Everyone had gone their separate ways after the Christmas Bowl. She'd gotten into a prestigious college, and that had been that. She hadn't seen any of the members of the Devil Bats in over a year, not since that enormous victory bash Hiruma had thrown with the principal's money. Even Sena, whom she only saw when she went home on breaks. The Devil Bats became a thing of the past; a treasured memory, but nothing more than that. Things were quieter, more sedate, without needing to look after a rowdy group of American football players, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She did miss them, though.

She thought that, anyway, until she entered her dorm room one day several weeks into the new semester of her second year in college, and found Hiruma Yoichi sitting on her bed sorting through reams of paper.

"Oh, wow, Mamo-kaasan," her sometimes-annoyingly vapid roommate Sakura cooed. "Is this your boyfriend? Who knew you were into bad boys?"

Mamori shouted reflexively, "NO! Why do people keep asking me that?! Look, Sakura, just.. give us a minute, okay?" She shoved the giggling girl outside and shut the door. The story of Mamori's illicit tryst would no doubt be all over the dorm within the hour, if she knew Sakura at all, but she'd still rather deal with that than have a witness to whatever Hiruma had planned.

The Devil - better known to some as just Hiruma - just said, "Come on, fuckin' manager, help me get these playbooks sorted."

"What - how - why -" Mamori was rendered speechless as all the questions she wanted to ask collided on the way from her brain to her mouth. This was not something that happened to her very often. Hiruma just stared at her like he had no idea what her problem was, and why wasn't she doing her share of the work?

"How did you even get in here?" she finally decided to ask first.

The blond devil flipped open his little black book of blackmail and began paging through it for the answer. She held up a hand to stop him. "Stupid question," she grumbled. No doubt he'd caught the superintendant on tape in an illicit affair, or something equally sordid. Surrendering to the inevitable, she picked up the stack of papers he'd been holding out to her and paged through them. Many chronicled different plays, but there were also training schedules, forms to book a field, gear requisition forms, and more. She noticed the uniforms had the stylized bat she'd come to recognize from Deimon's uniform.

"What's all this?" she finally asked, though she was getting a pretty good idea. Mamori was smart like that. In lieu of answering, Hiruma asked her, "Did you know what piece of shit teams this university has, fuckin' manager? I could play better with both legs and one arm missing. The contents of a hospital ward could probably field a better team. It'll take a lot of work to whip them into shape."

She supposed that did answer her question. "What's with the Devilbat, though? I thought our football team was the Juuban Wildcats."

Hiruma grinned his devil grin. "Not anymore."

- - -

The next day, when she got off from classes, she arrived to find not just Hiruma, but Kurita and Musashi occupying their room. Hiruma was typing away furiously at a laptop, and Kurita and Musashi were working their way through a mountain of food, probably brought by Kurita. She got a respectful nod from Musashi, and thankfully the massive lineman was too absorbed in the meal to give her one of the crushing bear hugs he tended to dole out on reunions, or goodbyes, or... well, any time he got emotional, which was pretty often. Hiruma barely even noticed her presence. Sakura was there as well, fluttering her lashes at the former-Deimon kicker. Musashi, it seemed, was ignoring her through sheer force of will.

The only thing that saved them from her wrath at this invasion was that they had brought enough creampuffs to share.

- - -

The next day saw the occupants of her dorm room increased yet again. She was now playing host to at least eight boys in her room. What her mom might say to her now, nevermind Sakura. "Not that I'm not happy to see you guys again, but what is everyone doing in my room?"

Her dormmate, who was now happily ogling Juumonji, nominal leader of the 'Huh Huh Bros.' linemen, answered for them. "Your room has been conscripted into the command center for the new Juuban Devilbats," she repeated dutifully, having obviously been coached by the devil himself.

And next to her... "Sena!" Mamori said, pleasure infusing her voice. She usually made time for him when she went home on breaks, but she still hadn't seen the boy she'd practically adopted as her little brother nearly as often as she'd like. He was an inch or two taller than he had been, but then, so was she; he was still a shrimp. Sena grinned and impulsively wrapped his arms around her in as strong a bear hug as he was capable of producing. "Hi, Mamo-nee," he murmured to her. Say what you wanted about Hiruma - and she could practically soliloquize on the subject, at great length, and none of it good - the change in him that becoming part of the football team had worked miracles on Sena. Gone was the nervous, unprepossessing kid that had provoked her mothering instincts so much, and in its place was a confident and self-assured young football ace. For that, Mamori was prepared to cut Hiruma and his cronies a lot of slack.

"Isn't it awesome, Mamori-san?!" Raimon Tarou the catching fiend - also called Monta the monkey - crowed. "The new Devilbats are ready to go! We've got the new jerseys and everything! Awesome MAX!"

"What are you guys all doing here, anyway? Sena, didn't you have a football scholarship to that university, what was it called...?"

Sena shrugged. "It wasn't what I was looking for. They were good guys... but they weren't the Devilbats. So when Hiruma called..."

Hiruma got a death-glare with enough potency to burn a hole in his head for that. It would have made her feel better if he didn't look like he was enjoying every minute of it, his pointy teeth bared in a supremely self-satisfied grin.

"We transferred in!" Monta was still hopping around, apparently ecstatic about the whole thing.

- - -

Within the next few days, her room became even more crowded, packed to the rafters with the influx of seemingly every single former-Deimon football player, from Yukimitsu - who she had thought was attending Tokyo University - to Kumosubi to even the easily-forgotten Ishimaru, with Suzuna and several of her cheerleaders close behind, all talking at once, catching up on news.

The breaking point was finding her dresser and desk out in the hallway. They had evidently been getting in the way.

"Okay, look," she finally snapped, fed up, "it's very nice to see you all again, but you people need to find a new place to hang out. My room isn't large enough to fit twenty people in it!"

"Already done, fuckin' manager," Hiruma crowed, one step ahead of her, which happened distressingly often. He handed her a slip. It took her a few moments to work her way through the legalese, but the jist of it was that the remodeling done on the old American football team's building was done, and they could move into their new headquarters as of now.

Mamori finally bowed to the inevitable.

"I'll get my broom," was all she said.