Hello, and welcome to a new story I like to call Truth's Disgrace! This is the sequel to Gingka's Deceit. You know, that story with the cliffhanger ending that more than likely left a lot of you ticked off? Well, you'll be happy to know that the story continues in this one, where we'll finally learn some things that weren't explained last time.

The warnings for this story are listed below, if any of these bother you, I suggest to only continue at your own risk.

Warnings: Violence, Blood, Death, Murder, Suicide (Mentioned), Psychotic Behavior, Emotional Torture, Mental Torture, Depression, Sexual Harassment, Self-Harm, Religious Symbols, Child Abuse (Mentioned), Animal Abuse, Idolatry (Implied), Incest (Implied), Selfcest (Implied), Racism (Implied), Stalking, and Vomiting.

Disclaimer: I do not own Metal Fight Beyblade, all rights go to the rightful owners. I only own some characters, and the plot.

Prologue

I've waited.. I've waited for him... For far too long.. I will not allow anyone to separate us ever again.. My dearest.. Dearest brother...

The sun contently beamed down on Koma Village that day, blessing the villagers with warmth and light for yet another day of their isolated lives.
While Koma Village had been relatively empty years ago save for Hyoma and Hokuto, the villagers had steadily returned to their home as they were never to be separated from it forever - they all knew that while some may leave the Bey Village, start new lives elsewhere in the world, it would forever be their home; whether in their hearts or truly inhabiting it, the villagers of Koma were forever at home.
Hyoma had never really left, taking up the duty to care for the village along with Hokuto, who was surprisingly still up and going after all these years - he definitely had a longer lifespan than most dogs did, seeing as how he wasn't a regular one.
Hokuto had been the only other company that Hyoma had had while still being in Koma Village, and neither of them really liked to bring up the subject of what would happen once the talking dog died.
But everyone could clearly see that Hokuto wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, and Isha - Hyoma's mother - was especially glad at that, though thought it a bit strange that her grown son's only real friend nowadays was a dog.

Hyoma hadn't seen Gingka in 2 years, after what had had happened with his father of which no one ever spoke of anymore - many wondered where the redhead could've gone, and Hyoma's best guess had been Metal Bey City of where he knew his childhood friend had mainly receded in for a few years before leaving overseas.
Even so, Gingka had returned when Ryo had fallen ill with the incurable disease that had killed many villagers in the past, including Gingka's own mother which had taken his father as well.
Nobody knew exactly what happened the day Gingka had just left and Ryo had died, Hyoma saying that he had a clue as to what happened but never mentioning it to anyone no matter how much they pried.
Eventually, everyone gave up on it and just continued with their lives, with the memories of what he had seen still haunting Hyoma's dreams to this day. And on this day, he currently sat outside on the porch swing of his childhood home, of which he still lived in with his mother and had all his life.
The Aries Blader hummed softly to himself as he stared off into the distance, not focusing his eyes on anything as he wandered through his mind while a cool breeze gently caressed his skin.
He often had moments like these, where he would just come out on the porch swing on sunny days like this and remember the old times that were always filled with such adventure.
Of course, those times had also been filled with darkness to, and, though he hadn't always been there for him, he had watched as Gingka slowly matured with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

None of them would've ever guessed that someone like little Hagane would be the one to save the world on multiple occasions, but Hyoma had always known and said that Gingka had potential.
Now that he thought about, he really missed him... It had been great to see his old friend 2 years ago while Ryo was dying, but he had just suddenly left a few days later when his father had died, probably unable to stand his grief and running off somewhere else to do so - whatever the reason, Gingka didn't come back after that.
The house that Ryo and Gingka had previously lived in was still up on the hill, and Hyoma always made sure that it was kept in good condition since the Koma Villagers weren't exactly people who just left something to rot.
Despite the liveliness, it just always felt so lonely here without Gingka or Ryo - one of them was dead, and the other was who-knows-where by now considering how much he tended to travel around.
Sighing, Hyoma pushed himself up from out of the swing and stretched out his stiff muscles, letting out a sigh of relief at releasing the stress that had formed there - rolling his shoulders, Hyoma made his way across the wooden porch in his hiking boots, opening the door and taking them off on the mat of where he carefully wiped them first.
Hyoma's footsteps were heavy as he walked through the small house, making his way to the kitchen of where he peeked in on his mother, Isha, as she swept the floor with an old broom.

"Hey, mom." Hyoma began, "We still have those photo-albums from Ryo and Gingka's house, right?" Isha pushed a strand of lavender hair out of face as she looked over to her son with crystalline blue eyes that stood out on her fair skin.
"Umm..." She hummed, pursing her lips as her eyes wandered off, thinking for a moment as she tapped her chin with one finger and held the broom with her opposite hand, "Yes, I believe we do.. They're, uh, in the closet by my room... On the middle shelf, behind the box on the left with the stickers on it."
Hyoma raised an eyebrow, an awkward smile forming on his lips.
"I just needed to know which closet..." He said awkwardly, "But.. Thanks." Isha simply smiled before leaning over to get the dust pan off the table, Hyoma taking his leave as his mother crouched down and began to brush the dirt from the floor into the pan with only a little bit of difficulty.
Abiding by his mother's words, Hyoma made his way down the hall towards her room, knowing well that there was only one closet by his mother's room, which is where they had stored most of the small boxes from Gingka and Ryo's former house - they had left all the furniture there, but they had taken out the former belongings of Ryo such as books, photo albums, pictures, and many other things that Hyoma had a hard time placing.
Either way, the only thing really on his mind were those photo albums, of which he had only looked at last when he was about 17, mainly out of curiosity to see how him and Gingka looked when they were just little tiny ones - surprisingly, there hadn't been many pictures of Gingka when he was a baby, and even with the few that there were they were recorded to be taken when he was about 3-5 months old, none from any sooner or from when he was born.

But the ones that were taken - say about 5 or 6 - he had surprisingly long hair for an infant, though that was only shown in 2 of those pictures, and even then it looked like it had been cut from an even longer length.
Hyoma always wondered why that was, but he didn't really question it - he even very vaguely remembered Gingka having very long hair until he was maybe 2 or 3, but he was a toddler at the time as well so it wasn't that clear.

Sliding the closet door opened, Hyoma's eyes landed on the 2 middle shelves, one closer to the bottom and one closer to the top - he took his mother's words to heart and looked at the ones on the left side, eyeing the one nearest the top with several stickers plastered on it for some reason.
The Aries Blader carefully placed both of his hands on either side of the box, pulling it out a bit before reaching his hands in at a bit of an awkward angle so that he could get it down properly to reach the one behind it.
The box wasn't really that heavy, so he had little difficulty with taking down and getting to the box behind it which was heavier since it contained books full of pictures.
However, the Aries Blader managed to reach in and pull it out, setting it on the floor while bending at his waist and huffing softly from the release of pressure on his arms and back.
He then crouched down, ignoring the dull ache in his feet and legs that always formed from when he did that, lifting up the first book and flipping the cover open just to be sure it was what he was looking for.
A transparent pocket that held a picture of Gingka being held by his father as a baby wrapped in a blanket, the picture resting against a simple white page that assured Hyoma it was one of the few photo albums that the Hagane's had owned.
Hyoma stood, pushing the box against the wall with his foot as to make more room while he leaned against the beige-colored wall himself, holding the photo album in one arm while he used his free hand to flip through the pages.

It was full of the pictures that he liked the most from his childhood, even being able to remember when some of them were taken.
A small smile crept its way onto his lips as he looked at the pictures that brought back so many memories from his and Gingka's childhood, seeing some pictures of when Gingka looked about a year old and still had ridiculously long hair for a kid of his age - though maybe it was because you weren't exactly supposed to cut a baby's hair too much until they were a year or so old, but he didn't really know.
Flipping through the pages, he watched as the pictures showed Gingka and himself progressively getting older through the years, his childhood friend's hair eventually being the same short length it always was despite being as spiked as it had always been.

It made him smile.

When Gingka was younger he looked rather adorable with long hair, though he wasn't sure how he would look now with it - either way didn't really matter to him.
It was quite the nostalgia trip for Hyoma, seeing all of these photos from his and Gingka's childhood that now seemed so far away; maybe this was why people never really liked growing up, watching as the simple times faded away into the past and you were faced with responsibility and loneliness that came with adulthood.
But it was nice to reminisce every now and again about the old times when things were much simpler, before Gingka had had the weight of the world thrust onto his shoulders.
The pictures kept progressing with his and Gingka's age, only about 3 of them concerning Gingka as a baby, and several others of when he was a toddler with long hair until about 2 or 3 years old - after that he just had short hair except for the fact that it had always been spiked upwards even when he was born.
It was hard to believe that him and Gingka had once been so small, probably half the size they were now or smaller; time sure did fly by fast- The moment Hyoma opened it to the next page, something fell out from in between the smooth pages, making a small sound once it hit the ground and drawing his attention even further towards it.
Closing the photo album, Hyoma looked down at his feet and saw a white envelope laying absently on the floor, seemingly free of dust or dirt from apparently being kept inside a photo album for who-knows-how-long.
A confused look crossed the Aries Blader's face, bending done and placing the photo album he'd been holding back into the box he had brought out, then picking up the envelope that had fallen on the ground flap-side up.

It had one of those wax seals on it, something he didn't even know people still did since he presumed that they only did that in Medieval times - the seal, though stamped, had no letter or any sort of symbol on it, simply blank in a round circle.
With a raised eyebrow, Hyoma looked on the supposed blank side of the envelope, only to find his name printed in big, neat letters across the front.
If he was right, these type of coincidental things only really happened in romance books and movies as far as knew, maybe some other genres but he didn't know - either way, Hyoma took a deep breath and went back to the side where the wax seal was, forcing his thumb-nail under the dried wax and prying it off along with the top flap, leaving the contents inside free for him to look at, whatever they were.
Reaching inside with his index finger and thumb, Hyoma pulled out what appeared to be a folded up letter, holding the opened envelope in between a few of his fingers as he opened the paper to reveal a long letter written in neat hand-writing.
Though his memory was a bit hazy from 2 years of his eternal absence, Hyoma almost immediately recognized it as Ryo's handwriting from the ways that he did his capital letters and the leaving of words.
Hyoma's bright blue eyes made their way from his name at the top, and began reading the passage that he know knew had been written by Ryo, perhaps well before he died.

Hyoma,

Somehow I knew that you would be the one to find this, so I addressed it directly to you. Maybe it's not you who's reading this, but I'll assume that it is for now. Either way, if you're reading this I'm probably already dead.
I assumed that I would be, so I knew there would be no other or better way to contact you at this point. Well, unless you use one of those Ouija boards, but I'm pretty sure we've all seen what those things can do at some point in their lives.
But, since I'm gone, these are my final words to you, Hyoma.
However, they're not exactly the heartwarming parting words that you would have expected I say to Gingka if he had been there in the time of my death.
There's something that you need to know, something that the some of the more elder villagers know, like your mother, Isha.
I wouldn't recommend asking her anything about this since she would rather forget about it, but the priests of our village know well about it.
What you choose to do with this inside the village is entirely up to you, but please make sure it doesn't reach outside of it, as my last wish to you.
You're the only one I know I can truly trust with this, because I know that after I die, the truth will had died with me altogether, even if few of the other villagers know it. I've hidden the truth for long enough...

Hyoma's fingers stiffened on the paper he was holding, dropping the envelope he had held between a few of his free ones as a shocked look crossed his face at the knowledge that he had never known - and maybe didn't want to.

...Hopefully, you'll be wiser than I was, Hyoma. - Ryo Hagane