INAZUMA ELEVEN : Beyond Science

Perception

When Atsuya regains consciousness and out of the mindscape, he is immediately interrogated by Tsunami, Matatagi!Ichinose, Toramaru and Tachimukai. Though, the stranger that they come to know (aka Kazuhiko) collapses from his seat.

"So, who the hell is that guy?" Tsunami asked.
"It's hard to explain." Atsuya answered.
"Then, explain..." Matatagi!Ichinose said a bit aggravated.
"His name is Kazuhiko who is the merged form of Onii-chan and Gouenji." Atsuya answered.
"I’ll believe anything after everything I’ve been through." Toramaru asked.
"I went in to this place called the mindscape which is the intersection point of their minds. I think.” Atsuya answered plainly.
"What is going in here? I'm starting to get confuse again." Tachimukai said.
"Don't worry. We'll do a recap on this." Tsunami answered.
"Atsuya-chan." Kazuhiko said as he was still recovering from the headache after he received from his fall.
"Kazuhiko-san, what's wrong?" Atsuya asked.
"Do me, your brother’s part of me, a favor. Kill me." Kazuhiko said calmly.
"What?!?" Everyone reacted from the sheer shock.
"Don't worry. You won't kill them. It will separate them. We've already discussed everything here in the mindscape. So, do it now." Kazuhiko said, a bit bossy and confident of his command.
"I'm not very sure I can do that knowing, you're partially Onii-chan." Atsuya said rather concerned.
"Nope." Toramaru said.
"I'm not going to do it." Tachimukai said.
"That includes me." Tsunami commented.
“I don’t want to kill.” Fideo answered.
"That leaves me. Tsunami-san, where are the knives?" Matatagi!Ichinose replied.
"In the kitchen, in the second blue drawer." Tsunami answered.
“Really?” Atsuya said.

Matatagi!Ichinose gets in the kitchen.

"Yeah! I got it." Matatagi!Ichinose yelled as he was already in the kitchen.

Matatagi!Ichinose comes running at Kazuhiko as he stabs him on the back of his stomach.

"Ah! What the heck? You didn't get me prepared." Kazuhiko said.
"Nah! You're still not dead." Matatagi!Ichinose said as he reviewed the situation while pulling the knife and proceeds to slash him by the neck.

The sheer amount that bathed the living room floors were horrifying and no one dared to move as they were too afraid to do anything about the situation or at least, the very fact, to an ordinary person, Ichinose was doing the killing. As that kept on, Kazuhiko stands on fours as he grows weaker and weaker by every passing second.

"I must warn you to stay away from the blast zone." he weakly said as he completely goes down on his last breath.

After that a black hole-like thing starts to engulf Kazuhiko at his very core. The rest of guys are panicked by what he meant by 'blast zone'.

"Dudes, throw him in the ocean, NOW!" Tsunami said rather frantic about the situation.

They were a bit frantic as every passing second, Kazuhiko's corpse drew more to being engulfed by the black hole. By the time, they reach the nearby shore, Kazuhiko was only his head and feet. They tossed the imploding guy into the ocean. As they awaited what would happen, an explosion occurs which disperses a huge amount of water out of the ocean. From the explosion, Gouenji and Fubuki are released into the ocean.

"Really? Throwing us into the ocean is a good idea." Gouenji said and noticed that it was his own voice. He suddenly looks at the ocean and uses it as a mirror, he does notice this and releases a heavy breath after that kind of stress.
“Onii-chan!” Atsuya said as he runs towards the ocean and leaps towards his brother to hug him. “Finally, I can hug you with your own skin. You in that guy just isn’t huggable for me.”
“What did you say?” Gouenji said rather annoyed at the thought.
“I’m not taking that back.” Atsuya said and proceeds to do the tongue-sticking out emoji.

Then, Tsunami decides to jump into the waters and breaks the tension between all of them. The others soon follow even Matatagi!Ichinose gets into the waters with them. They had a good time with each other which was a bit surprising from the current situation. Later on, they go out of the ocean and decides to dry up in Tsunami’s house.

“I almost forgot! Kazuhiko told us to do something with you guys.” Fubuki said.
“What is that?” Tsunami said as he tries to quickly dry himself while the towel is disintegrating as he speaks.
“Remember what Kazuhiko did to Atsuya. It’s basically, he’ll change the shards’ abilities to certain degree to make it manageable.” Gouenji said.
“What are we waiting for. Let’s do this!” Tsunami said and sat down getting prepared.
“Just wait! We need to dry up, first.” Gouenji said.

After drying up, Fubuki plugs his finger unto Tsunami’s ear while Gouenji does the same to the other. The event was similar to Atsuya and Kazuhiko’s trip to the mindscape. After a few minutes, they bandaged up Tsunami’s hands so he can at least touch other objects without destroying it. Then, they moved on to do the same with Matatagi!Ichinose. Wherein, Kazuhiko had managed to change their spawn point in the mindscape and made them spawn into the joint point of Ichinose’s mind and the blue space train which is Matatagi’s room in there.

“So, this is what’s going on, here.” Kazuhiko commented as he looked at the place.
“So, I can stop controlling that guy.” Matatagi pointed at Ichinose who was sulking in a corner while watching a repeating scene where he holds a weak and bloody Aki.
“Yeah, you can.” Kazuhiko said.
“What do we need to do here?” Gouenji asked.
“Matatagi, you did mention once to them that there are others in here who are unconscious?” Kazuhiko asked.
“Yes. All of them except me are unconscious.” Matatagi said.
“Can we discuss about that later? Isn’t the other two shards are still nowhere to be found?” Fubuki stated.
“We can search for the shards with Ichinose’s future vision.” Gouenji said.
“Well, I can see other visions though it is still too blur. It would be clearer if Ichinose would just stop being catatonic over there.” Matatagi said.
“Then, that would be arrange.” Kazuhiko said as he suddenly runs towards Ichinose and kicks him on the abdomen which sends the poor guy for a good meter.

Ichinose got out of his emotionless catatonic state and lays on the floor, crying but still in a catatonic state. Kazuhiko doesn’t worry about Ichinose standing up so he doesn’t bother to hold him but instead he looks at the shocked faces of Matatagi, Fubuki and Gouenji.

“What was that for?” Gouenji decided to break the silence.
“Shuuya-sama, you’re the one who thought of the idea. While, Shirou-sama was thinking to talk to him. I had another choice of shaking him to snap him out of it. So, it was the most logical choice and you were planning to kick him already.” Kazuhiko said.
“Matatagi-kun, I think it’s a good time to look at the other visions clearly.” Fubuki said.
“That’s a good idea.” Matatagi said. “This might be the most significant vision.”

Matatagi shows a vision of an apocalyptic day. The scenery is on a soccer field, the people there were running there aimlessly, running away from something that they weren’t aware of. A hysterical laughter filled the atmosphere, unbelievably sounding like a devil. On the side, a red-haired guy was sitting down on a bench, covering his face and he seems to contemplate all of the events. The vision then pans to the purple lightning bolts that has been striking a goalpost as a dark figure watches all of the chaos.

“When did you see this?” Kazuhiko asked.
“Not long ago.” Matatagi answered.
“I think; I have an idea on who’s the red-haired guy. Can you back it up?” Fubuki said.
“Here you go.” Matatagi rewinds the vision.
“Pause it there.” Fubuki said.
“That’s Hiroto.” Gouenji looked at the guy closer and finally recognizes him.
“And his phone is flashing a birthday reminder.” Fubuki said.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Kazuhiko said. “All of you must get out now, tell Fideo to transport all of you to Sun Garden.
“Why?” Matatagi asked.
“Just go. It’s not a good sign.” Kazuhiko said.

The three of them is conscious once more with worried looks plastered unto their faces.

---Zack---
Here's what I promised. A back-to-back update for this day should do for last week's absence.

So, that would be all. Thanks for reading.