MINUTE 75: THE AIR TURNS
Daichi stood at midfield and you could feel everything in the stadium tighten by degrees—a ripple in the noise, a shift in the weight of the day. Sato's head jerked up first, eyes flicking to Daichi, and he screamed at the top of his lungs: "BACK! FALL BACK NOW! MOVE!"
Yuta blinked, looking across the pitch confused. "What? Aren't we supposed to...."
Ryo's head snapped around, searching for Daichi—tension etched deep on his jaw. The captain understood immediately. This wasn't the same striker who'd been playing. This was something else.
Kenji hopped from foot to foot in his goal, shaking out his hands, muttering under his breath: "Okay. Come on. Show me what you got."
Akari pressed both palms to her thighs, breath caught somewhere in her chest. The roar of the crowd faded into white noise. She saw Takeshi barely upright—his movements less running, more surviving. His legs weren't responding. His eyes were glassed over.
No one else can see it—he's done. He's running on nothing but fumes. Please… please let that be enough.
A system flash across Takeshi's vision felt less like an alarm, more like a funeral bell:
[WARNING]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He's changing.
You know this look.
The demon awakens.
Stamina: 2%
TIME RELAY: 15%
Body: SHUTDOWN IMMINENT
Can you survive perfection?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Takeshi tried to call out a warning—his voice cracked mid-word. Came out like a whisper that nobody heard. He felt the team slip away before the threat even arrived.
But Daichi wasn't sprinting yet. He was just there, walking, radiating intent like heat off pavement. The anticipation gnawed at the edges of courage. A single bead of sweat rolled down Ryo's neck, and no one breathed.
MINUTE 76-77: THE BUILDUP
Daichi received the ball in the midfield—a simple pass from his midfielder, nothing special about it. But the way he touched it. The way his shoulders dropped. It was like watching a predator go from hunting to hunting.
Yuta stepped forward immediately, adrenaline overriding exhaustion. "I've got him! Stay compact!"
His voice was still confident. Still believed. The idealism hadn't cracked yet.
Sato positioned himself three yards back, reading the angles, calculating escape routes. He'd played academy football long enough to know: when someone's aura changed like this, every decision they made became lethal. He couldn't stop Daichi. Nobody could. But maybe—maybe—he could slow him down enough for help.
No, his gut whispered. Not this time.
Takeshi's legs wouldn't obey. He tried pushing off his right foot—the push came out weak, almost apologetic. His TIME RELAY flickered—10%... 8%—but he couldn't afford to use it yet. Couldn't. He had to save it for something, anything that mattered.
In the stands, Akari leaned forward slightly. Her nails dug into her jeans. She wasn't a tactician but she knew enough football to recognize when the game was shifting. When the match was becoming something else.
This is what he used to have, she thought, watching Daichi. This emptiness. This perfection.
MINUTE 78: THE FIRST MOVE
Daichi moved. It wasn't an acceleration—it was a shift in gravity. Yuta committed to the tackle immediately, perfectly. His form was textbook. His positioning absolute.
The tackle went through empty space.
Yuta crashed past him, momentum carrying him forward, his body sliding across the pitch. He tried to recover, tried to get back into it—but Daichi was already gone. The young defender pushed himself up on his elbows, staring at his hands in front of him like they were betraying him.
What... what IS that?
Ryo tracked back immediately, closing the space. Good decision. Good positioning. He cut off the angle to goal perfectly.
Sato was there too—the veteran sliding in with perfect timing. Three of them converging on one striker from different angles.
Daichi didn't accelerate. Didn't weave or dance. He just... shifted.
Nutmegged Sato with a casual inside touch that made the midfielder's brain misfire—how was that even possible from that angle? The ball threaded between his legs like it had always meant to go there.
Ryo lunged, trying to block. Daichi shoulder-feinted and the captain's momentum carried him sideways, face-first into the grass. Hard.
All three of them sprawled.
All three of them left behind.
Kenji gripped his gloves tighter. He'd seen defenders get beaten before. You play long enough, you see it happen. But this? This was different. Daichi hadn't even run yet. He'd just walked through them like they weren't part of the equation.
The goalkeeper crouched lower, eyes locked on the striker now advancing alone toward goal.
On the sideline, Coach Tanaka's jaw tightened. His hands clenched into fists. He'd coached long enough to know what this was—the moment when a match stops being a competition and becomes a demonstration.
Akari's heart was hammering in her ears. She gripped the barrier. No no no no—
Takeshi watched from behind the action, saw his teammates scattered, and felt something fracture inside him. Not his resolve. Something deeper. The belief that effort and heart could overcome difference. The belief that if you fought hard enough—
The belief broke anyway.
MINUTE 80: THE MOMENT
Daichi had space now. Real space. Kenji came off his line, trying to narrow the angle, doing everything a goalkeeper should do. Perfect positioning. Perfect timing. Perfect technique.
Daichi barely looked. Just shot.
The ball rocketed toward the top corner like it was homing in on something. Kenji dove—his hands were where they needed to be, his reflexes still sharp—but the ball was there, already there, already past him before he'd even committed to the dive.
Net rippling.
The roar of Yokohama's supporters was deafening. Their section of the stadium erupted. But it sounded far away. Muffled.
4-4.
The silence from Tokyo FC's section was worse than any cheer.
Kenji landed hard on his side, bounced up immediately, fist slamming the ground so hard his knuckles split.
"I READ IT! I FUCKING READ IT!"
His voice cracked. Shattered. He looked at his gloves like they'd betrayed him. Like his hands, his years of training, his entire identity as a goalkeeper meant nothing against perfection.
"It wasn't ENOUGH..."
Yuta was still on his knees. Hadn't gotten up yet. He was staring at his palms pressed into the grass, breathing hard, trying to understand how you could do everything right and still fail. How you could read it, position perfectly, commit fully—and still fail.
This was the moment his belief started to crack. The moment he learned that sometimes the universe wasn't fair. That sometimes people were just different. Fundamentally different. And all the work in the world couldn't bridge that gap.
Growing up hurt more than he'd expected.
Sato stood slowly. His jersey was torn at the shoulder. Grass stains on both knees. He looked at Takeshi—really looked at him—and saw the moment his best friend's eyes went flat.
He's breaking, Sato thought. Right now. I can see it happening.
The veteran wanted to say something. Wanted to rally the team, give some motivational speech. But his mouth wouldn't cooperate. Because he'd been playing football long enough to know the truth: you don't come back from this. Not in fifteen minutes. Not against someone like Daichi.
Some walls were just too high.
Ryo was on his feet, shaking his head, fists clenched at his sides. He wanted to scream. Wanted to punch something. The captain of a team that had fought so hard to be here and still it wasn't enough. They'd matched Takeshi's comeback twice. Had scored four goals. And it was still—
Still.
Not.
Enough.
In the stands, Akari had her hand over her mouth. Her nails were drawing blood from her palm but she didn't notice.
You didn't quit, she whispered. *You didn't quit, Takeshi. That's enough. That's enough."
But the scoreboard said something different.
MINUTE 81-85: THE SHIFT IN SPACE
Tokyo FC pushed forward desperately now—all tactics abandoned, replaced with pure desperation. Throw bodies forward. Try anything. Maybe lightning strikes twice.
It didn't.
Yokohama defended comfortably. Bored, almost. They knew what was coming. They'd been here before. First place teams always knew when the match was decided, even if the scoreboard hadn't caught up yet.
Ryo made a run down the wing—solid effort, good timing, completely pointless. The ball was intercepted and cycled back to Yokohama before he'd traveled fifteen yards.
Sato tried to win a tackle in midfield. His body was too slow, his reactions a half-second behind. He hit the ground frustrated, slapping the pitch in anger. The veteran's hands were shaking. Not from physical exhaustion. From something else. Something like watching destiny unfold and being powerless to stop it.
Takeshi drifted left, trying to find space. Trying to do something. Anything. But his legs were cement now. He took two steps and his vision swam. He caught himself on a defender's shoulder—completely unintentional, just trying to stay upright.
The crowd sensed it. Even the neutral fans in the stadium could feel the shift. Tokyo FC was falling apart. Not dramatically. Just... coming undone at the seams.
Yokohama didn't need to push anymore. They just needed to wait.
MINUTE 86: DAICHI'S WALK
He received the ball again—another unremarkable pass. But his touch, again, was poetry for people who understood the language of perfection. He glided forward, not running, not sprinting. Just... moving through the field like it belonged to him.
Yuta tried to close him down again. The young defender had learned nothing from the first sequence—or learned everything and was trying anyway because giving up was worse.
Daichi sidestepped him without looking. Yuta grabbed at air and stumbled.
The hope was dying now. You could see it leaving the young defender's eyes in real-time.
Sato made one more attempt at an interception. The midfielder slid perfectly—and Daichi simply lifted the ball over him with a first-time chip that was beautiful and cruel all at once.
One-on-one with Kenji again.
The goalkeeper came off his line. Did everything right again. It didn't matter. Daichi finished with the same cold efficiency. Another corner. Another impossible angle.
No celebration this time. Just jogged back like he'd already forgotten it.
Kenji lay on his back in the goal, hands over his face.
5-4.
MINUTE 89-90+: THE FINAL WHISTLE
The whistle came and it was the cruelest sound in the world.
POST-WHISTLE: THE AFTERMATH
Kenji was face-down on the pitch, fists clenched in the grass. Not moving. Not celebrating. Just lying there with his shoulders heaving, silent tears mixing with sweat.
"I'm sorry," he kept saying. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm—"
Yuta sat with his knees pulled to his chest, staring at nothing. The belief was completely gone now. Not dormant. Gone. Burned away. He was 16 and he'd just learned that the world didn't care how hard you fought. Didn't care about your dreams or your effort. Some people were just better. Some mountains couldn't be climbed.
Growing up tasted like copper and defeat.
Ryo kicked the goal post. Once. Twice. Three times. His shin was probably fractured but he didn't care.
"FUCK!"
Then he slumped against the post, head in his hands, unable to look at his team.
Sato stood alone at midfield. Just... stood there. His jersey was ripped, his face was covered in dirt, but his eyes were looking at something far away. One tear ran down his cheek and he didn't wipe it away.
He'd lost before. The veteran had taken defeats. But this one hurt. Because they'd been so close. Because Takeshi had done the impossible already. Because for 80 beautiful minutes they'd actually believed.
Takeshi lay on his back.
Staring at the sky.
His system had gone completely silent now—no more notifications, no more warnings, just empty. And that silence was deafening.
He'd done everything. Matched Daichi goal for goal. Assist for assist. Pushed himself past the point where humans should break. Given pieces of himself he didn't even know he had to give.
And it wasn't enough.
The old question, the one he'd been running from for three years, came back with a vengeance: Am I still not good enough?
He lay there and let that question destroy him piece by piece.
DAICHI'S APPROACH
He didn't celebrate.
Didn't gloat.
His teammates were somewhere celebrating, relieved, already thinking about the next match. But Daichi just... walked. Walked toward Takeshi like he was drawn to him by something deeper than victory.
Stood over the fallen demon.
Looked down.
The prodigy is looking at the failure.
"You fought well today," Daichi said. No emotion. Just facts being stated. "I could see it. You were dying out there from the start."
Takeshi couldn't respond. Didn't have breath.
"That's admirable." Daichi paused. "But understand something, Takeshi. You were never the star of Japan. It was always me."
Not cruel. Just true. In his mind, it had to be true.
"Three years ago, they called you the prodigy. But I was always better. I was always the one. You just shone brighter for a moment. That's all it was."
Daichi leaned down slightly, and his voice got quieter but somehow more cutting: "You didn't fall from the top, Takeshi. You fell from the shadow of someone who never fell."
He straightened up. Looked at Takeshi once more with eyes that held no sympathy, no cruelty, just absence.
"Thank you for reminding me why I stayed at the top. And why you couldn't."
Then he walked away.
Just turned and walked away.
The words landed harder than any loss.
Was he ever really THAT good? Or was it always a lie?
Takeshi lay there with that poison spreading through his veins. With the three years of running, the comeback, the redemption, all of it suddenly feeling like the desperate fantasy of someone who'd never belonged in the first place.
AKARI'S SPRINT
She didn't wait.
Didn't wait for the formalities or the final whistle ceremonies or any of that. The second Daichi walked away, Akari moved.
Vaulted the barrier.
Didn't care about security. Didn't care about protocol. Just sprinted across the pitch with her heart in her throat.
Kenji looked up confused, saw her running, and understood. Stepped aside. Let her through.
Sato nodded at her, a small, tired acknowledgement. He got it. They all understood: some things mattered more than rules.
She reached Takeshi and collapsed beside him.
Didn't say anything stupid like "it's okay" or "you lost, but you tried." Just wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head to her shoulder and held him like he might disappear if she let go.
"I watched you die out there," she said quietly, fiercely. Her voice was shaking. "I watched you give pieces of yourself you don't have. I watched you become something I didn't think existed anymore."
Takeshi's eyes opened slightly. He looked at her.
"He's wrong, Takeshi. He's wrong."
Her voice broke.
"You weren't the star of Japan three years ago. You were a kid playing a game. Today—today you were a warrior."
She pulled back, forced him to look at her. Tears were streaming down her face now but her eyes were burning.
"He has talent. He has perfection. But you?" Her voice got quieter but somehow fiercer. "You have something he lost. You have the courage to get back up after falling."
Takeshi felt something crack open inside him, not breaking, not shattering. Opening.
Akari continued: "He never fell, Takeshi. He doesn't know what you survived. He doesn't know what you beat just to be here."
She tightened her grip around him.
"You didn't lose today. You showed everyone, showed me, what a real fighter looks like. The score doesn't matter. You matter."
Takeshi couldn't speak.
His throat was too tight. His mind was too full. So he just pulled her closer, pulled her in, like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.
And maybe she was.
Takeshi and Akari in the centre of the pitch.
His team surrounds them, respecting the space. Kenji is still on his knees. Yuta stared at his hands. Sato was watching with an expression that had seen too much. Ryo against the post.
Daichi, in the distance, is celebrating with his team, already forgetting the fallen.
The stadium lights are burning down on them.
The scoreboard: 5-4.
But the real story wasn't the numbers.
The real story was this moment.
Being seen.
Being held.
Being human again in the wreckage of perfection.