Chapter Text
Immediately prior to this viewing Rin would’ve let out a cold snort and turned his eyes but now… thinking about what his brother said… The blood vessels in his eyes popped, face so black that it matched the bottom of a pot.
Isagi Yoichi…
“Hahahahahaha!! Very manga-protagonist of you, Isagi!” Bachira laughed, draping himself on the boy’s shoulders.
Isagi’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment. He had been so caught up in the moment that it just came out.
Kaiser let out an exaggerated sigh, running a hand through his blond hair as he smirked condescendingly. “Really, Yoichi, you should leave the dramatic declarations to me. I can do it much better.” His smirk widened as he leaned over the edge of his chair towards Isagi, and despite the long distance between them, Isagi had an unsettling sensation as if the man was putting his face right into Isagi’s space. “Dogs bark so loudly but rarely do they bite. Especially when their voice is louder than their teeth.”
Isagi felt a sliver or disgust slide down his spine like a snake weaving between his bones.
“That’s funny coming from someone who only shines because the spotlight does all the work.” Isagi shot back, his tone sharper than usual. He had seen the man in the past few years when watching Noel Noa’s team play and while he had been interested, he hadn’t been as impressed as he’d been with Noel Noa so Kaiser had faded into the background. Isagi hated knowing that he would never forget the man now that he had met him. “But don’t worry, Kaiser. I’ll make sure you see the difference between noise and results soon enough.”
Kaiser’s smirk faltered for just a fraction of a second, his icy blue eyes narrowing. “Oh? Bold of you to assume the mutt can become anything but a mutt. Prove me wrong, Yoichi.”
“Cheh.” Raichi spat, his arms swinging as he cracked his neck. "If we’re getting all pumped up, then let's make it a brawl. I’ve got your back, Isagi, but don’t expect me to hold back when it's my turn to shine!”
“Are you a football team or a bunch of stray dogs?” Karasu said drily, unmoved sliding over everyone’s agitated form. “Riling up the opposition? Maybe try winning without the theatrics for once, huh?”
“I don’t think ya’ can talk, Karasu.” Hiori’s Kansai accent lilted like a melody but his tone cut like glass. “Not with that mouth of yours. You were quite busy chattin’ away when you lost to Isagi in the.” He cocked his head slightly, his smile never fading. His tone was like a rose coated in ice.
Karasu raised a brow. “Oh, and I suppose you’d know all about winning? You seemed quite busy waiting for someone else to carry you.”
Hiori chuckled lightly, the sound unnervingly pleasant given the tension in his words. “Carry me? No, that ain’t my style. I just don’t see the point in barkin’ if ya’ don’t plan to bite.”
Barou interrupted just as Karasu opened his mouth. “Shut it with the dog metaphors.”
“Why, King, too relatable?” Nagi drawled.
“You little-”
“So what happened after that, Isagi-san?” Nanase cocked his head.
“Huh? Oh…I-”
“Blue Lock, Additional Time.” Reika’s voice cut in before Isagi could elaborate. This was a warning and a misdirection in one and the players immediately settled down.
Girly Hairstyle - Chigiri Hyoma flashed by on the screen just as Chigiri appeared with a hair tie in his mouth and in the middle of putting up his hair.
Chigiri’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “What, hairstyle?”
“A princess hairstyle!” Otoya hooted.
Chigiri sneered at him, too tired of telling him off.
“No, that's not it.” He said, tying his hair into a bun at the back. His long side bangs framed his face. “It just doesn't feel right.”
Aryu didn’t see the issue with it. “Looks perfectly stylish.”
Igarashi snorted. “You look like Anri-chan.”
There was a collective pause. Everyone turned to look at Anri-san, whose face immediately turned a shade of crimson. “Just because we both have bangs doesn't mean—!”
Kunigami popped up and offered him a white headband. “Here. Want to try using a hair band?”
“Oh, thank you! That's a good idea. That's thoughtful of you, Kunigami.” Chigiri said gratefully with a large dose of surprise on the side.
“Oooooh~”
“Ooooh~~”
Instantly there was cooing from all sides because as egotistical boys they were, they were also high schoolers. And in high school, showing kindness means attraction.
“Wooing the princess?”
“The hero knight saves the day?”
“Let me know when you two get married!”
“What dragon did you slay?”
“I've got two sisters, one older, one younger.” Kunigami bashfully said, rubbing his neck and looking down. “So I know how young ladies' minds work.”
“Who are you calling a ‘young lady’?” Chigiri’s hands froze in the middle of styling his hair. “But you know, fashion isn't just about functionality. It's also about how it pumps you up.”
He slid the hair band up, the chic look giving him a boyish street-punk feel.
“Hey, looking good. A new Chigiri.” Kunigami looked amazed.
“You’re just out-ing yourself, man…” Someone muttered from the back.
“Hmm…”
Chigiri blinked once and tossed it aside to Kunigami’s frantic helplessness. “Nope, not right either.”
“Well, excuse me, miss, but everyone's waiting on you so the meeting can start…”
The shadowed menacing and angry growling figures of Isagi, Raichi, and Igarashi stood a testament to that.
There was a moment of silence before people burst into laughter.
“So you revealed your true thoughts, Ichigo.”
“You went from a suitor to a mother’s family member.”
“You look good, mom…c’mon let’s go!!”
The room erupted into chaos, as the boys clutched their stomachs, howling with laughter.
“Make him wait more, Chigiri!” someone yelled.
Chigiri, his pride threatened, turned to face the howling group with utter disdain. "I swear, if you say anything about this, I’ll—!"
People leaned in closer, wearing the grins of devils who had finally uncovered the funniest thing they'd ever seen. “You’ll what, princess?” Isagi teased, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
Chigiri narrowed his eyes at him. Watch it. “I will end you all.”
“Looks like you need a new hairstyle for that!” Raichi laughed, and Igarashi slapped him on the back.
The entire room was still laughing as Chigiri sat in the middle of it all, defeated, but somehow, his hair had still never looked better.
—
A shoddily dressed man sat in a brightly lit café, a half-empty white mug of macchiato cooling beside him as his fingers hovered over the keyboard. Outside his prettily decorated little table, the world bustled, oblivious to the storm of thoughts churning behind his cold, calculating gaze.
The man’s eyes were almond-shaped with slightly upturned corners and while that set would’ve been a head-turner on most people, on the man they gave them a piercing, almost predatory look. They were framed by dark, thick lashes that contrasted sharply with his pale skin which only added to the intensity of his gaze. People tended to avoid looking at them directly, preferring to stare at his nose or ear because his eyes always held an unsettling stillness. No matter the situation, they never flickered and never betrayed a hint of emotion. The midnight blue was almost pitched black and looked like they swallowed any light that entered them. It was as though time itself slowed down in those moments, allowing him to absorb everything around him with chilling precision. His parents used to tease that those blues often felt as if he could see right through them, which, an endearing quality as a child, was unnerving as an adult.
The same eyes flicked across the screen, the news articles blending into one blurred mass of half-truths and evasions.
The latest query he had entered in the search engine blinked back at him: ‘sports players missing’. That’s what it had started out as. The first disappearance had been barely a whisper in the media. A second-rate player from a minor league. The press had shrugged it off as a private issue that didn’t warrant much attention. But something had tugged at him the moment he’d read the headline. There was more here - he could feel it in his bones. The press had swept it under the rug, calling it a “personal matter.” But that was the first lie.
When had the media ever been kind to the famous?
Then the names began to stack up, one after another - players from the nation's top leagues, young stars whose faces had been broadcast into millions of homes. Some with their legacies already being written in the annals of soccer history and others just starting out. And yet, no one had really seemed to care. Not to the public, and certainly not to the media. The disappearances were shrugged off, tucked into vague statements, each more absurd than the last.
His eyes darted to the first article - the first name - that set the country all off.
He clicked on the link which had racked up thousands of views in the brief hours it had been uploaded: “Isagi Yoichi Vanishes Without a Trace: No Leads, No Explanation.”
His fingers clenched, the click of the mouse punctuating the silence like a death knell.
His lips twisted into a scowl. Isagi Yoichi - the name burned into the hearts of fans. The genius forward whose playmaking was unparalleled, whose ability to read the game made him a rising star. And now, gone.
The article was a mockery. No investigation, no sense of urgency. Just a statement: “Personal issues. We hope he returns soon.” It was the perfect cover. The nation’s collective obsession with its idols - their heroes - had led them to craft a narrative that was as hollow as it was comforting. The players were fine, they were just taking time off.
The man leaned back, fingers drumming on the table. He could already feel the lies stacking up, layer upon layer. There was something wrong, and it gnawed at him deeper than any government conspiracy or corporate corruption ever had so far.
The cursor moved and the headline flickered off the screen, replaced by another: Bachira Meguru Missing. No Details Released. Then another. Nagi Seishiro Missing. No Further Comments.
And there it was. The pattern. These weren’t just disappearances. These were vanishing acts - performed under the watchful eyes of the nation, and they were being erased with terrifying precision.
The country’s reaction was nothing short of strange. At first, the players' absences were chalked up to illness, minor injuries, or personal reasons - convenient labels that kept the media from digging too deep. The soccer world was told to wait patiently, to trust that the players would return when they were ready.
But the fans weren’t so easily fooled.
Social media had exploded with questions. #WhereIsIsagiYoichi was trending. Followed by #WhereIsItoshiSae, #WhereIsItoshiRin, #BlueLockDisappearence, #ItoshiBrothersMissing, #U20Unknown- and the searches kept growing. People began clamoring for answers, proposing theories that ranged from the reasonable to bizarre to the supernatural. Some whispered about kidnappings, secret organizations that preyed on Japan's brightest stars. Others suggested the involvement of underground syndicates. There was one absurd video in particular that claimed that the players had been taken by supernatural forces - a theory that, at first glance, seemed laughable. Yet, in his world, everything was worth investigating.
The media’s response was swift. At first, they ignored the online chaos, dismissing it as conspiracy theories. But when the numbers grew—when the hashtags went viral, when phone lines lit up with tips and rumors—the media had no choice but to address the situation. They tried to keep the stories tame, reporting that the players had voluntarily stepped away from the limelight, perhaps for personal reflection or mental health reasons. They spun the narrative to make it look like an athlete’s prerogative, not a threat.
“The athletes have chosen to step away from the game”, “They had disappeared on their own terms,” Lies that the press spun like a rite of passage. “A break from the spotlight.” They called it.
The public, desperate for an explanation, bought it. They boys were highschool students, after all. It was already extremely disrespectful to intrude upon one’s private affairs in a nation as etiquette intense as Japan but their worry had them almost crossing the boundary. If the press, the villains of celebrity life, weren’t going to intrude, then wasn’t it pushing it too far for ordinary citizens like them to do so?
There began an influx of mental health campaigns and discussions of the importance of respecting underage celebrities onlines but the man didn’t care for any of that.
He scrolled down, his fingers tapping lightly against the keyboard. The press is in on it. They're controlling the narrative. The media, the government—whoever was behind this—was working hard to contain the truth. Articles were carefully worded, and any mention of foul play was quickly suppressed. It was as though the truth itself was dangerous.
The truth was being buried. He typed furiously now, his hands moving with precision as he peeled back the layers of misinformation. The press had been paid to look the other way. The government had sealed the cracks, and the public—naive, distracted—had turned a blind eye. But the truth? The truth was out there, lurking just beneath the surface.
The whole country is busy with this, Kenji mused, his fingers pausing for a moment. There was something deeply unsettling about the way Japan was reacting. It was as if the nation had gone into a collective stupor, too afraid to acknowledge the truth.
He paused and his gaze fell on the bustling streets outside the window at the people walking past, glued to their phones, to the latest update, to the latest distraction. They were so consumed with their daily lives that they hadn’t noticed the proverbial sword hanging over them. The missing players were just the beginning. This was bigger than a few vanished stars - if the government could get away with hiding the existence of some of the most famous people in the country, then what were civilians to them? Mere ants. These disappearances were cancer spreading through the system.
There was something dark at play here. A conspiracy that ran deeper than he had anticipated. And he would be damned if he let it slip through the cracks.
A small group of teenagers who'd barely touched the professional circuit. The stars of tomorrow. Gone without a trace.
His eyes flicked back to the news. The missing players were being written off one by one, and he could sense the lies, the deliberate avoidance of the truth. It made his blood simmer. He clenched his jaw, his knuckles going white as he gripped the edge of the table.
They think I won't notice. They think they can keep it hidden.
But he had been trained to notice. Trained to see the cracks in the system, the small anomalies that everyone else dismissed. From his time working with the government sports agency, he’d learned how easily things could be swept under the rug.
“Excuse me, Kenji-san?” The voice broke his train of thought.
He glanced up to see the café’s barista standing there, a hesitant smile on her face. Her name was Aya, a young woman he had once briefly tutored in software programming. They had an unspoken understanding - she knew he wasn’t one for casual conversation. But something had shifted in her demeanor today. She looked uncertain, almost anxious.
“What is it?” Kenji’s voice was low and measured, a smooth, almost hypnotic baritone that carried the weight of years spent in silence, watching and calculating. There was a crispness to his words, each one deliberate, as though he carefully selected them to convey the exact emotion - or lack thereof - he wanted. His tone never rose or fell dramatically; it was a steady, unwavering cadence that demanded attention without effort. A unique quality of his voice was its ability to disarm - people often found themselves leaning in, hanging on every word, even when they knew he wasn’t speaking with any warmth. It was a voice that lulled them into a false sense of security, just before it delivered the sharpest truths. Now it worked its charm on Aya, the barista.
His gaze never left her face. He wasn’t one for idle chit-chat, and he didn’t trust this sudden hesitance.
Aya shifted uncomfortably, glancing around the bustling café as if she was expecting someone to overhear. Her eyes flickered nervously to the side. “I… I just thought you should know. There’s been talk… about the players. More of them are missing. Big names now. People are starting to notice.”
People? Her words weren’t right but they weren’t entirely wrong. People had noticed. But they’ve swept it under the rug. Almost everyone had. So why hadn’t she? Kenji’s eyes sharpened. “Which players?” His voice dropped to a near whisper.
She hesitated again, biting her lip. “You’ve heard of them, right? The ones they’ve been saying are disappearing off the grid. The top-tier ones…”
“Say it.” He urged, his patience running thin.
Her brown eyes flicked to his face, wide with worry. “Isagi Yoichi, Bachira Meguru, the others… They're all missing now.”
Isagi Yoichi. The one everyone said had a mind for the game - a genius. He hadn’t been observing the player before the match but after, it was all anyone could talk about. His movements, his decisions, the way his mind worked on the field - it was no coincidence that people were starting to talk about him in the park to during water breaks at work.
Kenji’s fingers gripped the edge of his cooled coffee cup so tightly his knuckles turned pale. There was something behind all of this. Something pulling the strings.
“What’s being said about it?” Kenji asked, his voice growing careless. His eyes never wavered from Aya, and she immediately responded, sensing the shift in his tone.
“Some people are starting to think they’re… dead.” She whispered, glancing around. “Others think they’ve been… taken. Disappeared.”
Kenji barely kept his face from changing.
Taken. The word struck him in a way he couldn’t explain. It resonated in his chest, a knot tightening in his gut. He had been looking for a reason to jump into this, to dig deeper, but he hadn’t expected something like this. If these players were truly taken, then this wasn’t just a disappearance. This was something else. Something much larger.
He stood up abruptly, knocking the chair back with a loud scrape. Aya blinked in surprise as he grabbed his coat and stuffed his laptop into his bag.
“Where are you going?” She asked, her voice trembling.
Kenji’s eyes didn’t meet hers. His mind was already moving too fast, calculating. He pushed a stack of bills across the table. “Payment.”
He could hear her faintly calling out behind him, but the door closed with a soft clang, cutting off the rest of her words. His boots echoed on the pavement as he stepped into the chill of the early evening air.
There was work to do. And he knew just where to
start.