressive, but the experience of the
Haruki's team was noticeable in every pass, in every well-placed screen, in every silence
strategic.
But what impressed the public the most was not the result, but the complicity on the field. No
It was just one game. It was a conversation between generations. It was a story told with
rebounds, assists and complicit looks.
At half-time, Haruki gathered the team in a circle.
-This could be our last game together. I don't want us to play to win. I want you to
Let's play to leave something," he said, pointing to the students watching from the stands.
They are the next chapter. We are the footnote that no one forgets.
The second half was an emotional choreography. Haruki made an old play with a new
Riku attended as on his best days, and the audience gave a standing ovation when a boy from the team
opponent managed to steal the ball from his idol with a strategy that he could only have learned from his
workshops.
In the end, the score didn't matter. Everyone knew that the important thing had happened on another plane, one
where play is transformed into a legacy.
That night, the celebration was modest but warm. They shared home-cooked food in the old living room.
club meetings. In one corner, Ami showed the maps of the new expansion plan of the
project. In another, Souta spoke with young people interested in coaching. Haruki simply
he listened, smiling.
-Now what? Riku asked, toasting with hot tea in a high school cup.
"Now we are still playing," Haruki replied, "only in a different way.
-And the last move? Riku insisted.
Haruki took out a new notebook and put it down on the table. On the first page, he wrote:
"Final move: make them believe theirs."
A few days later, Haruki received a letter. It had no sender, only a drawing of a field with
irregular lines. When he opened it, he found a note written in pencil:
"Sensei, I made a new strategy. It's called 'the wind snake'. I don't know if it works. But when the
I think, I feel like I'm flying. Thank you for teaching me to imagine."
Haruki stuck it in his notebook, right next to the last play. It was the signal I needed to
understand that, in reality, the game never ends.
As the months went by, the project grew. Branches were opened in other prefectures. Ancients
players joined as mentors. Ami organized congresses. Riku ran traveling clinics.
Souta published a book on sports leadership and tactical creativity.
Haruki, without looking for it, became an almost mythical figure among young coaches. But he
it only said:
-I didn't invent the game. I just remembered how to dream it.
And in every workshop, in every talk, I always said the same thing at the beginning:
-Before teaching them how to dribble the ball, I want to teach them to listen to the silence between the dribbles.
There
it is where the real strategy is.
One evening, while walking on one of the new fields in a mountain school, a
The boy approached him.
"Sensei, do you think I can invent a play that no one has ever made?"
Haruki crouched down, looked him in the eye, and replied:
-I don't just think you can. I think you already did. You just need to discover it.
That night, Haruki noted in his diary:
"Chapter 17: The Last Play Is Not Mine. It's theirs. And that's the most beautiful thing I could hope for."
And for the first time, he wrote no more.
He only left a blank page.
Like a field yet to be drawn.