Zevion watched the stadium in silence as Ken bent down and retrieved his Beyblade.
King Kerbeus rested in Ken's palm, its surface still faintly glowing with residual green energy, the afterimage of the Bit Beast's presence lingering like heat haze above burning asphalt.
So… this really is a genuine Bit Beast, Zevion noted calmly.
Not a half-formed projection.
Not a weak manifestation.
Not some unstable energy illusion created by luck alone.
Despite everything Apeiron Sof had done in the first exchange—despite having its speed steadily siphoned away, its balance destabilized, its rotational dominance inverted—King Kerbeus hadn't burst.
Not yet.
That fact alone spoke volumes.
The green aura still burned around it, flickering unevenly now, no longer pristine or stable, but stubbornly refusing to extinguish.
It clung to the Beyblade like a dying flame that refused to go out, casting sickly emerald reflections across the stadium floor.
Zevion's mind automatically categorized what he saw.
Visual clarity.
Aura density.
Pressure feedback through the stadium air.
Structural endurance.
Bit Beast synchronization rate.
Yeah… this was the real thing.
This was exactly the kind of power people dreamed about when they talked about Beyblade legends.
The kind of spectacle he'd once watched through a screen in his previous life—wide-eyed, thrilled, imagining how incredible it would feel to stand at the center of that storm.
Too bad.
Too bad my Beyblade isn't built for spectacle.
Too bad it's built for destruction.
Zevion remained where he was, posture loose, hands relaxed, eyes half-lidded.
The roaring crowd, the lights, the swirling green energy—it all might as well have been background noise.
If Apeiron Sof ever released what it truly carried inside—
If you could even call that thing a Bit Beast—
Most of the people in this stadium wouldn't survive the initial shockwave.
The stands would collapse inward like paper under pressure.
The ground beneath the stadium would fracture and cave.
Emergency alarms would scream.
The WBBA would be sued into nonexistence.
And Zevion would never be allowed within five kilometers of a Beyblade ever again.
So no.
He could never play like these guys.
Not publicly.
Not safely.
Not without consequences.
But that didn't mean he disliked his Bey.
On the contrary—
He liked it very much.
An absolute god-tier weapon.
A guarantee of victory.
A guarantee of prize money.
And now, in a world where Beyblade was rapidly evolving from sport to geopolitical superpower?
It would be idiotic to want anything else.
The only real downside…
…was that it annihilated launchers like disposable cutlery.
Maybe if I win regionals, he thought absently, I can land a sponsor willing to cover my launcher expenses.
As that deeply practical, deeply unheroic thought crossed his mind—
One of the puppets spoke.
The brown one this time.
Its stitched mouth sagged downward as it tilted its head, voice rough, mocking, and far too confident.
"Don't think this is over just yet."
Zevion didn't even glance in its direction.
Then the other puppet spoke—the blue one, eyes sewn into a permanent, malicious glare, its voice smooth and sharp like a blade dragged across stone.
"This time, we'll defeat you easily. We already figured out your weakness."
…My weakness?
Zevion's expression didn't change.
On the outside, he looked cold.
Uninterested.
Completely detached.
Inside, however, a single thought surfaced, quiet and measured.
Did he… actually figure it out?
There was one weakness.
One very specific limitation.
But even if Ken truly understood it—
There was still nothing he could do about it.
Zevion ignored the puppets entirely.
Right on cue, the referee's voice cut through the tension.
"Bladers! On your marks!"
The stadium's noise swelled again, voices rising, anticipation crackling in the air.
Zevion stepped forward, lowering his hand closer to the Beystadium.
His fingers hovered just above the edge, poised for another precise hand launch.
Across from him, Ken Midori leaned forward as well, posture tight, eyes locked onto Zevion with predatory focus.
Like a hunting dog preparing to tear into prey.
His puppets went completely still.
The air between them felt tight.
Compressed.
Heavy.
"Second battle!"
The referee declared.
Ken and Zevion locked eyes.
Ken's glare burned with fury, obsession, and desperate determination.
Zevion's gaze?
Empty.
The kind of look you give someone after you've already decided how this ends.
Honestly, it was almost funny.
The man about to casually hand-spin a Beyblade looked like the villain of the story.
The host's voice thundered across the arena.
"The second battle is about to begin! Zevion leads with one point! Get ready, folks, because this is a match you'll NEVER forget!"
Zevion barely registered it.
The referee raised his arm.
"Ready!"
The crowd joined in, voices stacking over one another.
"THREE!!"
Ken's grip tightened until his knuckles turned white.
"TWO!!"
Zevion adjusted his fingers by a millimeter.
"ONE!!!"
"LET IT RIP!!"
King Kerbeus exploded into motion, launching with violent force and shooting straight to the center of the stadium.
It locked itself firmly in place, green energy flaring outward like a burning crown, its presence dominant and oppressive.
Apeiron Sof dropped from Zevion's fingers.
Wobbly.
Unstable.
Slow.
The contrast was almost insulting.
A ripple of murmurs spread through the crowd.
Then the blue puppet spoke again, voice dripping with confidence.
"We know your Bey needs time to reach its full performance."
The dumb-looking brown dog puppet followed eagerly.
"That makes it the perfect target for a Defense-type like ours!"
The blue puppet snapped sharply.
"But don't think defense means waiting! We're going all out from the start!"
Ken shouted, voice ringing with command.
"King Kerbeus! GO!!"
The stadium detonated.
A massive tornado of emerald flames erupted upward as Cerberus tore itself free from the Beyblade.
Three heads howled in unison, the sound shaking the stands.
Chains of burning energy wrapped around their necks, scars glowing across their massive spectral bodies as green fire spiraled violently around them.
Heat slammed into the audience.
People recoiled.
Some shielded their faces.
Others stared in awe, frozen in place.
The stadium floor vanished beneath roaring flames as the tornado swallowed everything in sight.
Even the host faltered.
"H—HOLY—! IS THIS EVEN LEGAL?!"
For a moment, it genuinely looked like the match was over.
People wondered if Apeiron Sof had melted.
If it had shattered.
If it had already been erased without anyone noticing.
But Ken didn't stop.
Didn't slow.
Didn't hesitate.
He poured everything into the attack, refusing to allow even the smallest opening.
Too bad.
Zevion's voice cut through the inferno—calm, flat, almost bored.
"Do you know the worst move you could make against me?"
Ken didn't hear him.
Or maybe he refused to.
The tornado screamed louder, spinning faster.
Zevion continued.
"It's giving everything you have."
The flames began to distort.
The tornado's rotation accelerated unnaturally.
Air compressed.
Pressure stacked.
The green inferno started pulling inward instead of outward.
Ken's eyes widened.
The rotation speed of King Kerbeus spiked violently as the airflow aligned perfectly with its spin direction—feeding it power far beyond its structural limits.
More speed.
More pressure.
Less control.
"W-What—?!" Ken shouted.
The tornado tightened.
Denser.
Faster.
King Kerbeus began to shake violently.
Zevion raised his hand slightly.
"End it."
The tornado collapsed inward.
Then—
BOOM.
A violent burst of compressed air detonated outward, extinguishing the flames instantly.
The stadium was blasted clean.
King Kerbeus slammed into the wall with catastrophic force—
CRACK.
The Beyblade burst apart, three pieces scattering as fractures spider-webbed across their surfaces.
From the epicenter—
Apeiron Sof emerged.
Spinning upside down.
At terrifying speed.
It rose briefly into the air before drifting down, gently, gracefully, into Zevion's open palm.
Silence.
Utter.
Absolute.
Silence.
Then the referee finally found his voice.
"…B—Burst Finish! Apeiron Sof scores two points! Zevion wins the match, three to zero!"
The stadium erupted.
Cheers crashed down like thunder.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Awe.
Zevion closed his fingers around Apeiron Sof and turned away.
Cold.
Heartless.
Untouchable.
Already tired.
And already leaving the stage.
"That was soooo cooool!!! I wanna fight him again!! And this time I will definitely win!"
Valt's voice rang across the upper stands like a firecracker going off.
He was practically hanging over the railing, fingers curled tightly around the metal bars as if the only thing stopping him from jumping down into the stadium was basic gravity.
His eyes were shining so brightly they almost reflected the arena lights.
To him, nothing about that match had been frightening.
It hadn't felt dangerous.
It hadn't felt ominous.
It had felt incredible.
The tornado.
The explosion.
The upside-down spin.
It was everything a Beyblade battle was supposed to be.
"Nah, man!"
Rentaro laughed loudly, throwing an arm over Valt's shoulders with dramatic flair.
"Step aside! The great Rentaro-sama will be the one to take him down! You two can compete for second place!"
He struck a pose so exaggerated it almost deserved background music, pointing toward the stadium floor like some self-declared hero claiming his destiny.
Valt immediately shoved him off.
"In your dreams! I'm the one who's gonna beat him! Didn't you see that? That was awesome! I have to fight him again!"
The two of them kept going back and forth, louder and louder, already imagining rematches that hadn't happened yet.
In their minds, Zevion wasn't some distant, cold figure walking off the stage.
He was a challenge.
A mountain.
Something exciting to chase.
But a few steps behind them, someone wasn't laughing.
Shu stood still, arms folded loosely across his chest, gaze fixed on the now-empty Beystadium below.
He hadn't reacted when the burst happened.
He hadn't cheered.
He hadn't frowned.
While the others had watched the spectacle, he had watched the structure.
He replayed the battle in his mind carefully.
King Kerbeus launched with perfect stability, snapping to the center like it owned the field.
Apeiron Sof dropped in weakly, wobbling almost embarrassingly, barely keeping its balance.
Cerberus erupting upward in a storm of green flames, a three-headed hound roaring into existence.
And then—
Zevion's voice.
"It's giving everything you have."
Shu's eyes narrowed slightly as he continued dissecting it.
Zevion hadn't been bluffing.
Ken's biggest mistake hadn't been a lack of power.
It had been too much of it.
From the very start.
It was subtle—so subtle that most of the crowd would never realize it.
Apeiron Sof hadn't resisted the first impact at all.
It hadn't braced.
It hadn't tried to counter.
It hadn't even attempted to stabilize.
It let itself be swallowed by the tornado.
If it had been spinning properly—like a normal Beyblade launched with full power—it would've created its own airflow boundary.
A stable zone.
A protective pocket resisting turbulence.
And then Cerberus' raw force would've smashed through it and sent it flying across the stadium.
That would've been the natural outcome.
But it didn't happen.
Because Apeiron Sof wasn't spinning at full power.
It had been hand-spun.
Almost powerless at the beginning.
That weakness made it light.
Easy to carry.
Easy to move.
And Cerberus' attack wasn't random chaos.
It was a rotational system—a contained tornado driven by its own spin.
Which meant—
The moment Apeiron Sof entered that system, it became part of it.
The green flames didn't destroy it.
They accelerated it.
Every rotation of Cerberus fed air into the vortex.
Every second increased pressure.
Every push Ken gave only strengthened the spiral.
And Apeiron Sof…
Instead of fighting it…
Went along with it.
Shu's focus sharpened.
The terrifying part wasn't the burst.
It was that Apeiron Sof's speed never visibly decreased.
It only climbed.
Higher.
Faster.
Sharper.
Valt and Rentaro were still arguing behind him, but their voices faded into background noise.
Shu's entire attention was on one tiny detail most people missed.
There had been a moment—barely visible—when Apeiron Sof looked weightless inside the tornado.
The wobble vanished.
The axis shifted.
For a fraction of a second, it almost looked like it stopped midair.
But it hadn't stopped.
It had adjusted.
Had it allowed the airflow to dictate its spin?
Had it let the tornado overwrite its rotation direction?
Shu replayed the final image in his mind.
Apeiron Sof emerged upside down.
Spinning opposite to Cerberus.
That meant it hadn't been carried solely by the vortex.
It had reversed.
And that wasn't something that happened by accident.
Did Zevion calculate that?
Did he deliberately launch it weakly, knowing it would be absorbed?
Knowing it would be accelerated?
Knowing the airflow would eventually invert the balance and destabilize Kerbeus?
Shu exhaled quietly.
If that had been intentional…
Then Zevion wasn't just strong.
He was dangerous.
Because that wasn't brute force.
That was control.
Cerberus had fed its own storm.
Ken kept pushing more power into the tornado.
More wind.
More spin.
More intensity.
Until the structure of the system collapsed under its own excess.
King Kerbeus couldn't withstand the speed it had generated.
Its own strength had destroyed it.
Zevion hadn't overpowered it.
He had guided it toward self-destruction.
Shu's fingers tightened slightly against his sleeves.
"So that's what you meant…" he murmured under his breath.
A slight imbalance at the right moment.
A small nudge in a perfectly aligned system.
That was enough.
His gaze drifted toward the stadium exit where Zevion had disappeared.
There was something else, too.
When Cerberus manifested—
When the flames engulfed the arena—
There had been another pulse.
Subtle.
Dark.
Heavy.
It hadn't belonged to Cerberus.
Shu had felt it.
Just for a moment.
Like something far deeper had stirred… and then gone quiet again.
Apeiron Sof definitely had a Bit Beast.
There was no doubt about that now.
It simply hadn't revealed itself.
And somehow, that restraint made it more unsettling than Cerberus' dramatic display.
Valt suddenly spun around, grinning.
"Shu! Did you see that?! That was insane, right?!"
Rentaro nodded eagerly.
"Yeah! That tornado was crazy! And then BOOM! Instant counter! That guy's wild!"
Shu didn't smile.
"It wasn't insane."
Valt blinked.
"Huh?"
"It was deliberate."
Both of them stared at him.
Shu looked back down at the stadium, eyes calm and steady.
"He baited the tornado. He needed it to win."
Valt tilted his head.
"Needed it?"
"If King Kerbeus hadn't gone full power from the start," Shu said evenly, "the outcome would've been very different."
Rentaro scratched his head.
"Wait… so Ken lost because he was too strong?"
"Because he was too aggressive," Shu corrected quietly.
Valt's grin slowly returned.
"Then I'll just be stronger and smarter next time!"
Shu didn't respond to that.
His eyes stayed on the empty stadium.
Zevion…
Before the comet phenomenon, he had already been unusual.
But now?
Now the world had changed.
Bit Beasts had awakened.
Power levels had shifted.
And Zevion had adapted instantly.
The real question wasn't whether he was strong.
It was how far he would go.
Stronger than Lui?
Stronger than everyone?
Shu's expression didn't change, but something hardened behind his eyes.
It didn't matter.
Not Zevion.
Not Lui.
Not this so-called Golden Era.
He would stand at the top.
No matter who stood in front of him.
His fingers clenched slightly, almost unconsciously.
I won't lose again.
Not to him.
Not to anyone.
Not ever.
...............................................................................................................................................
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