(A/N) I wrote this chapter at around 2 in the morning a few nights ago, when I was seriously lacking sleep. Just, you know, keep that in mind.

Disclaimer- I don't own Beyblade or any of the beyblade characters. However all OCs are owned by me and are not to be stolen (though I know nobody has that intention)

Up in the second spare bedroom, in the right wing of the Hiwatari mansion, sat a red-head in his bed, far away from the land of dreams. He had barely tried, but knew it was hopeless. There was no way he would be getting to sleep any time soon. He wondered if Raisa or Kai were asleep aswell. Kai wouldn't be, he could bet on it. Kai would be as wide awake as he was, probably pacing in one of his many rooms, trying to decide something which he knows nothing about.

No, nobody knew, but Tala was pretty certain he knew who those men were that attacked the party, and burned down Raisa's house. He knew exactly who they were, and that what they were after. It was him. It was revenge.

In a slight sense of panic and guilt, Tala jumped from the bed and began to get dressed. Going for the nearest outfit he could find, his hand clasped around the expensive material of the shirt he had been wearing only a couple of hours ago. He was midway through pulling it on when he paused. No, he thought, this doesn't belong to me. The shirt was Kai's, and Tala was not one to steal. Besides, he didn't want to saunter out wearing something so fancy and expensive.

After folding the shirt neatly and placing it back on the bed, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Going around the room shoving everything into his bag, he thought of all the damage he had done in the short time he had been around. Kai hadn't taken much to him showing up in the first place, and he had managed to endanger Kai's life even further.

And Raisa. Well, he barely even knew her, and managed to have her family home burned to the ground. There was nothing that could justify it; though she had no idea it was linked to him, Tala knew he was solitarily responsible. That alone was enough to make him feel twice as bad as he would if she knew. He sighed and shook his head, no wonder he always had such difficulty making friends. He was never in the same place for long before having to split, destroying something in possession of somebody else in the process. Trying to just be a good person and stay out of the way was proving to be difficult.

But soon enough that wouldn't matter. By tomorrow, his new friend and his old friend would be left in peace, or as much peace as they were in before. At least for a while. The extra cause for trouble would be gone soon, and they could go back to being under Voltaire's control.

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he made his way to the window and opened it wide. The biting wind howled and pricked at his skin, but he beard with it and, resisting against the snow, leaned out slightly to catch sight of the ground beneath. Taking the indoor stairs was too risky; Kai would certainly catch him, which was the last thing he wanted.

He looked down again. The ground was soft, but he was quite high up. The drainpipe ran down past the window to the first floor, and from there he could try to climb down the vines that crawled up one side of the giant house.

Taking in breath, he lifted his bag to throw it down first, before a realisation came to him. He tried to think it over for a few minutes, but the cold was distracting.

'Shit.' He muttered, closing the window louder than was wise, and slumping himself down on the sill, back against the cold glass.

He couldn't do it. No matter how much he was to blame, he couldn't bring himself to walk away. What kind of a person was he to just cause damage and then walk away to let the victims pick up the pieces? If he was going to leave, he should have done weeks before, but now was a foolish time to run away. Kai and Raisa wouldn't see it as being helpful, they would see it as betrayal, and cowardice. Which is what it was, no matter what he tried to disguise it as in his mind. He was doing them no favours by leaving now, he owed them his nothing but support.

Throwing down his bag to the floor in a slight state of frustration, Tala threw himself back on to the oversized bed and unsuccessfully tried once more to get some sleep.

When Kai drove in through the double doors of the garage which was about the size of the average house, he was exhausted and far from pleased. After all, walking all the way back to the location they had been in hours ago to retrieve a vehicle can prove to be rather tiring. With the sole objective of escaping for their lives, Kai had been forced to leave his precious black jaguar at the Prestifilippo mansion. Anyone other than Kai Hiwatari would have had a cab drive them to the mansion, but after paying the other cab driver to bring them home, Kai had been short of cash and wasn't in the mood to spend tedious time ignoring feeble attempts at small talk with a driver.

Kai walked slowly around his pride and joy, scanning every inch of it for the slightest of damages. There was a small dent in the hood, and a stain of some kind on one of the doors, but nothing too drastic, he was glad to see. The house, outside which he had left his car, had been a wreck. He was sure the Prestifilippos had stayed put, but there was some serious repair that would need doing.

He had also, mainly out of his incurable curiosity, made sure to drive past Raisa's family home, where they had been only a few hours ago. He hadn't stopped, for fear of looking suspicious, but from the road he had only seen a wreck. The flames had stopped by then and the fire fighters had departed from the scene. All that remained was a black ruin, partially hidden amongst the night sky. He doubted anything had managed to survive the fire.

He found that thinking about it made him angry. That fire had been no accident. He had seen the man, holding up Raisa's shoe and making the assumption that they were dead, he had run after their car. But it was no use and they had escaped. Kai tried to muster his thoughts, but couldn't find much of an explanation. He knew Tala had something to do with it, that was all. Tala had forewarned them that they were the ones those men were after, and it had nothing to do with the Prestifilippos. And yet somehow, Raisa's parents had known it was coming. They had made plans to escape, and hadn't made any attempt to warn their daughter that her life could be in danger. Kai couldn't piece together the puzzle, and could only think of one way to satisfy his curiosity at the moment. He could pester Tala, but why do that when the suspected source was so near by? Why, he was even in the same building.

Letting himself in with his spare key, he found himself plunged into complete darkness. Kai inwardly heaved a sigh of relief with realisation that no servant would be awake this late. This would make sneaking around an awful lot easier.

'Boris, the Luinwe house was reported to be up in flames three hours ago.' Kai could hear that there was an edge to Voltaire's tone as he spoke to the screen. He was about to speak again when he was cut off.

'Yes, of course. I sent my men after them, having seen them escape from the Prestifilippo house.'

'What of the Prestifilippos?'

Kai Boris frown slightly in concentration before responding 'As far as I know, they're fine.'

'Good,' Voltaire abruptly concluded. 'The last thing we want is any suspicions linking them to the Luinwe's.'

'But sir,' Boris began, seemingly agitated that Voltaire appeared to be missing the point entirely. 'Does it not please you that my men were able to finish off their job as I promised? At least, I'm almost certain. There's no way they could have survived the-'

He appeared to have been stammering out of uncertainty, but Voltaire cut him off in an agitated voice. 'If it's my grandson and the Luinwe daughter you're talking about, I have reason to believe that both returned home safely several hours ago.'

Kai stepped sideways and disappeared from view for a few seconds, taken aback by his grandfathers knowledge of their safe return. Also a bit of a shock, but not really surprising, Kai now knew that Boris's men had been the people who crashed the party, and had burned down Raisa's house. He also knew now, that his grandfather had sent them. Obviously these plans his grandfather had been working on involved him, and were being carried out far sooner than he had expected. Though no longer looking into the room, Kai could still hear Voltaire, getting increasingly angry with each word he spoke.

'And for that matter, I don't know what voice in your head told you it would be a bright idea to burn down the entire mansion. If I had wanted them dead, I would have done it myself. Now all thanks to you, Boris, the Luinwe's have escaped and on top of that, suspicions will be high. I ensure you, my grandson is no idiot, he will have it figured out very soon.'

Kai half chuckled and half growled at his grandfather's correctness. Despite how hard he tried to let nobody get to know him properly, the one person who did was sure to be Voltaire. Finding his courage, he peered back through the gap in the door.

'There's something else,' Boris suddenly retorted. The next thing he said made Kai hold his breath for a moment, before realising they weren't talking about him. Though, after realising who they were talking about, his eyes grew slightly wider. 'The boy's escaped.'

The anger disappeared for a moment and instead curiosity took over Voltaire's voice 'What boy?'

'Tala, he's gone. He broke into the lab and destroyed everything he found. Almost none of it was important, mind you, old experiments and researches. But he broke away, and…' he paused for a moment, irritation rising in his voice. '…and somebody reported sighting him at the Prestifilippo house tonight.'

This didn't have quite the dramatic effect on Voltaire that Boris had hoped. He made the all too familiar Hiwatari 'hm' noise and frowned even more at his business partner's incompetence.

Boris continued, more to himself than anybody else 'I swear, when I find him he will have hell to pay for what he's done…'

'Boris,' Voltaire interjected with force, having had just about enough. 'The boy you speak of has been living in my house under the wing of Kai for the past month.'

Both Kai and Boris were startled this time. Though while Boris was free to let out an enraged 'What!?', Kai could only gape at his grandfather's profile from the hallway.

'A-are you sure?' came the stutter from the laptop.

Suddenly the image of Boris disappeared momentarily, and Kai saw, much to his horror, images of the different areas of his house flash across the screen, from the point of view of some tiny hidden camera implanted in the corner of each room. The deserted hall, deserted sitting room, the servant girl scuttling around the kitchen, wiping down the counter-tops. Then the landing, also deserted. Raisa's room where she lay asleep in her bed, and finally Tala's room, where he seemed to be sitting on the window sill, still fully clothed. Kai could only stare, exasperated, as he learned the truth, the reason his grandfather knew everything that went on in the right wing of the mansion. Kai had the sudden urge to throw something, but resisted the temptation, and decided it would be best to leave when he realised Voltaire wouldn't be able to locate him anywhere, and that would cause suspicion.

Turning slowly to leave, Kai heard Boris' growling voice once more 'So, that's where he's been hiding. Well, believe me, when I have him back he'll be sorry he ever tried to be rid of me.'

Sneaking carefully down the hall, careful to not make a sound, Kai played over and over again in his mind the conversation he had just heard. The night had basically just been explained to him, though he still didn't know Voltaire's plans. He did know something though, action had to be taken, and immediately.

Ignoring the yawn, he made his way back into his own half of the mansion. No matter how much he needed it, there would be no sleep tonight.

(A/N) Ah, chapter 10 done. Only 13 more chapters left.

I will probably take a short break in writing this for now, and continue with 'Do Svi Danya' until I get to chapter 10 with that one. I am quite determined to get this story finished, despite how little popularity it gets. I thought of discontinuing it, and might still do that, but we haven't even reached the part where the story begins to get interesting yet.

So, I suppose we'll call this the intermission. And for now, it's on hold.