Scene 0 – The Simulation Begins

> The ball spun wrong. Kyrie saw it before it left the winger's foot.

He wasn't even playing—just watching a replay on a cracked tablet, cross-legged on his bedroom floor. No sound. No commentary. Just data.

"Center-back's late. Keeper leaning left. Gap opens in three… two…"

A tap-in should've followed.

Instead, the striker hesitated. One touch too many.

The goal never came.

Kyrie paused the screen.

He traced a line across the frozen image with his fingertip.

There. That was the flaw.

His room was a wreck of diagrams and movement charts. Notebooks stacked like bricks. Arrows, angles, overlapping zone maps—all sketched by hand over years.

Not magic. Not a gift.

A system. A language. A Code.

He leaned back, eyes closed.

"They react. I calculate."

And when he opened them again, the simulation continued.