Chapter 125: Another One
"Stay sharp on the backline, Niko."
Aryu barked the order as he shifted his position.
"I'm on it!"
Ikki Niko's voice was steady. His hair might have been covering his eyes, but his mind had never been clearer. He wasn't just looking at the pitch; he was dissecting it.
'Niko, do you know why a player with your mediocre height and average speed was chosen as a starting center-back?'
Ego's voice echoed in his mind.
'It's your vision. Your ability to read the game is elite. You aren't just a defender. You are the Watchtower of the Blue Lock defense.'
The Watchtower.
Niko's gaze swept across the field. He ignored the man with the ball and focused instead on the shadows moving around him. He wasn't looking for where the ball was; he was looking for where the danger would be born.
'Don't watch the ball. Watch the hunger.'
Niko moved. He didn't chase Itoshi Sae. He sprinted toward a completely different patch of grass.
Aryu glanced over, his brow furrowing. 'What the hell are you doing, Niko?'
But Aryu didn't have time to worry about his partner. Sae had already reached Tabito Karasu at the edge of the midfield. Karasu dug his heels in, using his hands to keep the distance. He wasn't going to let Sae dictate the tempo.
"A little crow trying to block the sun?" Sae muttered, his eyes cold as he tracked Karasu's movement.
Sae realized that if he got bogged down here, Rin would be on him in seconds. Without looking, he flicked the ball toward the box.
The pass was headed straight for the U-20's striker, Shuto Sendo.
Niko, who had already reached the spot, saw the ball coming. He'd gambled on Sae's choice, and he'd won.
'Wait—no!'
Niko's eyes widened as he tracked the ball's rotation. It wasn't a standard pass. It was a soft, back-spinning delivery—a velvet trap. The ball was decelerating perfectly, landing exactly where Sendo could take it in stride without slowing down.
It was a surgical strike. Sae had set a trap, baiting Niko to step out of the formation just so the striker could exploit the gap. If Niko committed now, it was over.
Sendo, despite his ego, recognized the gift. He saw the defender lunging in and smirked. He was already planning his celebration.
But just as Sendo went to trap the ball, Niko slammed on the brakes. Instead of crashing into the striker, he timed his lunge perfectly, his foot snapping out to poke the ball away the second it touched Sendo's boot.
"What?!" Sendo gasped, staring at his empty feet.
Sae watched the exchange, his expression unreadable. Sendo had failed to adapt. Again. He'd wasted another masterpiece.
"Nice read, Niko!"
Karasu was on the loose ball in a heartbeat.
"Counter-attack! Move up, you egoists!"
As the heart of the Blue Lock transition, Karasu drove the ball forward. The moment he ignited, the entire team shifted into an aggressive high-press. Haru Hayate stepped up to stop him, but Karasu used his long reach to shield the ball, pivoting around the defender with ease.
"Using your hands? That's cheap!" Hayate grunted.
Karasu didn't care. He was already past him.
"Unbelievable! Blue Lock's Number 6 just tore through the midfield in a single move!" Atsuto Tereasa's voice roared through the stadium. "Another one-on-one win! These Blue Lock players are absolute savages when they're in the zone!"
The U-20 defense tightened. Miroku Darai stepped up to fill the void, his movements light and calculated. He stayed glued to Karasu, refusing to give him a window to shoot.
Karasu didn't look bothered. He caught a flash of red in his peripheral vision. "Who said I was the one finishing this?"
Karasu whipped a long, diagonal ball toward the right flank.
"Go get 'em, Princess. Tear them apart."
Hyoma Chigiri was already a blur of red. He didn't even have to slow down to trap the ball. He took it in stride, his legs pumping with a violent, explosive energy.
Oliver Aiku realized the threat and sprinted from the center to cover the wing. He squared up against Chigiri, a confident smirk on his face. "I caught you, long-haired thief."
"Then try to keep up."
Chigiri knew he couldn't outmuscle a veteran like Aiku. But this was the wing. This was a straight-line sprint to the finish, and on this track, he was the king.
"Watch this!"
Chigiri's thighs flexed, and he shifted into a gear that shouldn't have been possible.
"He's still accelerating?!"
Aiku lunged, but he was grabbing at air. Chigiri blew past him like a residual image, the ball and the man vanishing behind the U-20 captain.
"Incredible! The Red Panther, Hyoma Chigiri, just left Aiku in the dust!" Tereasa screamed. "He's reached the final third! He's going for the box!"
Harutaro Natsuki's jaw was on the floor. "That top speed... it's world-class. He's practically a human bullet."
As Chigiri reached the touchline, the U-20 backline scrambled. Kazuma Niou abandoned his post to close the angle. Chigiri didn't hesitate. He whipped a low, hard cross into the center.
Itoshi Rin was there, perfectly positioned to meet the ball.
But before Rin could connect, a white jersey intercepted the play. It was Itoshi Sae, dropping back into his own box to clean up the mess. He booted the ball away just before Rin could touch it.
"Still the same old story, little brother. You're always one step behind."
"Tch... I'm going to kill you, you arrogant prick."
The tension between them was a physical force.
"Loose ball!" Niou roared.
But it was too late.
Ryosuke Kira had been lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chaos to peak. He moved toward the drop point, killing the ball with his left foot before it even touched the ground.
"I won't let you!"
Aiku had recovered. He threw himself into Kira's space, his eyes narrowed with a newfound respect. He wasn't underestimating them anymore.
'I was wrong about these kids,' Aiku thought. 'I thought they were just typical high school strikers. I thought they were soft.'
'But they're not. They're a pack of hungry beasts, and this white-haired demon is leading the hunt.'
Kira saw Aiku closing in and caught Isagi's run out of the corner of his eye.
"Kira!" Isagi called out, looking for the one-two.
'A give-and-go?' Aiku calculated. 'No. These beasts don't share their prey!'
Kira feinted a pass to Isagi, drawing Aiku's weight onto his back foot. Then, in an instant, Kira shifted. He didn't use his right foot—the one everyone expected to be his dominant side.
He loaded his left.
Aiku froze. 'What? Left-footed? Is he ambidextrous?!'
Before anyone could react, Kira unleashed an outside-the-foot curler. The ball screamed away from the keeper's reach, arching beautifully into the far corner of the net.
Gen Fukaku didn't even dive. He just watched it go in.
GOAL!
Blue Lock: 2. Japan U-20: 0.
Aiku stood there, staring at the back of the net. He realized then that he wasn't the one doing the hunting.
He was the one being hunted.
"Unbelievable!" Tereasa's voice was hoarse from screaming. "Kira does it again! An incredible left-footed strike to double the lead! The U-20 is reeling!"
On the pitch, Kira didn't even have time to breathe before the rest of the team was on him.
"Kira! You monster!"
Bachira, Isagi, and Chigiri tackled him to the ground, a pile of blue jerseys celebrating in the heart of the U-20's stadium.
"Gah—! Get off me!" Kira laughed, struggling for air under the weight of his teammates. "I can't... breathe... we still have a game to win!"
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