Rating: R due to "graphic nature"

Major Pairing(s) for this chapter: Kai/Rei (M/M)

Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade or its characters.

I am not sure where the inspiration for this fic came from; it just kind of dropped out of the sky and into my lap one morning while I sleepily tried to sit up in bed, but only succeeded in smacking my head on the top bunk. Maybe I got the idea from the concussion…

Pay attention to dates, otherwise the story will be quite confusing. I even baffle myself when writing it as I forget when I dated something.

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Part 1 – Everything Is Wrong

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February 28, 1986

Trees rushed past on either side, their colored leaves chasing the train as it went by in a flurry of wind, racing toward the dark clouds that rolled in the sky and leaving behind drenched, open fields that had already succumbed to the awesome power of an afternoon storm. The wind whistled and the sky cracked.

Hiwatari Kai listened to the rhythmic sound of the train moving over the steel tracks and the clattering of silver utensils against china plates as he stared out a large, shaded window on his left. He had been watching the sky change from dreary blues to dark grays for a while now, listening to the occasional crackle of thunder that rose faintly above the noise in the train.

He was young, alone, and bored, resting his cheek against one curled fist as his eyes followed the movement outside. He closed his eyes briefly before turning them to the other occupants seated at the tables inside the dining car. They were dressed lavishly, the ladies in pastel dresses with wide-rimmed sun hats tucked neatly against their sides and the gentlemen in black tuxes with gold cuff links. Sighing, Kai drew his attention back to the window, noticing the small rivers of water that streaked across the glass.

It had begun to rain.

"Shall I take your plate, sir?"

Kai flashed bored eyes toward the man standing next to his seat, and then down at his untouched food, mumbling a polite, "Please," though it lacked a grateful tone.

The man took the plate and, nodding once with a slight quirk of the brow, drifted away to another table. Kai, still leaning against one hand, lifted the other to run a finger around the rim of his glass. He didn't receive a satisfying, low hum; no one would place fancy crystal on such a jolting train. The gesture did distract him momentarily, however, occupying the short minutes that he needed in order to think of something to do.

The peeking sun finally disappeared into the fog on the horizon, leaving darkness in its place. Kai could barely see out the window, instead getting a reflection of what was happening inside the car. His eyes wandered over the jovial faces of the other passengers, his ears catching their laughs. It was a way to stare without being caught.

Kai's bored expression twisted into one of confusion as his eyes met up with the reflection of another's on the shiny glass plane. He looked away from the window, facing the seat across from him, and was surprised to see that someone was sitting there, watching him. Had he been so distracted that he had not noticed this person slide into the seat?

The other was Kai's age, or thereabouts, and Kai blinked stupidly at him before regaining control over his expression. They stared in silence at one another, and then, as if amused or possibly even relieved to find someone sharing his boredom, the other boy smiled. It was a soft smile, and he cocked his head to the side as he stared at Kai, his raven hair sliding like silk as he did so. After a few slow blinks, Kai smiled in return, unsure of how to respond. The other boy's smile spread wider, his golden eyes gleaming.

The sound of heels clicked quietly on the ground next to Kai, passing him, but he did not notice the presence of the lady until she was leaning down to whisper something in the other boy's ear, drawing his attention away from Kai and to her. Kai watched as she took the boy's small hand in hers, pulling him out of the seat and leading him away. The boy's mother, perhaps?

With the last flicker of a smile, the boy glanced over his shoulder at Kai, a subtle way of saying goodbye. It was as they walked away that Kai noticed the faint, strange markings encircling the boy's wrist. It looked like writing.

Kai watched them go, eyes glued to them until they stepped out the door on the far end of the dining car, no doubt going back to their own private room. When they were gone from sight, Kai turned back to the window, back to staring outside, though now his mind was preoccupied.

The boy and his mother… she had to be his mother; they were identical. They were dressed like everyone else, yet there was something different about them. The way the lady practically flowed when she walked, like if reached for, she would slip right through the wanting fingers, and the way the boy had looked at her… So admiring… So trusting…

And where had she gone to that she had to leave the boy alone for those short minutes? They had not started in the dining car; at least, Kai had not seen them. Maybe they were coming back from visiting a friend's room, and she had waited a little while for the rain to let up before passing the bridge between the cars…

A gentle shake of the head, and the thoughts were gone; Kai knew he was overanalyzing things again.

"Young sir, perhaps you should head back to your room. Your parents may be getting worried."

Kai once more shifted his eyes to the man standing at his table, his thoughtful look changing swiftly to a cold stare. He frowned at the man, but, upon realizing how long he had been sitting in the dining car, nodded and slowly slid out of his seat.

"Would you like me to escort you back? I doubt your parents want you wandering around alone," the man asked, yet his expression betrayed his words. He looked on at Kai with pity, thinking Kai to be the child of parents who probably didn't even notice his absence, like so many other of the children on the train that night.

However, the man soon found himself on the receiving end of as much of a hateful glare as a ten-year-old could make.

"My parents are dead," Kai snapped, shoving his way out of the booth and past the man. He ignored the stuttered apology that drifted behind him, blocking out the voice. A small pain rose in his chest, but he soon quelled that as well.

The man at the door gave Kai the same calculating look that every adult did, but he slid the door open without question. Kai stepped through onto the little bridge that connected the two cars, the wind whipping around him and a few drops of rain that had managed to slip into the small opening between the cars splashed into Kai's face, once vicious raindrop even nailing him right in the eye.

The small bridge creaked under his weight as he stepped across and he watched the fast moving tracks that came and disappeared beneath him like two endless, metal snakes. The door to the next car was closed, and there was no man to open it. Kai frowned, wondering where the doorman had gone, and helped himself into the car.

This car was quieter, much quieter, the doors to all the rooms shut and no one else present in the car's narrow hallway. The dead silence was eerie to Kai, and he quickly passed through, his own room being two more cars up. He paused in front of one door, making out the faintest hint of music on the other side, but otherwise there was nothing and Kai was alone. He hurriedly continued on his way to the other unwatched door.

Had Kai been somewhat older, or female, he most likely would have wondered a bit more about the silence of that one car, and possibly even have connected it with earlier events. However, lacking experience or intuition, Kai wrote off his feelings of apprehension as nothing more than childish anxiety, as he happened to be in the stage of childhood where one tries so hard to seem older and stronger.

Forgetting about the car and his feelings almost immediately upon exiting, it was only after he went through two more sets of doors, after it happened, and he was sitting in the cold rain with nothing but an umbrella for protection, watching a group of people walk solemnly away from him, that he realized, Hey, something is wrong here.

First, Kai felt it. The entire train car that he was standing in shuddered. Then he heard it. It boomed like thunder, except the screeching of metal against metal followed it. Another tremor ran through the train and it rocked to its side a bit, the eerie screeching getting louder and louder.

The doors to Kai's side started to slide open, some passengers sticking out their heads and looking around, but more bold ones storming from their compartments and demanding answers from the door men. The car was suddenly full of loud voices, people yelling, crying, and screaming as the train car jerked back and forth.

Kai recognized the screeching as the brakes clamping on the steel tracks, and immediately began to push his way through the crowded hall toward the door. The doorman was telling the passengers not to worry and preventing them from reaching the door. Kai slipped right past him, being small enough to.

"Please, everyone, it would be wise to – hey!"

Kai felt the man grasp the back of his coat and pull him back, but he was able to catch a glimpse of outside through the small window on the door. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the train cars in front of the one he was in pitch and turn on their sides, the sound of grinding metal getting louder.

There was an instant where everything seemed to pause; ladies' mouths open in indignant cries; gentlemen's faces screwed up in hot anger; the lights in mid-flicker; the screeching of the metal dying, if only for just a second, before the entire train car pitched like ones before it.

In a flash, Kai was thrown against one of the walls, the other passengers crushing him under their weight. Angry cries turned to ones of terror, and hands began frantically reaching about for something – anything – to hang onto. Kai hung tightly to one of the light fixtures on the wall, but when the car pitched again, it was ripped from its place and both it and Kai were thrown like rag dolls.

More screams, more terrified hands reaching.

Then it all flashed away.

Kai slowly opened his eyes and looked about. The silence that now reigned over the train car was unsettling, and it took Kai a moment to realize he had been unconscious. The car was completely dark and the pounding of rain could be heard against the top of the train car. Except, Kai was sitting on the ceiling of the car. Looking up, Kai could barely make out the red carpet in the dark, the same red carpet that lined the luxurious train's floors.

It was then that Kai seemed to notice everything else. The sound of water running; the tilt of the train car; the people around him that were still unconscious. In a flash of lightening, he could make out the door at one end of the car with water seeping in through its cracks and quickly filling up that end of the car.

Kai was, fortunately, on the higher side of the car, but his body was frozen in place as his eyes roamed over the faces of the other passengers. Every time the lightening flashed through the door's window and into the car, Kai could see their expressions. He could see the blood that trickled from deep gashes, and the mouths that were still open in horror, dead eyes staring back at Kai.

Was no one else alive?

Kai breathed in sharply, a lump in his throat. His heart raced, pounding in his ears. Why, like the others, was he not piled in the bottom half of the train, dead and being covered by water? Kai's frantic eyes searched about, but when he turned, he felt a tug on the back of his coat. He cautiously looked behind him, and promptly cried out in a mixture of shock and fright.

The doorman's hand still gripped his coat, and the doorman's body was stuck in a crush of metal that had, most likely, happened when the car pitched the first time on its side. He had stopped Kai from looking out the window. He had stopped Kai from being thrown like the others. He had stopped Kai from being crushed underneath the bodies and drowned by the water, and the twisted look of pain on his face stopped Kai's heart for a split second.

Crying out again, Kai jerked free of his coat and pressed himself flat against the opposite wall. He was terrified. The earlier pain that he had shoved away rose again in his chest. He wanted, needed, someone to come and wrap her arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay. He wanted her to sing to him like she used to. He wanted to cry in her arms like he used to.

But there was no one; they were all dead.

In a burst of adrenaline, Kai scrambled his way to the upside down door of the train car and forced it open. Instantly, he was met with pelting rain, rumbling thunder, and the whistling wind.

Kai didn't care.

Pulling himself out of the door, he tried to see what had happened, tried to see if there was anyone else alive like him, but the only thing he could see was the broken bridge, half of the wrecked train lining the bank of a fast moving river and the other half already in the water. The car Kai was in was the middle car that separated the two halves, and was being tugged, almost encouraged, by the river to join the rest of the cars in the water.

Still trembling, Kai jumped into the shallow water nearest him and made his way toward the riverbank. What had happened? One minute everything was fine, and the next… Kai tried not to think about it. He didn't want to think about it.

The muddy bank was slippery, and Kai constantly found himself falling. Nonetheless, he kept going, eyes burning with tears and throat closing up in a tight sob. He had been told not to panic in tragic situations, but he would wonder later – when he wasn't attempting to get to some form of safety – whether or not the person who had told him that had ever been in a tragic situation, because, damn, panic was probably the only firm feeling he could grasp at that moment.

Finally, Kai reached higher ground, and he collapsed in exhaustion. The rain continued its assault on his small body, and he fought to see through its thick sheets for someone. Anyone. He didn't want to be alone, not right now. He needed company, even if the person was of the lowest class of scum. Even if the person was a no-good, indecent human. Kai didn't care.

The rain stopped. Or, at least, it stopped over Kai's head. He could still hear it, could still see it, but no longer did it beat brutally against his face. And then Kai saw the small, delicate hand that was extended toward him. His eyes traced up the arm of the hand, up to the face where two golden eyes glowed in the dark as they studied Kai.

Slowly, Kai placed his own muddy hand in the clean one and allowed himself to be helped up and under the slight protection of the umbrella. The other boy guided his hand to the handle of the umbrella.

The boy looked thoughtful for a moment and then, flashing Kai a kind, secretive smile, said, "Goodbye, yān yǎn-jūn," before dashing away into the rain. Kai reached out to stop him, but his fingers only grabbed air.

Now Kai could see the others that were standing close by, but not too close. They each had an umbrella and it was to them that the boy ran. He went straight to the same woman that had been with him before and she again took his hand in hers, though she, nor any of the others, never tore her eyes away from Kai.

The way they looked at Kai kept him from going to them. Just a minute earlier, he had thought he did not care whom he was with, but now… Now those cold eyes froze him to his spot. They were hateful and showed the obvious distaste the owners held for Kai. The only one with bright eyes, the only one who looked like he welcomed Kai, was the boy with golden eyes.