Chapter 7: Volume 1, - 7: Consequences
A/N: The system is officially awakened end of Chapter 9, and fully explained in Chapter 10. So you can skip to there if you want since the Chapters are out. But I dont recommend it because Chapters 7 and 8 also have their own lore.
Thank you for reading :)
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The carpet in the Academy Director’s office at Alcochete was a deep, immaculate green, the exact shade of the pitch outside the large glass windows. Rayan sat stiffly in a low leather armchair, his knees pressed tightly together and his hands flat on his thighs to hide the white athletic tape wrapped around his scraped knuckles. The swelling around his left eye had faded to a dull, sickly yellow-green, but it still throbbed whenever the pressure in his chest spiked.
Sofia sat next to him. She wore her best black trousers and a neat grey blouse, her coat folded precisely over her knees. She hadn’t said a word to him during the entire forty-minute bus ride to the facility.
Across the heavy mahogany desk sat a three-person panel: an academy administrator in a crisp white shirt, a club welfare officer named Senhora Brandão, and Coach João Tavares, who sat with his arms crossed, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Rayan.
"The partnership between this club, your school and the local education authorities is built on mutual institutional respect," the administrator began, tapping a neat stack of papers against the desk. "A physical assault on school grounds is a direct violation of Section 4.2 of your youth contract. Sporting Clube de Portugal does not merely develop footballers, Rayan. We develop citizens. We cannot tolerate behaviour that brings disrepute to the crest."
"He insulted my family, sir," Rayan said, his voice slipping into a desperate, defensive pitch. He leaned forward, his chest tightening. "He was saying things in front of the whole courtyard. He brought up my father, and he was lying about—"
"Rayan," Sofia interrupted, her voice quiet but carrying a sharp, freezing finality that cut him off instantly. She didn’t look at him; her eyes remained fixed on the administrator. "Answer the questions honestly. Do not make excuses."
Rayan swallowed hard, the heat in his face burning beneath the tender bruise. He looked down at the green carpet. "I shouldn’t have hit him. I lost my temper."
Coach Tavares leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk. "You lost your temper because you let the noise get inside your head, Rayan. On the pitch against Belenenses, you played for the crowd, trying circus tricks because you wanted to look spectacular. In the schoolyard, you fought because you wanted to satisfy your pride. It is the same underlying flaw. You are reacting to what people say about you instead of executing your role."
The administrator nodded, signing the bottom of the document. "You will receive a formal written warning, which will remain on your academy disciplinary record. Furthermore, you have been left out of the matchday squad for this coming weekend’s fixture against Cova da Piedade. You will not travel with the team."
The omission felt like a physical blow to the stomach, but before Rayan could speak, Senhora Brandão, the welfare officer, opened a separate folder.
"Let us discuss the underlying factors," she said, her tone softer but no less clinical. "Your academic performance has dropped significantly over the last two terms. Senhora Santos notes a complete lack of focus in mathematics and history. Our evaluation suggests a concerning level of emotional and domestic pressure." She paused, looking between Rayan and Sofia. "Rayan, the school report mentions that the altercation escalated when your father’s financial contributions were questioned. Does your father maintain regular communication regarding your career development? Does he attend the mandatory family welfare briefings?"
Rayan’s heart skipped a beat. A cold, defensive panic rose in his throat. He pictured Karim in his bright leather jacket, promising that the new Amadora contract would change everything, promising transport money that never arrived. He couldn’t let them look too closely into that. If the club dug through Karim’s empty promises, they would see the instability. They would think Rayan was a liability.
"My dad is very involved," Rayan said quickly, his voice tight and uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat, his eyes darting towards the window. "He’s just... he’s very busy with transport and logistics work in Amadora. He comes to the matches when he can. He supports my dream completely. He tells me to keep my confidence up."
Senhora Brandão looked at him for a long, unreadable moment, her pen hovering over the page before she made a small, neat note in the margin. Sofia remained perfectly still beside him, her jaw tight, but she didn’t contradict him. The silence in the room felt heavy, thick with everything left unsaid, until the administrator stood to signal the end of the meeting.
The five days of school suspension passed with a grinding, monotonous, slow-motion precision.
Every morning at six, Sofia left the apartment for her early shift at the clinic. Before she walked out the door, she laid three separate workbooks flat on the kitchen table, along with a list of household chores written in her neat, compact script. There were no words of encouragement, only the silent, functional expectation that he would fulfil his duties.
By Thursday afternoon, the walls of the small Olivais flat felt as though they were closing in on him. Rayan took an old, worn football into the tiny concrete courtyard behind the building. A narrow space bordered by rusty clotheslines and grey brick walls.
He began doing simple top-of-the-foot juggles, his boots tapping against the ball. ’One, two, three, four...’
His left ankle felt stiff, the joint protesting every time he tried to cushion the ball’s descent. He stopped, balancing the ball beneath his sole, and pulled his phone from his pocket. It was a compulsion he couldn’t break.
He opened Instagram. The video of the courtyard fight had spread far beyond the school’s internal group chats. A local football aggregator account had picked it up, captioning it: Sporting youth prospect handles business off the pitch. 🥊🦁
The follower count on his profile had climbed to 710. More growth in three days than he had seen after his last three substitute appearances combined. But the comments beneath the video were a toxic, chaotic mess.
leao_fiel: That’s the grit we need! Kid was defending his old man. Keep that intensity for the pitch, Rayan! 🔥
tiago.pt99: Defending his dad? His dad is a ghost who doesn’t pay his bills lol. The boy is a fraud. He lost the ball twice in eight minutes at the weekend.
SCP_academy_fan: He’s only relevant for throwing hands. Duarte Faria is scoring goals while this one is getting suspended. Waste of a squad place.
Rayan dropped the phone onto the concrete bench, his breath coming in ragged, angry gasps. He kicked the football violently against the brick wall. It bounced back erratically, striking his shin guards with a sharp clatter. He wanted to delete the app. He wanted to throw the phone into the Tagus River, but he couldn’t look away. The digital world was defining him, and he had no goals or assists with which to fight back.
A sharp knock on the front door cut through his frustration. Rayan walked through the cold apartment and opened it to find Joca standing on the doormat, his school backpack slung over one shoulder and a large brown paper bag cradled in his arm.
"The prisoner returns!" Joca said, stepping past him into the hallway with a wide, theatrical grin. "I brought the history assignments from Inês. She said if you don’t complete the section on the Industrial Revolution by Monday, she will personally finish what Vasco started."
He set the brown paper bag down on the kitchen counter, and the rich, savoury scent of grilled chicken, garlic and hot chips instantly filled the small space.
"My mum made me bring this after I stopped by the salon," Joca said, pulling out a large aluminium container. "Ana Ferreira says you look too skinny in the fight video and need to eat real food instead of surviving on academy protein bars."
"Thanks," Rayan said, a small, genuine smile breaking through his exhaustion as they sat at the kitchen table. He opened the container, the warmth of the food hitting his face. "How is school?"
"Boring," Joca said, popping a chip into his mouth. He leaned back, his expression shifting from its usual manic energy into something more subdued, his eyes dropping to Rayan’s taped knuckles. "Vasco came back today. He’s got a massive white bandage over his nose, and he’s acting like he survived a war. But honestly, Rayan... the video is completely out of control."
"What do you mean?" Rayan asked, his fork freezing halfway to his mouth.
"I mean, it’s got something like twenty thousand views on the regional football page," Joca said, his tone unusually serious. He pulled out his own phone, scrolling through the feed. "Kids from Benfica’s academy circles are commenting on it. Even some of the under-17 players from Alverca shared it. It’s wild, man. You’ve got more hype for hitting a guy than for any football clip I’ve ever posted of you. Everyone is talking about the ’El Mansouri aggression.’"
Rayan pushed his food away, his appetite suddenly disappearing. "It’s not good hype, Joca. Tavares dropped me from the Cova da Piedade game. I’m suspended from training until Monday."
Joca winced, setting his phone face down on the table. "Damn. Tavares doesn’t play around, does he?" He watched Rayan for a moment, then reached out and tapped the edge of the history workbook. "Just do the work, Rayan. Keep your head down. The mid-season evaluation is coming up fast. Don’t let them think you don’t care."
After Joca left, the apartment returned to its heavy, silent chill. Rayan sat at the kitchen table, forcing his way through the history assignments until the daylight faded into a dull purple dusk.
The bedroom door clicked open, and Leonor walked out. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her hair messy and her eyes quiet and guarded. She stood by the counter, watching him pack his pens away.
"Rayan?" she asked softly.
"Yeah?"
"If someone... if someone at school was talking trash about me," she said, her fingers tracing the edge of the kitchen counter, "would you also punch them?"
Rayan looked up, his expression hardening with instant, brotherly protectiveness. "Of course I would. Nobody talks down to my sister. I’d do it again in a second."
Leonor didn’t smile. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, a small, sad frown drawing her eyebrows together. "That’s not comforting, Rayan."
"Why?" Rayan asked, confused. "I’m defending you."
"No, you’re just making it loud," she said quietly, her voice sounding much older than her twelve years. "When you hit Vasco, everyone at school started talking about the money. Now girls in my class look at my shoes and whisper about whether Dad really sends us anything. Before the fight, it was just a quiet problem we had at home. Now it’s everyone’s entertainment. You didn’t protect us, Rayan. You just made sure everyone was watching when we failed."
She turned and walked back into her room, closing the door softly behind her. Rayan sat alone in the dark kitchen, the words stinging worse than the punch Vasco had landed. He looked at his taped knuckles, the reality of his choices breaking through the heroic narrative he had tried so hard to maintain.
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On Saturday afternoon, the apartment was empty. Sofia was working an extended weekend shift, and Leonor was staying at a classmate’s house to study.
Rayan sat on the living-room sofa, his laptop balanced on his knees, his eyes fixed on the low-resolution live stream provided through the academy’s internal scouting portal. The camera was positioned high in the stands at the Cova da Piedade municipal ground, capturing the long green stretch of turf beneath a grey winter sky.
The scoreboard in the corner of the screen read: Cova da Piedade U16 0–1 Sporting U16.
The match was in the eighty-second minute. Sporting had struggled against a physical, narrow midfield, but they had maintained their defensive shape. Rayan watched the tiny green figures moving across the screen, his chest aching with a fierce, suffocating jealousy. That should have been his flank. That should have been his space to exploit.
On the screen, Tomás picked up a loose ball in the centre circle. He didn’t hesitate. With a clean first-touch pass, he clipped the ball over the top of the opposition’s defensive line, dropping it perfectly into the left channel.
Sprinting into that channel was Duarte Faria.
Duarte didn’t stop the ball dead. He didn’t attempt an extra feint or a complicated turn. He used one touch with his thigh to drop it into his path, positioned his body between the ball and the recovering centre-back, and smashed a powerful half-volley across the goalkeeper and into the roof of the net.
Cova da Piedade U16 0–2 Sporting U16.
The tiny figures on the screen gathered around Duarte, lifting him up and patting his head. The commentator’s voice over the stream was full of praise: "Faria secures the three points for the Lions once again. A clinical finish from a boy who understands exactly what the game requires of him."
Rayan closed the laptop with a sharp, violent snap. He pulled his knees up to his chest, staring at the dark television screen across the room. Duarte was moving forward, adding to his record and proving his value with every minute on the pitch, while Rayan sat in a cold apartment in Olivais, his name written on a disciplinary warning sheet.
His phone buzzed on the sofa cushion next to him. It was a notification from the team’s internal communication application. A group message sent by Coach Tavares to the entire under-16 squad following the post-match briefing.
Rayan unlocked the screen, his eyes scanning the text.
From: Coach João Tavares
To: U16 Squad
Good collective effort today. The discipline in the low block was improved. However, individual performances remain under close review.
The Technical Committee has finalised the mid-season schedule. Provisional retention and release recommendations will be completed on 24 February. Every player. Regardless of current starting status or past performances will receive one final month to demonstrate measurable improvement in technical execution, physical recovery and behavioural discipline.
The standard is absolute. Those who cannot meet it will be placed on the provisional release list for the end of the season. Training resumes Monday at 08:00. Be ready to work.
Rayan let the phone slip from his hand onto the sofa. Thirty days. One month to reverse the damage, climb off the bench and prove to the club that he wasn’t merely a schoolyard fighter with circus tricks in his boots. He closed his eyes, his left ankle throbbing in the quiet room, the countdown officially ticking towards zero.