Tenma woke up to his alarm and went on his daily routine. Showered, brushed his teeth, had breakfast with his Aki-nee and the others living in the apartment, greeted his dog, and met Shinsuke and Aoi right by the gates. They talked about a number of things on their way, but stopped right before they got to the station.

A certain navy haired boy was there, staring up at the train that had just arrived.

"Tsurugi must really miss Kimiko..." Shinsuke muttered.

Aoi nodded. "It's been a month already, but he still comes here everyday and waits for her..."

The brunette frowned, feeling bad for his friend, but he slapped his cheeks lightly before shaking his head. "It'll be fine! Kimiko will be back soon, and then, we can all play together! For now, let's focus on training for the world tournament!" He ran ahead and decided to call out. "Tsurugi! Wait up!"

The taller boy that had just tore his eyes away from the train turned at his call. "Tenma, Nishizono, Sorano."

"Good morning!" The three of them greeted in sync.

"Morning."

His gaze dropped to the black cloth around his neck. "Is that a new scarf?"

"Not really. My parents bought matching ones for me and my brother last Christmas."

"That's nice." Aoi complimented. "It suits you."

"Thanks." Amber eyes turned to grey ones. "Meanwhile, someone doesn't look like he's prepared for winter at all."

The brunette chuckled sheepishly. "My scarf is still being washed after sitting in my closet for so long. But it's fine! I'll move lots and lots during practice! It'll work out somehow!"

"You might want to stay in class for the rest of the time, though." Shinsuke pointed out. "The heaters will keep you from catching a cold."

"Ahaha... Good point."

They continued their way to school and changed to their kits upon arrival. They were first to arrive, so they went to use the indoor field on their own while waiting for the others. When the rest of their team and their coach arrived, real practice began.

Everyone was having fun, but Aoi noticed a pair of orange eyes glancing over to the bench before looking down and turning back to the field.

~~~~~

Afternoon practice came soon enough and the team met up once again in the changing rooms. As soon as they were done, they headed for the indoor field once again, but found a couple of blondes talking right outside the tunnel.

"Isn't that...?"

"Gouenji-san! And Masato-san!"

Their coach smiled at his two friends. "Gouenji, Masato, nice to see you two again."

"It's nice to see you all too." Gouenji nodded at them all. "How's your training?"

"Why don't you come watch for yourselves?"

"I wish I could, but I have to remain impartial so it would be better if I don't."

His cousin smirked at him. "Sucks to be the chairman of the Japan Youth Soccer Association, eh?"

After all his efforts from when he became Holy Emperor to all he did behind the scenes, everyone in Japan had acknowledged him, and the votes to make him the head was unanimous. Because of that, it didn't surprise anyone that even for a casual visit, he'd be wearing a proper suit instead of the red jacket he had. His hair was no longer in a ponytail either, looking more like his Holy Emperor days, but without the blue streaks.

But even in a tight suit, he was still able to kick a Fire Tornado at his cousin.

"Ow!" The other blonde was knocked further to the field. He groaned as he got up, shooting a glare. "Hey! I thought you stopped doing that!"

"You're the only exception."

Endou and Haruna could only sweatdrop as the children stared in utter shock. Eventually, they decided to pretend nothing happened and made their way to the bench to start.

"Ugh... Next time we go anywhere together, I'm dragging Yuuka with us." The other blonde grumbled before making his way back to the side of the pitch. A certain navy haired boy caught his eye. "Hey, Tsurugi."

He looked up from his stretches. "Yes?"

"Aren't you gonna ask?"

"About?"

He raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean 'about'? Who else could I be talking about?"

His eyes widened just a bit before returning to normal. "... If she's back, then she'll come on her own. I don't need to hear anything from anyone else." With that, he got up and headed to the field, beginning practice on his own.

The rest of the team definitely noticed, but none of them said a word. Instead, it was the man himself who broke the awkward silence.

"Huh," He was smiling slightly. "I went through all the trouble of coming up with a million excuses on why she isn't back yet, but he's taking it better than I thought."

"You sound disappointed." Gouenji walked up beside him with his arms crossed.

"I kind of am, but at the same time, I'm glad. As long as he's alright, Kimiko can focus on her own thing without any worries."

"Her own thing?" Haruna asked.

Gouenji gave a wry smile, saying "You'll find out someday" before turning back to Endou. "Then, I'll be taking my leave."

"Alright. See you around!" He waved as he watched him leave, but blinked at the other blonde that stayed behind. "Masato, you're not going with him?"

"Nope! I have my own job to do here."

"Your own job?"

"You haven't heard?" He gave a smirk and winked. "Starting today, I'll be Raimon's trainer."

~~~~~

"Ah!" A rather loud yelp came from the tunnel.

"Yamana?!" First to recognize the voice, Shindou went to check on the usually quiet girl. The others followed, worried that something bad happened to her. So it surprised them when they just found her looking down at a large bag with a lot of paper fluttering down around her.

"Akane-san, what happened?" Aoi asked, running over and picking up a... photograph?

"There were so many copies..." Her senior sighed, her eyes staying on the bag. "It became heavy..."

"And because of that, you dropped it by accident and panicked when they flew out." Midori guessed the rest of the story perfectly, earning a nod.

The team turned to each other before smiling and heading over, offering to help carry and sort them out again. They went back to the bench and carefully took out the many, many stacks of photos from the bag.

Kirino blinked. "Most of these photos match... Yamana, did you...?!"

Akane smiled brightly. "This way, everyone can have one."

"Wow! You sure took a lot of pictures, Akane-san!"

"Some of these were taken during our trip, while the rest were taken when we went back to all those timelines in a day to let all our friends know about our win, huh..."

"Okatsu-san looks happy here!"

"Tasuke and the others too!"

"Kirino! I found the one of you and Jeanne!"

"Tenma photobombed it."

"I didn't mean to!"

"Haha! It's alright! In any case, I found one of Shinsuke's."

"How did it feel to be carried by Liu Bei like that?"

"Bet it gave him a whole new view of the world."

"I'll definitely grow up to be that tall someday! Just you wait!"

"Eh?! Tsurugi, you got to try on the Shinsengumi uniform?!"

"Ah... Yeah, Okita-san made me do it."

"Oh my god, why didn't you tell me?! We could've had you pose with one of their katanas!"

"No thanks."

"Oh, hey! I remember this! I'm surprised that both Taiyou and Nishiki-senpai could fit on top of a single dinosaur's back."

"I'm more surprised they could keep up with Torb."

"Too bad Taiyou went back to Arakumo already."

"It's fine! We can give him his bundle the next time we see him!"

"Oh! This one's cute!"

"Even on our second trip, Aoi is still the princess and Akane is still the fairy while I'm the coachman..."

"Who took this photo if Akane-san is over there?"

"Kinako did. She wanted to take a picture of all three of us with King Arthur."

"Daisuke-san's there too."

"Still as a stone."

"But he changed back when we returned to Raimon."

"Grandpa was happy to see his dream team play right in front of his eyes. I'm glad he passed on without any regrets."

"Kinako probably felt the same way. She didn't get to be Fei's mother, but she still got to watch over him in her youth."

"Speaking of Kinako and Fei... Look at this one!"

"Aww... Fei looks so cute when he's asleep."

"He really resembles a bunny."

"Kinako really has that motherly look too!"

"Here's one of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma."

"Oh, I remember that. Before the match began, Beta and Gamma were arguing about who was the ace of the team."

"Alpha snuck past them and tried on the captain's band before Shindou came in and asked for it back."

"And here's Zanark!"

"He's really photogenic, huh?"

"Only a single photo of him and yet he managed to look better than everyone else..."

"'I knew you'd say that' is definitely what he'll say if he heard us talking about him like this."

"Ahahaha! Nishiki-senpai's impression of him is spot on!"

"That's all the time travel photos sorted." Akane said, nodding at the different stacks before pulling out more from the bag. "Next are these."

"Oh! These are all the ones we took the day after we got back!"

"All the third years are in this one."

"The second years are divided into two."

"Well, there's also Kirino-senpai and Kariya's one."

"Tsurugi and Taiyou's one caught me off guard. It's like the literal representation of night and day."

"I just think it's funny they're in the same picture when their hair and eye colors are just a reverse of one another."

"No comment."

"Oh hey, this one is―"

"Don't look at that!" Akane quickly snatched one that Kurama was holding. It was the only copy of the photo Midori took of her and Shindou without letting her know and she prefered that less people would know about it. And there was absolutely no way she would let her virtuoso see it either.

"Haha! Tenma, what's with this one? You, Shinsuke, and Hikaru are all so dirty!"

"W-We took our photo after practice, so isn't that normal?!"

"Oh hey, this one is with Miss Otonashi wearing Kidou-san's goggles!"

"Too bad he's turned around here so we can't see his face..."

"Coach Endou and Gouenji-san seem very happy though."

"Well, even for us, it's not often we get to see Kidou's eyes."

"And this is of us three managers in the locker room."

"Okay!" Akane clapped her hands happily. Everything was sorted out, meaning all they had to do was bundle them for each club member, which didn't take too long to do with everyone working on their own ones. There was even enough for the adults.

"Then, this is the final batch." She pulled out a handful from a zipped pocket. That meant they were the only photos to stay neatly sorted. "Here, two each."

"Oh, these are...!"

"This one is from our sleepover at Tsurugi's place!"

"And this one is when we came to visit on our day off!"

The first photo was of the morning when they were all having breakfast together while the other was of them watching a recorded match. Both photos had a certain blonde girl in them.

"Kimiko's smile is so pretty here."

"She doesn't look half bad in red either."

"Last one." Akane stood in front of the navy haired boy as she held them out. There were three, and they were meant for him and only him.

One was from way back even before they met Daisuke. When they travelled to change Kimiko's history so that she would've at least joined the club. He recalled Akane had taken a picture of their silhouettes through the windows.

The second one was from their day off, when she stole his red shirt. He still clearly remembered that argument and how dumb it was, but the picture definitely defined their relationship.

However, while both were nice, his favorite was definitely the last one.

It was a photo of them in the locker room after the first match of Ragnarok. Come to think of it, he did remember his senior coming in to take a photo of her in the dark blue jersey. It was the first time she had ever worn one after all. The girl had stolen his captain's mark the second he took it off and pulled it up her own arm while he was standing right behind her, looking back with a blank face. If no one knew the context, it'd look like she was the actual captain and they were posing back to back like in action films.

It brought a smile to his face. He could stick it in his scrapbook.

~~~~~~~~~~

And that brings Chrono Stone's Arc to an end! Next up will be 3 side stories, similar to the one that came after the GO Arc, before we move on to Galaxy!!!

Also, I have another book that would fit here in between the arcs! If you've been here for a while, then I'm sure you've seen this book too:

The Inazuma Eleven x Danball Senki crossover rewritten with both Kimiko and Eva (from my DanSen book) in it!

Hope you enjoy!

Next week's update will be the last two side stories, and the week after, we will finally start Galaxy!

See you then!