46. The Day the Fire Died Ii

 Caos, thinking about what occurred, does not waste his time and gets to train. He got to El Bernabeu, where he trained alone, running 777 around the pitch. With every lap, he felt the agonizing pain of being alive, trying to reach for hope. That hope did not help him, as he left him be. In essence, his life was a torturous Ferris wheel, shifting his reality.

"I cannot really play. Either at the piano or at life; never, never have I been able to. I have always been too hasty, too impatient; something always intervenes and breaks it up. But who really knows how to play, and if he does know, what good is it to him? Is the great dark less dark for that? Are the unanswerable questions less inscrutable? Does the pain of despair at eternal inadequacy burn less fiercely? And can life ever be explained and seized and ridden like a tamed horse, or is it always a mighty sail that carries us in the storm and, when we try to seize it, sweeps us into the deep? Sometimes there is a hole in me that seems to extend to the center of the earth. What could fill it? Yearning? Despair? Happiness? What happiness? Fatigue? Resignation? Death? What am I alive for? Yes, for what am I alive? I would rather die in suffering than in defeat. I refused to be defeated. I will win regardless of how I feel. I need to run faster." Says Caos, reaching a speed of 150 km/h..

On the floor, he breathes deeply, trying to refuse to die. As he gets up, he displays determination. With his hubris, he unleashes devastating blows to the goal, reaching a shot potence of 270 km/h, breaking the net. He continues doing this from the 70 m spot to the goal. In his rage, he told himself to surprise the world and make it kneel.

As he gets out of the pitch

The season had ended, but Caos hadn't. While the stadiums emptied and the world celebrated him, he remained still—not silent, but still. There was no parade for him, no interviews. Just a darkened pitch at Valdebebas where he practiced shadow passes alone.

The air was cool that night. Summer touched Madrid like a whisper.

And then she arrived.

Not with guards. Not with fanfare. Just a single silver car under the moonlight. The driver opened the door, and out stepped Princess Léonor of Spain, dressed plainly in a midnight-blue coat, her hair tied back, her eyes filled with an emotion somewhere between curiosity and admiration.

Caos did not turn when she approached. He kept juggling the ball in the dark, barefoot, eyes closed—the same way he trained every night.

She stopped a few feet behind him.

"They say you never sleep," she said softly.

The ball tapped once… twice… then rested against Caos's neck.

"I rest," he answered without looking, "just not when others do."

Léonor smiled. "And they say you're not human."

He turned. The moonlight hit his face like something out of legend—the sharp cheekbones, the calm eyes, the presence of someone who had seen the future… and chosen to build it instead of wait for it.

"Maybe I'm not," he said. "Maybe I killed what was weak inside me. The rest… just plays."

For a moment, they stood in silence, surrounded by the ghostly echoes of goals that once roared here.

She stepped forward. "Why didn't you come to the palace after the final? My father prepared everything. Even Mbappé and Vini went."

"Because I play for the stars. Not for applause."

A soft wind carried her scent—jasmine and old books. He could feel it but didn't flinch.

"Then why did you let me come?"

He paused. The question lingered like smoke.

"Because you came alone."

She blinked, not expecting that answer.

"And what do you want from me, Caos?"

He stared at her—not with hunger, not with pride, but with something ancient… like he was trying to remember a dream he once had as a child.

"Nothing," he whispered. "But if I ever break, I'd want someone to see the pieces."

She looked down, then stepped closer, until they were almost touching.

"Then let me see. Not tonight. But when it happens."

He nodded once.

They stood there, alone in the training ground under the stars, two figures bound by silence and something unspoken—a monarch of blood and a monarch of fire.

And when she finally left, she turned back one last time.

"You're not just building records, Caos. You're building a myth."

He didn't answer. Just returned to juggling in the dark, barefoot, alone.

But this time, he smiled.

 To be continued…