Episode 15: Devour

Baro pounces on a rebound to put his side ahead 3-2, and Isagi sees that he and Naruhaya are mirror images: Naruhaya slips behind defenses but cannot finish, while Isagi finishes but cannot get in behind. The first to overcome his limit will win. Isagi cycles through tactics, but each change only delivers the ball to Nagi, who keeps equalizing. He concludes that real change requires demolishing everything he was before.

After Naruhaya strips Isagi from a blind spot and sets up Baro to make it 4-3, Isagi fixates on that blind spot, realizing a one-on-one is not only about the player with the ball. If every off-the-ball movement counts as one continuous duel, it overturns everything he assumed. Recalling Itoshi's taunt about studying the human eye, he decides to overwrite his entire concept of football and feeds Nagi to level once more.

A flashback shows Naruhaya feeding his younger siblings after losing their parents, vowing to turn pro, make money, and shield his family; his eldest sister gives him a good-luck charm he carries everywhere.

When Baro's curved long shot rattles the post, Naruhaya chases the rebound and tries to emulate Isagi's direct strike, only to hit the woodwork himself. Isagi realizes the answer is emulation: he must fuse his weapon with Naruhaya's. Running with Baro tracking him, Isagi exploits the impossibility of watching both ball and man, slipping into Baro's blind spot with a change of direction, then a second, to free himself. Nagi finds him, and Isagi's direct shot wins the match.

Naruhaya concedes that while his imitation stayed shallow, Isagi truly devoured and mastered another's weapon because he never fears change, naming him a genius of adaptability. He clutches his charm, apologizes to his family that his dream ends here, and tells Isagi to keep winning until he dies. Isagi turns to Baro and recruits him, refusing to let him bow out.

The episode is part of the Second Selection Arc, using Judgement as opening and Numbness like a ginger as ending. A parallel subplot shows Kunigami and Chigiri recruiting a sulking Mikage. The Additional Time skit, "Reo, a Maiden in Love?", has Mikage plucking toothbrush bristles like flower petals to divine whether Nagi will return, ominously warning that he may not be the same when Nagi comes back.