CHAPTER 198: ALL USELESS

The stadium erupted.

The instant the ball crossed the line, San Mamés turned into a living, shaking organism — a furnace of red and white ecstasy. Nico Williams wheeled away toward the corner, sliding on his knees as his teammates sprinted after him, piling on top of him in a frenzy. The drums thundered from the Grada Popular, flags whipped violently in the air, and the entire Cathedral of Bilbao roared so loudly it felt as if the stands themselves were trembling.

"NICO WILLIAMS! THE COUNTER OF DREAMS! ATHLETIC CLUB LEAD IN STOPPAGE TIME!"

Chris Wittyngham practically exploded on commentary.

"A catastrophic mistake at the back from Frankfurt... and Williams punishes them without mercy."

Lukas stopped his run the moment the ball hit the net.

He bent forward slightly, hands on his knees, drawing in a long, frustrated breath as the roar drowned the night. His lungs burned, not from exhaustion — he could have run for another hour if needed — but from the sheer emotional weight of watching everything they had clawed back slip away in a single sequence. The kind of moment that rips something out of your chest.

Tuta stood frozen near the halfway line, his hands already on his head.

He knew.

Everyone knew.

He had tried to take a touch — a touch — when he needed to put his foot through the ball, and that single decision had thrown the entire match away.

Kaua, still thirty meters from his goal after sprinting all the way back from the opposing box, simply slowed to a stop. He looked at the sky, exhaled sharply, then jogged the rest of the distance with heavy steps, as if each one weighed more than the last.

Far on the touchline, Dino Toppmöller slammed both palms against his thighs in disbelief. It wasn’t anger — not yet — just raw disbelief. His assistant, Zembrod, had both hands over his face, shaking his head.

And on the opposite technical area, Ernesto Valverde did not celebrate wildly like the fans.

He allowed himself only the smallest nod.

The kind reserved for a kill made at exactly the right moment.

Frankfurt gathered themselves slowly, each player walking back into position with the defeated shuffle of men who had just watched a point — and possibly an entire tie — slip through their fingers.

Lukas wiped his face with his forearm and straightened up.

His jaw clenched.

His eyes burned — not with tears, but with something deeper, sharper, hotter.

There was fury there.

Not at Tuta.

Not at the crowd.

Not even at Williams.

At the situation.

At fate.

At how football could twist the knife so beautifully and so cruelly in the same breath.

"This is not over," he told himself.

The referee signaled for the restart.

There were only seconds left — maybe thirty — but Lukas jogged forward anyway, demanding the ball from Larsson the moment the whistle blew. The boos rained down on him again, thunderous, relentless, hateful. He ignored them. His touch remained silk. His movement remained sharp. His intent remained violent.

But Bilbao threw every man behind the ball.

A wall of bodies, disciplined and desperate, swallowing every yard of space.

The referee checked his watch.

Three seconds.

Two.

One.

"And that will do it! Full-time in Bilbao!" Andrés Cordero shouted over the explosive celebrations.

"Athletic take a 3–2 victory into the second leg — and what a brutal, heartbreaking way for Frankfurt to concede in stoppage time."

The whistle echoed through the stadium, and the roar of the Cathedral soared to the heavens.

Lukas stood still for a beat, breathing heavily as the reality settled into his bones.

Then he turned away from the noise, pressed his lips together, and began the long walk toward the tunnel — shoulders squared, expression unreadable, the fire in his eyes refusing to die.

It wasn’t over.

Not even close.

* * *

The next morning.

Lukas woke up with that dull, familiar heaviness behind his eyes — the weight that settles on you after a long night where sleep came late and rest came even later. The room was quiet, the blinds still drawn from the night before, and for a long moment he simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, replaying the final seconds of the match in his mind for what felt like the hundredth time. Nico Williams. The break. The empty net. The roar.

He sighed and reached blindly for his phone on the bedside table.

The second the screen lit up, his eyes narrowed.

His notifications were stacked like dominos — hundreds of them. Mentions. Articles. Messages. Posts. Clips. Edits.

Everything.

He unlocked the phone and immediately the headlines hit him like a slap.

"EINTRACHT COMPLETELY OUTCLASSSED — BRANDT THE ONLY POSITIVE."

"A CLUB WITH EUROPA LEAGUE AMBITIONS CAN’T RELY ON A 16-YEAR-OLD TO BAIL THEM OUT."

"TWO WORLDIES FROM BRANDT; THE REST INVISIBLE."

"GOTZE MISSING. EKITIKE QUIET. DEFENCE DISASTROUS."

"FRANKFURT DESERVE TO LOSE THE TIE — ONLY ONE PLAYER SHOWED UP."

He scrolled through some more, jaw tightening. The pattern was the same everywhere. Analysts, journalists, fans — everyone was hammering Eintracht Frankfurt.

Everyone except him.

They weren’t praising him out of love.

They were praising him because it made the rest of the team look even worse.

Clips of both free kicks were going viral.

Side-by-side edits.

Slow-motions.

Overhead angles.

Graphics dissecting his run-up.

Spanish fans screaming insults.

German fans arguing with them.

He clicked one video from a Spanish show; the panel was brutal:

"They were lucky the Germans have a child with a wand for a left foot.

Had he not produced two miracles, Bilbao would have destroyed them."

Another German pundit said:

"If Frankfurt doesn’t destroy them next week at home, this tie is finished.

And they’ll have only themselves to blame. That kid saved their blushes."

Lukas let the phone fall onto his chest for a moment, exhaling through his nose.

He’d expected criticism.

But the sheer ferocity of it...

It was like every outlet in Europe had decided to wake up and take shots at his team.

A notification popped at the top of the screen — Joanna.

Jo ❤️:

How are you doing, baby?

I know it must be rough today. Don’t let the noise get to you. I’m in class, but I’ll call when I’m done okay? I love you.

He read it twice. A small, reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

Leave it to Joanna to be the calm in a storm he didn’t ask for.

He texted her back a short: "Love you too."

And then he sat up, running a hand through his hair as another thought hit him, "Shit... school."

He’d completely neglected all his coursework the last few days. With everything going on — Bremen, Bilbao, the conversation with Javi, the media pressure — he’d forgotten he was still supposed to be an actual high school student.

He swung his legs off the bed and stretched as the familiar soft "humming pulse" of the LTC brushed the edges of his senses.

[*Oh? Look who finally remembered he has an education.*] TT’s voice sounded through the walls of the training room he appeared in.

"Good morning to you too."

[*Right, right — good morning, academically-challenged wunderkind.*]

"Shut up."

[*You know, the LTC was designed for football training, not for reviewing chemistry notes because someone forgot to do their homework.*]

"I didn’t forget," Lukas argued as he walked to the center of the room, stretching his arms behind his head. "I’ve been busy."

[*Yes, yes — scoring two free kicks in a stadium full of Basque men trying to murder you. Very eventful. Still not an excuse to turn my beautiful training dimension into a tutoring center.*]

Lukas rolled his eyes. "We’re doing both today. I need a session and I need to catch up on class."

[*You’re unbelievable... You have a magical, reality-bending, physics-defying, football supercomputer at your disposal, and you decide to use it for extra credit.*]

"That’s what makes me responsible," Lukas said proudly.

[*That’s what makes you annoying.*]

Lukas grinned as the room around him dissolved into shimmering light and the familiar golden expanse of the LTC formed around him. The training screens flickered on. The simulated pitch curved into existence beneath his feet.

[*Fine,*] TT grumbled. [*We’ll train first... then I’ll help you not fail high school. But I want it on record: this is not what I was made for.*]

"And yet," Lukas said, cracking his neck and taking his stance, "you’ll still do it."

[...Regrettably,] the voice didn’t come, this time the screen flickered writing the words

The first drill loaded.

The pressure of Spain’s jeers.

The sting of the loss.

The media noise.

All of it melted away.

Lukas exhaled once.

Then he got to work.

* * *

In a room somewhere in Frankfurt.

The room was pitch-black except for the faint blue glow from a single monitor.

A cheap desk lamp flickered twice before surrendering entirely, leaving only the screen to illuminate the silhouette of the man hunched forward in his chair.

His fingers moved quickly — too quickly for the calmness of his smile — as he finished typing the final lines of an email. The cursor blinked at the bottom of the message, reflecting sharply in his glasses. He read through everything once more, lips curling in satisfaction, before tapping SEND with one decisive click.

A soft whoosh from the email client echoed through the cramped room.

The man leaned back, stretching with a relieved sigh, then muttered under his breath with a tone that hovered between excitement and threat. "I hope he replies soon... or I’m sending it to the reporters."