Archive of Our Own

Every time your search for Cobalt Geist stalls, you come back to the Shadow Alliance Headquarters. You do not talk to other agents. You do not train with anyone. You do not even get to see Liena during these visits, because she's away in Pedro Kingdom fulfilling her own missions.

It's been nearly a year since your most important mission began. The clues dry up here and there, but you've made steady progress. You're getting close, you think, to the resting place of this legendary B-daman.

Normally, you'd just head back out as soon as you got some rest. For some reason, today you meander toward the cafeteria, only to find a crowd of other agents standing outside and practically clambering over each other to look through the doors.

"What's going on here?" you ask the nearest agent. You don't know any of these people, so you pick someone at random.

The sound of a B-daman firing echoes from within the cafeteria.

"It's Ababa's pet! He's gone loony!" answers the agent, not even looking at you. They're too busy standing on the tips of their toes, peeking over the heads of the others in front of him.

You frown. "Ababa's pet...?"

"You mean you don't know about him?" The agent in front of you whirls around after overhearing you. "He's the most powerful member here, you know—hey wait, aren't you Hurricane Gray?"

You don't stop frowning, and fix this agent with a stare that makes them wither. "Yeah. I am. Tell me more about this guy."

"He's Ababa's favorite agent," says the first one you'd talked to, "He just came out of nowhere a few months ago and immediately got promoted to doing solo missions."

"He's good?" you ask, raising one eyebrow at them.

The sound of B-dafiring suddenly stops.

"Uh, you know what," says the agent in front of you, "Why don't you take a look for yourself?"

They step away, and you get the distinct sense this is not so much about giving you their spot as much as their suddenly not wanting to be here.

"Hey, I wanted to see—!" protests the other one.

"Shut up and run, he's doing that!"

That? What was "that"? Now you really need to see this. You turn your gaze to the cafeteria, finding that you're suddenly alone as the other agents hurriedly clear out. Inside, it's a complete mess. You can see the cafeteria staff cowering behind their counters, and most of the tables and chairs have been knocked over, leaving the floor strewn with food, cutlery and broken plates.

At the center of the room is a kid with orange hair styled up to two points, garbed in white and dark purple, and a bright red scarf around his neck that trails behind him like a tail. He has his B-daman out, a machine colored entirely black, evidently the source of all the firing noises earlier.

He's pointing it right at another kid, a trainee, considering their orange shirt, laying on the floor with one arm raised and crying, but they make no noise except whimpering.

You've spectated B-dabattles before where both opponents were strong enough that it had been like you could outright see waves of their power and strength flowing from them and their B-daman. You've seen that same power move through B-daballs in special attacks. But the pressure rolling off this agent and filling the cafeteria and leaking out into the hallway weighs your entire body down and stops you from stepping any further. It's as if his entire body is a B-daman itself.

The agent fires.

You move without thinking. You're the fastest B-daplayer in the Shadow Alliance and even the pressure isn't enough to make that untrue. Chrome Zephyr practically leaps into your hand—firing off a shot that knocks his red B-daball away isn't anything special for you.

He turns around to face you.

And you can't breathe.

The face you're looking into can't belong to a human. His eyes—one of them scarred—are a beautiful sapphire blue, but there's nothing in them, not even the anger you would've expected to see in this situation. It's like he's looking straight through you, as if he were already calculating how exactly to tear you into pieces of meat for later. You've faced down overwhelming opponents before, but never this wild.

And something about his appearance starts an itch in your mind.

As if you know him.

But that's not possible because you would remember meeting a kid like this.

"You've probably made your point, whatever it's supposed to be," you manage to say, gesturing to the mess around you with Chrome Zephyr before pointing it back at him.

He doesn't answer for a long, long moment. He hasn't stopped pointing his B-daman at the other kid either, so you find yourself keeping alert for another shot. You're not going to underestimate him, but you think you should be able to stave off his attacks if he decides to turn on you.

But then the look on his face changes and his entire body relaxes. From that of a hunting predator to...something else. Friendly. Warm.

"Okay, Gray," he says, and it's the way he says your name that gives you pause, even as he holsters his B-daman upon his thigh once more.

He's looking at you like he knows you.

Slowly, you lower Chrome Zephyr and holster it, and the air in the cafeteria clears, a long-held breath being loosened. The kid at the elite agent's feet begins to scramble away, only for the agent to whip his gaze back toward him.

"Touch the scarf again, and not even Gray can save you," he growls, sending the other kid into a new round of whimpering.

What the hell is wrong with this kid?

He's stalking toward you now, and once again you're certain that he can't be human. He doesn't move like one. He doesn't move like any animal-folk you've ever seen either.

But when he stops in front of you, he smiles, and his big, bright blue eyes are warm and burning with something you can't identify.

"We should get out of here before Ababa catches us," he says.

"Huh?"

Then he grabs you by the hand and races off, forcing you to match his even strides, and together you run past bewildered agents and nearly knock over a furious Ababa on your way out the front door of the Shadow Alliance Headquarters.

You don't stop running until you're a good distance out in the desert. He brings you to an outcrop of rocks with an overhang, and once he lets go, you're left to catch your breath.

"Man, I can't believe we finally got to do that," he says. "Isn't that great? We got to go out together in the end!"

You straighten yourself, as the wind comes back to your lungs, and look at him properly. Up close, he's not at all that intimidating, with his round, cheerful face and being much shorter than you. But you can still see it. A danger coiling under his every movement, as if he were something else that never got used to wearing human skin.

It's unsettling.

It makes you want to run away and let him chase you.

And that's exciting you in a way you didn't know possible.

"Hey," you start, and his gaze snaps to you immediately and it makes you aware of how close he keeps standing to you, like personal space isn't something he knows about. Maybe he really doesn't. "Look, you seem to know who I am, but I don't think we've met. I'm sorry, but I don't even know your name."

Even as you say the words, it feels wrong. But you know it has to be the truth.

And everything about him droops at your words.

"Right...I always forget about that part," he says, before forcing out a grin. "My name's Yamato."

"Name's Gray," you answer automatically.

"And my name's Bull!" shouts someone from under the rocky overhang.

Another kid emerges, pale and dressed in a long yellow poncho, a necklace of skulls dangling around his shoulders. "Hi!"

"Uh...hi," you say, looking between him and Yamato, but Yamato just leaps over to him and climbs onto Bull, arms wrapping around him easily.

"Bull!" exclaims Yamato, "I thought you said you were heading on south already!"

"I was going to," answers Bull, and he doesn't seem to mind at all that Yamato is making him lean to one side while hanging onto him, "but I heard there was a B-daplayer with a cool B-daman going around the Cowtoon area so I wanted to try meeting him."

You've suddenly got a bad feeling about this.

"Really? Now I've got to meet him too," says Yamato with a grin. This one is genuine. You think. "I need to battle all the strongest B-daplayers and check out their B-daman."

He's weird, but you can guess he does love B-daman as much as any good player would.

"So what's this cool B-daplayer like?" asks Yamato, finally letting go of Bull.

They move out of the sun and head under the overhang, so you follow and take off your hat, and now that you're out of the glaring midday light, you can see that they've hung up dark cloth around the edges of the rock, protecting the space beneath from the wind. They've covered the ground beneath with some kind of makeshift rug too. You recognize the pillows scattered across it immediately as the standard kind issued to the bedrooms of Shadow Alliance agents, and once more you wonder who or what exactly Yamato is that he's clearly been able to get away with stealing from the Shadow Alliance. And being so brazen as to ignore Ababa too, as he did on the way out.

Bull quickly claims a pillow as well, happily laying down. "I heard his B-daman is all black and red, just like your Midnight Blade."

"Really? No way it could be cooler than mine though," says Yamato.

"Yeah, and he's got a poncho like me! But mine is also cooler," continues Bull, "Because mine has skulls."

Very carefully, you sit down a good distance from both of them, though you don't take any of the pillows. You look between them again. Neither of them seem to have realized they've already found their mystery B-daplayer.

"So...what are you going to do if you find this B-daplayer?" you ask, doing your best to stifle the amusement swelling in your chest.

"Challenge him, of course!" exclaims Yamato.

You look over to him, and the way his entire face has lit up makes it so easy to forget that terrifying pressure he'd exuded earlier.

"I'm taking his B-daman," says Bull with a giggle, his innocent expression a complete disparity with his words.

"Nuh-uh, we're splitting it," says Yamato sharply. "If it's black and red already then I can probably use something from it."

Ah, right. You were wondering how a supposedly elite agent of the Shadow Alliance like Yamato could be friends with this...drifter, if you had to guess. Of course, it had to be something like this, even if you personally never really bothered engaging with that part of the Shadow Alliance's modus, since you quite liked Chrome Zephyr just fine without needing the parts of the losers you beat.

"Well, I don't think that's going to be possible," you say, and this time you let the laugh creep into your voice.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asks Yamato.

You take out Chrome Zephyr and spin it a few times, even if it probably looks a little silly since you're sitting down. You hold it up, and immediately you see realization dawn on Yamato's face, while Bull...well, Bull's apparently fallen asleep on his pillow.

You smirk at Yamato.

"It means I'll take your challenge, Yamato," you say, "But you're not getting your hands on Chrome Zephyr, because I'm going to flatten you."

Yamato battles exactly how you suspected he would: wild and powerful, but precise and calculated. He never once stands still in your B-dabattle, driven by a boundless energy that you're barely able to match.

Luckily, he let you choose the battlefield.

You're a proud member of the Shadow Alliance; so you obviously weren't going to choose something that didn't give you an advantage. That's what brings you to the Valley of the Gale. This is your turf, where your master in the Shadow Alliance had trained you to battle in the harshest of conditions in the region, where you fought for survival until the wind marked itself on your body.

Where you earned the hurricane.

The multitude of winds flows straight through you. They guide your hands and your shots, and when you close your eyes, it's like you can read all of Yamato's movements before he even makes them. But he's quick, quicker than you expect, so you don't do that more than once, because if you treat him like any other B-daplayer, this is going to be your loss.

It doesn't take him very long to figure out your trick, even if he can't make good use of it himself—but he doesn't need to, because once more, power rolls straight off him.

He changed completely, when he took out Midnight Blade and set it on the field, turning once more into that primal creature you'd first seen in the cafeteria. But even this is different. He pushes forward, roaring against the winds as flames burst from him.

They draw the winds in.

Your B-daballs dance in the air, one aflame, one crackling. They whirl like a storm.

And that's when you spot the shadow lingering behind Midnight Blade.

It's not just fire that guides Yamato's hands.

Your B-daballs clatter uselessly together onto the field a moment later.

"I guess we both lose," says Yamato with a laugh, and the shadow is gone, as is the creature in his skin, and he's back to his usual self.

You chuckle. "We both win."

And Bull is laughing too, but it's not quite right. You realize then that he's changed into a different person too, into someone almost as fiery as Yamato. Bull points his B-daman right at you. "If you both won, then that means Yamato won and we get to take Chrome Zephyr."

"That's not—" you start, but before you can say anything else, Yamato moves too quickly for you to notice. He leaps from the field over to Bull, and gives him a friendly smack on the shoulder.

"Gray's a member of the Shadow Alliance too," says Yamato, "And what did I say about taking the B-daman of members of the Shadow Alliance?"

Bull shifts back into that first one you had met, as sleepy looking as ever. "Uh...not to do it?"

"Exactly!" says Yamato, "And especially not Gray's, because he's our friend now too."

You blink. "Hey, wait, when did that—"

"Awesome," responds Bull, beaming at you brightly, "Nice to meet you, Gray!"

And that's how you get outvoted and find yourself with two very weird people calling themselves your friends.

It's not long before you're ready to head out again. You're thinking of heading to Cowtoon proper this time and trawling the B-Center and tavern until you pick up another lead. Maybe check out that cafe you'd heard about too. You've got to be getting close to Cobalt Geist by now.

"Hey, Gray!"

You walk faster as you make your way to the headquarters exit, trying very hard to pretend you can't hear that. You even pull your hat down a little to muffle it.

"Gray!" Yamato skids to a stop in front of you on all fours, forcing you to stop walking.

"Oh. Hi Yamato," you say.

You become very aware that there are other agents in the area, and all of them are looking at the two of you. You don't socialize out of choice, but they avoid Yamato outright. This is going to do something to your reputation as Hurricane Gray, but you can't even begin to guess what.

"Where are you going?" he asks, blinking his big eyes at you, so innocently. Deceptively so.

"Out," you answer. You step around him and continue on your way.

"C'mon, it's for a mission right?" asks Yamato eagerly, following along beside you. "Ababa won't let me go out again, just like last year."

You glance at him, unable to hide your confusion, because something about his words is familiar. There's that itch again in your mind, like you already know what this is about. "What do you mean, Ababa won't let you go out?"

He falls quiet, which is unusual for him. "I'm...grounded from missions for a while, after what happened the other day in the cafeteria."

You pause, and lift one eyebrow at him. "Grounded?"

"Yeah," he says, and he pauses for a moment, his gaze moving all over your face as if he's trying to guess how you're going to react. "Ababa's kind of...like my dad."

You just stare at him, because you kind of don't know what else to do. Ababa is his dad? That doesn't make sense, and that's not even just because he's a catfolk. You can't imagine Ababa caring deeply enough about any one kid to take them in and care for them in a way that would let them call him dad.

"I see," you say after weighing your options here. "Wanna walk with me to the door?"

"But it doesn't mean I get special treatment or anything—" Yamato starts to explain, then stops when he registers what you said. He beams at you, and it's so wonderfully bright, you're ready to forget the first time you saw him. "Yeah, let's go!"

Walking together like this makes it seem all the more real: you're friends now. Yamato chatters about recent happenings in the headquarters as you move, and you're quiet but you nod and acknowledge everything he's saying. But eventually, you reach the hall that leads outside, and Yamato falls quiet. His gaze darts around nervously, as if he's keeping watch for...something. Or someone.

"This is it..." he says, and you have to blink a few times because you swear you just saw that strange shadow on him again. "You'll come back soon, right Gray?"

"Yeah, I will," you say, but then you hesitate. You're not sure why, but it just doesn't feel right to say goodbye here, even if it's just for now, so you continue on. "You know...I never did tell you about my mission, did I?"

He perks right up. "No, you didn't."

"Ababa's got me looking for a legendary B-daman," you say, "Its name is Cobalt Geist. I've been looking for it for a year now."

"Oh, I know where that is," says Bull from beside you.

You jump in surprise; Yamato leaps a small distance away.

"Bull! I told you to never come in here!" Yamato rushes over and shoves at Bull, earning him protests of "Okay, okay, I get it—" as Yamato pushes him out the front door, leaving you to stand there watching them.

You sigh. How did you end up friends with them again?

Then you startle, and chase after them.

"Hey, wait, what do you mean you know where Cobalt Geist is—!"

And that's how you end up traveling to Saitoon together.

The trail goes cold again as soon as you arrive, because all Bull knows is that someone had a B-daman named Cobalt Geist in Saitoon. No amount of interrogating his jumbled memories draws out more information than that, so you do what you always do in such a case: you hit up the B-Center.

You've never gone on joint missions before, even if Yamato being here isn't exactly something Ababa approved, but since it's technically yours alone, you take the lead. The three of you set up in the B-daplayers' hotel by the B-Center.

Then you walk into the B-Center with your head held high and your friends flanking you.

"This is a Shadow Alliance operation," you announce, letting the breeze carry your voice to every corner of the B-Center. The B-daplayers around you immediately cower and murmur amongst themselves. "We're looking for the B-daplayer who owns Cobalt Geist. If that's you, step forward now and cooperate with us, and we'll let your precious B-Center off lightly. If you have information on this B-daplayer, you will be rewarded if you tell us everything you know."

The B-daplayers fall quiet, all their gazes on you, and you know they won't speak unless you allow it.

You take satisfaction in it—the way the Shadow Alliance's name alone gives you control over everyone present, the way they look at you with awe and fear alike. It's what brought you and Liena to Ababa's doorstep, because gaining this kind of power was the only way you could protect each other.

"There's no one here with a B-daman like that." The one who breaks the silence and steps forward doesn't look very strong. He has long blue hair, and he's dressed in even stranger robes than Yamato or Ababa. "Your alliance of bullies isn't going to get anything it wants in this town."

Your fingers itch, and you're about to draw, when Yamato stalks forth from your right.

There's that power again, fire and shadow alike on his heels as he fixes the blue-haired B-daplayer with a glare that's more creature than man. His eyes have once more lost all its warmth. You glance over at Bull, and he doesn't seem surprised by this at all.

"You're lying," states Yamato, raising Midnight Blade and pointing it right at the other B-daplayer, drawing gasps from the crowd.

The other B-daplayer, to his credit perhaps, doesn't cower like the others. He stands tall in the face of having a B-daman pointed at his face barrel-first—but his quivering gaze tells you that he's afraid.

You step forth, to Yamato's side, fighting against your own instincts of running away from so powerful a creature.

"Are you?" you ask, doing your best to exude the calm that Yamato can't. "Because if you are..."

And here you look to Bull, who startles awake where he stands. You don't know how he does that, just falling asleep wherever he can, but even then, it doesn't deter his usefulness at all. He meets your gaze, grins, and grabs Helio Breaker from its holster.

He turns into his explosive self, roars, and fires at one of the battlefields nearby. When the dust clears, the result is a crater upon the table centered around a single purple B-daball.

The B-daplayer in front of Yamato grits his teeth, and you can see right on his face the way he is considering his options.

Finally, he opens his mouth to speak—

"What's going on here?" someone else shouts.

You turn. There's someone else coming through the entrance of the B-Center, garbed in a white crisscrossing outfit with long dark hair in a ponytail. Laikenese, if you had to guess. This one's eyes widen as he takes in the scene, and he rushes at Yamato.

Yamato dodges the high kick without even looking, whirling around to face this newcomer with a snarl.

"Alan, are you okay?" The newcomer glances at the blue-haired B-daplayer, but doesn't take his eyes off Yamato as he stands between them with his hands raised in some kind of combat stance.

Alan coughs, doubling over, but he's quick to answer. "Thank you Kiba...I'm fine. They're Shadow Alliance," he says, "The blonde one's the leader."

Kiba shifts his gaze to you briefly, but returns it to Yamato as he curls his raised hands into fists. He's correctly assessed which of you is a bigger immediate threat, but you don't like that he's very likely underestimating you in the process.

"We're here for Cobalt Geist," you say, louder than earlier. "Cooperate, and we won't hurt anyone."

"There's no B-daman like that here," says Kiba, eyes narrowing. "You Shadow Alliance creeps should just leave Saitoon."

You lift your head, but keep your gaze trained on him. For some reason, you trust Yamato's instincts that these two are lying, even if you have no reason to believe otherwise. So they know something about Cobalt Geist, how do you extract that information from them?

"Yamato. Bull." You smirk when you sense their gazes turning to you; they might not even realize how quickly they've begun to look to you for orders. "Tear this dump down."

Midnight Blade and Helio Breaker make quick work of the battlefield Bull had already damaged. They reduce it to rubble swiftly, earning screams and cries of protest, but no one else steps forth to battle you. They're all cowards, in the end.

Yamato and Bull move on to the other fields, and you stand there watching, unable to hide the mirth that comes to your face. It's certainly interesting to not have to lift a single finger yourself.

And you're discovering that this suits you just fine.

Life has certainly gotten much more fun since meeting Yamato.

You turn your attention back to Kiba and Alan. "I'm waiting," you tell them. "You can still stop this."

"You—" Kiba moves to draw, but you're faster. You're always faster. You draw and fire before his hand can clasp around his B-daman, sending him staggering backward. Alan grabs hold of him, steadying him.

Then: a B-daman fires. Not Midnight Blade or Helio Breaker, but someone else's.

A blue B-daball zooms right past your ear, not even grazing your skin. It strikes the ground between you and Kiba, embedding into the soil before your boot.

A warning. A very accurate one.

You turn around, frowning when you hear Yamato and Bull stop firing. There's yet another Laikenese B-daplayer at the entrance now, garbed in blue. He has a blue B-daman with a long barrel raised and pointed at you. Like Kiba, he has long brown hair in a long ponytail, but he has a scar on his cheek. Behind him is someone younger, dressed in red with his own B-daman, nearly identical, also raised toward you.

"That's enough," says the blue one, striding forward. "You Shadow Alliance jerks always think you can just waltz over everyone else and do whatever you want, but we're not going to let you do that. Not here."

This is getting complicated, and the more it does, the less control you have over the situation. In your experience, most B-daplayers just fold under a few threats, or they challenge you and quickly lose. But these two look strong, as does Kiba, even if you hadn't allowed him to fire a shot yet.

Yamato bounds over to the blue one, not caring when both B-daman shift targets to track him.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he hisses.

"We're the Yong Fa brothers!" exclaims the blue one, "And Saitoon is under our protection!"

"And mine!" adds Kiba, rising to his feet. This time he makes it to his B-daman; you hear the click of it being readied and pointed toward you.

You look between them, assessing the situation with calm. The brothers are tense, their grips firm and ready to go, even though Yamato has holstered Midnight Blade and is gazing at them with that look of his—primal and wild, eager to tear them apart. You know he would do it if you gave the order. He would not hesitate. It wouldn't even remotely be a battle, but it's not how the Shadow Alliance works when in broad daylight like this.

Bull is still awake at least, but he's confused. There's too many things going on now for him to keep track of, and he's alternating pointing Helio Breaker between the brothers and Kiba and the fields he's supposed to be destroying. You wouldn't be surprised that if this turned into an all out brawl, he'd just accidentally fire on you too.

You need to take the reins of the situation back.

So you laugh.

You know exactly how it looks, but you holster Chrome Zephyr.

"All right," you say, raising your hands. "Yamato. Bull. Stand down."

Bull does as told, shifting back to normal as soon as Helio Breaker is out of his hands, but—

"What?" Yamato whirls around to you, stalking over and getting into your personal space once more. "Gray, what are you doing? I can take them all on for you if you're scared—"

"I am not," you snap, and he steps back from you, his confusion strong enough that he goes from creature to boy once more. You look over to the brothers. "Which one of you's the ace here?"

There's a moment's hesitation, enough to tell you that whoever it is they hold in high enough regard to consider the ace in town isn't even actually here. Then the blue one lowers his B-daman and steps forward. His brother doesn't follow him.

"I am," he says, brow furrowed at you, "The name's Wen. What's your game?"

"So Saitoon's under your protection?" You meet his angry gaze firmly, making it clear this isn't a surrender. "I've decided I'll let you guys off easy if you can actually beat all three of us in a row. No breaks, just battles. You win, we leave Saitoon intact. You lose even once, you tell us about Cobalt Geist."

"How is that even fair?" demands Wen.

"Take it or leave it, Wen Yong Fa."

"Fine," he says eventually, extending one hand to you, "I'll battle all three of you fair and square."

"Fair and square," you agree, and shake his hand.

"This is crazy," says Yamato, while you're warming up. "I know the three of us can win, but why even bother with a challenge like this? I could just grab one of them...I can make anyone talk, you know. Ababa said I'm good at that."

"Already shook on it with that Wen guy," you say aloud. Though the B-daplayers have given you a wide enough berth to let your team prepare, any one of them could be listening in. You step close to Yamato, leaning down so you can whisper into his ear. "Cobalt Geist probably belongs to whoever's their real ace. If he's anything like these guys, he's not going to stay away when he hears about a battle like this. When he shows up, we can grab him."

"My brother is ready."

That's the younger Yong Fa, standing a short distance away from you, hands folded behind his back. His eyes, which are some of the strangest you've seen on a human, are narrowed and suspicious and cold. Very cold. It's not hard to guess that he's the complete opposite of his older brother in every way, and if you were so inclined to separate a pair of siblings, you'd certainly want to recruit someone like that into the Shadow Alliance. Alas, there are still things even you aren't willing to do.

"Ready to lose, you mean," says Yamato with a grin.

The look on that young face only darkens. "We're students of—" he starts, then he catches himself, and you raise an eyebrow at him as he switches gears. "We've trained very hard and my brother is strong."

Students. The only B-daplayer school you've ever heard of is in a completely different region, so that means they're more like apprentices than formal students.

...You need to consult Ababa on this one.

You don't let him or Yamato see any of the glee you're feeling from the valuable clue he's just handed you though. Instead, you head over to where Bull is taking a nap. "Bull, you're up first."

Bull is strong, but that's all he is.

The way Wen meets his challenge tells you what you need to know: that Wen has had the formal training of a skilled master, just as his brother—Li—had implied. Bull, by contrast, has only learned to battle by necessity as a drifter. His raw strength might be enough to get by against the usual, weaker fare of B-daplayer across the towns dotting the region, but not against someone who's learned proper technique. You were counting on this when you decided the order you'd battle in.

Bull starts to flag not too long into it, his fiery yells getting fewer as he struggles to maintain power shot after power shot. He leaves himself wide open to Bakuso's accurate attacks, and soon enough, one of them strikes true and sends Bull flying.

He's asleep on the ground as soon as he lands.

Yamato groans, walks over and picks him up like he weighs nothing, then lays him on top of a nearby bench. He grabs Helio Breaker while a cheer goes up in the gathered crowd, and Wen steps back from the field for a moment to brag to Li, looking quite satisfied with himself.

"One down," he says, grinning at you over the field.

You don't say anything, or show anything on your face.

"My turn," says Yamato, reaching for Midnight Blade, but you set one hand on his arm before he can.

"Keep an eye out," you tell him, and he understands immediately, shoulders relaxing as he nods. You offer him a faint smile, one that makes his eyes widen for some reason, and he steps away quietly.

You take up position on the battlefield opposite of Wen, who hastily hurries back to Bakuso.

"You're welcome to forfeit," you tell him.

He snorts, arrogance lacing his features. "As if! If Bull's the typical kind of player in the Shadow Alliance, then I'll wipe the floor with you easy!"

"Just one problem with that declaration of yours," you say, and you smirk when he looks back at you in confusion. "Bull's not in the Shadow Alliance. Now, you playing, or what?"

"Huh?"

"Ready!" you shout, getting into firing stance, not giving Wen a moment at all to truly think about this revelation. You force him to mirror you and declare that he's ready too.

"Set!"

"B-dafire!"

You get straight into it.

Wen's fast, quick in the way that Yamato is. You'd guessed earlier when Kiba had attacked Yamato that Kiba had been trained in combat unrelated to B-daman, and it seems that Wen has had the same training. Maybe it gives him an advantage normally, but you're no slouch. The wind's not too strong here, but there's still enough of it to draw upon, letting it run through you, guiding your rapid-fire. You don't show off right away though, unlike Wen who started with his strongest attacks.

You need to draw this out, after all. You trade shots, B-daballs flying across the field, knocking into each other and hitting the sides of the field.

Then you see your opening. Wen hadn't come into this battle fresh; he slows for just a moment, and you fire—

"Brother!"

Li's shout, desperate and too loud for someone as small as him, is enough to give Wen enough of a second wind to dodge in time.

"Heh...guess you're good after all, Gray," says Wen, breath coming heavy as he glares at you over the field. But there's something else in his eyes: a fire that you've only seen in Yamato's eyes, that time you'd battled. "But I'm not done yet—Azure Sniper!"

He fires three times, the B-daballs coming together, crackling with a visibly blue energy arcing between them. You step up your footwork, dodging away just in time, but one of them grazes Chrome Zephyr's shoulder and your hand—

You flinch, because it's cold as ice. You didn't think anyone outside the Shadow Alliance would be willing to use a move that hurt the opponent directly.

Wen doesn't let up, taking swift advantage of your momentary distraction to take several more shots. They race over the field toward you, and an attack like this right now would be enough for him to win right now, but you decide to respond in kind.

"Chrome Impact Slam—!"

You fire and move at the same time, your B-daballs forming a defensive wall as they speed along. They knock away Wen's shots, the extreme speed giving them the advantage of momentum.

Wen grits his teeth and fires, left and right, back to the center.

You don't see what he's doing until too late.

He takes a few shots in front of him, enough to defend himself where he stands. But his other B-daballs fly past yours just before your attack scatters against the field's wall around him, his shots weaving through the gaps between your own with that impeccable accuracy—

You're sent reeling when one of them hits their mark.

"Yeah!" yells Wen, raising his fist in victory as the crowd cheers once more. "That's two!"

You step away from the field, grabbing Chrome Zephyr, and pull your hat down. You've lost before, of course, and you can take a loss with grace. What you need right now is to stay in control of yourself. This is a setback, but not a big one.

"Any sign of Cobalt Geist?" you mutter as you turn to Yamato, only to freeze.

Yamato is standing where he'd been cheering you on, but his expression has gone dark. It's just like in the cafeteria; you can't breathe at all at the sight of this. He doesn't say anything. Doesn't look at anyone. He moves with a precision that quietens the crowd.

Power rolls off him again.

No, it's different from what you've seen so far.

This isn't just power, this is something else, and you can't tear your gaze from Yamato at all. He's drawing you in, just like the flames grasping at the winds in your battle.

And there's something's wrong with your vision because it looks as if the world around you is going dark—save for Yamato, the lone burning flame.

"What? What's going on?" says Wen, and your gaze snaps to him, and you realize: no, it isn't just your vision after all. The entire area around the battlefield has gone dark. And quiet because the crowd is gone. It's just you and Yamato and Wen and Li and a completely black sky.

Yamato places Midnight Blade on the field.

"Uh...what—"

"Brother, watch out!"

"Woah!" Wen barely manages to dodge as Yamato fires without warning. "Hey! What's the big idea?"

Yamato doesn't respond. He just keeps firing, and the only word that comes to mind in the way he's playing right now is cruel. He fires and moves like he's a machine himself, and all Wen can do is very barely dodge every single shot.

"So that's how the Shadow Alliance plays? Starting a battle without warning?" says Li, looking toward you.

You realize that you're shaking. You breathe in deep, deeper. The air has gone completely still here, and it feels like losing a limb.

"No," you say, then, "I mean—we do whatever it takes to win, but this is...different. I—I've never seen this before."

You don't take your eyes off the battlefield. Wen's in trouble, that much is clear, because this isn't just Yamato becoming his primal, wild self whenever he battles.

This is Yamato becoming a monster.

Your mouth is dry. You don't know even know what to do. You should be pleased by this, but the sight of Yamato like this only makes a pit of dread form in your stomach.

"Yamato—" you start to say, but then you hear something strange.

It's the roar of an engine.

Gradually getting closer.

"What? What's that idiot doing?" shouts Wen even while he dodges and fires back, "Why's he coming here!?"

You find yourself turning toward the sound, and right there in front you, in the black sky, is a golden star growing brighter and brighter.

And then the darkness shatters.

The world slowly comes back into focus.

"Wh..." You're on the ground, groaning as you sit up, rubbing your temples.

You look around. Your hat is laying nearby, and the world is no longer strange and dark. You're back in the bright and sunny B-Center of Saitoon where the crowd is murmuring loudly amongst themselves, so you get back up onto your feet, grab your hat and pat off the dust, then take a moment to assess how the situation has changed.

First: Yamato. He's slumped over the battlefield, hands still on Midnight Blade, but he's unconscious.

Second: Wen. He's over on his side of the field, also slumped over onto it, but groaning in pain.

That's a loss then.

You shake the thought away. That's not important right now.

Third: Li. He's also over on Wen's side of the field, hands on Wen and trying to help him up. And he's arguing with someone, but not Wen.

Fourth: there's a motorcycle behind Li.

And standing in front of it is the person Li is arguing with, someone you don't recognize at all. He's tall, maybe a litte bit older than you, and he's got a scar running across his face framed with bright red hair styled like a crown of flames. He's wearing a bright purple jacket patterned with lightning, and matching shorts.

And he's got his B-daman out and is pointing it right at you, even though he's mid-conversation with Li.

It's Cobalt Geist.

"—you not to come here if the Shadow Alliance shows up!" Li is saying to him.

"I'm done hiding," growls Cobalt Geist's owner. "Kiba came to get me for a reason, and all of you are insane if you think I'm just sitting in the back with Armada. The Shadow Alliance wants me, they can come get me."

"Sounds like a challenge," you say.

His gaze snaps to you, eyes like ice narrowing. He glances at Li, then makes a gesture you don't catch that prompts Li to focus on Wen.

"You're awake," says the redhead, "Great. Li filled me in on your terms. You've lost, so get out of Saitoon already."

"Nah," you say, shrugging, then, because everything has become absurd and out of your control, you laugh. "All I said was that we'd leave Saitoon intact. Never said we'd be leaving...besides, we paid for a night's stay already."

"You—" he scowls, a truly nasty look that matches the scar on his face. "Fine, but don't think I won't come after you if you cause trouble again."

You bite back a sigh. Take a moment to adjust the collar of your poncho so that the rest of it drapes over you properly again. Fix the way your hat sits. Chrome Zephyr is fine in its holster.

Time to get back to work.

"Understood," you say, and he raises an eyebrow in surprise. You smirk and walk closer to him, then reach a hand out to him despite the B-daman pointed at you. "I'm not unreasonable. The name's Hurricane Gray."

He glares at your hand for a long moment, then finally holsters Cobalt Geist behind him. He shakes your hand with a firm, powerful grip. "Don't got anything fancy like that. I'm just Enjyu."

Maybe it's strange and counterproductive to introduce yourself so politely, considering your goal here, but you're certain this will be useful in the long run. Besides, you've suffered a pretty devastating loss here already. There's no reason not to handle it with some grace.

"So you're the owner of Cobalt Geist," you say.

"Lightning Star," he says.

"What?"

"It's Lightning Star now," he says. "The guys weren't lying, there's no Cobalt Geist here, not anymore. I customized it a bunch and it didn't feel right keeping the original name."

"Hm." You think this over. So this is why it'd been difficult to find information on Cobalt Geist, because it isn't even Cobalt Geist anymore.

Lightning Star.

That golden star blooming in the darkness flashes through your mind as you think it over.

"So?" says Enjyu, eyeing you suspiciously.

You let slip a smile, then turn around and walk over to Yamato. "Guess I need a new plan to take Lightning Star from you."

He doesn't respond. You glance at him and find him just staring at you with a baffled look on his face. That's fine. You turn your attention to Yamato, touching his shoulders and finding that he feels unusually warm. You shake him, and he mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like "five more minutes, dad."

You roll your eyes and shake him harder. His eyes snap open and he jumps up onto his feet with a yell. Then he's tackling you and you very barely avoid falling over, grabbing onto the battlefield to steady yourself while you've got a very clingy boy attached to you.

"Gray, I think something scary happened—"

"Yamato, calm down," you say, your throat tightening as you speak, "We lost."

"Huh? No way!" He looks up at you with those big blue eyes in shock. "How'd that happen? Why can't I remember...?"

"I'll tell you back in our room," you say. "C'mon, let's get Bull and get going."

He releases you and grabs Midnight Blade, then starts toward where Bull is still fast asleep on the bench, but suddenly he stops halfway there and flinches. He turns, slowly, and you end up following his gaze to—

Enjyu is staring at him with an intensity that you're not sure you like.

Yamato returns his gaze, holding it with a strange look. His hands twitch, as if he's about to draw again.

And then the moment passes and he turns back to Bull and bounds away.

You let go of a breath you didn't realize you were holding, and end up focusing on the wind flowing through you as you follow Yamato.

The hotel staff are, at the least, not very afraid of you and even directly helpful with making sure the room you share with Yamato and Bull is comfortable, considering the amount of money Ababa gave you to spend on winning them over. You wind up taking a much needed meal alone, sitting at a table by their restaurant's window and gazing out at the sunset setting the greenery of Saitoon aflame.

You don't know still what to make of everything that happened earlier. He isn't just power, but a fearsome darkness that wants to consume everything.

And it's at once terrifying and exhilarating to witness.

But you know you can't control Yamato in that state, just as you already can't control Yamato on a regular basis. Besides, Yamato...had fallen very quiet when you told him what happened. Then he'd clambered into bed and turned away from you, feigning sleep. You know he'd been faking because you could hear his sniffling.

It had scared him too.

And that...you don't want Yamato to use that darkness if it's just going to hurt him.

"Hey."

You raise your gaze to find Enjyu standing there.

"You sure you want to be here? I could just take Lightning Star," you say.

He rolls his eyes. "Uh huh. You can try, but I don't think you're in any state to battle right now."

He's right, unfortunately.

"What do you want?" you ask, lifting a brow at him. This has to be a first across all the missions you've taken over the years. Your enemy coming right up to you completely cordial and acting like you're just regular rivals.

He tosses something at you, and when you catch it, it's a B-daball holder with purple B-daballs.

"One of you dropped this at the B-Center," he says. "Figured I'd raturn it."

"Right. Thanks."

And then you both fall silent, just staring at each other, waiting for one of you to say something first. His eyes are like ice, piercing you, and you shift uncomfortably, because you get the feeling he sees right through the facade you use to keep things in control.

Eventually, Enjyu makes the first move.

"Okay. Did what I came here to do. Bye," he says, turning on his heel.

"Enjyu," you call out before you're even sure what you want to say, stopping him in his tracks. He just looks back at you over his shoulder, waiting. It takes you a moment for your mind to catch up. "How did you break the...darkness?"

He tilts his head like he's thinking about it.

"No idea what you're talking about," he says, and walks away.

Leaving you to wonder what you've really gotten yourself into.

Your strange, wistful mood continues into the night, and you wind up on the balcony of your room as stars fill the sky. You gaze up at them, and you have to admit it's a beautiful sight, almost as beautiful as when you'd gazed up at it in Wintoon while sitting beside Liena, and it's nothing at all like the darkened world and the star that had broken it. You drink deep of the cool, fresh air of Saitoon's night, closing your eyes when a gentle, calming breeze picks up. Still, you're unable to shake your thoughts on the events of today, turning your questions over and over in your mind.

At some point Bull wakes up and wanders out of the room for a meal.

And Yamato just keeps on sleeping. He's slept the whole day. You wonder if what happened is the cause.

"Gray..."

It's Yamato. He's stepping out into the balcony barefoot, looking at you with an expression you can only call wounded. He sits down on the floor beside where you're standing, hugging his knees. In the short time you've known him, you never would have thought it possible to see him like this.

"Hey, you okay?" you say.

"I...I don't know," he answers. "I did something bad, didn't I—that darkness you told me about?"

You reach down and ruffle his hair, messing it up a little while he protests weakly. "You didn't hurt anyone in the end," you say, trying to sound reassuring.

"Yeah. Because Enjyu stopped me."

You frown. It's odd that Enjyu had denied it, but that's not what's important right now.

"Yamato...what was that?" It's the question you've been afraid to ask, because you think Yamato knows the answer, and you're not sure you're going to like it.

He doesn't answer for a long time, prompting you to glance down at him. There, still, that wounded look that just doesn't belong on his face. You sigh and step back, then turn and sit down beside him, so you can bump him with your shoulder. When you look up, the stars have been boxed in by the balcony railing and the hotel building.

"I think it's my brother," says Yamato.

You blink at him in curiosity, but sense that he isn't done. So you wait.

"He wasn't my real brother," continues Yamato after a moment, "But Ababa raised us together and never let us leave the headquarters. I...I told him a lot about the outside world, and we tried to escape last year, but we got caught."

Something about his words bring that strange itch back into your mind, as if you've heard this before. But still, you say nothing.

"And then I found out that Ababa and...and this thing called Marda-B were going to make him harvest my B-daspirit," he says, voice getting so soft you need to lean closer to hear. "And my brother asked me to kill him instead. And I did."

You stare at Yamato, chills running down your spine as you try to fathom what he's saying.

You can't wrap your head around it.

If Liena asked the same thing of you, would you be able to do it?

"But I think he's still here," says Yamato. He turns away from you, hiding his face, even as his voice cracks and grows strained. "I think Biarce's part of my B-daspirit now, and I don't know how, but that's why everything went dark when I got really mad at Wen."

This is very much above your pay grade. You wind up covering your mouth with one hand as you think it over, partially to stop yourself from saying anything before you're ready. The B-daspirit of another, attached to Yamato's? You don't know too much about the topic, but you've heard your training master and Ababa talk about B-daspirits before. That it's the strength behind everything a B-daplayer does. That it's not just found on the battlefield, but off it.

It's a B-daplayer's everything.

Gently, you touch Yamato's hand, making him turn back toward you, but you don't say anything, because you don't know what to say. Instead, all you can offer is this human contact that you normally don't give anyone but Liena.

Yamato shifts and leans his weight on you, and he's warm, like a pleasant fire staving off the cold. His body relaxes, tension in his muscles dissipating, and then tears well up in his eyes and he starts to cry. In response, you wrap your arm around him, and hold him, and let him wail into the night sky. You get the sense he's not really had a chance to mourn his brother, even after all this time.

Eventually, the wailing quietens, and he's wiping his eyes and nose on his sleeve.

"I knew..." he says quietly between sniffles, "From the moment we met last year, I knew I could trust you, Gray..."

This gives you pause. "Last year? What do you mean, last year?"

He snaps into alertness, raising his head to look at you with wide eyes. "I meant—"

"No, Yamato," you say firmly, but not angrily, because you just want an answer to the itch that won't stop snaking through your mind. "Did we meet last year? Is that why you've felt familiar to me this whole time?"

"You...you remember?" he whispers.

"No, I don't."

He grimaces, a conflicted look on his face. After a long moment, he says, "It was...that night my brother and I tried to escape. I was in the vents and landed in your room and woke you up. Then you helped me and brought me to the base's exit."

You think back to his story earlier, and realization dawns. "Ababa caught us."

"Yeah." Yamato nods. "He wiped your memory of the night."

You shudder at the very thought, but quickly quash any of the doubts and questions rising to your mind about the possibility of Ababa tampering with your other memories. You're certainly going to have choice words with him when you next get back to headquarters, but right now, you don't want to think on this.

"Is..." You frantically try to come up with a change of topic. "Is your brother why you battle so wildly?"

Surprise crosses his face.

"What? Nah," answers Yamato, and suddenly his face splits into a big grin, "That one's because I was raised by wild cats till the age of five. Then Ababa found me and took me in and taught me how to be a real kid, so I guess I just traded a cat mom for a cat dad."

"...you are one weird kid, you know that?" is all you manage to say in reply.

He laughs, and it's very suddenly one of the most wonderful sounds you've ever heard. He wipes his eyes again and smiles up at you, and that's also one of the most wonderful sights you've ever seen.

It's like just the sight or even the thought of him lights a fire in you, fortifying the winds that swirl through you. Giving them power.

His power, hand-in-hand with your control.

The perfect combination.

But there's still one thing bothering you. For this, you hesitate, because something about the thought makes you think that it's pivotal, like it's not something you can take back once said aloud.

Yamato blinks. "Gray? What is it, buddy?"

"Yamato," you start, and it weighs heavy on you and you don't know why. "This real kid thing...you don't need to pretend with me if you don't want to."

"Um, what do you mean?" he asks, and he sounds and looks nervous for once.

You take a deep breath before continuing. "You're forcing yourself to act a certain way, aren't you? Because Ababa wants you to be a 'real kid'? But the real you...it's still the wild cat he took in, isn't it?"

He doesn't respond, instead he rests his forehead against your arm for a long time, and just for the moment, you can't tell what he's thinking. Then he rubs his cheek against your shoulder and wraps his arms around you, and you know at once that he's never letting you go again. And you don't mind it at all.

"I really hate Ababa," he confesses with a whisper, and you hold your breath, "For taking me away from my cat mom, for what he did to my brother. You're right, Gray. I'm not a kid at all."

"You're Yamato," you say, and you tighten your hold around him. "And you can be whatever you want, with me. That's what friends are for."

"Friends...yeah." And when Yamato smiles at you this time, it's not the same forced smile he's always worn, but something genuine, even if the look in his eyes is wild and hungry—but still just as warm. "You're a real pal, Gray."

You just smile back, because this is turning out better than you'd thought it would. Maybe, one day, you could be just as genuine with him in return, but for now, you just have to keep playing your part. The part of Hurricane Gray. The part of Yamato's friend.

Even if Enjyu really can see right through you, you won't let him use that to his advantage.

Because that's what it means to be in control.

Yamato stalks ahead of you and Bull on your way out of Saitoon. The streets are empty, though as grassy and clean and sunny as ever, which seems perfect for Yamato as he moves with the purpose and grace of a hunter rather than the restrained cheer he used to put on for an invisible audience.

"Hm, Yamato seems different today," remarks Bull as you walk at his side, distracting you from the plans you're mulling over in your head.

"Yeah?"

"I like it," says Bull, and he leaves it at that.

You suppose he wouldn't be Bull if he were the sort to make it more complicated than it needs to be, the way you tend to do.

You pause as the three of you come up to Saitoon's exit, an arch denoting the boundary from the woodland beyond, sitting beside an old church that doesn't look much like it can stand for much longer. Standing in front of its large double doors is Alan, sweeping the porch of leaves with a broom—he looks up suddenly and meets your gaze, then quickly turns away.

You have a feeling you're going to be seeing him fairly often, soon. Him, and the brothers Yong Fa. And their friend Kiba. Maybe their master too, whoever they are.

And Enjyu.

Yamato makes a hissing noise that has you turn your gaze forward on the street once more.

There's two kids at the exit, and they're looking right at you, but you don't recognize them. They look to be B-daplayers though, that's easy enough to guess.

The shorter of the two strides toward you first, making the other follow. He's got blue hair like Alan's, and he's got a cloak of feathers wrapped around him that makes him look like a bird when he moves. The taller one has a mess of cropped green hair atop his head and a jacket lined with fur that looks too warm to wear in the region, and, most notably, a large burn scar across half his face.

You walk over to Yamato, placing a hand on his shoulder, and he relaxes a little, but he's still eyeing both strangers suspiciously.

"You're Hurricane Gray, aren't ya?" asks the shorter one, accent thick over his words.

"I am," you reply. Under your poncho, you make ready to draw, just in case. "Who's asking?"

"I'm Terry," says the shorter one.

"Cornell," adds the scarred one.

"Master Ababa sent us to join you now that you've completed the first half of your mission," says Terry, a smile forming on his lips, "Cornell and I are here to help with partin' Lightning Star from Enjyu."