A/N: Thank you to all you dear people who have read this far! I really try to keep this worth reading also from now on. A special thanks to Cherryblossom21 for such a wonderful review! You just made my day! :D
I hope you won't get annoyed because of the way things seem to turn. It's just one turn among many others, and as I said before, I won't mess with the canon, which means there won't be too many illogicalities between this fic and Metal Fury. ;)
The village was huddled in a little valley, like afraid of being noticed. The trio had been up and going in the twilight when the first snowflakes had started to fall. They had soon crossed the snow line, wishing hard their tracks would remain unnoticed. Now they were hunkering behind some rocks, looking the cranky roofs and walls some distance beneath them.
"Good job, Eagle!" Kyoya grunted, not quite able to cover how impressed he was. The way Tsubasa had managed first to locate them and then to direct them to this gods forgotten spot had been commendable.
Tsubasa glanced him, almost not believing his ears. Had he ever before heard the Lion gave credit to anyone?
"We'd better not to rush there right away", he said. "It's possible there's somebody waiting for us."
They descended cautiously the hill, trying to hide behind the few rocks and bushes.
"The path to the road seems to be over there", Tsubasa pointed to the one end of the valley. Kyoya looked at it and the snowy ground between the ramshackle houses.
"I can't see any tracks there. This new snow can't have covered them yet if anybody has been there."
"So you think we can go there and face the risk of not being alone?"
"That's the only way to find it out." Kyoya started to march towards the houses.
The village was as good as forlorn, the long ago abandoned houses ready to fall down after any storm. One of the cottages had been slightly repaired, with a pile of wood inside it and some ashes in the fireplace.
"This has probably been the headquarters of the scientists", Tsubasa said. "We can sleep here tonight, only the watch has to stay out."
It snowed harder now and the wind had started to blow in angry little blusters. Tsubasa looked again the map.
"It's about two or three hours walk to the place where they found the bey. The path the scientists made starts at the northwest corner of the valley. We should make it there and back before dark if we hurry."
They left their backpacks in the cottage after putting some extra clothes on.
"What are you going to do with that?" Tsubasa asked in amazement when Kiti tied her sleeping pad on her back.
"One never knows. I don't want to sit on the snow if I can avoid it and this is easy to carry."
She patted her pockets one after another. Knife, bandage, tinderbox, MRE,...
"Let's go."
It took some time to discovered the path under the snow, but once it was found the trio advanced fast. The boys strode at such a good pace that once again Kiti found it hard to keep up with them.
"Tsubasa, what were those scientists doing here?" she asked after couple of hours climbing.
"Some measurements, I think Ryo said. They stayed here for weeks, climbing higher and higher with their instruments. On the last day they noticed the bey but didn't want to waste their time to sever it and... Look out!"
Kyoya got hold of her arm before she found herself sitting on her butt. The downtrodden snow under the newly fallen layer had made the footpath treacherously slippy and they had to slow down a bit. The higher they got, the narrower the path grew. Finally there wasn't but a barely passable brink between steep stony wall on their left and deep fall on their right.
"They said it is easy to notice it on the wall", Kiti heard Tsubasa mutter behind her. "But how on earth can we find anything here before next summer?" He had scanned the snowy bank with his sharp eyes for some time but hadn't seen a glimpse of a bey yet.
"This track ends here anyway", Kyoya remarked and stopped some distance ahead them. "Any ideas?"
They looked blankly at each other and a big rock that blocked the brink. Tsubasa shook the snow off his hood. He felt Aquila moving restlessly but hadn't time to pay attention to it.
"We must have gone past the bey and missed it somehow. I'm sorry guys, but we must go back more slowly and..."
"There!" Kyoya hissed suddenly through his teeth. Kiti followed his gaze and saw a dim blueish glow under the snow, on the level of his shoulders. He swept quickly the snow aside.
The bey rested in the stony wall under a couple of centimetres of solid ice. Kyoya took his launcher.
"Okay, let's take it and get out of here. Go, Leone!"
Kiti turned her back to dodge the flying shard of ice. She heard Leone hit the wall again and again but nothing else happened.
"What the hell!"
Kyoya snatched Leone back to his hand. There was not a scratch on the ice. Tsubasa stepped closer, pushing Kiti ahead.
"Kiti, Kyoya, move! Aquila, Smashing Claw!"
"I have seen this happening before", Kyoya thought, backing to the big rock. "Gingka couldn't get his Pegasos by force but by calling it. But how can we call a constellation nobody knows?"
Kiti had bent her face near the wall after witnessing the vain attempts of Aquila. The bey glowed dimly in its icy bed, like humming a low tune. Through the sounds of the rising wind she thought she heard a wolf howling. She took off her mitten and touched the ice to feel the vibration of the tune better.
"Hey guys, look!"
A tiny drop of water run under her fingers.
"If not by force, then by bare stubbornness!" she whispered and pressed her both hands on ice.
After a couple of minutes she had to stop to warm her hands.
"This is too slow!" she groaned. "We'll be here on May!"
"Move." Kyoya pushed her aside and launched Leone again.
"He has used the friction to warm things before", Tsubasa was thinking aloud, "But does it work on ice?"
Kyoya clenched his fists. Leone was spinning with all its might but the only change they saw was the thin melted layer to freeze again.
"This is not real!" He stared the both beys in disbelief. That amount of drilling should have gone through a stone!
"It needs human warmth to melt it." Tsubasa said. He put his hand on the wall but took it quickly off with a yell. His fingers were blistered, like burnt.
"Don't touch!" he exclaimed but it was too late. The Lion had already held out his hand.
"It's so cold it burns" he said and backed off, gritting his teeth in pain. They stared at Kiti who tentatively placed her hands on their former places.
"This cant be!" Tsubasa thought in disbelief. "Is it because she is a girl or because she hasn't a constellation-connected bey of her own or is she just hot-headed enough? But in that case why couldn't Kyoya..."
Kiti herself hadn't time to think about rhymes and reasons. The coldness burned her as well but not unbearably.
"If I use my both hands at the same time it freezes again while I have to warm them.", she thought. "So in that case..."
She lifted her one hand and tried to blow some warmth on it. Tsubasa noticed the matter.
"Give it to me." He took her fingers between his own. The coldness of them made his hands hurt.
"Kyoya, warm it." He said when Kiti had to change the hand again. Kyoya looked him sharply. He was not in a habit to take orders like this, but in this case he decided to overlook it.
The minutes passed by. Kiti concentrated to keep the pain and unpleasant thoughts under her control.
"What if my fingers freeze so badly I can't play anymore? What if there's more wolves than the one I heard and they'll attack? What if those assailants have found our things in the cottage and followed us here? What if..."
She could feel the vibration of the bey clearer now. The tone hummed in her ears, filling her head with strange images. Again and again there flashed a picture of an enormous blue-gray wolf, sitting on its paws like estimating the situation. When her fingers finally touched the utmost edge of the bey, the beast tossed its head and howled.
"Aquila, what is it? Is something wrong?" Tsubasa thought. The great bird had been restless all day, not in anxious but enthusiastic way, like waiting for something. He felt it had something in its mind, something it wanted him to find out by himself. The layer of ice over the bey was so thin now Kiti was trying to break it with her nails. "It can't take long anymore", Tsubasa thought. Sooner or later...
"I got it!"
The call echoed through the wind when she finally managed to pick the bey on her palm. Her fingers were bleeding after scrabbling the ice but she didn't feel it. Tsubasa took a deep breath of relief.
"Good work! Now put it to a safe place, we must get out of here quickly."
She tried to open her pocket but her fingers were absolutely disabled.
"Hurry up!" Kyoya shouted when she almost dropped the bey. He didn't want to risk his own skin again if the bey had similar features than the ice it had been buried in, but if that butterfingers couldn't even hold it...
Kiti found it was easier to get a hold on the collar than the zipper. She stretched her neck and tried to coax the bey under her shirt. Kyoya's nerves were ending.
"Where the hell are you thrusting it?!"
"To a place you'd like to put your paws, too!" she scowled. "Ristinkiesus it's cold!"
They didn't hear the low rumble rapidly growing stronger before Tsubasa yelled.
"Snowslide! Run!"
The whole mountain seemed to be coming down on them, beginning from the direction where they had come. Kyoya leaped on the top of the rock at the end of the path.
"Up here! There's a cave behind the rock!"
There was no strength left in Kit's arms. In a second Tsubasa had lifted her to Kyoya's reach who hurled her to the back of the little cave. She felt somebody fall over her just when the skies crashed down.
Kiti pressed herself so flat on the stony wall she could. The cave wasn't but a hollow under an overhanging rock, barely capable to hide them. The thoughts whirled in a complete hodgepodge in her head: the long and painful melting process, the exultation, irritation, alarm... and wasn't there still some little devil in the bottom of her mind purring – purring! – when she recognized Kyoya's hot breath in her neck and his arms around her.
"Shame on you! What if you all die right here and now and your last thoughts are something like..." The thought stopped abruptly. If they really died now... what a horrible memorial it would make for Bluewolf! Three bodies frozen together in a mountain cave. Her imagination created a vivid picture of the situation.
"Is Tsubasa here?! "A sickening fear flashed through her mind. She tried to turn her head and felt Kyoya's nose touch her ear. From the corner of her eye she could see a glimpse of Tsubasa's coat sleeve. Sighing she bent her head on the cold stone again.
Kyoya felt Kiti moving and relaxing in his arms and instinctively tightened his grip. His face was dangerously near her neck and softly tickling hair. There was something in the situation which made him suddenly wish the Eagle on his back miles away, even though he didn't want to admit why. He closed his eyes and tried not to think.
A/N: There's only couple of things I'd like to know: Have you been relieved because I'm not asking for reviews, or do you find it more difficult to write any because of it (I hope not!)? I won't believe I have managed to escape all the worst mistakes with grammar... In any case, I'd be extremely happy if you want to share your thoughts of this fic - or of whatever you want! :)