His body began to change before his mind could believe it.
By the second week, Rai was already waking up with a different kind of pain—not the pain of misery, not the pain of carrying weight just to survive. This was the pain of construction. The pain of fibers tearing and coming back thicker. The pain of lungs demanding more air than before. Good pain, if such a thing existed.
He trained with Sergião on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at six in the morning. And he trained alone every day he could—on the dirt field, in the street, on the slope of Beco Torto. He ran uphill. Came down under control. Stopped. Exploded. Stopped. Exploded again.
The Gift kept showing him the map. And little by little, his body began to keep up. Not like the gym guys. Not with Dudu's clean, pretty style. But with something else—a stubbornness that became power. A strength that came from an ugly place.
Dona Marta noticed. She didn't comment. She just set aside a plate of rice and eggs. Strong coffee. A piece of bread. As if she were saying without saying it: I'm watching you become something.
Léo noticed even more.
"You're different," he said, with his crooked smile. "You're becoming... an athlete."
Rai didn't answer. He didn't trust praise. In his first life, praise always came before demands. Or before a knife in the back.
But on the field, the effect showed up fast.
At Wednesday's practice, Sergião scrimmaged the fifteen of them again. And this time, he divided them up in the way that hurt most: he put Dudu on the team without pinnies and Rai on the team wearing them.
It wasn't luck. It was a test.
The team without pinnies was the "main" team—the ones who already looked like players. Good cleats, physique, posture. The team that saw itself as the owner of the place. The team in pinnies was the rest. The ones who had made it through the tryout, but still had to prove themselves every day.
Rai understood immediately. Sergião wanted to see whether he could hold the game together without the "pretty" team. And he wanted to see whether Dudu could stand not being the center of attention when the opponent was someone who saw the field as if it belonged to him.
The whistle blew. And the game began with violence disguised as practice.
Dudu came at him like he'd already decided: today I'm breaking this guy. Not breaking bones. Breaking the idea. Because soccer has a way of killing the other guy without touching him: making him invisible.
Dudu started with the basics: speeding at Rai's side, forcing one-on-ones, trying to dribble, trying to humiliate him. Not to score. To make everyone look and remember who the "owner" was.
But Rai didn't defend with anger. He defended with reading.
Dudu pointed right, and the Gift showed him: he's cutting left. Dudu feinted with his body, and the Gift showed him: he wants the foul. He wants a reaction.
Rai didn't react. He just closed the space.
And when Dudu realized he couldn't get past him, he angrily passed backward, and the game went on.
The problem was that Dudu wasn't stupid. He was proud, but not stupid. He started to change. He stopped trying to get past Rai and began attacking the rest of the team. He picked the weakest kid, the short fullback who still didn't know how to position himself. He started winning there every time, crossing, shooting, creating chances.
The team without pinnies grew stronger. The team in pinnies began to sink.
Léo ran the way he always had: through grit, at the limit. But he was being swallowed up. The ball barely reached him, and when it did, it came crooked, heavy, late.
Rai felt it as if it were happening to his own body. The Gift showed him the whole game: his team was broken from the inside. Not from a lack of talent. From hierarchy.
The kids in pinnies played afraid to make mistakes. They played apologizing with their bodies. They passed so they wouldn't get hit. They ran to fulfill an assignment. The team without pinnies played with certainty. With entitlement. With purpose. With the arrogance of people who already saw themselves as winners.
Rai took a deep breath.
He had two options: play pretty and lose, or play ugly and send a message.
He chose the second.
He started talking. Not shouting. Not cursing. Short, dry words, like orders.
"Push up, fullback. Now."
The kid moved up, startled, but he moved up.
"Drop back, holding mid. Close this space."
The midfielder closed it.
"Léo, stay inside. I'll find you."
Léo looked at him, surprised. He nodded.
Rai began organizing the team as if he were moving pieces across a board only he could see. Every pass he made came with a decision for the group. And the group, even without understanding why, began to obey. Because when you're lost, obeying is comforting.
The game turned around. Not all at once. Little by little.
Rai stopped trying for the prettiest pass and started making the rightest one. Sometimes it was short. Sometimes it was ugly. But it was always on time.
A ball threaded through the middle. A quick switch. A simple give-and-go.
The team in pinnies began to breathe. And when a team starts breathing, it starts running.
The first clear chance belonged to Léo. Rai received the ball in the middle with his back to goal, felt the pressure, turned at exactly the right moment, and threaded a pass through a lane that existed for half a second. Léo cut inside, one-on-one with the keeper.
He shot. The ball hit the post and went out.
Léo grabbed his head in despair.
Rai didn't complain. Didn't curse. He just pointed firmly at the ground.
"Again."
The word was simple. But to Léo, it sounded like something no one had ever said to him before: I believe in you.
The game continued. And the team without pinnies began to feel it. Not fear. Discomfort. Because hierarchy only exists as long as no one challenges it.
Dudu started getting genuinely angry. First, at his teammates.
"Pass!" he shouted. "Pass already!"
Then at Sergião.
"Are you screwing with these pinnie guys?" he said loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Sergião didn't even look at him.
"Play."
Dudu looked at Rai, and there was hatred in his eyes. Not the hatred of practice. The hatred of a threatened throne.
On the next play, Dudu challenged Rai for a fifty-fifty ball in the middle of the field. It wasn't a play that called for a tackle like that. It was a ball he could have won cleanly. But Dudu didn't want clean. He wanted to mark his territory.
He went in harder than he should have. Rai felt it in his shin. It burned. It hurt. A sharp shock climbed all the way to his knee.
Rai staggered, but he didn't fall.
Silence fell over the field at once. Because everyone understood. Everyone recognized the moment when "soccer" crossed into something else.
Léo ran over immediately.
"What the hell, Dudu?!"
Dudu spread his arms, feigning innocence.
"I got the ball."
Rai looked at his own foot. There was no blood, but the skin was red and raised. He lifted his gaze and stared at Dudu.
The Gift burned behind his eyes, but it wasn't showing him a passing lane. It was showing him a simpler line. Risk. Danger.
Rai took a deep breath. And smiled. Not a happy smile. A warning.
"It's fine," he said, far too calmly. "You're going to have to do better than that."
The words landed on the field like a stone. Dudu clenched his jaw. Sergião blew his whistle.
"Keep playing."
The game went on. And that's when Rai made the play that changed the practice.
He received the ball in the middle. Dudu came at him angrily. Rai felt his shadow the way he had felt the truck in his first life—that weight coming, inevitable. But this time, he could see it.
Rai took a short touch to the left and let his body go right. Dudu bit on the feint. The ball stayed behind. Rai went past him.
The field opened up. The Gift showed him an entire clean line slicing through the middle of the defense like a knife cut.
Léo started running. Rai released the pass. It wasn't pretty. It was cruel. Low, firm, right where Léo didn't have to slow down.
Léo got in and, this time, didn't think. He shot hard.
Goal.
The team in pinnies screamed. They screamed like they were tearing down a wall with their voices. The kids hugged each other, jumping and celebrating as if it were the championship final. It wasn't about the goal. It was about what the goal said: we exist.
Dudu stood still, staring at the middle of the field. The ball had gone through him. Worse: he'd been left behind without even touching it.
He looked at Rai. And there, in that second, it wasn't practice anymore. It was an open declaration of war.
After practice, on the way back, Léo was ecstatic.
"Man! I scored on Dudu's team!" he said like a little kid. "I scored on Dudu's team!"
Rai walked in silence, feeling his shin throb.
"He's coming for us," Rai said.
Léo's smile faded a little.
"Are you scared?"
Rai looked at his friend.
"No. I'm warning you."
Léo swallowed hard.
"What now?"
Rai looked at the street, the neighborhood, the rising sun, the world that was the same as always and wasn't.
"Now..." he said. "Now we don't walk alone."
Léo furrowed his brow.
"What do you mean?"
Rai thought of the signature on the table. Thought of his father's "okay." Thought of Dona Marta going there without trembling. Thought of Sergião taking off his cap. Thought of Firmino's Gift burning quietly behind his eyes.
"Because when they realize you can win," Rai continued, "they'll try to break you first."
Léo took a deep breath, and his crooked smile returned, smaller this time.
"Then let's win already," he said. "Before they have time."
Rai nodded.
And deep down, very deep down, he felt something he hadn't felt in decades.
It wasn't joy.
It was certainty.