Once again, sorry you didn't get this yesterday – my internet has been very intermittent!
Gingka
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10 years old
It was round about this time of year that Gingka found himself with absolutely no time at all. Which wasn't particularly unusual, he supposed. Everyone in the village was busy. Most of the village adults spent days down at the foot of the mountain, getting food and other supplies before the passes were closed by snow.
The children, supervised by Hokuto, had the grand job of decorating the village for the Solstice Celebration before their parents came back.
Hyoma and Gingka had always been competitive over who had the best-decorated house (Hyoma almost always won, because he was slightly taller and could get more branches from the trees to wrap around the door frame, but Gingka had a better eye for colour-co-ordination), and a proper house-decorating day was never complete without at least one beybattle.
It was the best time of year, he always thought. Everyone was so cheerful as the houses turned emerald with evergreens from the forest. Whilst the coldest parts of winter were yet to come, this would be a spot of hope to hold on to when the snows came and cut them off for months on end.
And if the worst came to the worst, the clash of two heated beyspirits would keep him warm.
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12 years old
Gingka knew he should be in Koma Village. It was Solstice time, when everyone got together for a big party, celebrating the fact that the days were about to start getting longer again, and the darkness was passed for the next year. He was supposed to be busy, with fewer hours in the day than he needed for all the things he had to do, preparing to bring light and hope back to the world once more.
But the darkness was all around him, as it had been ever since the Lighting Ceremony had failed and L-Drago had been stolen from its prison. He had nothing to hold on to. His father was dead. The sacred duty that he had been preparing to take over had been shattered, and L-Drago was loose in the world once more. He hadn't seen Hyoma in months, not since leaving Koma Village.
But he couldn't go back. Not without getting L-Drago back. That was his duty, the only thing he had to do as he walked through the grey streets in search of clues as to where Doji had taken the strange boy with white hair who had killed his father.
Getting L-Drago back was the only hope he had of the light shining through once more, as the Darkness crept close around the world and the days grew ever more hopeless as spirits faltered in the face of it.
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15 years old
Gingka was utterly unsurprised to find himself with no time at all as the winter rolled towards the end of the year.
There wasn't even time to go back to Koma Village this year – his father had organised a Winter Spectacular tournament, scheduled to start on the 24th, and it was open to everyone. That meant that a sizeable group were currently staying in the WBBA tower, with all the chaos that usually entailed.
The weirdest bit was that he was so busy and yet he didn't have any of his normal duties. He wasn't in charge of decorating anything this time; Yuu, Tithi, Kenta and (surprisingly) Masamune had insisted that they were going to do that. He wasn't in charge of cooking, not with Benkei, Madoka and Chi-Yun monopolising the kitchen. He wasn't even in charge of organising battles, as Hikaru and Hyoma had firmly told him that no he was not allowed to schedule himself to fight in every single battle even if he did want to fight everyone. It wasn't fair on everyone else.
And yet Gingka still found himself rushed off his feet, between meeting people at stations and airports, going grocery-shopping with the few bladers who didn't have jobs to do already (Kyouya and Aguma, as it turned out, which made for a very interesting trip), reorganising rooms and meal plans when the Europeans announced they weren't coming, only to have to reinstate the plans with different names when the Americans announced they were…
It was a time of busy-ness and fun, of light that wrapped around his home and his heart, and of friends that gave him hope that the future was going to be just fine.
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18 years old
It was always the way. Whenever Gingka wanted to be surrounded by noise and laughter and people, he found himself alone in the wilds with nothing but the wind for company.
Whenever he wanted peace and quiet, people found him.
Technically this time he had found people. The little village on the river delta had little enough to share this deep in winter, but they were as hospitable as possible, and Gingka did his best to repay their kindness by teaching the younger members of the village.
They were pretty good already – their local technique was using beys to cut through reeds to allow them into the deeper water where the bigger fish swam, and the alligators that lurked in the swamp knew to leave villagers well enough alone or risk a beyblade to the eye. But there was always something to learn, always something to offer and teach, and Gingka delighted in bringing the children's beyspirits to their fullest potential.
This was where he found hope now – in trusting others to carry the shining light of a true beyspirit and keep it burning long after he had disappeared from sight.
He didn't mind being so busy that he couldn't see any of his friends at the Solstice if it meant he was able to bring that hope and that burning joy in a good fight well fought to the whole world, creating a shield of light to stand against the Darkness forever.
