The Last Piece

Nagi's arrival wipes out Isagi's scoring instinct just as the ball comes in, and a rattled Isagi demands to know why the newcomer chose to mark him. Nagi answers plainly that Isagi is the most dangerous man on the pitch. As Bachira's pass drops between them, Isagi sprints for the empty ground first, but the thought of having to out-trap Nagi drains his nerve. Convinced he can never match those absurd first touches, he decides Team Z's win has slipped away because he can no longer picture the net.

Chigiri and Kunigami both scream for the ball while Isagi flashes back to his earlier goals and Ego's teaching about a scoring formula. He assumes the piece he lacks is trapping, the one area Nagi would beat him, so he throws that idea out and settles on a single-touch finish instead. The keeper has no answer for the direct strike, and Team Z surges ahead five to four. Across the field Zantetsu and Reo stand stunned, Reo unable to swallow the defeat. Nagi insists there is still time for two more goals, but the buzzer sounds first. Tasting loss for the first time, Nagi admits how bitter it feels to give everything and still fall short.

Isagi breaks through his own doubt and buries the decisive goal with a one-touch shot rather than attempting a trap. He recognizes his personal formula as the fusion of his spatial reading and that instant finish. The winner puts Team Z up five to four, handing Reo and Nagi the first defeat either has known.

Titled Saigo no Pisu in Japanese, this twenty-page chapter closes out the First Selection Arc within Volume 5 and is dramatized in Episode 11. It follows Chapter 36 and leads into Chapter 38.