Chapter 30

-Third Person POV-

“talking” – ‘thoughts’

A/N: FYI the lines with the underscore are the players talking english.

i.e. “english” – “japanese”.

Anyways have fun with the new chapter!

“You frogs in a well, it’s time you learned of the world.”

        10 Minutes until the third round selections: The world wide battlefield

Sitting down on the floor in the corridor leading towards the football pitch, Gento is currently stretching out both of his legs whilst beside him Isagi is kneeling down tying his shoes. He looks over his shoulder at his newly appointed teammate, “You nervous, Isagi?”.

Hearing Gento’s question Isagi lets out a breath, “To be honest, yeah somewhat.”. “Yeah, same. This is a new level, but I’m more excited than nervous I guess.” Gento responds standing up and cracking his neck.

“I feel the same.” Bachira cuts in, throwing his arms over both Isagi’s and Gento’s shoulders, “This is the type of situation to say ‘I’m shaking with excitement!’ right?”. “What do you think will happen if we lose?” Gento asks, turning towards Aryu and Rin who were standing nearby.

“We’ll continue to push along. That’s the beautiful way to do it.” Aryu responds, again playing with his hair. “Hey. You need to throw away that kind of weak mindset. It doesn’t matter who the opponent ist, we’re going to win. Don’t drag me down, weaklings.” Rin cuts in, standing in front of the door slowly opening, revealing the football pitch.

Entering the football pitch, the five of them spot the ‘World 5’ standing across from them.  “Pffft! Damn they’re scrawnier than I thought!” Dada Silva, a tall, muscular dark-skinned man wearing the number 5 shirt laughs upon seeing the gaggle of teenagers entering the pitch. “See? The Japanese aren’t known to be muscular at all. Now pay up that 10 grand you owe me. You lost the bet!” the tall bearded man, wearing the number 3 shirt, also known as Adam Blake ‘the goal junkie’ responds.

“Are they speaking English? I got no clue.” Bachira asks Isagi, “Same.” Besides them, Gento stares straight at the two men talking about him and his teammates before slowly making his way towards the two.

“I wonder what they’re talking about?” Silva asks himself, watching the teenagers in front of him, before turning towards his teammate, “You’re probably gonna use it to play around with women right?“. “Huh? Shut up, you came all the way to Japan to work part-time.” Blake responds without a care in the world.

“Hey! What do you mean?” Rin interrupts their conversation, “Is this game like a part-time job for you?“. “Yeah that’s right!” Silva responds, “It’s not like I came to this facility between tors to make chump change, right?”

“So you came here to flame teenagers? Real impressive, by the way how come I’ve never heard of you?” Gento pops up next to Rin, staring down the significantly taller men in front of him.

“Wha? Rin, Gento?” Isagi yells out in shick, “You guys speak English?! So cool!” Bachira exclaims, looking at his two teammates with fascination. “Huh? Who are you supposed to be?” Silva asks, getting in Gento’s face who stares back up at him completely bored.

All of a sudden, Gento starts laughing and takes a step back to collect himself, “No way, I remember who you are. Weren’t you part of the Brazil team that lost to Germany 7-1 a couple years ago? At home? Biggest disgrace in your countries footballing history? Yet here you are beefing with a 14 year old.” he folds in on himself holding his stomach with one hand and wiping a tear away from his eye with another, “God you’re pathetic! And you womanizer.” he continues laughing and now points a finger at Adam Blake, “Didn’t you lose in the last world cup because you sent that penalty, like way over the stadium. Holy fuck you two are awful!”

Gento’s laughter gets interrupted when Blake suddenly grabs the front of his kit, pulling Gento up onto his tiptoes whilst leaning down and getting in the teenager’s face, “Shut up, you low-life.” he growls in Gento’s face, whose face is still red from laughter. “Or what? You’re gonna try to hit me and hit the ceiling lamp?”

Before the situation can escalate further a hand pulls Blake’s away from Gento, before a body appears between the two. Looking at the intruder, Gento spots another dark-skinned player standing there, this one however is significantly younger than the other members of the World 5.

“Alright, alright that’s enough.” Julian Loki speaks up diffusing the situation, “The kid has a point you two. Those loses were pretty bad” turning to look down at Gento, Loki holds out his hand “The taller one I know, but you I haven’t seen before.“

Grabbing ahold of the offered hand, Gento briefly shakes it, “Hirako Gento, or if you want to say it the European way, Gento Hirako.” After finishing the handshake, Loki pulls his hand back and rests it on his hip, “Sorry about those two, they have such aggravating personalities.“.

“I can tell.” Gento responds blankly, causing a small chuckle to escape from Loki, “You know, you remind me of a teammate of mine. Young, confrontational, I wonder if you can match up in talent.” After finishing his sentence Loki looks down at Gento with an earnest smile, ‘He isn’t teasing… He’s being serious,’.

Gento briefly scans the other two members who have been silent up until now, ‘The Argentine’s good at free-kicks, hope I can see one today. The Spaniard’s good at dribbling gotta watch out for him. The other two are physical monsters… that can be problematic.’ looking back at Loki, Gento matches his smile, ‘You’re a prodigy. Let’s see what you can do, speedster.’

“I’m probably better, speedie.” Gento responds casually, cracking his fingers with one hand. After another short laugh Loki responds, “Let’s have a good match.“. ‘I’ll break all of you.’ Gento thinks to himself, sending Loki a closed eyed smile whilst tilting his head to the side.

As soon as the two teams were standing in their preferred positions the intercom comes to life, “Blue Lock Third Round Selections: World Wide Battlefield 5v5s. The same rules from the second selection apply: First to 5 goals wins! This match’ll determine if the winner will advance to the next round and compete in the special match to become Japan’s representative!”

            Team Blue Lock vs World Five – Game Start!

Gento starts the game by passing the ball to Bachira, standing still as Rin, Bachira and Isagi rush past him, ‘I’ll wait for now. Let’s see your playstyle.’ he looks over at Loki to find him looking back at him, his body completely relaxed, ‘You worry me the most.’

“Let’s go, just you and me, freckles.” Bachira calls out, rushing straight at Pablo Cavasoz, who just scratches his head, “Huh, did it start already?“. With Cavasoz now within arms reach, Bachira performs a roulette easily getting past the self proclaimed, ‘cutest striker’.

Gento watches as Isagi rushes straight at the penalty are only for his path to be interrupted by Loki, who appeared in front of the boy with insane speed, ‘Fucking hell he’s fast…’, however as soon as Bachira sends a cross cutting across the field Gento realizes something, ‘The other three aren’t moving.’

Looking around he finds Blake, Silva and Luna standing by, calmly watching as Rin suddenly moves in front of the ball before hammering it into the back of the net with a full-force volley.

GOAL!! Scorer: Itoshi Rin! – TEAM BLUE LOCK 1:0 World Five

‘That goal meant nothing, idiots.’, as his teammates begin to celebrate the goal, Gento begins feeling butterflies in his stomach, becoming more excited by the minute ‘I wonder what you’ll do to break us, world five.’

“Hmm. With an opponent that’s a developing country when it comes to football, I thought it’d be like taking candy from a baby. But it looks like we’re gonna have to actually try a little.” Blake calls out towards the rest of his teammates with his hands resting on his hips.

“Gahaha! It’s all good as lond as we don’t lose, right?” Silva asks his teammates with a laugh, “Yeah. Our contract says we get nothing if we lose.” Cavasoz responds calmly, curling one of the locks in his hair. “Also, don’t forget we get ten grand per goal as a bonus. Let’s get started.” Luna adds on, holding the ball in hand. “Yessir.” follows Loki’s brief reply, whilst jumping on the spot.

Game Restart! – Team Blue Lock 1:0 World Five!

Luna restarts the game by sending a pass forward straight into Loki’s path who briefly continues his run before Isagi moves to intercept it. The two briefly stare at eachother, with Isagi’s thoughts running a thousand miles a minute his thought process suddenly gets interrupted by Loki, who stares straight at him, almost disappointed, “Um, is that it? Because all I see are openings.“.

As soon as his sentence had finished, Loki immediately bursts past Isagi with incredible speed, heading straight for Bachira Loki begins to speed up even more, passing the striker with ease before doing the same with Aryu, leaving the two of them in the dust completely shocked, “There’s no way you could react in time to that…” Aryu says, looking at the retreating figure of Loki.

“It’s obvious where you’re headed.” Rin calls out, now standing right in Loki’s path towards the goal, “Good call.” Loki responds calmly, “But I’m fast, you know?” he says before increasing his speed even further and blitzing past Rin.

As he nears Team Blue Lock’s goal, Loki’s eyes before he speeds up some more, causing the foot that appears from his blind spot to just barely miss the goal. Looking over his shoulder Loki finds Gento looking at the goal in shock, “You’re good.” he tells Gento calmly, before turning back towards the goal, “You’re just way too slow.“

As soon as he is within range, Loki immediately fires the ball towards the goal at a high speed, hitting it into the back of the net with Blue Lock Man’s hand stretched out into the air, grasping at nothing.

GOAL!! Scorer: Julian Loki! – Team Blue Lock 1:1 WORLD FIVE!

“Jeez, you are stupidly fast aren’t you?.” Gento teasingly asks Loki, who calmly waks over offering the boy a hand before helping back up off the ground, “Guess I am.“, he responds before handing Gento the ball and patting him on the shoulder as he walks past “Come on, show me some of your talents.“.

Walking over towards the kick-off spot, whilst the rest of his team were commenting on Loki’s impressive speed, Gento was deep in thought, ‘Some of my talents, eh? Sure thing wonderboy.’.

Setting the ball down and taking a step back, Gento watches as Bachira restarts the game with a pass towards Rin, who rushes towards the opposition’s goal. ‘I’ve got just the skill to show you.’

Game Restart! – Team Blue Lock 1:1 World Five!

Hovering just outside of the wandering eyes of the world five, Gento watches as Rin gets intercepted by Loki before Luna suddenly appears beside Blue Lock’s number one stealing the ball from him, “Is Loki’s speed really all that scary? Your lack of experience is limiting your perspective!” Luna criticizes Rin, pulling his leg back aiming to send a high pass towards Cavasoz.

“Cool, what’s your excuse?“Gento asks from behind Luna causing the Spaniard’s eyes to widen with surprise, as a leg suddenly appears in between his own dragging the ball back.

With the ball now in his possession, Gento immediately does a 180 sprinting straight at the World Five’s goal with no one in sight to block him, ‘Dumbasses went all in for their offense, didn’t expect someone to steal the ball did you.’

Gento however couldn’t get very far before Loki rushes straight past him, squaring up with the younger and blocking off his shot course, “Not bad, not bad. But what’ll you do now?”. Leaning forward Gento heads straight for Loki, “No use to hide now, is there?“.

With a body feint, Gento manages to catch Loki on the wrong foot getting past the prodigy and sprinting straight at the goal. After only a couple meters of progress Loki appears in front of him again, ‘He’s too fast for this to work…’ feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up a large smile makes its way onto Gento’s face, “Just in time…” he mutters to himself, before jumping high into the air with the ball trapped between his feet.

Just as Gento leaves the ground, Luna shoots past underneath him with a sliding tackle, “That would have hurt, ya know?” He calls out from the air before landing and uses Luna as a literal speed bump to slow down Loki, giving him a slither of space.

Nearing the penalty area Loki appears in front of Gento yet again, “This is getting a bit repetitive, isn’t it?” Loki asks the younger striker in front of him with a light chuckle. “Yeah it is.” Gento responds, leaning forward over the ball blocking it from Loki’s vision as the striker closes in on him. “I’ll take that ball now.“ Loki says, his leg shooting forward, disappearing from his line of sight beneath Gento’s torso.

“What ball?”

Gento teases the taller striker in front of him, causing the speedsters eyes to widen just as the sound of a ball hitting the back of the net echoes over the pitch.

GOAL!! Scorer: Hirako Gento! – TEAM BLUE LOCK 2:1 World Five

“Impressed yet?“

– End of Chapter 27 –