[Yuan]

Hiromi finally released an exhaled breath once she and Meifeng returned back inside of the locker room to the others.

Her teacher simply watches as her student casually maneuvers around the steel benches until she returns back to her teammates and her seat.

The silver haired woman then leisurely walks over to the older group of women and promptly calls for their attention.

"So, Hiromi dealt with the situation outside. What we need to discuss about is what happened today." Meifeng divulged to the women about what occurred outside of the locker room and brought up the issue at hand.

"They haven't had any training. They literally came right off the plane without so much as a clue on how to Beyblade." She honestly confesses after she exchanges glances with the others.

"So did we." Lanying chimes in with a small smile on her face and a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"Right, so the best way to deal with this is…" Lin suddenly speaks up only to pause to think of the right way to phrase the next part of her comment.

"…to learn about the sport." Akane easily guesses what the goldenrod blonde with green tipped hair was about to say.

The silver haired woman physically agrees before they break from the huddle to announce, "Ladies, we need to have a talk."

"It sounds like the start of a bad breakup conversation." Audrey jokingly chimes at the older woman's remark while she simply folds her arms in front of her chest.

"What? A bad breakup conversation?" Wenling curiously poses to the dirty blonde, who coolly leans her back against one of the locker room walls.

"Oh you know...the talk where they say "It's not you it's me" or a better one is…"I feel like we're going in two completely different directions"." She provided a further explanation to the brunette what she meant by bad breakup conversation.

"How do you even know about that?" Hiromi inquisitively inquiries about how Audrey knows about stuff like that, which earns a bashful response of "I rather not say."

"Today was our first experience being in an arena against a powerful foe nevertheless but our weakness has been exposed." The gray eyed woman brings the focus back on to the situation at hand.

Archimedes merely earmarks her current page, closes the book and probes, "So what do you have plan for us to do?"

"We need to find a way to effectively and efficiently train you all during this tournament." Akane dully supplies an answer to her pupil's question.

"How about we put Hiromi in charge of that?" Wenling suddenly chimes in while she points her thumb in Hiromi's direction.

"She has the most experience with being a manager to the Bladebreakers. Surely, she knows some exercises we can do. Right, Hiromi?" She confidently adds in as she faces her fellow brunette with a smile on her face.

"I mean…I did create majority of their training menu with a help from a few of the guys." Hiromi unintentionally brags about her ability to the group.

"Then it's settled. Hiromi, can you start on a training menu as soon as possible?" Meifeng wonders, which eventually earns a nod of a "yes" from the teenager.

Audrey pushes off of her feet before she irritably grumbles to no one in particular, "So how long are we going to be holed up in this tin box for?"

The silver haired woman briefly glimpses as the dirty blonde and acknowledges, "I haven't gotten a call from the director yet, so we will remain here for a while."

"I mean Hiromi basically revealed herself in front of the entire beyblading community and the media." Archimedes verbalizes, which earns a retort from her, "It was unintentionally."

"Even still you should have prepared yourself for the worst case scenario, which is the predicament you are in now." The raven haired teen sternly affirms while she places her book off to the side of her leg.

Audrey rolls her eyes at the lack of emotion from their captain when she teasingly quips, "So the popsicle finally melted, I liked it better when you were frozen."

"Audrey?!" Wenling instantly snaps at her for her standoffish attitude toward Archimedes, who merely ignores her popsicle comment.

"There are a few things that could happen: either the media is given a cease and desist or we would be given a gag order. Either way, no one will be speaking about this matter any time soon." She calmly breaks down their options that were currently on the table for them.

"Is there any way that we can get Audrey and Archimedes to get along?" Lanying quietly whispers to Lin, who happens to be the closes person that stands next to her.

"I may have an idea but for now we should continue to observe their chemistry with each other." Lin cheerfully perks up at the idea of a team building exercise.

A few hours later…

Yuan received the long awaited phone call from the Director of the BBA, who relayed specific details on what they should do once they leave the arena.

"I thought I was going to die of hunger!" Audrey dramatically exclaims as she wearily slides in the backseat of their team's limousine

Wenling frustratingly grips, "My back's stiff from sleeping on that hard bench", before she finally hears a "pop" noise from her neck and lower lumbar.

"Tell me about it." Archimedes quietly whispers in agreement as she follows in behind her.

"Meifeng, what time is it?" Hiromi inquisitively asks about the time since she was the closest to the partition of the limousine.

"It's almost about that time." She provides her an answer once she reads the digits on the clock of the radio.

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[White Tiger X]

"That couldn't have been Hiromi, could it?" Mao utters in sheer disbelief as she breaks the silence among her White Tiger X teammates.

Kevin repeatedly shakes his head while Gary remains completely silent on the situation at hand.

'I knew that scent was awfully familiar.' Lee secretly considers to himself once he remembers when Yuan passes by them in the locker room after their defeat to the Blitzkrieg Boys.

He then instantly recalled how one of the brunettes abruptly halted in the hallway and flashed him a wide smile.

'A team full of weird girls.'

[F Dynasty]

"I always knew she would try her hand at beyblading!" Julia cheerfully asserted with a nod of her head and her eyes closed.

"How did you even know?" Raul inquiringly wonders what his twin means by her comment.

"She's one of the reasons why the Bladebreakers are the World Champs." She confidently remarks with her arms now across her chest.

"You couldn't tell that based on their performance today." He provides a clever rebuttal as their vehicle motors up to a red traffic light.

"That's because...she doesn't have control over their training regime…yet." Romero chimes in while he closely examines the red rose in his hand.

[PPB Allstarz]

"If she were to assume control of their schedule, their chances of becoming champs increase from 8% to about 46%." Emily eventually predicts the probability of the girls team being champions.

"That's a 44% jump!" Judy shockingly exclaimed after she mentally calculated the difference between the two percentages provided by the teen.

The orange haired teen merely types away at her laptop before she honestly confesses, "It could be higher...but we don't quite know the potential of the other players."

[Saint Shields]

"We'll have to definitely watch out for them. An unknown team has the greatest potential to upset the tournament." Ozuma firmly reasserts to his team as they were on their way out of the arena.

[Barthez Battalion]

"Those girls are weak!" Claude instantly deems about the Yuan team along with a 'tsk' of his tongue to show his disdain for them.

"I just don't know about them, though." Miguel shakenly concludes about that all girls team.

[Blitzkrieg Boys]

"It was a pretty crazy opener." Bryan says to no one in particular about the chaotic scene a few hours ago.

"Yuan was all talk and no action." Spencer finally states with a shake of his head, which earns a retort, "Don't count them out yet."

"I don't know about that. They haven't even used their secret weapon yet." The red head male eventually determines with his eyes on the urban scenery outside of their vehicle.

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[Courtyard]

Takao presently yet patiently waited in his old middle school courtyard, which Hiromi decided would be the location of their meet up.

'What am I even going to say when I see her?' 'I wonder if she still hates me for the way I treated her?' 'Will she ever forgive me?' were the thoughts that constantly cycles throughout his mind.

The young man instantly stiffens up once his ears finally pick up on some noise in a distance. He finally notices a teenage girl that stands at the entrance of the school.

'Oh crap…' The bluenette inwardly freaks out at the sight of his friend.

"Uhm hi," Takao nervously mutters once he watches Hiromi casually approaches him from the entrance gate.

She cordially returns the greeting "Hey," with a small smile currently on her face.

The bluenette apprehensively shuffled about in front of her because the last time that they were together they had a terrible fight and left on extremely bad terms.

"Look…I just wanted to apologize for what happened before you left." He sincerely apologizes once his eyes connect with hers before he even continues, "I felt horrible that I cut you off…"

Hiromi naturally releases an exhale breath when she voices, "I've already forgiven you."

"I admit I ran away like a dog with its tail between its legs so I apologize too." She sincerely disclosed with her eyes briefly closed.

"However, what I'm not about to apologize for is chasing my dream." The brunette firmly proclaims once she opens her eyes and stares at him.

"I was unknowingly suffocating myself under the presence of being the manager of the Bladebreakers. This is something that I always wanted to try ever since you introduced me to the sport. It's simply amazing how beyblade draws people from all over the world together to see who's the strongest amongst each other!" Hiromi eventually revealed how she felt all while she was apart of the team.

"Although my time is fairly brief with it, I can honestly see why you guys are so passionate about it!" The ruby eyed teenager cheerfully asserts about the sport from a player's standpoint.

"I'm sorry…but this feels like a confession scene straight out of a shoujo manga." Takao was unexpectedly remarking at the sight of Sakura petals suddenly falling in between and around them.

"Really?" She suddenly poses before she observes their setting and ultimately agrees, "I guess it can be."

He nervously scratches the side of his cheek out of embarrassment when he apprehensively admits, "I know that it sounded pretty corny."

Hiromi shakes her head a "no" before she explains, "Nope, not at all, I would've expected you to say something like that."

"Oh Kami-sama, doesn't it feel great to get that off of my chest!" He dramatically proclaimed once he released his breath at the turn of their friendship in a good direction.

"Friends again?" The bluenette inquisitively poses with a hopeful expression present on his face while he extends one of his hands out to her.

The brunette eventually accepts the hand, adds in "…and Rivals," and shakes his hand with a wide smile on her face.

At the same time…

"Look at us…we're like parents sending their child off to preschool." Hiro was jokingly chiding about their current behavior of spying on the two teenagers in the courtyard. "…expect they're full grown teenagers."

"Tell me about it..." Meifeng agrees with the man, who stands on the other end of the entrance way.

"Kinoyama, Hiro," The bluenette cordially greeted the silver haired woman since he initially forgot to when they first met outside of the Yuan's locker room.

"I'm well aware of who you are." She eventually reveals that she is already familiar with the man.

'I mean I am the coach of a championship team that has garned international status and exposure.' He boastfully assumed that she knew him due to his fame as a coach of a famous team.

"They use to call you No Good Slacker Kinoyama." The silver haired woman intentionally revealed exactly where she knew him from.

'Wait…what?!' He inwardly catches himself once he hears the words "No Good Slacker" emits from the woman's mouth.

"Only people who went to my high school knew me by that nickname." Hiro shockingly discloses as he closely eyes the woman that stands off to his left.

Meifeng simply rolls her eyes, shakes her head at just how oblivious this grown man was, and alleges, "I wouldn't have expected you to forget your senior that helped you through school."

'It couldn't be…' His mind was starting to connect the dots before flashing back to exactly when and where her face was standing out to him.

"Kinoyama-san your grades have plummeted badly over the past couple of weeks. Is everything alright?" His homeroom teacher inquires while she shuffles and stacks her student records folders off to the side of her desk.

"Yeah, everything's copasetic." The young man merely downplays his poor grades with his casual laidback attitude.

The teacher closely studies her student's disposition and tone of voice before she reveals, "Anyway…I have assigned you a tutor in order for you to pass my class. Come in."

"Hiro, this is…

"Meifeng, the Silver Oni," He finally addressed her by her name and the moniker she earned during their matriculation in high school.

Her facial expression contorts to display complete displeasure before she sternly advises, "Please refrain from calling me that in public. I haven't been called that in years."

"I didn't expect you to become a coach...but then again it sort of suits your lack of skills though." Meifeng alleges as she faces the young man and leans the left side of her body against the concrete pillar.

Hiro casually shrugs his shoulders, slides his hands inside of his pockets and pronounces, "Not too much work but the pay is fairly decent."

Her gray eyes briefly peer over at the younger blunette, who seems to nervously converse with Hiromi, when she remarks, "I see Takao has grown into a pretty handsome young man since the last time saw him."

He stifles a laugh before he supplies his own description of his younger brother, "…more like a pain in the neck."

"How's the dojo?" Meifeng curiously probes about their home since she grown a bit of fondness for the place over the years.

"Still up and running by the old geezer," Hiro casually replies while his eyes return back on to the woman's face in front of him.

"Years are a blessing for a man his age." She sternly proclaims before he suddenly declares, "Oh…it looks like a scene straight out of a shoujo manga!"

'At least everything...hasn't completely changed.' Meifeng jokingly quips to herself once she notices that the teenagers now head in their direction.

"We're finished with our talk." Hiromi says after she glances over at Takao, who now presently stands in front of his older brother.

"It was nice to chat with you again, No Good Slacker Kinoyama." She boldly teases him, which causes a blush of embarrassment to instantly surface on his face.

A smirk briefly stretches across her face before she leads Hiromi in the opposite direction of the two brothers.

"Back at you, Silver Oni," He mumbles to no one in particular as Takao peeks up at his brother to ask, "Do you know her?"

Hiro merely rotates around, heads in the direction of their home and constantly ignores any of brother's questions about the silver haired woman.

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Author's Note:

04.30.17 Major editing revisions