The field emptied gradually after practice ended. Ryo was the last to leave, waving energetically as he jogged toward the gate. "Don't stay too long, Kisaragi! Coach locks up at seven!"
Haruto raised a hand in acknowledgment but didn't follow. His cleats remained planted on the turf, the ball resting between his feet. Around him, the floodlights hummed softly, casting long shadows that stretched across the emerald grass. The sky had deepened into indigo, streaked with faint amber from distant streetlights. The air smelled of damp earth, cut grass, and the lingering sweetness of afternoon rain.
He rolled the ball forward with the inside of his foot, then back again. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rhythm was meditative, familiar — a habit from countless hours of solo training. His mind wandered, not to tactics or formations, but to a memory he'd carried since childhood.
A poster of Rikuto Hara, the legendary striker known as the **Northern Beast**, had once dominated his bedroom wall. Haruto had watched every highlight reel, every impossible goal, every fearless sprint past defenders who couldn't keep up. Rikuto's tenacity, his raw instinct, his refusal to be stopped — it had planted something deep in Haruto's chest. A quiet fire that refused to die, no matter how many times Takumi shoved him, no matter how many whispers followed him through the halls.
*One day… I'll reach that level.*
He exhaled slowly, letting the thought settle. The ball rolled away slightly, and he trapped it with precision, eyes narrowing as he focused on the net ahead. He visualized a shot — the angle, the spin, the placement. His body moved automatically, leg swinging forward—
**Thump.**
The vibration came from beneath his feet.
Haruto froze mid-motion, his cleats pressed against the turf. It wasn't an earthquake. It was… deeper. Subtler. Like a pulse running through the ground itself, reverberating up through his legs and into his chest. His green eyes widened slightly, scanning the field.
Nothing had changed. The grass swayed gently in the evening breeze. The goalposts stood silent and still. The lights hummed as they always did.
But the air felt different.
He crouched, pressing a palm flat against the grass. The ground was cool, slightly damp from the rain earlier. Normal. Yet the sensation lingered — a resonance he couldn't name, like the field itself was… breathing.
"What the…?"
The floodlights flickered.
Once. Twice.
Shadows stretched unnaturally across the pitch, distorting and bending as if the night itself had shifted. Haruto straightened slowly, his instincts screaming at him to pay attention. His **Predator sense** — that quiet, analytical awareness that had always guided him on the field — flared suddenly, sharp and insistent.
Then he saw it.
A faint shimmer traced along the white boundary lines of the pitch. Geometric patterns, precise and impossibly intricate, glowed softly against the grass. They pulsed in rhythm with the vibration beneath his feet, spreading outward like circuits illuminated by moonlight. The lines weren't painted — they were *appearing*, as if the field itself was revealing something hidden.
Haruto's breath caught. His heart pounded, not from fear, but from attention. He had heard rumors before, whispered among older players in online forums and late-night conversations. Stories of a **System** that secretly guided the world's best athletes, granting them awareness and growth far beyond ordinary limits. People called it myth. Legend. Superstition.
He had never believed it.
Until now.
The shimmer intensified, crawling across the turf like veins of light. The air grew heavier, charged with something unseen. Haruto took a step back, then another, but his eyes never left the glowing patterns. They were beautiful and terrifying at once, impossibly precise, as if the entire field had been transformed into a living circuit board.
And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light vanished.
The floodlights stabilized. The shadows returned to normal. The grass was just grass again, dark and ordinary under the pale glow of the lamps. The hum of the lights was the only sound, steady and unremarkable.
Haruto stood frozen, chest rising and falling as he tried to process what he'd just seen. His hands trembled slightly, and he clenched them into fists. *Exhaustion… maybe it's just exhaustion.*
But even as the thought crossed his mind, he knew it wasn't true.
He picked up the ball slowly, tucking it under his arm, and turned toward the gate. His footsteps were quiet against the turf, but his senses remained heightened, every nerve on edge. The cool evening air brushed against his face as he reached the edge of the field, and he glanced back one last time.
The pitch was empty. Silent. Normal.
But the memory of the shimmer, the pulse beneath his feet, the weight of the air — it all lingered, pressing against the edges of his awareness.
Something had awakened.
And somehow, deep in his chest, Haruto knew: the world of football he thought he understood was hiding far more than anyone had ever realized.
---
## The Walk Home
The city was quiet as Haruto stepped onto the wet pavement outside the school gates. Streetlights reflected off puddles from the evening drizzle, casting rippling reflections that danced with each passing car. The air was cool and damp, carrying the faint scent of rain-soaked asphalt and distant food stalls preparing for the night.
Haruto walked without hurry, his bag slung over one shoulder, the football tucked securely inside. His mind was uncommonly silent, yet impossibly loud at the same time. The shimmer. The pulse. The patterns on the grass. None of it made sense, yet all of it felt… intentional.
A flash of light caught his eye.
He stopped, turning sharply toward the school. In the distance, barely visible beyond the fence, the field glowed faintly for just a heartbeat. The geometric shimmer returned, tracing the goalposts and boundary lines before vanishing once more.
Haruto's jaw tightened. His fingers curled around the strap of his bag.
*It's real.*
He didn't understand it yet. Didn't know what it meant or why it had appeared to him. But one thing was certain: something vast and secret had been waiting beneath the surface of the game he loved.
And tonight, for reasons he couldn't yet grasp, it had chosen to reveal itself.
Haruto turned back toward home, the rain beginning to fall more steadily now. His footsteps echoed softly against the pavement, but even in the mundane rhythm of the evening, he felt it — a thread in the air, thin but persistent.
The **System** was stirring.
And Haruto Kisaragi, the quiet, bullied boy with Predator instincts and impossible dreams, had just taken his first step into a world far greater than he'd ever imagined.
The **Path of Apex** had begun.