Chapter Text
It burned.
His sleeve remained intact, in spite of the direct hit he’d taken from Kamon. But his shoulder flared in pain, a million shockwaves exploding in his body and brain all at once. Sheer shock paralyzed him on the spot, but he was kept in place by the agony that followed.
The joint throbbed with pain, each wave crashing into him as if someone were sheering his skeleton with red hot iron. The sensation was strangely reminiscent, his mind reeling to a time he was face-to-face with an old enemy, but even that was a far cry when compared to his current predicament.
The pain was similar, and so were the circumstances. Only they were amplified hundredfold, where his enemy were both influenced by an outside force, but this time they were also a talented B-shot beforehand. Rudy was no pushover in his own right, however Kamon was on another level of his own. Even then, it took him, Basara and Samuru combined to turn the tides – there was little chance of him walking away unscathed, much less win.
But the match was the last thing on his mind right now. His shoulder screamed in agony, his chest and head following suit as his body attempted to soothe his flaring nerves. Unlike Dragold and Rudy—and countless other sinister forces he’d driven back or reconvened—Kamon was something new altogether. It opened up a floodgate of unpleasant memories, but they were all muddled from his frayed senses that he would surely recall once he regained full consciousness.
Riki nearly doubled over and made acquaintance with the floor, his skull pounding like gongs. But Dracyan’s voice echoed through his ears amongst all the edging shadows, pulling him to the surface before he sunk to the deep, dark depths of his mind. He broke through a curtain of haze, and the world processed all at once.
Screams. So many screams. It was so loud. They weren’t his, were they? He didn’t know. Everything hurt so much that he couldn’t tell if he’d howled in pain. Perhaps he had, and he was too delirious to recognize his own voice.
“Riki!” If B-Daman had emotion, Dracyan’s voice would have taken a stressful turn. The robotic monotone was a lighthouse in a grim reality. “The battle!”
In his eyes, everything happened in slow motion. Fires that burned black, feathers that bled darkness. Bullets of pure malice rained onto the disc, dented and battered beyond repair, as the opposing force swarmed it towards the little slot in the wall.
This power was dark. Unnatural. It was something that Riki could never hope to decipher or understand on his own. But there was no need to understand it. All he needed was to win.
Against his body’s wishes, he forced himself to turn, to grasp onto Dracyan’s gears and return to the match. His left shoulder wailed and scorched, and his attacks came out weak and shaky. His left arm was as well as gone, forcing him to rely on one arm, lessening his impacts significantly. The familiar springs on Dracyan’s launcher had never felt so stiff.
Winning was a hopeless task, but it was one he had to accomplish for the sake of his friend. Words couldn’t get through to Kamon, but hopefully defeat would be the final wake-up call. But as he shot out marble after marble, his sight began to blur, all the neon colors mixing into muddy greys as a pair of blue eyes formed into view—
Riki faltered. But just as quick, he snapped himself from his stupor and continued the deadlock. His measly fires were barely enough to stave off Garuburn and Kamon’s certain victory, but even with his optimism, it looked bleak.
“Are you alright, Riki?” Dracyan’s eyes shifted back to him, presumably concerned for his sudden poor performance.
Riki bit his lip so hard it drew blood. It cleared his mind somewhat, but he was still dazed from earlier. “… I’m fine,” he muttered, tasting metal. The disc was inching closer and closer to his goal at a quicker pace. It became clear that Kamon was losing his patience. “We have to finish this in one move. It’s our last chance to win.” And snap Kamon out of it.
They had to win. It was their chance to stop whatever this was before it could get out of hand. A chance to stop someone from reliving the same nightmare that plagued him for months.
Dracyan did not argue. Even if he did, he would be ignored. They had spent so much time together; he’d know by now that his B-shot was not someone to back down from mortal injury.
From his battered throat a guttural cry was torn, giving way to a massive blue dragon in all its glory, taken form from spirit and magic. The majestic beast clawed its way from its crest, its roar ripping through the arena as it dove for the disc—
Only for it to fly past its snout, a trail of smoke left behind as the field shook and creaked from an interior explosion. The dragon crashed into the walls instead, shaking the battlefield further as the screen fractured on impact, nearly splitting the table in two. In a moment of weakness and carelessness, Riki had come face-to-face with a brutal loss. He would have screamed in anger, but—
But that wasn’t all Kamon had to offer.
In an unforeseen twist, the marbles that’d decided Kamon’s ultimate victory, were still very much powered and spinning in place. From sparks and embers, the dark flame returned to life, reaching new heights that could easily tower Riki even without the arena’s footing.
His eyes darted over to Kamon, hoping that his friend had at least reestablished some semblance of control—no dice. Instead, he was greeted with a zealous smirk, as choking shouts detonated from countless familiar voices, all muddling into static.
Only Samuru’s voice reached through to him.
“Riki, look out!”
He turned around just in time to see a mortifying beast swallow him whole. Suddenly he couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet, for the monster has sunk its talons into his chest. It carried him far, far away from Dracyan, and the air was knocked out from his lungs when his back hit solid concrete, followed by the sound of a sickening crack coming from somewhere in his body.
The scary thing was he didn’t know where it had come from, and he wasn’t able to muster the energy to care.
Metal and rust rested heavy on his tongue. When he tried to breathe in, his chest made garbling noises instead. Dark spots danced in his vision, like flies that could be batted away by few swift slaps.
“…ki, can you hear me? Riki!”
Familiar faces swarmed around him, but none of them dared to make physical contact. More shouting, here and there, but Riki didn’t know what the fuss was all about. He’s fine, isn’t he? They always turn out fine. Everything will be fine.
Cold, clammy hands had grabbed onto his neck now, pulling him under. Before his eyelids fluttered shut, he caught a faraway silhouette from the gap of bodies and people—and Kamon didn’t look back once as he descended from the stage, a cloaked entourage welcoming their new addition.
He closed his eyes to the sound of frantic calls of his name and screaming.
Riki should have stayed asleep longer. But now he laid on a hospital bed, an open phone lying by his head, enduring what seemed to be an endless stream of helicopter worry.
“I saw everything on the broadcast!” a rather angry voice boomed from the other end. “What were you thinking—going up against someone like that? You could have…!”
His mother proceeded to go on an entire rant. How corrupt the system was to allow children participating in these disorderly fights they call entertainment; how careless was the security to let this incident slip under their noses; how reckless he and his friends had been to charge headfirst into danger; and so on.
He let her chide him, but he had to admit it stung when she called Kamon a “heartless monster.” As much as he wanted to refute her, he knew she wasn’t completely in the wrong. She hadn’t met Kamon, only getting secondhand news from blogs and the news because he’d been too busy to update her on his schedule. She didn’t like that either, which was another hot topic in their conversations.
He waited until his phone stopped buzzing. Then he nudged closer to the phone, wincing as his back screamed in agony with the slightest bit of movement. The back braces chafed uncomfortably into skin, but it was nothing compared to the stones that weighed his heart down.
“Mom,” he cut her off tiredly, gritting his teeth, “I’m fine. Really.”
The voice on the other end screeched indignantly. “Fine? Fine?!” she snapped. “Sumi only called me yesterday to inform me that my own son’s been in surgery for the last week. Yesterday! And you couldn’t have called me sooner?!”
He groaned. “I only woke up an hour ago—”
“An hour ago?”
The sudden edge in her tone caused Riki to wince. Mentally, he braced himself for another hour of shouting, his jaw tensing for what was about to come.
Instead, she merely sighed, lowering her volume.
“You promised me you’d stay safe,” she said quietly, voice shaking as if she was on the verge of tears. “I stayed up all night trying to reach you, your friends, and even the organizers. No one answered. Did you know how worried I was?”
Guilt panged in his chest, his heart sinking faster than the time Rudy succumbed to Dragold’s influence. “… I’m sorry, mom, things happened too fast and I’m still alone in the hospital…” His eyes slid to a blue figure sitting on the other side of his head. “Well, I’m with Dracyan, and we’re okay! I promise!”
Silence.
Riki wondered if he’d said something wrong, that he’d set off another fuse that he dreaded would flare up. His mother, when angry, could make even the fiercest of lions look tame. But radio silence was something else he feared altogether.
Eventually, she spoke again. “When can you be discharged from the hospital?”
Riki blinked. “Huh?”
Beeping sounds. She was typing something. “Can you call in a doctor? It’s okay if I have to pay extra for the trouble. Just give me the earliest date and I’ll send you the plane tickets.”
His heart dropped.
“Mom?”
The typing stopped.
“Riki, I love you. I really do,” she whispered, just barely audible. “Which is why I can’t let you stay in Crestland any longer. It’s simply too dangerous.”
“You can’t!” Riki shot up in instinct, only for him to cry out in pain as his injuries prevented him from exerting himself. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall as he cautiously laid back down. “I—I’m not done here yet—”
“You are.” His mother’s voice was firm. “The tournament’s over, Riki, and so is the exchange program. They ended days ago. There’s no reason for you to stay any further.”
There is! He wanted to say. But he couldn’t find his voice. He lied in bed, dejected as the line went quiet once more.
“Please,” his mother spoke up, “come home.”
The call ended.
And a new plane ticket found itself in his phone. As for whether or not it’ll be used… maybe it’s not his choice to make.
Dracyan filled in some gaps later, when Riki was ready to talk again.
For the past week, he’d been rushed in and out of emergency care, and at some point he’d had an emergency blood transfusion. He was mildly surprised by the news, but given he wasn’t conscious for any of it he couldn’t make proper judgement.
Kamon had injured him severely, fracturing his spine, shattering two ribs and fractured most of them. His shoulder was suffering from a second-degree burn, evident from the bandages wrapped around the joint. Supposedly there were more complications, but Dracyan hadn’t picked up on them, or he was reluctant to share for the sake of Riki’s peace of mind.
Somewhere along the road there’d been major backlash for what Kamon had done, but protestors were quickly silenced by the B-Grandmaster’s influence. Basara and Samuru allegedly had to keep watch to prevent any reporters from intruding his unit, which was both chilling and heartwarming to know that Basara of all people visited him in his sleep.
Kamon was being named Eastern B-Master as they speak. The live broadcast was being displayed on the TV screen hanging off the wall, which Riki could easily glimpse at. Many questions from the news mentioned Riki and his supposedly comatose state, but they were met with scoffs and dismissive shrugs, like it was the least of his problems.
It hurt, it really did. Even if he knew that Kamon wasn’t himself, it was still a slap in the face.
On paper, it was truly over. The new B-Master was proclaimed, and no more tournaments would be held until another B-Master were to step down. His friends had all calmed their trainings as the clean-up began, as stated by Dracyan, where no one came to see him for two days, and he hadn’t thought to contact them yet. His mom was right. There really was no reason for him to stay in Crestland any further.
But is it truly?
“Riki,” Dracyan’s voice called to him, “it’s unusually quiet.”
Riki stopped his train of thought, listening out. He couldn’t hear a sound, other than his own air conditioner. It was odd. The building was always buzzing with some type of life, whether it be another tournament or doctors’ footsteps rushing down the halls. He had to visit similar establishments for his friends before, and this wasn’t his first time ending up in a white room and bed.
So yes, Dracyan had a right to be suspicious. Riki turned to the live feed, which was pitch black and abruptly cut off. Last he checked, Kamon was being questioned about the future regarding plans to implement B-Daman training as a mandatory curriculum in select schools, which the Grandmaster answered in his place.
Something was wrong.
Riki fumbled for the button under his bed. His fingers grappled a cylindrical remote, and he reached for the button at the very top and pressed it. It gave a small beep for the sent signal, so he waited.
No one came even after waiting.
Something was seriously wrong.
Riki grit his teeth as he gathered the courage to press his elbows onto the mattress. “We’re going,” he hissed through clenched teeth, gasps leaking through them as he held onto the bed’s frames, pulling himself up by sheer will and force alone. It was a struggle, fighting against the current that was his own condition, and he only made it halfway through before he collapsed back onto the mattress, restrained by his body’s limits.
“Perhaps it’s best if you stay and contact someone for help,” Dracyan advised, but could offer nothing else in his partner’s predicament. “You may only worsen your own condition.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Riki shot back, words mixed with tears and grunts. “There won’t be anyone to come help if we stay and do nothing.”
“Your mother wishes to see you alive and well.”
The B-shot paused.
Not for long, however, as the door was suddenly slammed open, revealing a clearly winded Samuru and Yuki, both leaning on the frame to catch their breaths.
“Guys? Uh, are you okay?”
Samuru rushed forward and grabbed the bedframe. “We need to go.” He scowled, turning to a compartment in the wall. He pulled out a hidden drawer filled with compactible wheelchairs and unfolded one, then turned back to Riki.
“What’s happening?” Riki asked, reattempting to sit up, but ultimately failed as his back refused to give him leeway. This time, he choked and hacked on his own spit, as the ache left him paralyzed on the spot.
Samuru’s cold demeanor gave way to concern. “I’ll try to be as gentle as I can,” he promised, not explaining further. He motioned for Yuki to come over, and together they helped Riki onto the wheelchair, albeit with some difficulty. Samuru grabbed Dracyan from the bed and they made their exit.
Riki thanked his lucky stars that the infirmary’s floorboards were flat, so even if Samuru was running whilst pushing his wheelchair, it had been smooth sailing. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for their breakout for Riki to discover why he’d been busted out in the first place.
“Are those—are those robots?”
A swarm of golden bots blocked their path, unmanned but just as overwhelming. Riki squinted at the machines—weren’t those part of the tournament? Why were they here?
Samuru cursed loudly and readied Dravise, but not before dropping Dracyan back into Riki’s lap. Yuki followed suit and armed himself with Eagle, firing one shot after another to keep the robots at bay, but it only served to push them back, not defeat them.
“What’s going on?” Riki demanded, raising Dracyan to fire, but flinched violently as his left shoulder throbbed. It felt like someone was carving through his flesh with a life, forcing him to drop Dracyan. His fingers twitched uncontrollably, numb to the touch. Just how much damage did he sustain from that one stray flame? “I can’t—”
“I didn’t expect you to,” Samuru interrupted him impatiently, but it was given due to the circumstances. “You’re still wounded. Be our lookout and make sure no one sneaks up on us.”
He had mixed feelings about being benched, but he was left with no other option. With his arm, he’d be holding them back if he even tried to charge his emblems. So he bit his tongue, sweat trickling down his face as the bots gradually increased in numbers, becoming a force they’d bitten off more than they could chew…
A chill ran down Riki’s back.
“Behind us!”
Yuki whipped around just in time to release Eagle in its full form, but it was quickly dissipated by a sickening dark flame emerging from the opposition.
Riki froze as the bolt of flame was only inches from his cheek. Even without immediate contact, it left a patch of heated, reddened skin in its wake.
Not now.
“So, this is where you’ve run off to,” Kamon grumbled, flanked by the Grandmaster and Bakuga themselves. “This is a pointless struggle. Surrender your B-Daman and I’ll allow you to walk away in one piece.”
His heart hammered against his ribcage as he choked on his own breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly, the skin under the layers of bandages tightening around steel thread. A result of his surgeries, no doubt, but could he help his friends to escape in any shape or form? Or was he essentially invalid, when his arm could no longer support the B-Daman even when he’d burned the muscle memory into his flesh?
No matter how Riki looked at it, there was no way out. He had absolute faith in his friends’ strengths – which was why he knew there was no chance they’d escape through brute force alone. Now that Kamon’s on the Grandmaster’s side, they were on their turf, playing by the rules that had the odds stacked against them. If Kamon were alone and Riki were at full strength, maybe he’d be able to defeat him, but now?
They might as well be handing their heads up on a silver platter.
Kamon’s eyes narrowed in Riki’s direction. Every hair on Riki’s neck stood on its ends, palms clammy with sweat. His throat constricted, an invisible bind tightening around his neck, a noose that approached him as Kamon opened his mouth.
“Pathetic,” he quipped, a faint hint of a smirk showing on his lips. “The former Crossfire Champion; reduced to such a sorry state.” He shook his head in false sympathy. “It really makes me wonder how you even got the position. Slim pickings, I’d wager.”
Riki couldn’t breathe, staring straight at the lifeless B-Daman in Kamon’s hand. From recollection, Garuburn had never been one to remain silent, yet he remained indifferent as the events unfolded right before his eyes. But Garuburn’s newfound solemness hadn’t been what Riki was looking for.
He gazed right at the heart of Garuburn’s core, directly at the sapphire stone that started it all. All of a sudden he was no longer facing Kamon and his new allies.
He found himself on his feet, standing before a crossfire arena with spotlights bright enough to scald. When he looked around, he saw no one, hearing only a broken record of a mantra playing on repeat.
…, look out…
… ki, … out…
… Riki…
Riki whirled around to the scoreboard. There was no score, for all the screens and monitors have been smashed into pieces, and the dozens of marbles peppering the arena had been proof of such. The marbles spun and came to life, dark fire reigniting as they merged into one, bone-chilling beast. Lightning struck all around him, and all that’s left was a battered arena and himself.
He tried to move his legs, but they were stuck to the ground, nails hammered through his shoes and into the floor. He cried out, but his voice was completely silenced by a distant, quiet microphone.
“Pathetic,” said the beast, and the fires engulfed him whole. Through the flames, another figure emerged. One with a long, slender body, rising from the darkness like a snake pouncing on its prey. Two blue eyes gazed down upon him and lunged.
Riki screamed.
This time around, his voice finally reached his ears.
And everyone else’s.
The wall by them collapsed into a heap of debris, forcing everyone present to shield their eyes from the fallout. Samuru moved towards Riki, shielding him from the wind with his own self. Riki’s eyes were still blown wide, chest and shoulders heaving while he trembled like a leaf in a storm, desperately searching for an anchor to hold onto.
“Move it!” Basara’s voice boomed from the dust, and Yuki acted quickly. He tugged on Samuru’s wrist and pushed Riki’s wheelchair through the manmade exit, just as a black dragon, a bee and a scorpion threw themselves into the chaos, kicking up smoke to veil their escape.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Misuru shrieked, pulling Samuru onto the cart whilst Basara and Ken helped Riki off his wheelchair. He yelped as strikes of dark energy cut through the smoke, clearing their distraction almost instantaneously.
“We have to go!” Novu stressed, glaring at the cart’s open gate. Once Ken helped Riki lie down on the seats, Basara kicked the wheelchair—which would serve as dead weight—off and shut it. He whipped towards Greg. “Step on it, now!”
With a nod, the man restarted the engine, and they drove off before any of the B-Masters could catch up to them. Blasting through obstacles and walls, they made it out of the tournament with their lives and their B-Daman, but at the same time, had left their friend behind in a wolf’s den.
“How’re you feeling?” Sumi asked, kneeling on the floor with half of their group. They unanimously agreed to let Riki have the entire seat for himself so he could have a place to lie down, and the B-shot didn’t look to be in a condition to be protesting against it.
Riki covered his face with his good arm, still paler than usual. “… I don’t know what came over me,” he whispered, voice low. “I was fine, then… but…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Samuru interrupted. He sat next to Sumi, being one of the ones to have the floor. The cart vibrated as Greg drove back to his workshop at top speed. “What matters is we got out safely. Save your strength to recuperate.”
Samuru studied Riki’s condition. He looked worse for wear, but it’s ample improvement from moments ago. When he’d been loaded up to the cart, he’d been curled up and hyperventilating, trying to get air into his lungs. Simon and Sumi had to tear his hands from his chest in fear that he would undo his own stitches. They tried giving him Dracyan to calm him, but it seemed to only make matters worse, and Dracyan almost ended up as scrap on the bottom of a wheel.
As of now, the sapphire dragon was placed next to Dravise and Lightning Rabbit. Poor Dracyan.
“Here on out, what should we do?”
Everyone turned to Simon, who flushed at the sudden attention.
“I mean… B-Daman is now, thanks to Day, illegal,” he spat, not noticing Greg’s wince when his son was mentioned. “What’s the plan from now on?”
Novu hummed and thought about it. “The only logical choice is to return to mainland Japan.” He sighed. “Crestland’s B-Masters’ influence is only effective in their own turf. Back home, they hold little to no power.”
Misuru raised a hand. “Bzzt, how’s Crossfire like?” he quizzed, having never heard much about the system outside of Crestland. “I know some B-shots saved the world a while back, but that’s all I know. There’s nothing about its internal workings before B-Daman became a worldwide sport, bzzt.”
Novu, Samuru and Basara made the wise choice to remain silent. Recalling some unpleasant memories, perhaps.
“The gist of it is that it’s every B-Shot for themselves,” Simon explained, thinking back. “Call me a snob, but things were way simpler back then. There’s no such things as B-Masters or the like. You fight, you win, then you fight again. No audiences, no merchandise, no nothing. Just us and our B-Daman, united against everyone else. And there’s only one person in charge, and that’s the Champion. If Riki tells us to crawl, then no one would be caught dead walking.”
“Riki has that much authority?” Ken realized. “How long has he been playing for?”
“A year,” Samuru supplied. He remembered the encounter with the B-shot when he was manning a B-Daman stall, still painfully oblivious of the inner workings of the circle. “Perhaps less than that. But it just goes to show how talented he is.”
“But Kamon has been a B-Master for a long time now, even before today,” Misuru said. “Does that mean…?”
“Given time, Riki will surpass Kamon,” Novu agreed. “It’s only a matter of time. But that’s the one thing we don’t have – before this ridiculous rule solidifies itself in Crestland, we have to defeat Kamon in a roadfight lest you kiss your B-Daman goodbye.”
“Not to mention the press,” Yuki fumed. “I don’t want to imagine the nightmare that is any media who catches wind about Kamon Day, an outlander B-Master publicly attacking Crossfire B-Shots. Maybe it’s already made its way back to our home and blown way out of proportion.”
Though there are many branches of B-Daman tournaments all across the globe, the Crossfire segment is still considered the heart of the B-Daman association. Officially, while Crestland rivals Crossfire in sheer firepower due to their advances in tournaments, Crossfire still outranks Crestland in authority and influence. It was the equivalent of a village chief assaulting the king with a kitchen knife.
“We shouldn’t have made our participation public knowledge,” Basara groused. “There’d be less rumors and fallout we have to deal with.”
Novu shot him a look. “It was mutual agreement that we help Crestland with publicity,” he reminded him. “Don’t act as if you know better than the rest of us.”
Misuru almost forgot that most of the people here were celebrity B-shots. The last he checked, he remembered seeing Samuru’s face on several cereal boxes when he went to the supermarket and Novu’s cardboard cutout on the magazine section.
It’s pretty damning to come to terms with the fact that the people he’s hanging out with are the faces he’s had to see every morning when he makes breakfast for himself. Not a good first impression.
Ken coughed into his hand. “Let’s ignore the press, for now,” he suggested, diverting their attention. “Riki, the only one who matches Kamon in firepower, is out of the playing field. They know this, and it’s likely that Kamon deliberately made an example out of him to discourage any competition.”
Misuru shot up. “Kamon’s not—”
“—not himself,” Samuru shut him up.
Misuru did.
The rest of the journey back was quiet. Save for Sumi, who was watching the B-Masters’ speeches on live broadcast on her phone.
When it was Kamon’s turn to speak, Riki jostled from his sleep, but he calmed down after Samuru squeezed his hand reassuringly. Those more familiar to the two were confused by their closeness, knowing they had bonded over the years but to what extent, it was unclear. Either way, it wasn’t the right time to ask.
The rest of the journey was continued in silence.
Samuru patted Riki’s good shoulder to rouse him from his sleep. He didn’t dare jostle him in fear of worsening his injuries, apparent from the specks of blood stained on his shirt. They would have to treat that again later.
With the wagon parked in the garage, the group gingerly unloaded from the cart, soles dragging along the ground and shoulders sagging from their bodies. No one looked to be in good condition, but at the very least they were safe and sound.
Riki cracked open an eye. “Samuru?” he slurred, still drowsy from sleep. “What’s…”
“We’re in Greg’s workshop,” Samuru filled in the blanks for him. “Can you stand?”
“Tired.”
Samuru sighed. “We all are.” His voice tightened. “But your wounds need tending to.”
“I can clean them myself.”
“No, you can’t. Riki, you’re mentally unavailable.” It was a statement, not a speculation. “Now tell me, are you in any pain?”
Riki squeezed his eyes shut. “Back hurts,” he whimpered. “So does my chest and shoulder.”
“The doctor said your spine was fractured,” Samuru explained, calling forth the memories of when the white-robed professional gave him details while he, Dracyan, Dravise and Sumi waited for Riki outside the OR. Sumi had fallen asleep, so he was the only one available. “They fixed up your ribs; but for your spine, it’s all up to natural recovery.”
Riki didn’t respond, but his coherency was relayed through a pursed lip and a miserable grunt.
The sound of creaking turned Samuru’s head towards the door. It was Sumi, pushing a wheelchair up the wagon’s ramp, Greg right behind him. “I never thought I’d use this after my son’s accident,” Greg admitted, eyes clouded with grief. “Especially for…” He didn’t continue.
“Aona’s getting food!” Sumi chirped, trying to lighten the mood. “Hope you’re in the mood for some pizza. That is, if the delivery guy isn’t some B-Master in disguise!”
The joke was bad and even Sumi knew it. They ignored the jest and helped Riki onto the wheelchair, careful to avoid his injuries and back. When he was seated, Riki looked around, as if to look for something, but it was soon placated.
“Dracyan is with the others,” Sumi hummed, pushing Riki down the ramp, careful to keep the process smooth and unhindered. “Greg said he’d give all our B-Daman a checkup, just in case!”
Riki calmed at that, but his posture was still somewhat stiff. His injuries should be the cause, Samuru guessed.
Once they were inside, however, his speculation had been wrong. Greg’s workshop was typical for a B-daman maintenance, nothing short of ordinary and unsuspicious, but Riki raised his hand towards Samuru, eyes fixed on his shoes.
Samuru gave him his ungloved hand, the fabric removed to dry his sweat that had been pooling inside the clothing. His skin was clammy and cold, but Riki didn’t seem to mind, squeezing it three brief times in quick succession.
The older B-shot’s eyes widened. “Where?” He followed Riki’s pointed finger, and clenched his teeth. “… alright. I don’t think Greg will mind if we find a spare room to use.” He turned to Sumi. “I’ll take over. You go join the rest.”
There was no place for protest, as Samuru spun the wheelchair around and headed further inside the workshop.
“Hey, we found the first aid kit, bzzt bzzt!” Misuru burst into the room with Simon, holding a white box with a red cross at the front. The top layer was blanketed with dust from unuse.
Simon scanned the area. “Where’s Riki and Samuru?” he quizzed, puzzled by their disappearance. “We thought you left to fetch them!”
“They went to look for a spare room.” Sumi gestured to the direction they left off to. “I don’t know why, but they seemed unwell. Maybe something happened?”
Misuru and Simon exchanged glances. In the short time they’ve met, they came to know each other rather quickly. Their alliance could spell doom for everyone else’s sanities, or the exact opposite.
“We can go look for them,” Simon offered. Misuru nodded fervently.
“I’ll come with,” Sumi agreed.
“Look for who?”
They spun on their heels. Samuru was standing behind them, bare hands on his hips. He’d completely unloaded himself, his yellow coat forgone and leaving a black shirt in its place, looking more tired than any of them.
“Samuru!” Simon yelped.
“What, too cool to join the rest of us?” Misuru jabbed, thought here was little bark to his bite. “You could never be too good for free pizza.”
Samuru ignored him. He walked straight past the entourage and headed towards the adjacent room. When he opened the door, the distinct chattering died down, and soon Samuru reappeared with Basara and Novu in tow, the latter plucking the medkit from Misuru as they passed by.
“I thought they hated each other,” Misuru whispered to Simon after they heard a door being clicked shut from a distance, flicking dust off his hand.
Simon shrugged. He wasn’t in the exclusive dragon b-shot club, so he wasn’t in the loop with those four.
“It’s rather surprising to see that you’ve become so close,” Novu commented, squinting closely at the half-empty bottles. “Is there any particular reason for your sudden advance in trust?”
Samuru sat on a neatly made bed, back pressed against the walls. “It’s nothing special.” He massaged his sore shoulder, keeping an eye on Riki’s telltale signs of distress when Novu leaned close to examine the nature of his stitches. “We attend therapy together; that’s it.”
The albino paused, blinking. “Therapy?” he inquired, curious. “If you don’t mind me asking: what for?”
“A variety of reasons, at first; nothing serious to make revisits,” Samuru answered without hesitation. “But the incident with Dragold turned it into a regular occurrence.”
Basara grunted. It was the only way he chose to express himself when he needs to give an opinion. He can be wise when he needs to be. “It’s ironic,” he joked half-heartedly, avoiding eye contact. “Considering we’ve been seeing one as well.”
Riki looked up. He was still shaken and, but the confusion on his face was enough to warrant an answer. “You and Basara- therapy?”
“He’s making effort to correct his anger issues,” Novu explained, expression neutral. “And as for mine… ‘Low self-esteem,’ ‘narcissistic, sociopathic behavior,’ was what our therapist said.” He set down the bottle and dug for another. “And since the source of our problems stem from similar backgrounds, we were assigned group therapy with each other. Funny, isn’t it?”
He popped open a bottle and wafted air to his nose, face scrunching up. “I doubt these are still usable. If anything, they’re going to cause an infection.”
Samuru’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Then what do you propose?”
“We’ll make do.” Novu closed the kit. He was the only one with any semblance of medical knowledge, so they’ll have to count on his word. “Unwrap these and boil it in water for five minutes. Get another pot boiling while you’re there.” He tossed the plastic-wrapped gauze to Basara, who caught it singlehandedly. “It’s best to prevent direct contact with water with the injury. A dry bath should be our best bet… I’m going to unwrap your shoulder. Tell me if it starts hurting.”
Riki nodded, but he kept his eyes closed as Novu snipped away at the bandages. Basara left the room with the gauze in hand, and Samuru could only pray he wouldn’t clash with the other B-shots.
It was uncanny to see the two older B-shots work together, considering their history. Never in a million years did Samuru expect to hear the words “our therapist” come from Novu and Basara. But he hadn’t saw himself working out safe words with Riki either, so his judgement was biased in some form.
Life works in mysterious ways.
Samuru’s eyelids drooped. Riki was in safe hands—if the him from last year knew he’d call Novu’s hands “safe,” he would have dropped himself from a building—and there was no immediate threat. He curled up on himself and leaned onto the wall, closing his eyes as the sound of scissors snipping echoed throughout the room.
The snipping stopped, and Samuru began to drift off.
“Huh,” Novu said, mildly surprised. Samuru’s coherency blurred.
“I see,” the albino continued. Samuru’s breathing shallowed.
“There’s no burn at all. Why the wrappings?” Samuru’s little bubble was burst and he blinked awake, vision swimming from the rude awakening.
Riki stared at his bare shoulder, incomprehension muddled on his features. Slowly, he ran his fingers along the joint and limb, eyes wide. A million questions coursed behind them, but not one was spit from his tongue.
Samuru massaged his temple and scooched over. He was groggy, the world spinning around him, but kept his focus on the healed, untouched skin on Riki’s supposed injury. He was there when the doctors changed Riki’s bandages two days ago. How could it have healed so quickly?
“It—it feels fine,” Riki stuttered, bewildered as he lifted his arm unimpeded. “But just now, when we ran into the Grandmaster—”
“Whatever it is,” Samuru cut in tiredly, “we shouldn’t question it.”
As if all the strength had been zapped from his body, Samuru collapsed onto the bed, lying face first into the mattress. Compared to the arena’s cardboard-like beds, this was miles better. Playing the role of a support beam was nothing short of draining – but without anyone else to take up the mantle, he could only bite his lip to tide himself over until Riki’s out of distress.
But selfishly, he wanted to mind his own business, drown out the world and did whatever he pleased. He missed the lonesome times he had in the past, with no one to count on except for Dravise. It may have been lonely, but at the very least he wasn’t kept on a leash, the collar on his neck tightening as he was burdened with more social responsibility.
They didn’t bother him any further. Riki, while emotionally absent, still clearly recognized Samuru’s inevitable signs of spiraling. The rest of his and Novu’s exchange was made in hushed whispers, careful to let the other’s frazzled nerves settle lest they trigger a chain reaction.
“Why’d you decide to attend therapy?” Novu whispered, keeping his voice down. “With Samuru, nonetheless.”
A pause in motion. “It… was a rash decision,” he said truthfully. “I knew I wanted help, but I didn’t know from whom. Then I brought it up with Samuru during lunch… and it escalated from there.” He chuckled dryly without any form of humor. “It was supposed to be me and the therapist, Samuru keeping me company; but she must have noticed something about him, so she sat him down and ran the basic assessment. Then she told him that he is in severe need of therapy, like me. He spent the next week in denial, but he came around after Dravise threw his unhealthy habits back at his face.”
Novu snorted so hard it sounded like it hurt. It had been groundbreaking, at the time, but looking back, Riki had to admit it was somewhat comically ironic.
“Yours went quite differently from me and Basara.” Novu wiped a tear from his eye, turning serious. “Back then… after Dragold, I realized I needed to improve myself. I did some research, went to the same therapist for a few times, then he told me that I was going to have a friend in my sessions from there on.” He sighed from his nose. “Imagine my surprise when I see that boy at the door, and he looked just as baffled as I am when our therapist introduced us to each other. ‘Don’t be shy, introduce yourself,’ he’d said to me, and I’m certain Basara was a sliver away from strangling me with his bare hands.”
The sound of Riki’s muffled laughter leaked through his fingers. Really, it shouldn’t have come as much as a shocker that it should have, but it was comforting to know that even the more experienced B-shots are all in the same boat. Even more so when they’re the same people who he fought alongside to save the world, risking all but their trust in each other.
None of them had left that battle unscathed, and that was okay.
Novu laced his hands together. “Don’t let the brat know, but I’m grateful that he pulled me and Basara from the crowd.” He heaved a sigh. “Honestly. They have no sense of decency. All that yelling over pointless things is driving me nuts.”
“They’re great friends,” Riki defended, but agreed meekly regardless. “But… sometimes, they can be overwhelming. I’m lucky to have Samuru there to keep me grounded.”
At first, Novu didn’t reply. Riki tilted his head towards him, dread pooling in his stomach wondering if he’s said anything wrong, but the elder’s face was an incredulous one. Not at all malicious or disgusted.
“Huh.” Novu quirked his lip. “It seems that we have more in common than I thought, Ryugasaki.”
The door parted to reveal Basara, holding two flat boxes and a plastic bag in one hand and a bottle of juice in the other. When he entered, his eyes jumped between Novu and Riki as if spectating a tennis match, and decided that whatever he was interrupting wasn’t as important as the pizza cooling into cardboard.
“Food’s here.” He set them down onto the study desk, then handed Riki the plastic bag. “Here’s the pain meds. Wouldn’t recommend taking too much; they’re the drowsy type and there ain’t no way for us to get the other types.”
Riki brushed a finger over his stitches. The flesh around the cut stung as he breathed, the pain worsening as time passed and so was the pressure lodged in his chest. He hadn’t noticed the condition he was in when he escaped – it had been a blur of confusion and adrenaline keeping him blissfully ignorant. Now that they’re settled, the full weight of reality readily sunk in, leaving him in a battered body to the mercy of a wheelchair.
Novu’s nose scrunched at the smell of grease and cheese. “Honestly, I don’t know how anyone would have the appetite for these guilty pleasures at this hour,” he gagged, covering his nose.
Basara opened the top box. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” He rolled up his sleeves and took a slice with pineapple and prawn for himself. “It was the only restaurant available. Their paycheck must be horrible if they’re willing to risk their behinds to deliver pizza to wanted fugitives.”
Novu buried his face into his hands, screaming into the void.
Kamon stood before a used infirmary bed, Garuburn in hand.
The bed itself was untidy, the sheets and pillow carelessly thrown aside, as if the patient had been in a great hurry. Specks of blood peppered the mattress, already dried and turned copper in color.
He’d underestimated the outlanders’ loyalty and resilience. Individually, they were easily crushed, some more than the others. But he had lacked the insight to foresee the tenacity of their combined forces, their pitiful trust strengthening their weakest links into something remotely competent.
Liabilities, all of them. And the biggest threat among them all was still alive. Still on the opposing side. If they couldn’t reign Riki in before he returned to full strength, his brother’s carefully sculpted plan could very well fall apart in the blink of an eye.
Kamon chewed his thumbnail, glowering into the dark room.
What could he do? Bakuga and Jenta are weak. The Grandmaster was the one expecting results from him. Storming their base of operations alone was suicide. Their head was incapacitated, but he already made the mistake of looking down on the main body. He wasn’t confident that he could tackle the other three dragons and emerge victorious.
Buzz.
Tasting blood from his thumb, Kamon casted his gaze downwards; to the pile of blankets heaped on the floor, where a faint blue screen just barely penetrated through the fabric.
He knelt down and fished the phone out, reading incoming messages on a cracked screen.
A sneer pulled the tips of his lips into a cruel smirk. The answer had come to him.
Samuru had a hand on his hip, leaning over the table with a frown. “Alright, what do we have?”
Misuru had his computer set up on a foldable table, the screen turned for everyone to see. “I’ve sent out my bee drones around the area, bzzt.” He scrolled to the right, showing the crowd the different angles he’d been capturing for the past few hours. “Ken and Yuki examined the footage together, and they confirmed that they haven’t left the building ever since we broke out, bzzt.”
“Nothing on social media, either,” Simon supplied, looking up from his phone. A particularly nasty article caught his eye, causing him to grimace. It was a news article about a Kamon hate page rapidly gaining popularity after the news of the duel was plastered all over the world’s front pages. “Well, other than the blatant hypocrisy from the internet, but that’s a given.”
“They could be sending people after us,” Ken suggested, stepping forward. “It’s not out of character for the B-Masters to send someone else to do their dirty work.”
“Excuse my bluntness, but I sincerely doubt their men are skilled enough to handle our combined forces,” Novu shot down Ken’s idea. “All other B-shots in Crestland have gone into hiding. The trust in the B-Masters have been crippled beyond repair. Alone, the B-Masters are indeed powerful, but the one thing they do not have is morale or loyalty. Even mindless droids require a commander, but the authority needed to operate them is limited to only five people.”
“Four,” Ken corrected him. “The Grandmaster himself; Jenta Kokuji, the Northern B-Master; Bakuga Shira, the Western B-Master.” He scowled. “And now Kamon Day, the Eastern and Southern B-Master.”
Yuki frowned. “But surely the other B-Masters don’t agree with Kamon?” he pressed. “Sure, they enforced roadfight policies; but they didn’t outright ban B-Daman altogether. And didn’t Kamon only win the title of the Eastern B-Master?”
The wolf B-shot shuffled uncomfortably in his spot. Everyone turned to him. “Kamon was once the Southern B-Master, before his sudden disappearance,” he explained, clearly not used to being in the spotlight. “He was inactive, but the Grandmaster never denounced his position. And with Kamon in control of half of Crestland, they don’t get a say in the situation.”
The room detonated into chaos.
Sumi blanched. “You can’t be serious! That’s still two votes against one!”
“We don’t even know if they agreed to it or not,” Novu groused. “For all we know they support this delusion just as much as Kamon and the Grandmaster does.”
“You think Kamon would agree to this? They did something to him with all that black energy and vodoo!” Misuru yelled.
“Just because he’s not in his right mind doesn’t mean we should lay down our B-daman and stick our heads through a guillotine,” Simon snapped.
Samuru turned to Misuru, who was glaring daggers at Simon. “Kamon, at the moment, is our enemy. We should focus on ourselves before sparing any thought about him.”
“Guys.” From his wheelchair, Riki spoke up, but his voice was drowned out by all the shouting.
Misuru turned beet red. “You—! We can’t just abandon him!”
Basara glowered. “We can’t save anyone from drowning with a sinking raft. Unless you want to be thrown overboard?”
“Guys—” Riki tried again, but more shouting cut him off.
“I say we head back to Crossfire and mind our own business,” Novu vamped to Yuki, unbothered by the rest. “I’m not about to dive headfirst into another situation where I have to help save the world.”
Misuru spun towards Novu, stabbing a finger at his direction. “Now you’re jumping ship?!”
Basara snorted. “It wasn’t our ship to begin with. Really, all it takes is a private plane and some contacts, and we’ll be back in a hinged tournament where our champion hasn’t lost his dang mind.”
“GUYS!” Riki exploded.
Everyone shut up and turned to the boy.
The B-shot was red-faced, his shoulders rising and falling as he panted from exertion. Teeth gritted, he had his hands clenching around the armrests tightly, while he glared straight into the heart of the room.
Riki swiveled to Ken. “Kamon’s authority holds the most power, right?” Ken nodded warily, and Riki addressed the crowd once more. “That just means all we have to do is defeat Kamon in a roadfight.”
Samuru’s brows furrowed. “Riki—”
“In a roadfight, the winner has the ultimate say to what happens to the loser. Am I correct?” Several nods. “Then we find a way to get to him, challenge him directly, and win.” He put a hand up, silencing the incoming arguments from different directions. “Kamon has home turf advantage. If he wanted us sniffed out, we would be gone. He has the information and the firepower. And the fact that we’re still here means that he isn’t actively hunting us down.”
He wheeled himself towards the table, gesturing for Misuru’s computer. The latter cautiously pushed it over to him, setting it at just the suitable distance for Riki to access.
Everyone leaned in, curious of the new development. They watched Riki scroll to the earliest moments of the footage and froze the frame. It was when they escaped the facility on the wagon, and Misuru’s bees had captured what they have not been present to witness. The videos didn’t have audio, but their body language alone was enough for them to decipher their intent.
Once they fled, Kamon was seen dismissing the drones with the flick of his hand, all the while exchanging words with Bakuga in a heated manner. The Grandmaster cut in and broke them up, and they all vanished into the compound, seemingly disinterested in making chase to the escapees.
“They had ample opportunity to ambush us from behind.” Riki rewound the first few seconds, pointing at Kamon grabbing Bakuga’s wrist to lower his B-Daman from shooting. “But they didn’t. I had been delirious, but even I knew we spent a long time trying to break out. They could station those robots at the exit, but they didn’t. They let us go, just like that.”
“That makes no sense,” Ken bewildered. “Why would they…? No. It’s a trap. It has to be!”
“It could,” Yuki agreed. “Maybe their strategy is to bide time and lower our guards. Or they’re right outside Greg’s workshop, waiting to break in at the perfect moment.”
“Or they’re luring us back in,” Samuru realized. “Back into the lion’s den.”
“Only a fool would poke the hornet’s nest after being stung,” Sumi disagreed. “A fool is only a fool for doing the expected.”
Basara slammed the table. “Then we’re about to be the royal jester.”
“It’s our best option.” Novu held his chin, contemplating. “We take the fight to them on our terms. If we’re lucky, they might not even expect us.”
Simon jabbed his index finger at their direction. “Since when do you two agree on something?” he gawked, stupefied by their sudden eclipse in opinion.
They snapped to him, jaws wide open and ready to bite back, but a long, stretched out yawn pierced through their bubble. Sumi rubbed her eyes, leaning on the wall to conserve her energy. All the tension died down immediately, and the soreness settled back into the B-shots’ bones.
“We’ll continue this first thing tomorrow,” Samuru adjourned the meeting. “Someone go check up on Greg and his progress on our B-Daman.”
Sumi and Simon volunteered, so they headed towards the direction of the workshop, stretching their limbs and wringing the sleepiness from their muscles. Everyone else searched for some place to sleep, with Aona at the helm passing out spare blankets, pillows, towels, disposable toothbrushes and cups of hot chocolate.
Samuru pushed Riki’s wheelchair back to the spare room they found earlier. The others had the respect to give them space due to Riki’s injuries, leaving the room for the four dragon b-shots to share. It was still crowded, as the three had to share the floor with Riki taking the bed.
“Hey, Samuru,” Riki said as they walked down the corridor, passing by Misuru who was heading back to the meeting room with hot chocolate in hand, twirling a new USB drive in his fingers.
Samuru made a noise of acknowledgement, blinking the flashing spots from his eyes. A migraine was gradually building up behind his eyes, so he was grateful that meeting ended where it did before it worsened.
“I want to talk to Dracyan.” They stopped. “I know you’re tired. You can clean up and head to sleep first. My arm’s healed now, so I can wheel myself over just fine.”
“… Are you sure?”
Riki nodded firmly. “I am.” To prove it, he put his hands on the wheels and gave it a push. It was nothing like the bulky hospital wheelchair they used to bust him from the place. This wheelchair was designed for self-reliant movement, lighter and smaller in size. “See? Perfectly peachy.”
His back ached when he put force into his movements, but all it did was made its presence known. It hardly hindered his movement unless he paid full attention to it.
Samuru was silent for a moment, and he gave him the pass with a nod of the head. He retreated to their shared room, back hunched and yawning, and closed the door behind him. Riki’s gaze followed him throughout, only peeling away when the door was shut. Then he turned, palms sweaty on the metal wheels while he pushed himself to Greg’s workshop.
He met Sumi and Simon outside, who were equally scandalized and astonished to see him roaming around by himself, but he eased their worries just as quick. He told them about his objective, and Sumi offered to grab Dracyan for him while Simon left to find a place to crash for the night.
“Here!” Sumi surfaced from the workshop, holding Dracyan to her friend. The cheerfulness in her voice was strained, a façade beginning to crack from the direness of it all. “Greg said he wanted to look at Dracyan more thoroughly after, just in case.”
Riki nodded, taking Dracyan with a smile. “Got it. Thanks, Sumi.”
He waved to her as she raced for the next spot in the bathroom, grabbing a towel and toothbrush that she’d set aside earlier. Footsteps echoed throughout the hall, and he waited until all he heard was silence.
“Riki.” From his lap, Dracyan spoke up. From Sumi’s hands and back to him, Riki hadn’t looked at his partner once, despite holding him in his very hand. “Is everything alright?”
Riki let his smile drop, the grip on the B-Daman tightening.
“No,” he answered honestly, voice dropping below a whisper.
The plan was simple. Pathetically so.
At the butt crack of dawn, Simon and Misuru had gone around the rooms banging pots and pans, waking everyone they came across with loud metal and steel. This earned them miscellaneous projectiles to the face, like Yuki’s novel, Ken’s pillow and Sumi’s portable camera stand. By the time they arrived for breakfast, withering under murderous glares and rude gestures, they were sporting several fresh bruises and bumps on their scalps.
They had a quick meal of buttered toast dispensed by Greg’s miniature toaster, and warm tea from a store-bought, family-sized pitcher that had been on sale for 230 yen. Knowing what the rest of the day would entail, the group gnawed on burnt toast as gleefully as a child screaming over a dropped ice-cream cone. Basara’s toast was telltale of his true, inner feelings, betraying his neutral demeanor in the form of a loud squelch of dairy and oil the moment his teeth sank into the half-soaked, half-charred bread.
No one commented on it.
“Is everyone clear on their positions?” Novu pointed to the plans on the wall, scrawled on paper they stuck together as a temporary planning board. A rough diagram of the district and personalized stick figures were drawn on it. “Speak now before a marble shatters all your teeth, then finding out the hard way your insurance doesn’t cover dental appointments.”
Ken cleared his throat. Novu cocked an eyebrow, mildly disappointed that out of all the troublemakers in the room, he was the one that responded.
“Where does Riki fit into all of this?” he asked, calling out the elephant in the room. The young Champion was nowhere to be seen, whether from breakfast or the long queue for the bathroom.
“He’s injured and therefore not involved in this operation,” Novu answered, gesturing to Basara. “Basara here, will be taking Riki’s place in challenging Kamon. He’s our second best shot.” He put his hand down. “And if he loses, we’ll need to buy enough time for our escape.”
Basara snorted. “And if a roadfight’s not possible, we’d still have a chance of beating him up.”
Ken nodded, placated by the answer but not entirely satiated. Novu could understand his restlessness. While he had faith in his friend’s capabilities, they were well aware of the damage Kamon can and will cause to his opponents. Basara had the most experience in roughhousing and brawls – he stood the most chance out of leaving unscathed if things were to go south.
Simon grimaced. “Uh oh.” He shifted on his feet. “If there’s anything I know about Riki, it’s that he doesn’t like being left out of plans.”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Basara crossed his arms. “He barely reacted to the ruckus you two made earlier. We’ll be gone and back before he realizes it.”
“But how are we going to get there?” Yuki raised a palm. “The streets are crawling with Crestland officials waiting to sniff us out.”
Novu grinned. “I’m glad you asked.” He capped the marker then set it on the table. “I called in a favor.”
The giveaway howl of a helicopter’s blades boomed right above them.
When Riki came to, he was greeted with a world of calm.
For the first time in weeks, he couldn’t hear anyone. Not breathing, not snoring, and especially not echoes of footsteps running down the hall.
It was a stark difference from his daily routine.
Ever since he’d become Champion, his schedule had been packed to the brim. Between attending the occasional interview and advertisement shoots, he was always hopping from one state to another, attending B-daman battles and ensuring that no district is being mistreated. His close friends had come with him, and their presence led to rowdy mornings. Rarely had he ever woken up to peace and quiet, but Samuru was mostly willing to bunk with him if he ever needed it.
But this silence was bone chilling. It could spell two things: the calm before the storm, or the stillness after devastation. His friends were either on their merry way to confront Kamon, or they were all brutally defeated and broken down. He could have slept for hours after their demise with no way to reach them.
After tearing the sheets from his body, he painstakingly dragged himself onto the wheelchair, wary of aggravating his injuries any further. The journey outside proved that he was now completely alone in Greg’s workshop – no hint of life, no sound or movement. Even the burnt smell wafting from the breakroom was faded, just barely washed away by the circulating air.
The lights were all off, the air conditioning quiet. Riki could take a relaxing stroll down an abandoned hospital and it’d still be less eerie. Toes curling in anxiety, he wrangled the stone set in his gut as he arrived at a very familiar scene.
He counted to three. After then, he would have to open this door. It was the only way to know whether if he was truly left behind – the answer that would make or break his next course of action. With the final count, he twisted the knob and yanked it open with more force than necessary, and a gust of residue cold air hit him dead in the face.
“Riki.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
Riki opened his eyes. Dracyan stared straight back at him.
Relief crashed into the boy like a tidal wave, sapping all the strength from his body. He slumped back into his brace, a prolonged sigh ripping from his throat.
“Thank God.” He grabbed his scalp. “I assumed the worst… but I’m thankful that’s not the case.” Riki straightened himself and pushed himself towards his partner, albeit slowly. The dozens of B-Daman arranged in the glass case were visibly dormant and inactive, but the sight of them sent electricity up his spine.
“You would not have slept soundly if that were the case,” Dracyan said logically as Riki plucked him from the table. “They did not wish to disturb your rest, so they departed earlier than they intended.”
Riki turned the wheelchair around, Dracyan on his lap. Mild frustration bled into his tone. “I know they want the best for me.” He wheeled out of the room. “But I still can’t help but worry. What even is their plan? Do they even have one?”
They weren’t the masters of making plans. Well, Novu may be; considering he’d plotted for months trying to eradicate Dracyan and offer Riki as a vessel for Dragold, but he’s only one B-shot. A rather antisocial and uncooperative one at that.
“Don’t fret too much, Riki,” Dracyan advised him. “Our friends are stronger than they think.”
“And the Grandmaster plays dirtier than what we expect,” Riki countered. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing! How long have they left for? Maybe I can still catch up—or maybe they’ve been captured and I need to rescue them! What if it’s already too late?”
“Riki.” Dracyan didn’t hesitate to intervene, cutting off his ramblings. “You’re injured. You’re in no shape to be moving around. If you go, you’ll only be a liability.”
Riki scowled, glaring at the plastic shell on his lap. “Dracyan—”
Beep beep. Beep beep.
He lifted his chin, startled. He whipped his head back into the darkness to see a red dot, blinking among a pile of Styrofoam and paper. A typical phone call, nothing else. He’s in Greg’s workshop which also doubles as a B-Daman repair shop, so it’s nothing out of the ordinary for any calls for orders or inquires.
Well, if he couldn’t fight by his friends’ side, he could at least indirectly help Greg with his workload. He’ll just tell the caller that the owner is away, and if it’s an emergency repair, he knows a thing or two about B-Daman after all of his experiences.
He pushed past all of the obstacles and put the phone to his ear, the wire hanging in the air. “Hello?” he asked, and received no reply. Strange. Maybe it’s a returning customer and they don’t recognize his voice. “Uh, if you’re looking for the owner, he’s busy right now…”
Wait.
Wasn’t B-Daman banned?
Why would someone be calling…?
A chillingly recognizable laugh reverberated from the other side. Riki’s grasp on the phone loosened, the piece almost slipping from his hold.
“Oh no,” Kamon leered, as if he were a snake that had its prey circled and trapped within his grasp. “I believe I’ve found the right person.”
Riki’s eyes dilated.
“It was rude of you to run away, you know,” Kamon continued. “You didn’t even stay to watch my victory in becoming the Eastern B-Master. It’s poor sportsmanship to not even acknowledge your opponent’s efforts, no?”
Riki’s palm turned clammy, his back suddenly drenched in sweat. “… what do you want, Kamon?” he demanded hoarsely, a pitiful response to the caller’s confidence. “Where are my friends? Do you have them?”
Kamon made a sound that sounded very much like a scoff. “Oh, I have them alright.” With sarcasm dripping from his lips, Riki was dead sure Kamon was rolling his eyes. “Though, I have to admit, they have some guts, barging into the base and scaring the living hell out of the repairmen in broad daylight.” Loud tapping on a metal surface. “Which leads to the question: why aren’t you here with them, Riki? Cowardice isn’t your color.”
Calm down, Riki. He dug his nails into his palm. He’s not here. He’s on the other side of Crestland.
Riki chewed his lip. “Why did you call here?” he asked. “How did you know I would pick up?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“…”
“Thought so.” A chair creaking. “Either way, I’m here to bargain. With you specifically.”
With him? What’s there that he could possibly take from him? His title? His B-Daman? Information? Money, even? “What do you want to bargain?”
Riki could practically hear Kamon’s smirk. “The Grandmaster has requested your presence.” A pause. “Jenta and Bakuga are on their way to escort you.”
“No,” Riki said instantly. “This isn’t a bargain. This is a warning.”
Two B-Masters on their way to him. If he were at full strength, he could maybe escape and take them down. But now he was confined to a wheelchair and in nowhere near top condition to protect himself, let alone win.
“I’m a lenient individual, Ryugasaki,” Kamon mused. “Don’t forget. You lost to me in a one-on-one duel. By the rules, you have to listen to whatever I say. But we’re not going into old history.” Shuffling. “If you refuse, I’ll leash those lap dogs and leave you alone. All you have to do is say no. But the repercussions, I’m afraid…”
More shuffling, like the phone was being passed to somebody else. There was muffled conversation in the back, none of which Riki could decipher. Like the audio, his mind was in a haze, an utter blur. What was happening? Why did he want him? If he goes, he knows he won’t be coming back. Or were they after Dracyan? No, he’d rather die than let them take Dracyan---
The static stopped. Kamon’s voice returned. “Ah, here we go!” Kamon chirped, sounding nothing like the enthusiasm of his old self. “Say hello, Mrs. Ryugasaki!”
Riki’s blood ran cold.
Even more screaming. This time, he heard it all. His mother’s distressed cries. Kamon’s cruel ways and words. His back hitting a cold concrete wall.
“So, what’d you say, Riki?”
Cornered by fire that had already swallowed him whole.
Yuki raised his phone to his ear. “Has anyone found anything?” He lurched to his right as a disc spun right by his cheek, just barely grazing strands of his hair. “We have no luck. All we’ve run into are dead ends and bots.”
An infuriated voice howled from a channel. “I haven’t seen anything other than scrap for the past ten minutes!” Misuru crabbed, his background sounding particularly eventful. “With all this practice I’m getting in, I’ll crush the entire tournament if they decide to reuse these stupid garbage tins!”
Yuki ignored him. “Anyone else?”
“I’m sensing a strange draft in these corridors,” Samuru noted, voice low despite the dire situation he plunged into. Unlike the others, his backdrop was quiet and unbothered. “It’s different from the rest of the building, like it’s coming from a stale basement beneath us.”
“Roger that.” Yuki sniped another bot that attempted to creep up on him. “Keep the rest of us updated and well informed. Don’t head in alone.”
Ken glanced at the brunet, questions welling up, but he kept silent for the sake of their focus. Crossfire B-shots were something else entirely; both in game and in the field. They didn’t win their power from stylists and their personalized cereal products. They earned it by fighting tooth and nail to survive questionable situations.
If they survived an apocalypse once, maybe they can do so again. But judging by the frustration growing on Yuki’s expression, the chances were slim.
Jenta and Bakuga stood outside a glass door, the insides covered by the interior curtain, both pretending their backs weren’t soaked in cold sweat. The looks they exchanged were uneasy, but neither took the first step forward.
The door was fragile, effortlessly breakable into a million pieces. With the flick of their finger, the glass before them would explode as a marble pierced through its midst, opening the entrance to them with the price of broken shards beneath their soled feet.
Although the delicate door wasn’t what halted them in their tracks. It had nothing to do with their pounding hearts, or the shallow breaths stolen from their lungs.
It was who stood beyond them.
“There’s a doorbell,” Jenta said, pointing to a white button. He was pale and breathing fast, the anomaly in his expression betraying his calm façade.
Bakuga sucked in a breath. Tension pooled in his fingertips, burning like hot oil and chili oil. “He might not even be inside, much less answer the door.” He pulled at the knob a few times, but there was no real strength behind them. No dice. The door rattled but it did not budge. He stopped and stepped back.
Jenta scratched the back of his head. “D’ya think he ran?”
Bakuga clicked his tongue. As much as he disliked the possibility, it wasn’t out of the equation. “Possibly,” he muttered, dreading all the work cut out for them if that were the case. The Grandmaster would run them through the ground more than he’s already had, especially if he’s enabled by his little brother’s sudden sadistic streak. His arm still ached from their last battle. “But there’s no harm in making sure.”
Jenta understood him almost immediately, stepping back as he prepared to watch the situation unfold. Bakuga raised his B-Daman, power bleeding from his fingertips into the base of his emblems, only to stop in his tracks as a bell’s chime jingled from the inside, and the handle was turned from within.
They froze, eyes glued on the growing crack between the frame and the glass door. They could be jumped at any moment—a knife drawn from a blind spot, a dragon’s jaws bursting from the dark to tear them into halves. But it never came. Instead, the now wide-open door revealed not a looming shadow ready to bite, but an injured boy shaking to keep the door open, with puffy eyes and unshed tears.
“I’ll go with you,” Riki said, despair dragging every syllable through the mud. “But I need to know if Kamon will keep his promise.”
Bakuga didn’t know what promise they made that got the Champion to surrender himself on a silver platter so easily, but it was probably important. “We B-Masters take our oaths seriously,” he answered robotically, not knowing what else to say. He didn’t know much of Kamon’s character to be the judge of his trustworthiness, other than his sadistic, bloodthirsty streak.
He expected there to be more resistance, but Riki chewed his lip and said nothing more, clasping his hands on his knees. Though he didn’t mean to convey his distress, his desperation was clear in his posture and tone.
How far would Kamon go? Weren’t these two friends? What would Kamon do to push his over the edge?
“Uh.” Jenta gestured around the entirety of Riki, hesitant. “Should I…”
“No.” Riki lurched away from Jenta. “I can handle myself.”
Jenta backed off.
Bakuga let out a sigh. This had been easier than he anticipated, in spite of the uneasy feeling nagging at the back of his head.
“Don’t try anything funny,” Jenta warned him, raising his B-Daman to accentuate his point.
Riki didn’t answer, not even as the car sped off, straight into the mouth of the lion’s den.
“Something’s wrong.”
Simon tilted into his phone, wholly unamused. His fingers were clammy on the device, still weak and worn out. “That’s not something I’d like to hear now of all times,” he grumbled, pressing his back onto the pillar.
Sumi and Misuru were nearby, both tense and ready to deploy their strongest shot towards the entourage of bots flooding them.
Another voice piped up. “Yuki, what do you mean?” It was Novu. If Novu was the one asking questions, they might as well be sitting ducks. That, or Yuki misplaced his glasses for the umpteenth time, and was asking across the circle to look for it.
“We’ve been holding out for at least an hour,” Yuki elaborated dreadfully. “We could have broken in by now, but we’ve been facing nothing but these robots.”
“Where’s the B-Masters? The security?” Aona realised. “They definitely caught onto our presence a long time ago, with all the ruckus we’ve been making.”
“Maybe they’re all on vacation?” Misuru yelled over the chaos, yelping as more discs were fired in his direction.
No one acknowledged the boy’s poor taste in humour.
“Are they even in the building?” Samuru demanded.
“I checked all of the footage myself!” Sumi refuted, appalled. “None of them touched sunlight for the past forty-eight hours!”
A long sigh from Novu. “There could have been a blind spot—”
“—or they only left when we did!” Ken barked, forcing everyone into an abrupt silence. “A car pulled over at the entrance moments ago. Someone check the feed and see if it’s them.”
Simon fumbled to turn his phone in his hands to get a better view on the playback. Misuru had the brilliance to link their individual devices to his bees for convenience, and his genius shined through as the video popped up on Simon’s screen as clear as day.
“How long ago was this?” Yuki asked.
“Half an hour ago, at the very least,” Novu answered.
Someone over the call gasped sharply, shocking Simon as he adjusted the video’s timeframe to the nearest hour. The footage took time to buffer, reloading previous resources to replay, showing a blurry image of several figures stepping out of a car.
“Those bastards!” Basara screamed. “They’re all sick in the head!”
If there’s one thing Simon’s going to write in his New Year’s resolution—if he makes it to the next year, that is—it’s that he’s going to get a new phone in his earliest convenience.
After a million years, the video loaded at the lowest quality humanly possible. Simon squinted at the screen, the muffled audio just barely playing through the hum of the approaching bots.
“What on earth is going on?” Greg sounded dumbstruck, and for a moment so was Simon.
The video ended with Bakuga, Jenta and Riki heading into a completely different direction than the main entrance, going somewhere off-screen. No matter how many channels Simon switched to, there was no trace of the trio anywhere.
“Wait!” Novu cried out, taking everyone by surprise. “I think I found the reason why he’s here.”
A loud knock reverberated throughout the call, followed by the sound of a smashed door crumpling to the ground.
“You are a fool.”
Riki, for all his wits, chose to bite his tongue. Metaphorically and literally.
“It’s somewhat amusing,” Kamon commented, hands on hips, “that you gave in so quickly after I made some empty threats.”
They weren’t empty – they both knew that. Jenta and Bakuga had left as soon as they arrived at a door, with Kamon waiting and standing guard by it. Even from a distance, Riki could feel the oppressing aura emitting from the room within, like rotten meat bursting into fumes.
“I upheld my end of the bargain,” Riki rebutted, unwilling to play this game. “Now let her go.”
Kamon chuckled dryly. “Matter of fact, you haven’t.” He stretched his shoulders, looking down on the boy who he’d almost crippled in a public tournament just days ago. Without his friends, without his flair or B-Daman, he looked so frail, so fragile.
Wait a moment.
The older leaned forward, glowering. “Where’s Dracyan?” he interrogated. “Are you hiding him?”
At this, Riki managed a smirk. “He wasn’t part of the deal,” he vamped, a sick satisfaction twisting his gut as Kamon’s sneer melted off into a disbelieving scowl. “You asked for me, not him. So here I am.”
Kamon fell silent, and Riki worried if he’s overstepped his boundaries, fingers tightening around the wheelchair’s armrests. The redhead’s lips pursed into a haughty sneer, teeth gritting as he cracked his finger joints with his thumb.
“Smart,” he said finally. “But not smart enough.”
He turned towards the twin doors and pushed Riki into the Lion’s Den.