I got a few questions about the character's age in the previous chapters, so I'll make the timeline, age and birthdays of the characters clear. Please note that these are made up things and nothing is official here.

TIMELINE:
Keeping in mind that the original beyblade series was released in 2001, this takes place in 2002. I've always imagined that it is the World Championships took place during the summer holidays so that most of the competitors,  who are mostly students, can devote their full attention to it. In Japan and many other countries, the summer holidays are in July and August. So, let's assume that the preliminary rounds were held all over the world in the month of July. The. World Championship Tournament started on the first of August and ended on 15th. Hence, the talk show occurred on 20th Aug. For simplicity's sake, let today (I mean, the day that attacker is killed, the day Kai calls Agent Grace) be 5th of September, more or less a fortnight from the attack.

AGE And BIRTHDAYS:
Ray was born on 13 March 1986, making him 16 years and six months old.
Kai was born on 23 October 1986, making him 15 years and ten months old.
Kenny was born on 25 March 1988, making him 14 years and five months old.
Tyson was born on 15 June, 1988, making him 14 years and one month old.
Hilary was born on 24 October 1988, making her 13 years and ten months old.
Max was born on 6 May 1989, making him 13 years and four months old

I'll add the birthdays and ages of other characters and other important days as and when they are required in the story.

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We didn't have to wait for long the second time. Within the next few seconds, the Agent was on the line. Unlike Agent Grace, he didn't on his video, and spoke in Russian from the very beginning.

"Hello Mr Hiwatari. What can I do for you today?"

"Could you switch to English."

"Of course. Am I to assume that we have company?"

"Yes. I want you to trace the location of all the primary members and the secondary members of this case."

"Of course." there were click and clank sounds asthough  the other person was working on a computer.

"Secondary members: Mr Granger senior, Hiroshima west side, nearest location: Insa-yama Park. Mr Granger, Hiroshima west side, nearest location: Insa-yama Park.

Ms Mariah Wong, Shanghai Port. Mr Lee Wong, Hami, Eastern China along with the other members of White Tiger team. Master Tao, Hami, Eastern China.

Mrs Judy Tate, All-rounder Beyblade shop, Southern Tokyo. Mr Taro Tate, All-rounder Beyblade shop, Southern Tokyo. Ms Mariam Khan, Hitachi Railway Station.

Tala Ivanov, Kabul, nearest location : Gardens of Babur, Afghanistan. Bryan Kuznetsov, Kabul, nearest location: Gardens of Babur, Afghanistan.

Mr Saien Senior, All-Fresh Grocery Store, South Tokyo. Mrs Saien, All-Fresh Grocery Store, South Tokyo.

Mrs Tachibana, All-Fresh Grocery Store, South Tokyo. Mr Tachibana,... Southern Nara.

Primary members: Mr Tate, St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo. Mr Hiwatari, St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo. Mr Kon, St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo.
Mr Granger, St Luke's Main road, nearest location: St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo. Ms Tachibana, St Luke's Main road, nearest location: St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo.

No unusual activity suspected in any of their vicinity in the last twelve hours."

"So... He's all right?" I asked, my face betraying both relief and anger. Relief that he was alright and anger that he didn't think it was important to inform them if he was coming late.

"Hmm", Kai answered. "Thank you for the information, sir. I'll-"

"Kai, wait!" Max said. "Don't you want to know what's been happening, what has happened till date in the case?"

"No, I don't." He answered, and didn't even spare Max a glance. Max looked highly pissed off. Hell, even my thoughts have got polluted with the foul language. Kai once again continued. "I'll take yo-"

"But I want to."

"Not my prob-"

"Well it is."

******

"Well it is." The last sentence was said with such conviction that it broke Kai'auto pilot state of working. He had barely given attention to anything other that to get himself some answers. He hadn't been giving any attention to what Max was saying until then. His mind felt like a traffic jam of thoughts. And he was the traffic police who couldn't control it.

Did he want to know what was happening? Of course Yes. But he also knew that most of the drama that had taken place was due to the mistake of sending the email to Jason's personal email ID,  rather than his professional ID. He was in a hurry to get to the hospital, to hand in the cheque and had not given it much thought.

He knew Agent Ellis was Jason's boss, how he was strict and hard on him alone, and would certainly know about the illegalities of Jason helping him in the last three years. Agent Ellis most probably had been waiting for Jason to make a mistake, and with a  mistake as grave as this, Jason was gone for good. He didn't want to discuss about it this soon. He wanted to postpone that conversation as long as possible.

He placed the handle down and muted the telephone. He snapped, "What the hell is your problem, Max!!?" his irritation was evident in his tone,  but this seemed to have just fueled Max's anger.

"Don't you dare brush my request like that, Hiwatari." Kai was very much surprised by the use of his last name. His hands were now crossed. He was sure that his eyebrows had gone up.

"We are sitting here not knowing what the hell has been happening to us all for a fortnight now. You wouldn't come forward to explain anything in the last one week, even after Tyson pestering you. Now, you suddenly tell us you have been invading our privacy without our consent for God knows how long, keeping an eye on who we meet and all that, and now you expect us to accept whatever you say when we could have at least some of the answers about what's going on. I don't know about Ray, but I'm not accepting this."

He didn't know of Max, but his outburst had surely helped him clear his mind. He knew this much for sure, now. Tyson was fine, Hillary was with him, both were heading for the hospital, the pain in his chest was now constantly there, Jason was fine, but most probably in trouble, the constant throb his temples had just gotten worse, everyone was safe. All his concerns were cleared. But he didn't want to oblige without putting up some resistance. He continued, "You don't even know who-"

"Well, my lucky stars seem to shine today. He's wouldn't be an Agent of the ISA, would he?" Max's words dripped with so much of sarcasm that Kai resigned himself to accept his stand by then. He always knew when a person was at the brink of an outburst and he wasn't even slightly interested in wasting his energy handling it. He accepted the fact that he had no way of walking out of the talk with Max at his throat. "Fine, ask whatever you want to."

The look of surprise was evident on his face. Max certainly wasn't expecting me to offer clearance so easily. He had been expecting a retort for which he would start another rant, as though the first one wasn't enough. He collected himself quite quickly, hesitantly turned to the telephone, cleared his throat and started. "Um,..Mr...."

"Agent Ellis."

"Could you... convey all the details of the case?"

"A complete overview, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Very well then. Mr Hiwatari raised the alarm on the early hours of third June, the day of the Talk Show through a personal email to Agent Grace. Unfortunately, Agent Grace met with an accident the night before and was unable to respond to it immediately. ISA officially raised the alarm at midnight of 4th of June, two hours after the attack. This did not happen because of the email sent by Mr Hiwatari, but because of our protocols when a client had been attacked. Our Response Team was keeping an eye out for the individuals described by Mr Tate, though it might have been too late to catch those responsible for the crime.

One should remember that our client, Mr Hiwatari cannot claim anything more than Level 6 Importance as he is closely related to an... important individual with many enemies outside this country. Although he is the only heir to Voltaire's company and fortune, he being a target of revenge is relatively less in Japan as this country has no influence from Voltaire. Mr Tate and Mr Kon's situation is slightly similar as both of your families have hired protection in a few instances.

One drawback of the investigation is that they concentrated mainly on Mr Tate's side of the story, hence were completely lacking of Mr Hiwatari input. And a stalker who was behind your team, Mr Hiwatari especially, from the beginning of this year's Beyblade Tournament took this opportunity and struck. Seeing the stream of attacks on the Bladebreakers within 24 hours, the case was transferred to an Agent about Level Four. I took it up and rightly so. Since fourth of June, six attacks were planned to strike each one of your members. All of them were sabotaged by the ISA. Once on Mr Kon, once on Mr Tate, once on Mr Hiwatari, once on a secondary member, Mrs Tachibana and twice on Mr Granger. The last attempt was planned for 12th of June, two days ago. Our Intelligence Team confirms that the two attacks were from completely different companies and background with completely different motives.

The target of the first attack was indeed Mr Tate due to his mother, a renowned scientist of USA declining to work on a project of the Marcus University, and on later investigations, it was confirmed to be the one Dr Zagart was working on during the tournament and the one for which he was arrested. This project was funded by the Hiwatari Enterprises.

What we specuate from the situation is that on consistent declination from Mrs Tate, and the failure of the project, the University blamed Mrs Tate declination as the result for its failure. And as an attempt to extract revenge, they targeted Mr Tate. But the attack didn't go as planned due to Mr Hiwatari involvement.

Two days since the first attack, when policemen went to bring in board members of the University for interrogation and arrest, two of them were shot in their homes, three were caught in a fire which brought down the entire University. All records had suddenly vanished. We can obviously speculate who is behind the sudden misfortune of 'The Marcus University of Un-plotable Energies.' But as usual, we have no evidences or witnesses.

The second attack which was actually targeted at Mr Hiwatari involves an underworld financer with a long rivalry and bitter clashes with Voltaire in the Black Market. He extended his support to a rival team with similar backgrounds. In an attempt to secure his money and their win, he had targeted members of other teams to stalking, blackmailing, etc. Since you guys defeated his team and also won The Tournament, he wanted to extract revenge for the money he lost and to settle his matter with Voltaire once and for all, he tried to remove Mr Hiwatari out of the equation. One day hence, his nine-year old daughter and his wife were found dead in their apartment. But once again, there are no evidences or witnesses.

I hope I have clarified all your doubts on this issue."

Agent Ellis' report was way too precise for his own good. Only stating the mare facts while hinting on the connections without saying it downright. He had also tracked Mr.  Tachibana's location, which for some reason Jason wasn't able to do in the last two months. No wonder he is in Level Two. He had left Kai with much more thoughts to think about. Six adults, one nine-year-old child. His headache just got stronger. Both Max and Ray had gone silent. He took the opportunity to end the call, perhaps too quickly, "Yes."

But maybe Agent Ellis as waiting for Kai to ask details of the case, because he continued. "Then I have to bring it to your notice keeping in mind the two successful attacks and six attempts of assault on the primary members of this case the that from now on your case will be handled by agent of a qualification of Level Three and above only. If you're all in agreement with it, I could continue to be your Agent."

Kai answer was immediate. "Thank you for the offer but, No. I'm very much happy with our previous Agent. I wish him to be reinstated as our permanent Agent."

"But I'm afraid that will not do. Agent Grace has been demoted to Level Four six days ago."

Kai found it difficult to keep up with the pleasantries. He switched to Russian and snapped. "Well, then promote him. I don't want anyone other than him to handle my case."

"Forgive me but it doesn't work like that way, Mr Hiwatari."

"I don't care of your rules, Agent Ellis. I trust Grace, and I'll have no one but him as my Agent."

"That is exactly the problem. You don't care for our rules, yet you want to avail our services."

"Well fine then. Cancel our contract. I don't want your ruddy protection."

Until then,  agent Ellis had kept a present voice,  but now he had a firm edge in it. "Mr Hiwatari, you were registered officially with us on Mr Dickerson's request. Until we have his permission, this contract cannot be cancelled. On the other hand, a lot of individuals were in harm's way due to the small act of ignorance. You might have been worried about Mr Granger's temporary absence, Mr Hiwatari, but if Agent Grace hadn't emailed me your mail at the time he did, Mr Granger would have suffered immensely. Both Mr Tate and Mr Granger were on the financer's hit list."

Information as grave as this was getting harder to digest with every passing minute. His untrimmed nails were digging into his palm and were on the verge of drawing blood. He could already taste blood in his mouth, courtesy of biting one's gums. His whole body felt sour due to standing for such a long duration. He must have involuntarily swatted away Ray sometime in the middle, and he seemed to have not tried holding him up again. He wished he hadn't done that. He decided that there was no use withholding information any longer, and unknown to him, he actually trusted the stranger on the other side of the call.

Fixing his gaze on a sparrow outside the window, he started. "I met Agent Grace nearly three years ago. He helped me evade Voltaire for a year and a half. Then I decided to restart my beyblading career. Until then, maybe he emailed me once a month, so more or less around fifteen emails. He called a couple of times. He might have personally helped me twice.

I lost touch with him then after. He had called me twice after that. During the American Championships, I got to know about the restrictions placed on him as an Agent. Until then, I didn't know he couldn't help me. I severed ties with him the very next day. He accepted my stand without complaints. The next time I talked with him, he was officially my Agent.

Look, if he hadn't helped me when he did, I would be dead at the age of thirteen. Not many rules were broken, Agent Ellis. Money is not the problem. Just set the price, and I'll pay. I don't mean under the table cash, if you find it offending. I could easily pay for the services he rendered on spot. I am told that you don't see I to eye but just don't make Jason lose his job over this. My ignorance is the root cause of all this mess. File a complaint if you want, do whatever you want. Just don't include Jason or anyone else in it."

"So you haven't paid him in any way?"

"No, he wouldn't accept it. He only threatened to stop helping me if I don't talk with him continuously for seven minutes straight, though I'm quite sure he did that just to irritate me."

"I did not want to talk of this so soon, Kai-I mean Mr Hiwatari." Kai wasn't expecting this at all. His voice had softened, but barely noticeable. If Kai hadn't been so good at reading emotions, he wouldn't have recognized it. But something stirred in him when the other person called him Kai. He couldn't place a finger on it.

Agent Ellis continued, "Both the parties involved here aren't at the best of their health. I will not raise this matter again till you are well, but I want to remind you of the gravity of the situation. What you both have done was extremely uncalled for. You may not be blamed much,  for you were a minor,  but Jason, all legalities included, he was helping a minor evade his guardian.... Anyway, maybe we'll have another call. You, me and Jason, before I take the next step. I'll end this meeting for now, Take Rest."

******

They spoke in such fast Russian that it was all a blur of sounds for him. Not that I would have understood much if they had spelled out each syllable for me, but that's beside the point. And on judging Max's expression, he was no better in understanding the exchange than he was. It was intense and serious. It came to an abrupt end. Kai still stood staring blankly into the sky. Max looked so frustrated with the fact that they kept a part of the conversation confidential even when they were standing right there. He looked ready to strangle Kai for answers if I hadn't stopped him at the moment.

Within a matter of few seconds, the look of passiveness was gone and understanding dawned on him. He suddenly bolted passed us towards the room. I only got a moment's glance into his eyes, but that was enough for me to know that Kai was going for a kill.

He was sorry for whoever's going to be at the receiving side of Kai's fury.

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Words: 3315

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A/N: Surprise!! Surprise!! A special edition, a bonus chapter with 3000 words. How's it? I revealed all the motives, people behind both the acts, why the police couldn't crack it, etc. With this chapter, I have unraveled most of the mysteries built upon the previous chapters. All according to me, but I'm not sure... Please ping me if I have missed something. I know you guys are getting restless about the upcoming Tyson-Kai confrontation...and that's exactly the reason I crammed up all the remaining stuff to this chapter. I promise that the next chapter will not fail your expectations. Stay tuned!!!

PS: Don't expect the next chapter to be posted as soon as this one. I'll keep the deadline for the next Monday (not the coming one) of course I may update it a lot sooner but I don't want you guys to have high hopes and then lower them.

And after that, the updates may revert back to a fortnight each as I'll once again get busy with studies and may not be as free as I'm right now. Hope you understand...