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Isagi was never meant to be ordinary. He understood that long before he had the words to explain it. While other children laughed easily and moved without thought, he felt everything too deeply, as if the world pressed against him harder than it did against anyone else.
The first time he stepped outside, they called him soft.
The second, a crybaby.
The third, weak, useless.
With each outing came a new name, a new label carefully placed on him by people he meant to befriend that never tried to understand.
So by the age of four, Isagi had already begun to learn.
He learned the quiet language of people, the subtle shifts in tone, the meaning hidden behind fleeting glances, the invisible rules no one ever took the time to explain. He learned when to speak, when to stay silent, when to make himself smaller, just enough to be tolerated.
“Talk less, smile more.”
That became his rule, his quiet mantra. Say only what is necessary… or nothing at all. Blend in. Be easy. Be acceptable.
And somewhere between those lessons, between the names thrown at him and the silence he forced upon himself, he, Isagi Yoichi, became what they came to call “normal.”
In that fragile normality, he learned something else just as quickly:
It was unbearably dull.
Everything blurred into a pattern.
Shout, cry, say sorry, make up.
Ask, think, answer.
Wake in the morning, sleep at night.
Over and over again.
What once felt new, almost exciting in its unpredictability, faded into something hollow. Routine settled in like a weight on his chest, turning each passing day into something repetitive, something expected.
What once was something exciting, is now something he considers exhausting.
So he started looking for something that wasn’t.
Medicine wasn’t a sudden dream. It didn’t come with passion or wonder, not at first. It came quietly, the way most things did in his life.
It is a job where you need careful observation, something he was born with. A job that comes with financial practicality. A job that is a sure proof plan to having a stable life.
Because of that, Isagi already knew what he had to study.
Isagi watched.
He noticed how hands moved with purpose, how questions were asked in careful order, how answers weren’t guessed, but built. There was a pattern to it, yes… but it wasn’t empty. It mattered. Every decision carried weight. Every small detail could change an outcome.
For the first time, the “rules” he learned didn’t feel like something that confined him.
They felt like something he could use.
So he followed it.
Memorized. Studied. Observed.
He learned and became curious about doctors as he watched and scrolled on the internet.
And somewhere along the way, medicine became less of an interest and more of a direction.
Not because it was exciting
but because it made sense.
And maybe, he thought, that was enough.
…until it wasn’t.
Until even that, too, began to feel like just another routine.
And then, one day, something slipped.
It was small so small most people wouldn’t have noticed.
A classmate stumbled during a casual game, the ball rolling loose in a direction no one anticipated. For a split second, everything broke away from the pattern Isagi had memorized. No rehearsed reactions, no expected movements, just a gap.
And in that gap, he moved.
No thinking. No shrinking. No careful calculation of what others might say.
Just instinct.
His foot met the ball cleanly, the sound sharp against the quiet. For the first time in what felt like forever, his chest didn’t feel heavy. It burned, alive, uncertain, awake.
The moment passed as quickly as it came. Voices returned, the rhythm reset, the world stitched itself back into something predictable.
But Isagi stood there, still.
Because for that brief, fleeting second, nothing had followed the rules he had spent years learning.
And he realized.
Maybe it was never the world that was boring.
Maybe it was the version of himself that kept forcing it to be.
For the first time in 3 years Isagi’s heart burst into excitement.
And he couldn’t forget it.
That single moment brief, almost insignificant to everyone else, lingered in him like an echo that refused to fade. It replayed in his mind, over and over again. The angle. The timing. The feeling.
Not planned. Not calculated.
Felt.
It bothered him.
Because for years, Isagi had built himself in control. On observation. Of certainty. Medicine made sense because it rewarded that. Because it turned unpredictability into something manageable, something explainable.
But that moment?
It didn’t ask him to think.
It didn’t give him time to analyze.
It's simply… happened.
And he responded.
Perfectly.
That was what unsettled him the most.
So he tried to find it again.
At first, it was subtle. Joining casual games, lingering a little longer after school, watching how others moved not as people to blend in with, but as players to read, to anticipate. The same way he studied symptoms, he began studying movement. Positioning. Timing. Space.
But this time, something was different.
He wasn’t shrinking.
He was searching.
Searching for that gap.
That break in predictability.
That moment where everything fell apart and came alive.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.
Medicine remained steady, structured, safe.
But soccer.
Soccer was something else entirely.
It was chaotic. Unforgiving. Uncertain.
And for the first time in his life, Isagi didn’t want to control it.
He wanted to be consumed by it.
Because on the field, he wasn’t “normal.”
He wasn’t quiet.
He wasn’t small.
He was awake.
And slowly, dangerously, he began to crave that feeling more than anything else.
Isagi stopped reasoning.
On the field, he didn’t think the way he was supposed to. He didn’t pause, didn’t calculate, didn’t shrink himself into something acceptable. He chased the impossible angles, forced openings that shouldn’t exist, moved as if the outcome didn’t matter, only the moment did.
It wasn’t smart.
It wasn’t safe.
It wasn’t normal.
People started to notice.
They called him reckless.
Then irrational.
Then something else entirely.
“The Mad Man of Saitama.”
No one really remembered who said it first.
But everyone remembered the game.
“Oi! Did you see that?!”
“He ignored three open passes!”
“That wasn’t even a play, that was what was that?!”
“He’s insane,” one of them muttered, still staring at the field.
Across from them, Isagi stood under the harsh stadium lights, chest rising and falling, eyes locked on something no one else could see.
“Insane?” another scoffed. “No… that wasn’t random.”
“Then what was it?”
A pause.
“…He knew.”
They fell silent for a moment, watching as Isagi reset into position, already detached from the last play, as if it never mattered.
“He knew where everyone would move,” someone said slowly. “And instead of following it… he broke it.”
“Yeah, well,” another clicked his tongue, “who plays like that? No passes, no hesitation just forcing his way through like a damn-”
“Madman.”
The word slipped out so naturally, no one questioned it.
“…The Mad Man of Saitama,” someone repeated under their breath.
It stuck.
Later, in the locker room.
“You heard what they’re calling you now?” a teammate asked, half-laughing, half-wary.
Isagi didn’t look up.
“Does it matter?”
“They’re saying you don’t think when you play. That you’re reckless. Impossible to work with.”
A pause.
“…That you’re crazy.”
Silence.
Then, quietly.
“They’re wrong.”
The room stilled.
Isagi finally lifted his gaze, something sharp and unyielding flickering behind his eyes.
“I think more than anyone else in that field.”
He stood, grabbing his things, voice steady, certain.
“I just don’t follow what I already know.”
He walked past them, leaving nothing but the echo of his words behind.
Because once the whistle blew, Isagi Yoichi refused to listen. To reason. To be contained. He played like someone starved, like someone who had spent years suffocating under predictability and had finally found air.
Because on the field, he wasn’t “normal.”
He wasn’t nice.
He wasn’t small.
He was feral.
He was awake.
And slowly, dangerously.
He began to crave that feeling more than anything else.
“Why do you never pass to your teammates?”
Once, just once, an interviewer found the courage to ask the so-called madman.
Isagi looked up and offered a small, polite smile, soft, almost disarming.
“I do pass,” he said with a smile that suddenly sharpened. “Just… not often.”
The interviewer frowned slightly. “Then why does it seem like you avoid it?”
Isagi took a moment, choosing his words with care.
“It’s not that I don’t trust them,” he clarified. “I actually pay close attention to how they play, their habits, their timing, the choices they make.”
He rested his hands together, calm and composed.
“And because of that, I can usually tell what will happen next if I pass the ball.”
The interviewer leaned in. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll move the way they always do,” Isagi said. “Choose the safest or most familiar option. And the play will end in a way that’s… expected.”
A small pause.
“They might score. Or they might not. Either way.”
He glanced down briefly, then back up, eyes clear.
“We’ll still win.”
The interviewer blinked. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It is,” Isagi admitted with a soft nod. “Winning is important.”
Another pause.
“But if the result doesn’t change whether I pass or not… then it starts to feel repetitive.”
Not harsh. Not dismissive. Just honest.
“I already know how it ends,” he continued. “So it feels like I’m just following a script I’ve seen too many times.”
The interviewer stayed quiet this time, letting him speak.
“I think what I’m looking for isn’t just the ‘right’ play,” Isagi said. “I want something that changes the flow of the game. Something that forces me to adapt.”
His expression softened, but there was quiet certainty in it.
“If someone can move in a way I can’t fully predict, if they can create an outcome I didn’t already see.”
He paused, a faint smile returning.
“Then passing becomes interesting.”
The interviewer tilted his head. “Interesting?”
Isagi nodded.
“Because then it’s not just about winning anymore. It’s about discovering something new within the game.”
A brief silence settled.
Then, calmly clearly
“I guess what I’m really looking for… is a variable.”
Something that disrupts certainty.
Something that changes everything.
“Because without that,” Isagi added with a glint in his eyes, “Even winning can feel a little… boring.”
Isagi learned to live two lives, quietly, carefully, as if balancing something fragile between his hands.
In the classroom, he was someone people liked.
He listened when others spoke, nodded at the right moments, smiled just enough to be warm but never overwhelming. He helped with homework, explained lessons patiently, and never made anyone feel small for not understanding. Teachers trusted him. Classmates approached him easily.
“Isagi’s really nice,” they would say.
“Easy to talk to.”
“Reliable.”
And he was.
Because he had learned how to be.
Medicine, even at that age, slipped naturally into this version of him. Not as a profession yet, but as a way of seeing. He paid attention. He noticed when someone looked tired, when a classmate held their arm a little too tightly, when someone smiled but didn’t mean it.
He observed. He understood. He responded gently.
It was a world of quiet patterns, predictable, but meaningful.
A place where being “normal” worked.
But the moment he stepped onto the field.
Everything changed.
“Don’t pass to him!”
“He’s not going to give it back!”
“What is he doing?!”
The same people who laughed with him during lunch now watched him with frustration, or unease.
Because Isagi didn’t play the way they expected.
He didn’t follow calls. Didn’t respond to signals. Didn’t move for the sake of teamwork alone. When he had the ball, he held onto it, not out of selfishness, but because he was searching.
Searching for that break. That moment.
And when he found it.
He moved without hesitation.
Cutting through defenders. Ignoring open teammates. Taking shots no one thought he would take.
And in every time he shots, he scored.
“He’s impossible to play with,” one teammate muttered.
“He doesn’t listen,” another added.
“He’s… scary.”
And just like that, a different kind of reputation formed.
Not kind. Not reliable.
Unpredictable. Difficult.
Infamous.
It was strange.
To be liked in one world, and misunderstood in another.
To be gentle in one space, and merciless in the next.
But Isagi never tried to fix that contradiction.
Because to him, both sides made sense.
In the classroom, he followed patterns to understand people.
On the field, he broke patterns to understand the game.
One gave him stability.
The other made him feel alive.
And as the days passed, as both worlds continued to pull at him.
Isagi began to realize something.
Because somewhere between those two extremes.
Between logic and instinct, structure and chaos.
Was where Isagi Yoichi truly existed.
His elementary days are almost coming to an end, then came the final match before his school enters the national.
With that came the game that would change everything.
But this time, it wasn’t just about one name.
“Have you seen the bracket?”
“No way… it’s really happening?”
“Kira’s school versus Saitama’s?”
“The Japan National Treasure against the Mad Man of Saitama… seriously?”
The crowd hadn’t even settled into their seats, yet the air was already alive with anticipation. Voices overlapped, excitement threading through every word, every glance toward the field.
“Kira Ryosuke’s team hasn’t lost a single match.”
“Of course they haven’t. It’s Kira. His playmaking alone is enough to carry them.”
“Yeah, he’s perfect. That’s the whole point.”
A pause.
“But have you seen Saitama’s striker?”
“…That guy?”
“He’s insane.”
“Insane how?”
“He doesn’t follow plays. He doesn’t pass. It’s like he doesn’t even care about the system. He just… breaks through everything.”
“That’s not soccer.”
“And yet they made it this far.”
The conversation shifted, splitting naturally into two sides.
“Kira’s team plays clean. Structured. Everyone moves like they’re connected.”
“They’re what soccer is supposed to look like.”
On the other side.
“Saitama’s offense revolves around one person.”
“Yeah, and that’s exactly why they’re dangerous.”
“You can’t predict him.”
“He’s unreliable.”
“Or maybe…” someone said quietly, “that’s what makes him unstoppable.”
A brief silence followed, the weight of that thought settling between them.
“Still,” another voice cut in, more certain this time, “there’s no way chaos beats perfection.”
“…Unless perfection becomes predictable.”
That lingered.
Down on the field, both teams began to gather.
Kira stood at the center of his team, smiling as he spoke, his presence steady and reassuring. There was a natural ease to him, the kind that made people trust him without question. His movements were precise, purposeful, refined.
He was everything people admired.
Across the field, Isagi stood a little apart from his own team.
Quiet. Still.
Watching.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. His gaze traced every movement, every position, every possibility unfolding before the match had even begun.
“Hey… that’s him, right?”
“The Mad Man of Saitama?”
“…He doesn’t look like much.”
“No,” someone murmured, eyes narrowing slightly.
“That’s what makes him worse.”
Two teams stood on opposite ends of the field.
One built on structure.
On certainty.
On perfection.
The other.
Built on breaking it.
“The Japan National Treasure versus the Mad Man of Saitama.”
The question hung in the air, unspoken yet understood by everyone present.
Who wins?
No one answered.
Because somewhere between certainty and chaos, between logic and instinct, something was waiting to be born.