Chapter 612: Out Of This World

The ball, set down by Izan, had barely stopped rolling before Ødegaard and Rice jogged over, shielding Izan slightly from the Valencia crowd buzzing just behind the advertising boards.

“Alright,” Ødegaard started, crouching a little.

“Let’s not take the hit. Play it short and we recycle it.”

“Yeah,” Rice added, pointing toward the left channel.

“Pull them wide and get Nwaneri on the switch. They’re backing off, they’ll collapse if we feed it in.”

They were talking tactics but Izan wasn’t hearing a word.

He just stood there.

Staring at the ball.

To the others, it looked normal.

Still.

Resting on the patchy green turf, waiting to be touched again.

But to Izan, it was different.

The world around him blurred slightly, crowd noise fading into a low hum.

The ball sat like a glowing core.

Lines began to form—angles, curves, invisible arcs from his boot to the top corner of the goal.

They shifted, flickered, and bent across the air like paths waiting to be chosen.

Wind speed. Keeper reach. Spin compensation. Trajectory curl. Post proximity.

His brain traced them all in a heartbeat.

“Izan?”

Ødegaard’s voice broke through.

Izan blinked once, eyes snapping back to normal.

“You get that?” Ødegaard asked, brows raised.

Izan looked at him with, a slow nod.

“Yeah.”

Ødegaard stared at him with a confused expression, wondering it Izan had really heard what they had just said but he didn’t push further and just walked off anyway, exchanging a brief glance with Rice, who stayed a few steps behind Izan—just far enough to sweep up a rebound, if there was one.

Izan exhaled, his boots shuffling slightly as he glanced at the crowd before he stepped away from the ball, backwards and to the side, positioning himself where the angle was narrow, the strike difficult—but the reward… clean.

The players in the box were still jostling.

Gabriel Magalhães and Tarrega had started in on each other again, arms out, voices raised.

The referee blew a short, sharp blast and strode in, holding both palms up.

“Enough.”

He gave each a warning, pointed once at his whistle, then at the ball before backpedalling away slowly.

The crowd was on edge again—phones up, bodies leaning forward.

The referee, blew the whistle—and no one moved.

No run-ups from Arsenal.

No shouts. No decoy.

They just watched, waiting for the cross from Izan.

And on the sideline, Baraja, arms crossed and already barking shape to his line a moment earlier, now stared.

He shook his head once, sharp, reflexive.

“No,” he whispered.

Then louder—almost pleading—

“No, he won’t,” he said walking closer to the pitch but Izan had already decided.

His body leaned in, slow at first.

One foot planted beside the ball, the other coiled behind him like a drawn bow.

And just before contact, the System surged.

[FOCUS LV 3, Activated]

[KNUCKLEBALL LV 3, Activated]

[PINPOINT ACCURACY LV 3, Activated]

A flurry of notifications, rang through his mind as Izan’s right foot came around, and the contact was pure.

Clean on the valve.

The ball didn’t roll off his laces—it exploded from them and launched into flight with a sound that was almost mechanical.

Like a seal had been broken.

It moved pure in the air until it didn’t.

It twitched.

Then dipped.

Then rose again.

A snaking trail through the air that didn’t want to carry it.

“He’s hit that—wrong!” Tyldesley gasped, too late to stop his voice cracking.

The players in the box, turned in time to see it curl around them.

Mamardashvili flinched first.

His knees bent. Arms spread and then dove—the leap of a keeper who’d seen everything… except this.

The ball twitched again in mid-flight.

A final convulsion as it reached his fingertips and grazed it.

Then came the clang.

It clipped the underside of the bar with a metallic, savage clang—a sound that rang out across Mestalla like thunder in a cathedral as the net absorbed it violently, and the ball flew back out like even gravity didn’t believe what it had just seen.

The goal stood.

4–2. Hat-trick. Izan.

“It’s alive!” Drury shouted. “That ball is alive!”

“Off the bar! Keeper full stretch! He had no right—no right—to shoot from there! He had no reason to do so but he’s done it. Bow Mestalla to the return of your king in different colours” Drury’s words tumbled out over replays that couldn’t even explain it.

“From forty yards! That’s his third! His third! He’s buried Mestalla!” Tyldesley cried, voice scrambling to keep up.

“That is not invention. That is destruction.”

The crowd was still catching up.

Izan wasn’t.

He turned and took off—legs pumping like pistons, head down, no arms out, no scream of celebration.

Straight to the away end.

The wall of red and white was already climbing down the railings before he got there.

Flares lit the night in an orange haze.

Arms reached.

Scarves whipped through the air like flags of surrender and salvation.

He didn’t slow.

He jumped—both legs up, soaring over the ad boards like he was born on the other side of them.

Then—impact.

He was gone.

Swallowed.

Like something divine.

They caught him in waves.

Dozens of hands pulling, grabbing, holding—not violently, but like they were scared he might vanish if they didn’t.

A shirt pulled over his face.

A kiss to the top of his head.

A boy in a retro Arsenal kit holding a scream so loud it shouldn’t have come from a body as small as his.

Another fan fell backwards, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.

“He’s in with them! He’s actually gone into the crowd!” Drury shouted.

“He’s not just their striker—he’s their reason.”

“They don’t want a replay,” Tyldesley echoed. “They want a statue!”

Security hesitated.

Saka and a few crazy ones jumped over the ad boards joining Izan in the crowd but the rest of the teammates stood near the boards but didn’t call him back.

They knew.

They knew the moment wasn’t for tactics.

It wasn’t for discipline.

It was for release.

On the Valencia bench, Baraja didn’t flinch.

He stood still, hands behind his back, watching the goal replay in real-time on the stadium screen.

“What do we do,” Assistant coach Moreno asked but words failed to come out of the mouth of Baraja.

Because what do you say?

And in the home stands—nothing.

No whistles.

Not even anger.

Just something worse.

Resignation.

Some fans sat back slowly, arms crossing over their chests.

Others stayed frozen, blinking at the scoreboard like it had to be a mistake.

Because if Izan could do that, from there…

What had he been holding back?

Why didn’t he shoot from the edge of the box in the first half?

Why did he pass?

Why did he smile?

Had he been sparing them?

Or had they just woken something that never should have been disturbed?

“It’s a message,” Drury whispered.

“It’s like he didn’t return to be welcomed but came to remind them. What they had. What they lost. What they can’t touch anymore.”

Izan emerged from the crowd at last, his shirt pulled half over his chest, scarf tangled around his neck, grinning like someone who had just broken every rule—and been rewarded for it.

He just walked back toward their half of the pitch and no one looked him in the eye.

The fourth official raised the board.

Number 16: Diego López.

Number 2: Max Aarons.

A few boos rang out from some of the Valencia faithful—not at López, but at the idea.

The implication.

A winger sacrificed for a full-back meant defence over defiance.

But Baraja didn’t flinch.

He’d made his decision the moment Izan crossed the halfway line after his third.

López jogged off, sweat streaking down his face, clapping his hands, lips tight as he glanced at the scoreboard.

4–2.

Max Aarons ran past him without a word, high-fived Baraja, and slid straight into position.

Instructions had already been passed.

Lock down the left.

Don’t let that happen again.

Behind the bench, Moreno, was already waving two more players to warm up—Fran Pérez and Amallah.

Plan B was being loaded.

Or maybe Plan C.

Because Plan A had been swept into the rafters with that third goal.

“That change tells a story,” Tyldesley said.

“Baraja’s trying to stop the bleeding first—before thinking about anything else.”

“Aarons for López,” Drury added.

“An attacker off. A defender on. And a stadium waiting to see if it’s damage control—or setup for one last push.”

The referee checked both benches, gave a glance to the VAR team, and then whistled sharply.

Restart.

Valencia tapped it short, then swept it out to the left.

The tempo felt slower—calculated. Less about flair.

More about redirecting the pressure.

It wasn’t just about the scoreboard anymore.

It was about Izant he was thinking and whether he was finished or not.

A/N: Okay. First of the day. I’ll see you in a bit with the last of the day and hopefully, the GT Chapter. Have fun reading.

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