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Ness is Kaiser’s ball.

The day Kaiser was first introduced to soccer was on his birthday. He decided that, with the money he’d kept for himself, he wanted to buy something that would stick with him permanently. Anything would do as long as it lasted. Him choosing a soccer ball wasn’t a thoroughly calculated decision, he merely came by it by chance and decided to test it out. But after a lot of experimentation he realized something about himself. He needed something that made him feel alive, and it was exactly what he needed.

How did he figure out the ball makes him feel alive? By pouring all his hatred, malice, and frustrations onto the ball, and relishing in the fact that he gets no reaction from it. It didn’t matter how hard he threw, or how many times he cussed it out, it never cried or got angry with him. After he determined that regardless of what he did, the ball would always return, he decided it was his precious item. There’s a reason why Kaneshiro continually emphasized how the ball kept coming back. 260

Eventually, he also poured all his dreams and aspirations into this ball. It was in this ball that he decided he was set to eat good, get fame, and above all, become human and finally be loved. This ball gave him the possibility of achieving what was previously just baseless talk to fuel his own ego. The chance of freedom. The chance to change the world. And the thing that made Kaiser snap was the threat of his ball being taken away, or his freedom. He had developed an identity through this ball and was willing to fight even his father for it. Kaiser will fight tirelessly for his freedom, and deep down he believes it’ll give him the chance to be loved. 266

Because the ball can’t love him. It’s the most important thing to him, but it’s also simply a means to that end.

As Kaiser trained and got better at soccer, his temperament became his biggest enemy. He's too apathetic. And to be fair, the closest thing in his life at this point had been a ball, and his only frame of reference for engaging in relationships had been his father, who’s shown him nothing but cruelty. He quickly realizes his behavior caused by his tumultuous past would pose a huge roadblock in his advancement within the team.

And that’s how he meets Ness. 261

Just like on his birthday, he sought something that would stick with him permanently, but now also allow him to make an impact on the world. Because now it’s a feasible reality. Unlike the ball, which he could just buy and guarantee possession of (granted his father doesn’t find out), Kaiser needed to adapt to human psychology to ensure his loyalty. His decision is also a lot more calculated in comparison, substituting all authentic human bonds with a perfectly lonely, skilled, loyal dog to compensate for his lack of support within the team. Rather than change himself and adapt to other’s sensibilities, he’d make someone who’d suit him. But both times he came by this “thing” by chance and became dependent on its presence for his development, and both decisions became a necessity beyond his home life. They fulfilled a psychological need to feel human and a burning desire to change the world.

Kaiser had become more strategic with his violence. Now, he hones in his hatred, malice, and cruelty through his plays, and earns his “humanity” through hurting others in the sport and living as a scar within them. He makes up for his struggle to accept kindness and inability to connect by not allowing the possibility in the first place, crushing them instead. We see this in action during his first interaction with Isagi. He’s handsy, bordering physical aggression, in an attempt to intimidate him and invoke his hatred. But when it comes to Ness, the same physical aggression is him simply venting out his emotions. Even though Ness is arguing on his behalf and insulting Isagi the very same way Kaiser does (or ends up doing anyway), his violence doesn’t make Ness feel indignant over the injustice in the slightest. Like his father, Kaiser takes out his anger on Ness to make himself feel human, and like young Kaiser, Ness doesn’t fight or get angry.

What separates hurting others from hurting Ness is that Ness will always come back no matter what. Like the ball, Ness submits to his malice and sides with him no matter how cruel Kaiser is to him or others. Like the ball, Ness became a means to an end; and end of Kaiser making an impact on the world and going on to achieve great heights. And like the ball, eventually Kaiser confided in Ness about his goals for the future, only now it’s a fleshed out plan with attainable steps. Even when Kaiser throws his drink at Ness it doesn’t dissuade Ness from aiding him in it, not even in the slightest. He’s created something that’s essentially the same as his most precious item. 207

In spite of the moral failings within their dynamic, their relationship isn’t entirely for naught. They actually make an amazing good duo. So much so Raichi points out that if he had a midfielder like Ness he would be making incredible scores as well. No matter how predictable their plays had become, together they’ve created a weapon so incredible even Noa acknowledges it may surpass him. The whole team is centered around their style, even though Kaiser takes most credit for it. 162

Kaiser treats Ness horribly. There’s no sugar-coating it. You can beat up a ball as much as you want, but venting your frustrations on a human being is abuse. In spite of this, deep down I believe Kaiser desires to connect with others. After all, he wants to be loved too. But having been treated like a tool his entire life, never wanted or appreciated, where would he learn to love others himself? He only knows appreciation through fame and comfort, and knows being the object of other’s hatred cements him in their minds. He’s only ever been surrounded by malice, and thus can only spread malice in order to grow further. Naturally, the only relationship he could ever really form that has a semblance of compatibility was through underhanded, abusive tactics, emulating the dynamic he has with his ball. Through Ness he continues the cycle of abuse. But in a way, he’d found his ball.

But Ness is not a ball.

Kaiser knows he realistically can’t find love in the ball alone so he uses it as a means to receive it. That only ended up extending to his relationship with Ness. But not only is Ness not a ball, Ness is capable of love, full of love, and is always willing to love him. So much so that he merged his own dream with Kaiser’s and considers him to be the best player he knows. So why is it that Kaiser consistently fails to acknowledge or really recognize something that’s been thrown unconditionally towards him during the years they’ve spent together?

The most natural conclusion is that Ness doesn’t really know Kaiser, just the idealized version fed to him, and thus Ness has never really truly loved Kaiser. Additionally, Kaiser consistently struggles to accept goodwill and Ness is no different. But I want to go deeper and say because Kaiser doesn’t understand relationships, he can’t recognize love. There's no way he realistically could. His apathy historically has and continues to prevent him from engaging with others in any meaningful way. The closest he’s gotten hinges entirely on his success as a player, creating a huge emotional power imbalance, and lacks the mutuality or intimacy proper relationships have. Because of this, I don’t believe he really understands the extent of Ness’s love for him, as insane as that may seem. He also doesn’t view Ness as an individual, so he could never understand what his love means for him. To him, Ness only knows how to bounce back.

Up until partnering with Ness the closest company he had had been a ball, and balls do not have emotions nor a sense of self. The only purpose they serve is to bounce back. And once again, Kaiser only built this “relationship” with the ball through realizing that using it as an outlet for his negative emotions won’t chase it away. He can’t help but react negatively to kindness, but still needed something that could withstand that bad habit of his and remain with him. Seeing as having an ever present “item” continued being the most important thing, naturally he would extend that to the very few interpersonal relationships he would allow. That’s why he “created” Alexis Ness. He made someone that acts no different from his ball. Not only does he treat Ness like a ball, he made it so Ness was also unchanging like a ball. And for years he was successful. Even after abandoning him, Ness kept coming back like a ball, almost to their detriment.

But this became the main reason for Kaiser’s failure. He couldn’t fathom the idea of Ness evolving on his own, becoming more than a supporting character for his story, so much so that he himself abandoned the concept of being a machine and succumbed to the comfort he was so certain Ness would always provide. He’d created a massive, fundamental dissonance within the only relationship he was able to hold onto for years through his inability to recognize Ness as a person. Because unlike a ball, Ness cries, gets angry, and fights back. It had just always been on Kaiser’s behalf. And Kaiser’s attempts to manipulate, stifle, or berate him for his emotions for it only made him blinder to that fact.

I think people should look at Isagi’s question more deeply. “Kaiser, is Ness special to you?” Through deeming Ness worthless, he marked him as special and thus treated him differently. But what about that specifically is unique to Ness? Kaiser has done nothing but treat everyone else as worthless, and when he decided to evolve without Ness, Ness had simply become a part of that category, especially with how useless his plays became. Additionally, why would Isagi come to this conclusion now? It’s clear to anyone with eyes that they have an (at the very least) unique relationship, if you could consider the attention Ness gets “special”, and even then it remained shallow on Kaiser’s behalf. And keep in mind it was Ness’s final pass that made Isagi realize Ness is truly special to Kaiser, why’s that?

Kaiser wants the same comfort he got from his ball in another human, but lacks the capability to deal with what being alongside another human entails. Kaiser’s entire thing up until PXG vs BM was finding loopholes to compensate for his weaknesses. The same goes for relationships; all this time he’s put himself at a comfortable distance. Rather than learning to work alongside his teammates and build connections, he made a loyal dog. Rather than forming a natural connection with Ness, he was manipulative. When Ness has the nerve to be open about his emotions, he’s quick to shut them down and degrade him. And because Ness suppresses some of his emotions around him, to Kaiser they simply do not exist. But there isn’t a cheat to creating relationships, and as much as he objectifies Ness that won’t get rid of his humanity. No amount of psychology could remove Ness’s humanity. This only means they truly don’t understand each other. Ness comes back because he’s a stubborn person. Ness trusts Kaiser because he believes in the magic in him. And Ness challenged Kaiser because deep down, he wants to prove that the person he’s been following all this time is truly the greatest player he’s always believed him to be. All of that is intrinsic to the person Ness is, beyond all the psychological warfare inflicted upon him for years. Kaneshiro even went as far as to say Ness spends a majority of his time with Kaiser, and I doubt Kaiser has other friends to hang out with. The only way could Kaiser miss all of that from a person he’s been with for years is if he doesn’t understand relationships. 

And all this time he hasn’t made any visible effort to mend his issue with relationships either. We saw that during PXG vs BM, he’s able to make quick adjustments to improve his skills, important realizations to rework his mentality, and is generally objective even while arrogant. He’s highly adaptive, which can also be accredited to him being a talented learner. He can even attempt to work with the others, if not forcing cooperation when necessary. To prove this, he went as far as abandoning Ness, hoping to make up for his weaknesses Ness had always cushioned thus far. But Kaiser was never actually prepared to lose Ness, being able to play without him only gave that illusion.

Because Kaiser failed to mend the one thing that had consistently held him back, his relationships with others, it became the thing that bit him in the ass. His final reflection after the conclusion of PXG vs BM is truly emblematic of this problem. He understood that he was at fault for not reading Ness’s mind when he could and for writing him off entirely and thus costing himself an entire goal and potential evolution. But he believed this only happened because he let go of his malice for Isagi, which is why Kaneshiro redirects the focus back onto Ness and has Isagi interject. He asks if Ness is special to Kaiser, to which we don’t get a response. But he is. It’s because Ness is special to him that he could STILL have these conflicting emotions, and it’s because he’s never experienced anyone like Ness that he could still remain totally oblivious to it. I mean, just a few minutes prior he was screaming his lungs out at Ness just for the mere possibility of Ness abandoning him even AFTER telling him to fuck off and find a new king. Imagine the amount of disconnect you must have to then chalk up your loss to you losing your malice rather than your obvious, deep-rooted dependence. 294

The reason why relationships remained a huge roadblock up until this point, and the reason Isagi determined Ness is special to Kaiser, is because Kaiser doesn’t want to let go of the idea of relationships entirely. He was able to let go of his malice and become a machine, but was so convinced Ness was unchanging that he abandoned all of his work thus far and got furious at the thought of Ness moving on. Kaiser’s relationships were doomed the moment his identity became dependent on having an item that withstands his horrible behavior as opposed to mutual coexistence. He wants love, but when he receives it he either pushes it away or simply doesn’t recognize it. He wants connection with others, but only knows how to engage in relationships through objectifying humans and morphing them into something functionally indistinguishable from his most precious item. But no amount of manipulation could bypass Ness’s humanity, in the same way no amount of hatred he could receive could help him recognize his own.

I think the best way for them to begin to mend their relationship is being able to see each other for who they really are. All this time, Ness has been praising the idolized version Kaiser has fed him. He has to understand the extent of his manipulation and abuse, and be able to decide for himself whether he’ll choose to love someone like that. Similarly, Kaiser has always considered Ness to be a non-autonomous inherently subservient individual whose individuality he could suppress if it ever got overwhelming. But humans are more complex than dark psychology books, and Ness clearly has individuality he must take control of himself. I also think the most challenging thing Kaiser could do is receive Ness’ unconditional love, even if he's not the player Ness always imagined, even if he’s at his lowest point, and receiving it head-on without any attempts to push away, mock, or degrade him. Of course, assuming that by then Kaiser deserves to receive it from him.

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