Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade. Anything you recognize that may not be property of me is most likely trademarked by its respective owners. Some bit beasts, supporting characters, ect, will be mine, but they won't be anything huge.

Author's Note: Feel free to message me about something you'd like me to work on. I know it's been a while since I've returned to the world of Beyblade Fanfiction. In any event, the ending of this chapter popped into my head when I thought I had no idea where in the hell it was going. Oh, and someone be so kind as to let me know if I keep our stoic Russian in character as the story progresses.

5/18/10: the site is giving me a little trouble accessing reviews and finding the story on the site, so I fixed the one error (thank you to the other d. storm :) and I'll try to get the next chapter up in the next twenty-four hours.

Giving Up The Act

Chapter One: The Breaking Point

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Hilary Tachibana sat off to the side, watching her friends congratulate themselves on their recent victory of the annual BBA world champtionship competition. Even Kai Hiwatari, the strong and silent one had let a small, but completely existant smile show before his pride reverted back to a trademark smirk. In all of the celebratory festivities in the past ten minutes, the crowd still on their feet, all of the excitement, relief, glory, no one noticed the young woman slip out completely unnoticed.

She'd had enough. Tears spilt from her eyes. She didn't know for sure what was about to happen, but as she had watched Tyson and Max hug each other, Daichi jump on Ray's back as he reached a spare arm over his shoulder to noogie the little twerp and Tyson and Kai nod at each other as their eyes met, even while the blunette was hugging his blonde comrad, all the while Kenny was chattering excitedly beside Ray and Daichi about all the data he'd collected of all their championships, she knew they wouldn't miss her. How could they? They didn't need her. She was a cheerleader at best, and even she had caught on. She was female, amongst a bunch of worried. They didn't need that. Max and Kenny worried while Ray would always be the mother hen.

They were the Blade Breakers. Not G Revolutions, leaving her without a clearly defined purpose. She closed her eyes and blinked away more tear drops. She was a strong girl. She had another purpose, outside of these young men.

Blasting past her mother and booking up the stairs, she threw open her bedroom door, throwing open the closet door, kicked off her trainers, pulled out her duffel bag, emblazoned with the BBA Logo, took off her coaching jacket and threw it in the bag. They could do it without her. They had. She didn't do anything but sit beside Kenny and do what he said, which wasn't much. She began tearing down any clothing that had anything to do with the Beyblade Battle Association and the Blade Breakers, G-Revolutions, all of them. Hangers began to hit the floor as the duffel bag got bigger and bigger. Soon the closet was empty. Not yet satisfied, she turned on the rest of her room, ripping down posters and flyers off the walls from former tournaments, everything.

"Honey?" Her mom called from the base of the staircase that led up to her room.

"I'm fine Mom," She yelled down.

"Finally had it, didn't you?"

Hilary stopped, a photograph in her hands, one from after they had taken down BEGA and won that tournament. She examined it as her mother ascended the stairs and leaned against the doorframe that led into her daugter's room.

"They don't need me."

"Do you need them?"

"I play stupid," she began. "I act like I know nothing. I told them it was stupid when I first met them, and five years later, here I am, acting like I've never even picked one up to really use it. But, I'm not. Everyone was into it when I was younger, before the Blade Breakers ever existed."

Her mother nodded, watching Hilary finally take her eyes off the photograph and slam the picture into the duffel bag, the last thing that had to go.

"Look," Hilary said softly, "They did everything without me. If they don't need me, I'll go. There are other things I can do. I'm smarter in school than every one of them, save Kai, who's good at everything. So I'm done." She picked up the duffel bag to draw her mother's attention to it. "This is my resignation. I'm outta here."

The older woman nodded, her nineteen year old daugter sighing all the while. "Well, what will you do about it? We know what you used to do, I always knew you'd get really pissed off sitting by the wayside as they rose to higher levels while you waved a set of invisible pom-poms. They're your friends, honey. But they're superstars get caught up too sometimes, Hilary."

"I know. They're my friends first. But everything is about them. I love them so much, so this doesn't make it easy for me to do. But I can't keep standing off to the side. I've got to shine too Mom. Maybe that's selfish, but I'm fed up. I'm not their babysitter, their cheerleader, or their mother. I'm their friend. I'll always support I'm not going to do it anymore. We're adults now. Time to act like it."

"Well then," Aisha Tachibana said with a smile, "It sounds like you've got an idea of what to do."

The young woman reached up into her closet, and carefully slid out a pink shoebox, letting the three boxes on top of it slide down to fill the void as she removed the lowest box in the was a black beyblade with a matching black launcher. They gleamed as they were exposed to a little natural light.

Hilary looked up at her mother. "This isn't gonna be a smooth ride Mom. I guess I got that from you, the whole 'Not Taking the Path of Least Resistance' thing."

Aisha shook her head. "They're going to be angry with you, Hilary."

"Yeah. I know." She shrugged. "Kai goes all Benedict Arnold on them at least once every two years. I can manage."

"So am I coming with you?"

"Oh, so now you've got me figured out, do you?"

"Cinncinati or Dallas?"

"Let's go to the BTE Headquarters in Dallas. Mr. Mortimer will be plenty thrilled to see me."

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Kai Hiwatari looked around the Bey-Stadium warily. After the fifteenth minute of straight applause, he was ready to get the hell out of there. Mr. Dickenson was thrilled as all get-out, hugging each of them individually, even Kai. It was the both of them who realized that a very feminine piece of their team-unit was nowhere to be found.

"Uh, has anyone seen Hilary?" The Russian asked quickly, letting his usual demeanor slip for one of a little bit of sarcasm laced with a tiny bit of worry.

"She was sitting right over there," Tyson pointed, to a seat that was completely and totally vacant, quite possibly the only seat that had no one standing in front of it or jumping around like a wild animal courtesy of the hard fought battles of the now worried champions.

Ray took a few steps forward and looked around again, his enhanced senses searching for any trace of the brunette woman.

"When did you last see her?"

"Right before we went up for the last battle," Max and Daichi said softly."That was two hours ago."

"Well, she was there when you won," Mr. Dickenson offered. "She was the first to applaud, as always."

"Maybe she wasn't feeling well?" Tyson began to guess.

Dickenson motioned for a security guard, who looked at the group and shook his head, his bald head gleaming in the spotlights. "She took off after about a minute of the celebrations. She looked pretty distraught." He pointed toward one of the main exits. "She went that way."

"Check her house?" Ray sugguested, and the champions immediately took to the outside world once again, their medals bouncing against their chests as they ran out of the arena.

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"There's someone at the door," Aisha said softly. It had been about twenty minutes since Hilary had decided where they were going to go. "I think I know who it is. What do I say?"

"I'm not here. Tell them I called you and said I went to the beach to think. There's too much of it to check, they'll be a while looking."

"Okay."

The older version of Hilary, both in looks and personality, took to the door.

"Mrs. Tachibana!" Tyson nearly shouted, one hand on his medal, "We won!" The woman smiled. "But more importantly, where's Hil? Did she come here?"

The older woman lied well. "No, but she did call maybe ten minutes ago. Said you guys won, and then said she needed some fresh air and was headed to the park or the beach. Whichever wasn't crowded." The woman sighed.

Kai didn't buy it. "Those are her shoes, behind you." He paused. "She wore them today."

From around the corner, in the kitchen, Hilary cursed Kai's ability to pay attention to detail. Mentally, she scolded herself for picking up her shoes and taking them down from where she had thrown them in her bedroom.

"Well," Aisha said softly, "I didn't really want to tell you guys. She came home, she didn't call. She was pretty upset. She changed her clothes and must've chosen a different pair of shoes. You know Hilary, she always has to match."

They boys on the doorstep looked at each other, then one by one looked to Kai to see what he had to say.

"We'll split up and go check the beach."

Like that, the boys were gone, but with a little less haste than before.

Once both women knew the coast was clear, Hilary hugged her mother and thanked her. "They will really hate me for this."

"Then I guess you have to decide-"

"I already have," Hilary said, standing up and looking out the window. "We leave tonight. You have Cassidy to watch the house, and we have the ranch in Dallas. I'm not living in their shadow any longer."

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"Jeez," Max said softly. "She must not have wanted to be found. We checked the whole darn beach!"

The gang sat on the veranda of Tyson's dojo residence, watching the clouds and sky turn orange with the setting sun, then purple, before fading into black. "Well," Ray added, "We'll try her cell again before we go to sleep. For now, maybe we should give her some space."

At that point, Kai got up, thoroughly annoyed about spending the rest of the day looking for Hilary when he would've much rather meditated or, even better, slept. He slid open the shoji and walked into the kitchen. Before he even turned on the light, he realized that something wasn't right. There was something massive on the counter, and when everyone had left for the tournament that morning, the place was clean. Tyson's grandfather had gone to Dickenson's for an evening of drinking and celebrating, and he hadn't stopped home before.

He flicked on the lights, and saw the BBA duffel bag sitting there, stuffed beyond belief, with a note atop it. His eyes flashed like lightning, and he shoved the letter in his pocket before unzipping the bag. Soundlessly, the sleeve of a Team BBA jacket and a portion of the chest piece that had Hilary's name stitched on it in white cursive popped into view, the sleeve snaking out of the bag.

As quickly as Kai had disappeared, he returned to the veranda, shoes on, bag over his shoulder and another in his hands. He threw the one in his hand on the ground as more BBA emblazoned materals fell out.

"Kai?"

"What the..."

"Don't do this again!" Tyson yelled.

Stopping briefly, Kai looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

"I didn't. She did."