The morning after the Derby came in through the kitchen window before anything else did, September light at a low angle, the smell of coffee already in the air. Lorenzo came downstairs to find Lucia at the counter, back turned, stirring something on the hob. She didn't look up when he sat down.
He didn't say anything either. The food arrived without ceremony. He ate.
After a while she refilled his coffee without being asked and sat across from him with her own. The pointedness from the night before had become something more ordinary, two people occupying a kitchen, morning after a long day.
"Your phone has been going since seven," she said, nodding toward the counter.
"I know."
"Benitez called twice."
"I know."
She looked at him over her cup. "Are you going to answer it?"
"After breakfast."
She accepted this. They sat in silence for another minute. Outside, the city was making its usual sounds.
Then Lorenzo leaned back, closed his eyes briefly, and let the system notification he had deferred the night before finally surface.
[Ding! Side Mission: 'Who is the Sole King of Catalonia?' - COMPLETE.]
[Reward: Famous Derby 'Legendary' Star Chest - settling...]
[Opening Famous Derby Star Chest... Congratulations!]
[You have received: Andriy Shevchenko - 'Nuclear Warhead' Finishing Template (70% Initial Load)!]
[Effect: A comprehensive enhancement to finishing precision in motion. Sharpens shooting timing, refines off-the-ball positioning in the final third, and adds clinical weight to half-volleys and diagonal strikes taken without breaking stride. Does not replace primary style - augments and deepens it. Combines naturally with existing templates.]
He opened his eyes.
Shevchenko. He turned the name over quietly. The Ukrainian who had worn the red and black of Milan and produced one of the most efficient scoring records the Champions League had ever seen - 29 goals in 48 appearances. A Ballon d'Or winner. A player who made finishing look like a function rather than an event, clean and repeatable, the same quality of strike at the seventy-fifth minute as at the fifth.
He felt the template settling into the background of his mechanics, not a jolt, not a surge, but a recalibration. The way a well-fitted boot feels different from a new one after the first proper run in it.
He picked up his phone.
"I have been calling since seven," Mateo Benitez (his agent) said, without preamble.
"I know. I was eating."
"You need to eat faster." A pause, the sound of papers. "Three things. First: your Transfermarkt valuation updated overnight. €120 million."
Lorenzo said nothing.
"Second," Benitez continued, "Lopetegui called me directly. He's asking for a decision before the October international window. Del Bosque is involved now, he watched the Derby and made a call to the federation the same night. And it has gone higher than that. Queen Sofía's office sent a letter to the Spanish FA this week. Apparently, watching the Catalan Derby was enough. They want your naturalization finalized before October. The wording was - and I am quoting - 'Spain cannot afford to lose this player to another flag.'"
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. A royal letter to the federation was not something you ignored. But it was also not something that decided where your heart sat.
"And third?"
"Pablo Aimar had published a formal public apology on behalf of the Argentine youth department, the blacklist formally declared void"
Lorenzo was quiet for a moment.
"And what should i tell Lopetegui?" Benitez asked.
"Tell him I'll have an answer before the window. Not today."
The call ended. Lucia was watching him from across the table.
"National team?" she asked.
"Two of them," he said.
She nodded slowly, as if this were not surprising. "Which one do you want?"
He didn't answer immediately. He looked at the three match balls on the shelf in the hallway, visible through the kitchen door, sitting in the order they had arrived. Mini-Clásico. El Clásico. The Derby.
"I want to go to a World Cup," he said finally. "The question is which one feels like mine."
The AFA statement was already circulating on every major sports platform in South America. Pablo Aimar had published a formal public apology on behalf of the Argentine youth department, Grondona's name on it, the blacklist formally declared void, and a direct acknowledgement of what had happened at Ezeiza in June. It was not buried in a footnote. It named Marcos. It named the incident. It said the federation had been wrong.
Lorenzo read it once on his phone and put the phone face-down on the table.
The question of the national team had no clean answer yet. Both directions were real. Both had weight.
What was certain: the team bus to Valencia leaving in forty-eight hours. La Liga Matchday 4 was at the Mestalla - fifty-five thousand seats, one of the loudest atmospheres in Spain, and a club that had won two La Liga titles in the previous decade. Valencia CF - "The Bats", were not a side in decline. They were a side under pressure, navigating a difficult start to the season under Miroslav Djukic, and that made them more dangerous, not less. A wounded team playing at home with Banega dictating from midfield, Parejo recycling behind him, Jonas and Feghouli providing pace and directness in behind, they had the tools to hurt any side that came to the Mestalla without full concentration.
The national team decision could wait forty-eight hours.
The Bats could not be taken lightly.
[Status: Derby Star Chest opened. National team decision pending.]
[System Note: Shevchenko 'Nuclear Warhead' Finishing Template - Active (70%). Augments motion finishing across all ranges.]
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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