Proclaimed Play, Delivered Thunder
“Good evening, football fans everywhere! This is your live coverage of the KSHSAA Football playoff semifinal, coming to you from a stadium absolutely boiling with heat — Wichita North High School!”
Caster Ryan Norwood adjusted his headset and kicked off the broadcast with a lively voice.
Beside him, Jack Thomas leaned into his microphone, his face brimming with anticipation.
“Jack Thomas here on color commentary! Ryan, the attention pouring into this stadium today is just incredible! I can feel the heat all the way up here in the booth.”
Thomas gazed out at the sea of spectators displayed on the monitor.
Ryan nodded along.
“How could it be any other way? Lately, every game this team plays has been the talk of the town! The year's dark horse and the hottest team in KSHSAA history — undefeated, ten-and-oh Wichita North — taking on Gardner Edgerton, a storied high school powerhouse!”
“And that's not all.”
Jack gestured toward someone on the screen.
“This season has also given birth to a once-in-a-generation star player, hasn't it?”
“Exactly! A running back putting up monstrous numbers — and an Asian one, no less! At a position that's ninety-nine percent Black athletes, he's been putting on an absolutely dominating show!”
“From what I hear, he's already collected around twenty NCAA D1 offers. Just thinking about it gives me chills!”
“That's right. And if you look at the stands right now, you'll see scouts from all over swarming in, tripping over each other to get a look. The big question is — which school will win the bidding war?”
“If I keep talking, the game's going to start without us! Will Redline 21 deliver again today? Let's find out together!”
Playoff venues were determined by the regular season standings — the team with the better record hosted.
And so Gardner Edgerton High School had traveled all this way to Wichita North's home stadium.
First place in District 3, having closed out the season at 7-3, and coming off a quarterfinal victory over Lawrence High School, the wild-card team that had entered as the district runner-up.
A high school powerhouse with multiple league titles to its name.
They might not have had a single star player, but they were built on championship DNA.
“It's true that we're the away team, but there's absolutely no reason to shrink back. You've all played plenty of road games by now, right?”
“YEAH!”
“You've spent the past week studying their film, so you know they've got a powerful set of offensive options. If you can shut them down, shut them down. But our focus is on exploiting the holes in their defense.”
The Gardner Edgerton head coach spoke calmly. Despite having heard plenty about Wichita North's fearsome reputation, he was practically overflowing with composure.
“And when it comes to offense, we don't take a backseat to anyone. Let's see who wins when spear meets spear.”
“YEAH!”
“At the end of the day, the team with more points wins. Doesn't matter who's standing across from us! We play our own game — got it?”
“YEAH!!”
Gardner Edgerton's morale was piercing the sky.
Only days earlier, in the quarterfinal, they had put up an explosive forty-five-plus points on the board.
Redline? Is he really any stronger than us?
They were a team bound together by confidence with real weight behind it.
Screeee!
The referee's whistle announced the start of the game, and the signal reached every soul in the stadium.
Players streamed onto the field.
At the same instant, the roar of the crowd echoed from every direction.
“Whew.”
Gulp.
Confidence aside, there was no helping the nerves. Not when they'd never played in front of a crowd this enormous in their lives.
Time to CRUSH them!!
Come to think of it, most of this crowd had come here to cheer for Wichita North.
Which only made the Gardner Edgerton players dig in harder — and their fighting spirit burn even hotter.
“Go ready—. SET!”
But……
KUUUUNG!!
Wichita North was anything but a pushover.
With so many spectators packed into the stands, the home team's defense was likewise riding a tidal wave of adrenaline.
And as if to prove their ten-and-oh record was no fluke, every single one of their players had grown another notch in skill without anyone noticing.
“STOP THEEEEM!!”
“Tight end! Lock up the tight end!”
“They're rushing!”
Shouts and shouts collided, and the sickening thud of body on body rolled across the field. Ragged breathing along the routes tangled with the yelling from the benches.
Watching it all with an even eye, Gardner Edgerton's head coach Chris improvised an immediate adjustment to his strategy.
“Their right side is open. We should target their #99. Get B3 ready.”
Each time he drew up an impromptu scheme, the payoff wasn't spectacular — but he chipped away at yardage steadily, inch by inch.
And in the end, despite Liam's best efforts, the touchdown slipped away from them.
Screeee—!
“WOOOAAAHH!!”
Score: 7-0.
Gardner Edgerton's opening drive, after roughly four minutes of grinding play, had finally produced points.
Then possession changed hands, and Wichita North's defense shuffled off to the bench.
But remarkably —
Even having surrendered a score, not one of the returning defenders showed the slightest hint of unease.
“Tony! We believe in you!”
“James, get revenge for us!”
Ever since Mark had gone out with an injury,
Tony — who had started four regular-season games — had led the team to victory after victory.
James, too, had fully settled into the starting lineup by now,
and he unleashed jaw-dropping power every time he took the field.
And above all —
Wichita North possessed the strongest running back alive.
Tap, tap.
A man tapping his cleats against the turf.
A man whom the crimson line stitched across his white uniform suited better than anyone on Earth.
The monstrous player who had built the legend of a perfect ten-win regular season.
“REDLIIINE!!”
“DESTROY THEM!!”
Bathed in his teammates' battle cries and the downpour of rapped helmets, Jaehyuk rose from his seat and strode onto the field.
With every step he took, the Wichita players piled on the chants.
“RUN!”
“RUN!”
“RUN!”
Simultaneously, the stands erupted in a more dazzling ovation than ever before. The band struck up as well.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-DUMM!
Bah-ba-BAAM!
“KYAAAAAA!!”
“Redline! Redline's coming out!”
Redline 21.
The jersey number emblazoned in red — the emblem of their running back ace — was taking the field once more, ready to leave its crimson afterimage across the turf.
The sight alone made the Gardner Edgerton players, who had been glancing over out of the corner of their eyes, flinch ever so slightly.
“Attention! At the end of the day, he's just one player. No reason to be nervous. Just do what you've been doing all along.”
As coach Chris spoke calmly, the tension in Gardner Edgerton's defense gradually eased.
“Don't wear yourselves out trying to stop him. What did I tell you earlier? The team with the most points wins. And that team is going to be us.”
“YEAH!”
Soon, Gardner Edgerton's defense took the field as well.
Right. There's nothing to be afraid of.
Just like the coach said — he was only one man, after all.
Football was a team sport.
No matter how brilliant a single individual might be, turning the tide of a game alone was another matter entirely.
And seeing him up close, he wasn't even that big. A scrawny Asian kid. Something like that, any of us could stop no matter who——
“TONY!!”
Before the play even began,
Redline suddenly called out for the quarterback.
Then, with every player on both teams listening in, he delivered a stunning announcement.
“It's a run! James, open up the lane!”
Redline had broadcast the play call outright, right in front of the enemy. What in the world was this guy doing?
It's a trick! They're trying to confuse us, that's all——
To think he'd stoop to such a cheap mind game.
Even the great Redline, it seemed, found the playoffs a little scary after all?
And then there were the other Wichita North players — moving without a flicker of panic, as if nothing unusual had happened at all. That settled it for Gardner Edgerton.
They rehearsed it beforehand, didn't they?
You think we'd fall for some pathetic mind game like that?
IT WON'T WORK!
The team going to the finals is US!
We are Gardner Edgerton High School!
“Ready-ready. Blue 80, hut—!”
With Tony's call —
the ball snapped.
KUUUUNG!!
“Ngh—?!”
The Gardner Edgerton lineman standing at the point of attack was driven backward by an overwhelming, monstrous force.
WHAT IS THIS GUY?!
He couldn't even form the thought of stopping him.
He was simply being dragged backward, unable to gather his senses at all.
“……”
The other side pushed forward in utter silence — no war cry, no rough breathing — just a quiet, relentless advance.
The Gardner Edgerton lineman struggled to hold his ground, but once his balance broke even once, he was utterly helpless.
And right at that moment —
“I-It's a real rush!”
“STOP HIM!!”
Voice from the bench.
Jolted wide awake, Gardner Edgerton's defenders snapped their eyes to the opposing quarterback.
And there, they saw —
Twp!
Redline 21, taking the handoff.
A fake? No — he had genuinely taken the ball.
He actually meant it?
He announces a run and then just... runs it?
But within moments, Gardner Edgerton's defenders learned something beyond any doubt.
Redline — that lunatic monster — had skill to spare, and then some.
FWAAAAANG—!!
Dead ahead, through the lane James had carved open.
Redline ran without a hint of finesse — straight and simple.
Then, all of a sudden —
Screeeech—!
Just before stepping into the opened gap.
He came to a dead stop.
“WHOA—!”
“Guh—!”
The defenders who had sprinted over to seal him off crashed into one another, tangled up by his completely unexpected move.
Half a second.
Mid-play, that could be called long if you called it long, short if you called it short.
Frozen in place, Redline's eyes darted back and forth.
He was waiting for his moment.
Then, through the cracks in the chaos, a flash of red ignited.
“Hnngh!”
BA-BA-BA-BAK!
By simply pausing, Redline had let the lane open itself for him.
That ice-cold patience — that composure — and coach Chris, watching from the sideline, found his hands clamped over his head before he knew it.
“F**k...”
So he wasn't merely fast and gifted an athlete, was he?
The curse that left Chris's mouth carried less weight of my team just got beat than of pure, grudging admiration for the opponent.
A field in chaos.
How — how, from there — could anyone wait that serenely for his opening?
And the spot he'd chosen was exquisite, too.
He had waited inside the pocket — the wall formed by the linemen — right where the quarterback was supposed to stand, biding his time for the lane to open.
As if he had known all along that this was exactly how it would play out.
PAK!
What came next was astonishing in its own right.
With the first and second levels of the defense already failing to stop the rush, the last third-level defenders belatedly gave chase to Jaehyuk.
But Jaehyuk slipped one with a light juke move and then flattened another clean into the turf with a stiff arm.
“OW, SHIT!”
Where in his body does power like THAT come from?
That's a frame that could barely manage one rep of a hundred-kilo bench, isn't it? No — he probably couldn't even lift it.
This was thanks to the strength Jaehyuk had earned as his C-rank reward — but there was no way Chris could have known that.
“WOOOAAAHH!!”
“He called the run and then actually DID it!!”
“What the hell was that stiff arm?!”
From there, the road ahead stretched empty, all the way to the end.
And the chants from the Wichita North bench grew louder and clearer.
““RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!””
Even the crowd joined in, answering the call.
Soon the entire field was being swallowed by a single word — 'RUN!'
And then —
“THERE HE GOES! REDLINE!”
His speed climbing and climbing.
He broke through the critical point, and the red line left its afterimage in his wake.
Redline 21.
He had descended upon this place.
“WOOOAAAHH!!”
“I actually SAW Redline! It's real!”
“I drove five hours to get here for THAT — worth every minute!”
“You beautiful, beautiful bastard!!”
Barely moments after the crimson afterimage bloomed, Jaehyuk crossed into the end zone as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“TOUCHDOWN!”
“WOOOAAAHH!!”
In the blink of an eye, Wichita North was back in the hunt — and compared to their earlier inch-by-inch approach, this was overwhelming, crushing force.
“REDLINE! REDLINE!”
Redline 21's devastating performance sent chills down every spine in the stadium.
Thanks to him, the stands — and even the online broadcast chat — were on the verge of melting down.
But.
Wichita North's counterattack did not end here.
“Two-point conversion.”
This time it was the quarterback, Tony, who declared it boldly.
The anxiety that had once lived in his eyes was gone now, replaced by nothing but burning desire for victory.
Apart from Jaehyuk and a handful of others, every starter on the roster was a senior.
In other words, this was their final regular season — and their final playoffs.
They hungered for the championship.
I've got to take the pressure off our defense!
The two-point conversion was an enormously risky play.
Most likely zero points, or at best a hard-earned two.
But if it succeeded, the score would sit at 8-7 — and the burden on the defense would lift at a stroke.
Besides, right here on this team was a running back with such overwhelming offensive power that he'd chewed up and swallowed 4-star prospects.
There's no reason NOT to go for it!
When the formation set, Gardner Edgerton saw the running back and quarterback still standing on the field instead of heading back to the bench — and read their intent instantly.
“It's a two-point conversion! We have to stop it!”
In an instant, the play call was changed, and defenders converged to lock down Jaehyuk.
And so the line formed, three yards out from the end zone.
Both teams radiated fierce, surging intensity, every eye locked on the ball.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Ready-ready, Blue 80, hut—!”
With Tony's slightly altered cadence —
the ball snapped.
And with it, the field dissolved into a writhing mass of bodies.
Gardner Edgerton fighting to hold the three-yard line.
Wichita North fighting to break through it.
A suffocating battle erupted in the narrow 2.7-meter space between them.
“REDLIIINE!!”
Players screamed as they charged to swallow Jaehyuk up — and Jaehyuk leapt sideways, setting his body to receive a pass.
And at that very moment —
Tony's deadliest weapon was unleashed.
A lightning-short release, almost no windup — and the instant his target was spotted, the ball was fired like a bullet.
The Gardner Edgerton players who saw it went bug-eyed.
“Aahh……?”
“Shit.”
The ball left with no arc at all, a laser shot across the field, and landed square in the chest of Willie, who had already drifted toward the end zone in anticipation.
Twp!
“Two-point conversion — GOOD!”
“WOOOAAAAAHHH!!!”
Electric adrenaline and dopamine surged up the spinal cord and detonated.
Willie's stunning hidden contribution — buried all this time beneath the dazzling glow of Redline. Of course, Tony's tremendous pass had played its part too.
The result: 8-7.
Wichita North, already the second-half team, had seized the lead.
“Hmmmmm……”
The game was still in its early stages.
There was plenty of time left to turn the whole thing around.
And yet, Gardner Edgerton's head coach Chris could already feel it in his bones — this game was not going to come easy.