ego death | blue lock

15.

"you're free to go l/n. come back tomorrow for your last examination!" anri teiri called out as i left the medical check room.

carefully making my way over to the locker room, i heard kuon yelling. should i really go in?

"-THIS ISN'T A GAME!! we are already a team that lost once.. do you understand what position we're in?!" kuon yelled.

i could feel the tense atmosphere and said nothing as i walked into the room. the rest of the team looked partly confused, but they were definitely listening.

"listen: this selection round is a round robin tournament for five teams. only the top two teams get to stay. hypothetically, if every team had two wins and two losses, we'd all have six points."

"that means our goal is to end with more than six points. we need at least seven! of course the situation will change if there a lot of draws.. but we need at least two wins and a draw. there's a very high chance that this will be the minimum our team will need in order to get past the first selection, but.."

"this team is already one loss away from the end. this is why we just can't be thinking of ourselves right now. if we don't seriously think about how to win, it's over for all of us!!"

with that last sentence, it was silent. then small bickering resumed again, but at that point i wasn't listening. after i had finally decided i wanted to play football again, it suddenly became survival mode where i was on my last life.

it's unfair. everything is unfair.

but that's just how it is in blue lock, right?

the worst get the treatment they deserve.

"hey everyone. i still don't know what we need to do, but i think i know what 'rebuilding football from zero' means." isagi says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"in that game, both teams were only thinking about scoring points individually at the start, so it turned into us just chasing after the ball."

"but the thing that shattered that 'zero' was barou's one play."

"after he showed them that, the team started passing to him. it gave them a clearer path to scoring goals and i think team x became more and more of a real team because of it."

"barou took the 'zero' of that chaotic scramble and changed it to a 'one' by stealing a goal with his own talent. the other ten players used that 'one' as a compass to focus their plays. so now that team can go from 'one' to 'ten' or even 'one-hundred'."

"so what we need to create that 'one' is overwhelming individuality and talent."

"i see.. it sorta makes sense." imamura murmured.

"so did ego make a system where whoever gets the most points gets to stay in order to make us feel all of that stuff?" asahi inquired, leading to isagi's answer.

"probably. thanks to that rule, he got us to bring out our egos and throw away our positions and tactics and focus solely on stealing the goal for ourselves."

"'football and teams are born from an overwhelming striker'. i'm sure that's ego's message to us."

vrrm

"you're getting warmer. howdy you lumps of talent. the second match in wing five just finished up. team v crushed team y eight to zero. here are the current standings."

team v and x were in the top two while the rest of us were in the bottom rankings. seeing the standings made me feel worse than i already did.

"from 'zero' to 'one'.. huh.. i see. you're on the right track with your thinking, but it seems like you don't understand the vital method for turning 'zero' into 'one'."

"first off, let's talk about japan as an example. japanese people like to be given roles to fulfill. for other people and for the good of the world. they're a people skilled at devoting themselves to their roles.. and they see that as a virtue."

"putting this into the world of sports, it's easy to understand which major world sport japan can compete in, and that's baseball. pitcher, catcher, infielder, outfielder.. first batter and fourth batter.. above all, the innings are divided into offensive and defensive turns. all on a large field where nobody collides with each other."

"this sport is suited to the idiosyncrasy of the japanese people, and that's exactly why they're so strong. but football is different."

"that's why individual effort is needed; your own personal power."

"do you know which positions japanese football is known for by the rest of the world? midfielders and side back! it makes perfect sense that this country would produce excellent players whose role is to put their team before themselves and turn their strikers' 'one' into 'one-hundred'!"

"japanese football would have never advanced this far without this! but at the same time, that's exactly why a revolution will never happen."

mr ego took a breath. with a menacing tone, he muttered about rewriting our consciousnesses.

"scoring points in football means destroying your opponents' organization. basically, a striker is a destroyer. scoring a goal means destroying the enemy's system; it's causing a revolution on the field."

"strikers! do not let yourselves be stifled by your positions! you musn't let yourselves accept being confined to your roles!"

"to turn that 'zero' into a 'one', you must take up arms strikers! do it by using your own personal weapons! make fools of your enemies, twist their arms, destroy them!"

"achieving the revolution known as a goal can only be done with your own weapons!"

—

4.26.2024

i'm super sorry for the extremely late update!! i was only able to update since i had just finished the first half of testing (which thankfully wasn't too hard.. KNOCK ON WOOD ✊🪵)

unfortunately i may not be able to post another chapter soon after this one because i still have the second half of testing to finish, however i am not dropping this book yet so dw 😽