“Perfectly suited…”
Avira tilted her head and gave a lazy smile. “You shouldn’t judge someone based on appearances… Mm, just now, didn’t you underestimate me… and that’s why you lost so easily, right?”
Voldemort stared at her, silent.
It was true…
Before the challenge, he hadn’t thought much of her at all.
With her languid, unhurried demeanor, she seemed like nothing more than a soft, fragile pushover. He had assumed her boldness came from relying on that silver-haired boy standing beside her.
He had believed that Ashton, not Avira Nassy, was the true expert.
But who could have imagined that this seemingly frail, small figure would possess such astonishing strength?
The aura, the power she displayed—no one could have guessed from her appearance alone.
Indeed, humans often judge the world through what they see, assuming that their eyes give them the complete truth, only to make what they believe are reasonable judgments.
Avira Nassy’s gaze swept the gym, eventually settling on a basketball lying in the corner.
She picked it up. “Do you think… I can dunk?”
“Pfft—”
Someone couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Dunk? That was ridiculous!
“Boss… don’t joke around! Join our Karate Club instead, and let’s work hard together! We’re one of the top clubs in the country! The Basketball Club has been dead for years. Eastwest’s basketball team should never have existed in the first place!”
Ashton spoke earnestly, trying to dissuade her from struggling in vain.
“In this world… nothing deserves to not exist…”
Avira Nassy lowered her gaze, looking at the basketball in her hands, her long lashes reflecting specks of rainbow light, impossibly beautiful.
Amidst her black hair, her misty eyes seemed to glimmer with an unusual emotion for a split second.
“What’s he trying to do?” someone whispered.
“Does he really think he can dunk?”
“That’s a joke, right? He’s only 165 centimeters tall! Does he even know how high the hoop is?”
They murmured among themselves.
“I do know… how high the hoop is.”
Avira Nassy suddenly tossed the ball into the air. By the time everyone realized what was happening, they saw that the seemingly sleepy figure had moved with a bizarre speed, sprinting towards the hoop.
With a powerful leap, she soared as though she had wings, seizing the basketball mid-air and slamming it into the basket with force!
“The hoop… I can still reach it.”
She turned around, a lazy smile playing at her lips as she faced everyone behind her.
The entire gym fell into an eerie silence once more.
“Now, let me make an announcement…”
Avira picked up the ball again, dribbling it rhythmically. The sound of the ball bouncing was steady, almost like the beating of a heart.
Everyone stared at her, dumbfounded. It felt natural that wherever she stood, she would become the center of attention.
“The gym belongs to the Basketball Club. No matter who covets our territory…”
Her smile shifted slightly. It was still lazy, her misty eyes still half-lidded, her posture still seemingly relaxed.
But there was a change—like a demon awakening beneath the surface of a frozen lake.
The wave of oppressive energy that suddenly emanated from her froze everyone in their tracks.
“Line up… I’ll handle you… one by one.”
—
George Backer stood frozen at the gym entrance, unable to move forward.
The stranger who had appeared that morning, casually asking if he wanted to play basketball… She had disrupted his carefully buried feelings, stirring up memories he had worked hard to forget.
The feel of a basketball…
The sound of the ball bouncing on the court…
It was all so familiar.
It wasn’t that he loved basketball…
But habits were hard to break. Once something became a habit, it was incredibly difficult to let go.
He had come to Eastwest to forget about basketball. Here, everyone had a defined future. People could be friends, but also rivals.
So he had told himself to forget, to give up, to bury all his memories deep within and lock them away with countless barriers.
Yet… no matter how much he reminded himself, his feet had somehow carried him, against his will, to the gym.
And what he had just witnessed shocked him to the core.
That boy had leapt like a freed bird, powerfully dunking the ball into the hoop!
The shimmering light dancing off her hair seemed to pierce through the clouds, melting away his chains and scattering them into nothingness.
And then, the part of his heart that had been obsessed with basketball seemed to awaken.
*Never judge someone based on appearances alone… Mm, just now, didn’t you underestimate me… and that’s why you lost so easily, right?*
*Do you think… I can dunk?*
*In this world… nothing deserves to not exist…*
*The hoop… I can still reach it.*
Those words circled in his mind, like a hawk circling its prey.
That boy, who seemed lazy and unbothered, as if he might fall asleep at any moment, who was slender and only 165 centimeters tall—who would think such a person could touch the hoop?
And yet, in that moment, his blood had boiled, and his heart, like a long-stopped engine, had started to thrum loudly once again.
Avira Nassy…
Was this her basketball?
Powerful, without needing any reason!
—
“Lucas Luza, what do you think… of her?”
Asake Bull, who had been watching the footage from the gym’s surveillance cameras, sipped his rich, aromatic wine.
His black hair caught the sunlight streaming in through the window, sparkling with fragments of light.
He was elegant, like a spring of crystal-clear water isolated from the mortal world, its surface rippling gently, reflecting a flawless brilliance.
Even a mere touch would feel like desecrating a sacred artifact.
“She… is very strong…”
Lucas Luza was still reeling from the impact of what he had just witnessed.
