Chapter Text
They had been playing hard in both halves of this game, they were only one minute away from securing the Bastard Muchen win in this match—his final one with Isagi. He and Isagi were still flitting around each other, fighting for the ball so the victor in their silly bet. The match was tied 2-2 right now, with 1 goal from each he and Isagi, and that also managed to tie their personal goal bet. He wasn’t sure how exactly they managed to constantly be tied! He needed Isagi to kneel for him by the end of the game. That was until his concentration was broken and all Kaiser could hear was a loud crack from behind him. Every referee blew their whistles and gameplay stopped immediately. Kaiser felt full body goosebumps erupt all over him before he could turn around.
Before he could turn—Ness raced over to him and attempted to drag Kaiser off of the field. Ness tried, he tried with all his might knowing Kaiser couldn’t handle seeing the scene that unfolded right behind him, but Kaiser fought. Of course, Kaiser fought—not that Ness had really considered that he might have a chance to stop Kaiser from doing anything, but especially when Isagi Yoichi was involved. Kaiser had practically handed his leash and collar over to Isagi ever since they had started—well, who knows what exactly they had started. Ness had grieved whatever it was that he wished he could have with Kaiser, once he (begrudgingly) had gotten to know Isagi and discovered his intentions with Kaiser, he just had to accept that his best friend was an embarrassing simp, which is why he knew Kaiser would turn around. He had to, he couldn’t ignore Isagi, ever. And, turn around he did, still in Ness’ grasp, to see what stopped the game.
Ness would say that he felt it happen. He felt Kaiser break into pieces. He stopped breathing, at the very least. And Ness would never get that scream out of his head (had you ever heard a mother cry out when she found out her baby had died? That was pretty similar to the raw grief in Kaiser’s scream). On the ground, lay the heap that was Isagi Yoichi. From what Ness had seen as he was rushing up the field, the ball hit him in the back of the head, right around the nape of his neck. Because of how fast the ball had been hurtling through the air at the time coupled with Isagi’s mad dash to be in the right spot to receive it, he fell forward too quickly to catch himself. His temple hit the ground, and at the high rate of speed, it caused at minimum a horrific concussion. But, the way he wasn’t breathing, Ness assumed the worst. Somehow, Isagi’s limbs were twisted on the ground as well, and there was blood (oh, god that’s a lot of blood) coming out of the side of his head that hit the ground.
Kaiser knew, he felt in his bones that this was the last time he’d see his Yoichi. He ran to him, cupping his face anyway and begging him to wake up. There was just so much blood—was it because it was a head wound or because Isagi had been downing Advil like it was his job, didn’t it say on the bottle that NSAID’s make bleeding worse oh god when was the medical team going to get here. He was busy cooing sweet words to Isagi as he tried to clean the blood, in a haze as if Isagi being clean meant he would be fine (how could he ever be clean again, there was a pool of blood under his head). He was breathing after all, but barely. He missed it at first, maybe they all did? Maybe that’s why the medical team was taking so long to get over here. But that’s good, he definitely took a breath; he might be just fine. It only took a minute before the medical team was on the field and tearing Kaiser off of Isagi’s body so they could get to work to save his life. Kaiser wouldn’t stop thrashing around, kicking 2 other players in the process of his removal until Ness finally calmed him down a little. While Ness was trying to pull Kaiser off the field, he struggled until he was able to see that Isagi was placed into an ambulance and taken away. He watched the ambulance until he couldn’t see it any longer. Ness didn’t think he even noticed the tears streaking down his face or the scratches he had torn into his arms as he watched them take Isagi away.
Knowing Isagi would be in adequate hands, or, medical professionals at least (the best hands were his hands), he finally allowed himself to be led off the field. The soccer commission had been on the phone with those running the game while they got Isagi taken care of to discuss if they should continue the game or if it would cause too much backlash. They decided that the game would be called a tie and didn’t pursue any sort of tie breaker, considering the tragic circumstances. It was all the teams could do, just….wait it out. The hospital asked everyone to wait to visit until they could stabilize Isagi and contact his family. If, if they could stabilize Isagi. From what everyone could gather, Isagi had a skull fracture and a grade 3 concussion. He had also broken his wrist, probably from the fall; and seemed to have stress fractures in his ankles that had been there for some time. They had him in a medically induced coma to let his body rest while they awaited permission from Isagi’s parents to move forward with a treatment plan.
The whole stadium seemed to be shell shocked, all the players from both teams were frozen in the locker room for the next two hours, hoping to hear something, anything. The spectators were ushered out of the stadium once there was clearly not going to be a continuation of the game, nor were they getting updates about Isagi. Players on both teams showered on autopilot and then just sat there, waiting. Hoping. Even Noa looked like he was getting emotional. He had noticed Isagi had been pushing himself lately. Extra practice, pushing himself on weight training and strength training and even endurance training. He should have investigated further, made sure the team was just sticking to their assigned training and not doing more. Sore muscles and big dreams meant the players often took pain medicine; but if what Noa heard was correct, Isagi had been taking an excessive amount of it. Just how much pain was he in? How was he covering it up so well? How could he have stress fractures and continue to play at the caliber he had been playing at?
The German team was dismissed to their dorms after a few hours with no word. Ego announced that teams would be contacted when they were able to visit. By morning, the coaches received the news. Breaking this to the team would not be easy or pleasant, but Noa had to figure out how to tell Kaiser first. He wasn’t really sure what their relationship was exactly. But it was something and he felt he owed Kaiser the ability to grieve in relative peace.
He went to see Kaiser and delivered the news. It was clear of course that Kaiser wasn’t okay but he was pretty shocked at the lack of reaction he got. On his way out, Kaiser asked Noa to call Ness to his room—he obliged, assuming Kaiser just needed some support. He then asked the rest of the team to meet in the common area in half an hour to discuss Isagi. Ness and Kaiser did not attend this meeting, but Noa had his hands full anyway with the grieving teammates as it was. The teams were all invited to the funeral, and afterwards was going to be the off season—Blue Lock (begrudgingly) offered therapy to all the players so they would have their time to mourn and be ready to play once the new season rolled around.
After Isagi had been pronounced dead, Michael Kaiser was an entirely new person. Sometimes he was happy go-lucky, sometimes Ness had to check him into a facility for a mandatory 72-hour hold. He would come to practice as if nothing ever happened, playing games with his teammates, joining outings like team dinners, he even tried playing jokes on the team at one point (seriously, how did he get a glitter bomb into a soccer ball?). For the most part, the Emperor persona was nowhere to be found. New teammates had no idea why the original Bastard team was so afraid of Kaiser, why some of them still kneeled to him. But then, he’d be hard to get out of bed or screaming about seeing someone in his dreams. He was always talking about his dreams—they seemed to be pretty vivid but, Ness didn’t think that was abnormal. People were worried of course, but athletes can be…dramatic. And, Kaiser had lost a friend. It was to be expected that he was a little… odd. Thankfully, Noa seemed content to keep the “dramatics” between him, Ness and Kaiser instead of involving the team doctors and higher ups.
Oddly enough, as soon as the season following Isagi’s death began, Kaiser had come to Noa to demand a number change. He swore that he was given the wrong jersey. His was number 11. Eleven not ten. He insisted it had always been his number. He was always number eleven. He always had a two-gun volley. He never showed his tattoo when he scored, simply jumped into Ness’ arms. Noa still argued and even tried to show him that his old plays so he could see his jersey. His number ten jersey. And his Kaiser impact, but Kaiser insisted that Noa was the one seeing things. When he showed Kaiser videos of Isagi’s plays to show him that it was Isagi who had the two-gun volley, Kaiser asked why Noa was showing him videos of Nanase because Nanase hadn’t even made it to one of the pro teams.
Noa wasn’t paid enough for this, so he stopped trying to convince Kaiser and just switched the number. They played a wonderful season—nothing special, but they did very well and Noa was proud. He hoped Kaiser would come back next season more like his old self—maybe he would talk to Ness about it.
Kaiser arrived at the coffee shop he visited every day. There was always this one cute boy behind the counter. He couldn’t see him clearly; it was always like there was a film over his eyes when he saw him. But his voice sounded so familiar. He could never place it though. But he loved going to the coffee shop and placing the most ridiculous orders. Today he thought he would ask for a venti iced americano; 5 shots of decaf with almond milk, extra ice, 8 honey, 7 matcha, double blended, split into 3 cups. It was so ridiculous that he was sure Yogi (was it Yogi?) would be very irritated with him. He would passive aggressively make the coffee and hand it to him, calling him Mihya and never failing to fill Kaiser’s stomach with butterflies. He did the same yesterday when Kaiser had ordered a tall pike in a grande cup with three pumps of toffee nut, a shot of espresso, extra hot caramel drizzle and steamed breve all the way to the top. Yoshi (was it Yoshi? Why can he never remember) would always ask him before he left if he remembered (remembered what?) and without fail, Kaiser would give him a confused look. Yossi (Yossi? That wasn’t it either) always reassured him “Don’t worry Mihya, you’re not in the final third yet, I can keep waiting.”
Kaiser was always thrown off when he has these kinds of days. He needed to get ready to meet the team at the airport. They were all going back to Japan to train some newbies in the Blue Lock facility. Maybe he will see Nanase today. It had been quite a while; he missed their soccer chemistry. The only other person he ever worked with so well was Ness, so it might be fun to try out some new moves. Nanase could always keep up, his metavision was almost as good as Kaiser’s, so they were always at the same place at the same time.
The team kept trying to tell him that it wasn’t Nanase that he had chemistry with at Blue Lock—but he could never hear who they said. They had to be wrong; it was definitely Nanase, he wouldn’t just forget someone that fundamentally changed him as a person and a player. He spent so much time with Nanase—he wouldn’t forget the person he spent so much time with. Ness stopped the team from pushing the subject, knowing Kaiser was close to snapping (and bringing him for a 72-hour hold wasn’t going to happen if he snapped while they were in the air). The team boarded the plane and settled in for a long flight.
Kaiser arrives at an empty soccer field. The weather is crisp and dewy and a bit foggy, it’s perfect early morning weather, nice for working off some energy. Kaiser took his time practicing his dribbling up and down the field and tried out some different shots. After a while, he noticed a figure coming towards him slowly on the field. His face was obscured, but there was a little sprout on his head. It felt familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. They played soccer together anyway for what felt like hours, never really saying anything. The sunlight had melted away the dewy fog and Kaiser had worked up a sweat. The boy with the sprout asked if he remembered. He didn’t (he didn’t even know what he should be remembering), and the boy responded with a simple, “Ah, I’m sure Mihya will sort it out soon. I think you’ll find what you’re looking for.” And simply, walked away. Leaving Kaiser reeling.
The team arrived at Blue Lock and met the new players. No one really stuck out to Kaiser, but he didn’t want to get on Ego’s nerves by being rude—he couldn’t say why he felt like he should care about that though. Unfortunately for Kaiser, Nanase never showed up. It was weird, most of the other original Blue Lock players had come to help with the training camp. He recognized the Bee Boy, Reo and Nagi were still attached at the hip. Rin looked just as grumpy as he always did. Everyone looked a little sad, but he couldn’t guess why they would be sad. The training camp lasted about a week and on the final night everyone gathered in the common room for a final dinner. The Blue Lock kids asked Kaiser and Ness about their time in Blue Lock—Ness told them stories for a while, but the kids kept pushing for Kaiser to tell them stories of his “legendary partnership with that Isagi guy.”
It was like a record-scratch in his brain, he only half-heard the name when the kids said it to him, but he felt Ness tense up next to him. He didn’t know why—that was the wrong name. So, he corrected them—Nanase was his partner here. All of the former Blue Lock players side eyed Kaiser, but he didn’t notice—he was in his own head now. He told them about how they worked really well together once they stopped hating each other. He laughed as he recalled that they had so much hate for each other it was a miracle they ever made it work. He smiled as he remembered Yoichi Nanase pulling him from the locker room to the empty field, remembered playing a game—first to three. Kaiser was sure he’d easily beat him, but Nanase had put up a fight and came out victorious. Kaiser could finally recognize the talent obviously (okay, he was very stressed about being beaten, but he got over it). And they spent evenings from then on together. It was more often than not either training or analyzing games but always together, it was clear they had a plethora of chemistry with each other and Bastard was only better for it. Noa was welcome, he really put in the work while he was here!
Somehow though, in the final game, Nanase was subbed out towards the end and then never got any bids to go pro. It was a shame; Kaiser was sure he would have been a great addition to Bastard. He had meant to go to Re Al though after NEL, he had a fantastic bid to go there, why didn’t he go to Re Al? Ah, probably Ness. Once they became friends again (when did they stop?) Ness wanted to stay with BM to stay with Noa (he didn’t remember Ness caring about Noa before though). All this thinking had made him so very very tired. The team stuck together for a little while longer even after the other folks had gone to bed, not rushing to retire to bed before a mid-morning flight back to Germany.
Kaiser found himself in a tattoo shop. He had an itch under his skin for a while now, begging him to get little puzzle pieces down his right arm. The tattoo artist looked familiar, yet another hazy face on yet another boy with dark blue hair. Were those dark blue eyes? Why was his name on the tip of Kaiser’s tongue? The boy was happy to oblige Kaiser’s request for puzzle pieces spanning his arm. He wanted the pieces to look like they were headed towards an Empress crown on his hand to match the Emperor crown on his left hand. The crown had to look like the puzzle pieces made it though, and it had to be a neon green. The artist agreed and brought Kaiser back to his booth for the long tattoo process. Once the stencil was completed, Kaiser checked in the mirror and asked to add a few more puzzle pieces in various areas. Once it was to his satisfaction, the artist began tattooing. Kaiser fell asleep on the table for a good chunk of the time, but when he was awake, the artist engaged him in conversation. How did he like his team this year, how was the new batch of kids at Blue Lock. Would Ness give Kaiser a hard time for getting the new tattoo. It felt like maybe Kaiser knew this guy—he just couldn’t place it. After about 8 hours, Kaiser left, but not before the boy asked if he remembered (remembered what?) Saying no, the boy just said “the pieces are still coming together. It’s okay Mihya, no need to rush it. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Kaiser went to show Ness his new tattoo, Ness seemed to love it…he asked for clarification on what exactly it was, but there was a little goo in the saniderm so it wasn’t clear as day— he couldn’t expect Ness to magically sus out what was going on under there. Ness texted the team to let them know about it too so that they wouldn’t brush against his arm and make it hurt or anything—he was so thoughtful. However, later in the day, towards the end of practice, Gesner started poking fun at Kaiser for his new tattoo, Kaiser thought it was only fair to fly into a rage. And when he flies into a rage, Ness has to put him on a 72-hour hold (it unfortunately wasn’t the first time). But he deserved it for beating up a teammate. He just couldn’t understand why Gesner kept saying he doesn’t have a tattoo—he does! It’s right there. He can see it, Ness and Noa could see it! Gesner was just being an asshole. He shouldn’t even be on a team if he’s going to be an asshole—he’d have to talk to Noa about it when he got out.
The bell jingles when he enters the flower shop and the cashier looks up from the arrangement he was putting together (wow he has really pretty dark blue hair, and that sprout on top of his head! How cute!). He asked Kaiser what he was interested in, and Kaiser asked to see the roses they had in stock. The man brought him over to the roses, there were many different color options—pretty much any color you could ever want! His eyes landed on the light and dark blue options, and he was immediately sold. The man asked if he wanted him to make it into a specific arrangement for him to take and Kaiser agreed. It didn’t take a very long time, but when he finally came out with the finished arrangement, Kaiser noticed some filler flowers—forget me nots—Kaiser thanked the man, paid and moved to leave; he heard the man quietly say behind him “Mihya, my heart will be holding this spot for you, no matter how long it takes for you to remember. But I hope you remember soon.”