DISCLAIMER:

Me: I DO NOT OWN METAL FIGHT BEYBLADE OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS.

I don't feel like insulting Rago here... but I'll still do it!

I HATE YOU SOOOO MUCH, RAGO! I WISH THAT YOU DIED, NOT RYUGA! HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO DIE!

Back to Kenta's POV. (A/N: This is the last chapter because I'm starting another story soon, and it's hard switching between one story and another. Ryuga is OC in the end because he's gonna get emotional about his past... and stuff.)

Kenta couldn't help but feel a twinge of amusement as Gingka shifted the ice pack on his black eye uncomfortably. Ryuga was leaning against the wall behind the couch, a broad smirk of satisfaction and pride on his face as he watched his rival squirm in pain.

"Ow!" Gingka yelped. "Ow! Ow!"

"That's what you get for sticking your nose into places it doesn't belong," Kyoya said.

The Pegasus-wielder pouted at his rival. "Neh! Mind your own business!"

"I will when you start dieting!"

"Never!"

"That's what I thought," Kyoya said, smirking. Kenta knew that there was no taking Gingka away from his little world of hamburgers, hot dogs, candy, and... basically any kind of junk food. "Better luck next time, Kyoya," he told the Leone blader, who "hmphed" and crossed his arms.

Madoka did not take her eyes off her computer. "Gingka Hagane, if you keep bothering people like you did with Ryuga this morning, you're going to end up injured in the hospital, like what usually happens to Tsubasa and Yu."

"Hey!" Yu exclaimed, and surprisingly, Tsubasa had joined in as well; a blader's pride.

"Yes, Gingka," Ryo said. "I don't want to be the one to pay the hospital bill."

"DAD!"

Ryo raised his hands. "Hey! More and more powerful bladers are rising, and soon, we're gonna need money to repair the stadiums," he argued. Gingka sighed. "Fine, Dad." Then, he glared at Ryuga. "And you! Quit smirking like that!"

"Why should I?"

"You think that it's funny when someone gets hurt?"

"Pfft. Just you."

Gingka scowled and turned his head around, trying to control his temper, probably. "Ryuga, what's your last name?" he asked. Kenta felt a dreaded silence cover the room. Gingka had gone too far this time, asking such a personal (and perhaps painful) question.

Ryuga seem fazed by the question, just growled, "You want another black eye, Hagane?"

"If you two don't stop bickering," Hotaru told them darkly. "I will put you both in time-out!"

Kenta stared blankly at his mother, feeling a little embarrassed. "Mom, that punishment's for little kids!" he protested. But Ryuga was already curling up into a ball. "I'm so sorry!" he whimpered. "I'm so sorry! I promise I'll be good! Please don't hurt me!"

Everyone stared at him in confusion, like Is he messing with us? He looked up, eyes watering slightly. "But if you do give me a time-out, I'll take the baseball bat over the rusty spoon! And make it quick!" He looks so vulnerable - no way he could be faking, Kenta realized.

"What are you talking about?" Ryo asked.

Hotaru knelt down, wrapped her arms around Ryuga, and ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. "Oh, honey, I'm not going to hurt you. No one's gonna hurt you like that because you're always gonna be safe here, okay?" There goes my jealousy again, Kenta thought.

Gingka leaned over the back of the couch. "What did you think a time-out was?"

Suddenly, Ryuga seemed to realize that he wasn't alone in the room, and wriggled away from Hotaru. "I was just kidding," he muttered unconvincingly. "You're not exactly the 'kidding' type, Yuga," Yu pointed out, putting air quotes around the word "kidding."

Ryuga snarled at him. "Don't ever call me Yuga AGAIN!" Yu shrugged, obviously unaffected. "After that battle with Nemesis, nothing scares me anymore," he said.

Hotaru grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Come on, Ryuga," she said. "Give." He sighed, trying to look indifferent, but the toe of his right boot kept on pounding the ground, as if he couldn't keep still. "My mother said that time-outs usually include people getting hurt," he admitted. Ignoring everyone's shocked reactions, he stared at Kenta, who blurted out, "That's how she ended up in the mental hospital, right?"

"You knew about that?" Madoka asked him. "He told me, right before he" - Kenta stifled a laugh - "got lost on the way home."

Ryuga's nostrils flared - so different from the other side of him that was seen when he cowered in fear. "No, no, honey," Hotaru said, looking like she pitied him; she did, no doubt. "Time-outs don't involve baseball bats or rusty spoons." She looked like she was caught off guard by the words "rusty spoons."

"My mom said they did!" Ryuga argued.

"But whaddup with the rusty spoon?" Benkei asked loudly.

"You have no idea what those little monsters can do."

Hotaru sighed. "I don't want to hear about the spoon."

But Ryuga probably didn't hear her. "The spoon that our mother used has sharp edges. She used to shove the thing into our belly buttons and-"

"No!" Kenta's mother shrieked. "Gross!"

"-twist it until we started to bleed and scream-"

"That's enough verbal torture!" Hotaru clamped a hand over Ryuga's mouth. "I'm gonna be sick," Gingka said, clutching his stomach. Tsubasa - his skin as white as a sheet of paper - was trying to calm down Yu, who was already bawling like a baby.

Kenta himself was feeling terrible as well - at the bloody mental image he had conjured. Why did he have to be so descriptive?

"But I haven't even gotten to the painful part yet," Ryuga stated, slightly tilting his head to the side.

"There's a painful part?" everyone yelped.

"Duh - there's always a painful part," he said. Hotaru and Ryo rubbed his back. "It would be best for all of us if we didn't hear about that," Ryo said, shuddering. "Yes, honey," Hotaru said with a slight grimace. "Yu looks like he's about to pass out."

"... Then the rust would mix with the blood and get the wounds infected..."

Yu collapsed onto the floor at Tsubasa's feet. Gingka and Benkei pushed each other as they bolted to the bathroom. Ryuga gave everyone a weird look. "That wasn't even the painful part."

"Th-That w-wasn't it?" Ryo stammered.

Hotaru patted Ryuga's shoulder with a trembling hand. She looked like she was about to cry hysterically. That, or hug him and then cry hysterically. "I don't know how painful that kind of torture is," she said. "But your mother is a sick, sick person."

Ryuga just shrugged.

That night, Kenta knocked on the guest room's door. The light filtering from the room and into the hallway shifted as dark blotches intercepted it. Ryuga opened the door, his form blocking out half the brightness illuminating the doorway. It was the first time that Kenta noticed how much weight (and confidence) his mentor had lost every since Nemesis' ressurection.

"About that time-out thing..." Kenta began. "... You weren't kidding, were you?"

Ryuga shifted his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably. "I wasn't. All true." He was about to slam the door shut, but Kenta put his hand and eased it to a stop. "Can I come in?"

Sigh...

Kenta took this as a yes and shuffled into the room. "Why don't you trust anyone?"

"I can't."

"We're just trying to help you, Ryuga. We're your friends!" Kenta wasn't really sure how the former blader would take those two statements, but he couldn't help but say what was on his mind. "I don't have any friends," Ryuga deadpanned, sitting down onto the bed. "I don't want any." Kenta was taken aback.

"I don't want any," Ryuga repeated softly.

"But... why?" Kenta yelled. "Is it because you have way too much pride to even consider other people but yourself?" He didn't understand why anyone would want to be alone. "Everyone wants to be loved and needed, Ryuga. I'm sure that 'everyone' includes you."

"I... I'm tired of the pain, Kenta." His voice trembled.

"Huh...?"

"I'm tired of it!" he screamed, turning away from Kenta. "I'm tired of the people that I love getting hurt - because of me! I just... I don't want to get close to anyone else because I might cause them pain, and they might do the same thing back!" His shoulders jerked up and down, as if he was crying. "I don't like pain."

"But we would never-"

"My father died protecting me when I was five. I saw him die, Kenta!" He gripped the sheets tightly, his arms as rigid and straight as tree trunks. "So... S-So much blood..." He shuddered as he took a deep breath. "It's a burden that I've been carrying for almost thirteen years! He was murdered! And I couldn't do anything to save him! I felt so helpless and weak! Th-They just held me there and m-made me watch as they put a bullet through his head!" He raised an arm to his eyes and wiped at them.

"Ryuga..." Kenta felt his own tears rising to the surface and sliding down his face. He lifted himself onto the bed and wrapped his arms around the former blader's waist, trying to comfort him. Ryuga didn't even try to push him off.

"My mother went insane when I came back home by myself - all beaten up - and told her that he was dead. She tried to kill herself, but I told her that it wasn't worth it. She... She agreed, then tried to kill me. I mean... it wasn't that she was wrong - it was my fault he died. Then they put her in that mental house and took me and my brother Ryuto to the orphanage. Then we ran away and a couple of weeks later, he disappeared, and a few years later, I discovered that he became a treasure hunter! He didn't even visit."

"Then Doji adopted me and started training me. He was like a father, until both of us started to obsess over L-Drago... You know what? I can't do this anymore!" He dug his fists into the mattress, making a cracking sound.

"I'm sorry that you had to say all that, Ryuga," Kenta said, tightening his grip around his mentor. "I never knew... But we could be your friends, Ryuga! While you're here, nobody's going to hurt you. And you're not going to be hurting anyone! I swear on my Blader's Spirit that you never have to go through all that emotional and physical pain that you experienced during your childhood! I swear it!"

Ryuga turned his head a little to face him, and it was clear that he was crying. "I don't know if I could trust anyone, Kenta," he whispered, rubbing his eyes and trying to get rid of the tears that were uncontrollably rolling down his cheeks.

"You could trust me, Ryuga," Kenta said. "And my mother, and Yu, and Ryo, and Gingka-" Ryuga put a hand on Kenta's forehead and gently distanced himself from him, scowling. "Listen, Kenta, I'm glad that you guys are trying to help, but..." There was a twinkle of humor in his yellow eyes. "You're mad if you think I'd cry on Horse Butt's shoulder."

"You get used to Horse B - uh, I mean, Gingka - eventually," Kenta said. "And Hikaru has yet to meet you without screaming her head off."

"She's crazy."

"You two should just make up and be friends, ya know?" Kenta suggested, elbowing Ryuga. The former blader smiled slightly and put a hand on Kenta's head, ruffling his hair.

"Probably."

Thanks for everyone who read this and reviewed!

~DragonFang2011