The Comback

My name's Bruno, and I'm an athlete at Astral City.

While not every person in Astral City can play astroball, nearly everyone is an ardent fan of this high-tech football sport.

In this city where it costs an arm and a leg just to get by, astroball is a favored pastime of the blue-blooded elites.

Every competition is projected over the city skyline. Gazing upon professional teams clad in battle suits taking the field, spectators can easily get lost in the images and feel as if they are part of the action.

There was a time I enjoyed this feeling myself, but I couldn't say the same for my father. He came from the slums of Astral City. He would always grumble about how those with innate potential would never get a chance to shine because of their poor backgrounds. He was one of those people.

It was my father who taught me how to play street football, but ever since I turned professional, we grew further and further apart. That crowded industrial sector I called my home became more and more alien to me.

One day, I received the news. My father had an accident while playing street football.

I made it back home as fast as I could. Staring at the empty house, I asked myself, "How long has it been?"

The holographic picture frame on the wall sorted through images of the past. As the images flickered one by one, I could see myself growing up, and my father growing old.

I had returned to the home I left so long ago. The man who had gazed with reverence at the No. 10 jersey with his young boy in his arms at the museum... the stubborn old man who cut off all ties with his star athlete son after a squabble... they were both long gone.

The reason my father and I fought was over my unwillingless to play street football. I can still hear his stentorian voice bellowing, “If you truly love the sport, you won't care who you play it with.”

Afterwards I began to have a recurring dream.

In these dreams, I played football without any high-tech equipment, yet I was amazing on the pitch, beyond my wildest dreams. The real showstopper was always my "Rainbow Flick".

Every time I unleashed this move, the entire stadium would go wild.

In my dreams, football was a sport that everyone played and loved. In my dreams, I wore the No. 10 jersey and became my hero as the crowd cheered my name, “Neymar Jr.”.

Whenever I awoke from these reveries, I would stare longingly in the mirror, savoring the vestiges of Neymar Jr. on the verdant fields inside the stadium. I would wonder: If I were an illusion and Neymar Jr. was real, would he be a sports star? And would he play street football?

One day, I ambled aimlessly down to the industrial sector.

The artificial wind blew, carrying a sound from up ahead along with it. It was a couple of kids kicking something around... a football made of old crumpled- up newspaper.

As the paper ball tumbled to my feet, I couldn't resist joining in the game.

The children were beside themselves, "Hey, it's really you! You're the old man's son, Bruno!"

Suddenly, it dawned on me. These kids played street football with my father.

Amongst the struggle for the ball, I let loose a Rainbow Flick. The paper ball carved a magnificent arc through the air, causing the children to hoot and holler, but it soon dissolved into pieces. Loose shreds of paper scattered all over. One scrap whirled on the ground in front of me, and I could make out an AR advertisement for astroball.

Suddenly, it came to me in a flash. I had to make astroball a sport that was available to the public, something that every fan could get a chance to play.

"What do you kids think about playing some real football?"

"You mean you'd be willing to teach us?"

I repeated the words of my father, "If you truly love the sport, you won't care who you play it with."

At the athletic association, I proposed an extension to the stadium and the formation of an amateur team. This way, astroball would become available to everyone in Astral City.

To many, however, such a proposal was tantamount to heresy. Unsurprisingly, I hit a wall.

So I did something that I knew would attract the media's attention. I announced my retirement and final match. I also knew the chairman of the association would be present to keep up appearances.

In my discussions with the chairman, he brought up what seemed to be a fair enough condition. If I was able to form an amateur team and personally lead them to victory against a professional team within a month, the stadium would be open to them.

In actuality, this wily old fox had arranged for us to go up against the championship team!

To them, this match would merely be an entertaining diversion, so they accepted the invitation to play. None of this dampened my enthusiasm, however. Gazing upon the ecstatic faces of the young men before me, I envisioned the stadium in my dreams flourishing like it never had before. I knew then that I had to see this until the very end.

Before long, it had been a month, and we found ourselves in the stadium face-to-face with the championship team. The media had pulled out all the stops for the event, including holographic displays and renowned talk show hosts providing commentary.

I took the team onto the field, and watched them as they were digitally scanned. A holographic projection of all the available battle suits formed in front of us, and as the kids extended their arms and legs to be outfitted with their suits, I couldn't help but think about how all of our training had been done virtually.

The whistle blew, signaling the start of the match.

The opposing team laughed and guffawed as they strutted up and down the field. This was just an amusing diversion to them. The amateur teams stilted attempts at offensive plays only made things worse.

I then let loose a Rainbow Flick. The ball sailed above the heads of the indifferent opposing team. While the goalie and the fullback idly chatted with one another, the ball zoomed past them and into the goal, netting us a point!

This enraged the champions, and they started to take the game seriously. Sprinting down the field, they passed the ball to each other with lightning speed, and took a shot with mathematical precision. Our goalie did his best, but it was no use. Our opponents had scored against us.

One goal. Then another. Another still.

Our team was being run ragged, and before long, we had already used up all of our substitute players and were still short one player.

The commentators' yawns announced our defeat.

Suddenly, time seemed to stop. Standing on the silent field, the only sound that could be heard was the heavy breathing of me and my teammates.

The field itself began to twist and warp into a spiral shape, and out from this mass emerged a lone figure, as if they had traveled through space and time. It was him. The man in my dreams who wore the No. 10 jersey. The one and only Neymar Jr.!

Could our worlds, through nothing short of a miracle, be interconnected?

I tried to hide my excitement as I shouted out, "Hey man, got time to play some ball?"

Neymar Jr. took a glance at the scoreboard. With a beaming grin, he said, "If you truly love the sport, you won't care who you play it with.”

I went up to give Neymar Jr. a high five, but just as our palms touched, he was gone; Huh? Was I hallucinating from exhaustion?

Just then, memories from my dreams raced across my mind. The erupting stadium, the screaming fans, the miraculous Rainbow Flicks...

I felt Neymar Jr's spirit and skills fuse with my own, and in that moment, it was as if we were one. Somewhere deep within, his voice spoke to me: "Do you know what I love about this game? It's never over until it's over!"

The whistle sounded and our team pressed forward, with a brand new me taking the lead. We were about to make the mother of all comebacks!