Chapter 829: Statement!

Metropolitano Stadium, 78th minute

The roar was still echoing around the stands when Hiro stepped onto the pitch.

Ten minutes was all Diego had given him, ten minutes to remind the world who he was, or to show them who he had become.

He jogged to his position with careful, deliberate strides, and the grass felt alive beneath his boots. The floodlights burned bright overhead, and the noise pressed down on him like a physical weight.

This was his first match in a long time, and he expected himself to be somewhat anxious. However, to his surprise, he wasn’t feeling pressured at all.

Instead, what he felt was closer to coming home.

The first touch came almost at once. Lee Kang-In, who had set up Julian’s goal earlier in the half, laid a simple pass into Hiro’s path, nothing special at all. But the moment the ball met his foot, something shifted.

He didn’t accelerate or drive forward. Instead, he paused, for one breath and one heartbeat, and the whole pitch seemed to slow around him.

His eyes swept the field, left and right, forward and back. Julian is marked. Guiliano is free on the right. Lee is making a run behind.

He played the pass. It wasn’t the obvious one, and it wasn’t the safe one. But it was the right one.

The ball curled around Real Sociedad’s midfield, slipped between two defenders, and settled perfectly at Guiliano’s feet. Guiliano blinked, surprised by both the pass and its accuracy, and then he was running.

A gasp rolled around the stadium. What was that?

Shun had noticed too.

From his goal, he had watched the whole thing, the pause and the scan and a pass that no one else on the pitch had seen.

He’s different. The old Hiro would have taken that ball and run straight at the defense, trying to beat three men on skill and speed alone. This Hiro was something else entirely. He’s playing like a puppet master.

Shun tightened his grip on his gloves, and a slow grin crept across his face. This is going to be fun.

The next few minutes were a masterclass.

Hiro didn’t sprint, he didn’t dribble past opponents, and he did not attempt to win the game on his own.

He conducted.

Every pass was precise, every movement was calculated, and every touch had a purpose. He drifted between the lines, finding pockets of space that shouldn’t have existed and pulling defenders out of position with nothing more than a glance.

He played a one-two with Julian that split the defense open. He switched the play to the left with a single, effortless pass. He held the ball under pressure, drawing three defenders toward him, and then released it to a teammate who stood completely alone.

The crowd didn’t cheer. They watched, mesmerized and confused and captivated. This isn’t the Hiro we remember.

This is something else. Something better.

In the 84th minute, Real Sociedad broke.

Their opposing winger, fast, direct and dangerous, raced down the right flank and left Sociedad’s left-back trailing behind him. He cut inside and shot, and the ball rocketed toward the top corner.

Shun didn’t move.

He didn’t need to. The shot curled wide at the last second, missing the post by inches, and Shun had read it long before the winger even struck it.

The crowd let out its breath, and Shun picked up the ball and rolled it calmly out to his center-back.

But the red and white’s weren’t finished. Two minutes later they broke through again, this time with a through ball so perfectly weighted that it left their striker one-on-one.

The striker took a touch, Shun came off his line, and the striker shot. It wasn’t a dramatic save. Shun made no full-stretch dive and no acrobatic leap. He just stood in exactly the right place, and the ball hit him.

The rebound fell to Julian, who struck it first time. This time Shun did dive, a low, powerful parry that sent the ball spinning out for a corner, and a groan went up around the Metropolitano.

How is he doing this?

On the bench, Diego watched the keeper with a mix of admiration and frustration. If it weren’t for him, we’d be five goals up.

"That keeper is something else," he said to his assistant.

His assistant nodded. "Shun. He’s been like this all season. Real Sociedad’s defense is good, but he’s the reason they’re in the top four."

Diego said nothing more. He just stood there watching the game unfold.

In the 88th minute, Hiro received the ball in midfield.

He was hemmed in, with two defenders closing from either side and a third lurking just behind.

The old Hiro would have tried to dribble his way out. However, this time, he waited. He held the ball for one beat, then two, then three, and the defenders hesitated, unsure whether to commit.

In that hesitation, he saw it: the gap, the space and the opportunity.

He played the pass.

It didn’t go to Julian, or to Guiliano, or to Lee. It went to the left-back instead. He had been bombing forward like an arrow this entire match.

The pass was weighted and angled perfectly, and the left-back didn’t have to break stride. He ran onto it, took a single touch, and whipped a cross into the box.

Julian rose and headed it, and Shun dove and saved, and the ball spilled out toward the edge of the area.

And Hiro was already there.

It wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t luck. The moment the cross left the left-back’s boot, Hiro had drifted to the edge of the box, anticipating the rebound and calculating the angles, waiting for his moment.

The ball bounced once. He took a breath.

Then he struck it, not with power and not with fury, but with precision.

The ball curled through the air, slow and elegant and inevitable. It arced over the defenders, over Shun’s outstretched fingertips, and nestled into the top corner of the net.

GOAL!

The stadium erupted.

Seventy thousand voices roared as one, and they weren’t only cheering. They were celebrating something larger than a goal.

It was like a statement of his return.

Hiro stood still for a moment with his eyes fixed on the ball in the back of the net. Then he turned, and he smiled.

On the ground, Shun stared up at the sky. He had dived, and he had stretched, and he had done everything he could, and still that shot, that perfect, impossible, beautiful shot, had been unstoppable.

He sat up slowly and looked at Hiro, and Hiro looked back, and for a moment neither of them moved.

Then Shun laughed. Of course he scored. And of course it was perfect.

He got to his feet and gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. Good goal.

Hiro nodded back. Thanks.