Passing On The Emperor

The ball left my foot before I gave it permission.

That's the thing nobody tells you about instinct. It doesn't ask. It just moves, and your body follows, and by the time your brain catches up the ball is already halfway across the pitch and you're standing there like an idiot with your mouth open, watching something you didn't plan turn into something you can't take back.

I'd been doing that a lot lately. Not the passing. The watching.

Ness stood at the edge of the penalty box with her hands on her hips, and even from thirty meters away I could see the vein in her temple doing that thing it did when she was about to scream at someone. Her blonde hair was pulled back so tight it looked painful, and her jaw was set in that way that made the other guys on the team take a step back without knowing why. She was looking at me. Not through me. At me. Like I was a puzzle she'd just discovered had a missing piece.

"What the hell was that?" Kaiser's voice cut across the field from my left. He was jogging toward me, and his smile was still in place, that perfect, polished smile that made sponsors love him and teammates want to punch him. But his eyes weren't smiling. They never did.

I didn't answer. I was still watching Ness.

She turned away from both of us and walked toward the center circle, slow, deliberate, her cleats clicking against the turf with each step. The rest of the team was frozen in this weird tableau, half of them looking at Kaiser, half looking at me, all of them waiting for the explosion.

It didn't come. That was worse.

"Yoichi." Kaiser was beside me now, close enough that I could smell his cologne, something expensive and sharp that probably cost more than my monthly rent. "I was open."

"I know."

"Then why didn't you pass?"

I finally looked at him. His hair was perfect even after forty minutes of running, and his uniform didn't have a single grass stain. Mine looked like I'd been wrestling a lawnmower. That about summed us up.

"I don't know," I said. And that was the truth. More truth than I wanted to give him.

Kaiser held my gaze for a long moment, then laughed. It was a real laugh, not the PR one, and somehow that made it worse. "Interesting," he said, and walked away.

---

Practice ended twenty minutes later. I stayed on the field, juggling the ball from knee to knee, because I didn't want to go into the locker room yet. Didn't want to face the silence or the questions or the way Ness would look at me with those pale blue eyes that seemed to see everything I was trying to hide.

The sun was setting behind the stadium walls, painting everything orange and gold. I liked this time of day. The field felt like mine when everyone else was gone. No expectations. No Kaiser. No Blue Lock cameras watching every move I made.

"You're still here."

I caught the ball in my hands and turned. Ness was standing at the edge of the tunnel, still in her training gear, still with that tight ponytail. She'd washed her face. I could see droplets of water on her cheeks.

"Couldn't leave yet," I said. "Too much energy."

She walked toward me, and I noticed the way she moved. Not like a girl trying to be pretty or a player trying to be tough. Just... direct. Like every step had a purpose. She stopped about three meters away, close enough that I could see the freckles across her nose that she probably hated.

"You passed to me," she said.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "You were open."

"I'm always open." She said it flat, like a fact she'd given up being proud of. "Kaiser's always open too. You always pass to him."

I didn't have an answer for that. She was right. Kaiser was the star, the prodigy, the one everyone expected to score. I'd spent the last six months feeding him balls like a waiter serving drinks at a fancy restaurant. It wasn't that I wanted to. It was just what you did. What everyone did. Kaiser demanded the ball, and the ball went to Kaiser, and the rest of us existed to make that happen.

Except today. Today I'd seen Ness making a run, and something in my gut had said *her*, and my foot had agreed before my brain could veto.

"You should go home," I said. "It's getting late."

"Don't tell me what to do." She stepped closer. "You think I'm mad at you?"

"I think you're mad at something."

She laughed. It was a short, sharp sound, more like a cough than anything else. "I'm mad at everything. I'm mad at Kaiser. I'm mad at this team. I'm mad at myself." She paused. "And now I'm mad at you, too, but not for the reason you think."

I waited.

"You made me remember what it feels like," she said. "To get the ball. To be seen. I'd forgotten."

The air between us felt heavy. I could hear my own heartbeat, which was stupid, because I wasn't even moving. She was looking at me like I was something important, and I didn't know what to do with that. I wasn't used to being looked at that way.

"So what now?" I asked.

Ness tilted her head. "Now I'm going to make you pass to me again."

"It wasn't my choice."

"Everything's a choice." She turned and walked back toward the tunnel, and I watched her go, the ball still in my hands, the sun still setting, the field still mine but somehow not mine anymore. She stopped at the tunnel entrance and looked back. "See you tomorrow, Isagi."

She said my name like it meant something.

---

I got home at nine. My apartment was small, one room with a kitchenette and a futon, and the walls were thin enough that I could hear my neighbor's TV through them. I made rice and ate it standing up, staring at the wall, replaying the day in my head.

The pass. Kaiser's face. Ness's eyes.

I'd come to Blue Lock to become the best striker in the world. That was the dream. That was the whole point. But somewhere along the way I'd become a supporting character in someone else's story. Kaiser's story. And I'd told myself that was fine, that winning was winning, that it didn't matter who scored as long as the team came out on top.

But Ness had looked at me like I was a person. Not a teammate. Not a pawn. A person.

My phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.

*You're interesting, Isagi. I don't say that to many people. Don't disappoint me.*

No name. But I knew who it was.

I stared at the screen for a long time. Then I typed back: *Who are you?*

The reply came fast. *You know.*

I did. And that was the problem.

---

The next morning I got to practice early. I always did. But Ness was already there, running laps, her blonde hair loose now, streaming behind her like a flag. She didn't look at me when I walked onto the field. She didn't have to.

Kaiser arrived ten minutes later, and I watched him assess the situation with those cold, calculating eyes. He saw Ness. He saw me. He saw the space between us, and I could practically hear him filing it away for later use.

"Yoichi," he called out, jogging over. "Ready to actually play today?"

"I'm always ready."

"Good." He clapped me on the shoulder, hard enough to sting. "Because I've got a feeling about today. Something's going to change."

He smiled that perfect smile and jogged away, and I stood there in the morning light, watching Ness round the far corner of the field, and I knew he was right.

Something was going to change.

I just didn't know yet if it would be for better or worse.