Chapter Text
"It's okay Tenma...we'll see each other again..."
"Tenma, we won't be angry at you."
"We all agreed to this."
"No matter what, we'll make it work out somehow, won't we?"
"..."
"...Tenma?"
The sound of a sword stabbing through flesh was all he heard in his head, as he points the blade, drenched in red liquid with trails of iridescent rainbows, at his own body.
Then he drives it in.
~0~
The moment Tenma opened his eyes, he jolted up in a panic, sweat beading on his fore head. He looked around, looking for signs that the time-travel hijink they just pulled off had worked. He saw that he was in his old bedroom, with the familiar alarm clock on his bed rest, and the old soccer ball with a thunderbolt scribbled with blue marker on display on a table.
The next thing he did was put a hand on his cheeks, blink for a few minutes, and sped towards the washroom to shed off his pajamas and look at the mirror.
Where he saw the reflection of his thirteen year old face, now mixed with a few hints of who he grew up to be, and who he turned back into. Tired yet hopeful steel blue eyes, with pinpricks of yellow and green near the pupils looked back at him. His stubborn chestnut hair, packed in whirlwind curls and waves, had grown a bit longer, especially his side burns. If his hair was wet, it would've reached his nape.
His tan skin, devoid of the multitude of scars and tiny feathers and fur he was used to seeing, was now filled with darker tan swirls where his wind patterns used to be, freckles co-existing with them on his body.
He looks at the alarm clock, displaying that he was late for school. A groan uncharacteristic of the younger Tenma escaped his throat, rubbing his palms down on his face.
And all he can think was "Well shit!"
~0~
"Well, we didn't exactly jump back in time to the point we wanted to jump to this time for some reason, but this is better than nothing." He mused to himself, after finding out from the date on his calendar, and the lack of a second team (as well as the rather hurtful looks he got from the rest of the team, his future teammates, his future family, his everything, oh god why did he let them die why did he not try and save them last time, WHY DIDN'T HE-) that he was somewhere before the Eito Gakuen practice match.
"Well that's great. Multiple problems with that already." He grimacingly thought, trying to remember what had went down in the Eito match. There's the captain who would agonize over his foolish decision on shooting that goal, there's the Tsurugi of his time period who is going to be an absolute pain in the ass (sorry not sorry Kyou), and of course, the entire team being in a "Fifth Sector is gonna hunt for our asses and it's Matsukaze's fault' state of mind. Hell, he doesn't even know if the stunt they pulled off had worked for the others this time! He might as well be the only person here who's from the post-apocalyptic future they left behind.
"So much shit to do, and it's only Tuesday. What." He gritted, already tempted to bang his head against a wall and let it bleed. He only went against the notion of it because Heavens forbid Aoi catches wind of that, and trap him in bandages for a week.
He was walking towards the soccer building for afternoon practice, when someone hastily took his wrist from behind, and dragged him to the side of the building, where no one usually goes. And Tenma was screaming bloody murder in his mind, "Oh that's just great! Now I'm getting kidnapped!! I swear to the goddamned Primordials, when I manage to get whoever this bastard is off me, I WILL TEAR THEM APART!!"
On (a rather questionable) instinct, he bit the kidnapper's arm really hard, not enough for his teeth to sink into the flesh, but just enough that it made the person let go of him. The person yelped, almost growling in pain at the bite.
"Okay, what in the name of what was that for?!" Tenma screeched, not even realizing that he had already blew up his cover (because the Tenma from this time period had more decorum and manners more or less).
He turned around rapidly, not even hesitating to pull his punches, which were caught by a familiar SEED. Golden eyes that was supposed to be filled with fake disdain and hatred for soccer, were now pinpricked with orange and red at the pupils, and were instead filled with relief(?). "Tenma? Is...Is that, you?" Tsurugi -no. This wasn't the Tsurugi from this time period.
"Hey...you ok?" Kyousuke asked, hands trembling and hesitant to cup the smaller brunet's cheek. Tenma's eyes widened, which turned into a sobbing smile as he hugged the soon to be Ace Striker, making the both of them kneel on the grass as they desperately clung to each other. "I'm okay? You're the one asking ME if I'm okay?? You're the one who got bit for God's sake!" Tenma cackled like he's gone mad. "It worked...it actually fucking worked." the taller boy whispered, pressing his lips on Tenma's forehead. A third and fourth pair of arms joined their embrace, and it was Aoi and Shinsuke, who heard the commotion and rushed to Tenma's aid. Both the sky and the earth tackled the wind and the fire, and were immediately engulfed in the embrace, all four of the first years sobbing quietly and rejoicing in seeing each other again.
~0~
"You think they found each other yet?" Ranmaru asked, looking at the wavy haired maestro, who sighed and didn't reply for a moment. The pink haired defender patted his back and added, "You ok?"
Earthy brown eyes with yellow and purple halo rings around the irises glance back at deep aquamarine orbs filled with shimmering iridescence. The two stare at each other for a while before Takuto answered "Take a guess." with a weary smile. What came from Ranmaru was an equally exhausted guffaw, shaking their head as they flashed a Cheshire grin and said "I'm betting they already have."
"We don't even know if they are here."
"Takuto, you of all people should know by now that our group tends to defy logic in every possible way, right? Even the way we went back here had no common sense ingrained."
"..."
"That's true. I'm just worried, I guess. This timeline is what? The eleventh iteration? There's only so much rewinding that we could take before we have another psychotic episode like the one at the sixth."
"..."
"Let's go find them, they're probably at the soccer building by now. We can worry about them when we get to them." Ranmaru suggested after a suffocating moment of silence.
~0~
"-I'm so sorry I bit you by the way." Tenma sheepishly chuckled as Aoi was checking the area where he had bit Kyousuke -after reprimanding her childhood friend for "almost tearing his skin apart, Heavens Tenma", Aoi chided, which he retorted with "Not my fault all eight of us are used to using our teeth as weapons!" "THAT'S NOT AN EXCUSE!!" Shinsuke, who's currently on the SEED's shoulders, hollered with bafflement.
"What do we do now?" Shinsuke asks after that was resolved, which made the four of them focus on the matter at hand; how the fuck do they do this?
"I mean, technically, Kyousuke is still our, quote unquote, enemy." Aoi said, making air quotation marks with her fingers. Instead of finding the situation morbid (okay, they do find it morbid, but only a wee teeny tiny bit, but only because of the Yuuichi situation that Kyousuke plans to solve more earlier on than later), they find it quite hilarious.
Kyousuke sighs, wipes down his left hand on his face while making an exasperated expression, and grabs Tenma and Shinsuke by their shouders. He looks at them with a straight face, and tells them "Deadass, the jerk that I'm about to become when we're in public? Please don't take any of that stuff personal."
The newcomer trio looked at each other and act like it's a horrifying situation, nodding gravely despite their cheeky faces, with Tenma adding a thumbs up.
~0~
"-that's them alright. Oh that's definitely them." Takuto whispered to Ranmaru as they [not so] discreetly glance at the bunch of first years who are now standing before them, looking like nervous house guests who don't know where the tea cups are.
"Tenma, stop grinning. You look like a menace." Aoi chided, but there was a soft kind of amusement in her eyes that contradicted the intended effect of her words. Said brunet couldn't keep his eyes off two of his seniors, eyeing them directly after he, Shinsuke, Aoi, Midori and Akane had introduced themselves.
"He's going to be an absolute little shit, I can feel it." Ranmaru nodded at Takuto when they were walking towards the soccer field.
The second years and third years were all encouraging the first years, giving them advice and telling them that the soccer club's training is no joke.
Tenma and Shinsuke just humored them with nods and yelps of feigned nervousness.
~0~
"She seriously tried to bribe me! The nerve!" Takuto rants as he runs his hands through his hair, while Ranmaru pats his back and sighs. "At least you refused the tickets this time." they encouraged, and Takuto gives them a pained look. "You wound me Ranmaru. I just wasn't able to give the tickets back because she kept talking over me. At least with Aoi who took a video of the whole scene, we have evidence of Fifth Sector's toxic influence." he says, glancing over to his left, where Aoi was uploading the video she took to the cloud, humming a lullaby lost to time.
"All done! Hey, we should try and collect evidence of Fifth Sector's wrongdoings, don't you think?" Aoi suggested, to which Ranmaru chuckled and humored her with "For a criminal lawsuit?"
Shinsuke nodded eagerly, replying with "Mhm! We just thought of it earlier! It'll make taking down Fifth Sector more plausible too." He grins as he starts explaining the conversation that gave birth to the idea, which consisted of Aoi scrolling through the news feed in her phone, seeing an article about how a suspect of fraud and money laundering was arrested only because the victim had methodically recorded and documented everything that can count as evidence of the crime. The police noted that if she hadn't done that, the suspect would've gotten away with it because he always 'cleaned up his tracks'. They got inspired by it, and so they decided to open a folder in the Cloud so that their evidence can be safely stored. The first years just so happened to take a detour here by Takuto's neighborhood and saw the crime, so they decided to film it.
The older woman kept trying to pressure Takuto into accepting the bribe, but Takuto this time stood firm and refused to accept the tickets. The woman was getting pissed and had now started scolding him about "respecting your elders" and how Fifth Sector isn't going to like what he's doing, when the sound of a camera lens's shuttering was heard.
That's all it took for everything to spiral out of the woman's control, with Ranmaru saying in feigned shock "Oh my! What do we have here? I'd never thought that even parents would stoop this low when it comes to obeying Fifth Sector's score orders! Right Aoi?" On cue, the blue haired teen came out with Tenma and Shinsuke, who were eating popcorn and occasionally stuffing Aoi's mouth with a few kernels. She shrugged and said "What will the public say if they find out that one of the players needs to have their mom bribe the captain of the Raimon soccer club just to win? Isn't that a whole new low?"
The entire debacle ended with the mother pulling her precious son away from the scene, desperate to get away.
And this is how the kids had found themselves conversing about the current topic.
Tenma joined the conversation with "We just made a folder for it in the Cloud. The only problem is, we don't have much evidence yet. That video is just a starting point. Just because the mother of an opposing team tried to bribe you in any way, it doesn't connect them immediately to Fifth Sector."
They were walking, deep in thought amidst the setting sun, when a voice chimed in. "Well then...we're going to have to dig deeper huh?"
The group turned and saw Kyousuke, who was typing something in his phone. When he pressed a button, all of their cell phones vibrated, and upon checking, it was him sending message requests. (Thank the stars that they basically have their phone numbers memorized through all the resets.)They all accepted, and he immediately made a group chat after that.
"This will make discreetly talking to you for a while easier." He said, and puts the phone in his pocket. "Now, as for why I'm here..." he trails off, and scoops Aoi and Shinsuke in his arms, making two pairs of eyes -one a deep blue with white halos around the pupils, and another a pair of mismatched olive green and hazel with sunlight dapples on the irises- widen in surprise, before softening with affection.
"I miss you all." He mutters, nuzzling onto Aoi while carrying Shinsuke in between them. The two reciprocated with a hug. "I'm pretty sure you're not gonna be able to get rid of us anytime soon." Shinsuke retorted cheekily, and Aoi only rolled her eyes with affection.
Takuto and Ranmaru were his next targets, using both arms to embrace them, which they too had reciprocated, burying their faces on either side of his neck. "You're such a sap." Takuto weakly teased, to which Kyousuke replied with "I never denied that I was." Ranmaru just chuckled at the silly conversation the two boys were having.
After letting both second years go, he didn't even hesitate to hoist Tenma in the air by his waist and muffle his screaming on the brunet's shirt, making Tenma laugh so brightly like the last rays of sunlight from the rich sunset.
And for a little while, Kyousuke could let his guard down around his beloved soulmates.
~0~
"How come the events were changed? Last I remember, those two just left the clubroom like the second team did when they quit." Tenma wondered. For all the years he lived, some decades as different reincarnated humans, three as a hybrid with abilities, the rest of millennia as a Primordial (practically a god), there are still things that he didn't know, nor really understood the nature of.
Time and how it flows was one of them.
Aoi chuckled and reminded him that it's best not to try to think too hard about it, lest he drives himself more insane with trying to figure out how the universe really worked.
'We better tell Takuto about this. I wouldn't put it past them if they just quit the soccer club, at least there's no shame in that. But making a shady deal with an opposing team to sabotage a game in that team's favor? I don't know if those two are either desperate? Ignorant? Or maybe just spectacularly stupid." Tenma hissed under his breath. He wasn't one to be usually mad, but that doesn't mean he can't be petty. Oblivious and dense? Okay, but he's not an infant.
"While you were having that... 'lovely' conversation, I messaged him already." Shinsuke, who had just finished typing in his cell phone, piped up. He glanced at his two taller classmates and asked "What do you think Takuto would do?"
Tenma and Aoi pretended to think about it, and after a while, Tenma deadpanned "Probably throw hands."
Aoi sighs and mutters "I'll get the first aid kit in advance, in case your guess is correct about Takuto getting in a fist-"
"-FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!! FIGHT!!" students were chanting from outside the building they were in, apparently discovering he art of volume amplification. The three newcomers looked at each other, and blinked before Aoi screamed "I WILL BRING THE FIRST AID KIT, GODS DAMMIT!!" while slumping in comical exasperation and defeat.
Shinsuke pinches the bridge of his nose and makes his own rendition of the "Ah shit. Here we go again" meme. He mutters "I am too old for this shit."
Aoi wails dramatically. "We all are! We're like what, more that 20 billion years old?"
Mischief gleams in Tenma's eyes, while he rubbed his hands together like a cartoon villain who's plotting his next big, evil and chaotic master plan. Sweet, sweet chaos, here we come~
~0~
Takuto pants, looks directly at Kosaka and Mizumori who were bewildered at his sudden act of animalistic violence, and said "Look, I know that you two were only in the team for your grades, that I'm not against. But for you to make these kinds of deals with Eito?! I didn't think you were THAT shameless!"
Mizumori gets up, dusts himself off, and retaliates with "What's to be ashamed about that? Nothing about soccer nowadays is real anyways."
Kosaka added "He's right y'know. Here you are, acting all high and mighty like a hero, yet you follow Fifth Sector's orders just like the rest of us do! You're not any better!"
The captain cracks his knuckles and neck, and with a weary cackle, snarls "Well it's a good thing that I'm no longer going to follow Fifth Sector starting today!"
He lunges at Kosaka, and lands a punch squarely at his jaw.
Chaos erupted. Everyone hollered and screamed loudly, surprised at the apparent fight. Students gathered around, phones high and recording, all shocked to see that the captain was fist fighting two of his own teammates.
Otonashi ran to the scene with Tenma, Shinsuke and Aoi, and pleaded "Shindou, stop! Get a hold of yourself, please!"
Sangoku was trying to pull Takuto off Kosaka who's being attempted to be pulled away by Mizumori, while yelling "Shindou! Violence isn't the answer, stop this!"
Said brunet was glaring daggers at the goalie, but sighs and says "You're right. It's not the answer..." as he stops scuffling Kosaka. He was quiet for a moment, while Kosaka tried to pull away from under him. He stood up, head in a daze.
The captain's eyes lit up suddenly with manic frenzy, and cackles "IT'S THE QUESTION, AND THE ANSWER RIGHT NOW IS YES!" as he body slams both Kosaka and Mizuori, who just stood up, to the ground again. The rest of Raimon Eleven were watching this violent display with horror and fear of Takuto apparently being at his absolute limit.
Meanwhile, Tenma, Shinsuke, Aoi and Kirino were all thinking one thing; Wow, that's hot, as they watch their captain absolutely body slam the two. "Shouldn't we stop him?" Hayami asks Kurama, who looks at the redhead like he just suggested that they should wrestle a bear, and replies "Do you want to? Be our guest. Just don't cry to us when he mauls you as well." while gesturing to the three, who are still fighting -and Sangoku is absolutely failing to pull Takuto away, because somehow, he has a ridiculous amount of strength.
Hayami balks and mutters "Nevermind." while hiding behind Hamano, who's barely drowning his horror with an amused expression.
The third years -Amagi, Kurumada and Minamisawa- were just watching, eyes wide as he even chased the two down the field, who didn't manage to get far, and threw himself on Mizumori, who was now the one under Takuto's ire. "Who knew Shindou could be this feral?" Kurumada shudders, while Minamisawa and Amagi just nod in agreement.
Back to the three, Mizumori finally pulled himself and Kosaka away from Takuto, and shouts "You seriously think that you can just go against Fifth Sector without them retaliating? You're delusional!"
A soft chuckle that then turned to a cackle, where Takuto then smiles at the two, who are disturbed as he whispers "Delusional?"
Silence stretched for a while before the maestro screamed as he grabs Mizumori by the collar, "OF COURSE I'M DELUSIONAL!" It then quickly turns to a rant of "Do you know how much of my sanity and my general mental wellbeing I have lost ever since I became captain? Do you know how much I've sacrificed? Do you know how much of a toll being the captain of a soccer team is? No! You don't! Not to mention, Fifth Sector is on the loose, we are being dictated to lose against a soccer team who could give less of a shit about the sport and are only in it for the prestige and the grades, I am running on three cups of coffee, a SEED is sent to burn our asses down, and you really thought..." he laughs as he threw his head back, and continues "...YOU REALLY THOUGHT, that I, wouldn't, snap?"
Throwing him onto the ground, Takuto looks at him dead in the eyes and adds "And all you two do is complain, complain, complain and COMPLAIN!"
After a few moments of uncomfortable silence only filled by the captain's ragged breathing, he growls "Go. Go away, away from this team, away from me, and don't, don't you come crawling back here when I say, I told you so, that we're rebelling."
The last part caught the Raimon Eleven off guard, because he just outright declared that they're dismissing Fifth Sector, in the school grounds, where students are still filming the whole spectacle go down. Where a certain SEED will probably be able to see this go down, or hear about it from the gossip that circulates here like wildfire.
One thought was in the rest of the second years and third years, and it was "We are so screwed."
Mizumori let out a scoff of disdain, saying "You're insane! You really think this rebellion of yours would work?!"
Ranmaru was grinning like a menace when they reply with "Well, wouldn't you want to know weather boy."
Tenma joins with "And just for the record, yes. He's insane. But then again...weren't the famous figures in history who fought for equal rights between people also were called insane? "
"Or a similar adjective?" Shinsuke chimed in. "Looks like everyone here has agreed to this huh?" Aoi simply commented, looking innocent, while her eyes glimmered with mischief.
Mizumori and Kosaka were silent, looking at the rest of them team, as if asking them "Are you seriously agreeing with this?" When they were met with silence -not from agreement, but from being stuck in shock, something that the two traitors fortunately didn't notice- Kosaka huffs and mutters "Whatever. This was just a waste of time." as he and Mizumori leaves, leaving Raimon with only eleven members (twelve if you count Kyousuke).
Takuto slumps on the ground, looking at the now clearing sky, and heaves "Well that was exhausting." Kirino chuckles and whacks their childhood friend's head, retorting with "No shit, Sherlock, you just bodied two people at once, that couldn't have been easy."
Aoi runs to them with a first aid kit in hand, asking "You okay senpai?" while bandaging his hands and wiping off the bits of blood that got on his knuckles, which earned a small smile from the captain. Sangoku was busy chewing the captain out for "improper conduct" and "violence", but at the same time was also genuinely concerned with Takuto's wellbeing, because he did have a point; Fifth Sector's regime was taking a toll on every one. Tenma and Shinsuke were discreetly updating a certain SEED on what went down. In the distance, Kyousuke was trying to muffle his laughter, as he had witnessed what went down from the shadows of the tree.
"On one hand, those two deserved it. On the other hand..." he trails off as the sight of Takuto punching the lights out of people who pissed him off was something he didn't know he quite missed. The image of the captain going feral on those two -kudos to the students who were filming the whole thing- sent shivers down his spine.
And apparently, a flush of red on his cheeks.
~0~
Meanwhile, in Italy, Ryouma, who's been added to the group chat, almost chokes on his onigiri after back reading all the messages that the rest of his fellow godlings have sent, as well as multiple clips and videos of Takuto apparently giving Mizumori and Kosaka a round of fisticuffs, brown eyes with rings of ghostly teal circling around his pupils twinkling in amusement. "Yep, that's definitely them!" he cackled, reinvigorated to resume practice with his teammates. He needs to get stronger if he wants to help with the Revolution after all! And this time, he'll make sure he'll come home early.
He'll make sure he'll come home to them.
~0~
Back in Japan, a tan blonde with vitiligo and pink on the tips of her wild, messy hair cackled like a mad scientist as she snacked on strawberry mochis in the kitchen, while perched on the counter, scrolling through Inatter with videos of Takuto throwing hands. It was rapidly gaining a lot of reblogs and likes, as well as comments.
"You sure you want to do this?" Kidou asked, a bit worried for Amaryllis's mental stability. She gave a small but genuine smile and said "I am...Raimon's gonna need all the help they can get after all. Especially if they're going to go against that damned organization."
Blood red eyes gazed back at a pair of rubies with pinpricks of fuchsia and toxic purple by the edges of the irises. The older man sighed, and gently placed a hand on her hair, ruffling it fondly. The girl just sighed and leaned against her father, muttering a 'thank you' when he gave her a bottle of apple juice to accompany her midnight snack.
"No problem. Have I ever told you that I'm glad you found me?" he asked amusingly as he led her to the dining table, where spreadsheets scattered and his laptop was on, with a cup of coffee sitting besides it. She cackled like a vixen and replied "Only a hundred times Papa," glad that he wanted her company, even as he worked.