Guess who's back! :)

Ohmygosh you guys! I just realized I haven't updated in like four months and I feel so terrible! You must all be ready to kill me XD. I suppose that in my defense it's been a crazy school year, but still! Okay, from now on, I am promising you that I will try to update this story every two weeks at the most. So again, sorry for the hiatus! I've missed you all so much! But thankfully, I'm totally motivated and ready to write! So expect another update sometime before Christmas! Yayyy~!

This chapter is the final part to the Recording Devices series :). It finally got finished! FINALLY! I'm serious, this whole thing was so stubborn with me :D. It was like, "No way are you going to finish me! I'm just going to go on for forever!" And I was like, "Grr, no way!" Haha, so yeah, it's finally done :D.

And thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the reviews, favorites, and alerts you guys! I could just hug you all! :3

Since I definitely want you to go ahead and read the chapter, I'm going to save all of my ramling for the end XD.

So, as always, enjoy!

I do not own MFB.

Recording Devices Pt. 5

There were three things Tsubasa noticed after that cake exploded. Three things that told him he was really in for it this time.

The first was an angry Hikaru that gave him a purple glare so threatening it would've fried a hamster. And naturally, this was the same Hikaru who probably wanted to destroy him after their last meeting, where he walked off without answering her question about his feelings for her. Not only that, but the fuming girl's decent outfit was now covered in blue and red "friendship" cake and although the dessert was supposed to bring feelings of friendship, Hikaru's glaring face was saying otherwise. Tsubasa let out a little sigh. Of course Hikaru would be here. Of course.

The second thing he noticed, well, it would be hard not to notice, was an angry Kyouya that stormed onto the scene only minutes after the explosion, beyblade clutched in his hand from finally besting Aquila and out of breath with hard, blue eyes locked onto his target. He muttered a dark, "Tsubasa..." and probably would've continued on to say something offensive, but he was interrupted when a sheepish blond head poked into the room and said something about a broken laptop.

"I was only playing with it, Yo-Yo, sheesh. Don't be so upset," Yu told the disbelieving Kyouya. The lion blader simply stared with bewilderment at the little boy, big, wide open eyes, before he slit those blue orbs and slowly turned to Tsubasa with a look that could kill. Seriously.

And last, the third, and probably the most ridiculous thing, was a sobbing Ginka leaning over the ex-friendship cake while a remorseful Hyouma pat his back comfortingly. The cherry-haired teen sputtered something about that cake being one of his most treasured presents while Hyouma said a soothing, "It was a beautiful cake. I'll always remember it." Ginka dipped his finger in the icing and tasted it before bursting into a new chapter of sobs when he vocally stated that he was never able to have a slice.

"Why did my friendship cake have to explode?" he demanded, "It was too young to die! This is worse than Bomby!"

"We will never understand why Tsubasa would kill such an innocent pastry," Hyouma said solemnly with another pat.

Tsubasa simply rolled his eyes.

Well, it seemed the only good thing was that the explosion had brought his hearing back. Now he could hear the words that everyone was saying. Oh wait. That wasn't such a great thing, was it?

This whole thing; the Hikaru situation, the laptop situation, and friendship cake situation, this was supposed to make him feel guilty, right? This was where he started a whole, cheesy speech to his angry friends about how sorry he was and how much he hoped that they'd forgive him for making such horrible mistakes. This was where he got on his knees and begged that they would excuse these problems. Then they would forgive him in their own ways (hopefully avoiding violence) and they'd all be friends again, sunshine, rainbows, and all that crap.

Except there was a problem.

Tsubasa didn't feel all that guilty. Not in the least bit. In fact, there were deeper feelings inside him, boiling in the pit of his stomach and building in power. Strong feelings. Feelings that he'd probably act upon if not careful. But wait, he wasn't the type to act on those feelings. Nothing to worry about. His level-headedness and calm attitude under pressure were things he took pride in. They were things that he worked hard to keep and he swore that no one would ever break. And in spite of his urge to sack Eagle on everyone in the room, he easily retained his usual stoic expression and waited for the words to come.

Hikaru started off the party with an icy glare and a less-than-welcoming, "Tsubasa..."

"Hikaru," he greeted the girl nonchalantly.

"Kyouya?" Hyouma looked at the forest-haired blader with confusion.

"Hyouma," Kyouya said in response.

"Ginka!" Ginka pointed to himself and laughed.

"Yu!" Yu pumped his fist in the air with a giggle, "Hey, am I playing this game right?"

"Tsubasa!"

"Ginka!"

"Yu!"

"Hikaru?"

"Ginka!"

"Yu!"

"Hyouma!"

"Ginka!"

"Yu!"

Ten minutes later...

"Okay, this is getting really stupid," Hikaru finally summed up the acknowledging each other and defensively folded her arms across her chest. Her violet eyes jerked from person to person until they landed on Tsubasa with a disgusted look. "Alright, I want answers," she remembered to glance at the other intruders, "from all of you."

Kyouya mirrored her stance with the crossing of his own arms, glared fiercely at everyone in the room and let out a sound that was something between a snort and a growl.

"All I know is this: some idiot with stupid, girly hair, not gonna name any names," Tsubasa mentally rolled his eyes at the lion blader's failed attempt at being anonymous. Kyouya even looked the eagle blader's way to further express who the "idiot with stupid, girly hair" was before taking the opportunity to continue, "sent that little brat," a jab towards Yu, "to spy on me and break my electronics."

Yu huffed indignantly, looked upwards at the teen and placed his hands on his hips.

"Yo-Yo, you dumbhead! I said I was sorry!" he whined as his bottom lip curled into a pout, "Just ask Masamoomoo to fix it, he's great with computers!"

The others thoughtfully remembered the last time Masamune "fixed" a computer and shivered. On a lighter note it was turning out to be quite a wonderful microwave!

"No thanks..."

Hyouma stepped up to the plate and expressed the most angry face he could manage, which wasn't very angry honestly, he was still smiling and his voice was high like he'd just eaten a lot of sugar instead of getting blasted with it.

"Alright, everyone calm down, we need to get to the bottom of this. How about—" he probably would've continued if a huge globule of icing hadn't dripped off his hair and fallen in his eyes. Tsubasa sighed and remembered to realize that they were all—save Kyouya and Yu—covered head-to-toe in icing conveniently shaded in your-shirt-will-be-stained-forever blue and a red the color of Hikaru's fuming face.

Well, that's the end of my favorite shirt...

"We don't need to figure anything out," Kyouya snapped, "we already know what we need to do." He instantly whipped out his bey and didn't hesitate in pointing it straight at his new enemy. "We need to make this guy give us some answers."

Something sparked inside Tsubasa in that moment. Something hot and fierce. Something that made the boiling in the pit of his stomach grow more quickly. He'd have to carefully choose his words at this point or they'd get a mind of their own.

"This is all a misunderstanding," he said coolly, maintaining equal eye contact with everyone, "If you can calm down, I'll—"

"Tsubasa!" Ginka finally tore himself from his loved one (a.k.a. the ex-friendship cake) and wiped the tears out of his eyes, "Why did you give me a bomb instead of a recording device! If it wasn't for you, Cakey still would've been alive!"

Tsubasa could feel the crease appearing between his eyebrows as he narrowed them questioningly.

"You named... your cake?"

Would they ever stop being so ridiculous? No, wait. The answer to that question was way too obvious.

Yu seemed to completely understand the nonsense, naturally, and before long the blond had dramatic tears rolling down his face as he jumped forward to hug his redheaded friend.

"Now you understand how I felt about Bomby!" he sobbed, "Inanimate objects really do touch our hearts!"

Ginka returned the hug and couldn't stop his own tears in that moment. Slow, sad piano music began to play as the two tried to fight off their tears.

"I never thought I'd feel this pain over a cake. But here I am, crying over poor Cakey's fate," his face reddened once again and crumpled. Yu cried even louder and the music grew more dramatic and intimate. Even though Tsubasa knew Kyouya wanted only to continue on with the conversation, he noticed that the lion blader couldn't help but stare in bewildered amusement at the odd scene while Hikaru confusedly glanced around for the source of the music. Tsubasa himself was feeling his suppressed anger lighten a little bit at the scene.

"He didn't dessert—I mean, deserve to die!" Ginka said through choked tears, "He was different from the other cakes!" The piano music was practically blaring at this point, each note heavy with a sorrowful tune. "He. Was. My. Friend!"

"Hyouma," Tsubasa said quietly in contrast to Ginka's outburst, "Can you stop playing that piano?"

The music came to an abrupt stop as Hyouma backed away from his piano and sheepishly rejoined the conversation.

"Hehe, sorry..."

"Ginka," Tsubasa drew in a deep breath, gave the blader a serious look and started his explanation, "I didn't give you a bomb. You switched your device out with—"

"Don't even say it, Tsubasa-sensei," Ginka sputtered sadly as he wiped the last of his tears away, "I know that you don't want to look bad in front of your crush!"

Tsubasa didn't know whether to cringe because Ginka called him Sensei or because he called Hikaru his crush in front of the others. Both probably. Plus, it wasn't helping that the others instantly looked at him in a new light; Yu beaming, Kyouya with a mocking smirk, Hyouma a bit confused and slightly sad, and Hikaru herself bursting with anger at this point.

"There is nothing between me and Tsubasa!" she growled as Ginka shrank back in fear and Yu giggled.

"In denial!" the blond sang childishly.

"Why you—!" she lunged for the little boy in spite of Yu's protests. Tsubasa shook his head at the mess this had become and tried to ignore Kyouya as the blader stared at the violence and said an amused comment of, "Huh, this just got interesting..."

"Besides!" Hikaru said loudly as soon as she had the libra blader in a headlock and was furiously rubbing his head until he started yelping in pain. "Tsubasa is a jerk and it's becoming more and more apparent that he likes to cause trouble."

Aaand the anger started to creep back.

"Looks like that's something we agree on," Kyouya added. Even Hyouma looked like he was nodding a little bit.

Tsubasa closed his eyes to shut them out and steadied his breathing in attempt to keep his calm. He didn't need to yell at them. If he only explained, peace could be achieved without any ugliness. Yes, this was what he had to do. He had to explain what happened and why this whole thing was a misunderstanding. They were not going to get the best of him. Not if he could help it.

"Tsubasa," Hyouma's voice broke into his thoughts, "Do you really like Hikaru?"

Oh joy. They just had to ask that question again.

His golden eyes snapped open instantly as he soon found five pairs of eyes on him. It was that question again. That one that he couldn't answer. What could he say? The last time he was able to give them a vague answer and walk away, but he couldn't do that this time. He still had to explain to them why his students had acted so terribly. There was no escaping this dreaded question.

"I... uh..."

Tsubasa would always owe Yu for the next moment. Because in spite of the little boy's devilishly mischievous grin and sparkling eyes, his stomach growled so loudly that for a second Tsubasa could've sworn it was a lion riding a motorcycle. Or something along those lines.

"Are you hungry, Yu?" he asked slyly to change the subject. Luckily for him, no one even seemed to care too much, it seemed the ridiculously loud volume of the growl had distracted them.

Yu gave him a look that said, This isn't over yet, but even he couldn't deny his starvation. Well, most of Gan Gan Galaxy wouldn't be able to turn down food, to be honest. Pigs.

"Yeah, maybe a little. Yo-Yo didn't offer me any food when I visited him. It was really mean of him!" Yu complained.

"Huh, guess I was too busy trying to figure out what the heck you were up to," Kyouya retorted through gritted teeth.

"So anyway," Yu continued cheerily, ignoring his frenemy, "Can I have something out of the snack machine downstairs? I'll need a quarter."

"NO!"

Confused, the threesome turned to see that Ginka and Hikaru had thrust their hands out immediately and had the most desperate looks on their faces.

"I—I mean, it's probably not the best idea to fill Yu up with junk food, right?" Hikaru covered, looking away shyly. "Maybe I could cook him something later."

"Besides, quarters are super scary things that should never be messed with!" Ginka added suspiciously, to which Hikaru hastily whispered, "Stupid!" and gave him a punch in the arm before covering it up with a nervous laugh.

"Oh there's nothing wrong with quarters...hehe..."

Tsubasa was in wonder about their strange reactions, he'd never seen either of them act this way over a snack machine before.

"Hey Hyouma," he asked, turning to the aires blader, "what's up with them?"

"Who knows," the periwinkle-haired teen laughed before his face darkened a bit, "Hey Tsubasa, want to hear The Life-Changing Story?"

"NO!" Hikaru and Ginka burst once again. A strange smirk appeared on Hyouma's face for a second but it vanished as soon as it appeared. Weird.

For a split second, Tsubasa wondered who that guy really was, yet as soon as that thought entered his mind, he pushed it away. He was Ginka's childhood friend after all. He couldn't be that weird.

"You know what?" Kyouya growled as he took the lead, "I've had just about enough of this pointless babbling." His eyebrows narrowed as a crease appeared between them and he pointed at Tsubasa with an angry expression, "Look around you, Tsubasa-sensei, look at what you've done. This, everything you see here, this is all your fault."

That was it. That was the last straw.

Tsubasa turned to take in everything. The walls and furniture were covered in icing and chunks of burnt cake. The coffee table, or the jagged pieces of wood that used to be a coffee table, was in ruins. His friends all wore variations of different negative expressions, anger, sadness, and maybe even embarrassment. He couldn't blame them either. He'd probably feel the same way if the tables were turned and this had happened to him. In fact, he should probably be apologizing to them right now. It was the only logical thing to do.

But see, that's when that anger in the pit of his stomach boiled over and started to take control.

He'd been teaching his former teammates, those gloriously airheaded teammates, for 4 days now. And in those four days he'd faced a nightmarish reality. He'd been sentenced to servitude at the library, his love life had been ruined, he'd practically been killed by Kyouya, and now the majority of his friends were angry at him. Now of course, this whole time he'd been humbly taking the blame for it even though it was all his student's doing. He'd even given them a second chance. But now they'd blown that chance and made a mess. They were saying it was his fault. And it wasn't.

"Listen up," he ordered, not even fazed by how alien his harsh tone sounded with his own voice. The others did though and each one jerked up to meet his eyes, startled by the abruptness.

"Who do you think—"

"Shut it!" Tsubasa cut in, officially grabbing his peer's attention. They'd never seen him lose his calm before, well besides the time when the dark power had control over him. Okay he needed to rephrase that. They'd never seen him lose his calm willfully before.

"Look you guys," he continued sternly, drilling his golden orbs into their shocked eyes, "I've been pretty patient with all of you. Especially you two and Masamune," he glared specifically at a confused Ginka and Yu, "I never asked for any of this and I never intended for it to get out of control, but you've taken it too far." He observed their expressions, all reluctantly listening, before continuing, "I've been teaching Ginka, Masamune, and Yu how to go undercover for a couple days now. As you can probably guess it didn't go over too well."

Kyouya, Hikaru, and Hyouma nodded in understanding, they knew how crazy those guys could get, but Ginka and Yu remained confused and maybe slightly hurt. Not that Tsubasa cared, he was on a roll now.

Of course, those moments where he was completely focused always made the best opportunites for someone to interrupt them.

"There you... guys are..." said a breathless voice from behind. Startled, everyone jerked back to see an out-of-breath Masamune let himself in and wheeze his way over to them.

"I've been... all over this place," he explained, "I was chased... by a crazy old lady... with a purse! I swear, scariest day of my life! Remind me never to get on her bad side." With a relieved sigh he gathered himself to continue his little speech, "So what are you guys doing here? I checked Kyouya's and Tsubasa's but all I found was Aquila and a broken laptop. Heh, weird right? I was—OH MY GOSH! YOU GUYS LOOK HILARIOUS!"

And just like that, Masamune practically died laughing while pointing at their icing covered selves.

"Like, since when do you guys eat like cavemen? I think someone iced your clothes instead of the cake. Ha, you got something on your shirt. Oh, missed a spot!"

Masamune. Gotta love him.

After another minute of laughing, he gathered himself and chuckled in spite of the other's glares.

"Wait, wait, I got more! You all—"

To everyone's relief, Kyouya rolled his eyes and gave the unicorn blader a prompt flick on the head, which shut the kid up instantly.

"Hey," Masamune whined as he rubbed the sensitive spot, "what was that for? You're not covered in icing, I wasn't making fun of you."

"You wouldn't shut up any other way," Kyouya said sharply. Masamune made a face, but only succeeded in getting another flick.

"Ow..."

"Masamune," Tsubasa spoke carefully, his eyes filled with fire, "Glad you could join us. I'm just explaining how you ruined everyone's life this week."

"Woah," Masamune widened his brown eyes, "You sound scary; what's up with—"

Flick.

"S—seriously! Stop that!"

"As I was saying," Tsubasa continued, "I was going to put an end to the teaching. I told my students it was too much, but no, they said they could make it up to me. They said they could handle it. And so, I gave them specific instructions to wear devices that pick up sound and ask you guys irrelevant questions like, 'What's your favorite color?' and other things along those lines. But they lost their sheet and decided to make up their own questions." His icy gaze lingered on his pupil's eyes for a bit. "I waited at first to see if they could succeed on their own strength, but that proved to be ugly," a glance at Kyouya's impatient face confirmed this, "I set out to stop them, but the damage had already been done."

He paused to take a breath and felt a satisfactory feeling emerge when he realized he'd finally said those words. He'd finally told them off. And he didn't even care what they had to say to his speech. It didn't matter now. Like he said, the damage had already been done.

"I'm a guy of my word, so I'll be finishing off the week," he told his students, "but if there's even one more problem, I'm done."

"Tsubasa..." Yu said softly, but the eagle blader didn't even hear him as he turned to Hyouma.

"Hyouma," he addressed the teen, "I'll compensate all of the damages Ginka created. I apologize for those."

Hyouma only gave a slight nod, still shocked at seeing Tsubasa so angry.

"Kyouya," he turned to the lion blader, "Like with Hyouma, I'll pay Yu's damages. But, I didn't appreciate the murder of that eagle plushie. I'm not going to go easy on you the next time we battle."

"Bring it on," Kyouya hissed.

"Ginka, Yu, and Masamune," he turned to those familiar faces and was surprised that he felt no regret at his harsh words this time, "TTou guys need to be in the WBBA training gym at 10 a.m. sharp tomorrow. Do not be late. Also," he leaned in so they could hear him loud and clear, "Bomby and Cakey are inanimate objects that have no feelings. Get over it."

Yu's eyes filled with glimmering tears at the cruel words.

"Tsubasa, why are you...how could you..."

Ginka just remained silent with frozen tears and took it like a man.

"Masamune."

The raven haired boy looked hopeful.

"I think you missed the point of this."

The raven haired boy deflated.

"And Hikaru," Tsubasa turned to the bluenette and prepared to tell her those words. With the others, he felt no remorse but this time, he was conflicted about this. Her eyes were wide and confused and there was even a touch of... worry? But there was no denying it. His heart might've been telling him not to say those words, but his mind was already made up. He took in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

"Hikaru, I don't like you," he said clearly as her eyes began to fill with crystal tears, "and I never, ever, will."

With that, he turned around and left the room that would always hold his biggest regrets.

*Sobbing* For the first time ever it ended on a serious note!

Oh my gosh.

How did that happen? XD

Okay, I'm just going to apologize to you for the lack of humor in this chapter! I know it wasn't that funny, but the seriousness kinda had to happen, so I did my best :D. Next chapter will be waaaay funnier, pinkie promise!

And it seems that Tsubasa finally cracked! Poor guy, those nuts managed to get to him :P. Honestly though, I was kinda feeling bad for everyone while writing this chapter. I mean, everyone was offended for a whole bunch of different things; it's so depressing! :(

Aaaand that's why I brought Masamune back for comic relief :D.

Alright! Onto business! Regarding the little vote I had for the next chapter, I want to thank all of you who voted! *hugs* It seems that the majority of you reviewers are favoring the Kenta/Tetsuya with laser alarms idea, but on my poll, Madoka/Tobio with fingerprinting is winning XP. Haha, I know right? :D

Anyway, I'm going to use my poll results to decide which one wins, so please vote on my profile page if you haven't already done so :). I'll be taking that down sometime this week, hopefully, so get those votes in! :D

Thanks so much for reading and putting up with my super-late update. :)

Feedback is appriciated! :)

(So, I just realized that I abuse smiley faces. :D. Seriously, look at all those faces! There's sooooo many :P. Haha, those faces probably make up most of this word count :D.)