The air in the private underground training facility was thick with the smell of scuffed polycarbonate and nervous sweat. It was a state-of-the-art room, built with sound-dampening walls and a massive, custom-built multi-lane stadium in the center.
Right now, that stadium was completely surrounded.
Five bladers stood around the perimeter, their knuckles white as they gripped their launchers. They were older, maybe fourteen or fifteen, brought in from the mainland under the promise of a hefty payout if they could secure just a single Ring-Out Finish. None of them were smiling.
Standing across from them, leaning slightly against the stadium's railing, was an eleven-year-old boy.
Ryu O'Hara didn't look like much of a threat. He wore a loose-fitting black jacket over a white shirt, his posture completely slouched. A fringe of striking platinum-silver hair fell over his forehead, partially obscuring his eyes. Those eyes were the first thing people usually noticed—one a soft, pale pink, and the other a flat, slate grey. Right now, both of them held the exact same expression of profound, unshakable boredom.
"Three, two, one," one of the older boys barked, sweat beading on his forehead. "Go Shoot!"
Five ripcords pulled simultaneously. The sound of plastic gears grinding echoed off the walls as five brightly colored Beyblades hit the stadium floor. There were three Attack types and two Stamina types. A coordinated, heavy-hitting formation. They banked off the upper ridge and converged on the center in a synchronized rush.
Ryu hadn't even struck a stance. He had just flicked his wrist.
In the dead center of the stadium, Eclipse Nidhogg was waiting. The dark violet and white Beyblade spun with a low, steady hum that seemed to swallow the ambient noise of the room. It was perfectly still. Not a millimeter of wobble.
"Crush him!" the lead blader yelled.
The three Attack types slammed into Nidhogg at the exact same time. The impact sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. A shower of white-hot sparks erupted from the center ring, lighting up the dim room. The older boys leaned in, expecting the black Bey to shatter under the combined momentum.
Nidhogg didn't move. It sat anchored in the center, its hollowed-out outer layer absorbing the kinetic force flawlessly.
Ryu watched the clash with half-lidded eyes. *The approach angles are too shallow,* he noted quietly to himself. *They're wasting their spin trying to force a heavy mass out of the center. Friction is already killing their stamina.*
*Click.*
The sound was quiet, but in the tension of the stadium, it echoed like a gunshot. Nidhogg took the brunt of the assault, and its locking mechanism clicked down exactly one tooth.
Inside the layer, the heavy metal weights, previously pulled tight to the center, snapped violently to the outer edges. The entire center of gravity shifted in a microsecond.
Ryu let out a slow, quiet breath. "Is that it?"
Nidhogg tilted. The jagged rubber edge of its Phantom driver caught the plastic floor. The Bey counterattacked
Gripping the stadium with brutal traction, Nidhogg accelerated out of the center at a terrifying speed. It cleaved straight through the trajectory of the first Attack type, shattering it into three pieces before the plastic even had time to register the hit. Without losing momentum, Nidhogg banked off the stadium wall, a blur of violet and silver, and swung back down.
*Burst. Burst.*
The two remaining Attack types exploded into fragments. The two Stamina types tried to retreat up the slope, but the shockwave of displaced air had already ruined their spin cycles. Nidhogg dropped onto them from above.
*Burst. Burst.*
The arena fell dead silent. The only sound was the clattering of fifteen pieces of plastic raining down onto the scuffed floor, followed by the steady, unbothered hum of Nidhogg, spinning peacefully in the center once again.
Ryu stood up straight, his face completely unchanged. He held out a hand, and Nidhogg hopped from the stadium floor, landing neatly in his palm. The metal was warm, but the Bey was completely unscratched.
The five bladers stared at the wreckage, the color completely drained from their faces. They didn't say a word. There was nothing to say.
"You can leave the stadium gear," Ryu said quietly, slipping Nidhogg into his pocket. He turned his back on them and walked toward the sliding glass doors leading out of the facility. He wasn't trying to humiliate them. He just didn't see the point in lingering when the match had already been settled.
---
The coastal breeze rolling off the island was sharp and carried the heavy scent of saltwater. Ryu walked up the stone steps toward the main courtyard of the private estate, the afternoon sun warm against his shoulders.
He took a seat on the low stone wall overlooking the ocean. In his left hand, he held a plastic spoon. In his right, a half-empty pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
He took a slow bite, letting the freezing temperature numb the roof of his mouth. It was a grounding habit. The cold, sweet taste was simple and absolute. It kept his mind from constantly drifting back to those disappointing matches , and weight distributions that usually ran on a loop in his head.
Resting on the stone wall next to his leg was Eclipse Nidhogg. He looked down at it. It was his creation. He had milled the metal, poured the polycarbonate, and balanced the weights himself. For as long as he could remember, growing up isolated on this massive estate with only the caretakers for company, it had just been him.
But not entirely.
Sometimes, when the stadium was perfectly quiet and the battles reached a certain frequency, he felt a weight in the room. A presence. It wasn't something he could see, but it was there—a quiet, heavy companion that understood him when nobody else did. He had forged Nidhogg to give that presence a shape in the physical world.
Right now, though, the presence was quiet. Just like Ryu.
"You're going to rot your teeth out eating that garbage."
Ryu didn't flinch. He just took another bite of ice cream and glanced over his shoulder.
Lui Shirasagijo was leaning against the courtyard archway, a massive duffel bag resting at his feet. His trademark blue hair was swept back, and his usual fiery, aggressive aura was dialed down to a quiet simmer. Lui had been training in the secondary gym all day. The faint smell of burnt rubber still clung to his jacket.
"It's dairy," Ryu replied evenly, turning his attention back to the ocean. "It builds bone density."
Lui scoffed, pushing off the wall and walking over. He stopped a few feet away, resting his forearms on the stone barrier and staring out at the water.
They were an odd pair. Lui was all volume, aggression, and relentless ambition. Ryu was quiet, detached, and immovable. Yet, living on this island facility together, they had formed a strange, unspoken dynamic. They were the only two people who understood what it meant to stand completely alone at the summit of their respective worlds. Lui had challenged Ryu countless times. He had never won. But unlike everyone else, Lui never gave up; he just got angrier, packed up his gear, and trained harder. Ryu respected that, even if he didn't quite understand the logic behind it.
"Those five guys taking the boat back right now," Lui muttered, his jagged teeth catching his lower lip. "I take it they didn't push you out of the center."
"They didn't push Nidhogg at all," Ryu said. He tapped his spoon against the side of the carton. He looked at the waves crashing against the rocks below. "It's getting dull, Lui."
Lui let out a sharp laugh. It lacked his usual mockery. "That's your own fault for fighting like a brick wall. If you want a real match, you have to actually go where the real matches are." Lui kicked his duffel bag slightly. "I'm leaving for Japan tonight. The District tournaments are starting. It leads straight to the Nationals."
Ryu blinked, his pink and grey eyes turning toward the older blader. "You've already won Nationals. You hold the title. Why go back through the qualifiers?"
"Because the roster is changing," Lui said, his voice dropping into something intense, focused, and hungry. "There's noise happening over there. New layers, new drivers. People who actually want to bleed for a win. I'm not going to sit on this island and wait for them to get strong enough to face me. I'm going to go crush them while they're still climbing."
Lui looked down at Ryu, a challenging smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Don't rot out here, Ryu. It's bad for your reflexes."
With that, Lui grabbed his bag, turned, and walked down the path toward the private driveway where a car was waiting to take him to the airstrip.
Ryu sat in silence for a long time. He scooped the last bit of ice cream, tossed the empty carton into a nearby bin, and picked up Nidhogg. The metal felt heavy against his palm.
He thought about the five bladers in the underground gym, and how empty their attacks had felt. Then he thought about the look in Lui's eyes—that relentless, burning passion. People talked about 'Blader's Spirit' all the time. Ryu had seen it. He had watched people cry over shattered Beys and scream in triumph over a win.
He didn't have that. He just had the power, the bey and the absolute certainty of victory.
But looking at the quiet, dark layer of Eclipse Nidhogg, Ryu felt a faint stirring in his chest. A curiosity. If Lui was willing to travel across the world just to find a spark, maybe there was something out there worth seeing. A variable he hadn't accounted for.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, his thumb hovering over the screen.
*Flight to Tokyo, Japan. One passenger.*
---
Two days later, the air in Japan was completely different. It was heavy, humid, and smelled of exhaust fumes, grilled meat, and sweet dough.
Ryu walked through the bustling streets of the local district, completely ignored by the crowds of people rushing past. He had a strawberry crepe in one hand, taking slow, methodical bites as he navigated the sidewalks. The neon signs and towering buildings were a stark contrast to the quiet, empty beaches of his island, but the noise didn't bother him. It was just a different kind of data to process.
He was dressed in a casual black hoodie and dark jeans, carrying nothing but a small backpack and his launcher strapped to his belt. He took a left turn down a busy commercial street, heading toward the massive, glass-fronted building that dominated the skyline: The local branch of the WBBA.
As he approached the plaza in front of the building, the ambient noise shifted. Mixed in with the traffic and the talking was a sharp, familiar sound.
*Clack. Clack-clack.*
Polycarbonate striking plastic.
The plaza was filled with public stadiums. Dozens of kids, around his own age, were gathered around them, launching their Beys, shouting commands, and cheering loudly.
Ryu slowed his pace, finishing his crepe and tossing the wrapper into a bin. He slipped his hands into his pockets and walked past the stadiums, his mismatched eyes scanning the battles.
It was messy. The launch forms were sloppy, the trajectories were unrefined, and the Beys themselves were mostly factory-standard parts with no real synergy. But despite the lack of skill, the air was electric. Kids were gripping the edges of the stadiums, their faces flushed with effort, shouting out move names as if their voices could physically push their Beys faster.
Ryu stopped near one of the larger stadiums, watching two bladers clash. One Bey was pushed to the edge, teetering on the brink of an Over Finish. By all laws of rotational physics, it didn't have the momentum to recover. It should have dropped.
"Don't give up! Push back!" the boy controlling it screamed, his face red.
Miraculously, the Bey caught the edge of the slope, wobbled dangerously, and threw its remaining weight forward, knocking the opponent out of the ring instead.
Ryu tilted his head slightly. *Friction too high,* he calculated silently. *The angle was wrong. That shouldn't have worked.*
But it did. He had seen things like this before, anomalies that always seemed to coincide with a blader's emotional peak. It was the one thing he couldn't replicate. He couldn't force a Bey to do something it wasn't physically built to do, because he didn't have whatever that boy had just shown.
He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against Nidhogg. The metal felt cold, but there was a faint vibration there. A quiet anticipation.
*We're in the right place,* Ryu thought.
He turned away from the public stadiums and walked through the sliding glass doors of the WBBA center.
The lobby was massive, filled with digital brackets flashing on large screens and lines of bladers waiting at registration desks. The District Tournament was officially opening its doors for the season. Ryu walked up to one of the open kiosks, standing in front of a tired-looking clerk in a WBBA uniform.
"Hi there," the clerk said, giving a practiced smile. "Are you here to register for the District Qualifiers?"
"Yes," Ryu said, his voice quiet and flat.
"Alright, I just need your Blader ID, and I need to scan your Beyblade to ensure it meets tournament regulations."
Ryu pulled a sleek, black card from his wallet and placed it on the counter, followed by Eclipse Nidhogg.
The clerk picked up the Bey, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Custom build?" he asked, turning the dark violet and white layer over in his hands. He tapped it against a small digital scanner on the desk. "Weight distribution is... unusual. Balance type?"
"Yes."
The scanner beeped green. The clerk handed Nidhogg back, then slid Ryu's ID into the computer. A moment later, Ryu's profile popped up on the monitor. The clerk's eyes scanned the screen, and Ryu watched as the man's posture subtly stiffened. The practiced smile faded, replaced by a look of genuine confusion.
"Ryu O'Hara," the clerk read slowly. He looked up, his eyes darting between the screen and the silver-haired boy standing in front of him. "It says here your win record is... wait, is this a glitch? It says you have a hundred percent win rate in unofficial league matches. And your last registered location was the Shirasagijo private estate?"
"The data is accurate," Ryu said, his tone unchanging. "Am I registered?"
"Uh, yes," the clerk stammered, quickly pressing a few buttons and handing the ID card back. "You're placed in Block C. The first round starts tomorrow morning at ten."
"Thank you."
Ryu took his card and turned away from the desk. He walked over to the massive digital screens displaying the tournament brackets. Hundreds of names were listed, most of them completely unknown to him.
He let his eyes wander over the blocks. He recognized a few names from the international databases. A few rising stars. None of them mattered to him yet.
He slipped Nidhogg back into his pocket, feeling the solid weight of it against his leg. He had come here because Lui said there was noise. He had come here because the island had grown stagnant, and the matches had grown predictable.
He looked around the lobby at the hundreds of kids laughing, arguing, and tuning their gear. They all had a reason to be here. A dream, a rivalry, a desperate need to prove themselves. Ryu didn't have any of that. He was just an empty vessel, carrying an immovable wall of a Beyblade.
But as he walked out of the WBBA center and back into the humid, bustling streets of Japan, he felt a strange, unfamiliar sensation settling in his chest.
He was hoping someone here would finally prove him wrong