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The why isn’t important. It’s not like he’d ever reveal that he was paying attention when Ness slipped out of their Blue Lock guest room and down the hallway leading to the NEL stratum dorms. No, honestly. He couldn’t care less what idiotic pleb Ness chooses to befriend. He already knows none of them would do Ness any good on the field or off it.
They won’t understand what Ness needs. How he operates. Kaiser is the only one who knows—the only one who could ever figure it out and give it to him. Future attempts would be futile.
Alexis. Is he looking for a new striker to believe in? He tried to, although unintentionally, with Isagi. A sour taste floods Kaiser’s tongue at the thought. But he’s not going to ask who Ness went to see. Knowing Ness, he’ll probably come bumbling to Kaiser to tell him, fluttering his eyelashes and wordless begging for validation. Although he doubts any of them would understand Alexis’s desperation to create magic.
Offhanded, he recalls—he hasn’t really spoken to Ness at all after the Bastard vs. PxG match, aside from bored glances across the hotel room as Ness scrambled to stay out of Kaiser’s sight. Maybe it’s a punishment. Ness probably wishes that Kaiser would yell and scream and throw things at him, because the silent treatment is what hurts Ness the most. Kaiser won’t call it a punishment, though. There’s no reason to speak to him, anyway.
However, it seems like Ness finally stopped crawling after Kaiser like a pathetic, injured puppy. Although, it’s annoying that Ness no longer sees it fit to pass to him unless strictly necessary.
He figures the pettiness will fade eventually.
The one problem: practice.
Playmaking alone is pointless, and without Ness there, his productivity has taken a dive. It had been absolutely infuriating, watching Isagi and his little blue-haired passing prodigy run the field all week, each new play like a melodramatic chemical reaction akin to pop rocks in the mouth. He wants to rip the other striker’s hair out. Nothing quite pisses him off like Isagi’s success, like Isagi lording over his field.
So, he needs a placeholder, at least for the time being, so he can innovate. Prevent himself from falling further behind.
With Ness as elusive as a gazelle in the Serengeti, Kaiser is forced to set up the televisions himself, scrolling back over all the Blue Lock tapes. He pauses on a certain episode. Plays it back. Leans back in his chair and drums his fingers on the armchair, calculating. Funnily enough, the player’s off-field compilations are just as entertaining and helpful as his on-field videos.
Kaiser re-watches the clips and decides that someone like him would fold after some coaxing. All it would take were a few hits in the right weak spot for him to get what he needs.
Impressively adaptable and skilled, headstrong but deeply insecure. Mikage Reo would work perfectly.
—
“Hey, copycat.”
Mikage Reo flicks his gaze up from where he’s retying the laces of his cleats. He blinks once, a perfectly measured balance of surprise and insouciance on his face, “Kaiser.”
Marvelously pretty face and soft features. Kaiser can’t help but find him somewhat repulsive. He’s a pretty one—much like the redhead on the team, although Reo’s build is taller, stronger, his features and scent carry an air of boyishness that only makes him more outwardly charming.
He wasn’t worth much attention until Kaiser saw him in the U-20 match. It was clear something had changed—his eyes had grown sharp and dark, his confident, happy-go-lucky demeanor lost to the wind. His foundations had taken a hit—and it was evident that he was letting the metaphorical broken bone fuse back together crooked. He doesn’t really care though—all that matters is that It works in Kaiser’s favor, in the end.
Kaiser finds himself grinning sharply. The violet eyes that stare back at him are those fitting of a conglomerate heir—analytical, yet the cup half-filled with an air of nonchalance. They remind him of his mother’s eyes.
Kaiser quickly shakes the thought away. The Mikage in front of him hardly resembles the crying, pathetic, wounded puppy Kaiser had seen in the video clips he had watched to gather more information on the boy.
Reo finishes looping his laces together and pushes himself up off a knee. Standing, he’s roughly the same height as Kaiser. Kaiser doesn’t like it. He wants to tell him to keep his head down.
A polite, faux smile stretches across the heir’s face with practiced, clinical ease.
“And to what do I owe the honor?” With near-perfect German, Reo’s tone is flat yet evidently sarcastic. Elegant and indifferent. Kaiser hates it. The German sounds strange on his tongue, yet not clumsy.
“I could ask you the same—what brings you all the way to Bastard’s stratum?”
Reo squints at him warily, scanning his face in silence. Shifting his weight to his back foot, he replies, “I came with Chigiri. He wanted to see Isagi.”
The pretty redhead. He comes by often, fruitlessly attempting to connect with the spiky, orange-haired guy on the team that does little more than sit and brood. Unfortunately, the details of the Wildcard program are classified, so Kaiser has no eyes into that whole situation. Nonetheless, he finds it amusing. The redhead is like one of those little yappy purse dogs, a prissy pomeranian that trots right back after being rejected for the hundredth time. His determination is honestly admirable—Kaiser can’t say he thinks the dead-eyed, hateful mini-Noa is worth that kind of attention, but alas.
“Ah, Yoichi is quite popular, isn’t he?” Kaiser hums distractedly. Whatever. He’ll just cut to the chase instead—it’s better to not waste time, because if Mikage Reo can’t do it, he’s useless to Kaiser in every respect. Mikage Reo is beautiful, truly—it’s a shame Kaiser finds this brand of untouchable aristocracy disgusting.
“Can you copy Alexis Ness?”
Mikage Reo stares at him warily, but eventually he shrugs. “Probably.”
Kaiser grins. “To what end?”
“Like, right now? Uh, accommodating our difference in our physicalities, probably about—ninety-three to ninety-four percent? I could probably close the gap to about ninety-eight if I could study his maneuvers in greater detail on the monitors. Why do you ask?”
Perfect, Kaiser straightens up like a bird taming its feathers.
“Because you’re going to play as Ness for me, of course.”
“Am I, now?” Reo crosses his arms and lifts an eyebrow, expression detached and unimpressed. Elegantly cold. Kaiser wants to break him.
It’s been a long, long time since Kaiser was given a challenge. Ness fell almost too easily. It was boringly predictable. Reliable. The only thing Kaiser ever had that was safe.
The image of Ness’s wide smile flashes in his mind before he shakes it away. Unfortunately, Mikage Reo chooses that moment to bring him up, “Does Alexis know about this?”
Alexis . Kaiser’s eyes widen imperceptibly as the pieces click into place. It was Mikage Reo that Ness had gone to see several nights ago. He went to the Manshine City dorms.
That stupid, stupid puppy. Couldn’t keep his head down and mouth shut. Kaiser grinds his teeth. He hadn’t worked this variable into his plan. Especially since he doesn’t know what they could have possibly spoken about.
Ugh, Ness probably shuffled his way over to the Manshine dorms to weep his forlorn struggles to the only person with an allegedly similar situation. Silly, silly Alexis. Kaiser plasters a smile back on. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Reo shrugs again, reaching down to pick up the ball by his cleat. “Answer’s no anyway.”
“A shame, passing up the opportunity to play with a king.”
Reo scoffs, a genuinely amused smile lifting the corner of his lips. “I’m hardly trained as a court jester, Your Majesty. Find someone else. It’s not my fault you banished your last one.”
“Seems like you and Alexis have formed a kinship,” Kaiser tries to hide his annoyance.
“Hardly,” the heir snorts. “I just have too much pride to be leashed and led like a dog.”
“What a cruel way to describe a fair and equal partnership.”
“Hm, but unfortunately, I already have a partner, so I’ll have to pass.”
Ah, yes , the white-haired beanstalk that went with Isagi during Blue Lock’s second selection. The prodigy that the violet-eyed boy had so easily shed tears for. Unfortunately, all his useless shows of selflessness toward Nagi Seishirou led him nowhere in the end.
“You’ll never get anywhere, playing with him.”
Reo’s eyes narrow, the first flickers of real anger crossing his face. Kaiser snorts internally, a bit too easy to strike a nerve, isn’t it, Mikage?
Fists clenching briefly, Reo pushes his tongue into his cheek, “So you say.”
“You’re working a charity case, coddling a dying flame.”
“Watch it,” Reo warns, chin tipping down, voice lined with unsheathed knives. Protective. How adorable.
“A waste of your talent. You’ll play with a sloth but not an emperor?”
“I play with miracles. Not with corrupt royals decked in fool’s gold.”
“That’s quite hypocritical, Mr. Mikage,” he spreads poison all over the name. “I’m asking out of respect for your skills.”
“Not hypocritical—I think the word you’re looking for is ironic.” Reo disagrees certainly, only half paying attention as he juggles the ball between his knee and foot. “Anyway. What’s in it for me?”
“The rare chance to play with a member of the New Gen Eleven,” running his hand through his hair, zeroing in on the exact button to push. “I’m sure you know, it’s detrimental to your own growth if you only spend your time catering to geniuses. They’ll use you to go through a dozen evolutions while you remain stagnant. And here I was thinking you were so determined to not get left behind.”
Reo inhales sharply, and Kaiser knows he finally has his attention. My win.
With narrowed eyes, Reo verifies, “You want to practice with me.”
Kaiser smirks, lopsided and wicked. He shrugs, “Simple, isn’t it?”
—
Mikage Reo is prone to underestimating himself, Kaiser finds. Because unlike what he promised, Reo is able to manage a ninety-seven percent copy of Ness even without reviewing footage in high quality. Either he’s playing coy about the extent of his abilities, or Mikage Reo has a phenomenally good memory. It’s better than Kaiser had hoped.
With most of the Bastard team enjoying a rest day, the field is relatively empty (he hasn’t seen Ness today—but he refuses to let himself wonder where he is). Kaiser was content in playing against the freaky AI defensemen and goalkeepers, but Reo somehow roped the redhead and the emo into playing a few short scrimmages with them.
Kaiser doesn’t play easy with Reo—hardly giving him time to warm up and change his chameleon color before pushing the both of them to the brink, forcing Reo into nearly impossible maneuvers, making him challenge the redhead in speed and reaction time and the brooding giant in dexterity, pressing the limits of his agility. The one thing Mikage Reo doesn’t seem to need to copy is creativity—his playmaking adapts quickly to account for Kaiser’s volatile positioning, his read on Kaiser’s movements getting better with each pass as he submits to Kaiser’s demands while mentally rewriting the play.
It’s good enough that Kaiser begins to see Alexis in his afterimages. The hallucinations make him sloppy in his receives and off-target in his shots. The Mikage heir jogs up to him for a high-five after a successful shot, sweaty and running on adrenaline, and Kaiser levels him with a glare so scathing that Reo steps back in disturbed confusion, side-eyeing him judgmentally before walking away. Kaiser shakes it off quickly and moves on.
Soon enough, as if he could smell the ball, or some other dumb shit, Isagi’s grating vocal cadence echoes off the walls of the stadium, and their session turns to a quick three v. three as Isagi and his blue-haired friend join in the mix.
But frustration burns Kaiser down to his bones. Because of the traitor haunting Mikage’s movements, it’s a paradoxically horrendous situation, and Kaiser wants to wrap his hands around Reo’s throat and squeeze, scream at him to fucking stop it, but he refrains for now.
It’s getting more and more tempting, though, because Kaiser is beginning to slip back into old habits.
Mikage Reo is acting as Ness in terms of play, not personality. The disconnect is stark like the Atlantic and the Pacific meeting.
Reo dodges the speedy redhead in an arc pass close to the touchline for Kaiser to receive in the perfect position to send it into the goal. It’s purely a force of habit when a pleased good puppy slips from his mouth as he fires the shot into the net.
When he looks back triumphantly at the heir, Kaiser finds that any elation has been replaced by pure disdain, nose wrinkled in disgust. Kaiser opens his mouth to taunt him, but Reo beats him to the jump.
There’s an impressive amount of venom in his tone as he speaks, “Call me that again, and I swear to God, I’ll rip those ugly fucking rattails out of your head.”
“So touchy,” Kaiser tuts mockingly. Still, the warning in the contents is more believable than Yoichi’s I’ll fucking kill you if it’s the last thing I do threat.
“No, please, keep assuming I’m joking. Makes it easier for me.”
It seems that Mikage Reo is more than the meek crash-out personality Kaiser had seen on screen.
Kaiser grabs a handful of soft purple hair from the back of the heir’s head and yanks hard, rooting him to the spot, forcibly looking at Kaiser, who says, “The more I see, the more it becomes obvious that you’re all bark and no bite. Like a little rodent.”
“Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re the one doing me a favor. I really have no reason to play with you at all. I’m here out of curiosity, because I can’t figure out what it is about you that made Alexis believe you’re worth it. Meanwhile, you're fighting back a meltdown over a friend you threw away.”
“And what the hell would you know?” Kaiser feels his face contort in anger before he can school his expression, teeth gritting hard enough to hurt.
Reo, however, is unfazed by his rage. He glances somewhere behind the striker, and Kaiser realizes the redhead and his counterpart are silently listening to the interaction, wary of Kaiser’s temper. He releases his hold on Reo’s hair promptly; don’t lose it. Stay calm, don’t lose your cool. Don’t embarrass yourself.
“You complained about Alexis’s stagnancy, yet you were the one who forced him to stunt his own growth. In the end, he dumbed down his playing style to play for you, didn’t he? And somewhere in the process, you convinced yourself that he was the one that needed you and not the other way around.”
“What’s your point.” Kaiser grits his teeth. I know that, I know that already.
“You keep looking over at me like you’re expecting something, and it’s fucking creepy. So let me make this clear,” Reo’s deep, cold violet eyes are a far cry from Alexis’s excited warmth. “I am not Alexis Ness.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t know,” Reo sneers. “You tell me. Do you?”
Kaiser steps forward, making sure to get in Reo’s face to exaggerate the centimeter or so that Kaiser has over him. His fingers twitch, and Kaiser balls them into fists, cutting holes in his palm to stop them from finding a throat to wrap around. The thing about anger is that it can take as many forms of force as need be. But it has to get out, it’ll push its way out. You have to think fast about how to minimize the damage.
He unclenches his fists and digs his fingers into Reo’s chest. And he shoves him, hard; hard enough to send him crashing to the ground with a grunt. Kaiser follows him, stepping forward to tower over him menacingly, and for the first time, the midfielder’s eyes flicker with uncertainty.
Within an instant, a large, hulking frame creates a wall between the two players, blocking Kaiser’s vision as Kunigami forcibly shoves himself between him and Reo.
Kaiser scoffs as Kunigami gruffly asks, “You alright, Reo?”
“No, yeah, I’m—I’m good. Just a minor disagreement,” Reo sighs as the striker helps him up, accepting the gloved hand offered. Kunigami rests his hand protectively just below Reo’s nape as the midfielder bends down at the waist to dust himself off, glaring daggers at Kaiser.
There’s an empty space beside Kaiser, though. One that was normally filled by someone who was on his side no matter what. Someone who joined him, acted as a shield, the cavalry, the presence that gave Kaiser the illusion of his own army, outnumbered yet strong against the opposite front. He frowns. There’s no one in that space now—he’s being stared down by the three Blue Lock participants like he’s the enemy laying siege, but he’s missing his front lines of defense.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“It’s fine, Kunigami,” Reo taps his bicep before Kaiser can respond. “I’m good.”
Kunigami, however, still looks like he’s two ticks away from swinging at Kaiser’s face, the scowl on his face twitching as he alternates between respecting Reo’s answer and throttling Kaiser for the satisfaction.
On cue, the redhead claps, breaking the tension with a, “Hey—let’s take a break, yeah? Get water.”
Kaiser shrugs in agreement, moving to walk around the heir and his new guard dog to the bench where his towel and water bottle are.
However, Kunigami takes his sudden, quick advance as another attempt to grab the midfielder, and he pushes Kaiser out of their stupid little bubble with a sharp elbow to the center of his chest; Kaiser stumbles briefly, but regains balance before the ground can catch him.
“Cool it, Wildcard,” Kaiser grins sharply, irritation spilling over the brim of the cup. “I wasn’t gonna do anything.”
I didn’t realize that dejected wannabe cared for anything, let alone anyone. And seemed to be cared for in return, judging by the redhead’s nonstop attempts to push past his dismissals and rejections just to be close to him. How disgusting. All three of them.
The aftertaste of bile at the back of his throat makes him want to tear his esophagus out. He’s not even in the mood to practice anymore.
—
Reo doesn't mind it—playing with Kaiser. The playing isn’t really the issue. He adapts, improves, and powers through each stride. He’s gotten used to Kaiser’s selfish pace and demands after a day and a half of practicing with him. If only his personality wasn’t worse than sewage waste. Reo cannot, for the life of him, fathom how Alexis managed to deal with him for so long.
Alexis, who is presently in the Manshine dorms with Chigiri and Nagi, likely sitting in bitter silence as quietly do their own things—Chigiri with his night time hair routine, Nagi with his names, and Ness staring blankly at the wall (Reo found it strange at first, but at this point, he won’t question it).
After a couple of days, Reo had asked Ness if he worried that Kaiser was wondering where he was, but immediately took it back upon seeing the pained look on Alexis’s face. Reo isn’t a nice person, but he definitely wasn’t heartless enough to kick Ness out and force him back to the Bastard accommodations while Manshine still has a spare futon laid out for him.
Leading to now, where Reo sits on a pillow in the monitor room, remote in hand as he replays the first Barcha match, intensely tracking Bachira’s movements leading into a straight shot that challenges the laws of physics. So focused on watching the little bee dance his way through defenders, that he hardly notices the door to the room open and shut behind him.
Which is why he nearly jumps out of his skin when a strong pair of arms encircles his waist, holding him tight as a chin hooks over his shoulder, wispy white hair tickling his cheek.
“Jesus, Nagi—god, I,” Reo sputters, placing a hand on his poor heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Mmh. Sorry, Reo.” Nagi’s voice is tinged with something Reo can’t explain, antsy and restless. His firm chest presses flush against Reo’s back as Nagi brings him impossibly closer, legs folding under Reo’s knees and nuzzling his neck in a way that’s nothing short of intimate—Reo must be imagining things, for real, because it feels almost—like it’s possessive, worried. He shivers.
“What’s up, Nagi?”
“Reo was taking too long.”
“I would’ve been back soon, you didn’t have to get me, treasure.”
Nagi doesn’t reply, but his grip tightens. Reo flounders a bit in confusion, yet can’t turn his head to read his striker’s face without getting a mouthful of Nagi’s tangled hair.
“You left me today. And yesterday.” Nagi says, a pout evident in his voice. But it’s off—there’s something different, not like Nagi’s usual petulant complaints or silly demands. Rather, this discontent sounds wrong, like a blanket, a cover for something that, in anyone else, Reo would read as—as well concealed anger.
“I left you?”
Nagi clarifies with a huff, but again, it sounds off, “You and Chigiri. To play at the Bastard stratum.”
He curls his body like he’s trying to envelop Reo in himself, turn him into a tiny ball. Reo laughs, reaching his opposite hand across his chest to scratch Nagi’s scalp lovingly.
“You’re so silly. I thought you were practicing with Karasu and Yukimiya.”
Nagi grunts, annoyed that he’s unable to refute the claim. Reo feels warm, so, so warm knowing Nagi misses him when he’s not there. That his presence is worth sentimental value, that Nagi feels uneasy when Reo isn’t within earshot. Maybe he’s selfish for it, but whatever.
“Did Ness join you guys?”
“Only for like, an hour,” Nagi yawns, and Reo can imagine puppy ears on his treasure at the noise. “He kinda just wandered away after that. Whatever. He’s annoying.”
Reo snorts. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Nagi buries himself in the junction of Reo’s neck and shoulder, rubbing his face against the skin. “He’s such a pain, keeps saying I’m stupid and slow. Calls me Ugly Sloth and Useless Beanpole.”
Reo cackles at the image. “Aw, you poor baby.”
He picks up the remote again to unpause the game onscreen, only to be stopped by Nagi’s hand on his wrist, touch gentle yet demanding as slips his hand halfway into Reo’s and presses down in the center of his palm with his middle and index finger until the muscles weaken and the remote slips from Reo’s grasp, plastic clattering to the floor.
"Nagi?"
Reo stills.
Don’t try to look at his face, something in his gut screams at him, twisting around at the aura of something dark. Reo pretends like his next exhale doesn’t shake, “Nagi?”
“You were practicing with the rose tattoo guy, right?”
Well, that’s a rhetorical question, Reo is tempted to retort. Instead, he just nods, “Kaiser? Yeah.”
Nagi hums, his chest vibrating against Reo’s back, solid and unyielding.
At his lacking reactions, Reo freezes for a second— he’s not mad at me, is he? He quickly steels himself— that hardly makes sense. Anyway, why am I nervous? He’s my Nagi, my gentle, sweet Nagi.
Nonetheless, Reo adds, “He’s annoying as hell, to be honest. Every time he opens his mouth I feel a headache coming on, but I’ve memorized a few new maneuvers thanks to him. Rather, I guess it’s thanks to Ness, but it was good to test them out at least once in practice,” he’s rambling now, goddammit.
Nagi presses his cheek to Reo's pulse point, and Reo involuntarily melts into the hold. (It’s not all the time, and not necessarily often, but sometimes, Nagi holds him like he’s trying to hide him from the rest of the world.)
Reo feels himself relax, unraveling again. Nagi, who keeps him sane, keeps him safe.
“Chigiri told me he pushed you.”
“What?” Reo blinks, taken aback. He tries to turn in Nagi’s hold to see his treasure’s face, but Nagi holds him in place.
“Kaiser. When you were playing with him today.”
Realization dawns on him. Oh, Chigiri, you little rat.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Reo sighs, rubbing his forehead. “He barely shoved me.”
A noise of disagreement. Nagi’s voice drops, “Reo shouldn’t lie to me. Chigiri said you fell, he pushed you to the ground.”
Well, Nagi Dearest, Chigiri is a little fucking instigator who you shouldn’t trust in any circumstance, okay?
“Chigiri is blowing things out of proportion,” Reo clears his throat. “Why? You don’t think I can handle myself?”
Nagi huffs, a sound like a little dog sneeze, and fuck, it's so cute—it’s fucking impossible to be annoyed with Nagi.
“Of course Reo can handle everything. Reo is amazing like that. I just—why do you have to play with that guy? I don’t like him,” the striker presses his lips to Reo’s shoulder blade like it’s a protest. “He hurt you.”
A laugh bubbles from Reo’s chest. Finally managing to twist himself around in Nagi’s hold, Reo throws his arms around his partner’s neck and tackles him to the padded floor.
Nagi’s large hands never leave his waist even as they lay side by side on the monitor room floor, beside the stack of pillows; he buries his face in Reo’s chest, pulling them close again.
Reo giggles again, hopelessly fond, “My sweet, softhearted boy. You’re so—he barely touched me.”
“I’ll kill him if he does it again. I should kill him now.”
“No, you won’t. And no, you shouldn’t. We can't win the World Cup if you're in jail.”
“So…you’re gonna practice with him again?”
The pout is audible in his voice.
“Probably," Reo replies honestly.
“Then, let me come,” Nagi demands, although there’s a pleading edge to his voice that turns Reo into a sticky puddle of goo. “I promise I’ll listen to Reo; just, practice with me, too.”
“Of course, you can, treasure,” Reo drops a kiss atop the crown of Nagi’s head, events of the day fleeting and irrelevant in his mind the longer he sits with Nagi. “Wherever you want to go, I’ll take you. Always.”