Episode 21: Sandorius: VS Sandorius Eleven Part 2

"…I bet I look as ridiculous as you do when you wear these…" Han suddenly realized.

Liberta sighed, "As long as it fulfils its purpose, why care about appearance?"

Though obviously not liking it, Han still wore the goggles, "Haku-nee, how does it look…"

"Whatever, it looks fine." Alsius said.

"You're not convincing."

The game continued. Barga charged violently at Tenma to steal the ball from him.

"Kheh, oh how weak you earthlings are…" Barga cackled passing the ball forward.

Minaho and Manabe went to stop the Sandorian from getting closer to the net.

"Dig Thru!" Burrowing underneath the ground, along with the ball, the Sandorian avoided the two defenders easily with his hissatsu.

"Tch, where did he go!?" Han cursed.

The Sandorian burrowed out and was able to shoot before Han had the time to react to it.

Sandorius Eleven has tied the score.

Han threw the goggles away in frustration, "not my style. They didn't do any good anyways."

Liberta caught them before they fell to the ground, "Watch it, Han!"

"Don't worry, they won't get it in with that trick again." Han growled bumping his fists together.

The whistle then blew ending the first half of the game.

"Hmf, finally a goal…" Barga snorted at the Sandorian captain.

Gazenuma showed neither rage nor pride from the Shintenou's words. He just simply brushed it aside.

The game commenced with Sandorius' ball.

"Give the ball to me!" Barga ordered and the forward did as he was told, though it was obvious he didn't want to.

Barga then charged forward, deliberately kicking the ball at the Earth Eleven players to injure them. No only did he do it himself, but forced the Sandorian players to do the same.

Soon, they were back in front of the net. "Dig Thru!"

"Hmf, same trick won't work twice!" A dark light enveloped Han and a small twin-tailed black cat emerged from it.

"How's that supposed to stop the ball?" Ibuki gasped.

Han crouched down and let his long whiskers touch the ground, feeling for the vibrations caused by the burrowing opponent. He was able to predict the balls path and leaped up into the air and pounced onto the incoming shoot, stopping it.

"A soul?" Gazenuma gasped.

"Easy…" Han returned to his humanoid form and kicked the ball up to Shindou.

"Nice," Shindou grinned, "Kami no Takuto FI! Tenma!"

The ball was passed to the captain and then to Komori as Shindou instructed.

"M-me!?" she gasped and trapped the ball. Barga immdieately attempted to tackle her down, however to everyone's surprise, the small girl didn't even budge and deflected the large alien instead.

"W-what!?"

"Go, Komori!" Han encouraged.

"Okay!" a red light surrounded the small girl and a red, wyvern-like dragon emerged from it. Gently grasping the ball in her mouth, Komori let out a deafening roar which caused the ball to rocket towards the net.

"Another soul!?"

Earth Eleven got their second goal taking the lead once again. Komori reverted back to her original form, "Yay!" she squealed happily and Alsius went to congratulate her.

"Wh-what are you…" Barga gasped, "I tackled with all my force…"

"Hmf, I guess Shintenou aren't much are they now?" Liberta sneered.

"You…!"

"Barga, stop it!" Gazenuma yelled.

Tenma put a hand on Liberta's shoulder, "You shouldn't provoke him either…"

Liberta let out a sigh, "Fine, captain…"

The captain nodded, "Okay everyone, let's keep this up!"

Gazenuma approached the captain, "Why do you keep playing, even though we're so unfair and injuring you… how can you look like you're having fun?"

"Because we don't want any regrets, I want to play the best soccer I can play."

"Best…?"

Both captains took their positions and the game continued. The ball went over the the Sandorian Captain, "Play without regrets… captain of Earth, I will do the same, to uphold the pride of a Sandorian!"

A yellow light enveloped Gazenuma and a large dinosaur-like lizard emerged from it. Chomping on the ball, he dove underneath the ground easily getting past Tenma and Sakura.

"Don't assume you're the only ones with a soul!" The lizard growled.

Time up was drawing near, if Gazenuma scored, it would result in overtime.

Minaho stood in front of the incoming beast. Letting the orange light surround him, Minaho transformed into his owl soul.

Sensing the opponents movements, Minaho dove down, snatching the ball in his talons from the beast's possession.

The whistle blew announcing the end of the game, the first game in space. No cheers, or let alone a sound was heard as slowly the Sandorian audience realized what had just happened, what their loss meant. The silence eventually turned into cries and weeps.

The, at first, celebrating Earth Eleven players also were silent now. The sounds of despair, hopelessness, echoed throughout the stadium.

"I knew it wouldn't feel too good to win…" Han sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

"Ga-Gazenuma…" Tenma whispered.

The Sandorian let a small smile show on his face and extended his hand out to the captain. "That was a good game, thank-you." He noticed Tenma's worried expression and continued, "I was able to uphold my pride as a Sandorian, and I have no regrets. We'll accept the destiny which awaits us." Though still unable to truly smile, Tenma still shook the other team's captain's hand.

"Good luck on the rest of the tournament, Tenma."

Liberta waited in the stadium hallway. He held a small piece of paper he found inside his jersey pocket. "I'm glad it's going smoothly…" he smirked crumbling the paper and putting it back inside.

"So you have come, Liberta El Mata." A feminine voice said. It was Ishigashi, Earth Eleven's tour guide.

"You're the one who called me?" Liberta gasped, I guess the council really was involved in this…

"You have been elected to be part of the Faram Obieus Shitenou. Declining isn't a choice…"

Liberta grinned, "You kidding? I'm in!"

"What?" Ishigashi stared surprised for second, "Okay, then, follow me. I've already packed and taken your belongings."

"Huh?"

"Hey, Liberta! What do you think you're doing!?" It was Tsurugi and it seemed like he heard everthing. "Joining their side, are you crazy!?" He turned to Ishigashi, "If that's why you called me, I'm leaving…!"

Ishigashi let out a creepy smile, "Oh, don't worry, you were called for a different reason, Kyousuke Tsurugi."

"Wha-" Tsurugi turned enraged to find himself face to face with his look alike. Another Tsurugi? Before he could react, the fake Tsurugi used some sort of hypnosis technique causing Tsurugi to fall to the ground.

"What's the meaning of this?" Liberta asked.

"Let's just say, our queen is quite a handful…"

Leaving the fake Tsurugi behind, Liberta left for Faram Obeius along with the abducted striker.

Episode 22 preview

Onward to the next planet! With the presence of the fake Tsurugi, the Earth Eleven players are still unaware of the abduction of their ace striker. Tenma keeps having strange dreams of a girl who claims to know a way to save all the planets. While this is happening, phase 2 of the Melfen's mission is about to begin with a new member on the team! Episode 22: Zephyr of the Winds.