The sound of the dual launch was deafening. It sounded like two industrial gears violently grinding against each other.
A brilliant, blinding flash of white and crimson sparks erupted from the stadium, illuminating the faces of the front row.
Up in the stands, Valt Aoi gripped the railing, his eyes wide. "He didn't go for the center! Ryu is moving!"
Down in the arena, Eclipse Nidhogg was a dark violet blur. Because Ryu had dropped his center of gravity and angled his heavy metal launcher, Nidhogg hadn't anchored itself. It hit the upper ridge with terrifying rotational velocity, its jagged rubber driver biting into the plastic and propelling it forward.
Across the stadium, Storm Spriggan was matching its pace, a streak of crimson riding the opposite slope.
Shu Kurenai's red eyes tracked the movement perfectly. He had spent the last three days visualizing Ryu sitting in the center. He had built his entire strategy around breaking an immovable wall.
Now, the wall was chasing him.
"Don't let him dictate the speed, Spriggan!" Shu shouted, his voice cutting through the roar of the crowd. "Counter Break!"
Spriggan banked sharply. Its rubber tip caught the slope, snapping the red Bey out of its circular trajectory and launching it diagonally across the center of the stadium, aiming directly for Nidhogg's path.
Ryu stood firmly in his stance. He didn't flinch as Spriggan closed the distance.
"You are assuming my bey requires a counter-attack to be lethal," Ryu stated.
Nidhogg didn't dodge. It didn't try to outmaneuver Spriggan. Ryu hadn't triggered the internal weight shift. He kept Nidhogg locked in its heavy, hollow defense mode, but combined it with the massive kinetic energy of his angled launch.
The two Beys collided.
The impact cracked like a whip over the stadium microphones.
Shu expected Nidhogg to deflect the blow or absorb it. Instead, Spriggan hit a moving, high-speed wall of dense metal and polycarbonate. The sheer difference in weight class became instantly, brutally apparent.
Spriggan's Counter Break was entirely crushed.
The crimson Bey was violently repelled, its trajectory completely shattered. It ricocheted off Nidhogg and slammed into the stadium wall with a harsh, plastic shriek.
Shu gritted his teeth, his posture tensing. "Recover! Upper Launch!"
Spriggan used the recoil against the wall to drop low into the center groove, accelerating back toward Nidhogg to strike from beneath. It was the exact move that had destroyed Ken's Kerbeus.
Ryu watched the red Bey drop. He calculated the angle.
"Your precision is flawless," Ryu said quietly. "But your speed is failing. You cannot lift what you cannot grip."
Nidhogg didn't wait in the center. It rode the upper slope, building momentum, and then dropped straight down the basin, meeting Spriggan head-on at the exact lowest point of the stadium.
It was a complete, top-down suppression.
Nidhogg's heavy forge disc slammed directly onto Spriggan's upper contact points. The crimson Bey's upward momentum was instantly neutralized. The two Beys ground against each other in the dead center, the friction generating a high-pitched whine that set the audience's teeth on edge.
Spriggan was trapped under the weight. Its rotational speed was bleeding out by the millisecond.
"Push it back!" Shu roared, stepping forward.
"End the rotation," Ryu commanded.
*Click.*
The internal weights inside Nidhogg snapped outward. The sudden, violent shift in mass while pressing down on Spriggan created an unbearable amount of torque. Nidhogg's jagged rubber driver caught the plastic floor, violently accelerating in a tight circle while still pinning Spriggan.
The crimson Bey was ripped from the center groove.
Unable to withstand the grinding force, Spriggan was launched sideways. It skidded up the slope, entirely out of control, hit the upper rim, and flew out of the stadium.
It clattered against the concrete floor at Shu's feet. It hadn't burst, but it was completely dead.
The stadium was dead silent for two seconds.
The referee raised his hand, his voice echoing slightly. "Over Finish! One point to Ryu O'Hara!"
The crowd exhaled in a massive, chaotic wave of noise. They had expected a long, drawn-out tactical battle. Instead, Ryu had just physically bullied Shu out of the arena in less than twelve seconds.
Up in the VIP glass observation deck, Lui Shirasagijo let out a short, sharp laugh. He turned away from the window, shoving his hands into his pockets. He had seen enough.
Down on the stage, Shu stood perfectly still.
He looked at the red Beyblade resting on the concrete. He didn't scream. He didn't drop to his knees. He reached down, picked up Spriggan, and brushed a speck of dust off the energy layer.
He locked it back onto his launcher.
When Shu looked back up, the intensity in his red eyes had shifted. It was no longer just focused. It was absolute. The pressure radiating off him felt heavy enough to warp the air.
Ryu caught Nidhogg as it popped out of the stadium. The metal was burning hot. He looked across the arena at Shu.
"You miscalculated the weight " Ryu noted, his voice flat, but lacking its usual boredom. "A counter strike cannot pierce a moving anvil."
"You're right," Shu replied. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "I treated you like a stationary target. I prioritized angle over raw output."
Shu adjusted his footing. He widened his stance slightly, dropping his center of gravity even lower than before. He gripped his launcher with both hands, his knuckles turning stark white.
"I won't make that mistake again."
In the waiting room, Valt, Rantaro, and Daigo were watching the monitor in stunned silence.
"He's changing his launch posture," Daigo whispered, adjusting his bandana. "Shu never changes his posture. He's completely abandoning his precision."
Rantaro swallowed hard. "He's going for a pure power launch. He's trying to match Ryu."
"He can do it," Valt said. His voice was quiet, completely devoid of its usual yelling. He was watching his best friend push himself to the absolute limit. "Shu can do anything."
On the stage, Ryu observed the shift in Shu's stance.
*He is sacrificing his accuracy for maximum kinetic transfer,* Ryu analyzed. *He intends to force a head-on collision to trigger a burst.*
Ryu stepped back, resetting his own aggressive stance. He gripped his heavy metal launcher, feeling the heat of the internal gears. He locked his mismatched eyes onto the plastic slope.
He didn't want to admit it, but his pulse was racing.
"Second Battle!" the referee shouted, cutting the tension in the air. "Ready... Set!"
The stadium lights seemed to dim, leaving only the two bladers illuminated in the center.
"Three!" Shu's voice carried a raw, uncharacteristic edge.
"Two," Ryu commanded, tightening his grip.
"One!"
"Go Shoot!"
The dual launch was even louder than the first.
Shu pulled the ripcord with such immense force that his right shoulder visibly jerked with the recoil. Storm Spriggan hit the stadium floor with a massive *crack*. It didn't ride the rim. It didn't look for an angle. It tore straight down the slope, leaving a deep red blur in its wake, heading directly for the center.
Ryu matched the torque perfectly.
Nidhogg hit the opposite slope. It didn't drop into its defensive anchor. It caught the rubber driver and accelerated, a dark violet comet screaming across the plastic, aiming directly for Spriggan.
There was no evasion. There was no parrying.
It was a dead-center, head-on collision at maximum velocity.
"Tear it apart, Spriggan!" Shu roared.
The two Beys collided.
The sound wasn't a crack. It was an explosion.
A massive, blinding sphere of white and red sparks engulfed the center of the stadium. The kinetic shockwave physically rattled the plastic basin, sending a vibration through the floor that Ryu could feel in the soles of his sneakers.
Neither Bey bounced back.
They locked together in the dead center. The heavy metal contact points of Spriggan ground brutally against the dense polycarbonate of Nidhogg's hollow layer. The friction was so intense the air around them actually distorted.
"It's a dead lock!" Hanami screamed over the PA system. "They're putting everything they have into a single clash!"
"Break through!" Shu commanded, throwing his arm forward. Spriggan's layer glowed with a fierce, crimson intensity as it poured every ounce of its spin velocity into the lock.
Ryu stood his ground. He felt the pressure. Nidhogg was vibrating violently. The hollow layer was taking catastrophic damage.
"You cannot break " Ryu said, his voice dropping to a low, heavy whisper.
*Click.*
Nidhogg's locking mechanism gave way under the immense pressure. The heavy internal metal weights snapped violently to the outer edges.
The center of gravity shifted. Nidhogg tilted, exposing the jagged rubber driver.
"I was waiting for that!" Shu yelled, his eyes widening.
As Nidhogg tilted to unleash the *Eclipse Counter*, it momentarily exposed its underside. It was a fraction of a millimeter of space, but it was all Shu needed. Because he hadn't bounced back, Spriggan was already perfectly positioned underneath the tilt.
"Counter Break!"
Spriggan didn't retreat. It used its rubber tip to grip the plastic right underneath Nidhogg, launching a brutal, point-blank uppercut directly into Nidhogg's exposed metal forge disc.
Ryu's eyes widened. *He baited the counter.*
The upward strike was devastating.
Nidhogg was launched into the air, its dark violet layer separating from the forge disc by a fraction of an inch as the locking mechanism screamed in protest.
"Burst him!" Valt screamed from the waiting room.
Nidhogg hung suspended in the air for a microsecond.
Ryu's mind raced. The trajectory was failing. Spriggan's upward kinetic energy was perfectly calculated to overcome Nidhogg's locking resistance.
But Ryu O'Hara was not just any bladder .
"No," Ryu said.
As Nidhogg reached the apex of its brief airborne trajectory, the heavy metal weights on the outer edge of its layer fully locked into place. The sudden distribution of extreme mass to the absolute perimeter created an unnatural, stabilizing gyroscopic effect.
Nidhogg didn't burst.
It forcefully snapped its own locking mechanism back together mid-air, resisting the burst through sheer centrifugal stabilization.
Shu's eyes widened in absolute shock. "What?!"
Nidhogg dropped back down. But it didn't land in the center. Because of the uppercut, it landed heavily on the steep upper slope. The jagged rubber of the Phantom driver bit into the plastic with a horrifying screech.
Nidhogg didn't lose momentum. It weaponized the fall.
"Eclipse Dive," Ryu commanded, his voice echoing through the stunned stadium.
Nidhogg accelerated down the slope with ungodly speed, carrying the full weight of its shifted mass and the gravity of the drop. Spriggan, having just expended its energy on the point-blank uppercut, was completely exposed in the center.
Nidhogg slammed into Spriggan like a meteor striking the earth.
The impact was absolute.
*Burst.*
The crimson Beyblade shattered instantly. The three pieces of Storm Spriggan were launched violently out of the stadium, clattering against the concrete floor.
Nidhogg hit the center ring, the rubber edge disengaging, and settled onto its sharp center tip. It spun peacefully, humming its quiet, victorious tune, a single, deep scratch running across its white paint.
The WBBA National Stadium was so quiet you could hear the air conditioning hum.
The referee stood completely frozen, his eyes darting from the broken pieces of Spriggan to the perfectly spinning Nidhogg. He swallowed hard, his hand trembling as he raised it toward the silver-haired boy.
"B-Burst Finish!" the referee stammered, his voice echoing into the microphone. "With a final score of three to zero... Ryu O'Hara is the District Champion!"
The crowd didn't cheer immediately. It took them three full seconds to process what they had just witnessed. When they finally did, the roar was so loud it shook the camera rigs.
Ryu slowly stood up from his stance. He let out a long, heavy breath. His entire right arm was trembling slightly from the sheer torque of the launch.
He walked over to the edge of the stadium and held out his hand. Nidhogg hopped neatly into his palm. The metal was scalding hot.
He looked across the arena.
Shu was still standing in his launch posture. He was staring at the empty plastic basin. He had executed his strategy perfectly. He had baited the counter, he had landed the uppercut, and he had applied maximum force.
He had done everything right. And he had still lost.
Shu slowly lowered his arms. He walked over, picked up the pieces of his Beyblade, and locked them back together. He looked up, his deep red eyes meeting Ryu's mismatched pink and grey ones.
There was no anger in Shu's expression. There was only a quiet, heavy realization of the gap between them.
"You stabilized the burst mid-air," Shu said, his voice barely carrying over the noise of the crowd.
"The force of the outer mass counteracted the pressure," Ryu replied. It was the factual answer. But looking at Shu, Ryu knew it didn't matter.
Shu gave a slow, respectful nod. "I'll see you at Nationals."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the competitor tunnel.
Ryu watched him go. He slipped Nidhogg into his pocket, the hot metal resting against his leg.
He had won the District Tournament. He had a guaranteed seed in the National roster. He had officially entered the highest tier of competitive blading.
But as the crowd screamed his name, Ryu didn't feel the crushing boredom he used to feel on the island. He felt the ache in his shoulder, the heat of his launcher, and the heavy, undeniable anticipation of what was coming next.
He looked up toward the VIP observation deck. He couldn't see Lui through the glare of the glass, but he knew the arrogant blade had watched.
Ryu turned and walked toward the exit. The baseline was broken. Things were officially out of control. And Ryu couldn't wait.