Chapter 11 - Cruel World


He at least had the strength to walk.

He was not completely dead, but he was not completely alive, so weak that it wore him out quickly but still with the strength to move on his own.
He was not helpless, he was not just a doll that sat in his room all die and let them toy with his body like they had for years.
They didn't tell him when he could or could not see him. He could always see him. He always saw everything.
Hair dragging more than a meter behind him, trailing silently just like the soft and slow footsteps made by his shoes, weighing him down and slowing his already slow decent that went unaltered.
He didn't understand why it was never cut. Why it was never severed from his head, always getting in the way.
Of course, it had been his choice.

Never cut it.

Let it grow.

It wouldn't matter anyway, with the state that his body was in.
A pale hand placed on the wall for a bit of support, his hair dragging behind him down the hall with no other footsteps but his own to be heard.
He was almost there... He did not go down 5 levels of building for nothing, the entire descent a struggle but filled with one desire that carried him forward.
They couldn't keep him from him.
They had learned that the hard way.
Even if kept from him physically, he could always see him with the inhuman eyes he had been born with, that they both had.
It pained him that they kept him around, that his heart was still beating in his chest. You would've thought he be happy that he was still here, that he was still alive in a sense and not completely rid of the world - at first, he had been, but as time passed he rued the day of that he dared see it as a good thing, the day that that incident took place and leaving him the way that he was.
It was unsightly, disgusting, a waste of life.
He should have killed him when he had had the chance, but he had been merely a child - either way, he was unable too now.

Soft pants escaped his paling lips, his eyes set firmly on the hall in front of him and being sure that he knew where he was and where he was going - he, of course, knew very well where he was going.
He had been there a dozen times before, so what difference did this make?
The door opened for him automatically, despite only being able to be open by a Key Card, but those rules had never applied to him from the very beginning.
The darkness welcomed him, something he loved to see rather than the eternal white walls that surrounded him, the blackness that filled his poor excuse for a 'home' at night.
The room was always dimmed, dark with little light to even write down anything on the few pieces of scrap paper that lay about on a few tables and by computers against the walls.
He let out a soft breath, exhaustion evident in the sound of it from the wheezing noise that came out with it - the only thing that truly lit the room was a soft green glow, pleasing to the eyes and just the right color as to not hurt the delicate organs.
A large tank, as it evidently appeared to be, filled to the brim with water that was lit with the color of green that enlightened the darkness of the room, almost oval-shaped if looking from the top, curved around the outside smoothly in glass that was assured never to break from the pressure.
His footsteps were like endless shouts in a wide valley that was forced to carry them around forever, his hair dragging behind him on the floor and likely picking up the few dirt and dust particles that roamed on white metal - it would need to be washed afterwards, but that didn't really matter to him.
His palm pressed against the glass, the only thing separating him from the flood of water that could come bursting through at any moment if the glass was not as pristine and thick as it was.
Of course, it wasn't just the water that it separated him from.

It sickened him, honestly.

It had for years, disgusted him, made him inertly cringe at the thought and sight that he would often see with the power of his own eyes.
His hand pressed flat against the glass, relishing in the coldness that bore through the clear and solid surface like a life line; of course, his body was relatively cold as it was, but compared to the warm atmosphere of his room, it was refreshing, relaxing. Even so, it didn't give him any comfort as to what was on the other side of the glass, what was contained inside the wide tube that wasn't just for show.
Of course, anyone could see that even with just a simple glance there and back.
There was no mercy, there was no hesitation, there was no relief of eternal pain with the fact that he wasn't even alive anymore but for the machine that kept his heart beating in his chest.
He tilted his head forward, his forehead pressing against the glass with his eyes covered by his relatively long bangs that he never really let them cut.
It would never matter if they did or not, his life was never to be very long from the beginning, that had been made perfectly clear in the life that he was born into.
Of course, neither of them had ever been meant to last long...


Tsubasa had made his way back to his office as soon as he could manage after the call that he had gotten notifying him that Kyoya was attempting to get in contact with him.
The entire way there, he had thought hard to himself about what exactly that was so, why Kyoya - even though being an old friend - was trying to contact him now of all times.
They had never really stayed in contact that much, which resulted in the 2 year absence of their communication, and Kyoya also namely had other WBBA corporations to get in contact with in his time of need or for business matters.
He was unsure of what Kyoya could want right now, why he could be calling him at a time like this when he knew that- No.
Kyoya didn't know anything. Nobody outside Madoka, Benkei, himself, and the younger bladers knew anything about what was truly happening.
None of the other Legendary Bladers knew that Dynamis and Gingka were dead, Kyoya didn't know that Hikaru had taken her own life, none of their other and old friends knew that they were all working to find a psychopath that wasn't even remotely human like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
So if Kyoya were calling, Tsubasa knew he wasn't able to blame him for anything.
He had every reason too, but for whatever reason it was truly for he had yet to find out as he stood alone in the elevator, making his way up to his own office to answer Kyoya and hopefully relieve him of whatever reason he was calling for.
Would he ask about Gingka? Would he ask about Hikaru? Would he ask why he was acting so strange, why everything circling around Metal Bey City as of late seemed so odd, why the tournament was postponed for even longer, why it was even put on hold at all?
He had put up the facade of everything actually being fine for the surrounding WBBA Directors, for the entire world, for some of his closest co-workers in the WBBA headquarters, and most of them still had no idea what everything was actually about.

Of course, Sichiro and Ayano knew that Gingka was dead, and knew what they had to do; others that he had sent to surrounding WBBA's knew as well, even if they didn't know the full story of why this was all needed.
He couldn't risk telling everyone in the building, as it might slip out, and something like the death of Gingka Hagane would be sure to travel fast, practically on the other side of the world by morning and causing a major uproar for an explanation.
Tsubasa had worked long and hard as the WBBA Director, succeeding Ryo Hagane years ago and taking his position; he had always known the ups and downs, the consequences of decisions, how vital small choices could be, and how to fool others into false perceptions of who he was or what was happening.
He had worked for the WBBA before he had ever been Director, when he had first met Gingka was still playing the double agent with the Dark Nebula.
Of course, that had been years ago, and even now he didn't know if his years of experience could help him in speaking to Kyoya - Kyoya was very observant, they had all seen that for himself.
He had the eyes of a lion: watchful, dangerous, roaring with the wind that made the tornadoes he worked with in his earlier days. There were things that got past the Leone blader, but not very much as it had almost always seemed. Either way, though quite distant, they were friends.
For Tsubasa, though at times he knew it was necessary, it had always been a little harder to lie to friends.
The silvernette entered his office, everything perfectly neat as it always was with likely a few more scanned profiles of other WBBA personnel waiting for him to look at them - but that was something that he would take care of later, seeing that Kyoya was wishing to speak with him for whatever reason.

Making his way around his desk, the Director sat down for a moment in his chair and picked up the receiver of the phone in the corner, pressing but only a few numbers before ceasing in that action and waiting patiently.
"Hello, Director." Came a voice from the other end, the very same that he had heard on the other side of the line when he had answered his cellphone at the cemetery.
"Tamako, if you would please send Kyoya Tategami through?" The silverette requested.
It was retaliated almost immediately with, "Right away, Director."
Trying to keep himself from wandering away into his thoughts too deeply, Tsubasa hung up the phone and turned stood up, letting out a sigh of weariness that was caused from all that had taken place in the rather eventful month they had gone through.
He placed most of his weight on his hands for a moment as he sat there, his palms flat against the edge of his desk that he was originally so fond of seeing but now saw it as part of the burden that had been placed upon his shoulders, upon everyone's shoulders.
Could they have done anything to prevent all of this from happening? Was there something they had done wrong to cause Alcorin to come after them? Of course, said psychopath had namely just been after Gingka, presenting that with the fact that the redhead had murdered his father 7 years prior, who had been none other than Nemesis.

Fighting against Nemesis had been one thing, but fighting against the offspring who took the form of a mere human man was another.
He could easily be mistaken as human, as they had reasonably done from the simple fact that he looked so much like one. But he wasn't, and that was a fact.
Standing up straight, regaining his posture and gathering the facade and mask that he had had practice in, Tsubasa turned to face the screen behind him that took up a fairly good portion of the wall and did not have to wait long before it clicked on and showed a face that he had not seen in a long time.

His appearance definitely hadn't changed, despite having much more of a manly physic rather than that of a teenager, but still with spiked green hair with bangs that hung over his face, the eternal scars of crosses over his frightening blue eyes that twinkled with a devious glint.
Clad in a beige shirt and light green tie with a silver wrist-watch, he sat in a chair much like his own, one arm placed on the arm of the chair, while the other merely had the elbow on it, not really supporting his head with his fist but still having it near his jaw as he sat behind a brown desk with a few apparent papers off to the side.
Tsubasa stifled a small laugh, a sense of ease coming upon him for the first time in a while upon seeing the face of one of his many old friends that he hadn't seen the face of in years.

"It's been awhile, Kyoya.." The silverette greeted, crossing his arms across his chest.
"2 years.." Kyoya reminded, one of his signature smirks on his face and showing his small fangs that resembled the lion in him, King of Beasts just like he was the Director of his own corporation, "You're still looking pretty good. I see you didn't grow back that hair of yours." Tsubasa smiled slightly.
"You don't look too bad yourself, Kyoya." He said in response, "But I'm going to guess that you calling me isn't just about saying hello, huh?" Kyoya faintly hummed in response, the smirk fading from his lips and being replaced with more of a serious look and crossing his arms across his chest in the very quick turn of subject.
"No, it's not..." The greenette sighed slightly, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again to look into golden ones on the opposite side of a screen, "It's more from curiosity than anything, really, but I just thought that I'd ask..." Tsubasa raised an eyebrow, interested in what Kyoya was so curious about to come to him for answers.
"What about?" The silver-haired Director asked.
"What everybody else is probably asking.." Kyoya went on, eyes locked firmly on Tsubasa's expression on the other side of the screen, "Why exactly you postponed that tournament of yours for such a long time..."

And there it was.

Fortunately, Tsubasa had somewhat expected that maybe Kyoya was calling for that reason, since a lot of people were definitely confused and curious as to why the Bridge To The Future tournament was even brought to a stand still in the first place, let alone why Tsubasa had continued to postpone it for a reason that was not made known to the public or any of the other WBBA Directors around Japan or the world.
It rather made sense that Kyoya would try to ask the man who announced it in the first place, considering that they did know each other rather well from back when Gingka lead the Beyblade generation as a mere teenager.
The silverette simply sighed softly and looked down more towards the ground.
"Yeah, a lot of people have been asking about that." He said, "But I already told the other WBBA Directors what it was about, so there's no real need for concern over it."
Kyoya raised an eyebrow as well, the slightest twitch of a smirk on the edge of his mouth.
"And what is it about, Tsubasa?" The greenette asked, a cunning gleam sparking in his clever blue eyes that could only be recognized as nearly the exact same person from years ago, "I'm pretty sure I'm fairly associated with the WBBA corporations, so what makes me so different from your colleagues?"
Tsubasa sighed softly through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment before looking up from the ground and towards the screen where Kyoya was displayed.

"I don't see what obligates me to answer you, Kyoya." The silverette responded, eagle-like eyes staring into ones that pierced through tornadoes and barriers, "We'll get the tournament going again after we've all settled a few things... I don't know how long it'll take, but it's not anything that we don't have under control."

Lie.

Tsubasa knew that was a lie.

A cold, hard lie that he made not only to Kyoya, but himself, as well as everyone else.

To say that they had ever been in control would be a sin, if lying was indeed that.
Alcorin had been the one pulling at the strings the entire time, and having the rest of them unwillingly do his own bidding for him by thinking that they actually had control of the situation for a split moment.
Of course, he couldn't just say that - it would probably the least logical thing to anyone except for all of them.
Besides, just saying that Gingka was dead was something that would be rather hard to believe or comprehend, since no one would even suspect such a thing - that the tournament's stand-still was caused by the death of Gingka Hagane.

"Huh.." Kyoya said, leaning back in his chair a bit with a small smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth, "Well, if you have it all under control, then I don't see why you have to seem so secretive about it..."

"Having it under control means that it's not something that you should be worrying about." Tsubasa retorted, keeping his patience in check and his barriers up, "I already made it clear with the other WBBA Directors. I'll have the tournament up and going as soon as I can manage, I just don't know when... Either way, it doesn't matter why I postponed it, it'll be back eventually."
There were several moments of silence that fell upon the 2 of them. Light blue staring into golden-brown, both sets of orbs seeming to try to either find something or block something out, a moment of silence that spoke more than words were ever able too.
It was only what after seemed like hours did Kyoya grunt with a small smirk on his face, breaking eye contact by closing his eyelids and taking on a more lax posture.

"Well, I guess if you insist.." The greenette said cleverly, opening his eyes once more, "I'll be looking forward to seeing who becomes Japan's Representatives, so I hope you don't plan on having your own business taking to long."
Tsubasa chuckled softly, though only through his nose while a small smile made its way onto his lips.
"We'll see." He said simply, "Next time, let's not put 2 years in between conversations, as well."

"Deal." Kyoya agreed, "See you then." A small smile crossed Kyoya's lips, showing his fanged teeth before cutting off the connection with WBBA Director.
It was only then did Tsubasa let out a breath that he had been unaware that he was holding, which was strange since it seemed like he had been breathing fine.
Turning a bit, he slumped back into his chair, the tension in the room seeming to have lifted now that Kyoya had cut off the connection with him and gone back to do whatever it was that he did.
Hopefully he had been able to play it off well enough for Kyoya not to suspect anything, unless he already did.
Of course, he had no way of telling for sure - despite being well trained in this sort of thing, he knew that not a lot of things could really get past Kyoya.
Either way, he could try and make it past his friend's suspicions, even if it didn't do much in the end. Tsubasa looked towards the clock on his desk, seeing that it was 4:07.
Sichiro and Ayano should be coming back from their trip to Tokyo with the orders that he had given them, hopefully with something that would be able to calm his weary mind - of course, that wasn't very likely...


Kyoya tapped his fingers on the wood of his desk simply moments after he had cut off the connection with Tsubasa at the WBBA headquarters in Metal Bey, seeming to be thinking to himself as his blue eyes narrowly stared at the opposite end of his desk.
The sound of the automatic doors opening reached his ears, but he didn't look up to see who it was - other things were on his mind that didn't really involve whoever came into his office.

Well, unless it was-

"Big brother, I have some paperwork for you." Came a voice that Kyoya recognized all too well.

Yes, him, of course.

His little brother, Kakeru, who worked side by side with him as his right-hand.
Looking up from his desk, Kyoya's blue eyes landed on ones that were much like his own, his younger brother looking exceedingly like him with no mistake of them being related.
Of course, one didn't have to have the sense of sight to tell that the two of them were brothers, from how similar they were.

"Thanks, Kakeru." Kyoya greeted, entwining his fingers on top of his desk and putting them in front of him as his younger brother set the papers down on his desk, leaving him with the rather large tablet that he usually carried around with him for his work, "Who's it from this time?"

"Italy." Kakeru answered, "I checked them over before I brought them to you. It has something to do with their increasing low in prophet for any of their Bey Parks and such that they have around Rome." Kyoya hummed in understanding, remaining silent for a moment as he eyed the papers that Kakeru had placed on his desk in a neat stack before closing eyes and looking away from them.
"I'll see to it." The CEO declared, straightening up a bit in his seat, "They ought to be more interesting than what dear old Tsubasa had to say to me." Kakeru looked at his elder brother with a raised eyebrow, a look of confusion and interest on his still rather young features.
"Director Otori?" The younger greenette questioned, recognizing the name that he had heard several times from his brother, around the building, and from the news, "When did you talk to him?"

"Just now." Kyoya answered, the smallest twitch of a smile on his lips, "For the first time in about 2 years, I might add. Questioned him on why exactly he postponed the Bridge To The Future tournament, but he said he had it under control. Didn't much answer my question though." Kakeru's face lit up slightly at the mention of the famed BTF tournament that was said to be making one of the biggest decisions of the Beyblade era.
"Oh, I've watched the tournament with the few battles that they had." The right-hand said, "I've been waiting to find out who's going to be Japan's Representatives, but no go so far. I hope they start it up again soon." Kyoya grunted softly, with Kakeru could recognize as a sound of agreement - of course, it always depended on what kind of sound Kyoya's few grunts made that really signified his emotion or words.
"That makes just about everyone." The elder greenette acknowledged, "But I've had my little chat with him, and it almost sounds like Tsubasa might be hiding something.. My guess, is that it has something to do with why he brought the tournament to a stand-still in the first place." Kakeru, slightly interested, looked at his older brother with a slightly confused look on his face.
"And why do you think that?" He asked. "He seemed a little secretive on the subject." Kyoya answered, "Of course, I guess he doesn't have to explain it to me, either way. But we'll see how it goes whenever he starts the tournament up again. Now, what did you say that Italy wanted, exactly?"
Putting on a small smile and looking towards his tablet for a moment while sliding his fingers across it, Kakeru explained to his elder brother the business they had with the topic country...


There had been voices.

Voices from an unidentifiable source that she had tried to spot, tried to see just to feel some sort of comfort that she knew where they were coming from, knowing that they were coming from somewhere nearby and not just from within the depths of her cranium.

But there had been nothing around her.

Nothing, and no one.

The world around her being crumpled away by shadows, shadows that threatened to swallow her whole with the voices that invaded her mind, rang in the back of her head and caused her temples to ache, only for it all to stop and the world seeming to come back before it happened again.
Inaudible words protruding from the back of her skull, echoing through and her head and forcing her to listen.
Bringing her hands up to her ears, pushing on them with force unimaginable as if she were trying to crush her own skull with her bare hands, but it did nothing to keep the constant vocals in her head from intruding.
She would've pounded her head against a wall, against the ground, if she had been able to, if she had been able to function properly with the voices that tortured her, seemed to call to her.
There were no audible words, though maybe there had been, maybe she hadn't heard them.
She screamed at them, screamed in a voice that she could barely even hear as if her throat had gone dry and her speech hoarse, unable to hear herself as she was plagued by the voices, by the shadows that crawled up her legs and pulling at her stockings, pulled at the edges of her jacket and tried to swallow her whole.

She pulled away, threw them off, ran to nowhere (But was she actually running?...) with no sense of direction.

Her legs felt numb, but she hadn't felt them at all in the first place, had she?
Something calling out to her, distracting her from something, tormenting her inside of her own head with a mere voice that taunted, mocked, called, screamed, refused to leave her alone.

Stop it...

Stop talking...

Leave me alone...

Darkness, pulling at the world around her, a world that was blurry and unable to be made out, everything crumbling away from the shadows that chased her, but she still chased after it.
She wanted to be somewhere where there were no voices in her head, nothing calling out to her and pulling at her, where no one would call her crazy.

She wasn't crazy.

She wasn't. She wasn't.

But the voice in her head could always say otherwise.


Ren jolted awake from her state of uneasy slumber, a soft and strangled gasp escaping her, apparently, already open lips as she lay on her back, luscious brown eyes staring up towards the dark ceiling of the hotel room.
It was hot.
Of course, it was the middle of the summer, so why wouldn't it be? Her heart beat fast in her chest, her body drenched in a cold sweat that made her bangs stick her forehead, her nightdress coating her skin under the blankets like a vinyl suit, her blonde hair splayed out across the pillows that she was currently sharing with Madoka and Maru in the same hotel bed, seeing as how there were only 2.
Kite and Eight were sleeping in the other bed, while Zyro, Benkei, Shinobu, and Kira were in a room across the hall from them, likely sleeping the night away peacefully in the hot summer heat that beat down on the Earth.
Breathing hard, Ren sat up in bed, being sure that she hadn't awoken anyone with her sudden panic from slumber - but all of them were asleep.
Kite and Eight had evidently kicked off the covers, now just sleeping on the mattress while the fan whirred around on the ceiling.
Even so, it didn't really seem to do much for her as the sweat covered her skin, soaking through her beige nightgown that made it stick to her skin.
Her hair didn't feel that much better, thick with sweat as she ran her hand through it, trying to get her heart to stop beating so rapidly from the nightmare she had awoken from.

"Was it really just a nightmare?..." Ren wondered, thinking to herself while calming herself down and reminding herself that this was reality.
This was real, and her dreams were not.
Her dreams were just a mixed up world of this and that, on an entirely different plane that didn't really exist, the closest thing to death that the living had.

This was real.

Ren leaned forward, her back aching a bit from the stiffness of sleep and burying her face in her hands.
He mind went back to that day that she had battled Genjuro in the BTF tournament, where she had started the battle and had been about to unleash a winning attack before she woke up in a hospital bed, apparently the next morning.
She had no recollection of what happened, except for hearing some voice that she couldn't recognize, that she was still unable to identify.
The memory was hazy, but it was all that she had. Zyro and the others had had to explain to her what had happened as she had battled Genjuro, a scenario that she still couldn't remember; they had said she had started looking around frantically, yelling at thin air and appearing to be screaming at someone, but nobody had been around her.
It was because of that did she lose, Genjuro's attack being strong enough to knock her out of the stadium and send her to the hospital with minor injuries.
She had been submitted for a possible head injury, which had indeed been caused by her impact on the glossed-over pavement of the arena, though it hadn't been anything too serious that involved her staying longer than a few days.

But that voice stayed etched into her skull, forever in her memory as something that haunted her, mocked her often in her sleep that lead to restless nights.
Ren was never able to lucidly hear the voice in her dreams, she couldn't hear what it was saying, and she could barely hear what it sounded like, but it tormented her self-conscious nonetheless. Sighing into her hands, Ren sat up straight once more, her eyes now adjusted to the darkness and able to see around the room - though there wasn't that much to see, really.
She knew that she should get some sleep, seeing as how they were leaving for Kasama in the morning once they were all up and ready, which would definitely be another long walk down by the roadside.
But if meant catching Alcorin, the man who had taking control of her body and mind without her consent or her knowledge and made her fight her own friends, than it was more than worth it.
Laying her head back down on the pillows, getting her body into a comfortable position on her side, Ren stared at the wall aimlessly as though willing herself into sleep through her thoughts and leaving her eyes open but glazed over the entire night.
That didn't happen with her, though.
Hair thick with sweat, body covered in it from head to toe, Ren closed her eyes and tried to rest for the night - even if it meant being plagued by the terrors that were her common dreams.

Ayumi had always been the one to comfort her after a nightmare... But her older sister wasn't here. She hadn't been for years, because she had said that the world partially depended on her with the job that she had, that she couldn't help the world be any better if she didn't leave the place that she had grown up in along with her dear little sister.
That basically just told her that her job was more important than the flesh and blood that looked up to her as a role model, that loved her unconditionally.
But Ayumi had simply said that by moving away to South Korea for her job, she could help the world become better in some sort of aspect; which meant helping Ren as well.
"One hell of a world you believe in, Ayumi..." Ren thought to herself bitterly, before she passed on into unconscious with the unrelenting heat.