Chapter 109: Battle Group

Yoichi Isagi punches the air, thrilled to learn he has landed a regular spot on the Blue Lock Eleven. The news lands hard on the rest of the room, drawing shocked and bitter looks, with Shoei Baro glaring at him in a rage. Kenyu Yukimiya asks Ego why Ryusei Shido, the project's ranked number two and a prolific scorer, is nowhere on the sheet. Ego praises the question and lays out his reasoning.

Shido averaged two goals a match, a striker second only to Rin Itoshi, and every one of those goals came off his own ability. His conduct away from the pitch, though, cannot be ignored. Across the Third Selection he never once clicked with Rin, and his savagery toward Rin at the tryout's close would sink the team if it resurfaced against the Japan U-20. That is why Ego refused to field the two together. On top of that, nobody in Blue Lock can manage or match Shido, so no partner exists to draw out his best.

Igarashi guesses no one in the whole country could reach Shido, and Yukimiya still calls it a waste. Ego agrees and reveals his original plan: keep Shido as a joker to swap in for Rin whenever the game turned against them, a jolt that could flip momentum. That scheme collapsed when Buratsuta phoned to say Sae Itoshi was unhappy with the U-20 forwards and would scrap the match and shut Blue Lock down unless he got to pull one striker onto his side. Sae picked Shido.

Three hours before the reveal, Shido sat strapped to a dolly in the Punishment Room, a bare cell with a single bulb and cameras, begging to be freed. The door opened and Sae walked in with Anri Teieri. Sae told Shido that Blue Lock was far too small for him and that he would set him loose, because he wanted Shido's ego on his side.

Ego confirms Shido will line up for the U-20 against them. He admits the squad was always going to orbit either Rin or Shido, the two styles being opposites: Rin binds himself to his teammates while Shido plays utterly alone. Ego chose Rin, Sae chose Shido, and which pick was right gets settled in fifteen days. Twelve bench slots remain open, so the unpicked still have a path forward. Ego warns that a loss ends every career in the building, then tells them to commit everything. Rin scoffs that the words are lukewarm, since to him this is only a rung toward becoming the world's best. Bachira, Karasu, Otoya, Yukimiya, and Nagi each voice their hunger, and Isagi realizes the roster spot is a starting line, not a finish. Ego commends their egos and calls the final training camp to order.

Ego breaks down the logic behind benching Shido, whose lone-wolf game meshes with no one in Blue Lock. Sae personally claimed Shido for the Japan U-20 as his condition for the match. Twelve reserve places are still up for grabs. Ego sets a fifteen-day window to mold his egotists into a unit, and the starters declare their resolve to win against the odds.

This is chapter 109 overall, Battle Group, the sixth chapter of Volume 13 and the opening stretch of the U-20 Arc. Its events appear in Episode 29. The twenty-page chapter debuted in Japan on November 25, 2020, and reached English readers on May 17, 2022.