Ego’s Monitoring Room.
Seated in his chair with that posture that never seemed completely relaxed nor completely tense, Ego Jinpachi watched the monitors in silence.
The satisfied smile on his face was subtle, the kind that didn’t need to be wide to convey exactly what it was meant to convey.
Beside him, Anri Teieri wasn’t making any effort to hide her excitement.
Her eyes shone as she watched the replay for the second or third time, each viewing confirming that what she had seen was real and not an enthusiastic distortion of her memory.
“Amazing!” she exclaimed, her voice carrying the energy of someone witnessing something that surpassed every standard she had known before.
“Hiori Yo’s pass went far beyond expectations, and Haise-kun’s dribbles were simply fantastic! Everything happened at exactly the right moment. That was an incredibly high-level play, wasn’t it, Ego?”
Ego continued watching the monitors for a few moments before answering, letting the silence linger for exactly as long as he wanted it to.
On the main screen, Haise celebrated with that wild laugh and his arms spread wide, while the players of Team Y remained defeated on the field, still unable to find a proper way to process what had just happened.
“Yes.”
The response came out calm and controlled, devoid of any of the excess enthusiasm Anri had poured into her own words.
“The moment he desired to receive Hiori Yo’s most difficult pass, Haise placed himself before what ordinary players call a limit.” A brief pause.
“And then he destroyed it.”
The smile slowly vanished from his face, replaced by his usual expression—the one that never revealed more than Ego chose to reveal.
“By doing so, he transformed his ego into performance. It was a clear display of genius.”
He rested his chin on his interlocked hands, his eyes never leaving the screen where Haise’s celebration continued to play on a loop.
“Well done, my foolish son.”
His voice lowered slightly, carrying something that rarely surfaced in that tone.
“It seems your genius has finally begun to awaken.”
For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was the steady hum of the computers, constant and indifferent to the weight of the moment.
“But awakening is only the first step,” Ego continued, his voice returning to its usual analytical cadence.
“The real question is whether you’ll be able to keep that flame burning when you face even stronger opponents. The kind who won’t fall so easily to a manufactured scenario.”
Haise’s celebration continued to play on the screen.
Ego watched it for a few more moments with the particular attention of someone reading something beyond the image itself, and then he looked away.
And turned back to Anri.
“By the way…”
Anri blinked, completely unprepared for the sudden change in direction.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘Haise-kun,’ errand girl?”
Anri’s smile vanished instantly, replaced by an expression that was trying—and failing—to remain neutral.
“Ah… well…”
A chill ran down her spine as Ego’s gaze settled on her with that particular quality he reserved for moments when he expected an answer and had no intention of accepting a bad one.
“It’s just a polite way of referring to him…”
“A polite way.”
Ego repeated the words without any inflection, which somehow made them heavier than if he had emphasized them.
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you call Jin Kiyora ‘Kiyora-kun’?”
Anri froze.
“I-I…”
“Or Hiori Yo ‘Hiori-kun’?”
“I-Usually I…”
“Or any other player here in the same way?”
Each question arrived before an answer to the previous one could be fully formed, and the cumulative effect was that of someone being methodically cornered into a spot that had been identified long before the interrogation had even begun.
Beads of sweat appeared on Anri’s forehead with a speed she considered deeply unfair given the total amount of pressure being applied.
“I can explain…”
“Excellent.”
Ego crossed his arms with deliberate slowness.
“Because if you don’t want to lose your job, explain yourself. NOW.”
Anri swallowed hard.
…
Several hours after the match had ended, Blue Lock’s cafeteria was empty, with the sole exception of Haise and Hiori, who occupied one of the tables furthest from the center of the hall.
They sat across from each other.
Haise’s tray was already completely empty, spotless as if someone had vacuumed the food off it.
Hiori’s was still half full, making it reasonably clear which of them had spent the last few minutes eating and which had spent them observing.
“You eat fast, huh?”
Haise let out a satisfied sigh before answering.
He grabbed a napkin and wiped away the remnants of the meal from his face with the same pragmatism he applied to anything that needed to be done.
His gaze met Hiori’s for only an instant, but that was enough.
“Yeah. But stop hiding your intentions.”
He tossed the napkin back onto the empty tray.
“You can ask.”
Hiori rested an elbow on the table and maintained a small smile.
He didn’t seem surprised at having been found out.
If anything, he seemed pleased, like someone who had tested a hypothesis and had just confirmed it was correct.
“So you noticed.”
“You stare at me like you’re trying to take apart a puzzle,” Haise replied with the naturalness of someone commenting on the weather.
“It’s hard not to notice.”
The silence that settled between them wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was the kind of silence Hiori needed to organize his thoughts before asking a question.
He wasn’t in a hurry, nor was he hesitant.
Then Hiori spoke.
“What’s your philosophy?”
Haise remained quiet for a few moments.
His eyes wandered across the cafeteria without settling on anything in particular, taking in the environment with that peripheral awareness he carried even when he seemed to be paying attention to nothing at all.
When he looked back at Hiori, his expression was calm.
“You know the difference between a gemstone and an ordinary stone?”
Hiori raised an eyebrow at the unexpected comparison.
Haise crossed his arms and continued without showing the slightest hint of haste.
“At first glance, almost none. They’re both just stones. If you put them side by side in front of someone who doesn’t know anything about them, they might not even notice the difference.” He paused.
“But one of them went through a process. It was cut, refined, and polished until it revealed something valuable. Talent is exactly the same. People like to look at someone talented as if it’s a miracle or a divine blessing.”
He shook his head slightly.
“I don’t see it that way. To me, talent is just raw material. It’s an unrefined resource. If it isn’t developed, it remains nothing more than an ordinary stone.”
Hiori remained silent, allowing the thought process to unfold uninterrupted.
There was something in the way Haise spoke about it—a conviction that didn’t need volume to be felt—that suggested these words had not been organized specifically for this conversation.
They were thoughts that had existed countless times before being spoken aloud.
“And skills aren’t much different,” Haise continued.
“A skill is like a newly forged blade. It doesn’t matter how perfect it is when it’s first created. If you abandon it, it rusts. If you stop sharpening it, it loses its edge.”
His eyes sharpened.
“But if you keep refining it day after day, it becomes more and more dangerous. That’s why I’m never impressed just because someone is good at something. What matters isn’t where a person is right now. What matters is how far they can take it.”
A brief pause.
Then a smile appeared on Haise’s face, one completely different from the ones that emerged on the field.
There was no provocation in it, no challenge, none of the edge-of-madness that accompanied his moments of euphoria.
There was only confidence.
Pure and unadorned.
“And geniuses…” He let out something close to a quiet laugh.
“That’s the funniest part.”
He shook his head as though remembering something he still considered absurd.
“Most people look at a genius the same way they look at an impossible mountain. They’re so busy admiring its height that they forget to start climbing. They create excuses, justifications, and limitations before they even make the attempt.”
His gaze remained steady.
“I don’t do that.”
“When I see someone being called a genius, I don’t think they’re living in another world. I don’t think they’re unreachable.”
A very brief pause.
“I just think: so that’s the next level.”
Haise’s gaze grew firmer as he continued, his voice never needing to rise to carry the weight behind his words.
“The problem is that people love creating absolutes. They like believing that untouchable individuals exist, that there are unreachable levels and unbreakable limits. Because it’s comfortable. If something is impossible, you never have to struggle to achieve it. If someone is unreachable, you never have to face them.”
His eyes never wavered.
“It’s a convenient way of avoiding responsibility for your own failure.”
He pointed at his own chest.
“I completely reject that idea.”
The certainty behind the statement needed no further emphasis.
“Nothing is untouchable. Because everything that exists can be understood, studied, and reached. Nothing is unreachable. Because any distance shrinks if you keep moving forward. And nothing is absolute. Because there will always be someone capable of surpassing what once seemed to be the limit.” This chapter was copied from novelping dot com without permission.
The silence that followed possessed a different quality from the earlier silences of their conversation.
Haise’s words seemed to continue occupying the space between them even after they had been spoken, lingering in the air far longer than they physically should have.
Around them, the cafeteria remained busy and distant.
Hiori studied the striker’s face for a few seconds with the kind of attention that wasn’t invasive but was complete.
Then he rested his chin on his hand, a small smile appearing before he had consciously decided to put it there.
“That’s a pretty arrogant philosophy.”
Haise shrugged.
“We’re in Blue Lock,” he replied with the naturalness of someone stating the obvious.
“It’d be strange if it wasn’t.”
The answer drew a brief, genuine laugh from Hiori—the kind that escapes before there’s time to decide whether it’s appropriate.
And in response, Haise showed that confident smile that always appeared whenever he was facing something new.
“Hey~ Look who’s here.”
The voice arrived before the person did, and that alone was enough to communicate everything about its owner.
An arrogant, mocking tone that wasn’t trying to hide either quality, displaying them as though they were perfectly reasonable traits to bring into a cafeteria.
Hiori immediately looked up.
Haise heard it as well, and the slight contraction of his eyebrow—small but noticeable—made it clear that this particular way of addressing people had found no favorable reception.
Turning his head over his shoulder, he found the owner of the voice.
A tall, lean young man stood there, carrying the specific kind of relaxed posture that came from believing there was nothing in the surrounding area worth being tense about.
His dark purple hair was swept back into sharp spikes, with a few lighter strands near the nape of his neck.
A prominent forelock stood out at the front with the unmistakable energy of something that had been deliberately styled to be noticed.
His blue eyes observed everything with a confidence that bordered on irritating, and a small beauty mark beneath his left eye completed the picture.
「Karasu Tabito — Time V」
“Karasu?!”
Hiori was on his feet almost instantly, the surprise in his voice genuine and immediate.
There was something about that name that had arrived before he could decide how to react—the recognition of someone from his days in Kansai appearing in a place where he hadn’t expected to see him.
Karasu flashed a crooked grin that looked like his default expression.
“Yo. How’s life treating you in Team Z, idiot?”
The insult came out with the naturalness of someone who didn’t consider it an insult at all, merely a way of speaking.
There was no real hostility beneath it.
But before Hiori could formulate a response, another voice emerged from the table.
“What an annoying caw.”
Karasu’s gaze shifted.
Haise remained seated, not even bothering to turn around completely.
His chin rested on his hand as he stared at his empty tray with an indifference that made the provocation even more obvious than if he had said it loudly.
“Is that a crow?”
A half-second pause.
“Please go after the corpses I left behind in Team Y.” Haise inspected a nonexistent imperfection on the tray.
“I imagine birds of prey enjoy that sort of thing.”
The silence that settled over the area lasted exactly long enough for the weight of the remark to land on everyone present.
Hiori closed his eyes.
He had known Karasu long enough to understand how he worked.
And he had known Haise long enough to understand how he worked.
The conclusion was mathematical and inevitable.
This was not going to end well.
But instead of narrowing with irritation, Karasu’s eyes did the opposite.
They sharpened slightly with the particular gleam of someone who had found something more interesting than expected in the cafeteria that afternoon.
“And who are you?”
Haise rotated his chair a few centimeters and looked directly at the Team V player for the first time.
Karasu examined him from head to toe with the relaxed attitude of someone evaluating another person without caring whether they noticed.
The two-toned hair.
The unusual eyes.
The expression far too calm for someone who had just insulted a stranger who had appeared out of nowhere.
“And who are you? Some supernatural manga character?”
Hiori placed a hand over his face with the silent resignation of someone who had predicted exactly this outcome.
“For the love of God…”
Haise looked at Karasu for a few seconds with that patience that wasn’t really patience, though it resembled it on the surface.
Then he answered.
“Funny.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
Karasu raised an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“A guy with crow-colored hair, a crow’s name, and a crow’s personality showed up out of nowhere to bother me.” Haise tilted his head slightly.
“If you spread your wings right now, I think I’ll complete the collection.”
The silence lasted less than two seconds.
Then Karasu started laughing.
Not a restrained laugh or a polite one.
A genuine burst of laughter, the kind that comes out before there’s time to decide whether it’s appropriate.
“HAHAHAHA! You’ve got to be kidding me!”
He pointed at Haise, his energy completely different from when he had arrived.
“Hiori, where the hell did you guys find this guy?”
“Unfortunately, he found me while I was alone,” Hiori replied with a dryness that wasn’t trying to be funny but somehow was anyway.
“What a cruel answer.”
“Because it’s true.”
Karasu kept smiling as he let his gaze settle on Haise with a different kind of attention than before.
Most players he encountered inside Blue Lock reacted in predictable ways.
They were intimidated by Team V’s reputation, tried to impress him, or retreated into a defensive posture that communicated far more than they intended.
Different categories.
Equally predictable.
This guy did neither.
He seemed completely indifferent to Team V as a concept and to Karasu Tabito as a person.
It wasn’t the performative indifference of someone trying to appear unaffected.
It was simply indifference.
Genuine and effortless.
And that was interesting in a way Karasu hadn’t anticipated when he had crossed the cafeteria.
“Alright then, supernatural manga character.”
Karasu crossed his arms, and the smile that had been wide a moment ago sharpened slightly at the edges.
“I’m only going to ask this once.”
A deliberate pause.
“Do you really think you can take on Team V?”
Haise’s expression didn’t change.
There was no calculation from someone weighing his answer.
No tension from someone being challenged and needing to prove he didn’t care.
The question genuinely seemed to carry no weight that he felt obligated to manage.
“No.”
Karasu blinked.
So did Hiori.
A second of shared silence passed as both of them processed what had been said—or more specifically, what had not yet been said.
“I don’t think.”
Haise rose from his chair with a slowness that wasn’t hesitation but wasn’t hurried either.
“And thinking about it would be a waste of time.”
His eyes met Karasu’s with a directness that required no additional intensity to be felt.
“I’m going to face you.”
A one-second pause.
“I’m going to beat you.”
Another.
“And then I’ll go looking for a harder challenge.”
Karasu’s smile disappeared.
Not from irritation.
Not from offense.
Not for any of the reasons smiles normally disappear when someone says something unpleasant.
That wasn’t the hollow confidence that regularly appeared in Blue Lock from players who had been the best in their towns or schools and still hadn’t realized how little that meant here.
It was the confidence of someone who believed every word he spoke because he had spent enough time with himself to know he had a reason to believe it.
And that made things far more interesting than Karasu Tabito had expected.
“There’s nothing impressive about Team V.”
The statement landed on the table with the specific weight of something spoken with deliberate calm.
There was no volume behind it.
No effort from someone trying to make himself sound convincing.
It was precisely the composure that made the words heavy—the composure of someone who wasn’t trying to persuade anyone because he believed he was simply stating a fact that existed regardless of whether others agreed.
Haise’s gaze remained fixed on Karasu.
“A mediocre crow who does nothing but caw…”
For a brief moment, his eyes drifted slightly to the side, as though a passing thought had appeared without invitation.
“…and a wannabe ninja who thinks hiding in blind spots is going to carry him to the top of the world.”
Hiori immediately recognized the second target.
Otoya.
Without realizing it, he let out a low, resigned sigh.
This encounter was becoming exactly the disaster he had predicted from the moment Karasu had entered the cafeteria with that arrogant voice and the posture of someone who had never considered the possibility that the room might contain a person completely immune to his usual effect on others.
Haise rested an arm on the table and continued with the same complete absence of hesitation.
“There are limits to stupidity, you know.”
A brief pause.
“The two of you make a good duo. I’ll give you that.”
His expression remained completely unchanged as he finished.
“But at best…”
His eyes stayed on Karasu.
“…you’re still only average.”
The silence that followed had a different texture from ordinary silence.
Nearby conversations gradually died away, without anyone consciously deciding to stop talking.
Other players entering the cafeteria—and those who had been secretly listening the entire time—were stunned by what they were hearing.
It wasn’t common for someone to speak that way about members of Team V.
Much less directly in front of one of them.
And certainly not with that level of calm.
Karasu remained motionless for several seconds.
The mocking smile was still present on his face, but there was something different in his eyes now—a more serious evaluation hidden beneath the amused surface, trying to determine whether the person standing before him was merely an idiot blessed with disproportionate confidence or someone who had arrived at those words through a very different path.
Hiori watched in silence.
And he had noticed something that was easy to miss amidst the exchange.
Haise was genuinely irritated.
This wasn’t the playful sarcasm he used during matches.
Nor was it the calculated provocation he employed when he wanted to destabilize an opponent.
There was something deeper beneath it.
Something Karasu had touched—perhaps without even intending to—and it was producing a different kind of heat than anything Hiori had seen from the boy until now.
But Haise himself was aware of it.
He knew he had stepped into Karasu’s game.
He knew he had allowed the exchange to stir something within him that had never been invited.
And for precisely that reason, he had no intention of prolonging it beyond what was necessary.
There was still one match before Team V.
Enough time to turn that irritation into something more useful than words exchanged in a cafeteria.
Because emotions faded.
Results remained.
When he looked at Karasu again, something had changed.
Not in the room.
Not in the words that followed.
In Haise.
An invisible pressure began to spread around him, gradual and inevitable, as though something that had long been contained had finally decided containment was no longer necessary.
It wasn’t something that could be explained through technical language or rational vocabulary.
Yet everyone present felt it without needing a name for it.
The air grew heavier.
The nearby conversations that still existed died without warning.
Even players who hadn’t paid attention to the table until that moment found themselves looking toward it, as though summoned by something that possessed no voice.
Haise’s ego overflowed.
Violet flames emerged around him with that irregular quality that was uniquely his own—not burning anything, yet consuming space in a way space itself had never agreed to.
Among them, fragments of mirrors slowly appeared, reflecting the cafeteria through angles that corresponded to no reasonable geometry of the real environment.
At the center of it all sat Haise, as though nothing particularly extraordinary was happening around him.
His gaze remained fixed on Karasu.
“You make the same mistake almost everyone in this place makes.”
His voice echoed in a way that should not have been possible in a room that had been so noisy only moments earlier.
“You confuse standing out with greatness.”
The mirror fragments rotated slowly around him, each surface capturing a different angle of his face.
“Because you can dominate inferior players…”
A shard passed before his eyes, reflecting them for a brief instant.
“…you begin to believe you’re close to the summit.”
The violet flames flickered with that same irregularity, as though they followed a rhythm entirely their own, incompatible with any external pattern.
“The summit isn’t defined by the distance between you and the weak.”
A pause carrying the weight of an inevitable conclusion.
“It’s defined by the distance between you and the best.”
Karasu continued watching without interrupting, and there was something different about his silence now.
Something different from every previous silence throughout their conversation.
Haise rose from his chair.
Slowly.
Without hurry.
Like someone moving according to the pace he deemed appropriate rather than the pace the world around him was trying to impose.
The mirror fragments reflected his eyes from dozens of angles simultaneously, each one capturing a slightly different version of the same flame.
“And when I look at you…”
His gaze met Karasu’s with a precision that left no room for avoidance.
“…I don’t see the summit.”
The flames intensified.
“I only see another step.”
The silence that followed was absolute in a way silence rarely manages to be in a room filled with so many people.
Not Karasu.
Not Hiori.
Not the players who had stopped pretending they weren’t watching.
Because at that moment, something had become clear without needing any further explanation.
Haise wasn’t trying to appear superior.
He genuinely believed every word he was saying.
He believed there were no unreachable individuals.
No untouchable geniuses.
No mountains too high for someone willing to keep climbing after every fall.
And it was that conviction—the kind that had not been built to impress anyone and would exist exactly the same way in an empty room—that made Haise Sasaki’s presence feel so suffocating, extending far beyond the table where he stood.
A smile appeared on his face.
Not the smile of someone looking down on another person.
The specific smile of someone who had already identified the next challenge before him and was genuinely excited about what was coming.
“So keep cawing, Karasu.”
The mirror fragments reflected his image in every direction at once.
“When we meet on the field, I’ll show you the difference between someone who wants to reach the summit…”
His smile widened, carrying that edge of madness that never asked permission to exist.
“…and someone who was simply born to stand there.”
…
The crow that hunted the weak stumbled into the Dragon’s grave and survived by whim alone.
The two are destined to meet again…!!!
NEXT CHAPTER → Massacre