The silence in the Mega-Mall atrium was incredibly fragile. Five thousand fans were holding their collective breath, their glowing pink light sticks completely still.
On the stage, Zac the Sunrise dropped his golden microphone. It hit the polished floor with a dull, heavy thud.
He didn't need it anymore. The pop star was gone. The boy standing across the stadium was a member of the Supreme Four, and his ego had just been publicly, fundamentally threatened.
"You think you can cast a shadow on my stage?" Zac asked, his voice losing every trace of its musical lilt. He dropped his flamboyant posture, his feet sliding into a wide, grounded stance. He locked Zillion Zeus onto his launcher. "I am going to blind you."
Ryu O'Hara stood entirely still. The blinding spotlights beating down on him didn't make him blink.
"The stage lights are fifty thousand lumens," Ryu replied, his voice flat, carrying no microphone amplification but echoing perfectly in the quiet atrium. "They are artificial. Just like your baseline."
The stage referee, a man wearing a headset who looked completely terrified of the sudden shift in tone, nervously raised his hand.
"F-First Battle!" the referee stammered over the PA system. "Ready... Set!"
"Three!" Zac yelled, his eyes narrowing.
"Two," Ryu commanded, dropping his right foot back and lowering his center of gravity.
"One!"
"Go Shoot!"
Zac didn't do a spin. He didn't strike a pose. He pulled his ripcord with a sharp, lethal snap that betrayed his actual, terrifying athletic ability. Zillion Zeus hit the stadium floor and immediately secured the dead center.
The golden Beyblade spun with absolute, frictionless perfection. Inside its energy layer, two heavy metal spheres snapped outward, locking into the perimeter.
"Zillion Zeus utilizes centrifugal weight distribution," Ryu analyzed quietly, watching the golden Bey stabilize. "It pushes its mass to the edges to infinitely retain its spin velocity. A flawless stamina build."
Ryu pulled his heavy metal launcher. He didn't unload his maximum torque. He gave the cord a sharp, measured pull.
Eclipse Nidhogg dropped onto the mid-slope, the dark violet layer humming quietly. It didn't rush the center. It began to slowly circle Zeus, matching the golden Bey's rhythm.
"What's the matter, Anvil?!" Zac taunted, throwing his arm forward. "Are you afraid of the heat? Solar Boost!"
Zeus accelerated in the center, creating a shimmering, golden optical illusion as its speed increased. It was an intimidating, flawless defense designed to outlast any attacker.
"I am not afraid," Ryu said. "I am simply waiting for your rotational peak."
Nidhogg continued to circle. Ten seconds passed. Then fifteen.
Up in the VIP crowd, Valt was gripping the barricade. "Why isn't he attacking?! Zeus is just going to spin forever!"
"He's studying it," Daigo murmured, his eyes narrowed. "Ryu doesn't strike until the moment is absolute."
In the stadium, Zeus hit its maximum velocity. The metal spheres were pushed to their absolute limits against the outer layer.
Ryu's mismatched pink and grey eyes sharpened. *The mass is entirely on the perimeter. The center is hollow.*
"Now," Ryu commanded.
Nidhogg's jagged rubber driver caught the slope. The dark Bey banked sharply, cutting a flawless ninety-degree angle down the basin. It didn't strike Zeus on the outer edge.
Nidhogg dropped its height, slipping its layer slightly underneath Zeus, and struck the golden Bey directly on the inner ring, bypassing the heavy metal spheres entirely.
The collision was a sharp, ringing *clink*.
Because Zeus's weight was entirely pushed to the outside, the inner strike completely disrupted its gyroscopic balance. The golden Bey violently wobbled.
"What?!" Zac gasped.
"You pushed your armor to the edges," Ryu stated. "You left your core entirely exposed."
Before Zeus could recover its balance, Nidhogg hit it a second time. Not a heavy, explosive strike, but a precise, calculated shove.
The wobbling golden Bey was effortlessly popped out of the center groove. It skidded up the slope, entirely unable to correct its axis, and clattered over the plastic rim, landing on the stage floor.
The referee stared at it. "O-Over Finish! One point to Ryu O'Hara!"
The crowd let out a confused, collective gasp. They didn't understand what had just happened. There was no explosion. There was no massive clash. Zac had just been casually nudged out of the ring in less than twenty seconds.
Ryu walked forward and picked up Nidhogg. He didn't look at the crowd. He looked at Zac.
Zac was staring at the golden Beyblade on the floor. His hands were trembling. Not from fear, but from an absolute, blistering rage. He had been embarrassed. On his own stage. In front of his own fans.
Zac slowly picked up Zeus. When he looked up, the golden boy was gone. His aura flared—a blinding, pressure that made the hair on Ryu's arms stand up.
"You think this is a game?" Zac hissed, his voice dropping into a vicious, unrecognizable register. "You think you can just calculate my performance and dismiss me? I am a member of the Supreme Four!"
Ryu felt the heat radiating from his launcher grip. The cold, sharp euphoria that had awakened on the mountain was flooding back into his veins. The island was truly dead. This was the peak. This was the thrill of pushing a king into a corner and watching them bare their fangs.
"Then perform," Ryu said, his voice laced with a heavy, unapologetic demand.
He locked Nidhogg onto the prongs. He didn't take a casual stance. He widened his legs, driving his boots into the polished stage floor. He brought his heavy metal launcher up, angling it sharply.
The hunger in Nidhogg was practically screaming against the metal prongs.
"Second Battle!" the referee yelled, backing away from the stadium as if he expected it to explode. "Ready... Set!"
"Three!" Zac roared, entirely abandoning his stage persona.
"Two," Ryu commanded, the dark violet aura bleeding into the stage lights.
"One!"
"Go Shoot!"
The dual launch shattered the fragile silence of the atrium.
Zac pulled his ripcord with everything he had. The sheer force of the launch caused a shockwave of displaced air to ripple across the stage. Zillion Zeus hit the stadium with a deafening crack, instantly taking the center. But it wasn't a defensive spin.
"I'm not going to outlast you!" Zac screamed, his eyes burning. "I'm going to burn you to ashes! Solar Strike!"
Zeus abandoned the center. It rode up the slope, its heavy metal spheres fully deployed, turning the Bey into a golden buzzsaw. It accelerated toward Nidhogg with terrifying, lethal intent.
Ryu had unloaded his maximum torque. Nidhogg was already moving at blinding speed.
"Intercept," Ryu whispered.
The two Beys collided on the mid-slope.
The explosion of sparks was so bright it physically washed out the stage cameras. The sound was like a thunderclap, echoing up to the glass ceiling of the Mega-Mall.
The impact pushed Ryu back a fraction of an inch, his sneaker squeaking against the polished floor.
Zac was pouring his entire soul into the strike. Zeus ground violently against Nidhogg's hollow layer, the friction generating a high-pitched, agonizing shriek.
"Break!" Zac roared, thrusting his hand forward.
Nidhogg took the damage. The white paint scratched. The polycarbonate groaned.
But Ryu didn't feel the boredom of the island. He felt the pure, unadulterated joy of the crush.
"Your light is fading," Ryu stated, his mismatched eyes locking onto Zac.
*Click.*
The internal weights inside Nidhogg snapped to the outer edges. But Ryu didn't use the Eclipse Counter to knock Zeus away. He wanted to dismantle the idol completely.
Nidhogg titled, its rubber driver catching the plastic. It pushed forward, locking its heavy layer perfectly against Zeus's metal spheres.
Nidhogg didn't strike. It began to grind.
It forcefully dragged Zeus around the stadium slope, matching its speed but imposing its own massive, crushing weight against the golden Bey. It was a suffocating, inescapable grapple.
"Get off me!" Zac yelled, panic finally bleeding into his voice. Zeus was sparking violently, its spin velocity being bled out by the millisecond.
"You rely on an audience," Ryu said, his voice cutting through the noise. Nidhogg dragged Zeus higher up the ridge, the pressure mounting to catastrophic levels. "You rely on the noise. But in the stadium, there is no audience. There is only power , and consequence."
"Stop!" Zac demanded, his aura completely shattering under the sheer, immovable pressure of the Anvil.
"Eclipse Sever."
Nidhogg didn't pull away. It simply twisted its forge disc with maximum torque while maintaining the grapple.
The resulting friction was absolute.
*Burst.*
Zillion Zeus couldn't withstand the localized pressure. The golden Bey exploded violently. The pieces were launched directly upward, catching the blinding stage lights as they rained down onto the center of the stadium.
Nidhogg disengaged, dropping cleanly into the dead center of the basin, humming its quiet, satisfied tune amidst the scattered pieces of the Sun.
The Mega-Mall atrium was completely, utterly silent.
Five thousand fans, the security guards, the manager, and the stage crew were completely paralyzed. The undisputed king of the stage, the untouchable idol, had just been completely, humiliated and broken in less than a minute.
Zac fell to his knees. His pristine white cape pooled around him on the floor. He stared at the pieces of Zeus, his bright blue eyes wide with absolute shock. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't posing. He was just a defeated blader.
The referee stood frozen for ten full seconds before his hand trembled upward.
"B-Burst Finish! Two points! The winner... is Ryu O'Hara!"
Ryu slowly stood up from his stance. He let out a long breath, rolling his shoulder to release the tension. He walked to the stadium, picked up Nidhogg, and slipped it into his pocket.
He looked down at Zac. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't offer a taunt.
"Your strength is acceptable," Ryu said quietly. "But your focus is entirely external. Fix your priorities."
Ryu turned his back on the idol and began walking toward the stage stairs.
For a moment, the silence held.
Then, in the front row, a teenage girl with a glowing pink light stick slowly lowered it. She stared at the silver-haired boy walking off the stage. He was cold. He was completely unbothered. He had just silenced an entire arena without raising his voice.
"He's... he's so cool," she whispered.
The girl next to her nodded frantically, her eyes wide. "He didn't even care about the lights. He's like a dark prince."
"KYAAAAA!"
A single, piercing scream shattered the silence.
Suddenly, the crowd didn't boo. They didn't cry for Zac. The collective, unpredictable hive mind of five thousand teenage fans violently pivoted.
*"RYU! RYU! RYU-SAMA!"*
The chanting erupted. It wasn't polite applause. It was a hysterical, deafening wave of absolute obsession. Dozens of girls rushed the stage barricades, screaming Ryu's name, holding up their phones to snap pictures of his completely blank face.
Ryu stopped halfway down the stairs.
He looked at the sea of screaming fans reaching toward him. He looked at a girl who had somehow instantly drawn a crude picture of his face on a piece of cardboard and was waving it frantically.
Ryu's mismatched pink and grey eyes widened in absolute, unfiltered horror.
"This is the worst outcome," Ryu muttered, genuine panic bleeding into his voice for the first time in his life.
He didn't walk down the rest of the stairs. He calculated the fastest exit , vaulted over the side railing of the stage, and bolted toward the VIP exit door with a speed that rivaled his own Beyblade.
"Wait! Ryu-sama! We want to start your fanclub!" a voice shrieked behind him.
Ryu hit the emergency exit bar and vanished into the concrete service hallway, the heavy metal door slamming shut behind him, cutting off the hysterical noise.
He leaned against the cinderblock wall, breathing slightly heavily. He had survived the Supreme Four. He had survived the heavy kinetic impacts. But the sheer, illogical terror of a fanclub was entirely outside his parameters.
"Well, that was a plot twist."
Ryu snapped his head up.
Rantaro, Valt, Daigo, and Ken were standing a few feet down the hallway. They had used the VIP passes to bypass the crowd.
Valt was leaning against the wall, laughing so hard there were actual tears streaming down his face. Rantaro was gripping his stomach, howling. Even Daigo was failing to hide a massive grin behind his bandana.
"A dark prince!" Rantaro gasped for air, pointing at Ryu. "They called you a dark prince! Oh my god, you're an idol now! You have to get sequins!"
"I will physically dismantle your launcher if you repeat those words," Ryu threatened, though his voice lacked its usual bite as he aggressively straightened his black jacket.
Valt wiped his eyes, walking over and throwing an arm around Ryu's shoulder. Surprisingly, Ryu didn't immediately shove him away.
"You did it, Ryu!" Valt cheered, his smile blinding. "You actually did it! You took down Xander and Zac in two days! The WBBA can't ignore you now! You're going to Nationals!"
Ryu looked at Valt. He looked at the rest of the BeyClub, who were looking at him not as a cold, terrifying anomaly, but as a completely ridiculous, highly capable friend.
The panic from the crowd faded, replaced by the warm, lingering hum of Nidhogg in his pocket.
"The probability of the WBBA denying my entry is now zero," Ryu confirmed, brushing Valt's arm off his shoulder, though he didn't step away.
Ken raised his left hand. Besu smiled. "Does this mean we get to celebrate again?! I want more bread!"
"No," Ryu said immediately, turning to walk down the service hallway toward the street exit. "My social battery has been completely depleted by the ambient volume of that atrium. I require absolute silence and a minimum of twelve hours of sleep."
"Too bad!" Rantaro laughed, following right behind him. "We're going to the arcade to celebrate! You're paying, Dark Prince!"
Ryu closed his eyes, letting out a long, heavy sigh that echoed down the concrete hall. The peak state was incredible. The thrill of the battle was euphoric.
But the aftermath was going to require significantly more patience than he possessed.