Chapter 41: The Absolute and the Flow
The scoreboard held a static 2-0, but the air in the stadium had turned heavy, saturated with the frantic energy of a hierarchy under siege. The halftime break hadn't cooled the heat; it had allowed it to settle into a pressurized silence.
Eshan walked back to the center circle. He simply adjusted his socks and pulled his jersey straight, his movements relaxed and fluid. comfortable in the middle of a storm that was making everyone else choke.
"Eshan," Isagi said, his voice jagged with adrenaline. "Look at them."
Eshan glanced across the halfway line. Reo Mikage was no longer the composed. His purple hair was matted with sweat, and his eyes were fixed on the ball with a frantic, desperate intensity. Beside him, Nagi Seishiro stood tall, The dull, bored look in his eyes had been replaced by a dark, predatory curiosity.
"They're finally playing," Eshan said.
The whistle shrieked, slicing through the tension.
Isagi tapped the ball to Eshan, and the second half ignited. Team V's front line swarmed immediately, Zantetsu led the charge, his 10-meter acceleration kicking up rubber pellets from the turf like a gunshot.
Eshan didn't retreat. He drove straight into the teeth of the press. As Zantetsu lunged for a heavy shoulder-check, Eshan engaged his Absolute Ball Feel. He didn't look down. He felt the vibration of the ball against his instep and performed a microscopic "Pulse-Stop," killing the ball's momentum for a fraction of a second. Zantetsu's explosive weight carried him past, hitting nothing but the cold air where Eshan had been a heartbeat ago.
Reo dived in next, he attempted a sliding tackle. Eshan didn't jump. He simply rolled the ball under his sole and flicked it behind his standing leg—a silent, fluid movement that left Reo slid past him on the turf, and Eshan was already moving into the final third.
Eshan glided into the final third. He saw the passing lanes opening. With a relaxed flick of his ankle, he sent a stinging, low-trajectory pass wide to Bachira.
"Finish it," Eshan said.
Bachira met the ball on the volley. It was a beautiful, screaming strike aimed at the far corner. The keeper was beaten. The 3-0 was a certainty.
But Reo hadn't stopped. He had sprinted the length of the pitch with a frantic, suicidal pride. He threw his entire body at the goal line, his ribs slamming into the metal post with a sickening thud as he hooked the ball away with the very tip of his cleat.
"NOT YET!" Reo screamed, his voice raw.
The clearance flew high and deep toward the center circle. That was the moment the world broke.
Nagi ignited. He met the falling ball five feet in the air, trapping it with his heel mid-flight and flicking it over his own head to bypass Raichi in one motion. He didn't stop to wait for the ball to settle. As it dropped, Igarashi lunged, but Nagi performed a two-stage fake trap—letting the ball bounce off his knee and then his shoulder, spinning around the defender without the ball ever touching the grass.
He was moving like a ghost. Kunigami stepped up to block him, but Nagi used a high-speed nutmeg flick, sending the ball through Kunigami's legs and retrieving it on the other side before the defender could even turn. The Team Z backline was being dismantled by a single player.
"It's not boring anymore," Nagi whispered.
He reached the edge of the area. He didn't look at the goal; he was looking at the ball like it was the only thing in existence. He performed a mid-air juggling drive, tapping the ball up twice to reset his own rhythm while drifting past Gagamaru's desperate reach. The air around him felt pressurized, the "Flow" manifesting as a total gravitational pull on the match.
Nagi pulled his leg back, his eyes dark. It was a guaranteed goal.
The shot never left his foot.
Eshan was already there. He hadn't chased Nagi, his Absolute Awareness had moved him the moment Reo's foot touched the ball at the other end. He stood in the only shooting lane Nagi had left, his posture calm, his silver-gray eyes tracking the microscopic shift in Nagi's center of gravity.
Nagi struck the ball with raw, awakened power.
Eshan didn't flinch or turn his shoulder. He stepped into the strike. His foot met the ball at the precise micro-second of impact. There was a heavy thud, but the ball didn't fly away. Using his Absolute Ball Feel, Eshan deadened the force completely. The ball died on his laces, the momentum swallowed by his frame.
Nagi froze, his follow-through hanging in the air. He looked at Eshan, shock finally breaking through his dull expression. The "Genius" had hit a wall that didn't just block him—it erased him.
"That was certainly a valiant attempt, Nagi," Eshan said. His voice was steady, devoid of the heat Nagi was putting off.
Eshan turned with the ball, the movement smooth as silk.
Isagi was watching from ten yards away. He had seen Nagi's impossible traps, the gravity-defying grace. But then he had seen Eshan stop it as if he were simply stopping a training ball. His brain began to fragment into a grid of possibilities. The "scent" of the goal turned into a crystalline map of the pitch.
"I... I see it," Isagi whispered.
His eyes began to glow, his pupils dilating as he processed the entire environment. He didn't just see the players; he saw the "logic" of the space between them. He saw the hole that Reo's desperate sprint had left in Team V's defensive core.
"Eshan! To the left!" Isagi roared, his ego finally snapping into the Flow. "Behind Reo!"
Eshan didn't even look to verify the call. He just gave a small smile and flicked the ball toward the empty grass Isagi had pointed to.
The game had entered a new dimension. Team V was fighting for their lives, and Isagi had finally found the eyes to see the world Eshan lived in.