Saturday came faster than Karl expected, mostly because he spent Friday night reading tournament rules instead of sleeping.
He got off the bus two stops early out of habit, pulled the mask up over his nose in the shade of a shuttered pharmacy, and checked his reflection in the glass. Hood forward, face gone. Kazu looked back at him.
’Register the team. Ask Elsa about the bracket schedule. Figure out our fourth and fifth.’ He ran the list again as he walked. ’Maybe applications. People would apply to play with Kazu, i think most would want to play in tournaments with a top global no?’
Ninety-plus messages said it wasn’t arrogance.
[Notice: The Administrator has arrived at the designated meeting point.]
’I know where I am.’
The girls were already there, standing outside the plaza entrance like they’d been waiting a while. Elsa spotted him first and waved with her whole arm, the way people wave at ships.
Sana stood beside her with her ponytail pulled tighter than usual and her arms crossed, and she gave him a nod that was polite and about four degrees below room temperature.
"He lives," Elsa announced. "And he’s on time. Sana, look, he respects us."
"It’s nine," Karl said. "You said nine sharp. Where’s the registration line?"
"About that." Elsa smiled the smile of a person who had planned a crime well in advance. "Registration opens at twelve."
Karl stopped walking. "You said nine."
"I did say that, didn’t i?"
"Why would you--"
"Because if I told you twelve, you’d show up at eleven fifty-eight in that." She gestured at all of him at once, hood to shoes, like a lawyer presenting evidence. "And we are not registering a team while our captain looks like he sleeps in a bus station. We’re going shopping. It’s decided. Sana agrees."
"I was told we were getting breakfast," Sana said flatly.
"Sana agrees in spirit."
Karl looked down at himself. Hoodie, jeans, the shoes that had survived two winters out of pure stubbornness. Nothing was torn. Everything was clean. He genuinely did not see the problem.
"What’s wrong with this?"
Both girls looked at each other. Some entire conversation happened between them in about one second, and then Elsa took him by the sleeve and started walking.
"Nothing, sweetie. Come."
[Instant Quest issued.]
[Quest: Comply with the team’s activities until registration.]
[Reward: EXP, 200 units.]
’You’re taking her side?’
[This unit is taking the side of EXP. The Administrator is advised to do the same.]
’Traitor.’
...
The store Elsa chose was the kind of place Karl usually walked past faster.
Warm lighting, folded things on tables, a sales guy who looked like he moisturized on schedule.
Elsa moved through the racks like a general, pulling shirts and jackets and holding them up against Karl’s chest without asking, while Sana trailed behind with her phone out, quietly judging everything at a distance.
"Too soft. Too grey. You already own grey, I can feel it." Elsa shoved a stack into his arms. "Fitting room. Go."
"This is a lot of clothes."
"That’s a starting lineup. Go, go go."
Karl went, because arguing with her was starting to feel like arguing with his mother, which was a fight he had never once won in his life.
The fitting room was small and too bright. He changed into the first outfit, a dark shirt and a jacket that fit closer than anything he owned, and stood there looking at a stranger in the mirror.
’This is unnecessary. Nobody’s registering the clothes. The bracket doesn’t check your jacket.’ He turned slightly. The stranger turned too. ’It does fit though. I’ll give her that.’
He stepped out.
Elsa was mid-sentence to Sana and simply stopped producing words. Her hand came up over her mouth. Sana looked up from her phone, looked back down, and then did a slow second look that she clearly did not authorize, fingers pressing against her lips like she was holding something in.
Karl stood there in the silence, getting more uncomfortable by the second.
"...Is it bad?"
"No," both of them said, immediately, too fast, at the same time.
"Then why are you covering your--"
"Next outfit," Elsa said, voice slightly strangled. "Keep going. This is, um. This is a process."
It went like that four more times. Every time he came out, the two of them went quiet in a way that made his ears burn under the hood, and every time he asked if something was wrong, they answered in unison and refused to elaborate.
At some point Sana started fanning herself with her phone and claimed the store’s heating was too high.
[Charlotte requests visual documentation of this event.]
’Denied.’
[Charlotte states her master cleans up acceptably. Charlotte states this in a neutral, tactical capacity.]
’Neutral, what?’
[Bond interaction progress: 47%.]
’For fuck’s sake?’
They settled on the dark shirt, the jacket, and a pair of shoes that cost more than his monthly bus card. Karl paid before Elsa could try, and watching the numbers leave his account hurt less than it would have two weeks ago, which was its own strange feeling to sit with.
"See?" Elsa fell in beside him as they left, glancing up at him and then away, cheeks still a little pink. "Now you look like a captain. Before you looked like the captain’s missing brother."
"I looked fine."
"Hahaha, whatever you say, captain."
Sana snorted, then pretended she hadn’t.
...
The registration centre was a converted event hall ten minutes from the plaza, and the line outside it killed the conversation.
It wrapped around the building.
Teams in matching jackets, teams with printed banners, a guy doing warm-up stretches against a wall like this was the Olympics.
Sana slowed as they got close, her arms folding again, shoulders drawing in as she scanned the size of the crowd, and Elsa, without making anything of it, drifted half a step nearer to her.
"Big turnout," Sana said, very evenly.
"Big prize pool,f focus on that more" Elsa said. "Come on, the line’s moving."
They had made it maybe twenty steps when a voice cut across the pavement.
"No way."
Karl knew the voice before he turned.
Bleached hair, red jacket, four teammates fanning out behind him. The Shark Riders looked exactly like they had at the exhibition, except now they were looking at him the way people look at a math problem they’ve been chewing on for two weeks.
The blonde’s eyes went from the mask, to Elsa, to the mask again. Then he smiled, slow and sharp, like something had finally clicked into place.
"Masked man. So the stand-in’s forming a team now." He took a step closer, loud enough for half the line to hear. "You know, I looked you up after that night. Funny thing. There’s only one Kazu that plays like that."