1 Project Blue Lock

A boy of a slim build that had shoulder-length blond hair tied in a low ponytail at the back looked at a piece of paper with his brown eyes.

Behind his two bangs on each side of his face, there was an indifferent look and no smile surfaced on the otherwise healthy looking tanned latte skin that he had.

"An invitation to a player improvement project?", he mumbled the content of the letter and asked at the same time what this was about?

"Isn't that great? Didn't you say you wanted to start becoming a professional footballer? Why don't you accept that invitation?" A woman with long blond hair asked him back while having a loving smile on her face.

The boy looked at the woman that was in front of him. It was his mother. She was about 172cm in height. Since he was a tad bit taller with his 178cm he did have to look a little bit downward.

But from the moment he saw her blue eyes he got a little bit embarrassed and looked away.

He was definitely not used to having someone dot on him so much and the genuine happy expression he saw on her face told him she really was happy for him.

"I did say that. But I am not sure about this project. Besides, I only started playing half a year ago. And most importantly, it is an invitation from the Japanese Football Association. I am not even sure I want to represent Japan..."

The woman frowned a little now. "Hey, now. You should not be like that. Your father would be sad hearing that."

That sentence got the young teen frowning back. "Yeah, about that. How about he shows his face around here for a change?"

"Wait, Haruo!" The woman wanted to say something but the boy started walking away and went to his own room. "Haruo..."

Up inside his room, the teen lay on his bed and sighed. Looking to the side outside the window he could see the clouds travel by.

"A second chance and yet this has not changed one bit."

Closing his eyes he remembered his old life.

Football was and still is his passion since he was young. A sport that is so simple from the outside that it entices you easily but complex enough that not many may master it.

The exhausting effort he put into every hour of pure training. Trying to improve even marginally to reach better fitness and heights in his skills.

But what was effort without talent? People say talent is given, but without effort, it is wasted.

That may be true, but without talent, every ounce of effort will also be wasted.

Alexander, also known as Sugewara Haruo now, had exactly that.

He put all his heart and sweat into training. And with effort, he managed to reach a regional level. But never more than that.

His body just gave him not that chance. He tried everything and played about every role on the field.

When he was small his body rarely let him play anywhere longer than 5 minutes. The air run out at that point and he was so exhausted that it was only pain.

So he started from being the disliked goalkeeper. From there, with increased training of endurance, he became a defender.

From a defender, he kept improving his passing to become a midfielder and through sheer willpower and more insane training, he increased his pace and mentality to become an experienced striker.

All the effort he put in got him the desired results. But that was only until the level of football became increasingly more difficult and his body once again hit a hard cap while also climbing the ladder of age.

Coupling that together with a devastating injury on the field, the result from the doctor crushed his dreams in one go.

It was not something like a destroyed knee. For that would be at least an injury received from the sport he loved.

No, his body, in general, was ill from the very start and it was already a wonder that he came so far as he did.

Accepting his fate begrudgingly after crying himself out, he could only lament it.

But against all advice, he still kept playing nonetheless. The only solace he found was the hope that he somehow managed to improve even after that. Just to play one more game.

And at some point, it worked out for him. He really had conditioned his body to such an aspect that he had the chance to become a true professional player.

Well, it may have been the second league but it was still professional football.

For him, it was already something he desired. His chance of becoming first-class was already snatched from the very start.

Some may say it was at least better than most, but he would always rebuke them that he could have managed better and become a world-class footballer if not for his body. But lying to oneself will only eat you up.

And when the time came, and though he tried his hardest, it was not enough.

Why that is the case? It is simple. He died ignoring his body. For all the determination he gave into his sport, it only rewarded him with a painful death on the field.

Thinking back about it, he could only smile wryly. His current body was so gifted that he was angry about the previous owner dying from an overdose of drugs after socializing with the wrong people.

Such a true waste.

When he started playing his favorite sport again, he noticed the immense change in the way things went. He got the basics in quickly and even his own techniques were relearned rather easily.

All those skills he put so much effort into in his past life now became so easy to gain once more.

At first, he attributed it to his experience, but after training things that he never was good at he started noticing the complete change. He could tell the difference in innate talent.

It was so unfair.

Talent so great that it only took a few months to get all his past skills and even improving on most of them.

But the moment he joined a football club and played again on the field. That was the moment he could see the true culprit of it all.

That one thing that made everything different.

-[Haruo Sugewara]-

[Insatiable Greed: U]

[Gluttonous Devour: U]

[Football Prodigy: B-]

[Clear Goal Instinct: B]

[Heavy Long-Shot: B]

[Space Breakthrough: B-]

[Smooth One-Touch: C+]

[Love Letter Passes: A]

[Dribble: B]

[Quick Feet: B]

[Sprint Burst: B-]

[Experienced Football Intelligence: C+]

[Stout Body: C]

[Restless Stamina: B-]

[...]

Looking at this he started grinning again. Not because he was happy but because he felt deceived.

The first official game he played was also the moment he noticed the power he had. Concentrating and trying to analyze a player's ability suddenly let him see their talent and what they were good at.

But that was not what he was so shocked by. It was more the fact that if he fulfilled certain criteria, he was able to devour the skills that either his teammates or his foe's had.

So he could steal the talent of people.

Well, he did not literally steal their talent but copied it.

If someone had quick feet, he could devour that and become fast as well. With that ability alone, he stole his old life's abilities and already managed to reach nationals in his second life.

It was really not fair at all. Especially after the immense effort, he put into this sport. Now this power made a mockery out of his second effort. He could have already started months ago and devoured different talents.

That would have lead to him being in the nationals with a team instead of just coming short of it and dropping out with the team.

But at the same time he also already saw himself on the world stage with the ability. He would only need to go somewhere else and devour.

Now, however, there was a small predicament.

Haruo was a mixed breed if you haven't noticed. He was half Japanese and half Russian. It was unexpected since Russia and Japan were kinda not on good terms in whatever they competed.

And as a "hafu", no matter what nationality, he was kinda ostracized by society.

It all reminded him of his old life just too much...Yes, he was a mixed-blood in his last life as well. To be exact he was a German-Russian in that one.

That also had the same problems socially and it made his desire even stronger to not help the nation he lived in and go overseas.

At first, he wanted to represent Russia since with that he could play in European Football and Asian Football. The World Cup would also become a reasonable goal.

Now though the JFA is inviting him to something.

That clearly smelled after something that would pull him towards the Japanese National team.

Also, did he mention football was not the national sport here? That also made him wonder if he really should play for them. For people that did not appreciate the sport?

So looking at the paper again he just placed it on his head and went to sleep.

---

In the next following days, he made up his mind and stood with his packed backpack in front of a tall and slender dude that was wearing a black suit.

He stood on a podium and his eyes, which were framed by thick glasses, looked at him with an emotionless expression.

"Congratulations, you unpolished gems. My name is Jinpach Ego."

"All you Under-18 strikers have been chosen solely based on my criteria and biases to be here today. All 300 of you."

The group of 300 started to gossip around and Haruo analyzed some of them. His eyes became somewhat greedy.

[...]

[Football Talent: B+]

[Football Talent: A]

[Football Talent: A-]

[...]

Thinking about the words that guy said made him smirk slightly. Those emotionless eyes that looked so analytical were no joke. Especially those talents that glared at him when looking at him more accurately.

-[Jinpachi Ego]-

[Scouting Genius: S]

[Analytical Computer: A+3]

[Coaching Efficiency: A+1]

[Tactical Finesse: A+2]

Seeing all those juicy talents to devour made him very eager to take them. Especially that S-grade talent would become useful later on if he ever became a scout later on.

It may even become useful if he ever wanted to build his own team to play with. After all, this time he was born in 2002 and most talents he knew from his past life were already past their prime.

But genuinely speaking, he would not need that talent with his eyes telling him whatever he needed to know.

In actuality, it made him speechless at first that there were so many good talents but thinking about it, it also made sense. These guys were handpicked by this guy that had an S ability. It just told stories about that skill.

And talent without extreme polishing never will shine.

Haruo was actually quite interested in this project now. Depending on how this goes, all these guys could become First-Class players. Maybe even World-Class.

"I will put it in simple terms. Japan only requires one thing to become the strongest powerhouse in football. And that is the creation of a revolutionary striker. From the 300 of you here today, I will forge the best striker in the world through a certain project."

Jinpachi went on and explained the structure of the building they were currently at. It looked like a football and was in the shape of a pentagon that had 5 major buildings and a football field in the middle.

After the building was shown he went on to explain certain rules and what eventually will be a project going over months.

"You, the last player standing...will have become the best striker in the world. That is all for the details. Nice to meet you all."

At that moment Haruo grinned greatly and stepped forward.

"Oi, where do I sign up?", said Haruo and was eager to do the deal. Even if he wasted his time it would not be detrimental as long as he stayed long enough to eat his fill.

He didn't care about the team that he was in. It was a loser team after all and a few months would not hamper his career.

Jinpachi looked at him and then gestured behind him where a gate opened up.

"Just walk through this gate.", said Ego without anything else to say.

But then another person started talking and even Haruo looked back for a short moment.

"What do you mean we will be here for months? We all have a team to return to. The nationals are going to start soon. I am not going to abandon my teammates."

"Ryosuke Kira, was it?" Jinpachi fixed his glasses slightly. "Then just fuck off."

That let the guy flinch and there was a eyebrow twitching on his face. It was actually normal to receive that answer, really. If you didn't like it then just leave. Just as simple as that.

"If you all want to leave then do so now." Even after that said there were others complaining as well. That is until Ego dropped a small bomb.

"Huh, you all must be broken in your heads. You rather chose your team over becoming the best striker in the world? You really want to be a high school champ in this shithole of a country?"

The conversation slightly stopped and then continued about how Jinpachi should apologize for insulting their national players like Honda and Kagawa by calling this country a shithole.

Two of the more famous football players of Japanese origin can't be wrong, right? The complaining party was again Ryosuke.

That brought Haruo to laugh loudly and Kira glared at his reaction. Even Jinpachi was slightly surprised and looked to the side where he still stood.

"What stupid naivety. Even though your so-called heroes are on the national team, they still went overseas to foreign clubs. Do you know why? Because Japan sucks at growing talent. All they do is destroy it every time they get their hands on it. When was it that the national team won a World Cup? And I don't mean that shitty FIFA Club Trophy that is for pity. Right...they haven't."

"I am going to ask you something. If we were going to ask those national players what they would want to see more, would it be a team having a traditional value or a team that gets goals and wins? I am pretty sure it is the second. Anyway, if you all are not done hesitating, then you can all become my stepping stone to become the best striker. Not that you have any other choice in that anyway."

With that said and a condescending laugh Haruo walked inside the gate.

Many glaring faces looked after him and started walking into the gate as well. And in the end, there was no one left behind and all 300 of them went inside when the gate closed.

Jinpachi Ego looked at the gate and placed his hand on his chin thinking about something.

"Haruo Sugewara. So my evaluation was right. I really hope you can grow into that what I envisioned you all. Shining gems that will revolutionize football again." The creepy smile on Ego's face was evident enough that his own confidence in succeeding on this project rose abruptly after this little show of egoism by one of the players.

It is the year 2018, just shortly after the World Cup, and the start of a new age of players.