The tension had been there since the first light of dawn.
It existed inside Team V’s locker room with the presence of things everyone feels and no one mentions, because mentioning them would make them real in a way that silence still allows people to question.
It was there in the rhythm of their breathing, in the glances exchanged without intention, in the way movements that should have been automatic took a second longer than they needed to.
Most of Team V’s players trusted Karasu and Otoya.
It was a trust built on results, on a duo that had repeatedly demonstrated that when they worked together, they were capable of things neither could achieve alone.
They would rely on that.
They would survive through that.
It was the plan—simple and functional, like the plans that truly work usually are.
But everything they believed about Team Z had been shattered the moment the screen had displayed that score.
Fifteen to zero.
The weakest team in the stratum.
A massacre that escaped any available sense, that fit into no reasonable narrative about how the rankings were supposed to work, that existed as raw data and refused any interpretation that made it less than what it was.
That’s impossible.
It was what every Team V player had thought when they saw it.
And the problem with the impossible when it happens anyway is that it doesn’t disappear just because it’s impossible.
It stays there.
Existing.
Demanding that the world around it reorganize itself to accommodate it.
“Hey, idiots. Let’s get to the field. It’s time.”
Karasu’s voice cut through the locker room silence with that casual authority that didn’t need volume to work.
Everyone returned to awareness from wherever their thoughts had taken them and nodded, the motion almost synchronized with the quality of people who had all received the same signal at the same time.
When they arrived at the field, Team Z was already there.
Karasu swept his gaze across the surroundings with that evaluative look that came automatically, reading positions, expressions, the collective energy of the opposing team before a single ball had been touched.
Then his eyes found Hiori.
“Hey, idiot. Ready to lose?”
Hiori looked at him with a weariness that wasn’t anticipation of defeat, but the specific expression of someone who had already cataloged that kind of provocation and found nothing new in it.
“What a talkative crow.”
Karasu laughed with the natural ease of someone who could appreciate a good comeback even when it was directed at himself, genuine and free of resentment.
Hiori sighed.
And that only made Karasu laugh harder.
For a few moments, the atmosphere became lighter.
Closer to an ordinary rivalry, the kind that exists between people who respect each other enough to tease one another without any real intention of causing harm.
The tension that had inhabited the locker room retreated a few inches, like a tide that had temporarily encountered an obstacle.
But only for a few moments.
Because then Karasu’s eyes began searching for someone else.
They swept across Team Z with the attention of someone trained to locate what mattered quickly, and it didn’t take long.
Haise Sasaki was standing among Team Z’s players with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, his face carrying a serenity that seemed genuine rather than performative, quietly enjoying the cool air of the facility’s air conditioning with understated satisfaction.
“Ha!”
Karasu let out the exclamation with the carefree energy that was an integral part of how he moved through the world.
“What an idiot. Massacres like that are hard to forget.”
The shameless grin remained in place as if it had been permanently installed there.
Haise looked at him for a moment with an expression that wasn’t irritation, but had clearly found nothing particularly stimulating in the remark.
“But it was only a low-level match.” He said it with a straightforward honesty that wasn’t trying to downplay the result or impress anyone with false modesty.
He was simply calibrating what that result actually represented within the proper context.
“If it were a world-class match, I’d probably score two goals or a hat-trick, but the opponent could still equalize.”
A brief pause.
Not dramatic.
“The outcome is always decided in the final second.”
Karasu’s smile didn’t disappear, but something beneath it changed in quality.
It was one of the things that made Haise genuinely difficult to deal with in conversation, not just on the field.
Most people, when provoked, responded in a way that revealed something.
They gave away emotional or strategic information in the process of defending themselves or striking back.
Haise simply said what he believed to be true.
And that was, in a very specific way, more unsettling than any calculated provocation could ever be.
Because there was no opening.
No reaction to exploit.
No wounded vanity or exposed pride that could be used as leverage.
“A three-goal lead means very little if the other side is capable of scoring four.”
Karasu studied Haise’s face while those words still lingered in the air between them.
Searching for some trace of vanity.
Some sign of a person saying one thing while wanting the other person to interpret it as something else.
The slight inflection that betrays pride disguised as humility, or humility disguised as indifference that is, at its core, simply more pride.
He found neither.
And that was the strangest part of all.
Because Haise didn’t seem like someone trying to appear superior by minimizing his own achievements.
There was none of the calculation of someone who knows that saying less often impresses more.
There was only someone who had evaluated a situation according to the parameters he considered correct and was communicating the result of that evaluation without any secondary intention behind it.
He genuinely believed that.
He didn’t see football through scoreboards, through the numbers that remained recorded afterward and that other people used to define what had happened in a match.
He saw it through limits.
Through possible scenarios.
Through probabilities that existed alongside what had actually happened, the universe of outcomes that could have existed and that informed what the real result did—or did not—mean.
It was almost as if a fifteen-goal victory didn’t hold enough value because there still existed a possible universe where someone could have scored sixteen.
“You’re completely insane,” Karasu commented, and there was something different in his tone.
Haise nodded with the ease of someone being informed of something he already knew.
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Many times?”
Karasu laughed.
But this time, the laugh was quieter.
Closer to something that had slipped out unconsciously.
Because a part of him was beginning to understand something that had been hovering at the edge of his comprehension ever since he had watched the video for the first time.
The fifteen goals.
The absurd rate of growth.
Combined with that monstrous confidence that didn’t taste like arrogance because it wasn’t being used to impress anyone, made him an incredible player in Karasu’s eyes.
It was basically the consequence of the way he viewed the world.
Karasu looked away for a moment, letting that realization settle without the pressure of having to do anything with it immediately.
Then he smiled again.
With the same sharp smile as always, the one he had learned to use as a surface whenever what lay beneath was more complicated than he wanted to show.
“So you really believe you can beat anyone?”
Haise remained silent for a few seconds.
“No.”
The answer surprised Karasu.
And probably everyone else who was listening, because it wasn’t the answer Haise’s confidence should have produced according to any simple logic about how people like that usually respond to that kind of question.
Haise continued before the silence he had created could be filled by something else.
“I believe I can reach anyone.” His gaze met Karasu’s with that fervor that only he possessed.
“Those are different things.”
Haise turned his back and walked toward his position with those unhurried steps of his, his hands returning to the pockets of his shorts, leaving Karasu standing exactly where he was like a statue that had temporarily forgotten the purpose for which it had been built.
‘This guy…’
Karasu watched his retreating back with that peculiar feeling of someone trying to fit something into a system of categories that had been built to organize the world, only to discover that the object in question fit none of the available categories.
‘I can’t tell if he’s arrogant or confident.’
Maybe he was both.
Maybe they were the same thing in different concentrations.
Maybe, in Haise’s case, they were so distinct that the distinction itself had become irrelevant.
Karasu couldn’t say, and the fact that he couldn’t bothered him more than he had expected before a match.
“Come on, Hiori. The game is about to start.”
Haise’s voice arrived with the calmness of someone calling for something he considered inevitable.
Hiori nodded without any fuss and followed, and there was something in the naturalness of that exchange that communicated a dynamic forged on the field, one that no longer needed words to function.
As the members of Team Z took their positions, Team V did the same on the opposite side.
Karasu stepped into place, and the atmosphere on the field changed in quality.
The lightness of taunts and counter-taunts gave way to the cleaner, more honest tension that emerges when the real moment is about to begin.
PII!
Start!
Karasu received the kickoff pass and then felt it.
It was a sensation, direct and unmistakable, like the weight of something settling on a specific point within his field of awareness.
‘Huh?!
You’ve already started?!’
He looked ahead and found Haise with his eyes wide open, fixed on him with that focus that wasn’t searching for anything because it had already found what it needed and was simply maintaining the lock.
‘I can feel your gaze on me through my Spatial Awareness.’ The thought emerged with that quality peculiar to perceptions that arrive before they are fully understood.
‘Is this something natural among Spatial Awareness users?
Can they sense each other?’
With little choice, Karasu pushed forward.
His arm extended to shield an opposing player, creating the distance necessary to maintain control of the ball while using that physical presence as a barrier, turning the other player into an obstacle between himself and whatever was trying to reach him.
‘Whatever you are, you can’t just run through other players.’
He glanced to the side as he advanced.
Haise hadn’t moved, restrained by the human barrier Karasu had constructed between them with the efficiency of someone who had identified a solution and applied it before the problem could fully develop.
‘So one way to keep him away is to use the others as a shield.
He avoids launching himself like a rocket straight through everyone.’
A smile appeared on Karasu’s face.
Haise stared at him for a moment before shifting his gaze to the field.
His eyes moved with a scanning speed that processed multiple variables simultaneously before stopping at a specific point, as if they had found exactly what they were looking for.
“Ah, yes. That makes sense.”
He spoke with the cadence of someone thinking out loud without caring whether anyone was listening.
“If I ran at full power, I’d commit a foul sooner or later, but…”
He bent his legs.
And then he exploded forward.
Whoosh!
“Since when have I ever been that impulsive?”
The question lingered in the air behind him as his legs worked with the same power that had left players frozen by the mere displacement of air, weaving around opponents with ruthless efficiency—not simply overtaking each obstacle individually, but reading the field as a whole and finding the path of least resistance.
Then he stopped.
And spun his body using the residual momentum of his movement, transforming the speed he had accumulated into positioning, cutting off Karasu’s path with a precision that had been created without a single visible preparatory motion.
“Your hunt for the weak ends here.”
His eyes were filled with a fervor that wasn’t anger but intensity—the specific quality of someone who had finally found the level of challenge he had been searching for.
“It’s time to be hunted.”
Karasu stopped, maintaining his distance.
His confidence in his ability to control space with his hands wasn’t the same when the thing that needed to be controlled was Haise moving at that speed.
Still, he kept smiling, because that smile was the last line of composure he wasn’t willing to abandon.
“You really go against every logical course of action, don’t you?”
“Using Logic for defense and using Logic for offense are two completely different things.”
Haise remarked as he advanced, speaking as if the two weren’t mutually exclusive.
“Fair point.”
Karasu read the timing with the precision he had developed through countless similar situations.
Before Haise could reach top speed, before the moment when interception was possible had passed, he released the ball.
“Go on, Extraordinary.”
His eyes followed the ball’s trajectory, read Otoya’s positioning, calculated what would come next, and then a smile appeared on his face with a softness that was somehow more unsettling than any more intense expression.
Karasu’s eyes widened, and the smile vanished from his face before he consciously decided to remove it.
“Oh, you two really are good.”
There was something close to genuine appreciation in Haise’s voice before he finished:
“But as I said…”
His smile remained.
“…you’re still mediocre.”
Foosh!
Hiori appeared out of nowhere in midair, controlling the ball with a mastery that made the motion seem effortless, landing with it at his feet before anyone present could turn their surprise into a useful reaction.
“What—?”
Otoya was incredulous, his eyes processing what had happened with the urgency of someone trying to pinpoint the exact moment he had stopped seeing what was happening.
When had it become possible to lose sight of Hiori?
Since when had Karasu’s passes become interceptable?
“The crow and I know each other very well.”
Hiori spoke as he landed and advanced with that composure that remained unchanged regardless of how spectacular his own movement had been.
“So I know how his passes and tactics work.”
Haise changed direction with a speed that hadn’t been telegraphed by any preparatory movement.
His body simply went somewhere different from where it had been going a fraction of a second earlier, and he passed Karasu before the latter could complete his reaction.
“NOT A CHANCE!”
Karasu spun with the reaction speed he had developed through countless encounters with speedsters and reached out a hand to stop his advance.
“HUH?!”
Something was wrong.
His hand had made the expected contact, but what came after that contact was nothing any previous experience had prepared him for.
Instead of slowing down or being forced to alter his path, Karasu felt an immense force carrying him forward, as though he had braced himself against a wall that had suddenly decided to start moving.
‘This lunatic…’
Karasu stared at Haise with an incredulity that had already surpassed his ability to hide it behind his usual smile.
‘What kind of body does he have?!’
He was basically being carried by Haise Sasaki.
Not pushed away, not redirected, not removed from the path through some technical movement that could be analyzed and understood afterward.
He was literally being carried, as though his physical presence had been incorporated into Haise’s movement as an irrelevant variable that the body had decided to include rather than work around.
“Well done, Cyan.”
Haise commented with a smile that wasn’t hurried in the slightest despite everything happening around him.
“You know what to do.”
On the other side of the field, Hiori was already moving with that fluidity of his that never wasted a single motion.
He dribbled through the defense with a combination of speed and precision that seemed simple precisely because it had been executed well enough that it didn’t need to be complicated, occasionally glancing toward Haise as he advanced.
Who was being marked.
Or taking Karasu on a ride.
The distinction was genuinely difficult to make from the outside.
Hiori reached midfield and was forced to stop, two defenders closing the space with a coordination that hadn’t been verbally planned but had emerged from a shared understanding that this was the point where the advance had to be halted.
He assessed the situation for a fraction of a second.
“My, my…”
His voice carried the calm lightness that was characteristic of him.
“Then I leave it to you, tricolored genius.”
The pass came with speed.
The ball sliced through the air, threading through the narrow openings between the defenders with a precision that required the gap to exist exactly where it had been calculated to exist, and the ball to carry precisely the right amount of urgency to pass through before it closed.
The ball flew toward Haise, who was still being marked by Karasu.
“Good one, Hiori.”
Haise commented with the naturalness of someone receiving something he had expected all along, extending his left foot with timing that left no room for error.
The ball settled perfectly onto his left foot.
Foosh!
Otoya appeared out of nowhere with the same quality of movement that had defined his presence on the field throughout the entire match—silent and precise, his foot extending toward the ball before there was even time to process where he had come from.
Karasu’s smile returned.
He had finally regained enough stability to use his hands properly, reestablishing control over the space he had lost during those few seconds in which he had essentially been carried around like luggage through the lane Haise had chosen to run through.
With Otoya in front and himself recovering position, the trap was closing in, solid enough to matter.
‘I’m marked by both of them…’
Haise assessed the situation with the same analytical coldness that never required a visible pause, processing the available variables at the speed of someone who had trained this kind of reading until it ceased to be conscious.
‘My options are limited.’
A brief internal pause.
‘Well.
Then it’s time to use it.’
BAAM!
Haise’s hand moved with an unannounced burst of speed and precision, striking Karasu away with a sharp shove that instantly freed the space that had been under control before any response could even be formulated.
In the same continuous motion, his arms rose, creating separation between himself and the two Team V players with a firmness he had clearly learned from somewhere far outside the standard football handbook.
And then the ball slipped between both of their legs with a fluidity that made something technically impossible seem obvious once it had already been done, and Haise was on the other side before the play could even be fully processed.
“That was…”
Karasu froze, his eyes tracing what had just happened with the disbelief of someone trying to reconcile what he had seen with everything he knew should have been possible.
Haise had raised his hands.
And the purple aura surrounding them was changing, transforming, mirroring something Karasu recognized with a shock that raced through his pattern-recognition system in an immediate and unmistakable way.
‘My handwork?!’
Not merely similar.
It was the exact same mechanic.
The same spatial-control structure he had developed as his own tool, as an extension of his Spatial Awareness, as the advantage that set him apart from players who relied solely on their feet.
Now reflected back at him through Haise Sasaki’s hands, with that irregular purple aura burning around them.
“Are you ready to witness my weapon, you mediocrities?” Haise asked with a mocking grin that carried that edge of madness that surfaced whenever something satisfied him on a level beyond the immediate result, his violet eyes blazing with that familiar flame that required no additional intensity to be felt by anyone within his line of sight.
…
Faced with overwhelming pressure, the Genius finally reveals his weapon.
NEXT CHAPTER → Copy Technique