The football traced a heart-stopping arc through the air.
It was Kazuki’s pass.
This ball was not only fast, but it was also incredibly precise, dropping right toward the white-haired boy strolling in the frontline—Nagi Seishiro.
“Hey, you lazy genius, the ball has been delivered right to your mouth.
If you spit it out, you’re dead.”
Kazuki’s threatening, demonic voice seemed to still cling to the surface of the ball.
Nagi lifted his head, those grey eyes that were usually half-asleep widening slightly at the arrival of this ball.
He could feel the terrifying amount of information embedded within this pass—the speed, the spin, the dropping point.
It was so perfect that it practically commanded him: “Dance right here.”
“What a hassle…
With a pass like this, I have no choice but to trap it.”
Nagi sighed, but his body reacted instantly.
He extended his right foot, and the exact moment the ball was about to hit the ground, his toes cushioned it as softly as a sponge.
That violent long ball, carrying enough heavy spin to shatter an ordinary person’s ankle, actually settled obediently on the top of his foot just like that.
A miraculous trap.
A “black hole” level of ball control.
“Beautiful trap, genius.”
A deep, pressure-filled voice rang out right by Nagi’s side.
The captain of the U-20 national team, nicknamed the “Snake Man,” Oliver Aiku, had already materialized like an insurmountable wall right in front of Nagi.
His heterochromatic eyes locked tightly onto Nagi’s center of gravity, as if seeing through every possible outcome.
“But this way is blocked.
That keeper’s pass is admittedly amazing, but you won’t get past my defensive zone.” Aiku lowered his center of gravity, spreading his arms wide like a giant python hunting its prey.
The strongest defender in Japan stood ahead, and there was no way back.
Yet Nagi didn’t panic at all.
“Aiku-chin, you’re annoying.”
With a flick of his toe, Nagi sent the ball airborne again.
“Don’t even think about using a feint!” Aiku predicted the move instantly, his body shifting to block Nagi’s turning lane.
However, Nagi didn’t turn, nor did he pass.
In a position where his back was to the goal and Aiku was glued tight against him, he executed a movement that defied the laws of physics—he used his heel to flick the ball backward in mid-air, and then used the counterforce to forcefully twist his body around.
Was this a blind gamble without vision?
No, this was the intuition of a genius.
The football sailed over Aiku’s head, but Aiku’s reactions were lightning-fast; he turned and swung his leg to clear it, his toe clipping the ball.
“He blocked it!” the U-20 defenders cried out.
Because of Aiku’s interference, the football changed its trajectory, bouncing irregularly into the air with an incredibly bizarre spin.
This should have been a failed attack.
But in Nagi’s eyes, the world transformed at this exact moment.
That irregularly bouncing football looked exactly like an invitation card labeled “Goal.”
No thought, no logic.
With his body completely losing balance, Nagi went with the momentum and fell to the ground, his right leg whipping wildly through the air.
A miracle woven from pure luck descended at this very second.
That seemingly disorganized swing miraculously caught the outer laces of his boot right on the lower side of the ball.
The football traced an incredibly strange parabola, sailing past the fingertips of the rushing U-20 goalkeeper and striking the inside of the post.
*Clang!*
With a crisp ring, the ball bounced into the back of the net.
3-2!
Blue Lock takes the lead!
”It went in?” Nagi lay on the turf, looking at the ball inside the net while scratching his hair.
“Ah, what great luck.
That pass from Kazuki was way too terrifying.
Luckily it went in, otherwise I’d really be scolded to death.”
The entire stadium erupted!
”YES!!!” Isagi roared as he clenched his fist in excitement, rushing over to embrace Nagi.
However, on the other end of the pitch.
Kazuki watched the replay on the giant screen, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly: That actually went in?
Did this kid trade his lifespan for luck?
Was that even a shot?
That was practically a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse…
Whatever, assist +1, not bad.
Despite his internal complaints, Kazuki’s gaze remained locked on the opposite side.
Because he saw that in the U-20 half, the man wearing the No.
10 jersey—Itoshi Sae—was staring icily at the scoreboard.
”3 to 2…
To actually let a flock of fledglings take the lead.”
”Aiku, don’t worry about it.” Sae’s voice was cold enough to drop frost.
“Next, I’ll feed the ball right into that monster’s mouth.
The rest of you just watch.”
U-20 kickoff.
The tempo of the match was instantly accelerated to the absolute limit.
The moment Sae received the ball, three Blue Lock players swarmed him simultaneously.
But Sae merely executed a few casual directional shifts, strolling through the midfield like he was walking in a garden, leaving Bachira Meguru and Chigiri Hyoma completely frozen in his wake like wooden posts.
It was absolute technique, a despair-inducing elegance.
“Too slow, too ugly.”
Sae drove the ball forward into the final thirty meters of the pitch.
His gaze swept across the entire field, ignoring Sendo Shuto and every other conventional support option.
His line of sight pierced through the layers of defense, landing squarely on a dark-skinned figure frantically finding space at the edge of the penalty box.
Shido Ryusei.
This “demon,” who had been relegated due to violent behavior but was currently representing the U-20, was in a state of extreme euphoria.
“Give me the ball!
Sae!” Shido’s eyes were completely bloodshot—the look of a wild beast possessing a desperate craving for a goal.
The corner of Sae’s mouth hooked into a cold smile as he struck the ball hard with the outside of his left boot.
*BOOM!*
It was a highly piercing, mid-height ball carrying intense topspin.
It bypassed the interception points of every single defensive player, flying straight into the high air above the top of the box.
For an ordinary striker, that position only allowed for trapping the ball or heading it down.
But for Shido, that was the place where “life” was conceived.
Watching this long ball, Isagi thought to himself that surely not many people could possibly react to this.
With his back to the goal, Shido felt the Blue Lock defender pressed tightly behind him.
Without sparing a single glance at the net, his body erupted with power as he launched himself into the air, as if breaking free from gravity itself.
It was a movement completely contradictory to human anatomy.
He fully extended his body in mid-air, his spine bending like a drawn longbow, his legs crossing in mid-flight as he hung upside down in the air like a soaring, furious dragon.
Staring at the incoming football, Shido’s senses amplified infinitely.
The sound of the wind vanished, and the roaring of the crowd faded away.
In his world, nothing remained except that white sphere and the white netting behind him.
A sensation he had never experienced before flooded his cerebral cortex—an unspeakably intense stimulation.
Every single one of his cells was screaming, trembling, and craving the arrival of that exact split second.
“This is the feeling…”
Shido laughed wildly in mid-air, his pupils shrinking into pinpricks—the ultimate sign of total madness.
“To me, scoring a goal is just like reproduction!!!”
He roared furiously in his heart.
Though the metaphor was crude, it best interpreted the state of his soul at this moment.
“I am the sperm!
The goal net is the egg!”
At this moment, he was no longer just a player; he was a primitive lifeform seeking an explosion.
“The birth of that joy—”
Due to the intense spin, the football seemed to hang suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, dropping perfectly into the optimal hitting spot for Shido’s bicycle kick.
“I…
call it an explosion!!!”
*BOOM!!!*
His right instep slammed ruthlessly against the football.
The power behind this kick was staggering, the air itself seemingly detonating under the impact.
The football transformed into a white beam of light, carrying a force capable of destroying everything as it rocketed straight toward the dead upper-right corner of the goal!
“The feeling of this strike…
my football cells are excitedly telling me to—orgasm!!!”
Inside the monitoring room.
Ego Jinpachi stared dead at Shido on the screen, his usually half-dead eyes completely filled with astonishment at this moment.
“This state of being completely immersed in one’s own world, integrating bodily functions and mental will to the absolute limit…”
“He has entered the ‘Flow’!”
This was an absolute worldie.
This was a god-tier bicycle kick worthy of being written into the history books.
This was a hymn of life belonging to Shido Ryusei.
The entire stadium had already risen to their feet.
The commentator’s mouth was wide open, preparing to roar.
Isagi turned his head in utter despair, watching the cannonball that was absolutely impossible to stop.
Too fast, too precise, too perfect.
However.
Right at this pinnacle moment filled with “the ultimate harmony of life” and “brutal aesthetics,” right when everyone believed a goal was an absolute certainty.
An incredibly out-of-place voice, carrying a hint of laziness and sheer disgust, rang out.
“Now, now, now, this is strictly NSFW!”
In front of the goal, a dark shadow suddenly erupted upward.
Kazuki!
He didn’t execute a lateral dive like a conventional keeper; instead, like a hunting leopard, an explosive amount of power burst from his legs.
His body extended to the absolute limit in mid-air, a posture even more exaggerated than Shido’s bicycle kick just moments ago.
That surefire goal, carrying the absolute will of an “orgasm,” encountered a massive white-gloved hand just as it was about to pierce the net.
*BANG!!!!*
A colossal roar.
The violent collision between a palm and the football.
The football that was meant to smash into the net was forcefully pinned down right on the goal line by Kazuki, slamming heavily onto the turf before the line, then bouncing up only to be locked down tight by his other hand.
The worldie was suffocated.
The explosion of life was physically castrated.
The entire stadium felt as if someone had pressed the mute button.
Still maintaining his landing posture from the bicycle kick, the ecstatic expression on Shido’s face froze solid.
He stared blankly at the man pinning the ball down, his mind a complete blank.
Kazuki knelt on one knee, one hand pressing the ball down as he slowly lifted his head.
He looked at the utterly dumbfounded Shido not far away, a look of profound disgust painted across his face, as if he were staring at something filthy.
“I say, you…”
Kazuki stood up, brushing the grass clippings off his gloves, then pointed at Shido with the gaze one would use on a complete pervert, speaking loudly: “If you’re playing football, just play football.
Can you stop making those disgusting metaphors?”
As Kazuki spoke, he waved his hand toward the pitch-side cameras, putting on the deeply pained expression of a righteous “moral guardian”:
“There are still kids watching in the audience!
You perverted exhibitionist!”
Shido’s face instantly flushed from its previous euphoric red into a deep, bruised purple.
“Y-You…
what did you say?!”
“I said you’re an exhibitionist who treats the football pitch like a breeding farm.” Holding the ball, Kazuki flashed an incredibly punchable smile, wagging his index finger at Shido.
“Wanting to get ‘dirty’ on my turf?
Go home and keep dreaming.”
“As long as I am standing in front of this net, this place is an absolute—chastity zone!”