Sparking

"Oi~, panther-kun. Wanna go to the training facility and train together a little bit?" Haruo smiled at Bachira who only looked at him back with surprise after being tapped on the shoulder.

"What's with the alias?", Bachira asked back without knowg at first that he was meant with that name.

"Hmm? What about it? Isn't Bachira sounding a lot like Bagheera? Did you never watch the jungle book or what?" Haruo raised a brow lightly. There were of course more similarities to that fictional figure. "You are also pretty nimble with those feet of yours. So it suits you just fine. Don't you tink?"

For crying out loud, even Jinpachi modeled Bachira's little profile picture after some kind of mischievous cat. Those canine teeth sticking out from his smirking smile told all people pretty much the story.

"Oh, I see. Well, thinking about it like that makes sense, I guess.", smirked Bachira now.

"Anyway, are you up for some dribble challenges or not?" Haruo only sighed lightly after getting a little bit annoyed that there still was no concrete answer. 'Decide already, will you.'

"Alright, no problem with that. How about Isagi joins us as well?"

"I don't really mind." After all, the more people are near him when they trained, the better it would ultimately be.

Haruo already decided to steal some other abilities and try to use them to his current physical capabilities. Most of them would be fully unlocked only after he gained better physical traits but it would be worth it nonetheless.

Trying to gain access to a computer or his smartphone was actually a no go at the current time. All personal stuff that had something to do with entertainment was taken away from them.

So his first plan with getting himself some perfect muscles to compliment all the talents got easily thrown overboard for now.

"Isagi, are you even good at dribbling?", asked Haruo now the person in question who stood close by.

"Decent enough I think?", answered Isagi after taking a small thought into it.

"Well, it doesn't matter. Try to pick up some things if you can." When that was said the three of them went over to the training field and put an elongated rectangle zone of cones where they would move around in.

The one in possession of the ball would try to pass the two defending players and reach the other side of the zone.

The first try went to Isagi and he failed miserable getting stopped by a clean sweep by Bachira's leg without Haruo even needing to lift a finger.

"You should take into consideration where your opponent's body is leaning to. Look, like this."

Since Bachira had the ball now he went ahead and repositioned himself only to run into Isagi's and Haruo's direct position.

Isagi tried the sweep the ball away like Bachira did but got ticked by Bachira with him jumping together with the ball and then going continuing on against Haruo.

Most Forwards, even those that ran in the midfield were pretty bad or at most average defenders.

But to Bachira's surprise, Haruo snatched the ball after he had tried feinted him.

When Bachira took the left side after feinting to the right Haruo committed his body weight towards the direction of the feint.

But a clean outstretched backward leg without Haruo even looking pushed the ball away before Bachira could go on and continue running past him.

Looking back Bachira smiled greatly. "Wow, that was unexpected." Even Isagi was amazed because of the speed and precision of the quick heel tap.

"Sorry, but I also have some experience as a defender." Haruo smiled. "You would need to destroy my balance a little bit more than just that."

[Honed Ball Cutting: C]

It was a skill that he already had himself and it helped a lot in winning possession of the ball back in the midfield. The defense starts with the strikers as they say. Ironic really.

"Okay! Now it's your turn. I am all excited to see how good your feet move.", smirked Bachira

"Sure, I may not be as good as you in pure dribbling but I should manage...Here I go."

Haruo started sprinting and went pretty fast-paced. Isagi tried to mark him and body block any escape routes but Haruo rolled the ball behind him to protect his possession.

Isagi tried to attack but when he moved, Haruo's body came back forward again only for Isagi to watch after because even if he wanted to react to the right as well, he also noticed too late that he was being fooled into committing too much.

With that easy opportunity, Haruo was able to make a clean marseille turn and broke through.

[Solid Technique: C]

But being showy was not all since after his trick he suddenly stopped holding the ball close and placed it forward strongly to increase his pace and dribbled past a sliding Bachira who only looked after him.

"Man, you two are scary when you got the ball at your feet.", sighed Isagi and still looked at them while Bachira still went after Haruo and fought for the ball.

And looking at that Isagi suddenly also got the urge to steal the ball from either of them and went into that battle royal, trying his best.

After every one of the trio had the ball at some point and held it for a few seconds here and there they seemed to start laughing and enjoying that little game of possession holding.

Some of the others in the team also came into the training room and noticed the play. At first a few joined up but after some time everyone was also playing along.

There was just nothing better than the striker's joy of having the ball at their feet and keep it there.

It also meant the possibility of a goal in a match.

But there soon came another announcement that brought them back to the seriousness of their situation.

The next training phase would start again and everyone started preparing for that. So the next few days were really strenuous drill camps that pushed everything possible that could be pushed.

In that phase, Haruo came over to various players and tried to convince them to put a little bit of extra time in and play a few games of various challenges like penalty kicking or free kicking and stuff like that.

Basically, everything that could be done with a football at their feet.

He also came to learn their personalities a little bit and what they were good at.

"Hahaha, man if I had my phone I would really love to record or stream these little moments. We would make a good youtube team. I am actually having a lot of fun right now.", mentioned Haruo after the elven of them stopped played.

"Streaming? Why would you want to do that? Would Jinpachi not scold you for even thinking about that?", asked Igarashi. Even though he lived at a temple didn't mean that he was completely oblivious about what the internet was.

"Well, for starters, hyping up this project would be fun. Are you not interested in the reactions those people from outside would have when they see us training so rigorously? Hell, most in our age group even just enjoy watching people play various football games just for fun.", suggested Haruo back.

It was an idea he would really like to do. Getting famous and collect sympathy points with future fans was also something a professional should strive for.

"When we are pros we probably won't have enough time to do things like that, you should know that, right?", said Chigiri and tried to crush Haruo's little bubble of too much optimism.

"All the more that we should do this. And who knows what will happen in the future anyway." Haruo just shrugged.

"I see that you unpolished gems seem to have an interesting conversation there." Suddenly the screen in their room activated and Jinpachi was looking at them. "Well, if you want to live a luxurious life then you need only do one thing. Start winning! You will even get the chance for that. The rankings have been updated!"

At that second the little patch at the left side of everyone's training suit started beeping and after three such beeps, another number stood where the previous was.

"Hoo~, it was a display?", wondered a well-built black haired dude with short straight hair that was buzz cut on both sides. His name was Okuhito Iemon. The one from where he got the potential growth from.

"Looks like it." Haruo nodded.

"Whoa, look! I am 275th now! Yes!" Igarashi grinned in glee. "What about you Isagi?"

"Hmm, 274th."

"Still one number above me, I see."

"Well, looks like the highest change happened with Sugewara here." Bachira smiled and poked at Haruo's 265.

"Wait, he got the highest number among us!?" Raichi was like the usual competitive freak and wanted to complain about the ranking but the next thing Jinpachi told them, sure put a downpour on their mood

All besides Haruo that is. His mental state was obviously hardened up to shocks. At least most of them.

"You should also consider that you are still pretty much the worst team. You should remember that 25 players were already kicked out." Those were the words from Jinpachi that struck worst.

"What!? Then I am still dead last..." Igarashi could only cry in a corner.

A tall and lengthy teen of 190cm with black hair dyed blond at the tips looked at Igarashi. He was called Gin Gagamaru and also the tallest of Team Z.

"So even sharing my gyoza(food) didn't really bring anything to your improvement...", he asked the buzz-cut.

"Hey, don't hit an already down for the count person!" Igarashi said back.

While being on the topic of food. Most meals were pretty crappy for the ones at the lower ranks.

Each player would receive certain meals each day depending on their ranking. If your ranking remained the same, you would always get the same stuff.

So after some time of bonding, Team Z started to share their food. At least some of them did it. Others were more greedy about their nutrition intake.

"Damn, so I was training with trash this whole time?" Raichi was the most enraged by the revealing fact.

"Oi, oi, you know that you are also counted into Team Z, right?", asked Haruo with a slightly raised brow.

"Tsk..." Raichi didn't say anything else and glared at Jinpachi with furrowed brows.

"Listen...The remaining teams will now be put against each other in a round-robin. Each block has 5 teams. That makes 25 teams. And only 2 teams from each block will proceed to the next stage. It's all-or-nothing from here onward." Jinpachi continued to explain the next phase.

Chigiri was the first to see the glaring contradiction. Every one of them was a forward. That meant some of them had to play roles that they never had played before.

It would call disaster and the matches would end up being luck-based.

"Isn't that fine? Football is, at its core, a sport where one scores goals. You may have the positioning system and tactics that come with it ingrained in your foolish heads, but that is simply one part of football's long history. In the beginning, football was a sport played with every member as a forward. So our Football will begin from that starting point. And from there, fix your knowledge of football from scratch."

After a small pause of his speech and no one saying anything but looking somewhat confused at Jinpachi went to list up the way things worked.

In that speech, he also explained that there was a special rule that could save someone. The scorer with the most goals from each team would also be taken to the next stage. Of course, if they manage to score at all that is.

That meant each block would see 25 players go to the next stage. The top 100 would then have been decided.

"Well then, you unpolished gems. Get moving. The first match will be between Team Z and Team X" With those last words he went offline.

"Alright then. As long as I get a winged position I don't care who will be the forward for now.", stated Haruo from the getgo.

He already saw the team bickering about who would be the main striker in their formation.

And at the end, Isagi won the rock, paper, scissor game for the first match.