The Weird, Wild, and Wonderous World of Beyblade

Lean & Shu-Mask

Lean nodded.

The two of them walked along the sidewalk through New York with Lean in front. Shu's red eyes squinted slightly as the sunlight glared down at him.

He was starting to get a bit nervous. The two of them had been walking for an hour. Where did this kid live, exactly? If nothing else, he could use this time to see what made Lean tick, especially given the atrocity of a walk they'd had up to this point.

While taking a shortcut through the park, a ball from a few kids playing next to them happened to land right near Lean's feet. Just as the kids politely asked for it back, Lean jammed his left foot into the ball and caused it to burst. The spiky-haired boy's usually flat or sneering mouth curled into a smile as the kids began to wail. When Shu tried to introduce him to a new street vendor he had enjoyed, Lean toppled the guy's vendor with a kick and kept walking, his mouth again, delighted in the owner's frustration.

The weirdest thing about all of it was that it was completely unprompted. Lean just did it on a whim. Shu just stood there and took it all in through tightening lips and boiling blood. He just had to know what was wrong with him.

"So, what's an average day like for you, Lean?"

The pink-haired boy didn't even turn to him to respond. "What's it to you?"

"Well, if you're serious about getting into the world championship, you're going to be on a team, and the last kind of team anyone wants to be on is one full of strangers, so—-" He waited for a response.

"None of your business." Shu winced internally at that. There had to be some way of getting this kid out of his shell. If trying to find some common ground didn't pry his shell open, maybe using some already-established ground would.

"Now that I think about it, what got you interested in the Blading in the first place?"

"What else? Being the best." Shu knew that was just a half-truth. Sure, everyone entered the sport to shoot for the top, but Lean was different. Lean destroyed Beys. Shu knew from experience that when you did that to a Blader's Bey, it wasn't just because you wanted to. It was because you wanted to stick something to them. With Lui and Nightmare Longinus, it was revenge. With Norman and Twin Nemesis, Shu's superior skills. As far as he had seen, Lean destroyed every Bey he came across.

What kind of circumstances could lead him to feel like he had to prove something to everyone?

As the two turned into an alleyway to see a flight of stairs leading below ground, Shu was beginning to think he was about to find out.

Walking down the stairs, the dim lights of New York slowly began to fall away and be replaced with shadowy concrete occasionally illuminated by a single, dingey lightbulb. Shu could vaguely make out the swerves and squiggles of rainbow-colored drawings on the walls through the flashes. From what the white-haired boy could make out, the drawings had pretty...upsetting subject material.

Turning back to Lean, the boy had stopped right before the point of hitting solid ground again. Shu gave a puzzled look as the sounds of bashing and clattering came from the small rectangular entrance at the end of the staircase.

Shu saw Lean tense and let out a growl.

"No you, don't..." The boy seethed as a dark aura brimmed around him before running down the stairs toward the commotion as Shu followed.

The room was as dark and stoney as the rest of the place. It had a stale, yellowed mattress off in the corner and walls lined with pipes and a Beystadium in the middle. A group of boys Lean remembered from the arena ran about, trashing the place as the pink-haired boy stood there and seethed. His eyes narrowed as the boys slammed boxes to the floor and kicked up dust, and let it shower down, laughing like the brats they were.