Thank you for the hits, and thanks to wolf's lament for reviewing! I really appreciate it.

However, getting just one review is kind of depressing.

I know it's very annoying to read stories with OCs in them; hence, Viktor won't be around much longer.

FOREWARNING: Pairing is TYKA. This chapter has lots of VIOLENCE and some SWEARING in it, and someone DIES. Don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I, under the pen name Phoenix-Roar, do not own Beyblade – That is, I do not own any characters, the plot of the show/manga, names, etc. (It should be noted that I do own Viktor Svyatoslav, a character that will be introduced later.) Takao Aoki owns Beyblade (I think? That's the name that's on the spine of the manga, anyway… If somebody could clear this up for me, I'd be grateful). I am not making any profits whatsoever from writing this. I am just writing it for the entertainment of others and to improve my literary skills. I thank for providing me with a server to share my fanfictions with others that are willing to read them.

Viktor hung the phone back onto its wall mount, and disappeared, followed by his body guards. He stepped into the limo waiting in the parking lot, and heard the engine roar to life. All the while, his smirk did not disappear. 'This is going to be a great deal of fun,' Viktor thought, the powerful image of Black Dranzer imprinted in his mind.

How to survive without a Heart

Chapter II

The Question: Survival

A dismal light shone into the room from a thick, overcast sky. The colourless palette of the walls, floor, and objects inside the confining space matched the tint of the daylight. Kai slowly opened his eyes to discover that his hair was obscuring half of his vision. He sat up and unsuccessfully blew said silvery bangs out of his face. Kai inspected the room with his tired crimson eyes. It seemed that either he had grown colour-blind overnight, or the world had been drained of its chromatic diversity.

The silence of loneliness had kept Kai awake for most of the night; only letting his mind drift away for a few short periods, even though he'd kept his eyes shut in an attempt to fall asleep. Even with the warmth of the constant fever Dranzer provided, the vibe of the apartment made him feel as though he was sleeping on a bed of thorns. He felt exhausted, as if he could just drop back on the sofa and sleep the day away. But there were problems with that. Firstly, the silence; and secondly, training his team. Plus the morning commute he'd have to make by public transit.

Kai stretched and stood up, swaying subtly due to the lack of energy he possessed, and slowly went into his bathroom. He got dressed and began to apply cobalt blue paint to his face with the help of the broken mirror. He pulled out his wrist watch from his pocket, and regarded the time. His eyes widened – he was supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago – and bolted to the front door, pulling on his shoes while an angry waterfall of colourful words spilled from his mouth.

The white cat he had encountered the previous day sat atop the discoloured kitchen counter, in the process of licking her hospital-white paws. The cat stopped cleaning herself and curiously watched her new roommate, right paw frozen in midair.

"Bye, Isabella," Kai managed to say to the cat before hastily exiting his apartment and locking the door.

Kai jogged into Tyson's yard, his team-mates coming into view as he made his way to the back. Max, Rei, and Tyson were standing in a group, lightly discussing the matter of Kai's never-before-seen absence. Hilary looked cold sitting on the porch that wound around the perimeter of the massive dojo, her arms wrapped around herself; Kenny sat not too far away from the female, obsessing over his laptop.

The Russian slowed down and stopped once he reached the group of the three beybladers, a blank expression on his face. His shoulders rose and fell due to his light panting.

I told you, did I not? You should have slept.

'Nonchalant, cool, calm, nonchalant, cool, calm,' Kai chanted in his mind, not replying to Dranzer's matter-of-fact statement. He closed his eyes and crossing his arms.

"Why aren't you already training, dimwits?" Kai threw the icy sentence at them, as if to cover up the fact that he had wavered from his punctuality. He'd checked the time before he'd entered the dojo property; he managed to quicken his travel time to less than thirty minutes, even though he was still, albeit, late. Kai mentally cringed at the word.

"We were waiting for you, our captain, to show up!" Max said with a smile.

"Yeah, but we did have a good time making fun of you while you were gone," Rei added, shaking his head free of the continually falling snowflakes. They threatened to ruin his conditioned hair, and the cat-like human would not have that.

"Good of you to show up, man!" Tyson chirped, coming to stand at Kai's side. He threw an arm across the stoic teen's shoulders. Kai did not visibly react to Tyson; he didn't shrug him off, as he would have usually done. Tyson retracted his arm, taking a step back.

"Hey, how come you're not wearing a coat?" Dragoon's master asked with an eyebrow raised, head slightly tilted. Tyson's smile faltered as he noticed his captain's bloodshot eyes, and the insomniac bags present underneath them.

"I don't need it anymore," Kai muttered, and Tyson understood the hidden meaning behind his words. His smile grew again, and although he wanted to say something along the lines of 'congratulations, buddy', he kept it in, as he hadn't told the rest of his friends about Kai's condition with Dranzer. Kai would have certainly murdered him slowly and painfully if he had.

Tyson was one hundred percent sure that a small smile graced Kai's lips, even if he was the only one who noticed.

"What are you waiting for? Twenty laps around the block. Whoever's last has to face me and Dranzer in a battle."

Max and Rei took off, already outside of the gate before there was even time to blink. Tyson hesitated, throwing a knowing smile back at Kai, before beginning to jog at a purposely slower speed than his other two friends.

"Tch," Kai smirked, rolling his eyes, before catching up with the blue-haired teenager.

Kai was elated to be around his team again; to be around his original roommate again, his nemesis, his friend – no, his best friend… He felt truly content. His spirit had been depressed during that restless night, but it was surprising how much of a change his mood could go through in one day. His blood was now ebullient in his veins, zapped to life by just being near the Bladebreakers, but more specifically, Tyson.

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An explosion that echoed through the stone hallways made a purple-haired man jump to his feet, while his cell partner, an old man, stayed calm.

"We're going to be free men soon," Boris muttered hastily, rushing to the thick metal door and putting his ear to it. Their small, high-security cell had confined them for a few months, ever since the end of the BEGA tournament, where the police had discovered their malevolence and whisked them away.

"No matter how long they keep me locked in a cell," Voltaire spoke, a twisted smirk crossing his face, "I will always come back with a vengeance."

"We'll make everyone succumb to fear, like we had been so close to doing before. This time, we'll succeed." Boris smirked, insanity clear in his brown eyes.

Only a few moments passed before more explosions occurred; each one clearly increased in volume. Boris moved back from the door. Finally, the clinking of keys outside the containing room could be heard, and with a loud boom the door swung open, a boot having strongly kicked it out of the way. Viktor, the owner of said boot, took a step inside the cell, a powerful gun in his left hand. His bodyguards stood outside equipped with their own weapons, keeping watch in the nightmarishly long corridor blotted with metallic doors.

"That was excellent timing, Viktor," Voltaire stood, moving closer to the eighteen-year-old. "Only a day used to plan, then its execution - and you've pulled it off quite nicely."

"Did I not tell you I was a wicked genius?" Viktor replied, dramatically blowing smoke from the point of his gun, his constant smirk portraying his evil attribute. "It's gone smoother than a knife through warm butter so far; let's not have anything ruin my happy moment by waiting around. Vamoose!"

With that said, Viktor and the two convicts exited the cell and began their speedy escape from the large jail. Despite the security cameras being shot out, guards continually filed into the long corridor from both sides. Viktor took them down, firing bullets from his gun with precise aim, each time hitting their target. His bodyguards took care of the ones coming at them from the back, although they did not have the same highly perfected skills as their boss.

Leaping over the punctured, bloody corpses that scattered the floor, Viktor panted, "It's a shame that I haven't been able to besiege the jail completely with my own staff, otherwise we wouldn't have to waste time killing anybody." The sick thrill the pale-eyed man achieved from such a feat boosted his adrenaline, causing his quick breath and increased energy. "But it's more fun this way." He let out a laugh, his twisted smile never leaving his face. His eyes reflected the feral insanity deep within the disturbed human, his pupils almost invisible due to the minute size they had contracted to.

Entering into a grand room that connected several hallways including the one they had emerged from, more corpses lay on the floor. Some guards walked around, their left sleeves rolled up; each had an identical tattoo embedded on their forearms. They nodded to Viktor as he ran past, followed by a puffing Voltaire, a psychotic Boris, and his two regular bodyguards. Walls had large, imperfect holes here and there, the grey brick near the voids blackened by a film of soot left over from the explosion.

A loud siren sounded, echoing through the lifeless halls.

"It looks like we still have some resistance, sir," said the bodyguard in a deep, professional voice.

"No need to worry about that. You two take the prisoners outside. I'll take care of the nuisances that remain." With a billow of his long, black coat, Viktor took a different turn, disappearing to fulfill his desire for a bloodbath.

Two minutes later, the siren stopped blaring.

A final explosion sent a large section of the outside wall into non-existence eight minutes after the siren had been silenced. The convicts and the two bodyguards ran through the smoke. They did not have a long ways to go, as a helicopter was waiting for them. Viktor sat in the pilot's seat.

The four men climbed into the transportation contraption, buckling in as it lifted into the air, then began its fast journey back to where Viktor and his cronies had come.

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The door swung open, and Kai walked into his apartment, setting a bag of groceries on the wooden counter. He went back to close the door, and then began unpacking the items he'd purchased.

Kai grabbed one of the few bowls that was in the cupboard – which he had bought that day – and poured some fresh milk into it. A soft meow alerted him that Isabella had jumped up to sit on the counter, watching the bowl. She smelled the air hungrily, tail swishing silently.

"Bon appétit," Kai said, setting the light meal before the young cat. Isabella leapt forward, lapping up the liquid as if she'd never had anything so filling in her life. Kai paused to scratch her between the ears, and then went into the bathroom to take a shower. Twenty minutes later, Kai plopped down on the sofa with a contented look on his face, which was bare of paint.

Inside, he owned a smile as vivid as Tyson's. The warmth inside him had increased to the point where it should have been uncomfortable, but he shared attributes with the phoenix that made him similar to one internally, so the heat only caused him to feel like he had finally found his haven, his righteous environment.

He sighed quietly, closing his eyes. Only a few moments later, Kai's mind had slipped into the oblivion that was sleep. Although the silence threatened his unconscious state, trying to make him wake again, the warmth of Dranzer and the memory of his friend, Tyson, acted like a blockade to it, shielding Kai from the insomnia that was just waiting to claim him back.

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Flames crackled through the air, a conglomerate of red, yellow, blue, and white heated drops. Although more biased towards a reddish hue, they shone as one like a bright sun in the sky. A phoenix flew in gracefully silent loops around her human companion. The fire embraced the human; but it was a welcome element, an inferno that burned much inside the teenager's blood as it did around him. The silent dance between the supernatural and the realist went on in endless repetition; the beast, happy to have such close bonding; the human, cozy in the heated arms of the firestorm. The human beheld the staccato notes to a melody which the phoenix strung along musical ties, allowing the sharp sounds to relax; Kai's problems were being smoothed by the legendary creature.

An infinite amount of time passed before the gallant mythological firebird began to pull away. Kai felt as though he were a planet, suddenly unaffected by the star's gravity, drifting farther into space.

Dranzer's voice flooded the teenager's ears, the sweet flames of her intonations shielding his mind from the bitter cold, comforting him into relaxation.

Kai, something is wrong. A qualm grows inside of me, increasing as time passes. Please, wake up, and make sure that everything is alright.

'But I'm safe with you.' Kai protested, not wanting to leave Dranzer's presence. Their time together was heavenly, despite how the heat and flames contradicted that imagery.

As much as I wish that was true, I cannot protect you while I am inside your mind; I must be a physical form, or inside the beyblade, in order to fulfill my guardian status.

'Then let me summon you.'

Kai then experienced something he hadn't heard in a long time. His phoenix companion's voice changed with worry. She screeched.

There is no time! You must wake up immediately!

A bit stunned, Kai watched her with his crimson eyes, realizing just how serious she was.

'…Make sure you'll stay with me…Deal?'

Yes, fine, now WAKE UP!

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Kai's eyes opened, taking a moment to readjust. Quickly recalling the anxious tone of Dranzer's voice, as if she were still whispering in the back of his mind, he swung his legs off of the couch. As soon as the action had been completed, Kai felt something in his pocket vibrate. He pulled out his phone and frowned at it. It displayed the time to be a bit past one in the morning. Who would be calling at a time like this?

He flipped the conversational device open, scanning the screen for evidence of the caller. His eyes widened. Somebody had been desperately trying to contact him; they'd called eleven times. One recorded message was waiting for him. Confused, he slowly lifted the phone to his ear and listened.

"New unheard message; twelve eighteen AM:"

Crackling could be faintly heard in the background, as if the message were recorded outside.

"Hey, Kai." It was Tyson, and he sounded both serious and nervous. He was in a rush, his breathing a bit uneven.

"Listen, this is really important. I don't know if you saw the news this evening, but… Kai… somebody broke Voltaire and Boris out of jail."

There was a pause. Kai's eyes widened for the second time that night, his heart instantly plummeting with the insane dose of fear that automatically shot through him.

"It was a disaster… All of the guards were killed, even a high number of convicts; somebody was going to great lengths to bust them out. They blew the place to smithereens. Whoever they are, they're powerful. But you can hear the rest of the details from the news itself, the show's going on in a repetitive loop."

The phoenix's counterpart felt sick to his stomach. It was not a usual emotion to overcome the stoic Russian, but he could not help but feel that way as images of his grandfather and Boris flashed through his mind. The heavy shadows in his apartment suddenly seemed as if they would rear back and leap at him at any moment.

"That's not the only thing that worries me, though. You know that day when you discovered me summoning Dragoon in the snowy meadow?"

Kai's mind dodged for a quick moment to the woods and meadow where he had initially found out what a summoning was, and what it looked like. The Dragoon faintly wrapped around Tyson's form was carved in his mind.

"Well, he was telling me that he had a sense that something terrible was going to happen - being all mythological and stuff, he can do that - and it was going to be linked directly to you, and he didn't want me caught up in another mess I can't get out of. So he wanted me to stay away from you, which is why he showed contempt towards you. I didn't think much of it at the time, but right now, believe me; I'm kicking myself in the butt for not mentioning something sooner."

Kai was a bit surprised. Normally, Dragoon seemed to be the type to stick by someone's side through thick and thin. The situation must have seemed thick as a castle wall if even Dragoon didn't want Tyson involved.

"Look, I think… they might try to come after you again. Please forgive me for being a paranoid loser, but I'm coming over. I know it's super late, but I don't want to take chances. Hopefully I'll be able to find your apartment as quickly as I can. Stay safe, okay?"

Tyson stopped talking, and for a split second, the crackling of the background was recorded into the message. Click.

It went dead.

Chills ran up Kai's spine.

"End of message."

Kai slowly lowered the phone back down, his eyes fixed on the wall ahead of him, unseeing and blank. With an echoing snap, the phone folded shut again, its light going out after a few seconds had passed.

Fear paralyzed him, constricting him like a gigantic, powerful Amazon snake. It had been nearly forty-five minutes since Tyson had recorded his message. Kai thanked his elementary teachers for giving him the ability to add. The time it took to travel by public transit; the time he had to walk; the uncertainty of getting lost, as it was his first time here…

Knocking resonated from the other side of his apartment door, as if in accordance to his very thoughts. In a very uncharacteristic fashion, Kai jolted upwards in shock and anxiety, before getting to his feet. He walked to the door and flicked the switch beside it, poorly illuminating the room with the sad bulb that corresponded to said switch.

Kai.

'Dranzer, it's going to be okay now, isn't it? Tyson's here.'

Kai, this feeling I have; it is not going away.

'Try to calm down. Tyson'll come in and we'll have nothing to worry about then. You'll see; he's right outside.'

There was no response, as Dranzer was trying to come to terms with herself.

The unnerved captain placed his pale hand on the doorknob, and with a fluid movement, turned the sphere under his palm, and began to pull it inwards.

"Tys-"

DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!

Dranzer's shriek was not alone in its loudness. It happened so fast; there was a bang, the door flew open (so strongly that surprisingly it did not come flying off of its hinges), and angry, threatening voices speared through the silence that had just previously been filled with Tyson's recorded monologue. Bodies surrounded him, metal clutches trapping his arms, his back, and his neck; and although he was very fit and trained in physical fighting, the enemy had ambushed him and overwhelmed him. Before he truly knew what had happened, a pain sharper than any blade in existence shot through his head.

The phoenix and her human counterpart cried out in response to the wound. In an instant, black clouds had rolled over Kai's vision.

"Lights out, kid."

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Several cars honked as the blue-haired Japanese teenager darted across a congested road illegally, weaving his way dexterously through the metal maze. He continued to jog once he reached the sidewalk, taking in his new environment. Tyson had passed the area a couple of times before, but it was still unfamiliar. The male slowed down a bit to take out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He unwrinkled it and peered at the address in desperation, half hoping that it would somehow point him in the right direction.

'At least I'm on the right street this time,' Tyson thought, putting the paper away again. He chanted the address repeatedly under his breath, clearly having memorized it by looking at it so much.

After Kai had told him that he would be moving out, Tyson had dumped their breakfast dishes in the sink. He exited the kitchen, and spotted the ad sitting on the table where he'd slammed it down. Checking to make sure that Kai wasn't looking, the blue-haired teen ran to get a piece of paper and a pen, and scrawled the address down messily. He remembered thinking that Kai would never give him the address personally, and although he somewhat felt like a stalker, he couldn't stop himself.

'And it's a good thing I acted like a stalker too, huh!' Tyson shook his head, feeling pathetic and relieved at the same time. Several buildings passed him by. One building's number caught his attention, and he ran up to it, practically flinging himself through the doors.

And he'd forgotten that security would be monitoring the entrance. Of course, how did he expect to just waltz right in, uninvited? He pulled on the next set of doors, knowing that they would be locked unless he had a key, or unless he dialed up. Tyson unfolded the page, praying that he'd written down Kai's apartment number.

He had. Practically punching the correct digits into the keypad, a quiet buzzing could be heard. Tyson stopped moving and breathing so that he could hear perfectly, anticipation and worry coursing through his body.

But the phone kept ringing and ringing, until finally, it stopped.

Kai wasn't answering the phone. 'Damn that bastard!' Tyson swore mentally, tears nearly fabricating in his frustration and panic. 'Why did I come all this way without thinking about how I'd actually get INSIDE? Damn it all!'

Exiting the building, Tyson paused outside of the doors, a few tears threatening to fall. He furiously rubbed them away with his jacket sleeve, a pathos frown framed with anger on his countenance.

Tyson. Summon me.

'Dragoon?' Tyson's eyes widened with shock and confusion. 'Why?'

I can help you get inside.

'I don't know how you'll be able to do it… but I trust you!' Tyson whipped out his beyblade, staring at the powerful, coiled dragon in the centre. He closed his eyes. A moment later, and he was submerged in another world, standing atop a thin pillar in the middle of a gigantic canyon. Wind threatened to knock him off balance, but he had experience with the element, and stood his ground. His bangs and ponytail were blown around by the invisible force, like an adoring father would have ruffled a child's. His cap was long since forgotten, already a tiny blue-and-red dot far below him.

Dragoon seemed to come from nowhere, soaring towards him. Tyson outstretched his arms, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

For a second, unbelievable power flooded Tyson's system, before it vanished. A ghostly phantom form separated from him, slithering through the air. It seeped through the glass as if it didn't exist, unseen by those that did not know of the mythological creature's being. Dragoon paused after he'd floated straight through the second set of doors. A beautifully blue aura engulfed the dragon and the doors, and an audible click could be heard.

Tyson, trying to act as casually as he could and strode through the entrance, easily pulling open the now unlocked lobby doors. Dragoon twisted and turned, returning to his bit-chip as if pulled by the force of a vacuum.

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The dark hallway stunting his vision, the Japanese blader tried to make his way through the corridor, peering at the numbers on the apartment doors.

Finally coming to a stop, Tyson squinted up at the apartment's number to double check, and then knocked on the door. The blue-haired teenager got chills up his spine as the door creaked open, identical to the ominous way its horror-movie-prop-relatives swung inwards at the simplest touch.

"Kai, it's me!" Tyson called out, hoping that his nerves couldn't be heard through his voice. He took a few steps inside, trying to feel in front of him for any sort of solid due to his lack of vision. His foot got caught underneath a foreign object, launching him forward.

"Oof!" Tyson grunted, as he found himself doing a face-plant with the apartment floor.

"You'd think the guy would keep his apartment relatively clean, so that people don't end up killing themselves! I thought he was more organized than this. And he dares to call me sloppy," Tyson muttered to himself. He sat up unceremoniously, whining over his ass, before falling forward onto his knees to inspect the object he'd tripped over. He would have to move it so he wouldn't fall over it again while searching for some sort of light.

Tyson set his hands on the object. After a quick moment of patting and investigating with said hands, he came to the conclusion that the solid was, indeed, quite large. Actually, he thought, it was almost Tyson's own size.

He moved his hands to the left, noting that the object was not flat-surfaced, and it had soft coverings on it. Tyson's fingers reached forward, suddenly brushing against another object. No, they were quite the same object, he came to understand.

His warm fingertips gently pressed against something soft, cooler than his own hand. A finger edged to the end of this object, and that's when it hit him.

Realization blew through his veins like an absolute zero blizzard, freezing all of the blood within him.

His heart began to beat frantically in his ears, creating ominous background music for the young adult.

His finger was resting upon a jaw bone, his other fingers pressed against a face.

His left hand was placed on an attached chest.

Tyson flung himself backward faster than a bolt of lightning determined to reach earth, panic completely consuming him. He stumbled up, too scared to say anything. Careful to step over the body, he fumbled along the wall to try and find some sort of light switch. He prayed that there would be one.

A dim light flooded the room, enabling Tyson's vision to work again. Never being more scared in his life, Tyson immediately laid eyes upon the body he had tripped over.

"Oh my God…"

The body belonged to none other than Kai, lying as still as a statue on the ground. The blue-haired blader was immediately at his side, not sure where to start, what to do. His worst fears had come true.

"Kai! Please, say something if you can hear me!" Tyson leant over him, grabbed Kai's lifeless wrist, and searched for his pulse. He mentally breathed a sigh of relief as he felt it fluttering lightly against his fingertips.

The sluggish yet stable pulsation caused several emotions to emerge within Tyson, as he continued to scan Kai's form for any sign of the cause of his unconsciousness.

First of all was relief; if Kai had died… No, he wouldn't even allow himself to think of it.

Secondly, he found it to be comforting and serene to be able to feel his captain's heart beat; the very life he worried for held in his hand. He frowned, doubting that another opportunity such as this would come by.

Finally, he was scared. Scared that if he let go, the heart within the ice prince would cease to pulse.

With a firm grip around Kai's wrist, fingers deeply indented against the veins as if to ensure that the pulse was not going to go away, Tyson's frown deepened. Kai had some good number of bruises and scratches, a few of which needed to be taken care of soon, but none that he could see would cause such a state.

The extremely pale face of his captain, free from the usual war-paint, was frozen in an emotionless, blank expression; it reminded Tyson of an android who'd just had its data chip completely cleared. There was evidence of a subconscious frown drawn on Kai's lips and eyebrows.

Kai's face was tranquil, and Tyson found that he couldn't look away from it. He analyzed the face for a moment later, realizing that his captain had a great physical and natural beauty about him. He was intriguing, mysterious, and, although Tyson would never, ever,ever say this out loud, quite physically attractive. Well, not just "quite", but "very".

He'd admitted to himself that Kai was, indeed, his best friend; he could not come up with any other explanation as to why he reacted so strongly to the Hiwatari's absence.

Tyson sighed, the stirred wind shifting a few hairs out of Kai's face. Leaning a bit closer, Tyson brushed the rest of the silvery bangs to the side, not sure what to do with his unconscious team mate.

Crimson that had been hidden underneath Kai's bangs caught his attention. A couple of thin streams of blood emerged from Kai's hairline and fringe. The droplets were conglomerating underneath his eye, giving him the imagery of bloody tears. Some ventured off of the side of his face, meeting with the beckoning pull of gravity. A large, plum-coloured, disfigured circle was present on his temple.

Immediately, Tyson began to run his hand through Kai's hair, unavoidably trailing through the amount of blood present. He brushed against an unnaturally large lump that sent shivers up his spine. Kai's features tightened in a subconscious wince.

The blue-haired teenager pulled his hand away; his worry and panic were back, full force. Tyson wound an arm around Kai's shoulders and the other underneath his knees, sufficiently scooping Kai up and placing him on the plain sofa not too far away.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flicked it open, punching in a nine and a one, before cancelling the call.

'He'll kill me if I call an ambulance,' Tyson thought, 'so I guess I might as well call Gramps for advice before I do anything like that… It's not like he's dying, right?' He threw a glance over his shoulder, as if to somehow see the pulse in Kai's neck, before dialling a different number into the phone with his shaky, bloodstained fingers.

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The clacking of professional footwear on the marble floor echoed through the bright corridor, before said sounds stopped. A pair of knocks resonated on a wooden surface.

"Come in!" A voice called from inside the room.

Voltaire, Boris, and several security guards entered the office, helping themselves to seats around a desk. Viktor was already seated, typing away with Godspeed on his laptop. It was almost a Kenny-like image, except for the fact that he did not have the appearance of a genius.

"So, I assume you're enjoying your freedom?" Viktor asked, flicking his eyes over the top of his screen at the visitors for a brief moment.

"Oh, quite," Voltaire replied.

"Great! Now, time to get down to business." A series of clicks interrupted the statement, and a snap sounded with the folding of the laptop.

"What's the plan?" Boris said gruffly, earning a smirk from the 'boss'.

"Excellent work, again. Couldn't have done better myself." Voltaire praised subtly, albeit unlike him.

"Why, thank you." Viktor made to stand, but froze in his place, flabbergasted.

Boris was pointing a loaded gun at his chest. Viktor's own guards stood behind him, their weapons at the ready. However, they were not attacking the threatening man; they looked as if they were preparing to kill their own boss, too.

"What's going on here?" Viktor demanded shakily, inching backward.

"Don't move, maggot," Boris spat, tilting his weapon threateningly.

"Voltaire!" Viktor barked, sharply turning to look at him. "I think you owe me an explanation!"

"No, there's no need to say anything to a young'un like you." Voltaire spoke with his eyes closed, as if addressing someone of a lowly class. He rolled his chair back and put his feet up on the polished, wooden surface. "However, I must commend you for showing me the fruits of your imagination. I will most certainly be including them in my plans."

An understanding look flashed through Viktor's pale green eyes, and his casually demonic smirk stretched across his face.

"Ah, you've caught on, have you? Well, you always were smart," Voltaire continued, "but not smart nor evil enough to outmatch me."

A bead of sweat stumbled down the side of the green-haired teenager's face. "I can't believe I played nice." Viktor began to slowly move his hand towards his pocket.

"You'll have lots of time to mull it over in hell." Voltaire's old, wrinkled face crinkled even more as a distinctive, malevolent look crossed his countenance.

"If you manage to outsmart my plans, which I doubt you will be able to," Viktor continued, "I'll applaud your evil genius."

"Trust me, you'll be clapping so hard from that fiery pit, you'll cause the world's biggest avalanche."

Boris cocked his gun. The click ricocheted through the room like an echo screamed within a deep, narrow canyon.

Another bead of sweat followed suit of the first. Finally, the tension between the two sides snapped. Viktor grabbed the edge of his gun and whipped it out of his pocket.

The gun fell from his frozen hand, clattering on the floor. The deafening bang had been so sudden and so loud that he hadn't even registered the bullet being fired and lodged within him.

The green-haired adult collapsed to the floor, no longer among the living.

Voltaire stood up and walked slowly, stopping before the corpse.

"And that's why you don't play nice with us. Because we fight down and dirty." Voltaire sneered at the deceased male, and then turned to his cronies.

"Boris, inform the other security guards that they have a new boss. And you," he waved his hand at his other new employees lazily, "clean up this mess. I'm not paying you double his wage for nothing."

The first thing he noticed was the black hole where his heart should have been.

The second thing he noticed was that he no longer owned a human body. He was a block of ice concealing that super-massive black hole.

The third thing he noticed was that he was completely and utterly alone.

He searched every crevice of his dead mind for a trace of the heat he had gotten so attached to, so used to, but found nothing but emptiness and the ferocity of the biting cold.

Crimson eyes fluttered open, staring at the ceiling. He was, somehow, lying on the couch. He didn't care why or how he got there. He didn't even care to check and see if he still had a pulse. He'd lost everything.

His arm was hanging over the side of the sofa, his body rigid in his resting place. Rigid as an icicle in subzero temperatures.

A noise somewhat caught his attention. His blood red eyes shifted to look to the left. A familiar teenager sat on the rickety barstool at the pale kitchen counter, caressing a white cat's head. The heavy purring reached Kai's ears, but did not go through them.

Kai automatically swung his legs off the side of the sofa, standing up. Every bone ached in his body, every muscle, every cell of skin. It felt as if an atomic bomb had exploded inside his head after being roughly shoved in through the ear. He was dizzy and slightly short of breath. But all that didn't matter.

He didn't hear the sharp intake of breath from the other male, nor did he feel himself falling.

Before he knew it, he was seated back on the couch. He sensed a presence beside him.

"Kai, you need to stay seated for a couple more days. A house doctor came by and told me that you're suffering from a serious blow to the head. What happened?" A sincere voice, quite unlike the speaker, flooded through Kai's head. He could hardly understand the words, their meanings. It was hard piecing them together.

After a moment, Kai spoke through icy lips. "They came." He stared at Tyson's face, finding it more relaxing than anything else to look at.

"What did they do to you?"

Kai inhaled and exhaled as if timed with a metronome, almost robotic.

"Dranzer's gone."

"Oh, Kai… I'm so sorry."

The first emotion he felt since awakening from his comatose unconsciousness was the pain. The pain of having to say the truth out loud, as if just doing so engraved the harsh reality in diamond. His eyelids closed over his eyes, afraid that Tyson would see the terrible hurt within them. He had lost a loved one, had his phoenix torn from him when they had just reached the peak of their relationship. Kai had been ripped in half as easily as if he were a piece of unwanted newspaper. And it had been easy because he had exposed his heart.

How was he to survive without a heart?

He would never lend his heart out again.

That way, there would be a zero percent chance of something stealing it away from him.

But how could he withdraw something that wasn't there anymore?

Slowly, the ice partially began to melt. Kai hadn't noticed, but Tyson had wrapped his arms around the living icicle, trying to give him something to hold on to for dear life.

Warmth.

That only thought that crossed his blank mind.

Warm. Tyson was warm.

Without a second thought, the stoic teenager curled up against his best friend, burrowing his aching head against Tyson's neck. The arms around him tightened, drawing him in close.

The silver-haired teenager paused to think for a moment.

Tyson was almost like a second Dranzer.

How was he supposed to survive when his heart was God knows where?

Kai didn't know the answer, but he did know that being with his Tyson was a comfort beyond relief; his only assembly of Earth on this frigid, unknown planet on the opposite side of the universe.

Kai rested his head in the nook of the World Champion's neck. He smelled good. And he was comfy. He didn't care if Tyson thought he was weird anymore; nothing else mattered. Tyson was his lifeline.

Kai linked his arms around Tyson's neck, letting out a sigh of relief as he drifted into unconsciousness once more. Although dreams of a tormented Dranzer plagued him, the burden seemed lighter when he was in Tyson's shielding arms.

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That last section was … extremely dark, if I do say so myself.

Happy Valentine's Day. Ah, the irony; my cat had to be put down. Thus, I have had a very, very shitty day.

So please, if you want to make me feel better, REVIEW. Please? It might make me update faster. Tell me what you think!

Phoenix-Roar