Sitting in front of the unconscious brown haired girl lying down on the hospital bed, I was still only a shell of a person. The clock read 4:30, half an hour after we had left the stadium after the game. Kidou had managed to drag me off the field and onto the bus earlier, but for some reason I had stepped off at the Inazuma Hospital, much to a surprised Gouenji. Even I didn't know why, and I didn't remember what I was thinking back when I did it. Or maybe I didn't think at all, rather acted subconsciously, as all my movements since the end of the game.
The only thoughts that circled my brain as I had sat through the bus ride silently earlier was that we won, yet no matter how much me or anyone else on the team tried to convince me, I was still unable to bring myself to celebrate. After all, even if "it was meant to be" or "it was for the best" as people had said, in the end I had still became the Death Bringer once again. It was a name I had once prided in, though it became a name which I carried with guilt after leaving Kidokawa Seishuu. When I joined Raimon, I had thought that perhaps the world would give me a second chance, and the Death Bringer could be good and play pure soccer. But no, the name Death Bringer left a trail of taintedness behind no matter where it went. As long as I carried it, I was bound to wreak havoc. And no matter how I try, I couldn't shake it off, simply because I was the Death Bringer.
Win or lose, blood will be spilled behind my tread. That seemed to be the one message which had never changed even after I met Teikoku, Raimon, and everyone else.
The door behind me slid open, and I heard familiar footsteps. "Here," a tanned hand placed a can next to me, though I gave no indication that I had noticed him. The boy who had placed the soft drink on the small table sighed. "C'mon Inoue, you can't hog the chair forever."
Gouenji Shuuya. Wordlessly I started to rise, but he just sighed again, shook his head, and pushed me back onto the chair. "Fine, keep it. Just stop moping already, will you?"
No response. After an awkward silence, the platinum haired striker asked, "Why are you here anyway? Shouldn't you be going to Kidokawa? Or at least visiting your old Teikoku buddies in the hospital?" Still no reply, but his words stirred up thoughts in my mind.
Ah, Sakuma and Genda, how could I almost forget about them? I had tried to push them out of my mind, though there was always a spot of guilt each day I delayed to see them. Looking back, I hadn't even ask them if they were fine after the Zeus versus Teikoku game. They must hate me by now, adding on to all that time I had been lying to them and hiding who I really was. And I'm sure they couldn't forget the fact that if I had came on the pitch earlier, I might have saved them from needing to be hospitalized. I made a silent vow to myself that I would face them honestly, and if they forgave me, a big if, I would do everything to make it up for them.
"Yuuka-" I realized that the words had just slipped out of my mouth, at the same time that Gouenji had spoken his sister's name. For the first time since the end of the game, I turned to Gouenji and said something more than just two words. "You first, you're his brother."
"No go ahead," he gestured, "You haven't visited Yuuka in a long time anyway, and she likes you, remember?"
A memory flashed in my head. We were leaving the stadium and walking in the parking lot after we had won a match. Yuuka was holding Gouenji's hand and skipping along next to him. A thirteen year old me with short black hair was holding the little girl's other hand. "Onii-chan, Shizu-onii-san, you guys won!" the little girl cheered hapilly. The two of us exchanged a glance and a small smile. "That was so cool! The last shot you used was super cool!" the young girl continued, "It's the first time I saw it!"
I bent down a little so that the little girl could see my smiling face, an expression that most people didn't believe the Death Bringer to be capable of. "It's called Phoenix Feather, a move that we created by combining our signature hissatsus together." Yuuka's eyes shone. "Someday, I want to be like a phoenix! Just like what you and Onii-chan did! That was so pretty!"
