9. connect it (spread it to the world.)

If you want your ideals to be heard, there's one way to make sure the world takes you seriously. Even if it's ridiculous, the world will lend you an ear if you do something crazy enough. After all, a certain group of wannabe-aliens have done it before.

In short: Coach Endou's arrival is currently the least surprising thing to happen this week.

-

-

-

The riverbank practice goes incredibly well.

Despite insisting many times that they weren't going, everyone showed up.

(Or, they stood around until they were fashionably late before insisting that they weren't planning on coming, but since they were here anyways, they might join.)

Endou simply laughs, likens them to Aphrodi on a boring morning, and then simply provokes them right back into practice like an expert at Tsundere manipulation.

Even Tsurugi arrived, though he only stood aside to watch.

Tenma was running dribbling drills around cones, trying to compete with Hayami, who honestly just wanted to get the drill done. Impressively enough, Hayami was always three steps ahead of him either way, which motivated the first year even more.

"Stop chasing me!"

"I won't lose, Hayami-senpai!"

"You're not listening!"

Hamano and Ichino watch them, their expressions filled with mostly endearment and amusement.

"Are you not going to stop them?"

"Nah, Hayami might look troubled, but I'll bet he's actually pretty happy we got someone that can catch up to him."

"So you say with a philosophical expression, but isn't that just an excuse so we can pretend to skip practice?"

"Shh, don't put it into words, Ichino."

"Anyways, while we're pretending to take a break, would you spare a moment to hear about mine and Kirino's new idea to take over the world with a ballgame as our crux?"

Hamano makes a weird laugh, "absolutely not! But go on."

"What are you guys even talking about?" Ms Otonashi approaches them, lifting her board slightly away from her face. "How concerned should I be, as a teacher?"

Ichino stares at her.

Then, "you know, maybe I'm not as sane as I think I am," he mutters. "Would you spare a moment to hear about our lord and saviour, Sakka-sama?"

Meanwhile, Shinsuke does ball juggling drills with Amagi-- it's a strange sight to have their largest and smallest players practice together, but their differing body sizes made the practice trickier than it had to be-- which is the point.

"You need to pass quickly or--"

"Ack! Kurumada-senpai, don't steal it!"

"Don't make it easy to steal, then!"

"That isn't the point of the training!"

On the other end of the field, Kurama and Minamisawa were practicing shoots with Sangoku. It seemed they had bets over who could score more out of Sangoku. And at this point, the goalkeeper looked ready to chuck a ball right back at them in retaliation.

"Can either of you just let anyone else use the goal for a second?" Shindou walks up to them, irritated. Some of them still need to do their shooting drills, mind you.

Kurama snaps. "No! We're still at five to six! I ain't admitting defeat yet!"

"Sorry, Shindou, we made a bet for Rairaiken," Minamisawa says, not really sure how this happened either. "He's not going to admit defeat until I agree to pay."

Apparently, they blew all their allowance recently, so any other meal treatment would be a big loss on either part. So they're both very desperate.

"...alright," Shindou relents. It's not like Coach Endou was stopping them either, "but the loser has to pay for mine and Sangoku-san's food, too."

"What?!"

Meanwhile, Kurama scores a perfect, unguarded shot and cheers, jumping in excitement. "Score! Now it's six to six!"

"Wait, that wasn't fair!" Minamisawa snaps.

Sangoku picks up the ball and tosses it aside, calmly looking toward the purple-haired striker. "Thanks for the meal, Minamisawa."

"You're just going to let the ball go in?!" Minamisawa asks, as if that hadn't been an astronomically sensitive topic for them just a couple days ago, "Sangoku-san, you wouldn't."

The keeper shrugs, "well, I want a water break."

"No! Wait, Kurama don't you dare--!!"

The ball churns through the netting. Kurama throws his arms up in celebration.

"Seven to six! I win!"

"Absolutely not! One more shot! First to eight! First to eight I say!"

Kirino sits on one side of the field-- sitting, because Akane had cheerfully reminded him of resting his legs, and she did so specifically in the presence of Coach Endou.

("What? Then, no, that's enough for today, you can go rest by the side with the managers," Endou had immediately panicked, "why didn't you say that earlier? Well, we're already well past normal practice hours, anyways. Sit out the rest.")

(Kirino doesn't manage to refuse, so there he was stuck, watching over everyone's practice and observing their progress with the rest of the managers.)

Well, it worked in his favour anyways.

"...so that's the situation now," he says to Akane, so casually even Aoi doesn't notice they aren't speaking of nonchalant nothings. "When Holy Road begins, I'll need you to go around undercover, is that fine?"

"Of course," Akane says, brightly. "It sounds like so much fun."

As much as it isn't great to deal with such a heavy issue so lightly, Kirino is happy that she can find fun in something as crazy as this. It's refreshing, and definitely means that they're not taking away any of their enjoyment with soccer in the process.

(That wouldn't be the case if they were working with the Resistance, after all.)

He sets a hand on Akane's head.

"Should we get some ice cream or something on the way back?" he wonders, "I need to pay Aoyama and Ichino back somehow, too."

Akane swoons, "Kirino-kun, you're acting like a perfect boyfriend right now."

Kirino clears his throat, blushing slightly. "Unfortunately, Akane-chan," he gives a very pointed side glance, "you know where my eyes are set."

Akane giggles, "don't worry, I don't really link well with feelings of romance," she says, taking another picture of Shindou. "I just adore beautiful things, just like Kazu-san does."

Kirino takes a moment to understand that.

Then, "let's get a whole tub of ice cream, then. We're probably in for another all-nighter today, after all."

Akane beams, "thank you, Kirino-kun! You're the best."

-

"As you might know, the Holy Road district preliminaries are starting soon," Coach Endou briefs them on the situation. "To tell the truth, I've just been told that we lose the match without scoring."

The club goes silent at that.

Endou grins, "anyways," he says in a dismissive tone, "anything in particular you guys wanna focus on with practice today? If we wanna win this, we gotta get stronger, ya'know!"

He punctuates his sentence with a wide, confident grin, and the club goes silent.

(If we wanna win this?)

(Oh, we can?)

Tenma then sparkles, "me! Me!" and when he gets picked for raising his hand like the good boy he is, "can we see your hissatsu tactics or something cool?"

Endou seems to think that's a great idea to start. "Come to think of it, we should do a headcount on hissatsu shoots and stuff. Can't have too many of those, but it isn't good to have too little either? Everyone alright with that for today?"

When there aren't any protests, Endou declares practice to start, and Shinsuke cheers, super excited to get to see all hissatsu on display.

"Well, what else did we expect from Coach Endou?" Hamano chuckles. "Of course he's going to say fuck the police."

"Language," Sangoku hisses.

"Revolution!" Hayami declares.

"Well, I do hope we last at least one match before they forcefully shut us down," Kurama mutters, giving Tsurugi a glance.

When the other first years are all but ecstatically celebrating, Tsurugi is busy trying to pick his jaw up from the floor.

Okay, one win for the club.

"Now, let's just wreak as much havoc as we can before they boot us, then," Minamisawa says. "If my school record is going to look awful anyways with this revolution, I wanna at least make it sound like the badassery of the century."

"How about we just make so much noise that Fifth Sector can't shut us down?" Kirino suggests nonchalantly, to which a few people don't take too seriously.

"Like what?"

"I don't know," Kirino shrugs, "just whatever will make the country demand an explanation for unjust disqualification, so Fifth can't touch us."

There's an instinctive eye turn toward Coach Endou.

Coach Endou is confused by the sudden attention.

Then Shindou stands up, "hey guys? Make sure the entire town knows Coach Endou is our coach now. And make a huge deal out of it."

All eyes twinkle.

"Oh, this sounds fun," Midori grins, "I'll call in a favour with the downtown alley punks, they pretty much control all word down the streets!" she says, ignoring the weak accusation of 'Midori-san, why do you have those connections?' as everyone nods in approval.

"My usual hangouts are full of gossip rings too," Kurumada grins, "leave it to me!"

Kirino and Ichino meet eyes, and try not to laugh too obviously. They

"You guys are crazy," Tsurugi hisses in defeat.

Needless to say, no one was surprised when Tsurugi dutifully reported that he has to be a starter in the next game. For disruption purposes, of course.

-

"I would say 'welcome home', but I did not expect a legion of children, Haruna."

The Kidou house hasn't had a lot of visitors, especially after the master and mistress migrated to America a couple years ago. Only the son lived here, sparing a few days where Otonashi Haruna visited for occasional sibling dinnertime.

Ms Otonashi simply grins. The children behind her beam. "Sorry, Nii-san, we're just going to be downstairs for a bit. We won't be noisy, promise!"

Kidou Yuuto, despite the goggles, clearly raised his brows skeptically.

"I thought being crazy was Endou's job..."

Aoyama is twinkling very brightly at the sight. Ichino is surprised as well, but he couldn't quite muster the expressive shock while he's running on an hour of sleep and two gallons of coffee.

"It's the real Kidou Yuuto!" Akane beams, taking a picture before smiling, "thanks for the picture. Can I have an autograph? It might sell."

"Unsolicited, but I will relent," Kidou says, evidently accustomed to this. "Do not spread it around in the black market or something." 

Kirino and Hamano smile politely, introducing themselves. "We're the Raimon Soccer club," then going around to name, "that's Ichino, Aoyama--"

"--I'm Hamano--"

"--and I'm Kirino, and this is Akane," a hand on her head to punctuate the sequence. "Pardon our intrusion!"

Hakamada, the butler, approaches from behind. Evidently, they'd already been walked in by their very enabling chaotic neutral of a goddamned--

--Kidou takes a deep breath.

"Tell me, Haruna... do I want to know?"

In unison, all of them beam toothily.

Kidou doesn't need an answer after that. Straightening, "well then, set the house on fire or line the field with barbed wire, I don't care. Haruna, you're paying the insurance."

"Wha-- Nii-san!"

"And you kids better take a bath before sitting anywhere!"

"Yes, sir!" five very enthusiastic voices drowned out Ms Otonashi's despaired wail. Hakamada smiles proudly, and Kidou Yuuto marches away.

-

There was a music studio in the basement of the Kidou house. When asked 'why', Kidou would cite that either one of his parents was a music hobbyist, or that this was already here when they got it, or that they had the money, so it didn't matter why they did it.

In short, they had it because they were rich, so why not?

Anyways, Kirino remembered the days where everyone took turns jamming the hell out in this very same room, belting out song after song for no real reason.

"It's Inazuma Tradition dammit!" Endou declares, seizing the microphone for another round of 'Tsunagari YO'.

"Hit the music, Tachimukai!"

"Huh? Oh uh. Okay."

A soft click in the distance, and the drums started playing.

It was a huge, padded room-- with sofas and disco lights and even an indoor bar in the corner. At the end of FFI (the actual one, this time,) Endou brought in everyone in the past and current Japan teams, and they partied.

"We even made Gouenji do it at some point," Toramaru cheerfully supplied, though the person in question simply buried his hands into his face and refused to comment. "He was the most enthusiastic one." And then Gouenji began to attempt suffocation by pillow on the punk.

"Be a good sport, Tsurugi! Shindou, get Maestro out, we are SINGING!"

"No, no, Maestro will murder you if you so much as sing off tune. You don't want him near karaoke machines."

Then, in a groundbreaking turn of events, Sorano Aoi challenged and beat Shindou 'but-I-have-perfect-pitch-this-is-impossible' Takuto in a no-holds-barred singing match. It was a landslide victory, too.

They couldn't drink, but damn did they feel drunk that day.

-

"Kirino? You're spacing out."

Kirino inspects the room fondly. It's just as he remembers-- except, the stain on the wall from some wine Tsunami spilled was no longer there. The dent Shinsuke left in the wall isn't there either.

This is the place he remembers-- but it really isn't.

Dressed in oddly similarly-toned sweaters (all sourced from some corner of Kirino's 'made by Kazu' closet,) the children gathered in the room, hurriedly setting up. Haruna didn't have one, but she stole one of Kidou's sweaters so she could kinda match.

Ichino was already snoring on the couches.

"So, Otonashi-sensei, you sure no one can trace us when we send signals out from here?" Aoyama asks, setting up his laptop.

"Yes. This room is specially reinforced, you see," Haruna assures. "Don't think too much about the logistics of it all. Megane-kun will disrupt the tracking efforts downwind, so you can do it all without worry."

"Woah! This really does feel like world domination!" Hamano beams. "Anyways, what did you guys need me for? Ooh, Disc Jockey work! I can do that."

Kirino receives a headset from Akane, who smiles. Kirino nods, and they approach the microphone side by side.

"Ready?" Ms Otonashi says.

They nod in tandem.

Aoyama looks up, nodding firmly. Hamano slides the volume key up high, and clicks the button to mark ON AIR.

"Operation Soccer Liberation, begin!"

-

That day, a strange jingle played across every electronic device in Tokyo, a string of exuberant trumpets giving way to synthesizers.

It was at this point that Japan went into disarray. People were trying to trace the broadcast-- and found no leads. Everything was interrupted-- but there was no way to stop it except to shut down the entire transmission, beginning with an enforced order to all TV and Radio stations.

The broadcast began at the sharp of six in the evening-- and though it only lasted a few minutes before the government hijacked it as a false alarm-- the damage was done, and it immediately took the world by storm.

"Greetings to the world,"

The voice was sharp, overlaid and altered in a mechanical way that made it seem neither male or female.

Endou turns away from his (admittedly unappetizing) dinner to the TV. Nothing's on the screen, of course-- but something in the voice was familiar to him. Maybe it was the intonation? Maybe because this doomsday-esque announcement rang a bell?

"We are El Dorado. In the name of the future-- we seek to liberate soccer."

In a quiet apartment in Inazuma Town, Coach Kudou facepalms.

"Was I supposed to see this coming?"

"It's only been a few years since Fifth Sector took over the soccer of our country. But face it, soccer players, soccer enthusiasts-- face it! I'm sure all of you have noticed it already, but soccer hasn't been the same!"

"Hey hey, what the hell is this?" Minamisawa scowls at the radio on the counter of Rairaiken, "Is this guy for real?"

"Dude, and I thought what we were doing was suicide," Kurama mutters. "But this guy is going straight at them with a hacksaw."

Shindou grimaces really hard at it. "Ignore it, it's probably a prank. There's no way Fifth Sector is going to let this broadcast keep going on, so it's going to shut down soon and people are going to forget all about it."

"Not that I doubt that, Shindou, but..." Sangoku pales, "this is just going to kickstart the idiots in our team, isn't it?"

Shindou spits out his tea.

Behind the counter, Tobitaka holds back a snort. Dishing up two bowls of ramen, he smirks. "Two Miso Ramen, up."

"Would you believe it, world, if we told you no one enjoys soccer anymore?"

All around the world, soccer players stood up.

They didn't voice it-- but their shock was palpable. Their eyes were fixed on the single audio stream, and though not many dared to cheer for them-- their thoughts lined up.

"Would you believe it, world-- if we showed you how soccer has become nothing more than a grade on a paper, for most of us? There's no enjoyment in it at all! Soccer has become a corrupt political device for schools to gain prestige!"

Coaches in Fifth Sector's league slammed their fists against the television. Some pulled the cord or the power lines-- but they couldn't reach radios and phones in time for the world to hear the rest of it.

Tsurugi Yuuichi sits up on his bed, Fuyuka at his bedside. Their jaws were slack-- but neither could acknowledge it.

A little further down the hospital, Taiyou's eyes narrow on the broadcast.

"Earth has a saying that goes like this-- 'what goes around will definitely come around once more'. It's a dictator of karmic vengeance, Fifth Sector. And it's what's coming for you."

The adults in Sun Garden do a collective double take.

The kids are absorbed in the strange radio, so they didn't notice-- but Saginuma casts Midorikawa a pointed glance. Hiroto is still choking on his drink, and Suzuno is trying to make sure he doesn't die due to water down the wrong windpipe.

Midorikawa panics, desperately miming a 'no! It's not me! I swear, seriously!' to every other former Aliea player that was slowly coming out of their rooms to glare at him.

Nagumo hasn't stopped laughing his ass off yet.

"To the bastard heading Fifth Sector from their almighty throne, this is our declaration of war!"

"What are they thinking?"

Tsurugi swears under his breath, a hallway down. There's no way Fifth Sector will allow this to happen-- whoever this is, they're going to accentuate whatever revolution Raimon is planning-- and who knows if Fifth Sector can openly rebuke them now.

This just makes things harder for everyone. For the players that don't want to lose soccer to the government-- to the government that still has the power to deal fatal blows to the soccer world-- and to the society, who are trapped in the oblivion.

But, he wonders, just a little hopefully, what if this works?

What if this really keeps Fifth Sector's hands tied up enough for everything to end?

(Nah. That's wishful thinking.)

"We will take back our soccer. The revolt will begin right this instant, and there's nothing you can do to stop us."

The sharp, high-pitched Zzzzzt! of an abruptly cancelled transmission pierced the skies-- and then, all was silent.

The evening news came back on with official statements that it was a case of public mischief-- but by then, no one quite cared.

The internet was already abuzz.

-

Kirino grins at Akane as their broadcast is abruptly cut off. A thumbs up later, everyone in the room bursts into laughter. Aoyama was still silent, hurriedly working to erase their own traces while their website suddenly-- and abruptly-- boomed.

People were beginning to search 'El Dorado', 'Soccer liberation', and 'Fifth Sector Corruption'-- and it was leading them all right into their newly-published website, and the internet was going batshit over it.

"Seriously, Kirino? El Dorado? Where did you get that idea?" Ichino asks. 

"Well uh," Kirino looks away, "call it an inside joke."

Akane simply beams, "we channeled our inner Shin-sama!"

"Wait, did you finalise that with Aoyama without asking me? Dude! I feel so included!" 

"Sorry, you were kinda uh, sleeping."

"I'm more horrified by how they spoke so well together," Aoyama mutters, "I know we had the voice changer on, but seriously, I couldn't tell you guys were two people."

Behind them, Otonashi Haruna chuckles. "What was that, a Midorikawa impression? Where did you learn it?"

"Coach Endou!"

"Ugh. Should've figured."

And so El Dorado was formed. It's not like the real association with that name would appear until nearly a couple hundred years down the line, after all.

The road to paradise-- this will be their conquest for the ideal world of soccer.

It's sappy, but everything in this world needs that sappiness sometimes. Kirino for one, wanted to indulge in it.

(Even if he's using it in this horrifically ironic way.)

-

Hakamada the butler calmly walks into the room to serve up a plate of nachos before leaving. He made no indication of obviously knowing exactly what everyone was doing down here. 

The group lounged around the couches.

There was no physical chaos-- not more than the news were required to report, at least. Most of the madness came quiet, on the internet, as the world perused the website of information, dug out more information from the depths-- and the world began to turn.

It only took three hours for the government to terminate the site's domain.

But there was no way anything could be traced back to them, not with the expertise of Megane Kakeru filling up the holes in their plans.

"Should we put it back up?" Kirino asks.

"No," Aoyama says, "I won't be able to keep up with it. People have taken screenshots and are still passing them around, so I think we should let it stew, first, for one night-- then only put it up again tomorrow."

That was fair enough.

Ms Otonashi lifts a glass of grape juice and laughs. "Anyways, to our first success!"

"You're our newest member, but you're so enthusiastic," Ichino sighs, "I thought you were supposed to be the reasonable teacher, Otonashi-sensei."

"Oh? But I'm off duty," her answer is instantaneous. "Finally! I can unleash my inner journalist and Coach Kudou is nowhere to stop me!"

"Crap, Coach Kudou was protecting us from this madwoman this whole time," Kirino balks, horrified.

Come to think of it, Coach Endou's horror stories of their younger days were surprisingly filled with the 'people who get us into trouble the most' record, in which Haruna was only a close third to only Kogure and Endou himself.

They all assumed Haruna's daredevil streak was lost as she matured, but it seems like they were all wrong. She was only sealed away, and now, Kirino has set the beast free.

"Well, that's fine!" Hamano cheers, lifting his class, "madness legion, assemble!"

"Who cares, I lost my sanity when I agreed to make that website!" Aoyama declares. "Might as well go all out until we burn!"

Ichino groans, "what did I expect?"

"Oh wait, wait," Akane hurries up, setting her camera on the TV before hurriedly returning to all the raised glasses with her own. "Say cheese!"

Flash.

Kirino laughs at that. "Well, now that we're done with our commemoration picture--" the next cheer came together, "TO EL DORADO!"

-

The stadium was packed with reporters the next day for the district preliminaries of Holy Road.

Fifth Sector had ordered a press conference earlier in the morning, right before the matches began. What they said had basically amounted to sheer denial of the accusations-- information could be fabricated, and information otherwise were commandeered on a case-by-case basis. They were on ice-- but it wasn't thin at all.

Tengawara Junior High thankfully made arrangements (these guys look awfully a lot like Fifth Sector goons) for the soccer teams to enter the stadium relatively unhindered, but the coaches weren't so fortunate.

Thankfully, the equally cheerful natures of Endou Mamoru and Mizuki Michiko (Tengawara's coach, she's an angel,) managed to stave off the reporters on being too pushy with their interrogative questions.

"Is this match set as well?" one woman manages to make it to the front. "If so, why are you obeying it? Do we need to be here at all, if the match's result has already been determined?"

To which Coach Mizuki has to put on her best customer service smile and reply, "unfortunately, neither of us have any idea of what you're saying," she denies, and Coach Endou agrees.

(There's no way they can vocally denounce Fifth Sector here, lest they risk their jobs and each other, after all.)

"Our players have trained hard for this day to provide their utmost in this match. Our teams have had quite a history of rivalry due to our proximity-- I'm sure it will be another great match to see today."

With that, she nudges slightly at Coach Endou's elbow, to which the male coach stiffens and recomposes himself, "ah yes. I'm sure the broadcast yesterday has left the soccer community in... well, a bit of chaos, but it's nothing the world needs to be concerned about!" He gives Coach Mizuki a grin. "Raimon is going to do their best, and Tengawara is going to respond in kind. That's how soccer should be, after all!"

He misses the slight note of surprise on Coach Mizuki's face.

(It is how soccer should be-- and how it has to be, from now on.)

(Coach Mizuki realizes that Coach Endou may just be the epitome of that spirit-- the epitome of that fire of revolution that was set alight in yesterday's broadcast.)

(And she knows that his heart isn't the only one that's burning, eager to revolt.)

(For years, the world has been waiting. Hers, too.)

(Her heart has been burning since day one. And yet-- until the SEED is gone form her team, she cannot let it burn freely.)

(She feels the excitement in her chest-- it's so exhilarating-- she can't wait for the match to begin. She can't wait for the first spark of revolution to go through.)

To wrap it up, Coach Mizuki gives the world a genuine smile. "Today's match will be one match to remember, I'm sure."

"Right!" Coach Endou beams.

-

Later, when they re-enter the hallways, toward the locker rooms-- Coach Mizuki pats Coach Endou on the back.

"I lied a little," she admits.

Coach Endou raises a brow, "what, about the score order. You know we understand," he assures. Admitting right there would've gotten the entire match cancelled due to fraud (and Fifth sector may stake some claims of defamation, too,) and neither wanted that to happen.

"No, not about that," she chuckles. "I mean, that too-- but I was talking about my boys."

They've arrived at the Raimon locker rooms, and Coach Mizuki briefly waves.

"My boys, you know-- with all the score ordering going on, they've actually grown complacent, as of late," she snickers. Then, with an enthusiastic thumbs up, "so when you get your kids out there, go give mine a good whupping, alright?"

Coach Endou pales.

"You're uh," he hesitates, "surprisingly brutal, huh."

"No pain no gain!" she declares. And she starts her way down the hallway before Endou can get an answer in.

He sighs, nursing a mild case of trauma against strong-willed women coaches.

"Man, I'm scared for next year..."

-

"As you've heard from yesterday's broadcast, Fifth Sector is currently in disarray," Ms Otonashi tells the players in the locker room. "If any of you caught sight of the database that was leaked, you may know that much of the information was centered upon the Kanto district, primarily around Raimon."

A few of them scowled.

"So you're saying that El Dorado is one of us?" Tenma asks, horrified at the implication. "No way! That's just... crazy, even for us!"

"He's right, we might be crazy, but we're not that crazy," Hayami says, all courage from yesterday completely gone with the stage fright, "I mean, yes, we're crazy, but still."

Ms Otonashi clears her throat. "As I was saying," she says, "they're pretty much putting every team under watch-- but we're highly suspected, so for your personal safety, we're required to drive all of you to and fro matches from now on to minimize suspicious activity."

So basically, school buses to your doorstep! But for matches only.

"There will also be a strict penalty if any of us are found to possess any recording devices. Only the coach is permitted mobile phones during matches," she says. "Yes, Akane-san, that includes your camera, unfortunately."

Akane deflates.

"We have to keep this up to get the charges off of us first," Ichino tries to convince her, "if Fifth Sector sues us for defamation now, Raimon's got little to defend ourselves with, you know?"

Akane is still pretty upset, but she relents.

"Sorry, kids," Ms Otonashi says, "but unfortunately, this is the best we'll get."

"Look, if Tenma says this is too crazy, that means it's too crazy for us," Shindou declares. "Unless..."

And then all eyes turned to Kirino.

Kirino instinctively raises his hands in surrender.

"No, no, no, no, no," Shindou grabs his best friend by the shoulders. "It's not him. Kirino is not insane to that degree, please, guys, I promise," he eyes Kirino with all the vigor of a hyperfocusing owl, "right?"

Kirino looks away for a bit, "uhhh, I wonder, I mean..."

"Kirino, stop fooling around and just say straight out it's not you," Sangoku says sternly, standing up to knock Shindou over the head to get him back into the real world. "To begin with, the whole feud was not a possible feat for junior high students. We shouldn't even be on the suspect list."

"Yes, which is why this match is still going on," Minamisawa says. Then, a mischievous smirk crawls up his face, "hey, if we win this match today, do you think they'll really tug the chains on us?"

"Oh, that'll be cool!" Kurama says, excited, "I mean, even if we win, and Fifth Sector retaliates by nuking the club-- the press will pick up on it and we'll still be winning the war!"

(After all-- Fifth Sector weren't the only ones that realized Raimon had a lot to do with the website. All the world's scrutiny is on the most affected party right now. If any one of them suddenly disappears-- it would cause uproar, would it?)

"Wait, really? That means we can safely put in the effort to win without fearing the repercussions?" Shinsuke asks. "Awesome! Let's do it, let's do it!"

"We're gonna win!" Tenma cheers-- and then immediately shuts up as everyone turns to a very visibly infuriated Tsurugi.

The SEED is barely changed, tapping away almost furiously into his phone and chewing on his nails-- he notices the looks and all but seethes, "what?!"

"Oh uh, just," Tenma picks up the courage to saunter over like a casual schoolgirl, "we were just wondering! Will you be okay if we win this match or--?"

"Don't you guys fucking dare!" Tsurugi snaps, "I will cram all of you in lockers and feed the key to a dog, you bastards!"

His outburst figuratively blows the entire room away, and everyone recoils at least a meter from him, Tenma included.

It was hard to blame him, really. With the chaos, his orders have gone from 'stop them' to 'if you don't stop them, consider your head on a platter and a lot of very disappointed looks from lord Ishido Shuuji for the rest of your life', and god forbid Tsurugi would rather die.

"We broke him!" Hamano happily declares, and Hayami responds with a terrified wail.

"This is a good sign," Kurama says, and Minamisawa's eyes are sparkling in that inspirational way he always does when he's just found a new friend, "let's go kick Tengawara's ass, guys! So we can get Tsurugi fired!"

"Ooh! Two birds one stone!" Amagi hoots, following after him.

"On the 'Let's get Tsurugi fired' train! Choo choo go!" Midori declares, following along with Kurumada and Shinsuke.

"Oh crap. Hey!" Sangoku chases, "don't start chanting that! We are still in public and we're still under intense supervision! Are you guys hearing me?!"

Shindou groans, hurrying after them, "Guys can you behave, we have to line up soon!"

Tsurugi follows immediately after, shouting the loudest of them all, "I will make good on my threat, you absolute heathens! LISTEN TO ME!"

Tenma, of course, is next. "Uh, don't worry Tsurugi!" he's innocently trying to bargain, "even if you get fired, we can still be friends, right?"

"Ah geez. Guys, help me out here!" Aoi whines, taking one of the freezer bags outside with her as she pursues them all.

Ichino and Kirino were the only ones in the room now, along with Ms Otonashi and Coach Endou. Their eyes met, and a knowing smile grew on their faces.

"Hm? What's this?" Coach Endou notices.

"Nothing, nothing!" was their absolute genius attempt at feigning continued innocence, but thankfully, Coach Endou doesn't catch on.

"Anyways, let's go line up, or we're going to be late!" Ichino says, hurrying along. Kirino quickly tugs on his spikes, making sure the cloth brace fits snugly around his right ankle.

"Hey, wait up!" he calls after them.

Kirino makes his way toward to the momentous match of the new century.