And this brings us to the end of the Hakushuu game! AriaStar16, you're welcome, and here's an update! lollipoploves, it brings me so much joy to hear that my writing helps and inspires others to write. You rock too! Guest, here's more. xDarklightx, here's to you continuing to like it. twilightserius, if you're talking about Sena, I think his mom already knows he's a football star :P
He could hear them out there. His mind was hazy with pain, making it hard to understand the announcer's yelling, especially whenever Anezaki was trying to say something to him.
Sena took over as quarterback. There was never any doubt about that.
The blond hated being benched like this. His place was out there, with his team, with Sena. Anezaki told him that Hakushuu scored.
Sena may struggle a little in the beginning, but he'd get it together.
Hiruma had dozed off for a little bit and woke up a shortly after half time. His head was much clearer now. Clear enough that he could see the worry on the fucking manager's face as she stared at the door leading back to the field.
Sena was the quarterback… against Gaoh and Maruko.
Oh yeah, he was getting up now.
Anezaki was not happy with decision, and told him so. Hiruma understood that she was only looking out for him, but that wasn't going to stop him from going. So he called on the bet they made all that time ago, and asked her the one question he knew she answer incorrectly to ensure her obedience. It didn't make her any happier, but she honored her promise and taped his arm up tight enough that it wouldn't completely fall apart.
With that done, he grabbed the ketchup out of the fucking fat ass' bag and decorated himself for a proper Hiruma Yoichi entrance.
The team was a mix of ecstatic and horrified to see him back on the field, and he took great pains to ensure that nobody saw anything to indicate that he wasn't 100% fine.
Musashi saw right through him.
Sena did as well after a moment.
Well, none of that mattered because there was only a 21-point difference (ha! Irony) and everybody was still okay. After all, if Gaoh had broken any other players, the Christmas Bowl dream does up in flames.
(Hiruma tried to ignore the part of his mind that kept flashing back to his nightmares that featured Gaoh standing over broken, red-jerseyed bodies.)
Everything was fine though because, as Juumonji pointed out while Hiruma was off taking a nap, Deimon was busting its collective ass to hold itself together. For the most part they were succeeding. Now it was time for Hiruma's big comeback play. Time for the funny quiz fucking eyelashes! What will Hiruma do during the next play?
The answer? Absolutely nothing.
Hiruma had returned to pull Deimon out of a pinch, therefore Deimon was going to completely ignore Hiruma and continue using Sena. Since Maruko was busy watching the blond, he was in no position to stop the kid, and as such Sena scored a touchdown. The gap shrunk to fifteen points. Musashi shrunk it to fourteen, but only after Hiruma handed the job of setting the ball a kick off to Sena.
After that, Hiruma did everything he could to keep Maruko guessing as to the state of his arms. He took part in defense, he blitzed, he kept his insane grin permanently plastered to his face. His arm sent bolts of agony all throughout the rest of his body, but he refused to let up, to slow down. He had to make sure Maruko didn't realize how much of a weak point he really was.
Maruko (the conniving little slime ball) called his bluff with Hakushuu's punt kick.
The ball flew pretty much right into Hiruma's arms, but there was no way he could catch it. The fucking monkey covered for him, but the cat was out of the bag. There was only one thing he could do now: throw a long pass.
He had maybe one pass left in him before his arm died completely, and it was the only way to keep Hakushuu from allocating all of their defense to block Sena's runs. First, he had to rile the crowd up a bit.
The look on the fucking manager's face when he sent her the signs, fucking priceless!
Anezaki whispered to Suzuna (same fucking face!) and the little cheerleader turned to the audience and screamed "Long Pass!"
The crowd picked it up almost immediately, because if there was one thing Deimon fans knew it was that when something becomes impossible to do is when Deimon does it. The majority of Hakushuu were ready to call this as another bluff. After all, there was no way somebody could throw a long pass with a broken arm, right?
Gaoh said wrong.
It was aggravating, but Gaoh knew Hiruma Yoichi was the kind of monster who could, who would throw a long pass with a busted arm. Since Gaoh said it, Kisaragi believed it and moved to continue marking Monta. Monta said bring it.
Taking the snap by itself nearly brought Hiruma to his knees. As it stood, the injury threw him off just enough to deviate the ball's intended path. Monta didn't care and moved to catch it anyway.
The blond was dimly aware that the monkey caught the ball, shook off Kisaragi, and achieved a first down, but he was more than a little preoccupied with keeping the grin on his face as his right arm finally went kaput and the pain threatened to drag him under. He was brought back to himself when Sena, lining up for the next play, gently and subtly squeezed the finger of the blond's left hand. Hiruma was grateful for the comfort, but more so for the kid taking the ball and scoring a touchdown.
With Musashi's bonus kick, Deimon was only one touchdown behind.
Kisaragi got a little hysterical. Maruko seemed a little desperate.
Knowing Maruko's philosophy about strength being absolute, Hiruma figured that the Hakushuu quarterback would take their offense as an opportunity to run Hiruma over and make sure he wouldn't come back this time. That was fine; there was nothing wrong with that kind of simple strategy.
Except that in can be used against you as much as for you. Kekeke!
Sure enough, Maruko came racing toward Hiruma, ball in his arms, crazed look in his eyes. Hiruma welcomed him. From behind the fucking fat ass!
The blond could see the realization dawn in Maruko's eyes when it hit him that this was a taste of his own medicine. This is what you made all your opponents deal with.
There was a moment when it seemed like Maruko wouldn't be getting back up and Himuro yelled for another stretcher to be brought out, but Gaoh told her to put it away. Maruko was stronger than that and she knew it. And he seemed to be, for a moment. He stood up. And when he wavered, well, Hiruma was standing right there for him to lean against. The blond was abruptly reminded of when he found Habashira after the Zokuto vs Kyoshin game. Except Maruko wasn't asking how are we different.
He was saying please tell me we are the same.
In the same situation, roles reversed, would Hiruma do everything Maruko had done? Would Hiruma sacrifice his morality, his reputation, other players, for the ultimate victory?
Of fucking course he would.
The two quarterbacks shuffled off to their respective benches. There was five minutes left in the game, the two teams were tied (in the all the hubbub around Maruko, no one had noticed Sena grab the ball and score until Musashi needed to kick), and the real battle started now.
Hakushuu started it by getting a first down. They had returned to their original, highly effective strategy the North-South game. If Kurita had his hands full with Gaoh, then he wasn't smacking Maruko into the dirt. That could be fixed, and in the next play it was.
Unfortunately, when Kurita went to blitz Maruko in the play after that, Gaoh all but said excuse me, I'm over here and reached out to flatten the fat ass completely. Hakushuu scored a touchdown. With their bonus kick, the score was 42-35 for Hakushuu and there were only two minutes left. It was Deimon's turn for offense and they had a problem.
Hiruma couldn't throw any more passes due to his arm, but Sena wasn't capable enough a control tower to properly combat Maruko. Which option was the lesser of two evils?
Hiruma's injury or Sena's inexperience?
Somebody asked Kurita what he thought and he said it didn't matter because he'd protect both quarterbacks. Both quarterbacks...?
Well, if they could copy Seibu's Shotgun, why the fuck not this?
Hiruma could practically hear the snarl that would be in Agon's throat if he were watching. Deimon was going to use the Dragon Fly. Traditionally, the Dragon Fly was used between two players that each other exceptionally well (like twins, for example). In fact, many would argue that Musashi might have been a better choice to match Hiruma in a Dragon Fly.
Musashi would have laughed at them and said that not only were Hiruma and Sena anything but traditional, they knew each other better than anybody ever did (and maybe ever will).
And so the play began. Hiruma couldn't take the snap without aggravating his injury, so of course Hiruma took the snap and back passed it to Sena (left arm's good for something) when Hakushuu began to swarm him. Sena grabbed the ball and ran a short ways to lure out some of the blockers. One of those blockers happened to Kisaragi, leaving Monta open to catch Sena's pass. The next play had Hiruma faking a handoff to Sena who ran down the right side, leaving the left unguarded for Hiruma to earn a first down.
The next play was when Hiruma realized something. He hadn't seen Demon at all this whole game.
Sena was running with the ball like normal, Gaoh managed to get around Kurita to attack from the right and Maruko came up to steal the ball from the left. The blond knew that Demon would turn right to face Gaoh where Sena might just hit the dirt where he was. Seeing the chibi's feet shift toward Gaoh, Hiruma waited to see his shoulders realign to become Demon's shoulders.
They weren't realigning.
Sena took a brutal tackle that actually knocked him several feet to the side even as he still held the ball, but it was still Sena. Hiruma got a little hung up on this revelation and half tuned out the ensuing conversation about the 'real' Eyeshield 21 (still kinda hurts to think about him now that he's sort of gone). For a heart-stopping moment the blond wondered if Sena and Demon had phased together in the middle of the match and he'd missed it, or worse, it had happened when Hiruma had been taken out of the game and he didn't get to say goodbye-
The injured player took a breath to calm himself. If Sena absorbed the other side of his personality, he'd have been acting differently to accommodate the emotions he now had access to. Hiruma wouldn't have missed that, so clearly they were still separate.
He pulled himself together just in time to hear Sena ask to try something to defeat Maruko.
There were 18 seconds left on the clock and it was Deimon's offense. After hearing the kid's idea, the blond said absolutely and tossed the Dragon Fly out the window. This was going to be a power match in more ways than one. Sena took the ball from Hiruma's handoff, ran up the left, swerved to run up the right, and-
Oh, there's Demon.
It was Sena's idea to plow right through Maruko in a battle of strength, but it was Demon who did the plowing. He knocked the fucking eyelashes over and the used his body to propel himself forward just enough to put the ball in the end zone.
Time had run out, so the last play would be Deimon's try-for-point, win or lose. Like with Shinryuuji, Deimon was only one point behind so a kick would send them into overtime while a two point conversion would win it for them. Unlike Shinryuuji, there's no way overtime was even half an option, what with Hiruma's arm.
Kurita wanted to battle Gaoh one last time, on a truly even field, so Juumonji volunteered to take the snap (how far we've come from the threats over Sena's well-being on the Death March). The play was set up, Hiruma took the snap, went to hand it off- wait a minute.
Even if the blond hadn't noticed the slightly incorrect placement of the kid's arms that would have resulted in disaster, the tears in his eyes would have alerted the quarterback.
Of course. Between the tackle from Gaoh and colliding with Maruko, poor kid's arms are probably completely numb.
Hiruma pulled the ball away just in time for Demon's arms to tighten around himself and rush forward to use the Devil Bat Dive as a feint. Hiruma himself ran with the ball straight to where the fucking fat ass and Gaoh were duking it out.
For a single, miserable, heartbeat Gaoh had the upper hand.
Then Kurita took it back and knocked Gaoh clean into the dirt.
Hiruma jumped through and landed in the end zone. The ref's hands went up and Deimon got the two point conversion and they won and they were going to the Christmas Bowl.
They were also the champions of the Kantou tournament.
A great cheer had gone up from the audience and fair number of Devil Bats had started to cry as teams lined up for the closing ceremonies. After giving the Kantou Cup to Deimon, there were the individual awards to be given away, such as Most Valuable Lineman which Kurita and Gaoh tied for, and Most Valuable Back which Monta took home.
And the Kantou MVP award that was earned by Sena. Sena, who promptly dropped the trophy because he still can't feel his arms.
Well, he did a good job today, so the blond gave him a little verbal prompt to help recover himself. Of course, Demon popped out midway and took it to another level, becoming the first MVP ever to declare that his team will defeat Teikoku Gakuen.
You said it, now you have to do it!
And with everything said and done, Hiruma had a party to organize for Deimon, family and friends.
But first he had to find Demon and figure out where he'd been the whole damn game.