The lights in the dorm flickered as Coach Dimas stepped into the common room.
The Phantom XI team had gone quiet.
Even Kaien, usually bold, waited.
Dimas placed a hand on the table where the silver shard now rested.
> "You want to know why this Cup isn't just a tournament?"
"It's because twenty years ago… I stood where you're standing now."
---
Flashback – The Forgotten Arc
Back then, he wasn't Coach Dimas.
He was No. 7, a midfielder for a legendary youth team called Obsidian Wraith—a squad so feared they were erased from all official Cup records.
They had a coach no one ever saw.
They played in black with no emblems.
But what made them terrifying?
They used a forbidden shard.
> "We called it The Catalyst. It didn't just bend time or memory—it twisted probability."
They could make opponents trip, miss, hesitate—without touching them.
But the cost?
> The team itself began to fracture.
Players aged overnight.
One had their voice stolen.
And their captain, Dimas's best friend, Raze, disappeared mid-match—literally vanished during a quarterfinal.
The match was voided. The team was disqualified.
Wiped from the Cup archives.
> "We were cursed for trying to cheat the laws of football," Dimas said quietly.
"But the Catalyst wasn't destroyed. Someone hid it."
---
Back to Present – Revelation
Kaien leaned forward. "You think someone's using it now?"
Dimas nodded. "I've seen signs—subtle warps in match footage. A freeze here. A skipped frame there."
Lyra: "You think it's a player?"
"No," Dimas said.
> "I think it's a team. And I think they made it past the first round under a fake name."
He pulled a photo from his jacket and slid it across the table.
Kaien picked it up—and froze.
It showed the team they were scheduled to face in the next Arcana bracket:
> Shadow Reign.
And their captain?
> He looked exactly like Raze.
---
Training the Old Way
Dimas led Phantom XI into an empty VR chamber beneath the dorm.
"This isn't normal practice," he said.
"This is breakpoint training—the drills Obsidian Wraith used to survive probability manipulation."
Each player was hooked into individual emotion-reactive simulators.
Ash faced 3-on-1 defense walls that anticipated his fear.
Nico played against clones of his worst self-doubt.
Lyra had to keep rhythm against time-delayed echoes of her own passes.
Kaien?
Kaien stood still.
His challenge hadn't appeared yet.
The system scanned him… then glitched.
> "Subject match not found."
> "Error: Timeline not stabilized."
Dimas watched with unease.
Kaien wasn't from a known timeline anymore.
He was drifting—his presence rewriting something every time he played.
---
Lyra's Discovery
While others trained, Lyra stayed back and dug into the data.
Using her Arcana badge, she hacked into a segment of Replay Vault history.
The Obsidian Wraith matches weren't just deleted.
They were sealed behind something called a Mirror Code—a forbidden protocol that required one original team member's DNA to unlock.
She looked up at Coach Dimas.
If they wanted the truth… they'd need to go into the Replay Vault itself.
But if Shadow Reign really held the Catalyst, the next match might not just cost them goals.
> It might cost them time.
---
Meanwhile – Shadow Reign's Camp
Deep underground, a different team trained in silence.
Their jerseys shimmered black, their boots made no sound.
And at their head, the captain—Raze—stood before a glass case.
Inside hovered a jagged shard.
Dark purple.
Alive.
The Catalyst.
> "They're coming," he said. "Phantom XI."
A voice behind him whispered, "Shall we warp their path?"
He shook his head. "No. Let them arrive."
> "I want to see how far Kaien can go before he breaks the rules."
The stadium was quiet.
Not from lack of fans—every seat was filled, every drone hovered, every channel streamed.
It was quiet because the moment Shadow Reign walked out, the entire field changed.
Their presence distorted the air, like heatwaves, but cold.
Kaien squinted. "That… can't be wind."
Nico's badge flickered. "We're already inside their field."
> "No… not field. Zone." Lyra whispered.
"This is Catalyst influence."
Coach Dimas's voice crackled through their comms:
> "Listen to me. This is not a normal match. Trust nothing you see—not even yourselves."
The whistle blew.
And the game began.
---
Kickoff – Phantom XI Possession
Ash took first touch. He burst forward, dancing between midfielders.
But suddenly—he was tackled.
From behind?
No.
From the future.
> The defender had appeared two seconds before the tackle, skipping time.
Ash hit the ground hard, breath knocked out of him.
Ref?
No call.
The ref blinked. Rewound. Blinked again.
Time was looping around Shadow Reign.
> They weren't playing in seconds. They were playing in moments they stole.
---
Kaien's Vision
Kaien ran to help Ash up—and saw it:
His own reflection, flickering beside him for a heartbeat. Not a mirror. A version of himself—older. Tired. Wearing a different jersey.
Then gone.
> "They're bending the field using memory echoes," Lyra said over comms.
"They're making us see possibilities that never happened—but feel real."
> "That means we can lose focus even if we win," Nico snapped.
Kaien clenched his fists. "We need to flip the rhythm."
---
Phantom XI Counter
Lyra began syncing passes not to where teammates were—but to where their emotions leaned.
She fed Ash a burst ball just before his confidence rose.
She timed with Nico's rage spike—unleashing a spiral cross mid-roar.
The ball reached Kaien.
He sprinted. The wind bent.
A Shadow Reign defender stepped into his path—no expression, no movement wasted.
Kaien blinked—
> —and suddenly, he was at the end of his run, the ball gone.
A time skip.
The Catalyst had stolen five seconds of his play.
> "They're not just fast," Kaien growled.
"They're erasing choices."
---
Shadow Reign Scores
Raze didn't speak.
He didn't move like a normal player.
He glided. Like memory itself was moving for him.
He took a single step—and vanished.
Reappeared behind Phantom's keeper.
1–0.
No replay. No trackable moment.
Even the cameras stuttered.
---
Dimas's Call
From the dugout, Coach Dimas stood and shouted.
> "Play the forgotten rhythm!"
Kaien's eyes widened.
That was the code from the Obsidian era.
Kaien dropped back and held his arms wide.
"Ash, Nico—reverse positions! Lyra, invert the pass vector!"
They didn't argue.
They obeyed.
And the moment they did…
---
Phantom Awakens – Shard Pulse
Kaien's shard lit.
It wasn't memory. It was instinct—raw, unpolished, truth.
They weren't fighting memory or time.
They were fighting lies.
And Kaien's power didn't just cut through space—it cut through deception.
> Time cracked.
Kaien's next step didn't skip.
It landed.
He passed.
Nico backflipped a kick into the box.
Ash dove.
> GOAL.
1–1.
The entire stadium exploded.
But Shadow Reign didn't flinch.
Raze looked at Kaien.
And smiled.
---
Raze Speaks
"I've waited a long time to see someone shatter the false rhythm," Raze said.
Kaien approached. "Who are you?"
"I'm what happens when a dream refuses to die."
He held up his hand.
Inside it, the Catalyst shimmered.
> "This shard isn't just a cheat. It's a reminder. Of what we lost when they erased us."
> "I want the world to remember who we were."
---
Half-Time Approaches
As the whistle blew to mark the mid-break, Phantom XI returned to the locker room breathless.
Coach Dimas looked at them—pride and dread in his eyes.
> "You've made it through the first Catalyst phase. That means Shadow Reign will now enter the Recursion Half."
Lyra turned pale.
"That's the half where…?"
Dimas nodded.
> "Where the game resets... and only the enemy remembers the first half."