Although this is going to be a helluva lot shorter then I had originally intended, I'll move the rest of what I had intended over into its sequel, which will actually work a lot better 'cos I'll have a plot to go on! THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER! Finally, you do not know how much I've wanted to type that.
Chapter Twenty
Farewells and departuresSeveral months had passed by now. It had been nearly a year since Kai had been broken free of his prison at school. He was happy to have been gone so long. His education problems were fine, he had mooched off of what Tyson had been learning, as had Rei and Max. The next year the whole team would enter the local high school, Rei and Kai a grade above everyone else. Today was the last day of the world championships.
It was a team tournament like the first time the Blade Breakers had been teamed up. Kai and Rei had gone up yesterday. It was the finals. And Tyson couldn't wait. The navy haired boy had wanted to go first, however, Kenny had suggested, and Kai and Rei agreed, it would be better if Tyson went last. This was partially because they wanted to assure victory against Tyson's major ego that had nearly lost him his round in the previous two tournaments. Also, the team didn't wanted Tyson bragging about his victory before the tournament was over. Max's match was before Tyson's.
Kai was asleep in the dojo they had been staying at for the past several months. Tyson and Max had already left, as had Kenny and Rei. He was all alone, possibly excluding Tyson's grandfather, but he too had gone out to watch his grandson's match. It was still dark outside, the sun hadn't even risen yet. Tyson had wanted to leave early because he wanted to get some training in before the final rounds of the finals began and the tournament was in the next prefecture.
In the van going to the tournament, Tyson was sleeping soundly, but not soundlessly, he was snoring loudly. Max was trying to rest and Rei was taking a light snooze, being woken up frequently by his teammate's snoring. Tyson's grandfather and Kenny were fast asleep. Mariam and Salima were staring out of the window at the passing scenery. Hillary, who was sitting next to Tyson, was looking angry, she was still tired.
Taking the jacket she was wearing she quickly secured it over Tyson's mouth. It muffled his snoring enough that it sounded freakily quiet. Hillary slumped in her seat and slept. Max muttered a thanks and was finally able to rest. Rei fell asleep and didn't wake up for a while. Mariam and Salima were grateful to the lowered volume as the continued to watch the scenery pass.
Within an hour, they were at the championship stadium. Tyson was woken up and after pulling Hillary's sweater off his face he started to yell and rant. After calming Tyson down, they all went inside the tournament building. Max lost his battle, so if Tyson lost it would be a tie and the alternates would have to come forward, and Kenny was their only alternate, and being a considerably weaker blader, the other team would win. It was all up to Tyson now.
Within the hour, victory was declared, and for the third year running, Tyson was the World Champion. There was no telling how big his ego would be now. A few days later, there was a large celebration for the champions. It wasn't very formal, it just invited all the teams that had participated in the tournament to attend with the BladeBreakers and the five guests they invited as guests of honor.
The winning team's captain, Kai, and the World Champion, Tyson, had to each make separate speeches. Kai's was very short, not really able to be called a speech as it was barely two sentences long. Tyson's ran for five or six sentences.
The next day, Mariam and Salima left, saying they wanted to go back to their separate teams and their injuries had healed over by then. A week later, they were all invited back to Isle Battle for more training. They were all greeted at the docks by the BeyGirls team, along with the Saint Shields and the Psykicks.
Tyson jumped out of the boat as soon as it stopped at the dock, the others waited for the plank to be moved so that they could disembark safely. "Kane, Ozuma, all of you guys! What are you doing here?"
"Well, we were invited here after the tournament ended and we couldn't say no."
"But I thought all of you weren't even around."
"Salima and Mariam brought the news to them." The blonde haired Molly spoke up from the otherwise silent team.
Daisy stared at her cousin, "The White Tigers are here as well, but they're training right now."
"They're here as well? Awesome! We should have a mini tournament between all of us."
Lily was unable to check her rude comment to Tyson, "Wow, he says something smart for once. Is the apocalypse coming?"
"Hey, I have come up with some of the greatest ideas out there, you know."
Rei snickered at Tyson, "Like eating every restaurant in New York out of food?"
"Not you too, Rei."
"Come on, Tyson, you have to admit it was kind of funny when the chefs were chasing you around with vegetables."
"That's right, Max. So how about a mini tournament?"
Lily shrugged, "Whatever."
Kai glared off to the side, "Hn."
"Sounds good to me."
"I'd like to see how strong you've gotten, Tyson."
"Great! Now all we need is Lee's opinion."
Daisy spoke up again, "And we can get that at lunch." She looked around at everyone, "So what do you all want to do now? We have a few hours to kill."
"I was thinking walking to Dragon Head."
"Sounds good to me. But, Lily, could we not take the route we took last time?"
"Yeah sure."
So instead of taking Dragon Path like they had the last time, they took a path that went through an underground cave system. Several smaller paths branched off the main path and lead to beyblade arenas with different hazards. They got through this path, called Cavern Path, much faster then they did Dragon Path. The caves gradually moved up to the west side of the building. They spent the rest of the time wandering around and setting up the rooms they would be staying in for the next two weeks.
After lunch was over they managed to find the White Tigers and the tournament was approved for all the teams. All five teams spent the rest of the day deciding how the tournament was going to be managed.
Due to the fact that there were five official competing teams, they decided on a tag team tournament, round-robin style. There were to be two blocks. Each team in each block would face every other team in the block. For each victory the team would get one point, for each tie, a half point and for each loss, no points. The team with the most amount of points at the end would go to face the winner of the other block.
The teams were decided upon as follows: Kai and Rei, Tyson and Max, Kane and Salima, Goki and Jim, Lee and Gary, Kevin and Mariah, Mariam and Joseph, Ozuma and Dunga, Lily and Lea, Molly and Daisy. Kenny would keep the data on the tournament and Hillary would be both referee and judge.
Within a week the tournament was over. While they had meant for fun, Tyson had taken it a little bit too seriously and had nearly gone berserk halfway through. The final match was between Lily and Lea form the first block and Kevin and Mariah from the second block. It was a very close match between Lily and Mariah and they both tied. Lea won over Kevin, so Lily and Lea won, though they both admitted every one was much stronger then they had been a year ago and were all formidable opponents. For the next week everyone went under rigorous training. Tyson and Max made it past Advanced and they were so close to finishing Expert that they both swore they could have reached out and taken it, at least Max did. Tyson said he could taste it. Kai and Rei managed to finish Expert several times over.
On the White Tigers, Mariah, Lee, Kevin and Gary all managed to finish Expert. The Psykicks? Salima was the only one to complete Expert, the others were as close as Max and Tyson though. With the Saint Shields, Mariam, Ozuma, and Dunga finished Expert, Joseph barely lagging behind the rest. All of the BeyGirls had beaten Expert many times before they had met the BladeBreakers.
On the last day they were there, they were all provided a map and were allowed to storm the island in teams, but they had to have a form of communication on both of them. Tyson and Max were eager to explore the beach and splash around and relax. Kenny got as much data as he could on the island. Everyone else took to wandering in the forest.
After lunch, Rei and Salima walked around and talked. When Salima spotted her team she ran over to go talk with them and then they all left to train. Rei watched Salima's back with a lingering smile. Mariah, who had been conveniently in the tree above Rei jumped down.
"Does she remember now, Rei?"
"I don't think so, Mariah."
"Why don't you ask her?"
"I don't want to invade her privacy."
Rei turned his golden eyes to somberly watch Salima's back. As she met up wither team several hands clapped on her shoulders and he caught laughter as they said something to her, but he really couldn't tell what. Whatever they said irritated her or something because she bashed all three of the boys on their shoulders.
"Rei...?" Mariah's voice was quieter and slightly timid.
Rei turned his gaze back on Mariah. He recognized that tone. She used that tone when she wanted to ask him something personal. Bracing himself he spoke, "What is it, Mariah?"
"I want to know, do you still like Salima...as much as you did when we were younger?"
Rei took a few moments to register what she was saying. His past, he had blocked it out after he had gotten Drigger, or perhaps the white Tiger had blocked it for him? In either case, it took him a few moments to place what she was asking, considering his past was nearly a blur.
"Oh." He said as realization spread across his face, golden eyes widening. Then his eye's narrowed to their normal size and he looked downwards. "Yes, I suppose I do."
Kai growled as he regained his balance, a wooden door clattered behind him. He mentally cursed Lily in his head in Japanese, Russian, and English for first dragging him by his wrist as soon as they had neared Dragon Head. He was perfectly capable of walking by himself after all. Then there was letting g of his wrist outside this door, allowing him to stand but before he could yell at her, she had shoved him inside this room. He rubbed an aching muscular shoulder. He narrowed his red gaze when he realized who was in the room with him, his parents.
He turned to go, but the door, his only exit was sealed shut, and wouldn't budge open. He frowned at the door and wished it to burn so he could leave. However, to his dismay, the door didn't spontaneously combust. He then turned to face his biological parents, although he had thought of, and had mentally, revoked the title of parents from them when he was a child in the Abbey.
They stood like that for a while, Kai glaring down both Nizama and Kiaro, both showing a mixture of calm and slight hurt from their son's anger. After a while it finally just burst out from him, all his hatred at them and their actions. His tone was controlled, but his frustration and anger were quite obvious.
"Why in hell did you leave me with that poor excuse of a human being?"
Nizama blinked and then looked slightly curiously at Kai. "Who are you referring to?"
"Voltaire."
"Oh." Nizama sighed and looked over at her husband who nodded at her. She then replaced her burgundy gaze on Kai. "Well. We didn't have much of a choice you see."
"What sort of choice is there when you leave your kid?"
"Well, you need to understand, your mother was pregnant with your sister at the time. I had just told my father, Voltaire, that I wouldn't take over his business a week previous. He was very angry with me, he told me he'd let me give more thought over it, but he didn't mean it. You were still little, so I left you with the servants when I took your mom to the doctor's one day."
"Why didn't you take me with you?"
"It was cold since it was the middle of winter, and I asked for you to be left at the mansion so you wouldn't get ill. You have to remember, you weren't even three."
When Nizama had become silent Kiaro took over again. "When we got back barely an hour later, the whole mansion was trashed, there was blood, chicken blood as we found out later, all over the place. There was no one there and no power. The security camera recordings had been smashed and destroyed. It was a set up Voltaire had made when he had left and taken you with him."
Nizama spoke up again. "We did look for you. When I guess you were about six, we found that you were located in the Abbey, but we still didn't know where your grandfather was." She sighed and looked down, "By that point your sister had been taken as well, when she was four. We found out later that your grandfather had kidnapped her as well."
"When we found out where you were, we sent someone to go find out for sure. The next day the Abbey was demolished and you were with the police. But by the time we had come to get you, your grandfather had sent one of his servants to get you, and he had."
Kai had listened to them and his expression had changed from clear anger at them to relief and slight irritation. Voltaire had told him that his parents hated him and had left Kai with him. Voltaire had never mentioned his sister and had made Kai hate his parents and despise them.
"When, you were on the team that had won the tournament we were happy, but we didn't know if you would remember us or if you hated us. We were too scared to go to you and find out."
Nizama looked at Kai, who had closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists. "Kai, can you forgive us?"
Kai, who was still taking it all in just shook his head yes. Nizama smiled and walked over to Kai and then hugged him, finally happy to see her son again.
And now we interrupt this heartfelt moment to skip to sunset.
Later that day when Kai had finally found Lily he was still mad at her for dragging him, quite literally too, by his wrist and pushing him around. Even though he had found out the truth of his past and made up with his parents, he was still angry with the brunette.
They were having a battle in the expert area of the island, right at the very heart. They stood on a shiny blue stadium that glowed in the dying light. Half a mile above them were two bit beasts. Kai's Dranzer and Lily's Dalila. The white blade and the metallic blue one clashed, sending sparks away from the force of the collision. Minutes later the two blades fell over from a loss of spin.
On one of the balcony's at Dragon head, on right under the realistic dragon head itself, stood Max and Mariah. Max had seen Mariah there and had just walked on. Mariah was leaning on the rail with her arms crossed. Max rested one elbow on the wooden railing as well. They both stared into the sunset.
As the sun went down and the bright wash of pinks and purples in the sky turned to black and blues and purples Mariah turned to go, bumping accidentally into Max. Max looked at her, blue eyes catching her piercing green stare.
After a few moments of this, they kissed.
The next day they each left the island at different times. Promising each other to meet at the next year's world tournament.
!-End chapter Twenty-!
"A Year to Remember Me By" Extra Comments by the Author
And this is a story that has taken just over a year and a half to do. However I'm quite pleased that I actually finished.
Although I must admit my style is actually five to ten times better then it was at the beginning, I like the overall piece. However if I could I would definitely re-do the entire beginning. It'll stay so I remember exactly how I was when I was a fangirl of the cool character that is Kai.
Its been a lot of fun. As for the title, I had actually planned for Lily to have a quote at the very end when she had to leave for home that was "Well, this has been a year to remember me by" however the plot changed and I simply couldn't fit it in. Although the title, I feel, is fairly symbolic, and would be more so had I finished it in a year, so the title stays and now you know its origins.
As for Kai's past, I have totally made it up, and this story does take place instead of G-Rev, because I hate that season. And please don't mind my comment in the middle of the story after Kai does forgive his parents, I couldn't think of another way to get to the end. Also, I'm sorry if his past was extremely lame. I made it up on the spot for the most part. And sorry if the ending sucks royally.
Keep your eyes out for my sequel to this story, "Love is Only Human", in which the title will be fully explained by the story itself. Also, I have been working on it and the third story in this series at the same time as this, which would explain why my updates are not as timely as they could be.
The sequel should be up in the next week, but to amuse yourself in the mean time, go read "Truth Or Dare" That I put up since it got deleted. It's amusing and spoils every pairing that will show up in this particular BeyBlade trilogy.
Go to my page on Fanfiction and look at the pictures that I have affiliated with this story. please tell me what you think of them
I truly hope you enjoyed my first story and currently my pride.
This is Digi signing out -leaves-