Punsplanation time. Saikyo Romance (最強ロマンス lit. 'Strongest Romance') is a pun on Saikyo University (最京大学 'Great Capital University') which is a pun on 'saikyo' meaning strongest (which was a play on how some of the the monstrous aces of many named teams seem to have gone on to Saikyo University for college). Punception.
Sanzo spots her over the top of his easel his second year of college, a familiar fall of gorgeous blonde hair in a neat braid spilling over her shoulder, and he shifts his seat closer. Basic Figure Drawing is his longest class of his semester, clocking in at three hours long, most of it spent staring at a pile of fruit or skinny naked strangers. She catches his eye, face lighting up in recognition, and waves- they had met formally his third year of high school, at the Christmas Bowl Shinryuuji had only come close to winning.
"Karin-chan," Sanzo says politely as he settles down next to her, both their fingers already blackened from charcoal in the first few minutes of class, "you're in this class?"
"Yes," she chirps, ducking her head in a quick, informal bow, "it's good to see you again! I'm glad there's someone I know..."
Naturally, they talk about football. More specifically, they talk about their old teams, and where everyone is now. She updates him on the Teikoku aces and Agon; he won't stop gushing about Unsui and the Fires. One time after class, she invites him over to her apartment for dinner and they spend the rest of the night plowing through her three shelves of doujinshi.
Karin attends all of Enma and Saikyo's games for her series, and so does Sanzo (after all, Ikkyu's with the Wizards and Unsui leads the underclassmen Fires) so they start going together, nestled in the front row within easy earshot of the bench.
They're more concerned with the goings-on off the field, because Karin knows these players and their styles mid-game from QB research at Teikoku, but she's had less exposure to them in their everyday lives. A manga about a perennial championship team is never as interesting as one about underdogs, and her only off-field experience is with the undisputed emperor of Japanese high school American football.
They start pointing out little things, listening carefully to the way the players address each other and the short interactions between them. For research.
It starts off innocent- a quick, vitriolic exchange between Hiruma and Agon followed by a perfectly-executed play; long, satisfied looks after particularly close calls. Agon drinking from Hiruma's water bottle whenever his own runs dry (he used to drink out of Unsui-kun's all the time, Sanzo would say), Agon clapping Ikkyu wordlessly on the shoulder after a hard catch, Ikkyu trotting halfway across the field with a bottle of water to make sure his oldest teammate stays hydrated (Unsui-kun asked Ikkyu-kun to look after Agon-kun at Saikyo- isn't that cute?), Ikkyu offering his share of honey lemon to Hiruma because he is a sweetheart , which Sanzo makes sure to remind Karin at every opportunity.
When Saikyo's clashed in practice matches against Ohjo and Enma, it quickly becomes apparent that there are a few players with strong, lasting bonds from high school that even being on different college teams couldn't drive a wedge between.
Ikkyu running over to the Fires' bench before every match to greet Unsui, Agon staring across the field, eyes locked on Ohjo's Shin Seijuro or Enma's Kobayakawa Sena, mouth splitting into a crooked, predatory grin whenever they step onto the field, Hiruma and Musashi walking off the gridiron together at the end of every game they play against each other.
The only hand Agon ever shakes after a match is Unsui's; they clasp, then pull each other in for a quick chest bump and Agon walks away while Unsui goes down the Wizards lineup. Ikkyu always throws in a comment, hangs on and has a short conversation, which the older Kongo twin most definitely enjoys, he's always smiling now. Hiruma and Sena grinning hard whenever they're up, Kurita sweeping Hiruma into crushing, ecstatic hugs, Unsui and Hiruma, as the quarterbacks, unfailingly proper and respectful.
(Pre-game Hiruma and post-game Hiruma seem to be two entirely different people; one is a ferociously dedicated trash-talker and the other is the epitome of a good sport, but Sanzo would be lying if he said he didn't like that about him.)
Once, when Hiruma and Agon are headed back to the bench and Hiruma gets there first, he picks up a water bottle and tosses it over his shoulder without even looking; Agon snatches it out of the air with practiced ease and Sanzo hears Karin sigh, a dreamy smile on her face.
That's when Sanzo knows for sure, and he squeezes her wrist, leans over so neither of Saikyo's ace quarterbacks can hear and he says, "Karin-chan, they look really good together, don't you think?"
They start discussing it over e-mail. Sanzo sends a few early drafts of stories he's written in his spare time, and Karin gushes over them in her replies and sends back short comics. It's fun, it's great, but after a while his inbox fills up because he doesn't have the heart to delete any of it and it's disorganized; they're all over the place.
Karin pitches the idea of a website, where they can compile and organize as they gather more material. Sanzo's taking a course in programming and he's pretty good at it; Karin already has a layout in mind and she sketches it out for him. They register a site.
Sanzo writes up two or three more short stories and gets to work on coding Karin's design into reality. There's a part of him that wants to remain anonymous, on the off-chance Agon ever finds the site, so anything that involves him, he moves to a separate, hidden area (you have to click a very specific panel on a very specific page to even access it) and it fills up quickly. Their material goes up in out-of-sequence chunks, but a storyline starts to emerge so they organize the site sequentially.
The main story, which follows real life, goes up as writing interspersed with Karin's gorgeous illustrations; sidestories happen as short pieces of fiction or Karin's sketched fancomics, slowly fleshing out the history of the characters involved.
It's a small, private thing. The only hits are theirs and Sanzo's made sure to keep the site off any search engines (not that anyone would actually be looking for fancomics of college-league football players in their spare time, but just in case.)
Sanzo invites her to lunch to observe the Nagas. It feels a little like betrayal, calling Unsui and Ikkyu out to let his partner in crime observe their habits, but Sanzo's pretty sure Ikkyu appreciates it and Unsui and Karin have a lot of lively Quarterback Conversation.
They run into Agon because Unsui invites them all to the Kongo apartment afterwards, to wait around until dinner and afterwards to talk about football and college life (things Unsui likes to talk about: football and college life). Ikkyu spends an inordinate amount of time there anyway- Unsui tutors him in English (and math and history and science when they have the time though he doesn't need nearly as much help in those subjects), which is coincidentally the reason he agreed to lunch that day. Agon really only raises an eyebrow at Sanzo's presence and he hangs around to talk to Karin, all charming smiles and cheerful brotherly banter.
Ikkyu looks at him like he's grown a new head but Unsui learned a while back to take it in stride. He's ridden the train with Agon dozens of times; it's almost a rarity to get through it without running into a girl his brother's been involved with and the drastic change in Agon every single time caught him off guard initially, but he grew used to (and resigned to) it pretty quickly.
Karin seems to be eating up the good brother routine so Agon hypes it even more: leaning on Unsui's shoulders, rubbing his head, pulling him into rough, affectionate headlocks. She and Sanzo exchange looks whenever Agon looks in another direction ("so this must be what Agon-kun and Unsui-kun get up to on their own"), and Ikkyu frequently has to tug on Unsui's sleeve to bring his attention away from his twin and back to the questions at hand.
Unsui gets a text a few minutes before ten o'clock, which kicks off an exchange that Sanzo and Karin both engrave with meticulous detail in their minds. "Agon," he says after checking and answering the message, "Hiruma says to remind you that you have practice tomorrow morning."
"Aah?! Why the fuck didn't he just tell me himself then?"
"You blocked his number last week," Unsui says matter-of-factly as he reaches over Ikkyu's shoulder and taps a derivative on his math problem, prompting him to start over from that point, "and he says he doesn't want to use one of his spares."
Agon whips his phone out of his pocket, fiddles with it for a few seconds and immediately dials his teammate, practically snarling into the receiver as he ducks into his bedroom.
Jackpot, Sanzo mouths at her.
"Unsui-san," Karin whispers in Sanzo's ear as they leave, "has a really cute smile."
"I know," he answers, clutching her arm and smiling cheerfully. "And Karin-chan, you know, Agon-kun looks great with Hiruma-kun, but... there's a lot of potential with twins, too."
Her face turns red but Karin nods fervently. "It's kind of taboo, but... I was thinking about it during the Fires vs. Wizards game, too."
"And you know, Ikkyu-kun is really cute when he tries to get Unsui-kun's attention like that!"
She thinks back to an incident just before they left, Ikkyu packing his things and checking his watch, face falling slightly at the time. And then Unsui setting a blanket and a pillow onto the couch without needing to be asked. "Do you think it's that kind of relationship? He's staying overnight, isn't he?"
"You know, when we were at Shinryuuji, Agon-kun really only ever acknowledged Ikkyu-kun and Unsui-kun, but it wasn't anything like that."
"Maybe both," Karin offers. "Or Unsui-san and Hosokawa-kun..."
"No way, Agon-kun is definitely the possessive type." There's a long silence where Karin's turning that over in her mind, crafting a tangled prism of relationships, but Sanzo interrupts it with a conspiratorial and gleefully wicked murmur, "But if you ask me, he's the greedy type, too."
The image of both Kongo twins, Ikkyu and Hiruma sandwiched between them, flashes through her mind (she's an artist; the twins' symmetry appeals to her almost as much as their differences do) and Sanzo laughs lightly in her ear, like a devil on her shoulder. "Sanzo-san," she says firmly, already plotting the layout and composition of a two-page spread, "you need to write this."
Hiruma's doing research on former Teikoku aces that aren't on his team when he finds it. He wouldn't have paid much attention to Koizumi Karin because she isn't playing football anymore at her art college, but there's a weird blip on his radar where apparently she's in close contact with Shinryuuji's Sanzo, and Sanzo's still playing. She might be leaking plays from her old school or techniques or she might be helping him, so he's searching his networks for some collaboration and stumbles headfirst into Saikyo Romance.
The wordplay is so obvious it isn't even clever, and Hiruma's trying to withhold judgment until he finishes the first arc, but when Sai-Agon hands Sai-him an umbrella during a wicked thunderstorm on his way to Shinjuku after practice to meet up with the most recent girl(s) of the week, Hiruma has to close the tab before his eyebrows disappear into his hairline.
He laughs so hard he cries, so hard his chest is tight from the lack of air and he's pulling in deep, desperate breaths when he finally manages to gain control of himself again, nearly ten minutes later. The first thing he does is call Koizumi, whose immediate and extreme reaction to his discovery means that thus far, it's a private little thing. He tells her that he's already saved all of it, so there's no point in taking her site down. She makes him promise not to show Agon, because she's heard stories about him, though he's always been sweet to her when they talk (read: when she was collecting reference material.)
He wouldn't anyway- this sort of thing is too hilarious to let Agon ruin. Better than blackmail.
The next day, Hiruma grins through practice (and snaps pictures, which he forwards to Karin), which makes Agon even less cooperative than usual (which is a million times funnier than usual) and he calls up Kurita and Musashi for dinner. He drops hints all night long that they should keep an eye on Koizumi Karin, which only Musashi really gets, but he likes to keep Kurita up to date anyway.
A day later, Hiruma receives a text from Musashi that says only「found it」, then one ten minutes later that says,「sent it to kurita」 and lastly, a few hours after that (presumably once they've started reading),「he says to be careful. i agree.」
Not too long after, when he's in the club room reviewing strategy with Mamori, she glances over his shoulder while he's catching up on Saikyo Romance and taps him on the shoulder. "I didn't know you liked this kind of thing," she mutters, as though seeing a whole new side of him, "Isn't that Agon-kun?"
Hiruma silently sends her the link in an e-mail, which she makes a note to check out when she gets back to a computer.
She texts him later that night with 「oh」.
Unsui's on his morning run when he nearly bowls over Suzuna sometime after the sun's just peeked over the horizon. She's on her rollerblades, phone out, when she turns the corner and his cuts aren't so fast that he can avoid a collision. Unsui catches her by the arm before she lands on her butt, and she nearly drags him down with her anyway but they regain their balance with a bit of shuffling.
Suzuna, imperturbable as ever, dusts her hands off on her bike shorts and snaps off a cheeky salute. "Morning!"
"You should be careful," he chides gently, but at her repentant look, smiles instead. "It's pretty early."
"Yaa, I don't usually come this way, but I felt like it today. You always run around here, Uu-nii?"
A nod. "A few kilos before I have to head to class, usually."
It's not often Suzuna gets Unsui to herself- he's a private person, not to mention busy, and of the Fires, only one of them is really a mystery to her so she chirps, "Let's go get breakfast, Uu-nii. Since we're both here."
"I'm not sure about-"
"It's five km away," she interrupts with a catlike grin.
"You know," Unsui concedes, "that does sound good."
They get breakfast at a bakery that happens to be close to Deimon- Unsui orders coffee and an egg sandwich while Suzuna sticks with some sort of apple pastry and juice. She checks her phone early on, curiously, and then turns her attention back to him once they've settled down at a table. "Where's Agonne?"
"I ran into him on my way out," Unsui answers around his paper coffee cup, corners of his mouth quirked into an exasperated smile, "he's sleeping off a hangover."
"When did you get up, Uu-nii?"
"Around five."
"Does Agonne always get home this late?"
"Sometimes."
Suzuna's phone interrupts her interrogation, and she reads the message before turning her attention back to Unsui. "Sorry, Mamo-nee just told me to check something out. I'm doing it later though."
Unsui drains the last of his coffee and flashes her a small smile. "It's fine. Are you done?"
"Yeah!" She prods the last bit of pastry crust, drapes her arms over the table and lets her chin drop onto her forearms, turning her best pair of puppy-eyes on the quarterback. "But now I'm really tired. Can we take the train to class from here, Uu-nii?"
"Aah, or..."
"Or?"
"I'm heading home first, so you can stay a while and we'll go together, if it's not too weird." He quickly clarifies, "I need a shower, and we have some time before classes start. If you're tired, I can pull you."
"Yaa, that's fine too!"
They're pretty close to the apartment; Suzuna hangs onto his hoodie (she forgot her rope) and talks to his back.
"Hey, Uu-nii, you really like football a lot, right?"
She doesn't get a reply- but Unsui's head ducks a little more than usual on his next step so she assumes that's a yes and he's too busy running to talk.
"But Agonne's more important than football, right?"
Another silent affirmation.
"Do you think Sena's like that too?"
It's almost unnoticeable but Unsui slows down (the rhythm of sidewalk sections reverberating up through her rollerblades has changed) when he says, "I can't speak for him, Suzuna. Besides, Agon's my brother. It's different."
"But what do you think, Uu-nii?"
"I think he loves football, and he cares deeply about you too." Unsui's reply is par for the course when he's faced with a difficult question; tangible and ultimately meaningful, but slippery and formless. "To what extent, you'll have to ask him."
"You're no help at all," she sighs.
"Ah, sorry. I'll try to be more helpful next time."
She regards the back of his head for another long second- and decides that Unsui's never let her down before, and now that Mamori's busier than ever at Saikyo, she could really use another confidante (You-nii's not the only one who can calculate his options in a split second). "I really like him, Uu-nii."
"He'd be happy to hear that."
Suzuna brakes and jerks back on Unsui's hood, choking him with the collar as she practically yells, "But you can't tell him!"
"I won't!" Unsui reaches up, tugging back on his sweatshirt to give himself enough slack to breath, "I just meant that if you chose to tell him... I'm sure he'd be happy to hear it."
Agon walks into their kitchen and he encounters a girl he didn't personally bring back the night before reading something intently on her phone with a glass of orange juice in front of her, so the first thing he does is turn around and kick the bathroom door until Unsui opens it, still sopping wet, a towel clutched around his hip.
"Hey, Unko, you finally did it?" Before he has a chance to respond, Agon grinds his elbow on the top of Unsui's head and pushes it down, smirking. "Aah? I didn't know you fucking had it in you, Unko."
"Agon, what are you even talking about?"
"Morning, Agonne," Suzuna chirps over a cup of tea. "Looking good, Uu-nii!"
Unsui ducks back into the bathroom, shutting the door in Agon's face. He's gotten bolder since they started college, flagrantly ignoring his younger twin sometimes and outright challenging him others (and it's great, Agon loves it when he's not busy being pissed off about it) and this time Agon hears the lock click so he can't even corner Unsui in the shower unless he decides to go through all the effort of picking it.
"Taki Suzuna, right?" Agon doesn't bother with the nice act. One, because this girl has zero T&A even if she's got a cute face. Two, she looks like a little kid. And three, he immediately has the vague impression that on some level, she's the same kind of person he is.
She answers with a sly sort of smile, "Agonne remembered my name? That's great!"
"What'd you do to Unko?"
"I just ran into him on my way to breakfast." Suzuna sets down her phone, after making sure that the screen's been properly dimmed and locked. "Our first classes start at the same time in the same building so we're gonna leave together. Uu-nii's never late."
Agon's eyes narrow behind the tinted lenses of his Juliets but he smirks and then dives into the paper bag on the table instead of continuing the conversation, turning up a cup of black coffee and a cutlet sandwich, which he digs into with relish. On the mornings Unsui doesn't cook, he usually at least comes back with takeout for breakfast- the benefits of twin telepathy.
Suzuna's observing him intently through her bangs (don't think he can't see, trash) but Agon has a hangover, the dull throb radiating from the back of his skull and hammering his temples, so he wordlessly polishes off his food and starts on his coffee as Unsui emerges from the bathroom, fully changed and looking refreshed after his usual run and shower.
"Ready to go?" he asks, picking his backpack up and slinging it over his shoulder.
Suzuna slides her seat back, polishes off her juice, hops to her feet and rinses the empty cup out at the sink. "Yep!" she says as she expertly slips her rollerblades back on and ducks out the door.
"Yo, Unko," Agon calls just before Unsui follows her, "what're we having for dinner?"
Unsui looks over his shoulder, takes a mental inventory of the fridge and shuts the door as he answers, "Leftovers."
Suzuna has followed SR since only a few weeks into its inception. She enjoys it, mostly, but Hiruma and Agon's relationship isn't so interesting to her and she has a hard time watching the de facto captain of the Enma Fires fall short whenever he tries to win Hiruma over (no one who's willing to drag her after him on his morning runs could be this unlucky in love).
It's not that he's not as good as Agon, and he's certainly much nicer, but his relationship with Hiruma almost feels forced; they're more like mutually respectful acquaintances than good friends or potential lovers, without the same sparks as HiruAgon.
She nearly stops reading.
That is, until Suzuna follows her nose and stumbles across a well-hidden section devoted entirely to Unsui and Sanzo (the UnZo, or SanSui section). Unsui, whose overtures in Hiruma's direction are rebuffed or foiled time and time again, finally falls for Sanzo- the one teammate who has always seen his worth, always liked him for himself, always thought of him as someone special. She blazes through the entire section in a matter of hours, then hunts down Unsui's phone during practice to check his text messages (it's not her fault that Uu-nii always leaves it out in the open and never complains when people scroll through it).
Sanzo's number pops up more than any others. Unsui doesn't receive many texts but the ones that he does, he dutifully replies to, most of them updates about the team, some about Agon, many of them also asking after his former teammate's health, his grades, his classes. He's painfully earnest and restrained even in text, which meshes well with San-chan's slightly less grounded nature, in her expert opinion.
Besides, his loyalty in exchange for Sanzo's four years of dedication?
It's great.
Suzuna sends the link to the entire cheerleading team. Sena has to beg her to stop talking about how much of a gentleman Unsui is to Sanzo, and he also learns that she's really not a bad artist at all but why did it have to be fanart of Unsui-san and Sanzo-san cuddling.
She also gets her hands on Sanzo's number, texts him「\(^▽^)/ rooting for sanchan!」and a picture of Unsui's schedule so he can plan their dates more easily.
For Uu-nii's sake, of course. He's so focused on football, it's a little unhealthy. Sena learns over the course of a week that he has exactly zero say in anything Suzuna decides to do.
Unsui doesn't know all the cheerleaders personally, but the football and cheer practices overlap by about half an hour, so he does pick up snippets of conversation. Snippets of conversation involving Agon and Hiruma, something about the two of them getting into fights, which he hasn't heard about, but Agon rarely talks to him about anything involving his school life anyway. Though if he's hearing about Saikyo all the way from Enma, it's probably something he should look into.
He texts Hiruma, which is in many ways safer than asking Agon, but also asking to learn more than he'd ever wanted to.
「everything okay? hearing about problems between you and agon.」
「check your email」
Hiruma forwards the text to Karin, because clearly the Unsui-Hiruma-Agon saga isn't over, and Unsui checks out the link Hiruma sent him. Honestly, he wishes he hadn't, but it involves Agon, so he reads through the whole thing, up until the most recent update. He also finds the UnZo section, which is arguably even crazier than the rest of it purely because he's the protagonist. He's written surprisingly true to character- or would be, if he were the least bit interested in things like relationships with Hiruma and Sanzo.
(He almost can't find fault in the portrayal of his relationship with Agon, except maybe for the panels where he's fantasizing about kissing his twin- they're brothers. He's also fairly sure that Agon would never in a million years be jealous of Hiruma for catching his attention- or was it jealous of him for catching Hiruma's attention? Actually, it was probably both- Sai-Agon is every bit as selfish and ambitious as real Agon.)
The next few messages Hiruma receives are short and stilted, as though Unsui's brain is in the middle of a meltdown but he's holding onto his last shred of sanity to remain polite and collected, or at least to give the impression of it.
「don't show agon」
「ever」
「ok?」
「stop making eyes at me, fucking monk」
Maybe it was a little mean of him to send Unsui direct quotes from the comic- the Fires' quarterback isn't easily flustered, but he's the type to resign himself, then buckle down and plow ahead anyway. Hiruma can respect that, but it also makes the older Kongo twin incredibly easy to mess with.
Hiruma laughs for another hour straight, shoots off a text to alert Suzuna of Unsui's revelation and takes the underclassmen Wizards out for dinner, Agon not included; he'd already made plans with some girl he'd met at the on-campus coffee shop.
Dinner goes by quickly. The team is at a casual Italian place, and Hiruma checks his phone throughout the meal, making a big show of hiding his laughter. Yamato's next to him and he is, by nature, affable so it leads to him looking over Hiruma's arm and exclaiming loudly to the table, "Hey, I recognize that style! It's Karin's, right?"
Ikkyu, who's sitting on Hiruma's other side, whips his head around, eyes wide. "The Alexanders' former quarterback, right, she's oni-cute. I met her a few weeks ago!"
Yamato turned his attention to Ikkyu, wide smile on his face like a proud older brother. "You did? She's great, isn't she?"
"Yeah! We had lunch with Unsui-san and Sanzo-san."
"Dinner? With Kongo Unsui? She doesn't go to school anywhere near Enma." Yamato glances over his shoulder to catch Taka's eye, expression serious, and points at Hiruma's phone. "Hey, Taka, did you hear about this? Do you think this is something we should be concerned about?"
"No," Taka deadpans, though his voice carries a tinge of warning, "and it's not Achilles' business either."
"I don't think she's Sanzo-san's type anyway," Ikkyu supplies helpfully, "but she and Unsui-san sure talked a lot. Agon-san was acting weird all night, too."
"Agon was there? Taka-"
"Nothing that interesting," Hiruma interrupts, and he hands his smartphone over to Ikkyu with the browser open to Saikyo Romance's latest update. "Any of that look familiar?"
"Whoa! That's Agon-san and Unsui-san and us, yeah." The cornerback starts at the top and works his way down, not narrating but commenting to the table throughout. "Agon-san was acting just like that at dinner! Ah, but that didn't happen. Neither did that. Unsui-san definitely wasn't thinking anything like that, either."
"Wait," Juumonji says as he leans across the table just then, hands on either side of Hiruma's plate to get a better look at his phone, "what did Agon do now?"
He gets an eyeful of Unsui putting his hand on Sanzo's shoulder, shojo bubbles erupting from every corner of the panel.
Juumonji cringes, reaches over Ikkyu's arm to scroll up, and raises his eyebrows at an illustration of Agon and Hiruma exchanging a lust-filled stare. "Saikyo Romance? The hell is that?"
"A BL webcomic/novel about the ace quarterbacks of the Saikyo University Wizards and other college league football teams," Akaba pipes up from the other end of the table, his own phone out, reading off the screen, "this work does not depict real situations and is entirely fan-made."
"Well you know," Yamato says matter-of-factly, "she's always liked shojo better, I guess that's one way to take a break from drawing Eyeshield 21..."
"Holy shit," Juumonji says, "oh shit, I have to send this to Toga. Hey, Hosokawa, could you find a page with-"
"Oni-ahead of you," Ikkyu says, flashing one of the earlier pages, where Agon and Hiruma accidentally bump fingers reaching for a bottle of water, and then simultaneously blush.
"Holy shit," Juumonji says again, only taking a moment to sneak a look at Hiruma's amused expression before he snaps a picture with his own phone and sends it.
Diners at the table behind Banba direct a piercing, annoyed look at the rowdy bunch of football players (he can feel their gazes prickling between his shoulder blades), but the lineman just crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head, goes back to his pasta and tries to ignore the rest of his team. Some things are better of remaining Someone Else's Problem.
After a weak showing in Hiruma's freshman year, the Saikyo Wizards blaze through the college tournament to defeat the Babels and become Rice Bowl champs in his second. It wasn't so much a matter of skill- the level of the Wizards was impossibly high even without a crop of talented freshmen, but their inability to work together as a team had brought them down against Kid's quick-draw. It was less of an issue against weaker teams.
They had solved that problem by sophomore year. Even the members who had clashed at first or hated each other- well, they still clash and hate each other (read: Agon still clashes with and hates everyone), but at least in-game, they function like a well-oiled machine.
In practice matches against Enma, too, everyone works in perfect tandem to keep Agon far away from Mizumachi, who for some reason really likes SaiRo. Hiruma's fairly certain that most of the reason the Wizards managed to become a cohesive unit is thanks to the other lineman's complete and utter inability to keep a secret.
The Fires keep Mizumachi busy on their bench when they're not in play, and when he starts to wander over to speak to the Wizards, call him back to ask for help or for a snack or a drink of water. When that doesn't work, the Wizards take turns shuttling Mizumachi away from Agon, working off shared looks and private signals. When the situation becomes dire, Hiruma taunts Agon to hold his attention in one place.
Over the course of one year, the Saikyo Wizards transform from a talented but mismatched and discordant team into one that can safely boast of a reputation for flawless cooperation.
