The surgical suite was colder than Naoya expected.
Everything was white. White walls, white floors, white ceiling tiles that reflected the harsh LED lights overhead.
The operating table sat in the center like an altar, surrounded by machines that hummed and beeped. Monitors displayed lines and numbers he couldn't understand. Robotic arms hung suspended from the ceiling.
Three figures in surgical scrubs moved around the room in smooth steps. Their faces were hidden behind masks, their eyes the only human element in this sterile space.
"Mr. Sato." The lead surgeon's voice was warm. "Please lie down on the table."
Naoya's legs felt like heavy metal as he crossed the room. He climbed onto the narrow table, the cold seeping through his hospital gown immediately.
"Are you ready?" the surgeon asked.
No. He wasn't ready. He would never be ready. Ryota's smile flashed in his mind again, followed immediately by the nurse's careful words. He did not survive the procedure.
"Yes," Naoya said.
One of the nurses began attaching sensors to his chest, his temples, his wrists. Another adjusted the IV stand beside the table. The surgeon reviewed something on a tablet, nodding to himself.
Naoya's throat tightened, and his eyes burned. He blinked rapidly, swallowing hard against the pressure building in his chest. He would not cry. Not here. Not now. He had made his choice. He would face it with whatever dignity he had left.
"Beginning anesthesia," someone announced.
Cool liquid flooded his veins. The room began to blur at the edges, sounds stretching and warping like a recording played at the wrong speed.
"Count backward from ten, Mr. Sato."
"Ten... nine... eight..."
Darkness swallowed him whole.
~
In the void, there was nothing. No sight, no sound, no sensation. Naoya floated in an endless black that felt both infinite and suffocating.
Then, there was a pulse.
Green light erupted across his vision, breaking the darkness into fragments. Lines of code, or what looked like code, cascaded down in streams. Numbers and symbols he couldn't read but somehow understood on an instinctive level.
[INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
The words appeared in massive letters, glowing emerald against the black.
[CONGRATULATIONS, NAOYA SATO]
[YOU SURVIVED]
Naoya tried to speak, to move, but he realized his body didn't exist here. Only his consciousness, his awareness, remained.
[BEGINNING SYSTEM ASSESSMENT]
Images flashed. Memories. Every kick, every match, every training session from his entire life played out in rapid succession. The system was reading him, analyzing him, dissecting every moment he had ever spent with a ball at his feet.
[POSITION IDENTIFIED: STRIKER]
[ANALYZING ATTRIBUTES...]
[SPEED: C-RANK]
[POWER: C-RANK]
[TECHNIQUE: B-RANK]
[GAME SENSE: B-RANK]
[MENTAL FORTITUDE: D-RANK]
That last one stung, even here in the void.
[SYSTEM ASSIGNMENT CALCULATED]
[INSTALLING... FOUNDATION SYSTEM]
Foundation System. The words hung in his vision, and even without context, Naoya felt a horrifying realization sink in his chest. Foundation. Basic. Beginner. The lowest tier.
[THE FOUNDATION SYSTEM IS THE BASELINE INTEGRATION PROTOCOL. IT PROVIDES FUNDAMENTAL ENHANCEMENTS TO PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE ABILITIES. THIS SYSTEM GROWS THROUGH EXPERIENCE AND ADAPTATION. YOUR POTENTIAL IS LIMITLESS, BUT YOUR STARTING POINT IS LEVEL ZERO.]
[SYSTEM FUNCTIONS:]
[REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS]
[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT]
[PHYSICAL ENHANCEMENT (MINIMAL)]
[SKILL DEVELOPMENT PROTOCOLS]
[EVOLUTION PATHWAYS (LOCKED)]
[WAKE]
The word hit him like a defibrillator shock.
Naoya's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, his lungs burning up, and his chest moving at a rapid pace. Fluorescent lights glowed overhead, the brightness nearly burrowing a hole into his eyes.
His hands clawed at the sheets beneath him. There was something in his head, something foreign, something other, a presence that pulsed with each heartbeat.
"Get it out!" He tried to sit up, but hands pressed him back down. "There's something—something in my head. I—"
"Mr. Sato, please calm down." A nurse's face swam into focus above him. "You need to breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth."
"There's something in my head!" His voice cracked, panic flooding his system. "I can feel it, I can hear it—"
"That's the system," another voice said. The surgeon from before appeared beside the nurse, still in his scrubs but with his mask pulled down. He was smiling now. "That's normal. Your brain is adapting to the neural implant. The sensation will diminish over the next few hours."
Naoya's breathing slowed, but his heart still raced. He could feel it, that presence, like a second consciousness running parallel to his own. When he closed his eyes, green text flickered behind his eyelids.
[VITAL SIGNS: STABLE]
[INTEGRATION: 87% COMPLETE]
"Congratulations, Mr. Sato." The surgeon's smile widened. "You survived. You're one of the lucky ones."
Lucky. The word felt obscene. Ryota's face flashed in his mind again.
"How many?" Naoya's voice was hoarse. "How many died?"
The surgeon's smile faltered slightly. "That information is confidential. What matters is that you're here, and you're stable. Now, we need to move quickly. You'll be transferred immediately to our training center to begin orientation."
"Training center?"
"Yes. We have twenty facilities worldwide where successful candidates undergo system familiarization and preliminary testing." The surgeon pulled up a holographic display from his tablet. "The primary centers are in New York, London, Beijing, São Paulo, Lagos, Sydney, and Dubai. Secondary facilities are in Berlin, Tokyo, that's the one you'll be going to, Mumbai, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, Singapore, Barcelona, Seoul, Toronto, Buenos Aires, Cairo, and Stockholm."
Twenty centers. Thousands of applicants. Naoya's head spun trying to process the scale and magnitude of it all.
"You'll meet other successful candidates from around the world," the surgeon continued. "Different systems, different specializations, different backgrounds. Consider it your introduction to the Elite International League." He patted Naoya's shoulder. "Good luck, Mr. Sato. You're going to need it."
~
Two days later.
Naoya sat in the back of a luxury vehicle, watching Tokyo scroll past the tinted windows. The 'system' hummed in his head, a constant low-frequency buzz that he was starting to recognize as background processing.
[ANALYZING ENVIRONMENT...]
[PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC: HIGH]
[POTENTIAL THREATS: NONE DETECTED]
"Stop doing that," Naoya muttered.
[COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED]
Great. He had an AI in his brain that he couldn't turn off.
His phone buzzed. It was his Mom. Again. She had been calling every hour since he had checked out of the facility. Naoya stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the decline button like it had been for the past twelve calls.
Then, before he could second-guess himself, he answered.
"Naoya!" His mother's voice was pitched high with panic. "Oh my God, are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you?"
"I'm fine, Mom." The lie came easily, smoothly. "I'm okay."
"Don't you lie to me." Her English had a slight accent, even after twenty years in America. "I saw the news. That system program. Please tell me you didn't—"
"Mom—"
"It's dangerous! People are dying! You could die!" She was crying now, and the sound cut through him worse than any insult shouted on Tokyo streets. "Please, baby, please tell me you didn't do it."
Naoya closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids, green text scrolled past.
[MATERNAL DISTRESS DETECTED]
[RECOMMENDATION: PROVIDE REASSURANCE]
He smiled, tired and sad and strangely at peace. "I'll be fine, you know this. Love you, Mom."
"Naoya, wait—"
He ended the call.