A bit of self-indulgence, written in the spirit of the Hallowe'en season. Canon's taking a holiday for this one, folks, so please suspend your disbelief at the door.

Dranzer is Kai's beyblade; Suzaku is his bitbeast. In the same way, Black Dranzer is the beyblade and Kuro Suzaku (Black Suzaku) is the bitbeast.

True Dark

i.

There are things that cannot be forgotten, despite the passage of time; things that cannot be escaped, no matter how far or fast you run.

There are things that do not forget you, that will not let you go.

Never imagine that they have.

ii.

It's dark.

It's dark, but there is something blacker than the darkness, a shape rearing inky against the night with monstrous shadows swelling out to either side. It is vague at first, undefined, a formless mass of blackness; seeping cold, pulsing with menace, and Kai would run but the shadows are curling up around his ankles and the chill is bleeding into his very bones, his muscles withering to strips of dusty flesh.

The darkness thickens, coagulates, and Kai can see that what he took for looming shadows are wings, vast and dank; every pinion drips with cold blue fire, brittle feathers shiver and hiss like snakes. A long arched neck curves up over him, beak glistening wet with something, and the darkness looks at him with blank red eyes. His eyes.

He screams, except he doesn't, because the coiling blackness is stroking his throat with icy fingers and all that escapes is a helpless whine; the sound of the rabbit strangling in a snare.

Those eyes that are his own laugh at him and those slick black wings stretch wider, engulf the whole world. The sleek head draws back to strike and it dives at him. Falls on him and he's drowning, suffocating in blackness that swallows him in and fills his lungs, cold and moist as the soil of a grave, and he can't.

Breathe, he can't breathe and he's dying only not, because the dark is filling him and he's becoming part of it as it becomes part of him and he wishes he could die rather than this and...

iii.

And...

iv.

For a second he's not certain he's woken up, because it's still dark and he can't move and cold sweat clings to his skin clammily, like drops of ice. Then the luminous green numerals of the alarm clock swim into focus and Kai realises that he's wound up in his sheets, tight as a mummy's wrappings; he untangles himself, switches on the lamp and takes another look at the clock.

03:47

Kai slumps over onto his back and sighs, pressing the tips of his fingers against his forehead. His eyes feel raw and gritty, and the beginning of a headache is nudging at the inside of his skull, promising to make its presence felt more strongly in time.

That dream again. How long has it been since he had a night of uninterrupted sleep? Three weeks? A month? It wasn't so bad at first - waking briefly in the night, startled by some unremembered nightmare - but the dreams have become more and more vivid, sleep more and more elusive.

Kai knows now what it is he dreams of, but he doesn't understand why. Kuro Suzaku is gone, its bit destroyed and its power scattered, so why should the black phoenix haunt his sleep? Trauma, some would say, a delayed reaction to the horror of letting such a creature inhabit his soul. Or guilt - the memory of his treachery taking a shadowy form in his unconscious mind. But Kai's instincts tell him that there is something more to this, though he hopes he's wrong.

There is only one place he can go to find the answers, he knows. Something in him baulks at the thought of returning to the Abbey, at probing into things he would much rather remained buried and forgotten.

But the dreams are only getting worse. And Kai doesn't think they're going to go away by themselves.

Tomorrow, he'll book the plane tickets. He really has no choice.

The room is plunged back into darkness when Kai switches off the lamp. The clock reads 04:16.

Under the cover of dark, he feels less childish about reaching out to his bedside locker and closing his fingers over the cool solidness of his beyblade. It's foolish, he knows, and immature to look for comfort in an inanimate object. And he's not so easily frightened by bad dreams.

But still, Dranzer is clasped tightly in his hand when the alarm clock goes off.

v.

It's dark.

It's dark and the black thing is there and it's coming for him, stooping down on him like a hunting bird and there's nowhere to run.

can'tmovecan'tbreathecan'tscreamcan'tdiecan't...

Kai wakes with a start, his heart hammering and his breath coming ragged. The woman seated next to him is watching him cagily; he gives her a long, hard look and she returns to the magazine she's reading.

His head is pounding; plane travel doesn't agree with him, and lack of proper sleep isn't helping things. He has some paracetamol in his bag but no water, so he swallows two tablets dry and hopes that they'll take the edge off the headache. Leaning back in his seat, he stares without interest out the tiny window.

Below the plane, dark clouds are gathering.

vi.

In the snow, Moscow is a beautiful place.

In the rain, it's grey and dismal, no different from any other wet city.

And then there is the Abbey, with all its sprawling edifices and darkly elegant lines. The sight of it still makes Kai uneasy, no matter how he tells himself that he's put the past behind him, and as he approaches he has to remind his dragging feet that this is a different place now. Voltaire is gone, Balkov is gone, and whatever memories of their brutal reign might linger within those walls, they are only that - memories. This is an official training academy for the Russian Beyblading Authority, now, carefully regulated and operated within the law.

Still.

Evening is settling in over the Abbey grounds, its backdrop of trees silhouetted starkly, black against grey; Kai can hear them too, creaking and dripping gently behind the more immediate sound of the rain. The deciduous trees - ashes and silver beeches - are almost naked already, stripped of all but a few ragged brown tatters by wind and water. Crows huddle in their leafless branches, hunched against the rain and Kai can't decide if they look more pitiful or ominous. The fir trees hide their secrets better; needles cover them thick and heavy, and any birds sheltering there are well concealed.

A crow takes flight as Kai passes, lifting from its perch with a hoarse cawing, and a black feather flutters down near his feet. Just a feather, but it reminds him a little too much of the dreams he can't escape. He doesn't pick it up.

The main doors of the Abbey are heavy and imposing, and Kai is strangely uncertain in his approach. They know he's coming - he spoke to the new director on the phone before he left Japan - but those doors are made to be uninviting, and he wonders how to announce his presence.

In the end he doesn't have to. One of the doors swings inward as he mounts the steps, and a familiar figure emerges. Yuri nods to him in greeting.

"We were expecting you earlier."

"The flight was delayed."

"Ahh," Yuri says without interest. "Director Romanovitch asked me to keep watch for you and see you settled in when you turned up." He steps back into the doorway, and the look he wears might be challenging or just impatient. "Well? Are you coming in?"

Kai follows him inside.

He knows these hallways, what lies behind each door, where every branching corridor leads. That knowledge frightened him when he came here before, having forgotten his childhood and not remembering why he should remember this place. Even now, knowing his past and the Abbey's role in it, these stone passages are unnerving, a reminder of the things Kai sometimes wishes had stayed forgotten. Even the newly-installed electric lighting does nothing to alleviate the sense of oppression, its glow pale and washed-out on the stone walls.

But Hiwataris don't reveal weakness, and don't let themselves be intimidated, so Kai doesn't allow his unease to show. Not even when Yuri leads him down a very familiar series of passageways and stops in front of a door he remembers all too well.

"We thought you'd like to have your old room," explains Yuri; the words are neutral, but his friendly smile is too ambiguous for Kai to trust.

"It'll be fine," he says and opens the door, refusing to give Yuri the satisfaction of seeing him disconcerted. It's just a room, after all. With scarcely a glance around he drops his bag on the bed and turns to look at Yuri, still standing at the door. "Anything else I should know?"

Yuri understands the casual dismissal in those words and smiles more broadly, either amused or disguising irritation.

"Dinner is in half an hour, in the refectory. You'll join us?"

Kai nods and Yuri leaves it at that, closing the door behind him as he goes.

Sitting on the end of the bed, Kai takes a long look around the room that was his as a child, and again when he returned for the first time; he has little doubt that putting him here was Yuri's own idea - it's the sort of thing he'd find amusing. Nothing has changed here, but then, there was little to change. Like all rooms in the Abbey, this one is plain to the point of severity, just a desk, a chair and a bed with a chest at its foot for storing clothes. The Abbey's students had never needed anything more.

One change has been made at least, though. The window is no longer barred.

Outside, the last traces of light are draining from the sky. The rain is heavier too, and in the gloom Kai can just about see the shapes of the fir trees, buffeted by the strengthening wind. Where are the crows hiding now, he wonders idly; are they still clinging to their perches, or have they been driven out into the night to make do as best they can?

Any living creature out tonight will have it rough. There's a storm coming in.

to be continued