Buddy

While the commentator and the Ubers side cheer Snuffy walking back his retirement, Isagi cries out that Baro swallowed everything whole. Raichi apologizes for failing to contain Snuffy, but Isagi assures him the plays landed and that the fault lay in his own misreading of the situation.

With the three-minute window of the star-change system now spent, both benches prepare fresh substitutions. Sendo signals to Snuffy that he is ready. Checking on Kurona, Noa can see the player is still hurting and calls for Jin Kiyora, whose rating of eighty makes him the obvious pick. Isagi pushes back: beating Ubers, he argues, demands a disruptor who can pour new thinking into the side, and he names Yo Hiori as the piece that will let him become the match's hero. He explains that Hiori reads the game through eyes and mind much like his own and can trace his visualizations well enough to deliver a scoring ball.

Noa dismisses the request as childish and driven by feeling, yet Hiori himself speaks up, reasoning that a second player able to predict Isagi's runs would effectively put two Isagis on the pitch, and he offers to become Isagi's shadow. Pulling off his warmup top and drawing on his gloves, Hiori privately puzzles over his sudden hunger to play, given how the weight of his parents' demands once made him loathe the sport, and he is startled to find he now holds expectations for himself. Noa warns that any failure by Isagi will cost him his starting place, while Isagi states plainly that Hiori is the final piece he needs to score.

As the Masters leave the field, Sendo returns to take Snuffy's spot. Noa initially selects Kiyora to replace the injured Kurona, but Isagi talks him into fielding Hiori instead, convinced Hiori is the missing element that will unlock a goal.

Buddy serves as the ninth and concluding chapter of Volume 26 and the two hundred thirtieth overall, within the Neo Egoist League Arc. The Bastard München against Ubers match continues at two goals apiece. It is written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Yusuke Nomura.