Chapter Text
Wrong Route, Full Clear
— A prank that accidentally unlocked every bad ending
To boost BLTV’s numbers, Ego devises a shameless prank—and Isagi Yoichi becomes the perfect sacrifice.
Persuaded that it’s his chance to get back at a certain group of smug heartthrobs, Isagi throws himself into the plan. Surely nothing could go wrong… right?
It all began with a synchronized sigh from the two adults in a certain Blue Lock conference room.
“Ego-san... we’re short on budget.”
“I’m sick of hearing that, Anri-chan.”
Nursing a throbbing headache, Anri Teieri tapped at her laptop. She rattled off the stagnant numbers on the screen in a flat, dead voice before letting out another heavy sigh. “New BLTV subs are flatlining. At this rate, we won’t even come close to the target.”
Jinpachi Ego—dark circles under his eyes, looking worn down by stress—gave the graph a sideways glance and shook his head. “Yeah, I figured we’d hit a ceiling. It’s within expectations.”
“Wait—then that means...?”
A spark of hope flickered in Anri’s dull eyes. Was the man who publicly swore to ‘only deal with soccer’ finally going to offer a financial lifeline? She spun her chair around, leaning toward him.
“Expanding the target demographic is Business 101. Which means... it’s time to pull the trigger on this.”
Ego pushed up his glasses. He pulled out a hidden proposal and slammed it onto the desk.
“Ego-san...!! This is—!! Isn’t this the one we scrapped because it’s a PR nightmare?!” Anri cried out, her voice rising in panic. “We scrapped this because it’d spark complaints from every human rights group out there! Are you serious about this?!”
“Heh. In this world, results are everything, Anri-chan. Just get the numbers. That’s all that matters. Even if we take a beating in the press, the controversy will drive the subs up.”
(Wow... he’s actually going for it. He didn’t even deny the part about the complaints. It’s definitely catchy, though... it’ll probably be a massive hit. Except...)
“There’s going to be... a few casualties, isn't there?”
“Hmph. Success always demands a little sacrifice.” Ego’s grin widened in the dim light. “We’ll just have Isagi Yoichi be our sacrificial lamb.”
The next day, Isagi Yoichi was summoned alone to a conference room in the central wing of the Blue Prison—a place he never normally set foot in.
Passing through a corridor lined with countless gray doors, he was guided by a staff member into a large room grandly labeled “Conference Room.” Despite its distinctive name, the facility looked utterly ordinary at first glance, save for the absence of any windows offering a view of the outside.
A wide U-shaped table stood in the room's center. Behind it stood a slender man he recognized from monitors, Ego Jinpachi, and a young woman clad in a pantsuit, Teieri Anri. Behind them stood an unfamiliar woman, smiling so broadly it seemed out of place.
“Well, Isagi Yoichi. Glad you could make it. Let's cut to the chase. We want to increase BLTV's subscription base. Cooperate.”
Isagi, who had been about to ask ”What do you want?”, froze stiffly at Ego's words. The man had adopted the so-called ”Gendo Pose"—elbows on the table, fingers interlaced to half-cover his face.
(What?)
“Did you not hear me? We’re short on cash cows. That means we need to reel in new ones. And you’re going to be the bait.”
“Huh—what!? No way!”
The ominous tone sent a chill straight down Isagi’s spine, and he rejected it without a second’s hesitation.
“Ego-san, you’re being way too blunt,” Anri said, clearing her throat beside him. Even as she said that, she calmly operated the remote in her hand.
The lights in the room dimmed. Then the large monitor behind Ego flickered to life—and before Isagi could protest any further, his eyes were forcibly drawn to the screen.
“Isagi-kun, take a look at this.”
“Whoa—!?”
It might sound repetitive to say this again, but this was Blue Lock. A deadly serious training facility meant to cultivate strikers who would one day take the world by storm—or at least, it was supposed to be.
And yet, projected in massive size behind those solemn, straight-faced adults was—unbelievably—a scene straight out of a variety show bit. Men in drag. Their faces were slathered in thick white makeup, lips pursed and painted an unnatural clownish red, topped off with an aggressively well-timed wink.
(Huh? What? Wait—what the hell is this?!)
Was this… supposed to be funny? Completely blindsided by the sheer absurdity of the visual assault, Isagi’s face locked up in a stiff, twitching grimace. Meanwhile, Anri showed no mercy. She kept hammering the buttons, one after another, filling the screen with image after image of burly men in increasingly hideous drag.
(—Oh god, that’s brutal.)
Even caked in heavy makeup, they couldn’t fully hide the patchy stubble, and those thick, clumped-up fake eyelashes were downright terrifying.
Cold sweat slicked his back. What the hell am I even watching? Isagi wondered, yet his eyes remained glued to the screen. It was that twisted, "morbid curiosity"—the kind that kicks in when you know you shouldn’t look, but can’t help it.
Maybe humans are just wired that way. We crave a certain jolt to the system just to feel alive. We’re drawn to the grotesque, the frightening, finding a sick sort of relief only once we look away. Of course, that’s only as long as you’re safe behind the glass—on the side where the rot can’t touch you.
That was when Ego finally began to speak.
Ego slowly opened his mouth. “I intend for you to do this.”
“Huh?! Absolutely not! No way—there’s no way I can do that! What is this, some kind of punishment game?! Did I do something wrong!?”
Confronted with a proposal straight out of a nightmare—and instantly judging that it would, in fact, cause him direct harm—Isagi tore his gaze away from the screen and shook his head violently from side to side, as if his neck might snap clean off.
Ego merely pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and issued his order with blatant arrogance. “Listen to everything first, Isagi Yoichi. If this goes well, you’ll get to make Michael Kaiser eat his words.”
“…………Please tell me the details.”
Isagi went dead serious in an instant as he straightened his back. Watching his opening move succeed—the prey that had nearly bolted now sitting up nice and obedient—Ego smirked to himself.
“Listen up. The goal of this project isn’t to make a laughing stock out of you. Quite the opposite,” Ego began, his voice flat but sharp. “The real prize is capturing the pathetic spectacle of those ‘handsome superstars’—shaking in their boots and scrambling to escape as you corner them in that ridiculously hideous outfit.”
“A pretty face on a screen gets boring fast; even the fans will get sick of those smug looks eventually. What BLTV desperately lacks right now is pure, unadulterated entertainment. A little staging, a bit of acting—it’s essential to the survival of the program.”
“Wait, seriously?!” Isagi sputtered. “Isn’t the emotional damage way worse for me?! I’m the one taking all the hits here!”
Isagi pictured himself in his painfully awkward cross-dressing getup, chasing after a pale-faced Rin and Kaiser. For a split second, he thought, “Hey… this might actually be funny.” But just as quickly, the contemptuous stares and torrent of insults that would inevitably rain down on him hit his imagination. His temper flared, and his cheeks burned with frustration.
(Well, that’s an expected reaction. Of course it wouldn’t be fun for the person actually going through it.)
Ego shrugged and snorted, a smug little sound. “Putting soccer aside for a moment—in your everyday life, have you ever actually outsmarted Kaiser? Not once have you fended off his constant pestering with your own wits. No matter how much you curse him out, he just shrugs it off with those insufferable lines—‘Is that a new confession of love, Yoichi?’ or ‘My, my—your vocabulary really is rock-bottom, isn’t it, Yoichi?’ In the end, you’re always the one getting played, aren’t you?”
“Guh…!”
Frustrating as it was, Ego’s words were completely true. In fact, ever since meeting Kaiser, not a single argument between them had ended in Isagi’s favor. Kaiser always wore that infuriatingly smug smile on his handsome face, using his perfect lips to toss venomous words at Isagi and his friends.
Not only that… No matter how many times Isagi brushed him off, Kaiser would casually reach out, drape an arm over his shoulder, and harass him as easily as breathing. Ego narrowed his eyes, continuing as if he could read straight into Isagi’s turmoil.
“Listen. Narcissists who are obsessed with their own reflections—who live to be seen and photographed—are surprisingly fragile when faced with this kind of lowbrow, crude harassment. They can’t keep up with the lowbrow chaos of Japanese variety shows. Picture it: the great Kaiser, completely rattled, tucking his tail and running away in disgrace.”
“It’s simple, Isagi Yoichi. Just smear some makeup on that face of yours, put on a hideous dress, and throw yourself at him while whimpering something brainless like, ‘I wuv youuu~ hug meee♡’ That’s all it takes to wipe that smug look off his face. Small price to pay, isn’t it? Or… what? Do you want to stay like this forever? Kaiser’s hand pressing down on your head, looking down on you like some needy little pet?”
“Is that all your ‘anger’ amounts to?”
Ego’s bait worked perfectly. His silver tongue had perfectly conjured up every one of Kaiser’s past outrages, stoking the fire of rebellion in Isagi’s gut.
“No way! This… this is nothing! Just a little cross-dressing? I’ll treat it like some stupid party skit—”
Isagi’s voice faltered. His eyes flicked nervously to the massive screen, where a man in truly nightmarish, mask-level ugly drag stared back at him. He choked on his words.
(S-sure, I want to see Kaiser and Rin piss their pants, but dressing like that? God, that’s cringe… it’s painful to even look at. ‘I wuv youuu~ hug meee♡’? There’s no way in hell I could ever say that out loud.)
Anticipating his every move, Ego delivered the final blow. With a flourish, he produced a folded tracksuit jacket from beneath the desk.
(Wait, a tracksuit? Why?) Anri, Isagi, and the unfamiliar woman all tilted their heads in perfect sync. “Huh?”
“I never said you’d be working for free,” Ego smirked. “This is the one-and-only item in existence that your precious Noel Noa actually wore, with his signature personally inked on the lining.”
“I’LL DO IT! BRING ON THE MAKEUP! I’M ALL IN!”
Just like that, Isagi Yoichi’s pride went up in smoke.
He snatched the jacket from Ego’s hands, clutching it to his chest as if his life depended on it. Forgetting every shred of dignity he had left, he squealed in pure, unadulterated bliss: “NOA’S!! LIMITED EDITION TREASURE! MINE! ALL MINE!!”
(Just as planned. What a total idiot.)
Ego’s lips curled into a smug, victorious grin. He shoved a clipboard into Isagi’s hands—the hands of a boy currently vibrating with pure, ecstatic idiocy.
“Sign the consent form. And one rule: No mirrors. Not even after you’re dressed. We’re saving your reaction for the grand finale—our little treat after we’ve thoroughly humiliated Kaiser and the other ‘pretty boy’ favorites.”
“YES SIR!! LOUD AND CLEAR!!”
The curtain rose on the hellish prank.
Mobu Honoka, the professional makeup artist Ego had hired, greeted Isagi with a polite, perfectly practiced fake smile. She led him to a separate prep room to begin his hair and makeup.
“Isagi-kun, your skin is gorgeous! It’s so smooth—honestly, it’s impressively soft!”
“Eh? Really? Stop, you’re making me blush, hehe.”
Isagi had expected to be slapped with thick white paint and clownish eyebrows. Instead, he found himself undergoing a full skincare routine. Cleansing, moisturizing, bangs pinned back—it was far more thorough than he’d expected. He peeked at Mobu’s hands. She was delicately dabbing a smooth, beige cream onto a sponge, gliding it over his skin with careful, practiced precision.
“Um, shouldn’t it be whiter?” Isagi asked, flinching slightly at the unfamiliar sensation of fingers dancing across his face. “Those guys in the video were caked in white, right?”
Mobu let out a knowing little chuckle. “It all depends on the base, Isagi-kun. Those other guys had really rough skin. They needed layers just to look even. But your skin? It’s so fine, it’d be a crime to hide it. A light touch is all you need.”
(Is that how it works?) Isagi wondered, looking puzzled.
Mobu glanced at the desk—not a single mirror anywhere on it—and her smile deepened. “The goal is to shock that Kaiser guy, right? Along with Rin-kun and Nagi-kun? Leave it to your big sister here. I’ll make sure you look completely unexpected.”
“Yes! Please do!”
Fully committed now, Isagi closed his eyes, drifting into a blissful fantasy. In his head, he unconsciously pictured himself as one of the painfully ugly figures from the video. He could see it now: He’d plunge them into a nightmare. Arrogant Rin, who always looked down his nose at him. Nagi, who found everything a ‘hassle.’ And Kaiser, that persistent, golden-haired nuisance. He’d scare the hell out of every last one of them.
He’d creep up in silence. And the moment they realized it was him, he’d immediately switch tactics: a shrill, disgusting falsetto. He’d cling to them, shrieking, “I wuv youuu~ hug meee! ♡”
He could almost see their faces—those perfect, handsome faces turning pale as ghosts, scrambling to get away from him in pure terror. And he’d have a front-row seat to the whole thing. Isagi let out a dark, smug chuckle, completely convinced he was about to become an absolute eyesore.
The makeup artist’s hands moved with a sorcerer's touch. She applied a translucent, shimmering foundation that made Isagi’s skin look like porcelain, then coated his naturally thick lashes with mascara, curving them upward into delicate arcs.
(I knew it. Chigiri and Hiori are tempting, but this one? He’s the most makeup-friendly of them all—absolute top-tier material!)
She fitted him with a soft, black medium-bob wig, a feminine long flared skirt, and a high-collared beige blouse. A loose-fitting cardigan finished the look, artfully hiding the lean lines of his athlete's body. The result was a girl so dazzlingly beautiful, it was almost blinding.
Since there were still no mirrors, Isagi only looked down at his hem. (At least the clothes are plain,) he thought idly. (I was hoping for something more garish and eyesore-inducing.) He had no idea he’d been turned into a perfectly convincing “girl.”
When Isagi was led back into the conference room, the reaction was instantaneous.
CLATTER. Ego dropped his high-end laptop.
CRUNCH. Anri crushed her iced coffee cup, brown liquid leaking through her fingers.
“—?! W-well, well!! Yeah, looks about right! Just as expected! A horrifyingly ugly mess! Seriously terrifying! If someone like that came at them, even Itoshi or Kaiser would bolt barefoot!”
“Y-yes! Exactly! Absolutely terrifying!” Anri chimed in far too quickly. “Haha… that’s professional makeup for you! Isagi-kun, do your best! Don’t let a little cold reaction get to you! They might not even realize it’s you at first!”
The two overseers were a mess—stiff, monotone, and refusing to meet his eyes. Isagi frowned. (This is weird. I thought they’d be howling with laughter. Is it… worse than I imagined? Not a joke makeover, but full-on horror? Like some kind of Sadako-style curse?)
If it’s just scary, Rin—who likes horror movies—might not even be surprised.
Ever since choosing the German building and being constantly exposed to Kaiser’s radiant looks, Isagi had long since given up on thinking about his own appearance. To him, he was just 'ordinary Isagi.' There was no universe in which he could imagine himself looking like a “beautiful girl.”
“Right,” Ego muttered, still looking at the wall. “Top three with the highest female popularity—Michael Kaiser, Nagi Seishiro, and Itoshi Rin. I made up excuses and called them one by one into rooms rigged with multiple hidden cameras. Isagi, go in, sidle up to them however you like, and scare the hell out of them. That’s all.”
“I’m on it!”
Imagining those elite strikers turning pale and scrambling away from a ‘gross cross-dresser’ like him brought a dark, smug grin to Isagi’s face. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room. Grinning to himself, Isagi turned his back on them and lumbered down the hallway exactly as instructed—heavy-footed, bold, and utterly unladylike. He didn’t hear Ego’s final, haunted whisper.
“...This is going to be a total disaster.”
=====================================================================
“Congratulations! You’ve been selected as one of the Top 3 in the second BLTV Popularity Poll among female viewers. Please wait in this room to receive your prize.”
Guess they didn't want to cause a scene by handing it out in front of others, Rin Itoshi thought. He had no way of knowing this was part of a prank cooked up by a bunch of scheming adults.
“What a pain. It’s probably nothing special. They should’ve just handed it over with my food.” Still, he followed instructions and waited.
The room was a small guest parlor, furnished with two sets of ornate mini-tables and chairs. There was even a landscape painting on the wall—a sight utterly foreign to the prison-like walls of Blue Lock.
By the time he realized it, nearly twenty minutes had passed. Rin tapped his fingers impatiently on the table, fighting the drowsiness that crept in whenever he was idle.
Knock, knock. A soft, hesitant knock sounded at the door. Rin snapped his head up. Finally. I’ll take the damn thing and leave. He reflexively shifted his weight to stand—and then his body locked up mid-motion.
The moment he saw the figure slip through the barely opened door, every nerve in Rin’s body went dead silent.
CLATTER.
The chair tipped from his grasp and hit the floor with a dull clatter, but Rin didn’t so much as flinch. Behind his long bangs, his vivid teal eyes were stretched wide, his lips frozen in the shape of a silent “ah,” as if time itself had stopped.
Seeing that look of utter shock, Isagi’s confidence soared. His cheeks flushed with excitement as he stifled a laugh.
(YES!! Rin’s totally freaked out!! He looks like he just saw a ghost! This prank’s a complete success!!)
Buoyed by his success, Isagi let his wig sway softly as he slid closer and closer to the frozen Rin.
(Hehehe… let’s scare him a bit more. I wanna hear something really pathetic—like a “Hii!” or a “Gyah!” Come on, Rin, scream already.)
From Rin’s point of view, a complete stranger—a girl with flushed cheeks and a sweet smile—was approaching him. If that were all, it wouldn’t have fazed him. He’d been crowded more than once by girls at school squealing “Itoshi-kun~!”—an annoyance he’d long since learned to ignore.
And yet—somehow—as her face drew nearer, Rin found himself overlapping her with the image of someone he inexplicably allowed at his side. Someone his gaze followed again and again each day. Someone whose memory left an unpleasant, unresolved knot twisting in his gut.
Isagi Yoichi.
…She looks like him.
The girl moved her lips—glossy and ripe as fresh fruit—shyly shaping a word without making a sound.
“Ri…n.”
When she leaned in close enough that he could feel her breath, staring straight at him with those clear, blue eyes, Rin’s cheeks flushed—and his heart slammed so hard it made his entire body tremble.
“Isagi…?”
The name slipped out at last, barely more than a breath, heavy with disbelief. Misreading Rin’s trembling completely, Isagi tilted his head at the practiced, calculated angle the makeup artist had drilled into him, flashing an intentionally coquettish smile.
(So he figured it out already. Yeah, this close, even heavy makeup won’t fool anyone. Guess this is where I get hit with “Creep” or “Get lost.” Same old, same old.)
Bracing himself for what came next, Isagi remembered the line he’d been given. He tightened his grip around Rin’s arm and spoke the lie—sweet, obscene, and utterly unforgivable.
“Rin~♡ I looove you~♡ I love you sooo much~♡ Hold meee~♡”
(God, this hurts. This is painful. I’m disgusting. Yeah, I’m getting punched for sure.)
Isagi squeezed his eyes shut, tensing his muscles for the impact of Rin’s fist.
The room fell dead silent—an unnaturally polished silence that pressed in on his ears. When the expected pain never came, Isagi ran out of patience. He cracked one eye open, still clinging to Rin—and looked up.
Rin had one hand covering his mouth, his face turned stubbornly away. Slowly—hesitantly—he shifted back, looking down at Isagi once more. His face was flushed all the way to the tips of his ears. Those blue-green eyes—usually so cold and distant—were now fixed solely on Isagi, damp with heat.
Seeing that expression, Isagi’s own heart gave a startled leap. Wait... what? Why? Instinctively, he let go and scrambled back.
At a distance close enough to hear each other breathe, their gazes tangled. A slow, creeping fear crawled up Isagi’s spine—the terror of glimpsing something he was never meant to witness. No. —Every instinct in his body screamed that this was wrong. Isagi twisted away at the exact same moment Rin’s arm lifted, reaching to pull him back by the waist. Rin’s outstretched hand missed him by a hair’s breadth, only brushing the hem of the lemon-colored cardigan.
“Isagi!”
Just as Rin kicked off the floor to chase him, an abrasive electronic BEEP blared from the speaker mounted in the far corner of the room.
“That’s enough, Itoshi Rin. ‘Prize time’ is over. We’ll be looking forward to your performance next.”
The smugness of that voice—proof that every second had been watched—scraped viciously against Rin’s already frayed nerves. There was a dull click as the microphone was set down. Even after Isagi had completely disappeared from sight, Rin remained frozen, trembling quietly with rage.
(Damn it!! I was set up!! What kind of “prize” is this?!!)
He clenched his teeth so hard his lip split, the metallic taste of blood spreading across his tongue. He had been captivated. For a fleeting moment, he had let his heart be stolen by a man his own age—one dressed as a woman, no less. His chest had leapt at the word “love.” He had almost reached out, almost given in to the insane urge to say, “Then… let’s go out.”
If only he hadn’t said it. If those words had never been spoken, Rin might never have noticed the true nature of this burning feeling. He could have left this place, parted ways with Isagi cleanly, and lived on as nothing more than a rival who occasionally tried to kill him on the field, and that would have been enough.
What the hell have you done to me? Once you realize it, there’s no going back.
Rin’s body shook as rage bubbled over into something darker. Something feral.
—I swear, while we’re still trapped in this place, I’ll devour you myself. I’ll hold you exactly the way you asked.
*NOTE*
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