8 Days Ago — German Wing
Boom!
The impact came like a detonation.
The sound tore through the training room, loud enough to echo.
The air itself seemed to recoil as the ball left Kaiser's foot.
The ball rocketed away, driven hard to the left and high, slicing through the space above the turf with vicious speed. For a brief moment, it looked almost simple—pure power, a clean trajectory climbing toward its apex.
But just as it reached its peak, the ball betrayed expectations.
It twisted.
A violent curve snapped into existence, the spin biting into the air as the ball bent sharply to the right, warping its path in a way that felt unnatural.
The rotation screamed as it descended, carving a line no keeper could realistically trace.
The ball invaded net from the top-left corner, detonating against the inside of the goal as it buried itself perfectly inside the net.
This was it.
The move he had failed to execute in the last match.
Kaiser Impact — Magnus.
He felt bitter at this sight as he stayed where he was, eyes locked straight ahead.
His body folded slightly as exhaustion finally caught up—shoulders slumping, hands dropping to his knees as he leaned forward, drawing in deep, controlled breaths.
His chest rose and fell heavily.
Sweat beaded across his face, catching the harsh training lights as it rolled down his temple and jaw. His expression was tense.
As if the goal wasn't an end point, but a standard he was forcing himself to meet.
Even while breathing hard, even while his muscles screamed, his gaze never left the net.
As though he were daring it to deny him again.
The last game refused to leave his head.
No matter how many times he replayed the motion, no matter how hard he tried to drown it out with repetition and noise, that single moment kept looping—sharp, vivid, relentless.
That moment.
The instant when Isagi had stepped in and used his signature move—Kaiser Impact—while physically holding him and Reo off, driving the ball in and stealing the goal right out from under him.
Kaiser still couldn't understand it.
He couldn't fathom how Isagi had read it.
The timing.
The angle.
The decision to commit.
It gnawed at him because it didn't make sense.
Was it really just a simple difference in their abilities?
He had accounted for everything. Every variable, every possible interference.
Even Isagi's presence had been calculated—factored into the play as a non-threat.
Isagi wouldn't reach that loose ball. He couldn't. The positioning didn't allow it. The play was sealed.
It was supposed to be just him… and that purple topknot.
Those two had read the situation. That much was acceptable. That much was within reason.
But Isagi—
Isagi had been standing there.
Watching.
Doing nothing.
And yet, somehow, he had arrived at the exact moment it mattered most, tearing through the gap Kaiser believed was closed, forcing his body in, holding him off, and claiming the finish as if it had always belonged to him.
Not with some improvised strike.
But with Kaiser Impact.
His move.
His glory.
Stolen in an instant—right at the moment Kaiser was supposed to shine.
Although, Kaiser also knew the numbers.
He was painfully aware of them.
In terms of raw acceleration, Isagi Yoichi was a beast—his first step explosive, his initial burst sharp enough to tear open gaps before defenders could even register movement.
But over distance, over sustained sprinting, Kaiser had always been superior.
That was a fact he trusted.
Isagi burned bright at the start.
But his speed always snapped back to its original ceiling quickly.
That was the profile Kaiser had dissected, measured, and filed away.
Which was why the situation still didn't add up.
Because for Isagi to reach that loose ball, it should have taken time.
Time to analyze the play.
Time to understand the unfolding positions.
Time to decide that committing to the run was worth it.
Only after all of that should his body have moved.
Yet Isagi had arrived anyway.
That left only two possibilities.
Either Isagi had suddenly become faster—unnaturally faster—breaking past the limits Kaiser had mapped and understood.
Or…
Isagi had never stopped noticing.
He had been pretending.
Feigning ignorance. Letting Kaiser believe he was out of the play, letting his presence fade into irrelevance while Kaiser's eyes slid away from him.
Allowing that illusion to settle, to harden—giving Kaiser the assurance that there would be no interference.
That the play was clean.
That the shot was his.
That all he needed to do was focus on scoring.
And then, the moment Kaiser's attention fully committed to the goal—
Isagi ran.
Both of these explanations were possible.
And both were equally terrifying.
But there was something else as well gnawing at him.
The implications behind Isagi's actions.
The declaration that there was 'no competition' between them.
At first, Kaiser had dismissed it as provocation. A calculated jab meant to dig under his skin, to rattle him, to drag him down to Isagi's level emotionally.
That was how these things usually worked.
That was how rivals behaved.
Yet Isagi hadn't stopped there.
Isagi had still given him the pass.
Not just any pass—but the best pass Kaiser had ever received.
That contradiction made the realization suffocating.
Because if it were pure provocation, Isagi would have sabotaged him, ignored him, or forced him into a worse option.
Instead, Isagi had done the opposite and lived up to his words.
He had delivered the ball with such obscene precision that it felt almost insulting.
Kaiser could still feel it.
The moment the ball arrived, its spin dying perfectly as it rolled backward and came to a complete stop right in front of him.
Not bouncing. Not drifting. Just settling—exactly where it needed to be.
A high-class pass.
Placed precisely for his Magnus Shot.
It was a guaranteed goal.
For him.
And yet—he hadn't capitalized on it.
That was the part that made the feeling unbearable to swallow.
Because if the pass had been flawed, he could have blamed execution.
If it had been late, he could have blamed timing.
If it had been forced, he could have blamed positioning.
But it wasn't.
Isagi gave him everything.
And Kaiser had still failed.
In that instant, standing over the ball with the net waiting for him, Kaiser had felt something fracture—something deeper than frustration.
It was confusion.
A hollow, disorienting confusion that came from not understanding what he was doing wrong.
Even now, after replaying it countless times, after convincing himself that he had figured out the situation, the patterns, the logic behind Isagi's plays—he still couldn't find the answer.
No matter how sharp his analysis became, no matter how he dissected the field in his mind, he couldn't discover a way to smash apart the constant dominance Isagi held over him.
And that realization—more than the stolen goal, more than the copied shot—was what truly haunted Michael Kaiser.
Because dominance that couldn't be explained…
Was dominance that couldn't be escaped.
The boy named Michael Kaiser was born into a world that had never wanted him.
From the very beginning, his existence was treated like a mistake—something unwanted, something that should have never taken a shape.
The first hands that held him were not gentle, and the first voice that shaped his life carried no warmth.
He grew up in the grasp of a violent, abusive father.
That was the only world he knew.
Young.
Small.
Powerless.
A child with nowhere to run and nowhere to belong.
When his father barked the word 'work', it never meant effort or discipline.
It meant survival through crime.
It meant being pushed out into the streets and ordered to steal—food, money, anything that could keep hunger away for another day and keep his father's fists from crashing down on him that night.
And so the boy complied.
Because obedience was the only shield he had.
He stole for daily necessities.
He stole to quiet the growling in his stomach.
He stole to delay the rage waiting for him at home.
Even then, it was never enough.
The violence never stopped.
The abusive words never softened.
They came daily, carved into him with the same consistency as bruises and scars.
Shouted. Spat.
Repeated until they lost their shock and became a routine for the young boy.
And the name his mother had left him—Michael—was never spoken.
It never crossed his father's lips.
That name simply didn't exist in that house.
Instead, his father gave him something else.
Names that defined worth.
'Lower than an animal.'
'Lower than filth.'
'A Piece of shit.'
Those were the only words used to address him.
Those words became his reflection.
Without realizing it—without a single moment where the change felt clear or deliberate—the boy began to believe them.
His identity shifted. The name Michael faded from his mind, buried under repetition and pain.
What remained wasn't a boy with a name.
It was exactly what his father told him he was.
A Piece of Shit.
And by the time he noticed something was missing—
Michael had already disappeared.
The boy had been born unwanted in this world.
That truth never changed—but as the days dragged on, buried beneath hunger and fear, a dream began to take shape inside him.
A quiet, stubborn fantasy of escape.
Of leaving that hell behind one day, no matter the cost.
And as he grew older, that dream hardened.
His ego grew with it.
It was desperate, forged from the simple refusal to disappear.
Slowly, carefully, he began to hide small amounts of money for himself—bills folded and concealed.
For rebellion.
For the first time in his life, he was planning something that belonged to him.
On his twelfth birthday, he made a decision.
He would buy something with that money.
That choice alone felt monumental.
Revolutionary.
To the boy, it felt like the very beginning of his life—as if everything before it had been nothing more than survival, and this was his first act of living.
But he knew what he didn't want.
Not food.
Not something that would be devoured, used, or disappear.
No depressing shit like that.
He wanted something that would stay.
Something that wouldn't abandon him the moment it fulfilled its purpose.
For a 'piece of shit' like him, that bar was low.
He didn't need happiness. He didn't need comfort.
Anything that could make him feel alive would be enough.
So he searched.
And in that quiet, restless wandering, his gaze finally stopped.
It landed on the ball.
Round. Scuffed.
Ordinary to the world—but to him, it felt different.
Something that didn't speak.
Something that didn't judge.
And for the first time, Michael Kaiser felt like he had found something that wouldn't disappear on him.
It was something that could be thrown—
And it would come back.
No matter how hard he hurled it at the wall, no matter how violently it struck and rebounded, it always returned to him after the bounce, rolling back across as if nothing had happened.
If he beat it or if he kicked it as hard as he could when the anger overflowed and had nowhere else to go—
The ball didn't get angry.
It didn't cry.
It didn't shout back.
It didn't raise its voice or lift its hand.
It never punished him for the violence he poured into it.
Always, it was just there.
Existing without demanding anything in return.
It simply endured.
And that was why it felt familiar.
To the boy, the ball wasn't special. It wasn't precious. It wasn't beautiful.
It was a... 'piece of shit.'
Just like him.
Something you could kick around.
Something you could abuse.
Something no one cared about.
And yet—something that didn't disappear no matter how much pain it took.
Standing there with it at his feet, Michael Kaiser didn't realize it yet—but in that quiet, cruel reflection, he had found the first thing in his life that mirrored him perfectly.
And for the first time…
He wasn't alone.
.
One day, the town was shaken by a jewellery store robbery.
And one of the culprits was caught while trying to flee.
Cornered and desperate, he opened his mouth to save himself.
And he said Kaiser's name.
It was an undesirable acquaintance. Someone Kaiser barely tolerated.
Someone he had never trusted—but proximity was enough.
That single connection was all it took.
Kaiser had nothing to do with the crime.
But truth didn't matter.
He was convenient.
And so, he was set up to take the fall.
When the cops arrived at his doorstep, the world collapsed in on itself with brutal speed.
The door barely finished opening before his father exploded. Fists came crashing down on the boy's body—heavy, wild, fueled by rage—as accusations were hurled alongside blows.
The officers pushed past the violence, scanning the room with cold, practiced eyes.
And then they found it.
A small safe, hidden beside Kaiser's bed.
The safe where he had been saving his money.
The money meant for his dream.
The money meant for leaving this hell behind.
Everything he had quietly built, piece by piece.
The moment his father saw it, something inside him snapped completely.
His face twisted in pure fury.
His 'piece of shit' had been hiding money from him.
The insults turned feral. His body lunged forward, veins bulging, intent on tearing Kaiser apart right there—but this time, hands stopped him. An officer restrained him, barely holding him back as he thrashed and screamed.
For a fleeting moment, Kaiser felt something strange.
Disappointment.
Because as he stared at the safe being taken away, as his dream was ripped from its hiding place, the only thing that crossed his mind was simple and devastating.
'I'll have to start saving all over again.'
That was all.
Just the quiet acceptance of someone who had already learned that nothing good ever lasted for him.
And Michael Kaiser, standing in the middle of that ruined room, realized something without even knowing it—
Even when everything was taken from him…
He was already so used to it.
As he was dragged away in cuffs, metal biting into his wrists, an officer stopped suddenly.
He had found the football.
The scuffed ball was lifted from the floor and handed to his father, as if it were nothing more than evidence—another worthless object belonging to a worthless child.
The man's eyes lit up with suspicion immediately.
He thought his 'piece of shit' had hidden more money inside it.
With a snarl, his father reached down, fingers closing around a broken bottle lying nearby.
Glass glinted cruelly as he raised it, intent clear—ready to stab into the ball and tear it apart.
But before the shard could ever touch it—
Kaiser moved.
His foot snapped forward, and connecting it cleanly with his father's ugly fat face.
The impact sent the man flying backward, crashing hard against the ground.
The officers froze for a split second—shock flashing across their faces as the sudden aggression exploded from the boy.
One of them rushed forward instinctively, hand reaching out to restrain him.
Too late.
The ball bounced once.
Kaiser's eyes locked onto it.
And with a focused, instinctive motion, he kicked.
The ball tore through the air and smashed straight into the officer's face, dropping him mid-step.
Shouts erupted. Panic spread.
The room dissolved into chaos as Kaiser began to kick the shit out of those officers.
But Kaiser saw none of it.
Because in that instant—when he had seen his father raise the bottle toward the ball—something had been born inside him.
That moment hadn't felt like his father attacking the ball.
It had felt like his father attacking him.
Like his very existence was about to be erased.
The one thing that had stayed with him, that had endured silently just like he had, was about to be destroyed.
And so, with that kick, the boy rejected it all.
The abuse.
The poverty.
The life of being 'nothing.'
In that single motion, something crystallized inside him—sharp, undeniable, unbreakable.
Because what was born in Michael Kaiser in that moment…
Was a very powerful feeling...
An identity.
.
.
.
Present Day
'And I fucking lost it!'
The thought ripped through Kaiser's mind as his body surged forward. His sprint exploded into motion, boots tearing at the turf as the ball stayed glued to his feet.
He cut sharply toward the left, the sudden change of direction violent and decisive—like he was trying to carve the field itself apart.
'I dropped it all behind…'
The memory hit him even as he ran.
Everything he had crawled out from.
Everything he had survived.
Everything he had sworn would never define him again.
The aggression inside him boiled over, hot and restless, seeping into every touch of the ball. His dribbles weren't clean for elegance—they were forceful, almost spiteful, each contact driven with intent, like he was striking something invisible that refused to stay down.
'But in the end of it all… it's you!'
His eyes never left the ball.
Not the defenders.
Not the space ahead.
Not the goal waiting in the distance.
Just the ball—rolling, responding, enduring.
He drove down the left wing relentlessly, movements sharp and unforgiving, as if daring anyone to step into his path.
His breath came heavy, but his focus was razor-thin, honed by something far deeper than tactics or calculation.
Because buried beneath the rage, beneath the ambition, beneath the need to dominate—
Was recognition.
'My ego… is you.'
The ball skipped forward again, perfectly within reach.
'My fellow piece of shit!'
A bond.
Something that had never abandoned him.
Something that took every kick, every strike, every ounce of violence—and still came back.
Just like he had.
And as Kaiser surged forward, the field stretching open before him, it was clear—
He was never running away from his past.
He was carrying it with him.
.
.
.
.
.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------