Chapter 387: The Last Meal of a Dog

The Dust Dogs’ locker room smelled like straight-up failure. It was that thick, heavy scent of sweat and defeat that just clings to everything. Nobody was saying a word. In fact, nobody even had the balls to look at each other.

72-0.

That fucking number was still hanging in the air, like a bad smell you just can’t scrub off your skin.

The silence dragged on for a long time. A really long time. No one had the energy or the guts to be the first one to speak. Every single guy was staring at something—anything—else. One guy was blinking fast, staring at a random crack in the floor; another was just staring at his own shaking hands. They were all desperately trying to avoid looking at the reality of that score. That fucking humiliation was basically carved into the air in glowing letters right above their heads, mocking them.

Vargas was the one who finally snapped.

"It’s you," he spat. He slowly turned his wheelchair toward Saya, pointing an accusing finger right in her face. "You lied to us, you bitch."

Saya didn’t even flinch. She was leaning against a locker, just raising an eyebrow like she was bored out of her mind.

"You’re the one who promised us he was going to throw the game on purpose!" Vargas yelled, his voice getting louder and more desperate. "You told us he hadn’t slept in days because you were riding him! You said you had this guy completely under your thumb! And now look at us—we’re getting fucked over like dogs in front of the whole damn Underground!"

"So what?" Saya answered. She had this annoying, indifferent smile on her face. "I gave him my ass, that’s the truth. Every single night, just like I told you." She gave a little shrug, almost like she was acting in a play. "Look, I can’t help it if that guy always does exactly what he wants, when he wants. I never said I had a remote control shoved up his ass."

A different kind of silence hit them then. This one was even heavier. Everyone started realizing the same thing at the exact same time: they had been played.

Tylo was the first one to look up, his face pale.

"She’s messing with us," he muttered. "She never had any control over him at all."

"Duh," Rin added, letting out a dry, joyless laugh. "We got played like total idiots."

Roam had been quiet the whole time, just staring at Saya with a cold expression.

"You did this on purpose," he said. He didn’t sound angry; he sounded dead. He was just stating a fact. "From the very start."

Saya looked at him. It was weird seeing Roam like that, half-depressed, half-given up.

She didn’t say yes, and she didn’t say no. She just shrugged again, though her fingers tightened slightly against her own arm, probably the only sign she actually felt something.

"Honestly," she said finally, "does it even matter now?" She looked at the group with pure contempt in her eyes. "What did you guys actually expect? That this guy, the same guy you spent months humiliating, throwing around, and trampling on, was just going to show up tonight and give you a little gift? Seriously?"

Nobody answered. They couldn’t.

"Stop doubting and face it," she continued, her voice getting harder. "This isn’t some bad dream you’re gonna wake up from. This is real life. Nash is crushing our souls, and he’s gonna keep doing it whether you accept it or not."

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t confusion anymore. It was just pure, raw resignation. It felt like they were at a funeral for their own pride.

Vargas let out a little laugh, then started rolling his wheelchair toward the exit.

"You know what," he said, sounding strangely calm. "I don’t give a fuck anymore."

Everyone turned to look at him, surprised he was actually moving.

"Frank is gonna kill me anyway," he kept going, not even slowing down. "Might as well leave now instead of waiting until the end. I’m not staying here one more second just to let him have the pleasure of waiting for me at the door."

He rolled right out the door without looking back. The silence he left behind was almost funny because of how sudden it was.

Nobody followed him. Nobody even tried to stop him.

Silence fell again. Heavy. Final. It was the silence of people who knew there was nothing left to save, nothing left to fight for. They just had forty more minutes of torture to endure until this nightmare was finally over.

The second half started exactly how the first one ended.

Only this time, Nash didn’t even bother playing. He just sat on the bench with his arms crossed behind his head, wearing a calm, smug smile. He didn’t need to be on the court; his girls were more than enough to finish the job and humiliate the rest of the team.

And they weren’t holding back one bit.

"That’s five!" Kai yelled. She was out of breath but looked like she was glowing, having just ripped through the defense for another basket.

"Six for me!" Jaz shot back without even looking, a smug grin on her face.

"Wait!" Kai protested. "Didn’t you just add two? You were at four like three minutes ago!"

"Not my fault you can’t count, sweetie," Jaz answered, shrugging. She was totally lying about the score, obviously.

"You’re cheating!" Kai accused, pointing a finger. "That’s literally cheating!"

Alicia, who had joined in, raised her hand.

"Technically, I should be at eight."

Kai and Jaz both turned to her, looking completely baffled.

"How the fuck is it eight?" Kai asked. "You only scored four."

"Yeah, but my four were three-pointers," Alicia explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That should count double. A three-pointer is worth two normal baskets. It’s just logic."

"That’s not how it works!" Jaz snapped, totally exasperated.

"Absolutely not," Kai added, shaking her head. "We agreed: one basket, one point. It was clear."

"Clear for you, maybe," Alicia shot back, sticking her tongue out at them before running back into position, totally ignoring the math because she was having too much fun.

Rei, for her part, started the half with the same crazy intensity as the first quarter. She was slamming people, pushing them, and basically dominating everything. But after she sent one of the twins crashing hard to the floor, Victoria raised a hand from the bench, calling her over.

"Take it easy," Victoria said calmly. "There’s no real opposition left. They’re just easy kills out there."

Rei nodded and slowed down on purpose. She was happy just playing with ease, letting the other girls enjoy the slaughter instead of just crushing everyone immediately.

The problem was that on the other side, the Dust Dogs weren’t even playing anymore. They had completely given up.

So you had the Blacklist girls putting on a total show, and the opponents were just standing there like statues. It was a lethal combination.

The game turned into something way more sinister. The Blacklist girls took turns entering the court, each one wanting their fifteen minutes of glory. Chio scored a huge streak of baskets while the bench cheered her on. Yuna, who was usually shy, chained three assists in a row perfectly. Even Hana, the quietest one, did a little fancy fadeaway shot that made the whole Blacklist bench laugh with amusement.

Then Rumi stepped into the paint. Her game was way more vicious than Rei’s.

She wasn’t like Jaz, who had power, or Rei, who had a high Breakball IQ. Rumi was different. In Breakball, she was a "breaker." That was her whole job. Her goal was to hurt people. She’d throw an elbow out just a bit too early during a rebound. She’d discreetly step on an opponent’s foot right when they jumped. Nothing obvious enough for the ref to blow the whistle, but enough to leave a bruise, a sharp pain, or a permanent feeling of fear in whoever had to guard her.

"Oh, sorry!" she said with a sweet smile after slamming her elbow into one of the twins’ ribs. "Didn’t see you there!"

And in the middle of all this chaos was Saya.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, seemed to actually see her as a player. Her own teammates wouldn’t even pass her the ball, as if touching her would bring bad luck. Whenever the ball accidentally went her way, she’d fumble it, or it would just slip through her fingers.

She didn’t complain.

At one point, Kai did a fast crossover right past her, sending Saya flying onto the hardwood. She hit the floor with a loud thud, and a few spectators started laughing.

Saya got back up, and she had this wide smile on her face. It was almost too wide, like she was enjoying the pain, or like the pain was the only thing she had left.

A little later, Rumi and Hina decided to "take care" of Saya.

During a simple transition, Rumi deliberately slammed her shoulder into Saya’s back, sending her stumbling forward, almost hitting the floor.

"Oops," Rumi said, not giving a single fuck.

A few plays later, Hina stepped in. As Saya tried to change direction, Hina discreetly tripped her. Saya went down hard, her knees hitting the wood.

Saya stayed on the floor for a second, knees scraped and bleeding, gasping for air.

Hina leaned toward the referee, putting a hand over her mouth and acting all sweet and innocent.

"Oh no, I really didn’t mean to do that, ref!" She looked down at Saya with a honey-sweet, fake smile. "She’s so good at getting people into trouble, I thought she’d be smart enough to avoid that."

"She doesn’t even weigh enough to be that annoying," Rumi added, raising an eyebrow and grinning.

Saya didn’t say a word. She just got back up, rubbed her bleeding knees for a second, and went back to her position.

Hina and Rumi looked at each other.

"Looks like we didn’t go hard enough," Hina said, pouting.

"We can fix that," Rumi answered.

The plays kept going, and Saya kept running. She kept asking for the ball, even though nobody wanted to give it to her. Every move she made ended in a more embarrassing failure than the last. And yet, she kept going with this weird energy, like she was playing a totally different game in her own head.

The others didn’t get it.

For her, this wasn’t about basketball anymore. It was a silent penance. She was punishing herself, paying back every single bit of damage she had caused, square meter by square meter.

Still, she kept that fragile, determined smile on her face, alone in a court full of people who had already stopped believing in her.

Meanwhile, for her teammates, this wasn’t a game. It was pure, unadulterated torture.

The twins had stopped running a long time ago. They were just walking back and forth, their legs completely shot.

Kej had stayed on the bench since halftime. His nose was still swollen and bruised, and he flat-out refused to go back out there, shaking his head every time a coach tried to tell him to play.

Tylo lasted a few more minutes, stumbling around like a drunk person, until a timeout was called. During the break, he just sat there with empty eyes, staring at the floor.

When the game started again, he just stood up, grabbed his bag, and walked off the court. He walked right through the hallway to the locker rooms in the middle of the quarter. The spectators were stunned, watching him just quit.

Nobody stopped him. Nobody even cared.

Rin, still on the court, watched him leave with a look of envy. She wished she had the guts to do the same thing.

The score kept climbing. Every minute added another layer to this historical disaster. It was unforgivable. It was inconceivable.

And yet, weirdly, nobody left the arena. What started as a sports massacre had turned into a hypnotic show. Nobody wanted to miss the end of this train wreck.

"You realize we’re watching history right now?" one guy in the stands yelled.

"Seriously," his neighbor replied. "My kids aren’t gonna believe me when I tell them about this."

There were only a few seconds left when the ball accidentally landed in Saya’s hands.

She froze for a split second, shocked, before her instincts kicked in. She started sprinting, heart hammering in her chest, breath burning, charging toward the basket like her whole life depended on it.

And there, standing right in her way, was Nash.

She barely slowed down. She expected him to block her easily, one last humiliation before the buzzer.

But Nash didn’t move.

He just stood there with his arms at his sides, letting her breeze right past him without lifting a finger to stop her.

Saya blinked, her heart skipping a beat.

...What?

She kept running, a massive smile blooming on her face, and launched the ball toward the rim.

It went in perfectly.

The siren screamed at that exact moment, ending the carnage. The crowd roared, and the Blacklist bench celebrated a victory that had lost all its flavor because it was too easy.

Saya stood there in the middle of the court, out of breath, knees scraped and bleeding, that smile still on her face. She stared at the scoreboard, engraving the number into her memory. The biggest gap in the history of Breakball.

156 to 2.