Disclaimer : NOT MINE.
Note: And the hiatus lasted for 4 fuckin years. Plus, this update was fucking short too! Do people still read this? I was so busy with college I totally forgot about this fandom and this account. My outlines were gone with the broken old computer and I forgot what I plan for this story. Though, I still have the vague idea of the plotline, and of course the main pairing. It is an unconventional pairing after all, borderline a crack pairing. I promise no constant update, but I will at least complete this particular story. It might take years, but it will end. I'll try to be as alive as I possibly could though.
Anyway, I've edited some glaringly noticeable grammatical errors in the earlier chapters. Don't panic if it wasn't the same as you last read it.
Hiruma overslept.
It wasn't a norm for her—the great demonic Hiruma Youichi—to wake up at noon, but here she was, groggily scowling at the display of her phone, the analog digits showed that it was a quarter past two in the afternoon.
Devil Bats were probably eating their lunch at the clubhouse now because soon, afternoon practice would start.
On the other hand, Hiruma would have to fight a literal death grip to get up from her bed.
"Ryuu," she grumbled, nudging the man using her bony elbow, knowing full-well that her brother wasn't asleep at all. "Fuck off."
One crimson eyes cracked open to give her a lazy glance.
"No," he said, and promptly closing his eyes again.
And Hiruma suppressed an irritated growl when his arms tightened around her waist.
"I have practice, idiot."
"Your ankle is swollen, dumb-dumb."
He then completely sealed Hiruma's movements in one swift movement that ended up with Hiruma burrito. Hiruma struggled to free her hands from the blankets, but he was quicker to restrain whatever left of her mobility by hugging her tight and hooked his chin over her shoulder. Hiruma swore and cussed, trying so hard to deliver a painful jab to Ryuuichi's ribs, but to no avail, the layers of blankets between them did not deliver the pain as she intended.
"Go back to sleep, kid."
"I have practice," she growled, sending yet another useless jab to what she thought was his ribs.
Ryuuichi rolled his eyes. "Have you even taken a day off after your last match?" he inquired, his voice dipped into a disapproving knowing tone.
"Kantou tournament is approaching…"
"In another word, you haven't," he deadpanned, the words resembled an exasperated sigh. Tightening his protective hold over the squirming burrito, he decided sternly, using his authority as her older brother; "Take a day off today. An athlete needs rest."
"I hate you," she grumbled, wriggling in the blanket, honestly contemplating to play dirty and hit her brother right at the family jewels. "HATE."
That would probably reduce her chances of seeing any nephews or nieces from this particular brother of hers, but meh, it wasn't like he was even socially active in the first place—let alone to be romantically or sexually involved…
Meh. He won't be missing anything.
"Hit me below the belt and you're grounded for the rest of the week, Youichi," he grunted, probably picking up her intention.
"You're not Kaa-chan," Hiruma grinned and wriggled around—she only needed to turn a little bit more to drive her knee up towards his—
"And I want you to have a day-off today too, You-chan."
Hiruma stopped mid-movement, right when she was about to deliver the blow that would have made her overprotective brother crumpled in pain, only to be shocked when there was an additional weight sank into the mattress right next to her half-turned shoulder, and a pair of slender delicate arms found their way to wrap around her. There was a wisp of sweet scent that resembled spring, a scent that invoked longingness that she often ignored; and all of her intention to go to school and practice promptly dissolved into a contented resignation. She has been missing this scent for years. The scent that reminded her of warmth and love and gentleness. Barely able to suppress a contented purr, Hiruma curled up into the warm slender arms. Ryuuichi finally let her free from his vice-tight grip, thus she took the chance of the new freedom to roll around and face the woman who just joined them.
"Kaa-chan," she murmured, voice softened considerably when the older woman simply buried her face to the crook of her neck, little chiming giggle erupted from the youthful mother.
"Youshiki," Hatsune Arissa hummed, cuddling her only daughter tight to her chest. "It has been a long time," she commented, leaning up to plant a gentle kiss on each of Hiruma's cheeks.
Hiruma lowered her gaze, staring into the neat ruffles of Arissa's dress shirt instead. "It has been 7 years, 4 months, 20 days, 5 hours…," she casted a quick glance to her wall clock, "…43 minutes and 20 seconds since the last I saw you."
The cheery aura that emitted from the older woman suddenly shifted to a darker more solemn one. Arissa's hands were shaking over Hiruma's chest, her glossed lips pursed tight as the woman avoided meeting Hiruma's gaze. Hiruma suppressed a sigh, knowing that it wouldn't be any good to her mother whom she knew has regretted every second she had to remain apart from Hiruma.
But that didn't mean that Hiruma wouldn't be petty about it.
Throughout her whole childhood, she managed to travel across cities to sneak into the family mansion to be with her brothers, but the woman was never there to greet her. Then, after Hiruma was old enough to live on her own, she has hoped that Arissa would rekindle their relationship, but instead, the woman simply vanished seven years ago, cutting off all contact with her youngest child. Hiruma knew that she was alive, and was constantly checking up on her—be it through her brothers or all the muted calls Hiruma had been receiving since she left her old man's home.
People sometimes wondered how Hiruma Youichi vented his pent-up emotions and stress, or simply wondered if he even went through such human emotional hurdles.
It was fairly easy, to be honest. Hiruma just waited for the random muted calls from a particularly untraceable connection and vented everything out—her worries, her dreams, her stress, everything she couldn't tell anyone else would be vented out to that phone call.
And the caller would never hang up until Hiruma bid her good byes.
It wasn't hard to deduce everything once she managed to make her brothers slip and told her what she wanted. Hiruma didn't know the details, because despite her vast network of information, if her brothers wanted to hide something, even her Devil Notebook and her staggering numberof slaves wouldn't be able to dig deep enough to bring the secret out. Thus, she was only able to learn the vaguest version of the story. Apparently her old man had a restraining order set against Arissa, requiring the woman to remain in 5km radius from her only daughter. Then, once Hiruma left home,something work-related required Arissa to go off travelling the world in what Hiruma could only deduce as confusing-random-and-impulsive-whims travel plan.
It was either that, or the sliver of information Hiruma managed to extract from her nephew and neices' talks regarding the location of their paternal grandma was true and Arissa was actually hunting someone throughout the world.
Hiruma didn't want to taint the image of her mother as the ruthless hunter the woman actually was. The demonic quarterback actually preferred to remember her mother as the sweet and slightly childish young mama she grew up with.
"I'm sorry, but—" Arissa started, but she caught herself, visibly biting her tongue.
Hiruma cocked an eyebrow. "Is it related to your work?"
The older woman sighed and gingerly nodded.
Hiruma casted a quick glance to Ryuuichi, hoping to notice any hint or clues that might ease up her curiousity, but her brother betrayed nothing—his posture was relaxed, his face was a perfect poker face, crimson eyes were like a pool of unmoving blood; impossible to read—and Hiruma knew she would get nothing from him. Sensing no point in pushing an impossible misssion, Hiruma quirked a tentative grin.
"Then, I wouldn't ask," she decided, not wanting to risk losing this little chance for a reunion just because of her own stubbornness.
"Oh, Youshiki…," Arissa whimpered, sounding like a meek hurt kitten as she burrowed her face to Hiruma's chest. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my child."
Whatever Arissa has ranted next were drowned with her own choked sobs against Hiruma's collarbone. Hiruma wriggled her arms free from the blanket and gingerly hugged her mother back, not used to such gentle physical contact—it was always everyone else who initiated physical contact with her after all—but she was more than willing to make an exception for her own mother.
Hiruma briefly made out the rare quirk of amusement on Ryuuichi's lips before he stood and excused himself, leaving the his mother and sister alone.
It then took both mother and daughter a complete 5 minutes to realise what he just said when he excused himself earlier.
"Did he say that he is going to cook lunch for us….?" Arissa wondered out loud, her lips pulled to a grimace.
Hiruma felt her stomach twisted. Ryuuichi wasn't a bad cook per se—far from it, he was actually pretty good at it that Hiruma would only compare his cooking to a 5-star chef and nothing of lesser standard. However, his food presentation on the other hand…
Hiruma grimaced and tentatively asked her mother;
"You ever eaten something that resembled a gutted lab test subject?"
==========YAHA!===DEVIL BATS!===YAHA!==========
Mamori greeted the Sunday morning with complete unease.
It has been fun and game, teasing and tormenting Hiruma with girlish activities she knew full well that the quarterback would despise. Getting onto Hiruma's nerves and having the security of not ended up like a Swiss cheese was something that Mamori never thought she would have the chance to enjoy. However, upon the emergency call from the principal last night, the cold voice of the man whom she knew was responsible to the horror that had befallen onto the soccer duos, and the dreadful prospect of having to deal with Muro and Mitaku's papers tomorrow have made her backpaddled and wondered if she has went too far in teasing Hiruma.
She has gained Yusaku's approval for her attempts to make Hiruma a little bit feminine—suitable to the norm of respectable Japanese society—but the man also has hinted at her that he should limit some of her teasing because it might disagree with Hiruma's other more protective brothers.
If they could obliterate Muro's and Mitaku's sanity in just one night, Mamori was worried about what they would do to her should they found that she was crossing the lines.
Mamori started to worry again when she arrived at the practice ground and saw no hints of the blond demon on the field. Hiruma was usually the first to arrive to practice, and although she took advantage of Hiruma's distraction yesterday to start today's practice a bit later than usual, to not hear the gunfires and explosions in the midst of the linemen's enthusiastic 'Funnuraba' has unnerved her greatly.
Did she cross the line yesterday?
She has no time to worry because almost the next second, she heard Sena's horrified shriek and her mind went blank as she whipped out a broom out of nowhere and rushed to the clubhouse. She barely managed to shield Sena using the bristle of her broom when the blade breezed passed the small runningback's ear and stuck to the wall behind him.
"Hiruma!" Mamori yelled, resisting the urge to shrink back when the quarterback tilted his head in her direction as if casually inquiring about her intrusion—the sharp shiny edge of the blade in his hand glinted under the morning sunlight.
Mamori felt her blood ran cold, her palms turned clammy around the wooden handle of her broom.
Knives freaked her out more than guns.
"You're late," he remarked, a small grin was on his face as if that was the most pressing issue. "I brought the tapes of the teams in Kantou tournament. Get inside and start reviewing, woman."
"You almost kill Sena!" Mamori steeled her resolve, not wanting to oblige before she confronted the quarterback despite the nagging feeling that something was terribly off with the blond demon.
'Hiruma' snorted and stood from his perch on Cerberus' kennel, easily towering over both Mamori and Sena. The blade has disappeared from his hand as he hunched over to stare straight into Mamori's eyes. Mamori stared back, defiant as ever…only to notice the the distractingly visible biology feature on the quarterback's throat. That snapped her out of her maternal anger to defend Sena. A week ago, such sight won't deter her at all, but now, she knew that it was physically impossible for Hiruma Youichi—the currently menstruating girl—to have a visible Adam's apple like that. Mamori's eyes immediately widened in realisation.
What did Hiruma said about her brothers….? Mamori racked her brain for that particular memory.
"The last is two years older than me and have weird obsession towards sharp things."
Mamori casted a cautious glance at the blade embedded on the wall behind her before shifting her gaze back to the demon looming over her.
He bared his fangs to her in a knowing grin.
She suddenly felt vulnerable, like she was stepping into a dangerous uncharted territory filled with landmines and death traps.
"Pipsqueak," the man posing as Hiruma addressed Sena—and unlike Hiruma, he didn't shout or yell, but instead his voice carried a cold lulling tone to it, close to a lazy drawl. "Get your ass to the field and start warming up. You're training one-on-one with me today."
"Hiieee! Yes, sir!" Sena shrieked and promptly ran to the field like he had a thousand Cerberus on his heels.
Mamori watched Sena's departure with a hitched breath of relief although she didn't dare to relax her shoulders—no, not when this demon was cornering her to the wall till she could feel the cool metal of the embedded blade beside her ear.
"Let's cut the chase, Anezaki-san," he started, grinning down at her. "You know who I am."
Mamori's grip tightened on her broom handle. "I have a guess," she retorted calmly despite the thundering thrums of her heart. "But I don't know the details."
"Hatsune Shuuichi," he drawled out—he was leaning so close into her personal space that she could feel his warm minty breath on her autumn-frozen cheeks. "I'm replacing Youichi today, since her ankle is still swollen…," his grin grew a bit more manic now, "…no thanks to you."
"It was….," Mamori retreated as much as she was able to when he trapped her against the wall. His arms were caging the side of her head—and she was fighting his intimidating presence as she offered softly; "…an unexpected accident."
"And it won't happen again….," he grinned that manic grin again, finally moving out of his invasive position as he straightened up, a perfect mimicry of his younger sister, "...am I right, Mamo nee-chan?" his voice dropped a few octaves lower, almost like a whispered hiss as his slender long fingers played with the tips of her hair. He brought her hair to his lips, giving a gentle kiss—eyes closed peacefully and all, but the terror and dread did not leave Mamori at all. "It won't happen again, right…?" He opened his eyes, and Mamori was so close to him that she was able to notice the thin ring of red around his left iris. "Whatever you ladies have planned for my little You-chan in the future…," he drawled, his grip on her clump of hair tightened, "….she wouldn't be hurt because of it, right…?"
Mamori vigorously nodded.
He gave her a genuine million-dollar-smile and let her hair free. "Good," he said, patting the top of her head in what that was supposed to be a friendly gesture. He then turned around and headed straight to the field, waving carelessly at her as she stared at his back;
"See ya later, Mamo nee-chan~"
Mamori's shaking legs gave up and she crumpled to a hyperventilating mess the moment he was out of her sight.
Scary. He is scary. Scary…
She held back the terrified tears—feeling an even worse fear than that one time Agon tried to manhandle her—and tried to calm herself. It took some time, that by the time she managed to gather herself, it was when she no longer heard the voices of the linemen. It was deadly silence. There was no sound coming from the field—it was like practice has ended and everyone has left. The silence unnerved her, especially with the notable absence of gunfires and explosions. She didn't know what to expect. A few minutes later, realisation of Shuuichi's words finally hit her and Mamori rushed to the field, frantically looking for her childhood friend.
Her heart felt like it was stopped as she watched Sena being flung across a good few yards away from what that she could conclude as a more powerful version of Spear Tackle. Sena coughed and crumpled in pain on the field while the rest of the team watched in a mix of horror and shock. Mamori's grip tightened around her broom when Hatsune Shuuichi grinned down at the fallen runningback.
"SENA!"
==========YAHA!===DEVIL BATS!===YAHA!==========
It was painful.
His ribs throbbed, a dull pain that he was so used to—although never had he ever felt it during Deimon's practice—racked through his body like waves of pain and soreness. Sena wasn't used to receive this kind of pain while practicing on Deimon's grounds with his trusted teammates. Neither one of the linemen were able to catch up to his speed, and even if he slowed down to their speed, their tackling practice were not this brutal. Mamo-nee was screaming something—probably his name—but Sena could not be sure as her voice was drowned by the race of his own heartbeats. His heart was thundering against his sore ribs, adrenaline pumped through his veins and he found himself to shake in a weird mix of terror and anticipation. The pain and humiliation were nothing new to him, although to receive it on his own ground, by his own captain was not something he had ever expected.
It was a reminisces of Shin-san's tackle—only already been mixed with Hiruma-san's malice and killer intention.
It was painful, yet something within him burned with the needs to win.
"Sena-kun!" He felt Mamori's gentle touch over his back as his pseudo-sister tried to get him back on his feet, but Sena only has his eyes on his captain.
"Untouchable speed does not exist, pipsqueak," Hiruma-san said, grinning down at him.
Something was off with the older boy today—something that Sena noticed right at the start of the practice when instead of bullets, it were blades that blazed harmlessly passed Devil Bats' players. He couldn't pinpoint the differences, because Hiruma-san was physically the same, although the lack of yelling and firearms had him worried in the beginning.
The sudden increase of sharp projectiles aimed towards the players was terrifying too.
And Kurita-senpai seemed so terrified that the gentle giant couldn't even focus on his own practice.
It was very weird and confusing.
Then, his captain approached him—to everyone's shock—for a one-on-one practice and Sena could never be more thrilled and terrified at the prospect of going head-to-head against the man who has shaped him to this lightspeed runningback. Hiruma-san has approached him with a training menu that included passing practices—much to everyone's confusion. The demonic captain offered no explanation of the sudden addition to Sena's training menu, and it baffled everyone even more when the demon promptly ordered Sena to try to break through his defense as the first exercise for this practice.
It was confusing, and the team couldn't help but ask the other two founders of Devil Bats about it, to which Musashi-san tentatively suggested that perhaps it was to increase their offensive power, especially if Sena was able to perform a successful pass while running at full speed. The kicker also suggested that it was a good backup plan if Hiruma was injured mid-game.
Sena felt even more horrified at the kicker's suggestion.
The idea of Hiruma being injured bad enough to not be able to continue playing made Sena's stomach churned and twisted uncomfortably. Hiruma has always seemed so invincible to him—an indestructible figure that the team rely on in a pinch. To imagine such strong pillar to be injured and rendered useless has made a chill ran down Sena's spine. Thus, he complied every order of the quarterback, running without restrains as Hiruma tried to block him.
He broke through the demon's defence easily in the first run—there was nothing surprising there, because there was no chance for Hiruma to be able to touch Sena's Devilbat Ghost.
Thus, when he was flung across the field with pain blooming from his side to the rest of his body during their second run—Sena couldn't even decide if this blond demon was even the same Hiruma-san he knew.
There was something terribly off with the quarterback.
And Sena was half-convinced that he himself was part-suicidal.
Perhaps, Amefuto has made Sena suicidal. Because, despite his throbbing ribs and his shaky legs, he gently pushed Mamo-nee's protective hands away. He staggered towards the discarded ball, but straightened up his back the moment he has the light weight of the ball safely in his arms. He gathered the remaining of his wits, reminding himself that Hiruma-san knew best despite his unconventional methods, and stared back to his captain's eyes.
"Hiruma-san, can we do it one more time?"
Hiruma's grin was dangerously blinding.
==========YAHA!===DEVIL BATS!===YAHA!==========
Hiruma knew that her team was consisted of a bunch of idiots.
But she wasn't expecting for this kind of stupidity.
"So, we have been practicing with not-Hiruma-san, today?" Monta pondered out loud, shifting his wide-eyed gaze from the newly-arrived Hiruma to the freshly-out-of-shower Hiruma. "Mukyaa, confusing MAX!"
"That explains the knives….," Jumonji started, looking half-terrified, half-perplexed.
"And the silence…," Kuroki added, staring up and down to Hiruma's doppelganger.
"And the strength…," Toganou concluded, somehow getting an inkling of wisdom to stay as far away as possible from both Hiruma.
"Fugo!"
"Shuu," Hiruma growled, refraining herself from adding the habitual 'onii-chan' at the end, much to her brother's amusement. "I'm not fucking impressed."
Shuu has the guts to shrug and continued drying his hair as if it was perfectly normal of him to impersonate Hiruma for the whole day and not one person tried to call him out on it.
Hiruma was somehow disappointed with Mamori.
She was expecting her manager to at least call out Shuu on his blatant impersonation and berate the man for it. Hiruma knew well enough that Shuu would introduce himself to Mamori, considering that the whole reason her brother traveled all the way from Kyoto was to address the manager's little blackmailing spree on the one and only Hiruma Youichi. Kurita wouldn't dare to even look back at Shuu's eyes—not after the trauma he suffered in that one disastrous party three years ago—while Musashi simply wasn't Hiruma's friend long enough to know about Shuu.
Thus, it depended on the brave manager to berate Shuu for impersonating Hiruma.
This shaking terrified girl who was half-hiding behind her clipboard was not something that Hiruma expected.
Whatever the hell has Shuu done to her manajerk?
"Not one of you call him out?" Hiruma decided to address the rest of the team, cocking her gun straight at her careless brother. "He didn't even bother to act like me and not one of you call him out on his horrible lies?"
"Well, we are kinda distracted…," Suzuna offered, her gaze landed on the puncture marks on the walls—a result of high-velocity impact of finely crafted knives no doubt—before she squared her shoulders and added; "Shuu-nii is so good with knives~!"
Shuu tipped his head to the side, the corners of his lips quirked to an amused smile as if acknowledging her compliments.
Hiruma resisted the urge to sigh.
"I was away for two fucking days to gather data and you damn brats let an outsider into our practice," she growled, channeling the demonic boy from hell to intimidate her team as she gave them a grace period of five seconds before she showered them with rains of bullets. "I want ten laps, NOW!"
"Hiiiiieeee, YESSIR!" Sena shot up and dashed out in his protective gear without even bothering to wear his jersey.
"We're sorry, MAX!"
Once the terrified juniors have dashed out with the second-years slowly trailing behind them, Hiruma slammed the door shut and turned around to face her brother.
"Really?" she growled, totally not impressed. "You're that bored?"
"I was curious," Shuu shrugged, pulling his shirt down with complete nonchalant attitude. "And you raised a wonderful team."
"Che."
"The brats are good, especially considering that most of them are beginners."
"They better fucking be because we're going to Christmas Bowl," Hiruma huffed, masking her own curiousity.
She has picked up from the little bits of information that her teammates told him that the fucking shrimp and fucking monkey have spent good hours of today's practice to train with Shuu. That alone intrigued Hiruma so much.
Whatever that her brother saw in those two to warrant a personal practice with him?
"Fucking manajerk," Hiruma scowled when Shuu offered nothing more as an explanation and shifted her attention to Mamori. "Review and organize these. Then, get the strategies copied so that the fucking brats could memorize them," she ordered, tossing a set of new strategies and a compiled list of data she and her mother has spent the afternoon to complete.
Unlike her old man and her fucking Aniki, Hatsune Arissa was very supportive of whatever her daughter chose to be involved in.
Even the manly American Football.
God, Hiruma almost forgot how much she loved her mother.
"I'll get it done as soon as possible, Hiruma-kun," Mamori was oddly obedient that Hiruma has to send a questioning glare to her brother.
Shuu merely grinned and shrugged at her.
Fucking nii-chan….
"Get it done by Wednesday," Hiruma said, mentally calculating the average time Mamori often completed her tasks and smirked in satisfaction once her calculation resulted in spare time for the manager to rest or heal herself from whatever trauma Shuu has inflicted on her. "Get your ass home, manajerk. The brats can manage themselves."
Leaving Mamori to stare incredulously at her back, Hiruma turned on her heels and dragged Shuu outside by his collar. Obviously amused, the young man simply smirked as his little sister dragged him all the way to the school's gate where Arissa was already waiting in the car to take Hiruma out for mother-daughter dinner.
Shoving Shuu into the backseat, Hiruma growled at him;
"Whatever the hell have you done to my manager, fucking nii-chan?"