Disclaimer: We do not own these characters. Beyblade does not belong to us, and we're not making any money on this.

Ranma's Notes: An idea that's been on my mind for a while, waiting to be written!! A Beyblade AU!

Glay's Notes: I liked Ranma's idea and plus this is a new Kai to work with. Hope you're interested!

The One-Armed Blader

Prologue

The regional beyblade tournament was being held, and the competitors were all sorted into heats to determine qualification for the subsequent matches. If you had skill, you advanced. If you didn't, you were shunted aside and praised briefly for a 'good game' and a 'try again next year' from the officials. Each kid was supposed to let their beyblade rip into a huge dish along with another 7 or 8 kids, and hope that theirs was the last one spinning.

Hope was not the best option.

Not when one was beyblading against Kai Hiwatari.

At 12 years old, Kai had first appeared in the tournament as a rookie nobody knew. He was an orphan from the local home, but many eyes were on him that day as he bladed among other 12 year-olds in the first rounds. Kai had won his heat, but did not advance on the second day of the regional. He was disqualified because of problems with documentation and the fact that he was not properly registered and attending a school regularly…

Kai came back the following year.

Enrolled in a school for people like him and with correct registration, the audience and MC's looked on as the now young teen faced off against blader after blader after blader… and won.

Kai Hiwatari, 13 years old, won the Beyblade Regional Championship.

With only his one arm.

For 3 years in a row.

****

The stares.

He always got them whenever he walked into the stadium.

All of his opponents, no matter how strong or weak, every last one of them, the first thing they saw was not his wild hair, or gangster clothing, or even the reserved look on his face- no, the first thing they saw was his arm. His one arm. They saw his handicap and they immediately thought that it was an easy win...

The first time he had entered the competition there had been the laughs. What was a handicapped boy doing in a beyblade tournament? The game required two arms and two hands. How could someone pull the ripcord and hold the shooter with just one set of each? That was not the game…

No, that was not the game. But he had decided to play it anyway. And he had won.

The second time he had entered there had been the whispers. Hushed conversations as he wrote his name neatly on the registration form and handed it back to the person in charge. He pretended that he did not hear them, as always, words of ridicule and disbelief at his choices. Later, scorn was heard too, when he sent every single last store bought beyblade a proud parent had given to their kid flying out of the dish.

He had won again that second time, and people stopped talking.

But the one thing that was still there - the one thing he could not manage to deflect - Were the stares.

Looks of sadness from women, mourning the loss of an arm that was not even their own. Looks of frustration from men, listening to whining children that could not seem to win against him. Looks of jealousy from his opponents… But mostly, pity was thrown into all of these people's eyes.

'He wins these things because they feel sorry for him.'

That was a damn lie.

They didn't want him there. They didn't want someone handicapped to be their champion - it wasn't poster material. He wasn't accepted… even after all the training and practicing he had done in hopes that he would be… he wasn't accepted.

He would never be.

****

To be continued...