This is perhaps the worst Jordan has ever been slandered.

Matsudaira Mea showed a rare look of perplexity, then looked at Wakato Hiroshi and asked, "That move of yours—you aren't mimicking a tennis player, are you?"

"Oh?"

Wakato Hiroshi was quite surprised that Matsudaira Mea could tell his movements didn't originate from a tennis player. He smiled with evident interest, saying, "It seems you know a thing or two."

"If it were just that fluid and seamless series of deceptive footwork steps, I might not have caught on, but the gesture of biting one's collar is deeply associated with only two basketball superstars: NBA legends Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Professional tennis players certainly don't bite their shirts like that, do you think?" Matsudaira Mea said very seriously.

"Michael..." Shishido Ryo blinked.

"Kobe..." Oda Toyoka repeated softly.

"Those must be stars from the basketball world," Sadaharu Inui remarked.

"Eh? Inui, you know about basketball stars too?" Shishido thought Inui understood basketball.

"No, I only know what the NBA stands for, but I'm not familiar with those players. Come to think of it, I remember both you and Akutsu chose basketball as your elective course before. I assumed you'd know something about it," Inui said.

"I do know a bit, though I'm not quite sure who Kobe is. Which team does he play for?" Shishido nodded, then looked over at Akutsu and asked.

"How would I know about that kind of stuff? I only picked basketball because I thought it was a good way to blow off some steam." Akutsu gritted his teeth in irritation as he met Shishido's sincere gaze.

"Kobe was selected by the NBA's Charlotte Hornets as the 13th pick in the first round of the '96 draft, and was subsequently traded to the Lakers. Although he currently has three championship titles, calling him a superstar might be a bit of an exaggeration; after all, he is still very young and has plenty of room to grow. As for Jordan, he definitely qualifies as the kind of superstar Matsudaira mentioned," Inoue Mamoru explained to Oda Toyoka.

"Eh... Inoue-senpai has also studied basketball?" Shibasaki Saori asked, looking somewhat puzzled.

"You could say that. In middle and high school, I balanced both basketball and tennis. After I started working, due to the influence of my environment and atmosphere, I stuck to playing tennis," Inoue nodded.

"Michael was guessed correctly, but Kobe? Can he even be considered a super superstar? He's only won a three-peat at best; he's nothing more than a star player," Wakato said, first confirming Matsudaira's guess before adding a slightly mocking tone.

"Almost forgot, this era isn't my era yet..."

Matsudaira Mea had a sudden realization. Regardless of whose footwork was being copied, the fact that Wakato Hiroshi chose not to imitate a tennis player left the young man feeling quite surprised.

Tossing the tennis ball into the air and swinging his arm, Matsudaira served for the second time. Wakato once again used his left foot as the pivot, twisting his body halfway before pulling back rapidly, and then executed a short drop shot using a forehand disguised as a backhand!

"Flexible footwork and exceptional muscle memory—every single shot looks ordinary on the surface, but conceals deceptive moves within. If one fails to see through this, Matsudaira's battle is going to be extremely difficult."

"Love-thirty!"

"Love-forty!"

"If he's imitating Jordan, that footwork really is a dead ringer. But that shirt-biting habit of his doesn't have nearly as much overwhelming aura as His Airness," Shishido observed.

"Unbelievable, he can mimic footwork to such a miraculous degree. It's almost as if Jordan himself were right here..." Inoue Mamoru felt as though he could actually see the man wearing the red Bulls number 23 jersey standing right in front of Wakato.

"Right here... can someone really reach that kind of level?" Shibasaki Saori didn't know much about Michael Jordan, but she had heard the name. Could a tennis player really imitate a basketball player's movements with such uncanny precision?

"Yes. You can tell from the frequency with which Matsudaira is dropping points that he has suffered quite a bit from Wakato's deceptive moves. If not for those consecutive spin-turns and footwork transformations, given Matsudaira's strength, it would be impossible for him to lose points so unquestionably right at the start. At least judging by the standards of Seichun's singles players, they aren't at this kind of level," Inoue analyzed.

"Still, arming oneself by copying other people's techniques feels a bit cheap and shameless," Shibasaki muttered, feeling somewhat uneasy about it.

"Even so, without considerable strength of one's own, it would be impossible to replicate it to such a miraculous extent," Kitashio Kaede said, crossing his arms.

"Tch, instead of studying how to play tennis properly, a tennis player goes around imitating a basketball athlete. What a joke," Matsudaira Mea thought. Among all the mimics in the tennis world, the one he respected most was Ohtari... no, Nenji... rather, Nio Masaharu. As for the rest of these imitators, they were nothing more than clowns jumping around on stage.

Hitting a high lob, the young man's lips curled into a smirk. So you like playing with footwork, do you? Let's see you try chasing down this ball, then.

"Oh no... you shouldn't hit a high lob like that!" Inui called out, but by the time he spoke, it was already too late. Wakato sprinted outward and charged directly past the baseline.

*Swish!*

Wakato's footsteps came to an abrupt halt, and as he executed a spin-turn, he launched himself straight up into the air!

"Such an incredible emergency-stop technique! His body hasn't lost its center of gravity or balance in the slightest!" Akazawa Yoshiro exclaimed in surprise.

"That posture..."

Matsudaira saw that Wakato had jumped very high, and as his legs parted, there was a clear tendency for his body to lean backward. When his racket made contact with the ball, Wakato unleashed a smash directly. Facing the streak of light shooting toward him swiftly, Matsudaira had barely extended his racket before the tennis ball slammed into the wire mesh behind him.

"Won by Wakato of Jōsei Shōnan! One-zero!"

"As expected, his flexible footwork also grants him the leg power to chase down virtually any ball. Coupled with his outstanding muscle memory, even when his body is in a leaning-back position where generating force is normally impossible, he can still deliver an intensely powerful smash," Inui stated.

"Actually, that's not quite how it works, Inui. The primary purpose of a fadeaway jumper is to execute a high-difficulty technique designed to evade a defender's block, thereby increasing the probability of scoring," Shishido shook his head and corrected.

"In other words... you can still apply force even while fading away? No matter how many times I try an action that completely loses balance like that, executing a downward smash surely wouldn't have any power behind it, would it?" Akazawa symbolically imitated Wakato's movement, clearly feeling that when leaning backward, let alone putting strength into his arm, even pressing downward was immensely difficult.

"Actually, in basketball, a fadeaway shot is meant to project the ball as high and as far away as possible. A downward smash like Wakato's... to be honest, this is my first time seeing it too," Shishido explained.

"I see. If a basketball is thrown high and far while in a fadeaway state, it indeed allows the player to evade the defender while maintaining accuracy. The swing of both arms mitigates the sense of imbalance caused by the backward lean, increasing the success rate of the shot while shaking off the defender," Inui murmured, mimicking the motion a few times before jotting it down in his notebook.

"However, this kind of technique is very prone to ankle injuries. Upon landing, a player must ensure both feet land as steadily as possible. But looking at Wakato, he seems to have mastered the fadeaway jumper so thoroughly that these potential safety hazards no longer apply," Inui observed calmly as Wakato tossed aside his racket and raised his hands to form the numbers one and five respectively.

"Six!"

"Does he even have to copy the celebration gesture?"

Ignoring the squealing screams of the girls outside the court, Matsudaira frowned slightly as he watched Wakato.

That one-and-five celebration gesture was from 1998, when Jordan led the Bulls to steal the ball in the dying moments of Game Six against the Jazz to complete the game-winning shot. The word "six" he shouted also signified Jordan capturing his sixth championship trophy.

In the original story, the character mimicked Lleyton Hewitt pulling his shoulder straps and shouting "Come on!" Here, however, he was imitating the Basketball God Jordan's one-and-five hand gesture. Sighing and shaking his head, the young man thought this might just be the most brutal assassination of Michael Jordan's image in history.

"You can practically see the shadow of Jordan playing basketball. That fadeaway—it's just too classic; it immediately brings the image to mind," Inoue's blood was boiling with excitement.

"As expected of Wakato. Even when imitating, no one can easily defeat the object of his impersonation," Tanaka Kohei praised.

"Indeed. What a pity for that Matsudaira kid. If he hadn't run into Wakato, he might actually have had a chance at winning," Tanaka Yohei said softly, a trace of regret flashing through his eyes.