Look at me, I'm on a roooollllll! Thank you guys so much for
reviewing..wow! Turns out that this chapter doesn't have all that much
importance to it as I originally planned for it to be, but the last part is
fairly crucial...heh, you guys will find out when you read! ~
Replies to reviews: *Hope I didn't forget anyone!!*
anonymous: Such a faithful reader!! Thank you for your consistent reviews. ^ ^ Oh yeah, about the Kai finding about Tenchi and Tala thing...hm...I estimate the big revelation to be in a couple of chapters, I think. Not really sure as to how I'm going to lay out the story completely.....yet.
Sighing Siren: Ooo I'm glad that you like Kesumi, she's rather a funny character, isn't she? Her attitude is a tad bit on the serious side in the beginning, but she'll turn out to be more of a 'happy happy' nothing like Kai sort of person. Lol..thx for reviewing!
AznAngel: Lol! Thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoy this chapter as well.....
Mizu: Thanks, I just thought it would be good to connect something with her past so that he might have a chance of remembering...but he didn't even after the flashback! Hehe
Sakura: thx, thx!!
Miekkie: Lol, I'm so glad that you like it!
kai baby - girl: thanks for reviewing, hope you don't find this chapter confusing...^ ^
Jessie: Hey! Did you really review the ninth chapter when you were at my house? Che! Who told you that you could go and hack into my computer, eh? Lol
Illusion (who did not sign in): Thanks for reviewing, especially in chapter 1 and 9! *Laughs*
To the reviewer who didn't leave a name: So sorry! I had to leave it there...hehe, but I updated now!! Hope that makes up for it ~
AMsylva12: Wow...thank you! I'm just glad that you like it so much.
lovely_angel: Thank you...!! You'll enjoy this chapter too, I hope.
Thank you guys so much for reviewing! It means a lot to me!!! *Hugs reviewers* I put this chapter up as quickly as possible for you guys ~ I very much appreciate your comments.
~*~
Chapter 10: Solitary
Tenchi gripped the edge of her seat with white fingers, masking her shock as best as she could. "I - Kesumi? When did I mention that she was your sister?"
She panicked as she stood up abruptly from the stool, knocking it sideways and onto the white tiled floors with a clatter. Kai watched her carefully, an almost curious look in his eyes. "How did you know?" He repeated as if she had not spoken.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Tenchi snapped, and she headed quickly toward the door at a frantic pace.
"Tenchi!" Kai shook his head, briefly confused, "I mean..."
She whipped around, staring at him with unblinking blue eyes, and his feeling of familiarity of her mere image pulsed with renewed strength.
"Cecile, I'm sorry..I just..."
Tenchi tensed again; she closed her eyes tightly, feeling so foolish. But he had just called for her..he had said her name...she had to stay....
No. She resolutely tightened her grip on herself, smoothing out her expression with firm determination. "Hope you get better soon." She whispered tightly, and then, she was gone.
For hours afterwards, Kai lay still in his bed, feeling void and empty. At this rate, he mused idly, I'm going to remain a complete idiot who has no life before the age of 13. Of course Kesumi can fill me in, but there is only so much that she knows about. And then there is also the question of how I lost my memory in the first place...Kesumi already said that she didn't know herself..
"Kai?!" He turned at the sound of his name, a shrill and anxious tone that undoubtedly belonged to his sister. Realizing that he had left Kesumi with the guide for what probably was 3 hours, he cursed himself, "Kessy? I'm so sorry - "
"Are you okay? Where are you hurt? You're so pale!" He resisted the sudden urge to be amused, immediately guilty all over again at the sight of her stricken face.
"I'm fine, really."
She began to ramble nervously as the Blade Breakers hovered in the background, quite unsure of what to do.
Kesumi breathed in deeply, eyeing her brother with a critical look, "You don't seem well, kind of white and tired. What *happened*?"
He shrugged, stepping off the bed to be only forced back by his fierce looking sister, who seemed suddenly angry enough to blow steam through her nose. "Kai!!!"
While his team mates coughed and backed further into the shadows, Kai appeared rather impassive, carefully drinking a cup of water that Kesumi had thrust into his hands. "I'll tell you later. Let's go back to the hotel, I'm fine now."
At his firm tone, she reluctantly gave in, muttering darkly all the way outside of the stadium. "You have a tournament tomorrow, how could you get sick?"
"I'm not sick." He retorted, glaring in every direction to fend off any help. The rest of his team mates and their chauffeur halted in their jump to help him into the limo. His guards froze in their positions as well, looking in the other direction as if to suggest that they hadn't even been thinking anything of the sort.
He sat down by the window, remaining moody and silent the whole ride. Cecile kept submerging from his pool of thoughts, accompanied by the suspicious feeling that 'Cecile' really wasn't her name.
"Kai? Come on, we're here."
~*~
By evening that day, Kesumi and Kai were on the headlines of every news broadcast, making Kai wonder how much more of his face he could stand.
"Kesumi Hiwatari, long lost sister of Kai Hiwatari, the leader of the Blade Breakers who dominated the Beyblading world for the last 3 years, winner of the hottest male celebrity award for 2 years running and other numerous...."
Kai swore under his breath, pressing the mute button on the television while the whole room exploded with laughter around him. Tyson snatched the remote from beside him and turned the television up to its highest volume.
"She was sighted with Ray Kon, a member of the Blade Breakers team, and also the winner of the best smile award for 2003. It is rumoured that they could be more than just 'friends'..."
It was Ray's turn to flush - not that Kai did in the first place - into a shade of tomato, which everyone found extremely hilarious.
Kai frowned, "What do you mean you were 'sighted' with Ray?" He rounded up on his sister, "Well?"
Kesumi blinked, poking her brother in the arm, "Remember when I first saw you in the courtyard? I met Ray there about an hour before you came. I guess somebody saw us then 'cause we were talking for quite a while."
Kai's eyes narrowed, and Ray had the deepest yearning to sink into his seat. "Nothing happened, *really*." Kesumi giggled as rest of the room watched in interest for Kai's next reaction.
He threw one last threatening look at Ray, and diverted his attention on something else, "And what the hell were they talking about? Winner of the what...?"
"Hottest male celebrity?" Tyson supplied, smiling gleefully.
"Like I ever got any of those awards."
"That's because you threw them in the garbage can - " Kenny hastily covered Tyson's mouth with his hand when seeing Kai's glare intense.
"Not a good day to make Kai mad, Tyson. Tomorrow's tournament day and we need all our members in perfect condition. Of course it turns out that we don't need to bey blade tomorrow because we're champions from last year - "
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE DON'T HAVE TO BEYBLADE TOMORROW?"
Ray raised an eyebrow, "Tyson, we won the tournament last year, remember? That means we don't have to beyblade the first day - the first day is the qualification round..don't tell me you've forgotten."
The younger teen stared blankly, "Ohhh yeah!" He paused to scratch the back of his sheepishly then frowned, "Then what's the point of keeping Kai in a good mood?"
Kenny sighed, "Because Tyson, you know when they have tournaments, the media is there, right?"
Tyson nodded, still befuddled.
"Well, Kai will have to be in one hell of a good mood if we don't want him to go around strangling the camera men."
Kesumi burst out laughing, "Kai would never do that! He wouldn't hurt a fly!"
"Oh, you have no idea."
~*~
Tenchi yawned, thrusting her sore arms above her head, desperate to stretch her stiff limbs. Tala, too, stopped for a rest, pushing away random objects on the bed to make space for him to lie down. When this didn't prove to be the easiest thing to do, he gave up and plopped himself down on a pile of documents after a bit of shuffling to make the area reasonably comfortable.
Tenchi cast him an amused glance, neatly organizing the files she had already gone through. "Find anything?"
"Oh sure, I got progress reports of trainees and their individual stats alphabetized. Which one do you want first? What about the A's? B's? What about C's? Oh, oh! Even better, what bout the H's? There is nobody in our abbey with names that start with D, E, G, so I'm sorry, those aren't in the options. But," Tala paused dramatically, "I've got Z's."
She raised an eyebrow, "Sarcastic, are we?" Tenchi threw him a yellow folder, "Since you obviously have the energy, I'll give you the honour of sorting through those."
He gave her an irritated look, flicking through the papers tediously. He stopped suddenly and whined, "I thought we were taking a break!"
"Did you? Wherever did you get that idea?"
At his distressed expression, Tenchi relented, sitting gently on the edge of the bed in case she accidentally disturbed the mountainous pile of papers and documents that Tala had distractedly thrown around.
Tenchi, feeling suddenly regretful, gave her brother a searching look to see if he was any angry with her for being upset with him the other day. "Tala?"
Her brother smiled at her, "It's okay, I'm not angry. I understand why you were so mad, I would've been too, if I'd been fed such a shocking piece of information."
She smiled meekly back, reaching around the pandemonium on the bed to hug her brother. "I just want you to know, Tala. I never did doubt you for a second. I was just frustrated and angry about what Blithe was telling me, that's all."
Her brother stroked her hair gently, "I know, Tenchi, I know."
Tala glanced ruefully at the mess they had made on the floor, bed and desk of his hotel suite, almost regretting his decision to have the documents sent over last night. Mr. Blithe, Tenchi's personal assistant in the lab, had delivered the record of events in the Abbey for the past 3 years for them to sort through for any clues of the mysterious tournaments - and Kai.
Tenchi's assistant, of course, was instructed to be extremely careful when extracting these files from the Abbey in order for this 'search' to remain a secret. Tenchi didn't want Boris or anyone else knowing that she and Tala were suspicious just yet.
When Mr. Blithe arrived with the requested information, Tala had had a near heart attack when he discovered the five suitcases full of documents and files. Tenchi, to his grave amazement, insisted on sorting through each and every one of them with scrutiny.
So here they were now, (on their 2nd day of sorting through files) with not much progress from when they had first started. As if reading his very thoughts, Tenchi announced in a crisp voice, "Time to get back to work."
Tala groaned loudly but obliged, albeit unwillingly, reaching for the folder he had discarded just seconds - or so it seemed - before.
Before he even got chance to give the document a once over, Tenchi interrupted him again, "Tala! Look!!"
She rushed over to the bedside with a stack of forcefully stapled paper, thrusting the paper in his face. His eyes skimmed through the contents briefly, his mouth gaping open. "What the heck is this? Isn't that - that's - that's Bryan!"
"I know, look at this." She gestured toward Bryan's picture which was pasted in the very centre of the paper like a diagram, with arrows pointing at various parts of his head. Tenchi frowned, trying to decipher the labels. "Okkayyyy. What is this supposed to mean? This arrow's pointing at his right ear, do you see? It says 'stage 1'. What..?"
Tala shook his head, "Are they running some sort of experiment on him?"
"Seems like it...what's this? This is like a journal of the experiments or something..'December 9th, 2000. Bryan Curtis is progressing rapidly. We're currently feeding him hatred, and he seems to be taking it in well...'" Tenchi blew air through her teeth. Wonderful, she thought, just smashing.
Tala thumbed through the next page, and scowled into the paper, "Spencer. They're doing the same thing to Spencer."
Tenchi blinked, "No! Spencer too? Wait, the next one is Ian.."
They shared alarmed looks, not at all eager to see who occupied the next page. 'December 12th, 2000. Tala Balkov. - Currently being tested under hatred. The specimen has not reacted well to this emotion, and is being programmed instead.'
"Programmed? What did they do to me?"
She shuddered, feeling as if she had walked into a waterfall. Tenchi stared at her brother with numb shock, her brain seemed strangely still also, unable to grasp and comprehend the facts as easily as they normally did. Tala suddenly tore away from her, nearly sprinting across to the other side of the room.
"Tenchi, stay away from me. I could be dangerous."
"Don't be silly." She hissed, advancing on him, "You were okay all these years. Did you even see the date on this thing? 3 years ago! You're fine..we'll figure it out."
"No, stay away - " Her heart pounded wildly at his pained look, "Don't you dare come near me, you hear?"
He rushed out of the room before she could say anything, leaving her alone with only the sound of her beating heart to steady her fears.
~*~
A short and very confusing chapter, yes. It didn't really make sense, did it? Hehehehe! (The last part, I mean, although I'm hoping it did...) Anyways, the next chapter is the tournament - I thought it would be in this chapter, but it isn't so I'll just add it into the next. - and I'll mention again that the Blade Breakers nor the Demolition Boys participate on the first day. But there will be...never mind..you guys will have to find out~ *winks* Review, please! And of course, as always, thanks a bunch for reading!
Replies to reviews: *Hope I didn't forget anyone!!*
anonymous: Such a faithful reader!! Thank you for your consistent reviews. ^ ^ Oh yeah, about the Kai finding about Tenchi and Tala thing...hm...I estimate the big revelation to be in a couple of chapters, I think. Not really sure as to how I'm going to lay out the story completely.....yet.
Sighing Siren: Ooo I'm glad that you like Kesumi, she's rather a funny character, isn't she? Her attitude is a tad bit on the serious side in the beginning, but she'll turn out to be more of a 'happy happy' nothing like Kai sort of person. Lol..thx for reviewing!
AznAngel: Lol! Thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoy this chapter as well.....
Mizu: Thanks, I just thought it would be good to connect something with her past so that he might have a chance of remembering...but he didn't even after the flashback! Hehe
Sakura: thx, thx!!
Miekkie: Lol, I'm so glad that you like it!
kai baby - girl: thanks for reviewing, hope you don't find this chapter confusing...^ ^
Jessie: Hey! Did you really review the ninth chapter when you were at my house? Che! Who told you that you could go and hack into my computer, eh? Lol
Illusion (who did not sign in): Thanks for reviewing, especially in chapter 1 and 9! *Laughs*
To the reviewer who didn't leave a name: So sorry! I had to leave it there...hehe, but I updated now!! Hope that makes up for it ~
AMsylva12: Wow...thank you! I'm just glad that you like it so much.
lovely_angel: Thank you...!! You'll enjoy this chapter too, I hope.
Thank you guys so much for reviewing! It means a lot to me!!! *Hugs reviewers* I put this chapter up as quickly as possible for you guys ~ I very much appreciate your comments.
~*~
Chapter 10: Solitary
Tenchi gripped the edge of her seat with white fingers, masking her shock as best as she could. "I - Kesumi? When did I mention that she was your sister?"
She panicked as she stood up abruptly from the stool, knocking it sideways and onto the white tiled floors with a clatter. Kai watched her carefully, an almost curious look in his eyes. "How did you know?" He repeated as if she had not spoken.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Tenchi snapped, and she headed quickly toward the door at a frantic pace.
"Tenchi!" Kai shook his head, briefly confused, "I mean..."
She whipped around, staring at him with unblinking blue eyes, and his feeling of familiarity of her mere image pulsed with renewed strength.
"Cecile, I'm sorry..I just..."
Tenchi tensed again; she closed her eyes tightly, feeling so foolish. But he had just called for her..he had said her name...she had to stay....
No. She resolutely tightened her grip on herself, smoothing out her expression with firm determination. "Hope you get better soon." She whispered tightly, and then, she was gone.
For hours afterwards, Kai lay still in his bed, feeling void and empty. At this rate, he mused idly, I'm going to remain a complete idiot who has no life before the age of 13. Of course Kesumi can fill me in, but there is only so much that she knows about. And then there is also the question of how I lost my memory in the first place...Kesumi already said that she didn't know herself..
"Kai?!" He turned at the sound of his name, a shrill and anxious tone that undoubtedly belonged to his sister. Realizing that he had left Kesumi with the guide for what probably was 3 hours, he cursed himself, "Kessy? I'm so sorry - "
"Are you okay? Where are you hurt? You're so pale!" He resisted the sudden urge to be amused, immediately guilty all over again at the sight of her stricken face.
"I'm fine, really."
She began to ramble nervously as the Blade Breakers hovered in the background, quite unsure of what to do.
Kesumi breathed in deeply, eyeing her brother with a critical look, "You don't seem well, kind of white and tired. What *happened*?"
He shrugged, stepping off the bed to be only forced back by his fierce looking sister, who seemed suddenly angry enough to blow steam through her nose. "Kai!!!"
While his team mates coughed and backed further into the shadows, Kai appeared rather impassive, carefully drinking a cup of water that Kesumi had thrust into his hands. "I'll tell you later. Let's go back to the hotel, I'm fine now."
At his firm tone, she reluctantly gave in, muttering darkly all the way outside of the stadium. "You have a tournament tomorrow, how could you get sick?"
"I'm not sick." He retorted, glaring in every direction to fend off any help. The rest of his team mates and their chauffeur halted in their jump to help him into the limo. His guards froze in their positions as well, looking in the other direction as if to suggest that they hadn't even been thinking anything of the sort.
He sat down by the window, remaining moody and silent the whole ride. Cecile kept submerging from his pool of thoughts, accompanied by the suspicious feeling that 'Cecile' really wasn't her name.
"Kai? Come on, we're here."
~*~
By evening that day, Kesumi and Kai were on the headlines of every news broadcast, making Kai wonder how much more of his face he could stand.
"Kesumi Hiwatari, long lost sister of Kai Hiwatari, the leader of the Blade Breakers who dominated the Beyblading world for the last 3 years, winner of the hottest male celebrity award for 2 years running and other numerous...."
Kai swore under his breath, pressing the mute button on the television while the whole room exploded with laughter around him. Tyson snatched the remote from beside him and turned the television up to its highest volume.
"She was sighted with Ray Kon, a member of the Blade Breakers team, and also the winner of the best smile award for 2003. It is rumoured that they could be more than just 'friends'..."
It was Ray's turn to flush - not that Kai did in the first place - into a shade of tomato, which everyone found extremely hilarious.
Kai frowned, "What do you mean you were 'sighted' with Ray?" He rounded up on his sister, "Well?"
Kesumi blinked, poking her brother in the arm, "Remember when I first saw you in the courtyard? I met Ray there about an hour before you came. I guess somebody saw us then 'cause we were talking for quite a while."
Kai's eyes narrowed, and Ray had the deepest yearning to sink into his seat. "Nothing happened, *really*." Kesumi giggled as rest of the room watched in interest for Kai's next reaction.
He threw one last threatening look at Ray, and diverted his attention on something else, "And what the hell were they talking about? Winner of the what...?"
"Hottest male celebrity?" Tyson supplied, smiling gleefully.
"Like I ever got any of those awards."
"That's because you threw them in the garbage can - " Kenny hastily covered Tyson's mouth with his hand when seeing Kai's glare intense.
"Not a good day to make Kai mad, Tyson. Tomorrow's tournament day and we need all our members in perfect condition. Of course it turns out that we don't need to bey blade tomorrow because we're champions from last year - "
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE DON'T HAVE TO BEYBLADE TOMORROW?"
Ray raised an eyebrow, "Tyson, we won the tournament last year, remember? That means we don't have to beyblade the first day - the first day is the qualification round..don't tell me you've forgotten."
The younger teen stared blankly, "Ohhh yeah!" He paused to scratch the back of his sheepishly then frowned, "Then what's the point of keeping Kai in a good mood?"
Kenny sighed, "Because Tyson, you know when they have tournaments, the media is there, right?"
Tyson nodded, still befuddled.
"Well, Kai will have to be in one hell of a good mood if we don't want him to go around strangling the camera men."
Kesumi burst out laughing, "Kai would never do that! He wouldn't hurt a fly!"
"Oh, you have no idea."
~*~
Tenchi yawned, thrusting her sore arms above her head, desperate to stretch her stiff limbs. Tala, too, stopped for a rest, pushing away random objects on the bed to make space for him to lie down. When this didn't prove to be the easiest thing to do, he gave up and plopped himself down on a pile of documents after a bit of shuffling to make the area reasonably comfortable.
Tenchi cast him an amused glance, neatly organizing the files she had already gone through. "Find anything?"
"Oh sure, I got progress reports of trainees and their individual stats alphabetized. Which one do you want first? What about the A's? B's? What about C's? Oh, oh! Even better, what bout the H's? There is nobody in our abbey with names that start with D, E, G, so I'm sorry, those aren't in the options. But," Tala paused dramatically, "I've got Z's."
She raised an eyebrow, "Sarcastic, are we?" Tenchi threw him a yellow folder, "Since you obviously have the energy, I'll give you the honour of sorting through those."
He gave her an irritated look, flicking through the papers tediously. He stopped suddenly and whined, "I thought we were taking a break!"
"Did you? Wherever did you get that idea?"
At his distressed expression, Tenchi relented, sitting gently on the edge of the bed in case she accidentally disturbed the mountainous pile of papers and documents that Tala had distractedly thrown around.
Tenchi, feeling suddenly regretful, gave her brother a searching look to see if he was any angry with her for being upset with him the other day. "Tala?"
Her brother smiled at her, "It's okay, I'm not angry. I understand why you were so mad, I would've been too, if I'd been fed such a shocking piece of information."
She smiled meekly back, reaching around the pandemonium on the bed to hug her brother. "I just want you to know, Tala. I never did doubt you for a second. I was just frustrated and angry about what Blithe was telling me, that's all."
Her brother stroked her hair gently, "I know, Tenchi, I know."
Tala glanced ruefully at the mess they had made on the floor, bed and desk of his hotel suite, almost regretting his decision to have the documents sent over last night. Mr. Blithe, Tenchi's personal assistant in the lab, had delivered the record of events in the Abbey for the past 3 years for them to sort through for any clues of the mysterious tournaments - and Kai.
Tenchi's assistant, of course, was instructed to be extremely careful when extracting these files from the Abbey in order for this 'search' to remain a secret. Tenchi didn't want Boris or anyone else knowing that she and Tala were suspicious just yet.
When Mr. Blithe arrived with the requested information, Tala had had a near heart attack when he discovered the five suitcases full of documents and files. Tenchi, to his grave amazement, insisted on sorting through each and every one of them with scrutiny.
So here they were now, (on their 2nd day of sorting through files) with not much progress from when they had first started. As if reading his very thoughts, Tenchi announced in a crisp voice, "Time to get back to work."
Tala groaned loudly but obliged, albeit unwillingly, reaching for the folder he had discarded just seconds - or so it seemed - before.
Before he even got chance to give the document a once over, Tenchi interrupted him again, "Tala! Look!!"
She rushed over to the bedside with a stack of forcefully stapled paper, thrusting the paper in his face. His eyes skimmed through the contents briefly, his mouth gaping open. "What the heck is this? Isn't that - that's - that's Bryan!"
"I know, look at this." She gestured toward Bryan's picture which was pasted in the very centre of the paper like a diagram, with arrows pointing at various parts of his head. Tenchi frowned, trying to decipher the labels. "Okkayyyy. What is this supposed to mean? This arrow's pointing at his right ear, do you see? It says 'stage 1'. What..?"
Tala shook his head, "Are they running some sort of experiment on him?"
"Seems like it...what's this? This is like a journal of the experiments or something..'December 9th, 2000. Bryan Curtis is progressing rapidly. We're currently feeding him hatred, and he seems to be taking it in well...'" Tenchi blew air through her teeth. Wonderful, she thought, just smashing.
Tala thumbed through the next page, and scowled into the paper, "Spencer. They're doing the same thing to Spencer."
Tenchi blinked, "No! Spencer too? Wait, the next one is Ian.."
They shared alarmed looks, not at all eager to see who occupied the next page. 'December 12th, 2000. Tala Balkov. - Currently being tested under hatred. The specimen has not reacted well to this emotion, and is being programmed instead.'
"Programmed? What did they do to me?"
She shuddered, feeling as if she had walked into a waterfall. Tenchi stared at her brother with numb shock, her brain seemed strangely still also, unable to grasp and comprehend the facts as easily as they normally did. Tala suddenly tore away from her, nearly sprinting across to the other side of the room.
"Tenchi, stay away from me. I could be dangerous."
"Don't be silly." She hissed, advancing on him, "You were okay all these years. Did you even see the date on this thing? 3 years ago! You're fine..we'll figure it out."
"No, stay away - " Her heart pounded wildly at his pained look, "Don't you dare come near me, you hear?"
He rushed out of the room before she could say anything, leaving her alone with only the sound of her beating heart to steady her fears.
~*~
A short and very confusing chapter, yes. It didn't really make sense, did it? Hehehehe! (The last part, I mean, although I'm hoping it did...) Anyways, the next chapter is the tournament - I thought it would be in this chapter, but it isn't so I'll just add it into the next. - and I'll mention again that the Blade Breakers nor the Demolition Boys participate on the first day. But there will be...never mind..you guys will have to find out~ *winks* Review, please! And of course, as always, thanks a bunch for reading!
