A.C: Edited when I should be writing 'Truth About Darkness' finally got to see Episode 48, -sniffs- oh how I missed it so. Too bad I can't rewind or whatnot... Kai... Kai is... -begins to cry like a baby- Uhh the last quote by Kai right there. That was the Japanese title I think, of episode 48. Of course, the dubbers had to be quadsy-feely about it so they changed passion/etc adjetives into... beyblading spirit... yes Kai did say the word love, as I was reminded when I took the trip down the memory lane.
"You died once Kai, are you willing to die again?"
Did he? Did he really?
Suzaku flew magnificently, her tail burst into a stream of fire, shattering the darkness. Zeus crashed against the wall before regaining ground, the sucking motion had stopped... for now.
"A phoenix, however injured, torn, broken... shattered... rises up from the ashes more powerful than before..."
His whole figure was bathed in a ghastly blue light edged in black. He shivered as the blades began dancing around the dish, he could have sworn half the blood in his body had frozen.
Resisting the urge to throw up on to the other side of the ring he held his breath, clenching his hands hard until his nails left dark pink crescent marks riddling across his palms. The blue light grew larger, challenging the colorless, no, colorful light illuminating Brooklyn. They were light, they were darkness, and they were on a whole different level from others.
If Brooklyn was a god by birth, he could be a god as well.
"Just a little more Dranzer... just until my strength gives away... just a little more."
Kai took a breath, the wound on his eye itched, uncomfortably so. His other wounds demanded attention, the scant layers of bandages unable to keep them closed the angry slashes began to bleed.
"A phoenix cannot heal the pain of others, only take them away as his own..."
His tongue felt thick and fat in his mouth, it choked him... then he saw...
Too many things...
He snarled and the statues built around the four corners of the overly elaborate dish began to erode, possibly beyond repair should the ring ever be used again. Brooklyn looked slightly stricken; he had begun to sweat uneasily. And still the tiny village built in countless hours crumbled all around them as the battle continued.
"Very well, if this is what you want, I will not stop."
Blow for blow they fought, Brooklyn to Kai, Kai to Brooklyn, everyone held their breaths. Not even Hitoshi dared to interfere.
-
"Kai don't give up!"
-
"The fool..." whispered Romero from the stands, his face halfway hidden by strands of wavy blond hair.
"Sir?" asked Julia her eyes alight with curiosity. Kai had intrigued her, as he had many others before her. Her brother Raul gave her a sideways glance.
"I told him not to use it, I warned him that he would lose control... he has some nerve fighting darkness with dark." the elder of the twins looked towards the stadium.
-
Above them the bit beasts Dranzer and Zeus fought, red against black as they grappled each other and basically tore each other apart. Their wings thrashed desperately against each other, both trying to win an advantage over the other as the flames and the darkness intermingled in a spectral dance to the death.
With free claws Zeus was choking Dranzer, one claw on her throat squeezing as the other tried to twist and break her neck. Not to be outdone, Dranzer had plunged her talons into the ebony stomach, threatening to tear off the coarse flaps of fur as her crimson tails slapped and tangled against the centaurian's legs. Her gold beak was already buried halfway in the muscular arms of the god beast but with the grip on her windpipe growing stronger she was slowly loosing ground.
-
"To tell you the truth I'm quite jealous, to get a rise out of such menial tasks... I'm sorry it had to end this way."
Again they stood above the darkness, Brooklyn in his whites looking brighter than a newborn star he as he sank ever deeper. He tried to reach out only to see the redhead looking down at him with mild amusement. Horrified Kai tried reaching out only to find tendrils of black convulsing around him as it dragged him down.
"Sayonara Kai, King of Darkness..."
'KAI!'
Takao had grabbed his outstretched his hands, but the few fingers he caught slipped away, the warmth shared between the friction of their palms leaving him as quickly as it had come.
The shadows pulled at the edges of his soul paralyzing him there as he sunk further into the abyss of the vortex Brooklyn had created. Takao let him go, abet reluctantly. Kai didn't blame him, not really.
"Kai!"
Kai closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable; perhaps he'll wake up faster this time. Maybe... in time to watch Yuriy's face...
The thick gray turned black as the lonely sky blue shifted into a luminescent green. And the fall slowed into a stop as warmth penetrated the foreboding depths. Kai looked up, the site that greeted him near broke him.
Larger, paler... stronger hands held his wrist intent on holding him there. Three more joined it in an aura of colors in which Kai couldn't see but sense in the barest of raw emotions of loving and being loved in return.
When he realized it as something not foreign, but familiar, he sobbed openly returning it with all his being until not even he could tell where everything started and ended, and as the dark clouds dispersed into nothingness Kai woke up cast within the thick smoke where everything was hidden from view.
Nothing is as it seems
-
The gray smoke gave off an acrid smell melted plastic, along with few sparks that could have only been from Kai's former blade as the flameproof parts whirled down to a stop, announcing the phoenix's fall... this time it would be permanent.
"AANNND IT'S OVER! SUPER 5'S VICTOR IS BROOKLYN!"
Brooklyn smiled, or was he smirking? Knowingly as he stepped off the stands, his white boots barely making a sound as he glided over the steps to a cheering crowd and his teammates, the flabbergasted faces of team G-Revolutions an enjoyable keepsake tucked away in his mind and the announcer on the other side concluding the unfortunate match.
"It's not possible..."
Airborne bits of fire, exploding into a conflagration of flames. With the flames, Hiwatari Kai rose up to his feet, panting as announcer withdrew the results.
"Not yet..."
Harsh croak reverberated around the stadium hushing everyone and everything. From the stands, the two solemn members of Neo Borg watched as their brother, as an unworldly phoenix fought for everything he had ever believed in and his life.
"Why do you get up? Don't you get it? It's over, you have nothing left now."
A phoenix never dies...
"Fight damn you!"
Brooklyn gazed blandly at the Russian phoenix before shrugging helplessly.
"Stubborn are you?"
And as Kai had pleasantly requested, trails of purple shot themselves at Dranzer, striking her repeatedly as she dodged.
"It should be clear by now." Brooklyn said calmly, his white clothing flapping with the jet of dust that followed. "You've lost Kai."
Kai snarled, struggling to rise once more. He lifted his head shakily from the concrete, biting his lips to keep himself from crying out.
"Shut... up..."
A hand trembled,
"No way..."
"Fight..." Kai's breaths came in ragged gasps, another hit and he was down again, clutching the floor like a lifeline. He was now numb with exhaustion, with pain, the rush of whatever adrenaline that had possessed him had left a long time ago and now he was dead beat. There was nothing he would like more than to crawl in Yuriy's bed and reminisce about the olden days.
But the warmth, it had not left him. Not yet... Suzaku fed it, protected it fiercely. Enough to keep him going, enough to keep him proud.
He could not afford to give up now.
"Fool..." Zeus crashed into Dranzer, burying the phoenix blade in the bits of rubble. "I was having a good day... you've just ruined it."
With a whirl of gears, Dranzer shook free of the earth that imprisoned her. Kai let out a quiet cry as his hand fell limp beneath him and he crashed back onto the floor once more. Brooklyn was gazing at them as if they were cursed.
"AND THE PHOENIX HAS RISEN ONCE MORE!"
With a screech Suzaku signaled her challenge to a god...
The mortals defying the fate they had been sentenced to...
Brooklyn began to sweat nervously, feeling the moisture grow between the cracks and curves of his palms as he gazed upon what he thought was a mere mortal.
Red eyes... one of them which he had wounded.
"Am I sweating?" he asked faintly, the screams of the crowd were larger now, shriller, it cut into them like arrows, bleeding them dry. Humanity could be disgusting at its best, the unheard taunts dug in deeper than the soul. "Gods... gods don't sweat." Brooklyn declared finally trying to brush off the precipitation gathering around his angelic face. "This wasn't in my visions..." Brooklyn took a half step backwards, before taking a full one forward. "You... I thought I told you to stop!"
-
Max shivered the urge to wrap his arms around himself and found that Daichi's tiny form was quaking as well.
-
Red eyes offered no explanation as they heaved up and down, the heavily injured body standing precariously on the edge as he goaded his blue blade on. The top spun sluggishly now, almost as if tired, resigned to the fate they would be tested against.
"What are you?" As if looking at him for the first time the green eyes danced in wonder, apprehension at the opponent he thought unworthy of him. "I can't see the future anymore... what... who are you?"
Kai stepped forward and Brooklyn stepped back. The redhead felt a growing knot of anxiety within his stomach worming its way up, for the first time since he had joined BEGA Brooklyn felt the stirrings of fear making itself known.
"Don't come near..." small sparks appeared dancing around Kai's broken frame, propelling the silver strands and loose edges of the torn clothing upwards. The cobalt blade clashed against the black melting the edges and driving it back, alive with small embers being born upon its back.
"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"
And it was then that Kai chose to speak.
"Listen closely, Brooklyn. I'll admit... you're probably the strongest opponent I've ever faced." With a terrifying scream Dranzer dove at Zeus, driving her steel beak into the flesh beneath the thick fur. "Even stronger than Takao..." through half lidded eyes, with one cracked eyelid Kai began to see what no one else could see. A double vision of black and white, a kaleidoscope of where no shape was definite. "Strength, speed, skills... something no one can even try to follow."
"Don't..." stuttered Brooklyn weakly, "Don't come near..." but came near Kai did, stepping forward as Zeus was driven back. Heat pulsated from his being, heat that threatened to overwhelm him, heat that refused to show him the fire. Heat that refused to purify...
"You are above us... but you're no god... and yet you are strong... pure talent..." a sharp intake of breath. "In the talent area there is no doubt that you've surpassed us all... but in experience..." a harsh laughter expelled from the phoenix's lungs. "You haven't seen a thing..."
Outside the ring Hitoshi tilted his way slightly upward swiping the shades off his eyes...
"I have something you don't..."
Brooklyn was light, he was darkness, he was god... he was reminded of him, in a bitterly twisted way, what he could have been and what he was. Perhaps Hitoshi chose him because of that?
A mouth at his ear as he tried to stay still, his mind screaming at him to move, do something, other than to let the red wolf dominate him.
His memories were fuzzy, most of them pieces to a puzzle he dared not complete. But there was some warmth; a feeling of being want and wanted that had given his soul the strength to grow wings, wings of the brightest red flames.
Fire was to purify, Brooklyn stepped back as the heated air licked at his exposed skin.
"You haven't had the experience of defeat, this will be your first won't it?"
-
Outside the ring Takao watched in awe at the raw power presented by the captain he thought he had known.
-
"I have yesterday, today, tomorrow, so many fights..."
Memories came, not happy ones, but those laced with satisfaction and perhaps a little tenderness he found lacking most of his years.
"Piling up on one another..."
Gritting his teeth Brooklyn braced for impact,
"Never had to struggle... Victories, defeats," images ran in front of him, no longer was it Brooklyn that stood before him with a shell shocked gaze, no longer was it a lone face among millions that he had dared to challenge. "Enemies, comrades,"
Heat became fire, consuming everything, leaving nothing. The flames clawed at them all, till their faces were tinged with pinkness that threatened to mark them forever with accusation.
For what?
Ray stared open mouthed at the vibrant display of light that danced around them all.
"Joy, grief, the days I've bet my everything on. Fierce, new, passionate... I have the experience of living everyday..."
Brooklyn shook his head in confusion, clutching his head as he closed his eyes.
"I don't get it, what are you talking about!"
"Hn, of course not, you lack dedication, passion, so busy trying to play god, you've forgotten what it takes to be human."
"No..."
"You who is caught in a small world loving no one but yourself, I'll show you... what you lack... I'll show you... just exactly how it's supposed to be..."
Faces...
Boris,
Sergei,
Ivan...
Takao,
Max,
Ray...
The G-Revolutions,
Lee and the White Tigers,
Ralf and the Majestics,
Michael and the All-Stars,
Miguel and the Baltez Battalion,
Romero and the SangreF,
The rest that he never got to know...
And finally the face he wanted to forget so much yet wanted to keep forever...
Yuriy...
Kai's eyes snapped open
"And this... this is love!"
All went to hell after that