"He stopped…"
The entire stadium snap out of its trance a beat too late. The commentators shot to their feet as their voices cracked. Their voice tore across the speakers like a delayed thunderclap.
"Barou's sure-goal pre-emptive-strike!"
Just a second earlier, every gaze—players, fans, cameras—had been chained to the grotesque brilliance of Lorenzo. The zombie danced his way up the field with that twisted, lurching elegance only he could ever make look intentional.
Each step was a mockery of balance yet a masterstroke of control, a slithering, corpse-like rhythm that dragged the focus of nearly every player into his orbit. He consumed their attention like a black hole swallowing light.
And all of it—every hypnotic sway, every draw of misdirection—was orchestrated for a single purpose.
So the hungry lion could prowl behind it, unseen yet shining in plain sight, patiently coiled in the shadows of chaos, waiting for the flawless heartbeat in which to strike.
Lorenzo delivered that moment. With uncanny timing, he slipped the pass through—straight to the king, at the exact instant required for an inevitable kill.
But as that perfect moment finally bloomed…
…it was ruined.
A dark flash sliced across the unfolding play, carving through the passing.
The Crimson Blade had appeared.
And with one ruthless intervention, he severed the attack—stopping Barou's strike cold and saving Bastard München from conceding what could've have been a guaranteed goal.
The ball snapped off his foot, redirected without hesitation.
A counter-attack was born in the same breath.
Kurona, already reading the shift, sprinted forward. He burst from the backline with a clean acceleration, cutting into field with clean strides. The ball at his feet as he took it in full sprint, carrying the momentum upward and stitching the play into its next evolution without wasting a single millisecond.
The Ubers shifted, their formation rippling as their counter-attack collapsed. In that same heartbeat, Bastard München seized control, snapping into motion with a counter to the counter — a reversal.
Sendou lunged in to halt the momentum, throwing himself into Kurona's path. But Kurona's acceleration was too clean. His feet danced over the ball with practiced sharpness, gliding through the pressure as Sendou scrambled behind him, forced into an awkward chase he never intended to give.
Sendou closed the gap—
—but Kurona was already a step ahead.
With a swift shift of weight, he kicked the ball left, sending it skimming across the pitch toward Yukimiya.
Yukimiya received the pass seamlessly, a natural continuation of the flow he had already committed to.
He had passed the ball to Isagi earlier — a gesture that had already revealed where he had placed his allegiance. He had chosen Isagi's System, chosen to mesh his movements and vision into that evolving framework.
Kurona recognized it instantly — and acted without hesitation.
Yukimiya surged forward the moment the ball touched him, crossing the center-line with a burst that carried more than just speed. It carried desperation, ambition, and the weight of a decision he had made long before this moment.
He didn't wish for things to be like this. He knew the truth with painful clarity: the only reason he was even on this field was because, on paper, his current stats were good enough to make the cut.
Not brilliance, not recognition — just numbers keeping him afloat.
And if he couldn't carve his name into this match, if he couldn't force this moment to shine with something unmistakably his…
…then this chance would disappear, and he knew he wouldn't get another.
So in this match — here and now — he made his choice.
To survive.
To continue chasing the dream that never left his sight.
To keep running until the world had no choice but to acknowledge him.
Now, with Lorenzo still stranded up front from his earlier charge, the Ubers' defensive structure wasn't nearly as airtight as before. Yukimiya could feel it pulsing in front of him like a weak point waiting to be pierced.
His expression hardened with determination as he looked ahead. Rikko was already retreating, sliding backward step by step, keeping just enough distance to stall Yukimiya's advance while maintaining the pressure, refusing to give him a clean lane.
Yukimiya veered left, a sharp movement meant to bait Rikko, to make him commit even a fraction too early.
But Rikko didn't fall for it. He refused to bite.
Yukimiya clicked his tongue internally — he wanted to burst past Rikko with acceleration alone, but Perone hovered just behind like a second shadow, positioned perfectly to shut down any reckless attempt to slip through.
His eyes flickered upward — to the backline of Ubers.
And in that instant, the shape of their strategy snapped together in his mind.
Niko, the one who had initiated the counter-attack for Ubers, had never pushed forward to join it.
While Sendou and Lorenzo drove ahead in pursuit of the attack, Niko stayed back, anchoring the rear with Aiku and Aryu.
A safety net. A layer of insurance for moments exactly like this — where a failed attack could instantly turn into a dangerous reversal.
A fortress that adjusted in real time — even when its Ace was out of place.
Now, being blocked by these two was a problem for Yukimiya — a suffocating one. Every second spent stalled here wasn't just slowing the counter-attack; it was eating into his value, scraping away at the fragile respect he had earned.
Wasting even a heartbeat in this moment was the same as feeding the narrative that he was replaceable.
"Yukimiya!"
The call hit him sharply.
Kurona — from the right. He had caught up, and was already angling toward the left, sliding into position to offer support, a clean passing lane ready to be exploited.
Yukimiya felt his jaw tighten as he caught the movement in the corner of his eye.
'This was it.'
The opportunity to bypass Rikko and Perone. With Kurona syncing beside him, the two of them could split through the defensive pressure and keep the counter alive, turning this moment into a seamless advance.
He knew that.
And that was exactly why it stung.
Because if he passed now — if he handed the ball off here, in a moment where his own breakthrough was supposed to shine — then that would mark the end of his spotlight. The chance that belonged to him, the moment he desperately needed, would slip straight into Kurona's feet.
It was the right play.
But it felt like a personal defeat.
A reminder of how easily his light could be dimmed by one simple, necessary pass.
Kurona was closing in fast — his steps slicing through the grass with crisp, accelerating rhythm. But Yukimiya — drowning in his own storm of thoughts, ambition, and desperation — made his decision in a split-second burst.
Instead of passing, he burst to his right.
His feet hammered the turf as he shifted lanes, the sudden change of direction forcing a sharp spray of turf to lift behind him. Rikko reacted immediately, shoulders tightening, weight dropping as he lunged sideways to cut off the lane Yukimiya was trying to create, his entire posture leaning into a clean interception.
Perone mirrored the movement, ready to crash into the line and smother any attempt Yukimiya might pull. But mid-stride, Perone slowed — a subtle check in motion, his eyes narrowing as he registered something else in the shifting formation.
Kurona wasn't thrown off by the refusal to pass.
He didn't even hesitate.
He simply flowed into the vacant lane Yukimiya had abandoned.
Sliding left with seamless timing, Kurona filled the exact position Yukimiya had been standing in moments before — the 'left route' of the formation — like a cog slipping into place inside a machine already mid-motion.
And Perone chose to stay.
He held his ground to block Kurona's path instead of pursuing Yukimiya.
Rikko, convinced he had the angle now, braced his legs and prepared to throw himself fully into Yukimiya's breakthrough attempt—
—but Yukimiya didn't give him the chance.
Just as Rikko coiled to strike, Yukimiya snapped his heel back.
A clean, sharp backheel pass shot off behind him — almost invisible until it was already gone — cutting directly across the defender's blind spot.
Rikko froze mid-lunge, eyes widening as he twisted around, struggling to recalibrate the sudden shift. And there — right in the lane he'd just vacated — Kurona materialised, receiving the ball with a soft, controlled touch as if he'd been waiting for it the entire time.
Perone immediately exploded forward, his large frame surging toward the smaller midfielder with the intent to crush him in the first touch. He underestimated Kurona's slight build, assuming brute force alone would reclaim possession.
But Kurona didn't even let him near.
In one fluid motion, he swung his foot up and chipped the ball, sending it spinning into the air with a delicate, lofted arc.
The ball cleared Rikko's head by inches, rising just high enough to slip over his reach and drop perfectly into Yukimiya's path.
Yukimiya had already chosen his route forward — and Kurona had matched it with flawless anticipation.
Their movements intertwined like pre-drawn lines in a playbook, dragging both Rikko and Perone out of rhythm, slowing their pursuit by crucial seconds.
Yukimiya caught it in stride, chest lifting with determination as he swept it forward.
Yukimiya continued his run as he drove deeper into Ubers' half.
Ahead of him, Kaiser shot forward as well — a sharp, predatory blur trying to match Yukimiya's pace from the front line, angling himself into position to join the attack.
But he never got the chance.
Niko got their instantly.
With unsettling sharpness, Niko slid across Kaiser's route, cutting off every possible passing lane before it even fully formed. His positioning was performed to erase Yukimiya's options one by one.
Not that it mattered.
Yukimiya had never intended to pass to Kaiser anyway.
His stride didn't break, not even slightly, as he kept pushing forward — eyes cutting through the defense, mind scraping desperately for the breakthrough that belonged to him and him alone.
And then he saw it.
Isagi.
Isagi was slicing up the pitch, accelerating with clean, efficient strides.
In that moment.
Isagi turned his head — and met Yukimiya's gaze.
Their eyes locked.
For Yukimiya, the world didn't merely slow — it compressed.
Everything around him blurred at the edges: the players' movements smeared into peripheral streaks, the thundering in his own ears thundered louder.
He felt something clamp around his chest, a surge of force that wasn't physical.
Isagi's aura hit him head-on — not a demand, but an expectation, a raw certainty of what needed to happen.
Yukimiya felt the weight of it instantly.
The moment.
The unspoken command.
The need to rise.
He forced his focus downward, locking onto the ball at his feet. His stride shifted, his body angling as he moved into a shooting stance, aligning his hips and shoulders with obsessive precision.
"Score with my assist, you control freak!"
The shout ripped from his throat, frustration and ambition laced into a single volatile spark. A challenge. A promise. A refusal to be overshadowed.
Then—
BANG!
A violent crack echoed across the pitch as Yukimiya launched the ball high into the air. His foot connected with such force that the fragments of grass lifted in the wake of the strike.
"He's shooting from there?!"
Shock rippled through the Ubers' ranks.
Yukimiya had unleashed his gyro shot — from that distance, from all the way out there — the ball spiraling upward in a vicious, spinning trajectory as it cut through the air and tore toward the box.
The defenders froze.
The entire momentum of the match bent toward that single bullet.
As the Ubers' defenders kept their eyes glued to the ball's spiraling ascent, Isagi didn't waste unnecessary attention on it.
He only lifted his gaze for an instant — a single, precise glance — and in that instant, satisfaction curled subtly at the edge of his expression.
Yukimiya hadn't just understood him.
He had answered him.
He had aligned with the demand Isagi had thrown at him in that moment of eye contact.
With a decision — a declaration — that said he knew exactly what Isagi expected.
Because even though the ball was carving an unpredictable, chaotic path — the kind no one could read, no one could estimate, no one could reasonably anticipate—
Two players knew where it would fall.
The one who launched it.
And the one who demanded it.
The rest of the world saw a projectile that obeyed no laws.
But those two already saw the landing point.
And that was a phenomenon almost no one could comprehend.
A Gyro Shot's trajectory wasn't just difficult — it was unknowable.
The moment a gyro shot left the foot, the spin collapsed the airflow around it, creating pockets of turbulence that twisted the ball's direction at random intervals. The wind didn't push the ball — the ball tore unpredictable distortions into the wind.
Every shift in speed, every wobble, every sudden veer came from invisible currents colliding around the rotating surface.
Even advanced tracking systems can't model it.
And yet…
One person had broken through that impossibility.
One player had taken a chaos-ball and guided it.
Isagi Yoichi.
The moment when Isagi had showcased it — even if only once against the U20 Match — had left the world arguing.
Some fans swore it was luck. Some dismissed it as a momentary fluke.
Even data analysts refused to admit the trajectory was intentional.
But Yukimiya knew better.
He had seen Isagi.
And he understood just how absurdly monstrous Isagi's mind and body were when aligned.
Isagi's impossible was simply a different kind of possible.
A knuckle-like gyro ball wasn't something a human should control — not scientifically, not physically.
Airflow wasn't consistent. Pressure wasn't static. The atmosphere itself was the enemy. No two shots behaved the same way, no two spirals even remotely repeated.
No normal player could ever tame it.
And Yukimiya knew — painfully, honestly — that he certainly wasn't that kind of miracle.
No one else on the field, or anywhere in the World, could replicate that wild mid-air control.
Yukimiya understood his limits with painful clarity — and accepted them.
Because if Yukimiya wanted to survive…
If he wanted to keep playing…
If he wanted his dream to stay alive…
He had to find his method.
His own route to controlling the uncontrollable.
And he had done exactly that.
As the ball cut through the sky with a vicious, vibrating spin. At first, the rotation tugged it sharply to the right, as if yanked by invisible fingers gripping one side of the sphere. Then the ball dipped — the spin colliding with the heavy frontward momentum.
And that was when the airflow and spin worked it's magic.
A sudden shift in turbulence slammed into the ball's underside, and the shot jerked violently to the left — not drifting, but accelerating, like a whip snapping through the air.
The entire movement felt like a glitch in physics — a hard veer that caught the defenders completely off balance.
It targeted the Ubers' backline.
The opening created because Lorenzo had moved upfield for the offense previously.
And the one standing at the center of the backline because of Lorenzo's absence was:
Aryu Jyubei.
Yukimiya hadn't achieved Isagi's supernatural ability to control mid-air spin.
No — that was a miracle exclusive to Isagi alone.
Instead, he mastered the start — the exact strike angle, the controlled spin level, the delicate balance between chaos and intent.
He couldn't decide every twist in the ball's journey.
But he had learned how to decide its destination.
He had perfected the strike —
the angle,
the point of contact,
the power distribution,
the initial spin rate.
Instead of trying to tame chaos, he'd learned to narrow it — to compress the unpredictable into a limited, controlled zone of probability.
It wasn't about determining the exact landing point… but about shrinking the uncertainty so drastically that he could read the general endpoint.
A method not of genius, but of discipline.
A survival skill carved from desperation.
And now that engineered chaos screamed toward the center of Ubers' defense — a spinning, violent arrow honed directly at Aryu Jyubei.
As the ball continued its violent descent, spinning downward with a speed that seemed to carve pressure into the air, Aryu instinctively took a step back.
His long frame shifted, positioning himself to react at the exact moment of impact.
His eyes were locked onto Isagi.
Isagi's intention was unmistakable.
He was coming for a rematch.
Aryu had stopped him once.
Somehow.
Someway.
And although Isagi had pieced together the rough reason, he hadn't fully dissected the limits of it.
Which he wished to test now.
Then, as the ball neared the ground — descending in a spinning, unstable arc — Isagi made his move.
Still sprinting straight at Aryu, he launched himself upward with an explosive leap.
His cleats tore off the turf, and his body rose like a coiled spring being released. The timing was razor-sharp — a direct challenge issued without hesitation.
Aryu's expression didn't shift even a millimeter.
This was his domain.
Aerial combat — the sky — was his territory.
Elegance, reach, aerial dominance… these were the pillars of Aryu Jyubei's style.
And the fact that Isagi willingly leapt into that domain meant only one thing: the rematch was on.
Aryu followed immediately.
With a powerful push, he ascended as well — long limbs slicing upward, posture refined even in midair. The two of them climbed toward the same invisible point, bodies aligned with the falling ball as gravity tightened its grip on all three.
As they rose, both players adjusted micro-movements — chest angles, hip rotations, head tilt — but the key difference was in the spacing.
Isagi had taken the perfect position.
Aryu was one step further back from the ball's drop zone — a distance small enough to close, yet large enough to matter in a duel where centimeters decided everything.
And even though Isagi was shorter, he didn't lose height.
He out-jumped Aryu.
His leap wasn't just higher — it was fueled by explosive mechanics and obsessive body control.
His core held steady, his legs extended at peak angle, his entire frame built to maximize the reach of the coming strike.
The ball dipped left.
Both players extended their legs.
Aryu's reach, as always, was monstrous. His long limbs stretched, cutting through the air with elegant efficiency. His foot arrived first — his timing and reach merging into what should have been a perfect defensive win.
But Isagi's body betrayed the normal rules.
His control was immaculate. Even though Aryu touched the zone first, Isagi's left leg stretched further, bending and extending with the fluidity of a ballerina's final reach.
His foot connected with the ball in its path.
A perfect interception.
"Glam really does prevail…"
Isagi muttered under his breath — a quiet, cutting line aimed directly at Aryu, the man whose entire existence revolved around elegance and beauty.
Aryu grunted as his reach had been overtaken. His territory had been invaded.
Isagi, with his extended left foot, flicked the ball lightly to his right.
Now Isagi was only 18 yards from the net — barely inside the penalty area.
The ground beneath him felt like thin ice, the kind that could break into a goal or collapse into disaster.
The ball drifted toward his right foot as both he and Aryu were still suspended in the air — their hang-time stretched by the moment.
The world below seemed to hold its breath.
Behind Aryu, from both the left and right sides, Lorenzo and Niko barreled in. Their bodies cut through the penalty area like closing jaws, both of them angling in to block the expected shooting route.
But to Isagi, their presence barely registered.
He had already processed them.
Already integrated them into his calculation.
None of it mattered.
Because he had full, unwavering faith in his shot.
He readied his right leg — an instant of perfect balance — choosing the top-right corner, a shot meant to sail directly above Lorenzo's head.
A beautiful, clinical finish.
Inevitable.
And then—
Just as his foot connected with the ball—
He twisted his aim.
A violent, instinctive correction.
A shock spiking through his body, through his vision, through every internal sensor he relied on.
Something was wrong.
His shot veered—
—and the ball slammed into Aryu's torso, drilling into him with brutal force.
The impact folded Aryu inward, knocking the air clean out of him as a sharp cough tore through his throat. His long frame contorted as pain surged through him, a tear involuntarily slipping from the corner of his eye.
But he wasn't the one people were worried about.
And he certainly wasn't the one Isagi's eyes widened at.
It was Canalli.
The goalkeeper of Ubers.
Because the redirected shot — the one Isagi had twisted at the last millisecond to avoid collision — had crashed straight into Canalli's face with the force of a cannonball.
A hollow, sickening thud snapped through the stadium.
"Canalli!"
"Is he alive!?"
Voices erupted in panic.
From the bench, Snuffy shot to his feet, his bandana nearly falling off as he bellowed:
"MEDIC!"
The ball had already rolled harmlessly out of the sideline, forgotten instantly.
All attention zeroed onto the ground where two bodies were down:
Aryu — coughing violently, one hand clutching his torso, expression twisted in pain and shock.
And Canalli — completely motionless.
Unconscious.
His limbs limp, his body unnervingly still.
If he were awake, the agony waiting for him would've been unbearable.
But unconsciousness was the only mercy he had been granted.
The stadium held its breath.
Isagi exhaled sharply — in grim realization of what had just happened.
The medics burst onto the field with urgent strides, a stretcher carried between them as they sprinted toward Canalli. One immediately knelt beside the unconscious keeper, checking his breathing, his pulse, the angle of his neck. Another began assessing visible injuries, searching for fractures or signs of severe trauma.
A second medical team attended Aryu, who was still on his knees, coughing sharply.
"Are you alright?"
Hiori's voice cut through the chaos as he rushed to Isagi's side. Isagi had just pushed himself off the ground, dust and turf sticking to his uniform.
He didn't look at Hiori. His eyes were locked on Canalli — motionless, frighteningly still.
"Yeah."
Isagi muttered, voice low and flat.
Hiori followed his gaze. He swallowed, dread forming in his throat as he spoke.
"Did he…?"
Before he could finish, Isagi cut in quietly, but with absolute certainty.
"Yeah. He did."
Because Isagi had realized exactly what had been happening in this match from the start.
He glanced Snuffy who had also entered the pitch, standing next to the medics.
He had understood Snuffy's plan.
Snuffy's First Layer: The Psychological Hook
After Aryu had stopped Isagi earlier — using Lorenzo's body as a moving curtain to hide his leap.
Snuffy had already predicted that Isagi would not let that go.
A predator denied its kill returns sharper, angrier, hungrier.
And Snuffy built his trap around that certainty.
He wanted Isagi to seek Aryu again.
He wanted Isagi to crave the rematch.
Aryu stepping back into the perfect central zone was not a coincidence.
Snuffy's Second Layer: Aryu as the Curtain Again — But Reversed
The first time, Lorenzo's frame had hidden Aryu's interception.
This time, Aryu's body would hide someone else.
Where the first design hid the defender from Isagi's vision…
This second design used the defender to hide the goalkeeper.
Aryu moved into position for the aerial duel not just to challenge Isagi,
but to screen Canalli entirely —
to place himself like a transparent wall that obscured the keeper's aggressive advance.
Snuffy's intention was this:
Isagi would only register Aryu.
Not the man charging behind him.
Snuffy's Third Layer: The Keeper's Forward Assault
This was the most unorthodox piece.
A goalkeeper abandoning the goal box to attack forward,
aligning himself behind his own defender in mid-air?
It was madness —
and that madness was precisely what made it effective.
Canalli was meant to rush forward in the shadow of Aryu's leap:
unseen
unregistered
His job was simple:
Catch the redirected ball the moment Isagi flicked it past Aryu.
That was why Aryu had taken that extra step back earlier —
positioning the duel inside the penalty area where the goalkeeper had the legal right to use his hands.
Snuffy planned everything around that single rule.
Snuffy's Fourth Layer: Lorenzo and Niko Become the Temporary Goalkeepers
If the real keeper lunges forward…
…the goal becomes empty.
Snuffy solved that flaw by positioning Lorenzo and Niko behind Aryu, ready to collapse into the goalmouth at the exact moment Canalli abandoned it.
They weren't reacting.
They were following a pre-designed rotation:
Aryu jumps.
Canalli charges forward from behind him.
Lorenzo and Niko cover the goal area in the keeper's absence.
So even if the trap failed, the net wouldn't be left fully exposed.
It was another layered design by Snuffy — one of his trademark stacked strategies.
A complete emergency backline — ready in the exact second the keeper left his post.
This wasn't just a tactic.
It was a stacked contingency plan.
One that compensated for every predictable danger Isagi could create.
Snuffy didn't just counter Isagi's ability.
He countered Isagi's mentality.
Only… this simulation had not intended for Canalli to get his face shattered.
When Aryu leapt, Canalli sprinted forward using Aryu's massive frame as cover. Snuffy's plan was for Canalli to catch the redirected ball once Isagi flicked it, using the fact that the duel was inside the penalty area. Legally, the keeper could have secured it with his hands.
That was the whole point of stepping back — to bait Isagi into shooting while giving the goalkeeper a legal advantage.
But Canalli grew greedy.
Instead of catching the ball, he wanted to immediately launch a counterattack.
Catching it would burn precious seconds.
Heading it would let him redirect instantly.
So he gambled.
He dove forward, aiming his head at the incoming ball — just as Isagi, sensing movement behind Aryu at the very last possible millisecond, twisted his shot to avoid the collision.
But the moment was too tight.
Isagi's adjustment wasn't enough.
The ball smashed into Aryu's torso…
then his foot continued its redirected path…
…straight into Canalli's face.
And now two players were down.
Aryu — clutching his ribs.
And Canalli fully unconscious.
Isagi watched with a cold, harsh clarity — because he understood exactly how the entire sequence had spiraled from tactic…
…to accident.
.
.
.
.
.
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[A/N]: Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the chapter.
I just wanted to inform you'll that I'm starting another fanfic, It'll be posted here soon.
I hope you guys would enjoy it as well.
Will see you there soon.
Don't worry about things like schedule being changed as that won't happen unless it happens. 😊