I’ve seen some stupid shit in my life, but never on Rin’s level.
The guy literally caused his own team’s defeat because of the destructive obsession he has with anyone who leaves a mark on his life.
Seriously, I hope he gets beaten senseless in the locker room.
Teenagers with anger issues are exhausting.
_____________________________________________
The indoor field was silent in the way only empty fields can be, that particular stillness just moments away from transforming into something euphoric.
Team Z was already in position, spread across the synthetic turf in the formation Haise had established without asking for anyone’s opinion and without leaving much room for argument.
4-2-3-1.
A structure that centralized everything into a single point.
Haise Sasaki, the main striker, the finisher, the axis around which the entire plan revolved.
His superior physical attributes and advanced technique were the pillars of that decision.
There was no romanticism in it — it was simply what made the most sense given what he knew about each of the eleven players he had placed on the field.
Behind him, Hiori Yo occupied the role of central attacking midfielder with that calm presence of his that didn’t immediately stand out, yet Haise had already recognized as dangerous in its own way.
The creative brain of the team.
His role was clear: vision, precision passing, constantly and intelligently feeding Haise’s movements.
On the wings, Haise had positioned the two players who, within the limited group at his disposal, possessed the most useful traits for those roles.
One had speed superior to the others, capable of stretching the field and creating depth down the flank.
The other had technical skill good enough to hold the ball and contribute to the buildup whenever Hiori needed more passing options.
In defensive midfield, two sturdier players capable of functioning as the bridge between attack and defense, holding back the opponent’s momentum long enough for the back line to reorganize or for more players to push forward when the moment demanded it.
The center-backs specialized in interceptions, which, under the circumstances, was the best one could realistically ask for.
And the goalkeeper was the player who, among all eleven, seemed the most capable of occupying that position without becoming a complete disaster.
It was what they had.
Haise had organized all of it using what he knew, what he had observed, and the conviction of someone who did not waste time lamenting the resources he lacked.
The silence of the indoor field lasted a few seconds longer.
Then a door opened on the opposite side.
Team X emerged.
They entered with the natural ease of people who had done this before — or of people who had trained enough to imitate that ease convincingly.
Haise watch
And then he saw the first of them.
It wasn’t difficult to identify the striker.
There was something in the way he moved, a presence ahead of the others that wasn’t exactly arrogance, but certainly wasn’t humility either.
It was the specific posture of someone who knew exactly where they belonged on a football field and had never once had reason to question it.
Short, light reddish-brown hair, with uneven bangs falling to his eyebrows in a way that looked both careless and intentional.
Pale orange eyes framed by long eyelashes that didn’t match the hardness carried within his expression.
「 Hajime Nishioka — ST 」
Team X positioned themselves on the opposite side of the field without saying a word.
No taunts, no gestures, no attempt to establish presence through noise.
Just silence and positioning.
Haise noticed that and slightly turned his head toward Hiori, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“What a cold team.” he commented, passing the ball to the midfielder beside him.
“Looks like you’ve got competition, cool head.”
Hiori looked at him with an expression that wasn’t quite irritation, but clearly wasn’t amusement either.
“Huh? Shut up.” he said, then passed the ball forward, completing the kickoff with the same economy of words he always carried.
Start!
Haise advanced directly, cutting across the field with long strides toward Nishioka, who waited for him with that stable posture.
‘He’s good at dribbling, understands how to hold his ground one-on-one.
If I try something here, I’ll probably lose the ball or waste time.’ Haise assessed, before deciding to test a different scenario.
Without hesitation, he redirected the ball toward the speedy winger running alongside him, then shifted his weight to the left, his gaze pointing left as well.
Baam!
He planted his foot hard into the turf, pivoted sharply, and burst to the right, slipping past Nishioka and arriving directly in his blind spot.
“Here.” Haise called for the ball back, briefly extending a hand in the universal gesture of someone open and demanding the pass.
What he saw instead was the speedy winger completely ignoring the request and charging straight toward the opposing defense with the ball at his feet and a determination that had absolutely nothing to do with the plan they had established.
“Ah. Of course.”
He had considered this possibility.
It was exactly why he had given the ball to that specific player — the same one who had started the rebellion against him before the match even began.
Sometimes the best way to understand what someone will do under pressure is to simply place them under pressure and observe.
“I’M GONNA SCORE!” the winger declared to no one in particular, as if shouting it out loud somehow made the goal more likely.
Then a shadow passed by him.
Fast, precise, without a single wasted movement.
Nishioka was already in front of him before the winger had even finished processing that someone had moved.
‘Oh.
Pretty fast, shorty.’ The thought surfaced in Haise’s mind with an almost disrespectful casualness considering the situation.
(N/A: Haise is 1.82m tall, Ego is 1.89m, and Nishioka is probably around 1.72m, which to Haise is pretty damn short.)
“Get out of the way!” the winger yanked the ball to the left, trying to create space with a dribble.
Nishioka was already there.
Without any visible effort, without exaggerating the movement, he had anticipated the direction and cut off the path before the winger could take advantage of it, forcing an immediate change of direction.
The winger went the other way.
Foosh!
Nishioka was there too.
Once again in front of him.
Once again blocking.
Once again arriving first.
Everything at speed, everything with that economy of movement that separated people who were merely fast from those who truly understood how to use speed.
The winger involuntarily took a step backward, his body reacting to something his mind had not yet fully processed.
Banc!
The winger’s knees hit the ground, and Nishioka came away with the ball at his feet as though nothing particularly special had happened.
Haise stood still for a second, watching the scene with an expression that rarely appeared on his face.
‘What was that?’
Nishioka advanced quickly.
There was no warning, no visible hesitation.
He simply came forward, and with him came a change of direction so natural it barely looked calculated, turning left with the ease of someone merely walking, drawing both Haise’s gaze and center of gravity in that direction.
Then he switched right.
One step backward.
Haise felt it before he understood it.
His knees gave out, as though the ground beneath him had shifted without anyone touching him, and his body tilted backward, gravity taking control at the exact moment his center of balance was no longer where it should have been.
‘What?
My knees gave out?!’
The disbelief was genuine and immediate.
What kind of movement could do that?
Force another person’s body to react like this without any direct physical contact?
Baam!
Fortunately, instinct responded before thought could.
His hand hit the ground at the perfect moment and Haise pushed himself upward with the strength of his arms, his feet finding the turf again as his body rose, avoiding a full fall by a margin smaller than he would have liked to admit.
“Whoa!” Nishioka commented with a carefree lightness that somehow made everything even more irritating.
“You’ve got a good physique. So you can actually withstand my dribbles.”
And before Haise could reorganize anything, the pass had already been sent out to the left, clean and precise.
“Tsk.”
The click of his tongue came involuntarily, carrying a frustration his eyes didn’t need to show because his body had already shown enough.
Nishioka sprinted down the left side toward the penalty area, and Haise prepared his body to chase after him.
But his legs didn’t respond.
They stayed rooted there, as though his muscles had received a completely different signal from his brain and simply chosen to ignore the command.
‘They’re locked?!
What the hell?!’
With Haise completely removed from the play, Hiori dropped back on defense with that silent field awareness of his, positioning himself while keeping his eyes on Nishioka, who received the return pass, pulled off the exact same movement on another player, and watched that one collapse to his knees as well before advancing forward.
‘What kind of movement is that?’ The question formed in Hiori’s mind with genuine seriousness.
He had watched countless hours of football, had studied dribbling, had seen variations and combinations of movements most players his age didn’t even know existed.
But this?
‘I’ve never seen anything like this in football.’
The fullbacks had dropped to their knees one after another, swept away by the same storm that had made Haise stumble over his own feet moments earlier.
Only the center-backs, the goalkeeper, Hiori, and the other winger further up the field remained.
Nishioka had space.
He had time.
And he knew it.
“SCORE, NISHIOKA!” The shout came from the sidelines, carrying the energy of someone witnessing what they considered inevitable.
“With pleasure.”
Nishioka raised his right leg with the confidence of someone who already knew the outcome before executing it.
The center-back responded exactly as expected, lifting his leg to close the shooting angle, properly blocking the obvious trajectory.
But Nishioka had already pulled the ball to the left.
His left leg was already rising before the defender had time to process the change.
The first movement had merely been a question.
And the real answer came from the opposite side, fluid and seemingly effortless.
“Sorry, it’s this way.” Nishioka smiled, and there was genuine mockery in that smile, the kind that didn’t need to be forced because it came naturally to someone convinced they existed on a different level.
“Team Z really is the worst of them all.”
“You talk too much.”
The voice came from nowhere.
And with it, a shadow cut across the field like a blade, sweeping the ball from Nishioka’s feet with a precision that left no room for reaction.
Whoosh.
The ball vanished into the distance before Nishioka could even register what had happened.
He turned his head.
Haise was there. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Standing tall, breathing steady, fragments of mirrors slowly beginning to gather around him in a lazy, almost effortless manner, as though they were responding to something naturally emanating from him without needing to be called.
“Huh?!” Nishioka’s composure cracked for a fraction of a second.
“How did you get here?!”
Haise looked at him with those violet eyes that carried neither anger nor urgency.
Only a cold and absolute certainty.
“You underestimate me, Ankle Breaker.” he said, his voice low and direct as the mirror fragments around him continued multiplying in silence.
“But don’t worry.”
His eyes never wavered for even a moment, violet flames beginning to quietly emerge between the reflected shards.
Haise took a step forward.
“I’ll make sure this never happens again.”
The ball went out of bounds.
Haise stood still for a second, staring at the spot where it had disappeared with an expression that wasn’t exactly anger.
It was the specific dissatisfaction of someone who knew they could have done more and hadn’t.
He was already calculating.
Already thinking about how to repay that moment, how to turn it into something usable.
“Haise.”
Hiori approached, and his tone was different from usual.
It wasn’t his usual casual curiosity.
It was something more urgent, something genuinely intrigued.
“What was that just now?” he asked, his eyes still processing what he had seen.
“You were literally at midfield. And you reached the defense so fast it looked inhuman.”
Haise looked at him with genuine curiosity, as though Hiori’s observation had illuminated something he himself hadn’t stopped to properly examine.
“Really?” He placed a hand on his chin thoughtfully.
“It did feel like I was faster than usual. But that’s not something to focus on right now.” His eyes briefly shifted back toward the field before returning to Hiori.
“You were probably wondering about it too, right? That movement of his. That dribbling style.”
Hiori looked surprised for a second, not expecting the question, before nodding in agreement.
Haise began massaging his own legs, fingers working firmly into the muscles as he organized his reasoning out loud.
“His title as the ‘Messi of Aomori’ is literally a work of deception.” he began, his voice carrying that calm cadence of someone dismantling something into smaller parts to better understand it.
“His style is the complete opposite of what the nickname suggests. He uses the movement mechanics of basketball ankle breakers as a dribbling method, forcing the opponent’s body to react against itself, leaving their legs unresponsive and dropping them to the ground.”
He paused the massage for a moment, looking at Hiori with an expression carrying something close to involuntary respect.
“That’s one hell of a weapon he has.”
“But you got past his dribble before.” Hiori said, already mentally projecting what that meant for the rest of the match.
“So you can do it again, right?”
Haise finished massaging his legs, stood still for a moment with his eyes on the ground, and then answered with the direct honesty that defined him.
“In theory, yes.” he began, lifting his gaze.
“The first time I did it, my legs locked up because I was off balance. My body reacted incorrectly because it was responding to false information. I need to change the way I counter him, find a way to process his movement before it processes me.”
A short sigh.
“And realistically, that requires absurdly fast adaptation.” His voice never lost its firmness, yet there was real weight behind the words.
“The ankle breaker uses our own reflexes and body against us. It’s difficult to fight something that exploits the very thing that allows us to react quickly.”
“I see.” Hiori replied, absorbing every part of it.
Haise looked toward the field ahead, his violet eyes carrying that cold, persistent flame.
“But it’s not impossible.”
Kneeling was unacceptable to Haise.
There was no other way to describe it.
For any other player, collapsing to their knees before that dribble could have been understandable — even expected.
Nishioka had built a genuine weapon, something capable of dropping opponents before they even understood what had happened to their own bodies.
But Haise Sasaki was not just any other player.
He would never accept something like that.
And if there was one thing he had learned through everything he had endured — every match, every training session, every adversity that had tried and failed to stop him — it was that the ground had never been where he belonged.
He had been born to look upward, not downward.
The confrontation had begun.
And this time, it was taking place on a field Haise understood far better than most people could imagine.
Adaptation.
It wasn’t merely an ability.
It was his specialty — at least according to Ego Jinpachi.
It was the thread running through his entire existence, from his days in the orphanage to the thirty-one days of hell in Phase 0, the capacity to take whatever the world threw at him and turn it into something he could use.
Nishioka had a weapon.
And Haise had time.
Not much, but enough for a genius who knew exactly what to do with it.
Kneel or adapt?
The answer was already in Haise’s violet eyes before the question had even finished forming.
…
Kneeling is unacceptable for the Genius of Adaptation, and now the battle has entered his specialty!
Will Haise adapt to the Ankle Breaker… or will he fall to his knees?
NEXT CHAPTER → Adapting