Disclaimer: Beyblade is copyright Takao Aoki.
Warnings: Angst, violence and abuse throughout.
Note: Using original names.
It wasn't the sound of the crowd that roused Yuri from his thoughts, wasn't the elated cries of the spectators or Takao's teammates, it wasn't even the warmth of the boy's palm against his own or his beaming grin. No, catching sight of Wolborg from the corner of his eye, lying prone at the bottom of the dish, scratched, cracked, defeated, was all it took to send Yuri's world crashing down around him.
He realised he'd lost.
Almost instantly, as he was trained to do, Yuri replayed the last three rounds in his mind. Even as Takao Kinomiya, the winner, shook his hand and spoke to him—at him—Yuri was already elsewhere. He reviewed the match set from the very start, analysing each and every second of his performance critically and without restraint to find out exactly what he'd done wrong, surely it must have been his mistake: a miscalculation, an error in timing, a split-second of hesitation in a vital moment. There was no other explanation for the result; Valkov wouldn't accept any other explanation.
Somewhere between the second round finishing and the start of the third and final round—the deciding battle—Yuri's mind went completely and utterly blank. As if someone had been recording the match and had run out of tape. Nothing. No sight, no sound, even the faint scent of burning as Wolborg's metal tip scored lines into the dish during speed changes, a scent he'd become so accustomed to during training, was entirely non-existent. He racked his memory for something, anything that explained what had happened to him in that space of time between resetting his launcher and shaking Takao's hand.
He found nothing but pitch black emptiness, as if his own mind had betrayed him.
Glancing up at the wallboard, Yuri wondered if it was possible he'd just misinterpreted the entire situation. Whether the crowd cheered with excitement, not congratulations. Whether Takao shook his hand in anticipation, not gratitude. Whether he was actually stood by the side of the dish preparing to enter the third match and destroy his opponent, as per his orders, not standing in the presence of the new champion. The numbers on the wallboard confirmed that out of desperation Yuri was only letting his imagination get the better of him. His image sneered down at him and laughed at the score sheet.
Yuri made his way back to the dugout where Sergei was stood. He wasn't entirely sure how he even made it down from the dish because it felt too much like he was sliding on broken legs over dangerously thin ice, constantly threatening to crack and swallow him into the freezing water with every single step.
Sergei spared him a brief, pitiful glance that Yuri wanted to shake off but it stayed with him, suffocating. From the darkness of the tunnel that now seemed miles away, Valkov's eyes glared at him—through him—as if the man could barely bring himself to look upon the weak, useless, pathetic shred of a soldier he'd become.
Disgust rose as bile in his throat and he felt physically sick—he wasn't ill, hadn't been ill once during his time at the Abbey—but somehow he felt as though being able to vomit what little he had managed to eat before the finals would make him feel immensely better about his failure. As if clearing his stomach would clear his entire body of the anger and dread that mingled there.
Dread was something he had grown to understand, to live with and work around and ignore as if it were nothing more than an irritating itch. But now, as hands grabbed him roughly by his shoulders and shoved him through a closed door, using his body to force it open, Yuri lost the mental strength to push the dread away.
"Despicable, worthless, unacceptable…"
Yuri bowed his head, blocked out the sound of Valkov's furious tirade and focused on a smear of dirt across one of his boots. He'd heard it all before, not usually aimed at him, true, but the more often you heard it, the easier it became to phase out.
"I should have expected it of that reckless fool who battled second, but not of you, Ivanov." Yuri dared to glance up, got as far as Valkov's knees and faltered. No doubt he was referring to Boris, and Yuri suddenly remembered—how could he forget?—that he hadn't seen where his unconscious teammate had been taken after his match.
"Do you have anything to say to defend your pathetic performance, boy?"
"No, sir." The expected response, Yuri knew better than to dare speak anything else. Yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir. He wanted to ask about Boris, but there was a time and a place, and neither were when you stood in the firing line of Valkov's anger.
"Very well." He saw Valkov raise a gloved hand and signal to the guard behind him—Levitsky was his name, Valkov's second-in-command—and the same rough hands that had thrown him into the room dragged him back out. Yuri caught a glance of Valkov's profile just before the door slammed shut and, unsurprisingly, he looked completely enraged.
He was marched through corridors almost faster than he could keep up, stumbling over his own feet on more than one occasion, and he so desperately wanted to act on the anger bubbling under his skin, wanted to lash out at the hands that held him, at the smug face of the man that dared to push him around. But he wouldn't—couldn't—because to do so would only risk making his punishment worse and jeopardise his chance of seeing Boris when he returned to the Abbey.
Yuri could still hear the chants of praise and joy when he finally made it up to the rooftop of the stadium, and he wished he could spend just a second standing by the edge, looking down on the crowd that had surely gathered there to congratulate Takao and his team, and share in just the tiniest glimpse of their happiness. He wondered whether they knew just what the result meant for Neoborg, wondered whether Kai had told them.
The mere thought stung his heart as it regurgitated the short-lived memory of Kai returning to the Abbey, before he'd betrayed them and returned to his friends. The people he'd betrayed in the first place. He barely knew Kai, before the championship Yuri had only seen him briefly the few times Valkov had elected to take him to see the Director, Kai's grandfather, with the aim of showing off his latest success.
Kai had seemed shy, meek even, at first glance anyway, but there was a fire and a sense of determination in the boy's eyes that Yuri recognised and respected almost instantly. Not once had he pinned Kai as a traitor, not until now. But if the rumours were true, that Kai had ended up with amnesia following the short time he had spent at the Abbey as a child under Valkov's regime, then perhaps that explained his actions. Yuri suspected that Kai must have suffered an overwhelming burst of old memories that left him confused, mistaking the Abbey for home once again and forgetting that he really didn't belong there.
Not with them, not anymore.
Sergei was already in the helicopter when Yuri approached it, strapped in and ready to go like the good little soldier he was. His face was as blank as ever, and he offered Yuri nothing in the way of greeting. Not even the slightest glance.
"Seriy…" The name slipped from Yuri's mouth before he could help himself, suddenly desperate for something in the way of comfort from the older boy. But he shouldn't have said a word and realised his stupid mistake far too late.
He gasped, biting down firmly on his lip to stop himself from making any other noise as sharp pain reverberated from his shoulder all the way to his toes. The metal baton in Levitsky's merciless hands slammed down again over the same spot, bone crunched beneath his skin and Yuri's knees buckled. He crashed to the floor, one hand clasped over his throbbing shoulder, the other still twisted in the material of the chair beside him, fingers clenched so tightly that he felt his nails tear against the fabric. Yuri squeezed his eyes shut against stinging tears, allowing himself only a shuddering breath once he'd heard the man's footsteps disappear and the door shut with a bang.
The sound of the helicopter's blades starting up sounded muted in his ears, lost amid the erratic pounding of his heartbeat as he struggled to catch his breath. Wordlessly, Sergei unclipped his belt and shifted to the aisle seat, reaching out with calloused hands to brush Yuri's tangled hair back from his forehead.
"Get up," Sergei demanded, gentler than Yuri expected but still leaving little room for argument. "Move, Yura."
He did as he was asked, wincing as the sudden rock of the helicopter jostled his left arm and the pain sparked up again. His entire arm was gradually becoming numb, for which he was thankful, though he could already imagine the bruising that would surely form over his skin.
"Where's Borya?" he asked, knowing that Sergei would pick up on the words he couldn't bring himself to speak.
Sergei led him a few rows back, it wouldn't do for him to be seen sitting anywhere near a failure such as Yuri after all, and carefully lowered him into a chair, pulling his belt over and locking it into place. "Haven't seen him since."
Yuri nodded, he didn't need to hear anything else. Boris would already be back at the Abbey, already suffering for his irresponsible loss. Questions burned in Yuri's mind, overpowering the pain just for a moment. "Did you see what happened? His match, he—"
"I know," Sergei said. He offered nothing else, merely returned to his seat and didn't look back.
He'd only said two words, but it was all Yuri needed to confirm that Sergei had seen the exact same thing as he had and relight the simmering dread in his gut; Boris had disobeyed a direct order and deliberately thrown the final round against Rei Kon.
