𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓'𝖘 𝕷𝖎𝖔𝖓: 𝕮𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖙

Not Over Until It's Over

The entire stadium was dead silent. The crowd that had been chanting 'It's not cricket!' over and over again had lost every single one of its voices. Everyone's heads seemed to echo with the call of Greenhill. His voice had boomed over the hundreds in the stands as he shouted out 'Quiet!' with everything he had in him. It was quiet enough to hear the light breeze blowing the flags on the stadium bleachers. Everyone had been shaken to their cores, players and audience members alike. No one was brave enough to speak up as Greenhill marched across the field towards Ciel, not even Y/N. No, everyone stayed frozen in place as they watched the Green House Captain make his way over to Ciel, speaking as he walked.

"I won't stand for heckling during this sacred match!" He said. "And how can you, in good faith, call Phantomhive a coward?" Greenhill grabbed onto the Earl's arm and held up his hands for all to see. "Are you louts blind to this?" He shouted at the crowd. Ciel's hand was red, rubbed raw and calloused in some places. The skin of his fingers was torn up from hours spent pitching and batting, and there were even scabs where callouses had been torn off only to form again. "This hand tells the tale. The tale of his efforts. And his persistence," Greenhill listed, his voice growing softer but still staying loud enough for everyone in the crowd to hear. "Bowling to accurately target a batsman's head... Is easier said than done. He must've put in a good deal of training to make it this far."

"And!" Greenhill added, turning to face Y/N. "For a boy, who just mere months ago could neither move nor remember his own name, to go to such lengths to not just memorize rules and plays, but to bowl with Brewer's technique... It should be impossible, yet there he stands." Y/N straightened up her posture and lifted her chin with a smile. Greenhill had been fed lies about who she was and what had happened, yet somehow, he was not all that far from the truth. "This small lad and a boy who is covered head to toe in bandages and scars, both of which hail from the unathletic Blue House, have gone to these great lengths! Do you understand what that means?" Greenhill asked his team as he began to march back towards them.

"The owl has come with might and main... To hunt the lion!" He called out. His teammates' faces were those of shock, yet not a single one could deny it. "Is Green House so weak that we'd fall to one little trick?" Greenhill shouted at his team.

"No, sir!" They shouted back, all saluting him as they straightened up and tightened their slack, shocked jaws.

"So let's bring 'em down with everything we've got!" Greenhill cried as rallied his team.

"Yes, sir!" They all called back.

Greenhill turned to face the opposite sidelines, smiling. "I'm glad to have the chance to take on the real you before graduation, Bluewer!"

"Thank you," Bluewer replied with a tired yet determined smile. "I share your sentiment, Greenhill."

And with those as their final words to each other, the team captains lined up their players and resumed their game. The crowd was still quiet, but no longer were they silent with fear, but now with anticipation for what would happen next. The batsman stood in front of his wicket, bat in hand and a smile on his face. He didn't give Ciel any dirty looks as he readied himself, but instead the boy looked at him with determination to give him a fair game. "Right, then," the Umpire called out once he realized that both the teams and the audience were now civil with each other. "Play!"

Ciel wound his arm back, throwing his bowl. The batsman smiled, clearly assuming that all Ciel could throw was a bowl that was aimed towards his face. An understandable yet grave error. Instead of hitting the ground and curving up, the bowl went low and stayed low, nearly shooting past the batter's legs and into his wicket. He was able to block it in but only just barely, sending the ball flying in a terrible direction with no control. It was caught quickly, and although it was not an out, it made the batter angry. If he hadn't swung at the ball, he would've lost his wicket and been bowled out. But when he did swing, because of how low the ball was and the way it curved, there was no way for him to control its direction or power.