ROCK IS DEAD

He'd heard that a return from the field due to injury was bittersweet, but for him, it was all bitter.

He limped into his mansion, relying far more than he liked on a cane far too similar to his grandfather's for his taste. His servants' warm greetings and glad tidings fell upon ears that rushed with only the sound of dying screams, gunfire and the beating of his broken heart. Just being in his mansion brought the old pain rushing back to the surface to mingle with new pain and crush him under the weight.

His breath hitched at the top of the stairs when the master bedroom came into view, and he almost stopped, but he just about managed to make it smoothly to the door without much outwards hesitation and with very little indication of the real pain that wracked him, whether from his leg or his heart, beyond the impossibly tight clenching of his fist around the top of his cane.

With the heavy oak blocking all prying eyes, Kai slumped against the ornately carved door, sullenly surveying his room. He had avoided returning here as much as possible over the past three and a half years and it was still almost exactly as he had left it the first time. The only difference was that the bed was made and the surfaces had obviously been dusted. He suspected that even after all this time the left side of the bed would still smell like Tyson. He hoped it would, anyway.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed away from the door and crossed the room to the false wall in the far right corner. He opened the hidden panel and stepped into a bright, sunlit room. With its huge skylight, soft, white carpeted floors and pale blue walls, it was easily the brightest room in the whole house. That its only entrance was that fake wall in his room and its only window was on the roof meant that it was mostly hidden from the outside world. The only other people who knew it was here, besides the head butler, were either dead or missing or… currently in a coma.

Kai sighed, limping past all the neatly arranged glass cases full of older versions of Dranzer and Dragoon and a few others of his friends' blades that he'd collected over the years, to the large painting of the Bladebreakers on the back wall. He'd had it made after the BEGA fiasco years ago; the only one of them who even knew he had it was Tyson. The extravagant carvings on the golden frame hid four tiny buttons on the bottom of either side. Pressed in a certain pattern, the frame unsealed a part of the wall, behind which hid a safe.

Kai reached into his pocket and retrieved a bit-chip stained a brownish-red. He brushed his thumb over the picture in the centre. Wolborg. He smiled sadly when it flashed blue in recognition. Reverently, he lined it up next to the two other bit-chips that lay on the middle shelf: Seaborg and Wyborg.

Above them, on the top shelf of the safe, were two beyblades, one blue and one white: Dranzer and Dragoon. He picked up his Dranzer, his phoenix glowing red in greeting. The blade grew warm in his hand and his smile turned marginally less morose.

"Hello, my friend," he murmured to the bit-chip and it glowed just a little brighter. Dranzer: Always his protector, always his friend.

In a world where everything he'd taught himself to be true constantly collapsed around him and reformed in warped, messy angles that he'd have to relearn, Kai had found that there were two constants that kept him going, two beings that held him together.

The first was Dranzer, his oldest friend. She was the stars that burned in the dark skies of his mind, guiding him along the way so that he could see the encroaching darkness and not get lost on its destructive path. She was the flame that kept his body and mind alive.

The second was Tyson, his friend, his lover. He was the solid ground that kept the dark waters at bay, the warmth that held him safe as he rested his guard. Tyson was the pure oxygen that fanned Dranzer's flame into the raging inferno that powered his heart and soul.

Together, they kept him aloft in a sea of darkness. But now…

Now, Tyson was lost to him. Forever gone in the seconds it took for that atomic bomb to obliterate Tokyo. Kai remembered watching the news that day through the window of an electronics store in Moscow; seeing the satellite images of the charred edges of Japan's new bay, feeling the warm, solid ground collapsing beneath him and the oxygen ripping away from him, leaving him floating in the nothingness above the sucking black hole where his heart used to be, his crystalline tears shimmering in Dranzer's waning light.

Still, he stupidly held on to some hope that maybe Tyson had survived. That maybe that fool had missed his connecting flight in Munich and wasn't even in Japan in the first place. Tyson couldn't be dead, he'd convinced himself, and that was almost enough to get him through an entire work day. That is, until he got home and came into this room, looked into the bit-chip of one of Tyson's old blades and saw Dragoon staring back at him. That the dragon spirit had returned to an old blade spoke volumes about the state of his current bit-chip; it had to have been destroyed. And for Dragoon's bit-chip, which Tyson had taken to wearing on a gold chain around his neck, to be destroyed…

The conclusion had finished crushing what was left of Kai's heart.

The confirmation from the airline that a Tyson Kinomiya had gotten on the plane in Munich cremated the remains.

Kai was falling fast into the encroaching darkness, but Dranzer pulled him up and took him back into her orbit, the same one he'd had before he'd met that loud-mouthed, beautiful lover of his. An orbit that had never felt so empty and cold. She would have warmed him if he asked, would have done it regardless, but he never let her.

He answered his conscription summons and joined the Russian army in an effort to regain that numbness he had mastered early on in life. He accepted only her spark to keep him running, but used the void where Tyson had been to keep himself sharp and focussed.

It had been over three years now since Tokyo was destroyed, two since World War III had gotten into full swing, and Kai still felt cold. He hadn't warmed and he'd barely numbed.

Kai picked up Dragoon for the first time in three years. He wasn't sure if he felt better or worse for having touched the beast. On one hand, the dragon made him feel closer to his only love; on the other, it reminded him that Tyson was lost to him forever.

His rock was dead.

Kai had never been one for cuddling, but at that moment, he found himself wrapping his arms around himself, Dragoon in one hand and Dranzer in the other, wishing that it was Tyson holding him.

His eyes closed and a tear fell.

Kai awoke to the sound of a knock on his bedroom door. He had somehow ended up in his bed, huddled under the duvet, face buried in Tyson's pillow and two beyblades clutched tightly in his hands. He didn't even remember leaving his secret room. Reluctantly, Kai crawled out of his warm bed, stuffing the blades in his pants pockets before he opened the door. His butler, Ilya, was waiting on the other side.

"Master Kai," the butler greeted with a small bow. "Master Tala has arrived." The old man didn't mention the state his friend arrived in and Kai didn't need him to. He'd been in a coma when Kai left him at the military hospital and probably would be for the rest of his life, if those doctors could be believed. They had been far too excited upon discovering that Tala was cybernetic to be trusted. Kai suspected that they'd exaggerated his condition so that he would give the okay for them to "study" Tala.

Kai would rather Tala sleep forever in his house than let him become someone's experiment again.

"Was a nurse sent with him?" Kai asked, stepping out of his room and gesturing for Ilya to lead the way.

"Yes, sir," he said. Kai grunted his approval. The butler stopped in front of a guest room door and continued, "Sir, there is also another guest here to see you." Kai raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Kuznetsov, sir."

Kai froze with his hand on the doorknob, blinking in surprise. "Bryan?"

"Yes, Master Kai. He awaits you in the drawing room."

"I see. Thank you, Ilya."

A pale, lilac-haired man was sprawled out on his couch when he entered the front drawing room.

"You're alive," he stated dryly.

"So are you," Bryan sneered. Then he gestured up the stairs with his head. "How's Tal?"

Kai shook his head, letting the silence speak for itself.

"We have a way to help him," Bryan announced, getting straight to the point.

"Who's 'we'?"

"Got recruited by the United Nations Army a few months back. Covert ops, that's why you haven't heard from me." He pulled out a bundle of papers from his inside breast pocket and handed them to Kai.

He skimmed over the documents.

"Prosthetics?"

"That operation Boris did on Tala that made him cyber was a first step towards this. The freak didn't know what he was on to back then, but we can use it to save Tala. We just have to finish the job."

"You're working for Boris?"

"No," Bryan scoffed, producing a manila folder out of nowhere and handing it to Kai. "But you're working with him."

Kai started at that. Skimming the contents of the folder, he cursed under his breath. If this information was true, then the Russian government had hired Boris as the head of research and development of full-body prosthetics for use in military applications.

"He's back at it," Bryan continued. "And from what my sources gather, he doesn't go through strictly legal channels when rounding up guinea pigs."

"Unbelievable," Kai muttered.

Bryan nodded, solemnly. "They still put trust in that bastard after all he's done. All because they want to catch up with Japan's tech." He gestured to the first set of papers he'd given Kai. "There aren't many full cyborgs out yet. The procedure's still experimental. So far, there've only been four or five successful full-body prosthetics made."

Kai dropped the folder in disgust and unfolded the bundle of papers again. The top few were detailed explanations of the procedure and diagrams of prosthetic bodies already made. The rest looked like legal papers.

"You want me to sign Tala over to your people." It was a statement, more than a question.

"That, and join us when you've healed." Bryan folded his arms over his chest, smirking. "So, what'll it be, Kai? Ready to switch teams?"