Disclaimer: The title is a slightly paraphrased line from the song "She's a Rebel" by Green Day, which I own as little as Eyeshield 21. No harm to the rights of creators and owners is intended with this fanfiction.

Notes: I've heard that there is such a thing as fluffy Hiruma/Sena, which kills me with hilarity. Fluffy Hiruma, people. Come on now. Weird thing is, it inspired me to write the pairing. This isn't exactly Hiruma/Sena, but it isn't not. As for spoilers - none in particular, but stuff up to chapter 133 in the background.

It was a long, hard training session, and when it ended most of the team headed off the field with relief mingled in their satisfaction at a good practise. Only Yukimitsu, Eyeshield 21, and Hiruma stayed on the field, the latter grinning as he watched the other two doing laps.

Amid the people getting rid of thirst, sweat, and grass-stained clothing, and Mamori running about to get everyone what they needed, Toganou noticed the three odd-ones-out on the field. He stopped what he was doing, considered, and eventually said, "Huh."

"Huuh? You say something?" Juumonji said, looking up once he'd made his way out of his football uniform. Toganou was too far away to have been speaking to him, and he walked closer curiously. "What are you looking at? You've been standing there staring since practise ended."

Toganou pointed to Hiruma and explained the idea that had crept into his head. When Juumonji waved Kuroki over and shared the theory (mostly to alleviate the trauma it had caused him), birds fled from trees at the resulting "HUUUUUHHH?"

- - -

Sena and Monta were getting ready to go home when the bushes by the school fence rustled and beckoning fingers and half-hidden faces called them aside.

"What now?" Sena wondered, and Monta shrugged as they crossed the road and joined the Huh-Huh Brothers. They were in a small space surrounded by bushes, squatting to avoid notice. Monta and Sena sat down too, and Sena fidgeted as the 'brothers' took a long moment to assess them.

"Do we tell both of them?" Toganou asked his buddies.

"It makes no difference," said Juumonji, then glanced at Sena. "We thought we should warn you..."

"Even if we'd rather not," Kuroki said. He had shaken off his shock from back at the field and was staring sourly at a tree. All three Huh-Huh Brothers were now looking at everything but Sena and Monta.

"You should watch out for Hiruma," Juumonji continued.

Sena nodded, unsurprised but puzzled - the advice was obvious - then jumped. If they were bothering to warn him, that meant Hiruma was being worse than normal! "W-what's g-going on?"

"Did we do something? Or was it just Sena?" Monta asked. Sena looked at him, betrayed, and Monta said, "No need to worry! I'll help you out! But it'll be easier if I'm not in the intensive care unit, too."

"You know about those photos Hiruma took of us, right, Sena?" Juumonji asked a leaf.

"Uh, sort of," Sena said. He remembered how the mention of photos used to motivate the Huh-Huh Brothers, and how they'd found some in the clubhouse that time they'd almost beaten up Komusubi.

Kuroki looked apprehensive. "You don't know the whole story? Hiruma ever show those things to you?"

Sena and Monta shook their heads and Kuroki swore. "We gotta show them," Toganou told him.

"You could describe them," Sena suggested. He was getting a clear feeling that he wanted to know nothing about this. Even looking at photos Hiruma took would suck him into a bottomless pit of blackmail, deceit, and evil.

The three looked sick. "Just ... just look. We found another poster in the clubhouse..." Toganou got a manga out of his school bag and pulled a folded-up piece of paper from it. He shook it out and displayed it to them, cringing behind it.

"That's us. When we first met Hiruma," Juumonji muttered.

Sena gaped, first at the poster, then at the Huh-Huh Brothers - and looked swiftly away before they noticed. He turned to share his immense distress with Monta, but Monta looked like he was trying not to laugh.

Kuroki reeled his gaze in from outer space and noticed Monta about to explode. "We think Hiruma's going to do the same to you," he said, and grinned nastily as Monta and Sena yelped and covered their privates, looking wildly for a devil with ropes and a camera.

"Not right now. And not quite like this," Juumonji said. "And just Sena."

"WHAAAAT? ME? WHYYYYY - I - AAAAaaaahhh..."

"Sena! Ya gotta move - escape to America! Maybe we can get you to play football at Notre Dame for real - no, take up golf and go undercovERR!"

Monta and Sena's reactions were choked off as the Huh-Huh Brothers tackled them, dealing out the most considerate punches they could manage out of sympathy. "Ssshh - someone will hear you!"

When calm was restored, they explained themselves. "He stares at you," Toganou said authoritatively. "Like he's about to eat you. I noticed when you kept running after practise. His eyes were following you round and round the field. Never looked away, and never stopped showing his teeth." He tapped his mouth meaningfully, and Kuroki and Juumonji gave demonstrative leers.

Sena was green enough to blend in with the grass. "Maybe he was looking at Yukimitsu-san," he whispered.

"I think I might have noticed, since there's a slight difference in speed between you two," Toganou pointed out.

Sena rocked gently back and forth. Monta patted him on the back, then had to catch him as he twitched five metres away.

"Hiruma was quick when he was dealing with us," Juumonji said.

"Practically talented," Kuroki muttered. "Like he's had practice."

"There are lots of reasons he'd be good at undressing guys. LOTS," Sena said. He tried not to sob - there was enough of his manhood at stake.

"This is Hiruma-san we're talking about," Monta agreed. "Just because he's got practise, it doesn't mean it's because he's ... you know."

"He did seem businesslike when he was - preparing us for the photos," Juumonji said to his buddies, as Kuroki shuddered. "Not like he was enjoying it ... for reasons other than getting blackmail. Maybe this is a false alarm."

"Yeah, but he didn't like us," Toganou said. "With the way he stares at Sena it looks like he does like him, and since Hiruma seems to have 'practise', he could easily..."

"aaaaaaaaaaaahh."

"Sena? You okay?" Monta reached out to give him a sympathetic pat, then shook his head and wisely kept his hand off the quivering lump of boy.

"aaaaaaaahh'm moving to america."

Monta and the Huh-Huh Brothers exchanged looks, then nodded solemnly.

"We'll throw you the best farewell party!" Monta swore.

- - -

Hiruma had noticed the Huh-Huh Brothers rifling through the clubhouse - surreptitiously, in their minds - and he had grinned, because he knew that he had more where that came from. He had watched them run off the sidewalk and dive behind some bushes, which was suspicious, but why would he give a damn when he could handle anything they might come up with?

But in case you didn't know, Lassie has nothing on the devil: Hiruma could smell trouble miles off.

"What are you grinning like that for?" Mamori paused in front of an open cabinet, holding the last of the papers that had managed to spread through all corners of the clubhouse after practise.

He turned the grin at her, making it wider so she'd narrow her eyes in return. Mamori just huffed and thrust the papers into the cabinet, and slammed the cabinet door shut when she whipped around to face him.

He was already at the door. "Lock up, fucking manager. I'm going for a walk." His words got fainter as he walked away, but she thought he said, "I think it's a move that has potential..."

Mamori decided with a twinge of guilt that whatever came out of this, at least she wouldn't take the brunt of it. And on the bright side, Hiruma didn't have visible firearms with him, so the other party would only have small ones to deal with. Maybe it would even be the ones she'd loaded with blanks!

Cheered, she hummed as she locked the door behind her, blissfully unaware of how Hiruma's instincts trumped hers.

- - -

Sena broke the silence of some minutes, leaping to his feet and swaying weakly. "M...must."

"Huuuh?" said Kuroki, perplexed.

"Must what?" Toganou asked.

"Uh ... It looks like he wants to leave. Maybe he meant 'must go home', or 'must escape', or something?" Monta suggested in an undertone to the others. They all shrugged, and Monta addressed Sena in a voice full of commiseration. "You wanna go, Sena?"

"A-ALONE," said Sena, and wobbled off through the bushes.

"I think he's developed the opposite of Komusubi's language! This is ... Weak-Go!" Monta said, staring after him.

"I guess." Juumonji scratched his head, vaguely relieved that he hadn't understood Sena, and the others hadn't either. "Think he'll be okay?"

"Well ... his house isn't that far away. I'm sure he can run if there's real trouble." Monta stood up. "I gotta go too. Thanks for the heads-up!"

At that moment, they had reversed personalities; while Monta was polite under the desperate circumstances, Sena, if he could have unscrambled his brain, would have gone into a despairing rage, flailing and yelling like Monta in a bombastic fit of anger.

As it was, Sena was absorbed in getting home. It was inadequate, of course: walls, doors, and unsuspecting adults had no chance against Hiruma. Still, it was his only hope of safety.

Then there were footsteps.

He didn't know how he knew them, but there was something about that steady tattoo that caught his attention over the sound of cars passing by. Maybe he knew all the Devil Bats well enough to recognise their footsteps, said a loopy, gibbering part of him (which seemed to be most of him, actually). A flash of imagination had him thinking of Kurita going bom-bom-bom, with the sterner Komusubi, behind him, going bum! bum! bum! A three-man tramp from the Huh-Huh Brothers, falling in and out of synchronisation and chaos, and then the mental order was disturbed by a desperate wish for Mamori's footsteps, which quickened in just that way when she saw him and headed towards him.

"You going to stare the traffic into submission, shrimp?"

"Hnnn-!" Sena said, feeling sweat break out across his face and under his arms. A drop trickled from his temple.

"Hey!" Hiruma said sharply. "You're not getting sick because you didn't shower after practise. Soaking with sweat and standing around all fucking night..." Hiruma's voice faded into black mutters, and

THAT WAS HIRUMA'S HAND ON HIS BACK STEERING HIM ACROSS THE ROAD - if he ran, he could jump in front of a car - THAT WAS HIRUMA'S HAND TAKING HOLD OF HIS COLLAR aaaaaaaaaaahhh.

"Park!" Sena yelped, as terror faded from his eyes and allowed him to see his surroundings. "Home other way - shower there-"

He wondered if he should be mentioning showers, because showers required nakedness, and under the circumstances he would be better off applying a mallet directly to his brain.

"It's a short cut," Hiruma said, and even if that was true, it didn't matter because they stopped walking and he slung Sena into the bottom of a slide. "You'd fucking better keep warm," he said when Sena curled up into roughly the size of a tennis ball. "Here."

Hiruma's jacket landed in Sena's face. It would have been nice to stay behind it, as if the world had gone away; but even that wouldn't have helped, since Hiruma would surely come back from the end of the world to kick his ass for disregarding the advice.

The jacket was so thin that the wind cut right through it, and it smelled like gunpowder. Once Sena was done with it, he thought the smell would be made up purely of nervous sweat. But, he realised, he was still wearing all his clothes. There were no ropes in sight. With some hope, Sena dared to look up.

Hiruma looked back, blank - and maybe uncertain? A pink bubble emerged from his mouth, increasingly obscuring his face; Sena watched it grow, slowly, and started when it popped.

Then he wailed, air-raid siren style, because there was Hiruma and snarling and a boot on his behind.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Do your cooling down exercises!"

"Cool-ing d-down?"

Hiruma gave him another kick for good measure. "Why do you think we do stretches and slow exercises at the end of a practise? At least when the fucking baldie goes for a run after that, he knows enough to cool his muscles again so he won't sprain anything. But you - GET TO WORK!"

That made sense, Sena thought, hurriedly falling into the exercises. He did usually stretch after his extra runs, kind of, sometimes. He didn't have a system, he'd do whatever felt okay until he stopped feeling stiff.

It was when he was bent over to touch his toes and the jacket collar flopped up to bat his cheeks that something occurred to him, and he twisted his neck so he could look up. Hiruma was staring at him, teeth glinting in the street light, gaze sharply intent.

Sena's legs went away and left him on the ground.

"Fucking fainting!" Hiruma muttered indignantly, with a faint, unheard of note of surprise. "If you really are sick, fucking shrimp--"

"I should get home!" Sena said, necessity tackling invention in the gut. "My mother would give me medicine and it would only take a day and I'd be fine!" A day was plenty of time to catch a plane...

Hiruma dragged him up by both collars and headed deeper into the park. "Short cut's this way."

Park - after sunset - no people around. Sena's mind thrashed around hopelessly after those facts sank in, like a fish on dry land. Then another thought slammed its way into existence: Likes me! Hiruma Youichi, liking him, Sena! Toganou had said it was likely, and Sena had to take that opinion as believable because he didn't have experience with that kind of thing. What could happen, if Hiruma liked someone? Would all evil in the world suddenly turn to good? Would the sun turn out to have been an apricot all along? Would he have to keep the jacket, or risk offending Hiruma?

Sena saw his home up ahead, and gaped. It really was a shortcut.

"Thank you, Hiruma-san..." he managed, and jerked towards safety.

Hiruma wasn't letting go. This Sena did not find surprising. If Hiruma did like someone,that would definitely be on the list of things that would happen.

Sena was turned around, Hiruma's jacket and his own school jacket pulled up so that they bunched under his armpits. He half-dangled on his toes, feeling a blush that turned his cheeks far too red, far too quickly. Hiruma smiled: shark, scenting blood.

"There's something you ought to know!" he said, cheerful and demented.

Sena's reply of no, by everything that's good and true and makes life worthwhile, no was too large to get out of his throat, and Hiruma kept speaking.

"This year would have been a waste without you. You and Eyeshield 21, and you wanting to be Eyeshield 21, you fucking crazy shrimp." Hiruma was nose to nose with him, and Sena was going to wet himself. "It's thanks to you. It's all about you. We would have made it to the Christmas Bowl. We wouldn't have won ... but now you're here. You made it so good that we could win now even without you."

This was probably serious. Hiruma maybe liking someone meant maybe saying something that he thought was true, instead of playing a part to get the best result.

The grin that must have been the one Toganou noticed slashed across Hiruma's face, and he dropped Sena. Sena tottered back a step or two, keeping his eyes on Hiruma out of a sense of self-preservation.

Hiruma pointed at him, finger almost on Sena's nose. "My fucking ace, got that?"

Sena's eyes were so wide open that they felt cold and dry all the way to the back. He couldn't help but look at Hiruma, staring at the narrow, black-clad back as Hiruma walked away, until it disappeared. And he thought, Maybe he... Maybe I...

In the next instant he was at his front door - a split second's obstacle - then his bedroom door - and then he reached his goal of the comforts of pillow and duvet.

The ache in his entire body, but mostly his legs, made Sena wonder dreamily about perhaps having set a four seconds per fifty yards record? ... and then self defence mechanisms set in to destroy his memory of his evening. He even burnt Hiruma's jacket in his sleep without fuss.

Only fleeting nightmares remained, and Hiruma developed a tendency to grin a certain way at Eyeshield 21 during games, if he thought the running back was in a position to notice. It added usefully to his speed.