Chapter 33: The Sound of Snapping Chains
The ball didn't just land in front of Chigiri; it settled. It stayed there, spinning with a low, taunting hiss against the synthetic turf, perfectly weighted for a man who had spent a year convincing himself he had forgotten how to run.
Eshan had already begun to drift toward the center, his eyes scanning the backline of Team W. He knew the weight of the pass he'd just delivered. It wasn't just a ball; it was a provocation. He had calculated the trajectory to land exactly where Chigiri's fear would be forced to meet his potential.
"Either run," Eshan's voice was dry, cutting through the heavy thud of footsteps and the frantic pulse of the stadium, "or get off the field."
The Wanima twins were livid. Keisuke lunged with a desperate, lung-bursting sprint, his face turning a dark, mottled purple as he tried to close a gap that his "data" said shouldn't exist. Junichi was right behind him, his teeth bared in a snarl, his usual rhythmic clicking of teeth replaced by ragged, panicked gasps. They moved like animals sensing a trap, their arrogance replaced by a frantic, ugly need to preserve the lead they had bought.
"Get him!" Keisuke roared, spit flying. "He's a broken toy! Tackle him! Kill the play!"
The air in the stadium felt pressurized, thick with the smell of rubber pellets and the metallic tang of adrenaline.
Chigiri didn't make a speech. He felt Eshan's gaze on him—not one of pity, but of cold, unwavering expectation. For the first time in this facility, someone had looked at him and seen a threat instead of a liability. Eshan wasn't offering a hand up; he was offering a door, and he was indifferent to whether Chigiri walked through it or stayed in the dark.
In Chigiri's mind, the world went dark. He could feel the phantom sensation of his ACL tearing—the sickening pop that had haunted his dreams, the sterile smell of the hospital room, the agonizing months of rehab that felt like a slow death. Every step for a year had been a calculation of risk. But the ball Eshan had left for him was too perfect to ignore. Letting it sit there felt like a crime against the game he had once dominated.
Snap.
The mental barrier didn't just break; it was incinerated by a violent surge of ego. It was the sound of a chain finally reaching its tension point and shattering into a thousand rusted pieces.
Chigiri exploded.
He bypassed Junichi so fast the twin didn't even have time to close his mouth. The sound was like a whip cracking through the air, a sharp thrum of displaced oxygen. He wasn't just a player anymore; he was a crimson blur that defied the sluggish physics of the match. The wind of his passage was so violent it whipped the hair of the players he passed, leaving them blinking in the wake of a ghost.
"WH—HEY!" Keisuke screamed, his arrogance turning into a panicked, stumbling scramble. "HE'S SPRINTING! GET HIM! SOMEONE FOU THEM!"
The twins tried to converge, but their coordination was shattered. Their "telepathy" had been built on the assumption that everyone followed the roles they had been assigned. Chigiri had just torn up the script. They looked like two bullies who realized the kid they were picking on was actually a hunter who had been playing with his food.
Chigiri reached the corner of the box in three strides. His form was a masterclass in biomechanics—the explosive force of his calves, the perfect alignment of his spine, the way his center of gravity never wavered despite the sheer velocity. The goalkeeper shifted, his weight leaning left to cover the near post, his eyes wide and pupils dilated as he tracked a speed that felt like it belonged in a different league.
Chigiri didn't look for a pass. He didn't look for Isagi, who was screaming for the ball in the center. He leaned into the strike, his right leg—the leg he had guarded like a dying flame—swinging with the force of a decade's worth of frustration.
BOOM.
The impact was a dull, heavy thud that resonated in the metal rafters of the stadium. The ball was a straight line of white heat that buried itself in the top corner of the net before the keeper's hands could even leave his sides. The netting groaned, the white twine straining to contain the kinetic energy of a year's worth of suppressed rage.
TEAM Z 2 - 2 TEAM W
The stadium speakers crackled with the updated score. For a second, there was no other sound. Only the heavy, ragged breathing of twenty-two men and the faint whirr of the ventilation system. Then, Team Z erupted.
"YES! CHIGIRI!" Isagi screamed, his face lit up with a wild, hungry energy. He looked at the net, then back at Eshan, his mind already spinning. He realized then that Eshan hadn't just made a pass—he had engineered a breakthrough.
Eshan felt a genuine, gritty grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. This was the sensation he had come for—the raw chaos of a match being flipped on its head by a single act of will. He walked up to Chigiri, who was staring at his own leg as if it were a miracle he had finally claimed.
"Took you long enough," Eshan said. He gave Chigiri a firm, stinging slap on the shoulder—the sharp acknowledgment of a peer. "Now keep that pace up. I didn't come here to watch a one-hit wonder. We have a traitor to bury and ten minutes to do it."
Chigiri looked up, his eyes burning with a predatory light that replaced the soft "princess" persona. "I'm not stopping, Eshan. I'm going to outrun every single person in this building. I'll make sure you have plenty of targets."
Near the halfway line, Kuon was a mess. He looked at the twins, then at the scoreboard, his face a ghostly, sickly white. The "business" he had conducted was falling apart. The twins were currently screaming at each other, Keisuke actually shoving Junichi in his rage, their synchronization extinguished by the shock.
"You let him past!" Keisuke yelled, his voice cracking. "You said the only one who mattered was the 'that' guy!"
Eshan stood at the kickoff line, the ball under his foot. The irritation he'd felt earlier—the disgust at Kuon's lack of professionalism—had turned into a cold, sharp focus. He looked at the twins, then at Kuon, and finally at Isagi and Bachira.
"Isagi, Bachira," Eshan called out. His voice was steady, but it carried a new, infectious energy that demanded they rise to his level. "The twins are rattled. Their logic is broken. Let's show them what happens when you try to buy a win against an egoist who actually loves this game."
The final ten minutes were about to begin. Eshan adjusted his weight, feeling the perfect alignment of his joints. His Absolute Awareness was scanning the field, picking up the frantic heartbeats of the defenders and the sagging posture of the Team W midfield.
"Let's end this," Eshan thought, his silver eyes flashing with the same intensity as the rest of the field.
The Final Push
As the whistle blew for the restart, the field felt different. The "Team Z" that had been drowning in the first half was gone. In its place was a jagged, hungry collective.
The twins tried to initiate their criss-cross play, but it was clumsy—driven by anger rather than timing. Eshan saw the pass before Keisuke even leaned into it. He stepped into the lane, intercepted the ball with a touch that felt like velvet, and immediately turned.
"Bachira! Left!"
Bachira didn't wait. He took the pass and began a dance of chaotic dribbling, pulling three defenders toward him.
Eshan didn't join the attack immediately. He hovered in the center, his eyes never leaving the Wanima twins. He watched them scramble, watched them realize that their "twelve-man" advantage didn't matter if they couldn't touch the ball.
He saw Kuon trying to "accidentally" run into Bachira's path. Eshan didn't shout. He simply adjusted his run, putting his body between Kuon and the ball, using a subtle, firm shoulder to send the traitor stumbling back.
"Stay out of the way," Eshan muttered as he glided past.
The match was no longer a struggle. It was an execution. Team W was suffocating under the pressure of a revived Chigiri on the wing and an Eshan who refused to let a single ball pass the halfway line.