The Beautiful Game, With More Twists Than A Tornado…

FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Special Episode

‘Where are we?’ asked the tall woman, with cool blue eyes, short black hair and bright rose-coloured highlights. ‘I can tell that’s it’s a modern 9-a-side football pitch, but surrounded by what appears to be a luscious, colourful garden, thick with flowers, tropical fruits, the chirps and cries of birds, insects, reptiles and probably other common garden and forest animals seems a bit bizarre,’ she murmured. Despite her scepticism however, her calm facial expression suggested indifference.

‘When and how did we even get here?’ queried the slightly less tall specs-wearing woman beside her, with a bright orange streak of hair trailing down beside the thick-framed left lens. ‘I could have sworn we were busy enjoying an isolated island getaway, far removed from any other civilisation…’

‘Why are we all wearing football uniform?’ I don’t ever remember owning a pair of sports shorts or football boots in my life,’ the lady with emerald eyes and two buns atop her head quizzed, glaring condemningly ahead.

‘I would ask the what, but I’ll save us the trouble and guess that we’re about to play a match, Tsubaki,’ the woman with amethyst eyes quickly replied, with a forced smile. I don’t really get it either, Hon. ‘What I do want to know however, is who the three strange women standing beside us are and who the tall bespectacled woman with short hair wearing all-black that we’re all lined up in front of is?’ She’s like an amalgamation of us four; glasses and single streak of hair, like Renka, though the mystery woman’s glasses are thin-framed and her hair highlight is almost the same colour as Haruka’s. The short, slightly messy hair is almost the same as Rose’s and her collar’s almost he same as well, aside from the crossed screwdriver and spanner pendant attached to it. The water lily in her hair and hoop earrings are practically identical to mine. I’m guessing that under normal circumstances, she wears clothing similar to Tsubaki…

‘Spot-on, Hikari. Well, almost; one of those observations is backwards, but let’s not get into that. To answer your question; the two lovely mixed-raced women stood to the right of your quartet are Jasmine and Yuma. In your world, you haven’t them yet. Similarly, the delightful young (more or less) Japanese lady standing directly to your left, is Ren (name not yet finalised); she’s also another character that you haven’t met yet in your world.’ Well, you have, but that’s a story for another time…

‘As for me; I’m an entity that belongs to another universe and one that doesn’t exist in your world, yet. Ask the Captain who I am; I could probably give her one guess and she’d nail the answer straight away. I am the very entity that both Kasumi and Tsubaki have been chiding her over since Chapter Nine of your first story.’

The woman’s eyes settled on Renka as she turned to face the remainder of the quartet, wearing a smug grin. ‘Sweet vindication!’ she exclaimed, only to be met with dismissive stares from both Kasumi and Tsubaki.

‘Unfortunately for you, once you’ve left this land and returned back to your world, they won’t remember what happened here. While the last time you visited this land, a technical error occurred during your return, resulting in an incomplete memory wipe for both yourself and Hikari, on this occasion you’ll be deliberately sent back with an incomplete memory wipe, for the sake of preserving that running gag. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll let Hikari retain an extra memory or two, so that she’ll be a bit more confident in defending you when team logic do their thing.

‘That leads me onto where we are; once again, we’re gathered in the land simply known as “Beyond The Fourth Wall”, where the gardens are bustling with animal life, pleasant scents, tasty fruits and fresh waters. The skies are always an undisturbed bright blue scape, helped along by a beaming sun which provides a soothing amount of warmth every day.

‘When and how did you all get here? Well, before arriving here, in my universe, it was August 2023 and partly thanks to extremely limited internet connectivity, the FIFA Women’s World cup was pretty much my only source of entertainment, watched through grainy local TV broadcasting whenever they were gracious enough to air the matches. Really; the connection was so terrible, that my character dev sheet couldn’t be uploaded anywhere in my home world… Similar to when I needed an info-dump handled near the start of your story, I’ve summoned all of your consciousnesses here for a game of football,’ she confirmed, with a hint of a teasing smile. ‘That said, Satsuki and Haruka, if you could please join me; I’d like to have you both selecting the teams for this little game here today.’

So that’s what her name is, the four heroines internally remarked, as the grey-eyed powerhouse departed from the line.

‘Enjoy that knowledge while you have it, ladies; you won’t be taking it back to your own world with you,’ the referee smirked.

The orange-themed woman summoned a playfully irritated frown and tone, ‘Ehh? Whyyy?’

‘For the sake of consistency, dear Renka. Besides; three of your quartet are seasoned intelligence gatherers. If you honestly tried, you’d probably have uncovered that information already without much trouble. What? Has living the sapphic deserted island dream got you too busy to do anything else nowadays?’

The captain emitted an awkward mumble and weakly replied, ‘Touché,’ prompting giggles throughout the line of women stood alongside her.

As the eldest and youngest women from the line-up strolled across, to stand either side of the woman in front of them, a hand with well-maintained dark purple nails rose.

‘Yes, Koneko.’

‘Why are the supporting characters the captains?’

Why, oh why are these main characters suddenly so spoiled?? ‘Because I said so,’ the black-clad woman remarked, with a deriding smile. ‘In fairness to them, they hold the balance of power in your world, so it makes the most sense that they’re the captains. Now if you don’t mind, Main Character, I’d like to get on with team selection and keep the word count for this chapter down,’ she concluded, with a harsh glare fixed on Hikari. The world doesn’t revolve around you, even if you were the character that initially triggered the creation of your world… ‘So, which of you two wants to have first pick?’

‘Naturally, I believe that dear Miss Satou should have the first choice,’ Satsuki coolly suggested.

‘Ever the courteous customer; thank you,’ Haruka gaily replied, with a warm smile. ‘Hikari; you’re with me.’

‘Renka,’ Satsuki called, triggering a flinch from the captain before she shuffled over to join the tall woman, whose long, flowing raven-black hair had been tied into a single graceful ponytail.

‘Tsubaki,’ Haruka called. ‘I know she’s not the most athletic, but we can’t have the two lovebirds being split up now, can we?’ she quietly added, though not quietly enough to prevent the doctor’s brows furrowing briefly in response.

‘Kasumi.’

‘Jasmine.’

‘Momo, naturally.’

‘Aki.’

How does she know my name??

‘Saki.’

‘Yuma,’ the referee interjected.

‘Um, ref? I thought we were picking the teams?’ the youngest member of the party asked.

‘You are, but Hikari and Ren aren’t allowed to be on the same team. While this dimension generally has no bearing on your world and doesn’t have to obey its rules, I want to see how those two square off. That said, Ren; you’re with Satsuki.’

As the short-haired woman with a side ponytail and violet water lily in her hair jogged toward her teammates, she exchanged a mischievous glance and smile with the referee. At the same time, her and teammates’ shirts shifted colour, to a dark shade of grey. At the same time, Haruka and her teammates’ shirts shifted to a bright aqua blue shade.

After traipsing away from the two groups of women, the referee turned to face them and folded her arms. ‘For the most part, normal rules apply here, except that because we’re only teams of six, we’ll be playing two thirty-minute halves. For this match, instead of lineswomen, as you might have suspected; the little drones hovering at each touchline will be handling offside duties. They’re carrying cute little flags which they’ll raise if/ when necessary. Seeing as they’re using Tsubaki’s AI, we can probably get by without the use of VAR.

What won’t be normal about this match however, is that you’re all free to use your extraordinary abilities, so long as they don’t cause any conventional fouls. The ball has sensors, to alert me when it goes beyond touchlines or by-lines, so there’s no cheating through that route.’ As she finished speaking, a silver ball rapidly fell from the sky, decelerating and landing softly in an upturned right palm of the referee. Numerous pentagonal panels stretched across its mildly shiny surface and a number of them featured a white jasmine flower, bright red camelia, violet or indigo water lily, a bright blue hydrangea and one of them bore a perfectly shiny golden giant lily.

‘The rules are simple enough, right, ladies?’ the referee asked, holding the ball up at head height, so that the lily emblem faced them.

‘Yes!’ they all synchronously replied.

‘Good. Now, given that Haruka had first team pick, first half kick-off is yours to handle.’ As the black-clad woman finished, she tossed to the ball to the imposing captain of the grey team. Like a hot potato, said football was spiked directly toward the grey team member with a bright orange streak in her hair.

‘You and your girlfriend can take care of kick-off. Momo; you’ll be handling goalkeeping and metabolism management. Reducing our metabolic rates should suffice; we at least want to give our rivals a sporting chance, well, that and it looks like the ref has cooked up something interesting between our unknown quantity and Little Miss Violet. Ren; your primary role is to make Hikari’s life miserable?’ Satsuki glanced at the referee, who returned an approving nod.

‘Aye, Aye!’ the short-haired member with an imperial blue water lily in her hair confirmed.

A harsh burst from the referee’s whistle briefly competed with the forest-like background soundtrack and within an instant, the ball passed from Renka, to Kasumi and almost instantly back to Satsuki, as members of the aqua team charged into their half of the pitch, led by the fearsome prospect of Hikari and Aki closing in from the left and right wings respectively.

As if to goad the opposition into occupying unfavourable positions, the grey-eyed woman took her time with deciding on which passing option to use and once Hikari had drawn near, a powerful right foot strike sent the ball soaring toward the edge of the opponent’s eighteen-yard box and a plucky Renka, who had Yuma and Haruka drawing near.

I guess we’re breaking the abilities out early then… the grey’s team’s captain assessed, as Renka’s eyes remained firmly fixed on the ball hurtling her way.

She and the incoming defenders found their kits fluttering in a strong bluster, which also managed to divert the ball’s flight path.

Following the bizarre veering, the ball thumped against Kasumi’s chest and was neatly brought under control on the edge of the box.

‘Fuck,’ both Aki and Hikari simultaneously remarked, as they hurried back to their own goal.

The three biggest members of the cast are all on the other team, well, excluding the ref that is. Here’s hoping that Tsubaki’s reactions are sharp enough for her to be able to make good use of her ability…

With only the quickly-adjusting Yuma and Haruka standing between herself and Tsubaki, the woman with pink highlights dribbled straight towards the goal, quickly picking up pace, Renka drifting along to her left.

Despite Haruka and Yuma both hounding the tall woman, she shrugged them off with ease and slipped the ball to a freshly-overlapping teammate with a double ponytail hairstyle with a soft touch from the outside of her right foot.

Her right boot connected cleanly with the ball and drove it forward rapidly, following a hefty thud.

As the green glow appeared around the green-eyed woman in goal, the ball reached within arm’s length of her.

Huh?? Where did that gust even come from? Her target dipped below where she had her palms placed, ready to catch it.

Straight through her legs; not bad for a projectile much bigger than what you’re used to, Satsuki.

The sharp sound of the whistle filled the air briefly as the ball came to a rest in the back of the net.

‘Um, what happened there? Normally you’re perfectly in sync with how I use my fields?’ Tsubaki enquired, with a disappointed tone.

Hikari shrugged, ‘No idea, Hon; I engaged with it like normal, so I’m just as confused as you are right now.’

Following their conversation, Ren let slip a mischievous smile as she jogged back to her own half of the field.

Haruka and Hikari took up their places in the centre circle and following another blare from the whistle, play restarted with a quick series of passes which saw the ball back in the aqua team’s half and at the feet of Yuma.

She kept an eye on the incoming pair, with orange and rose-coloured hair accents and only when they drew within a few metres did she pull her right foot back and stroke forth through the ball, to send it arcing through the air, towards a left wing area guarded by Ren, which also had Saki drifting towards it.

The ball eventually landed at the feet of the woman with glasses and her curly hair tied into a neat ponytail.

Almost as soon as it landed, the ball raced away, helped on by a heavy touch.

Naturally, a sprint race commenced, with Jasmine rocketing along in the grey team’s half, pursued by both Saki and Ren, who had been slightly wrongfooted by the speed with which the ball ran by.

Despite the grey team’s captain racing back to her own box and managing to correctly read the first dummy offered up by Jasmine, a crafty snuffed shot allowed her to shuffle slightly and blast the ball towards the top right corner of the grey team’s goal.

Momo replied, with a lively jump toward her far post, but even her height, plus the mighty height gained in the air wasn’t enough to prevent her watching the ball sail into the side netting with her goal and the referee’s whistle blowing in confirmation. “Let me guess; in the spirit of sport, you decided not to interfere?’ she cheerfully asked her captain as she rose from the immaculate, rich green lawn of the playing field.

‘Exactly right, Dear. There’s still a lot of time to play through and I get the impression the referee would probably have given them a spot kick if I did interfere there, possibly a red card as well, for good measure, given that it’s the denial of a goal-scoring opportunity.’

‘As much as I hate to admit, you gave me a pretty good run there, that said, I’m gonna guess that when the ref said you were mixed-race, there’s something Caribbean in there?’ Ren enquired.

‘Yup; both Yuma and I are similarly mixed. In my case, it’s a combination of Jamaica and China, Babes,’ Jasmine replied, with a proud smile.

The ball returned to a resting place in the centre circle once more, at Renka’s feet, awaiting the authoritative whistle blow.

‘Strategy November, ladies. Given that our entire team is more or less Japanese, it’d be remiss if we didn’t give them a true taste of the Nadeshiko style of play,’ Satsuki firmly commanded, received with determined nods and smiles from the remainder of her team.

The whistle went and so began a rapid train of passes. Each player from the grey team waiting and tempting each aqua team player to make a tackle, and on each occasion finding themselves watching the ball rush onward to whichever woman from the grey team had been left unmarked.

Not necessarily advancing up the pitch with the ball, but each movement of the ball during the period the play involved it blazing across the field, from the feet of one grey team player to another. If the match were spectated from above, it would resemble a high-speed game of pinball, with the ball pinging between grey points of contact with devastating efficiency.

The confidence of the grey team had grown so much that at one point, the combination of Renka and Kasumi completed ten passes undisrupted, trusting purely in the fact that the opposition would be unable to handle the power of each kick and the physicality of the pair.

Eventually, the use of such passing play resulted in a fairly congested aqua team eighteen-yard box and soon a pass out to the left gave the aqua team some respite. It’s not a retreat, ladies, Satsuki internally remarked, as she kept half an eye on Ren stealing metres whenever her black and purple-haired marker wasn’t watching, aided partly by the unnatural quietness of her movement.

Bingo. While Jasmine and Yuma advanced, the ball swiftly pinged from Renka to Satsuki, who chipped and lifted it onto the head of a fast-advancing Ren, who exquisitely guided it to the bottom right corner and beneath the diving Tsubaki.

The fuck? How did she even get there? Does she have the ability to teleport or something?

After a quick whistle blow, ‘Come on now, Hikari; you’re smarter than that. Teleporting doesn’t exist in your world, my world, or this intermediary one for that matter. Pull your socks up,’ the specs-wearing referee urged. ‘For a main character, you’ve been particularly lacklustre so far, both on and off the ball.’

‘You can read minds? Also, I don’t know what you expect when all of these women are pretty strong individuals,’ she cheerfully replied.

‘Yep; the audience (that you can’t see) can read minds too. Also; sucking up to me won’t do you any favours and that’s no excuse for your own inadequacy.’

‘Probably best to cut your losses, Kitten; she’s burning you worse than Sensei did while you two were the undisputed idiot couple,’ Renka interjected, prompting a wave of laughter to spread across the field, while the referee coldly glared.

Well, at least watching her cheeks flush slightly and her unwillingness to respond is entertaining, the referee concluded, as she waited for the last grey team stragglers to return to their half before play resumed.

Fast-forward roughly fifteen minutes and an outstretched hand, along with a brief double blow from the referee’s whistle marked the conclusion of the match’s first half, with Satsuki’s grey team leading, two goals to one. ‘If you need to rehydrate and/ or cool down, then feel free to visit the waterfall and top up with its fresh and cool waters. The second half will begin in ten minutes.’

❀

Beneath the clear blue skies of the intermediary land, two women with aqua-coloured tops occupied the centre circle of the pitch. Atop the silver football rested Yuma’s right boot and once the whistle briefly sounded, a light tap and pass to Jasmine set the second half of the match underway.

After five minutes or so of relatively uneventful play, the ball landed at Hikari’s feet. Not sure if it’s this land or something, but light isn’t my friend today. Still, here goes nothing… As the black and purple-haired woman set off driving toward the opposition half, she briefly flicked out of view of everybody and took the ball with her.

‘There she goes…’ Satsuki murmured. ‘Track back, ladies!’ she subsequently ordered.

While four of the five outfield grey team players hastily retreated toward their own goal, their member with short hair which faded to blue made a beeline straight for the right wing.

She gathered pace and little more than five seconds after setting off, her target and the ball returned to being visible to all – Huh?? Hikari internally asked, her brows creasing and a frown appearing.

‘No time for hesitations, Sweetie,’ her opponent offered with a teasing tone as she committed to and won the ball with a clean tackle, chuckling as she set off with the ball. No support up here and a wall of defenders between me and her girlfriend though. Meh; might as well try the same trick that she just used…

As Hikari darted to recover the ball, Ren wound up and stroked heftily through the ball with her left foot. Once the ball had gained a few metres height, it briefly vanished from view of all.

So that’s how she’s been stealing metres. Good thing I trained dealing with infrared not long before we escaped Japan…

The ball reappeared with only ten metres left to travel until it reached Tsubaki’s goal and with a panicked expression she thrust herself directly upwards, with her arms and glove-clad hands stretched, pointed straight towards the heavens.

Mercifully, the referee’s whistle went, following the ball’s coming to a rest atop the goal netting, having sailed less than half a metre over the crossbar.

Naturally, during the next play when Hikari received the ball from Aki, both herself and the ball flickered in and out view at random points for varying periods of time.

‘I’m not even surprised at this point,’ she begrudgingly muttered when she looked up to find a smugly grinning woman with a blue water lily in her hair closing her down.

‘Aww; the Kitten doesn’t want to play? Sadge,’ she playfully offered, with an insincere wounded tone.

Hikari groaned in exasperation and attempted to drive past her opponent.

‘Better luck next time, hehe.’

For the second time in five minutes, Hikari watched on, as the other water lily-wearing woman sped off with the ball, having robbed it from her possession.

After driving further into the opposition half and finding no support to her right in an ideal position and the irritated Hikari hot on her heels, a clean challenge from Haruka secured the ball for the aqua team once more, and with little delay it landed at Jasmine’s feet.

Much like an infamous gingerbread cookie, she ripped along the left wing and around grey team members who refrained from making risky challenges.

Grey team members hurriedly tracked back and ensured that she couldn’t drive towards goal, so she struck and dinked the ball onto the edge of the box, where Yuma’s right foot waited not for it to hit the ground and rocketed it goalward with a sublime volley.

As the whistle went, Satsuki remarked, ‘Don’t worry about it; with that kind of pace and placement, any of us would have struggled to stop it.’

Once more, the grey team pair with bright-coloured streaks in their hair took up places in the centre circle and set the game back in play following the referee’s instruction.

As if feeling no fatigue whatsoever the women of the grey team charged en masse into the aqua team’s half of the pitch, accelerated by a fairly fierce tail wind which had picked up shortly after Kasumi’s initial pass to her orange-accented partner.

As the ball rapidly bounced between the women wearing grey shirts, the aqua team also had to contend with running into a sharp headwind whenever their opponents advanced. It took little more than two minutes for the high press of the grey team to work the aqua team’s formation out of shape and when that fatal error had occurred, Renka fizzed the ball across to an expectant Ren, who waited and at the last possible moment, flicked the ball behind her and through the legs of the black and purple-haired woman who had remained almost glued to her.

The black and blue-haired woman sniggered as she scampered around Hikari, before looking up and forcefully driving the ball across the goal mouth, towards the left side netting; beyond the reach of their emerald-eyed goalkeeper.

Following another blow of the whistle, the referee slowed her advance toward the midfield. ‘Five minutes left to play, trailing three-two and nothing seems to be going her way. Will our plucky heroine rise to the challenge and at least pull her team level?’ she quizzically narrated.

‘Are you mocking me?’

‘You’re still proving pretty lacklustre, Main character. At this rate, I’ll have to reduce the number of chapters that you appear in going forward, or reduce your contributions.’

The final whistle lingering not far away, the Jasmine and Yuma once again took up places in the centre circle and kicked-off play once more.

The women of the grey team opted to sit deep and repel the numerous runs and attempted crosses that came their way.

Led by the unshakable and solid presences of the towering Satsuki, Kasumi and Renka, the barrage of attempts to drive toward goal by the aqua team were seen off, though at one point, the clearance and counterattack duty fell to the ever-playful Ren, who sped the ball away from her own eighteen-yard box.

Advancing little more than ten metres, she produced a teasing smile as she glared at her black and purple-haired aqua team opponent. One last–ditch attempt?

Now’s as good a time as any to go all-in… After charging straight at her goading opposition, Hikari pulled back her left leg and thrust as much force as she could summon into wrestling the ball from the feet of her rival.

Not even a few seconds after the ball broke loose, she lightly tapped the ball and stroked through it again with her left foot, sending it curling and screaming through the air toward the grey team’s goal.

The players in the grey team half keenly observed as they tracked goalward and the ball soared through the air.

Eventually a clatter came from the woodwork and all of the women fell silent.

The ball had made it to the hands of their goalkeeper, but everybody’s eyes fixed on the woman in black with the whistle. A bounce off the crossbar and then up off the ground before being collected by Momoka.

Ugh, way to draw this out ref; seconds feel like minutes or maybe hours here. Doesn’t your watch buzz automatically if/ when it crosses the line??

‘It does and it did, Main Character,’ the referee calmly remarked, before blowing and raising both of her hands, closely followed by three blows of the whistle and holding out a hand to signal full time.

❀

As the teams sauntered back toward the centre circle and the black-clad woman gazing at them expectantly through her round thin-framed glasses, her eyes fixed on one particular pair of players. Catching her wrist? A private discussion about to occur, I presume.

‘You deliberately went in softly so that that tackle would be easy, didn’t you?’ the amethyst-eyed woman asked the short-haired grey team member with a water lily in her hair, fixing her with an irritated glare.

‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,’ she replied, with a naughty grin.

‘Why?’

‘Maybe I pitied you, maybe I felt generous, or maybe I did it for a different reason altogether. What I will give you for free is this; for your own sake, you’d better have stepped up your game by the time we meet back in our world.’ With her final remark, she forcefully pulled her wrist from the clutches of Hikari’s grip.’

Ooo; a grip tight enough to leave a red mark… The referee noted, displaying the tiniest hint of an excited smile.

Once the players of both teams had reconvened in groups in front of the referee, her stern voice overruled the discreet chatter among the women. ‘So, the full-time score between the grey team and aqua team end up at three–all. No bragging rights available for either team, mercifully. That said, getting to watch you all play the game was certainly a joy for me, so I hope you had as much fun facing off against each other without the lingering threat of bullets, blades or other weapon systems.

‘In my world, at the time this match took place, all that remained in order for me to be able to tell your story in the way that I think you’d appreciate was sufficiently completing the development of the LSV-28 (while it exists in your world, it’s still missing a number of components in mine). Well, that and capturing your likenesses in illustrations with satisfactory quality takes me longer than I’d like. Kinda depressing, given that the manuscript was completed in June...

‘Anywho, that’s enough about me. Thank you all very much for participating in this cross-dimension match today. Of course, a thank you should also be extended to the audience that paid this event attention up to this point.

I do have one final remark though, directed specifically at the green and purple-eyed couple (though this is good advice for everybody, really); as Renka can probably confirm, should you find yourself in the presence of a giant lily, imbued with the spirit of a romantic icon and the ability to speak, for the love of all things sapphic, pay your respects.’