'Where is this place? What happened to me? What was I just doing? Right… I was in a match… but what does the honor of Australia have to do with me? When Noah needed their help the most, they were the ones who cruelly abandoned him!'
'Maybe this is my chance to take revenge on Australia… but that would only make Noah sad, wouldn't it? Tennis… hah~ maybe giving it up is the best choice after all.'
Countless negative emotions began to swallow Dorgias whole. Just as he was about to sink completely into despair and give up tennis, a familiar voice echoed deep in his heart.
"Big brother! I really hope that one day we can stand together on the world stage and win for Australia!"
"Noah… that's right! I promised I'd make your dream come true!!!" Dorgias shouted suddenly, his voice breaking through the void as light returned to his eyes.
"Game! Japan! 2–0!"
As soon as he broke free from the mental interference of sensory loss, the umpire's announcement reached his ears. Dorgias steadied himself and glanced at the scoreboard on the sideline. Sure enough, the Japanese boy on the other side had already taken two consecutive games.
"I don't know what you just did, but I—your big brother—won't lose this match!" Dorgias said firmly, his voice overlapping perfectly with Noah's shout from the bench.
"I see. So you're not completely hopeless after all. Let me see if you have the strength to carry that dream," Yukimura murmured calmly.
The third game began, with Yukimura serving again. Facing Dorgias, who had regained his resolve after escaping the Five-Sense Nullification, Yukimura's eyes narrowed slightly. Then, an overwhelming surge of spiritual power poured out from within him once more.
He struck a blazing high-speed serve. Dorgias instantly dashed to the landing point, his right arm tightening with explosive force as he returned a heavy topspin shot that shot across the court like a bullet.
Yukimura, already at the net, met it with a swift backhand slice, absorbing most of the ball's power before redirecting it toward Dorgias's back heel.
Startled by the sharp angle of the return, Dorgias barely managed to bend down and scoop the ball up. But Yukimura was already leaping high at the net, smashing the ball down with a fierce overhead strike.
Dorgias stumbled backward, unable to stabilize his stance, but still managed to lunge and leap from the baseline. Using his long reach, he caught the rebounding ball and swung forcefully to return it.
Unfortunately, Yukimura had already predicted his return the instant he landed. With a light motion, he blocked the shot to his left. The ball ricocheted off his racket and shot toward the sideline. Dorgias had no time to react—he could only watch helplessly as the ball bounced out of reach.
"15–0!"
Dorgias gritted his teeth and swung his racket in frustration, irritation flashing across his face. But before he could dwell on it, Yukimura's next serve was already flying toward him. Forcing down his frustration, Dorgias rushed toward the bounce point.
As the ball rose, he swung hard, sending it across the net with tremendous force. The shot sped toward Yukimura's left sideline, its impact echoing sharply.
Yukimura shifted quickly to the left, but the ball had already struck the court and was about to fly out of bounds. A smirk of triumph crept onto Dorgias's face—but in the next instant, it froze.
Yukimura's racket suddenly appeared in his left hand. A flicker of yellow light flashed across Dorgias's vision, followed by the sound of a ball landing on his own baseline.
"Mirage Mirror!"
"30–0!"
Veins bulged on Dorgias's forehead as disbelief twisted his expression. Switching hands mid-play? Is he ambidextrous?! But Yukimura's next words nearly made him explode.
"Your power and speed aren't bad. But with just that level, I really can't imagine how you defeated the England Team. Or maybe… without your team's brain, you're nothing at all," Yukimura said flatly, his calm gaze drifting briefly toward Noah on the bench.
"You bastard, what do you know?!" Dorgias roared in fury, lifting his racket as if to smash it straight at Yukimura.
"Big brother!" Noah's voice suddenly rang out from the sidelines. Though he couldn't see, his hearing was far sharper than most, and he had heard every word exchanged between them.
Noah's shout froze Dorgias in place, stopping his motion mid-swing. His glare toward Yukimura, however, was filled with chilling hostility. Yukimura didn't flinch. Even without Noah's interruption, he could have easily dodged the attack.
But Yukimura said nothing more to provoke him. His expression calm, he turned back toward the baseline, picked up a ball, and tossed it into the air. The sharp sound of the racket echoed as the serve flew at high speed toward Dorgias's court.
Dorgias gripped his racket tightly with both hands, returning the ball with a fierce swing. Yet soon, he realized something unsettling—Yukimura was switching hands repeatedly, alternating between left and right with seamless precision. It became nearly impossible to predict his next shot.
No matter how aggressively Dorgias attacked, Yukimura intercepted everything with effortless composure. The calm on his opponent's face began to weigh on him like invisible pressure. In Dorgias's eyes, Yukimura was becoming an untouchable wall.
When his powerful return was once again countered and the ball streaked past him to land perfectly on the baseline before bouncing out, Dorgias's eyes went blank with confusion.
"40–0!"
Just as Yukimura was preparing to serve for the fourth time, Dorgias suddenly shouted loudly, startling everyone.
"Noah... that's right! I said I'd make your dream come true!!!"
Noah's expression twisted in confusion at first, then turned grim as realization struck him. Yukimura, meanwhile, wore a faintly thoughtful look, though his overwhelming spiritual pressure still surged relentlessly toward Dorgias.
'So it's really as I thought. I wonder where Akashi-kun got such detailed intel... Still, Volk's Wirbel Taufe must be much stronger than the mental-force simulation I'm using now,' Yukimura thought silently as he tossed the next ball upward.
"I don't know what you just did, but I won't lose this match!" Dorgias repeated again, his tone exactly the same as before.
Yukimura's fourth serve exploded off his racket. Dorgias immediately flashed toward the landing point, his muscles tightening as he fired off another powerful return. The ball roared through the air, packed with tremendous energy.
But the exchange played out almost identically to before—the return targeted Dorgias's back heel, followed by Yukimura's leaping smash. Once again, Dorgias's desperate counter was blocked and deflected off the racket's edge, sending the ball spinning out along the sideline.
"Game! Japan! 3–0!"
As the umpire's announcement echoed, Dorgias looked around in bewilderment. Wait—wasn't that only the first point of the third game? Why's the entire game over already? His mind blanked, but with the break time starting, all he could do was swallow his frustration and trudge back to the bench.
"Hey, hey~ that last rally you two played… didn't it happen already once before? I swear I've seen that exact play!" Kintarō said, rubbing his eyes with a puzzled tone as he turned to Yukimura.
"It did repeat—but for him, it was the first time," Yukimura replied with a calm smile.
"Yukimura! If I'm not mistaken, that was Germany's Volk's move, wasn't it?" Oni said seriously, fixing Yukimura with a sharp look.
"Yeah. According to Akashi-kun, it's called Wirbel Taufe. I haven't truly mastered it, though—I just understood the principle and recreated a similar effect through mental force. If my opponent were any stronger, it probably wouldn't have worked," Yukimura explained quietly.
In truth, Wirbel Taufe was essentially a mental technique that applied immense psychological pressure to force the opponent's brain into self-protection mode. It caused the brain to isolate and overwrite memory loops, resulting in a one-sided time cycle.
After Yukimura's match against Oni, Akashi noticed that his mental wavelength matched this technique perfectly. Yukimura's Five-Sense Nullification also relied on overwhelming mental pressure—making the opponent believe he was invincible until they fell into an illusion-like state of paralysis.
So Akashi had shared the principle of Wirbel Taufe with him. Not so Yukimura could copy it completely, but to help him refine and possibly evolve his own Five-Sense Nullification even further.