Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade. Figures.

By Their Saving Grace

Chapter One: Not Today

Distant Storm

x x x

A black haired young woman with blazing dark cherry highlights and shocking green eyes jumped down a flight of stairs in the compound, coming upon a row of cells with the openings rusted and nearly destroyed. A gun-like beyblade launcher was extended, with a beyblade attached and at the ready. A boy around her age followed, his launcher extended as well.

"What do you want us to do, Angel?" He asked, his reddish hair covering his eyes as he scanned the area.

"Anyone who's alive, get them out. Anyone who's on their side, well, get them aggravated." She paused. "Tala, come on, you know the drill. Let's go!"

"Yes ma'am."

Another woman, considerably younger than the first approached her. "Angel, there's some people on U-5. I need your help."

The one called Angel looked at the pewter haired young one, analyzing her pale purple eyes. "Alright, Mina, but after this, I have a mission for you."

"Okay... Now let's go get us some evil ass kicking action!"

x x x

Tokyo, Japan, 5:23 PM

He sat near the window, watching the cars whizz by and the rain hit the window of the one he was currently in. Slate colored hair came down low on his face, spiking just so, as to shield his eyes. Their pale amethyst color revealed the only emotions he cared to show, if any, though a raging fire eternally burned into their pale depths. The rest of his hair was a dark blue, slicked back. His arms were crossed over his chest, and though he was quiet, his aura screamed that he wished to be left alone.

"You're especially distant today, Kai," The navy haired boy stated, sitting just to his right. The rest of the group nodded from their seats in the back of the limo.

Kai didn't respond, keeping his eyes trained on what passed by. It was better off like this, he told himself. Yet no matter how hard he tried, the flashbacks ran through his head. The news had hit him like Dragoon pummeling Zeus to beat Brooklyn. Few things had shaken Kai Hiwitari up in his lifetime, and this was one of them. Well, he thought, what had once happened.

"All of the physicals have been conducted. Unfortunately, some of us are just not in the... condition to move on. Mina, I'm afraid your time here with us has come to an abrupt halt."

I had wanted her to go far, to rise above the influence of our family. Not crash and burn like she had.

"Tell me why."

This was not supposed to happen. She was always so strong. No one knew anything was wrong. How could it be? She was one of the best. She had become a little dark, but she had become a force to be reckoned with.

"Mina, why don't you tell your brother why you aren't going to be here anymore?" The young girl gulped, closing her eyes as to conceal her tears. Tears had never been accepted, though it didn't really matter as she was on her way out anyway.

"K-Kai, I-I'm sorry," she whispered. "I have cancer. They said I have six months."

Bad things happen to good people. And it isn't fair. It wasn't fair then, and it isn't fair now.

Kai pounded his fist against the black wooden armrest of his door.

"Are you alright?" The boy on the far side of the limo questioned his captain gently, from his Indian style position on the black seats. He was the only one of the group from China, and the symbol on his clothing showed that, while black spiky hair surrounded his head, the rest of it being held back by a long white band of cloth with red ties on either end.

The Russian made no attempt, nor a motion to prove he was going to answer. He closed his eyes though, and tilted his head up toward the fabricated roof of the car.

How could I have been so blind?

"Oh man," an orange-red haired boy had said from next to him. "That sucks." Something told Kai he would've apologized, but a word like 'sorry' would've earned a student ten lashings. All first year inhabitants learned that. Quickly.

He didn't think, he just lashed out at the boy, causing him to double over in pain. He walked away from her, though she was sobbing at this point. That was the last time he had ever saw her.

"...Kai? Hello? Earth to quiet, dark, and insensitive, Kai, do you read me?" His eyes opened suddenly, and he looked around in a dignified matter, though on the inside, he had no idea what was going on. "We're here," Tyson continued.

"Whatever." Kai made a graceful exit out of the car, bringing up the rear of his team.

"What's eating him?" The American boy asked, at the front of the group. His blue-green eyes held compassion, and a spark of determination.

The brunette female next to him shrugged. "Kai will be Kai. Just leave him be, Maxy, you know he'll only get even more pissed if we mess with him."

Max sighed. "Yeah. I guess." He ran a hand through his blonde locks and opened the door of the B.B.A. building, feeling the tingling sensation of the cool air as it rushed out to fill the humid outdoors. The group walked past the secretary and directly to the elevator.

Tyson looked to Kai. Dickenson had asked for all of them, yet he had told Tyson this morning that what was going on pertained mostly to Kai, and not to the rest of them, but moral support might become an issue. That left Tyson with only one conclusion. It had to be something pretty darn big if Stanley Dickenson thought Kai might need moral support.

The elevator reached the fifteenth floor after a few minutes, with an electronic beep to signal that it had reached its initial destination. They walked down the hallway, passing a group of beybladers with excited expressions.

"Did we look that excited the first time we came here?" Max asked.

"Tyson still looks that happy when he sees food," Ray responded. The group, save Kai, laughed.

"I can hear you," Tyson growled. "Is it a crime to love food?"

"When it becomes an obsession, yes." Kai rolled his eyes in annoyance at the team. Today was not the day he wanted to go see Dickenson. Any other day, he'd come in this place, and hell, he'd probably listen to half of it. This day had too much significance for him to waste it here. He wanted time alone. To think...

Max knocked on the door while Hilary pushed the button on the intercom next to the mahogany door. "Mr. Dickenson, it's us. Can we come in?"

Kenny stood next to Hilary, holding his laptop. The security systems of the B.B.A. were upgraded almost every time they came to his office.

The door opened, and the group stepped inside his luxurious office. Dickenson offered them a place to sit upon the numerous couches and chairs placed inside it, as well as something to drink. Everyone declined and the chairman went to sit in his large leather chair.

"What's up, Mr. D?" Tyson asked. "You said you wanted all of us?"

"Well, yes. Mostly though, Kai, this has to do with you." The captain looked up, surprised. Apparently, the use of his name had knocked him back into reality.

"And?" The group noticed that his temper was close to its limit, yet they hadn't done anything to provoke it at all.

"I came across a young woman in my travels. Actually, she found me in the United States a few months back. At first I didn't believe her stories, but she has the birth certificate-"

Kai rapidly learned where Dickenson was going. "No. Absolutely no." Kai got up and walked rather quickly out of the room. He did not want to hear this. Nor did he want to deal with the chance for hope that she actually survived. Hopes with Kai always ended with the same acidic let-down that caused him to appear similar to an atomic bomb.

He slammed the door behind him and threw a fist into the nearest wall. "She's dead," he said to himself. He said it again a few times to make sure it was through his head.

Tyson opened the door and saw Kai standing there, his eyes closed, leaning against the wall. "We need to talk."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"I'm not asking for an explanation. I'm going to talk, and should you feel like you need to add something, then add it. And until you come up with something, just listen." Tyson grabbed his captain and best friend by the arm and pulled him into the elevator. Once they reached the ground level, they exited the building.

"It's raining." Kai looked at Tyson.

"You sure as hell aren't sugar. You'll be fine." Tyson turned to the right and walked down the already soaked pavement, pulling his hat down lower to keep his face dry.

"Whatever."

"Oh don't be such an asshole. He thought you would be happy that he found your sister. I mean after all, the guy has supported us for a long time and-"

"She's dead."

"Excuse me?" Tyson stopped walking and looked to Kai. "Rewind and freeze."

"She was at the abbey for a few years... and... they diagnosed her with cancer."

"What?"

"Don't make me repeat it." Kai closed his eyes tilted his head back toward the threatening sky, that seemed to be shaking a fist at him. "Today is the anniversary of the last time I saw her."

"This was probably the worst day you could possibly hear this, heh?" Kai didn't respond and Tyson took it as a yes. "We didn't see her. She's around here somewhere, but apparently she's got a mind of her own."

"Hn."

"You can't run away from your past forever, Kai," Tyson said. "One of these times, it's going to swallow you, and you'll never come back to the light."

Kai looked up at him in shock. In a strange way, he had made sense. Maybe that was why they were best friends. Tyson sat down at a bench in the park after a few minutes of walking in silence. It was a little wet, but the rain had stopped.

"Why do you care anyway?"

"It's kind of the whole friend thing. You're stuck with me, whether you like it or not." Tyson leaned back and extended both his arms skyward to stretch.

"Aren't I lucky?" He mused aloud.

"Yeah, yeah you are," Tyson responded.

"Uhh, I'm sorry to bug you," A feminine voice interrupted. "I'm kind of new to the city, and I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of the B.B.A. building?"

"Yeah, if you follow the side walk here," Tyson motioned, pointing straight ahead from the bench with his index finger, "turn left once you hit the street, and it's on your right. Are you one of the new-" The navy haired champion lifted his head up to meet the girl's eyes. "Holy beyblade!"

x x x

"So, Mr. D, why would Kai be so touchy about this?" Daichi asked, sitting like a monkey on one of the chairman's couches. "I would be happy if you found my sister."

"Too bad you don't have one," Max said. The group chuckled.

"You know what I meant!" The younger one responded, yelling.

"I guess he's lived without her so long, he probably figured she was dead."

"That makes sense. Kai dealt with most of his past already," Ray commented. "He probably decided to move past what has already happened, and accept the worst." The White Tiger paused. "Though, he has seemed especially messed up today. He didn't even make fun of Tyson when he nearly choked on a steak."

"It's barely dinnertime," Dickenson said. "How did he- oh never mind. It's Tyson."

"Exactly," Kenny responded. The entire group looked to Hilary, who had yet to say a word. She looked up at them and shrugged.

"I don't know too much about Kai," she admitted. "I just decided to leave him alone, he looks like crud enough today, without any of us messing with him." Hilary paused, brushing back a strand of her brunette hair. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell us though, about this, or anything else?"

"Well, do you guys know the story about his sister?" The group shook their heads and the chairman nodded, flipping up his computer screen from the compact position it had been in. "Her name is Mina Hiwitari. She used to be at the abbey when she was little, but around age seven, she was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told her six months-" The entire group winced, realizing that Kai had once again dealt with much more hardship than they'd probably care to understand, " so of course she had been kicked out of the abbey, and after that, well, I have no idea. She probably found a foster family or something. I haven't gotten that far." He scratched the back of his head. "I saw the birth certificate and kind of forgot about the rest of her background check."

"Are you sure it's authentic?"

"Positive. I've seen Kai's birth certificate, remember? Hers was similar. Besides, they both look a lot alike." The group nodded.

"Does the abbey have any kind of records, just out of curiosity?" Hilary asked. "None of us know very much about Kai, or the abbey, and maybe you could look both he and his sister up."

"I know there's a website," Kenny responded to the young woman. "But it's really hard to access the files, since there's a ton of firewalls. I've been working on it for a while now, but it's kind of hard, because Kai always knows what's going on, whether you tell him or not."

The rest of the group, Dickenson included, nodded in agreement. "It always does seem that he knows what is going on."

"Well, when so much that you built yourself up on are lies, and the people who you knew to be family only used you to gain power, you don't tend to just go with the flow," Max said.

"Yeah," Ray continued. "Kai always has to know what is going on. There's always a chance that someone from his past could come waltzing back into his life, asking to be let in..."

x x x

Moscow, Russia, 12:32 PM

An aggravated Tala walked through a doorway to the back room of the building. "Where is Mina?" He called, to the woman in the room that opened up in front of him.

"She's in Japan."

"You sent her on a mission?" Tala asked the girl who answered him. His eyes showed a bit of jealousy. "I told you I was up for anything."

"I need you here," She said, sitting sideways so that her legs were hanging off the edge of an oversized chair, hidden behind a desk.

"Why?"

"So many questions. Won't you just admit you're concerned, or at least jealous?"

"Angel, she's still just a girl!"

"And when you were her age, you were in the finals of the World Championships. She's fifteen. She can handle herself. And it isn't like I gave her a hard task." Angel picked up the glass from the desk and took a deliberate, slow sip.

"You're obviously stressed. You don't usually drink until after dark," He recalled.

"It's a margarita. Little tequila, not too much. Want one?" She asked.

"Are you going to try and get me drunk, like last time?"

A delicate, rare smile graced her lips. "No," she said, with the remnants of a laugh. "And all I did was give you a strawberry daiquiri. You ordered for yourself after that."

"Anyway," He said, clearly avoiding the subject, "I'll take one."

"Alright," She said, pulling out a second glass, and dipping the rim in water, then a bowl of salt, and finally mixing the drink. She haded it to him and offered him a seat, which he gladly took. "I sent Mina to go see her brother-"

"The last thing Mina needs to do is get caught up with the Bladebreakers, or G Revolutions, or whatever the hell they're calling themselves now," he responded.

"Kai thinks she's dead."

"And? It's probably better that he does, so Voltaire won't come after her too!" He took a swig of the beverage, calming down considerably as the alcohol sent a tingle down his throat as he swallowed.

"I'm glad we both care about her, but you're forgetting. I trained that little Hiwitari to beyblade almost exactly like me. She'll be absolutely fine, and Kai will protect her as well. His entire team will too."

"You better hope he recognizes her."

"He will," she said. "Do you not see the resemblance?" She took a sip of her margarita, and spun the drink around on the desk so that a salted rim was closest to her mouth for her next sip.

"Yeah. But what are we supposed to do while she's gone? I mean, she probably won't be coming back-"

"There's trouble on the horizon," Angel commented. "The darkness is far from gone, and we both know it."

Tala took a hearty swig of his drink, so that he had less than she did. "And we're going to have to stop it."

"Well, that would be the whole reason I organized this little group thing."

"Yeah, and every other beyblade association recognizes us as 'The Russian Moffia,'" The red head scoffed.

"Let them. We know our motives are pure, and I'm pretty sure that it would be all that counts." She hammered the rest of the margarita and went to mix another one.

"How many of those have you had today?"

"Just one, it'll be two pretty soon."

"So what exactly is the stress?"

"Remember when Mina got kicked out of the abbey?" Tala nodded, and suddenly, something clicked and his eyes grew wide with shock.

"Oh," he said, in a whisper.

"Yeah," Angel said, standing up and turning to the large windows that extended from floor to ceiling. "What if she tells him what really happened?"

x x x

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x3 Distant Storm