A/N: Chapter 4-This is where the true plot of this story begins. Raimon has won Holy road and real soccer has finally returned, so how will Hikari Jr. do with their newfound freedom? What is the fate of the disbanded Fifth Sector SEED's like Archeri? What is the Hikari Eleven's true adventure and when is it beginning? Enough stalling, here it is, Chapter 4-Read and Review!

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

Tai's POV-Chapter 4: The Path of Heroes

Previously on Path of Heroes, my buddy Taiso's sis Archeri became part of the team and I was forced to be part of his 'keep her from doing anything evil by siding with me for everything' crackerjack plan. Fortunately, 'Cheri wasn't up to any nefarious deeds and I didn't have to do much to meet with his demands. It all led up to the Holy Road finals where Raimon was facing Seidouzan with the chance of returning real soccer on the line. So, after almost an hour of us watching the first half with both teams neck and neck, I realize these guys don't have any salsa to go with the chips! It was completely crazy! Oh, and there was that small fact that the other team completely cheated by switching out the entire team during halftime but that's a petty crime when compared to the fact that Taiso was lacking in the salsa department. In the end, Raimon won, Taiso got his real soccer back, and I got my salsa. Now I'm just waiting for the aftermath of this match to get to Taiso's head and his delusions of grandeur of us becoming the next strongest team to happen. It should happen right about…

"TAI, WAKE UP!" is what I had to wake up to. Taiso was in my room, yelling in my ear at 9:00 in the morning. On a Saturday no less! When your best friend is an obsessive freak like him, you're not allowed to sleep. The only reason I got until 9 is because he had to get over here to wake me up and the fact that it's a Saturday. If I stayed over his place, I'd been up for like 2 hours now. It's a good thing we're neighbors so I can always have an excuse against staying over his place or him staying over here.

"Dude, it's 9 in the morning on a Saturday," I grumbled. "Let me sleep."

"No can do," he said. "I already called everyone and told them to meet us at school in an hour. Now, GET UP!"

"How many answered?"

"How many what?"

"How many answered your phone call?"

"One, but I'm sure everyone will be there."

"Was it Shizen?"

"Yeah, what does it matter?"

"He's the only one that would be awake this time in the morning, besides you. Probably on one of his 'nature walks' or something."

"And he's a perfect example of what we should be doing every day!"

"Whatever, I'll get up," I said, finally opening my eyes. "Just get off my back." I knew from past experience that he wouldn't go away and I wouldn't get my free sleep. The haziness from just getting up started to fade and I clearly saw my friend leaning over me angry. It was Saturday, so instead of his school uniform he wore a light blue shirt with a long sleeve white button down shirt, fully buttoned with cuffs, and jeans. Jeez, even on a Saturday, he's dressed to impress. So I got up, put on a red t-shirt, blue short-sleeve button down shirt, not buttoned, and jeans. Yeah, we have a similar style of dressing, but the act of actually buttoning down his shirt is what sets us apart.

I went to brush my teeth as he stood outside my bathroom counting the minutes on his phone. I finished getting ready by leaving my hair in the usual mess it is and was pulled out of my house as my mother waved at us.

"Dude, what about breakfast?" I asked.

"Save it, we're gonna be late," he said, dragging my arm toward the elevator at the end of the hall.

He threw me into the elevator before stepping in and pressing the lobby button. Damn, it's the second time this week I'm thrown into this thing on my ass. I dusted myself off as we reached the ground floor. As we began our way out of the apartment building, we were ambushed.

"Hey guys, what's up?" A girl with nicely combed blonde hair, a pink shirt and a Hawaiian blue shirt with a flame patterned collar decorated with colorful flowers all over wrapped her arms over our shoulders and pulled us into a hug. I looked up and saw a familiar face and a familiar flower in her hair.

"Archeri?!" "'Cheri?!"

"That's my name don't wear it out," she said, breaking out into laughter. I looked over to Taiso who had the angry veins popping in his head and then looked away when I realized I had a slight blush on my face. I tried to hide my blush thinking, 'Taiso didn't notice, Taiso didn't notice, Taiso didn't notice…'

My worries were cleared when Taiso pulled out of the 'hug,' pointed at Archeri and screamed, "What are you doing?"

She pulled her arm back from around my neck, smiled and said, "I heard the entire team was going to meet at school, so I'm coming with you guys!"

Taiso shook his head and yelled, "You joined the team as a SEED from Fifth Sector! Shouldn't you be headed back from where you came or something?"

She laughed and said, "I got a text this morning from the Sector's main office telling all the SEED's to return to whatever school they went to before they joined up with Fifth Sector. You do remember I was part of this school before I left, right?"

This is great! Archeri's back to being my best friend's nice and pretty older sister who I remembered falling for.

"Wait a minute," Taiso broke in. "Aren't any of you SEED's going to try and bring back Fifth Sector? That's your real mission, right?"

"Please," Archeri rolled her eyes. "You think I'd try to bring back a disbanded organization. That's way too much work."

I'm in love.

"Anyway," she said, smiling once more. "Now we're back to how it used to be, my brother, his friend, and me: playing soccer together! Just like old times!" With that she started laughing and grabbed both of us and wrapped her arms around our shoulders once again. Both our faces grew red, mine because of obvious reasons and Taiso in just angry annoyance. Still, I was glad 'Cheri took a complete 180 with Fifth Sector's downfall and reverted back to her previous self. I saw her return as the nice older sister of my best friend while Taiso continued to see her as his arch-enemy. Taiso always believed she was putting up a nice façade to hide her evil intentions but I think he was just paranoid.

After our awkward "reunion," we continued to the school for our team meeting. Along the way 'Cheri tried making conversation with her brother who answered with simple one-worded responses, obviously still ticked off. I decided to let them slowly work out their own problems and walked behind the duo for the trip there.

Upon arriving, a small grin crept onto my face as I looked at the turnout. Only Shizen was there, meditating under a tree. Although I am impressed that he got here before us, there was only him there.

"Don't. Say. A. Word," was Taiso's reaction to this through gritted teeth.

"Fine, I won't say 'I told you so.'" I started, but finished, "but I told you so."

So with almost no one here, we had only one option: wait. I laid down in the shade of the same tree Shizen was meditating under and tried to catch up on my sleep. Taiso started pacing back and forth, every couple seconds checking his phone to see if anyone had replied to his message. Shizen and Archeri took to the field and practiced a bit. Their practice was relatively simple and calm with Archeri just shooting at him without any need for hissatsu techniques to be flying all around the place. I checked my phone for the time: 10:00 AM. 'We'll be stuck here for a while if this keeps up," I thought to myself.

I was half-right about that hunch. At around 10:30, the rest of the team started answering Taiso's message, either because they just got up or never bothered to pick up their phones yet. It was another 30 minutes before everyone started arriving, and by 11, everyone was present and I got up for whatever was the reason I was dragged here. Taiso found a small crate and stood atop it like a pedestal. 'Great," I thought. 'Another speech.' He cleared his voice and the entire team turned to face him.

"Thank you all for coming here this morning," he began. "As most of you are aware, last night's final match of the Holy Road ended in Raimon's victory and the disbandment of Fifth Sector."

There was a small bit of cheering from the enormous crowd of 10 people.

I leaned over and said, "Stop being so formal. It's just us." He needs to loosen up.

Thankfully, he did, and his next declaration was, "Are you guys ready to play real soccer from now on?"

The reaction from our team was a lot better received this time and it loosened up Taiso enough so that the rest of his speech would go through smoothly. He spoke about how Raimon made their way from the bottom all the way to the top, even though they were the runners-up from last year's competition, so his rag to riches story isn't completely true. In short, he got the team fired up to practice more in order for us to actually be a powerful team in the future.

"With newfound freedom, let's play soccer to the fullest from now on!" he ended.

With Tai's speech done, most of the team went their separate ways. It was a Saturday, so I can't blame them for not wanting to practice right at this second. I mean, I didn't want to do it. Unfortunately, Taiso and I are kind of a package deal and where he goes, I get dragged. So, the only ones left were Taiso, Archeri, Shizen, Chryde, and myself.

Our practice went for a couple hours with Shizen taking care of the goal and Chryde and I preventing Taiso and his sister from scoring. Of course I didn't really try too hard because there wasn't any real reason to do so, so Chryde did most of the work. However, he didn't have to work too hard because the two siblings were completely out of sync. Taiso couldn't reach a single one of Archeri's passes and vice-versa. Was it a difference in skill level or just distrust in each other?

"Run faster, Taiso! I know you can reach that," Archeri yelled after sending a long pass.

"Are you nuts? I don't have super speed, you know!" was our Captain's reply.

This back and forth went on until around lunchtime. Archeri left us since she promised some upperclassmen she knew before leaving last year that she'd catch up with them. Shizen and Chryde both went out for lunch while Taiso wanted to keep practicing, so I had no choice but to stay here. And then there were two. With Shizen gone, Taiso just kept shooting at the goal. I wasn't dressed for actual practice and neither was he, so I hoped he'd stop soon. I noticed most of his shots ended up missing the goal entirely or hitting the goalposts, so I realized he was a bit out of it. After another half-hour, I was finally able to get him to stop.

As a completely breathless Taiso took a break to cool off, I started thinking of where to go for the rest of the day.

"All right man, we got the rest of the day to do what we want," I began. "I say lunch is the first thing on our list, so where you wanna go?"

"I…don't…care," was his exhausted reply.

"Well, since you're exhausted and I don't feel like walking that much, we'll go to that place a couple blocks from here and then we'll decide what we'll do, 'kay?"

"…sure."

So we went to this place, (I didn't care to remember the name) and we got some lunch. Taiso was a lot more tired than I thought because he downed over 5 glasses of water before we even got our food. It didn't make sense because even though we practiced more than everyone else, we barely did anything close to our daily training and he never was this thirsty. I tried to make casual small talk but Taiso wasn't in a real talking mood. After eating and paying, we still were undecided on where to go so we just walked along the sidewalk with no clear direction in mind.

"All right, man," I said, "You've had time to cool down and had lunch, so where should we go? We're burning daylight here!"

He looked at me with bored eyes, "Why are you so active?"

"Why are you so tired?"

"I asked you first."

"It's 'cause I don't have to do any homework this entire weekend. I finally get a break!"

"It's not like you do any work in the first place,"

"Shut up! What's got you in the dumps, anyway? Wasn't a couple hours ago where you were the center of the team's happiness?"

Our back and forth stopped when he looked up and wondered before slowly saying, "Do you think my position as Captain is in jeopardy?"

Now this was a shocker. We both stopped walking to talk this over. Taiso, the one who rallies the team with his speeches, is unsure of his position as Captain? "What brought this up?" I asked.

"It's just that Archeri is back, and before she left, she was Captain of our team," he explained. "So, am I supposed to give it back or something?"

"Well, there isn't any law that says you have to transition it back," I said. "Besides, she hasn't mentioned anything about wanting it back, so unless she says anything, I guess she approves of you keeping the reigns."

"Still, she has the most skill on the team!" he exclaimed. "Even you have a keshin, and I don't! Am I fit to be Captain while lacking the power that even the laziest member of the team has?"

"Okay, first of all: insulted," I told him. "Second of all: having a keshin doesn't give you god-like powers. You saw the final too, right? Raimon won without having to use any keshins against a team comprised of keshin users."

His attitude brightened after remembering the accounts of the game that happened last night. He stood up straighter and said, "Thanks man. I needed that."

"Whatever," I said. "Now what are we going to do, we got 4 hours to kill before we got to get home."

"We can trai-"

"No." I cut him off. "We've done enough of that crap for one day. Everyone else is enjoying their Saturday and I want to do the same."

"So you want to go out somewhere? How about the mall?"

"Too far."

"There's an arcade by Tetsu's place. I can call him and some others and we can hang out there."

"Eh, too much work. Maybe tomorrow."

"Well, what do you propose we do?"

I looked over the other side of the road and saw a field with goals and a hill of grass right next to it. "You know what," I told him. "You can practice, and I'll just lay back and chill for the day. How's that?"

He gave me a skeptical look before saying, "Fine, just don't complain about not doing anything fun, because I offered."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," I said finding some shade underneath a tree. I lie down and shut my eyes, soon drifting off to a deep sleep.

After several hours, I awoke easy and saw Taiso on the field, still practicing on the field. However, something was off about him. Why was he wearing the team's unifor-wait a minute. Did he ditch me? He just left me here, completely vulnerable to anyone passing by, so he could go home and change into his uniform? I wasn't about to take this lying down, so I sat up. Hey, no need to stand up, right?

"Hey, Taiso!" I yelled as he looked over confused. "What the hell, man? You ditched me and left me here all alone? What if I was mugged or something?"

His face became more confused than it was already. "What are you talking about? I had Archeri look after you. Don't you see her right there?" He pointed to the tree behind me.

I looked behind me and saw a smiling Archeri sitting atop one of the tree's branches saying, "Hey, what's up, sleepyhead?"

"Oh, shi-"I said as I scrambled to get up, blushing, but tripped and ending rolling down the hill until I landed on the field my friend was practicing on. Well, aren't I a graceful one? "When did this happen?" I yelled.

Archeri hopped down and said, "I got back from meeting up with my friends about an hour ago. While heading back home, Taiso asked if I could watch you while he changed into something better suited for practice."

So she's been watching me sleep for an entire hour? I couldn't hold back the reddening of my face. I got to my feet and changed the subject, "What time is it?"

"It's around 8:30," Archeri said with a grin. "We should all start headed home. Taiso, let's go!"

He nodded and picked up the ball, mumbling something about her being annoying or something. The three of us headed towards our apartment building and we finally parted as we reached our separate apartments. I entered and greeted my mom, "Hey Mom, I'm back."

"Welcome home," she called. "How was your day? Dinner's almost ready, so wash up and we can talk."

So, I washed up, ate dinner and watched some TV for about an hour before I decided to go to sleep and thus was my Saturday.

There were two things wrong with Sunday morning. One, I got up on my own. Two, Taiso wasn't standing over me, yelling at me that I should get up. I looked at my bedside clock: 2:00 PM. I got to sleep in?! I looked up and thanked the gods, wondering what I did to deserve something so great. With Taiso waking me up way too early almost every day since I've known him, I almost forgot the feeling of getting to sleep in on a weekend. I got ready and walked into the living room. Mom left a note saying she was going out shopping for groceries and would come back soon. Whether it was 8 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon, I still felt like I needed some breakfast and got a bowl of cereal and ate that before remembering I was missing one annoying friend.

Where was he? I called his house phone to hear his dad say both he and Archeri weren't home since 10 that morning, Archeri saying she was going to catch up with some more of her friends and Taiso saying he was just going out. As much as I enjoy getting to sleep in, the fact that he left without even telling me where he was going annoyed me a bit. I called my Mom and told her I was going out, and went out to look for him. Now where does one look for an obsessive perfectionist. I tried the school field and couldn't find him, oddly enough. We didn't have any homework for Monday so he obviously couldn't be at the library doing work since he wasn't home. While walking aimlessly, I had only one last guess to where he was.

I took my time finding my way to the field we were at yesterday as I saw my friend practicing dribbling around some cones before shooting at the goal. Based on marks on the goal, it seemed like he was shooting some pretty powerful shots, but missed a majority of them. He started another round, dribbling through the cones perfectly, and then spun twice before shooting the ball. The ball glowed red for a second before hitting the right bar of the goal post before bouncing off toward my direction.

I caught it and yelled, "Do you do anything besides practice?"

"Do you do anything besides sleep?" Touché.

"So, how long have you been out here," I asked him.

"Not too long, I got here around 11," was his casual response.

"Eleven?! You've been out here for 3 hours straight? Practicing alone?" I asked him incredulously.

He gave me a look that said 'What?' and said, "Well, yeah with the water breaks every half hour or so. Why?"

"I should ask you why," I told him. "It's a Sunday. Do you ever take a break?"

"Not this again," he groaned. "Can't you just let me practice in peace?"

"No can do my friend," I said. "Unfortunately, the gods have me paired up with you and we're now like a package deal, and this part of the package doesn't feel like practicing every free second he has. Besides, you practiced all day yesterday."

"Fine. What do you propose we do then?"

"Why don't you let me worry about that while you change into something else?"

So, we walked back to his apartment so he could change while I thought of some non-exhausting things to do for the day. When he came out we went over to the arcade that he mentioned yesterday. We played there until Taiso got mad at me whipping his ass at every game we played. What can I say? I know my way around a joystick. I wanted to go see a movie and he suggested we invite some guys from the team and I thought through our options.

Archeri was obviously not a good choice because A: She was busy most of today, B: I end up caving in and agreeing with whatever she chooses, and C: a movie with those siblings is never good because of the war Taiso will eventually start either about which movie to see or the meaning of the movie itself. Shizen would watch almost anything but would probably lean towards something with a message about the environment and stuff. Besides, he's a pain to go to the movies with since he's real strict on us picking up our trash. Chryde is a bit of a mystery. Yeah, I know him better than most people, but unless you talk him for a long period of time, you don't know much about him. Yasashi probably knows the most about him since he's always trying to be nice to everyone. This brings us to Yasashi, who WILL agree to anything we choose. However, like Taiso and me, he's almost always a two for one deal with his cousin Arashi, who is always a vote for a disaster movie. Tetsu is usually at the gym and Kagaku is probably doing some extra credit work. Lastly, Shio and Hayai both are pretty agreeable, but are complete opposites, with Shio okay with anything laid back while Hayai needs the movie to be fast paced and grabbing his attention and pulling him through the entire thing.

So, I decided to call Chryde, Yasashi, and Shio, the three most agreeable of the bunch. Of course, Arashi ended up coming too, by Yasashi's request. Without much discussion, we chose some random action movie whose plot wasn't all too interesting and I forgot about it within an hour later. Thanks to theater snacks, we were able to knock lunch off our list of things to as well, so two birds, one stone. Since I was out of ideas, Taiso recommended we go to his place and just watch some TV. At least he's not recommending we practice. However, I found out his real reason when we ended up watching some coverage on Raimon's victory. Afterwards, it was already pretty late so I went to my own place next door and went to sleep after Taiso kicked me out since he wanted to get his sleep because he's all about getting enough sleep for staying awake at school. All in all, it was a pretty good end to a relaxing weekend. If I knew it would be the last one I'd have for a while, I would have stretched it out longer.

The entire week after Raimon's victory at the Holy Road finals starting Monday was incredibly tiring. Taiso went back to waking me up incredibly early every day. School continued as it usually did, as a snooze-fest from 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. Practice was the only thing that changed, with us being able to play soccer freely, everyone else practiced as hard as Taiso, and with that, I actually had to try to not fall incredibly behind. With the fact that soccer was no longer managed, Taiso was truly trying to get us ready for next year's Holy Road. It's a year away, for crying out loud!

It was way worse for me. After evening practice was done and everyone was going home, there was a tug on the back of my shirt collar as Taiso dragged me back on the field. After everyone went home, he made me go through "special practice" with him. He was still a bit peeved that he still couldn't produce a keshin of his own and his brilliant idea was the best way to get one was to face one. So, that left two options: Archeri and I. You can guess which option he chose. So, he brought me to that same field we found over the weekend and forced me to have to bring out my keshin and take him head on several times. I have to admit, at first it was a little fun since I got my revenge for him for forcing me to do this extra practice. However, bringing out a keshin is not the easiest thing to do in the world and after a short while, I was beyond exhausted. Let's not forget, after this I still had to get home and get forced to do my homework by the same maniac who put me through this process. This continued every single day afterschool. However, the worst of it was yet to come.

It was a typical Thursday, except I finally got to skip Taiso's "special training." I have no idea why he didn't make us do it that day, but I'm not one to complain about a good thing. Later, as I tried to ignore my homework, Taiso helped me through it and made sure I finished it all for once. I wondered if there was a reason he was sparing me of another day of torture, but I decided he was just being nice for once. I guess I should be a bit grateful to him; I probably would have failed several times if he hadn't helped me. Afterward, we went to his place to watch TV and I realized what my replacement for the "special training" was.

That night there was a big special on Raimon again, with a special on their main players and their supposed "3 secrets" to victory. In short, publicity campaign of sorts. So, my training for today wasn't physical, but mentally. I'm really debating whether releasing my keshin repeatedly was really so bad if the alternative was this. I wasn't paying attention to the boring program while Taiso was glued in awe the entire time. There were barely any appearances by the players of the actual team. The only one player that was shown was the nervous train wreck of a Captain they had, whose interview was atrocious. Throughout his extended 2 minute interview, he froze and was unable to give more than a couple actual sentences. Talk about stage presence. It didn't help to inspire me in any way.

With the greatest interview ever taken finished, the special was over. While I slouched backwards in boredom, Taiso remained glued onto the screen for the commercial that followed. As the commercial continued and the details were slowly revealed, my face went from one of boredom to one of horror. I shot up and looked at Taiso, who looked like a five-year old on Christmas morning who was opening their presents.

"No, Taiso," I began. "Don't even think about it. No, no, no, no, NO!"

With an evil smile on his face, he said, "Don't worry Tai, I'm not that crazy. Calm down."

When Taiso says 'calm down,' you know either it's the apocalypse or something close to it. We weren't dead, so I assumed it was close to it. As I went back home and went to sleep, I expected the worst to come Friday morning.

Friday began like every other day that week, with Taiso dragging me out of bed, the apartment building, and all the way to school. However, in the few minutes where I was actually awake throughout this period, I noticed a few changes in the normal routine. First, we both skipped meeting with the team before school and while I headed for the classroom, Taiso went somewhere for some reason he wouldn't explain. I was too tired to care about what reason this was, so I left it at that. The same thing happened at lunch, when he left to go to the main office for some official soccer club business or something. Finally, he was late to practice which was the biggest shocker of all.

When he did make it to practice, he was the happiest I've ever seen him. This can't be good.

"Hey, everyone!" he called. "Gather around! I got great news for you all!"

Everyone walked over as he got one of those plastic crates for holding the balls and stood atop it like he usually did forming a pedestal of sorts. Oh, great, speech time.

"Now who here also watched the amazing Raimon special last night?"

I looked around to see if anyone else raised their hand as I reluctantly did so. Yep, no one. Not even Archeri, who lives with our crazed Captain.

"Well, if you did, you would probably have an idea of what I'm about to tell you. I'm about to tell you of an amazing revelation that was shown right after the special."

He didn't. He did. Oh shit. I flashbacked to the dreadful commercial we watched last night after the special as Taiso explained the story to the team.

While I slouched backwards in boredom, Taiso remained glued onto the screen for the commercial that followed. I quickly realized the familiar voice of Kakuma Oushou. Wait, there wasn't a match playing, so why was he there?

"Raimon has become the new champion of youth soccer! Do you want to play them?"

Taiso nodded at the TV as if he was having a one to one conversation with Kakuma Oushou.

"Well, you can! Just set up a friendly with your schools!"

No shit, Sherlock.

"But, Captain Matsukaze Tenma shall be traveling across Japan for 3 months as part of soccer education program in a month's time. By the time your school will get a match set up, you won't be able to face Raimon at their best!"

Taiso still sat in front of the TV, bummed out by the news.

"However, in order to give our champions the best match ever, there will be a tournament to see who will play Raimon in Captain Matsukaze's sendoff game! This tournament will be known as Raimon Road! All schools are applicable; just send your application along with the entry fee to the address below! Raimon Road begins in one week! Who will get the honor of being Raimon's first opponent after their crowning of strongest in Japan?

I shot up and looked at Taiso, who looked like a five-year old on Christmas morning who was opening their presents.

"No, Taiso," I began. "Don't even think about it. No, no, no, no, NO!"

"…and so, I have signed up the Hikari Eleven to participate in Raimon Road. It starts in a week everyone!" was the joyful reply of our Captain.

"Can we really beat any of the teams out there?" was the reply from Yasashi.

"I thought it'd be possible if we trained until next year's Holy Road, but in a week's time? Impossible." Arashi answered him.

"We'll probably kicked out in the first round," Tetsu joined in.

For once, Taiso's speech didn't send inspiration throughout our team. Instead doubt and confusion was the reaction he got. Within seconds the entire team except for Archeri and me were all talking about our impending doom. Don't get me wrong, I thought we were screwed too, but there's no point in stating the obvious. As the panicking got more hysterical, I saw Taiso trying to calm them down, but nothing would stop the madness.

"WOULD YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP?!" was the shrill exclamation from our ace striker and Captain Taiso's sister.

With that yell, everyone stopped talking and got into order as if they were an army squadron. Damn, Archeri's got some power over these guys. As Taiso's unofficial right-hand man, I remained on the right side of his crate pedestal while Archeri took the left.

"Okay, little bro, they're all yours," Archeri said with a smile.

Taiso was taken aback by his sister's help in the situation before turning back to the team and taking a deep breath to focus and decide what he should say to quell and reassure the guys (and girl) that we stood a chance.

"Yes, I realize that we are a weak team," he began.

Great start.

"Until now, we haven't truly been able to play to our full potential because all of our games had score orders from Fifth Sector," Taiso continued. "However, with Fifth Sector abolished, we can all unify as one and get stronger. Raimon didn't start as the champions they are now. They trained, persevered, and followed their own path all the way to the top and became heroes to everyone who loves soccer."

Heroes? Really? I don't know about that, but eh, at least this speech is going somewhere.

Now it's our turn. We can follow our own path and become heroes in our own right. We'll come from behind and follow in Raimon's footsteps and follow the Path of Heroes all the way to the top!"

Nice inclusion of the title.

"Together, as a team, we can reach the championship of the Raimon Road and get the chance to play against our heroes!" Taiso was finally picking up steam as everyone was lifting their heads and getting pumped up. "NOW WHO'S WITH ME?" Taiso screamed, raising his fist in the air, ending his pep talk.

"YEAH!" was the reply that came from everyone.

NOW LET'S GET TRAINING!"

Everyone ran back on the field with newfound conviction and practiced as hard as they ever have, with hope of winning the Raimon Road.

"Not bad man," I told Taiso as he was getting down from his podium. "You even got me thinking we might have a tiny chance of not losing in the first round."

He ignored my comment and dragged me onto the field, saying, "You're not excluded from this. Come on, if we don't want to get left in the dust, we got to train as hard as everyone else, if not harder!" Why me?

Practice went on for several hours longer than usual. Everyone went at full throttle until they fell from exhaustion and then got up again and continued. It was a couple hours after dusk when Taiso officially ended practice for the day. I was relieved to finally get a break until a tug on the back of my collar gave me a grim reminder. I turned around and got a look from Taiso that said, 'Oh, we're not done yet.'

As everyone else finally went home, Taiso brought me to the same field we had trained at the past week. Is he making this our new official training ground or something? I remember us finding it on a whim as we were deciding how to spend a Saturday afternoon. We really didn't think much of it, or maybe that was just me. Over the course of a week, Taiso has been coming here daily, dragging me with him, and practically making it our own training ground.

So, the daily after practice training session began. I brought out my keshin and clashed against my friend. I do have to admit this practice made drawing out my keshin in rapid succession easier each time, but it always left me completely drained. Taiso was exhausted afterward too, but he wasn't the one who needed help walking home afterward. This training was much rougher on me than it was on him, and this was to help him. I'm totally getting screwed over here.

Taiso didn't show any signs of improvement in the "awakening a keshin" factor, but he was getting better at the "facing a keshin" factor. He started taking less damage every time we clashed, and every now and then, he would be able to make it past me. However, awakening his keshin still was a fruitless endeavor.

After about an hour, we were still at it. I think I had one more burst, and then I would be done. Taiso had also taken some serious damage from the continuous collisions and was just as tired.

"One more time!" he yelled we ran at each other at our top speed with me releasing my keshin.

"Seishin Dejitaru X!" I screamed as the X-bearing demon appeared out of the purple flames that arose out of my back.

As we got closer and closer, I noticed something happening behind Taiso. Similar purple flames were starting to emerge from his back! They didn't grow much, and our collision literally extinguished any further chances of growth.

So we finally made some progress. I was about to tell him the good news before I stopped myself. Thank the gods I did. Normally, telling someone this kind of progress was made after an extremely long day would make them satisfied. However, this wasn't any normal person, this was Hyōshōdai Taiso. News of progress would only re-spark his energy and make him keep me up here all night. Yes, I want him to get a keshin so we can get this over with, but I also want to live to see the day when it happens. Therefore, I decided to keep the news of his keshin on the verge of awakening a secret.

"I can't go anymore," I groaned, sprawling out on the floor to exaggerate my exhaustion to the point that would make him finally stop.

"Come on, you wimp," he panted. "Hit me one more time." He collapsed on his knees after that last sentence.

"Shut…up…" I breathed out slowly. "You have no freaking idea how much this takes out of you."

Before Taiso could make his next comeback, his cell phone started ringing. Finally, someone came to save me. If he won't listen to logic, maybe he'll listen to either his or my parents. Unfortunately for me, the person on the other line wasn't one of our folks. As he started talking, he started smiling before asking questions before saying things like "Really?" and "Who?" before finally saying, "Alright, I'll tell 'em."

"Who the hell was that?" I asked, ruling out my Mom saving me from this mess by wondering why I wasn't home yet. I guess I spend so much time with Taiso she already knows the drill by now.

"Coach," said a smiling Taiso. His eyes had a rekindled fire of determination in them.

"Coach Useless?" I asked, remembering our excuse for a coach. "What the hell did he do?"

"He set up a friendly game for us tomorrow afternoon," he said simply.

"TOMORROW?!" I exclaimed, forgetting my fatigue for a second. "When was this decided?"

"I've been working with Coach all week to set up a friendly game all week long," he explained. "Why did you think I was late to practice this afternoon? There was more than just signing up for Raimon Road going on."

"B-but, why?!" I whined in pain.

"Well, if we're going to play in Raimon Road, we got to get used to playing some games again," he said. "Besides," he continued in a more excited tone, "I'm sure everyone is as excited as I am to play real soccer again."

"Everyone?" I asked. They knew about this, and they didn't tell me. Those traitors!

"Yeah, I told them today during practice. Coach just found out who we're up against."

"All right," I gave in to my curiosity. "I'll bite, who are we playing?"

He gave me a big smile and said, "Our opponent will be…"

BAM! Cliffhanger! This chapter took me a while to write, but not as long as last time. Now the plot is truly picking up! Raimon Road is just around the corner but before that, the Hikari Eleven have a trial to pass to see if they truly have the strength to even consider the tournament. Who will their opponent in this friendly be? Well, the thing is… I'm letting YOU DECIDE! I'm going to put up a poll on the Bio section of my page. I'm giving you 3 options to choose from:

Tengawara

Mannouzaka

Teikoku

Sound familiar? It's Raimon's first 3 opponents from the Holy Road tournament! I'll leave the poll up for about 2 weeks before I tally up the votes and make a choice!

In any case, I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much I did writing it. As always I'll ask if you can Read and Review! Taiso's POV returns in Chapter 5: My True Rival.

'Til Next Time,

MateiFire

P.S. I'll add a couple new Pics along with some colored in ones for this chapter. Along with Tai, I'll put in #1 and #2: Shizen and Chryde!