Title: This is How We Fall Apart

Author: PandaPjays

Beta-Reader: Kishazi

Warnings: See Chapter 1

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1

Author's Note: Sorry once again for the delay ^^ I hope you enjoy.

It's amazing how incredibly bright light is when you haven't seen it for a while. I'd been in that room for what felt like an eternity of darkness with nothing else to do apart from contemplate how I really couldn't see my own hand in front of my face and how the tone of the grating sound changed once every thirty-four rounds to a slightly duller screech.

Well, that and think about Tala's face when I had turned on him.

I held it together until I was out of That Man's sight. Then I stumbled. I couldn't see where I was going and, despite having forced myself to exercise in that room, my body was telling me that I hadn't attempted to walk this far in a long time and that it didn't appreciate my trying now. I reached out to feel the wall beside me and sunk into a crouch, burying my face in my knees and willing my eyes to adjust faster.

My eyes weren't the only thing suffering. After hearing only that noise for so long, the world was a loud shout of sound. Closing my eyes only intensified the effect. There was the buzzing of whatever air filtering and conditioning system they had thrumming at the base of it. Over that, the occasional sounds of footsteps as they walked through the corridor, some even walking straight past me. The echoing sounded like gunshots to my ears. And the hum of people's voices buzzing up and around all of that. It was all too much.

But after so long it was also simply glorious because it meant I had survived.

I opened my eyes slowly, wincing as the light once again invaded them. But this time I could make out dull shapes. I used the wall beside me to help as I slowly stood again. I knew the way out. I could make it. I needed to make sure Tala was okay.

Somehow I struggled through the twisting maze of corridors to get back to the dormitory and our shared room. It took me a long time and when I got there I could see colours again. My vision was still fuzzy but the world made sense again.

I knocked on the door to announce my presence before reaching for the handle. My fingers weren't quite working the way I wanted them to and after two attempts of trying to grab the handle, it twisted by itself and the door was opened for me.

I blinked and looked up, expecting to see Tala. Instead, there was a boy about my age that I'd never seen before. He glared at me with dark red eyes underneath a shock of blue hair. I stared at him for a few seconds, confused before looking past him and into the room.

"Kai, what are you—" Tala's voice abruptly stopped as he came into view. His leg was still bandaged and he was using a crutch to help him move. His skin, however, was mostly unmarked. So I'd been in the room for long enough for his superficial injuries to heal but not long enough for his leg to do the same.

"Bryan..." Tala whispered, fear and hurt in his voice. He flinched at my assessing gaze.

Kai's eyes narrowed in recognition of my name. He moved the door to block Tala from my gaze. "Your room's down the hall. Piss off." He shut the door in my face.

I stared dumbly at the door for a few minutes, trying to work what had just happened. I was no longer in the same room as Tala. That Man had probably seen to that. And Tala didn't want to see me. I had definitely seen to that.

I put my hand on the door, trying to will Tala to know how sorry I was. Maybe it was the time in the room sending my brain a little addled but I swore I could feel… something. I glanced up to see the name plate beside the door. Underneath Tala's name where mine used to be was a new one.

Kai Hiwatari.

Any stupid feeling I'd had about Tala accepting my apology disappeared. I had been replaced.

I staggered down the hallway, scanning the rooms until I came to one with my name on it. There was no other name next to it. Just mine.

It was rare for anyone in that place to get a room to themselves. In fact, I didn't think I'd ever seen it happen. That's not to say that beds weren't frequently empty. Just that everyone had their place and should something happen and they stopped needing it, someone would replace them.

I opened the door wonderingly.

If I was expecting anything special I was sorely disappointed. It was the same layout as the room I had shared with Tala: two beds on either side with a narrow gap between them and storage space underneath them. Except that this was all mine.

And all I could think was that I would rather be with Tala, lying on our beds with him telling me everything that had happened in my absence. I closed the door behind me with a click as I surveyed my surroundings. Tala had always made our room feel like a kind of sanctuary, like our refuge from the rest of that hellhole.

This was nothing like that. I looked around at the walls surrounding me and felt my breath get faster. The rooms had never felt so small before. I could taste the staleness of the air common to every small space. The walls loomed over me, slowly but surely creeping in. I could feel the air begin to thin out as the walls came closer and closer. This time they weren't going to let me go. Not this time. This time the room was going to keep me.

I scrabbled for the doorknob behind me, my eyes wide as I watched the room get smaller and smaller. My fingers got the handle but were too sweaty to get a proper grip. I tried again with more success, bursting out of the room. My breathing was ragged as I ran. I didn't care where I was going. I just needed to get out. I needed to see the sky. I needed—

My legs gave out on me and I fell, ploughing into the slippery floor of the hallway. If I had had trouble walking earlier, this was something else entirely. They had completely given up working. I pulled myself to the side of the hallway, trying to will my breathing to slow down. But the more I thought about anything, everything, the more I began to panic.

White spots began to swim in front of my eyes and I could feel my heart constricting in my chest. I needed to escape. I needed to get out of this building. The walls were going to swallow me and take me back to that place. I couldn't go back to that room. I couldn't— I needed to get out. I needed—

"Shit! Bryan!"

I felt someone grab my shoulders. My world had reduced to flashes of lights in front of my eyes. I can remember registering through the panic that I wasn't getting enough air. Despite the rate at which I was breathing I couldn't feel it. I had survived That Man's game only to end up dying in a hallway, too terrified to move to save myself.

A hand pressed into my stomach. "Breathe, Bry." A voice said urgently. "Take a deep breath and try to push out my hand. "

Obligingly I followed the voice's instructions, taking in a deep lungful of air. I could have cried with relief as that horrible feeling of suffocation eased a little.

"Good, now let it go slowly."

I closed my eyes and nodded, releasing the air in one long hiss. I sucked in another breath and opened my eyes to see my saviour. The world came into a hazy vision and I felt an instant headache begin to form. The image of a huge blond crouching over me faded in. Spencer.

"Sp—" I tried, shocked into silence at how weak my voice sounded.

"Don't say anything. Just breathe again," he ordered.

I did as he said, closing my eyes as I felt the cool air filling my lungs. The walls couldn't close in if Spencer was there. They wouldn't do it when I wasn't alone.

Nevertheless. "Outside," I gasped with my next breath.

He frowned. "Outside? You want to go outside?" he asked. I gave him a wordless nod. He regarded me quietly for a second before sighing and inclining his head. "Okay. Just keep breathing."

He slipped an arm underneath my shoulders and hoisted me up, taking the majority of my weight with one strong arm.

"Thank you." I managed as we stumbled together down the hallway towards the nearest exit.

He gave me a wordless grunt as we reached the door to the outside and he opened it with his free arm and his shoulder.

That first breath of the clear, bright air of the outside will always count as one of my best memories. Outside there was nothing that could catch me. I was free. I took a few deep, fortifying breaths, feeling the freezing terror that had gripped every limb slowly dissipate. In its wake was a shaky weakness but even that was preferable.

We were on one of the few patches of grasses that struggled to survive within the grounds of that place. When Spencer let me go I gratefully braced myself against the building and slid down to sit on the ground. I had forgotten how good being outside could feel. I stared up at the night-time sky, marvelling how I could have forgotten what it looked like. I felt my friend sit down next to me. "Spencer—"

"Fuck you, Bryan." Spencer's eyes were distant, looking out on to the wall that surrounded our home. No expression crossed his face. About a minute passed before he sighed. "Why?" he asked, still refusing to look at me.

I looked down at my hands, noting with distaste how the shook with the last vestiges of adrenaline. There was no question about what he was talking about. "If I didn't Tala would have died."

"So you tried to kill him yourself?"

"Better some bruises and broken bones than a bullet." I clasped my hands together, forcing them to stop shaking.

Spencer scoffed. "Whatever. I saw the look on your face when you were doing it. You had the same look on your face as when you beat the stuffing out of those other kids. You were enjoying it."

I snarled and looked over at Spencer, ready to attack. I was stopped by the implacable look on his face. It was a look that brokered no argument.

"You didn't have to clean him up after his best friend betrayed him," Spencer's voice had descended into a dangerous calm. "You didn't have to see that."

"But I—"

"Stay away from him." Spencer ordered. "Stay away from us."

"Then why did you just help me?" I challenged. "You could have just ignored me."

Spencer scoffed and fixed me with a look. "Because I'm not like you, Bryan. I can still feel something." He stood up and brushed off his pants. "Don't mistake this as anything more than it is."

"Wait—" I searched frantically for words. "Can you— Will you— Please tell him that I'm sorry," I said eventually. "I'll leave you all alone, if that's what you want, but can you do that for me?"

"No." Spencer turned and walked a few steps before adding quietly, "I will never forgive you for what you did."

He left, disappearing back into the building before I had the chance to reply.

I sighed and turned back to stare out at the sky. I shouldn't have expected anything else, really. That didn't stop it from feeling like someone had just ripped something vital away from me. Something that I was never going to get back.

I tilted my head back, feeling it hit the wall with a kind of masochistic satisfaction. Was Spencer right? Had the part of me that felt things died? I frowned. That couldn't be true. Otherwise I wouldn't be feeling like this. And I still definitely had the capacity to hate. Not all my feelings were gone. Not yet, anyway.

I stayed there for a few hours, staring up at the stars and trying to convince myself that the world extended beyond the room. That darkness was not always all-encompassing.

Eventually, I stood up and prepared myself to go back inside. I had been lucky so far; I hadn't been found by a guard. But now I needed to return to my room. I took a few deep breaths of the fresh air and sent one last look over my shoulder at the sky before I walked back into the building.

Immediately the walls began looming over me again. This time I didn't have Spencer with me to help. He didn't want anything to do with me. None of my former team mates wanted anything to do with me. I set my eyes forward and forced myself to not look. The walls weren't closing in. They were just walls. I could go outside at any time. I didn't need to be worried.

I opened the door to my room with white-knuckles as I tried to control the fear that threatened to take over. When I closed the door I could easily open it up again. I wasn't trapped. I was about as safe as I would ever be. I closed the door behind me and picked the bed on the right, Tala's side. I curled up on the mattress and closed my eyes, ignoring the cold of the wall reflecting on my face and reminding me exactly how close I was to being swallowed again.

I think the only thing that saved me from having another attack that night was the dominating emotion of loss. That Man had taken away my only link to normality. What would I become without Tala? I knew I didn't have the ability to hold on without him. I couldn't do this alone.

With those thoughts filling my head, I fell into a restless sleep.

-o-

I was woken by the sound of my door being opened.

"Get up."

I opened my eyes and waited for them to adjust. A guard was standing at my door with an impatient expression on his face.

"Get up," he repeated, "He wants to see you."

That got my attention. I sat up and rubbed my hand over my face, willing myself to awareness. If That Man wanted me there was no avoiding it. I had hoped that he would leave me alone for a while. I had hoped that I had disappointed him enough to stop paying attention to me. At least for a few days. A week wasn't too much to ask, was it? A week to recover from my ordeal. A week to get over the feeling that I would never see the sky again, a week to firmly establish that there was a world of sound outside the room.

The guard grabbed my shoulder and pulled me roughly to my feet. "Move."

I acted on automatic, snarling and grabbing his arm, using it to pull him forward and knee him in the stomach. "Don't touch me." I hissed at him before letting him go.

The guard doubled over, clutching his stomach. I looked down at him for a second before pushing him aside roughly and walking past him. I knew where I was going.

"Kuznetsov!"

I paused and looked over my shoulder at the guard who'd straightened but still had a protective arm over his middle. He froze when he saw the look in my eyes, any hint of a challenge giving way to fear.

I smirked and turned away again, stalking down the hallway. If they wanted me like this they could pay for it. I caught sight of Tala standing near the door of our former room. He watched me with a blank expression, the one everyone in that place learned quickly as a form of self-protection. It was only because I'd spent so long with him that I could see the glint of fear in his eyes, the way he subtly pressed himself against the wall, using his crutch to help wedge him there a bit more sturdily.

Our eyes met for a second before he looked down and away. He didn't want anything to do with me. Not anymore.

I scowled and continued watching him as I walked past, daring him to meet my eyes again, daring him to admit to the friendship we no longer had.

I made my way to That Man, forcing myself to remain calm. If he threw me back in that room I wouldn't survive. I knew that already. If I went back into that dark hole I wouldn't be coming out— I'd kill myself before the door had even properly closed. He'd win but it was better than the alternative. At least I would have escaped.

I presented myself to That Man with these dark thoughts swirling around my head, working out the exact way I would escape.

"Kuznetsov," he said, fixing me with an amused look. It looked like he knew exactly what I was thinking and he was laughing at me for it. "Where is the guard I sent?"

"Does it matter?" I asked, darkly. "I'm here now."

That Man chuckled and stood, walking over to me slowly.

I balled my fists and forced myself to stay calm. He couldn't touch me. I knew how to get away from him now. He couldn't hurt me anymore.

The blow across my face sent me sprawling. I lay on the ground for a few seconds, waiting for the stars to clear from my eyes before slowly pushing myself to my feet again. I ran a hand over the side of my face gingerly as I watched him.

He was flexing his hand thoughtfully as he met my gaze. "That wasn't what I wanted to hear," he said mildly, walking over to where I stood and regarding my with both a dispassionate and a proprietary look. "Try again."

I couldn't hold his gaze. I didn't want to see what was in those eyes. I didn't want to see that small glow of pride and ownership. "I dismissed him, Sir. I didn't need an escort."

"Better." I was unprepared for his cold hand taking hold of my face, fingers digging into the quickly-forming bruise he'd just created. "And what gave you the right to do that?"

I couldn't help myself, I cried out at the pain. His fingers had found the most painful spot and were digging into it cruelly. I squirmed until he let go, putting his hands behind his back as he looked down at me. "I'm waiting for an answer, Kuznetsov."

"Nothing," I said quietly, my words almost a mumble.

"What?"

My hand came up to gently rub my abused face, running over it both a comforting and protective gesture. "I had no authority to do that, Sir," I tried in a slightly louder voice.

"Wrong." He passed his judgement like an executioner on high. He hit me again, across the same spot. When I fell he kicked me in my side, making me yell out and curl in on myself, trying to make myself as small as possible. "Try again."

I fought for breath as I pushed myself up again, mind racing. What did he want me to say? What authority over the guard did I have? None at all. But—

His foot caught me in my side and I fell again with a yelp. "Too slow. Tell me what gave you the right?"

I didn't bother trying to get up, preferring to stay as low to the ground as possible. "I was—" I was what? I was angry? I didn't want him to touch me? I was proving Spencer right? "I was better than him," I said, a hardness in my voice that I never knew I had. I pushed myself to my feet slowly, feeling the familiar warmth of anger and violence running through my veins giving me strength. "I was stronger than him and I didn't need him leading me anywhere."

That Man's mouth twisted into a sick grin. "Correct." He waited for me to catch my breath before inclining his head towards the door. "Come with me."

I followed him obediently, one hand resting on my side where his foot had landed. Before I would have simply ignored it until I saw Tala again and gotten his opinion and help. Now, I considered how I was going to stop the shooting pain radiating through my body without his help.

We began walking through some corridors and I felt my breath catch in my throat. This was the same way to the room. But I thought I had done well? What had I done to deserve going back in there? How was I going to take myself out if I could barely move?

He turned a corner and led me down a set of hallways I had never seen before. If I dared to, I would have let out a sigh of relief. Instead, I began looking around myself curiously. It looked like a scientific wing but not like anyone I'd been in before. On the few occasions I had been taken to the scientists before there had always been a mass of people, running around with clipboards, leading other boys through the hallways as quickly as possible, carrying around drugs that had effects I could only guess at. Here, it was quiet, almost reverent.

That didn't stop the oppressive feeling of fear and pain permeating the air.

That Man opened a seemingly random door and ushered me inside. "I have something for you." We walked into a large room with two scientists standing around the edges. A large beydish dominated the area, sinking into the centre of the room."

I regarded him warily. I didn't think I wanted anything he could give me. Seeing my hesitation, he smirked. "Give me your beyblade."

I frowned and fished in my pocket to find my blade. We always carried them. To be caught unprepared for a battle was... not wise. I found it and put it in his waiting hand.

He turned away from me and went to a scientist standing unobtrusively in the corner. While they discussed something while looking at my blade, I took the time to take stock of my injuries. It seemed that I was mostly safe. If I ignored the too-bright lights highlighting the way the walls curved up and over us, ready to fall in at any minute I would be fine. The blows That Man scored on my face weren't anything to be worried about. Only bruises. The side one hurt but I'd dealt with worse before. Without Tala's help I would probably be in pain for a few days while it sorted itself out. Hopefully.

That Man returned, handing me my beyblade and waiting.

I inspected it. They hadn't changed anything structural. The attack ring was still a vicious contraption made by Ian when he was feeling particularly sadistic one day; the weight ring was still practically non-existent. The only difference was a picture of a bird, a falcon, etched on to the chip at the top. I squinted at the fine detail. It wasn't a normal bird. It had metal covering to tops of its wings and chest. It was half bird and half... something that was probably never supposed to exist.

I could feel a small current of warmth from the blade and I looked up at That Man questioningly. "What is this?"

"Your bit beast," he said simply. "Its name is Falborg."

I scoffed. "They're a myth aren't they?" I asked, looking down at my blade again. Bit beasts were the things Tala and I had talked about whenever we were imagining how things could be better. If we had bit beasts then they couldn't hurt us. We'd have power. This couldn't be it.

"Not anymore," he said with evident satisfaction. "We want you to test it."

I stared at the bird, at Falborg, feeling that current of warmth intensify a little. "But... why?" I asked, reaching into my pocket to draw out my launcher. With one last look at Falborg I attached my blade to the launcher and fed the ripcord through it.

"I don't need a reason," he said inscrutably, gesturing to the dish. "Now."

I obediently stepped up to the dish and stood with my launcher held out in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I launched Falborg. I didn't know what I was supposed to be expecting. Until a few minutes ago I hadn't believed anything as powerful as a bit beast could exist. And now...

Now I gasped as the warm sensation I'd gotten from just holding the blade blossomed. I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them there was Falborg. I knew that no one else could see him, that it was all in my mind. And yet— I allowed my eyes to roam over him, the shine of his feathers and the way the artificial parts of him didn't meld seamlessly with his natural form. Rather, it looked like they were welded on painfully, unnatural attachments to what once had been a stunning whole. The skin around the metal was inflamed and tortured-looking. Falborg spread his wings slowly, showing me the extent of his modifications. He regarded me with the same scrutiny. I could feel his presence outside of me, sending out exploratory tendrils of awareness. They ran through me, something both alien and intimately familiar.

After a long second where we regarded each other, Falborg seemed to come to a decision. Those small tendrils turned into a flood and he dived into me, joining us and merging us irreversibly. Suddenly what had just been a feeling became everything. I could feel the power of Falborg running through me, I could feel his satisfaction at finding someone to join with, he had been waiting for it, for me. And I could feel his anger, deeper and more insidious than mine would ever be. I had had Tala to call a halt to it but Falborg hadn't been so lucky. The anger had spiralled downwards until it had poisoned everything, permeating his entire being. And with that anger came the pain.

I began to scream.

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