Chapter 36: The Vacuum
The morning after the win felt like a hangover. The cafeteria was a low hum of whispers, the air thick with the smell of cheap coffee and the weight of what was coming. Team V—the undefeated kings of Building 5—were no longer a distant threat on a screen. They were the final wall.
Eshan sat at the edge of the bench, eating his breakfast. Across from him, the rest of Team Z was spiraling.
"They scored six goals last match!" Isagi said, his voice tight. He wasn't even eating; he was just staring at the ranking board. "Six! If we give Nagi even an inch in the box, it's over! How are we supposed to mark someone who traps the ball with his back turned?!"
"I'll mark him!" Raichi snapped, slamming his spoon onto the table. "I'll get in his face until he wishes he never picked up a ball! I don't care about 'genius'! I care about winning!"
Eshan didn't join in. He noticed the silence before he noticed the people. The room seemed to go cold as two figures stopped at the end of their table.
"You're Sato, right?"
Eshan lifted his head. Standing there was a tall, lanky boy with white hair that looked like it hadn't seen a comb in weeks. His eyes were dull and half-lidded. Behind him was a boy with purple hair, wearing a smirk that suggested he'd already decided how this conversation would end.
Nagi Seishiro and Reo Mikage.
"I'm Sato," Eshan said. He stayed seated, leaning back slightly. He looked at them with a flat, quiet intensity.
"Reo says you're the only one here worth watching," Nagi droned, leaning over to look at Eshan's half-empty plate. "You look pretty normal. Why is he so worried about you?"
"I'm not worried, Nagi," Reo laughed, though his eyes were busy scanning the room, taking in Isagi's nerves and Raichi's temper. "I'm just curious. You're #290, but you've got everyone in this building talking. That's a lot of noise for someone at the bottom of the pile."
Eshan took a slow sip of his water, then set the glass down with a quiet, deliberate thud.
"The rankings are just numbers for the cameras, Reo," Eshan said. He looked Reo in the eye. "You think Nagi is a cheat code that wins you the game automatically. But games end."
Reo's expression tightened. "We're 3-0. We haven't just won; we've dominated! You're the ones fighting just to stay in the building!"
"Because we have something to lose," Eshan replied. He shifted his gaze to the white-haired boy. Nagi was currently staring at a fly on the wall, looking like he was five seconds away from a nap.
"Hey."
Nagi's eyes slowly drifted toward him.
"Don't fall asleep on the pitch," Eshan said, his voice dropping. "Because when the ball starts moving, I'm going to be the reason you finally have to try. And you're going to hate it."
Nagi stared at him for a long beat. For a split second, the boredom in his eyes flickered—a brief, sharp flash of annoyance.
"You talk a lot," Nagi mumbled, turning away. "Come on, Reo. This is exhausting. I want to go play my game."
Reo followed, but he glanced back at Team Z—not just at Eshan, but at Isagi and Kunigami, who were now staring at them with a renewed, ugly hunger.
Eshan didn't wait for his teammates to finish their breakdown of the encounter. He headed straight for the training field.
The blue LED lights of the facility hummed overhead. He grabbed a ball and started a series of high-intensity shuttle runs, but with a twist. Every time he reached the line, he turn—a movement so sharp it looked like his skeleton was ignoring the laws of momentum.
"Still at it?"
He didn't need to look up to know it was Chigiri. The "Red Panther" was leaning against the wall, his long hair tied back. He looked different after the Team W match—sharper, like a blade that had finally been polished.
"Team V has Zantetsu," Eshan said, not stopping his drill. "He's faster than you over ten meters. If you rely on your top speed alone, he'll eat you alive before you even shift gears."
Chigiri's eyes narrowed. "I know that. I've watched his tapes. He's a freak."
"Then don't race him," Eshan said, finally stopping and kicking the ball toward Chigiri. It was a fast, spinning pass that required an immediate reaction. "Lure him into a space where his acceleration doesn't matter. Make him turn. He's a dragster—he only knows how to go straight."
Chigiri trapped the ball, his movements fluid. "And what about you? You were talking big to Nagi."
"Nagi is a black hole," Eshan replied, his silver-gray eyes focused. "He doesn't generate his own energy; he just reacts to the ball. I'm going to give him a ball he can't react to. I'm going to saturate his field of vision with so many variables that his 'genius' crashes."
The Tactical Room
By the second day of prep, the tension in the locker room was thick enough to choke on. They were huddled around the digital tácticas board.
"They play a 3-4-3," Isagi explained, pointing at the icons. "But it's lopsided. Everything flows through Reo. He's the heart. Zantetsu is the left lung, and Nagi is the killing blow. If we try to man-mark Nagi, we leave holes for the other two."
"Then we don't man-mark him," Eshan interrupted. He walked to the board and dragged the icons. "We use a Zonal Compression. Raichi, you're the anchor. Your job isn't to take the ball from Nagi—it's to prevent him from receiving it. Foul him if you have to. Don't let him settle."
"I can do that," Raichi grinned, a predatory look on his face. "I'll be his shadow."
"Isagi, Bachira," Eshan continued. "You two are the hunters. You don't look at Nagi. You look at Reo. Every time he looks for a pass, I want you in his peripheral vision. Make him doubt his 'perfect' simulations."
"And you?" Kunigami asked, crossing his arms. "Where are you in this?"
Eshan looked at the board, then at his teammates. "I'm the executioner. When they realize their plan isn't working, they'll panic. That's when the 'genius' fails. That's when I take the ball and end them."
The room went silent. It wasn't the silence of fear anymore—it was the silence of a group that had finally found its rhythm.
Eshan turned and walked out toward the pitch for one final midnight session. He felt the corded muscles in his legs tensing, the seven years of solitary training screaming to be unleashed. He wasn't a professional yet, but in this building, he was the only one who truly understood that victory wasn't a miracle. It was a result.
"Ninety minutes," he whispered to the dark stadium. "Ninety minutes to beat a bored genius."