A Strange Connection

by: Yidkirkin of the Warhammer

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Ohhhhh my gooood. I am SO SORRY! It has been so long since this has updated, and I'm not even giving a very long chapter for anyone following this!

I promise that I will definitely be making more of an effort to update this in the coming months! The last time I did so was right before I started my first year of college, and in the nearly 14 months since then I have done a lot of growing. This chapter was really hard for me due to writers block, but now I am satisfied with it and will continue on with the rest.

Also, RockLobster8994 Thank you very much for the kind message you sent in October, it really helped me get going again with this.

WARNING: SPOILERS ARE DEFINITELY AHEAD.

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Sakuraba's first words upon being greeted at the door by the bandaged form of his boss were, "You look like hell, Shougo-san," and the man only laughed in response to the blunt accuracy. Nearly a week and a half after the fight against the Evil Moth of Death, the gang leader still had to lean heavily on the doorframe in order to stay steady on his feet, and the entire left side of his face was hidden by a swath of bandages and medical tape.

"Fuu... I could say the same to you. Hoping you'll have a scar to match mine?" Rolling his eyes, Sakuraba shouldered the door fully open, helping Shougo to move back inside the small apartment before he made himself pass out.

After the awards ceremony, Shogun had taken one look at his beat up receiver, wound up linebacker and frazzled quarterback and had given the entire team two weeks off from practice, "so you rest," he had stressed. Sakuraba was glad for the recovery period, as beyond giving him time to spend in Toarushi, it also offered the added bonus that he could finally repay Shougo for nursing him back to health by doing the same. So, early this morning Sakuraba had packed a bag, locked his doors and then had set off on the side roads toward Toarushi.

"This is the bathroom, and... here's the room you'll be staying in." Shougo said as he grasped Sakuraba's shoulder, too stubborn to go back to bed while his guest was still unfamiliar with his home, but too out of it to walk on his own for very long. "I hope you're fine with a futon, it's all I've got."

"I'll be fine." Sakuraba answered, leaving Shougo briefly so that he could place his backpack onto the folded up mattress. "Now, back to bed; I don't want you dying on me."

Shougo frowned at the blonde and attempted a glare; an action which lost its effectiveness with one of his eyes hidden by a wad of gauze. "I can stay awake for some time yet. I just woke up." Sakuraba glared right back, folding his arms across his chest and looking far more intimidating than he meant to.

"Shougo-san, you can barely stand up by yourself. I'll swing by the base, grab some groceries maybe, then when I get back we can talk. Kay?" A long stretch of silence followed the blonde's pseudo-suggestion, until Shougo sighed and gestured vaguely, accepting his defeat. Sakuraba immediately and cheerfully helped the other man return to his room and then left the apartment, clambering back onto his moped to head over to the junkyard.

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Shougo right away, because he did, but he wanted his boss to at least be fully rested before then, since it was obvious he wouldn't be back to normal for another week at the earliest. Sakuraba had been present in Toarushi all of three times since he had joined the Armament, and now that he was here he wanted to make his time count for something.

Sakuraba didn't want to feel like a transient in the Front after he had finally decided to be proud of his place in it.

Pulling up to the gates of the base, Sakuraba dismounted his bike so he could jimmy the handle like Akira had shown him in order to open the deadbolt, and then pulled his moped the rest of the way inside. Despite the late month in the year the air was quite warm today, evidenced further by the sight of Todokin walking around in just a t-shirt and jeans.

"Hey there, Goukin-kun!" Sakuraba called, keeping in mind that the younger teen had asked him not to use his nickname when they had met the week before. "How are you doing today?"

"Sakuraba-san!" The scarred youth exclaimed, jogging over as soon as he heard the blonde's voice. "I'm doing better since 'the chin' left. Fucker's been hanging around all morning. How're you?"

"Still a bit stiff from that brawl, but I'm glad you're up and about. Is anyone else around?" Todokin shook his head and looked over to the office building.

"Nah, Fujishiro-san won't be here until his meeting with EMOD's vicehead in the afternoon." Sakuraba hummed, having forgotten that tidbit until now. "I've been the only other one since the- uh... since Renzou left. He's still bitching about being sore from his one-on-one." Todokin scowled fiercely, as if the very thought of his fellow prospect was enough to tick him off, and Sakuraba smiled in amusement.

"Thanks, Goukin-kun. I'll be in town for the next two weeks, so don't hesitate to call me up." Todokin smiled at the receiver and told him he would keep the offer in mind, and waved him out of the gates, leaving Sakuraba to his mission of getting some groceries. Sakuraba really didn't understand why Akira was always so irritated with the prospect if Zenjirou's ramblings were to be believed; he himself got along just fine with the younger man after Todokin's first awkward and halting self-introduction.

Driving along, Sakuraba noted his surroundings and thought that it must be nearing lunch, what with students milling around everywhere, especially in the roadside food stands. A small price to pay for his two week absence from Oujou was going to be the amount of catching up academically he would be forced to do once he returned, because he was positive Takami wouldn't be letting him skive off anymore than he already was. Sakuraba laughed out loud when he remembered Takami's expression from yesterday, causing a pair of teens on the sidewalk to jump in surprise.

After a few more minutes of aimless driving, Sakuraba pulled to the side of the street and fished out the map of Toarushi he had printed out in preparation. According to the mass of blue and red squiggles, the Amefuto player was in the Akushu district, close to a shopping centre if he headed left and a high school if he kept going straight. As he was contemplating his next move, Sakuraba heard a squawk from behind him, accompanied by the halt of footfalls.

"Wh-what's the Armament doing here?" A voice asked slightly hysterically, loud enough that the blonde could clearly hear him but low enough that whoever it was probably thought they were being discreet.

"I could get rid of him." Another offered, deeper than the first and with a tone that made Sakuraba square his shoulders.

"It's fine, Sakota. I know who that is." Eyes widening in surprise, Sakuraba quickly swivelled in his seat and saw Tsukishima Hana standing less than ten feet away from him, flanked by two other teens and grinning very brightly in his direction. The Amefuto player took his helmet and hung it from his handlebars so that he could stand, returning the grin as he stepped toward the trio.

"Hana-san, I didn't expect to see you around here." Hana laughed and the smaller of his two companions visibly relaxed, while the other crossed his arms gruffly. "How have you been?"

"Healthy as ever, thanks for asking! Sakuraba, these are me an' Takumi's dormmates, Sakota Takefumi and Tominaga Toranosuke, but just call him Tora." Tora gave an awkward grin, as if he were still getting used to being introduced in such a fashion. "Sakota, Tora, this is Sakuraba... Haruto?" The receiver confirmed Hana's guess with a nod. "Yeah. He's the guy who told me where Takumi was a few weeks ago, you remember?"

"After that thing with those Scorpion bastards?" Sakota asked, his eyes narrowed at Sakuraba as if he were still thinking about 'getting rid of him'.

"Exactly. Still not up for ramen, Sakuraba?" The blonde grinned good naturedly, inwardly amused; partly because Hana recalled his previous declination and partly at the long suffering sighs that Tora and Sakota let out simultaneously.

"Sorry, Hana-san. You have school right now don't you?" Hana's face grew somber, and Sakuraba wondered if he had said something wrong, so he went on. "Besides, I've got some errands to run for Shougo-san..."

Hana was silent for a minute, and then he grinned at Sakuraba, managing to look relieved and determined at the same time. "You're right, Sakuraba. I'll tell Takumi to bring you over when I'm free next time, so tell Shougo I said hi, kay?" Sakuraba nodded and Hana clapped him forcefully on the back before he set off running, followed closely by Sakota –but Tora stayed where he was, turning to face the Armament officer with an odd expression.

"Thanks. Hana has a big fight in a few hours, so ramen probably wouldn't have helped much." Sakuraba quirked an eyebrow.

"Is the fight very important?" Tora made a face like if Sakuraba had slapped him.

"Important? It's one of the biggest fights of the year! You haven't heard of Hana going up against Hanaki Guriko?" Sakuraba shook his head.

"I may be in the Armament, but I live out of town. I don't know many of Toarushi's key players." Tora shook his head and frowned.

"Then I should probably tell you, Hana's very nearly the leader of Suzuran high school now." That was something that Sakuraba knew the connotations behind, and when Tora bade him goodbye a minute later he was still quietly shocked that the cheerful man who had spoken so informally to him was basically the boss of the biggest delinquent school around.

Bzz!

The sudden vibration from Sakuraba's phone caused him to start, and when he read the text he sighed in an incredibly similar manner to Sakota and Tora.

Tried, couldn't get to sleep. Come back here before I do something reckless to relieve my boredom. Sakuraba really did want to pick up a few things, but he supposed that keeping Shougo out of trouble took precedent this time around.

Driving back to Shougo's apartment was uneventful, but easier for Sakuraba due to the various landmarks he was now beginning to recognize. It was odd, thinking of how easily he was adapting to this town and all his new crazy, delinquent friends. A few months ago, he would have balked and distanced himself from Hana after finding out the man's status, much in the way he used to treat the students of Zokugaku before those several hours spent with Habashira. A few months ago, he wouldn't have even had the inclination to talkto Shougo in the first place, let alone practically order him back to bed with as much familiarity as he had done today. When Sakuraba pulled back up to the front of his friend's home, he only gave the smallest of thoughts as to how he himself had changed since meeting Shougo, before he squared his shoulders in preparation for telling said man off.

Removing his boots and coat, Sakuraba stuck them in the entranceway closet, and only then did he notice the smell of cooked meat lingering in the air. Sakuraba went through the kitchen, his stomach starting to growl on the way, and then he was in the living room where he found what he was looking for.

"So I got a little restless..." Shougo said from his kotatsu, grinning none too apologetically and holding out what looked like a can of beer, obviously expecting the receiver to take it. There was a plate in the middle of the table piled high with Tonkatsu, beside which were two bowls of rice –against his will, Sakuraba felt his irritation start to wane. He really didn't mind, he thought to himself as he took the beer before Shougo could complain about his arm getting tired; he had already known that his boss probably wouldn't follow his advice. Lowering himself down onto the seat opposite his friend, Sakuraba draped the kotatsu blanket over his knees and pulled one of the bowls of rice towards him.

"Do you know who Tsukishima Hana is?" Sakuraba asked, swiping a few pieces of meat with his chopsticks and drawing a wry grin from his host.

"Who doesn't... wait, did you hear about him all the way in Tokyo?" Sakuraba laughed at the unabashed incredulity on Shougo's face and shook his head.

"No, I met him a few weeks ago, and again just now, he said to tell you 'hi'. Apparently he has a big fight today?" Shougo sipped at his beer and nodded, propping his head up with his good arm; Sakuraba chuckled at the wince he gave from bumping a particularly bad bruise on his jaw.

"Against Hanaki Guriko. I don't envy him; my fight with Muneharu will look like a child's spat in comparison." Sakuraba paled; if Shougo's fight with EMOD's leader –the most impressive fight the receiver had ever witnessed off the gridiron –would look paltry next to Hana's fight, then Sakuraba didn't envy the bald man either. "Speaking of, I wanted to ask you if you still think my idea of an alliance with his team is a good one."

Shougo had called Sakuraba up a day or so after the fight, and at the time the blonde may have given off the impression that he was unsure about the proposal, since he was still extremely sore from his one-on-one with Itakura. But in the intervening days he had taken to think it over, Sakuraba had come to a distinct conclusion.

"I think that you were right to make the suggestion. Is that why Fujishiro-san is meeting with... uh-"

"Kuniyoshi."

"Yeah, him." Shougo affirmed, and so Sakuraba continued. "Whatever Maekawa's answer is, I'm sure everything will work out. They seemed like a team made up of good men." Shougo lapsed into a thoughtful trance, and so Sakuraba reached for another piece of meat, content to just sit with his friend for the time being.

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Sakuraba did eventually get to the grocers that day, though it took a few hours and two more beers on Shougo's part for him to get tired enough to concede to actual sleep this time around. On his way back, the receiver made a point of driving past Suzuran high school –maybe he could glean the outcome of the fight since Shougo seemed to be so invested in it –but apparently he got there too early if the students in surgical masks charging admission were any indication. When he returned once again to Shougo's apartment he took a few minutes to redress a few of his worse injuries, take a couple of pain meds and make a light dinner that hopefully wouldn't upset his host's drunken stomach.

That night, after the hollering of distant voices had died down and Shougo had surged into the room with a "Hana lost," spilling from his lips before he'd even regained his balance, Sakuraba made sure to answer the worried texts from his quarterback. While Takami's face had been funny upon finding out Sakuraba was skipping two whole weeks of school, he knew the older teen was just concerned about his health and his grades. So Sakuraba answered his questions while under the 'with my relative, Shougo' guise, and left the conversation at that.

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"Hm..." Takami mumbled to himself, scribbling away on a piece of paper as he read through Sakuraba's texts again, trying to ignore the incessant gum popping coming from his companion. The quarterback was using the two week break Shogun had afforded the team to research some experimental plays from the NFL that they might be able to adapt, but also to follow up on Shogun's request of looking into the 'Shougo' that Sakuraba had claimed as his relation.

Unfortunately for his curiosity, Takami had found it very difficult to find any Shougos in the two wards that Sakuraba had described who might be a match. There were roughly 700,000 people in Edogawa and 850,000 in Setagaya, and upon looking up the records of those who had moved out, there had been about 200 'Shougo's who had left Setagaya in the past two months. Narrowing it down, there had been 152 left after excluding those under the age of fifteen, and 127 after eliminating anyone above forty (due to Sakuraba's comment on 'not knowing when to retreat'). Get rid of the women and that brought it down to 113, and then check who had moved to Edogawa-ku specifically... and there were 14.

But that was where the problems were. Literally none of those fourteen Shougos could be linked to Sakuraba in any way whatsoever –and Takami had made sure to investigate in every way. If he didn't know any better, Takami might have thought that Sakuraba was lying about knowing a Shougo, but the receiver had spoken on the phone with the mystery man in Takami's presence. The more Takami went over the data the more frustrated with it he grew, and after awhile he had decided to do the one thing he never wanted to have to.

"Here, this is everything I have." Takami said reluctantly after he had finished copying down the texts, handing the small file of papers over to the man sitting across from him at the table. "Once the tournament is over, find out who this 'Shougo' is and tell me. Then... I'll owe you."

A grin full of razors was shot at him. "Kekekekeh... sure thing, fucking glasses. You've got a deal."

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The following day was easier on the convalescing amefuto player, though it also happened to be more interesting as a whole. Early in the morning he was awoken by a phone call from Kim and ended up taking a walk with him out by the river just as the sun was coming up. The Korean man was frustrated and tired and needed someone to rant to, and he told Sakuraba that the blonde seemed the least likely out of everyone to throttle him over an early wake up call –Sakuraba didn't know if he should feel honoured or put out about that impression.

"These fuckin guys all over town shouting and dicking around, not letting us upstanding citizens get any goddamn sleep –like, kami, I know Hana-fucking-Tsukishima lost to Guriko, and when he goes back to Suzuran and he's the idiot leader of the idiot school I'll have already known that beforehand too!" Kim did a very good job at half grumbling, half shouting his ire to his sympathetic outside advisor. "I goddamn shoulda woken everyone else up, Shougo fucking texting me at one in the morning and that EMOD sonuvabitch calling me –me! –asking what the hell Takumi was sayin' about there being a world title match going on –world title my fucking left foot, I swear I'll kill 'em!"

"Ah, just turn off your phone, Kim-san. That's what I do whenever Oujou wins a match nowadays." Sakuraba suggested neutrally, trailing along behind the irate man, greatly amused. "They don't get much to gossip about I think, so when something like this comes along..."

Kim huffed loudly, but a few minutes later he was substantially calmer. "Yeah, I guess you've got a point there. Punks are just gossiping housewives at their core after all. Hell, I remember when my bro used to come around I loved listening to his stories..."

"You have a brother?" Sakuraba asked interestedly.

"Yeah, he's about six years older than me –Hyonchol's his name. He manages a couple bars over in Kyoto now, but when I was in 6th grade he was a leader in Hyakki." Kim-san, your poor mother. "Before he left, he'd tell me about all the one-on-ones he witnessed and had himself. How he saw Rindaman fight Bouya Harumichi at Goukoku Shrine, how he knew the Armament's first generation leaders and had taken on Bitou Makio himself once, before he died..."

"...there's a lot I don't know about Toarushi, huh?" Sakuraba mused, distracted by the crunch of the path beneath his feet as it switched from smooth pavement to gravel. "I wanted to tell you before it got too bad –you should really have Goukin-kun and Renzou-kun work their issues out. I know things may be different here, but back home there have been several Amefuto teams that have completely fallen apart because their founding members or their leaders... didn't respect each other."

Kim made a noise in answer to that. "Dipshits. Like hell I'll let them take over as the 8th with how they are now. If I get that line one more time about 'that's just the shape their Armament will take'... Shougo's soft on them 'cause they remind him of how Kiyohiro-san and Kawachi-san were back before they took over as the 6th."

"He told me about that, a little." Sakuraba hedged, not knowing whether Kim was as affected by his former leader's passing as Shougo had been. "Maybe get them to duke it out... before we all retire? It'll save Shinya-kun a lifetime's worth of stress, I'm sure."

Kim stopped short for a split second, but recovered just as quickly, slapping Sakuraba on the shoulder and barking out a laugh. "I'm beginning to like you, Sakuraba! Just make sure the rest of our idiots don't rot your brain!"

They had walked and chatted for a bit longer in an amiable mood, before Kim's phone had blared out and he had lost it, shouting into the receiver at whoever had chosen to call him so early in the morning for 'such a goddamned inane and shitty reason'. Sakuraba had quickly excused himself before he could start laughing at Kim's predicament, and had then gone back to Shougo's house so he could make breakfast for the two of them.

Later, Sakuraba had abandoned Shougo to a few hours of boredom so he could head back over to the base to assist Akira with one of his pet projects –fixing a beat up Kawasaki for his older brother's 'friend'. Akira had been working on it for the better part of six months whenever he had the time off from his job at the local car assembly, and it was nearly done –except for what Sakuraba was there to help with, which was screwing in the new seat that the receiver had picked up for Akira in Tokyo. 'You should get to see it finished since you're bringing it in.' Akira had said over the phone, and he hadn't taken 'no' for an answer –otherwise Sakuraba would've been quite happy to see a photo and stick with Shougo for the morning.

Nevertheless, it proved to be a good time even without the presence of their recuperating leader –Sakuraba gamely refused to drink so early in the day even with Akira heckling him, and he was able to see Nara Asato's (apparently) infamous friend, Ikuri, howl in emotion at the sight of the finished bike. There had been a lot of lazing about and talking, a bit of good natured scuffling between Ikuri and Akira, and even with his still healing injuries from the brawl Sakuraba had barely noticed them for all the good distractions around.

(Halfway through the day he had frozen on the spot and jolted as an ice cold shiver ran down his back. Shougo asked him curiously what the matter was, but Sakuraba had a difficult time putting the feeling into words and in the end simply said, "I think I should enjoy my time off while it lasts.")

Sakuraba had made it a point to laze around for the rest of that afternoon with Shougo, watching a bit of daytime television, helping him with the stretches the doctor had prescribed and changing what bandages he needed changing. In the evening Shougo's ails weighed him down and he fell asleep at the table, wincing all the while as he had managed to conk out with his head resting on his most injured arm; Sakuraba dutifully pulled him to his feel and shuffled him off to his futon. But once that was done and Sakuraba was alone in Shougo's living room, with only himself and the ticking clock for company-

"Ah, hello, Kawachi-san."

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