28 U20: First Half

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The long-awaited U-20 match finally began.

In the locker room, the Blue Lock players were making their final preparations while Jinpachi Ego rallied their spirits.

You were guided from a side entrance toward the area beside the halfway line, waiting for the true protagonists to emerge from the players’ tunnel and march onto the battlefield.

The stands of Blue Lock’s football stadium were packed to capacity. Emerging from the narrow, dim passageway, your field of vision suddenly widened. The enormous pitch unfolded before your eyes. You narrowed them slightly as you adjusted to the dazzling light, while the pressure of the vast crowd swept over your entire body.

So this… was a real stadium?

You could not help looking around. Spotlights streamed down from above the crowd. A natural breeze stirred your hair, and it felt as though the whole world was watching your every move. The noise rose and fell in waves.

There was nowhere to hide. You could only passively accept it all, your heart pounding like a drum, unsure whether it was caused by nerves or by the fervent atmosphere infecting you.

The players came out.

At the very front were Rin Itoshi and Sae Itoshi, with the rest of the team following behind in formation as they entered the field together.

The crowd erupted almost at once. An enormous roar swept through the stadium, the cheering deafening, coordinated, and passionate.

“National team! Sae Itoshi!”

Those were the words they shouted while holding up banners bearing Sae’s name. You realized that although you were playing on home turf, no one was paying any attention to your side at this moment.

And yet, deep down, you felt it—

Blue Lock could truly do this. From here, they would ascend to the world stage.

Cameras of every shape and size, some as large as cannons, began operating on either side of the field. You looked toward Rin Itoshi. Standing amid a storm of flashing white lights, he looked back at you.

“Good luck!”

You smiled and clenched your fist to encourage him. Against the backdrop of the feverish atmosphere, your smile shone almost dazzlingly.

Rin’s lips were pressed into a tight line. Rarely did he fail to avert his gaze. Instead, he looked at you seriously and gave a small nod.

Sae Itoshi stood not far from him.

He glanced coldly at your exchange before returning his attention to the field ahead.

The searing, trembling emotions of the powerful sentinels merged into one. Unease, restlessness, and excitement formed an ocean of mental energy, colliding, blending, spreading, and reverberating throughout the immense stadium. You felt a brief moment of resonance, but the energy soon gathered into a crushing force that bore down on your senses.

The mental pressure sinking beneath the woven network, combined with the countless shouts from every direction, made it difficult for you to breathe.

As the players moved farther away and the sentinels dispersed, the suffocating sensation finally vanished.

Your expression relaxed. That experience had been anything but pleasant.

Jinpachi Ego, however, glanced at you without changing expression. In his pitch-black eyes, the glint of a devil seemed to flash once more.

The protagonists had taken their places at center stage, accepting the attention of everyone present.

The guides followed Jinpachi Ego to the spectator seats near the halfway line and sat down.

Anri Teieri sat in the row ahead of you with Jinpachi Ego. She turned back and smiled at you.

“I know everything now. Once the match is over, we’ll analyze it properly.”

You knew what she meant, and could not help letting out a breath of relief. Your mood eased considerably.

“All right.”

A whistle sounded, and the match began.

The attention-grabbing football was kicked into the air, and every sentinel, every spectator, turned their eyes after it.

The sentinels on the green pitch sprang into motion.

Possession changed hands repeatedly. Oliver Aiku slipped past an opponent with astonishing footwork. The restless noise of the spectators swelled into one continuous roar, echoing through the vast space.

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You watched tensely. Oliver barely glanced around before sending the ball away, but it was quickly intercepted by the opposing defender Aiku, whose towering frame blocked the play.

The attack was cut short.

The spectators chanted the defender Aiku’s name, while the silent Blue Lock side soon began organizing another attack with calm precision.

The national team truly was not easy to deal with—you saw even the six-foot-two Seishiro Nagi overpowered by the opposing players’ physiques, unable to turn around. As the ball continued moving, it eventually reached the feet of the widely anticipated Sae Itoshi.

Everyone immediately tensed.

Sae Itoshi—the man the entire stadium had been waiting for, the Sae Itoshi who had come from one of Spain’s prestigious youth academies—was about to put on a performance.

He seemed accustomed to such occasions. Even surrounded by deafening cheers, his expression remained cold and indifferent.

The sentinels on the field held their breath. Rin Itoshi in particular watched Sae’s every movement with absolute concentration.

Despite the excessive attention and relentless pressure focused on Blue Lock, Sae did not hesitate for even a moment. He immediately sent the ball elsewhere.

From a distance, you watched its path. After drawing a perfect arc through the air, it dropped directly at a teammate’s feet.

Sae’s control of the ball was precise to such an absurd degree—it seemed to fly automatically to its destination, without missing by so much as an inch.

As expected of a world-class midfielder.

But Blue Lock had survived exceptional selections to make it this far, and their strength was not to be underestimated—especially in a match that concerned the survival or destruction of their football careers.

The national team could not find a shooting lane through the airtight defense. When Sae regained possession, he seemed to have grown tired of this game of helping “second-rate” teammates score. The instant he dribbled past an opponent, he raised his foot and fired a shot himself.

One–nil.

The opposing side had been caught completely off guard. The move made it even clearer that, to Sae, this match was no more than child’s play.

If he wanted to, he could score.

The entire stadium erupted, chanting Sae’s name.

Under the spotlights, Sae Itoshi, the focus of every eye, showed no joy at scoring. Naturally, neither did his teammates.

When the cameras turned toward him, he made no attempt to celebrate. Instead, he slowly turned around, his sharp, composed gaze sweeping across the spectator seats occupied by Blue Lock.

Was he provoking you?

You met Sae’s gaze across the vast distance and instinctively glanced at Jinpachi Ego in the row ahead.

Inside the broadcast booth, the host wore an expression of praise that suggested the goal had been inevitable. Beside him, the chairman of the football association slapped his thigh and laughed heartily at the streaming numbers, which continued to skyrocket.

The atmosphere around the Blue Lock team grew somewhat rigid.

In the front row, Jinpachi Ego remained perfectly composed. Beneath his glasses, his eyes were filled with faith in the egoists.

The match continued. Falling behind by only one goal did not discourage Blue Lock. It was more like a display of Sae Itoshi’s individual brilliance, and Blue Lock had found itself trailing countless times throughout the project.

The Blue Lock team was about to enter “improvisation.”

Yoichi Isagi and Meguru Bachira passed the ball between them as they dribbled past opponents, while Rin moved around the perimeter, waiting for his opportunity.

The national team’s match footage had been studied exhaustively. By contrast, there was almost no footage available for Blue Lock to analyze. Even Ego himself could hardly predict what kind of chemistry these sentinels would produce when they collided on a real pitch.

Mysterious, uncontrollable, improvised—those were their advantages.

The triangular formation proved effective, piercing the opposing defense like a sharp thorn. Bachira’s dribbling was intricate and nimble, and the attack culminated in a clean, decisive shot from Blue Lock’s number one, Rin Itoshi, who leveled the score.

The score was now one–one.

The entire stadium fell silent. A moment later, it exploded into even more astonishing cheers.

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The young team that no one had cared about suddenly burst into brilliance, and the atmosphere on the field began to change.

Ego folded his hands together as if everything were unfolding exactly as he had expected, while the smiles of the officials in the broadcast booth gradually disappeared.

The match restarted, and Yoichi Isagi came face-to-face with Sae Itoshi.

Although you were not particularly knowledgeable about football, even you could see how relaxed Sae was.

He was not even sweating. His movements flowed effortlessly. Not only was his footwork exquisitely polished, but the swing of his arm, covered by a black sleeve, and his positioning contained not a single unnecessary motion.

By comparison, Isagi looked far more disheveled. Sae cast him a languid glance before accelerating past him without hesitation.

The ball was sent toward Haru Shidou, but the connection between a world-class midfielder and the supposed national-team striker was always the first thing to be noticed. Oliver barely had time to wait before intercepting it, and the counterattack began.

Everyone sprinted toward the other half.

The situation changed by the second. The battle in front of the goal continued through two exchanges. Just as the attack seemed about to be dismantled once more, Nagi got there first and absorbed the ball into a perfect stop. Then he looked left and played right, sending the defense into a false movement. The tug-of-war ended with Blue Lock scoring.

The score had been reversed!

Only three minutes remained in the first half. The national team clearly recognized the seriousness of the situation, and when play resumed, everyone’s state was different.

But those three minutes changed nothing. The score remained two–one, and the first half ended.

The players went to the sidelines for fifteen minutes of rest and hydration, while the stands buzzed with conversation.

A few middle-aged people nearby began chatting. It seemed that the players’ parents had all come to the match and were exchanging greetings. From a higher section of the stands, someone was calling out a name you recognized.

You looked up.

“Chigiri’s sister? Auntie?!”

Hyoma Chigiri’s mother and older sister had come to the stadium, and they were filming with their phones. At that moment, they spotted you sitting in the front rows and included you in the video as well, their faces lighting up with surprise.

“Oh! Long time no see!”

You ran beneath the stands and chatted with them for a few minutes.

His sister was astonished that you had become a guide, and with a broad smile, she said that this meant you could go out and have fun with Hyoma more often. His mother voiced her support and enthusiastically pulled you into a group photo.

The teammates on the field watched with undisguised envy, while Hyoma Chigiri’s face turned bright red.

He took a sip of water, his rose-colored eyes darting away in panic.

*

Inside the national team’s locker room, the players were dejected. Akito Sendo, the striker who had always been showered with praise, looked especially dispirited.

Even during halftime, Sae Itoshi took a shower. Now, having finished, he stood with his upper body bare and spoke to the national team without the slightest courtesy.

“The striker I designated cannot take the field. Then the match is over.”

“Your level is not worthy of my passes.”

He spoke indifferently, his green eyes beneath lowered lashes devoid of emotion. Yet his thoughts drifted once more toward you, seated in the Blue Lock spectator stands.

He had come to play this match because he was interested in the Blue Lock project, and he had indeed confirmed it: these people’s ideas and convictions—even their vision and ambitions—surpassed those of the U-20 national team.

Of course, his greatest gain from returning home this time was finding his chosen guide.

A German had tried to block his path, but when it came to nationality, he held a considerable advantage.

After all, he had been the first to discover you.

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