Blue Arbiter — Blue Lock Apocrypha: The Final Boss's Creed - The Name of the Unbreakable Blade

The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss. Kai remained motionless, his back still turned to the monitor. Footsteps echoed down the corridor—quick, urgent. The breathing was ragged. From that alone, he could read the visitor's state entirely. The footsteps stopped. At the entrance to the Glass Cage. Kai slowly rotated his chair. Standing in the doorway was a boy with deep green hair. Around 175 centimeters tall. His uniform still bore traces of mud, dampened by rain. His shoulders heaved with each breath. A small star-shaped earring glinted at his left ear. Eyes of yellowish gold fixed directly on Kai. Anger. That much was unmistakable. "Are you the man who created this project?" Not a question. A confirmation. Kai answered curtly. "I am." That single word became the trigger. "You're just using us as tools, aren't you?" Not a shout. A voice trembling as it fought to suppress trembling. His fists clenched. His entire body held something back. "Hino——Hino, who was eliminated in yesterday's match, was taken away crying. Right in front of me. He was the only one here I could joke around with. We'd laugh at stupid things, eat together——maybe that's all we were to each other, but for me, it——" The words broke off. Fuyushima bit his lip. He forced the rest out, voice strained. "His soccer career is over. Ten years of work, gone in a single match. And you——you looked at the data, signed off, and that was it. That's all?" Kai listened to every word until the end. The 120-inch monitor glowed silently. Footage from every floor of the facility. The cell blocks in the dead of night. Darkened corridors. Empty courts where no one moved. Kai rose slowly and faced Fuyushima. "A blade that cannot cut is discarded. That is the rule." His voice held no emotion. Flat as stone. Cold as winter. "A rule? His dream ended." "You are also one blade among many. If you wish to be sharpened, return and rest." With that, Kai turned back to the monitor. His back was refusal itself. Fuyushima did not move. He stared at Kai's back. His mouth opened as if to speak, then closed again. That was when it happened. Kai's eyes fixed on a single point on the monitor. Just 0.5 seconds. The footage showed yesterday's match——the final play of the eliminated player. Kai's gaze tracked it. For just an instant, his eyes lingered. Fuyushima saw it. (What was that?) He could not put it into words. It was not the gaze of a mere cold-blooded man. But what was different, he could not say. Kai did not turn around. Fuyushima was dismissed. --- The next morning. In the eight-tatami cell block room, Fuyushima Ren's eyes opened. A bed. A desk. A shower. Nothing more. There was a window. But beyond it lay only the sea——a gray expanse of water stretching to the horizon. No land. No lights of Tokyo. Nothing. He had stopped counting how many days had passed since arriving. The facility broadcast sounded at 6 AM. A mechanical voice. Candidates dressed and filed into the corridors, each emerging from their rooms in silence. No one spoke. When paths crossed, when eyes met, everyone looked away. He descended to the dining hall. The Blue Lock facility's cafeteria——a vast space on the first floor of the cell block, lined with nutritionally managed meals. Calories. Protein. Carbohydrates. Everything calculated on the trays that emerged. The food was not bad. But no one called it delicious. The reason was simple. The person sitting beside you might be your opponent in the next match. The man eating at your table today might be the one pushing you toward elimination tomorrow. So no one spoke. No one laughed. Everyone ate in silence, stood in silence. Fuyushima paused, tray in hand. The seat where Hino always sat was empty. He sat elsewhere. He ate without thinking. --- The training complex "Forge" was a three-story facility. The first floor was the weight room. Forty machines lined the space. Every one was occupied. No one made a sound. Only the heavy clang of iron and the ragged breathing of exertion filled the air. Fuyushima headed to the second floor——the video analysis room. Thirty individual booths. Each candidate watched their own match footage repeatedly, identifying and eliminating their weaknesses. The evaluation algorithm "Judgment" calculated not just technique, but decision-making and growth trajectory. So what you discovered yourself watching the footage mattered to your numbers. As he climbed the stairs, his feet stopped. In the corner of the first floor, agility ladders were arranged in rows. The place where Hino always trained. Fuyushima stared at it for two or three seconds. Then he continued up. He sat in his video analysis booth and opened his match footage. He pressed play. On screen, he watched himself running. But for the first five minutes, nothing registered. A faint sound came from the adjacent booth. At first, he ignored it. But the sound continued. Small. Very small. A muffled sob. --- "……I'm D-rank. If I don't show results in the next match, it's over." When Fuyushima spoke, the candidate in the next booth hurriedly wiped his face with his sleeve. About the same age. Short black hair. Red eyes. "Judgment flagged me. My name's in the bottom ten elimination candidates." Judgment——the evaluation algorithm Kai had designed. All candidates ranked S through D in five tiers. The bottom ten D-rankers were automatically calculated as the next elimination candidates. Their names appeared on their personal terminals. They had to know this. They had to compete every day knowing it. "I trained at my local club for ten years. When my parents sent me off, they told me to become a national representative." Fuyushima had no words. He tried to speak. But anything he said felt like a lie. He could not say "do your best." They were already doing their best. He could not say "it will be fine." It might not be fine. Just a boy his own age, sitting beside him, crying quietly. The Iron Chain Clause——every candidate signed it at entry. Upon elimination, permanent disqualification from all representative selection categories under the Japan Football Association's jurisdiction. Lose here, and your soccer career ends. It was not numbers or letters. It was a face crying beside him. And it pierced Fuyushima's chest. This place was designed by Kai. The anger from last night burned hot again. --- Deep night fell. The cell block after lights out. The corridor lights were off. Beyond the window of his room lay only the black sea. The sound of waves came faintly. Fuyushima lay on his bed. Sleep would not come. He remembered Hino's back. The back disappearing into the elevator toward the exit. Crying. (Where is he now?) He had returned to the mainland. That much was certain. But what came after, Fuyushima did not know. There was no way to contact him. His phone had been confiscated. Fuyushima sat up. He opened the terminal on his desk. The device distributed to candidates in the facility had external communication completely blocked. Only his evaluation data, match footage, and facility schedules were accessible. But——Fuyushima knew something. In his first week, while exploring the facility's internal network, he had discovered a gap. The facility management system was connected to an old version database. Security was lax. The same technique he had used to breach the Glass Cage's restricted areas. Fuyushima operated the terminal. Slowly. Carefully. He entered the old database. Staff information archives. Massive files lined the screen. He searched for Kai's name. The file opened. Current position: Project Architect. He already knew that. But below it, more information continued. Past registration data. Affiliation: Fortis Sagamihara. Player registration. Position: FW. Fuyushima's hands stopped. He read further. Seven years ago——anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus damage to left knee. Diagnosed as unable to return to competition. Voluntary retirement the following season. He stared at the screen for a long time. He could not move. That man had been a player. He had stood on the same side as them. He had run across the pitch, kicked the ball, tried to live through soccer. Seven years ago, it ended. His knee was destroyed. He could never return. (A blade that cannot cut is discarded——) Kai's voice echoed in his mind. That voice from last night. The emotionless, cold voice. That voice and the text on the screen overlapped. Anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus damage to left knee. Unable to return to competition. The anger did not fade. The fact of Hino crying did not disappear. The face of that candidate weeping in the adjacent booth did not disappear. But the shape of the anger changed. Slightly. It was no longer simple hatred. What had this man been thinking when he created this place? Fuyushima looked at the profile photo on the screen. Kai's face. An expressionless face. Deep brown, cold eyes. He stared at it for a long time. The answer was nowhere to be found.

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Episode 2

Name: Blue Arbiter — Blue Lock Apocrypha: The Final Boss's Creed
Author: Novelia

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