Chapter 10 - Risk

Tsubasa didn't like cemeteries.

He had never had many problems with them, despite all those horror movies trying to make them seem scary - to him, those had always just seemed like cheap tricks to get kids scared of ever visiting grandma and grandpa's graves in fear of being grabbed by the ankle and pulled down under to join the dead.
Sure, the concept of it was pretty freaky but it was all just scary campfire stories in the end. If only that's what all of this could've been.
It was only after the ordeal with Alcorin, and the memorials and funerals of Dynamis and Hikaru did he grow uneasy of them - and dare he said frightened from the aura of their vague presence being there.
Well, it was mainly only Hikaru, as Dynamis' body was namely back at the Mist Mountain Shrine where he had been killed by Alcorin, according to Maru.
Graveyards had never frightened or had managed unease him before now, knowing that one of his closest friends was now buried there from a suicide that meant nothing in the end.
Now, as he walked past the gate that separated the spirits from the rest of the world, that divided the dead and the living, he couldn't help the shiver that went up his spine at the coldness that blew through the burial area of so many people.

He had never really had any reason to go to cemeteries until about a week ago when they had held Hikaru's funeral and had a small memorial for Dynamis as respect; he had honestly blamed himself for what happened with Hikaru.
He knew that she had been acting a little strange, which was even noticed by her co-workers who had said that she had been seeming a bit 'off', which included disappearing sometimes before showing up the next moment after as if she had been there the whole time.
He had known Hikaru for years just as he had known Madoka, Gingka, and Benkei.
She had been his assistant since Ryo had retired from being the Director and had supposedly gone back to Koma Village, working mainly side by side with each other along with Madoka in their work of constructing the Beyblade era that Gingka had made possible in the first place.
They had all been very close with each other through the years considering there was only the 4 of them while the remainder of their friends had gone off into other parts of the world.
He should've noticed something... Maybe if he had, Hikaru would still be alive.
Apparently, she had given her life in the first place to save both Gingka and Ren from being in Alcorin's hands, leaving everything behind so that Gingka could be saved. All of that, though, had been in vain as they recently learned that the 'Gingka' they had been with throughout the week, hadn't even been him.
Now that it came to mind, it was the only thing that truly made sense in a world where everything now seemed to be fake.
The reality that they lived him hardly seemed real anymore as the world had seemed to turn grey, the days slowly turning into night at the ever growing darkness around them that Alcorin wanted.
Standing at Hikaru's grave didn't help, making everything seem a dream as he looked at the tombstone that bore her name upon it, as well as her date of birth and her date of death.

Personally, he thought the years that it showed were too close to each other.

Tsubasa let out a soft sigh, the warm air of the summer seeping through his clothing but thankfully not trapping it in, leaving him relatively cool along with the small breeze that did no good for the shivers that traveled up and down his spine.
Flowers of new and old were placed at the headstone, some already dead and shriveled up, and some on their way to the same fate. Just like life, really.
It was a really deep thought to get into - Tsubasa had tried - but it was very well the truth, as all living things were born, went through life, and then died.
Some sooner than others, like Hikaru and Dynamis.

And Gingka.

Eyes half-lidded, Tsubasa crossed his arms with a calm look, the warm air almost stiffling from the summer sun yet thankfully muted by the clouded sky that still allowed the sun to poke through.
However, most things now seemed monochrome in his eyes, the scars of everything they had gone through embedded into their hearts and souls, healing, but forever there.
The silvernette shook his head, sighing once more through his nose and breaking the deadly silence but for the sound of cars driving by.
"Why did it have to be you, Hikaru?" The Director asked no one, the goosebumps on his arms having no hope of going away from the aura that surrounded him from the dead that lingered.
He could only wonder if one of them were Hikaru, if she could hear everything that he was saying right now.
Probably not.
"I probably should've noticed that something was going on with you..." Tsubasa continued, speaking to no one but the headstone that stood in front of him, surrounded by other graves of people that he did not know, "I'll admit, you're a pretty good actor, but... I should've been more suspicious when Sichiro and others thought you were acting weird..." Another sigh escaped through his lips, the air around him fairly warm but with a certain chill that almost seemed to make his breath freeze, "...I guess it wouldn't have made much of a difference, would it?"
Of course, there was no reply. Headstones couldn't talk, after all, and he wasn't capable of communicating with spirits like those Mediums supposedly were; he honestly didn't really believe in that, but he did find the concept of it quite interesting.
Though wherever Hikaru's spirit was now, he prayed to the far off gods that she wasn't in pain - after all, maybe she had done what she had because she wanted to.
Maybe it hadn't been Alcorin's choice to make her do so, and entirely her own, leaving her without regrets or doubts on her life and setting her free.
But then again, maybe not... Tsubasa never would have guessed that sending Hikaru to the B-Pit to fetch the others and having her stay there to watch Gingka while he had been comatose would be the last remote interaction that he would have with her.
Of course, he had told Sichiro at that time to do it for him, and the other had done as he was told - in truth, Sichiro was one of the last to see Hikaru alive.
And he must've been just as horrified by the revelation of her death as he was; being two of Tsubasa's most trusted assistants and workers, they had worked together often.
Sichiro was now in Tokyo, though, with Ayano, helping to gather anything that they could that could lead them even remotely to Alcorin - of course, the point of it was mainly to get anything that was related to the psychopath, to profile as many as they could and see if they could find any remote connection.
Of course, everything he had gotten had proved negative so far; he wondered how Zyro, Madoka, and the others were doing at this point. There was no doubt they were still in Mito, but what exactly they were doing to find anything was beyond him.

"You were really a great friend, Hikaru.." Tsubasa spoke, his voice vanishing off into the nothingness that left chills and goosebumps, "Really, you were... You may have not been really trying to help us, because of Alcorin, but... I don't blame you. You didn't ask to be his...Puppet.. In the first place. I just wish it hadn't had to end this way..."

Of course, they all wished that.

They wished that none of this had happened.

They wished that it had all just been a bad dream, that Dynamis and Hikaru were still alive and Alcorin had truly been defeated in the final battle that they had had with him, following in the footsteps of his deity father from 7 years prior.
They had all wished that everything had gone the way that it usually had - a new threat had showed up, they had to fight against it, they did so with some struggles, but out victorious in the end. That was mainly how all those cliche storybooks went.
But life was not a storybook, and there were no real happy endings - even when it seemed there were, they wouldn't last long in a world where it was hard to be happy and very easy to be sad, where people died and didn't magically come back from the dead like some stories depicted falsely.
The world was a very cruel place, that much was painfully obvious.
A small ringing sound snapped Tsubasa out of his thoughts, confusing him for a moment before he realized that it was coming from his pocket.
Reaching in, Tsubasa brought out his phone and looked at the screen to identify who was calling him - the WBBA headquarters itself.
Sliding his finger across the bottom of the screen, Tsubasa put his phone to his ear and answered.

"Hello?" He asked, waiting for a reply.
"Hello, Director." Greeted a female voice from the opposite line, undoubtedly one of the many people that worked for him in the organization, "You have a call waiting for you in your office, someone who says that they knew you quite well. He says that he's a friend of yours, so I put him on hold for you." Tsubasa's eyebrows furrowed for a moment - could it be one of the surround WBBA Directors? He wasn't expecting anyone to be getting in contact with him as of right now, and since he had already settled most things with the other Directors, he didn't suppose that any of them would have anything further to discuss.
"Did he give a name?" The silverette questioned, growing suspicious of this supposedly anonymous call.
"Yes.." The woman on the other end responded, followed by a faint sound of what Tsubasa guessed to be the typing of a keyboard, "Umm.. Kyoya Tategami."
Tsubasa's eyes widened at the name spoken by the worker on the other end, a title that he had not heard in quite a while and who he had also not spoken with for a couple years. Of course, he knew where Kyoya was, as he knew where all of the Legendary Bladers and their friends were since he had shown Zyro and Shinobu when they had first come to the WBBA headquarters.
Kyoya was somewhere in Africa, namely the CEO of some sort of organization that was well associated with the WBBA. Even so, the two of them didn't usually correspond with each other, which resulted a long rest period in their correspondence.
Whether or not Kyoya was in contact with any of the other WBBA corporations in Japan, Tsubasa had no idea, but seeing as how the two of their organizations were most certainly connected through the Beyblade Generation, it was highly likely.
Struggling for a moment to find his voice out of surprise, Tsubasa responded back to the woman with, "Alright, thank you.. Keep him on hold, and I'll speak with him as soon as I get there."

"Yes, Director." The other across the line said obediently, before hanging up and giving Tsubasa the cue to put his phone back in his pocket.
What could Kyoya possibly want right now?
Sighing once more, Tsubasa's golden eyes looked upon Hikaru's gravestone once more, the warm air subdued by the chill that the graveyard seemed to almost naturally give off from the presence of the dead that rested and lingered.
It should have never been anyone, especially with her.
With heavy weights lain on his shoulders, Tsubasa left the cemetery and once more left the dead to rest...

"Well, that's half of the lot.." Ayano sighed, leaning back in the swivel chair and breathing out a sigh of exhaustion from profiling at least half of the Tokyo WBBA's staff.
They still had half to go, and according to the clock the sun should be rising at about this time - her and Sichiro had arrived in Tokyo at the WBBA building very early in the morning, perhaps roughly 4:00am or so, and both of them likely hadn't gotten much sleep on the way there.
Least of all, Sichiro, from his blatant anxiety of being there at all.
Said raven-haired man was leaning against the table that Ayano was currently working on with the computer system, having grown a bit tired from standing the whole time and taking it upon himself to lean against something and give his legs a bit of a rest.
Even so, his steel grey eyes were barely wide with the nervousness that settled in his aura, appearing to bit his lip and the inside of his cheek continuously as the uneasiness through him refused to fade.
Of course, there was no way he was going to calm down until they left this accursed building that he had never wanted to come to, thoughts filling his head and only fueling the desire to leave even further.
Even as his posture remained rigid, as he strummed his fingers against the edge of the table as some sort of comfort to just feel, as his steel grey orbs stared at the wall that stood opposite him with the door with the hair on the back of his neck standing up with an icy chill down his spine, he said not a word.
He knew that he had to try and seem calm, if only just for awhile to not make Ayano worry about him and start pressuring him into speaking about something that he wanted to leave buried in the history that nobody knew about.
He would never say that he objected or disagreed with the Director's judgement, but this was the one time that he had truly wanted to say no and leave it at that - but he knew that he wouldn't be able to do that without questions arising and answers coming to light, so he had been forced between a rock and hard place with no hope of escape.
Endure and swallow it.
That was what he had taught himself to do for a long time, and he had to do the same thing now - only this time he wasn't entirely sure how long he would hold out for with the eyes that seemed to stare in the back of his head, the side of him, from everywhere with no hopes of being able to crawl into the corner and hide.

He had heard Ayano's words of getting half of the profiling they needed done (..was it really half?...) and looked over at her as she leaned back in the swivel chair that had been there and ready for her to work on when they had arrived.
Director Hideyoshi seemingly knew Ayano quite well, as she namely had been there several times in previous missions that she had been given by the Director for several different purposes, as well as being other places for different matters than this one.
"I don't think I ever realized how long profiling can actually take.." Ayano continued, sighing once more as she tilted her head back and gazed up towards the ceiling lazily, where the lights had stopped flickering by now and seemed to have no intention of doing so again - perhaps they had fixed whatever was wrong with their power, suggesting that something had been out of line with it, "I swear, once we get back to Metal Bey, I am going to use my day off sitting in bed and reading a book with my cat... He must be one hungry kitty by now.."
Sichiro stifled a small chuckle at that. While Ayano was definitely obedient and hard-working with a 'no-nonsense' attitude, she definitely seemed quite lazy when it came to her day offs that she got to spend at home with her cat - Bemu, he believed the little feline's name was.

"Yeah..." Sichiro replied solemnly, tapping his left index finger on the surface of the table anxiously, looking up towards the computer system that Ayano had in front of her that consisted of many screens supported by one another - of course Tokyo had the best technology out of all places.
Only halfway done, and still with half to go... How long had they even been there? It had likely been hours but it may as well have been an eternity to him.
How much longer would it take to get the rest done?
At this point, he didn't even care about how off everything seem, how off he knew everything was, he just wanted to leave but he knew that they couldn't until they got their work done. He was always more than happy to follow their Director's demands, but this was the one time that he had truly wished to firmly say no and leave it at that.

"Well, we won't get anywhere if we don't get it done.." Ayano said, sitting up properly in her chair once more and grabbing the Tablet that lay to the side.
Reaching to the side of the computer, the greenette took hold of a USB chip that was inserted into the side with a blue light shining near the end. Pulling it out, Ayano inserted the USB into the bottom of the tablet to transport the data that she had gotten into the portable device.
"I'll send these to Tsubasa.." She stated, standing up from her seat and turning towards him a bit, "I'll put this here to stay with you until it sends.. I have something I need to ask the Director. You won't mind me leaving for a few minutes, will you?"
Sichiro's eyes widened slightly, standing up properly and plastering a smile of understanding onto his face.
"Of course not..." He said softly, "G-go ahead.. I'll be fine." Flashing him a hint of a concerned look behind her smile of appreciation, Ayano turned and headed for the doors, the silver wedging sliding open automatically upon her presence and allowing her out into the rest of the building before closing behind her all the same.
This left Sichiro alone in nothing but silence, the mechanical echo of the doors sliding closed seeming to go on forever and bounce eternally off of the walls that surrounded him.
The smile of understanding faded from his dreadfully pale face, releasing a breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding in the first place as sweat dotted his forehead; whether from anxiety or the heat, he didn't know.
He didn't trust Ayano with that man, but she was more superior than he was was, and she was definitely strong (he had learned for himself when she had accidentally bruised his wrist once when trying to get a point across to him, and another time when she had been hell bent on having that candy bar from the vending machine and refusing to take anyone's bull about it) and could handle herself alright.
She'd be fine...

Wiping his forehead on his sleeve, Sichiro looked around the room for the first time since they had gotten there.
There wasn't really much to it.
It was rather large, and long going sideways from where he was standing, the grey-tinted table that held the computer system Ayano was working with stretching to nearly both ends of the room.
There was no windows, nothing that allowed anyone to look through to the rest of the building, just plain metal walls with ceiling lights that lit it well.
Even so, it didn't ease the feeling of being watched that settled on Sichiro's shoulders, making him nervous to even blink, to even move in fear that he would be accused of something because hidden cameras had caught it.
Like the one in the corner of the ceiling and the wall for instance.
Sichiro wasn't stupid - he would usually know when something was out of place or when something didn't seem to blend along with everything else; his eyes couldn't see everything, of course, but he... Knew certain things, to say the least.
The raven bit his lip, the skin now raw and bloodshot, now almost ready to burst open and allow the blood running through his veins to come flowing out in very small portions that could easily be slowed and halted.
Steel grey eyes shifted around uneasily, the anxiety clenching in his chest and refusing to let him have a moment of peace - being here, in this building that he had wanted nothing more to stay away from as well as the city itself, his nerves would not let him calm down.

Of course, the past that came flooding back after so many years of making sure that it stayed secured and buried didn't help much with that either.
Sichiro looked over at the computer system that still had the list of all the personnel in the building for them to scan and profile, while the tablet that Ayano had brought with her was currently sending all of the profiles that they had gathered back to the Metal Bey City WBBA building for Tsubasa to look over.
The light on the USB chip was blinking blue, indicating that it was being deprived of its knowledge and sending into something else for it to claim as its own until it was once more filled with more of what they needed.
The raven's eyes made their way over to the computer system again, the technology quite advanced that allowed it to consist of many screens, most of which were holographic, while it relied mainly on the single, standard keyboard placed on the desk in front of the chair that Ayano had been in.

"They couldn't possibly have anything on him... Could they?.." Sichiro wondered in his thoughts, his mind wondering to another subject that made the history of the Tokyo WBBA less than clean, despite what people thought, "I'm almost surprised they wouldn't have noticed.. But..."
The silence could have been deafening if it were a truly a sound, a ringing in his ears from the dreaded silence that surrounded him and counted down some unknown timer for an unknown purpose.
Steel grey orbs once more wandered over to the small camera that lay in the far corner away from most eyes, cleverly hidden in a place where nobody really thought to look or even acknowledged because, well, it was just the corner of the ceiling, after all.
The air was heavy with doubt, with secrets, and whispers that passed throughout this building that would soon be illuminated by the light of the sun peaking over the horizon, judging from the time.
Sichiro would take his chances.
He sat down in the chair that Ayano had been in, pulling himself up to the table with his back straight, glancing over once more at the still sending hard-rive before his eyes made their way back to the screen.
Without the need for looking, his fingers typed away on the keyboard skillfully, setting aside the screen that contained their business into another and holographic one while he went through something else that he knew he had little time for.
Curiosity killed the cat, as they say, but he would take his chances, just like he always had in a world as unforgiving and secretive as this one.
Steel grey eyes widened as what he had been searching for was brought up, his suspicions being horrifically right despite usually hoping that they weren't - but on most occasions, including this one, they were.
He leaned forward against the edge of the table, stabling himself as he looked away from the screen and nearly felt like vomiting.

He wasn't sure why, for it wasn't all that sick or bad, just a simple file...

But the thought of...

No...

He wouldn't think of that, not again...

But it was inevitable as memories from a time long ago came back to him, invading his mind and breaking down the barriers against everything his past contained.
His body trembled at the memories, at the thoughts that raced through his head.
The feeling of someone watching him almost seemed to fade, the air becoming less heavy but still thick with the secrets and the lies, the hairs on the back of his neck now resting and allowing some sort of relief to wash over him.
But nothing could calm the storm that raged inside, the uneasiness that delved down into the pits of his stomach and make him want to turn up everything it contained, the anxiety that gripped and tore at his chest and trying to make him lose his nerve.
But he couldn't, and he didn't.

He had practice, after all.

Sichiro glanced back towards the door behind him, every nerve in his body hyper-sensitive and making his fingers tremble from several different emotions that raced through him, his breathing ragged with the tightening in his chest that became nearly unbearable in the anxiety that he had developed over the years.
The camera in the room was no longer watching him, he was sure, but he knew that there may have been a different pair of eyes, ones that did not seek to destroy him should he even dare to twitch.
He'd already taken a big enough risk with doing what he was behind the backs of everyone, whether he trusted them or not - he had always been afraid of what they would do to him if he dare spoke a word, if he dared to bring up the long forgotten history that had remained buried for years.
Subconsciously, his fingers acted on their own accord, reaching across the keyboard and pressing only one button that may or may not have been for the greater good.

'Delete'.

All that had been on the screen directly in front of him had disappeared, now gone because of the decision that he had instinctively made.
Sichiro once more released a breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding, a cold sweat running down his back and dotting his forehead of which he wiped away with his sleeve.
He felt frozen, his entire body shaking and gripping the edge of the table as he stood up stiffly.
His long black hair hung down the sides of his face, pouring down his back just past his shoulder blades, the color of that of a raven's feathers, that who symbolized death and were commonly used as messengers back in the Medieval ages.
Even now, he lived as nothing more than a messenger, in more ways than one.
With shaking hands, he brought the list of personnel for profiling back onto the main screen in front of the chair that he had originally sat in, scooting himself over stiffly down the table that he leaned against.

Calm yourself...

You don't have to worry...

Everything will be fine, they would never know...
After all, he had made sure of that.
Or at least, he hoped he had.

The lights on the ceiling flickered once more...

The group of 6, consisting of Madoka, Zyro, Maru, Kira, Kite, and Eight, had managed to find Benkei, Shinobu, and Ren within about 2 hours, all 3 of them having been near Sakasagawa Ryokuchi Park, just south of Senba Lake, where many citizens of the large city had come to spend their day, whether a simple jog or walk with their dogs, to spend time with their loves or simply to hang out with their friends in a game of Frisbee that they would soon tire from.
The 9 of them had decided to seat themselves in a gazebo off the main path that lead through the park, the shade that it brought refreshing and cooling though not truly dimming the warm air that was brought by the summer.
All of them sat on the one long seat that wrapped around the circular landing, Kira sitting at one end and even about a foot and a half away from Zyro, who sat beside Ren in the cooling shade that this small luxury brought.
Even with such important matters as these, he still wished to remain as distant as possible while still being involved in what was happening, but with no real connection to anyone.
Either way, it seemed he was closest to Zyro out of all of them, which was rather surprising - though, the Fire Blader had saved his life, without any true reason other than saying that he did not deserve it.

"So, I'm gonna guess you two were more successful than most of us?" Ren questioned, eyeing both Madoka and Maru and leaning forward, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms.
"Sort of.." Madoka said tiredly, looking over at her young student he was working on bringing up the pictures she had taken from the library she and Madoka had searched through.
Tsubasa and whoever he had been working with had definitely thought a lot of things over when they had made this thing.
"Me and Maru went to a local library somewhere around here." Madoka continued, "We managed to find something in a book that might be useful, so we took a few pictures of the pages.."

"Here we go!" Maru exclaimed, tapping one of the minimized pictures and making it take up the whole screen for them to see better, the brunette leaning over slightly to get a better look as she continued on.
"Apparently, there were actually a lot of people that worshiped Nemesis, mainly dating back to before the common era." The former mechanic went on, "It was... Kind of like several cults, almost. It said right here-" She pointed a slender finger to one spot on the screen, "-that many people looked down on those who worshiped the God of Destruction, which definitely didn't change through the years after that.."

"So there were a few dozen cults that worshiped Nemesis?.." Shinobu questioned, raising an eyebrow slightly before looking absently across the gazebo they sat in, "That would make some sense.." Madoka nodded, bringing a finger up to her chin and tapping just below her lip as if in thought.
"You'd almost think it'd be respected like most other religions.." She said thoughtfully, "But I think it says somewhere that it was because Nemesis was one of the more hateful gods, seeing as how he did try to destroy the world 7 years ago... But, that's not the important part. Maru, can you change it?" Said pinkette nodded, sliding over to the next picture that she had taken with her bracelet that was crystal clear to read and see.
"What it says over here-" Madoka put her finger just above the holographic screen near the bottom, "-is that many shrines and temples dedicated to Nemesis were actually created by those who worshiped him.. A lot of them were demolished and they just fell apart over the years, but it says that most were built in Japan. After a few hundred years or something, Japan basically became the rightful ground for Nemesis' followers, even though we do have a lot of other religions around here.."

"Does it say where any of them were built?" Benkei asked, leaning over slightly and looking at the screen from a sideways angle.
"I'm getting to that." Madoka said patiently, turquoise orbs moving back to what Maru had up for her to see, the girl now holding her right arm up with support from the other, "Apparently, most temples were built deep in woodland areas, where there was more.. Solitude, or something like that. Some were even built inside of mountains, but whether or not they're even still there is something that nobody really knows.. There's actually a few still around that people know about, but not too many, since others were destroyed."
Kite, listening intently, took the moment of silence as a chance to speak.
"So what you're saying, is that we should be looking more towards the mountains.." The Leviathan Blader speculated, pushing his glasses up on his nose that faintly caught the light of the shaded out sun, "Quite clever."

"Yeah, but he might not be anywhere near mountains, for all we know." Ren said as she looked over towards the spiked-haired blader, "'Cause, we weren't exactly the quickest at figuring out he was directly below us before..."

"Which isn't surprising..." Kira muttered, rolling his eye - of course they hadn't, considering the states that all of them were in that he had once seen as pathetic.
For some reason, that point of view had lowered down to: reasonable.
Zyro simply looked over at him with relatively nothing to show on his face, before turning his blue-eyed gaze back to Madoka.
"It'd be the best shot we have, right?" The Fire Blader questioned, "Even though there are a ton of mountains in Japan." Madoka nodded, letting Maru switch over to the next and final picture that she had taken, looking at what the screen had to offer with wandering turquoise orbs.
"True, but that's all that we have to go on." The brunette concluded, looking up from the screen that Maru was holding up and to most of them, "It would take forever to hike through every mountain in Japan, though.." Benkei simply grinned at the factual statement.
"I wouldn't mind." He said, "I could lose a couple of pounds anyway." Most of them sweat-dropped, Maru looking over at the big man with an expression that said she didn't quite know what to make of that.
"Y-you look fine, Manager, really..." The pinkette stammered, a small awkward laugh coming from her lips.
"Do we really have to walk through all those mountains?" Eight asked, a hint of a complaint on his lips as he looked up towards his elder brother.
"Not all of them, Eight." The spikey-haired brunette responded, "But maybe a few.." Madoka leaned back in her seat a bit, her legs crossed and one arm folded across her chest while the other was lifted up to her chin in thought.

"Well, mountains are the best thing that we have right now.." She speculated, "Which means that we have to go more inland anyway. I say we head to Kasama after we're done here. It's close, and I think it's also near mountains."

"It is..." Kira said bluntly, his legs and arms crossed with his one eye closed.
"How would you know?" Shinobu asked, though there was more curiosity in his voice towards Kira rather than bitterness, which was pleasant for the time being.
"I just do." The pastel-haired blader replied, opening his golden eye and glancing over at the Salamander Blader with a calm expression. Shinobu said nothing in response.
"Yeah..." Ren said awkwardly, extending the word a bit, "Well, we've got something, anyway." Madoka hummed as a sign of agreement with the energetic blonde.
"I guess.." The brunette said with a small sigh, "Either way, I think we should figure out where we're going to be sleeping for tonight."

"Again, we should go to the first hotel in the phone book." Ren suggested, which earned a sweatdrop from Kite at the reference to that one on-going show that they both apparently watched.
Madoka chuckled slightly before standing up, finally able to stretch her legs from sitting down just like back home when she had sat down with Maru and helped her with her Bey-fixing in times that were more peaceful than these.
"That depends on what hotel will actually house 9 people, unless we're all up for having separate rooms." Madoka said with a smile, everyone else standing up as well with the warmth of the day slowly fading with the time, which was now just have dinner-time so the clock on Maru's bracelet told them.
They definitely needed to figure out where they were going to stay for the night.
A hotel would probably work, seeing as her and Benkei were two adults with a bunch of a teenagers and 2 small children under the age of 10 - they could indeed probably go half and half if they did decide that a hotel was the best option.
She was going to need a shower soon, anyway.

"Let's get going." The brunette suggested, which everyone was able to agree to in their weariness and the need for some sleep later that night; the only one who didn't admit to this was Kira.
The sun was slowly setting in the West, beginning to disappear behind the buildings of Mito that were great, but did not compare to that of Metal Bey as they all knew.
The wind was weak now, the sky slowly darkening as night began to rule the day and let it rest. As all of them exited the gazebo that they had originally rested in to speak of what they had or had not found, they found the air had cooled as the day seemed to be turning into night quicker than it usually did in the summer, the light usually lasting well until perhaps 7:00 or 8:00 before it truly got dark, but that was not the case this time.
Madoka looked up towards the clouds that coated the sky, the stars already beginning to peek out from behind the agglomerates of water and the moon starting to come out from its hiding place in the light of day and illuminated by the darkness of the oncoming night.
It was unusual for the summer, but it brought back memories that remained long in the past that she kept holding onto with the last strings of her heart, the breeze of the coming cold brushing her brown hair against her cheeks.
Her eyes half-lidded, turquoise orbs dimmed with the thin sheet of sorrow and anguish that filled her being to the brim - not to the point of tears, but to point where it told her that she had to do something about it.
It fueled an anger in her that she held only towards Alcorin, the son of a god without mercy that seemed to follow in his footsteps in every way, but she never allowed it to go beyond the point that it was at, for it wasn't able to.
Her sorrow for Gingka was even greater, the very line that held back her anger and kept it low, but still fierce.

"Gingka..." She thought to herself, her expression blank as the wind blew away her tears into the breeze, the light of the moon reflecting off of the drops of salt water and illuminating them for a split moment before they disappeared, "I'm so sorry... We'll get him, I promise you..."
She often wondered how many promises humankind was able to keep. Not many, and it left others brokenhearted and distrusting towards others.
Just like Zyro...

"Hey, Chief!" Maru called out, grabbing Madoka's attention and pulling her away from her thoughts that had, for a moment, taken her away from reality.
It was almost rather relaxing, while it had lasted.
The brunette's eyes widened, her turquoise orbs moving over to the remaining 8 of the group that was now waiting on her patiently.
"Sorry!.." Madoka replied apologetically, and went to catch up with the rest of them to make plans of what they would be doing for any sort of place to rest in the early-coming night.
A raven croaked somewhere off in the distance, reaching their ears but only really reaching Zyro...

Once more, there was nothing but darkness.

The light that had existed for a split moment having now faded and left him once more in the endless abyss of blackness that was his eternal prison.
Invisible chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, around his neck as a collar, treated as some sort of plaything for the only thing that existed in this wasteland of nothingness other than himself.
All that he ever saw was black and white, but of what was still the question that raced through his head endlessly.
It had been here longer than he had, there was no doubt about that, and now it kept him with it in the torment of knowing that he was helpless, chained down and unable to fly as it tore at his wings, trying to reach the bone under the feathers and tear them off bit by bit as to keep him with it forever.
He did not see it, he never had.

There was white, and that was the only other color that existed in a world of monochrome, in a world of nothingness where only two things existed.
He heard it, with its voice that sounded so familiar but he couldn't place, he felt it, with its soft and tender touch that was filled with an intensity almost unbearable to feel. But he was left without a choice, as they had was each other.
He could always hear it, hear it shuffling up behind him, hear the faint footsteps of its light weight pressing on the ground, hear and feel its breathing as it came up beside him and whispered words of endless torment into his hears that were for him and him only to hear.
There were too many emotions that he felt when it came up behind him, its hands and chest pressing lightly against his back, its hands dragging across his body without ever showing its face or appearance.
He would dare not look at it.
He would not look into the face that he did not know the description of, not look into the eyes of the thing that imprisoned him here.
There was no ticking of a clock, of a timer, anymore.
Nothing that existed of the physical world to even keep him sane, feeling nothing as he was encased in his own mind, pulled even further down in an endless sleep.
When he closed his eyes (was he really closing them?) he saw only the faintest of images.

It was usually always the same: he was looking through no one's eyes, but they may as well have been his.
He saw the edges of his knees as his head was tilted forward, his arms propped up on either side of him in the arms of a chair that he wasn't able to make out... His scarf, the ends dirt-speckled and tattered, pouring out from behind him and comforting his sides.
Limp and lifeless, he was practically no more than a wax doll on display, no life in dead eyes that would never live to see the light of day again. Other times, it was the same, except for something else. Something white, and red... Almost just like what receded with him in this black prison that went on for all of eternity. And he had a pretty good idea of what - or who - it was.

"So helpless..." Came a voice that struck into his very skull, the shuffling of... Something.. Coming up from behind him, crawling towards him on its hands and knees and kneeling down at his back, its own face likely inches away from his own, but not within the line of sight so that he could see what it looked like.
Its voice... There was something about it... He knew it from somewhere, but he could not recognize where - perhaps he could not remember, perhaps it had been years, decades, however long he had been in a world where there was nothing for him to cling onto, nowhere for him to go.

"Just like we were for so long..." It went on in a voice that tormented, dug down into the very crevices of the soul that made up his entire being, burrowing down into a heart that seemed to know something was trying to reach for it...
"You should never have even been, you know.." The cold touch of glass-like skin, smooth and soft, gentle and tender, yet with something flowing through fingers of snow white that effected every nerve in his body and almost forced him to react, "We were the ones that were here in the very beginning... Those pathetic wretches made you, something incompetent compared to all that we were... But we remained, deep down inside of you and just waiting for the moment when we were called to our feet, given the opportunity to escape and exist upon the world that you would put in..."
Shivers wracked his body at the words that were spoken in his ear, the hands that oh so delicately remained at his neck and feeling down below to his collarbone, as if wishing to know him, to feel the collar that wrapped around his neck, impossible to be seen.
His eyes dampening, almost a refreshing feeling..

To just feel..

Something that existed in the physical world, that still existed in the one that he was eternally condemned to.
But it was no relief, for the tears came because of the fear that coursed trough his veins, the feeling of that intensity setting all of his nerves alight nearly unbearable.
But there was something that just seemed so familiar about it, something that he was unable to place just like the voice that rang in his ears as its lips hovered mere inches from the side of his head.

"Let's keep this between you and me, alright?..." It spoke, the smallest hint of glee tracing the edges of those words like lace, "Only one of us will ever see the dear light of day once more... Rather, I've never really seen it to begin with.. Because you kept me here, feasting on nothing but the small remnants that I have seen, almost lucid but not quite... Even so, that doesn't matter... Because now you know what it's like to sit in eternal darkness, like I always have..."
A small chuckle escaped accursed lips that went unseen, delicate yet strong fingers lifting up and never leaving his skin, slowly dragging up his body and running the fingers of what was supposedly its right hand over his barely noticeable Adam's apple.
He swallowed dryly, wanting to jerk away from the wandering hands that had felt up and down his skin, had sent wave after wave of pressure through skin that wasn't able to handle it.

"How cute, you are..." A small giggle on the inside of those words, cooing so sweetly and yet so maliciously into ears that wished to go deaf, "There was one time when you let me out... Not fully, not truly, but just enough to embrace that vengeful soul of yours that was darkened for that split little moment... We were never closer, but now..."
His breath hitched when the feeling of something warm and damp touch the side of his neck and slowly drag up about an inch, every centimeter making him shiver and forcing a quiet whimper from his lips, laced with fear, decorated in terror like a Christmas Tree.
Its hands had previously settled at his jawline, the feeling of intense pressure pulsating through there as long as its skin remained before dragging up his face.
One went over his mouth, fingertips gently feeling the skin of his lips and making a shiver rip up his spine.

Pure white fingers, rivaling freshly fallen snow, went over his right eye and covered one half of his vision in darkness - not that it made a difference.
"Do you remember me?..." A single tear ran down his cheek, the warmth of salt water the only thing that he had to cling on too, the only thing that now reminded him he was still real.
But he was just as real as the thing behind him, its lips just grazing the crown of his ear as it whispered sensually in a way that tormented the very mind, its touch pulsating through his jaw and through his eye, the sensitivity of his body heightening in the pressure that set every one of his nerves on fire.
The death that he had come so near to would have been any fate better than the one that he spent with the thing behind him.
"Do you remember, dear Gingka?"
A small giggle escaped its mouth, refusing to let him go as he was able to feel a smile spread across the words that flowed in a voice that he could not know.
Gingka knew it was pointless to scream.

He did anyway.