Weighing the Future

An early memory shows a much younger Snuffy at the wheel of an open-top car crossing a mesa-studded desert, with Mick Moon lounging in back nursing a drink. Their talk drifts to what lies ahead, and Mick declares that a life without ruling the sport would not be worth living to him.

The scene snaps back to the live contest, where Baro erupts, branding his own teammates lifeless machines. Slipping past a lunging Ness, he confesses that from the moment he signed on with Snuffy he had itched to wreck the roster, and now that Predator Eye belongs to him he considers the squad useless. When other Ubers players fire the insult back at him, Snuffy asks whether Baro means to reject him outright. Baro snaps that the coach's schemes fall short of overtaking Isagi.

Pressured by Grim and Kunigami together, Baro feeds the ball to Aiku, who happily adopts Baro's approach and pulls Niko and Lorenzo into the new rhythm. Noa needles Snuffy about his own dog turning on him, and Snuffy, delighted, urges Baro to outdo everything he designed. Baro grants that the team is superb yet complains it lacks the despair he feeds on. As Snuffy tells him to cut loose and Baro winds up to fire, Isagi and Kaiser both close in to shut him down.

A flashback captures Mick Moon telling Snuffy that being denied the sport's throne would leave him wishing for death. In the present, Baro openly repudiates Snuffy's tactics and worldview, going on a tear across the pitch. Rather than resist, Snuffy dares him to eclipse his blueprint. The chapter closes with Baro readying a strike and both Kaiser and Isagi rushing to intervene.

This is the sixth chapter of Volume 26 and the two hundred twenty-seventh installment overall, part of the Neo Egoist League Arc. The Bastard München against Ubers fixture is underway with Bastard ahead two to one. The book is authored by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and drawn by Yusuke Nomura.