024 Blue Lock: System Ten Years Early

"What nonsense are you talking about." Koby crooked his finger at Haizaki Shogo. "Come on, let's end this quickly. Don't waste time."

"I'm so scared," Haizaki cackled strangely as he spread his arms and stopped one step away from Koby.

"Come on, let me see what you've got. Let me plunder even more!"

"You really don't learn. I blew past you in one step and you still don't stick close. Even if you did, it wouldn't help." Koby completely replicated the previous play, using a quick crossover to shake off Haizaki Shogo. This time it was even easier—he didn't even need to turn his body as he brushed past Haizaki Shogo's defense...

Koby froze for a moment and looked at his short little hands. Clearly, Haizaki Shogo hadn't made any defensive move at all, yet during the change of direction the ball suddenly slipped out of his hands.

"I told you already, didn't I? Your ability has been stolen by me." Haizaki laughed loudly as he picked up the football.

"You can't use that move anymore. How about showing me something new?"

...

Thinking of this, Shinichi sighed. After that, Koby's bull-headed temper flared up. Even with the plundered debuff on him, he stubbornly insisted on dueling Haizaki Shogo using only crossovers. If the ball dropped, he'd elbow Haizaki away, pick it up, and go again—Haizaki couldn't even surrender.

The two of them trained like that for a full six hours. In the end, Haizaki Shogo was so exhausted that he collapsed.

After that, no one knew what happened. Somehow, after being bullied over and over, Haizaki Shogo seemed to become Koby's little buddy. The next evening, when they entered the training camp again, they saw Koby shooting while Haizaki Shogo acted as the ball boy picking up balls.

Then these two brutes actually turned their spear toward Shinichi, insisting on a two-on-one to train him. Not only was he forbidden to use his hands to defend against them, Koby even told Haizaki to fight as dirty as possible.

"Stepping on feet, poking eyes, blasting the rear—whatever. He won't get hurt here. As long as you can think of a move, you can use it. Otherwise this kid will suffer on the field without even knowing why, and might get crippled for no reason."

Recalling the malicious tone Koby used when he said that, Shinichi felt a chill. Even though he was grateful for Koby's high standards, still...

"How the hell am I supposed to defend your fadeaway jumper with my feet? Jump up and do a split in midair?"

"Forget it. No point worrying about that now. Today's opponents are them." Shinichi gulped down some water, took out his phone, and pulled up the data.

"V Team. The team includes Aryu Jyubei, Karasu Tabito, and Otoya Eita—three strong players who originally broke through the second-stage selection. Their average net point differential is over 4."

"Of all times to run into them now." Shinichi gave a bitter smile. His condition really had been off these past two days. Although the Legendary Athlete System training camp wouldn't directly change his physical condition, muscle memory would remain.

"I thought it was a completely harmless setting aside from limiting training time. I didn't expect there to be a trap in a place like this." Shinichi regretted ignoring the system's prompt to choose training items carefully.

Because his turning ability had been plundered by Haizaki Shogo!

That's right. Even though he'd only done a turn-and-back-dribble while playing basketball, it was taken just like that. And this plundering even crossed over into football. Now, whenever he tried to turn while dribbling, he almost always made a mistake.

You could say that moves like the Marseille turn and various change-of-direction techniques were all unusable. But strangely, he had also used techniques like crossovers, yet Haizaki Shogo hadn't been able to take those—or rather, Shinichi didn't feel that anything was missing.

Was it because crossovers had too little connection to football, so even if they were taken it wouldn't matter? That seemed unlikely. The connection between crossovers and changes of direction was far closer than that between turn-back-dribbles and Marseille turns.

'There must be something—something crucial that I overlooked and forgot. I remember Koby's fadeaway didn't seem to be taken either. If it's not that my crossover was taken without effect, but that Haizaki Shogo simply couldn't take it...'

'Then is the key point a hidden mechanism of plundering? I remember it was said that Haizaki Shogo deliberately altered the rhythm of copied skills to throw opponents into confusion, but something more core didn't seem to be explained...'

Shinichi lowered his head in thought. He had a strong feeling that this point might be the most critical aspect of Haizaki Shogo's ability. If he could figure it out, he might gain his first self-learned trait.

"Shinichi? Time to go." Hiori Yo poked his head out from behind the door. Shinichi hurriedly pulled on the X Team jersey. "Coming, coming."

"Shinichi, your form hasn't been great lately. The other side won't be easy to deal with. Can you handle it?"

"What a stupid question, Hiori." Shinichi walked nonchalantly through the player tunnel toward the field bathed in lights. His backlit figure made his expression impossible to see. "It's just a slight debuff. If I fall at this level, then that just means I'm only this good."

"Let's go. Take this match and end this boring round of selection quickly."

"...Were you expecting me to say something like 'As you command'? Shinichi, you're surprisingly a bit chuunibyou."

"Shut up! Like you're so eloquent!"

...

"Haha, our protagonist has arrived." Karasu Tabito looked at Hiori Yo with a wicked grin. "What's this? Hiori. You look just like a supporting character who joined the hero's party."

"But with the way you are, you'll probably be the one who dies right before the final battle to awaken the protagonist."

"At least I'd still be a member of the main cast. If my death could save the world, I'd gladly accept it." Hiori Yo put on his gloves.

"What about you? Seeing the protagonist, shouldn't you hurry over and defect? Or do you want to be a random field monster that we crush?"

"You've gotten quite manly since we last met, Hiori."

"Got a problem with that?"

"Of course not. In fact, I've been waiting a long time, idiot." Karasu Tabito laughed and clapped his hands. "But there's one thing I need to correct you on, Hiori."

"Thinking of us as that kind of thing might make you take a huge fall." Karasu Tabito walked over to the other two and spread his arms.

"If I had to put it in game terms, we're the kind of trash mobs that make the protagonist die again and again, retry again and again, and maybe even quit the game entirely."

"Don't drag me into your banter." Otoya Eita irritably slapped Karasu Tabito's hand away. Trendy bro Aryu Jyubei nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, and more importantly, the term 'trash mob' isn't stylish at all. I refuse to accept that label."

As he spoke, Aryu Jyubei flicked his thick, jet-black long hair and gazed intoxicated at the sky.

"You've got it rough too." Hiori Yo patted Karasu Tabito's back sympathetically. Karasu Tabito shrugged indifferently.

"Don't be fooled by how he looks. He's actually pretty reliable—beep—"

A sharp whistle cut Karasu Tabito off. He smiled and stepped back.

"That's enough small talk."

"The match has begun!"