After my massive thought process in the stream, I had let go of Eagle and accidentally dropped him into the stream.

The days seemed to pass quickly after that. I fished (not that Eagle helped) and helped Shaun start to pack up from the little hut we resided in.

We were just finishing rolling up our sleeping bags from the cots we slept on when Shaun spoke.

"So are you thinking of being in the tournament?"

I blinked, rubbing my knuckles against my other palm, nudging my rolled sleeping bag away with my knee.

"I dunno. Maybe. If Eagle would obey me," I shrugged.

Shaun frowned, pulling himself up from where he had just shoved a pair of clothes in there, and walked on over to me.

Holding out a hand, his eyes didn't meet mine. "Eagle. Give him to me."

"What?"

"Give Eagle to me. I'm going to keep him for a while."

"No," I snapped. "He's my partner. Partners have ups and downs, and for that, I'm not just gonna hand him over to you!"

Shaun still had his hand out. "I would hand Gravity Aries over to you for the time-being."

"I don't care about Aries!"

My hand flew to my pouch where I kept Eagle, feeling metal beneath my fingers.

"Tess, do you want to be in the tournament or not?" Shaun demanded.

"I'd hate to be in it without Eagle!"

Leaks of water started to streak across my face.

Why would Eagle stop obeying me...?

I remembered when I was fighting Reiji, when stone had overcome me, but Eagle had spoken to me, despite it using a lot of his energy.

I remember having the awkward thought of '... Oh crap, he's kinda hot,' when I first saw him.

Now... He refused to acknowledge that, and completely threw our trust under the bus.

I thought that, seeing what we had gone through earlier, we would understand each other. We would trust each other.

"Tess," Shaun said gently.

"He... He hates me, doesn't he?"

"Hm?"

"Eagle. He hates me."

Shaun averted his gaze, refusing to answer my question.

My fingers touched the metal again, but it just felt like pure frost was beneath my fingertips. Frost, and only frost.

Don't make me do this, Eagle.

"Give me one more chance," I pleaded. "One more chance. Please."

Shaun considered me, his jaw set into an expression of conflict. Reaching into his back pocket, he produced Gravity Aries.

"At least take her, just in case."

The glint of the dark purple facebolt made me hesitate, but I picked up the beyblade with careful hands.

Cradling the new beyblade with my hands as if it was a new baby, I looked up to Shaun again.

"Thanks," I muttered.

Voices.

After I finished my sentence, voices.

My head snapped towards the source of the voices, cocking it attentively. There were no voices that I could identify, and by the look of perplexity on Shaun's face, he couldn't either.

"I challenge you, Gingka!"

An obnoxious voice cut through the murmur, and my hands curled into fists.

Gingka.

"Wait, this again?" A female voice cried out in irritation. "Go home, kid!"

"No! My name is Masamune Kadoya, and-"

"We've heard this eight times already!"

With one hand, my brother gestured to the door, as if inviting me to open it.

I awkwardly shoved Gravity Aries away, shuffling towards the door and undoing the lock on it with shaky hands.

Gingka was the one to defeat Ry-

I winced, immediately banishing the thought from my head. This maybe was a different Gingka...

"No, it's fine, Madoka, I can deal with extra training," said the voice I recognized.

... and that's definitely the Gingka I don't want to think of.

Madoka's reply was muffled, and I swung the door open.

"Oh... uh, hi."

Blue eyes held my gaze for a moment.

And Madoka immediately threw me in for a curveball- er, I mean, a hug.

OoO

"So who's the guy that keeps constantly challengin' Gingka?" I asked, holding my burger gingerly as I watched the Pegasus blader tear into it like the world was going to end in a minute.

Shaun said he could take care of himself on his own until he reached the city again, and sent me ahead to 'socialize' (what's that? Am I right?) with this group, since they were heading back to the city.

I hadn't caught the gist of what they were there for yet, but this guy... had apparently challenged Gingka multiple times on the way to and fro Koma Village.

And if anyone was gonna interrupt my sleep, I gotta know about them.

"Masamune," Kenta said through muffled lips as he finished chewing his meal. "Masamune... Kadiya, I think he said his last name was? Kadoya? According to him, he wasn't here during Battle Bladers and-"

"Couldn't prove himself as number one," Madoka cut in. "So he just thinks he can beat Gingka without having an official battle or anything! Plus, Gingka's beyblade disappeared, and he just got a new one! You follow?"

"Not really..."

"Masamune's being challenging Gingka this entire journey and he still hasn't won at all."

"Golden sticker to him for trying," I mused, setting down my burger.

"Er, yeah, I guess?"

"Well, I'm done," I said, picking up a plastic knife and separating the portion of what still had my saliva and the untouched part, nudging it over to Gingka.

The Pegasus blader took one look at it and immediately starting shoving it further into his mouth.

As I waited for them to finish their food, there was a loud voice.

"Gingka-"

"Not this again," Madoka let out a groan.

I looked towards the voice. I had seen him once before, when we were packing in the hut and I had stepped out.

Masamune... looked obnoxious, all in the truth.

Black hair lined with white, spiky as all hell, and there was this one annoying little tuff of red hair in his face. Reminded me of some guy that drinks orange juice...

Ahem.

Anyway.

Fingers curled into the fabric as Masamune lifted one finger and pointed at Gingka.

"Look, kid," I drawled out. "You wanna fight?"

Eyes darted to me, and I could basically see how much he was underestimating me, gears shifting and turning in his dark brown eyes.

"I'm here to challenge Gingka! Not just some loser beyblader!"

Narrowing my eyes, I pulled out my launcher and injected as much poison as I could into my words. "If you want a challenge, you could at least battle me before you make a failure out of yourself."

That seemed to push at him.

... he does remind me a lot of Kyoya...

I winced immediately at the thought, an ache running through my chest, but quickly pushed it aside.

"What?"

I stood up.

"If you really think you can beat Gingka, I'm an obstacle first."

"Do you really think it's a smart idea to blade in this place?" Someone burst out from the sidelines.

"No worries," I said. "We don't damage anything. At least not too bad."

Smirking at Masamune, I cocked my head. "Unless you wanna run."

If I had gained anything from meeting Kyoya way back when, he would fall to the taunt. He's overly-large in the head... shouldn't be too easy to push at him.

"Never! Keep in mind, Striker and I will blow you away!"

"Good luck, because I happen to be apart of the skies."