The calendar on my phone read November 14th.
Thirteen days until Gingka Hagane arrived in Metal City and canon began.
Thirteen days to master a beyblade that wanted to consume me.
I stared at Black Dranzer in my hand. The fusion wheel gleamed with inner luminescence that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Ancient. Aware. Hungry.
The phoenix's presence pressed against my mind. Not words. Just pressure. Expectation.
Begin, or be devoured.
"Yeah," I muttered. "Let's begin."
***
Day 1 — First Blood
6:00 AM. Empty beyblade room.
I loaded Black Dranzer into the launcher. The metal felt warm—wrong temperature for something unused.
"Let it rip."
The explosion was wrong.
Black Dranzer detonated from the launcher, struck the stadium floor, ricocheted twice, then carved a molten gash across the reinforced wall.
The metal paneling had melted.
Then the presence slammed into my consciousness.
Like a blade testing flesh to see how deep it could cut.
< Weak. >
One word. Ancient. Cold. Final.
My jaw tightened. "We'll see."
I launched again. Foreign pressure tried to redirect my angle, adjust my grip, override my control.
Like invisible hands moving mine.
No.
I forced my trajectory to stay mine.
By launch one hundred, my arm screamed. Sweat soaked my shirt. Vision swam.
But I didn't stop.
My hand twitched.
Not from fatigue. From something else.
Heat crawled up my forearm. My wrist began to bend without permission.
A puppeteer testing strings.
Absolutely not.
I slammed my will down like a blade. Cut through the foreign presence with crystallized refusal.
The heat vanished.
Silence stretched between us.
Then, quiet:
< ...Hm. >
I collapsed against the wall, gasping. Blood vessels had burst in my eyes—red threads at the edges of my vision.
Black Dranzer spun peacefully.
That was just the opening move.
***
Days 2-4 — The Grind
Two hundred launches. Every day. No exceptions.
Day 2: Form refinement. Kai's muscle memory integrated deeper. Black Dranzer still resisted, testing every movement.
Day 3: First synchronization—three seconds where we moved together instead of against each other. Then it pulled back: This is temporary. Earn it permanently.
Day 4: Endurance training. Five-mile runs. Strength work. Launch drills until my fingers bled.
Progress measured in molecules.
Every night I dreamed of black wings and a voice whispering: "Submit."
Every morning I woke with my hand clenched around Black Dranzer.
The war continued.
***
Day 5 — Violence
I needed parts.
The alley through Metal City's industrial district cut fifteen minutes off my route.
Mistake.
Five bladers blocked the exit. Leather jackets with scorpion logos. Face Hunters.
The leader stepped forward—shaved head, scarred knuckles, swagger of someone who'd forgotten what real danger looked like.
"Heard about you," he said. "New kid. Tearing up practice stadiums. We want you for the crew."
I met his eyes with Kai's flat, empty stare.
"No."
His smile disappeared. "Wasn't asking. Join us, or we take your bey."
"Then take it."
We moved to a nearby street stadium. Crowd gathered fast—word spread when Face Hunters got challenged.
"Three on one," the leader said. "That work for you?"
"Perfect."
I loaded Black Dranzer. They loaded their beys—generic attack types, decent but unrefined.
"Three. Two. One. LET IT RIP!"
Four beyblades launched.
The difference was immediate and beautiful.
Black Dranzer didn't just move—it hunted.
The first enemy beyblade rushed forward aggressively. Black Dranzer intercepted, fusion wheel catching it perfectly, and just... stopped it.
Soul Drain activated.
The rotation died instantly. The beyblade collapsed, smoking.
Something warm bloomed in my chest. Satisfaction. Pleasure.
< One. >
The second and third attacked simultaneously. I didn't think—just moved, launcher adjusting on pure instinct that wasn't entirely mine.
Black Dranzer curved in an impossible arc, struck both in sequence.
CRACK. CRACK.
Metal shattered. Performance tips exploded.
The warmth in my chest grew hotter. I wanted to see more. Wanted to watch them break.
< Three. Pathetic. >
"Finish them," I whispered.
The crowd went silent.
Black Dranzer accelerated. The remaining two beyblades tried to retreat, but the phoenix was faster—striking them with enough force to send both flying out of the stadium, embedding one in the nearby wall.
< Five. Disappointing. >
I stood there, breathing harder than I should have been. Not from exertion.
From the thrill.
Watching them break. Watching Black Dranzer dominate. Feeling that power flow through our connection.
It felt... good.
Too good.
The warmth in my chest slowly cooled as reality settled back in.
I'd enjoyed that. Enjoyed the destruction. The dominance. The cruelty.
That wasn't entirely me.
Was it?
I retrieved Black Dranzer, hand shaking slightly, and held it out to the leader.
"Beypoints. All of you."
They transferred fifteen hundred points. Fled without another word.
The crowd parted as I walked through. Nobody spoke, but whispers erupted the moment I passed.
"Did you see that?"
"What the hell was that beyblade?"
"He didn't even blink when they attacked three-on-one..."
"That launch—the curve was impossible. The physics don't work that way."
"Face Hunters just got destroyed. In under a minute."
A kid, maybe twelve, stared at me with wide eyes. "Who... who are you?"
I didn't answer. Just kept walking.
But I felt every stare. Heard every whispered word.
By tomorrow, my name would spread through every underground circuit in Metal City. The new blader with the black beyblade. The one who fought like he enjoyed watching his opponents break.
The one who was dangerous.
Black Dranzer pulsed with satisfaction against my hip.
And part of me—a growing, hungry part—pulsed with it.
***
Day 6 — The Mechanic's Eyes
Training. Five hours. No interruptions.
Until Madoka found me at a public stadium.
I didn't notice her until I retrieved Black Dranzer and turned to find her standing at the arena's edge.
Pink hair pulled back. Tool belt visible. Expression caught between fascination and unease.
"Your beyblade," she said. "Can I examine it?"
"No."
"I just want to understand—"
"No."
She frowned. "I'm a professional mechanic. I've worked with every major part manufacturer. But I've never seen materials that move like yours." She paused. "The energy distribution is wrong. The friction coefficient doesn't match any known design."
She stepped closer.
"And when it spins... it feels alive."
Perceptive. Threat level: moderate, escalating.
I clipped Black Dranzer to my belt. Started walking.
She matched my pace. "You're not going to explain, are you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
I stopped. Turned to face her.
"I saw what happened with the Face Hunters," she said quietly. "The way your beyblade moved—it wasn't just fast. It was hunting them. Like it enjoyed it."
"It did."
Her breath caught. "That's... Kai, beyblades are machines. Metal and physics. They don't think or feel or—"
"Yes," I interrupted. "They are. Just toys, mostly."
I pulled out Black Dranzer. Held it between us.
"But some beys have spirits of their own. Many people remain ignorant of that fact. Most never see one in their entire life, much less have one."
Madoka stared at the beyblade. I saw the moment she felt it—the presence radiating like heat from a furnace.
She took an involuntary step back.
"What... what is that?"
I met her eyes. Cold. Empty.
"You'll learn in due time."
I walked away before she could respond.
But I felt her eyes on my back. Analyzing. Calculating.
Black Dranzer pulsed once against my hip.
Approval.
***
Day 7 — Nightmare
That night, I dreamed.
Not the usual dreams. Something worse.
I stood in darkness—absolute, complete, the kind that existed before the universe learned light.
Then the flames appeared.
Black fire that burned cold. Flames that consumed meaning instead of matter, that ate the concept of warmth and left only void.
A presence materialized before me.
Not bird-shaped—concept of bird. Wings made of absence, spread wide enough to eclipse galaxies. Eyes that burned backwards into nothing, seeing through time itself.
Feathers that were screams given form, beautiful and terrible and wrong.
The phoenix. Not the beyblade. The entity.
It spoke—not in words, but in frequencies that carved directly into my mind:
< You presume strength. >
The flames rushed forward.
I tried to move. Couldn't. My body was frozen, limbs locked in place by invisible weight.
Tried to speak. My throat refused to work.
The flames touched my skin.
Cold. So impossibly cold it burned worse than any fire.
Pain exploded through every nerve. Not physical pain—something deeper. Like the flames were burning away me. My thoughts. My memories. My sense of self.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out.
The wings pressed closer, blotting out everything. The darkness became absolute.
Suffocating. Crushing.
The voice whispered—not heard, but felt:
"Submit."
My chest constricted. Lungs refused air. Vision tunneled to a pinpoint of consciousness barely holding against the dark.
I felt myself slipping. Felt the edges of my identity fraying like paper in flame.
Submit or be consumed.
Faces flashed through my mind—previous hosts, perhaps. People who'd tried to wield Black Dranzer and failed. Their eyes hollow. Their expressions empty.
Consumed. Erased. Replaced.
For the first time since arriving in this world, I felt genuine terror.
Not fear of pain. Fear of ceasing to exist.
Of becoming nothing more than a shell for the phoenix to wear.
The flames grew colder. The darkness pressed tighter.
The voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere:
"You are WEAK. You will BREAK. You will SUBMIT."
"Or you will DIE."
The wings folded around me like a coffin.
And everything went black.
***
I woke screaming.
Soaked in sweat. Heart hammering against ribs. Lungs dragging air in desperate gasps.
My hand was clenched around Black Dranzer so hard the metal edges had cut deep into my palm.
Blood dripped onto the bedsheets. Red on white.
Real. Physical. Grounding.
I stared at the beyblade in the darkness.
It pulsed—slow, deliberate, satisfied.
Like a predator that had cornered prey and was savoring the fear.
The nightmare wasn't random. Wasn't just anxiety.
It was a demonstration.
Black Dranzer showing me exactly what would happen if I failed. Not a warning—a promise.
I sat there until dawn, staring at the beyblade, watching my blood dry on the sheets.
Seven days of training. Seven days of silent war.
And I'd just been shown what losing looked like.
Complete erasure.
The terror from the dream still sat in my chest like ice. Cold. Sharp. Real.
But beneath it, something else stirred.
Not fear.
Determination.
Because that nightmare had shown me my death.
And I refused to accept it.
***
Morning came.
I stood in the beyblade room, Black Dranzer loaded in the launcher, hand still aching from cuts that hadn't fully healed.
Fear sat in my chest. But I launched anyway.
"Let it rip."
The beyblade spun. Perfect form. Perfect control.
For now.
< You feared me last night. >
"Yes."
< Good. Fear breeds caution. Caution breeds survival. >
"I don't want survival," I said quietly. "I want dominance."
< Then prove it. >
I launched again. And again. And again.
The warmth from yesterday's battle still lingered in the back of my mind. That pleasure at watching Black Dranzer destroy. That hunger for more.
Early signs.
I knew what they meant.
But I launched anyway.
Because stopping meant giving up.
And I refused to give the phoenix that satisfaction.
Seven days down.
Seven more to go.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, a clock ticked down to the moment when everything changed forever.
End of Chapter3
***
Next Chapter Preview: The possession scene. The spirit duel. Madoka's final confrontation. And Gingka's arrival. The proving ground awaits.