A/N: AAAAAAND it's chapter three! Thanks for reviewing, Bey-fans! I love you guys so much! You're so nice!

... Hitoshi and Takao really are painfully out of character... too sarcastic... ugh. How did I manage THAT? Stupid first-fic-aitus. Okay, serious character-changing going on here. I need to rewrite this, and it's only at chapter three! Yuck. Later. I wanna finish it first...

...or, wait...maybe I could just give the OOC warning and be lazy... hmm...

Disclaimer: Did I forget this? Too lazy to check. I don't own Beyblade and no profit is being made from this fanfiction.

Secrets

Chapter Three - Niaso

Hitoshi

I try to avoid thinking about how it began and all. You know. Who'd want to remember this sort of thing, anyway? So where was I?

Oh, yes. Takao and I walked--very cold and wet by then, did I mention?--to Niaso. When we got there, I was, maybe, a little surprised; he'd told the truth before. Apart from the outside entrance garden not being finished, and the place being a mess with contruction tools and such, Niaso was more than ready for customers...

Well, that's not really the strange part. There was nobody present, and no lights were on, but the doors were unlocked. Then things started going downhill. That is, faster downhill than before...

Flashback -

2 July 5:17 PM

Hitoshi and Takao darted out from the rain, under the opening gate for Niaso. Shivering, Takao immediately went toward the doors and pounded on them.

"I think it's empty," Hitoshi muttered, wringing water out of his hair.

"Yeah, but--"

"This wasn't a very good idea."

"Niichan, somebody is probably here... otherwise, the doors wouldn't be unlocked." Takao interrupted, and pushed one of the large ornamental doubledoors open slightly.

"Takao! Don't!"

Hitoshi's hissed warning was, of course, ignored; Takao waltzed right in. After a moment he poked his head back out. "Are you coming?" he asked. "It's awesomely dry and warm in here. I think I found the main room, too! Let's go see if we can con a bath out of 'em early!" and he off and disappeared again. Heaving a sigh, Hitoshi stepped inside Niaso as well.

The first room he encountered was larger than usual. There was a desk for selling tickets directly ahead--more than ten metres--and a place to the left that appeared to sell toiletries. To the right were two doors, one marked clearly in red with 'RESTRICTED - STAFF ONLY.'

It was that door where Takao appeared once more.

"In here," he said brightly. "I've been calling around, but nobody has answered..."

"Takao, that's restricted."

"What?" The dragon huffed, "since when do YOU read signs? If memory serves correct--"

"Look, nevermind," Hitoshi cut in abruptly. "We shouldn't be here. Let's go."

"Aww! You ARE scared! Don't worry bwig bwuver, I'm here to protect you." Laughing, Takao turned and disappeared through RESTRICTED. Hitoshi's eyes twitched, and he held his ground for a few seconds before breaking down and following his brother through the door.

Immediately he was in a short hallway with a ceiling sloping upward rapidly, most likely to form a dome for the baths. Along the hallways were numerous doors, most of them closets, except for one marked SECURITY and another as BATHS. Deciding to follow his first instinct, Hitoshi opened the latter.

The first thing he noted was the lack of light. If it weren't for the large dome-shaped skylight on the ceiling, the room would have been pitch black; Hitoshi stepped into a wave of heat, blinking in an attempt to get used to the lighting. The door behind him slammed with a muffled echo that was drowned out by the distant grumble of thunder.

The baths themselves were huge, Hitoshi noted when his eyes adjusted more. The door led onto a raised dais, several feet above the actual baths--baths that looked more like artificial hotsprings. Despite the dim lighting of the overhead skylight, Hitoshi could see two large pools of dark, steaming water; one obviously for women and the other for men. A wall of rocks seperated the two, and Hitoshi stood on a platform facing that wall, slightly higher.

"Niichan?" Takao's voice echoed eerily against the walls and water.
"Where'd you go?"

"Up here," Hitoshi said, stepping forward until he could peer over the edge of the dais. Takao was below him on the womens' side, either having ignored or dismissed the clearly marked signs of which gender could go where. A fork of lightning shot through the air, lighting the room for a second and throwing violently dark shadows across the dragon's features.

"Oh, there you are! How'd you get up there?"

"How did you get down there?"

"I asked first!"

"I'm your elder!"

"You're not old!"

... Hitoshi, flattered, boosted his ego a bit before replying.

"I went through a door marked BATHS. I want to know what door YOU went through?"

"Just a sec," Takao disappeared completely from view. Hitoshi listened to the silence pressing in around him. There wasn't something quite right--

"RAWR!"

&

Takao, seeing his brother's unmoving form, crept up behind him and, with a hefty shove, screamed 'rawr!' at the top of his lungs; he choked on his laughter when he actually succeeded in not only startling the ninja, but dislodging him all the way down into the water of the womens' side, sending up steaming water droplets with the obligatory splash.

Hitoshi hadn't expected it; he'd heard Takao right at the last second, but before he had the chance to identify a reason as to what the youngest was doing, he was falling through the silence and gasped as the water connected with his side, surrounding him, smothering, until he managed to throw his head back above the water, gasping and choking on the bile in his throat.

Takao was laughing. "Geeze," he called down, "lighten up a little, would ya? I thought you were gonna drown for a second!"

Hitoshi spun, kicking in an attempt to find some footing; there was none. Just how deep--? he wondered, looking down, and sucked in a breath. Blood...!

The steaming liquid he had been pushed into was blood--hot, roiling blood, and suddenly he could smell it, feel it, taste it, grasping his body and streaming down his face, constricting his throat--

"Niichan? Hey, you gonna sit in there forever?"

Hitoshi blinked--and the vision vanished. "What," he whispered, "..the hell?" His boots, heavy with water--not blood--touched the bottom of the pool, and he stood up. The water only reached the top of his thighs. There was nothing extraordinary about it. It was just a hot spring...

"Hey! ...Niichan? Are you alright?"

Takao, splashing with his shoes and pants still on, appeared at Hitoshi's side, apparently concerned. Hitoshi allowed him a moment to get his bearings before spinning and shoving the boy in the water.

"Brat," he said, "hasn't the old man taught you ANYTHING? You do not push other people around, especially if they're bigger than you!" He stomped/splashed back to dry ground, eyes twitching.

Takao followed soon after, laughing again. He laughed all the way out of Niaso, laughed as the storm--now wetter than ever--soaked all the warmth from the hot springs from his skin, and was still snickering when Hitoshi slammed the front door in his and his father's faces, Daichi and Jichan screaming in the kitchen.

Hitoshi ignored him the entire way. And, instead of grumbling as he began trudging to his own home, he furrowed his brow in thought.

He had been so sure... so sure that it had been blood...