"HELL YEAH!!!"
The shout burst out of Hiori as he lunged forward, unable to hold himself back, his momentum carrying him straight into Isagi. He wrapped an arm around him, his face lit up with a bright, unrestrained smile that reflected both relief and excitement.
Isagi didn't resist.
The same expression spread across his face, the satisfaction of the play still lingering in his eyes.
Raichi arrived next, far less controlled.
"HAAAA!!"
He crashed into them with force, his energy loud and overflowing, his grin wide as he shouted again, unable to contain the surge of adrenaline still running through him.
Even though the match was far from over, the goal itself was quite decisive for viewers to assume the result of this match.
And for Raichi—
It hit something deeper.
As he stood there, caught up in the moment, a memory surfaced without warning.
The First Selection.
Back when everything had been simpler, rougher, more chaotic in a different way.
Back when Isagi had stepped up as someone who thought for the team. Someone who actively built strategies instead of leaving everyone to scramble on instinct alone.
At the time, Raichi had found it annoying.
Frustrating even.
Being told what to do, where to move, how to play—it went against everything in him.
He hated being beneath someone else's control, especially someone like Isagi.
And yet—
Those strategies had worked.
They hadn't just survived.
They had won.
And more than that, those moments had allowed each of them to shine in ways they wouldn't have on their own.
Raichi clenched his fist slightly as the memory blended into the present.
Somewhere along the way, he had assumed that version of Isagi was gone.
That it had been left behind as Isagi kept evolving—changing with every match, becoming someone sharper, more individualistic, more focused on himself than anyone else.
A completely different player.
But—
That assumption had been wrong.
Because just a few days ago—
He had seen it again.
.
.
.
Few Days Ago
"…In the match against Spain's Barcha, PXG changed their formation…"
At the center of the group, Isagi sat slightly ahead of the others on the ground, elbow resting on his knee, his gaze fixed onto the screen like the rest of them.
His voice broke through the quiet.
"They basically copied our system by putting both Rin and Shidou as strikers…"
As he spoke, the video paused on the formation.
Two forwards.
Rin.
Shidou.
Placed side by side at the front.
The resemblance was immediate.
Just like Bastard München.
Just like Kaiser and Isagi.
'They went for it quite early...'
Isagi's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at it, the image reflecting faintly in his irises.
Of course, his own role wasn't identical to Kaiser's.
He wasn't a fixed striker in the traditional sense—he moved, drifted, inserted himself where the play demanded.
A free piece within the system rather than a locked one.
But that didn't change the core idea.
Two offensive centers.
Two systems overlapping within the same structure.
But constantly colliding.
And from that collision—
Something new had emerged.
And Loki had seen that.
And decided to replicate it all because this one was interesting.
Both Kaiser and Isagi had evolved within that very structure, their rivalry forcing growth in ways a normal system never could.
And even though for Isagi, Ubers played the biggest role, understanding Kaiser's awakening helped just as much.
The pressure, the unpredictability, the constant need to outthink not just the opponent—but each other—
It accelerated everything.
And Loki—
Had chosen to recreate that environment for PXG.
It was all mainly to help Charles develop.
Every piece of PXG's setup was to revolve around creating situations where Charles would be forced to act, forced to decide, and most importantly—forced to grow.
At just 15 years old, his presence on the field already felt abnormal. Even when compared to Loki, who had shaken the football world at a young age, Charles stood out for being even younger, yet already capable of influencing the rhythm of a match.
But that same brilliance carried an unfinished edge.
And that was something no amount of isolated training could fix.
It required exposure.
And the Neo Egoist League was exactly that environment.
All to sharpen Charles enough to reach his goal of becoming the best in the world, which wasn't something a striker could achieve alone.
Even with overwhelming talent, no one could become the best in the world on their own.
That truth had repeated itself throughout the history of football, no matter how dominant a player appeared in their era.
There had been strikers who ruled the field with unmatched scoring ability, midfielders who dictated the pace of entire matches, and prodigies who seemed to bend the game to their will.
Like Diego Maradona, Pele, Messi, Ronaldinho, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo Nazario, ... and so on.
But even among them, none had reached the absolute peak in complete isolation.
Every rise had been supported.
Every dominance had been connected.
Whether through a system, a partner, or a player who could understand and elevate their play, the idea of standing alone at the very top had always remained just out of reach.
No one had shown enough talent to truly claim that title by themselves.
With the sole exception of Isagi Yoichi, of course.
The thought itself carried a strange weight for Loki—not because it was exaggerated, but because it was beginning to feel real.
Unlike the others, Isagi didn't rely on a fixed role or a single style.
He didn't just play within a system.
He had bent them.
He played absurd plays simply for shits and giggles.
And that difference set him apart.
Which was exactly why—
For Loki, this wasn't just another competition.
Everything else—the system, Charles' development, the structure of PXG—those were important, but they were not the core of his involvement in NEL.
This was—the most important reason—A rematch.
The memory of that previous encounter hadn't faded.
Unlike the other members of the World 5, Loki had not treated that match as just a practice game—not once it had truly begun.
At first, it may have carried the label of an exhibition, something meant to showcase the gap between the world stage and those striving to reach it.
But that didn't last long for him.
The more he played, more Loki's approach changed with it.
And when he finally went all out.
The instant he unleashed his speed, pushing beyond restraint, it was driven by a clear intention—to overwhelm Isagi completely, to crush him under a difference so vast that there would be no room left for argument.
To humiliate him.
That was the aim.
To make the gap undeniable.
But the outcome—
Didn't follow that script.
Instead of breaking Isagi, instead of proving that superiority in the most absolute way—
He was the one who lost.
A clean contradiction to what he had intended to establish.
And Loki didn't look away from it.
He didn't bury it under excuses or dismiss it as meaningless.
He accepted it.
And that was exactly why it stayed with him.
Why it followed him all the way here, to Neo Egoist League.
He had some unfinished business left in here.
And he wanted that another chance.
Not to replay the same moment, but to confront it properly this time, without pretense, without the framing of a practice match to dilute its meaning.
To face Isagi again.
And this time—
To settle the score.
And Isagi had pretty much pieced it all together.
And was looking forward to it.
"Hey, Raichi… do we have a board around here?"
Isagi's voice came out without him looking away, his attention still locked onto the footage ahead.
Raichi turned toward him.
And the moment he did—
He saw it.
That grin.
Raichi's own expression shifted instantly.
A grin spread across his face, his excitement rising as he understood exactly what that look meant.
"We sure fricking do!"
.
.
.
Present
"Good work, Raichi."
Isagi's voice came once the celebration settled, his body turning slightly toward Raichi as the energy of the goal began to disperse across the field. The grin on his face hadn't completely faded yet, but there was something more grounded behind it now—an acknowledgment.
And that set Raichi off.
The moment those words reached him, it's like the whole exciting mood he was in disappeared.
His expression tightened as he looked at Isagi sharply.
"Shut up! That won't happen again!"
He snapped back immediately, his voice carrying both defiance and a trace of embarrassment he couldn't fully hide.
The adrenaline from the goal hadn't left his system yet, but now it mixed with that uncomfortable awareness of what he had just done.
His role in that play wasn't something he took pride in.
All he had done was run.
Pull and Distract.
He had dragged Nanase and Tokimitsu along with him, forcing their attention away from the center while also positioning himself in a way that disrupted Zantetsu's ability to stay forward.
It wasn't flashy, it wasn't dominant or sexy—it was calculated movement meant to distort the defensive shape.
And it worked.
Not perfectly.
Karasu hadn't been completely fooled by it, his read still sharp enough to avoid being fully drawn in. But even then, the effect had been enough.
That shift, that momentary imbalance, had opened space where it mattered most—
For Kunigami.
For Kaiser.
Raichi exhaled sharply, his jaw tightening as he looked away for a second.
In the last two matches—in which they didn't play—the new rankings had been announced, and with them came a reality he couldn't ignore.
His position had slipped, dropping down from 20th to 23rd—right at the edge of the cut-off for representing Japan.
Barely holding on.
And this—
This match—
Was the last chance.
There were no more games after this.
No more opportunities to recover later.
Everything had to come from here.
Every contribution.
Every moment on the field carried weight now.
For survival.
For a place.
Raichi clenched his fists slightly, the frustration settling into something more focused as he steadied his breathing.
If playing the bait was what it took—
Then he would do it.
Because right now—
Staying in the game mattered more than pride.
Then there was Kunigami.
He hadn't been present in that meeting for obvious reasons.
The moment it had been brought up, he had shut it down without hesitation, refusing to take part in any kind of discussion.
In the end, only a small group had gathered—just a handful of Blue Lock players, along with a few from the U-20 side—those willing to sit down and hope for a chance.
Kunigami wasn't one of them.
And yet—
On the field, he had been the most surprising piece.
The play that led to the goal had been designed with a clear intention.
Isagi had wanted Kunigami to score, but not in the exact way it had unfolded. The setup had been meant to send the ball into a contested space up front, a position where both Kaiser and Kunigami would arrive at the same moment and be forced into a direct clash over it.
That was why the ball had carried that subtle final spin, the slight adjustment in its path as it descended.
It wasn't random—it had been shaped to drift just enough toward Kunigami's side, giving him the edge in that confrontation.
Kunigami would've won that duel either way.
But still—
It would be a duel.
Where Kaiser would think he has chance steal only to realise he has been fooled.
All to tease Kaiser for shits and giggles.
That had been the vision.
What actually happened—
Went beyond it.
Kunigami hadn't just reached the ball first.
He had erased the competition entirely.
There had been no real clash, no moment where Kaiser could even properly contest the finish.
Kunigami's run, his timing, his positioning—all of it had aligned so perfectly that by the time the ball dropped, he was alone in that space.
Isagi's eyes had followed it closely.
And he was genuinely surprise.
Kunigami, up until now, had been difficult to place.
His presence had been inconsistent, his impact limited despite everything he had gone through.
Compared to the others, his influence on the field had felt… incomplete.
At times, it had even felt like he was fading out of relevance, unable to keep up with the rapid evolution happening around him.
But with this, the dark horse of Bastard München finally proved his place.
.
"Huff… huff…"
Shidou stood bent forward with his hands planted on his knees, his chest rising and falling in heavy bursts as he stared down at the turf. The match had only just begun, yet his breathing already carried a strange intensity.
"Huh? You're out of tank already? The match has just started, y'know."
Charles' voice came from in front of him, his eyes fixed on Shidou with innocent curiosity.
From where he stood, the reaction didn't match what he had just witnessed.
That play—the pass, the goal, the sheer absurdity of it—had sent a thrill through him that hadn't faded even now.
He had expected the same from Shidou.
But instead, Shidou was like this—bent over, breathing hard, staring at the ground as if something else had taken hold of him.
For a brief moment, there was no response.
Then—
Shidou moved.
His head snapped up sharply, his body straightening as his gaze locked onto Charles with sudden force.
"Oi, let's do that!"
The words came out without hesitation, driven by a surge of excitement that completely overrode whatever state he had been in just a second ago.
And when Charles saw his face—
He understood.
There was nothing restrained about it.
Shidou's expression was overflowing, his grin wide, his eyes lit up with a chaotic intensity. It wasn't just excitement—it was obsession, sparked by what he had just witnessed.
That pass.
The sheer explosion of that play.
That buzz exploded into his body, echoing through his body like aftershocks.
He wanted that pass.
Right now.
"Huh? I can't. That's impossible…"
Charles answered immediately, his tone innocently blunt.
And yet—
He didn't look uninterested.
"…However, let's try anyway!"
A grin spread across his face, sharp and eager, matching the energy in front of him rather than resisting it.
Because even if it was impossible—
That didn't make it any less exciting.
The two of them stood there, staring at each other, their expressions mirroring that same feral anticipation.
Both driven by the desire to push it further.
To chase something that shouldn't be possible—
And try to make it happen anyway.
While the field still lingered in the aftershock of the goal, with reactions echoing across players, one figure moved through it all without pause, untouched by the noise or the moment.
Rin Itoshi.
He walked toward the net with steady, unhurried steps, his gaze fixed, his expression unchanged.
There was no trace of frustration, no outward reaction to the goal that had just been scored.
The ball rested inside the net.
He reached in and grabbed it.
His fingers wrapped around the ball firmly, before he turned and began walking back toward the center.
The field continued to settle around him as his presence cut through it.
As he approached the center spot, he let the ball slip from his hands, allowing it to drop cleanly onto the turf.
Then—
His foot came down on top of it.
A sharp, deliberate motion.
He stopped it dead at the exact center, the force behind the contact sending a subtle, heavy thud through the ground.
That single action—
Drew attention.
Conversations died.
Movements slowed.
Eyes turned.
Rin stood there, one foot resting on the ball, his posture upright, composed, yet carrying a pressure that spread outward without him needing to say a word.
His gaze lifted slowly.
And locked onto Isagi.
The intensity within them was unmistakable, his pupils seeming to twist as he stared forward, not with uncontrolled chaos like Shidou—but with something contained, far more suffocating.
A quiet, focused hunger.
Around them, players began to move again, returning to their positions, resetting themselves for the next phase of the match.
The atmosphere had changed.
That brief celebration, that lingering shock from the goal—
Was gone.
No words were needed as that one action was enough to make everyone understand.
A reminder.
Sharp and immediate.
That this match hasn't decided yet.
It hadn't even truly begun.
This—
Was only the beginning.
.
.
.
.
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