Chidsengan:Firstly, I'd just like to apologize for being such a horrible writer and that I don't own these characters and secondly that my parents are going on vacation with me and my little bro for a week so I won't be updating as much :( On the bright side, my daddy was considerate and got a hotel with a computer, so I'll try my best (sorry I can't write better. I'm undeserving to have friends like all of you! And, I apologize so much, but I see you all as friends! Sorry... tell me if you don't want to be!). As always, thank you to FutureCharacterDesigner4Pixa r, dreamlily, DragonFang2011, Allycat, RoxasOtaku, Bes9200, The-Silver-Butterfly1500, and this [horrible] fanfic's newest reviewer... MoonBlazer, who was so nice to me! Thank you so much! Now, did I forget anyone... ?
Ryuga:Yep... you forgot-
Chidsengan:Darknessrules! Oh, yes... I'm sorry, but I can't mention you with everyone else today, because I'm too busy saying... HAPPY BIRTHDAY (August 6th). And as a gift, I updated another chapter just for you and dedicate to you, also! Sorry it can't be a better gift, but... oh, hit it, everyone, before I ruin things by crying hysterically!
(Music starts playing and the cast of Beyblade starts singing with Chidsengan)
Everyone:Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Darknessrules!
Chidsegan:We all love you and appreciate you so much!
Everyone:Happy birthday to you!
And many more!
Chidsengan:Now, everyone, please don't forget to wish Darknessrules happy birthday under the reviews (if you want to review my pathetic story :*( ...) and for now... everyone help yourself to some virtual birthday cake and cheesecake for Allycat!
Pain...
Pain...
Pain...
Pain was all Kyoya could feel as He felt consciousness flow into his body like a river... a river of red-hot lava that burnt every fiber of his being...
As his eyes began to flutter open, scents began to reach his nose... scents he'd rather not be greeted with... and the ringing in his ears began to subside enough to head the faint crackling of burning... somethings...
He was alive... he didn't know how... but he knew that he was still in the world of the living if he could feel pain... especially pain like he was...
Now, he just hoped that the others...
THE OTHERS!
He sat up in an instant but screamed out in pain as soon as he did.
The wounds he had received the night before weren't trivial, and they seemed to remind him of that every second that passed.
He was dizzy... weak... exhausted.
He couldn't move and his vision was blurry...
And everything hurt... even the sunlight that met his eyes through the smoke that was still billowing up from the wreckage and graveyard that was formerly Peproméno.
Glancing around him slowly, Kyoya tried not to scream out in horror at the sights that surrounded him... sights too horrific to describe...
But there was ONE sight amongst the wreckage that stood out amongst the others... a sight he hoped with all his heart was a pleasant one...
"Yu!"he exclaimed, ignoring the excruciating pain that almost crippled him from scrambling over to the boy on his knees.
It took him longer than it would have to reach him, but he finally did and stroked back Yu's hair from his dirty face.
"Yu... come on... wake up..."he prodded."Please... don't be dead... please..."
Yu stirred just the slightest and Kyoya sighed in complete relief.
"Ky... yoya ?"the younger boy asked, opening his eyes a bit.
Kyoya nodded.
"Yeah... it's me..."
Yu rocketed up in an instant as if nothing had happened and flung himself onto Kyoya in a tight hug.
"Oh, Kyoyo!"he cried."You're alright!"
Kyoya big back a pained scream as Yu's hug sent even more agony flowing through his body... enough to almost make him lose consciousness.
"Yeah, okay. I'm great. Now that that's been established... where are the others ?"Kyoya asked.
"Well... I'M here..."another voice spoke from the rubble.
The two of them turned around to see Zeo crawling out from beneath the wreckage and couldn't help but let relieved smiles crease their lips.
"And look what else I found..."Zeo went on, moving aside a little so Yu and Kyoya could see Kenta sitting behind him, catching his breath.
Yu instantly let go of Kyoya to run over to give Kenta a giant hug, which the other boy returned the moment Yu's arms wrapped around his neck.
"Kenji!"Yu laughed as Kenta smiled at his friend.
Zeo rubbed his head and sighed with a small grin.
"So much energy... how do they do it ?"he asked no one in particular, then turned to Kyoya."Hey, scar-faced-weirdo... how're you doing ?"
Kyoya glanced away from Zeo proudly and scoffed at him as if he hadn't a care in the world.
"I'm just fine!"he lied, hoping he sounded more convincing than he felt.
Zeo shrugged.
"Hey, good for you. I only asked you because my wound's KILLING me. Just thought yours would be, too..."he said conversationally, rubbing his ribs to ease the pain in them.
Kyoya growled lowly under his breath as he staggered to his feet to prove his point to Zeo that he was 'alright'... even though he felt like he would collapse.
"See ? Nothing to it..."he said as confidently as possible,biting back the painful groans that were threatening to give him away.
No way he was going to let anyone, least of all ZEO, see him in his moment of weakness.
From what he could surmise of the kid, he was the exact opposite of him... but most of all, to him, Zeo was whiny.
Seriously, what kind of person with ANY kind of strength whined about the injuries they received when everyone else was just as bad off as they were ? Not Kyoya, not anyone in his group... actually, no one that Kyoya knew... EXCEPT Zeo...
Speaking of people he knew...
He had found Kenta, Yu, and Zeo... now the only people he had left to find was Gingka, Masamune, and Tsubasa... and after the scary display of eerie power the night before, Kyoya was almost wary about finding Tsubasa.
Almost.
He had to remind himself that dark Tsubasa wasn't the same as Tsubasa Tsubasa. The regular Tsubasa was nothing like that twisted version of himself... and the regular Tsubasa came as close to being friends with Kyoya as any one person could come.
Pain or no pain... it didn't matter... he had to find Tsubasa, Masamune, and Gingka... and possibly any other survivors, though judging from the destruction all around him, it was hardly a possibility that even Gingka and Tsubasa were alive...
It was a Miracle that he, Zeo, Yu, and Kenta were.
Pushing the searing pain and immense exhaustion that ravaged his body to the back of his mind the best he could, Kyoya began to make his way over the rubble and debris that was everywhere... the rubble and debris that used to be Peproméno.
"Zeo, Kenta, Yu..."he said."If you guys can move, see if you can find Tsubasa and Gingka... and search for any other survivors. If you find anyone, tell me... we'll see what we can do for them..
Zeo's eyes narrowed on Kyoya threateningly.
"What do you think you are ? Our leader ?"he growled at him.
Before Kyoya could answer, Kenta and Yu interjected for him.
"YOU BET HE IS! AND HE'S THE BEST ONE THERE IS!"Kenta said loyally.
"YEAH! WE WOULDN'T EVEN BE HERE IF IT WASN'T FOR KYOYO! SO WATCH YOUR TONGUE!"Yu added, his voice one of complete devotion.
"H-hey! Okay! Okay! Yeesh! I was only joking!"Zeo said, raising his hands in defense.
"YEAH ? WELL, DON'T JOKE LIKE THAT! NOT ABOUT OUR LEADER!"another familiar voice chimed in.
Everyone glanced to where the voice had come from and saw none other than Masamune standing atop one of the many debris mountains... looking pretty smudged with ash and dirt, but alright nonetheless.
Kyoya let a small smile grace his lips at the loyalty displayed by the three of them and relaxed a bit as he set on his way to look for more survivors and the last two remaining memebers of their group.
He hadn't traveled very far when he saw a familiar shock of silver-white hair peeking through the rubble and quickly staggered over to it and began pushing the debris away for all he was worth.
Sure enough, after he romoved enough of the wreckage, there was Tsubasa... onconcious, but the faint rising and falling of his chest indicated that he was also still alive.
"Tsubasa..."Kyoya shook him gently."Come on, Tsubasa... talk to me... Tsubasa... wakey-wakey..."
Slowly, Tsubasa's eyes flickered open and squinted when the sun met his amber orbs, stirring slightly and looking at Kyoya as if he couldn't believe that he was there.
"Ky... Kyoya ?"he asked weakly.
"Yeah..."Kyoya nodded.
Tsubasa smiled a bit, but it quickly faded when he glanced around and saw the destruction around him.
"What... happened ?"he queried, clearly not remembering anything that had transpired after dark Tsubasa had taken control.
"You don't want to know..."Kyoya replied shortly and simply., not wanting to relive and tell Tsubasa about the whole 'dark Tsubasa dilemma' that had happened until they were both good and ready to... if they ever were."Now... all we have to find is Gingka... and we'll try and see what to do from there..."
"Umm... if you're looking for Gingka... you already found him..."said a muffled voice from nearby them.
Both Tsubasa and Kyoya looked around frantically.
"Gingka ?!"Tsubasa called.
"Gingka ?! Where are you ?!"Kyoya asked.
"You're... sitting on me..."Gingka said.
Kyoya instantly got to his feet and jumped back to see Gingka laying flat on his back... in between the rubble... looking exhausted...
"Are you alright ?"Tsubasa asked.
"I... don't... like... those enemies..."Gingka declared, refering to the Thanatos.
Tsubasa smiled slightly and helped Gingka get into a sitting position.
"The feeling's mutual, I think..."he said, pretty sure their enemies weren't very fond of them, either.
Gingka rubbed his shoulders and sighed.
"Aside from that... I don't think I'm hurt or anything like that..."he stated.
Taking a good glance around him, he frowned, all his optimism fading in an instant when he saw the scenery.
"Wish I could say the same for this place..."he said quietly.
Kyoya, Tsubasa, and Gingka were silent for a moment before they heard Masamune, Yu, and Kenta calling out to them and saw them coming towards them as Zeo trudged behind them, clutching his ribs that had gotten injured.
"GINGKY! TSUBASA!"Yu exclaimed, hugging his two friends in one, big embrace as Kenta followed suit.
Masamune sighed happily.
"We're all alive..."he said."That's good..."
"But I haven't seen any others..."Zeo stated in almost a whisper.
Once again, no one said another thing for a few minutes and all that could be heard was silence...
"We can't quit..."Kyoya said at last."We can't be the only ones... well... you know..."
"But... what'll we do, Kyoya ?"Gingka asked.
"Where'll we go ?"Masamune queried.
"How'll we survive ?"Kenta asked.
Kyoya flinched at all their questions... all of them hitting him like a ton... maybe more... of bricks.
What ?
Where ?
How ?
Why was everything his responsibility alone...? Couldn't they think for themselves for once...?
He was the one who was injured...
He was the one who was in so much pain he could barely see straight...
He was exhausted...
He wanted nothing more than to just collapse and close his eyes on the world forever...
He... was being incredibly selfish.
No way... NO WAY the others had a chance of surviving without him... they didn't...
Not Gingka.
Not Tsubasa.
Not Yu.
Not Masamune.
Not Kenta.
And, from what he had seen of him so far, not Zeo, either...
No.
He had to lead them... he couldn't leave them now...
"We keep looking for others who might have... you know..."Kyoya answered Gingka, afraid to even say the word 'survive'.
Gingka nodded in agreement and Kyoya turned to Masamune.
"We'll find a place to go... don't worry. If we lived in the forest, then we can live anywhere..."he reassured him, and Masamune brightened just a tad."And, Kenta..."- the boy looked at him with pleading eyes-"Just leave the whole 'survival' thing to me. I won't let any of you die..."
His little pep talk seemed to have some great effects.
Gingka seemed more relaxed.
Masamune was smiling.
Tsubasa seemed less tense, and Kenta and Yu were looking at Kyoya like he was some sort of royalty or something like that.
Even Zeo was impressed.
"Hmm..."he mused inscrutably.
"Well..."Kyoya said."First things first... we didn't find anyone here, we check the next place... we search Peproméno until we've searched absolutely everywhere. Alright ?"
Zeo's eyes widened in surprise.
"Wait a minute!"he said."Kyoya, was it ? Yeah, searching the entirety of Peproméno ? That could take us all day! And what's to say we'll even find anyone, anyway ?!"
"We have to try..Kyoya said stubbornly."And no one asked YOU to come... you can stay behind, for all I care. But the rest of us are going... right ?"
Zeo bristled at the comment and glared at Kyoya angrily.
"Hey! Just for that little comment, I'm coming, too!"he said.
"Good for you."
"Yeah! It is!"
Kyoya rolled his eyes at Zeo's indignation, about to snap back when he heard a small 'chirp!' to the left of him, followed by a few more.
Everyone glanced to the side to see the little eaglet Tsubasa had been caring for jumping over the wreckage over to it's owner, chirping merrily along the way... and Tsubasa was more than happy to take it into his arms and cradle it.
"I thought you were gone!"he said affectionately, smothering the baby bird with kisses.
Gingka smiled at it.
"You're one lucky fuzzball, you know that, right ?"he asked it.
Zeo just stared at them with his jaw hanging slack and Kyoya smirked at the newest addition to the team.
"One survivor... already found..."he said cockily, turning on his heel and setting off to find anyone else as Zeo struggled to find the right words to say behind him.
Later on that night, however, no one was either smirking nor cocky as they traveled along...
They were exhausted and freezing.
Aside from the little fuzzball, they hadn't found anyone (or anything) left in the warzone that had formerly been Peproméno.
"This is pointless..."Zeo whined as they trudged along... almost reaching the border of the country."There's no one else out here... we can stop looking..."
"We can't..."Kyoya said firmly."If there's even one more person out there, I intend to find them!"
Zeo growled under his breath.
"Yeah, well, sometimes people leave, you know ?"he asked."If there were any survivors they're probably long gone already! Thurs certainly not searching for US!"
"What I'd like to search for is a way to keep you quiet!"Kyoya snapped at him, the Doritos air biting his wounds horribly and sending pain stabbing through his body for what seemed like the millionth time that night.
Kenta and Yu sat down on a piece of rubble and yawned at the same time.
"Kyoya... I'm tired..."Kenta said, his eyelids dropping.
Kyoya tried not to snap at Zeo when the other boy snickered.
"Even your own pals are giving out on you..."he said.
Kyoya bit his lower lip as he hoisted Kenta onto his back in a piggy-back position, where the boy fell asleep in an instant.
"They need their rest..."he defended weakly as Tsubasa slid Yu onto his own back.
"So do we..."Zeo said simply.
Gingka and Masamune looked between the two boys worriedly.
They were tired, but they didn't want to go against Kyoya, either...
They had no idea which side to take.
Luckily, Tsubasa made that call for them.
"Let's just get on the outskirts of Peproméno..."he said."We can sleep when we get there... it's only a few miles away..."
"Fine..."Zeo agreed, and Kyoya nodded slightly in agreement.
Sleep...
It DID sound great...
The group traveled a few miles more in complete quiet until Gingka spoke.
"Look! This is where Asteri Palace used to be!"he exclaimed."All the way on the other side of where we used to live..."
"So close, yet so far..."Masamune said.
Gingka looked at him, surprised.
"Since when did YOU get poetic, Masamune ?"he asked him.
"I didn't. I heard Kenta say it once."came the reply.
"Figures."
"Now... the castles completely gone... except for the crystal..."
"Yeah, Masamune. Guess it really IS unbreakable..."
"Can we get moving ?"Kyoya asked his two, relatively clueless companions."Before it gets too much darker and we can't see where we're going even a little bit ?"
Everyone was quiet once more and nodded as they began to follow Kyoya through the Asteri Palace destruction...
When, all of a sudden, their leaders knees gave out on him and he collapsed to the crystal ruins with a small scream of pain.
"Kyoya!"everyone cried, rushing to his side.
Kyoya winced in pain as the wounds he had received in battle throbbed excruciatingly.
Apparently, carrying Kenta on his back had been too much for his already struggling body to take...
"I TOLD YOU we should have rested before!"Zeo was the first to speak, though no one listened to him.
"Kyoya... are you alright ?"Tsubasa asked, kneeling by his side.
"Y-yeah..."he lied."I'm great..."
"That was some fall you took!"Masamune exclaimed.
"Um... right... don't worry... it won't happen again..."
Gingka looked at Kyoya with raised eyebrows, however, and rubbed his chin suspiciously.
Gingka wasn't a genius by any means... or even smart, maybe... but he knew his friends by heart, because he was loyal to them and took the time to know everything there was to know about them... from how Yu's left eye twitched when he was frustrated... to how Tsubasa liked to eat things quickly so no one would steal them from him... to how Masamune would always laugh before he played a prank (which gave him away a lot of times)... to how Kenta sucked his thumb in his sleep when he was having a nightmare. And the way Kyoya had stumbled wasn't like him... Something other than just tiredness was bothering him... and Gingka thought he knew what it was, too...
But he also knew better than to humiliate Kyoya and make him seem like a wimp in front of everyone by mentioning his injuries... that... and he valued his life...
So, instead, he just skirted the issue easily... but with just enough directness that only Kyoya would get the point.
"I'll carry Kenta from here on out..."Gingka said, causing everyone to look at him with surprise."You've got a lot on your mind without having to carry a little boy on your back... don't you, Kyoya ?"
Kyoya breathed in deeply, then sighed.
He knew Gingka knew what was bothering him.
But to save what little dignity he had left after falling like a weakling, he replied shortly.
"Fine..."
Gingka took Kenta (who, like Yu, was surprisingly still asleep) into his arms as Kyoya struggled to get back to his feet... and when he did... he froze.
"Um... Kyoya ?"Masamune asked."You alright ?"
"Do you smell that ?"Kyoya queried them, to which they all shook their heads 'no'."It's cologne... those types all those rich people put on their hair... the ones we used to smell when we would go past the barber shops... remember ?"
"Umm... no ?"Zeo, who had never been on one of the rest of the group's 'heists' with them, answered simply.
Kyoya rolled his eyes.
"I wasn't talking to you..."he said.
"I remember..."Tsubasa replied.
"Yeah, me, too..."Masamune interjected."But... none of us are wearing any of that stuff..."
"Of course we aren't, you dunce... none of us would be able to afford a spritz of that stuff unless we stole it..."Kyoya responded snippily."But SOMEONE around here IS..."
"But that's impossible!"Masamune stated."You just said we can't afford it, so how can any of us be-OOOOOOOH! You mean-?!"
"Exactly..."Kyoya said."There's got to be someone else around here who IS wearing it! Hurry! Look around!"
Everyone obeyed, kicking and pushing heavy metallo crystal out of the way in an attempt to find whoever they were looking for for about twenty minutes when Zeo finally called to them.
"GUYS! LOOK!"he shouted, grabbing everyone's attention.
"What ?!"Tsubasa asked."Did you find him... or her...?"
"Oh, I found him... AND her..."
"Him... AND her ?"Gingka asked."You found TWO survivors ?"
"No..."Zeo answered, still partially in shock as he stared at those he had found."Seven..."
Chidsengan:Just wanted to wish happy birthday once more to Darknessrules and that this title's chapter translates out to 'No Pain, what Gain ?'. So sorry it wasn't a better gift, but I tried to post it before your B-day was over, and I did! I appreciate you so much and thank you for being there for me and being such a good friend! Now, don't forget your virtual goody bags on the way out, everyone! :D