Since the first day he came across the blond haired American who was soon to become his best friend, there was one nagging question that had bothered Takao. Day in and day out it loomed in his thoughts each time he saw Max's face when he would turn to smile over at him.

This question bothered him so much so that at times he was losing sleep over it. That was one of the reasons why he would always wake up so late.

Takao sighed as he stood out in his own backyard. Somehow or another Kai had managed to drag all of their teammates to commence practice out in his backyard.

'Is no place sacred anymore?!' He thought in aggravation, while huffing quietly. He turned his gaze towards Rei and Max who stood over the beydish.

"Ready?" The chief spoke up from the spot he sat. He had his laptop opened so he could record his teammate's beybattle. Next to him Hiromi sat as she curiously peered over to his computer screen.

"3..." Both Rei and Max started to count off. "2...1..."

"Let it riiiip!" Came Max's energetic cry as he and Rei launched their 'blades into the dish. Takao clenched his fists tightly as he start to stalk over to the two.

"Takao?" Rei was the first to look away from the battle. He frowned as he noted the serious look on Takao's usually cheerful demeanor.

"Kinomiya, what are you doing!" Kai barked from behind. Takao merely ignored the two older teens as he grabbed Max's wrist. Surprised the blond looked up at Takao.

"Max! Over the two years I've known you there's been something that's been nagging me and I need to get this out now! Or I think my head's going to explode!"

"W-what is it Takao?" Max blinked as confusion ran through his eyes. Both Hiromi and the chief stared at their classmate in shock.

"You do this every time! Every beybattle! Why! Why Max?!" Takao blabbered causing Max to look even more at a loss. From behind Kai scowled to himself.

"Get to the point, you're waisting precious training time, Kinomiya." Kai spoke ever so bluntly. Leave it to their leader to be so insensitive. Takao couldn't bare it as he released his hold on Max's wrist, looking off to his side.

"Takao, what's wrong? You can tell me! We're friends aren't we?" Max spoke as he placed his hands onto his shoulders. Takao looked back over with a weary smile which was immediately replaced with a determined look.

"Max, it's go shoot!"

"What?" He could hear his teammates, even Kai, speak in unison.

"Go shoot?" Max repeated as he looked at Takao, still confused.

"Yes! Not 'let it rip'!" Takao crossed his arms glaring at the blond. "Why Max? Each time you launch your 'blade you say 'let it rip'! Even the PPB members say that! It's just...it's just...arrrgh!" Takao threw up his arms in frustration.

"Uuh Takao..." Max laughed. "That's what we all say back in America!"

"Yeah so?! You're half Japanese! You're still in Japan! At least say 'go shoot' for once!" Takao started to shake his best friend.

"Hmph, leave it to Kinomiya to bring up such an idiotic subject," Kai murmured. Rei chuckled to himself while glancing over to Kai.

"Wait until he brings up the shooter-launcher subject..." Rei muttered, causing Kai's brow to twitch slightly.

"And this isn't a launcher! It's called a..."

Kai inwardly groaned. This was going to be one of those days...


A/N: Okay, so this was festering in my mind for a long while. I was talking to a friend of mine from Sweden he mentions how the characters in Beyblade doesn't say "let it rip" like in the English dub. I brought up how in Japanese they say "go shoot".

This topic was also brought up while RPing with my friend. So this fic was bound to happen. Gosh, I love language differences massively.

Oh and the timeline for this is sometime during V-Force/2002.