The sun was almost setting. Valkyrie and Achilles, who was still carrying the five boys in his arms, were breathing heavily after a long chase between the two. They were standing in front of Achilles's home which was located in the middle of the wide fig orchard.

"Woah! That was quite the chase." Aiga said in astonishment. "Also, can you put us down, please?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry..." Achilles promptly put the five bladers down, still tired from the chase with Valt's partner.

"That..was..an..amazing..run..." Valkyrie spoke between breaths.

"Yeah, having your horse here...would definitely... change the game." Achilles replied in the same manner of speech.

Meanwhile, the five legends' eyes were darted at the building that was in front of them. They had expected a simple hut like Spriggan's, but were instead greeted to a build consisted of two stories, mud-brick walls, a few wooden windows and a flat roof made of wood and mud-bricks, with a simple wooden door as the main entrance. To the left side of the door was a long wooden bench.

"For a house in the middle of an orchard, it's pretty huge!" Valt said in astonishment.

"Nah, I consider it small. It may look huge, but there's not much going on inside. Just a few rooms and a kitchen. Anyway,...

...get on the roof."

"Wait, what?" the boys questioned.

"After all of that walking, I think you kids deserve to take some time and admire the stars. Let your mind rest for a bit."

"Since when were you this generous, Achilles?" Valkyrie snickered.

"Hey, don't tell me you forgot that I offered you a perfectly ripe fig when we first met?!"

The blue spirit laughed a little. "I'm just kidding! Of course I remembered."

Achilles rolled his eyes. "Whatever. There's a ladder that leads to the roof on the other side. You guys go there while I find something for us to eat."

The warrior entered his home and closed the door. The ones left outside stared at the door silently for a second, that is until a little Koryu decided to ask a rather innocent question to Valkyrie.

"Are you two a couple or something?"

Automatically, Valkyrie's face lit up with a red tint.

Everyone gave Drum an awkward and questioning stare.

"Sorry, I can't help it! The way you two talk to each other makes it look like you're together! It's like the scenes in those romance dramas!"

"You watch romance dramas? Aren't you a bit too young for those?" Aiga asked.

"More like spying on Ichika watching them... ." Drum laughed nervously.

"We-We're just friends... l-let's just forget about what he asked... ." Valkyrie stuttered, face still a bit red, as she strides away to the other side of the house. The boys just shrugged at each other and followed her.

~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~

Valt, Aiga, Drum, Hyuga, Hikaru and Valkyrie were seated on the flat roof of Achilles's home. They watched as the sun set to the edges of the forests and the mountains. The sky illuminated with yellow, orange, pink and purple as it entered its twilight phase. In the distance, the silhouette of Suria Castle can be seen.

"Wow! It's so beautiful!" Valt said in amazement.

"Just wait till it's night time." Valkyrie said with a smile.

"Reminds me of the time when me and Hikaru watched the sunset with Aiga." said Hyuga.

"Do you always come here?" Drum asked the female warrior.

"Sometimes, just to chat about things. Me and Achilles occasionally even train together. The same goes for Spriggan too." she replied.

A few minutes later, Achilles arrived to the group with a basket of sliced figs. It appeared that he was already munching on one.

"Hey, guys." he greeted while chewing. He then sat beside them. "Sorry if I took too long. Was just looking around to see if my mom's here, which I hope she isn't. Don't want her to freak out seeing a bunch of human kids here."

"Can't you just hear her call out to you or something?" Aiga asked his partner.

"It's not that easy. My mom's a shape-shifting sea spirit. She can turn into almost anything, even fire! You never know where or what she is! She may even be one of these sliced figs and one of you just ate her!" Achilles pointed at Dragon's blader, who just swallowed the fruit. The blonde boy froze at the realization that he may have eaten Achilles's mother. Then, the red spirit laughed.

"Just kidding! If it really was my mom, she would've hit you in the head a few moments ago!" Achilles continued to laugh. The others, minus Drum, laughed along with him.

"NOT FUNNY!" Drum yelled, his face as red as a tomato. The others continued to laugh.

~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~

The sky darkened as the sun disappeared to the horizon, revealing the moon and the thousands of stars it had outshined. The bladers and the spirits gazed in awe at the sight above them.

"This is so cool!" Valt said in amazement. "I've never seen so many stars in my life!"

"The moon and stars are so bright!" said Hyuga.

"Yeah, I can almost still see everything clearly!" said Hikaru.

As they all gazed up to the heavens in pure wonder, Achilles's mind traveled back to a certain period of time.
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"The night sky is beautiful here, is it not, Achilles?"

"It is, but not as beautiful as where I came from."

"Really?"

"Yes! You don't even need a torch when walking at night! All you need are the moon and stars."

"That's amazing! I would like to go there!"

"You really want to, Pat?"

"Absolutely!"

"If you really want to, I will take you there one day."

"Is that a promise?"

"Uh-huh, I promise that you will get to see the place I call home!"
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The memory was as clear as day for the red spirit. As he saw a shooting star flying across the sky, he closed his eyes and grew a small smile with a hint of sorrow on his face. He looked like he was on the verge of crying but Achilles tried his best to hide it.

"I need to excuse myself for a second." he informed his friends before stepping his way off the roof.

It seemed that only the maroon-haired blader sensed that something was wrong with his partner. A few minutes after Achilles left, Aiga left to check on him. When he got off the roof, he found no trace of Achilles.

'Where did you go?' the world champion thought as he searched everywhere for his partner.

Aiga eventually decided to search inside the house. When he approached the wooden door, he heard a melody. It sounded soft and sad, played by tender fingers plucking silky strings. Suddenly, the music stopped and small sobs can be heard.

Aiga opened the door to see Achilles curled up against a wall, his head buried in his arms. Beside him was a 'U' shapes wooden instrument with strings --- a lyre, which Aiga assumed was the source of the sorrowful melody that he just heard.

"Achilles." Aiga said quietly to his partner, as he closed the door behind him and slowly approached the red-head. He wondered why Achilles suddenly became emotional. Did the night sky reminded him of something that he wished not to?

As Aiga made it closer to Achilles, the latter finally raised his head. Aiga felt glad at this, but only for a few seconds, for the legendary hero revealed something quite shocking.

He was crying tears of black.

It was safe to say that the maroon-haired boy was a bit terrified at this, as he evidently took a small step back from his bey spirit. After a long moment of silence, Achilles finally spoke.

"What do you want?" he asked his blader with a tired voice.

"I-I noticed that there was something going on with you when you left the roof so....I went searching for you to see what's wrong." Aiga replied.

Achilles sighed and buried his face in his hands again. "It's nothing really. Just had some memories flashing in my head."

"Memories? As in, bad ones?"

"Maybe."

Aiga was not satisfied with that answer. "Achilles, is there something that you don't want me to know about?"

Achilles remained silent.

Aiga continued. "Whenever I'm in a bad mood, you always asked me about what was bothering me. I'm your partner, buddy. Why can't you let me do the same?"

Again, there was silence. After a few seconds, Achilles let out a reluctant sigh as he wiped his dark tears away and stood up.

"Fine, I'll tell you. But....I think images are a better story teller than words." he said.

Aiga was confused by this. 'Images?' he thought. Before he could get a clearer answer, suddenly, the room that they were in began to fade away. They were transferred into a reddish void. A slew of images appeared out of nowhere like television screens. Aiga looked around him to see the images closely, finding that most of them depicted a young boy with crimson hair and golden eyes. In one image, he saw the boy running around in a forest, swinging from tree to tree. This almost reminded Aiga of himself.

"Is that you?" Aiga asked Achilles, pointing at the image.

"Yes." he replied softly. "That's me when I was just a kid. I've always enjoyed the nature around me, since I grew up here for awhile."

"For awhile?" the blader asked, not quite understanding the last part.

Then, Achilles pointed at another image. It was set in an ancient city of sorts, most likely in Ancient Greece. There, young Achilles can be seen running with another boy with brown hair. Behind them was a creature with the upper body of a man and the body of a horse.

"When I was 8 years old, a friend of my father came to visit the orchard. He was a centaur named Chiron. Let's just say that I eavesdropped their conversation a bit and found out about the human world. I was excited! I've always wondered what the world outside of Aether was like. To my absolute delight, my parents let me go and stay there." Achilles explained.

"But... weren't people back then scared of spirits?" Aiga asked.

"Well, not in the place where I stayed. They worshiped spirits like gods so they were fine with us." Achilles then continued his story. "Chiron worked as a doctor and a teacher there for almost two decades, so he was used to life around humans. I became his student myself. There I met another student of his. He was a human boy and was older then me. Turns out, he was a prince who got exiled by his abusive father for an accidental murder. I felt sorry for him, so I promised to always be with him no matter what. Since then, we did almost everything together. We never left each other's side."

Then, an image of young Achilles and the brown-haired boy gazing at the stars caught the maroon-head's eyes. Was this the reason Achilles cried when he looked up at the stars?

"You two must be really close." Aiga commented.

Achilles chuckled a bit. "Yeah. I guess you could say we had a bond that predates beyblades."

"I was having the best time of my life!" Achilles said, his tone lightening up a little. "We were having a peaceful life....

....until one fateful event." his tone suddenly darkened.

Suddenly, to Aiga's shock, images of war began appearing, depicting armies charging at each other, a giant wall that seemed to be protecting a city and dead bodies littering the battlefield covered in blood and impaled with sharp weapons. Aiga seemed to recognize these scenes from the stories he had heard.

"The Trojan War." he uttered, quietly but still audible.

"Correct." Achilles responded. "This war was the biggest turning point in my life. A war all caused by love and unfaithfulness. They persuaded me to join the war since they knew I was a spirit and saw me as someone powerful enough to defeat the Trojans. I refused at first, but then they promised me glory, that if I die in war, my legacy will live on in the scrolls of history; that the future generations will look up to me as a hero and tell my stories for eons to come. So, I agreed to join. I never fought for the king who desperately wanted his stolen wife back. I only fought for glory."

As Achilles narrated this, Aiga saw images of his redhead partner leading an army against thousands of Trojan soldiers, easily overwhelming them while leaving a trail of blood and corpses. He did not expect these images. He remembered the stories that he heard about Achilles from his father, Taiga,  about how Achilles was a strong and invincible warrior who was fast at his feet, who won every single battle he was in, only to die by an arrow to the heel. Taiga had mentioned the Trojan War before to him but never really told in detail about it. Maybe his father was trying to protect him from all of the gory and traumatizing visuals of war.

"As for my friend, he mostly tended to wounded soldiers. But he also went onto the battlefield sometimes." the red spirit said. "We were so close to pushing the enemies back into their city. That is, until I had a little quarrel with my commander because he stole my war prize. I felt greatly dishonored, so I refused to fight. My friend tried to convince me to rejoin the battle, since the Trojans were gaining on us. I still refused. Then, he told me to lend him my armour to pose as me. I did,...

...and I would later regret that decision."

Another image appeared. It showed Achilles looming over a dead body, profusely sobbing as those same black tears that Aiga saw ran down his face.

"Awhile later, I learned that he was killed in battle. At that moment...I-l felt my entire life collapse before me. I had lost my guide...my light..."

"And...it was all my fault." Achilles mumbled.

Yet again, another image presented itself. It's depictions were the goriest that Aiga had ever seen. Achilles was depicted, standing amongst hundreds of bloody corpses while his sword pierced through the throat of an enemy soldier.

"After that, I went on a blinding rampage. I killed every single Trojan-no... every single person that got in my way. I was so mad that I couldn't tell between enemies and allies. I succeeded in killing the one that killed my friend but...I knew that it wouldn't bring him back. I continued to fight, only so that someone could take the chance to end me. Unfortunately for me at the time, that never came. Instead, someone inflicted me with an injury so painful, I had to retreat back here. Ever since then, I never returned to the human world."

Achilles' voice started to crack. "Everything became so...dull to me afterwards. All day, I'd carve his name on the barks of trees and play my lyre to it. I wasn't able to let him go. I attempted to kill myself several times but...it always ended with my parents saving me."

New dark tears began to form in the red spirit's eyes. "Even today, whenever I look up at the stars or eat a fig, I always think about him."

All this time, Aiga stayed quiet, carefully listening to his partner's story. He was almost speechless and disturbed, as would any normal person if they were to hear a past so dark and tragic from a normally energetic person. The red void slowly disappeared, leaving the duo back to the house they were in before.

"Aiga, I'm...sorry that you've found this side of me. This...weak me. I tried my best to be the legendary hero that you've always looked up to. I'm supposed to be someone mighty, but here I am, crying over a person dearest to me who died centuries ago. I'm really sorry." Achilles said melancholically.

After a long time of remaining silent, Aiga finally spoke. "You don't have to be sorry over something like that, Achilles. Everyone has their lowest moments in life, even heroes. It's normal to remember someone who already died and at one point cared about you, but being stuck in the past is just gonna make life more dull. And suicide is the icing on top. You'll only feel more guilty in death."

"Guilty in death?" Achilles asked.

"Some people believe that you can go to hell if you kill yourself because you threw away the greatest gift in the universe."

Achilles pondered at this. The more he thought about it, the more he was starting to understand.What if he did decide to end his life? He would only suffer in death, never to be reunited with his best friend. He would've never met Valkyrie, Forneus, Ragnaruk, Hercules, literally all of the bey spirits who had helped him become the spirit he was now. He would've never defeated Phi, who was thought to be unbeatable.

But most importantly, he would've never met Aiga, the one who pulled him out of his misery.

At this realisation, Achilles smiled, wiped his tears away and hugged his blader.

"Thanks, Aiga. I never would've thought that I needed you when it comes to things like this. Normally, I was the one advising stuff. Look at how the tables turned." he laughed a bit.

Aiga was a bit shocked at this but smiled and returned the hug. "You're welcome, buddy." he said.

Suddenly, the door opened. The duo looked to the door to see Valkyrie standing there with her right hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

"Valkyrie? Were you eavesdropping on us?!" Achilles asked. "Also, why do you have your sword?"

Valkyrie chuckled. "Yeah. I just heard your story so I came here to cheer you up with a battle."

"Did you say... BATTLE?!" Achilles's eyes sparkled with excitement.

Valkyrie nodded. Achilles immediately stood up, absolutely hyped for a battle. "You know battles are my number one thing! I'm in!"

He then turned to Aiga. "Hey, Aiga, do you wanna come? It's gonna be way cooler than your average bey battle. What do you say?"

At this, Aiga was interested. He had always wondered what it was like for the bey spirits to battle. He couldn't waste this opportunity.

"Alright, lead the way!" he exclaimed.

"But, one question."

"What is it, Aiga?" Valkyrie asked.

"Why were your tears black? Is it a disease?"

Achilles laughed at this. "No. We all cry black tears! It's part of our nature as spirits."

"Oh, guess I need to get use to it."