Yamabushi Gondayu takes Kurita under his wing immediately. Ikkyu starts because there really isn't a cornerback who can exceed his level of skill- he's been playing since middle school, but never aginst Maoh so Hiruma doesn't have his stats. Unsui and Agon, who grew up in Kanagawa, have known him since their second year of middle school; Unsui when he'd gone to scout other teams and Agon when Unsui couldn't stop talking about him. ("He's our age, Agon.")
Agon's read the rule book, to Unsui's knowledge, exactly zero times, but he knows enough from osmosis and the many, many college-level games Unsui watched on TV. At the few practices he attends, he and Unsui sync so perfectly on the rehearsal runs of the Dragon Fly that coach has him run it with Hiruma. Agon and Hiruma don't have the same rhythm and near-telepathy of a sibling Dragon Fly, but they're on the same demonic wavelength.
Sendoda puts Unsui and Hiruma on the second-string team during scrimmages to polish their quarterback combo- which means they're facing down both Yamabushi and Kurita, with Ikkyu gunning to intercept the ball as it moves between them.
The first few runs go well: Hiruma's quickness and sleight of hand meshing well with Unsui's wide, careful field of vision, two cerebral players complementing each other's styles. They beat the first string team most of the time (the first string has great players but strategists they are not), and playing alongside the starters, trash the second-string every time. Against each other, Hiruma wins if he has Kurita on his team; Unsui with Ikkyu. Their play styles are drastically different only on the surface, so the Nagas are predictably the most versatile team in Kantou.
In terms of win percentage, Unsui and Hiruma are neck and neck (and they're both keeping score.)
A practice game against the Poseidons starts off with an early Shinryuuji lead, but Unsui still spends the first quarter grumbling about Agon and how he'd ignored all his calls and texts. Hiruma grins and tells him to check the number on his phone, then flashes a message list full of Agon the game is about to starts, AGON GET HERE NOWs and WHERE ARE YOUs on one of his spares.
"When did you even get your hands on my phone?" Unsui asks as a headache starts at the base of his skull and works its way out. He changes Agon's number back.
"I wanted to see the Dragon Fly in action without that fucking bleach-head in the way," Hiruma says, and leaves it at that.
"Hiruma-san is oni scary," Ikkyu whispers to Unsui during a timeout, "but this play is great!"
The game ends 38 - 3, a comfortable Shinryuuji lead. Coach has the team run nine laps around the school, three for each point they gave away.
Coach Sendoda keeps the twins hidden when the Spring Tournament starts, along with Musashi and Hiruma, forcing them through a hellish training regimen that all but Agon attend with religious fervor. When Agon shows up to practice, he usually takes up Ikkyu's challenges to a catching battle- sometimes on the ground, sometimes aerial, and Hiruma's usually the one throwing while Unsui works on memorizing the line's movements; he already knows Agon's.
Musashi and Hiruma play their first game against Ojo's graduating Golden Generation, the final game of the Spring Tournament after blazing through Zokugaku, Sado and Taiyo.
Yamabushi struggles mightily against Ojo's defense despite the strength of Shinryuuji's line- it's difficult to fight so many heavyweight powerhouses and they're intent on crushing him with more than just their center. Kurita's appearance turns the tides easily; with Hiruma's tactics, trick plays completely different from Shinryuuji's normal by-the-books strategy, and Musashi's enormous kicks, the two touchdowns Ojo scores are quickly overtaken and neatly exceeded.
The team recognizes the existence of Dark Unsui during their first summer training camp. Practically the entire school clears out for the week-long vacation, which the Nagas use as prime time to employ the institution's resources to their fullest extent for five full days, dawn to dusk. It's usually late afternoon, when everyone's stamina and attention span begins to flag, that Unsui's patience grows short and he starts looking and acting more like Agon on a bad day.
Musashi and Kurita make sure to stay off his radar; Ikkyu never needs much correction anyway and Hiruma enjoys it more than anyone has any right to.
Dark Unsui snaps at his teammates for minor screwups that normal Unsui would calmly correct, and he takes no pains to ensure that each play is educational for both offense and defense. He mostly emerges during the last few minutes of their traditional scrimmage matches, pulling out the most brutal and challenging plays for whichever side he's playing, usually with only a passing consideration of the rest of the team's condition.
Dark Unsui is exactly like Game Unsui, who Ikkyu always likes to see. Agon does, too, so on all five days, he shows up to play the final practice games, always on his brother's side- which means they're the only games Hiruma never wins.
Those five days are also prime time for Agon to use Shinryuuji's hot springs when the team's training and the school is empty. It's not uncommon for Unsui to pass a pretty girl on the way back to his and Agon's room for a change of clothes in the middle of the day or when they're jogging by the dorms before dinner. No one mentions it, but one night Unsui runs into Agon on the way back to their room, and he looks like he's seconds away from throwing something out the window.
"Agon?"
"I can't fucking believe that bitch!"
"Agon, everyone's asleep."
"So we're in the cemetery, right," Agon storms into the room, flipping the lights on and shedding his clothes as he goes, "and she starts crying about something pushing her or some dumb shit like that."
There have been stories about how the cemetery by their school is haunted (the Saiyuki Trio can vouch for that) but Unsui doesn't interrupt, only peels the blanket of his futon back and sits to watch Agon pace around the room, pretty clearly frustrated with everything.
"So I turn around and there's a fucking face between some trees," he continues while Unsui tries to stave off a panic attack, finishing the story by saying that the face had faded after he threw a rock at it, and then the girl he was with was too scared to head deeper in to where he'd already set up a blanket and some food and alcohol so she went home instead.
So he spent the next hour hunting down the bastard who interrupted, and there were probably a couple people in there trying to trip him up because he had heard other voices, but the cowards ran off after a few minutes of his rampage and the place had gone quiet. And they had better not fucking get in his way the next time he decides to go back and Unsui is pretty sure that if anyone can unhaunt the place by scaring the shit out of any ghosts who inhabit the cemetery, it'd be Agon. He's glad that it's probably ghosts rather than some actual creeps stalking his brother, though.
(It also occurs to him that this could be why neither of them had ever been afraid of monsters as kids; Agon's not afraid of anything and Unsui was convinced anyway that anything that crossed his brother would regret it. One, because Agon was brilliant and aggressive even then and two, because he's Kongo Unsui's little brother and nothing gets away with messing with family.)
He gets a text from Hiruma a few days after summer break is over about how reports of paranormal activity around the cemetery's died down pretty suddenly, which cracks him up in the middle of math but thankfully he's at the back of the room and pretty quiet about it.
They get a trip to one of Hakone's oldest and most prestigious onsen (Coach's best friend owns the place so they get a special discount for helping with chores) as a reward for the punishing week. Agon goes, of course; he sleeps most of the train ride there, only waking up to text or call the girl he plans to meet out there. Unsui, Hiruma, Ikkyu and Musashi are the only ones in the compartment with him; Hiruma teaches everyone how to play Hold'em and he (predictably) thrashes all of them.
Unsui and Musashi are both cautious players, so their losses aren't extravagant (and they've both won a few hands), but Ikkyu's competitive and Hiruma knows how to bait him. If they were playing with money, he'd be in so much debt that he'd probably still be paying it off after they've all graduated from college. Luckily, they're playing with truths and dares instead of money.
So they learn that Hiruma can in fact get the window of a bullet train open without setting off any alarms and Ikkyu can definitely snatch a wadded-up candy bar wrapper that they threw out from the front of the train as it passes their car, that he's wearing dark blue briefs, that the chakra on his forehead is actually a mole, that the last time he wet the bed was when he was seven and that if he absolutely had to kiss one member of the Naga it would be Unsui.
(He apologizes, of course- but Unsui takes it in stride like he always does until Hiruma suggests that Ikkyu not express that thought in front of Sanzo and then he spends the next ten minutes with his face in his hands.)
The mens' side of the bath is rowdy, and the line is lamenting about how Shinryuuji had rented out all the facilities for the weekend, so they can't even peep. Unsui's soaking in a far corner with a towel over his eyes, and Ikkyu holding up the conversation. Musashi interjects occasionally but it's by far the most normal corner. It's also the area closest to the womens' bath.
Every single head whips around as the sound of a feminine giggle wafts over the partition. Hiruma rolls his eyes from his position on the edge of the basin and exchanges an exasperated look with Musashi as the entire crowd of boys around him, sans Kurita, charges for the wall, voices lowered in furious whispers.
Unsui's already hauling himself out of the bath after a quick word with Musashi, wrapping his towel around his waist as he goes, which is the exact moment another voice joins the first. It's low and smooth, and the team recognizes it immediately as Agon.
Agon, who's in the women's bath.
With a woman.
"Oh my god," Goku hisses after a few seconds with his ear pressed against the damp slats of the partition, "oh my god, that's really him."
Yamabushi looks torn, as if he hadn't been just as quick to hurry over as the rest of the team, but he staunchly backs away and lowers himself back into the water near Musashi into Unsui's just-vacated space. "Are they doing anything? Er- I mean, come on guys, that's none of of our business!"
Ikkyu glances after Unsui, back at the wall, after Unsui and then at the wall again, but opts to follow the quarterback out. Hiruma and Kurita aren't far behind, and they change into the provided yukata, then head for the room Agon's sharing with Unsui (which they figure the younger twin won't really be using tonight anyway).
Kurita's peering out from behind two cards halfway through their first found of Hold'em to ask Unsui, "Who do you think that was?"
Without missing a beat, he nudges a stack of 10-yen coins into the center of the table. "The owner's daughter."
"He's oni-fast, huh," Ikkyu says as he calls the bet, "we've only been here four hours."
"No, he started..."
Hiruma raises the ante, cracks his gum and interjects, "A week ago."
"Yeah. When we first heard about the trip." Unsui pauses, calls the raise, then turns a stern glare on Hiruma. "Did you-"
"He found out himself. If it's women, the fucking bleach-head doesn't need me."
Unsui rolls his eyes. "That's only technically true."
"Well in this case, I wasn't involved," Hiruma snaps, then tosses his cards face-up on the table. "Now show your fucking hands."
Ikkyu folds his cards face-down with displeased twist of his lips, and Kurita shows his with a despondent expression. Unsui's hand is the same as Hiruma's: a straight to queen, so they split the pot evenly before Hiruma collects the cards on the table and shuffles the deck.
Musashi joins them not long after and a few hours later, Agon arrives to the sight of all five of them trying to throw cards into a pile of towels in the corner, arranged into the shape of a bowl. Hiruma and Unsui have pinpoint accuracy, though Unsui hands over the remainder of his deck when Agon stops behind them to watch, before he can yell at everyone to get the fuck out of his room.
He sends exactly nine cards spinning effortlessly one by one into the wall, ricocheting off to land almost exactly in the middle of the towel-bowl. "Agon-san," Ikkyu says, tugging on the hem of his yukata and handing over the rest of his stack, "we're not allowed to bounce them off the walls. But that's oni cool too."
Agon rolls his eyes and with all the grace of a veteran quarterback, throws the rest of the cards two and three at a time into the pile so hard the towels nearly collapse- Ikkyu fixes it up as he retrieves the cards in and around the target for the next round. No one comments on the fact that the younger Kongo twin is playing a stupid, pointless game with the only group of people he collectively only gives half a shit about.