Blue Lock: Beyond Greatness

"Eh~ But I don't want you."

To everyone's surprise, Shinichi smiled cheerfully and rejected him. "After all, you're so weak. There's really no need for us to pick you, right? From my perspective, it doesn't matter who we choose; it's all the same."

"Rin, look at him, he's even trying to act tough. He should learn from you—also someone who suffered a crushing defeat against me. When I chose you, you didn't utter a single unnecessary word."

Rin, who had intended to remind Shinichi to stop messing around and pick someone at random, grumbled and walked away.

Shinichi turned back to look at Hiori and Kurona. "Do either of you have anyone in mind?"

"I think choosing him wouldn't be a bad idea. He's clearly the strongest in the group, and his potential is also the most promising," Hiori replied, sticking to a straightforward answer and avoiding indulging Shinichi's mischief.

"I'll go with whatever you decide, Shinichi," Kurona said without much opinion, leaving the decision entirely up to him.

Shinichi shrugged helplessly and pulled out his phone. "Alright, let's make it fair. We'll roll a dice. I pick 4-6, Hiori gets 1-3. Whichever number it lands on, we go with that. How about it?"

"Our mighty King is rejecting dictatorship and is willing to listen to the opinion of this humble subject. How could I object?" Hiori responded with a playful smirk.

"Hey, hey, hey! This isn't right! Something feels off! That guy deliberately made us go through so many rounds of reformation; it can't just be about choosing teammates. There's bound to be situations later that require the whole team to work together!"

Just as Shinichi's group finalized their decision, Reo couldn't hold back any longer.

He wasn't entirely sure what he was feeling at the moment, but seeing Nagi actively ask to team up only to be rejected—and even have his talent dismissed—made him speak out instinctively.

"Nagi is definitely the strongest among us! He's willing to join you, so why wouldn't you take him? Haven't you seen his talent? And he just started playing football six months ago—his potential—"

"Shut up, you idiot," Shinichi coldly interrupted Reo, cutting him off without mercy. "Whether it's setting the rules or breaking them, that's the privilege of the strong. Failures like you have no place here, so get lost. There's no room for your voice in this conversation."

"You losers have only one choice—to kneel on the sidelines and await your fate. Don't forget your place."

Nagi noticed that Shinichi deliberately glanced at him while delivering these words.

Then, Shinichi tapped his phone, and the virtual dice began to spin wildly.

Instantly, both Nagi and Reo felt their hearts pounding in their chests, as if their very heartbeats had been replaced by the roll of that dice.

As time ticked by, the dice gradually slowed its spinning until it finally came to a stop.

One... two. Reo widened his eyes, staring intently at the screen in Shinichi's hand. From his distance, he could barely make out that the number was no less than three.

"Four points," Shinichi announced with a grin, showing the phone screen to Hiori. "Looks like I win. So, who should I choose?"

His scrutinizing gaze swept over the four individuals, each holding a different posture.

First, Shinichi turned to the fallen Reo and said, "A mediocre bystander with no distinguishing features, and an awful attitude on top of that. Always making trouble. Pass."

Then he moved his eyes across the rest. "A tall, clueless giant who's nothing but height, a dumb runner, and a naive white-haired guy who completely loses his autonomy without someone else guiding him. It's really a tough call—you're all so weak."

"Alright, come here, glasses-wearing idiot." After a series of playful jabs, Shinichi finally pointed at Zantetsu. "You've been running your heart out, only for the team's playmaker to see only one person and waste all your effort. That's gotta sting."

"Join me. Be my warhorse and run for me."

"I'm not an idiot..." Zantetsu adjusted his glasses and stepped toward Shinichi. "But I'm looking forward to it."

"Well then, that's settled. Ciao." Shinichi waved at the stunned SNagi and Reo before leading the way into the passage to the next stage.

Zantetsu followed behind, pausing briefly to glance at the crestfallen Reo. Without saying a word, he turned and walked away.

...

"What is that even supposed to mean? That self-absorbed jerk..." Reo muttered blankly, his face filled with confusion.

How exactly should he be feeling right now?

Should he be relieved that Nagi wasn't chosen and they could still team up?

Or should he feel angry that something so precious to him was treated as worthless garbage by someone else?

More importantly, how was he supposed to interact with Nagi now?

Reo glanced at Nagi, who stood nearby. To his surprise, Nagi's face didn't show a hint of frustration; instead, it was filled with puzzlement.

"Was I... defeated by luck?" Nagi murmured softly to himself. "What a strange feeling... this sense of having my fate decided by someone else..."

"Luck, huh? Now that's an interesting topic." Suddenly, the screens across the field and in the room where Shinichi had just arrived lit up.

The face of Ego appeared, looking as though he was one breath away from collapsing from exhaustion, but still exuding an undeniable authority.

"Yo, yo, raw gemstones of talent, greetings. First of all, let's congratulate the first team to pass the second selection stage!" He gave a slow, insincere clap before continuing. "Judging by the outcome, you might think Zantetsu advanced to the next round purely by luck. But is that really the case?"

"As a reward, let me enlighten you clueless fools about what luck truly is."

"Luck? Isn't that just random occurrences?" Reo frowned as he voiced his thoughts. Ego shot him a dismissive glance, filled with disdain.

"Only a failure would rely on their idiotic mind to twist reality like that."

"Shut up and listen carefully. Luck is built on the foundation of success," Ego declared, raising his hand as several images flashed across the screen. "Take, for example, a festival lottery at a store. If the shop owner never put any winning tickets in the box to begin with, would you say the people who didn't win were simply unlucky?"

"This..." Reo frowned, falling into deep thought, while Nagi looked up, paying serious attention to Ego's words.

"Luck isn't an omnipotent force—it only descends upon those capable of bearing it. Without buying a lottery ticket, you can't win. Similarly, the same applies on the football field."

"Think about it. In a 90-minute soccer match, how many coincidences and inevitabilities occur? During your time in Blue Lock, you've been learning the formula for scoring goals, reproducing your own ways of scoring. That's inevitability."

"When the inevitabilities of both sides clash, unpredictable coincidences are bound to happen." Ego shifted his gaze to Nagi, who was lost in thought.

"And the same goes for you. If you had performed just a bit better—not by relying on the boredom of Shinichi to make him leave the field but by following his rules and forcing him out of the game—then he might not have resorted to rolling the dice. He might have chosen you directly."

"But your performance didn't create a qualitative difference compared to your teammates. On the contrary, because of you, Reo redirected passes that could have gone to others and gave them to you. Yet you failed to capitalize. You couldn't even take a proper shot, let alone score, and were intercepted. If you had succeeded, even Kurona might have wanted you on his team. That would have made it two against one, significantly increasing your chances of being selected."

"In other words, when it came to being chosen, your inevitability clashed with Zantetsu's inevitability, and in the end, luck favored Zantetsu."

"Nagi, you weren't ready to be struck by luck. Accept the arrangement of fortune, and then continuously improve yourself to increase the likelihood of luck favoring you. That is your next step."

Clap... clap... clap...

A slow, intermittent round of applause echoed. Shinichi, smiling, joined in the clapping. "What an interesting argument. However, there's one point I must disagree with."

He pulled out his phone and reopened the dice app. The result was once again four.

But then he revealed something unexpected—it was a looping animation.

"The rules are made by the strong. Changing the rules—or even breaking them—is also a privilege exclusive to the strong."

"I never said I would rely on luck to make decisions. Or rather, I only seek absolute inevitability."

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