Chapter Text
Rin had just finished training and was now walking back to his shared dorm room. As he opened the door and walked in, silence greeted the teen.
Nanase and Tokimitsu were most probably still in the dinning hall. Rin had skipped dinner.
It wasn’t something he did much. After all he knew of the importance of proper nutrition for an athlete. But he had felt off during training. His body had felt heavy and still did. Like there was something ushering him around. Not exactly controlling his body but heavily influencing him. He had ignored it to his best.
But now... standing in front of his bed he found himself frowning, brows furrowing. For the reason that there was a book on his bed. A very old looking book that rin knew for a fact he didn’t own. Nor did he put on his bed.
From looking at it Rin would have assumed it was from a grandparents attic, collecting dust. Currently dirtying his bed, much to his annoyance.
He stared at it, debating whether to pick it up or not. It had no title, nothing, just a thick book with a dark marron cover. The pages yellowed. He sighed and picked it up.
Trying to guess who could have left it on his bed. It was definitely not Tokimitsu, the poor anxious boy would have had a heart attack before touching Rin’s bed. Especially to do something as idiotic as putting down some weird book on Rin’s bed. Probably not Nanase either.
He was mostly thinking shidou or Charles. But also... they were more of the type to piss him off to his face, pick fights, teasing. Not doing weird stuff like this. But there was something else that had been bothering him since he first laid his eyes on the book, it was how dusty it was. If someone displaced, carried it to his room. Shouldn’t the dust be gone or atleast have handprints or something from where it was grabbed? If not grabbed by hands at least some place with less dust.
And more importantly... this feeling that he had since training was suddenly stronger. It was like there was something holding him in place, if he concentrated enough he could almost hear voices, ushering and nagging him to pick up the book. To take it. To claim it. It was... unnerving to say the least.
Rin was a fan of horror yes. But he never thought he would be the one finding himself in these situations. Thought... maybe he was overthinking it, being paranoid. And someone misplaced their weird book, maybe shidou playing a prank on him with that little blond brat.
So obviously he should just pick it up and put it down somewhere, maybe a desk, just off his bed. Dust his blanket and go to sleep a bit earlier today because obviously he is unwell and thinking stupid stuff.
But he was curious... what could the book be about? A quick look wouldn’t hurt anyone. Plus it had no title. And it kinda was on his bed...
And so rin picked up the dusty book that looked somehow simultaneously like it was about to fall apart but also like it could survive a fire. Weird old book stuff I guess.
He coughed as he ran a hand over the cover. Dust flying up, around him, in his face and unfortunately in his nose and eyes. After a quick coughing fit that no one witnessed (fortunately). He opened the book and... it was empty?
Rin frowned in a mix of annoyance and confusion. Brows pinching together, lips pressed against each other.
He skimmed the book for a bit and a good third of it was empty, at least until he almost reached halfway in. Suddenly the pages were filled to the brim. But it wasn’t japanese or english. It didn’t look like the latin or even cyrillic alphabets... or anything he had ever seen.
It was closer to hieroglyphs. But only in the way that it was more of drawings and symbols than the usual letters. It looked like a bunch of doodles smashed together. Like spirals and waves and lines.
He had absolutely no way of understanding it.
He frowned and continued turning the pages, hoping for atleast some words or even letters he could understand. But no such luck. The pages were either blank, which was the case for a good two third of the book and the rest was in that weird writing system. Until the last page, it was like those beginner page. Translating the phonetic of each symbols/words he had seen.
Rin tried to figure out what kind of weird book this was... more than half of it completely blank, one single page for phonetics. No title, dusty. Appearing on his bed out of nowhere.
He should just... put it down, close it and leave it somewhere.
But that weird nagging feeling he had was completely gone when he was holding, reading and thinking about this book.
And the mere thought of closing, leaving it has his heart squeezing and his insides turning.
It was an uncomfortable, weird and completely unwanted feelings. Realizing he wasn’t even fully in control of his emotions.
This was clearly some weird demonic shit. Rin had watched and played too many horror games and movies to not realize that.
And whenever he entertained the thought of ever finding himself in those horror movies he always imagined himself smart enough or at least not stupid enough to start chanting and going to haunted places. But now?
He wasn’t so sure. Because he was sure as hell none of the characters in those movies were portrayed to have this horrible feelings of emptiness when they thought about making the right decisions aka put down the demon book. The characters were just stupid. Not... compromised like rin was right now.
And so, feeling very fucking stupid he sat down on his bed, held the book and started trying to decode it. It would be easier if he had some notebook and pen but it wasn’t really something he kept on himself at all time. So he had to do without. Good thing he had a good memory. Sometimes he wish he didn’t. Because then he wouldn’t have to remember that shitty brother’s words.
He doesn’t know how much time passed, especially with the lack of windows or clocks but Tokimitsu and Nanase were back, quiet greetings that rin ignored.
He must have looked insane or atleast unhinged, slouched over some old thick book on his bed, eyes glued to the pages and slightly muttering under his breath.
Whatever, problems for future him.
Soon enough both boys were in bed, asleep. The noise outside the door was also gone. Surprisingly shidou hadn’t bothered him too much this evening. Maybe because he simply hadn’t stuck around.
Either way. In this time rin had managed to decode exactly... 4 words. Not a lot. By far.
But! He had managed to understand something. Or atleast how the book worked, somewhat.
The symbols when read with the phonetic sounded out like Latin. Atleast from what he remembers from how characters sounded in movies. This is... not a good thing. But he had already somewhat accepted that this book was some kind of demonic book that had control over his feelings.
And that he was studying it. Like a very smart person.
Other than that, the big chunk of pages that were not written in actually meant something. The amount of pages not marked determined what the following written parts were about. That one was an accidental discovery. He had been curious about why there was such differences in the amount of blank pages and then using the phonetics for the numbers had gotten words a bit similar to something sounding like 'ritualis'. Similar to the English word for ritual. And then it just kept going 'invocatio', 'maledictio', 'possessio' and 'mutatio corporis' and a few mores that were a bit too different from the english words that rin couldn’t figure out.
But yeah... that was enough for rin to get the gist of how the book worked. Thought he couldn’t help but wonder did whoever write this book has to waste so many pages instead of... writting the title of each chapter? Whatever...
As for the pages written in, they had words written. Blank space and then a good chunk of written stuff that rin assumed were the chant for the specific part. And then next to it, a drawing of Pentagon and other stuff, such as what material is needed. Basically... the drawing was already given, what was needed was told as long as you understood the drawing and as long as you could read the words even without understanding you could probably do one of those demonic things. Rin was not gonna do any of that. That’s for sure. He is not that stupid. He has seen enough horror movies.
Obviously.
...
Right?
...
Of course not.
He spent the whole night trying to decode the book. Some words he could figure out what with the word sounded similar to english sometimes. But mostly he had no idea what the fuck was going on in the book.
He didn’t even realize he spent the whole night on it. Only when he saw everyone starting to wake up in the earlry morning did he realize. And he had a little "of fuck" moment. But otherwise he followed along. He still had to train. But he couldn’t get past the doorframe before he felt extremely dizzy.
He had to stop and stand thee for a few seconds until it receded. Only then did he go get breakfast. He ate numbly, barely even feeling the taste. He could feel everyone staring at him. Even shidou was a bit quieter when he teased him but rin didn’t even react, not even paying attention to what shidou was saying.
Afterwards during training loki was talking but rin still couldn’t fully focus throught the haze. He is pretty sure he heard loki talking about solo training and a meeting?
Whatever.
after around an hour loki was gone and rin was getting annoyed. His training was completely useless because he couldn’t focus and he said fuck it. He is gonna go figure out that book shit and so then he can focus on training and surpassing Sae.
Rin took a blue lock issued tablet and tried to do some research on the latin language, curses and weird books. But nothing. He couldn’t search. Because ego blocked everything.
Because as ego said, no distractions or something.
He couldn’t do anything except watch matches and stuff on this shitty tablet. But right now he wouldn’t mind a searching motor or some archives or something, anything really...
Which is why he found himself in front of ego's office. How did he even find it in this maze? He walked. And walked. He is pretty sure he must have stormed into the uber’s stratum on accident too. He isn’t too sure. But there was a very amused looking zombie guy with weird glowing gold teeth. Whatever. Oh and there was Aryu. He was looking at him weirdly. Rin isn’t sure why. Yeah he shouldn’t be there. But he can’t possibly look that bad, right?
If only he knew... bloodshot eyes, slightly crumpled clothes from training. A bit pale (at least more than usual. Messy hair with a bit of dust in it (much to aryu's horror). It was a sight...
Anyways. He walked and glared at everyone who got in his way. Somehow. He found ego's office. There wasn’t any name written on the door but considering how it was the only fucking door slightly and barely different from all the others rin was pretty certain.
So obviously like any 16 y.o desperate teen with adequate manners he barged in. No knocking. No nothing. He walked in, the door slamming against the wall. And ouh shit-
all the master strikers were there. Plus ego and Anri.
Well... too late to back out now. Plus now loki is giving him weird looks. Rude. Why is everyone staring at him so much lately? He is fine! Just slightly focused on a small project that he has to solve so he can then focus on football.
Ego: "Itoshi Rin. Why are you here-"
Rin: "phone. I want my phone."
Ego: "...what."
Rin frowned, what do you mean 'what'? He was very clear!
Rin: "I said I want my phone."
Ego: "no... i heard that. But why."
Rin: "what do you mean why? It’s mine! And I need it now!"
Why did everyone look so weirded out??? He just asked for his phone! That he bought!
Loki was frowning at him with some weird look. Whatever.
The other masters had varying reactions. Snuffy looked slightly concerned by rin’s roughed appearance. Noa looked disapproving but whatever. Rin is ignoring him. Lavinho just looks entertained like this is some kind of peak soap opera, weirdo. Chris is just staring bewildered like rin is some new exotic specie of rats recently discovered. Anri looks mostly very concerned because this is completely out of character for Rin.
And ego... ego looks annoyed.
Ego: "that would simply be a distraction, after all you want to better yourse-"
Rin: "I don’t care!!! Just give me my phone!!"
well... if they weren’t staring and judging before now they all definitely were. Ego himself now looked slightly concerned for his number 1 striker.
Anri: "rin... is something wrong?"
And wow. Would you look at that. Rin didn’t cut her off. She is the only one he somewhat likes in this room filled by weirdos.
Rin: "no.. I just want my phone. And that weirdo! (Ego) won’t give it to me!"
Anri: "right... yeah well, we can’t exactly do that."
Rin: "why not?!"
Ego: "you barged in mid meeting, demanding your phone and looking like a feral racoon."
Rin: "...so what. I just want my phone."
Rin didn’t even bother defending himself against the feral racoon accusations. It wasn’t that important now and obviously ego is exaggerating and rin looks fine. Obviously.
Anri sighed.
Loki was staring hard. Really fucking hard. Rin is very much not looking at him.
Lavinho looks way too amused by this.
Lavinho: "just give the boy his phone~ what could he possibly do that has you guys so worried!"
Rin: "exactly! Listen to the weird corner shop guy!"
Lavinho gaped for a second. Chris snorted.
Lavinho: "brat- I am helping you and you call me that???"
Anri: "...You never asked for it. Even during first selection when you could trade goals for your phone."
Rin: "because I didn’t need it back then. But now I do."
Ego: "are you done throwing a tantrum?"
Rin: "I am not throwing a tantrum."
The others sweatdropped. Lavinho snorted, chris did too. Snuffy just let out a huff and stared at the teen. Noa looked unimpressed, Loki looked like he was getting a migraine.
Ego: "right..."
Rin: "so? Are you gonna give it to me?"
Ego: "...anri get him his phone."
Anri: "but-"
Ego: "arguing with him is not worth it."
Anri: "...right. yeah I go get it."
Rin: "finally."
Rin waited. Very patiently mind you. And he also very expertly ignored every masters gaze. Especially loki's. That would be a bit awkward for later. Whatever, future him problem.
And a few minutes later anri was back with his phone. Been a long time since he saw that horror themed phone case. Rin took it, and very politely asked for his charger too. Anri got it too and Rin thanked Anri. Turned around and completely ignoring ego and the others left the room, once again banging the door closed.
Lavinho:"well... that was something. Is the kid usually like that?"
Loki: "no this is completely out of character. He has been like this since this morning, looking a bit out of it. Even during training."
Anri: "so.. he is sick?"
Loki: "that’s what I was thinking but it doesn’t explain this... tantrum."
Noa: "maybe you should discipline your players a bit more loki."
Noa looked deeply unimpressed by this. And loki immediately snapped back, still acting as polite as ever. Thought his tone was a bit less so.
Loki: "Aren’t isagi and kaiser always fighting each others? Maybe try disciplining them before coming to talk about my team."
Chris: "oooh~ drama!"
Lavinho: "damn right. This is kinda fun!"
Anri:sigh "let’s get back to the meeting. And Loki please keep an eye on rin."
Loki: "will do Mrs Anri."
Meanwhile back with rin. He was now walking toward the PxG stratum. Or atleast he think he is. He isn’t sue where exactly he is. Everything looks the same. Now that he thinks about it... how did he even end up in the uber’s stratum earlier?
...
Whatever.
...
He should have maybe gotten a map. Does blue lock even have a map? Because he has no idea where he is right now.
He thinks he is in the wrong stratum. But they all look the same. He is pretty sure he is in the wrong one. Because he can’t hear shidou or Charles.
But he is staring at some guy. He doesn’t know him. But he has blond hair and blue at the end. It looks like a rat tail. He can’t say that thought.
Rin stares at him, unblinking. The boy stares back, looking amused.
Kaiser: "aren’t you on pxg?"
Rin doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t. Why would he?
The guy seems slightly irked by that.
Whatever. Not his problem. Rin is about to turn around and walk out of wherever he came from when suddenly a blue haired boy walks in followed by isagi. Ugh...
Hiori looks surprised seeing rin of all people in the German stratum. And so does isagi, his faces lights up and then drop after a few seconds.
Isagi: "rin? Is everything okay?"
Rin: "...of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?"
Isagi: "hum well...."
Kaiser: "because you look like shit."
Rin turns back to Kaiser, now annoyed. Who the fuck is this rat tailed mf.
Before rin can talk hiori speaks up.
Hiori: "let’s not fight! Rin, why are you here?"
And look. Rin just traded his dignity in front of all the master strikers for his phone. But he isn’t about to admit that he is lost.
Except all three are staring at him.
Who said he had to answer?
He just turns around and leaves.
Ignoring isagi calling after him. Or the blondie's stare burning into the back of his head. Rude. Doesn’t he know it’s rude to stare so much?
A few minutes later he is starting to regret. He is pretty sure the German and France stratum were neighbors so where the fuck is he now?
Maybe his dignity isn’t all that important... he should have just admitted that he was lost. This suck. Atleast he has his phone. But it doesn’t have any battery... ugh.
Anyways... why is he complicating his life? If the cursed book is always beckoning him toward the book. Which is in his room. Then if he follows the feeling he will find his way.
Rin doesn’t know what kind of backward bullshit this is. But if it works, it works.
...
He founds his fucking way. Finally. He can hear shidou and charles doing stupid things. He never thought he would be glad to hear that antenna demon and that little brat.
He walked straight to his room and didn’t even notice how everyone parted for him.
He had yet to notice but he looked slightly unhinged. He already had that cold vibe but now he just looked feral.
Rin sat down on his bed. And put his phone down to let it charge. Charger that he had politely asked (read: demanded) when he got his phone.
And he waited. And waited. And tried reading the book. Or atleast holding it. It made his heart feel light. Like all the pressure was gone. The thought of sae were gone, of isagi were gone too. Nothing mattered when he had the book. It felt weird, knowing those weren’t really his own feelings.
After a while rin takes his phone, still charging and goes on Google. Downloads some files about latin. Tries reading it and seeing their English version and compares it to his book.
The problem is, the book isn’t written in Latin. The phonetics are in Latin, but not the words. Which translates to... rin rewriting a whole page phonetically and then trying to find the correct grammar for each word in Latin and then translating it to English.
It’s extremely time consuming. Way too much.
He should be training. Loki had left them to train on their own for a bit, since he was gone on that meeting (that rin crashed. Oops).
He will never surpass Sae if he keeps distracting himself. But the mere thought of quitting and leaving made his heart clench and his inside turn to an almost nauseating point. So much that even surpassing sae didn’t seem all that important next to this book. It was a terrifying feeling, because this book had such a hold over his feelings, it didn’t feel like himself. Surpassing Sae was his whole existence (no matter how much he told himself it wasn’t. That he was his own person without Sae) and yet this book that appeared out of nowhere was turning it all up and down and left and right (Sorry had to).
But mulling over it wouldn’t help. So he kept going. Translating one word, then a sentence, then a paragraph and finally a whole page.
The first half was just ingredients and how the Pentagon is drawn. The second part is the chants. Very interesting chants.
It just so happened to be a curse.
He really likes it.
He might use it.
He just need to find someone he hates enough to curse like that.
He totally hates sae... Just not enough to damn him to eternal damnation.
Same with shidou, very annoying. But not to that point and isagi too and bachira.
Basically everyone is annoying. But not enough for him to curse them to damnation.
Ugh...
Wonder if the books contains any small curses? Like make someone trip. It would be funny.
Back to the point. He now has a demonic book. And said book is sentient enough to control his feelings. Or whatever.
Oh and weird voices in his ears. Unfortunately nothing he can decipher. He feels like he has been doing that a lot recently.
Is he going crazy? Is that it?
It’s getting late now. Or well... it’s only the afternoon and it’s still training. And rin hasn’t trained at all today. When was the last time he skipped a whole day of training? He can’t even remember.
And yet... no one is bothering him.
Rin gets up and stretchs his sore muscles and back. Before deciding to do his usually morning yoga, a few hours late. But but better late than never.
He should probably go eat after this session. He hasn’t eaten much or at all today.