A/N: Hey there! I'm MateiFire and this is my first Fanfic! If you haven't read the Preface, do so know because it introduces the setting and characters of this story. This is my first fic I'm writing so I would appreciate reviews and any feedback you can give me! With that out of the way, here's the disclaimer…

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inazuma Eleven, GO, Chrono Stone, or Galaxy

Path of Heroes

Chapter 1: A New Player

Taiso's POV

So, today's the day. That's the first thing that entered my head as I got out of bed that morning at 6:29 A.M. Once again, I beat the alarm by a minute. I shut my alarm off before going over to the bathroom. Knowing my family, they would all be up in a couple of seconds. I got my toothbrush, put on the toothpaste and began the process of brushing my teeth. As I finished there, I filled up the cup of mouthwash and poured it into my mouth. After swishing it back and forth before spitting it out, I washed my face before looking at myself in the mirror. I saw Hyōshōdai Taiso, aspiring gold medalist and current captain of his school's soccer club. I smiled at my reflection, my golden eyes shining back at me. I brushed my dirty blonde hair to the right until it was into the ponytail I wore during school hours. I went back to my room with a hidden smile on my face as I heard my parents just getting out of bed.

'Beat them to the buzzer again,' I thought to myself, knowing that I'd be ready first this morning. I put on my uniform, starting with my dark blue pants. As I buckled my belt over my pants, I grabbed and put on the rest of my uniform: a white shirt followed by a blue blazer with the yellow emblem of our school on the left shoulder. I folded my cuffs and buttoned them. Then I tightly tied my red tie around the collar of the white inner shirt. I walked over to the kitchen and made myself breakfast: an egg, sunny side up with two pieces of toast. I got down and ate, finishing as my parents got to the table. I put away my plates before my father sat down, ready to get on my way to school.

"Have a great day at school," I heard him call out as I put on my shoes, picked up my bag, and bolt out the door of our apartment. Unlike them, I unfortunately got someone else to wake up before my day officially starts.

I knocked at my neighbor's door and waited until the door opened. A lady with long brown hair already dressed for the day opened the door and smiled at seeing me, "Oh, good morning to you, Taiso. Here to help get my son out of bed?" she said politely.

"Just like every morning," I half joked, because I knew that's what I did every morning. I rushed over to the other room and opened the door. In the corner of the room, lying in bed was my best friend, Senzai Taidana.

"Hey Tai, get up before I have to rip you off your bed," I warned as I walked over to the lump that was my friend.

"Mom, give me 5 more minutes…" he mumbled as he turned away.

"This isn't your mom, it's me, Taiso," I reminded him.

"That's what I meant," he mumbled as he slowly arose from his slumber.

"Get up and get ready, we're already 2 minutes behind schedule!" I yelled at my friend, whose bored eyes finally flickered open.

"All right, man. Calm down, what's your problem?" he yawned with one hand over his mouth as he finally got on his feet.

"You know what my problem is," I growled as I stared at how slow he was taking his time.

"Ohhhhhh, it's that day isn't it," he mentioned knowingly, giving me an evil smile as he walked over to his bathroom.

"That has nothing to do with it, just move it!" I snapped, sitting on his bed as he walked out.

"Sure it doesn't," he drew out as he went to the bathroom.

I sat down on his bed to wait as he left his room. How did I end up with this lazy ass as my best friend? I remembered back to our first day in elementary school when we both met and we had an argument on who would get their name shortened to Tai. His full name being longer than mine gave him the edge he needed to get the class to vote for him. After learning we were neighbors in the same apartment building, things started to fall into place.

He walked back in, almost the same way he left, telling me to get out so he could change.

"Tai, aren't you going to brush your hair or something?" I asked; looking at the disheveled pile of brown hair on his head that looked like he just got out of, oh wait he just did.

"Dude, we've been through this before, my hair is styled so that my bedhead looks identical to my hair after brushing it," he reasoned with me and he walked in. "It saves time."

I sighed and said as I left, "Alright, I'll wait for you by the elevator, all right?"

"Sure thing, dude," was his nonchalant response.

After leaving I yelled back, "You got 5 minutes, or I leave without you!"

As I walked out his mother smiled as she said, "I don't know how you do it. Thanks for your help, Taiso. Without you, I don't know what I'd do"

I gave her a small smile as I left. I went to the elevator returning to my previous train of thought. 'We're some pair of friends,' I thought as I walked over. There was me, responsible, hard-working, and one of the best in my class while he was irresponsible, lazy, and by some miracle, just passing all his classes. They say opposites attract in some cases, but come on.

I checked my phone and saw the 5 minutes finish up and I pressed the down arrow on the elevator. It opened, I pressed the lobby floor and as the door begin to close I heard, "Hey, wait up!" Sure enough, Tai was there, running at full speed, trying to make it before the elevator doors closed. He literally crashed into the elevator before the doors closed; sprawled on the ground, out of breath from running. As he got up muttering something about me being a horrible friend by going ahead without him, I frowned as I looked at his attire. His clothes were wrinkled, blazer unbuttoned, belt barely buckled, and his tie was loose. I'm amazed he remembered his bag in the shape he was in.

"You listening to me," he panted looking at me with an annoyed look on his face.

"I gave you 5 minutes," I said as we reached the lobby. "If you moved at the same speed you did as the elevator closed, we wouldn't have this problem, now would we?"

He rolled his eyes as he said, "Shut up. You sound exactly like your parents, man. Would it kill you to chill out for once?"

Chill out for once. That one phrase comes up all the time between us. Yeah, I can be uptight and sometimes seem crazy, but I got expectations to live up to. Almost everyone in the past generation of the Hyōshōdai family, including both my parents, have either been Olympic gold medalists or professional athletes. To add on to that, all of them also had great school records and graduated from good universities as well. I have to be near perfect both mentally and physically in order to keep up with the expectations put out for me. So I've got a right to be stressed a lot of the time.

On the other hand, there's Tai, who somehow got everyone with low expectations of him since I've known him. Unlike me, he's never stressed and his biggest problem is probably being bored. While I was part of gymnastics as part of my Olympic training, I couldn't get him to participate in any sport at all. In fact, if I hadn't dragged him over, he probably wouldn't have joined the soccer club at all. Despite all these problems he has, he happens to be my best friend. His reasoning behind it is that he keeps me from losing it to stress overload and I make sure he doesn't fall behind due to lack of drive. So, he calms me down and I keep him from failing? I can't say it's completely false, but it is a bit of a stretch.

"Alright man. I'll try to chill. It's just well, you know," I said as our journey to school finally began.

"Today's that day isn't it," he said as he walked beside me.

"Yea, I guess it is," I sighed, not really wanting to admit it.

"She comes back today, doesn't she," he said, not turning his head as we continued on our way.

She is my older sister, Hyōshōdai Archeri. She had been away for a year due to a scholarship allowing her to spend a year at a boarding school far from our home. Thanks to that, I didn't have to deal with Ms. Perfect undermining everything I do. Unlike me, who struggles to maintain good grades and keep my gymnastics above the curve, everything seems to come to her naturally. She was easily one of the best in her class academically, and her sport of choice, archery, seemed to just be another gift bestowed to her from the heavens. She was a perfect candidate for a future Olympic team in archery. As for me, if I slipped up even a little, my Olympic career is over. She was better than me in almost everything, and the onslaught of "Why can't you be more like your sister," remarks from my parents never let me forget it. The worst part of all of this is, according to the rumors I heard, she's taken up soccer as well.

For the past year, I've been able to improve myself without having her to compare to. Every morning there would be no competition for who got to use the bathroom first, no who was doing better in school lately, and no competition on who was the soccer club captain. Now she was back, and I could feel her presence just waiting to begin raining on my parade. The only glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel was that she was a third year, and that meant her giant shadow could only loom over me for one more year.

The rest of the walk to school was rather quiet. Neither of us spoke as we just walked silently until we reached the school. Our school, Hikari Jr. High, in comparison to others, is pretty normal sized. It isn't too small like some of the lesser known schools, but not as big as some of the larger known schools like Raimon Jr. High. Although not as well known for our soccer, Hikari Jr. was better known for the other sports and our academics.

Upon entering the school's gates, I sighed and said, "Well Tai, we might as well stop by the club before school begins." We walked over to the small shack that was home to our soccer club. It wasn't too big, but it was roomy enough to fit everyone in our club. I opened the door and we decided to talk with the team in the time we had before school started.

Our team was pretty small in the sense that we didn't officially have even eleven members. One member, a girl named Crystal, was indecisive whether she would invest fully in the club or not. We registered her as a member so we could say we had eleven players and usually when we played matches against other schools, Crystal would join us, but she never came to practice or any of our meetings. As for everyone else, they were in for the long haul.

First up is our goalkeeper, 2nd year Morimaru Shizen. Shizen, all things considered, is a pretty cool guy. He is around the same height as Tai and I, has spiky brownish hair with a tint of green in it, and has green eyes. He is really calm and helps calm down the team by trying to get people to try yoga with him. When not playing with the team, he is very active in protecting the environment and is only angry when someone treats it like trash by littering or something of the sort. His original position was forward, but since no one would play keeper, and he was the only one with any skill in the position, he decided he would bear the cross of defending our goal.

Hanging out with Shizen was two of our defenders: Safu Shio and Yosai Tetsu. Shio and Tetsu were the two opposites of the team, besides Tai and myself of course. While Shio was short, and I mean really short, and close to the ocean, Tetsu towered us all like looming mountains. The only real thing they had in common was their dark skin and boisterous personalities. Strangely enough, although they argued all the time, they were one of the best tag-teams in the school.

Shio is a bright and perky 1st year with bushy brown, with a touch of blonde, hair who still believes in all things good and still acts unaware of Fifth Sector's power over us. The little guy is all about the ocean since he loves fishing with his father every day. As for Tetsu-san as he forces us all to call him, he is a giant with spiky black hair and purple eyes whose main goal is to become the next MMA champion. His reason for joining the team was just so he could build his leg muscles, but hey, at least we have him. His personal nickname for himself is Everest, since he towers over all of us in height, but then again, he's the only 3rd year on the team, so it's expected.

While Shizen and Shio tried to convince Tetsu to try out some yoga, the other 4 members were having a chat on the table. On one side were cousins Tensai Arashi and Mimikku Yasashi. Arashi has blue and blonde hair that together form a thundercloud above him and Yasashi has brown hair with two pigtails hanging out back. Both of them had steel eyes that showed determination. Yasashi, the new first year was the shy younger cousin who ended up following his cousin around while Arashi was the 2nd year who truly wanted the best for his cousin, but still wanted some distance from clingy Yasashi. Unfortunately, if Arashi could get rid of Yasashi for more than 10 minutes, the next person who got sucked into Yasashi's cheery personality got themselves a mini-clone they couldn't wait to get rid of.

On the other side were Chisoku Hayai and Kagemaru Chryde who called Tai and me over. Hayai was a "let's do this now and ask questions later" kind of guy who always rushed everyone and everything. For this brown-haired and red eyed 1st year, everything needed to move extremely quickly. His impatience started to annoy me, as he started bragging how he was always first in the club room every morning before school and every afternoon when school finished. I can't believe I'm saying this, but he needs to chill out. Oh no, I'm turning into Tai! The effects of being around him so much have finally begun!

"Captain, you there?" a deep low voice, belonging to the redhead who unnaturally blended with his surrounding, asked as he rose up behind me. You think a guy with red hair would be easy to recognize, but then you haven't met Chryde whose specialty was moving through the shadows unnoticed. It took me until our second year to realize he was in the same class as us even though I see him all the time during afterschool practice. His dark purple eyes and dark presence around him contradicted both our school name and his actual personality. Since we know him, there's no surprise that he's a real nice guy. However, by just looking at him, he gives the feel of a depressing Goth kid who with dampen your day real quick. It just takes him a while to talk to people he doesn't know.

"I'm fine, just tired," I said as I got out of daydreaming funk.

"He's just annoyed 'cause Archeri returns today and she's gonna wreck his day," Tai joked to them.

"Oh yeah, know I remember! Archeri is his sister, right? I've never met her! Is she pretty? Is she nice? Is she…," began Hayai asking 50 questions a minute while I gave Tai a death stare for starting him off.

"Anyway," Arashi began sighing, hoping to settle him down. "Captain, have you seen the news for the final of the Holy Road? Seidouzan's opponent for the final is Raimon Jr.!"

"I know! It's amazing! Their game against Arakumo Gakuen was phenomenal!" was my response. Raimon Jr. High was a school that was doing the unthinkable, going against Fifth Sector's orders and trying to win the Holy Road in order to over throw them and take back real soccer. "If this keeps up we might get real soccer! By the way, that reminds me, Tai, you owe me 500 yen."

"Shut up," was his quick response. He's been betting me Raimon would lose their next game the entire tournament and he hasn't kept up any of those bets. He probably owes me like $3000 yen by now…

"GUYS, I HAVE BIG NEWS!" was a large cry from the door. Busting in the club room was a second year with turquoise hair and shiny glasses, Hanraku Kagaku, our final member. He was the "brains" of the team, both in grades and in strategy. He aced all his classes that were so advanced they were for 3rd years, and he was the one who came up with plans for different situations in games, not that we'd ever use them, thanks to Fifth Sector. We all turned to him as the genius 2nd year pushed in his glasses and opened his blue eyes.

"I have some good news and bad news for you all. What should I begin with Captain Taiso," he then said quietly, completely the opposite of before.

"Well, I think we all need some good news," I said, looking around to make sure I thought right. All nods, except for the 'I don't really care,' from Tai. I looked back at Kagaku to signal him to continue.

"Word around the school is that someone is planning to join our club after school! We'll finally have 11 members!"

I smiled. 'Well, it's about time.' I thought to myself until I heard, "What's the bad news?" from my good friend Tai.

Kagaku then blanched as he said, "Well, the exact same rumors all say that…"

"This new player is a SEED, isn't he," finished Shizen, opening one eye, but not moving from his yoga position.

"How did you," Kagaku started.

"The trees told me," Shizen stated as a matter of factly. We all stared at him confused before he continued, "I also happened to hear about this last night."

"Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, right Taiso?" was Tai's remark with a smirk on his face. I was still in too much shock to reply. A SEED?! Here? Why? We didn't do anything to anger Fifth Sector, we followed the score orders! Why send an elite member to here of all places?

"Hey, buddy, you there?" was the question that brought me back. I looked at Tai, whose smirk changed to a serious face that matched everyone else's face. They wanted me to say something. I was their captain after all.

I cleared my throat and said, "Well, a player is a player. We need someone to finish our team of eleven. We'll deal with their position as a SEED afterwards. We need to stick together and not let this guy crawl under our skin. Look at Raimon, their ace used to be a SEED, and now he's one of the people at the front of the revolution! So, we'll take on this SEED, and deal with him the Hikari Jr. High way!" I gave a triumphant grin as I heard the rest of the team, minus Tai who just stood there with a smile; scream out, "YEAH!" With that as a final note, the first bell rang, and everyone made their way to class.

"Not a bad speech, my man. Not bad at all," was Tai's response as we both walked over to class.

"Thanks, we all need to lift our heads up right now. If we work together, we can make it through this hurdle and," I began before I was cut off with, "All right Superman, one speech per day man. Save it for after school" I chuckled before nodding as we got to class. I sat down with Tai sitting to my right waiting for the teacher to come in. After he left the classroom when he finished attendance and giving us some work to do, I heard a loud 'thunk.' I looked to my right and saw Tai, asleep on his textbook like usual. 'Yea, things will stay the same, no matter what happens," I thought, seeing the familiar sight.

The rest of the school day went on like any normal day. We went through our basic classes; I took down notes and paid attention while Tai napped through all the classes. It was the middle of the year by now, so all of the teachers were used to this and had given up on trying to keep him awake. However, Tai's internal clack must have been working because as soon as the final bell rang, he awoke with a jolt.

"Another day, another dollar, right Taiso?" he said as he jumped up from his chair.

"Oh, uh, yeah," I fumbled quickly. Okay, so I was thinking about the new addition to the team. He was a SEED, so he had to be good. He was here to try to make sure Fifth Sectors rules were followed, but how would he go about it? Would he choose a more forceful route or would he secretly try to take control behind a pretense? I guess it was time to finally find out.

Tai and I slowly regrouped with the rest of the team on the pitch in the back of the school for afternoon practice. Everyone got into our team uniform, white jerseys with a yellow collar, with red stripes along the shoulders culminating with little light marks at the sleeves and our school emblem in the upper left hand corner of the shirt with yellow shorts with the same red stripes along the sides. Practice began but it was obvious to tell that no one was really paying attention. Everyone was thinking the same thing, 'When is the new player going to show up?'

I went over by Shizen and Tai who were talking quietly by one of the goals.

"Hey guys, what's up? You're not really trying as hard as you usually do," I said. Before Tai could day anything, I continued, "Except for Tai. You never end up doing anything at all."

Tai ignored my comment and said, "Look around you, man. No one's really going full throttle today. Everyone's too worried about the new guy. Not even you are playing to your full potential."

I was confused. "Still, we need to think like we did this morning and not care who this new guy is a SEED or not. Why is everyone wavering now?"

Shizen added on, "It's because he's a SEED that the tension is higher. He's late. A true SEED would have gotten here as soon as he could and made his presence known."

As Shizen finished that comment, a soccer ball fired rapidly at him from the air at the other side of the field. The force and speed of the ball was so great he was sent back flying as the ball flew in the net. As I saw him get up, I heard a familiar voice say, "Well, well. I'm sorry I'm new at this whole SEED thing."

I turned around to see a silhouette of the owner of the shot that took down Shizen as it slowly fell from the sky until it landed on the ground gracefully. My eyes widened as the silhouette stood back up and blonde hair fell just upon the shoulders of this new person. My mouth dropped when the head turned and I saw a red flower on the side of this newcomer's hair. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. It wasn't a joke, nor was it a hallucination.

"Well, isn't that a cliché revelation," Tai said as he leaned against the goalpost, his eyes closed with a smile forming on his face.

The rest of the team looked upon this new person as the silhouette came into complete view from the other side of the field. No one knew this person as they drew nearer and nearer.

Shizen got up, hand on his stomach, questioning, "What do you mean, Tai? Do you know him?" He turned to me and started asking, "Captain? Who is he…I mean she?!"

I closed my mouth and my eyes went back to normal. I stood up straight and stared and said what I've been dreading to say all day.

"Hyōshōdai Archeri."

That's the end of Chapter 1. How'd you like it? Please leave a review on what you thought! I'm also putting up a pic of Taiso and Tai in their school uniform up on my DeviantArt, so check it out! Link to it is in my bio! Thanks for reading!

-MateiFire