Honestly it kind of depends on when it happens and who causes it.

e.g. let’s just say Andrew dies. Like, no one caused it, it’s just a tragedy kind of thing, etc etc, like a car crash or heart attack or he drank his body into complete failure etc etc. In this case, Neil would actually fare better than Andrew would, because Neil has a support network he can rely on. He’d be devastated, for sure, but he’d let the Foxes help him through this, and in time he’d put the pieces back together and learn to keep moving forward. The Foxes can’t replace Andrew, but that black hole in his chest would pull them deeper, until Neil has no room for anyone else.

He’d still captain the Foxes and would still move on to a professional team. He’d talk to the Foxes more, would see them more often, and would take one-man roadtrips to tiny towns to smoke and think what-ifs. He’d have a home, but it’d take him years to stop hating it for its emptiness.

On the other hand, if Andrew was killed – say, as a message from Ichirou to Neil, an “I know what is important to you and I meant it when I said I could take it from you, so toe the line”, oh my god. Neil Josten would cease to exist for good, because there’s no coming back from where Nathaniel needs to go in response. He’d hang on for a little while, pretending he was cowed, bowing his head and playing the part, but he’d be a seething pit of poison just waiting for a moment to strike.

In this situation, Andrew would be killed before finals, so the Foxes would finally be disqualified based on team size. Wymack would cut practices way back now that the season was officially over, and Neil would fill that time with Renee’s knife lessons. She would teach him every terrible thing she’d ever learned, knowing he intended to use it, and when pressed would admit it would be years before she could honestly go to Confession for such things. ((It would be lip service, she says, because she does not regret her part in this yet))

He would also up his lessons with Matt, and Matt would allow it because he knows Neil has a lot of anger and grief to work through and he just wants to help.In May, Neil Josten would finally vanish, and Nathaniel Wesninski would go straight for Proust. He wouldn’t have told Stuart Hatford about Proust yet, so he’d snatch the doctor out from under everyone’s noses. And he’d get the information he needed and the confessions he needed however he needed, and learn the how and why and when and how-much of everything he’d done for Riko. This information would go straight to both the press and the FBI, and in the chaos that followed Nathaniel Wesninski would vanish overseas.

He’d start with the Hatfords, but only for a moment, because the Hatfords belong to Ichirou now. Instead he’d lean on his mother’s contacts for anything he could use against the Moriyamas. Most of them would keep their mouths shut, because they’re resourceful but not interested in engaging a family like the Moriyamas, but eventually he’d find his way to Russia  – and then finally to Japan, to the family that forced the Moriyamas out of Japan in the first place. The Moriyamas & Matsumotos might hate each other, but Nathaniel doesn’t have the pull or the money to tilt the balance and buy their cooperation.

So Nathaniel becomes what he always wished he wouldn’t, and he buys his revenge in blood. The Matsumotos take his money, his contacts, and his violent services, and Nathaniel never leaves Japan again. He watches the Moriyamas fall apart from overseas, watches Japanese & American courts fight over who has jurisdiction over what, and tolerates the occasional interrogations & incarcerations by the Japanese police force.

Five years down the road, enough dust has settled that Dan & Matt creep into Japan to check on him under the guise of an anniversary vacation. The man they meet is more Wesninski than Josten– there is almost nothing left of the boy they knew aside from his looks – but his affection for them is as pained as it is muted. It is a step toward healing and salt in the wound at the same time, and while Nathaniel is not sorry for the path he took and the sacrifices he made for revenge, he finally grieves for everything he’s lost.