The silence that fell over Team V said more than any words could express.
Some players remained motionless, trying to process what had just happened.
Others simply looked away, unable to face the scoreboard.
Among them, Karasu dropped heavily onto the grass, his legs finally giving way after 45 minutes of pure pressure.
His gaze stayed fixed on the ground while his clenched fists trembled slightly.
The frustration burned inside him.
It wasn’t just a defeat…
Slowly, his eyes lifted.
Team Z [10] — [0] Team V
While Team Z’s players celebrated or tried to recover from their exhaustion, Haise simply observed the scoreboard in silence — and his face expressed, in a completely genuine way, dissatisfaction.
“Damn…” he murmured, running a hand through his hair.
“If there had been more time, I would have scored five more.”
Beside him, Hiori nearly stumbled forward.
The cyan-haired boy looked like a walking puddle of sweat.
His breathing was heavy, his legs were shaking, and he was clearly at his physical limit.
“You already scored ten…” he replied between one breath and the next.
“Exactly.” Haise answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“If there had been a few more minutes, I could have made it fifteen. Then I could have decided whether I was satisfied.”
The tricolour tilted his head to one side, genuinely bothered by the missed opportunity.
Hiori spent a few seconds staring at him in silence.
“You goal maniac…” Hiori sighed before simply letting himself fall onto the grass.
“Relax a little.”
Lying on the pitch, he turned his head in Haise’s direction.
It was then that he noticed something strange.
Even after running the entire match, pressing opponents, attacking relentlessly and scoring ten goals…
Haise looked practically untouched.
There were only a few strands of hair out of place.
Hiori’s eyes narrowed.
“Do you at least sweat?”
Haise blinked.
Then looked at himself as though checking the question.
“A little.”
“No you don’t.”
“Alright, barely at all.”
Hiori let out an incredulous laugh.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Haise shrugged.
“Give me a challenge worthy of me and you’ll see me sweat.”
On the other side of the pitch, Karasu heard the conversation from a distance.
A vein bulged on his forehead.
They had just won ten to zero.
And that idiot was complaining because he hadn’t managed to score one more goal.
“Hey, Karasu…” Otoya sat down beside the Crow, his eyes carrying a flame that rarely appeared in them.
“I’m furious… We were humiliated by one guy alone.”
“Yeah…” Karasu remarked, his gaze distant.
“An arrogant, confident idiot who is capable of doing everything without a single doubt… A unique kind of extraordinary.”
Here’s the translation:
Karasu sighed as he looked at his own hands.
‘It was one insane thing after another.
First he awakened his weapon, the Copy Technique, and tipped the scales in his favour.
Then he transformed my weapons and Otoya’s into something new for himself, beating both of us using our own specialities better than we could.’ Karasu thought as he slowly closed his eyes.
‘That was possible thanks to his physical capabilities…
But maybe not only that.
A natural ability to observe others and analyse them.’
An image of Haise surfaced in his mind as the Crow revisited every moment of the match with meticulous attention.
‘His physical capability allows him to be a striker of omnipresent angles — whatever the angle or the foot, he always scores.
His confidence and the complete absence of self-doubt—’
Karasu froze mid-thought.
“…Wait.” His eyes widened slightly.
‘Self-doubt…?
Did he ever doubt himself?
Think, Karasu.
Think.’
No matter how hard he tried to find it, Karasu could not locate a single moment in which Haise seemed to question himself or his own talent.
No hesitation.
No visible doubt.
Nothing.
Karasu’s eyes narrowed slowly.
‘This guy…’ His gaze drifted back to Haise in the distance, watching him with an expression that mixed analysis with something approaching discomfort.
‘Has he ever doubted himself once in his life?’
“That’s it…” Karasu murmured with conviction, his gaze remaining fixed on Haise.
‘Born with the finest physical capabilities in the world, and with the complete absence of doubt that he can be the best.
He has the body and the mind perfectly suited to make him Number One.’
Karasu tightened his fists slightly, and as though he had reached an epiphany, he stared at Haise in the distance with an entirely different look.
His expression shifted — frustration and understanding were intertwined in that gaze.
Destined to be Number One.’
The most shocking goal of the match — the 1620° Volley — was something so difficult and so impossible to imagine that it bordered on the grotesque.
That could only be the product of a genius.
Everything about that shot seemed to surpass the limits of logic, for it was not something a normal player would conceive, let alone execute — a display worthy of someone born to be the Number One in the World.
Geniuses possess capabilities that are the product of genetic selection — a characteristic that can be seen as a gift or as something disturbing in the eyes of ordinary human beings.
And acting as interpreters between the genius and the world are the Prodigies, those capable of translating exceptional talent for society, transforming peculiarities into comprehensible gifts.
The genius contributes their individual creativity, and the prodigy transmits it.
What once seemed abnormal becomes, in time, the new norm for the generations that follow.
Both Karasu and Hiori were able to interpret that goal.
Because both were Prodigies.
And by being Prodigies, both were capable of recognising — without hesitation, without doubt — the adequacy of Haise Sasaki.
Karasu let out a small, bitter laugh.
Because now he understood the reason he had felt so powerless during the match.
He had been trying to compete with someone who operated under an entirely different logic.
Someone who possessed exactly the qualities necessary to reach a place that most players only dreamed of seeing from afar.
As he watched Haise in the distance, a single conclusion remained in his mind.
And if a monster of that level kept evolving…
The entire world would eventually be forced to recognise him as the true Number One.
…
Later, Haise walked through the corridors of BLUE LOCK toward Ego’s Room.
A white and blue tracksuit with the BLUE LOCK logo on the chest, blue training trousers, white trainers.
As soon as he spotted the door, he noticed Anri standing beside it, tapping at her tablet with a desperate expression.
“Anri-chan? What happened?” Haise asked, already drawing close.
“Ah! Haise-kun?! You startled me.” Anri jumped before turning to the tricolour-haired young man.
“Everything’s fine, it’s just that… The BLUE LOCK project expenses…”
The JFU was probably starting to complain about the costs.
The project consumed absurd amounts of money daily, and each new implementation of Ego’s seemed to drive the bill even higher.
Anri massaged her forehead.
“Ego-san simply doesn’t understand the concept of a budget…”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
Anri stared at the boy for a few seconds.
Haise simply smiled.
A smile that, for some reason, made Anri even more worried.
The answer was obvious: the JFU’s misery was Haise Sasaki’s happiness.
“So they’re complaining because they’re spending too much?”
“Yes.”
“But the project is working.”
“It is.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Anri opened her mouth and promptly closed it again.
That conversation was going nowhere — because, just like Ego, Haise clearly possessed no financial instinct whatsoever.
“You and Ego-san are a nightmare.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“Even so, thank you.”
Anri felt a headache coming on.
Meanwhile, Haise glanced at the tablet for a brief moment — and his eyes lit up.
“By the way…”
“No.”
“But I haven’t even said anything.”
“I know that look.” Anri pulled the tablet against her chest immediately.
“If your idea involves spending more money, the answer is no.”
Haise stayed silent for a few seconds.
“…And if it involves spending a lot more money?”
“Especially if it involves spending a lot more money!”
The young man simply shrugged.
Deep down, he continued to believe that investments in football could never be too much.
“Ah, I just remembered something.” Haise remarked suddenly.
And then he stepped closer.
Too fast for Anri to react.
His face was near — close enough for her to feel his warm breath grazing her ear, and her own face turned red before she could do anything about it.
“I’ll be turning 18 in two weeks…” Haise’s voice came out slightly different from usual, it was… hesitant.
“When the day comes… would you like to go out with me?”
His pale face was faintly red.
“You’re a beautiful woman, passionate about football just like me, and…” His gaze drifting briefly.
“You were one of the few people who kept treating me normally despite everything.”
Anri pressed her fingers lightly against her cheek.
She knew Haise Sasaki.
She knew exactly what kind of person he was — direct, confident, sometimes absurdly inconvenient.
But in that moment, with his face faintly red and his gaze drifting away, he had seemed…
“I’m not asking for an answer right now. I just want you to think about it.”
Anri let out a slow breath.
She looked at the tablet in her hands, at the reports and the numbers and the problems waiting for her.
Her usual life, organised and full, completely dominated by football and Jinpachi Ego.
And then, without meaning to, her lips curved slightly.
“See you, Anri-chan.”
SHIIIIIIK.
The automatic door slid shut, and the corridor fell silent.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“…That boy.”
Anri remained standing in the same spot.
The tablet was still in her hands, but she was no longer looking at the reports.
“…What just happened?”
She brought one hand to her face, her heart still beating faster than it should.
For a few seconds, she simply stared at Ego’s closed door in silence, and then sighed.
“I didn’t even manage to answer…” She let out a small, nervous laugh.
…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Haise walked calmly into Ego’s room as though he hadn’t just dropped an emotional bomb in the middle of the corridor.
“Hey, old man. How’s it going?” Haise said, hands in his pockets.
Ego stared at the screens without even blinking.
“Hello, you Incipient Genius.” Ego turned slowly toward the young man, his eyes dark spirals, several veins nearly bursting on his neck and face.
“How does it feel now that you’re complete as a striker? And how does it feel to throw your talent in the trash?”
“I don’t know?” Haise replied, veins appearing on his own face.
“You tell me, you insufferable zealot.”
And then, Ego smiled.
“You fool. You still have that habit of dodging questions — I thought I told you to stop that.” Ego said, staring at his son, who kept his hands in his pockets with a deliberate composure.
“I think I vaguely remember something like that, but who knows, I must have ignored it.” Haise shrugged and stepped closer.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Ah, that.” Ego pressed a key.
Click.
An image appeared on the screens.
Haise’s 1620° Volley, frozen at the moment of impact.
“My volley?”
“Yes, what you did was… A risk to your life as a player.” Ego spoke with a sigh and a serious expression.
“It was a move based purely on raw talent and the instinct of the moment, not on a logical and replicable formula for scoring goals.”
Haise fell silent, as though he had no argument against it.
“A true striker must understand how his goals are created in order to reproduce them intentionally. The 4.5-rotation volley, where you needed to use your physical and copying talent before landing the final strike — that is a once-off lucky move that cannot be replicated.” Ego lowered his head and the atmosphere turned cold.
“What you are…”
“A meaningless success…” Haise completed.
“Exactly. You pushed yourself beyond your limits, and now—”
“If I can’t replicate it.”
Ego stopped with his eyes wide open and slowly turned his head toward his son.
“What did you say?”
With his hands in his pockets, Haise faced Jinpachi Ego with a purple aura escaping from his eyes.
“I said it’s a meaningless success if I can’t replicate it.” Haise answered as he faced his father with determination and confidence.
He might have accepted Ego’s premise, but he rejected his conclusion.
Haise’s eyes turned toward the frozen image of the volley.
“You’re right.” Haise observed the move in silence.
“Right now, this is just a phenomenon.”
His expression remained firm.
“Whether it’s a goal that happened by chance, an answer found by instinct, or a coincidence between talent, situation and opportunity.” And then his eyes gleamed.
“But that doesn’t mean it will stay that way.”
Jinpachi fell silent, not daring to utter a word.
Simply listening.
“If I can’t explain this goal…” Haise took a step forward.
“Then I’ll come to understand it.”
Another step.
“If I can’t reproduce it…”
Another.
“Then I’ll reproduce it.”
The pressure in the room intensified.
Haise’s confidence, conviction and exaltation filled every corner of the space like something tangible, something that had weight.
“If this is a miracle.” His gaze met Ego’s.
“Then I’ll turn the miracle into logic.”
Ego’s spiral eyes narrowed slowly.
“Hm. Very well then…” Ego’s face twisted into a smile.
He had heard the answer he wanted.
In that instant, Haise was declaring war against his own limits.
And for Jinpachi Ego… there was no more beautiful ego than that.
…
What separates a miracle from a weapon?
As Haise defies the logic of football, a new question arises: will he manage to turn the impossible into something replicable?
And what will be the next stage of his evolution toward the top?
NEXT CHAPTER → Second Selection