Yes, this is set at the same dinner as Chapter 3. When else were they going to meet? He's the Guardian of Mist Mountain and she's a Russian astronaut!

Day 24

Only What It's Made Of

(Lera/Dynamis)

"Dynamis! Oh, it's so good to see you again!" Madoka's exclamation was the first that anyone knew of the Guardian's presence in the hall. "I was sure that the invitation would never get to you in time."

"I follow the will of the heavens," the tall young man smiled. "It was right that I was meant to be here tonight."

Lera, who had been talking to Madoka with Aleksei just before the brown-haired girl had spotted Dynamis entering, stepped back to get out of the way of the blonde cannonball that shot past her.

"Dynamis! Tithi!" Yuu's yell brought more heads around to spot the lilac- and pink-haired newcomers. "I missed you! Tithi, come on, there's so much food, but hurry up or Ben-ben and Gingky will eat it all!"

If Lera had been expecting anything intelligible to come out of the tiny pink-haired blader's mouth, she was sadly mistaken. Upon spotting his first real friend, Tithi launched into a tirade of sound that only Libra could really have matched. Maybe that was why Yuu seemed to be able to understand it.

Madoka just shook her head and gently ushered the two chattering boys away towards an unsuspecting Kyouya. "That was... loud."

Dynamis looked amused, as much as one of his stature could. "Tithi has not found someone who responds to his chatter in some time. I'm afraid that my Temple tends to be a rather quiet place for him." He looked around. "You are Lera and Aleksei. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Aleksei took this unexpected knowledge in his stride – he'd met Dynamis before, Lera remembered. Perhaps he'd mentioned Lera then, which would explain why the stranger (to her, anyway) knew her name.

"Aleksei, you said you had your new visualisation program with you?" Madoka asked, turning back to the original conversation. "Could you show me?"

"Sure," Lera's team-mate agreed. "Come with me. Lera, I'll be back in a minute – hold my drink for me?"

Lera automatically took the glass and waved away Madoka's hurried apologies. She knew that half the reason Aleksei had agreed to come instead of overseeing a number of centrifugal force experiments being done back in Russia at that very second was because Madoka had asked him for the software.

However, she hadn't quite realised that it would leave her standing next to one of the strangest men she had ever met. She couldn't quite keep her eyes off him and his curious smile that seemed to see right through her.

Anyway, she thought, what kind of man in this day and age believed that the sky had some kind of effect on your destiny? It was ridiculous.

"You are staring at me, Lera. May I ask why?" His voice was cool and soft, the voice of a storyteller. She flushed at being caught.

"I just don't understand why you say that you follow 'the will of the heavens'," she said. "The stars don't actually control anything. They're huge balls of flaming gas burning billions of miles away, and we don't even see their light until centuries after they've burned out."

He smiled that infuriating smile of his. "Perhaps. Yet that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of."

She felt a shiver run through her. Despite everything, there was something about his words that she couldn't deny. She had to admit that she'd always known there was something special about the stars – it was one of the reasons why she wanted to study them for the rest of her life.

"You have a star in your blade, do you not?" he asked. "A constellation?"

"I have a Scorpion blade, if that's what you mean."

"And it contains a fragment of the original star that fell to earth. You lent that to Gingka a year ago to defeat Nemesis. The stars have power."

"Yes, but that's different..."

Just then, there was a mild commotion as Aguma and Klaus stomped past them, heading outside.

"What on earth...?" Lera asked, distracted. "Since when did those two talk?"

Dynamis just laughed. "I believe that we would be better off not finding out just yet," he suggested. "I have a feeling it involves a Plan."

She scowled. "You said that as if there was a capital letter."

"There was. Which is why I intend to stay as far away as possible. Aguma is not known as one of the strongest Legendary Bladers for nothing, and Klaus didn't get his own reputation freely either."

"True..." She just realised that she'd agreed with him on something and frowned. "So you really think that distant lights can foretell the future?"

"Not foretell, exactly. I believe they merely show a way to walk, rather than forcing our hands – or our feet – to follow. When Gingka first came to me for guidance, I did not know whether it was right to walk alongside him and lend him my power, for I did not know his heart. I only knew that my task was to prevent the power of the Star Fragment from falling into the hands of evil. The Swan, Cygnus, helped me to do so, protecting the children of the stars as she has always done."

Lera was struggling. Part of her knew that stars were just as she had described – fires burning so very, very far away that it took centuries for the light to reach earth. But the part of her that was a blader knew the power in her bey, and knew of its connection with the constellation that guided it.

Not what a star is, but only what it is made of...

"It wasn't even that big a fish," she heard Yuu say as he wandered past them, heading towards the drinks table with Tithi in tow. "But then Ben-ben stood up and the boat started going all wobbly so Yo-yo yelled at him."

"You should come and visit the Temple some time," Dynamis said, dragging her attention back to him. "I think you have been watching your stars so closely that you forget to step back and truly see them for what they are – perhaps they do not guide your steps, but they watch over you."

She stared at him silently, momentarily speechless. He had read her mind, he must have. To her surprise, the rest of the hall fell silent at the same time. The moment stretched uncomfortably.

"And that's when Yo-yo fell off the boat!"

The laughter that rippled around the hall might have broken the tension in the silence, but there was still something prickling between Lera and the tall man she was talking to. "Why would you want me on your mountain? I'm just a girl."

He looked confused. "Just a girl? What do you mean?"

She shrugged and looked away. "Do you think I haven't noticed that there's only five girls here and over thirty guys – and that's a high ratio when you consider how many girls are on the international circuit?" She looked around. "Madoka's a mechanic. Hikaru's retired. Mei-Mei's the sub. Sophie always fight tag-team. And I never even managed to get a single battle in at the World Championships – and I don't even want to be a blader."

"But I told you before," Dynamis said softly. "That is not what you are, but only what you are made of."

She looked up at him and saw the wisdom and the kindness in his eyes. Most bladers would have insisted that blading could be her only love – and it wasn't. But he hadn't assumed that of her. He'd seen that for her, it was just a means to her ultimate dream.

She might have used blades to get to where she was, but her heart lay in the vast outer reaches of space. She didn't want to have fame gained by winning battles in beystadiums around the world. She wanted fame from touching the stars themselves.

She wanted to be an astronaut.

"Tell me about your stars," he said suddenly. "If you love them as much as I think you do, then I don't believe that you and I are all that different. The heavens guide my path, but they set you on yours."

She looked up at him, suddenly confident in a way that she hadn't been before. Here was a man – and a blader – that she could trust with everything that she was. "If you'll tell me about yours," she said, smiling.

His eyes shone like the stars he spoke of. "I don't have to. Come to Mist Mountain one day, and I will show you."

"I... I think I'd like that."

Stars were giant spheres of nuclear fusion blazing billions of miles away. But they were also tiny, perfect diamonds in a pitch black sky, diamonds that had caught her heart and mind more firmly than any earth gem could have.

And they were the core power-source of the blade in her pocket – and his.

Maybe the two of them could work together after all.