Chapter 433: The Loser Has To Fall
On the other side of the court, it was dead silent.
That’s the weird thing about losing, the silence actually has a volume. All around the Colossus players, the arena was fucking roaring, but on their own bench, the sound just stopped. It was like they were trapped in a bubble of failure.
You can tell when a loser has given everything and still failed. It’s written all over them. You can see it in their hands.
Kael was sitting at the edge of the bench, mindlessly ripping and re-wrapping his wristbands over and over, his eyes locked on a single spot on the floor. Hall had a towel draped over his head, frozen in place, elbows digging into his thighs. Vex hadn’t even moved from under the basket. He was just standing there, two meters of pure muscle looking like a statue, staring at the court as if something was about to crawl out of the floor.
And the breathing... They weren’t panting; they were just empty. Like guys who ran ten miles only to find the river dried.
Cross, though, couldn’t handle it. He was twitching.
"Fuck!" He slammed his towel against the bench, snatched it back, and threw it again. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Nobody said a word.
"Twenty-four! Twenty-four fucking points!" Cross yelled, his face turning red. "We’re the Colossus, dammit, and they...!" He kicked a water bottle, sending it flying three meters across the floor. "They put out a team of girls and they did this to us! Fucking girls!"
"Cross," Kael said, not even looking up.
"No, no, this is bullshit! And that little bitch... oh, I’m gonna get her... I’m not just letting this go. That little whore made me look like an idiot!"
"Cross."
"What?!"
"Shut the fuck up."
Cross froze. Kael hadn’t raised his voice, but he looked at him with a kind of gaze that made Cross swallow his next insult. Now was really not the time for that bullshit. He sat down heavily next to Kael, fists clenched between his knees.
"...She played just okay... how was that enough? Fuck..." he muttered after a while.
Kael didn’t answer. That was basically an agreement.
The coach was standing by the bench, clutching his notepad, trying to remember which motivational line he had prepared for a disaster like this. Turns out, he didn’t have any.
"Right," the coach started. "Listen, it’s... we had some tough moments. They got lucky on some shots, and I think..."
Hall slowly pulled the towel off his head and looked at him.
That was it. Just a look.
The coach shut his mouth.
Everyone knew the truth. There was no need to say it. The defensive switch in the third quarter, the decision to let the bimbo and the delinquent play on Seth instead of doubling them. The rotation, he kept Vex outside for way too long. The wasted timeouts.
He coached this game like he was reading a manual to someone who wasn’t listening. The result was right there on the scoreboard in bright red letters for the whole world to see.
Today wasn’t just a loss on the court; it was a tactical massacre. He had been so obsessed with Nash that he didn’t even see the problems with his own players.
"I..." The coach cleared his throat. "I’m going to go speak with the administration."
He left without waiting for an answer. Nobody stopped him anyway.
Then, everyone looked at Seth.
Seth hadn’t moved an inch.
He was still in the center of the court, standing right on the logo, arms hanging at his sides, staring at the scoreboard.
[Colossus 93-117 Blacklist — GAME OVER]
He had read those numbers thirty-one times exactly. He was still reading them, one by one, like a sentence in a language he didn’t speak.
Ninety-three. One hundred and seventeen.
There had been so many games before this one. He remembered the streets, the cracked courts, the fists that acted as referees when the ball went out. He remembered the kids bigger than him that he’d knocked down because he realized nobody would ever listen to him otherwise.
In the streets, losing means you disappear. He learned that at nine years old. He never forgot it.
He hadn’t lost since.
Not once. Not a single game. Even the ones where he was injured, or had a fever, or his teammates were trash. Because winning wasn’t a goal or a dream, it was the law. And he was the one who enforced it.
So, why the fuck was it hard to breathe?
Without realizing it, he placed a hand on his chest. It felt tight. Not like a cramp in his side, but something lower, heavier, something dense that weighed down like a stone. He didn’t have a name for this feeling.
I am the Emperor, he thought mechanically.
But tonight, the Emperor had nobody to give orders to.
"Seth."
He turned his head.
Aiko was standing a few feet away.
She hadn’t wiped away her tears. Her cheeks were still glistening, her red eyes shining with a light that looked tired but incredibly alive. She held her chin high, trying to look bigger than she actually was.
"Do you remember me?" she asked.
Seth watched her for a moment.
"...No."
It was the truth. He had no reason to lie. He vaguely remembered her face, something about a boring match, but it didn’t click.
Aiko let out a short laugh.
"Of course you don’t."
She took another step forward. She wasn’t screaming; her voice was calm and steady, which was weird for her.
"A few months ago. Baby-Boom versus Colossus. One hundred and fourteen to twenty-two."
Something sparked in Seth’s eyes.
"I’m the girl you knocked down. In the last quarter. A crossover, one step, and my face went down. I ended up on the floor with my nose in the hardwood. You just stepped over me."
She looked him straight in the eye.
"And you told me: ’Determination doesn’t mean anything here.’"
Seth didn’t say anything, but deep down, he knew that sounded like something he’d say.
"You told me to go back to singing for the idiots who actually cared." Aiko smiled. It wasn’t a mean smile; it was worse: it was a sincere one. "Well, here it is. I’m still singing. For twenty thousand idiots tonight. And they all just watched you lose to me."
There was a few seconds of silence as Seth’s brain processed the information, like a computer recovering a deleted file.
"...You’re the little point guard," he said slowly. "The one who wouldn’t stop."
"Aiko Tanaka." She held out her hand, a sharp, almost official gesture. "Remember it this time."
He looked down at her hand. Then back at her.
"A little while ago," she continued, "on the last possession, my fingertips touched the ball. One second left. You felt it. Months ago, you would have crossed the paint without me even touching you. Today, I was there. You want to know what determination feels like? It feels like this."
She shrugged, as if apologizing for talking too much.
"That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say."
Seth stood there for a long second, frozen. Then, slowly, he reached out and shook her hand.
"Aiko Tanaka," he repeated. "...I misjudged you."
She blinked, caught off guard. She had prepared for a lot of reactions, but not a compliment from this rude man.
"I... hm." She pulled her hand back a bit too quickly. "Right. Okay. Good."
She turned around, her ears turning bright red, and walked away with a stride that was very trying not to look like she was running away.
Rei was waiting for her a few meters away.
She had time to compose herself. Back straight, arms crossed, eyes still a bit red but her gaze steady. She watched Aiko pass and gave her a quick, big-sisterly pat on the head before stepping toward Seth.
He saw her coming. He didn’t move. He knew what this was now. The loser’s punishment: the winner’s lesson.
« Kimura. »
Seth remembered her. He could probably recite every single word he’d said to her that night if he wanted to.
« Seth Vane. » Rei stopped just a meter away from him. She was only half a head taller than him, and honestly, that height gap worked perfectly for them. « You told me once that I was a shitty captain. »
Seth didn’t argue. He just stood there.
« You said my job was to keep the team together, to stop them from giving up. That I’d let them turn into statues. » She tilted her head slightly, looking at him. « You were right. I failed that night. I never told you, but it actually helped. I became better because of it. »
Seth raised an eyebrow, just a tiny bit.
« So, I’m gonna return the favor. » Rei glanced behind him, toward the bench. « Look at your team. »
Seth turned his head.
Cross was huddled up, fists clenched tight. Kael was staring down at his own hands. Hall had a towel draped over his shoulders, looking defeated. Vex hadn’t moved an inch. They were all there, just waiting. Waiting for something. A sentence, an order, a gesture. Anything.
« In those last few seconds, » Rei said softly, « everyone was looking at you. Not the coach, not the scoreboard. Just you. Like you were going to pull some miracle out of your pocket. Nobody even tried to do it for you. » She shrugged her shoulders. « That’s not a team, Seth. That’s just one guy and four spectators. »
He didn’t answer right away.
She wasn’t being a bitch just for the sake of it. Rei didn’t feel the need to be mean; she had already won, so she had nothing left to prove. She was just telling it like it was, using the voice of someone who had spent a long time picking up the pieces of a broken dream.
« ...I see, » he finally admitted.
Rei nodded.
« I know. » She turned away. « Learn how to let them actually play, and you’ll see it works better. Otherwise, you’ll run into someone like Nash, and as you’ve seen, you aren’t as untouchable as you thought. »
She walked away without looking back.
Seth stayed there, alone, standing right in the middle of the logo. And for the first time in a long, long time, he realized that the pain wasn’t coming from the loss.
It was the fact that he had been wrong, and now he knew it.
He could have just left. He thought about it. He could go to the locker room and let the shower run until the noise drowned out everything in his head.
But there was one person he had to see.
Nash was a bit further down, sandwiched between Victoria and Dahlia. He had a towel around his neck and looked like a guy who had just finished running a marathon backwards. He was laughing at something Dahlia had just said. Seth watched him for a moment. The smile, the tired look of his back, the worn-out shoulders, the way he stood there, totally relaxed, without a single drop of arrogance.
Seth crossed the field.
Dahlia blinked, noticing him first, and shifted her weight, while Victoria narrowed her eyes, her body tensing up as if she were ready to shove Seth away for interrupting their moment.
« Blaze. »
Nash kept his smile, but his eyes changed. It was a bit more serious, looking at Seth the way a predator looks at prey that’s still capable of fighting back.
« Seth. »
Victoria and Dahlia exchanged a look and stepped aside a bit, not saying a word.
« I came here to tell you, » Seth began, « that you beat me. »
There was no anger or bitterness in his voice. He was just stating a fact, looking Nash straight in the eyes.
« On every level. I tried everything. My speed, my angles, the two-step defense, the rotations. I changed my strategy three times. I didn’t cheat, I didn’t give up, and I didn’t let off the pressure for a single second. You were way superior. I just didn’t see it. »
Nash listened without interrupting. Then, he gave a slow nod.
« You weren’t bad, » he said simply. « You’re the best I’ve faced. I didn’t win because you were weak. I won because there were more people with talents in my team. »
Seth almost smiled.
« Even that is true. »
A short silence fell between them. Nash raised his hand and offered it.
« But it’s not the most important game. The playoffs are coming. »
Seth looked at the hand and gripped it. It was a firm handshake, equal to equal, no show, no bullshit.
« I’ll see you there, then,» Seth said.
« I’ll do everything to make sure of that. » Nash replied.
« Me too. » Seth’s eyes narrowed slightly. « And we’ll settle the score. »
« Count on it. »
They let go. Seth took a step back, gave a very slight nod of the head and turned around.
He didn’t go straight to the locker room. He stood by a pole at the edge of the field, away from his teammates. He looked at the stands. The black and red flags of Blacklist were flying everywhere. Families were screaming with joy. Kids were perched on their fathers’ shoulders. Men were in tears, arms raised high. It was someone else’s party, and it was hitting him right in the face.
The weight in his chest was still there. Heavier now, almost suffocating. It was something new, something he didn’t know how to handle. Regret, with a strange kind of curiosity, like a scientist looking at a bug he’d never seen before.
So this is what it feels like.
This was defeat.
It hurt. It really hurt. Not the kind of pain you can ignore by gritting your teeth, but a pain that settles in and refuses to move. All those people who had lost to him over the years... he had never once wondered how they felt.
I’m not getting used to this, he told himself, clenching his fists. This will not become a habit. It hurts too much.
He looked up.
On the field, Nash was heading toward the tunnel. Victoria was on his left, Dahlia was on his right, clinging to his arm and laughing. Hina jumped on his back, Nia in front of him, Kai pulled on his ear, Jaz followed behind, rubbing Nash’s head with his big hand, Aiko pinched his side, Miko and Rei brought up the rear, and the 5 subs, trailing slightly behind.
The girls were converging on him like magnets finding their pole, and Nash just let himself be enveloped, laughing all the way.
Seth watched them go.
It was a world that didn’t belong to him, and yet, he understood it better than he wanted to admit.
Until then, he thought, I won’t lose a single match. Not one. And neither will you. Win every single one of them. And the next time we meet, Nash Blaze...
The lights in the hall were slowly clicking off behind him.
...I’m the one who’s going to bring you down.