Instead of a silent, abandoned stadium, Atlas heard the soft, uneven sound of breathing. The person's breaths were shaky, almost strangled, and his eyes latched onto them immediately.
Hikaru Hasama.
Her aqua hair was tied back into its familiar short tail, though a few strands clung to her cheek, caught in the light breeze. She stood near the center of the battered battlefield, shoulders tight, fists trembling as she held her launcher raised.
Her Bey, Storm Aquario, rested within the prongs, but she didn't move. Not really. She was locked in place, frozen in a way that didn't look physical at all. Her eyes weren't focused on the stadium. They were focused somewhere else entirely. Somewhere darker.
A cold shiver ran down her spine visibly, and her fingers twitched as though gripping something much heavier than a launcher.
Hikaru felt herself wrapped in a cold sweat as she prepared to launch her Bey. This wasn't the first time she had attempted to launch Aquario, far from it.
But each and every time, she'd be trapped in fear, trembling, breathing shallowly like she was here, reliving that horrific moment. The memory of Ryuga's presence towering over here, L-Drago crushing Aquario and almost killing her.
His merciless, cruel voice constantly echoed in her ear, and an overwhelming, suffocating sense of helplessness struck her. She was right back in that moment, too scared to even move.
Hikaru flinched, fingers tightening painfully on her launcher. It was a severe case of PTSD.
Minutes passed, or maybe seconds, but to her, they were eternity. She lifted her launcher higher, determined, but the tremors in her hands made the metal rattle softly. She tried to steady her breathing, but every inhale seemed to make her tremble more.
She wasn't going to launch. She couldn't. Her arm wobbled dangerously, the tension in her muscles visible even from across the stadium.
Atlas's voice slipped out before he could think. "If you hold your arms up that long, you're gonna tire yourself out,"
The sound cut through the tension like a whip, hoping to lighten the mode and save her from the dark spiral of thoughts he could tell she was in.
Hikaru jerked violently, nearly dropping her launcher as she spun around, eyes wide and panicked. For a heartbeat her gaze didn't register him, just some vague threat, a presence she hadn't sensed approach. Her breathing hitched, chest rising and falling in short bursts.
Then she blinked, and reality seemed to slide back into place.
A boy stood near the entrance, tall for his age, striking lavender hair tousled by the wind, mismatched eyes soft with concern yet sharp with awareness. His coat fluttered behind him, the sunlight catching the icy blue pendant hanging near his collarbone.
Hikaru stiffened, not at all recognizing him, despite his unique look.
ecognition flickering faintly across her expression as her shaky breath steadied just enough for her to speak.
"…How long have you been standing there?" she asked, her voice tight, subdued, not the strong tone she once carried with such pride.
Atlas lifted a hand in a non-threatening gesture, "Not that long, sorry to sneak up on you," he said, taking slow steps forward with a gentle posture.
Hikaru swallowed hard, lowering her launcher quickly, as though embarrassed he had seen her like that. She turned her gaze to the stadium floor instead of his eyes.
"No, it's… it's fine," she murmured, though her voice betrayed a kind of fragility he wasn't used to hearing from her character. "I didn't expect anyone else to come here."
"I could say the same," he replied lightly.
Silence fell between them for a moment, carried on the wind that rustled the stadium weeds. Atlas watched her carefully, not staring, not pitying, just watching.
She still felt shaken, a lingering tremor in her fingertips, her eyes darting briefly to her bey before she forced them away again.
"I don't recognize you from around here. Are you here for the Team Japan World Championship Qualifier?" Hikaru asked, looking at him up and down.
"Oh yeah, I'm Atlas Kurosawa," he said, stretching his hand out, and Hikaru, after a short moment of nervousness, shook his hand before pulling away.
She studied him for a moment, eyes flicking over his coat, his pendant, the faint shimmer of lavender hair that didn't look entirely natural, and the confident yet calm energy he carried. She blinked once.
"Well then good luck, I hope to see you soon," She said, checking the time and deciding to head out, waving him goodbye as she walked away.
"Hope to see you soon too," Atlas said, waving her away and waiting around until she was out of radius before he finally decided to begin his training.
He exhaled slowly, fingers brushing the coat at his side until they found the familiar weight of his Bey. The cool metal of Jade Jupiter pressed into his palm, steady and grounding.
A strange warmth flickered in his chest, anticipation and excitement, a resonance that felt like déjà vu running along his bones.
"Alright," he murmured, rolling his shoulders as he stepped into the worn center of the stadium, "Time to see what I can actually do."
His hands moved without conscious thought, slotting Jupiter into the launcher with a fluid precision that felt at once brand-new and deeply familiar.
Every click sounded like a memory unlocking. Every motion felt practiced, like his muscles remembered a life his body shouldn't have lived.
He took a slow breath, grounding his stance.
Three…
Two…
One.
"Let it rip!"
Jupiter shot out in a clean, perfect arc, metal glinting as it landed with a solid thrum that vibrated the ground beneath his feet. The Bey spun with an immediate stability, the kind that came from elite tuning—but he hadn't touched it. Not yet.
And then the strange thing happened. The thing he wasn't expecting. Jupiter moved.
Not randomly. Not like a new Bey testing its balance. It moved the immediately direction he had thought about, he didn't even need to speak for it to do that, it glided along the stadium in a smooth circle just like he thought.
Atlas blinked.
"…You already understand me?"
A pulse of energy, not physical, but unmistakably real, answered from the spinning Bey, warm and affectionate.
His heartbeat kicked up. He raised his hand slightly, unsure why, but the moment he did, Jupiter shifted its course, like he had tugged on an invisible thread and Jupiter followed.
A slow grin curled onto his face, "Oh, so that's how it is."
He took a step, and Jupiter adjusted, mirroring him. Another step, and the Bey responded instantly, orbiting with a silent loyalty that felt far older than the moment it was created.
Then the air changed.
It started as a tingle beneath his skin, tiny sparks dancing along his fingertips. His heart beat once—twice—and on the third, something inside him opened. Not painfully. Not suddenly. Like something dormant had simply awakened, stretching out after a long, long sleep.
Lavender light rose from his arms first, shimmering like faint smoke. Then it pulsed brighter, climbing his shoulders, sweeping across his chest, wrapping around him in a soft, living glow.
His hair caught the light, not reflecting it, but radiating it, glowing with the same fierce, ethereal lavender that marked Jupiter's spirit. The stadium wind stilled, as if even the air knew something sacred was happening.
"So this… this is my Blader Spirit?" he whispered.
But it didn't feel like it was just his. His spirit, Jupiter's spirit, at that moment, they aligned. Two threads snapping into perfect place. Tension becoming harmony. Energy becoming intent.
His breath hitched as the glow intensified, swirling in a spiral around him, rising higher like a pillar of aurora. The mismatched hues of his eyes sharpened, blue bright as ice, purple burning like starlight, reflecting the power connecting him to the spinning Bey.
Jupiter flared in response, a faint lavender ring blooming around its rotation, every revolution beating in rhythm with his own pulse. Jupiter began to slash across the stadium, reaching outrageous speeds as it zoomed around just as Atlas intended.
Atlas raised his hand again, and Jupiter moved exactly as he envisioned, tracing a precise defensive curve, then a sudden feint, then a tight, perfect counter-rotation.
No hesitation. No delay. Perfect unity, he waved his hand once more and Jupiter picked up the pace, smashing through various large rocks in the stadium and crushing them to dust.
A laugh slipped out of him, breathless, exhilarated, disbelieving. "Of course. Of course this is happening."
His passion for Beyblade, his love for Jupiter, the years of obsession in another life, they hadn't vanished with reincarnation. They had crystallized, condensed into something unbreakable. A bond strong enough to manifest instantly, a spirit fierce enough to appear without training.
Even without the training undergone by a-lot of the top characters, Atlas already had immense strength from his raw Blader Spirit and understanding of Beys born from his past life's obsession with the series.
"I didn't just get reborn," he murmured, feeling the glow settle deeper into his body like it belonged there. "I was meant to pick up Jupiter again."
The bey spun with a proud hum, almost like it agreed.
Lavender light flickered around him one last time before calming, sinking inward, becoming a warm ember inside his chest. His hair dimmed back to its normal sheen, though faint remnants of the glow lingered at the tips.
Atlas finally exhaled, a slow, awed breath.
"I guess the real training starts now," he said softly, eyes locked on Jupiter, "But at least we're starting from the same page."
Jupiter responded with a sharp, confident chime against the stadium floor.