"Kimiko! Are you okay?!"

"How are you feeling?"

"Should you be out of bed?!"

She took a deep breath. "I'm alive. Now, will you let me sit down?"

All eyes went wide, none of them expecting her change in attitude. Still, despite the discomfort, none of them let her take a single step further into the room.

"Kimiko, you..." Shindou's eyes narrowed on her. "You knew too, didn't you?"

She crossed her arms at that. Looking around the room, all eyes were on her. Some were wary, others suspicious. The three behind her were no different.

Tenma was next to confront her, his voice just barely shaking, his eyes with a bit of hurt in them. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"You just need to look in a mirror and you'll find the answer to that." She replied bluntly. "The amount of stress and worry you're all feeling would've messed up your plays if we were still early on into this tournament."

"That's not―" Surprisingly, Tetsukado cut himself short. "No, you're... you're right..."

"I don't like it though..." Sakura muttered, earning an uncaring shrug.

"How long have you known?" Aoi asked.

"Since it happened. I saw the fake replacing him with someone else's help right before we left Sandorias."

"That long?!"

"There's no point in beating yourself up about it. I actively covered for the guy whenever he made a mistake or if any of you started being suspicious, so of course you wouldn't have thought further about it."

It was Shindou's turn to cross his arms. "So that's why you kept saying he's sick..."

"And why you were so ready to confront him too." Matatagi scratched the back of his head with a look towards her belt, where her gun was held. She wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.

"Oh yeah! How is your wound?" Ibuki's eyes turned worried upon remembering. "You got shot, and―!"

"There's none." She cut off. She then turned to those from Raimon. "I know it looks like my sense of fashion hasn't changed a bit since I left, and to be fair, it hasn't, but this isn't the same shirt you always used to see me wear."

She took off the blue jacket to better show it off. Though it took some squinting, they could just barely see the way it shined almost unnaturally. The material it was made from was definitely not cotton.

"It's a custom-made armor by Feida, with the purpose of making sure I survive anything Zanark would try to put me through. It's bulletproof, heat-resistant, cold-resistant, waterproof, and so on and so forth."

"So that's why you could stand Gardon's heat so easily..."

She nodded at the brunette captain and then threw the jacket back on with a roll of her shoulders. "Manuuba's shot just knocked me back and made me hit the chair hard enough to knock me out."

"Manuuba?" Minaho's ear twitched.

"The fake's name."

"Oh..."

"Guessing you read his mind for that?" Ibuki said.

"I can't read alien minds. But he didn't know that. All he knew, even with Kyousuke's memories, is that I can read the minds of anyone within range. He'd tell me everything I needed to know if I just asked..." She clicked her tongue. "But I didn't expect that he had new orders after Ratoniik."

"That's not your fault either!" Konoha immediately piped in, earning a nod.

"You're right. No one here is at fault except for Faram Orbius. That child they got for a queen probably asked for him, but instead of arranging a meet-up like a normal person, they decided to go for kidnapping."

"Ishigashi-san told us the same thing earlier." Manabe pointed out.

"Ishigashi-san?" An eyebrow was raised slightly before she recounted what little she knew about him. "Well, he does work with Ozrock in that galactic-federation-whatever... Makes sense that he's got that information."

"He also said that they wanted to kidnap Mizukawa-san as an act of intimidation towards us for reaching the finals." Kusaka added.

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. That doesn't make sense. Even if Potomuri is inside her body, I'm still the bigger threat... If they just wanted to intimidate, then they should've kidnapped me. Another thought came to mind. Could they want something to do with the stones...?

"They also said that Tsurugi might be imprisoned there..." Shinsuke muttered, looking down.

She simply nodded. "He is."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it happen."

"How?!"

With all eyes back on her, she let out a sigh and rolled up her sleeve, showing off her accessory. "Does this look familiar to you?"

"The time bracelet!" Tenma exclaimed before quickly covering his mouth. Though, it was a bit too late for that.

"A what?"

"Time... bracelet...?"

"Um... I mean..."

Kimiko shook her head. "It's fine, I got permission. To put it simply," She pressed on its screen, lighting it up with a series of numbers appearing. "This lets me travel through time and space."

"That's impossible!"

She rolled her eyes. "So is the fact that I'm born 200 years from now and was sent back to seven years ago due to an incident, but here I am."

"W-Wha..."

Aoi gave a wry smile as she turned to the rest of Raimon. "Aunty said that we still have a little bit of time left before we can warp, so... How about we explain everything from the beginning?"

"But... would that really be okay?" Shinsuke was understandably reluctant.

"If Kimiko is allowed to say this much already, then surely..."

"Can everyone really keep up with it though...?" Tenma worried.

Shindou, who had been silent for a while, finally voiced his thoughts. "We'll just have to go slowly."

So those who were present for, as they had all dubbed it, the Chrono Stone Incident took turns explaining certain details. How Raimon's soccer club nearly became non-existent because of Alpha, how Tenma met Fei, how they took back their present only to lose it all to Beta again, how they started looking for the strongest eleven in history (with Tenma, Shindou and Shinsuke showing off their MixiMax as proof), how they ended up in the future, how Ragnarok happened and ended, and more.

At the end of the explanation, all those who weren't present for the incident had their heads in their hands, trying to process everything.

"So... time travel is real?"

"Yes."

"And you've all done it?"

"Yes."

"Genuinely, what the fuck does Raimon go through?!"

"A lot." Shindou seemed to have given up on warning Ibuki for his language. "We don't know why, it's not like we asked for it to happen to us. But we also couldn't just leave the crisis alone when we knew we could do something about it."

"Yeah, you wouldn't be here right now if you could."

They all let out wry smiles at that.

"So if we put all of that with what Kimiko said about herself..." Minaho's eyes trailed to the blonde, who shrugged.

"I'm born in the distant future, got sent back to the past, and then grew up until the present."

"Right."

"And Feida..." Konoha muttered in a volume that barely reached her ears.

"Like I told you before, they're an organization full of people that were just like me. And because of that war, their everyday clothes are made out of these crazy materials. That's how they were able to make one for me too." She let out a strained smile. "And like the citizens of Ratoniik, they knew from the beginning that they weren't going to live for very long, and actually preferred it that way for a good while. It was Chrono Storm that knocked them out of it."

"Thank goodness..."

"That trip you mentioned you were on..." Ichikawa spoke up afterwards. "That was..."

"An excuse. After that incident, I stayed behind in the future so that the doctors and professors could observe me further to create the second tier cures for future generations. The ones they have are compatible with the early SSC, but apparently, by the time it got to my generation, we've evolved even further." She shrugged. "They'll have to keep researching for a while to find one that could cure all generations."

"Seeing as you still have those weird powers, you came back before they're finished." Matatagi smirked.

"What can I say? I get impatient when I see my friends facing danger."

"You could've come back at any time, couldn't you?" Manabe questioned. "You could've just waited until the cure was done, then traveled back to... whenever it was that you returned to this timeline. When was it, you said? Before the tournament?"

"Before your match against Teikoku."

"Close enough."

"As for why I didn't just wait..." A memory of her interdimensional trip flashed before her eyes. Mentally shaking it off, she continued. "Like I said, I got impatient. And by then, they didn't need me to visit the labs as much, so they let me roam free. Besides, I've been using my powers all this time and nothing bad's been happening. I'm not dying any time soon."

"Still..." Aoi tried to interject.

"And to be fair, being here is safer than being with Zanark."

"True..." But she couldn't.

They stood in silence for a while, some of them wondering what else to say, while others had given up on understanding. Eventually, it was the captain that broke it.

"Kimiko, you said you saw Tsurugi in prison?"

"I saw him get captured, but that's the same thing I guess."

"Get captured?" Minaho's ear twitched. "So he wasn't imprisoned before?"

"If there's one thing other than soccer that Kyousuke's good at, it's making an impression." Like on Fifth Sector, Okita Souji, and more. "He got to the point where the queen trusts him enough to let him wander the capital city on his own. Though, at the same time, it's not like he knew how to pilot a spaceship, so he literally couldn't have escaped even if he tried."

"So why is he in prison now?"

"Because there's a noble that wanted to usurp the throne, and Kyou happened to overhear. He tried to warn the queen, but they got captured before they could do anything."

Tetsukado's eyes narrowed. "And you saw all that?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you do anything?"

Her lips sealed shut. She had also been wondering that for the longest time. Why didn't she just jump in? Surely, she could've saved him with a simple teleportation. And if she armed herself with the ampules, then... Deep down, she already knew why.

She sighed. "I... wasn't allowed to."

"What?"

"Zanark was with me every time I went. He wouldn't let me interact with him, much less save him."

Manabe was understandably skeptical. "Why not?"

"... Because this is how things are supposed to go if we want the galaxy to be saved."

"This is how things are supposed to be?" Tenma repeated.

"Just like how El Dorado was never meant to win with their soccer ban, the galaxy wouldn't have a chance at being saved if Kyousuke wasn't taken to Faram Orbius." She gave them a bitter smile. "It's... destiny, or so they say. But don't worry. Zanark says that he'll be out of there as soon as we arrive, so we should see him on the day of the match."

"That's a relief..." Shinsuke trailed, before sighing. "Is what I want to say, but I still can't help worrying."

"Yeah... Do you know how he's going to escape?" Tetsukado asked.

"Nope."

"You're way too calm about this." Kusaka sweatdropped.

"I already took all my anger out on Zanark the day I saw it happen. No reason for me to overthink about it now. Besides," She let a small smirk show as she patted the gun on her hip. "If he doesn't escape himself by the time we arrive, I can always go find him and bust him out myself."

"Kimiko, no."

She was about to retort to the ash haired boy when Kamata finally came back. And so, they all took their seats, a purple planet soon appearing before their eyes.