Barest Touch of Extended Fingertips

A/N: M'sorry. For all intents and purposes, this "story" has been discontinued.

There's so much I needed to say… and the thinking about it wasn't the hard part… it was the finding a way to say it. I couldn't—make Kai into my mouth-piece. I couldn't take him so far out of character, making him break down and spill his oh-so-poetic guts across the floor and be honest, for once… I couldn't make Kai say these things, when he would have "hn"phed and turned away. I couldn't find a way to proceed, and to those of you who liked this thing, I apologize profusely.

At this point in time, I am simply not a good enough writer to continue. I want to try again, someday, when I feel capable. I want to standardize the style of writing—considering it changed pretty much every chapter—and make it easier to understand, less pretentious, make it more truthful… Give it a plot.

I'm proud of what it is, however incomplete. I'm glad I stayed in character and got this far. Nevertheless, this is… almost none of what I wanted to get across to you, in the end. And because I don't want to leave you guys empty-handed, and—probably pissed off—I present the following: my notes on the entire story, supplemented by quotes from People With Wings and I Hate Him.

Some of it's been covered. What hasn't, what I wished I'd gotten to—the TRUTH— is in italics. (It makes a LOT more sense as an outline in Word, but what can ya do..?)

I hope it inspires you. Or at least amuses you.

I dedicate this chapter to people who think Kai hates Brooklyn, and want to know why.


Reasons he knows/believes –

Self-preservation: he was injured in battle (shot down by Kylie); he was beaten by Brooke (Kylie shot); and emotionally

- Resentment that only Brooklyn's mental health was compromised, whereas he…

- Brooke produced fear and pain, feelings Kai had spent his life suppressing. Feelings made inescapable, in his nightmares—where he's weak. Kai was manipulated by his emotions in their fight like he was manipulated by his emotions (ambitions) in betraying his friends, all those times. Kai is afraid of his feelings because he thinks they force him into doing terrible things—things his intellect, or at least some foresight, would prevent. So people like Brooke, with control over how he feels, can make him dangerous—and through him, hurt the ones he cares about.

"They said it was my purpose and my destiny to be the best. And then they called him a genius as he beat me. And then they felt sorry for me that I would have died to defeat him. I would have died to kill him."

"I won't be pathetic in front of these people and I won't lose myself. Because I won't let anyone have the power over me that he does—making me hate him so much and act on the hate. Because I won't be controlled by my emotions like this."

Suzaku's destruction (Kylie shot) (hypocritical)

- Suz was hurt by Brooke in battle, yeah, but it was because of Kai… forcing him to burn out in order to win (Suzaku would die at Kai's command—he puts up with all of Kai's crap because he loves his bearer… and Kai knows it). Could he have saved Suz by using Kuro? Sure. But Kai wouldn't do that—at least not back then. He didn't know Suz would have to die; he believed he could win with Suzaku—he probably wouldn't even think of Kuro as a possible alternative. He's afraid of Kuro. Doesn't trust him. Kai has faith in Suzaku alone.

- Brooklyn's hurting Suzaku was in battle… and as such, it was honorable. It was brutal, like what he did to Kai, but there was no betrayal involved… Kai betrayed Suz in Russia. That's a much deeper cut to take.

- In Brooke's eyes, Kai betrayed Suz twice: by discarding him for Kuro in Russia, and by making him burn out in their fight, instead of Kuro. In Brooklyn's eyes, Kai had two chances to save Suzaku—and sacrificed him instead.

Pawn of Boris (Kylie shot) (hypocritical)

- Also a reason he could scorn Gar. Kai sees his actions under Boris as selfish, only for his own sake (too true); he never trusted or depended on Boris (granted, he also knew Boris was a psychopath that only wanted to use him)… he's disgusted by the BEGA kid's trust. In Gar and Brooke's eyes, however, Kai still followed Boris's orders, so he's no better.

- But it boils down to the fact that… Kai used to be Boris's genius. And then Brooklyn was in that position. Brooke had his place at Boris's side. It wasn't a place Kai wanted, but still… 'no one but me' mentality. He felt entitled, possession of Kuro proof-positive. Brooklyn would say Kai is jealous—but really he's just irate that Brooke has a role he doesn't deserve: as the genius of BEGA—by proxy, the genius of BioVolt.

"Master Kuro Suzaku—and no one will ever be able to touch you. You'll be the greatest beyblader that's ever come out of BioVolt."

Brooklyn's existence… insults him

- Kai hasn't dug down to this yet, though he can sense it: Kai always had to work to be the best—working towards perfection is his only real purpose. Brooklyn never worked to be called a genius—a title Kai spent his childhood striving towards. Kai has suffered and sacrificed trying to reach that end—and Brooke never did a damn thing for it. He doesn't deserve it, again, but he sure got it. The world acknowledged Brooklyn in a way they never acknowledged Kai… Brooklyn hardly had to do anything but stand there looking pretty.

"I was genetically perfect, and one day I would be unbeatable. They told me I was a machine engineered for the sport. They told me it was my life, and no one would ever come along who could take this purpose away from me—this purpose to be perfect. And they promised me power, they promised me my perfection. They said nobody could take it away from me… and Brooklyn did."

"Brooklyn is no competition. He's an insult. You can't understand without knowing how Boris's brain works… Brooklyn is my successor. He's what I was meant to be, had I finished my training. Boris moving on to bigger and better things? Hardly. Brooklyn is a mere echo of Kuro Suzaku and I; a pale attempt at reaching the bar we set in Russia."

They're both been Boris's perfect little geniuses before.

"So why bother hurting him? We're just back to the fact that Brooklyn's not a threat." – "Because Boris can't get away with this; because the universe can't get away with doing this to me: invalidating everything I've worked to become.

- Brooke took Kai's purpose for perfection and identity from him without a second thought—without regard, without care… as careless as Kai treated the other bladers in Russia. It shook Kai. He'd never been hit so heavily—so derailed from his goals. He was devastated.

- If Kai's purpose, his reason for living, can be destroyed so easily and was destroyed so readily—Brooklyn's existence in Kai's shoes and one-time position (genius of BioVolt) invalidate everything Kai might strive for in the future. What use is it to seek perfection while perfect, genius Brooklyn exists? What point is there in struggling for greatness if Kai's doppelganger Brooklyn got there without trying? Brooke makes the struggle seem pointless, the effort useless. Kai was told that if he tried a little harder he'd get there… and then he finds somebody that got there without trying at all.

"It's like he's some horrible reminder of what it really means to be a natural, and his being in this world means they lied to me, all those years ago in Russia. His being alive means that I've always been wrong… about everything. That I have dedicated my life to nothing."

Including the fact that Brooklyn beat him, instead of only Tyson being capable of that. Kai dedicated his life to besting Tyson, not some random genius out of the blue.

"I went to sleep knowing that each day of pain brought me one step closer to my destiny. After him—after Brooklyn, I was afraid that each day of pain brought me nothing."

Lake of fire

- Jeeze. Probably the biggest thing EVER… It scares Kai. It scares Kai shitless. He had to dip into the fire to beat Brooke—he plunged into the flames, the emotions, to beat Brooklyn. Romero said Kai's blade feeds off of rage. If it feeds off of rage, he had to dig into some load of rage to win that battle. He had to feel some incredible negative energy… that's why I'm writing this, isn't it? To see where he was getting that negative energy? All that power?

- So the lake is where he keeps this negative energy. Where Kai keeps his reasons for hatred and the hatred itself. When Kai realized he had so much anger for Brooklyn, to use against Brooklyn, he noticed that he had the same thing for everybody he'd ever had extended contact with—some more than others, but still. Everyone. Everyone was at risk. Everyone was subject to Kai's hate, if he so wished it.

"Imagine: hate can be shelved. It had drip, drip, dipped from his first sentient year onwards; a ripple each for every wrong done to him, every disagreeable word said to him, every indifferent expression, every single annoyance, and it had formed a lake in the dark."

"The fire held his reasons: his selfish but good reasons for hating BEGA's genius, the reasons he had to hate all of them. He had plunged face-first into the flames, when in the past he had merely toed the edge, and let them eat him alive in order to defeat the undefeatable—a frozen image of Brooklyn's one-time smiling face burned into his retinas for motivation; and yet, and yet in the background, shadowy, familiar figures, each waiting to be burned into his retinas next…"

"Wasn't there a chance that he would want to defeat his friends so badly, in some way, that he would climb down to the immortal flames he hadn't been aware existed and leave all shields behind… to hurt them, to forget them, to forget everything but rage? … With this path revealed and these inhibitions illuminated for his darker side to despise and test, he was more dangerous than ever. What he had done to Brooklyn—he did not want for many others."

- The ashes above the flames are his inhibitions and the things that prevent him from acting on his hate for people, especially his friends. They obscure the reasons he has to do so. They hid the lake from him. They're so easy to brush aside—now that he knows they're there.

The similarities

- Uh oh… Well, uh, Kai notices the similarities only where it reinforces how dangerous Brooklyn is, and he hasn't gone very deep. In any case:

"Kai was hell-bent on thinking of Brooklyn as a monster to be loathed, not a victim best pitied. He was horrified by these bits of recovery process, a process he'd seen, one way or another, in several individuals that were not his mortal enemies. Kai had nightmares about Brooklyn and his eerie presence, Kai had needed to learn and accept the value in loyalties and come to desire things beyond power… Take BEGA's genius out of the picture and it was a romanticized telling of what any of the Abbey children had gone through."

So the Abbey kids and the fact that good-Brooke had nightmares about Kai, like Kai does about Brooke. That they both had to adjust to life in similar ways.

"Kai knew all about darkness and even more about potential. He was a horrible human being with a hideous degree of depravity and malice hidden beneath a thick layer of constraint. … He felt it every day, festering. He had the potential, and so too did Brooklyn. … Some part of he and the god-bearer would always be a hazard"

"He is a tool to be used and discarded—Boris and Hiro knew it… I'll bet his unfortunate parents did as well—did you ever ask him how he ended up in Balcov's hands? My guess is they handed him over. They saw his potential, his genius."

You're right, Garland, Kai isn't an expert on Brooklyn. But he is an expert on himself (sort of). So was that about Brooklyn… or about Kai?

"It didn't matter what mask of decency, honor, goodness this fool's beloved prodigy wore in order to sway him and so sway the world, because monsters didn't change. Kai knew from experience… he'd never been able to."

- The duality of both Kai and Brooke: Kai in his protector/destroyer roles, Brooke in his light/dark.

- Kai had been drawn to Kuro the same way these guys were drawn to Boris. To fulfill their ambitions and goals. He should understand, and if he did—maybe they'd understand why he had to toss Suzaku away for Kuro.

"Until every person had had the means to reaching their life's goals dangled in front of their faces, ripe for the easy, easy taking, they couldn't begin to understand."

- They've both been taken by darkness. They're both creatures of darkness, with dark beasts that've had a say in it. Kai thinks he's better 'cause Kuro doesn't have a claim on his soul anymore (defeated in his nightmares) and Brooke is still using Zeus and associating himself with that vicious bit beast regularly. They've both been drunk on power, but Kai thinks he's better 'cause he never technically went crazy. Technically. Okay, so he was like Kuro's puppet—but he wasn't exactly flying around on gossamer wings, you know?... Nevertheless, Kai's still not better. Kuro still exists and whispers, despite it all, and Kai's still been corrupted. The potential. They've both acted on it and been taken by it—and that's the greatest similarity of all.

- Now if only they'd realize this stuff and Kai could accept it. Because he doesn't see the similarities, he can hate in Brooke what he should hate in himself. Because Kai's worse.


Brooklyn aside, Kai's reasons for being Gar's friend, and vice versa:

- Kai doesn't really have a problem with Gar, besides the obvious. And he wants to be empathized with—no one has ever empathized with him because his situation is so unique. Garland can't either, but Kai still hopes. He hopes that Garland at least understands how much it hurt to face Brooklyn and lose to Brooklyn and lose Suzaku and drown and find the lake and… He can't be friends with Garland unless Gar understands how hard it was, and the gravity of what he did, sticking Kai and Brooklyn together like that again. Kai thinks Garland is too sensible not to have had a good reason.

- Gar won't hate Kai because he doesn't think it'll solve anything. He thinks there's too much hate going around. He knows that Kai shattered Brooklyn's world, but truly believes Brooke can make a full recovery and be all the better for it in the end. It worked when he fought Tyson. Gar knows Brooklyn can be brought back.

- Garland was drawn to Kai because of his delicate existence—he never knew that Kai gathers power from failure and bounces back—he doesn't know that Kai isn't as vulnerable as logic dictates he should be. Anyhow, Gar wants to save Kai from his own hate by making him understand Brooklyn. He's a protector (like half of Kai), that's what he does. That's what he has to do; it's his purpose. His attention might be misplaced, but it's there for Kai.

"He wanted to take care of them, make sure they were alright—he wanted to be responsible for them because they needed him to be"

- Garland wants an equal—he saw an equal in Kai when one wasn't to be found in anybody else. Because he saw an equal, he really doesn't want to accept that Kai acts as terribly as he does. He doesn't want to believe Brooke, but because Kai doesn't deny it at all… he kind of has to. Gar's heart is breaking and he needs to find some redeeming factor in Kai; if Kai has a soul, then… he's got to have that seed of good in him. He's got to be good enough for friendship then.

"All I know is that you could be good for my brother—he needs a self-sufficient person in his life. He needs somebody that can take a little of the burden, that could understand what is it to be a team captain, to have people depending on him…"

- Gar doesn't blame Kai for attacking Brooklyn in BEGA. Just for holding onto the animosity now that the real fight is over. Kai's nature predestined their confrontation—he had to get through Brooke to face Tyson… but that's over now.

- Kai is interested in Garland's optimism—naivety, in his eyes—in regards to Brooklyn. Gar thinks people can change and come back and be better? Kai's never thought that—he's never allowed himself that kind of hope, because it had never done him any good before. He'd always been disappointed when he expected goodness out of himself. Part of Kai really wants Garland to be right—he doesn't think Gar is, but he still wants it. If there's hope for Brooke's redemption, then there's hope for Kai's redemption. It was the hope he grabbed a hold of when he took Tyson's hand, on the ice in Russia—that he could become a better person. There have been a few setbacks since then.


Further notes:

- Kai supposes that is Brooke can be saved, he can be saved, because he allows that they're both monsters with deep dark potential—but he'd resist tooth and nail all the other similarities. He can't think himself Brooklyn's equal. He must think himself better than that somehow.

- Gar doesn't realize that the only way for Kai to understand Brooklyn is to acknowledge how alike they are, and for Kai to truly look at how horrible he is himself. For some perspective, Kai would have to start thinking himself worse than Brooklyn. He IS worse than Brooklyn. But I digress…

"He did not need to be told about mistakes or the people that he'd caused to worry—he did not need any more guilt to come from the ruinous choices he's made and would always tend to make. It was hate that gave him strength, anger that allowed him to live his life. Remorse had no place here, now, or ever. With an immense effort, the phoenix beyblader was able to sift every feeling her words brought about…"

He either converts or ignores.

He can hate Brooke for this stuff, not himself. He can kill Brooke for this stuff, not himself. He would like to kill himself for what he's done… you know he nearly committed suicide on Baikal because he wasn't sure he could change. He's still not sure. Brooklyn became Kai's emotional doppelganger and scapegoat, so that Kai wouldn't rot from the inside out. It was just too terribly convenient.

"When Kai thinks of you, he's just thinking of his worst parts in human shape."

- Kai is worse than Brooklyn in terms of actual casualties. Kai did things just to be cruel, where it was never Brooke's intention to harm—just rebuild. Kai was willingly, totally morally unacceptable, whereas Brooke never had any morals to consult or fall back on.

- Kai is disconcerted by good-Brooke, who Gar loves and has hope for and whose struggles remind him of the Abbey kid's rehab. Good-Brooke seems too human to kill and too understandable to hate. Kai loathes bad-Brooke, pretty darn easily, and wants to convince Garland that those two sides are one in the same—that no goodness redeems the badness, the potential. Because then he can kill Brooklyn without being guilty. Kai's already killed a kid—he killed Wyatt. He doesn't want to kill another kid, but he WILL destroy a monster like bad-Brooke. If somebody says Brooklyn is a hopeless monster that can't change… if Garland says he's a hopeless monster that can't change… he'll be saying Kai is a hopeless monster that can't change. I'm sure Kai would find it reassuring. Would take it as reassurance that he's always been acting appropriatly, blotting out his guilt and emotions—but if Garland says that, it'll also slaughter whatever hope of redemption Kai has. If Gar forgives bad-Brooke because of his good… that means Kai's dark side can be redeemed too, doesn't it? They're the same. They're both unchangeable monsters, as Kai's admitted. So he has to admit everything that comes along with that.

- Bad-Brooke isn't afraid of Kai, only good-Brooke is. Bad-Brooke is restrained and powerless these days, in Gar's house, so amuses himself in this situation by rescuing Brooklyn from victimization and trying to draw Kai's darkness into the public eye. To get him hated… and to make him face it. To make him miserable.

- Kai's soul is in his light: the ashes above the fire, his guilt, his protectiveness, and his love for his friends… it's there. It's just not the dominant part of his personality.

- Because Kai broods everything to pieces, he's never surprised by anything. He's not surprised Gar would hate him if he heard the story of his past, he's not surprised Gar wouldn't want to be his friend—he's used to expecting the worst or being disappointed. He doubts and questions himself constantly, so their questions can't hurt too badly. Well, they hurt—but not because they surprise him. He's memorized his own story and own sins against others, but sees it from an outside perspective, no feelings attached. Like it's somebody else doing it. It's easier that way.

- "He's harmless!" – "Put him in a beybattle he wants to win and tell me that again."

- "How could you possibly know anything?" – "Because what's in him—it's in ME! You don't move on from the terrible things you do. You don't recover from the wounds you inflict on others. You bleed to death," (some part of himself, Kai knew, was still frozen to the ice)

- "If you had lived one fucking half of my life, you'd know all about the dark thoughts monsters like Brooklyn and people like me pretend we don't have. That our friends pretend we don't have, wishing we were harmless." – "Kai… when you look in the mirror, do you see a person? Or just your failures?"

- "Brooklyn can tell the difference between friend and enemy…" – "That's comforting to hear. I must have been imagining things when I saw Moses digging himself and Ming Ming out of a pile of rubble. You know… when the BEGA stadium was flying…"

- "When did you become clairvoyant, Kai! How could you know what he'll become!" – "I don't care what he'll become! I'm interested in what he is." – "You've got to give people a chance to—" – "I've given chances. Ultimately they're wasted and the giver gets hurt." (Voltaire, Kane, Goki, Zeo…)

- "Brooklyn doesn't need your help, Garland. Not to kill me, not to save himself. He's built around saving himself and not relying on anyone."

- "Kai… you're so determined to see flaws, see darkness in everyone… Are you trying to drag us down to your level?"

- "You're alive, so obviously people have given you chances—" – "I'm alive so I can be used. I'm a coveted prize, Garland, didn't you know?"

- "He doesn't know what he means. He just knows it's true."

- "…that stupid, shut-out fight that a different me could have won in my sleep. I have won it in my sleep. I've dreamed it over and over again and known how different it would have been if I could have just—"

-The promise that Kai wouldn't leave unhappy… to honorable guys like Garland, a word given is everything. I'm sure Kai would like to believe him. Nevertheless…

- Kai isn't the one you worry about. You look at Brooke, who has never, ever faltered—who has visions. Him you pity and worry about. You fear for those with the farthest to fall.

FIN