Chapter Text
Sunlight looked so much drearier through such heavy clouds. Even the turf, normally an unnatural emerald green, was sapped of its color by the imminent rain.
A football flew through the air, as it had countless times each day, every day, for the past twenty years. Rin Itoshi was training. Training for what, he'd long forgotten. As the world had forgotten him. Once, he was known as Sae Itoshi's younger brother and Yoichi Isagi's rival. Presently, he was known for nothing, he couldn't call himself a brother to Sae, and Isagi was so far beyond him that it almost turned his tears to laughter. Nonetheless, he trained, as he had long since lost any idea of what else to do. But that day, something strange occurred. Someone strange stepped onto the field, that is. And while she was strange, she wasn't a stranger. No, Rin would have recognized her near-immediately, had he happened to turn around and see her face. But his eyes on the pitch weren't what they used to be. They stayed firmly locked on the ball he was about to shoot.
And so, the two figures stood out on the turf, one still and silent as she watched the other kick ball after ball into the goal. At some point, he did notice her standing there, but between the setting sun and heavy cloud cover, he couldn't make out her appearance. Without the certain knowledge that she was someone he knew, he comfortably filed her away in his mind as someone unimportant. And the ridiculous, one-way, completely silent stare-down continued. Eventually, the clouds above sent a few tentative raindrops down as if warning them, yet neither heeded. The watcher had worn a poncho and carried an umbrella, knowing it would rain. The striker simply didn't care. He'd scored ten more goals by the time the rain and wind made conditions unplayable.
Finally, when one of his perfect shots—he was absolutely sure that he'd shot perfectly—was blown off-course to the point that it nearly rolled out of the field entirely, Rin Itoshi decided he'd had enough practice for the night. Once the lost ball stopped rolling, his eyes snapped up to the sky and he raised one hand, as if he was only just then realizing that the rain had begun to fall. He was soaked to the bone. A shiver ran through him. That shiver was cut off, however, by the start he gave when a warm hand suddenly touched his shoulder. He rocketed his elbow up into the stranger's own, throwing her whole arm out of his personal space and back into hers. Then, his glare changed into a wide-eyed stare of disbelief and confusion.
"Your instincts are still sharp," said Anri Teieri, as if it were only yesterday that she and Rin had last spoken. "That's how you used to shut down Karasu."
Recovering quickly enough from his shock, Rin replied bitterly: "I don't have time to waste talking about old rivalries."
"Of course," Anri retorted, "you just wasted so much."
She pointed past Rin. He looked back to where she was indicating. The goal net. When he turned back to Anri, it was with a glare.
"I'm training."
"For what?"
Rin went silent. The wind shrieked in his place, and the rain pounded the ground for him, but his body and voice were frozen by more than just the cold.
"You don't play anymore. You don't talk to anyone outside of work, so I know you don't plan on coaching. And if you think you have a chance at challenging Isagi, you're twenty years too late."
Rin wanted to hit her for how casually she spoke. To describe all his lost dreams in such a matter-of-fact tone, without a hint of regret on her face for her part in the tragedy. It was disgusting.
"If you want to waste your life away shooting nothing-goals on this cheap little pitch, that's fine by me. You can freeze to death at the end of the season and I'll find someone else to help me. But are you really okay with that?"
Her words gave him yet more pause. Especially one: "help." Help with what? What the fuck could she possibly want his help with? What the fuck could she possibly deserve his help with, after all she and that scheming rat Ego had done to him? And... why did it interest him? Why was he still listening? Why hadn't he hit her like he'd wanted to? Had Rin Itoshi, the prodigy, the captain of the Blue Lock Eleven, fallen so far over the years that he was really considering a proposal that he hadn't even heard yet? Just because it had involved giving up what he had now?
Anri didn't give him time to answer his own questions. Hers was more important, for herself, for the world, and if she had a good read on the man, for Rin.
"The lights are on again in Blue Lock."
Rin's world stopped. The sheets of rain froze where they were, forming, for an imperceptible instant, a thousand little mirrors that all reflected Rin Itoshi's nervous face. Then the mirrors crashed the ground, and more followed. Rin turned his head down and took in air, ignoring the streams of water that flowed down his cheeks.
"Why?" he asked, unable to think of anything else.
"To put it in strictly technical terms," Anri began, "girls in football deserve Blue Lock just as much as you boys did."
"...But there's more," Rin prompted, sensing it.
"Yes." A spark shone in Anri's eyes, one that hadn't shone there since she'd joined the Japanese Football Union two decades prior. "To put it in correct terms... we need another revolution."
Rin met her gaze with his own, and her spark floated out between the two.
"You're saying—?"
"I can't think of a single person more fit to be a part of this project than you." Anri's voice rose. "You know what it means to be a prodigious player. You know how it feels to be starving for your dreams!"
Rin's reply was cold as ice: "My dreams died in Blue Lock."
"Would you rather they have died somewhere else?" Anri rebuked, meeting his ice with her fire.
Rin was unable to match it, and for a moment, he melted. Once again, he couldn't speak. His mouth, unlike the whole rest of his body, was bone dry.
"I know you want to be part of the game again," she continued. "You wouldn't be out here if you didn't. That dead-end office job of yours is nothing more than a scam on your time. You need the game. But this isn't the game."
She was right. He knew she was right. She knew he knew she was right, too, for good measure. Rin turned around and looked desperately from turf to ball to goal net, as if one of them might condemn her words for him. But the net stood resolute as the rain ran down its posts, and it made no reply. To Rin, it seemed even the world itself had agreed: Anri Teieri was right. From the moment she decided to offer him a chance, he was already doomed to accept. Perhaps she'd known. Or perhaps she'd just had faith. Both were important to the sport, for players and coaches.
"I'll be... a coach?" Rin asked hesitantly.
"Oh, no," Anri assured him, "that would be too dull for someone like you."
Rin was intrigued. He listened closely to what she said next.
"You'll be our ego slayer."
"Ego... slayer?" The job sounded strange, unhealthy, and utterly perfect for the broken prodigy.
"Someone needs to break our girls down before they're built back up again, and I never had the stomach for it. So I'm giving that part of Ego's job to you."
Rin didn't reply immediately.
"And, of course," Anri continued, sensing that something else might be important to mention, "it comes with that part of Ego's salary."
That was something of a nuclear option. Any ordinary office worker would find it near-impossible to resist, and Rin had already felt plenty of temptation. Finally, after so much convincing, and standing out in the rain for more time than she'd ever planned to, Anri Teieri's spark caught on Rin Itoshi's ego, and it ignited. He looked down at his feet for only a moment, and when his eyes met hers again, they were bright with an entirely new fire.
"Are we going right now?"
Anri grinned. Rin had never seen her grin like that. Or maybe he had, once; smiles didn't stick in his memory. He took the umbrella as she handed it to him, opened it so as to stop the rain, and looked very intently at the sheet of paper she was presently taking out from under her poncho. His eyes narrowed. It was a calendar, by the looks of it, though anything the manufacturers had thought important had long since been covered by sharpie. Though he had to squint tightly to see anything in the cloudy evening light, he eventually managed to parse what it said. Almost every day on the calendar had written upon it the name of a high school.
"Not to the facility, yet," Anri smirked. "You and I are going hunting."