26. because it's you (who belongs in the sky)

A tug on the edge of his shirt catches him, and Kirino stumbles back with Hayami still supporting him, surprised. Shindou and Hamano turn around too, though Kurama's followed the third-years further down without noticing yet. 

"Shinsuke? I thought you were with Tenma and the others."

"Nothing much," Shinsuke says, "I just don't have a lot of time, so I wanted to at least say hi. I really missed ya." 

-

-

-

Coach Endou greets them with beaming smiles at the bench.

"You guys did GREAT!" he declares. And he gets tired and excited smiles back in varying degrees. "Yamana, shut that off."

"Oh. Okay," Akane finally obliges, and everyone hears the livestream finally power off. "I think the others at Meme Dorado can handle the rest anyways."

"So I don't know what Kidou's group are doing," Coach Endou switches back to serious mode, "but we're going to regroup. All of you deserve to rest, so let's go to the changing room first and get out of those jerseys."

It's been alarmingly silent up there for a while now. The Holy Emperor hasn't shown his face since the second half, and it appears Namikawa's group has ended their own livestream after ripping off the Fifth Sector flag at the roof and replacing it with their own and El Dorado's.

Now it was time for action that shouldn't be broadcasted to the world— namely, rest and recuperation. And reparations.

Trainer Zaizen was making a call to Ms Otonashi, where they agreed to meet up somewhere apparently to discuss further actions for the SEEDs still in the facility. It's going to be a mess— but it's a mess the children don't have to be here for.

"You guys go on ahead," Aoi says, gathering bottles and supplies back into their carry-ons and ice boxes— "Midori-san and Akane-san and I will clean up here."

"Yeah," Coach Endou frowns, looking overhead as the crowd's now bustling, they don't know what to do either now that it seems all their authoritative figures have escaped the stadium. "Don't want you guys being in the cameras more than necessary."

Minamisawa raises a hand. "Hi Coach?"

Coach Endou raises a brow. "Yeah?"

Minamisawa looks like he considers what to say. He settles on: "I'm going to pass out."

There's a moment of bewildered silence. He'd said it so comfortably, it took a moment to register the words he was saying.

Dumbly, Coach Endou asks, "like, right now?"

Minamisawa answers by dropping to the ground. He elicits a startled yelp from Sangoku and Shinsuke, the latter which managed to slot himself underneath Minamisawa to catch his upper body; the latter managing to keep all of their heads from hitting the ground.

Coach Endou was surprisingly the last to react with a flabbergasted, "well, that just happened."

Then, because he's a moron, he gleefully adds:

"Anyone else?"

Several hands went up.

-

"AAAND THAT WAS IT!" Aoyama's fanboying on Meme Dorado once more, voice only.

"That was impressive!" Miyabino couldn't hide his excitement as well, "once he masters his Keshin, Raimon will have five active Keshin users! That's unheard of, especially when only one of them is a Former Seed!"

"Oh my god ohmygod oh my goodddd can we rewind that to the part where it happened please," Aoyama bumbles, "that Keshin is so cool, it's a phoenix. That's insane! Do you think he'll let me touch it?"

To which Miyabino's deadpan voice says, "I'd recommend against it. I tried to touch Black Wing Raven once. He might have eaten me that day."

Aoyama, flabbergasted, starts with "you looked at the closest thing we've got to real life Jabberwocky and tried to pet it?!?"

"I like birds. Have I told you Teikoku has a dorm owl?"

"That's not an excuse?!?"

Fudou cackles, watching the livestream from Ishido Shuuji's chair, his feet on the table. "Dude! Your kids are a riot! I'm so glad to hear Teikoku is just as unhinged as ever."

"Quiet, Fudou," Kidou grouses, trying to make a call. "Dammit, Megane isn't picking up. He needs to give Miyabino back to Sakuma soon. I don't care how entertaining they are, Miyabino is the only thing between the Teikoku soccer club and witch hunt protocol."

"The what protocol now," Ichinose's highly amused.

"You don't want to know," Kidou insists.

"I do. I'm an alumnus. I deserve to know."

"Shut up, Fudou."

"Does it in any way resemble Inazuma Japan's Operation Purge?" Toramaru couldn't help but chime in too.

To which Ishido Shuuji himself scowls and recalls, "the one that happened when Sakuma lost one of the penguins at Liocott Island, so Kogure and Hiroto convinced everyone that the kappas ate it?"

"It's the very same," Haruna dryly reveals. "Pitchforks and warpaint included."

"Haruna!" Kidou hisses. "I didn't tell you about it so you could go revealing it!"

"I'm a journalist, Onii-chan! I'm the last person you should trust to keep my mouth shut!"

"Do you blame Sakuma for freaking out back then though," Fudou grimly recalled, "he finally got the red penguins to like him again."

"And whose fault was that?!" Kidou finally snaps.

"I thought we let go of that grudge ten years ago!" Fudou protests. "And of all the penguins, he just had to lose the heir! That's crazy!"

"I seriously thought the Emperor Penguin was going to send Liocott Island into the Ice Age back then..." Haruna mourns, "I have nightmares about it sometimes..."

"Hey now, I'm still salty I missed it," Ichinose couldn't help but whine. "By the time we at Unicorn heard what happened, it was over. You keep getting up to hilarious stuff when I'm gone."

"By hilarious do you mean 'reasons the police has a file on all of us'?" Ishido Shuuji deadpans, "you have no idea how hard it was to convince Senguuji to let me in on his nonsense. If you guys were going to magically reunite just to overthrow soccer, I wish you'd tell me before I listened to Hibiki-san."

"I mean if any of you Raimon goodie-boys were going to serve jailtime first, it's kind of hilarious that it'd be you. Even I've only been to juvenile court."

"Go fuck yourself, Fudou."

"WOAH! The Holy Emperor swore at me! Oh my god please tell me someone had that on record! I need to tell the world, the entire groupchat, my family, my college friends, my teammates back in Africa— this is the most amazing thing I've ever achieved in my life—"

"Behave yourselves! Boys!" Haruna groans, slamming her clipboard on the table. "Sheesh, how old do you think we are?!"

"Please carry on, honestly," Yuuka says, sipping on her drink, "this is the most entertaining thing I've seen in months."

Everyone levels Gouenji Yuuka with an exasperated look and sigh. Remembering that there's a minor in their presence is honestly more sobering than they've expected. And well, now, it's time to talk business.

"Yuuka, could you go meet Touko? She wants a map of God Eden, she's outside," Ishido says.

"Sheesh, alright, alright," Yuuka hops out of her spot, "the child is leaving. You adults go and do your boring adult things, or whatever."

Fudou gets up from Ishido's desk and leans over the couch, where Kidou, Ishido, and Ichinose have settled. Toramaru comes by with some coffee as Haruna picks up a phone call.

"Alright!" Haruna sets her phone down on video call where they're all in view, then sits down beside her brother. "Hi, Reina-chan, Suzuno-kun. It's been a while."

"Hi, I see you've got quite a lot on your hands."

"It really has been a while."

The two are seated on a couch, at what looks to be Sun Garden's study room. They catch the sight of Nagumo in the background, but he was carrying one of the toddlers, so he just waved his greetings and left quickly, ushering out a teal-haired child with his free hand.

"We've been watching the match, so we can get back on the formalities later," Yagami Reina says. "Who's handling the crowd?"

"Namikawa and his friends, along with Ancient Dark," Toramaru says. "The kids are more likely to trust them now than us, anyways."

"And the trainers and guards?" Suzuno Fuusuke questions next.

"A lot have run off, but they won't get far," Haruna says. "Touko has already made arrangements along the coast. The ones that are staying are working to shut down all the systems and get through the security the kids can't reach."

"I see... does the God Eden building pose an immediate danger to any of them?" Reina points out next. Like the Aliea Meteorite affected us just from exposure, she doesn't say, but everyone understands.

"No," Toramaru assures, firmly. "This place is harmless on its own, and I've instructed the kids to have their fun locking down the training centers after everyone's out. I believe they intend to play around in the outside woodland later on. And camp... I think."

"Are we sure none of those trainers and guards are hiding in the forest?"

"Good point," Fudou picks up his phone, "I'll tell Zaizen to do a sweep."

"First," Ishido Shuuji begins, "the kids' identities are not revealed to the world, there's no master Seed list anywhere, at least for the God Eden roster. They're not in danger of public attention if I put them back out into the world... but I can't possibly send them out to new schools en masse right now."

"And even if they do... there are still Seeds in other facilities in the mainland, they're not safe," Kidou says. "I'd suggest they all remain here in God Eden. There's no chance they'll be able to have a normal school life at least for the rest of this year."

"This is on a much larger scale than Aliea, so we can't just hand it off to the government and call it a day," Ichinose says.

"And all of the staff here... well, jumped ship," Haruna adds, sheepish.

"I see... so that's why you called us," Reina says. "I certainly have the connections. And the expertise. I'd appreciate Natsumi's help as well."

"Natsumi's... a little busy, I think," Haruna says, eyes averting, "she's not picking up my calls and well... oh! But the Resistance should have their hands free now that she's doing their job. I can call them."

"Is Saginuma not around?" Ichinose asks.

"He's preoccupied," Ishido says, curtly, and leaves it at that. "But don't call the whole Resistance. Just Kudou-san and Hibiki-san will do."

"Good, get them up on a conference call," Reina says, reaching around the table presumably for her personal phone, "but for now, listen to Fuusuke, I'll ask Ryuuji what Hiroto is doing, and if needed, I'm going to get Hitomiko-neesan involved."

"Right," Suzuno takes the cue. "First, you say... Namikawa? He's the kid from Kaiou, right? And Ancient Dark's members, all of them? They're taking charge of the kids— how many SEEDs are in God Eden right now? Split them off into groups, and assign a leader for each of them. We'll need to know who needs medical attention, who's got family to go back to, and who's got family they can't go back to. You say we don't have a namelist, but we're going to have to make one right now. And after that—"

Haruna takes notes quickly, while the rest pay attention, backs ramrod straight.

There's a lot to do, and they definitely can't handle it alone. The good thing is— they're not alone. Unlike when it's with Raimon leading the Resistance, the former members of Inazuma Japan are adults with connections all across the nation, and even outside of it.

There's a lot to do, and a lot more to coordinate, but they can get hundreds of people to come to their aid, working together to make things right.

"Oh, and while we're on the topic," Reina lifts her head from her phonecall, "Gouenji. You need to show your face one more time for your public execution, and then you're going to disappear, got it?"

Ishido Shuuji gives her a disgusted grimace, "why can't you just say 'handle your PR disaster and go into hiding' like a normal person?"

The kids have won one of the most important matches of this era for them. From here onwards, the adults have to pick up the slack. They're not going to let the kids take on any more responsibility than they're already shouldering.

-

Raimon got a nice cabin with a hot spring to rest in, which was honestly amazing.

"It's like an inn, but smaller and with less rooms," Shinsuke hops up to the window, amazed by the green hillside view, "I wonder why there's a place like this on God Eden."

Tenma considers, "maybe for the teachers? No, too small, there's only about four to five bedrooms, so uh..."

"For any VIP guests," Tsurugi enlightens them. He's on his phone, texting his brother.

There's a chorus of 'ooohs' from the two as they follow him along. Aoi chuckles, still texting. There's a louder string of 'ooohs' now, because Aoi can apparently the phone speed-typing champion of their generation. No wonder she handled all that conversation while the match was going on.

Aoi had sent mass texts to everyone's guardians already once she got a hold of a phone connection, but most of them still had to call their parents before they hopped into the bath, just to make sure things were truly fine.

They would go home, probably soon— but honestly, not right now.

"I don't think it's a good idea to go back to school yet," Minamisawa says, just about half asleep, his forehead planted on Kurumada's back as a guide as they walked in the hallway. His eyes are on his phone screen, "there's paparazzi again."

"I guess this is as good a reason as any to skip classes," Kurumada agrees.

"Yahoo! No homework!" Amagi grins.

"We have exams," Sangoku stresses, "you guys do remember this year is entrance exam year for us, right?"

"Eh, it'll work out," Midori mutters.

"You're the one that needs to worry the most!"

They didn't have a change of clothes, since half of them were kidnapped from practice and the other half from a field trip, but they did get to dress like SEED cadets for the day.

The gray uniforms were— prisonlike, honestly, but they were oddly enough, not the worst thing that could've been foisted on them. Tsurugi looked oddly at home wearing them, but he made it clear the whole time that he would burn this thing once he was done with it.

"So you wore this when you were here too?" Ichino asks. "They're... surprisingly comfortable."

"Only because I didn't want to be stuck in the same jersey for days," Shindou sighs. "They did wash my clothes for me, so I changed once I got out."

"Everyone in SEED uniform!" Akane's taking pictures, "this is so rare. This is like an SSR card draw in a TCG. I love it."

"Hey," Ichino warns, "don't."

"Too late," she giggles. "I'm gonna go to the front. See ya."

"Don't go taking pictures of all of them too! Hey! Tsurugi's going to get mad!"

"Hayamiiii," Hamano whines, holding two phones in each hand and texting with both, "help me out here. Someone told abuelo about this and he's about to raise hell, help me stop him. I told him we're okay but he's not believing me without hearing you. Why did you have to die on live TV?"

"Let him come," Kurama grouses, sounding dead on his feet as he stumbles along, back hunched, "set the town on fire. It'll be the least of Fifth Sector's problems after today."

"Please tell abuelo I'm a zombie and can't come to the phone until we find the cure to the apocalypse," Hayami dryly says. Turning to Kirino, who he's holding up by the arm, "are you really alright, Kirino?"

"Well, I did rest for quite a bit," Kirino assures. The hot springs really helped them recover from— well, pretty much a whole week's worth of exhaustion. It's not perfect, and they all want to sleep now, but it's good. "My legs are still weak, but I can walk."

"Sheesh, your leg strength's instability has been really scary recently, you know," Hayami says. "I'm the one that's supposed to collapse like a glass cannon after every match. You're taking my role."

Kirino chuckles. "I'll tell my legs to behave next time I summon Brynhildr, then."

"Don't get obnoxious," Hayami says, "you technically didn't play until you collapsed today. Maybe that's why you can still walk."

"Come on," Kirino chuckles, "it's not like I'm going to collapse after every match."

"You're overdue on a second checkup," Shindou inserts himself into the conversation. "The doctors didn't find anything wrong last time, but that's not to say it couldn't have gotten worse."

Kirino feels a little miffed about that. Sure, his leg condition is very worrying, but he didn't want to be concerned about it. He hated thinking about it— at this point, there were so many other things to think about.

He's really made such a royal mess of this timeline— and it's good. It's so fun.

Everything's going well, and honestly, the second he stops, he'll think of the differences and maybe reality will set in— and he doesn't want that to happen. He's got a momentum going on. He might as well keep it going, and going.

(So he doesn't have to stop and think about the past.)

Shuu had said it— he deserves to know. And Kirino thinks he'll never be prepared to hear everything he has to say. And that's why he has to hear it.

He needs to hear it, if only because it's a bandaid he has to rip off quickly.

"Kirino-senpai!"

A tug on the edge of his shirt catches him, and Kirino stumbles back with Hayami still supporting him, surprised. Shindou and Hamano turn around too, though Kurama's followed the third-years further down without noticing yet.

It's Shinsuke, looking like he's run a lap around the hall. And since he was at the front of the crowd at first, maybe he did. Were the first-years playing tag now or something?

"Shinsuke? I thought you were with Tenma and the others," Ichino blinks.

Shinsuke chuckles, "hehe, yeah, I guess!"

Kirino doesn't think anything of it, for a moment. After all, Shinsuke's wearing the odd gray SEED uniforms of their temporary accommodations. He even has some scratches and bruises from today's match, and they spent the whole after-bath time patching themselves up together.

(...right?)

For a moment, Shinsuke does nothing but stare, which prompts Kirino to crouch down toward him. "What's up?" he asks, thinking the boy wanted to whisper something to him.

Shinsuke giggles, when Shindou and Ichino raises a brow, and Hayami and Hamano simply observe. Up ahead, Kurama has turned around, and so has Amagi, all curious.

"Nothing much," Shinsuke says, "I just don't have a lot of time, so I wanted to at least say hi. I really missed ya."

And that's when Kirino's stomach drops with a horrifying realisation.

"What are you talking about now—" Shindou sighs, but Kirino's curt voice cuts him right off.

"You're not Shinsuke."

Kirino's heart palpitates in his chest, painful and loud, but he can't care about it now. He settles, not intentionally, onto his knees, as Shinsuke nods.

"I've never worn one of these before. It's kinda ironic, but I'm glad they had my size!" Shinsuke looks at his clothes, tugging at the front, "it's cleaner than what I had before, I guess. Hopefully it's not going to cause me trouble where I go next."

Kirino reaches out— but his hand doesn't reach Shinsuke. Instead, it falls through Shinsuke's shoulder, and for a second, the boy's body glitches out of existence, like a hologram. The second time he tries, his hand rests on Shinsuke's shoulder just fine.

"Why... how...?"

Kirino can't find his voice. He doesn't think he's breathing. This situation almost doesn't seem real, and yet— he has to believe it, because right now, this isn't a dream.

This is painfully, terrifyingly, and unfortunately, real.

"Oh! I watched the match!" Shinsuke says. "You guys were SO cool! Honestly it took me a while to figure out it was you. As usual, you like being the shadow leader more than you like being the captain, huh?"

Raimon's shadow leader. That's what his Raimon Eleven called him in interviews. The gossip columns and radio channels liked to call him that around high school, when the Ace Defender title seemed to not be enough for those articles.

Oh, he breathes, and it's the most painful breath he's ever taken in.

It's really my Shinsuke.

"Anyways, I'm glad you're doing okay!" Shinsuke jumps for a hug, and they connect this time, no glitches. He feels warm and weighty, perfectly fitting in his arms, in a way that Kirino couldn't forget even if he tried. "Stay awesome, okay? I gotta go!"

He pulls apart, even though Kirino doesn't want him to.

His feet don't reach the ground. Shinsuke smiles, heartrendingly— and then he's just gone. Kirino didn't think he even blinked, but somehow— in one breath he was here, and before the breath was over, he was gone.

Like some kind of mirage.

Kirino can still feel the warmth of that body in his arms, around his neck. But it's not there anymore. It's like it was never there, from one second to the next, and suddenly, so suddenly... he's consumed by the urge to curl up into a fetal position and scream.

But nothing comes out of his throat.

"What the hell?"

Kirino's head lifts. Right.

Amagi is first to let the question slip. But Kurama's eyes are wide in confusion— Hayami and Hamano look gobsmacked. Ichino's towel is on the ground, in horror— and Kirino doesn't want to look up. He doesn't want to see what Shindou's reaction is.

Because Shindou isn't looking at the spot left empty.

He's looking at Kirino. He's seeing, firsthand, the fraying, crestfallen tapestry that is Kirino Ranmaru plunging rapidly into a yet-unseen breaking point, and Kirino really doesn't know if he wants to let himself shatter into pieces right here in his view.

Instead, the bell for the front door chimes.

And Tenma's voice is loud across the hall, "oh! Shuu, is everything okay at the stadium?"

Kirino doesn't think. He doesn't let himself think. All he can hear is several voices yelling his name as he wrenches himself to his feet and runs for it.

He stumbles at the second step and crashes in the third. This startles the third-years, who spin back. When Amagi and Kurama help him up, he refuses to look them in the eye, instead forcing his way through Kurumada and Minamisawa to go ahead, ahead, and ahead.

"Kirino! Hey— hold on, stop him!"

"Huh? Kirino-senpai? Why?"

"Hey Kirino, your legs aren't better yet— hey ow!"

Kirino hits away the hands that come for him, drags himself through any aid he doesn't want to deal with, and picks up the pace. His feet ache, as if his muscles have atrophied in the past few hours— but he doesn't care now. He's never tried forcing himself to walk through the crumbling weakness yet. It hurts, but he has priorities.

"Woah! Kirino-senpai, can you walk already—?"

He rests his arm heavily on Tenma, and he didn't do it intentionally to use him as a crutch— it just happened. Tsurugi's right beside him in seconds, stablizing them both before they were toppling over from the weight.

But Kirino had better things to focus on.

"Shuu!"

He's out of breath, he knows he's glaring, and he knows Shuu doesn't deserve this vitriol in his tone. And yet, he's reaching forward, to Shuu— who's standing, smiling so peacefully like he always does— unfazed as ever.

"Oh, hi, Kirino-san," Shuu greets. His voice is even and light.

How can Shuu be so composed? It's infuriating. Why does nothing ever get him down?

And with that anger fueling him, this grief possessing him— Kirino grabs Shuu by the collar, dragging him forward with a strength borne more from the agony in his veins than anything else.

"Woah— hey!" Tenma panics, "what's going on?!"

"Kirino-senpai," Tsurugi rests a hand between Kirino's and Shuu's collar— "let's calm down first." he looks rapidly at the back— but surprising everyone, the second years who should be stopping Kirino are far in the back of the crowd— shellshocked and unmoving.

"What's going on?" Sangoku steps in quickly, resting a hand on his shoulder, "hey, Kirino, this isn't like you—"

"I need answers!" Kirino gets out.

The hall falls frigidly silent.

"Right now."

He doesn't want to think of what happened that day. It hurts just imagining it, the thought of one day waking up in the caravan again paralyzes him. That's why, he so naively thought that since things were going well, he could just mindlessly enjoy himself. Ignore all the glaring and unexplainable problems, and have fun.

Fun?

(His hands tremble. He still remembers the weight of Shinsuke in his arms and it's fading so rapidly. He felt it, so deeply, it was like he just watched him die in his arms but he didn't, he didn't— so why does he have a feeling he'll never see him ever again? He can't lose it yet. He can't. Not yet.)

He can't help but look at Shinsuke. The Shinsuke of this world, who looks so jarringly alike, yet so flabbergasted by what's happening. Shindou and Ichino are both beside him now, hands on his shoulders, and Shinsuke looks so confused.

Because he's not my Shinsuke, Kirino lets himself think this. He thinks it's such a gross sentence, such a vile thought to ever have about this place.

Because none of these people are my Raimon.

(He can't pretend anymore. Not after what just happened.)

"What happened? Please," Kirino lets the sob wrench out of his throat at the plea, "tell me, Shuu. I need to know what happened."

He can't handle the thought of just obliviously living here any longer.

-

He thinks he's managed to calm down, for a moment.

He had caused a commotion— which drew the attention of Coach Endou outside. The Coach entered— and broke it up, pretty quick.

At the very least, Kirino felt numb now that the panic had passed.

The Mansion's sitting room had couches, and with the team around him, Kirino felt like this comfort was oto good for this conversation. But everyone had their choice of hot chocolate, coffee, and teas, and while everyone wanted to wind down after their match— they were all now too intrigued to call it a day now.

He hadn't been thinking straight. He shouldn't have done all that in front of everyone.

But Kirino couldn't hold it inside himself any longer. Pretending to be a younger version of himself was easy— pretending everyone was still his when he literally lost Shinsuke in his arms was just a hurdle he never wanted to cross.

"...is everything okay, at God Eden stadium?" Tsurugi asks first. Starting off with an easy question, just to break the stilted silence that had settled.

Shuu answers, with a smile, "yes. Namikawa and the others are handling it alright."

Coach Endou adds, "And Touko's mobilizing her guards around the island borders. Right now, it's better for everyone to stay indoors. So, Shuu, you're going to stay here tonight. Is your team alright with that?"

"Oh, me?" Shuu blinks, "yeah, they're fine. I go off on my own a lot. Plus, I needed to be here anyways."

To have a long-awaited conversation, he doesn't say.

"Enough," Midori groans. "What are you still hiding at this point?" she questions.

They've been suspicious from the very start of Shuu, understandably as he's from the forest— but Midori had heard Shuu and Kirino whispering about the entire match, she couldn't not be skeptical of the layers on everything now.

And it's not like he's the only suspicious one.

"Supporter X," Kirino brings up.

He tries not to flinch when everyone's eyes— especially Endou's— spin to him with alarm. But he powers through it. He's done with this— he's done with hiding.

"Were they here?"

Tenma looks between them, confused, "hold on, Kirino-senpai, who's—"

"Kirino, what do you know about Supporter X?" Coach Endou's brows are raised. "I've quite literally just been told about someone in the shadows by Kidou and the others."

"A what now? A mastermind?" Kurama frowns. "Like some evil villain?"

Hamano's lost. "Are we talking about the Holy Emperor?"

"No," Kirino says. "Supporter X is... complicated," he settles on. "As long as they're involved, this issue isn't going to stop at just soccer."

"...what does that mean?" Sangoku's apprehensive of the implications.

Minamisawa groans. "What else could we possibly get involved in at this point?"

Kirino doesn't know how to explain. Instead, he turns to Shuu.

Shuu nods, fiddling with— ah, a time bracelet, among some elastic hair ties, under his sleeve— "I did sense they'd left, a while into the match. At the very least, they're not returning to this point of time anymore. This interruption point has stabilized, so they're going to lay low for now."

Kirino frowns at that.

As expected, even now, someone is trying to interfere with time. It's only because of Kirino and Shuu that they're managing to thwart those attempts, but if things had gone wrong... what exactly were they after?

"What exactly are they after now?" Kirino asks, unable to mask the irritation in his voice. It better not be the actual El Dorado trying to erase soccer again.

To that, Shuu sinks into his thoughts. When he starts talking— it's careful.

"I've been thinking, ever since I saw you. Where do I even begin with everything?" Shuu starts the conversation, cradling his cup of tea in both hands. "I guess if everyone's going to listen, we should start from somewhere they'll understand. Like, from the Core Timeline and parallel worldlines."

"The... what now?" Shinsuke looks around, hoping someone else would look like they understand it any better.

"Parallel worldlines...?" Akane says, "like, a sci-fi movie?"

"HuhH?" Kurumada heard the word 'sci-fi' and proceeded to tune out with a groan.

"I'm sorry, are we talking about the multiverse now?" Hayami's brow raises.

Shindou zeroes in on the important part. "What does that have to do with you two?"

Shuu turns to Tenma, who'd asked that. And he smiles, pulling off one of the hair ties around his wrist, pulling it as far as it went on two fingers.

"Let's say one timeline is an elastic band. Time flows forward, going in a straight line... but when something important happens to someone's life— it shudders," he pulls it taut and lets it go, watching it vibrate and quickly return to its original shape. "But in the end, it will return to its original shape, and continue on its straight path onward. There is just one Core Timeline, and it's persisted for eons further than we could ever imagine."

Interruption points may cause several fragments and alternate timelines, but in the end, it will all settle, stabilize, and return to one. The Core.

Shuu then hooks the elastic band over Tenma's finger and pulls it, pulling it taut between them.

"But what happens if we pull it much too far? Or... well," Shuu pulls it further than it can go, and Tenma, confused, holds it firmly back like it was a tug-o-war. "Instead of just strumming it, something struck it, at its breaking point?"

Just then, the elastic snaps between them, Tenma yelping in surprise as stray rubber came shooting at him. He ducks from it, along with Aoi and Ichino who were beside him— and Tenma looked around afterwards in shock.

They have no idea where the thing shot off to.

"Exactly," Shuu chuckles, "it breaks. And becomes smaller pieces, scattered about— unable to be joined back together again. That's what happened to the Core Timeline."

Kirino's breath hitches.

They didn't think it was ever possible— to lose the Core Timeline. Nothing in existence could cause a large enough impact to actually shatter it— at least, nothing conceivable. That's what Fei always told them.

("That's why we can go wild and do all the Miximax and timeline shenanigans we want," Fei had grinned, "the timeline will hit back if it refuses to be changed. Once things are stabilized, nothing we do can alter an interruption point again, after all."

(The consequences of losing the Core Timeline is... Kirino can't even imagine it.)

(It's not just losing his original world— it's losing everything they've learned, everything they've achieved. It's having the universe go through a complete factory reset.)

"Hold on... so you're saying our world ended?" Minamisawa wasn't sure if he was understanding this right.

"Huh? The apocalypse??" Hayami's bewildered.

"That's ridiculous," Sangoku says.

"I still don't know why we're talking about sci-fi all of a sudden," Kurumada frowns.

Shuu hums. "Well, I don't blame any of you for your disbelief. I don't know how to convince you either," he says. And he has no interest in trying much harder. "But that's what happened. That day, the Core Timeline was broken— and it scattered into hundreds of smaller, individual parallel timelines. We lost everything there as the Core Timeline became pieces so small, they dissipated into the void."

They lost everything.

Kirino felt numb.

Everything?

Everything meant... it didn't just mean they lost the future, FFI, Ragnarok, or even Chrono Storm. It wasn't just all that. Losing everything meant that his world no longer existed. And he'll never be able to go back.

"Right now, we're in one of those little parallel worlds," Shuu explains, and there are sounds of enlightenment in the crowd.

"Does that mean there are universes where like, I don't know, we're all girls or something?"

"Or universes where we're the Coach and Coach Endou is the player!"

"Huh?" Coach Endou's baffled by that.

"Maybe there's a world out there where Raimon is actually sane."

They're taking this lightheartedly. Shuu's also presenting it calmly, that's why— but Kirino felt sick to his stomach. He hated this— but he didn't know if he could blame them for this. After all, it really didn't have anything to do with them, right?

"Hold on, we're going off topic," Shindou brings them back to attention again. "What does this have to do with you and Kirino?"

Shuu's smile finally falls.

"We lost everything," he says. "When the explosion happened, the entire world became unstable at once. Every particle left behind in the Core Timeline failed to stabilize ever again, and simply dissipated," Shuu says, "that's why, none of it was able to be recovered... Except one thing."

Kirino's breath hitched.

"The Caravan," he realizes. The caravan he was on. Just that one van of people.

Everything else is gone.

Now the room is stilted silent again, and Kirino didn't want to look around. Didn't want to see the horrified gazes as pieces began to click together in their heads.

"Yes." Shuu continued. "The Inazuma Caravan was at the center of the rupture— so it got sent, piece by piece, in all directions. While the many parallel worlds around them were in unstable states, these pieces got mixed in with the formation... and stabilized, somewhat incomplete, within those parallel worlds."

It sounds far-fetched. But that caravan was full of people who defied odds— Keshin users, Mixi-max practitioners, people who manifested their Souls. If there was anyone that could create a miracle and survive in that situation, it would be them.

And the Timelines always worked on the basis of trying to fix itself in desperation to maintain balance. It made sense that their souls, fragmented as they became that day— in an attempt to survive, forced itself to become a balanced entity with this world, in order to ensure survival.

"I suspect the reason you're having problems with your legs is because of that," Shuu finally addresses Kirino directly. "Your physical state was incomplete. In its desperate attempt to stabilize itself in this world... it merged, with the version of you here."

Kirino can't look up from his knees.

It makes sense. He was neither his current body, nor his actual body from the past— he's somehow, some odd mix of both. That's because he had created an essential Mixi-max of himself that couldn't dispel, and was probably the only thing between himself and the crippling injuries of that day.

(Mixi-max is human experimentation. Doctor Aruno told them that already. There's so much they've yet to be able to fathom about the consequences of it.)

(But now, it's saved his life.)

"...oh," Kirino manages.

It also made sense now, why Shinsuke was how he is. His body didn't stabilize in time, or maybe, he was unlucky enough to not have a version of himself to merge with— thus, his body remains unstable even now, unable to hold its physical form long enough in any of the parallel worlds for long.

(How long? How long has Shinsuke been in that state?)

(And why is there nothing Kirino can do to help?)

Things made sense. But Kirino's never felt so unsatisfied by an answer in his life.

So, he deflects.

"How do you know all of this, Shuu?" he subverts the topic. "You weren't in the Caravan. You have the Time Bracelet, which makes you aware of the world's changes... but that doesn't explain how you know what happened to us."

Anything, so the dread won't reach him just yet. Don't let the grief register— he needs to understand all of the situation first. He still hasn't figured out what Supporter X wants, he can't give in yet.

He's got to endure.

Jeanne would. Jeanne would, so he can't despair yet.

"It was... a few months ago, in March," Shuu says.

Just a month before Kirino arrived. He averts his gaze now, and Kirino hates that. He hates that something is making Shuu hesitate.

"I was visited. By someone, from the Core Timeline... someone who was unstable, fading away, and using the last of his energy to pass the message on."

Kirino's eyes widen.

The Core Timeline had shattered to pieces.

Whatever was left behind couldn't have had a lot of time before everything truly was destroyed. He couldn't even imagine what those last days must have felt like, how all of them just watched the world end around them— just thinking of it chokes him up.

(And someone had used that little time to go and contact the parallel worlds?)

"He wanted people to know that you guys were still there, somewhere, scattered all over the universe, probably lost and confused. He wanted us to find you and help you, if we could," Shuu reveals.

His next words, he couldn't disguise the sadness breaking through his tone.

"He said his name was Fei Rune."