Switchblade Beta: Zero-Four.

X X X

Two men had entered the office that afternoon; ordinary-looking save the professional clothes they wore.

They came with no appointment, but the simple statement that Hiro - not 'the Chairman' or 'Mr. Kinomiya', just 'Hiro' - was expecting them, aptly threw the secretary into a muddle. Hiro had expressly said that he didn't want to see anyone that afternoon, regardless of being on first-name basis with anyone.

These men easily slotted into that category, but no matter what she said, they refused to be dissuaded from getting into see her boss.

And that presented a new problem: she didn't know what to do about it.

It would be simple enough to let them through to see him… but nothing had been pre-arranged, that she knew of. Logically speaking, that meant it would put the Chairman in an awkward position. The knock-on effect from that would probably end with her being sent back to the Temp agency.

But then, what if they had arranged this? What if it was planned months ago and she was supposed to let them through without question?

Chewing on the end of her pen worriedly, the woman gestured to chairs that lined the wall opposite her desk. "Have a seat," she told them with her best 'everything is alright' smile. "I'll confirm with Mr. Kinomiya."

Obligingly, the two men - both wearing lab coats - took a seat.

She hid a grimace and reached for the P.A. "Sir, there are two men here who would like to see you."

X X X

In the office, neither occupant spared so much as a glance to the little speaker mounted on Hiro's desk.

"Sir?"

Hiro pursed his lips slightly, this time noticing the voice from his desk. "What?" he asked tone flat and unfriendly. Kai's statement that he 'needed' to do something had left the Chairman feeling threatened.

Kai, still seated on the couch, didn't bat an eyelid. He clearly had no intention of taking back any of what he'd said, no matter how Hiro took it. Emotions and truth had no business interfering with each other, so even if the elder Kinomiya chose to take emotions, Kai was sticking to his facts.

And the fact of the matter was that Tai and his dangerous Beyblade needed surveillance.

"There are two men here," the voice repeated, "who would like to see you."

Now Kai was frowning as well - he didn't know it, but his thoughts at that moment were the same as Hiro's: it figured that they would be interrupted in the middle of such an important discussion.

It crossed the Chairman's mind to tell his visitors to come back tomorrow, since he was far from done with Kai. Before he could tell the secretary that, though, the younger male was rolling to his feet.

"Kai -"

"We're done, here."

The blunt statement left Hiro with no choice in the matter. Before he could get another word out, Kai was already at the door.

X X X

The pen was now being tapped against the edge of the desk anxiously. It had been several minutes since the Chairman's last - only - response. She threw the two men an apologetic look, and then reached for the PA once more.

"… Sir?" she asked tentatively.

Still nothing.

One of the men made his move. He stood from his seat and slowly walked towards her desk, wearing a smile similar to her professionally apologetic one. First one elbow, then the other, came to rest on the raised ledge that separated her from clients; his chin rested atop steeped fingers. As he spoke, every word that came from the blonde was made of incredible patience.

"Look," he began with a glance to Hiro's door, "I'm sure he's expecting us, we do this every year…"

Before Max could finish, the door swung open - seemingly of its own accord.

All three adults straightened in either anticipation or surprise.

And all three adults became very confused when it wasn't Hiro who appeared there - it was Kai. He was older, leaner; wore no scarf and bore no face-paint, but he couldn't be mistaken.

Both Kenny and Max simultaneously lost their voices.

Even after the Russian had swept past them (without so much as a look of recognition), when Hiro had subsequently emerged from his office and ushered the pair in, they still couldn't speak.

The very idea that he'd had turned up in such an out-of-the-blue fashion was, admittedly, a very Kai thing to do… but it'd been years; years of no contact and no address and no news and no answers.

It was simply incomprehensible.

But from the way that Hiro had directed them to sitting across from him at the desk, without so much as a word of explanation as to what the great Hiwatari was doing in his office; the Chairman wasn't keen to discuss it. Instead, a long silence stretched between the two parties: Hiro, attempting to be as professional as ever, wanted his longtime friends to make the first move in the pending discussion.

Unfortunately, Max and Kenny were far too stunned to say anything.

Idly, Hiro remarked to himself how Kai had that effect on people.

In the end, it was the Chairman who broke the quiet: he'd grown just a little too tired of waiting for the situation to be understood. They were good friends, there was no denying that. But truth be told, Hiro wanted this to be over as swiftly as possible. That way, he could be alone to brood.

Kai had given him a lot to think about, perhaps without realising it.

"So," he said, sitting forward a little, "You've finished, Kenny?"

The question acted like an 'on' switch - the young man pulled his work from his pockets and prepared himself, whilst the Beyblade was passed to Max, who passed it to Hiro.

"I did as much as I could to fix that counter-balance issue we had at the last trial, which was the most important thing for your manoeuvring. Metal Driger should have an increased agility on rough terrain, so that'll come in handy when you get to the Exhibition Match…"

With his eyes glued to the notes in front of him, Kenny didn't notice that Hiro was no longer sitting at the desk. Instead, he was now pacing the length of the windows, Metal Driger being idly turned over in his hands. He was watching the horizon and not listening to a word that his friend was saying.

"… there's also a few last adjustments that are required, but in order to get the correct calculations, I need new performance data. In order to do that, we -" a slight nudge to the ribs had Kenny stopping mid-sentence. He threw a perplexed look to Max, who in turn, flicked his head at Hiro.

The man hadn't even noticed that his office was completely silent once more.

"Hiro?"

At the sound of his name, Hiro's attention returned to his guests; he turned away from the windows and set Metal Driger back down on the desk. Then, without one word of apology, he turned away and walked swiftly across the room.

When Hiro came to a stop, he stood a short distance from a glass-topped obelisk that all the former Bladebreakers were familiar with.

It was positioned to stand directly opposite the leather couch Kai had sat on earlier; tucked neatly between two pot-plants and clearly, the focus point of that wall.

The obelisk itself wasn't particularly important - it only served as a pillar. Amounting to a height of no more than a metre, it was the pyramid on top which suggested significance. Made of high-quality glass, it served as protection for the prize which lay inside - Dragoon's charred and melted, damaged remains.

Hiro had placed it there on the day that they buried his brother - the Bitbeast was still usable, for both battling and research.

But not one person had ever dared to make the suggestion. So Dragoon had lived here, under a Kinomiya's watchful eye.

Staring down at it, Hiro's frown grew deeper. If Kai was right about what was happening with that Blader, then he owed it to all the other competitors to do something about the situation. He could still remember how, eight years earlier, he watched Black Dranzer on a TV from halfway around the world. The power behind it had been beyond all comprehension… and it had barely been controlled; the Bladers who used it fast losing that slim grip they'd held.

He still remembered the feeling of being absolutely terrified of a Bitbeast.

So now he was faced with a question that he needed to answer as quickly as possible: could this Tai, who now served under Boris and Voltaire, actually handle the Phoenix?

Or, like others before him, would Black Dranzer simply take over?

He needed more information… he needed to confirm what Kai had said.

Hiro looked to the two men at his desk and said in a quiet voice, "I need to see Black Dranzer."

X X X

Black Dranzer did not get many visitors.

It lived in a room that reminded people of a scientific prison cell, where cement and iron was replaced with tiles and glass. Every inch of the room was monitored by cameras which were never turned off, whilst the security program - designed by Kenny, naturally - required an endless number of codes and sequences to disarm it.

Even then, they only had two minutes in the room before the alarms went off.

Yet despite all this, Kai had told him that it'd been stolen.

Hiro, watching the Bitbeast from the doorway - Kenny was still punching numbers into the keypad on his right - sighed slightly to himself. He had planned to get this meeting over, then go home and spend some time very much alone.

He hadn't planned on chasing down a crackpot theory, but here he was.

Thanks, Kai.

The seals on the door were unlocked - it hissed in the process, startling Hiro. Kenny didn't hide his grin, closing the keypad. He didn't need to signal that Hiro could go in - the man had already done so.

His shoes made an uncomfortably loud 'tap tap' noise on the tiles as he walked to the podium in the middle of the room. Black Dranzer lived in a fashion much like Dragoon did, ironically enough - kept safely at the top of an obelisk, this pyramid had a hole where the fourth panel was supposed to be.

Vaguely aware of Kenny hissing that he had a minute left, Hiro reached out for the Beyblade. His fingers curved around the black plastic and metal, palm over the Bitbeast in the middle.

Instantly, he knew Kai's words were the truth - this was not the real Phoenix at all.

X X X

Max was waiting in the lab when Kenny and Hiro returned. Seeing their pensive expressions, he nodded to himself. Instincts were always reliable - especially when they came from someone like their old team captain, who lived on them.

He stood from his computer chair, hands slipping into the pockets of his slacks. "Do we need Kai to double-check it?"

"No," Hiro replied definitively, "It's more important, now, to identify a timeline."

"Of what?" Kenny asked, trailing behind Hiro.

"Of when the Beyblade was stolen, of how it got back to Biovault."

Max frowned, head tilting slightly as he considered the statement. "How do we do that?"

"Well, we don't have security cameras for nothing," Hiro replied, tone dry as he set Black Dranzer down on the desk. Kenny hadn't wanted to bring the Blade out, but Hiro couldn't see the danger anymore: the Bitbeast wasn't real.

"You want to go through five years of footage?"

"If we have to, yes."

Max shook his head lightly, picking up a pen and fiddling with it as he thought. "We don't need to go that far," he said, looking to the other two men.

Kenny had worked with the fellow scientist for much longer than Hiro had, so it came naturally that he caught onto Max's train of thought. "We go to the source…"

Hiro shook his head firmly. "No. Even if it was possible, I'm not getting you involved with Boris, or Voltaire. They can't know that we know."

"But we don't have to go to those two," Max told him with a grin, sitting back down in his chair. "They don't even have to know. The source, Hiro."

"We go to the blader?"

"Mister Tai himself," Kenny confirmed, looking to Max with a small grin.

The idea was a good one, even if Hiro didn't much like it. "How do you plan to accomplish that? They're not going to just let the kid wander around."

"I think…We can safely let Kai work that one out." Max sat back, looking at the two of them evenly as he made the suggestion.

Kenny nodded. "It's true that Kai knows them better than we ever will. He'll be the most beneficial in ascertaining the timeline we need."

Hiro let out a sigh, arms folding loosely as he gave in. "Alright… alright, I'll talk to Kai. I need the pair of you to start finding out whatever you can about Tai, alright?"

Both scientists nodded, accepting the order without a problem. It seemed that Kai's curiosity was a contagious thing - not only was Hiro steadily becoming involved in the happenings, but now two more of the former Bladebreakers had begun down that same path.

Thing was, none of them really seemed to notice.

X X X

The following morning finds me in the middle of an empty playground; coffee clutched in one hand, the pole of a swing set in the other. I'm putting more weight against that one pole than what I like, but after a sleepless night, my brain lacks the cognitive ability to hold me upright on my own.

I give myself until the world wakes up to pull back together. This is my third cup of coffee, and all I've done is walk five blocks and through a park - it's really quite pathetic, but with no-one around to impress, I really can't care.

It's too early for that, anyway.

The park is empty save for one or two couples out for morning exercise with their dogs, all of whom are happy enough with their lives to completely ignore me. I'm fine with that - I've been thinking all night without being able to achieve a resolution; the last thing I want is conversation about the weather.

In an optimistic flash of strength, I push off the pole and shuffle over to the swing, sinking into it with a soft sigh. Both legs stretch out, pleased to have weight taken off of them - I'd spent the night pacing my hotel room before walking here; they need a rest.

I take another sip of coffee and nearly choke when someone, quietly and curiously, calls my name.

"Rei?"

It's natural to look, to pivot on the swing so I can see over my shoulder.

There's no mistaking who it is, even from a distance - I'd know the two-toned hair anywhere. I find myself smiling.

This is the first time I've had the chance to get a really good look at him, so that's exactly what I do. It's hard to ignore how much taller he's grown, though he's still just as lean. The face-pain is gone, so is the scarf. It's only been a year or two since I last saw him, but the changes are amazing.

A really…good kind of amazing.

It comes to me that I'm staring, so I look down to the coffee before back up at him, trying to collect my scattered thoughts. "Kai," I manage, legs folding to let me swing closer to him. "You're out early."

"So are you." He watches me sway back and forth, wearing a curious little frown. "You look tired," the Russian says finally. A hand reaches out to catch the swing, bringing my idle rocking to an unexpected stop. I give him a confused look: was something wrong?

"Kai?"

He purses his lips, still frowning lightly. It looks like he's trying to make a decision, so I watch expectantly… watch the thoughts ticking over behind sharp eyes, the quirk at the corner of his mouth that only ever appears when he's looking at me.

I wonder what he's thinking.

Oh, I'm staring again. Back to the coffee.

"I talked to Hiro," he says at last, breaking several minutes of silence.

Admittedly, it's another minute before I realise what he's talking about. "Black Dranzer?"

Another minute ticks past.

"Yeah," he says finally. "He was as interested as you."

How Hiro took the news is, admittedly, probably not dissimilar from myself. It's a thought amusing enough to conjure a snicker, though if I'd been more alert it wouldn't have been half as funny.

I need to wake up, or I risk a loss of dignity in front of one person whose opinion really matters.

Maybe it's left over from training days, but I never want Kai to be disappointed in me - even if I disagree with him. He's not very tolerant, he's impatient, he's been gone for five years… but he's fair too; that's who Kai is and there's no changing it.

I never realised how rare it was until I found myself a very long way from him.

It's too early for these thoughts. With a shake of the head, I down the rest of my coffee in one smooth gulp, allowing the hot liquid to scald the back of my throat on its way down.

Kai's watching me with what I think might be bemusement. "How many hours of sleep did you get, Kon?"

I sigh, standing from the swing. "Not nearly enough," is my answer, as I start for the bin despite protests from my legs. "I'm going to get another," I tell my ex-teammate, lobbing it into the rubbish.

"Alright," he concedes, moving away from the swing.

That small action leaves me a little disappointed - part of me had hoped that he would stay until I came back, but… well, that's just not the way Kai is. So I lift a hand to wave, albeit awkwardly. "I'll catch you later, then."

He shakes his head, starts walking towards me. "I'm not leaving yet," he tells me firmly.

"Then where are you going?"

"With you." He says the answer so simply that I feel stupid for not realising it.

It's instinctive to protest the idea; I can feel the barrage of refusals begin to well up in my throat. I'm staring at him again; the words are threatening to spill out, even if I know he won't accept them.

He'll come anyway, that's Kai's way.

An unexpected clarity comes at this thought, and sucking in a breath, I change those refusals to acceptances. It's a waste of time to argue, I don't want to waste the energy.

So letting out a huff, I offer a smile. "Alright," I say, turning back the way of the coffee cart. "Let's go, then."

He falls into step beside me and it almost feels like we're real teenagers again; with nought but ourselves and each other to enjoy the serenity of early morning.

X X X

Kai felt confident in saying that he hadn't really expected the morning to turn out the way it did.

Instead of taking a morning jog and then a short practise session before breakfast, he waited patiently for Rei at a park's coffee cart. He stood a metre from his friend, arms crossed over his chest as was most comfortable. With little else to do, he watched the transaction; studied the way that this adult Rei offered a polite smile and answered questions from the vendor, but didn't venture into conversation of his own device.

It wasn't the Rei he used to know - the old one would have chattered freely, maybe asked about local Bladers.

Kai wasn't sure he liked it that much. The old Rei was more relaxed; more fun; more alive.

He frowned at the thought, shaking it away. There was nothing to be gained by speculation, not here - he didn't want to… what? To upset Rei? That was strange.

He'd never been concerned in the past about causing controversy, if it was deemed necessary for a greater good. And yet the memory of Rei's reaction to the video kept coming back to him; large amber eyes staring at him with a reproach he felt uncomfortable seeing, even in memory.

There was an inner sadness in them; the kind that could only come from losing a friend. They were eyes that refused to cry at a funeral, the eyes that stared at his friends falling apart and drift away from each other.

They were the eyes that had greeted him that morning he woke after the fire.

Eyes that meant their owner didn't smile from the heart anymore.

Kai knew that he would do anything to never see that look again.

Watching now, as Rei turned away from the cart and walk back towards him, Kai studied the flash of smile his companion was wearing. He could tell, now, that it wasn't a real smile - he should have noticed the first time.

With a nod in answer as Rei suggested taking a stroll, Kai wordlessly fell into place next to him once again. They walked in a comfortable silence; Rei absorbing the warmth of the coffee and Kai making a silent promise to himself.

First, he would bring Tyson home.

Then, Kai would fill the hole in Rei's heart. He'd get that smile back, no matter what.

X X X

To be continued.