Chapter Text
Michael Kaiser's undeniable talent once dazzled the world, but it was in the Neo Egoist League that the truth about the blue rose on his shoulder, symbolizing the capacity to unravel the impossible, was unveiled as nothing but an illusion. The fall from grace was swift and brutal - it took just a single defeat at the hands of a fresh star to shatter Michael Kaiser's ego into a thousand shards, like a glass chain, rendering him incapable of reconciling with failure and making a return to the grand stage of football.
Isagi Yoichi ruined Kaiser. It was Isagi Yoichi who caused Kaiser to give up football, driving him into despair after the football community, once his adoring crowd, scorned and ridiculed him when a younger Japanese striker publicly dethroned him.
In Ness's eyes, Isagi Yoichi was the sole reason for the current situation: why Michael Kaiser now lay on the floor, hunched and unnaturally pale, with disheveled hair and his face in his own vomit. Ness would never find out whether Kaiser deliberately killed himself, but when he found him, cold and lifeless, he didn't hesitate.
Was it just a coincidence that Kaiser left enough drugs for Ness to follow him? That was the second thing that would remain forever unanswered. But it scarcely mattered - ingesting the leftover pills, Ness was grateful for them. The less time he spent in a world without Kaiser, the better.
Not long after, his legs betrayed him, collapsing beneath his weight, and he crashed onto the hard floor. His head spun; each subsequent breath seemed to become harder. He shut his eyelids, now too heavy to remain open.
His consciousness was fading away, thoughts dissolving into a haze, and for a moment, he nearly forgot that Kaiser lay lifeless beside him. Ness was following him now, as he always did.
Would he have chosen a different path if Michael Kaiser hadn't been his entire world?
A shroud of darkness descended upon him, and for a moment, Ness found solace in utter stillness.
In Ness's family's home, the idea that the world was controlled by some deity who would judge where they should go after death, always seemed too distant and absurd to bother with. Perhaps that was why as Ness, his hands trembling, began ingesting a variety of pills he found beside unbreathing Kaiser, thoughts of his own fate didn't even cross his mind.
Perhaps, had he not been alone and depressed for several months because he didn't know how to help the wilting and broken Kaiser, he might have hesitated. But now, Kaiser was gone, and Ness had no one else he lived for. If the only alternative was the possibility of descending into endless oblivion, Ness yearned for it.
So why did he still feel? Not the cold bathroom floor anymore, the hardness of which had been replaced by a mattress. He felt the warmth of a blanket covering his skin, the clean air replacing the smell of death and vomit. Ness breathed steadily for a moment, not even realizing that this prosaic act was easy and natural again. There was no boundless darkness beneath his eyelids; some light pierced through, disturbing the peace he dreamed of.
I haven't died, Ness realized, struggling to piece together his memories. Had someone found him and forced him to fight for life by rushing him to the hospital? His eyelids quivered; if that were true, the world awaiting him was one with dead Kaiser, and that world terrified him more than any notion of hell, purgatory, or nothingness.
He opened his eyes to find himself beneath a familiar blue steel ceiling.
Hell, he concluded, recognizing the ceiling of his dorm during the Neo Egoist League. He rolled onto his side, groaning from the pain – his entire body felt numb, as if he had just awakened from an anxious, unrestful slumber.
A loud gasp escaped his lips when he saw Kaiser lying on the same bed as he had during their stay in Blue Lock, sleeping on his side with his hand tucked beneath his cheek.
Ness threw off his blanket and rose from his bed, stumbling over his own legs as he made an overly abrupt movement, to reach the adjacent bed as swiftly as possible. He fell to his knees, landing just inches away from it. He instinctively braced himself with his hands on the other's mattress, and a stream of incoherent, disbelieving thoughts filled his head because Kaiser in front of him was not cold and lifeless, Kaiser in front of him was breathing!
Tears streamed down Ness's cheeks without him even realizing it when after a few moments, Kaiser's eyes squinted and then opened slowly.
"What the fuck," Kaiser mumbled, his voice filled with morning grogginess.
Ness broke into a laugh through his tears. There was no sweeter sound now than Kaiser's voice, unburdened by alcohol, drugs, emptiness and sadness, a voice he had longed to hear for what felt like an eternity.
Kaiser propelled himself on his elbow, rubbing his congested eyes. ''Why are you crying-''
"What the fuck are you doing, Ness?" came a gruff voice from the bed behind them. "Do I really have to be woken up because of your smegma nightmares?"
"Kaiser, you're alive," Ness whispered and hastily wiped away his tears, not wanting them to blur his view of Kaiser. It must be a dream, a scary thought entered his mind. But no, it couldn't be true. No dream could ever be so vivid and beautiful.
"Of course, I am," Kaiser looked at him as if Ness lost his mind. Ness couldn't help but break into a wide grin. He wiped his eyes again, struggling to regain his composure.
"Did I...," Ness couldn't gather his thoughts. Reluctantly, he averted his gaze from Kaiser and looked around the room.
Everything was exactly the same as at the beginning of their stay in Blue Lock, back when he thought that appearing on Blue Lock TV would be just an adventure and an opportunity to promote Kaiser, freeing him from Bastard München.
He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Whatever inexplicable had happened, telling Kaiser the truth, even suggesting that he was to be defeated in Blue Lock, was absolutely out of the question. Ness pinched himself hard on the forearm, still not believing what was occurring, but despite the pain, the Blue Lock room and Kaiser in front of him did not disappear.
"Sorry," Ness began, his voice shaking. "I just... I missed you."
He bit his tongue, realizing how absurd his words must sound to Kaiser.
Gesner snorted from his bed. "Oh great, the lovebirds are starting already. I knew I should insist on a separate room, fuck."
From the bed next to Gesner's, Grim raised himself, ostentatiously rubbing his eyes and sighing heavily. "When the love is genuine, even the span of night becomes an eternity to endure, dear Erik. Especially when it's unrequited love, oh!" He exclaimed with agony as he threw himself back onto his bed, clutching his badly dyed locks.
Kaiser paid no attention to them, instead looking clearly annoyed by Ness's emotional outburst and being woken up earlier than usual. "Ness, seriously, what happened to you? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Ness's teeth sunk into his lip as he hesitated to answer. How could he explain that he had seemingly traveled back in time, resurrected from the death alongside Kaiser? Anyone who he told that would likely think he had truly lost his sanity.
"I'm sorry, it's... it's nothing," He said and lowered his eyes. You'll laugh at me, Ness thought. I don't even believe what's happening myself.
He heard Gesner's grumble. "Jeez, Ness beat Grim in melodrama on the first day."
Grim emitted a mournful cry, while Gesner kept repeating his regular curses. Kaiser glanced at them with distaste, and then all his attention returned to Ness.
"Fine, we'll talk about it later. I'm going to take a shower now," He said, raising from his bed.
After an hour, when they all got dressed and headed to the dining area, Grim and Gesner practically forgot about Ness's unusual behavior in the early morning. They chatted, yet only a few words reached Ness. He couldn't tear his gaze away from Kaiser, silent and focused, lost in his own thoughts.
Right, he's planning what to say to Yoichi, Ness realized, staring at Kaiser from the side as they walked down the corridor towards the dining hall. Everything was just as he remembered.
Recognizing what was going to happen after breakfast and a quick warm-up, a shiver went down Ness's spine. He tried to breathe deeply and steadily, attempting to regain his composure and steady his racing heart. It pounded in his chest, more fiercely than after the toughest matches he'd played.
Abruptly, Kaiser halted, and Ness observed him with a touch of unease.
"Which way was it?" Kaiser asked, scanning the branching corridor.
"Left," Ness automatically replied. Kaiser raised his eyebrows, and now he walked right next to Ness, who led the way to the dining hall.
Soon, they entered the dining area, where the scent of various food wafted through the air. It was almost empty - because of the early hour, they were the first to came here.
"What's that smell?" Kaiser wrinkled his nose in disgust. Though Ness was still in shock, he couldn't help but chuckle, recognizing those words, the same ones as those few months ago, their first day in Blue Lock.
"It's fermented fish," Ness said and Kaiser looked at him with bewilderment.
"Disgusting," he remarked. Gesner and Grim mirrored his sentiments, vehemently voicing their disapproval of the Japanese breakfast in their own ways.
"Fortunately, there's regular food here too," Ness said, cautious to avoid revealing too much of his foresight about the future. He gestured toward a table stocked with various types of bread, cold cuts, and familiar dishes like scrambled eggs and oatmeal, right beside the Japanese staples like rice, pickled raddish and natto.
"Thank goodness," Kaiser muttered, grabbing a plate and filling it with all the known dishes while scrupulously avoiding anything Japanese. "Who eats this garbage?"
Ness smiled broodily, reminiscing that about two weeks after their arrival at Blue Lock, Kaiser had tried many of these now-scorned foreign foods, some of them eventually becoming a regular part of his breakfast.
They both sat down at a table in the corner, far away from other German players.
"Hey," Kaiser began after some time of them eating in silence, when his plate was nearly empty, while Ness merely toyed with his oatmeal. The slightly irritated tone in his voice immediately snapped Ness out of his thoughts.
"Seriously, I want to know what's bothering you. It could affect your performance, and I can't have that," Kaiser stated, his eyes piercing through him.
Ness gave a nervous laugh.
"It's really nothing, Kaiser. Just some weird dreams and stuff. I'll be fine," he lied.
Kaiser's steel-blue eyes remained fixed on him, and for a moment, Ness wanted to tell him everything – he might prove to Kaiser that he was telling the truth, after all, he remembered the coming months in detail! He could tell Kaiser all about Yoichi, and Kaiser would believe him, wouldn't he?
He parted his lips, a sudden wave of hope surging through him. Convincing Kaiser that they needed to leave Blue Lock immediately could ensure that Isagi Yoichi never got a chance to defeat him. Ness could save Kaiser, and then, train harder than ever, and ensure that Kaiser never tasted defeat, never succumbed to despair, and never left Ness.
But before he could even say a word, Kaiser's eyes shifted to something behind Ness, and he touched his arm lightly, silencing him.
"Noa is coming here," Kaiser said, a cunning smile playing on his lips. There was no longer any trace of concern or irritation in his eyes - only excitement and fierce determination to crush everyone on his way to becoming the world's best striker.
He stood up, and Ness watched as he waved with a clear sense of mockery toward the approaching Noa.
"Get ready, Ness," Kaiser said, ruffling his hair. Ness whimpered quietly, feeling disheartened that his courage to confess everything to Kaiser had fizzled out as swiftly as it had appeared.
"It's time to show them the impossible," Ness only heard his softly spoken words before Noa officially greeted them, and then, just as a few months ago, began elucidating the first stage of the Neo Egoist League.