The euphoria of having a team lasted precisely as long as it took for Kairo to witness their first organized practice. Taro had managed to scrape together the remaining six players from the dregs of Genesis Square—a collection of the shy, the unskilled, and the hopelessly unlucky. There was Yumi, a winger with blistering speed but the first touch of a wrecking ball; Daichi, a defensive midfielder who was strong but slower than continental drift; and four others whose main talent seemed to be getting in each other's way.
They secured a practice field, a patch of digital turf at the edge of the hub that was free to use but offered no stat bonuses. The air, once full of Taro's boundless optimism, grew thick with frustration.
"Jiro, not across the goal!" Kenji the goalkeeper wailed, as Jiro's attempted clearance sliced viciously towards his own net, forcing a panicked save.
"Sorry! The controller slipped!" Jiro mumbled, his avatar's face flushing red.
"Ren, you're offside again!" Yumi yelled, after sprinting 50 yards only to receive a pass that was instantly whistled dead.
"I'm trying to time it!" Ren shot back, his voice tight with embarrassment.
Kairo watched from the center circle, his arms crossed. It was chaos. A symphony of incompetence. They had no formation, no strategy, no understanding of basic spatial awareness. For a moment, a cold dread seeped into him. This wasn't a team; it was a sinking ship, and he had just willingly boarded it.
Taro clapped his hands, his cheerful demeanor strained at the edges. "Okay, team! Let's, uh, try a simple passing drill! Triangles! Remember, triangles!"
The resulting drill was less a series of triangles and more a geometric catastrophe. Passes were under-hit, over-hit, or sent into non-existent space. Kairo, operating on pure instinct, would move into a pocket of space, his body already anticipating the pass, only to have the ball launched over his head or behind him. His new passive ability,
This wasn't working. Positive reinforcement wouldn't teach them to see the game.
"Stop," Kairo said, his voice calm but cutting through the noise. Everyone turned to look at him. He had been quiet until now. "This isn't working."
Taro looked worried. "Hey, we're just getting started, Kairo. We'll get it."
"No, we won't," Kairo said, not unkindly, but with a firmness that brooked no argument. "We don't have the time to 'get it.' The registration closes in under twenty hours. Right now, we're not a football team. We're eleven individuals running in the same general direction."
He walked into the middle of the group, the digital grass crunching under his feet. "Forget triangles. Forget complicated tactics. We're going to start with three rules. Just three."
He pointed to Jiro and the other defenders. "Rule One: When we lose the ball, everyone behind the ball—defenders and midfielders—retreats to our own penalty box. Don't try to win it back immediately. Just get back, get organized, and form a wall. Make the other team try to break us down."
He then looked at Ren, Yumi, and the other attackers. "Rule Two: When we have the ball, you, our front three, stay high and wide. Stretch their defense. Make the field as big as possible. Don't all crowd into the middle."
Finally, he looked at everyone, his gaze intense. "Rule Three: When I have the ball, I need you to do one of two things. Either run forward into space, or come short to give me a simple passing option. Don't just stand still and watch. Move. Always be moving."
It was the most basic, fundamental framework imaginable. A crude, defensive shape and a simple attacking principle. But it was something. It was a structure.
"Let's try it," Kairo said. "Five-a-side, half-pitch. Focus on the rules."
The difference was immediate, not miraculous, but tangible. With a clear directive, the players seemed less lost. Jiro stopped trying ambitious passes and just booted the ball clear. Daichi, knowing his role was to shield the defense, stopped wandering out of position. And up front, Ren and Yumi, while still frequently offside, began to create space simply by existing on the last defender's shoulder.
And then, it happened. Kairo received a simple pass from Daichi in midfield. He turned, and for a fleeting second, the chaos of the practice field seemed to slow down. He saw Yumi make a raw, but explosive, run down the right wing. The pass required wasn't a simple push; it needed to be curved, weighted perfectly into the space ahead of her, bypassing the practice defender entirely.
As his foot made contact with the ball, a faint, silvery shimmer—visible only to him—flickered around his boot. A ghost of a memory, of a player who could pass the ball through the eye of a needle, flashed in his mind. His ankle locked, his foot wrapped around the ball, and he delivered a curling, outside-of-the-foot pass that arced beautifully onto Yumi's stride.
It was a pass far beyond the capability of an Iron League rookie. It was… elegant.
[Echoing Footsteps has resonated with a Legendary Spirit!]
[Insight Gained into
Yumi, shocked by the quality of the service, managed to control it—a minor miracle in itself—and fired a cross into the box. Ren, for once perfectly onside, bundled the ball into the net.
Silence.
Then, Taro erupted. "YES! DID YOU SEE THAT? THAT WAS INCREDIBLE! KAiro, THAT PASS!"
The team crowded around him, their avatars' faces a mix of awe and newfound excitement. The goal itself was scrappy, but the build-up, that one moment of sheer quality from Kairo, had been a glimpse of something else. Something transcendent.
"You… how did you do that?" Yumi asked, her voice full of wonder.
Kairo just smiled. "I saw the space. You just have to believe the pass is there."
In that moment, the dynamic of the team shifted. Taro was the heart, but Kairo had just established himself as the brain. The catalyst.
Emboldened, they spent the next few hours grinding. They registered their team with one hour to spare, naming themselves "Aethelgard FC" after a mythical kingdom from an old story Taro loved. It sounded grander than they were. Their first official match in the Iron League was scheduled in 12 hours: Aethelgard FC versus the Crimson Wolves, a team known for their aggressive, physical play and a solid, if unspectacular, record.
---
The "Iron Anvil" stadium was the most basic arena available, a simple bowl with stands that could hold a few thousand spectator avatars. As Kairo led his team out of the tunnel, the noise hit them like a physical wall. There were only a few hundred people watching, but to Kairo, it felt like a cup final. The stakes were infinitely higher than any of them knew.
The Crimson Wolves were already on the pitch, their red and black kits looking sharp and unified. Their players were bigger, their avatars adorned with minor cosmetic upgrades that signaled experience. They eyed Aethelgard with undisguised amusement, pointing and laughing at their mismatched, default kits.
"Look at these scrubs," their hulking center-forward, a player named Goro, sneered loudly. "This'll be over in ten minutes."
Kairo ignored him. He gathered his team in a huddle before the kick-off. He saw the fear in Kenji's eyes, the nervous tension in Jiro's posture.
"Remember the three rules," Kairo said, his voice low and calm. "That's all we focus on. They're bigger and stronger, so we don't try to fight them. We let them come to us, and when we get the ball, we play it quickly. To the wings. Taro, Yumi, be ready to run."
The whistle blew.
The first fifteen minutes were a relentless onslaught. The Crimson Wolves pressed high and hard, exactly as Kairo predicted. Aethelgard was camped in their own half, a flurry of frantic clearances and last-ditch tackles. Kenji made two spectacular saves, yelling in a mix of terror and exhilaration. They were holding on, but just barely. They were playing by Rule One.
Then, in the 18th minute, they got their first break. Daichi, throwing his body into a challenge, won the ball cleanly from Goro. He immediately looked for Kairo, as instructed, and played a simple, safe pass.
Kairo received it with his back to goal, a Wolves midfielder breathing down his neck. This was the moment. The chaos of the match, the pressure, the roaring crowd—it all faded into a dull hum. His vision expanded. He saw Taro, making a decoy run inside. He saw Yumi, wide on the right, starting to creep forward. But most importantly, he saw the entire Wolves defense had stepped up, leaving a cavernous space behind them.
Rule Three. Run forward into space.
He didn't turn. He didn't need to. With the defender on his back, he used his first touch to roll the ball slightly behind him, and in one fluid motion, he spun off his marker and struck a single, devastating pass.
It wasn't a lob. It wasn't a through ball. It was a spear. A laser-guided, ground pass that sliced through the heart of the Wolves' defense, bisecting their two center-backs as if they weren't there. It traveled thirty yards, at perfect pace, onto the suddenly vacated space behind the defensive line.
It was the pass he had seen a thousand times in his past life. The pass that defined genius.
Ren, for once, was perfectly timed. He exploded onto the ball, now one-on-one with the keeper. The stadium, and the thousands watching on the public streams, fell silent in shock. The clumsy, no-name team had just carved open the Crimson Wolves with a single pass.
Ren took a touch, his nerves evident, and shot. The goalkeeper got a hand to it, but the power was too much. The ball ricocheted off the keeper's palm and spun, in agonizing slow motion, over the line.
GOAL.
Aethelgard FC 1 - 0 Crimson Wolves.
For a second, there was utter silence. Then, their small section of fans, and the entire Aethelgard bench, erupted in a disbelieving roar. Taro sprinted from halfway, screaming, and leaped onto a stunned Ren. Jiro and Daichi hugged each other, jumping up and down.
Kairo didn't celebrate. He simply watched, a slow smile spreading across his face. He turned and looked back at the Crimson Wolves players, who were staring at him, their earlier arrogance replaced by confusion and a flicker of respect.
The whistle for the restart blew. Goro, the Wolves' striker, walked past Kairo, his sneer gone.
"Lucky pass," he grunted, but there was no conviction in it.
Kairo met his gaze. "It wasn't luck."
The game was on. The underdogs had struck first. And in a small apartment in Neo-Osaka, the Ren family watched the public stream on their old holographic projector, their hearts soaring as Kairo's name flashed on the screen for the "Assist." It was only one play, but it was a start. The first, beautiful chord of their symphony had been played.