Seven

This strange feeling

I've felt it somewhere before

Yes, I remember it now

Security, safety

Feelings that were once so foreign to me

Now come flooding back

I never want this to end

I want to be like this forever

"He's got a fair amount of internal bleeding, about eight broken ribs, a lot of bruising, and his system is flooded with heroin. We've sorted out the broken ribs and the internal bleeding, the bruising will be around for a while, and we just have to get rid of the heroin in his system. And judging by the fact that you kids suggest he was hallucinating, he may have been given a hallucinogenic drug without his knowledge, like ecstasy. We'll have to run a more thorough analysis of the blood sample we took when he arrived to come to a more solid conclusion, but your friend in incredibly lucky to be alive. The torture he's gone through would have killed any normal teenager his age long ago." Through his unconsciousness, Kai was beginning to hear voices all around him. One belonged to an adult, most likely a doctor, judging by what he was saying. The other voices he could hear mumbling had to be his team mates.

"Will Kai be alright?" Tyson asked. The doctor frowned.

"I'm not all that sure to be perfectly honest kids. I just want to know how such a large amount of such a pure form of heroin got into the system of a teenager like him," the doctor replied doubtfully.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Max said, forcing himself to smile. Kai willed his eyes to open, and after much struggling they did.

"Hey! Look who's awake!" Tyson said, turning to Kai and smiling. "How are you feeling Kai? Any better?" Kai looked around. He was in a hospital. Oh great. He tried to sit up but found it incredibly painful to do so. Ray went over to him and pushed him back down gently.

"You've been through a lot Kai. You just stay there," Ray smiled at the agitated older teen. Kai knew he was going to go crazy in here. The thought of him being continuously sympathised with and fussed over made him sick to his stomach, almost quite literally. He hated the idea of being paid so much attention, whereas under normal circumstances he'd rather just fade out into the background and not be noticed. He didn't want people to care about him. He preferred to be left alone, to his own thoughts. He looked down at the IV tube protruding from his left arm, just above a large bandage that was obviously covering the area where he was cut into. He had another tube sticking out of his right arm, and he had no idea as to what it was doing.

"What's…" Kai began, but felt himself start to falter. Wonderful. Another excellent reason for people to feel sorry for him. He was just dropping himself into these pathetic situations nowadays.

"You're a very lucky young man Mr Hiwatari," the doctor said, smiling. "Of course, you're in a very bad way, but your friends brought you here just in time. A minute longer and you probably would have slipped into a coma." Kai looked over to the open window. He didn't want to think about it. "The IV in your right arm is helping to repair the damage made by a crude job of extracting your bone marrow. The one in your left arm is there to try and flush some of the substances out of your blood. One of my team is running a more detailed test on the blood sample we took from you while you were unconscious. We have a feeling there's more than one substance running through your blood stream, we just need to find out what." the doctor then looked down at his clip board. "Oh, and it was also taken into account that you were operated on."

"I WAS WHAT?!!!" Kai yelled, sitting up quickly. Ray tried to push Kai back down, but Kai refused to move.

"Whoever operated on you is no doctor. You weren't under an anaesthetic of sorts, just under a mixer of Valium and a general anaesthetic, which is pretty stupid considering that Valium is a tranquilliser." Kai frowned. Of course he wouldn't be anaesthetised strongly enough. They were _trying_ to make his life a nightmare. It wasn't an accident.

"What did they do?" Kai asked, calming down a little, but refusing to lie back down, no matter how hard Ray pushed.

"They just took tissue samples from your internal organs, like your heart. Their stitching technique is terrible, hence why you suffered so much internal bleeding, but we rectified that in surgery, along with your broken ribs."

'Oh that's just great,' Kai thought. 'I get blood taken from me while I'm asleep, then I get operated on while I'm asleep, then _they_ go and operate on me!! Am I the only one who _doesn't_ know what's going on while I'm sleeping?!!' Kai slouched back into the bed, refusing to make eye contact. The doctor just smiled and walked away, leaving Kai to face the evident oncoming bombardment of questions.

"So…" Max began, attempting to break the awkward silence. "It looks like you're gonna be OK Kai! Hey, isn't that great?!"

"Hn," Kai replied, totally uninterested. Max sighed. He'd get more conversation out of a brick wall than he would out of Kai.

"What happened to you in there Kai?" Tyson finally asked the question that had been burning on everyone's lips during the past five minute silence.

"It's none of your business," Kai replied coldly.

"None of our business!" Tyson scoffed. "None of our business! Kai, not everyone in the world is like you! There are people in this world who make an effort to _care_ for others! We're worried!"

"Yeah Kai, you can't keep it a secret forever," Kenny said, putting Dizzi at the foot of the bed. Kai turned away from them, denying them any sort of explanation. Tyson grinned, a wily sort of grin. He walked over to the side table and picked up a photo that had been there since Kai had been in surgery.

"Who's she Kai? She's real pretty whoever she is," Tyson said, looking at the photo. He had caught Kai's attention, but not his undivided attention. Tyson continued. "That's you as a kid in the photo with her isn't it? She must be your mom then." suddenly Kai snapped to life and reached forward, grabbing the photograph from Tyson's hands.

"Where did you get this?!" Kai snapped.

"They took it out of your pocket before they took you into surgery," Tyson replied. "So she's your mother right? She's really pretty. She looks like she's a nice lady."

"_Was_ a nice lady," Kai corrected his friend.

"Was? As in past tense?" Kenny asked, slightly alarmed.

"Where is she Kai?" Max asked. Kai just stared down at the photograph and said nothing. He didn't want to. Tyson looked angry.

"Listen Kai, I'm sick and tired of you hiding things from us! You know just as well as any of us that there's no 'I' in 'team'! You learnt that the hard way, remember? Are you gonna throw all of that away just because your dad shook you up a bit? Come off it Kai! You're the strongest one out of all of us! If anyone can fight through this it's you! But we're scared Kai; scared that you'll up and leave and not tell us why. So just lighten up and trust us!" Tyson said, anger weaved into every word. They were all quite taken aback as to how harsh Tyson was being, but they knew he had a point. Kai felt the unusual sting of tears in his eyes. Just looking at this picture hurt him. He couldn't explain it to them because he didn't know how, not just because he didn't want to.

"You don't get it Tyson," Kai mumbled, allowing a tear to escape and run down his cold pale face. Tyson noticed this and took a seat beside Kai.

"Then make me understand," Tyson said soothingly. Kai could barely believe what he was hearing. No one had ever made such an effort for him before. But these teenagers, these friends of his were trying everything they could to reach him, and he was still pushing the away. He felt his defences start to break, and he knew that if he told them, he'd be crying by the end of it.

'Just get it out of your system, Kai,' he told himself. 'You can trust these guys, they're your friends. Besides, no one is perfect. Even tough guys have to cry sometimes. It's either that or live life being endlessly tortured by your father and Boris, and that's no life. I'd rather just cry.' He knew that if he had to choose between breaking down or being his father's lab rat, he'd choose breaking down, no contest. He slowly brought his knees up and wrapped his arms loosely around them, the photograph still in his fingers. He rested his forehead on his knees and felt more tears trail down his cheeks. After all this time, and after all the defence measures he'd put up to keep people out, he was breaking. The tears began flowing more freely, and before Kai knew what was happening, he was crying. Tyson put a comforting arm around him. Kai's defences were broken like shattered glass, and now they could see who he really was beneath the tough exterior he'd had in place for so long.

"It's OK buddy. Jeez, it sounds really bad," Tyson said, looking over to his comrades, who seemed startled to see Kai so upset.

"I was four," Kai said, in between trying to calm himself down. He'd made a spectacle of himself by allowing himself to cry, and no doubt he'd never hear the end of it. His weaknesses were open and exposed; there was no wall there to keep them in place. All the defences that Kai's father had helped him build were now nothing. They amounted for nothing. Was it that he hated emotions of sadness and fear? Or was it that he was scared them?

"Four?" Tyson said questioningly.

"Yeah, I was four years old when it all started," Kai began, lifting his head and drying his eyes. Though he was embarrassed that he'd displayed such a powerful emotion so publicly, he was glad to have finally got it all out of his system. "My mother and my father started to have uncontrollable fights. At first it was only every so often, but it soon turned into three times a night. I was caught in the middle, as they always seemed to fight over me. My father hated me right from the start. He was jealous of all the attention I received from my mother. He used to hit me, and her, repeatedly when he'd had too much to drink after work, and even when he hadn't. He attacked me with knifes several times when I was five, but I just thought it was something all fathers did. I had no idea, until one night, that what he was doing just wasn't right. I was in the wrong place with my Beyblade at the wrong time. He went mental on me and started to tear me to shreds with this large knife. The louder I screamed, the more he cut me. My mother screamed at him to stop, and after a while he did. She took me to hospital, where I had to get a transfusion. My mother had to tell the doctors that I'd been playing with things I shouldn't have been in the kitchen. If she told them the truth, my father would have had us both killed. Well, after I was released from hospital, a huge fight between my parents ensued. And it was my mother's last." they all looked at Kai in horror.

"Why?" Max asked, dreading to hear the answer.

"He killed her," Kai replied simply, the words stinging the back of his throat. He didn't want to cry again; once was enough.

"Why??!!" Tyson asked, completely outraged.

"Because she stood up for me, and for herself. Because she defied him," Kai replied, looking at the IV tubing in his arms. "He grabbed a hammer out of a drawer and hit her with it. I kept trying to stop him, but I kept getting hit back. I stood and watched my mother die, and all the time she was, she just kept telling me to run away. Although she was about to die, she was still looking out for me…I mattered more to her than her own life…" Kai buried his face in his knees again, afraid he was going to start crying. He never cried. Ever. This just wasn't like him at all. What was it about these Bladebreakers that made him want to be a better person? It was annoying whatever it was; and yet at the same time very touching to have someone care about him for once. "He shipped me off to The Abbey after that. I was only five, and that's when the drug-taking started."

"Well your dad sounds like a bastard," Tyson said, getting to his feet. "I'll smash _his_ face with a hammer and see how _he_ likes it!" Kai lifted his head and looked at Tyson, half smiling.

"Thanks Tyson," Kai said finally. Tyson grinned.

"No sweat dude, friends that share pain together stay together," he replied. Kai raised one eyebrow at Tyson's sentimental-sounding statement.

"Come on guys, let's let Kai rest. He's probably sick of us anyway!" Ray laughed. Tyson nodded.

"See ya tomorrow Kai," Tyson smiled. Kai nodded as he watched them leave. A part of him willed them to stay.

'Stay? Am I mad?! They drive me crazy!!' Kai laughed to himself, and settled down to try and get some sleep; something he had been deprived of over the last few days.

~~***~~

"Hey Tala, check this out," Bryan called over to his team captain in a hoarse whisper, so as not to attract unwanted attention. They had raided The Abbey, as Tala had planned, and were now looking for reasons as to why Hideaki wanted Kai so badly. Tala approached his comrade and looked at the screen.

"What have you got?" Tala asked.

"Genetic data on Kai," Bryan replied, moving through continuous streams of data regarding Kai's battle technique, his DNA make up, and the functions of his internal organs. "What does Hideaki want with all this data?"

"Has it ever actually registered with anyone that Hideaki and Kai are related? They're father and son!" Tala said, keeping his voice low.

"But what would a father want all this genetic information on his own son for?" Ian asked. "Are they planning to clone him or something?"

"I don't know," Tala replied. "But I get the feeling that Hideaki is just trying to carry out his own father's orders, but in a more satanical fashion." Realisation suddenly dawned on Tala. "They're trying to make a weapon!"

"You're kidding!" Spencer exclaimed.

"Why else would they want all of Kai's genetic information? They're going to try and fashion him into the ideal merciless Beyblader, and the worst part is Kai doesn't have the guts to stand up to his father, so Hideaki holds sway over him! With this grip over Kai, Hideaki could use his own son to do his dirty work for him, much as his own father tried to do," Tala said.

"Yeah, but why all the internal organs information? What could Biovolt use that for?" Bryan asked.

"Optimising Kai's performance. Remember, Boris and Voltaire did a similar thing with us. It's as if we weren't born, we were created. They're trying to pull off the same trick with Kai!" Tala replied, keeping his voice hoarse.

"So this is bad?" Ian asked. Tala nodded. "Well then, we can intercept now! Yeah?"

"Yes…we should move in quickly, and just pray to God that Hideaki hasn't beaten us to the gun," Tala replied, calling his team to him and exiting the building. They had to move quickly if they wanted to get ahead of Biovolt. Biovolt had regained all of their former power under Voltaire's son, and even then Hideaki's reign was a lot more terrifying than he who came before him. This could only spell bad things for the Bladebreakers, as well as for every other Blader in the world who possessed a Bit Beast!

I can see through you

You weren't much different from me

When you were my age

The dark shadows you hide behind

Won't protect you forever

And eventually

When your shadows fall

I'll be there to laugh at you

SN: I am tearing through this fic! Woo hoo! I just thought up another meaning for the word BBA: Boris Bashers Anonymous. XD. For people like DragonBlade, Sakura Hiwatari and even myself. EVIL BORIS!! BAD DADDY!! *bish bash*. I got so MAD with this chapter!!! It's unreal how mad I got!! Ugh!! Kai and emotion don't mix, so I had to add all sorts of stuff to make myself feel better about it. And ya, it didn't work.

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