Blue Lock: Beyond Greatness

"Damn it! Damn it!" Barou panted heavily as he climbed up from the ground.

What those guys said was true—his weapon had really been taken away! In front of that bastard, he was utterly powerless, unable to resist.

He hadn't even made a move, and yet...

"How... how could this be..." Barou didn't even attempt to defend himself. Instead, he clutched his face in anguish. "I thought that after being destroyed by that twisted demon, I had already endured hell once. I thought nothing could break me again, but..."

Shinichi wasn't like that pink-haired maniac, who would constantly spew nonsense and resort to violence.

Yet the despair he felt in the face of Shinichi far surpassed what he experienced against Shidou.

Especially when Shinichi completely ignored him, that sense of fear was unlike anything he had ever known.

Barou wasn't afraid of being insulted or beaten.

Those tangible injuries only fueled his fighting spirit, driving him to resist until he defeated anyone who dared stand in his way.

As someone who fought under the title of the king, he relentlessly pursued his goal of becoming the best in the world.

But in that moment of kneeling, he truly felt it—he was no longer the center of the world.

Barou felt like a clown on stage, entertaining the audience only to vanish alone into the darkness, unnoticed and forgotten.

"Football... isn't a sport that exists because of me. I'm not some king... I'm just a tiny, insignificant step on Shinichi's path to legend. Someone so insignificant that I don't even deserve a glance from him..."

"A piece of trash..."

...

"All of you, snap out of it!" Yukimiya's voice suddenly rang out, his model-like, handsome face twisted with rage. "The match isn't over yet! If you want to cry, hold it in until the game is done and then go bawl your eyes out off the field."

"This is my last chance! I don't have any more time—I won't let this opportunity slip away!" Yukimiya roared as he sprinted forward, sliding in to take down Raichi, who was dribbling the ball.

Unsurprisingly, the electronic referee issued a yellow card.

"So get up and keep playing, you lucky bastards!"

...

Reiji and Barou said nothing.

Both of them silently stood up and moved to Yukimiya Kenyu's side.

"Just this once, don't order me around! I'll prove myself with my own football!"

"It's normal not to be able to analyze someone at this level. I need more data—I will uncover the mystery of Shinichi, no matter what!"

...

In the monitoring room, Anri glanced at the timer, which showed less than ten minutes had passed.

She turned to Ego, who was watching with great interest, and asked, "Ego-san, isn't this ending a bit too quickly? Should we notify Shinichi to maybe... uh..."

"You mean to suggest he should go easy on them?"

Anri clearly hadn't expected Ego to say it so bluntly, but after a moment of hesitation, she nodded. "That's right. I think it's difficult to truly test the players' adaptability to Shinichi under these conditions. The match should be extended a bit."

"Give it up, Anri. Even if you tell him, Shinichi won't listen. Why would he accommodate players who are far inferior to him? Besides, the purpose of this selection isn't even to find teammates for Shinichi."

"Huh?" Anri widened her eyes in surprise, while Ego, looking completely unfazed, continued his explanation.

"If Blue Lock didn't have Shinichi, I might actually organize an adaptability training session—pairing strong forwards together to find the optimal combination. But, as I mentioned at the very start of the adaptability experiment..."

Ego adjusted his glasses, the reflection obscuring his dead-fish eyes, making it impossible to read his expression. "Blue Lock has already secured victory. Therefore, no matter who we choose, the result will be the same. I could easily hold another ranking match and select the highest-ranked players for the roster."

"But I didn't do that. To be honest, I've already assessed most of their abilities and limits based on their performance in the second stage and the evaluations from matches against world-class players. I've even drafted a preliminary participant list. So, in this adaptability experiment, Shinichi isn't really the main focus."

"In the second stage of selection, when facing world-class players, these guys thought failure was inevitable. Not only did they lack despair, but they couldn't even push themselves to their limits. Because when failure feels justified and has no real consequences, they can't truly focus."

"But being so thoroughly crushed by players their own age leaves them with no excuses to fall back on. At the same time, the idea that failing here means losing their chance to compete against the U-20 team serves as a constant punishment, pushing them forward."

"And in this moment, both their opponents and teammates will find themselves plunged into deep despair under Shinichi's overwhelming dominance."

"This is the moment I've been waiting to observe—the true purpose of the adaptability experiment. I want to see how these 'raw talents' react when faced with despair. Will they change themselves? And if so, how will they change? The goal isn't just for them to adapt to Shinichi's overwhelming presence but to—"

"—be forced into a dilemma: evolve or die!"

Ego pointed at the screen, where Barou and Reiji were shown. "One of them is a king accustomed to the world revolving around him, and the other relies on data as his weapon. But against Shinichi, the world's center shifts, and data becomes meaningless. You could say their entire understanding of football has been completely shattered by Shinichi. What follows now is the moment of transformation and evolution."

"Momentary weakness doesn't mean much. What matters is whether they have the courage to completely deny themselves, to start over and change everything in a critical moment. That's the trait I'm most interested in—the one that's essential to becoming the world's best forward."

"I see. So under the pressure of Shinichi, Yukimiya did well by waking them up in time and rallying them to resist, didn't he?"

"No, in terms of changing himself, he's no different from the other two who haven't achieved anything significant." Surprisingly, Ego flatly rejected Anri's statement.

He glanced down at the file in his hand.

"That's because this guy hasn't truly experienced despair yet, nor has he changed. The only reason he's able to maintain his fighting spirit and keep moving forward under Shinichi's pressure is that there's an even more ruthless force—time—chasing him from behind."

"You could say he's in the most dangerous stage right now. He hasn't tasted the deepest despair yet and is merely pushing himself forward numbly, driven by his one-sided beliefs. He's completely immersed in his own world..."

"But I imagine our sadistic TOP1 will teach him what true despair really looks like."

"After all, some people's words... can be even crueller than time itself."

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