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Kaiser felt unrest growing beneath his skin, resentment building as the Blue Lockers continued to whine during training.
What pathetic losers.
“What the hell was that? You only pass to your lapdog!” Yoichi hissed at Ness.
Kaiser immediately bristled, forcing himself between the two. Yoichi looked pissed at the interruption, but he didn’t care.
“If you need to be spoonfed a goal, then you shouldn’t be here,” Kaiser snarled. “It’s a miracle you got this far.”
“We’re on the same team!” Yoichi jabbed a finger at him. “You’re the freak who said he wanted to become an obstacle in my life.”
Kaiser did say that. He meant it too. Anything to prove himself better than a rising star and fortify his position in Ness’s life. Anything to ensure the midfielder looked at Kaiser and acknowledged he had chosen the best of the best, and if that meant challenging and tearing apart every ace the world had to offer, so be it.
“Kaiser.”
Kaiser took a step back. Yoichi’s face colored with surprise, but he ignored him. It was no longer his problem.
“I pass to strikers who can understand the magic of the field,” Ness considered him. “Your plays are grounded in reality and have no use to me.”
Yoichi’s face screwed up. “Magic isn’t real. Your ego is lacking.”
Kaiser was ready to bark out another insult—to put him in his place so thoroughly he’d have to dig upwards to gain any traction—but Ness snickered.
Yoichi blinked.
He smiled, “My ‘ego’ is all over this field, you’ll find it soon enough.”
Kaiser stayed silent, knowing he was right. After all, Kaiser’s ego had painted every inch of this field, infused with the power Ness granted him.
“Little prince, do you believe in magic?” a voice asked.
Back then, all Kaiser could make out was a swirl of colors, a glimmering smudge that sparkled in his peripherals. He realized later it was the midfielder’s tattoo—an airy maze of violets and blues—stained permanently onto his thigh. But at that moment, he was convinced he saw magic.
He and Ness teamed up, and Kaiser ended up acing tryouts and joining the team.
Later, Kaiser was praised for his aggressive playstyle and daring moves, but he knew what led to his victory that day: magic. Raw, unfiltered magic, harvested from the field conducted through the hands of the talented sorcerer Ness who then incorporated it into soccer.
Spellbound, Kaiser swore his devotion at once.
Ness beamed and asked how he felt about hair dye.
“Think of it like this…this blue is my signature on you.”
Ness marked him. He gave him his title, his color, and his place on the team. Kaiser would be nothing without Ness—he was nothing before Ness—but now he was elevated to the throne, his namesake earned instead of ridiculed.
As vain as he was, his teammates knew his place was tucked into Ness’s side, tending to his beck and call. It was laughable, the concept of royalty serving someone lower than themself, but Kaiser thought otherwise.
Strikers, like emperors, were expected to steal the show, and so Kaiser complied. Midfielders, like magicians, were secondary, if not lower, and were meant to aid in the success but never be the sole contributor. Kaiser knew better.
It took a special kind of magic to puppeteer a field—to move players so seamlessly there was the illusion they moved on their own. As far as he was concerned, a magician was as good as any tactician or strategist. There was only so much a non-user could do, meanwhile magicians plowed through barriers and encouraged the unimaginable.
What was an emperor without his magician? A king without his mage? A paladin without his sorcerer? A fairy tale, perhaps. Something lacking that ended without a second thought.
Something had died in Kaiser long ago, reanimated by his magician’s spell. This necromancy pulled at his strings, forcing air into his lungs and motion into his flesh.
This research was the bare minimum Kaiser could offer.
Kaiser sat before his wall of monitors, carefully studying his opponents. He paused on the player he was looking for. He stopped, rewound, and replayed—looking for consistencies and a signature style he could exploit. He rewatched the footage over and over again. Yoichi Isagi flooding each and every screen until Kaiser couldn’t escape him.
“Oh? What’s this?”
Kaiser tensed, turning to his magician behind him. Magenta locks curled delicately around his ears, framing his curious expression.
“Gathering information,” he said. “I’ll make him yield to you.”
Ness hummed, amused. Kaiser was about to say more when the other leaned toward the screen. An unmistakable glint was in his eye, and his head tilted to a familiar degree.
“He will. I’m certain of it.”
Something clenched between Kaiser’s ribs, and he felt an unruly emotion bubble in his chest. Achy and panicky and oh-so awful.
Fingers inched towards his throat, and Ness tutted lightly. Kaiser dropped his hands immediately.
He cursed himself. His magician always knew—Kaiser was convinced part of his magic was all-seeing eyes and all-hearing ears. He knew every aspect of Kaiser, flayed open and writhing, revealing his innards for him. There was no inch of him Ness could not see, no cells he could not reanimate and bend to his will.
Ness had cast a spell on his broken self. Why else would Kaiser even be alive?
His magician wasn’t looking at him anymore, magenta eyes fixated on the screens. Kaiser grit his teeth, seething. He wanted Ness to lose interest. He wanted to break his screens, to force his eyes away from the other. But more than that, he wanted him to look away of his own free will.
He wanted his attention on him. He needed it.
It was the fault of a spell, an incantation, a hex—a curse. Why else would Ness be so imprinted on his mind, his every waking thought, his only obsession?
“Ness,” he pleaded.
He fell to the floor—kneeling to him. He bowed before his captor—his savior—, a botanical haven behind him, yet he begged him to look only at a wilted rose.
Ness tilted his head up further, ignoring him. Kaiser needed his eyes on him, only on him.
Kaiser whined, dropping his forehead onto Ness’s knee, grazing his tattooed sigil. The magician didn’t flinch, as if he were invisible, and he grew desperate. Eyes squeezing shut, hands gripping the fabric of his shirt, nails driving into his palms until they wanted to bleed. Fingers itched for his throat but refused to reach.
He shook, trembling in place. Kaiser was held together by magic, nothing more, a million pinpricks of hexes coursing through his veins, pulsations of spells forcing him to breathe, to obey, to live.
Kaiser pried his eyes open, “Ness, I—”
His magician was already looking at him, his decision made long ago. Kaiser exhaled, sinking in place.
“I know,” Ness smiled.
Then, he did the unimaginable and knelt to Kaiser’s height, like they were equals. He wanted to urge him to stand, but refrained.
“My Kaiser,” he stroked his hair.
“Ness.”
“My precious magic wand,” Ness continued, pale fingers caught in his blue ends, “my key to cast the unimaginable.”
An artist with its brush, a writer with a pen, a blacksmith with a hammer, a musician with an instrument. All needed for creation. All useless without its counterpart.
Kaiser shuddered.
He was indispensable to his magician. Without him, Ness was titleless, positionless, a fraud. He couldn’t live up to his potential and was nothing more than a charlatan on the street—an illusionist with false magic and even falser gimmicks. A con man in the shadows instead of a sorcerer on center stage.
The knowledge that his magician would simply be incomplete without him was—
“I think I’m a little bit obsessed with you.”
Ness cupped his cheek. “Only a little?”
Kaiser crumpled, held up only by the other’s touch. Electrocuting him, enlightening him, saving him.
As their lips met, Kaiser decided he would stop at nothing to build a kingdom for just him and his magician.