"Here he comes, folks! After letting Ubers reassemble their defensive wall—Isagi Yoichi has begun his run!"
The commentator's voice erupted, feeding the already excited viewers.
"His arrogance knows no bounds! The game is off to an explosive start!"
The audience pulsed with anticipation — millions of fans rising to their feet with roars.
But on the field, all that noise faded into silence for Isagi Yoichi.
His expression was unreadable. He drove forward with the ball at his feet, the grass parting beneath each sharp stride. Ahead of him, Ubers' first defensive line was already shifting into position.
Isagi's lips curved slightly.
"Let's see what you've got for me, Snuffy…"
He knew exactly what he was up against. Snuffy wasn't just a coach — he was a system, a football architect who could turn any collection of players into a fortress of moving steel.
Among all the Masters in the Neo Egoist League, Snuffy was the only one Isagi respected. Not because of his philosophy or skills, but because of his intelligent designs. Every inch of Ubers' play was thought out — an intricate web of movement and control.
And that made Isagi's pulse quicken.
The air seemed to narrow as his eyes began to flare — twin lenses burning with focus.
And then it happened.
The world around him began to shift.
Lines. Shapes. Coordinates.
A digital network unfolded over the field, glowing faintly in his vision — precise geometric partitions dividing the pitch into grids of space, each grid alive with data: movement, velocity, spacing, reactions.
[Cognitive Grid Partitioning] — Activated.
His pupils dilated slightly as his perception deepened — sharper, faster, more intricate than ever before.
'It's clearer than last time…'
Every flicker of movement — a flexing muscle, a shifting shoulder, a twitch of hesitation — appeared as a ripple in the network. The details were hyper-real now, almost overwhelming.
As Isagi's run continued, the tempo shifted — the energy on the field tightening.
Ubers' defense didn't press.
They didn't rush forward or lunge.
They simply held their line.
Isagi expected as much.
This was Snuffy's discipline. Every defender anchored in their designated grid, every movement calculated to maintain structure rather than chase chaos.
At the front of that wall stood Drago
He stepped forward, eyes locked onto Isagi's approach.
The two met head-on.
Drago lowered his stance, ready to block any direction Isagi might take.
But Isagi didn't decelerate.
He kept running.
Each step faster.
Each stride more reckless — or so it appeared.
His eyes flicked once — right, then back to center — and Drago instinctively shifted, taking a half-step back to maintain spacing.
In the instant Drago's weight left his front foot —
Isagi's foot cut under the ball and sent it sliding cleanly between Drago's legs — a nutmeg so smooth it was almost invisible until the audience gasped in delayed realization.
And before Drago could even turn —
Isagi was gone.
A burst of movement, a blur streaking past him with an inhumane acceleration.
He caught the ball on the other side with perfect control — his cleats kissing the turf as he stopped it mid-sprint.
Drago's eyes widened, his body pivoting in disbelief.
Both Perone and Niko reacted instantly, closing the gap. They'd anticipated a second layer of engagement, falling back into Snuffy's contingency. The moment Isagi bypassed Drago, they stepped forward, boxing him in — one from the front, one from the flank.
But Isagi's eyes saw it all.
The grids, the lines, the angles — he'd been waiting for this collapse of distance.
He tapped the ball gently to his right, baiting Perone to follow.
Perone's body reacted, shifting laterally toward him — just as Niko closed in from the opposite side.
Isagi's left leg coiled, his posture dipping low. Then — an explosion.
He dragged the ball sharply across his body, pulling it left at lightning speed.
Perone tried to cut him off, Niko tried to adjust — but their timing overlapped for the briefest, fatal instant.
Their paths crossed.
Their shoulders collided.
The two defenders stumbled into each other, losing balance as Isagi shot between them.
Thud!
Isagi didn't look back. His mind was already moving forward.
Three defenders were down.
But before he could even feel the satisfaction of open space—
"Howdy~...Mr. 250 Mil."
The voice came low, rumbling with an amusement that belonged to predators.
Isagi's eyes snapped forward — and there he was.
Don Lorenzo.
The Golden Defender of Ubers stepped into his path, his grin shining wickedly beneath the floodlights. His teeth — each capped in gold — flashed under the lights, with a grin of a man who enjoyed the hunt.
"I'm gonna gobble you up~."
Lorenzo said, his voice gravelly playful and dripping with menace.
Although Isagi wasn't focused on that.
The absurdity of this made Isagi blink.
Lorenzo, the last line of Ubers' defense was this far up the pitch. He was standing well past his usual territory, face-to-face with Isagi in the middle third.
For a split second, Isagi's eyes narrowed.
That wasn't normal. Not for Ubers.
But he didn't let it distract him. The confusion flickered in his gaze and vanished just as quickly, replaced by a grin to match Lorenzo's.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. 280 Mil."
Lorenzo's muscles coiled immediately, his grin widening.
He lunged first, his massive frame moving deceptively fast. His arms spread to cut off space, his foot extending for the ball — but Isagi was already moving, his rhythm unpredictable.
The ball began spinning between his feet, a hypnotic dance of control. His entire body swayed, shifting weight effortlessly.
Then the move came.
The ball rolled right.
While Isagi's body leaned left.
Lorenzo adjusted — eyes tracking the motion, ready to pounce.
But Isagi's right foot snapped across the ball, the touch impossibly quick.
The spin changed direction, his ankle twisting sharply as he tapped the top of the ball, pulling it backward in a micro-feint before flicking it upward in a fluid motion.
The ball popped into the air — a glint under the stadium lights.
Lorenzo's eyes flicked up — and in that single moment of reaction, Isagi made his move.
He pivoted on his left leg, chest forward, and caught the ball with his torso. The control was perfect — one motion. Then, using that same twist of his core, he pushed the ball past Lorenzo's right shoulder with his chest.
A sharp burst of acceleration followed.
The ball rolled past the defender — and Isagi sprinted after it on the defenders left side.
Lorenzo turned instantly, his grin never fading — if anything, it widened.
"What's the hurry?"
He chuckled darkly, his arm shooting out to intercept Isagi's run.
"Only the starters been served yet."
Lorenzo's hand slammed into Isagi's chest as they collided shoulder-to-shoulder. Lorenzo's grin didn't waver, his teeth glinting under the floodlights as he attempted to muscle Isagi off balance.
But the Blue Lock ace didn't yield. He held his ground — then pivoted.
Just as Isagi shifted his weight to dart left, he froze mid-stride. His eyes flicked downward.
The space ahead of him — the grid he had been aiming to slip into — had been filled. Instantly.
Sendou.
Coming from behind and to Isagi's left, the forward slid in with an aggressive move, his boot carving a line through the turf.
A perfectly timed slide tackle aimed to cut off both the ball and Isagi's next touch.
Grass and dirt exploded as Sendou's slide screamed past, his cleats grazing air — but Isagi had reacted at the very last millisecond.
His left foot had caught the ball, and with a sharp flick, he danced around Sendou's now lying body — gliding past him with inches to spare.
Lorenzo, forced to avoid Sendou's slide, had to loop around from the opposite side. His path widened, buying Isagi the narrowest pocket of time.
From the right flank, Hiori was charging forward, trying to open an outlet. But he wasn't free. The Ubers' left midfielder, Abdi, had latched onto him, mirroring every step.
Meanwhile, on the opposite wing, Yukimiya had burst open — completely unmarked, staring intently at Isagi, calling for a much-needed pass.
Kurona was also streaking up the right side, overlapping the run to reinforce the attack.
The formation was chaotic.
Hiori's brows furrowed as he sprinted, eyes flicking across the field. He had studied Ubers' defensive architecture meticulously — the unbreakable system, the clockwork coordination where every press was calculated and every backup layered.
But this—
This was nothing like it.
Sendou's reckless slide from behind.
Aryu abandoning his position in the backline to push forward.
Lorenzo moving this far upfield.
It wasn't the Ubers Hiori had studied — this wasn't the calm, defensive fortress.
This was chaos.
'What are they doing…?'
Hiori thought, confusion flashing in his eyes as he ran.
He'd expected a cold, structured defense — but what he saw instead was pure aggression, almost undisciplined.
'Are they… underestimating us?'
While Hiori was still struggling to make sense of the chaos unraveling before him — the broken formation, the reckless aggression — another anomaly appeared.
Aryu Jyubei, the elegant tower of Ubers' defense, had completely abandoned his post on the backline. Gliding upfield with impossible poise, his long frame cutting through space like a spear.
It left Aiku alone at the back, the final wall standing against Bastard München's attack.
Lorenzo, after looping around Sendou's earlier slide, was now back on Isagi's right flank, his hulking presence returning like a shadow. His golden grin gleamed as he pressed close, waiting for his chance to close in.
But just as he reached for the ball —
Isagi's eyes flared again.
His left foot twisted sharply, the movement fluid and instinctive — a roulette.
The spin came out of nowhere, so sudden and fast that Lorenzo's eyes widened. The ball rolled perfectly under Isagi's left sole and across his back foot, rotating around his body in a blur.
By the time Lorenzo realized what happened, Isagi was already behind him.
'—What the—!?'
Lorenzo tried to halt his run, but the momentum betrayed him. His cleats scraped furiously against the turf as he skidded forward, unable to pivot in time.
Isagi shot on his right, body low and balanced. The defense around him collapsed for a split second.
But the opening didn't last.
Aryu, reading the motion late but moving with his excellent reach, adjusted instantly. His long strides carried him in front of Isagi's path, his sleek hair whipping behind him.
He stepped directly into the lane — the obvious lane.
Isagi's grin sharpened as Aryu fell for the obvious bait.
He cut the ball left in a flash, sliding past Aryu's reach — leaving both Lorenzo and Aryu overlapping.
The outcomes of this match depended on duels and Isagi was damm well showing it off.
Their perfect synchronization had faltered, two lines of defense now stacked one behind the other.
Isagi saw the pattern.
From the corner of his eye, he caught Hiori — ghosting near the edge of the box, dangerously close to open space but marked tightly by Abdi.
Kurona had also broken through on the right flank, pulling another defender with him.
Isagi's mind raced through. The defenders had overloaded on him, leaving the left open while pressuring the right.
He knew that Ubers would focus on his synergy with Hiori and Kurona.
But they were over-focusing that link.
If they expected the pass — he'd give them exactly that.
He decided.
His foot connected with the ball. The ball zipped forward, gliding past Lorenzo's head as it carved its way toward the right wing.
A perfect feed into space.
The ball cut past Lorenzo's head, the white blur sweeping so close that it almost grazed his hair.
From Isagi's point of view — to his right — he could see the profile of Lorenzo's face clearly: the slope of his jaw, the gleam of sweat along his cheekbone.
The ball passed right beside that face.
So close he could trace its reflection in the man's golden teeth.
But Lorenzo… wasn't panicking.
He didn't twist, didn't flinch, didn't even raise an arm.
He just watched the ball go by, his eyes half-lidded, the corner of his mouth curling into that cocky, metallic smile.
"And here's the main course."
The grin widened as he muttered under his breath.
And then—
"Glam prevails."
A voice came, not from Lorenzo, but from behind him.
Silken. Confident. Almost beautiful in its arrogance.
Isagi's stomach dropped.
From where he stood, all he could see was Lorenzo's left cheek, turned slightly toward him — and then, from the other side of that face, from beyond the grin, something entered his vision.
A blur at first — motion that didn't make sense.
Then it sharpened.
A foot.
A long, sculpted leg extended through the air, cutting in from the right side of Lorenzo's body.
It appeared out of nowhere.
For a heartbeat, it looked physically impossible. Lorenzo was still facing his own goalpost, his body blocking the view entirely. There was no angle, no gap — yet from beyond him, that foot had reached through space.
Aryu Jyubei.
Even before the name registered, Isagi's brain screamed it.
The length, the poise — it was unmistakable.
Lorenzo didn't move. He simply smiled wider, as though he had been expecting the moment all along, that gold-toothed grin gleaming brighter under the lights.
The ball spun closer to his cheek —
And right then, that outstretched leg cut across his face like a blade.
THOCK!
The sound of leather meeting leather exploded through the stillness.
The ball didn't just deflect — it snapped off Aryu's boot, ricocheting upward in a sudden burst of spin.
It was the cleanest, most elegant interception imaginable — a single touch that froze time itself.
Aryu's form flowed through the motion like a dancer.
His torso twisted in full rotation — from front to back, spine coiling to complete the motion.
His long right leg extended in front of Lorenzo, his body turned almost sideways, hair flaring in the motion's wake.
And as he straightened, his eyes didn't even face the ball.
They looked forward, serene — as though he had simply brushed dust off the air.
The ball tumbled harmlessly into open space, its intended course erased.
Hiori's run faltered, Kurona halted mid-stride.
Aryu's motion had been too fast, too fluid, too perfect to process in real time.
"Glam prevails."
He said it again, softer now — declaring his victory.
Lorenzo chuckled beside him, finally breaking the stillness.
"Hope ya enjoyed the meal, Mr. 250 Mil."
Isagi stood frozen, heart pounding in his chest.
Then, slowly, his head turned.
Toward the sideline.
Toward the cluster of seats where the substitutes of Ubers sat in neat formation.
His gaze cut through the chaos, sharp and deliberate, until it found the man sitting calmly in his seat — legs crossed, arms resting loosely on his knees, watching everything with the quiet ease of a chess master.
Snuffy.
The mastermind.
The architect of this living defense.
He wasn't celebrating.
He simply met Isagi's stare — the faintest glint of approval flickering behind his calm, calculating eyes.
For a second, neither of them moved.
The world seemed to narrow to that single line of sight — between the conqueror and architect.
Ego and order.
Chaos and control.
And in that silence, Isagi understood.
Snuffy hadn't built Ubers to react to him.
He'd built them to devour him.
.
.
.
.
.
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