The draw against Riku haunted the locker room
But not in a painful way
It was the kind of silence that came after thunder
Where everything felt more awake
Reiji sat alone reviewing match footage
Freeze-framing key moments
Zooming in on every inch of space
Every twitch in body language
He saw it all now
The flaw in Riku's genius
It wasn't perfection
It was obsession
Riku only saw the king on the board
Not the invisible pawns moving beneath
---
That night
Reiji stayed late at the training ground
He stared at the whiteboard for hours
Then erased everything
And wrote a single line in the center
The Shadow System
---
Next morning
Vortex arrived to find cones placed all over the field in messy shapes
Not triangles
Not formations
But spirals
Clusters
Broken geometry
Coach Hiroshi walked over
"You sure about this?"
Reiji nodded
"This isn't about positions anymore
This is about roles in time
Like shadows moving under different suns"
---
Training was brutal
Every ten minutes Reiji blew a whistle
"Rotate by mistake
Not by memory"
he shouted
Wingers became midfielders
Center backs overlapped to attack
Goalkeeper passed like a pivot
Confusion reigned
But beneath the madness
Patterns began to form
Unnatural rhythms
Ghost routes
Even Leo couldn't keep up at first
"Bro
This is insane
You trying to make us all go psycho on the pitch?"
Reiji smirked
"No
I'm making you invisible until it's too late"
---
The next match came fast
Vortex vs a team of German-trained elites
The kind that played with military precision
Before the match
Their coach laughed
"This Japanese street team thinks chaos wins?"
He'd soon regret it
---
First half
The Germans pressed with perfect timing
But their traps failed
Because Vortex had no predictable routes
Only reactions
Only instincts drilled under Reiji's insane training
One moment
Leo was striker
Next
He dropped back to sweep a cross
Kaito
A usually silent fullback
Cut inside to score from thirty yards
2–0 by halftime
The opponents couldn't adjust
Because there was nothing to adjust to
---
In the second half
Reiji stood on the sideline
Not giving instructions
Just watching
Commentators were baffled
"Vortex is functioning like a single nervous system
No one leads
No one follows
It's like they've evolved into something else"
By the 80th minute
The match was over
4–1 Vortex
---
After the game
Reporters crowded Reiji
"What is this new strategy called?"
He shrugged
"It's not a strategy
It's a rejection of predictability"
One journalist asked
"Are you trying to kill traditional football?"
Reiji looked into the lens
"No
I'm trying to make it immortal
By giving it new faces"
---
That night
Riku watched the replay on his phone
He didn't smile
Didn't frown
Just whispered
"So the boy finally stopped being human
Interesting"