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It’s a familiar dream: standing on the Teikoku pitch, staring down Raimon on the opposition, Kidou understands the trap minutes too late.
There is no whispered warning to Endou; there is no near miss. There is only Kidou and his team, watching in horror as the dust settles and reveals red seeping into green, tall pillars of metal stretching into the sky, into the high ceiling of the arena. Even with all of Kageyama’s calculations, there is no way to guarantee all the beams fall precisely into the players’ spots—even Kidou’s subconscious usually knows that, and so the handful who weren’t hit let out shrieks and caterwauls of shock and grief at the sight that greets them; the ones that live change each time.
At the beginning, the dream would often focus on Endou’s fate. Kidou had inspected the tampered field himself, after they had played, forcing himself to see it no matter how sick it made him feel, and the first thing he had noticed was that there was nothing at the goal. It had puzzled him at the time—Endou was the glue that held Raimon together. Anyone could see it, and Kageyama certainly could, he was sure; even if he hadn’t, Kidou had pointed him out multiple times in the course of their strategising. Take out the foundation, and the whole thing would crumble, quick and easy. Now that he knows about Endou Daisuke, what Kageyama had done—well, it makes a lot more sense.
Of course, dreams don’t always pay mind to reality. This becomes clear the first time Kidou sees Endou’s skewered body, mangled under the crushing weight of metal, face permanently frozen with dull eyes and mouth open, blood pooling around his tongue.
But more often than not, Endou lives, the logical part of Kidou’s brain taking over to preserve a different kind of horror. A vision where most of Raimon Junior High’s football club is killed by the falling beams, leaving only a few players left standing—sometimes, only one. Endou is left, alone, at the goal, surrounded by his fallen team members, shellshocked expression on his face as the scent of iron rises into the air; Kidou is left standing on Teikoku’s side of the pitch, knowing it was his fault for not noticing, knowing he could have changed the outcome.
These days, since he transferred to Raimon, since he began forming more than just acquaintanceships with their players, the dreams have gotten more creative; one time it could be Gouenji standing alone, other times it could be Ichinose. Another, only half of Raimon's players are struck; the remaining have to scramble to cling to each other, shrill shrieks echoing against the metal walls. Each time, the blood fills the ground below, soaking into turf, and each time, Teikoku stands unharmed as a tragedy unfolds before them.
(Each time, Haruna screams, the clearest sound in the entire dream. The ones that focus on her are ones he can’t bear to think about.)
What doesn’t change is the ending: suddenly, in the typical logic of dreams, he finds himself in Kageyama’s office. Every time, he stands there, staring at the back of his chair, waiting for something, anything, an explanation as to why he just murdered the opposition right in front of them. Typically he gets none; occasionally he gets something, his subconscious still trying to be logical, the chair turning to face him as the explanation comes: sometimes it’s for the sake of victory, sometimes it’s to see Kidou break. Since Zeus, occasionally it’s to see Endou break.
This, then, is new.
He stands in Kageyama’s office, familiar cold, dark, sleek walls surrounding him, white lights bright and sterile on either side of his path. Staring down the desk, Kidou stands in the centre, having just watched future allies be slaughtered in front of him, and Kageyama turns...
...And they’re on the submarine.
The cold wind hits Kidou like a blade, making him gasp for air as he fumbles for his footing on smooth metal. His cape billows in the wind, his arms becoming numb of sensation as they freeze, sea salt on his tongue as he shouts something that he can’t hear. Kageyama sits in his chair at the top, barely taking a look at the helicopter circling him. Feeling more like a helpless child than he ever has before, Kidou screams at him, throat raw with the power of it, and receives the attention he once stayed for, a sinister smile gracing Kageyama’s face.
“You can still come back, you know,” he says. “Join us; be stronger together, strong enough to never fall.”
Kidou finds himself unable to make a sound, throat tight like someone has wrapped a cord around it and started to pull.
“You were my greatest asset,” the voice murmurs, almost soothing. “My greatest creation.”
He takes a step back. Metal under his feet slippery from the saltwater, he just manages to stay put.
“No?” Kageyama turns his head away from him, looking out over the pitch. The ocean roars in Kidou’s ears, desperate and loud, as though hissing that he’s out of options. “That’s alright. I think I might like you better broken.”
Kidou stares, scared and cowering, as Kageyama’s chair returns to its trapdoor, mechanical and whirring like the blood in his ears. The helicopter swerves to avoid an explosion, and he whips his head around to find that Onigawara is too far away to reach him, and a sudden pit forms in his throat as he realises: he’s not going to make it.
Left alone on the top of the submarine, Kidou watches saltwater spray up around him, and at the end, for all his bravado, for all his anger in climbing up here, all he feels is frightened.
Until, of course, his eyes snap open to find himself curled up in a sleeping bag on the soft fabric of the caravan seats, breathing quick.
He catches his breath slowly, blinking behind his goggles, letting air into his lungs to clear the disorientation in his vision. Blood roaring in his ears, he focuses on the sounds outside them: teammates (Endou) snoring beside him, the wind against the windows of the van, his own breathing carefully approaching something steady over erratic. Shaking slightly, he sits up, shrugging off the top half of his sleeping bag and taking a long breath; finally, he reaches up to his face and takes off the goggles.
Taking in his new, wider vision, he stares down at them in his hands, small slivers of moonlight reflecting in the lenses.
He disagrees with his subconscious, even if it was a harrowing image: he doesn’t think Kageyama would prefer him broken. That’s what he’d like to believe, anyway, after having been under the man’s command for years; despite all his wrongdoings, all his manipulation, there is a part of Kidou that still thinks Kageyama has a place for him. That part has been getting smaller and smaller the longer he spends with Raimon, the longer he builds his belief that maybe he can have a place here, too—but it lingers.
His greatest creation.
But somehow, the thought that Kageyama would prefer to leave him intact...
It’s much worse than anything else.