The world split down the middle, and two boys lived lives that should have belonged to the other.

KAISER — Munich, Germany

He lived with a golden spoon since birth.

At six, Michael Kaiser had his own mini-pitch in the backyard, real grass watered daily by a groundskeeper.

His mother, Helena Kaiser, was a celebrated actress who smelled of gardenias and never missed a school play.

His father, Dietrich, was a corporate titan who came home at seven sharp every evening, loosened his tie, and asked.

"Where's my little champion?" before lifting Michael into the air.

He was extremely happy.

On his seventh birthday, he woke to a signed Noel Noa jersey framed above his bed.

Not a replica—the real thing, bought at a charity auction. His mother had personally written to Noa's management.

It was something that he could never have before but now..

he has it.

Michael cried, clutching it, and that night his father sat beside him and said.

"Talent is a gift, Mihya. But character is what you build. If you want to be the best, you must be the hardest worker in every room."

Michael had everything a child could dream off.

At ten, he had a personal coach, a nutritionist, and a therapist—because his parents believed a healthy mind made a healthy striker.

When he lost his first major youth tournament, he came home silent, eyes red. His mother didn't scold.

She held him and said, "Even kings lose battles. They win wars."

He hold his mother's words and worked even more.

He trained.

Again.

And.

Again.

And.

Again.

Until he could make everyone he challenged bow down to him.

At fourteen, Michael Kaiser walked into the Bastard München youth academy like he owned it.

Arrogant, yes—but it wasn't hollow. He had the skills, the vision, the absolute belief that he would wear the crown.

He was golden, untouchable, beloved. The coaches called him a prodigy.

The other boys resented his confidence, but he didn't care.

He had a family that texted him before every match and flew to every final.

He had a bright future.

And he was not going to bow down to anyone.

The world had given him everything, and he fully intended to give everything back—on the pitch, with a ball at his feet, becoming the king his mother promised he would be.

ISAGI — Saitama, Japan

At 6 years old.

Isagi Yoichi no longer remembered what his mother's face looked like. He had one memory: a door closing, and the sound of her footsteps fading.

His brother was a gambling addict with violent hands. When Isagi was seven, the beatings started.

When he was eight, the other things started. The things that made him learn how to leave his own body and watch from somewhere near the ceiling.

His brother had always left him wounds on the outside.

And.

Inside.

By ten, his body was a map of half-healed fractures and cigarette burns.

When he nearly died from an untreated infection on his anus, his brother didn't take him to a doctor.

His brother laughed.

"It's too expensive. Besides you're just a stress reliever."

After using him countless times, his brother grew bored of him.

So his brother sold him.

To the place that would be a child's worse nightmare.

The red light district.

Isagi ran on a night slick with rain, barefoot, ribs screaming.

The other man chased him down but he managed to escape.

He survived in the alleyways of Shibuya, eating convenience store throwaways, stitching his own gashes with stolen fishing line.

He learned to fight because fighting was a language people understood. He never went to school.

He never had a friend. He just had a burning, pathetic wish whispered to the stars:

Let me be like other kids.

Let me have a family that loves me.

A place that I belong too.

It was as if God had pitied upon him.

One day, came the purple-haired boy surrounded by older thugs, and Isagi saw not a victim but an opportunity.

At first it was to get money but things didn't seem to only end that way.

Isagi moved like a stray cat—silently.

A broken pipe from the trash became a weapon, he moved and striked hard and the bullies dropped hard, groaning.

The purple-haired boy stared, unblinking, at this feral creature with empty blue eyes and two hair sprouts sticking up like broken antennae.

"Why?.."

"Why did you save me?" the boy asked, voice steady despite the chaos.

Isagi wiped blood from his split lip. "If I save you, you'll give me money."

Reo Mikage was nine, heir to a conglomerate, and utterly bored with life. But this—this was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.

A boy around his age or perhaps older, all bone and nerve, looking at him not as a person but as a transaction.

Usually he would be uncomfortable.

But..

He didn't seem to mind how the other party had looked at him.

How odd.

Reo laughed. "You're insane. I like it." He stepped forward, unafraid.

"I'm Reo Mikage. You just made the best gamble of your life."

He streched his hand out.

Isagi tilted his head, calculating. "What's the payout?"

"Everything."

Isagi looked at the boy's hand and took it.

"Deal."

Reo took him home like one might take in a wounded hawk—fascinated by its beauty.

The Mikage estate was a palace. Ba-ya the elderly head butler who had raised Reo, looked at this skeletal boy with pity and alarm.

"Young master, he needs a hospital."

Reo stood silent before speaking:

"Then we'll bring the hospital here," Reo said, eyes never leaving Isagi. "Ba-ya, I'm keeping him. He's mine."

"You would have to ask for your parents aproval first, young master"

Reo just nodded along.

"I will."

Isagi, listening from the massive bed they'd put him in, understood.

This was a new kind of cage, but it had food, warmth, and no one hitting him. He could work with that.

It was better than his old home.

Oh wait.

He never had one did he?

Reo's parents were cold, practical people who saw their son's obsession and decided to regulate it rather than fight it.

Afterall, the pet could prove to be usefull for hos growth.

His mother, a steely woman with diamond earrings, met Isagi once and said to Reo.

"If you're going to keep him, mark him. Make sure he knows who he belongs to. We don't tolerate theft in this family."

His father nodded before adding:

"He should know who he belongs too, so that he won't dare to betray you. Afterall, a pet needs to know its owner."

Reo nodded.

"Understood."

Isagi was ten when they held him down for the tattoo artist. He didn't scream, didn't cry.

Perhaps it was because of all that he had went through it didn't matter anymore.

Pain was an old friend. He just watched the needle carve a black jigsaw pattern from the back of his neck, winding down his shoulder, his arm, all the way to his right wrist.

The final piece, just above his pulse point, spelled out Reo in elegant, cursive ink.

When it was done, Reo traced the fresh, angry lines with a fingertip. "Now you're really mine, Yo-chan."

(They had introduced each other name earlier, I was to lazy to write it down so yeah..)

Isagi looked at the name forever etched into his skin. A brand, he thought. But a brand is a roof. A brand is food.

A brand means I don't have to eat garbage. He blinked slowly and said, "Then take care of your property."

He never smiled.

But he somehow felt releif.

Someone had atleast wanted him and it was not in a bad way.

Maybe.

Isagi at twelve was a shadow in an expensive uniform, attending a private academy only because Reo insisted.

He was brilliant—not book-smart, but predator-smart. He analyzed every situation like a cost-benefit equation. Friendship was an investment. Kindness was leverage. Everything was money, safety, debt.

Reo spoiled him relentlessly. Designer clothes Isagi wore like armor. Gourmet meals Isagi ate mechanically, never commenting on taste.

Trips to soccer matches where Isagi's eyes would finally, finally get a spark—tracking player movements, muttering predictions under his breath.

Reo tried everything to make him smile. Gifts, surprises, that one time he bought out an entire arcade. Nothing worked.

But Isagi spoiled Reo in his own way. He memorized Reo's schedule and had tea ready before Reo realized he was thirsty.

He sat through Reo's family dinners like a polite ghost, deflecting passive-aggressive relatives with surgical comments.

He let Reo hold his hand, lean on him, vent about the pressure of being an heir. He would let Reo pat him on the head, kneed his checks and give him kisses on his forhead.

He never complained. He never asked for anything for himself. He was the most devoted possession Reo could imagine, and it made Reo ache because he knew it wasn't love. It was survival.

But nevertheless, a lie tastes much sweeter when you are ignorant.

Isagi would lie awake sometimes, tracing the tattoo, thinking: I am a tool. A tool doesn't smile. A tool works. One day maybe I'll be free, but for now, this is the best deal I can get.

He never let himself dream bigger.

He didn't dare.

"Reo, I'm here."

Reo put down his book—a business strategy tome he was only half-reading—and smiled. "Yo-chan, there you are! I've been waiting."

Isagi stepped into the room, still in his school blazer, bag slung over one shoulder. His hair was neat, his uniform pristine.

To anyone else, he looked like a perfectly normal, well-cared-for middle schooler. Only the jigsaw creeping past his collar and the dead calm in his eyes told a different story.

"Mhm," Isagi acknowledged, crossing to the window seat where a chessboard waited.

They played every evening. Reo always requested it; Isagi always won, but slowly, letting Reo feel challenged. It was one of the ways he "spoiled" him.

Reo studied him. "Did the math club meeting run late?"

"I don't go to math club," Isagi said flatly, moving a pawn. "I was scouting the soccer team."

Reo's eyes lit up. Soccer was the only thing that made Isagi's voice shift from monotone to something almost alive. "Oh? Worth your time?"

"Midfielders are predictable. The forward is a donkey. But the goalkeeper..." Isagi's gaze flickered with something cold.

"He has a 73% save rate when diving left. Useless against a feint to the opposite corner."

Reo leaned his chin on his hand, grinning. "You're terrifying."

"I'm efficient."

Reo wanted to say, I'll buy you a team. I'll buy you the J-League. Just smile at me. But he didn't. Instead, he moved his knight and said,

"Someday, we'll go to the World Cup together. You'll play for Japan. I'll be in the stands—or the owner's box."

Isagi's hand paused over the board. For a fraction of a second, something vulnerable crossed his face—hunger, hope, a thing so fragile it might shatter if you breathed on it.

Then it was gone. He captured Reo's knight.

"Checkmate in four moves."

Reo sighed, laughing softly. "Of course it is."

Before Isagi made another move Reo spoke.

"I found a potential genius that you might like."

Isagi froze.

"Who?"

Reo smiled.

"His name is.."

Seishiro Nagi.