Chapter 123: This Very Moment
On the pitch, Kira didn't give a damn about what the crowd thought. He put his head down and drove the ball forward like a freight train.
"Don't even think about it!"
Itsuki Wakatsuki, the U-20's defensive midfielder, stepped up to bar his path.
Kira took one look at the guy and nearly did a double-take. The kid had massive, dark circles under his eyes that made him look like he hadn't slept since the middle school era.
"Out of my way, zombie. You look like you're about to collapse," Kira muttered.
Without slowing down, Kira snapped into a series of rapid-fire feints, shifting his weight twice in a heartbeat and leaving the sleep-deprived defender grasping at shadows. Haru Hayate lunged in to cover the gap, but Kira just flashed a wicked grin.
He didn't even look back as he executed a crisp heel-flick.
"Meow! Nice pass, Kira!"
"You knew I was right there, didn't you?"
Kira didn't need to check. He knew Meguru Bachira would be shadowing him, perfectly positioned to receive the pass. Kira's only job now was to sprint toward the heart of the goal.
"Aiku! He's breaking! Shut him down!" Niou bellowed.
Oliver Aiku was already moving. He anticipated the run perfectly, planting himself squarely in Kira's path like an immovable wall.
"Nice footwork, little thief. But this is the end of the line," Aiku said, a playful but dangerous edge to his voice.
Kira stared him down and smirked. "You fell for it, Officer."
Aiku's gut tightened. He realized his mistake and whipped his head around.
Sure enough, Bachira's pass wasn't heading for Kira at all. It was screaming toward the opposite flank, right into the path of a surging Itoshi Rin.
Rin killed the ball with a velvet touch, his eyes burning with a cold, blue fire. 'Nice delivery, Bachira.'
"Incredible! Kira was just the bait! He drew the entire defense's attention to create a wide-open lane for his teammate!" Atsuto Tereasa's voice roared over the speakers. "Itoshi Rin is one-on-one with the keeper!"
The precision was terrifying. The Blue Lock strikers were moving like a single, predatory organism.
Rin squared his shoulders toward the goal and cocked his leg back. The U-20 keeper, Gen Fukaku, braced himself, ready to throw his body in front of the shot.
But Rin's movement snapped into a different gear. Instead of shooting, he dragged the ball deeper into the box, pulling Fukaku out of position. It looked like he had run himself out of an angle, but he wasn't finished.
He shifted the ball to his weak foot—his left—and went for the finish. It was a mirror image of the chip shot Itoshi Sae had tried moments ago. It was a direct insult, a declaration of war against his brother.
"Arrogant brat!" Fukaku growled.
The keeper launched himself into the air, reaching back with everything he had to claw the ball away just before it crossed the line.
"What a save! But the ball is still live!" Niou screamed. "Clear it!"
"Tch…" Rin landed, his face twisting in frustration. He had wanted that goal more than anything.
"Mine!" Kenyu Yukimiya appeared at the edge of the fray, lunging for the rebound.
"Not a chance!"
Teppei Neru was there in a flash, cutting off Yukimiya's angle. Yukimiya gritted his teeth. "You again? You're like a persistent rash, short stack."
Just as Yukimiya was looking for a way out, Yoichi Isagi sliced through the defense on a diagonal run. Neru's eyes flickered toward Isagi for a fraction of a second, distracted by the threat.
'I owe you one, Isagi,' Yukimiya thought.
He didn't waste the opening. He pulled the trigger the moment Neru's focus wavered. The ball screamed through the air on a beautiful, arching trajectory.
Isagi watched, certain it was going in—until Oliver Aiku appeared like a mountain in front of the goal line.
"Nice try, four-eyes. But the police are still on duty," Aiku said, casually booting the ball out of the danger zone.
Yukimiya's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding me? Even that didn't go in?"
"Heads up! Darai, it's coming your way!" Niou's booming voice directed the traffic.
"I'm on it," Miroku Darai, the heavily tattooed defender, muttered as he tracked the high ball.
Kira watched from the side, annoyed. Niou wasn't even defending; he was just acting like a human megaphone, directing the rest of the U-20 backline. He was the commander on the ground, and it was working.
'Interesting,' Kira thought.
"Yo. First time we've met, right?" Seishiro Nagi appeared out of nowhere, standing right next to Darai.
Darai didn't even flinch. He knew he was faster and stronger than the lanky kid next to him. But Nagi just gave him a sleepy, bored smile. 'Speed doesn't matter if you can't touch the ball.'
Before the ball even touched the grass, Nagi leaped. Darai watched in frozen shock as Nagi performed an impossible mid-air trap, the ball sticking to his foot like a magnet. Without waiting to land, Nagi twisted his torso, unleashing a violent half-volley while still suspended in the air.
"What the hell?!"
"Is that even physically possible?!"
The crowd gasped. It was a move that defied logic—trapping and shooting in a single, fluid motion without ever touching the ground.
The U-20 defenders were paralyzed. The keeper didn't even move. Nobody expects a shot to come before the player's feet hit the turf.
"RAAAH!"
A roar echoed through the box. Niou, who had been orchestrating the defense, threw his entire body into the path of the ball, using his head to deflect the shot at point-blank range.
The ball spiraled back out. Again.
"Man... that big guy is a real pain," Nagi said, landing softly on his feet, his expression as blank as ever.
The U-20 defense was a wall of pure grit. They were refusing to break.
"Finally... it's my turn."
Kira was already at the drop point. He watched the ball descend, his mind perfectly calm.
"Shut him down!"
Wakatsuki and Hayate converged on him, desperate to block the final attempt. Kira cocked his leg back, making every muscle in his body look like he was about to unleash a devastating volley. Both defenders lunged, throwing their legs out to block the shot.
But Kira changed the script.
The "shot" became a delicate trap. He cushioned the ball and let it drop, using his left foot as a pivot. In one explosive motion, he performed a 360-degree turn, catching the ball on the bounce as he came around.
BOOM!!
The sound of the strike was like a gunshot. The ball screamed into the top right corner of the net, hitting the "post-and-in" sweet spot. Fukaku didn't even have time to blink, let alone dive.
Blue Lock: 1. Japan U-20: 0.
Silence.
The massive stadium, packed with sixty thousand people, suddenly felt like an empty library. The shock was absolute.
"G-Goal!" Atsuto Tereasa's voice finally broke the silence.
"HE SCORED!"
"HOLY CRAP! DID YOU SEE THAT?!"
"KIRA! YOU BEAUTIFUL MONSTER!"
The crowd snapped out of their trance and erupted into a deafening wall of sound. Kira had just silenced the doubters and ignited the fans in a single breath.
"What was that?!" Tereasa screamed into his mic, his professionalism momentarily abandoned for pure excitement. "Ryosuke Kira just dismantled the U-20 defense with a world-class feint and a strike that belongs in a highlight reel for the next decade!"
"The philosopher Borges once said that any destiny, no matter how long or complicated, actually boils down to a single moment: the moment a man finally realizes who he is."
"This kid from Saitama—the ace from Matsukaze Kokuou—just used his goal to tell the elite of the National Team exactly who he is. This is his moment!"
Natsuki sat beside him, mouth agape. "The Blue Lock project... it actually worked. They've built a monster of a striker. The atmosphere in this stadium has shifted completely."
"Itoshi Sae, the genius midfielder... Ryosuke Kira, the rising superstar... who is the hero of this story? Suddenly, I don't think anyone knows anymore!"
On the pitch, Kira turned, ready to throw a fist in the air to celebrate. But before he could, he was hit by a wave of blue jerseys.
"Gah—!"
Bachira, Isagi, Chigiri, and Nagi all piled onto him at once, sending the captain crashing to the grass.
"Easy, guys!" Kira gasped from the bottom of the pile, a huge grin on his face despite the lack of oxygen. "I can't... breathe... let me up!"
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A/n: YEEEEESSSS! We've got our first goal of the match!! In that case, it's time to bring back something we haven't seen in a while... a new bonus chapter goal!
300 PS = +1 bonus chapter. Instant drop within the hour!!
I'm out for now, take care everyone!!
For advanced chapters (20+): patre o n. com/Demonic_Fiction