"Dranzer, Spiral Fireball!"

"Dragoon! No!"

The tops flew in the fury of the fight:

"Draciel, protect him!"

"Not this time, Max: Driger, Tiger Claw attack!"

"Wow, this is getting hot, folks!"

This was it; A.J. Topper and Brad Best were at the top of their lungs; the crowd was cheering like there was tomorrow; all their bit-beasts were out, and the four Bladebreakers, the team that had defeated the BEGA were locked in what was perhaps one of the fiercest battles of their careers: Kai and Ray versus Max and Tyson, for the inauguration of the World Championship, at the tip top of Yokohama Landmark Tower.

Secretly, they all hoped this would cure Ray's melancholy; he'd been trying not to show it, but he'd been in a very dreary mood the last few weeks.

"Dragoon… hang in there!" cried Tyson in frenzy…

Kai and Ray's plan was unravelling as expected. Bypassing Max's defences thanks to Ray's agility, they were pounding as hard as they could on Tyson's top, reducing him to a meek defensive stance. Even being the World Champion, he couldn't possibly handle both of them at once; and if they brought him down, his sidekick would be easy prey.

"We've got him, Kai" said Ray with a tiny grin on his face.

But Kai answered:

"Don't sing victory just yet"

And he was right; a World Champion wasn't that easy to overcome. Tyson smiled at them in a way only a captain could smile at his teammates, and they could see the determination shine in his eyes as he called the dreaded attack upon them.

"Dragoon!" he shouted "Galaxy Storm!"

To be truthful, neither Kai nor Ray had thought this through, and had been quite sure that Dragoon would be K.O. before he could retaliate. But even so, their action was instantaneous and their synchronization almost telepathic.

"Drigger! Tiger Claw Attack, while he's still weak!"

"Dranzer, don't let him recover his senses; Flame Sabre Attack!"

And on these tremendous war cries, all the bit-beasts attacked at full power.

Then, the whole stadium was filled with light. The crowd and the Bladers were above themselves with excitement, and through the glass dome of the specially-built arena shone a flash of blue, green, red and white luminescence so powerful, so utterly brilliant, that it shone in all Yokohama, and was even later said to have been seen all the way in Tokyo.

Yet when the light dimmed out, only three of the four tops remained; and the one missing was Tyson's.

"Now for the finale" said Kai then with a devilish smile.

"Any last words, Max?" said Ray.

Max only gulped as his two adversaries cried in unison:

"Attack!"

***

"You think we were a bit to hard on them?" asked Ray.

"Nah" said Kai "Trust me, there's no harm done…"

Ray didn't seem convinced:

"Don't worry" insisted Kai seeing his teammate's look "you'd be surprised what modern medicine does; a scull fracture gets fixed in no time these days."

They were in their locker room, and the atmosphere was unusually tense for a victory; Kai had already taken off his shirt, and Ray was on a bench wiping the sweat off his face. The place had no windows, and all the walls were of an almost otherworldly metal white. It was furthermore illuminated in white neon light, so that the grey steel benches and hooks were almost a traditional relief from the modernity overwhelming modernity. Ray was sitting on one of said benches; and suddenly, something he'd been thinking for a long time sprung from:

"You know, Kai" he said "I'm scared"

Upon hearing him, Kai turned around; he'd just hung his tank top on one of the hooks, and looked not at all bad without it. He glared at Ray for a few seconds… Or maybe he didn't glare, and that was just his natural curious face, but either way it was quite imposing.

"What?" he answered at last, not finding any hidden meaning in the sentence he could easily figure out.

"Well…" continued Ray, glad he'd been rejoined "Not scared, exactly… More like overwhelmed and sad… Melancholy's the word, I think."

"You sure learned good vocabulary up in that mountain village of yours…" commented Kai.

"Yeah, well I studied" snapped Ray; he then continued in a much calmer voice "But that's beside my point" he said "What I wanted to tell you has been bugging me for some time now… I was always a conservative guy. I grew up in a village were everything was small and controlled. I was one with nature. But now, I've been around the world, I've seen all these big cities, all this high technology… and it sort of scares me. I don't know" he concluded "I didn't want to tell too many people, and it sounded like something you'd understand."

"Can't say I do" said Kai, drying the sweat off the back oh his neck with a small gym towel.

"Oh come on!" said Ray, his head in his hands "Look at us; for God's sake, look around us! We're like lab rats in here. Everything's white, everything's shiny, everything's new and technological, everything's controlled. Take now for an example: we won, but where's the thrill? Where's the survival of the fittest? Where's the animal race against nature? We're just little pegs in a huge, nameless machine… I don't know if I've made myself clear."

Kai stood by him. Now, he'd stopped doing anything and just looked down on Ray. Then he grinned:

"Wow" he said finally "You're really a tiger, aren't you?"

"What?"

"You're a tiger" said Kai "And you feel like you're in a cage."

"Yeah…" answered Ray after a brief pause "Yeah, I guess"

And he gave a not at all un-kitten-like pout.

"Come with me" said Kai getting up "I'll show you something"

He went towards one of the doors.

"What ?" asked Ray.

"Follow me, I said" insisted Kai.

"What now?"

"Yeah, now."

"Like this?"

"The door just leads more or less down a dead end hallway" said Kai "It's not like there'll be anyone there"

Then, with a slight, infinitesimal tinge of tenderness to his usual asperity, he added:

"I know what you're going through; I want to show you how I got over it.

And Ray got up, and they went out the door.

Kai led Ray down a small, narrow, dark flight of stairs. Then they went down a corridor, pushed a door open, and ended up in a large hall with a very high ceiling. The lights were off; they didn't turn them on, and Kai took the additional precaution of whipping out his Beyblade, and destroy all the security cameras… just in case any guards had any weird ideas, or any paparazzi had weird connections.

Judging from the space and the furniture, they were probably in some sort of high-category conference room, but that's not really what one focused on upon entering the room; what one's eye immediately went to were the windows. The great glass windows that made up a whole side of the room, so much that you might as well have called it a glass wall, if it weren't for the tiny metal bars here and there holding the glass together together. Kai gestured Ray to come closer, and the latter looked out the window.

"Oh my…" whispered Ray.

There, he saw it before him. As he stood behind the window, at the top of the tallest skyscraper in Japan –Tokyo tower doesn't really count as a skyscraper- he beheld at his feet all the glory of the so-called "urban jungle". Millions of people were going about their lives like ants at his feet; as far as the eye could see, everything was covered in myriads of twinkling lights; these manmade little stars were so bright, that they almost blighted out the true celestial lights in the firmament, and the only gaps left in their endless mantle were here and their the black bodies of water as a testimony of what the world was once supposed to look like at night.

"You see?" said Kai.

But Ray didn't immediately answer.

"Do you see?" repeated Kai.

"Why… why did you bring me to see this?" his companion finally uttered.

"Reflect on it" said Kai.

"Reflect on it?" said Ray "

"Reflect, Ray" repeated Kai.

"I already have" said Ray, with dreary calmness "This is what's taken over the world; this is exactly what I was talking to you about. We're nothing in this, Kai; Nothing; you understand? Humans are too small; they're nameless for that thing out there! There's no dreams, no human passion left anymore; there's only machines!"

"On the contrary" said Kai "Here's where we can be everything"

Ray looked perplexed:

"Everything?" he enquired.

"Yes, everything" said Kai "You said it yourself. Humans are too small for this"

"Yeah" said Ray "And?"

"Well, that's why this isn't a machine" said Kai "Not anymore, at least. It might have been controlled a hundred, two hundred years ago… but not now; it's grown too big. All those lights, those are people… those are souls out there. Millions and millions of souls; just like the animals in nature"

"What do you mean?" said Ray, still in utter awe.

"I mean, Ray" said Kai "I don't know how to say this without sounding corny… That this is just as big as nature; and that here we're just as good as we were there. Sure, everything's disguised in new, flashy, colours, but deep down, it's the same as it always was. And deep down, if you're worth it you can climb to the top.

"I think I'm starting to get you…" said Ray, ponderously.

Then Kai put one hand around the other boy's shoulder and with the remaining one he gestured towards the city, showing it to Ray:

"This is your jungle, tiger" he said "make it bow before you"

There was a long pause, as Ray realized the meaning of it.

"Kai…" he said at last turning around, and looking the other in the eyes.

"The world is ours, Ray" said Kai "Together, we're the best beybladers there are; and all those lights you see down there, all those machines, all those nameless humans… they're ours."

"Oh, Kai" said Ray.

And he grabbed both Kai's arms. Then, forcefully, fiercely, like a tiger, he kissed him like he'd never kissed anyone before; and with even more strength Kai put both his arms around Ray's waist and took control like the wolf he was. In the light not anymore of the moon but of the city, the two beasts of the urban jungle shared with each other, on top of the world, the love they so diligently hid from it. And when their lips parted, they finally said to each other the fateful words:

"I love you Kai"

"I love you Ray"

Then, they gazed into each other's eyes. How could anyone ever think that human passion was dead or ever could die? How could anyone believe there were now dreams? Love had existed since time immemorial, and it had brought the Universe into being; it lived on even in this dreary age; and it would live on forever.

Then things suddenly got a lot more carnal.

"Strip" said Kai.

"What?" exclaimed Ray; of course, he wasn't exactly outraged or shocked, but he was most certainly surprised.

"Strip" repeated Kai, with a more imperative tone "It's not like anybody's going to see us, and even if they do, I'm sure everyone would be delighted to get an eyeful of you naked." Then, he added in a lower tone: "I know I would"

"You're a pervert" said Ray.

"I prefer the term sexually romantic" said Kai, kissing him on the cheek "Now come on; I thought we'd just established we were animals"

The latter didn't need much more convincing, and moving away for a moment, he immediately threw off the traditional robes he wore everywhere, leaving himself, just like Kai, shirtless in pants.

"You know" said Ray "We really are hot like this in the city lights"

"That's the spirit, Ray" said Kai, grabbing him with one hand by the waist "The world is ours!"

He kissed him passionately on the lips.

"Now take of the rest" he ordered

"You animal" said Ray as he obeyed bringing up his hands to untie his hair.

"No" said Kai "Not the headband; I think it's sexy"

And he pounced onto him, and the two fell onto the floor rolling around in a furious ball of fiery animal passion. As for the rest of the story, we're sorry, but it really must be left out for rating's sake. We hope that the readers will accept in lieu of an extensive description of the act, the following piece of dialogue between our two protagonists during the censored scene:

"Does it hurt, Ray?"

"I've had better days; how do you even keep that thing up so long?"

"Do you want me to stop, Ray?"

"What? Never! Hear me roar, b—h!"

***

As for an epilogue it is enough to say that the next morning our two boys woke up around two o'clock in the afternoon and that they were in the very best of spirits for the Championship. Yet though Ray's melancholy was completely cured, he still complained about a certain sore somewhere, which considering his elsewhere in the series proven resilience to pain should to the suspecting reader reveal certain most affecting particulars on some of Kai's, shall we say it, dimensions.

And here ends the story.