Songs for Daddy- Chapter 47: Play the Game Tonight (Part 9 [end game])
Hiruma forced down a yelp and saw stars when he caught that snap. He didn’t stumble from the pain, but forcing his arm up into a throwing position was so very, very hard. His entire arm felt like lead.
Huh, under extreme exertion conditions, sweat is literally shoved out of your pours by the muscles tensing and straining. Logically Hiruma knew that already, but watching it happen in slow motion on his own arm was morbidly fascinating.
And with an inaudible snap, time went back to its normal pace, pain seared his vision, blurring it slightly. His headache joined the unholy throb in his hand and Hiruma only growled once. The Wizards had been successfully confused by the passing patterns that were happening. That was because there was another trap in this play….
All of the routes were Option Routes.
There was no predetermined pass route for any of the runners, it was just a matter of getting your sorry ass open and confusing the defense as much as possible.
Kaitani was going to be open momentarily in the End Zone even.
Someone was trying to blitz and all Hiruma did was grin and preformed a quick draw of his own. It wasn’t quite as fast as Mushanokoji’s, but it would give him plenty of time before the defender arrived to get himself out of relative harm. As it turned out the moment he tossed the ball, the would-be-blitzer could only stare at both the ball and quarterback in confusion. Hiruma dropped his football stance and allowed his posture to turn very casual from head to toe.
“Nice night for a game, no?” Hiruma told the stunned lad as if he was offering to have a casual conversation about the weather. The defender growled and made motions to tackle Hiruma.
“You know tackling an old, injured man like me in front of both the refs and the fans isn’t going to earn you or your losing team any help.” Hiruma pointed out. “Even idiots know you’re not supposed to tackle someone who doesn’t have the ball and isn’t on the line.”
Before the kid could completely lose his temper, another referee announced that the Babies had scored again. The Wizards watched in amazement as the linemen on the Babies changed up again. It was so obvious they were aiming for another touchdown conversion and there was nothing to be done to stop it.
“They’re completely demoralized.” Takekura observed as he joined his team’s huddle.
“Ke ke ke!” Hiruma laughed loudly enough the other team could hear and shudder.
“They know we’re going for a touchdown.” Kaitani remarked.
“That’s because we fucking are going for another touchdown.” Hiruma rolled his eyes. “Except you’re fucking running it down the side.”
“Why?” Someone asked.
“Because they aren’t expecting it.”
And the Wizards weren’t.
Now it was a single touchdown away from taking the lead back, the Babies were going strong, stronger than they had been all season.
American Announcer Booth
“It’s over now.” Lewis announced.
“What?” Hendrickson seemed started by the announcement.
“Youichi’s shattered their morale completely.” Lewis explained. “He can leave the rest of the game to Kid if he wanted to.”
“-Watch it folks, here comes another on-side kick from the Babies! Oh it’s good! Number 29, Riku Kaitani, just took the ball back to the 65 yard line. Excellent play!” Hendrickson announced, his eyes lighting up.
The Stands
Emiko smiled slightly. Papa was going to win~!
The Field
“He’s passing.” Yamato muttered in awe. “With a clearly broken hand.”
“Is there any way we can stop him, Coach?” One of the Wizards asked.
Yamato glanced at the scoreboard. “Our only option is to gain possession and out score him but-”
“-that’s impossible.” Banba added. “The Babies are not allowing anyone but themselves to have possession right now.”
“What about an interception?” Someone suggested.
Just then they did managed to intercept the ball, only to have one of the Babies screw bite it right out of the luck guy’s hands and run it down for another touchdown.
“…Well, Ishimaru,” Yamato began grimly, “have you learned something?”
“….Yeah.”
American Announcer Booth
Hiruma hadn’t played after the Babies took the lead, Mushanokoji had replaced him to give that poor quarterback’s hand a rest. Because of the demoralizing that had been done, the Wizards no longer put their strength or their boundless youthful energy into their shoddy form. This made them easy pickings for the veteran Babies who just used an easy, fundamentals game to firmly crush their opponent. Every time there was a weakness, in form or in play, the Babies noticed and acted on it.
It had been a slaughter house.
102-52, in favor of the Babies. It was the first Rice Bowl in history to have a triple digit score.
Lewis had walked away ‘highly satisfied’ and left the end game summary to Hendrickson.
“It appears as though Clifford has left us for some more ‘undisclosed’ reasons.” Hendrickson chuckled when the feed came on again. “I will have to agree with him, Youichi Hiruma was definitely the MVP in this match the difference he made when on the field was exceptional-”
Hendrickson ended the after-game analysis with a worried comment about the extent of Hiruma’s injuries. After taking back the lead, he’d been benched the rest of the game. There his hand was tapped up and iced and he put on sunglasses, a clear sign he didn’t want to harm his eyes from their concussion induced dilation.
Anezaki and Yuuya took the Emiko-bundle out of the stands five game minutes before the end of the game. In that five minutes two time outs were called, so it went on much longer in reality. Emiko was clearly grouchy and overtaxed, which was no surprise considering that she’d had a breakdown from being oversensitized once already. She did allow herself to be carried down to the locker room area, where it was much quieter, and finally showed signs of calming down.
Since the game wasn’t quite over yet, Anezaki and Yuuya chose to wait outside of the locker room for a bit. This was where Lewis found them.
“Clifford-kun!” Anezaki hadn’t spoken to him in ages. She had heard from Emiko that he would be here today, but she hadn’t honestly believed it considering now was a pretty horrible time for him to be abroad.
Yuuya was mildly surprised Anezkai didn’t realize Lewis was here. She’d been told by Hiruma and Emiko and by himself this would be happening. Hell, she’d even seen the coat he’d given Emiko! …Well in Anezaki’s defense she’d been amazingly dense about Sena being Eyeshield 21, he supposed this had just been another one of those occasions.
Lewis waved once while he gaged Emiko’s state. Being from America and being educated in the public school system, Lewis actually had been raised around autistic children [2]. Emiko looked like hell warmed over and Lewis suspected that the football game had been a bit too much and it was taking all of her power to not be screaming right now.
“You play right?” Yuuya asked without preamble and waited for Lewis’ nod. “How long are we going to be waiting?”
Lewis opened his mouth to answer when the locker room door swung open and Hiruma stumbled into the hall. His hand had been notably taped now with ice and his head looked like it was slightly swollen. He looked pretty ragged by he was grinning like an idiot.
“You look horrible in pink.” Lewis announced in English. And no, he wasn’t joking either. Pink was not a flattering color against Hiruma’s yellow skin, it made him look ill. Lewis, with his red (well pinkish really) northern European complexion looked a bit more flushed than usual, but wasn’t clashing quite the way Hiruma was.
“But I wear it with dignity.” Hiruma countered in English with one of his ferocious grins. His eyes turned to Emiko who had brightened her expression marginally since his appearance, but only marginally. She looked like she’d just had a very, very trying day.
“How’s the hand?” Lewis asked much more seriously in English.
“My hand is fine- nothing’s broken, just battered.” Hiruma answered in Japanese. Anezaki let out an audible sigh of relief.
“And the head?”
“A small headache, I’ll be fine.” Hiruma waved it off again.
Emiko squirmed some. She wanted to be carried by Papa, not by Grandpapa. Of course the adults didn’t really know how to interpret this other than it was probably time to take Emiko out of there.
“Youichi,” Anezaki began carefully, “are you going to be at the dinner?” She knew he probably shouldn’t go considering he’d gotten a concussion.
Hiruma nodded and made motions to say something else when someone called his name from inside the locker room.
“-I have to shower.” Hiruma announced.
“Papa!” Emiko yelled. Maybe now he’d see she wanted a hug?
Hiruma reached over and gave Emiko a very affectionate pat on the head.
“You did great today.” Hiruma told her, not bothering to hide how proud he was of her. “I’ll be back really quickly, okay?”
Emiko nodded slowly and Hiruma took that as his cue to leave.
“So, Hiruma-san, I need a ride back to the hotel before this party….” Lewis began somewhat cryptically.
Part 10