Ereshkigali: You know when you spend an insane fifteen minutes squeaking up and down like a lunatic with a serious sugar addiction simply because of all the unutterably amazing and wonderful people who reviewed your story?

Kai: No.

Ereshkigali: Your loss. It was fun.

Kai: So enlighten me: why haven't you been updating?

Ereshkigali: I've been working out various ways in which to murder my maths teacher. Most of them involved either a pair of very sharp imaginary katanas or banana peals arranged at strategic and deadly intervals.

Kai: Any of them work?

Ereshkigali: I'm not even going to answer that. Oh, well. The fic must go on. Actually, after everyone being so nice about the last two chapters, I'm kind of nervous about posting this one. PLEASE don't hate me if it sucks. I spent the whole week on it, but I still can't guarantee success.

Tyson: So, the shonen-ai continues?

Ereshkigali: Naturally. In addition to that, this chapter, as well as being unbelievably long, contains a bit of blood that accompanies a minor injury, as well as the serious traumatising of an entirely innocent rock. And, just out of interest, if I told you that I did indeed own Beyblade, would you think that I was desperate or just plain crazy? Both? Yeah. Thought so. You get the message: it ain't mine, little dudes.

The rain had finally stopped, leaving in its wake a misty, airy coolness. We were alone in a crystalline world of diamond-bright beauty, facing each other, pressed together by the folds of the raincoat. I could feel him shivering, and hear his shaky breaths, and, looking at him, his face pink from the cold, I felt self-disgust hit me like a fist to the stomach, sickening me. This was my fault.

"I don't want to sleep in the forest! D'you how many bugs there are in places like this?" he was moaning.

"Well, there's at least one," I said, sounding as fed up as I could.

"Dude! We're about a million years away from civilisation! Civilisation makes doughnuts! This is a serious problem!"

His hair, wet and bedraggled from the rain, was slicked to his face, and I suddenly realised that he was scared. More than that: I realised that I was, too. This was my fault.

"The only problem is your inability to be quiet," I growled, and pulled away. Suddenly I didn't want to look at him. Instead, I took a moment to steady myself, blocking all thoughts of hunger and guilt – and Tyson - from my mind, and concentrating on the lattice of silver-fine branches surrounding me, letting the wind flow over me, letting the cold in all its brutal indifference pierce through me until I had grown used to it, and had stopped shivering. The world, I told myself calmly and inexorably, contained only the fact that I was lost. Finding my way out was a challenge. Challenges would, at all costs, be met. There was nothing to impede this goal. There was only the wind, and the water, and the cool earth beneath my feet, and, somewhere, a path leading out of the forest. There was nothing else: no hunger, no panic, no fingers that ached from the cold, no stinging grazes, no tiredness, no guilt, no attachment, no concern.

There was nothing else.

Then I felt something slip into the hollow between my neck and my shoulder: something icy-cold and hesitant. I stiffened, counting four shaking heartbeats before slowly, slowly turning my head to see a hand resting on my shoulder, the little finger lying curled into the curve of my throat. I turned my head further and saw him, standing beside me, looking up into my face with a wry, friendly smile pulling his lips up at the corners.

"Hey," he said, casually. "Relax. It's not like it's your fault." He was still afraid, I knew, but he wasn't showing it. He was more concerned about being nice to me. That, if anything, made me feel even worse – I could get him into this mess, and he could still keep up the pretence of liking me. Almost every single day sees at least one shouting match between the two of us, and yet he has never stopped talking to me. Everyone else eventually got the message and ignored me. He never has. In one way, it is annoying. In another, it is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done to me.

Tyson has never, ever given up on me.

How do I repay the favour?

By getting him lost in the woods.

"Don't touch me," I said, my subconscious plucking a monotone answer from years of habit. My conscious mind was too busy thinking up rude names for itself.

He jerked his hand away, looking almost embarrassed. He said again, "It's really not your fault."

"I know that," I said, irritably, and moved away, knowing that I'd hurt his feelings, and forcing myself to believe that I didn't care. I shouldered my way between two trees, the droplets of rain shaking themselves free from the woven branches and dribbling down the ground. Some landed on my already wet skin, and clung there for a few moments like tiny, tiny teardrops. I pushed on, through the clinging twigs. One moment, a last, forlorn leaf would slide wetly over my arm like; the next, a branch would snap back and draw a thin line of red down my skin. The trees were pressing closer and closer, as though trying to strangle me. Twigs clawed wildly, mercilessly at my face, and roots reached up to trip me. Once I did fall, and landed with a knee in the mud. I grabbed hold of a branch and pulled myself back up again, and squeezed through the narrow gap between two trees, fighting on. Droplets of clear, sweet water spattered everywhere, soaking into the ground and vanishing. I crashed my way through the mirror-bright tranquillity of the forest, leaving it marred and tainted behind me. I didn't care. I wasn't thinking. I liked the emptiness: I liked the clear-cut precision that came with having a goal in mind. All I had to do was reach that goal with as few complications as possible. It kept things simple.

I stopped at last as the trees began to thin. Before me, the ground fell sharply away, forming a drop of about three metres. Maybe six metres ahead, the ground rose again, so that a deep, long rift in the earth was opened. Looking down carefully, I decided that this must once have been a man-made path cut into the ground. This was promising. A little way to my right, a tree – a huge pine - had fallen, bridging the gap rather too conveniently. This confirmed my suspicions of human activity in the area.

Behind I could hear Tyson ploughing through the trees. "Kai!" he was yelling. "Wait up! Dude! Come on, this isn't…" he reached me, collapsed to the ground, and sat there, resting his chin on the flask of coffee, getting his breath back before saying, "funny. Hey, why've stopped?"

"You wanted a road, I found a road," I said, shortly, carefully not looking at him.

"That's not a road, that's the Grand Canyon," he protested. "You're saying we should follow that?"

"Well, it's better than wandering around aimlessly for the rest of our lives," I said, rather impatiently.

"If we could get down," he said, pointedly. "Ha! You didn't think of that, did you, Mr Smarty-pants?"

"We'll look for a way down on the other side," I said, and walked away from him to the tree. It looked more than sturdy enough to bear my weight, and seemed firmly anchored between two boulders that, on closer inspection, proved to be made from concrete that had been draped with moss and lichen. This place had probably been a very popular picnic spot in past years.

"Are you nuts?" I could hear Tyson yelling from a little way behind me.

I stepped onto one of the fake rocks. Cautiously – after all, I'm not the reckless one – I poked at the tree trunk with my foot. Although a little slippery from the rain, it seemed stable enough. Actually, it seemed far too stable. I realised that this, too, had been manufactured, probably from fibreglass. All the better. It would be far less likely to break.

Tyson was still shouting. I ignored him, as this is what usually enables me to remain sane while in his company. I concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, gaining my balance. The artificial tree was only slightly rounded, and comfortably wide. Mid-way, when I had decided that it was safe, I paused, and called over my shoulder, making sure not to sound too concerned, "Well? Are you coming?"

"Woohoo! Kai saved the day!" he shouted, and leapt up onto the tree, the raincoat flapping behind him like a yellow cape. "Nice one, bud!"

I didn't even bother answering, but kept on walking.

"'Thank you so much, Tyson, for giving me a compliment! You're my best friend ever!'" he prompted.

"Do you ever shut up?' I asked him, losing my patience and turning to face him.

"Look, at least I say more than five words in a day!" he countered.

"At least I know more than five words."

"At least I'm not stuck-up!"

"You are a self-centred and obnoxious brat."

"You're a big, dumb, mean…meanie!"

"Your vocabulary is impressive."

"This is all your fault!"

"A moment ago you were saying that it wasn't," I said, as coolly as I could, trying to ignore the guilt gnawing at my conscience.

"I was just being nice," he said. "You're just so full of yourself that you don't know what that means!"

"No, I don't," I said, turning away. 'Now if you want to get out of here before nightfall then shut your mouth and do what I tell you."

I had only taken one step forward when I felt his hand on my arm. Almost convulsively, I jerked it off. Apparently he just didn't get it. He gave a furious little growl that sounded a lot like "Kai…"and caught hold of me again. I spun, my hands curling into fists.

"What?' I asked, quietly, my teeth gritted. My face was inches from his, our eyes glowering into each other's. His grip tightened on my wrist, and I and I could feel the pulse in his thumb beating quick and fast against my skin. A large part of me wanted to strangle him for being so blindly, bluntly persistent, but through the sheer annoyance that had enveloped me, a pathetic, whimpering little voice at the back of my head said something like, He's Tyson. You can't hurt him. He's Tyson

So I relaxed my fists, and, glaring at him for good measure, slowly and deliberately pulled my hand away. The motion caused me to lean a little too far out, and the next thing I knew, my foot had slipped backwards on the still-wet surface, and with mind-shattering swiftness, I had crashed down over the edge, my chest and legs scraping the side of the tree, my arms scrabbling for a hold. I found a crack in the fibreglass surface, and my fingers squeezed themselves into it desperately. Tyson's eyes were staring into my own, wide and horrified. Dropping the flask of coffee, which bounced away and tumbled to the ground below, his hands fumbled at my own and gripped them securely. I clutched at him wildly. "It's OK," he gasped. "I've got you. Try pull yourself up."

Careening blindly through the air, my foot hit a branch protruding horizontally from the trunk. I managed to swing my legs up onto it and crouch there, so that my chest was level with the edge of the tree. Tyson's hands were still locked with my own, his eyes on my face. I was about to clamber back up when I heard a sharp, neat crack as the branch broke, and felt a sickening jolt as I dropped sharply downwards once more. This time, though, something was different: as I fell, I felt a cold, bruising pain tear into the skin near my ankle and rip its way further and further up my leg, stopping almost at the knee. The pain was so fierce that I almost cried out. I could already feel blood beginning to dribble down my heel. Worst of all, whatever it was that had cut me was still lodged in my leg. It was probably a portion of the broken branch. I couldn't pull free.

Tyson's grip had never slackened. He was still holding me tight.

I looked up into his strained face. His cheeks were flushed with fear and exertion, and his eyes were half-closed, and his arms were shaking with the effort of supporting me. "I won't let you fall," he said, hoarsely. "Can you climb up?"

"No," I croaked. "My leg…I'm stuck."

"OK," he said, breathing deeply. "OK. Dude, can you hold on for, like, a second?"

I nodded, my eyes squeezed tight, my cheek pressed against the tree trunk.

"Right. Just – hold on…"

His fingers slipped out from underneath mine. I clutched at cracks and held on. There was a throbbing, glutinous pain running all down my leg that stung and burned with an icy fire. My fingers began to bruise as I tried desperately not to let go. My breathing was harsh, tearing in my throat. Of their own accord, my fingers began to uncurl. I could feel that one had already been sliced open by the fibreglass edge. I felt myself slipping, and steeled myself for the fall.

Something gripped my foot and wrenched it brutally away from the tree. I heard another small crack, and my leg was free – searing with a vicious, fiery pain, but free.

"Let go!" a voice called from beneath me.

Tyson?

"Just do it, Kai! I'll catch you! Just let go!"

I didn't have any choice. My fingers gave up, and I slid down the side of the tree, falling into nothingness. I felt a pair of arms reach up around me and wrap themselves around my chest. A body collapsed to the ground beneath my weight. I felt a knotted, jangling pain in my leg as it struck the earth, and after that, I felt nothing. I came to after a few seconds, and lay, looking up at the pale sky, my head resting on something warm and reassuring, an arm tucked around my chest. I think I was slightly dazed. The thing I was lying on moved slightly. I turned my head to look straight into Tyson's eyes. He gave a small, bleary smile. "Kai, you weigh a ton," he protested feebly.

I shot upright immediately, tumbling away from him, and rediscovering the pain in my leg as I did so. I held back a curse and gently peeled aside the cloth of my trouser leg, which was ripped and sticky with blood. A long, winding graze met my eyes, snaking down the length of my calf. Lodged in the flesh, just underneath the knee, was a splintering, jagged shard of fibreglass: the remains of the artificial branch that had broken. Gripping it firmly with my hand, I tugged it out with one swift, strong motion, and hurled it away. The pain bit brutally into me for a second, but then died down again into a gently smouldering trail of discomfort.

"Urgh! That is nasty!" a voice at my shoulder proclaimed, shuddering, and I turned slightly to see Tyson kneeling next to me, horror and concern staring out from his face. He had rescued the coffee, and his hands were clutched tightly around the slightly muddied flask, his knuckles white-red and shaking. "What happened?"

"I caught it on the side of the tree," I said, peering at it closely. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing.

"Are you alright?" he asked, still looking slightly appalled.

"It's barely even bleeding, you idiot," I snapped. "Let's go! Do you want to be stuck out here for the whole night?"

Leaving Tyson in the middle of an angry retort to which I wasn't paying much attention, I pushed myself up, took one step forward, and fell. I seemed to be doing that a lot recently. A pair of hands hooked themselves around my arms before I could hit the ground, and pulled me back onto my feet. Breathing hard and screwing my face up to stop myself from crying out, I gingerly tested my left foot on the ground. It wobbled, and I would have overbalanced again had not Tyson's arm wrapped itself around my shoulders. Biting my lip hard, I clutched at him until the pain had died away.

"Yeah. You see what happens?" he asked, his breath brushing my scalp.

"It's just twisted," I grunted. "I didn't realise."

"You need to sit down," he said. "Just lean on me."

And so, his arms holding me tightly, my hand clutching at his shoulder, my face pressed into the warm softness of his neck, he helped me limp the few steps over to the bridge. He laid me down in the tree's shadow, helping me to sit up against the vertical rise of earth. The ground here was slightly less wet than it was in other places: the bridge had warded off most of the rain. My eyes closed, I took a moment to grow used to the dull ache in my leg. If I didn't move it or think about it, I could hardly feel it at all.

"We need to move on," I said, opening my eyes and looking at him. He was sitting opposite me, his head bowed. He was staring at something cupped in his hands. "We need to move on now," I repeated, louder.

"What? Hey, not happening, man. You can't even walk," he said, looking up.

"So what are you suggesting we do?" I enquired, acidly.

"Rest up for a while. Hey, we've got a raincoat, we've got caffeine, and we've got…uh…well…we've got team spirit! That's not so bad, is it?"

"Whatever. It's your funeral," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and gazing resolutely up at the underside of the tree.

After a minute or two, I heard a vague, rustling sound. My leg was raised briefly, causing me to wince, and then laid back down very gently on what felt like a folded raincoat. The next thing I knew, a pair of lips was brushing my ear, and a warm body was seated next to mine. "I have a surprise for you," said the lips smugly, their breath tickling my skin in a manner that was both highly, highly annoying and almost…comforting?

"Go away," I said.

"Ah, come on! Just look at it!" he pleaded.

I looked down at the scrap of paper in his hand and snatched at it crossly, smoothing it out and staring down at it. It was a photograph, slightly creased and dog-eared, smeared at one corner with what looked suspiciously like chocolate. Grinning up at me madly from the small picture was a thirteen-year-old Tyson, busily engaged in the task of trying to strangle Max, whose freckled face bore an equally huge - if slightly more put-upon - grin. A younger Rei sprawled elegantly on the grass next to them, trying hard not to laugh. A little way behind him, Kenny was frowning crossly at the camera over his laptop. Farther back still, leaning against a tree, I recognised myself, my face half-hidden in shadow. I was embarrassed to realise that I had been smiling when the picture had been taken - a small, half-formed, mildly amused smile as I gazed down at Tyson.

Wordlessly, I tried to give it back to him, suddenly feeling very awkward. He pushed it into my hands, saying, "Oh, no. You are keeping that. It's a going-away present. I know it's really old, but it was the only one I could find of you smiling. I figured you better have it, just in case you forget how to smile."

I looked down at it for a moment longer, staring at the bright, grinning face of the boy in the picture before tucking it away into my pocket and looking up into that same face – older, stronger, more responsible, but still bearing the same idiotic smile.

It was the face of the one person I can truly say I trust, the one person I care for more than any other. Before I met Tyson, I felt nothing. I was cruel, and I know it. I had always been proud of my ruthlessness, of my determination, of my utter refusal to feel. Then he came charging along – some nameless loser of a rookie who managed to do the undoable: defeat me.

How did I come to care? I still don't understand. All I know is this: that he is the one person who truly means anything to me, with the possible exception of Tala. He is the one person I respect. I look up to him more than anyone else, with a fierce, exasperated, helpless admiration.

Swallowing, I said, "I got you a going-away present, too."

And before he could react, I had reached into another pocket, pulled out the small stone I had found earlier, and dropped it into his hand.

For a moment I thought he was going to take it badly. He just crouched there, looking down at the little pebble. It was a deep, clouded grey, worn smooth and round by years of river water, banded by a few spindly streaks of quartz on one side. He turned it over and over, gazing at it with a strange expression that I couldn't read. Then, glancing up, he said, in a mock-serious voice, "Gee, well, um, thanks, Kai. I mean, I guess it's the thought that counts and all, but I was expecting a Porsche…or maybe a yacht…or maybe just a couple billion bucks…you know, nothing fancy…"

"Shut up," I advised.

"No, seriously, Kai, a rock's a great gift – you must have spent a lot of time getting it…" he was laughing openly now. "Hey, I always wanted a pet. I'll call him Slug!"

"You can't call a rock Slug."

"Watch me."

I sighed.

Tyson, seeing this, lifted Slug the rock up to my face and squeaked, in a high, lisping voice, "Don't worry, Kai! Tyson's here to look after you!"

I slapped his hand away irritably, but, strangely, felt the tiniest bit happier.

Around us, the world grew steadily darker.

Tyson: Using my awesome telepathic powers, I can sense that a large number of people out there hate you.

Ereshkigali: What? How can you say such a negative and unfriendly thing? I am universally loved.

Kai: Well, you know, that depends largely on what universe you had in mind.

Tyson: Ahem. What I'm trying to say is that although you had about a gazillion almost-kisses, none of them went anywhere, and that the angry horde of screaming TyKa fangirls about to break your door down probably aren't just stopping by for a spot of tea and chit-chat.

Ereshkigali: Oh. Right. Actually, I'm saving the making-out scene for the last chapter…mostly because I've never done one before and am scared to death about attempting one O.o;;

Tyson: You coward.

Bakura: Hey! That's my very favourite fiancée you're insulting. Die, mortal scum!

Kai: Wait a minute…this is the Beyblade category! Get your own fic, you loser!

Bakura: I don't feel like it. What I do feel like doing is romantically sweeping dear little Ereshkigali over here off her feet and carrying her away into the sunset…

Kai: No! Come back! That's my Ferrari!

Bakura: XD

Ereshkigali: Do hormones rock or what? See you all sometime next week! Oh, and, BTW…

Just so that you people know, the day I got the reviews for the last chapter had been absolutely horrible. I'd had yet another agoraphobic attack at school – the worst one this whole year, and in front of practically the entire grade, no less. By the time I got home, I was almost crying. Then I read the reviews. I can't tell you guys how much you cheered me up. Thank you all so, so much.