The world was a simple equation. People were variables. Trust was an unsolvable unknown.
Hiraijin Yuto had learnt these facts not from a textbook but from the hollow echo of an empty orphanage and the biting cold of a rural winter, which seeped into bones and souls alike.
He stood before the monolithic, garishly coloured Blue Lock facility, his shadow a long, dark slash across the vibrant concrete.
It was a prison painted in the hues of ambition, and to Yuto, it was the most honest place he had ever seen.
The air inside was a physical thing, thick with the scent of sweat, adrenaline, and the raw, unvarnished desperation of 299 other boys. It was a fog of aspiration that clogged the lungs.
Yuto breathed it in, his expression as unreadable as stone. This wasn't the scent of dreams; it was the scent of fuel.
His motivation was not a glittering trophy or the roar of a crowd, but a fundamental, bone-deep imperative carved into him by a lifetime of solitude: stand at the pinnacle, or be crushed underfoot.
There was no middle ground. Survival was the only language he had ever been fluent in.
He moved through the chaotic stream of participants with a predator's grace, his height making him an unassailable island in the current.
His eyes, a shade of cunning brown, missed nothing. They catalogued the nervous ticks, the puffed-out chests, and the forced bravado. Data points. Variables in the grand experiment he was about to undertake.
"Hey, watch it!" a spiky-haired boy snapped, bumping into his shoulder and bouncing off as if he'd hit a wall.
Yuto didn't turn. He didn't acknowledge the boy's existence. His gaze was fixed ahead, already processing, already calculating. The boy was a non-factor. A zero in the equation.
He was assigned to Team V. The name meant nothing.
It was a label.
The individuals within it were what mattered. In the locker room, he changed into the provided white jersey with a methodical slowness, the fabric feeling less like a uniform and more like a shroud for the weapon he was about to become.
His pre-Blue Lock number, 9, was a statement. The striker's number. He would reclaim it.
The first gathering was in a vast, sterile chamber that echoed with the nervous energy of a cattle call. At the front, a giant screen flickered to life. The man who appeared was all sharp angles and sharper words, his voice a hypnotic, derisive boom that vibrated in Yuto's sternum.
"...You are all mediocre!" Jinpachi Ego's declaration was a slap to the collective face of the room.
"You are all replaceable! Your 'teamwork' is a cancer that has weakened Japanese football! Here, you will be stripped bare. Here, you will forge an ego so immense it can carry a nation. Only the most egotistical striker, the one who lives only for his own goal, will survive! The rest will be discarded, your dreams forever locked in blue!"
A ripple of shock, of outrage, of fiery excitement, went through the crowd. Yuto listened, his arms crossed over his chest, his chin slightly raised.
Ego's words were not an insult; they were a manifesto.
A creed he had lived by long before he ever heard the name 'Blue Lock'. Yes, he thought, his gaze sweeping over the sea of fired-up teenagers.
Look at them. They are sparks, fleeting and chaotic. I am the cold, perpetual fire that will consume them all.
His analytical focus swept the room, tagging individuals. A mop of white hair—Nagi Seishiro—lounging against a wall with an air of profound boredom, a lavender-haired boy—Reo Mikage—speaking animatedly at his side.
Prodigy and his handler. A symbiotic relationship. A potential weakness.
Then his eyes snagged on another. A boy with intense blue eyes, burning with a fire that was both chaotic and focused. Isagi Yoichi.
And next to him, a boy with a two-toned fade, humming a tuneless, unsettling melody as he rocked on his heels. Meguru Bachira.
"Everyone here is a monster," Isagi muttered, his voice tight with a mixture of awe and fear.
Bachira grinned, a wide, unnerving slash across his face. "Isn't it exciting?"
Yuto's lip curled almost imperceptibly.
Monsters? No. They are just children playing at being predators. They haven't known true hunger. They haven't seen the dark.
A new voice, sharp and authoritative, cut through the post-speech chatter. "All right, listen up! Initial assessments and physicals begin now! Form lines by team designation!"
It was a woman's voice. Yuto's head turned, his focus shifting with the precision of a scope locating a new target.
She stood near the entrance, a clipboard held firmly against her chest, her expression professionally neutral but with an undercurrent of keen intelligence that couldn't be hidden.
Her hair had a soft brown hue, and her eyes, concealed by their unassuming demeanour, were meticulously observing, evaluating, and cataloguing every detail. Anri Teieri.
As his team shuffled into line, Yuto found his path taking him close to her. His height made him impossible to miss. For a fleeting second, their eyes met.
It was not a spark of romance. It was a collision of two different kinds of perception.
Anri's eyes widened a fraction.
The file in her mind flipped to his: Hiraijin Yuto. Orphanage background. The team has no formal history. Street football. Physical specs: exceptional. Psychological profile: highly guarded, dominant tendencies.
The boy in front of her was the living embodiment of that profile. His gaze wasn't fiery like Isagi's or playful like Bachira's.
It was... calculative. It was as if he was looking at her and seeing a set of data points—height, weight, potential threat level, usefulness. It was disconcerting.
She was used to being the observer, not the one being dissected.
Yuto, for his part, saw a woman of structure and order. A mind. In his world of survival, people were either obstacles or tools. She was not considered an obstacle.
A tool, perhaps? A source of information? He filed her away under 'Asset: Unclassified'.
He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, a gesture of acknowledgement so minimal it was barely there, and moved past without a word.
Anri blinked, watching his broad back as he joined his team. "Interesting," she whispered to herself, a single word loaded with professional curiosity. The "Emperor" had made his first, silent impression.
The physical assessment was a trivial exercise. His body, characterised by a "sleeper build" that concealed coiled power and "super flexibility" beneath a lean frame of 188 cm, moved with chilling, robotic precision.
When tested for flexibility, he bent in ways that made the attending staff wince, his score shattering the facility's previous records. He didn't grunt or strain; he simply executed, his face a mask of detached concentration.
The door to Team V's stratum hissed shut, sealing them in. The air was immediately thick with the unspoken task of establishing a hierarchy.
Reo Mikage took charge, stepping into the centre of the room with a confident smile that didn't quite reach his watchful eyes. "Alright, listen up, everyone," he began, clapping his hands together softly. "I'm Reo Mikage. The goal here is to win, and to do that, we need to work together and—"
"Work together?" a lazy voice drawled from a bench. Nagi was slumped over, looking as if the mere act of listening was a monumental effort. "Sounds like a pain."
Yuto stood apart from the group, a solitary sentinel leaning against the cold, curved wall, his arms crossed. He had not spoken a word since entering the room.
Reo sighed, a practiced sound of patience. "Nagi, we have to. This is a team."
"Team is a liability."
The words, 'low' and 'calm', cut through the room's chatter like a scalpel. All eyes turned to him. Yuto unfolded his arms and pushed himself off the wall, his height instantly making him the focal point. He ignored the others, his cunning eyes locking onto Reo.
"You speak of teamwork, Mikage," Yuto said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "But your eyes are only on him." He didn't even gesture toward Nagi; his implication was clear. "You seek to use him as your weapon. That is not teamwork. That is ownership."
Reo's smooth smile tightened at the edges. The accuracy of the statement was a direct hit. "And what's your philosophy?" he asked, the challenge clear in his tone.
Yuto's gaze finally swept over the rest of the team—a hulking boy with long hair (Aryu), a powerfully built one who seemed to vibrate with anxiety (Tokimitsu), and a sharp-eyed forward (Shidou). He saw assets and obstacles.
"I am the foundation," Yuto declared, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You will all play to elevate me. I will be the axis from which all attacks flow and to which all balls return. That is the most efficient path to victory for this... unit."
Shidou, a boy with crazy eyes, laughed like a dog. "The hell you are! "Who died and made you the king?"
Yuto's eyes moved to Shidou, and for a moment, the wild boy felt a sudden, instinctual chill, as if he had just stepped into the territory of something much more dangerous than himself. Yuto stepped forward without making a sound.
"King,", Yuto stated, the word final and absolute, "is a title given by others." He paused, letting the silence weigh down on them. "I am the Emperor. My authority is not given. It is inherent."
A stunned silence choked the room. The declaration was so arrogant, so coldly delivered, that it left no room for retort. The 'Emperor' had declared his reign before the first ball had even been kicked.
Later, as the team dispersed for the night, Yuto found the most isolated bunk. He lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the sterile ceiling. His insomnia was a familiar curse, a time when the ghosts of his past whispered loudest.
The empty cot next to him was a clear indication of his solitude.
Why was I thrown away?
The question was a constant, grinding ache beneath his ambition. He was here to find that answer, to find a truth that could fill the void.
To find a love that could warm the cold, calculated world he had built for survival.
His mind, however, was not on his past. It was already replaying the data from the day, building profiles, and running simulations.
The foundation was laid.
The board was set.
From her observation booth, Anri Teieri finalised her notes for the first day's evaluations. Her cursor hovered over one file in particular.
She typed a single, additional line under Hiraijin Yuto - Team V.
Subject exhibits a control-based ego, predicated on analytical superiority. Has assumed a dominant role within his stratum. Designation: 'The Emperor'. Potential level: S. Threat level: S.
She saved the file and looked down into the facility, her eyes unconsciously searching for the stratum belonging to Team V. The first move had been made. The game of survival was on, and every other boy in Blue Lock was now, whether they knew it or not, a piece on his board.
In the silence of his bunk, Yuto's eyes remained open, sharp and calculating in the dim light. A single, focused thought cut through the noise in his mind.
Let them all come.