A/N: I want to confess a couple of things: First, I have never been in Japan, nor hitch-hiking on any kind of mountain (only in forests). Those of you who know something about the environments there are welcome to have a good laugh. Secondly, I have never written action-style before, nor described a bey-battle, so please, don't be harsh on me!

To Kyoya's surprise Kiti hadn't uttered a word to protest Tsubasa's order to stay the night in the house. It was obvious she considered him as the leader of the team and therefore wasn't going to question his orders – the thing that irritated Kyoya as well as Tsubasa's equally obvious decision to shield her from unnecessary strain.

The elderly couple living in the house had been so fascinated about the unexpected guests they didn't hear about their paying even for the food. Tsubasa had had a hard time to make them let them help in some chores, and even a harder time in answering their questions about their backgrounds and destination. Trying to be as polite and non-informative as possible he had wished heartily they'd camped outdoors. Kyoya had sat stubbornly quiet, leaving the Eagle to enjoy all sides of the leadership to the fullest, and Kiti of course couldn't understand a word about their discussion.

At last he managed to get some information about their environments. He had asked if there was any nice trails or sights nearby, they had heard about a village...

"Oh yes, there was a footpath quite near, heading to a deserted village. How far was it? Well, a good day's walk at least, so they said who had visited there. Not an agreeable route at all, no idea when was the last time anybody had used it, maybe it wasn't even passable anymore, after all the rains and storms in the winters. And up there had been snow for weeks, wouldn't it be better to continue on the road? A young lady with them and all..."

Tsubasa reflected their description of the footpath's starting point the next morning when they were marching the steep uphill road.

"We should be very near it now. According what they said, it's not difficult to notice so we shouldn't miss it but..."

He left the sentence unfinished when a big black car curved past them and stopped crosswise on the road. Kyoya's hand was already on his launcher when another car appeared and blocked the road behind them. Men in dark green and violet clothing started to jump out, gathering around them. Kyoya lifted his launcher.

"Take Kiti away from here. I'll take care of those." He said quietly. Tsubasa looked sharply their opponents.

"Those are not bladers. They have..."

"Go."

Before anybody had time to say anything more, Leone had swooshed through the air and hit the ground just before the first line of them. Tsubasa snatched Kiti's arm and dragged her with him up the bank. As the hill downwards was too steep to climb, he could only hope they could make it far enough upwards to get safe.

"Stay down!" He shoved Kiti behind a rock some metres above the road and turned to watch down. "Fly, Aquila!"

Kiti pressed herself as close the ground she could. She hadn't had time to be scared or even amazed by the sudden attack. Through the noise of the beys she could hear several cars nearing and stopping below them. Tsubasa tried to shout over the uproar of the beys.

"Kyoya! There's too much of them! We must... Shit!"

Although most of the men were knocked down by Leone's first attack, one of them had managed to target Kyoya with his gun.

"Freeze!"

"Aquila, Metal Wing Smash!"

The bey hit the hand of the man at the last moment. Kyoya jumped backwards when a bullet hit the ground two inches off his feet. He cursed fiercely and turned to run up the slope. Aquila was knocking the attackers down one after another, throwing mud and sand high up in the air.

Kyoya gritted his teeth when reaching them on the bank.

"I've never fled a battle before!"

"I told you these guys are not bladers, they have firearms! Kiti, climb!"

In spite of her packs, Kiti clambered like squirrel. From bank to bank they advanced, the boys covering them one at the time.

The assailants had organized their lines again. The quickness and power of Leone's first attack had taken them by surprise but now they managed to gain ground again.

"King Lion Tearing Blast!"

The twisters tossed the attackers like ragdolls, but still more of them were waiting by the shelter of the cars. Dragging herself over the edge of one more terrace Kiti suddenly stopped terrified. The hillside in front of her continued gently sloping, open field without any kind of shelter. On the other side of the field, about half a kilometer off, were trees and small bushes. Tsubasa pulled himself up next to her and saw the situation.

"Hurry up, Kyoya!" he shouted and turned to see how the bank was shot to smithers under the Lions feet just when he was grabbing the last terrace. Kiti's shriek made his ears ring.

"Kyo!"

They threw themselves on the ground and got hold of his arms at the last second. The tug emptied Kiti's lungs and made her gasp.

"Stop them, Eagle!" Kyoya shouted and tried desperately find something to push with his feet. The most obstinate attackers were only some meters below them.

"How?! You'll fall if I let..."

"No, he won't." Kiti's voice was husky but calm. Tsubasa looked at her in disbelief.

"Do it!" Kyoya wrenched his hand out of his. Tsubasa let it go and directed Aquila to attack.

"Have you ever tested how many marshmallows you can stuff in a mug full of hot chocolate before it spills over?"

A little yellow-haired boy in his white-and-blue-striped pajamas dropped the fifth marshmallow on the top his steaming cup. Kenta had watched his experiments worried.

"Umm... Just once. My mom stopped me before I got any results", he answered. "I think it depends the size of them. Those are quite big ones."

His friend ignored the hint.

"This stuff is at its best on a rainy October evening", he sighed contently. Kenta nodded and took the wipe from the sink to the table, just in case. He hoped his mom wouldn't pop into the kitchen right now.

"I'd like to know if Tsubasa has already found that bey", Yuu said after some minutes, when he was done with his experiments (seven and half) and Kenta was cleaning the mess.

"Don't think so. Ryo said it takes several days to reach the village first."

Yuu waved carelessly with his hand.

"If he had sent Tsubasa alone there, he'd be back with the bey in a jiffy!", he said confidently.

Since the day the Eagle had "adopted" the Libra blader to live with him, the little boy had admired him endlessly. In his eyes, Tsubasa was capable of anything. The only fault he could find in him was his inexplicable unwillingness to buy enough ice cram.

Kenta rinsed the wipe and returned it on its place.

"I still can't understand why Kyoya wanted to go with him. He has never before volunteered to do anything like that", he said.

Yuu shrugged.

"He's been bored. Haven't you noticed how easily he's been annoyed lately?"

Yep, Kenta had noticed it. The last time when they had been training in the park and Yuu had directed Libra through a puddle, spattering water on Lion, "Just by accident, honestly!", he had grabbed the little boys ankles and dipped him several times into the duck pond.

But still Kenta wondered. After what he had seen that night at Kiti's apartment, he could have swore Kyoya would have stayed as far as possible of any kind of wolves.

They had sat exactly opposite each other, and the moment Kiti had opened her mouth he had seen such a terror in Lion's eyes it had startled him more than the ghastly sound. It had been visible only a quarter of a second and nobody else had probably noticed it, but it had been there. And if there was something that could cause such a look to Kyoya, of all people, that something had to be really, really scary.

"Or maybe he's after Kiti", Yuu chuckled. "Like Gingka and Madoka, you remember, at Kiti's place? They were just silly!"

Kenta smiled and nodded. Those two had sat all night on the same chair (there weren't too many), and eagerly offered to share a plate after Yuu had dropped and broke half of them. And their enthusiasm when comparing their hands...

Kenta had squeezed himself between the harp and the piano, and watched Kiti's playing with a thoughtful look in his eyes. When the music ended he took her hands off the keys and examined them closely.

"Something's wrong with them?" Kiti asked smiling.

"No... But tell me... You have exactly the same amount of fingers as any of us. How can you make them look and sound like you had twice as much?"

"Maybe it's the same trick Hikaru and Aquario used?" Gingka suggested. Kiti looked like a living question mark.

"I'll tell you about it some day", Madoka promised.

Kenta continued turning Kiti's hands, and finally pressed his palm against hers, stretching his fingers as long as he could. They reached hardly halfway of hers. Yuu had watched the process with interest.

"Hey, let me try too!"

The result wasn't much better. The others joined the game eagerly. Kenta was fitting his both hands against Benkei's shovel-sized one while Gingka and Madoka were totally absorbed in investigating the differences of their hands, in size and shape. Apparently their fingers fitted very well between each other, because they forgot to separate them. Yuu dragged Kiti towards the corner where his favorite tag-team partner was sitting and watching the scene, greatly amused.

"Tsubasa, you must try too! She can't beat you, I'm sure!" He grabbed Eagle's wrist and pushed their palms against each other before either one of them had time to object.

"There, what did I say!"

Kiti felt a sudden shiver in her spine when Tsubasa's warm hand touched hers. "Somebody is walking over my grave", she thought absently when Yuu pulled her forward.

"Yo-yo, it's your turn!"

"Don't call me...!"

"Gosh, it's a tie! Tsu, Kenta, look, it's a tie! Kiti's fingers are but thinner." He hold their hands connected with joyful stubbornness, not caring a trifle about Lions furious glare.

"I'll borrow your winter gloves when I lose mine." Kiti laughed and tried to turn back to her seat. There was nothing wrong with the looks of her hands, but...

Yes, Gingka and Madoka had been acting foolishly of late. Especially Gingka. But even with an effort Kenta couldn't imagine Kyoya doing the same, or Kiti accepting it. She would have laughed at him.

Suddenly he remembered Hikaru and the time they had first met before Battle Bladers. The girl had reminded Kiti in some ways at that time, but after her defeat by Ryoga everything had changed.

Kenta sighed without noticing it. They all knew Hikaru needed help but none of them had managed to find out how to help her to find her lost courage again. Tsubasa had been doing good job with her, and she had made some progress, but then his own struggle against the dark forces had teared it all down again. Kenta didn't know if they had continued their efforts after their returning from Hades City, but he was afraid Hikaru had lost her confidence on him too thoroughly. They still worked together for WBBA, but neither of them had referred to their former or present efforts to make her a blader again.

Instead Kenta had noticed a certain look on Hikaru's eyes every time she had watched Kyoya's training. He was pretty sure nobody else had noticed it – she never looked like that when she knew somebody could see her – but he wasn't so sure of the reason of that gaze. Still there was something in her eyes that made him think she wouldn't have laughed if Kyoya had forgot to let go of her hand.

He tilted the last drops of chocolate of his mug and nodded to Yuu without the slightest idea what his friend had been talking about. There were so many things going on beneath the surface he could see but not quite understand, and there was nobody to ask. Yuu wasn't interested in other people's problems and he didn't dare to ask anybody else.

"Maybe I can understand it better when I'm just a little older", he thought. His mom often said he was a precocious little lad, but why did he felt himself so terrible young then? He tried to train hard to get some day to the same level as a blader as the others, but that didn't close the gap there was between them.

"If I only could find someone to teach me how to grow stronger and wiser", he thought. Right now there wasn't any other choices but to get along just alone.

In the meanwhile Madoka was fixing Pegasos after it's last battle.

"I told you you mustn't train this hard yet!", she scolded it's owner who was lying on the couch behind her and trying to throw and catch peanuts in his mouth.

"I haven't been able to fix all the damages it got at Hade City, and I'm afraid it can't be done until I've received those new tools I ordered from Switzerland."

Gingka tried look embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Mado, but you see, Yuu was challenging me and..."

"I will hear no 'but's! I know Yuu can be pretty annoying but even he should know enough not to urge you to risk Pegasos like this."

Gingka sighed. It had been hard not to battle for real, but of course it was not as hard as to be totally without his dear bey.

"I just can't understand why Kyoya hasn't challenged me for ages", he muttered, more to himself.

"Maybe he doesn't want to do it before you are able to use Pegasos' full power. You should be glad he has that much sense."

"Or pride."

Gingka tossed the next peanut to the air. He knew the Lion would never lower himself to battle against a cripple, and he felt kind of humiliated for that.

"Sense or pride, right now it's the only proper thing for him to do!" Madoka's voice was very determined. She bent her head over her work again. Those microfissures worried her more than she wanted to admit. Another thought about the Lion came into her mind.

"He had quite a strong attitude towards Bluewolf", she said.

"That's because of his experiences with Dark Wolf", Gingka explaned.

"I don't know what happened there, he has never talked about it, not even to Benkei. But it must have been something really bad."

"I see..." Madoka listened but with half an ear. The tiniest false movement on the wrong moment could destroy the whole hour's work.

Gingka continued.

"And you noticed how fiercely he reacted earlier in the evening at Kiti's apartment."

She shivered and blushed slightly, barely escaping a fateful mistake. To say the truth, she hadn't noticed it. There had been some other things in her mind at the moment.

"Did she ever tell where she had learned to do that horrible noise?", she asked.

"Benkei asked her when we were on our way to the office, he told the whole story to me yesterday. She was in a habit to go to the woods with some old backwoodsman every time there was a pack of wolves passing nearby. They sat by the campfire and sang along with them."

"You mean they sat by the fire with he wolves?!"

"Oh, no, the beasts were somewhere in the woods around them or on the other side of the hill. They just answered them when they howled."

Madoka shook her head.

"Not exactly the kind of amusement I'd like to be with.", she said. Gingka grinned.

"I wonder if there's anything she's afraid of. You remember the day she arrived? Kyoya couldn't even make her blink."

She nodded.

Kiti had asked to see their beys and Kyoya had answered by suddenly thrusting Leone under her nose, glaring her as threateningly as only the Lion could. She hadn't moved an inch but stared him back with a certain flash in her eyes and a tiny twist in the corner of her mouth that didn't promise well.

"Maybe she's used to that kind of treatment", Madoka answered cautiously. "She has three brothers, you know."

"Three? I remember she mentioned only one little one when she talked with Yuu."

"Yes, she has one younger brother and two older ones. She told me she had to start to gain some muscles from very young age to stay alive with them."

Gingka laughed.

"In that case she will make an excellent team with Kyoya and Tsubasa."

"I think so too. She's so much like a boy herself no wonder she gets along with them better than with girls."

"But you have had good times with her too?"

"Yes, but I have practiced so long with you all." She smiled and continued her work. Gingka was also silent some minutes, munching the peanuts.

"How much do you know about this Bluewolf?", he asked then abruptly.

"Not much. Only what Ryo told us."

"You haven't tried to find out anything else?"

"I tried but it's just as he said: there isn't anything to find."

"Don't you think it's rather weird?"

She reflected a moment.

"Well, no. You see, if the bey is hundreds of years old and been lost for ages, it's no wonder there isn't any data to be found by computers. Maybe if we'd go to some museums or libraries to page through some ancient volumes we could find something."

Gingka nodded and tossed the empty bag to the dustbin.

"You think they will find it alright?"

"Why shouldn't they? Ryo gave them exact coordinates."

"Yeah, I know... I was just thinking..." he frowned. "You are not afraid they will meet any problems there?"

Madoka turned towards him.

"So you have noticed it too?", she said. Gingka was staring intensively the ceiling.

"Noticed what?"

"The way Ryo has been acting. He doesn't want to show it but I'm sure he's worried about something."

Gingka took a deep breath. He had noticed the same thing. Ryo hadn't told them everything he knew – or guessed.

He sighed. There was still a tiny edge of bitterness in him of not being allowed to join the team. He wondered how much more his father had told to Tsubasa than to him. Oh yes, Tsubasa was some years older and worked as an WBBA agent before, but still...

Madoka's voice brought him back to the moment.

"Do you know how he and Kiti's father got to know each other?"

"No idea. It must have been long before I was born."

Suddenly it struck him to notice how little he did know about his father's past, both of his childhood and the years he had been hiding after the events at the mountain cave. His heart still ached when he thought of that time. They had talked about it together, several times, and he had been sure everything would be alright between them again, but the pain he had felt wasn't yet forgotten.

Madoka seemed to sense the fight he had inside him. She tiptoed across the room and handed the glittering bey to him.

"It's done now. But please, be careful with it!"

Gingka took it tenderly in his hands.

"How can I ever thank you enough?"

"By keeping it out of danger until I've fixed it properly.", she smiled. "And maybe by picking up some of those peanuts you have dropped on the floor."

She watched how the Beyblade World Champion humbly crawled on all fours in front of her and round the couch.

"When the pipe repair is is over in our house and we'll have our kitchen again I'll ask dad to make his special pizza to you", he promised. Madoka handed the dustbin to him.

"I'll be waiting for that", she smiled.

A/N: Whew! This turned out a bit longer than I had thought. Hope it won't be much worse for it. I'm afraid there's a lot of pointless chatter, but, but...

Some day I'd like to write a one-shot of Kenta alone, he's such a cutie! For now I'm only lacking the ideas.

Btw, I didn't know it could be such fun to write a regular cliffhanger, literally! Let him hang there for a while, it won't harm him a bit. ;)