DISCLAIMER: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade belongs to its manga author, Aoki Takao.

Apostrophes wouldn't appear in the title section... just great...

Finally I gained a chance to update after… around twenty months? -looks at updated date- -looks at published date- -faints- Sorrryyyy!

Anyway, I'm happy to receive more reviews than before. Thank you, reviewers! –hugs reviewers- I nearly lost hope in this fic, but if it weren't for the wonderful people leaving reviews and for the ending of the story, I probably would have discontinued.

Double Negative: You'll probably kill me for taking this long to update. LOL, maybe I can give you a Kai plushie to accompany the Max plushie on your head. Thanks for the continuous reviewing!

Ayuka-chan: Thanks! About Hiromi/Hilary, actually I've planned this fic out even before I knew that Beyblade 2002 (V-Force) existed. So meaning, she isn't originally a part of the story. But, after watching the second season I have found a way to incorporate her into it, though she would be playing only minor roles there. For future plot, there will be twists. Kai and Takao's separate situations are within the search for the Twelve Signs, while Max and Rei will unravel more and more about Elijah, keeping the entire team always surprised/shocked per revalation. And of course, as the search goes on, all will think they're figuring out already the Signs… well, that's what they think. I can't say much.

elsiey: Thanks! More about Elijah would be revealed, and I'm happy someone found my OC intriguing.

Chibi-Kari: You must really love Max as it seems you really hate Elijah. Thanks for reviewing! For reviewing all four chapters, here! -gives a Max plushie- Well, in the original series, Max is really half-American (mother's side) and half-Japanese (father's side) (note "Mizuhara Max"). In the Nelvana version, they made him full American for who knows what reason. Maybe to be consistent with his altered name, "Max Tate."

Hope you enjoy!

WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW CAN'T HURT YOU

ChApTeR 5

Darkness. Rei was bathing in complete darkness. Sharp golden hues and pointed ears were more alert than ever, trying to catch the slightest movement or even the slightest sound.

"You are very good, Rei Kon."

Rei spun around to find a maiden floating lightly toward him. Everything about her glowed in soft white—her fair face, her long wavy tresses, the flowing gown, her delicate skin—everything.

"And you had underestimated me," he returned. "But shouldn't a Sign be attacking the beyblade and not its owner?"

"Almost anything is possible if not all the Signs are collected yet," she stated softly. Soft, just like her image. "But answer me. How did you know that everything was just an illusion?"

Rei let a slight shrug give his answer an opening. "I didn't realize it until the last minute, actually. Like I said before, everything seemed so real, there was no way I could've thought that it wasn't. Until you hugged me while crying." He paused, the events finally digesting in his mind.

"Continue."

"When you hug someone, you enfold your arms to do so. But you said your elbow's broken. So unless it healed at a miraculous speed, it's either your arm should be experiencing some serious pain or you're lying. I also saw the pendant of your necklace. Remarkably thin and glassy, it's almost impossible to see it, let alone make out the figure of the pendant. Which turned out to be your symbol, Virgo." Now that he thought more about it, he couldn't believe himself. Since when did visual deceptions work on him?

The maiden nodded, impressed. "You seem to have studied me well."

"Not really. Elijah drew all the zodiac symbols before to show it to my team. I just recalled yours now."

Virgo slowly stepped to the unseen ground. "You have the sharpness of a feline. I cannot deny the acuity of your senses, Rei Kon. You are among the very few who had defeated me." As slow as the falling of snow, she started to fade from his sight.

"Wait! What did you mean by 'among the very few'?"

"Others before you had tried and failed, and they ended up losing what they could have possessed and what they already had." The angelic voice was becoming a faint, distant echo. "Your sharp mind had just saved you, and never should you ever lose it..."

And he was bathing in pure darkness again.

"Rei… Kon…"

His name… a voice…

"Kon!"

Suddenly aurous eyes snapped open to meet…

The warm-colored heaven?

"Good to see you're finally back."

Slowly Rei sat up, turning to his side to find Elijah sigh in relief. "W-What happened?" While his mind could still see the image of the beautiful maiden, his eyes looked around him only to find out that he was sitting on the same spot where they saw Tia.

"You were lying on the ground. Now, remove your shirt."

"Why?"

"Because I can see a little blood on your shoulder. Now, remove your shirt," Elijah repeated.

Blood? Rei undid his belt and carefully removed his upper garments, wincing slightly as the pain on his left shoulder started to sink in. When he tried to look down on it, he could see only a little of the wound but he already knew how he received it. "This must be from the slash."

"Come again?"

"Someone tried to slash me but I managed to dodge him narrowly. Or at least that's what happened during the illusion."

"Wait. So you're saying that you got a wound while under an illusion but in reality the same thing happens to you?" The American's tone was mixed with disbelief.

"…Looks like it. Sounds kind of dangerous, huh?"

"Sounds really cool!" Elijah's eyes practically shone. Then he blinked as though he remembered something. "Oh yeah, the wound." His hands flew to his pockets. "Right, I don't have any handkerchiefs. Can I borrow yours?"

Rei shook his head slightly. "I don't have any."

"Hmm." The searcher of the Signs seemed thoughtful while studying Rei from head to toe. "I got it. They say bleeding wounds should be covered for blood to clot, right? Maybe you'll allow me to borrow that bandage thingy," he suggested, pointing at the long strip of white cloth wounded on Rei's lower arm.

"Sure."

Elijah unraveled the bandage on the Chinese blader's left arm and started wrapping it around on his shoulder. "You can deal with this wound better when we see the chairman. It's a good thing it's not so large."

"Yeah. What about you? Didn't you fall under an illusion too?"

"Yup. We nearly woke up at the same time, only I'm a little earlier than you. But I think we had different and separate illusions. Mine didn't actually contain any form of bloodshed."

"Okay, so what did it contain?"

"I saw this man in his forties who said he was looking for Chairman Daitenji for an urgent matter. Then you collapsed from fatigue or something like that and he volunteered to carry you while I bring him to the chairman. Later I realized that something was wrong, so what was currently happening couldn't be true. I also noticed the shape of this pin he was wearing when I was so close to him and took hold of it. Don't ask me why; it's… instinct, I guess."

"That's almost the same way for me before I got out," Rei mused. "So we fell under our illusions the moment we saw her. But how did you know that something was wrong?"

Elijah's eye twinkled. "We got back to the hotel. And I was the one leading us."

Of course. At this, Rei let out a chuckle. "Smart thinking, Elijah."

"Tell me about it." Elijah grinned. "But the weird part is I really didn't see the shape for the first time. I didn't even notice he wore a pin, you know?"

"I can't blame you for that. I didn't even see it until we were so close," he admitted. "It was so transparent it would never cross anyone's mind that it was there all the while."

"No one's mind except ours now. Seriously, Virgo was underestimating both of us. I don't know what she intended to happen to us under those illusions but I'm just glad they hadn't gone too far yet."

Yet Elijah seemed to have no idea how his words were hitting a point of wonder in Rei's mind.Those illusions could have pushed us to far more serious danger than the ones we experienced... But that was it? Was that one of the limitations he was looking for? A part of him was certain, yet another part of him, the one who often agreed with his instincts, refused to believe, felt there was more, that it couldn't be that weak as the situation made it appear to be.

"Others before you had tried and failed, and they ended up losing what they could have possessed and what they already had."

What they could have possessed. Could this be referring to the Signs?

And what they already had. Could this mean...

Life?

"What life?"

The neko-jin's mind slammed back to the present scene, realizing that the thought became verbalized without him knowing it. "Nothing, just a little something I recalled from what the Sign said."

"Must be quite deep if it can cause such a distant look on your face. Anyway, here." The American blader tossed something to Rei, who caught it with his right hand. "We bought caught it, I guess."

Rei gazed at the sign on the small piece of a bit between his fingers. "Yes, this is the same sign. So now we have two pieces and ten more to go." He offered it to Elijah. "It's yours."

"Thanks," he said, taking the piece and placing it inside the pocket of his denim pants. Then he finished the wrapping with a knot. "There! It's a little messy but that will do until we get back to the hotel." His eyes fell on the discarded broken items and the cracked walls. "Now let's really get out of here. Can you walk?"

Rei slowly put on his upper garments and belt before getting on his feet. "I still can; I just got a little wound on the shoulder, that's all."

"If you say so. Anyway, since moving forward won't help, the only way is to go back. Let's go now." He turned to the direction where they came from and started walking.

"No arguments here. Oh, and Elijah…"

Elijah stopped before looking back. "Yeah?"

Rei pointed to himself. "Maybe this time I should take lead."

Over one week later, Max found himself staring at the airplane's window, smiling. Just a few days ago he had overcome the attacks of Aries, and now he and his friends were leaving Argentina to head for Brazil. The events in Argentina had left him more curious than ever, and he couldn't wait to share his experiences with his mom. Mama, I did it. I caught one of the Signs for you. And all by myself.

A sigh of slight irritation broke into his thoughts, causing him to turn to his right. Apparently he had been so caught up in his silent happiness that he forgot all about Elijah, who currently kept shifting into a more comfortable position and was miserably failing.

In truth, Max had a hard time figuring Elijah out. At first he had assumed they were getting along just fine after Max's apology to the slightly smaller boy back in America. But as their trip to Mexico progressed, the blond had always felt a pair of hard eyes boring holes right through him. He hadn't helped thinking that they belonged to Elijah but whenever he tried to catch him, Elijah wasn't even looking in his direction.

"Maybe you should try talking to Elijah once in a while," Rei had suggested to him after his encounter with Virgo. "He thinks you hate him, Max."

Max hadn't been able to believe his ears. Elijah thought that Max didn't like him? Shouldn't that be the other way around? And had Elijah still been under the same wrong impression when the brown-haired boy had practically talked to everyone but him even in Argentina?

Well, make that him and Kai. It really was wrong but the thought made Max feel a little lighter. Because if Elijah could converse animatedly with the Hiwatari but not with the blond, then something was seriously wrong. But so far it wasn't happening.

So maybe he could still try again. And maybe, it wasn't still too late to build a new friendship.

"Hey, um, are you okay?"

Elijah was practically squirming on his seat, looking annoyed while turning to Max. "Sometimes you can never be comfortable with where you're seating."

Max frowned both inwardly and physically. Elijah's words were completely innocent, that he knew. So why did he feel as though it were aimed at him? "What do you mean?"

The smaller boy let out a loud sigh and finally stayed still. "I give up. Sleeping here just won't work right now." He turned to Max. "So you're not having a hard time with where you are, huh?" The question came out in a perfectly friendly tone.

"Well, no." Okay, so Elijah just couldn't sleep after all. Max was just getting paranoid over nothing then. Now was the best time to make his move. "So, we got three of the Signs already. Isn't it great?"

Elijah smiled. "It's great. You couldn't imagine how happy I am with each piece we collected." The way he smiled was as though more to himself knowingly than to Max. "But Mizuhara, you don't have to force yourself to search for the Signs if you don't want to. I'll completely understand if you don't feel like it since you'd be helping out a complete stranger and all."

How could this friendly conversation twist all of a sudden? "No, I really want to help," he said, trying to straighten their talk out. "I want to do this for my mom."

"Your mom?" Elijah's eyebrows were raised. At least he seemed to hold even a little interest with Max had to say.

Feeling encouraged, the blond went on. "My mom is the director of the PPB Institute. Her current research project is about the Twelve Signs, and if I give her the data I'll get from this trip, I know it would take off a lot of burden from her. We won't be seeing each other for quite a long time now but I'm sure she'll be more than happy to see me when we come back." He mentally listed all the possible activities he could do with his mom, and maybe—

"We can't all be blessed," Elijah uttered dryly. His gaze was on the back of the seat before him as though trying to sear holes on it.

Max's forehead creased. Had he said something wrong again? "Why? Where's your mom?"

The smaller boy's gaze didn't move. "She's dead."

The blond blinked and looked at the floor, unable to believe how insensitive he had been. But it wasn't like he knew that Elijah's mom had already passed away. "I'm sorry, I didn't know." But when he looked up, Elijah's eyes were already closed.

Maybe he should follow Elijah's example. Maybe sleeping would be the best thing to do right now. It wasn't like he had the energy to continue the conversation anyway.

"Brazil, Brazil!" Takao stood with arms raised, sniffing the air. "Finally we're here!"

"Takao's looking very excited again," Kyouju noted. "He must be dying to find another Sign."

"What are you talking about, Kyouju? Don't you get it? New places mean new types of food! Man, I'm hungry already!"

Everyone else shed sweatdrops.

"Now listen to me, everyone." All beybladers turned to Chairman Daitenji. "We'll first rest at the hotel and then plan our search. If we still have some time, we can still do whatever we want."

"Got it!" Max grinned.

"Rei?" a voice called out from behind. "Is that you?"

Rei turned around, blinked… and his face broke into a warm smile. "Hey, we meet again!"

-nods- Yes, people. Max calls Judy "Mama" in the original/Japanese.

I'll end the chapter here. Please leave a review! Flames will be used to burn your favorite character to a crisp (not that you'd like that to happen). Thanks!

And hopefully, I can finish Sign of Wish soon…