Number Six: Cessa Crudel, Tanto Rigor

Two months later

"DAMN PIPSQUEAK! YOU CAN RUN FASTER THAN THAT!"

Mamori sighed. You could hear Hiruma from halfway across campus, in the renovated football club room/casino. Mamori swept up some dust from under the change counter when a small bell rang.

Mamori looked up. "Oh, Monta, you're back with the –" Mamori gasped. "I thought you told Umi-chan and me you'd never come back here… Kiyoko."

Kiyoko looked just as calm as ever as she readjusted her blue headband. Her blue eyes glittered in the early morning sun. Her hair was a bit longer, but otherwise she looked the same as she had two months before.

"Well, I've needed to talk to you alone, but you're always surrounded by people," Kiyoko confessed. "I wanted to ask you a few things, actually…"

Kiyoko sat at a chair by one of the slot machines. "I see you here all the time… you're a manager, right? So girls can join up, right?"

Mamori stopped sweeping up dust. She put the broom in the corner and sat down next to Kiyoko. "Why do you ask?"

"I really want to be here," Kiyoko smiled. "I loved being here with all you guys… so I want to just help out somehow… but that brings me to my other question… sort of…"

Kiyoko turned a bright red before trying to regain her tranquility. She began to wring her hands together nervously.

"You can keep a secret, right, Mamori?" Kiyoko asked. Mamori nodded emphatically.

"Do you like someone!" Mamori asked giddily. (Yes, that is a word.) Kiyoko jumped about five feet out of her chair.

"Uh… yeah…" Kiyoko stammered. Mamori snapped her fingers.

"You like Kurita, don't you?" Mamori guessed. "You two would be so cute together!"

Kiyoko sweat-dropped. "Not really… you have to promise that you won't breathe a word of this to Umi-chan – or anyone else, actually…"

"Why?" Mamori inquired. "Isn't Umi-chan your best friend?"

"She's also the most talkative person in second year," Kiyoko pointed out. "She'd tell everyone."

Mamori nodded. "I suppose… Is it one of the new players? Like Monta? Or one of those Ha Brothers?"

Kiyoko nodded her head. "No… it's…"

Hiruma slammed the door open. He glanced around. "Where the hell is our spare football… what are YOU doing here, Kiyoko?"

"I was looking for Sena," Kiyoko answered coolly, putting a hand on her hip. "I wanted to help out with management. I think he might be… how do I put it… overworked. But I don't know why. I mean, managers should get used to rapid machine gun fire, right?"

Hiruma frowned. "I have no idea where he is. He left after Eyeshield showed up. I think that Eyeshield might have beaten him up at one point. I dunno."

Mamori became mad and gritted her teeth secretively.

"If it's THAT important to you, I'll go find him," Hiruma sighed. "Actually, I just sent him to go buy a football."

Hiruma left, smashing the door closed behind him.

"Can't he just close the door like a normal human being?" Mamori wondered. "Okay, so what were you saying, Kiyoko?"

Kiyoko's eye was twitching slightly. "Well… you see… I'm in love with someone I shouldn't like…"

"Don't tell me you like Uten from Tea Ceremony!" Mamori frowned. "He's such a pervert-!"

"I'm in love with Yoichi."

Mamori nodded. "Oh, Hiruma. I guess that's – WHAT?"

Kiyoko looked at her Mary Janes and gulped. "Yeah… I don't know why…" Kiyoko gave Mamori a weak smile. "Last year, I got suspended from my middle school. It's a long story, but I was sitting on the fence by the high school, and I saw him practicing. I don't know… but something… something clicked… and…"

Kiyoko was a deep shade of crimson. "I know that you like Sena, Mamori… you're so protective of him… but… I… well, you see why I don't tell Umi-chan, right?"

"Did you get suspended because you used a flamethrower?" Mamori asked randomly. (Even though Kiyoko's conversation had become extremely random, it was still a weird question.) Kiyoko fell out of her chair.

"How do you know that?" Kiyoko asked frantically.

"I remember reading something about it at the time," Mamori lied. She allowed her mind to process what she had just learned.

"But why do you like HIM…?" Mamori asked, still in slight shock. "You don't seem at all like that kind of person…" Kiyoko swallowed apprehensively. She redid her ribbon again.

"I… I can't even begin to understand why," Kiyoko told Mamori truthfully. "And… actually… I think it's because of football that I love him. When I was watching him… he's a great player… I got kind of wrapped up in it… I had been sitting on that fence for an hour without even realizing it. And then I fell off of the fence in shock, skidded my knee, and dropped half of my purchases from Son-Son…" Kiyoko shook her head, as if she wanted to rid herself of the memory. "Maybe that or just the sheer amount of drive he has. I don't know."

"Drive?" Mamori repeated, smiling uneasily.

"Determination, guts, that kind of thing," Kiyoko explained. "What did you think I meant, sex drive or something –!"

Hiruma slammed the door open again. "You're still here?"

Kiyoko frowned, and stopped messing with the edge of her skirt. "I'm still waiting to talk to Sena."

Hiruma kicked Sena inside the room before turning on his heel and slamming the door closed behind him.

"What is with him and slamming the door?" Kiyoko asked herself. Sena shrugged. The two of them began to discuss Kiyoko's proposal, and Mamori stared blankly at a wall.

Kiyoko didn't seem like the type of person to fall for Hiruma at all. She was calm, graceful, and (accidentally) unfeeling. Mamori, in knowing Kiyoko, had only seen her mad twice, and the circumstances behind her anger at those two times were not at all normal. Kiyoko had lived a fairly ordinary life and had enjoyed every minute of it… Hiruma was brash, blunt, intentionally unfeeling, deviant, and a vicious all-or-nothing extortionist extraordinaire. His life was a mystery, and Mamori could think of maybe one time she hadn't seen him angry. And it was hard to discern emotion with Hiruma anyway…

…No connection. Mamori sighed.

"I hope she knows what she's doing," Mamori whispered.

A/N: You probably thought that the story was over last chapter. NO! It's still going. Like I said in an earlier chapter, it's eight chapters long.

A/N 2: To my observant readers, I would like to say that yes, the titles of every chapter – and the title of the story as well – are pieces of songs. I like to play games with my readers, so to those who guess what songs I used, I will… er… it's very hard to award prizes online… I'll think of something!

My friend once gave away 'Tic-Tacs'. Maybe I should give away Pop Tarts.

YES! IF YOU GUESS, I WILL GIVE YOU A 'POP-TART'!

DISCLAIMER: Ah, you know the drill, I don't own Eyeshield 21, but Kiyoko is my character, in case you haven't figured it out, dullard…