Euphoria.
A word far too short to describe what he felt.
His heart pounded out of control, as if it were about to burst through his chest, each beat echoing in his ears louder than any sound around him. Blood ran hot through his veins, carrying adrenaline, ambition, hunger. The world seemed reduced to that single instant.
More than fifty thousand voices screamed as one.
It wasn't just a shout — it was a collective, primal, deafening roar. A sound that crushed thought, that vibrated through the air like a shockwave. Every person in the stands was a cell of a single gigantic organism, alive, pulsing, starving for a hero.
The ground trembled.
Every jump of the crowd, every stomp, every fist thrust into the air made the entire stadium shudder. The metal shook. The stands seemed to breathe. It was as if the world itself recognized the importance of that moment and responded to it.
And he felt all of it.
Even without being there.
Because that had always been the dream.
Since childhood, lying in the darkness of his room, staring at the ceiling and imagining floodlights blinding his vision. Since the days he kicked a worn-out ball against the wall, pretending that the dull thud was the echo of an entire stadium chanting his name. He had always wanted all that attention for himself.
He didn't want to be just another one.
He wanted to be the center.
The player everyone would look to in the final minute. The one who would receive the decisive pass, who would ignore exhaustion, fear, the pressure — and shoot. The instant when time seems to stop, the ball traveling through the air, and then…
Goal.
The winning goal.
The stadium erupting. The commentator shouting his name. His teammates running toward him. The cameras focused on him alone. The entire world reduced to his existence.
He longed to be the epicenter of it all.
Where every emotion converged. Where victory was born. Where chaos organized itself around his presence.
But then…
Everything ended.
There were no lights. No applause. No cries of victory.
There was silence.
There was pain.
There was the crushing weight of reality when the body failed, when air left the lungs, when the heart — the same one that had raced wildly in his dreams — finally stopped.
Death.
Cold. Final. Cruel.
Or at least… it should have been.
Because in the void that came after, something remained.
The desire did not disappear.
The ambition did not fade.
The hunger to be the center… survived.
And then, in the midst of absolute darkness, a question echoed — not in the world, but within him:
"What if this isn't the end?"
Perhaps everything had ended.
[System initializing…]
[Synchronization confirmed.]
[Host: Akira — Status: Stable]
…
Akira woke slowly, as if being pulled up from a deep sea. Consciousness came before the body—fragmented, heavy, carried by echoes that made no sense. His eyes opened just enough for the morning light to slip through his eyelids, revealing the dark, deep gleam of obsidian in his irises.
He blinked a few times.
His breathing was still uneven, his chest rising and falling in a strange rhythm, as if he had just finished running… or dreaming something that refused to let go.
Akira raised a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes calmly, trying to push away that uncomfortable sensation clinging to his mind.
Why am I remembering this? The question echoed inside him, unanswered.
With a low sigh, he removed his sleep mask and tossed it aside onto the desk cluttered with books and notebooks. The room was far too quiet. Only the distant sound of the city waking up drifted in through the half-open window—hurried footsteps, a train passing far away, everyday life moving on as if nothing had happened.
Akira sat on the bed for a few seconds, staring at the floor, trying to organize his thoughts. There were loose images in his mind. Shouts. A stadium. An old desire that didn't seem to fully belong to him… yet still ached all the same.
He stood up.
His feet touched the cold floor, pulling him back to reality. Without a word, he went to the bathroom. The faucet was turned on, and icy water ran over his hands, then across his face.
After washing up and fixing his hair, he returned to the room and put on his school uniform with automatic movements—it was the same routine as always. He grabbed his bag, quickly checked that everything was there, and walked to the door.
As he stepped outside, the morning air hit him full force.
And then—
"Yo!"
The voice came out of nowhere, shattering the flow of Akira's thoughts like a stone through glass.
He turned his head, surprised.
Leaning against the gate, hands in his pockets and a wide smile on his face, stood Kyoshi Akamura — his childhood friend. His hair was slightly messy, his posture far too relaxed for someone who was supposed to be in a hurry.
"Hey." Akira smiled, closing the door behind him and turning the key with a sharp click. "Thought you were heading out ahead of me today."
"Nah." Kyoshi shrugged, stepping away from the gate and walking closer. "I wanted to talk to you."
Akira froze for a moment.
His eyebrow slowly lifted, a clear look of confusion settling on his face. Kyoshi rarely showed up without a reason, and that tone… it wasn't casual.
"Talk…?" Akira tilted his head slightly. "About what?"
Kyoshi's smile faltered for a brief second.
"I… I'm leaving the team…" Kyoshi's voice came out low, uneven, loaded with a nervousness he couldn't hide. His brown eyes avoided Akira's face, drifting to the street, the ground, anywhere that didn't require meeting those obsidian irises.
"Look… I know we promised we'd make it to nationals together, but—"
"Shut up."
The interruption came sharp. Cold. Cutting.
Kyoshi froze instantly.
Akira stopped walking and slowly turned his head, his black eyes locking onto Kyoshi's with a frightening steadiness. There was no obvious anger there — which only made it worse. It was something deeper, heavier, as if that decision didn't even deserve indignation.
"You came all the way here just to talk about quitting?" Akira continued, his voice low but firm, each word weighing like lead. "If you wanted to do that… you could've just done it."
Without waiting for an answer, Akira walked past him.
The sound of his footsteps echoed against the quiet morning asphalt, each one heavy with indifference. Kyoshi remained where he was, slowly turning his body to follow him with his eyes, too confused to react right away.
"Why do people always feel the need to tell someone they're going to quit?" Akira said, without even looking back. "You could've just quit."
The silence between them stretched.
It wasn't an empty silence — it was dense, charged, as if the air itself had gained weight. The morning wind passed through the street, gently stirring the trees, but neither of them seemed to notice. The world kept moving around them, indifferent to that invisible fracture.
Kyoshi was the first to move.
He swallowed hard, his throat burning. His gaze, once steady, wavered for a moment as he faced Akira head-on. The shadow cast across Akira's face made him seem distant, almost unfamiliar — not the boy he had shared his childhood with, but someone who had moved on without looking back.
"So that's it…?" Kyoshi asked, his voice lower now. "You just… keep going as if I never existed?"
Akira didn't answer right away.
His obsidian eyes drifted for a brief second toward the stretch of road leading to school. The distant sound of other students' footsteps began to rise — laughter, casual conversations — ordinary lives continuing on their course.
"You existed," Akira replied at last. "And you still do."
He took a deep breath. "But not as part of my path."
The words were spoken without cruelty, without any intent to wound — and perhaps that was why they hurt even more.
Kyoshi felt his chest tighten.
"I thought…" he began, his voice thick despite his effort to stay composed. "I thought we were going to push each other forward. That one of us would make up for it when the other failed."
Akira turned his gaze back to him.
"That's dependence," he said. "Not partnership."
Kyoshi frowned, as if struck by an invisible blow. His fists clenched again, nails digging into his palms.
"So you think I'm weak?"
Akira gave a half-smile — brief, almost nonexistent.
"No." He took a step to the side, moving out of the shadow that covered Kyoshi. "I think you made a choice."
Kyoshi let out a short, humorless laugh.
"A choice I didn't want to make."
"Even so," Akira replied, already starting to turn away again, "it's still a choice."
For a few seconds, Kyoshi seemed like he wanted to say more. His face twisted slightly, split between pride, frustration, and something that looked dangerously close to regret. But no words came.
Akira started walking again.
This time, his steps didn't hesitate. The rhythm was steady, resolute, as if each stride carried him farther not only from Kyoshi, but from an older version of himself.
Behind him, Kyoshi remained still.
He watched his friend's back retreat, the silhouette slowly blending into the flow of students along the street. The feeling that lingered wasn't anger — it was understanding.
"Damn…"
In that moment, he understood that Akira wasn't being cruel.
He was being ruthless with his own future.
Akira didn't look back.
And as he walked, something adjusted silently within him — like gears aligning, as if that confrontation had been just another necessary cut.
A short vibration came from his pocket, breaking his stride. Akira reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone, the screen lighting up the moment his fingers touched it.
A message.
Just a few words — but enough to make his eyes narrow.
Akira read in silence.
A bead of sweat slid slowly down the side of his neck, cold, contrasting with the heat beginning to build in his chest.
"Ah…" He let out a short sigh, almost a humorless laugh. "There's a match today."
His body reacted before his mind could fully catch up. Akira slipped the phone back into his pocket and, in the very next second, started running. His steps quickly picked up speed, his school uniform fluttering against his body as he cut through the streets.
The world around him blurred.
Traffic lights, people, sounds — everything faded into the background. His focus narrowed to a single point. The station. The time. The field.
He couldn't afford to be late anymore.
…
The locker room was full when Akira arrived.
"Hey, guys."
A few heads turned.
"Yo."
"Hey."
"Took you long enough."
The replies came naturally, almost automatically. The coach, leaning near the tactical board, shot an irritated look in Akira's direction and muttered something about punctuality. Akira heard it — but didn't care.
He dropped his bag onto the bench and began opening it calmly.
"Hey," someone called out, a bit more serious than before. "Do you know about Kyoshi? He hasn't replied since this morning."
Akira didn't stop what he was doing.
He took off his school uniform, folding it without hurry, then pulled out the team jersey. Red with black details. The moment the fabric touched his skin, something inside him seemed to fall into place.
"He left the team." The answer came simple, direct.
The locker room froze for a moment.
"What?!"
"What do you mean, left?"
"So now we don't have a striker!"
Voices overlapped, surprise and concern mixing together. Akira put on the red shorts with black details and adjusted the waistband calmly, as if the chaos around him had nothing to do with him.
He took a deep breath.
"Leave it to me." His voice cut through the chatter. "We don't need a liability right now."
Akira sat down and started pulling on his socks, tugging them firmly up to his knees. The atmosphere in the locker room shifted — the tension now had a new focus.
Before anyone could respond, a chair scraped sharply across the floor.
Jura, Kyoshi's direct backup, stood up abruptly. His face was far too serious for someone who usually smiled all the time.
"Not so fast," he said, taking a few steps forward. "I'm his substitute. I'm taking the position."
He deliberately placed himself in front of Akira, as if staking his claim.
Akira lifted his gaze.
For an instant, the world seemed to slow down.
In his vision, a translucent interface appeared.
[Name: Jura Yaomoshi]
[Weight: 71 kg][Height: 1.75 m]
[Strengths: Finishing, Dribbling, Speed][Weaknesses: Marking, Physical Confrontation, Pressure]
Akira looked at the screen for less than a second.
He didn't analyze the attributes.
The interface vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
He stood up slowly, closing the zipper of his bag with a sharp click, and faced Jura without any visible emotion.
"Do whatever you want…"
The words came out neutral. Neither a challenge nor disdain.
But something about them unsettled him.
Jura frowned, a strange chill running through him, as if he had been evaluated — and discarded — without any effort at all.
Akira walked past him, grabbing his cleats.