Chapter 273

Rin drives forward set on flattening everyone between him and the net. When Kurona and Hiori slow him, he lays it off to Tokimitsu, who shrugs off Ness to reach Nanase, and with Mensah bearing down, Nanase returns it to Rin. Though Hiori, Kurona, and Raichi all try to wall him off, Rin bursts through all three, and both Kaiser and Isagi are stunned to see him keep the ball and close on shooting range.

Just as Isagi dreads being unable to stop the shot, Rin passes up the chance. Facing an imagined Sae who would deem him still lukewarm, Rin decides a goal now would not help him grow, that he must seek the mightiest opponent and hurl his strongest self against them. Telling the others to gather if they want to die alongside him, he slides the ball to Charles.

Charles, Tokimitsu, Karasu, and Raichi are baffled that Rin declined the shot. Loki and Noa weigh in from the touchline, with Noa branding Rin a morbidly fascinating egoist. Isagi observes that Rin has slipped into the same state as during the under twenty match and puzzles over what he is hunting, admitting he cannot break Rin down with reason and calling him incomprehensible, a monster of destruction. Rin scans the pitch and asks whether anyone there has ever staked their life on soccer, begging for an unbeatable phantom greater than Sae and for someone to lay down their life to him.

Rin bulldozes through several defenders to reach the goal but declines the shot, fearing Sae would judge that he has not evolved enough. Isagi concedes he cannot make sense of Rin through logic. Rin challenges the other players over whether they have ever risked their lives for the sport.

Rin's refusal to finish ties directly to a delusion of Sae calling him still tepid. Isagi's inability to analyze Rin earns him the label monster of destruction, which supplies the chapter's title.