Chapter 14 - Winners And Losers

Day in, and day out, for the last 4 days, were all spent with nothing to do.

The ex-DNA bladers were beginning to grow somewhat anxious without their leader, and as the days came and went, they were still leaderless with Genjuro being the closest person that they had to take orders from. But even the Genbu blader had not much to say in command, as Kira had - as far as they all knew - left no one in charge while he was absent with Zyro and his friends doing... Whatever they were doing.
So they did the only thing that they knew reasonable to do unless Kira said otherwise or put someone else in charge in his place (which he hadn't), which was to follow some of the last orders that he had given to them - to behave themselves, and not stir up trouble.
Kira had made a point about them having a reputation to keep up if they were ever to become Japan's Representatives, and that making any trouble for anything wouldn't do anything to support that.
But it was without doubt that most - if not all - people were cheering for the WBBA, but even so, the ex-DNA Bladers obliged to Kira's orders.
It didn't exactly change much, now that they weren't working for Doji with the DNA, but it still left them entirely clueless on what exactly they were meant to do in Kira's absence other than that. Other than stay in their current living quarters and find their own things to occupy themselves, some of them tended to wander around the city (Captain Arrow tended to look into bookstores in search of... Whatever it was he was into..), and they all went to the Bey Park regularly to spare against each other in order to prepare for the upcoming battles awaiting in the Bridge To The Future Tournament.

Suggesting that the Director ever started it up again, that was.

It was a mystery to too many people as to why it was brought to abrupt halt in the first place, but no one was arguing against it as Director Otori must reasonably have a good explanation as to why he was doing so.
But whatever reason he had, he definitely wasn't planning on releasing it out to the public. Many of them found it quite aggravating, from the sheer fact that they had nobody to engage battle with other than each other - and they had done that countless times in the past when the DNA had trained them. Zyro and his gang were off to who-knows-where, and Kira had more than likely gone with them for the reason that he owed Zyro for saving his life, so battling all of them was entirely out of the question, which left them with no one in their league other than themselves to battle with.
That's what they did now, Spike pitting against Yoshio for about the 3rd time since Kira's absence from Metal Bey City.
The others all stood off to the side and simply watched, though Genjuro simply leaned against a small pillar that was there simply for decoration while chewing his dandelion stem, while Baihu was simply laying on his back with his arms behind his head and staring up at the sky, having grown bored from watching the countless battles between his comrades, even if it was was for their training.
There wasn't much to see in the sky except for blue, and the clouds that covered most of it even though it was just bearably hot out.
The raven-haired blader took out arm out from under him and wiped it across his forehead, able to feel the beads of sweat that had formed because of the heat.
Sighing, the black-haired blader rolled over onto his stomach, the feeling of cement against his back being relieved from him and instead having his abdomen pressed against the hard stone.

"It's really hot out here.." The child said, making up for most of the silence other than the cries of Spike and Yoshio and the repeated clashing of their beys in the Beypark stadium.
"Well, it's summer.." Said one of the other ex-DNA bladers that had come back with them from the DNA headquarters after it had collapsed, using his basic uniform shirt to fan himself.

"No pain, no gain, they always say." Captain Arrow said, seeming to have little trouble with the heat as he stood on the platform they were all on, watching Spike and Yoshio train without seeming to grow bored - of course, that was more than likely his whole thing with justice and victory and what-not.
The other ex-DNA blader simply huffed, giving up on trying to fan himself from the current ache in his arm, "Says you.." He mumbled, leaning back on one hand as he crossed his legs, "How is it even possible to train in this weather."

"Master Kira was always able to do it." Baihu stated, supporting his head with his hands while his elbows lay uncomfortably on the concrete, "He's able to beat all of us.. I dunno where he is right now though.." Genjuro grunted, opening his blue eyes and ceasing his chewing on the stem in his mouth.
"None of us do, Baihu." The Genbu blader said simply, which was just stating the obvious, "No doubt he's with Zyro and his gang somewhere, though.." Captain Arrow looked back over his shoulder, raising one eyebrow from underneath his mask.

"He'll be back sometime, surely." The dark bluenette said.
"It's been 4 days." Baihu said flatly.
"Well, maybe it's something important that's going to take awhile." The yellow-eyed blader replied with a shrug, "We can't exactly do anything about it. All we can do is wait."
His eyes glanced back over to Yoshio and Spike as the battle ended with Yoshio's Golemn laying on the ground behind him while Spike was victorious.
"Hmph.." Genjuro grunted softly, "Whatever you say, 'Captain'. Kira's not coming back so soon, though, I can tell you that.."
Of course, they all sort of knew that.
Genjuro had already told them awhile ago the whole deal with Kira and his thing with 'helping' Zyro and his friends with apparent personal matters, so they knew not expect him to return so soon.
The dirty-blonde himself didn't know what the ordeal they were handling even was, but he had a feeling in the back of his skull that it did have something to do with why the Bridge To The Future tournament had been postponed.
They were pretty close to Director Otori, from what the ex-DNA bladers knew, so them being elsewhere other than the city could be the cause of it, seeing as how they were the main contenders.

But what could be so important that they would have to bring the tournament to a halt altogether?
Surely, there wasn't much that was as important as deciding the fate of the Beyblade generation, just as many before all of them had done, was there?
Why was suddenly getting sentimental over the fate of the Beyblade world?

Genjuro simply scoffed softly at himself, shaking his head a bit before closing his eyes again and resuming his chewing of the stem in his mouth.
Whatever it was, it wasn't something that they needed to worry about...

"Hey, Sichiro." Greeted the all-too-familiar voice of Ayano to Sichiro's ears, drawing the ravenette's attention over to the greenette who walked briskly towards him. Black eyebrows furrowed in confusion as the superior came up him.
"Hey, Ayano." The long-haired man greeted in return, "What are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to take the day off after yesterday?" Ayano huffed softly through her nose and nodded her head.
"Yeah, I was.." She said with a sigh, "But Tamako called in sick this morning, so I had no choice to come in. Either way, we do have shit to get done around here with this whole ordeal the Director has us working on." Sichiro let a small smile creep onto his face with a soft chuckle, though he did what he could not to laugh.
"So..." Ayano continued with a small slouch of her shoulders, "I guess I can go through another day of work before I get a day off... Won't kill me, as far as I know."

"Y-yeah.." Sichiro said awkwardly, steel grey eyes glancing back towards the computer screen in front of him for a moment before looking back to her.
"But enough about me." The greenette said dismissively, "How are you doing, now?"

"Uhh... Me?.."

"Yeah, from yesterday, I mean." Ayano explained, raising a green eyebrow with a look of concern in cerulean eyes, "You weren't looking too good while we were over there, and you were acting pretty damn weird.. Is that... Something you want to talk about, or-"

"No, no, no!" The raven-haired blader said hurriedly, mentally slapping himself for the sound of urgency and slight panic in his voice, "It was just... Uh... Anxiety, that's all.."
Ayano's lips were pulled tightly together with a raised eyebrow, inevitably catching the way that her colleague had sounded so panicked when she asked if he needed to talk about it.
"Okay..." She said flatly, "Anxiety over what?" The breath that Sichiro gave out was a shaky one, but it wasn't something that anybody would notice but for himself.

He knew Ayano.

She was a very respectful person, and did respect other's boundaries and such, but when it came to people she was close to - like himself, as it seemed - she would push if she was worried.
He couldn't exactly blame her for it, since he had known quite a lot of people like that back when...
"Just being away from home, really." The ravenette said with a small shrug, and didn't meet the woman's eyes, "It's always been this weird thing with me, but I'm fine now... Honest." The greenette stared at him for a moment, looking near like a stone statue as she looked at her colleague for what seemed like hours.
A few of their other colleagues glanced over at her with weird looks before going back to their work. Only after what seemed like forever did Ayano sigh and give the ravenette a small smile.
"If you say so, Sichiro..." She said with a small bit of hand, "Don't wear yourself too much, okay?"

"Okay.." Sichiro replied automatically as Ayano walked past him, but not before placing a hand on his shoulder in reliance. Her hand broke contact with him as she left, walking briskly off to her work post where she would likely spend at least half of the day.
All at once, Sichiro let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, his heart beating erratically against his rib cage as if trying to break out.
He should've figured that she might ask about yesterday while they were at the Tokyo WBBA headquarters, with the way he had been acting and reacting to a lot of things.

Really, it wasn't that much of a lie with it being anxiety, because it was indeed that.

But it was caused by something far different than just being away from home, and Sichiro had always preferred never to think about it and leave it all behind while he continued on in the present.
But apparently, the world just wouldn't have it.
A sigh escaped his pale lips before he forced all of it to the back of his mind once again, where it should have remained if not for the Director telling him where they were going not 2 days ago - but it wasn't Tsubasa's fault either.
Raven hair moved along with him as he shook his head a bit before turning back in his chair towards what he had previously been working on, focusing on nothing but that until he was told to do otherwise. But despite focusing on the documents in front of him, Sichiro's steel grey eyes looked down towards the keyboard in thought.

But no... He couldn't focus on that, he had no need too.

He shouldn't...

He had already sealed his fate a long, long time ago back on that day - it didn't matter now...

Not now, but it would eventually.

Why did he have to come here in the first place?...

They would have never known if he hadn't...

Once more, the raven-haired man mentally slapped himself, cursing at the thoughts running through his head, the events replaying that he had never even bothered to remember until now.

But it was fine... It was all fine...

With a heavy sigh, Sichiro raised his hands up to the keyboard and locked his eyes once more onto the screen and resumed the work he had been doing before Ayano had come to speak to him...

It definitely wasn't a long walk to the other half of Kasama in the valley area from where they had been, and it had barely taken them a half hour to do so and have themselves settle on a bench placed on the sidewalk so that they could discuss what they were going to be doing around here. Since they had gotten the possibly helpful information they had from Mito, it was already a bit clear to a few of them with the basics of what the main idea was.
As it seemed, Kasama wasn't that large, but it was decently sized enough that they would likely be able to find something around the area.

"So." Ren began, being the first to speak to everyone around once they were settled, "I'm guessing we're gonna go ask around or something?"

"Sort of the plan, yeah." Benkei said plainly, which earned a sweat-drop from Maru who was sitting on the bench they were parked at, her legs swinging over the edge without the ability to touch the ground yet.
Madoka shook her head slightly before looking towards the shorter girl.
"Well, I was thinking that we should probably find a hotel to stay at for the night, so that we have a place to meet up later if we go looking." The brunette explained, "It seems better than just walking around for a few hours before finding one in the dead of night and having nowhere to stay."
It only took Kite a glance over at the blonde to know that Ren was probably thinking of a certain TV show reference, but doing the suggested was something that they all knew and could realize was a very logical and smart thing to do.
"How many are even around here?" Zyro questioned, which was rather surprising to most of them from how quiet he had been lately; no one said anything about him deciding to speak.
"I'll look." Maru announced and raised her wrist up close to her, and went to press the small button on it to bring up the screen before someone else spoke words of helpfulness -it just happened to be Kira.
"There's a few.." He said with a bland tone, leaning against a lamp post right next to them with his arms crossed, "There's actually one just a few blocks away, if that'll do.."

"Okay, seriously, how do you know this?" Ren asked, narrowing her eyes slightly in suspicion of the ex-DNA blader. Kira opened his only eye which had previously been closed, looking over towards the blonde female with the one iris.
"I just do, now leave it..." He said firmly, though with no real threat behind it. It was obvious that no matter how many times they may ask Kira, he would respond the same way.
Maru simply lowered her wrist back down into her lap again, the action of checking the map in her bracelet now forgotten.
"Well... Better than nothing, I guess." Madoka said with consideration, "I say we check it out at least." Benkei let out a slightly loud yawn, stretching a bit before settling himself again.
"I don't really care where we spend the night, but a bed is good enough for me." He commented, "We'll probably spend a couple days here, anyway."

"Probably..." Madoka muttered with a sigh, looking down at Maru as the pinkette came up beside her again, "It's probably smart to book a few nights just in case.."
With that decided, they did exactly that.
They walked a few blocks over the hotel that Kira had specified (though he still wouldn't spill on how he knew about it) and did as they had back in Mito - they went in 2 separate groups, since one room obviously couldn't fit all of them, and went in with a small time-frame separating them. They went in the same groups they had back at the Mito hotel, since those were the ones that everyone seemed the most comfortable with.
All they did there was set all of their things down - with what little they had all brought - and take a moment to sit down before meeting back up in the hallway and heading out again.
Kira and Shinobu obviously still weren't so keen on sharing the same room together (Shinobu more than Kira), but they brought themselves to simply deal with it as they were working together - even though Kira could claim otherwise.
They devised their strategy for asking around in groups once again, seeing as how they now had a better lead on things than they had when they had first arrived in Mito - Madoka had figured that it was probably best to look into anything revolving around temples and the like around the area. The rest of them were able to agree with this, and divided themselves into the same small groups they had been in back when they were looking through Mito before splitting up and agreeing to meet back up around the hotel later.
Shinobu, Ren, and Benkei were all paired up together again from the uneven number of people in their group, and they set off somewhere into the small city to try and do their part. Shinobu was chronically a bit hesitant with Kira being with Zyro - considering the history the two of them had, it was definitely reasonable despite Kira's vague willingness to 'help - but he didn't say anything about it.

"So are we just going to start asking around, or something?" Ren questioned as the 3 of them walked down the sidewalk, the sound of a few passing cars sounding in her ears, "How many people would even know anything about any temples around here?"

"Priests?" Shinobu suggested with a shrug, "Somebody's bound to know something around here."

"Well, yeah." Ren replied in a 'yeah, duh' kind of way, before continuing, "But seriously... Back in Mito we got something on our first day there, and that place is pretty damn big. What exactly are we going to find out in a place like this?" Benkei looked down at the blonde blader and simply smiled in what appeared to be reassurance.
"Don't worry, we're gonna keep lookin' till we find what were looking for!" The Manager said positively, "People'll know something. They always talk in small places like this." Ren raised one of her blonde eyebrows at the purple-haired man.
"Really?" She questioned, curiosity under-toning her voice.
"I think.." Benkei said, suddenly looking a bit dumbfounded as he tried to remember, having only ever really been apart of Metal Bey - which was definitely a large city in itself, "But whether or not they do, there's gotta be some clues somewhere around here."

"Kira would seem to know.." Shinobu said a bit absently, "He seems to know more about this place than any of us do."

"Yeah..." Ren said thoughtfully, "I don't get why he would, though... Probably looked up something on it, maybe." The suggestion was said with a shrug, as both Ren and Benkei were just as clueless about Kira's knowledge of Kasama as the rest of them were.
It certainly was quite weird, Kira knowing so much about Kasama while they knew almost next to nothing.
Maru was able to look up a bit of information on different towns and cities with the help of that bracelet of hers, but it may have not even known as much as Kira apparently did. Shinobu knew well that it would do them no use to dwell on the subject, so he was given no other choice than to let it drop as they moved on and tried to figure out how exactly the 3 of them were going to gather the information they were looking for - if it was here, that was.
But the best option that they currently had was to ask around; perhaps the others were doing the same thing with the small groups of 2 that made up the rest of them.
With what they were looking for, all they could do was hope that they would find the answers they were looking for - anything that lead them closer to Alcorin was definitely something worth looking for...

Alcorin was a patient person. He had learned patience from the many years of confinement he had endured for all of 14 years.
He had patience, a lot of it, and he was always willing to wait a long time - years, in fact - for something whenever necessary.
But when it concerned that small little thing, all of it seemed to run out.
Of course, he didn't even have to really worry about him anymore - there wasn't much of him left anyway.
But somehow, he always managed to seep through; to find some sort of opening that would give him even the slightest peek to the physical world that he was no longer apart of.
Of course, he could always see it, and quite frankly, Alcorin had no problem with that part. He would make him watch the pain and the suffering, the sorrow and the anguish, the death and the decay, and he would let him know that he was entirely powerless to stop it.

Alcorin took joy in other people's suffering, but when it came to him, it was an entirely different story. To see him suffer, to see him so utterly weak and powerless unlike the way he had fought so hard in earlier days, was something that he just couldn't define.
Maybe it was simply knowing that he was now the one in control - that he was the one who saw and felt and heard everything, while that little child could do nothing but sit and watch everything from behind a blank wall.
But of course, both of them saw it - they saw all of it, and to know that there would soon be nothing of him left... It was almost a sad thought, from all the battles of willpower both of them had gone through, two beings that were one and the same, fighting to both keep and regain control.
But all in all, it wasn't that much of a depressing thought now that all of his careful planning over the years had finally come together and worked out in his favor - but of course they would.

The thought came out in a small chuckle as simply stood there in the dim lighting of edge of the stairs.
There wasn't much light in the place anyway, but it was rather bright once the eyes were given enough time to adjust; not to mention his own would illuminate the black from time to time with their crimson glow.
He had strode away from his brother in his barely contained rage and had stopped merely at the top of the stairs, his white robes - that were never as pure as his skin - draped around him loosely as he stood nearly motionless in the reflective silence.
The albino's anger, however, had been decreased now that he had gotten it out of the way, and taught its source a valuable lesson for the 60th time.
That little thing just didn't have any idea when to quit, and if Alcorin had to keep teaching him what happened until he was nothing but a pile of a broken past, then so be it.
Eyes glowing their crimson gaze, Alcorin turned slightly and looked back over his shoulder towards the catatonic man that he called 'brother'.
Whatever Zyro and his friends believed that they could do to stop him and get their dear Gingka back, he knew it wouldn't matter.
He would always win on both ends, for it was the simple matter of having control of the situation - something they definitely did not have.
Either way, it was his one and only birthright.
Crimson eyes shifted away from the catatonic redhead who was shrouded by the shadows of the large hall, looking absently towards the stone walls as he sensed the presence of his little messenger raven returning for report - of course, not that it had another choice too.
A small smile placed itself upon snow white lips, showing through slightly to perfectly white teeth that lacked as much pigment as the rest of him did.

"I'll be back, Gingka..." The albino said absently, his eyes going back to Gingka - who was motionlessly sitting across the room - with that eerie joy dancing across them, "I just have to make sure your friends are exactly where I need them... I won't let them take you away from me... I worked too long and hard for that.."
A bitter expression crossed nearly flawless features for a moment before it was gone. With a smirk placed on a face of pale white Alcorin turned and descended down the stairs, his robes dragging behind him and falling one step at a time.
The only thing falling behind in the silence was the faint echoing of his booted footsteps and the fading remnants of his accursed voice that had sent many people into peril with their plain mortal minds.
Eventually, even those faded until there was nothing but a dreaded silence.
If Gingka had even been there, had been in the rightful places of his mind, fully conscious and able to hear, feel, see... The ringing would have been nearly overwhelming.

But sadly, he was not.

All he was was an empty shell, perhaps already too long gone into his mind to ever bring back - but truthfully, whichever one he had, Alcorin did not care.
As he weaved himself through the ornately carved stone halls of his domain that only he knew so well, he knew that everything was coming the way that he had planned for it.
That they had - perhaps - both planned for it.
Alcorin loved every bit of Gingka, loved all of him no matter who he was, what he had done, what he didn't do.
All of his failures, his successions, his rights, his wrongs, his good, and his bad; he loved them all.
Which is why it didn't matter to him who he had - as long as it was only his dearest brother.
Zyro and his little friends could never win, no matter how hard they tried.
He would break them as much as he had too, as much as he needed too until they finally learned the lesson.
Especially little Zyro... No matter who he was, Alcorin was not finished breaking that delicate little soul of his.
A small giggle ringed from Alcorin's white lips at the thought; it was only the truth.
In the end, their efforts would not matter; because when Gingka woke up, he would never be the same person.
The solid proof of that was from the man himself, who lay motionless upon the throne with blank eyes that were open yet stared at nothing, who lay trapped within his own mind so deep that seeing the physical world was nearly impossible, and that of who properly had 10 fingers - 3 of which, on his left hand, were white.