Leading the way

As soon as the ball touched Jude's feet, his special weapon, [Emperor's aura]'s effects started spreading through the stadium. The most keen players on the field could immediately feel the shift in balance the moment Jude trapped the ball.

Everyone in Team Z could feel an anxious feeling growing inside their stomach, while at the same time, every player in Team X could feel a weight being lifted from their chest. Even though their goalkeeper was now in the middle of the field they felt way more peaceful and level headed than before.

"What kind of goalkeeper are you?" Yukimiya asked with a frown on his face as he stood in his way. Jude only smiled in response as he activated his second special weapon. He could feel his heartbeat drastically increase as many more thoughts and options entered his head, all his senses were heightened as a result.

After trapping the ball, Jude immediately scanned the field to take a good look at everyone's situation, with Yukimiya in front of him he knew that making use of his physique would be useless and that he needed to make use of another strategy.

"Jude, I'll link up to you, give it to me." An average height blonde haired boy said as he ran on Jude's left. His name was Miyata Aki. Thanks to his [Eyes of the Lord], Jude already knew that his passing was one of his biggest strengths.

"You better not disappoint me!" Jude yelled out as he armed his foot to pass the ball to Miyata. "You're too obvious." Suddenly, right before he got the chance to finish his pass Yukimiya launched his foot in the way of the pass.

"And you're too gullible." Jude replied with a smile as he shot the air instead and brought his foot back to hit the ball with the back of his heel before turning around at an extremely fast pace and getting past Yukimiya who didn't even have the time to understand what happened before Jude started sprinting towards their midfield with Miyata right behind him.

'With my thoughts and instincts being strengthened I'm invincible.' Jude thought to himself as he dribbled past another of their forwards.

"Using me as a bait wasn't something I was expecting, but it seems like we have the same goal and I know I can't do it alone so I'll let it slide." Miyata said as he ran to match Jude's pace.

"You're right, that was mean of me. Here's your reward then." Jude said with a side smile before passing him the ball with an extremely strong pass. It was so powerful that even Miyata had a hard time trapping it, and because of it one of the opponent's midfielders reached him. That forced Miyata to get rid of the ball, and since he already knew that everyone else would just keep playing on their own and eventually lose the ball he had no choice but to send out a crazy long pass forward.

Thanks to all the attention gathered on Miyata, Jude escaped from the marking of the midfielders and reached their defense line. He then turned around and trapped the pass given to him by Miyata with his back facing the defender who was blocking his path. Akira and the siblings also rushed to the offense and distracted the rest of the defenders by asking for the ball.

The defender tried taking advantage of the fact that Jude just trapped the ball and tackled him but Jude's instincts were one step ahead as he pushed the ball high up, behind the defender's back then made use of the lack of speed from the defender to overtake him and reach the ball before him.

Another of Team Z's players took that chance to get in his way to intercept the ball and stop him but as soon as Jude touched the ball he didn't waste any time trapping it and instead shot the ball with a powerful half volley shot.

The ball went straight into the net, It wasn't too far from the keeper but it was way too powerful for him to even react, It was his first time playing as a keeper so he didn't have the right reflexes which made scoring way easier than usual.

"Let's gooo, you crazy bastard!" Yanagi yelled out from the other side of the field as he saw the score changing to 1-2 before the half time whistle was blown.

"I knew you were good but you exceeded my expectations, Maybe you didn't even need my help to score." Miyata said with a small smile as he high fived Jude while walking toward team X's locker rooms.

"That was crazy!", "Now we might stand a chance." The siblings said as they both lightly hit Jude's back to celebrate with him.

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*Jude's pov*

We all sat down in the locker rooms with everyone suddenly cheering as if the game was already won. It was nice to see that a ray of hope was found but that was brought along a small sacrifice from my side.

Thanks to my [Emperor aura] I was able to cheer up all my teammates but using my [Excitement] so early on in the game would usually be something I would never do. I can only use it once a day and it's not without side effects. After using it I tend to feel a huge strain on my mental power, My brain feels way more foggy now and even my body is starting to feel sluggish That's why I usually only use it as a joker.

I stood with my head down as I felt the sweat forming on my forehead. I knew that now I wouldn't be able to change the outcome of the match on my own but I was still able to influence everyone and show them the way.

"Listen everyone! It's obviously impossible to change keepers in the middle of the game so for the second half I will stay in the cages and will do my best to block all the shots." I said in a loud voice to make sure everyone was listening to me.

"It sounds sketchy. I can't really imagine you accepting that for no reason. So go ahead and tell us your plan, After the move you pulled out I'm sure everyone here is willing to listen to you." Yanagi said after sitting down in front of me as everyone else nodded.

"Well... You're not wrong. I do have something I want to ask of you guys in return. I will accept playing as a keeper for the second half but I want everyone to do their best to play together in the second half and make the best use of each other's weapons. If everyone listens to me I'm sure we can make a comeback." I said as everyone in the team stayed silent.

"I think we all noticed that their biggest threat is number 269, the guy called Yukimiya. If they build up their plays around him then we'd have a very hard time winning, but luckily that isn't the case, I think everyone saw that I was able to easily stop him and I believe you guys are capable of the same thing. What we need to do to stop him is triple teaming him." I said in a serious tone.

"Three teaming him? Are you planning to leave our entire defense open just to stop a single person? That's just pure madness." One of our team's midfielders said.

"Madness? It might be. But that's exactly what we need in order to win, I'm sure everyone saw how many opportunities he had to make the winning pass and yet didn't, that choice of his shows what type of person he is. What we need to do right now is to bet on his egoism and use it against him, if we succeed then we'll have a chance to win."

"I agree with Jude on that one. He's the only one who managed to stop him and we have nothing to lose by listening to his words. The biggest problem is the offense though. We're currently still losing and unless we score two more goals it'll stay that way." Yanagi said while looking down.

"How's that even a problem? Aren't we all strikers to begin with? Scoring is the simplest and most natural thing for us to do." Akira said with the lights in his eyes shining brighter than ever before.

"I agree with him on that one, half time is already over so let's all go back to the game and show them that we're all strikers." I said with a wide smile on my face.

'This is finally starting to look like a real team.'