⚔ // once upon a dream

[discutio]

[You all know the drill by now. Ignis and Camilla have taken over the nearest kitchen, and there's going to be food in the Pokemon Center soon enough; a warm and comforting vegetable curry. Highwind's even out now, welcoming any and all who might need a large cloud bird to hug after everything that was.]

[It's been a long night. Everyone needs a good meal and a long rest, and luckily one of those things is being seen to immediately.]

Comments

[eudaimonikos]

I think there's probably some worry about measuring up to Eyeball Man in there.

[okay, at this point you know he's just deliberately getting the name wrong]

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[Snort. Sena's really lucky he wasn't taking a bite of food right then, because he's having a hard time keeping in his giggling.]

I-I-I mean, you're not wrong...

[eudaimonikos]

You don't need to worry about that. He's an established player already, so you're probably younger than he is, right? Eventually, his body is going to break down, and who's gonna be there to trample him on the way to the gold?

[Michael grins and spreads his hands, indicating that he probably does mean this to sound nice.]

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[...michael, please.]

Um...I don't think it'll be that easy. He'd probably be only a year or two older than me at most...

[since this dude is still a high schooler...he hopes. Nobody would be letting an adult play in the high school field, right?]

Besides, there's no point in beating him if he's broken down, you know?

[eudaimonikos]

Winning is winning, Sena.

[strike when your enemy is vulnerable - cough cough anyway:]

Gotta admit, though, I still don't get how the secret identity thing works. Surely you could just go to that school and see who the students are, figure it out from there?

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

Y-yeah, but it really wouldn't feel like I earned the title if I didn't beat them at full strength...

[damn athletes and their...their...sportsmanship!]

Actually, that's the thing...

[Sena tilts his head.]

I talked with someone who'd met Eyeshield while they were both playing in America - he'd ended up being really inspired by him, because he'd never seen a Japanese player so thoroughly dominate an American sport, right? But he'd never gotten that person's name, and when he tried contacting them again at Notre Dame...it was like they were never there.

[Well. That just got really weird really fast.]

Like...the school's records were wiped of this person, and anyone he talked to acted like there never was a Japanese Eyeshield 21 player at that school. The only hint he was able to get was that they went back to playing high school football in Japan somewhere, but other than that they didn't know...All they know about this person is their perfect, indomitable running style.

[Like they'd just...suddenly run off into the distance, leaving nothing but an afterimage to chase.]

So we don't really know where Eyeshield 21 is, or why it was covered up like that...It's really weird, you know?

[eudaimonikos]

[..........]

Boy. There has gotta be something criminal going on there.

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[...okay, that thought has clearly never occurred to Sena before, because his face is all wide-eyed and incredulous.]

Y...You really think so? But he wouldn't be allowed to play if he did anything criminal...

[eudaimonikos]

Never said it had to be on his part. It actually couldn't be just him alone - what you have there is a pretty large-scale cover-up.

But of what...?

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

I...I don't know. Hiruma never said anything, and I know he's the type of person to dig into whatever he can find...

[Nervously scratching his cheek.]

I guess that's something to worry about when I get home, though...It's not like I can find out anything while I'm here...

[eudaimonikos]

Might not be worth digging into too much.

[Michael scratches his jaw idly, doubtlessly imagining far more sinister plots than anything that may actually be true.]

Either way, no one just replaces team members like that. Unless they're dicks.

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

Uhm, I guess so. As long as I can face him eventually...

[As it turns out, the whole thing happened because Racism. That's pretty much it.

Very sinister, indeed.]

I played against a team like that once. Hiruma mentioned that because they'd done so, we had a 100% chance of winning against them. He never usually says anything like that...

[eudaimonikos]

Just make sure you back down if it starts to look like he was disappeared.

[As in, by the mob or something.

ALSO YEAH THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT]

That's basically just how everything works, with demons. All about efficiency. I don't know if it's really the worst tactic - obviously it's bad from a moral standpoint, but they aren't ineffective.

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[He's not really sure what you mean by that but it sounds scary enough that he'll, um. Listen.]

Um...o-okay...?

[As in it turns out the U.S. president's son plays football and was Incredibly Offended that some physically inferior Foreigner took the Sacred Glorious Eyeshield 21 Name and had him subsequently Unpersoned from the school.

Sports manga.]

Uhm...I won't deny that it's effective sometimes...but you'd be surprised how much difference passion can make.

[eudaimonikos]

[Well, Michael's fairly sure that Eyeshield 21 is dead and in the ocean now, but he won't mention that without further proof.]

Guess I can imagine it, in more directly competitive settings. I'd try a lot harder to do something for my friends than my coworkers.

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[yikes(tm).]

Yeah! When you're all able to work together...it's a lot easier, I think.

[Football might be a highly specialized sport, but it's also a team sport.]

[eudaimonikos]

[He's a demon, this is where his mind goes]

Yeah. Even when I had a team of demons to work with, they all just turned against me in the end. Not a huge surprise, but it was very inconvenient.