⚽ Football Reborn: The Manager from the Future
Chapter 31 – Operation Nocturne: When Shadows Attack
Nightfall at Chrono Base was normally a time for analysis, meditation, and low-light recovery training.
But on this night, the stars vanished.
The moon flickered.
And Operation Nocturne began.
Inside the base, Chuva was finishing his first neural sync session. The ChronoSystem had mapped his neurological response to pressure, deception, and instinct—and found no parallels. Not even the AI simulations could predict his choice of passes.
"His decisions are jazz," Greg muttered from the control deck. "Improvised, risky, but somehow always right."
In the main hall, the core team sat watching footage of a simulated match with Chuva inserted virtually. He dominated—not with goals, but by bending space and creating moments others didn't even see.
Messi leaned forward. "He plays outside the rhythm. He creates space the way I used to feel it."
Even Neymar was speechless. "It's like he's from a different planet."
Then, all lights cut.
Complete black.
Every screen died.
A low hum—like pressure building in the walls—reverberated across the base.
Red emergency lights blinked on.
Greg's voice came through the backup comms.
"We're under siege."
"EMP breach. AI countermeasures failing."
"They've found us."
Chuva, sitting in the now-dead sync chair, opened his eyes slowly.
"They're here."
Outside, shadow drones with zero heat signatures hovered silently over the compound. A cascade of liquid-metal agents—clones enhanced with illegal firmware—landed on the south wall.
The Syndicate wasn't sending scouts this time.
They were sending executioners.
Inside the base, Ethan raced through the corridors toward the vault room—where the tactical server stored the ChronoSystem's heart.
Chuva was already there, waiting.
"How did you get in—?" Ethan began.
"I'm part of the system now," Chuva replied calmly. "I can hear its pulse. And something's... wrong."
Suddenly, alarms shrieked. A rupture opened in the west wing.
Cameras blinked—showing agents dressed in black body suits, masked, each carrying a null-field emitter designed to erase all tactical data in a 10-meter radius.
These weren't just soldiers.
They were memory erasers.
Ethan slammed his fist on the wall panel.
"All units—DEFCON Chrono. This is not a drill."
From the training room, Haaland strapped on shock-resistant boots.
"Finally," he growled. "Something to hit."
Jude activated his kinetic armor suit, synced to reactive feedback loops. Pedri and Neymar grabbed impact-stim gauntlets designed for riot evasion. Even Messi, calm and quiet, rolled up his sleeves and nodded toward Chuva.
"Stay behind us," he said.
But Chuva stepped forward.
"No," he whispered. "I know these frequencies. I've seen them in my dreams."
He held up the encrypted ball.
It shimmered—and then melted, reforming into a compact data baton.
Ethan stared.
"That's not a ball. It's a key."
Chuva's eyes glowed faintly.
"It's both."
In the south corridor, the Syndicate clones burst through the first defense line—only to be met with a blur of motion.
Haaland was a one-man wrecking crew. Each punch a sonic boom. Each movement calculated by the ChronoSystem overlay still running in his head.
One clone lunged with a spike glove.
Haaland ducked, pivoted, and sent him flying into the wall.
"Next," he growled.
Meanwhile, Messi moved like a whisper—cutting through agents with surgical timing. His brain still held the instincts of millions of matches. His steps were poetry. He didn't fight the clones—he outplayed them.
Pedri and Neymar worked in sync, covering flanks, redirecting attacks, and using their training in street football chaos to maneuver in tight quarters.
But even they began to falter.
The clones weren't normal anymore. They'd evolved.
One of them teleported.
Another mirrored Bellingham's moves in real time, as if reading his neural flow.
"They've uploaded our playbooks!" Greg shouted over the comms. "They're using our players' data against us!"
Ethan turned to Chuva, who stood still in the vault room, the data baton pulsing.
"They're inside the system," Ethan said.
Chuva nodded.
"Then I have to go deeper."
Before Ethan could stop him, Chuva slammed the baton into the ChronoCore interface.
The entire base shuddered.
A white light exploded outward.
Then—silence.
The Syndicate agents froze.
Literally.
Their movements stuttered—like corrupted files. One by one, they collapsed.
Smoke rose from their bodies.
Greg's voice returned, distorted.
"What… did he do?"
Ethan turned to Chuva.
He was floating—barely.
Eyes closed.
Pulse slow.
"I… turned their mirror against them," Chuva whispered. "They copied my instincts. But my instincts… aren't teachable. They're wild."
"And the clones?"
"Too ordered. Too logical. Couldn't handle the noise."
He collapsed.
Ethan caught him.
Later, in the medbay, Chuva stirred.
Ethan sat beside him.
"Why'd they want you gone so badly?" Ethan asked.
Chuva opened one eye.
"Because I don't belong to the script. I make my own notes."
"And the Syndicate?"
"They've only just begun."
Back in the shadows of a facility deep in the Alps, the Syndicate's faceless leader stood before a flickering wall of failed footage.
One word appeared on the screen.
"CHUVA."
The leader turned to a tall figure in a dark coat.
Silver eyes gleamed in the dark.
"Deploy Ravelin. Send in the Playwright."
"Even if it breaks the field?"
"Especially then."
Would you li