The morning fog hung low over the training ground
Amano was already there
Hours before anyone else
He wasn't juggling
Wasn't shooting
Just…moving cones
Setting lines
Shaping the field like a tactician shaping war pieces
"Yo bro you coaching us now?" Koji walked in yawning
Amano didn't respond
He placed the last cone and walked off to the bench
Notebook open
Eyes scanning pages like a mad scientist
Coach Hibiki arrived and froze
The field layout wasn't normal
It was…twisted
Unbalanced
Deliberate
"Who did this?" he asked
Amano raised a hand silently
Coach raised an eyebrow
"You tryna break them today?"
"Trying to free them" Amano said simply
When practice started
Everyone was confused
The drills made no sense
Defenders were outnumbered
Forwards were cut off
Midfielders had no passing lines
It was chaos
Players shouted
Got frustrated
Broke formation
Then slowly
Very slowly
They adapted
Koji figured out a looping run to bypass the mid-trap
Takeshi switched roles with a defender without permission
Nobu started dropping deep to make space for others
It clicked
By the end of the session
They were drenched
Mentally fried
But Coach Hibiki nodded
"Today…you all stopped being players
You started being thinkers"
They collapsed on the grass
Grinning
But Amano stood alone on the sideline
Watching them like a puppeteer watching his strings
And then quietly tearing those strings away
Because deep down
He didn't want puppets
He wanted kings who could kill gods without his help
One step closer to fading away
But also
One step closer to awakening a team that didn't need him forever