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Kick.
A kick.
A perfectly executed kick, taking advantage of the flavour of the current coming from Ness' pass.
Ball.
The ball that had gone into the net, as if it always belonged there.
The goal.
High, round and beautiful.
And intense.
And, finally, the strike.
Visualization, memorization, intellectualization and finally its reproduction.
Like a universal instruction manual, given the many hours of precise observation of the other players on the pitch, the sequence had been memorized and then repeated.
A strike marked by its clinical and icy precision, which contrasted with the momentary uproar in the stadium.
The fat and loud letters of the monitor revealed the league winner with empty predictability. The numbers changed like suspended, red watercolors.
Ting!
3 Bastard München x 2 PXG
Even without raising his head to look at the screen.
Even immersed in the ecstasy of the perfect goal he had always dreamed of.
He knew.
He knew this would be the final score.
His chest filled with pride—he had scored two of those goals.
But deep down, he knew.
He knew he would be the one to finish that match.
He was the protagonist, and the crowd’s and his teammates’ excitement confirmed it.
Hiori, Raichi, and the others collapsed onto him with overwhelming joy.
As if needing to prove it wasn’t a dream, the crowd screamed and erupted in pure euphoria. The match reporter got carried away and blessed Isagi’s name.
Maybe a bunch of times.
Or countless times.
He didn’t know for sure—it was hard to concentrate with all his teammates crowding him, holding him as the winner he was.
He deserved it.
He had burned the midnight oil, shattered dreams, given up so much, but in the end—
He had achieved victory.
His knees dragged across the ground, sliding like the star he was—like the number one he was—and at the top of his lungs he shouted:
“Gooooal”!”
The announcer did his part, closing the match with a series of phrases he could barely make out.
The new star of Bastard München, who sealed the championship with a well-taken goal.
Congratulations! Congratulations!
Something like that.
Something like an exaggerated verdict about a goal that Isagi had scored out of sheer necessity, but that still filled him with pride.
Pride.
The experience of being number one!
Gradually, like a candle that burns brightly at first and then fades—
Isagi’s momentary excitement faded, though it had been well earned.
And so, everything around him—while his teammates already began walking toward the locker rooms—stopped mattering.
It was no longer the fuel for the prideful glow of his feat.
The fans’ screams were just noise from a faraway room—useless in any real sense.
The match had ended, and with it, the Neo-Egoist League.
Everything he had done and not done was recorded in each game’s report.
And he was proud of everything he had done.
Somewhat surprisingly, he realized the U-20 match, the one against the Japanese national team, had been more meaningful.
Yes, he had won, carved out the team's victory, and anticipated a phenomenal pass.
Yes, he had been treated as number one and a hero by Bastard München.
Many gave him pats on the back and sly smiles, as if they hadn’t expected the shot—but welcomed it.
He received the pass and waited for the opportunity.
When it came—foot on the ball, ball in the net, and a goal.
For the first time, he didn’t overthink it and used logic.
He had received the pass and waited for the opportunity.
As soon as it came - foot on the ball, ball in the net and a goal.
Then came the screams.
A goal worthy of an egoist.
His perfect goal.
Fii!.
It was the end of the match.
And the sound of that whistle, once a source of wild anticipation and positivity, now rang out loud and unbearably shrill.
Suddenly, it was as annoying as it was meaningless.
Now, with no Bastard München teammates around him—
There was nothing transcendent there.
Despite the crowd’s altered screams seeming to prove otherwise, everything he felt and heard was impressively dulled.
Watery.
Everything Isagi Yoichi heard resembled background noises from a distant, past recording.
It was comparable to the experience of being underwater - and even though he wasn't drowning, even though oxygen wasn't running out-
Under the waterline, the sounds were the buzzing of small insects that he’d mock with pure disdain.
Small or large, they held no value.
At least, at the moment, he had no interest in listening to the persistent buzzing of one or more insects’ wings.
But in essence, it was still partially suffocating and insistent.
Sweat trickled down his forehead. The tip of his hair, partially covering his eyes and his view, dripped.
His chest rose and fell as naturally happened to players who gave their all in a single match.
Isagi had bent forward, both damp hands on his knees, stained with remnants of synthetic grass and his gaze was distant.
Far off - very far – for the first time, his name was called:
"Isagi! Isagi! Isagi!"
Maybe it wasn’t the first time, come to think of it.
Maybe it was the second, third, fourth or fifth.
But his name was being called like a crowd would call for the arrival of its supreme leader, in a parade worthy of a monarchy.
His absolute and promised monarchy.
Hadn’t that been what he’d always wanted?
The central protagonism?
The light of the spotlight falling on him?
He focused on catching his breath that he had previously lost.
Yes, it had been.
But the philosophy of absolute fame did not compare to the pleasure extracted from a good and vital rivalry.
For some reason, those previously desired combinations now seemed like timid, slow air bubbles.
His vision blurred as if on the verge of physical collapse.
Air bubbles moving vertically and erratically.
Gradually, his name dissolved into the dissonance of the buzzes that he eventually had chosen to leave behind.
Besides, Isagi wasn’t even sure if he had really been the best.
At that moment, though, it didn’t matter.
He didn’t care—because he had to be the best.
He had to be number one.
After surpassing the great masters—
The superstars-
Loki, Noa, and even Kaiser—
He had to be the best.
There was no other possibility.
He raised his upper body with languid significance.
The buzzing stopped when he did, reconnecting him to the real world.
The world of flat, earthly disappointment.
He glanced furtively at the sea of strangers, not thinking much about what he was doing.
Or what he felt.
What he was feeling.
He turned on his heels with cautious calm, turning his back to the crowd that hadn’t yet quieted.
And it was when the sun shone brightly and joyfully, accompanied by the whistles and orchestral cheers of the fans, that his eyes regained their natural clarity.
But instead of going to Rin, who had been defeated, Isagi didn't.
In fact, Rin Itoshi's face hadn't crossed his mind even once.
Even when he had his foot out to score the winning goal, Isagi hadn’t thought about his rival.
The purpose of that whole situation.
At that moment, he didn't give it much importance.
His priority had been chosen as pure detachment.
He had never planned the atypical chain of actions that had unfolded.
His field of vision fell, slowly.
With the grace of a feather that circling gently through the air landing in the same way. Slow, but with one purpose.
To land.
He didn't blink to moisten his eyes, as human normally would.
He simply let his attention fall, in a particular way, onto the intrusive element in the landscape of fame.
On the green turf was a large red stain.
Clearly not part of the synthetic green, but also not an unpleasant sight to the eyes.
It was, certainly, an unusual combination – one that conveyed the opposite of the surrounding environment.
The reddish jersey looked like the blood of a warrior, or perhaps a king, an emperor who had lost the battle.
An emperor who had surrendered.
It didn't take long.
It didn’t take a second for him to be drawn in by the invisible, magnetic pull of the anomaly in the landscape of splendor.
When he walked, calmly, but uncertain in his rationality, his steps were taken in an almost imperceptible way.
Maybe he shouldn't be there, witnessing the defeat of someone once great, but who now was a stain on the football field.
Even so, and despite everything, his trajectory has not changed.
He walked towards the player who seemed to have lost something – or someone.
As the distance between them shortened and the light fell upon the scene, he saw the wet face of another player.
A lackey who was witnessing the fall of his master and seemed to contain a look soaked in desperate panic.
Ah, it was Alexis Ness, wasn't it?
And in front of him and, on his knees, was... ah... Michael Kaiser.
Now that he had approached in the same calm, though not indifferent steps, he could see him.
Perhaps that was because to the weight that had been placed on his shoulders during that match.
It didn't hurt, it just caused him a slight imbalance, minimal, but existing as he approached Kaiser.
From afar, he had been unrecognizable.
He looked so small that Isagi had almost not recognized the tiny silhouette of one of the eleven new-generation players.
But that blond hair, with bluish ends, had embedded itself in Isagi's memory without any authorization.
When he was close enough, he said, very calmly:
"Kaiser."
And it was uttered very calmly, because logically there was no other possibility. It could not have been said any differently.
Now, now that he saw him, he felt a… certain curiosity. Strangely enough, it had not been accompanied by the typical “Kaiser” feelings.
Anger, rage, annoyance and fury.
And if he felt something negative towards the player such as fury-
Any momentary emotion he always felt whenever he saw Kaiser had subsided.
And...
Like he couldn’t help himself-
Like it was the most important matter on his mind-
He spoke.
"Is Ness special to you?"
Then he looked to the side for seconds, before stopping in front of the Kaiser.
Where Ness remained miserable, tears on his cheeks, staring at Isagi in an equally pitiful way.
He looked back at Kaiser, who had finally returned the gaze – although not completely -and continued speaking in a categorical tone.
"To me he is an equal another player who hid his possibilities, but”
Kaiser's blue eyes remained still throughout the entire speech, which carried an eerie truth.
Isagi couldn’t tell whether it was recognition - or pure confusion.
Michael Kaiser, in his eyes, was unrecognizable.
He was as or more unrecognizable than the words Isagi had just spoken.
"In the last moment you treated him differently. Based on your relationship, you deemed him ‘worthless’.”
The guide of the final conversation - the expectation of this day finally arriving.... the day he would finally defeat
Kaiser... he would finally be devouring him-
He definitely didn't expect Alexis Ness to be a part of it.
He felt like it was a kind of bonfire actively being fed oxygen to the point of saturation.
But, as if inevitably, he recalled the way Kaiser's words had contrasted with the player's gentle body language.
He stopped. Slightly.
Perhaps… it had not been gentle, now that he thought about it, but it had been definitely meaningful.
The mere fact that he explained to him what he was doing, why was he doing it…
It meant something.
Thinking about it made his breath falter—a little.
The way Kaiser had bowed before his proclaimed servant was not typical of an emperor.
And it had been a far more docile posture than what Isagi had imagined when he would finally earn the title of best striker.
Ness's hurt puppy eyes had also stuck in his memory.
Round, cracked and supplicant.
Pleading.
Small, insignificant, and full of condescension.
He paused for a moment.
Again.
Ness was still in front of him, and the fear on his face was visible.
Isagi didn't dare to meet his gaze.
He was not there for him after all.
But maybe, maybe because, if he did, that strange thing in his throat would rise and betray whatever he was building with that conversation—
And give away what he was feeling-
In that moment
He forgot all the screams of the audience and stood in front of Kaiser.
And he had said because it was… true.
It was true.
It was the truth.
As truth as the reality of feeling something other than anger, admiration, or fury for Michael Kaiser was drawing ever closer.
He’d now add to that range of…. peculiar sensations the...
Nothing.
He felt nothing.
Because Michael Kaiser was nothing to him.
And he was nothing to Michael Kaiser.
It was as simple as receiving Ness's pass and shooting.
And then, striking.
People cheered.
Logical and accurate.
And most importantly - nothing of personal.
He had already dismissed the idea of surpassing the player—for obvious reasons—as well as the malice he once felt toward him.
He had already used him for the purpose of defeating Rin—
So, then, what was left from him?
Nothing.
Nothing was left from him.
Nothing of Michael Kaiser remained for him.
He already possessed everything he had ever wanted from him.
And standing before him was the proof.
And it wasn’t like Isagi had aimed to ruin the relationship between the two players—not necessarily.
Until then, Alexis Ness had not been one of its variables. He considered him allied with Michael Kaiser –
The ideal player.
His ideal player.
The perfect striker.
– but it had never crossed his mind that Kaiser wasn’t even playing their agreed-upon game.
He didn’t know what to think about that outcome.
An unexpected outcome.
They had both agreed since the beginning of the league that Isagi would be an obstacle in Kaiser's life. And he had done so.
He followed through his promise.
He had played Kaiser’s game until the very end.
He never gave up.
But Kaiser had given up.
That made him think that the board Isagi had chosen wasn’t the same one Kaiser was playing on.
They had played using paths and different moves.
There was no point in trying to dominate someone who wasn’t even inside the pre-established game.
And the intense desire to crush the player had been gradually fading over time…
But it never truly disappeared.
Then Kaiser quitted playing. Maybe it had been too much for his majesty.
There can only be one winner and that’s why-
Isagi won.
Then why?
Why wouldn’t Kaiser face him – the winner – like a proper loser?
Why wouldn’t Kaiser face him like he was the winner?
Why?
It had been their game.
It had been Isagi’s victory.
Why wouldn’t Kaiser accept it?!
He remembered that even when Michael Kaiser broke, even when he exposed the raw and naked feathers of emotion soaking his arrogant player's ego—
He never ever gave up.
He had scored a beautiful goal.
Magnus.
It was the most beautiful thing in the world.
And yet, Kaiser had fallen on his knees.
Just because of that strike Isagi had made.
Or because something else.
It was irrelevant.
It was as if saying that it was over.
He lost, yes, but he was not acting like a loser.
He didn’t say a thing.
And maybe that’s why Isagi knew.
He knew Kaiser would hardly surrender to that kind of power shift.
That was probably the reason he had approached him.
To show him that he had been the winner.
To give him a piece of his mind.
But the emotion that spread over Kaiser's porcelain face was not fake.
It was real.
There was no act there.
It was true.
What it meant, it didn’t matter.
It wasn’t as if Isagi was there to console Kaiser.
He went there to give him a piece of his mind.
To throw the cold, naked facts in his face.
Ever since the beginning of the league until the end.
Which was why the hesitation and the faltering of his lips, unsure of what to say next, was weird.
Until then, Isagi had never believed Kaiser capable of feeling something as human as regret.
Or whatever he was feeling at that moment.
It didn’t matter.
The idea of Michael Kaiser, professional jokester of Isagi’s soccer, feeling something as normal as emotions?
Unbelievable.
But apparently real.
The one who had scored and stolen passes since the beginning… lamenting something that had always been… inevitable?
That had always been there?
It was uncomfortably ironic.
But it was the reality.
And why would Isagi even care?
And so, all that remained of that alliance and hollow rivalry was the void.
If that had been a contract in the first place.
Maybe it had been just… something Isagi couldn’t tell.
It was always like that when it came to Kaiser.
He could predict his moves, watch him for a whole match –
And still be surprised by his next move.
Like when he had shown his incredible adaptability to the enemy. Much faster than Isagi could even think about it.
It left him breathless.
In all senses.
Those scenes rose to the surface of the spiral of his strange thought process.
Those that led him to reflect on everything he had taken for granted.
The fact that Kaiser had played the best possible move to drastically increase their chances of winning—and that, even so, he had to come off as incredibly fascinating—annoyed him.
It was annoying.
The match had been interrupted just to say one or two things to Ness. To explain the obvious to another player.
And it had been done with a… a tenderness a mother reserves for her child.
With the care someone shows to a loved one.
With the affection that a human being normally shows to the one they love.
Not even once it resembled the words an emperor would deliver to his lackey
It was irritating and almost revolting.
The aforementioned one—small as never before—slowly raised his head, eyes nearly dazed, and Isagi advanced his speech, marked by the uncertainty of what he felt and didn’t feel.
Between the doubt of what was real and not real.
His frustration and untold questions.
If the crowd had already gone silent, Isagi wouldn’t have known.
If the screams had already died down, Isagi would not have known.
He was too focused on dissecting what the circumstances whispered to him.
Success or failure—it didn’t matter.
Kaiser remained fearfully quiet.
And surprisingly, the sight didn’t disgust or upset him.
Only an enormous void and a big question mark.
He looked away.
Perhaps from discomfort—or from excessive and needless eye strain.
This wasn't this player that Isagi had sworn to devour.
No…
If it had been, Isagi would never have spent all those hours observing him.
Had he known this, he would never ever lose so much time on him.
It was unexpected—and worse, nothing about the trajectory of that conversation satisfied him.
For a moment, the stadium was empty, Ness was nowhere to be seen.
Only Kaiser and Isagi stood in the vastness of the pitch.
Just the two of them.
A knight, a hero, who at last ended the imperial regime.
And the previous owner of that regime.
Just like Kaiser had once mockingly called him a hero, he stepped forward carrying sword and shield.
"Instead of fully becoming a machine for the goal, ” he continued in a relatively calm tone, as if swinging a heroic sword by the hilt, waiting for the ideal moment.
And as if, eventually, the sword’s weight would overcome gravity and fall upon the emperor’s last robes—leaving him naked.
That was the closest description to the next words he would say, representing the sharp apex of his feigned indifference, but not even once his tone faltered: "You acted on your feelings."
Michael Kaiser didn’t tremble. He didn’t even look frightened, seeming uncommonly gentle—like a tame animal.
The emperor without clothes, completely naked, bleeding from his chest, looked at him.
And there was nothing precise in those eyes of a beggar who once tasted nobility.
Had it been sweet?
Had it been sour?
He didn't know.
Didn't care.
He took a step forward.
He reached out with a speed commensurate with his speech.
The hero's armor weighed on his body.
It didn’t hurt it just… weighed.
Heavily.
Glancing at the player, there was nothing there perceptible to the rational, human eye.
There was nothing there that interested Isagi.
But for some reason, he didn’t dare to leave or to look away from Kaiser.
With the lack of the crown – that was no longer on the top of his head – and the cloak that had been torn in two-
There was no emperor.
There was just… a fallen one.
There was just Michael Kaiser.
Silent, hunched, and broken.
A naked emperor.
A sight that burned part of Isagi’s fiery pride.
He moved on with the execution.
In an almost fleeting but intense tone-
"That’s the last piece that decided the outcome between us"
And Kaiser looked at him.
As he should.
But once he did his face was not pained nor humiliated.
No.
His face was a portrait made by a mix of question and doubt.
The sweat on his pale face and his damp hair glistened in the sunlight.
When he spoke, the words were small and short:
"What... do you want…"
It had not been a question.
And it would have been all the same if the emperor hadn’t decided to spoke.
But, Isagi couldn’t decide how to react to that change of attitude.
So, he didn’t pay much attention to that and moved on as if he hadn’t heard Kaiser’s question.
Had it really been a question?
Or had Isagi been imagining things?
Maybe he hadn’t spoken a word- it had been all his imagination.
But it didn’t matter.
Because that tiny, insignificant voice was possibly the trigger for the irrational emotion Isagi’s next words carried.
But first... the contract.
The miserably wasted contract.
The request Isagi had made had been crumpled and tossed aside, despite the clear disregard. Isagi was a man of his world.
But still, it had been a contract.
And everything that begins must also end.
An empire that ended as quickly as it had started.
Still, it was an empire, and as such, its glory had to be acknowledged.
But now…
Now it was the successor’s turn.
That’s just how things were.
"That ends our contract...."
The sound was left hanging in the air like a time bomb that gave no chance for the target to react.
There was nowhere to hide.
His hair was drippling sweat down his forehead and a slight sense of wavy disappointment lingered in his pointed words.
“For one goal”
No shield left.
No clothes, and the wind split open his perfect, white skin.
And that's how Isagi, now, looked at the one he considered a star.
But, despite everything Michael Kaiser managed to somehow look… special.
There was… something… about witnessing a broken Kaiser.
Not that it brought him any happiness, satisfaction or any desire to make fun of him.
No, it was because…
There was nothing there.
There was nothing left there and yet-
Yet Isagi still looked at him, with some a strange emotion on his chest.
His eyes fell on his figure.
The one who reached the impossible without his crown.
The one with who Isagi had played with and had made soccer more interesting.
The one who had made fun of him ever since the beginning.
The one who showed that there was no impossible, gave him the fire he so cherished, and then… disappeared.
He demonstrated the impossible, gave him the fire he cherished so much, and disappeared.
Because star or not, those who burn either flicker out—like the flame of a candle—or explode—like a supernova.
Michael Kaiser had done both.
And that only added more fuel to the fire of what Isagi felt.
Such perfection should not be allowed.
How can someone be so perfect that Isagi was unable to look away whenever he played-
Even when he had nothing left to reign?
Even when he failed?
Especially when he failed.
When he failed.
How was that even possible?
Kaiser’s face was an open book, and his eyes expressed themselves like waves on the sea.
Made of toned blue, like two frozen, broken diamonds.
Isagi didn’t pay much attention, but his heart was beating loudly on his ears.
And although there was something fascinating in the scene, none of it was due to Isagi’s victory.
Kaiser had ceased to be something achievable and possible since his super goal.
His hand’s muscles stretched themselves in answer.
The true reason behind the emperor’s fall was pathetic.
It had not been logical because his analysis didn't seem to be enough.
It was never enough.
And even if it wasn’t, anyone who willingly lets go of their crown is pathetic.
Kaiser was funny.
He had realized it.
He had just realized it.
The irony of his path was truly hilarious.
He called him clown, he called him hero, made fun of his moves and now-
Who was laughing louder now?
Figurately.
He was laughing, but figurately.
Because… not a single laugh escaped from Isagi's lips.
Maybe he should have laughed, come to think of it.
Instead of stretching out the fingers of his hand, as if he meant to reach for Michael Kaiser rather than humiliate him before the stadium.
He titled his upper body forward-
Perhaps to demand his victory, although he was not sure why.
"Thanks for your fucking hard work-”
The emperor who, though naked, remained painfully unreachable.
Like a supernova.
And illegible.
Like a book written in a foreign language.
German, for example.
“-my ultimate clown"
It’s a nice thing Isagi didn’t care about foreign books.
In the first second, there was silence.
Isagi kept his hand extended, not thinking particularly about anything.
Then, like a bell after a coronation, a loud slap was heard.
Isagi’s arm dropped like dead weight, as if nothing he had said mattered or carried any meaning.
As if what he had been doing had been a waste of time.
As if he was bored with the outcome of the situation.
Because…
There was no disappointment.
There was no regret.
There was no compassion when Michael Kaiser bent down with the grunt of a wounded animal.
Well, maybe a sligh surprise given that Isagi had extended his hand as he would to anyone-
Basic human decency.
But since it wasn't just anyone, but Michael Kaiser, it was rejected.
Although, there was no desire to provoke or mock the pathetic figure who had once been emperor.
And so there was nothing but human surprise on Isagi Yoichi’s face when he was – predictably - rejected.
But, with no thoughts or feelings, and as if accepting the rejection of the emperor who refused to surrender his empire, Isagi yielded.
The emperor, in the end, gave him nothing—not even the lands he had possessed or his golden belongings.
Bitter but a true realization.
All he had now was a tearful Ness, and, with some honesty, Isagi could admit he had no desire to see or think about him.
About him or Michael Kaiser.
For now, all of that situation had been unnecessary.
Isagi was the best, number one had no desire or need to impose himself on someone that fell.
He had a sudden realization.
It had been useless.
All of it.
And that’s why, finding the supposed torture pointless, and as if it were nothing more than boredom, he turned on his heels and walked away.
There was nothing left there.
Not anymore.
And that marked the end of the Neo-Egoist League.
The other players might or not have smiled.
With a bit of luck, it might not be captured by the Blue Lock cameras.