Follow-up to Protecting This Stolen Day, though you don't have read that to understand this. Might be vaguely related to Protect and Guard? Only vaguely, though.

Nightmare Under A Silver Moon

"NO!"

Kenta shot back to consciousness with a shout and found himself tangled in the sheets for the second time that week. Blue light still echoed behind his eyes, and his heart was pounding.

That stupid dream.

Gathering the corners of his dream-fractured mind together and kicking the sheets from around his legs, Kenta stood up and went over to the window, moving as quietly as possible. Pulling back the curtains a little revealed the garden bathed in silvery moonlight, and the air was cold and fresh when he pushed the window open. Taking a deep breath, he focused on his hands braced against the windowsill, trying to stop them from trembling by pure willpower.

He knew he wasn't the only one with nightmares. He'd spent too many nights on the sofa talking to Gingka and Tsubasa to assume something so arrogant. And as he was sharing a room with him, he was also the first one to wake when Masamune started screaming for Toby to come back, to get away from the machine, so he knew that the events of Spiral Core were still strong in the Unicorn-blader's mind.

All of them had nightmares, actually – anything from the rising purple-black monstrosity to the destruction of the world and death pouring like thunder from above.

Gingka dreamed of failure.

Tsubasa dreamed of falling.

Yuu's dreams, he claimed, were of Rago being eaten by a giant ice-cream, but Kenta didn't believe him; he had heard Libra's owner screaming for Tsubasa and Kenta himself, caught up in the throes of their dream-deaths that only Tsubasa himself could soothe him awake from, and saw how close the younger blader stuck to Tsubasa during the day as if afraid that he would suddenly vanish from his sight forever.

Kyouya wouldn't tell them what happened in his, which had puzzled Kenta until he realised what it meant. Kyouya also dreamed of deaths, deaths of the ones he held so dear, but he could not and would not ever admit that. He couldn't be seen to actually care. He wouldn't be their Kyouya, their strong rock against the darkness, if he did.

The worst nights had passed now, those terrible weeks when none of them could sleep in the dark, and only the brink of exhaustion could force them to bed. It had driven Ryo Hagane nearly mad with worry for all of them, as he was certain they would make themselves very ill. It was true, none of them had acted much like themselves for a long time, but that was to be expected, right? It wasn't as if any of them had lost an ally before... let alone a friend.

Kenta's shoulders sank along with his heart. So this was going to be one of the nights when he couldn't stop thinking about that, was it? Well, that was better than the nights when he would wake to hear Gingka or, worse, Yuu trying to muffle their sobs as they fought their own dreams and grief alone. He could be thankful for small mercies – that he still had those precious memories of days spent walking in silence, hearing everything and listening to nothing in particular. Of nights by small campfires that were no defence against the wild beasts, but also of the flashing gold that was better than any weapon. Of battles, always lost. Of arguments, almost always lost. Of laughter, once, shocked out of an unwilling mouth by an unexpected comment, laughter that Kenta missed more than anything else in the world.

Memories of Ryuga.

They wouldn't leave, no matter what Kenta did. Everyone seemed to think that it was because he had been Ryuga's friend before the battle against Nemesis – why else would Ryuga have trusted him with the power of his own Star Fragment? - but that wasn't true. Kenta hadn't been Ryuga's friend. Ryuga didn't have friends, except possibly Yuu, but that was mostly speculation on Kenta's part.

He knew that his loyalties should have been with Gingka, but... the thing was that there was something about Ryuga which was utterly compelling.

It wasn't that Ryuga had really been his friend. That wasn't true, and never would be. Nothing that the owner of the Dragon had ever done whilst Kenta had been in his company could have been described as friendly unless you were being very generous. Anything even vaguely nice had only been from the respect of some sort of strength, not to bolster weaknesses in the way that friends like Gingka did. Gingka was a marvellous friend, and Kenta wouldn't have exchanged him for the world. He was loyal, compassionate, strong, brave... all those things that Kenta had desperately wanted to be. But Kenta liked to think that, whilst Ryuga never had and never would call him or anyone else "friend", maybe Ryuga had allowed him, Kenta, to call Ryuga his friend. There was a difference. Even if that wasn't true, there was always something about the Dragon Emperor that called him back.

It was just that... well, Kenta had so much more respect for Ryuga than for Gingka. It was simple. Gingka had first received Storm Pegasus from his father as a dying gift – only to find that not only did Pegasus respond more strongly to Gingka than he ever did to Ryo, but that Ryo wasn't dead after all. There could be no loss for the wielder of Pegasus. But Ryuga had heard about Lightning L-Drago and had broken a sacred ceremony himself, fought across fire and evaded spears and arrows to take it for himself, and had even had the strength to fight and beat the bey that was meant to be his only rival.

That wasn't the end of it, though. When Gingka had lost Storm Pegasus, he had sat by the river and mourned for weeks until his father told him about the Legendary Bey, Galaxy Pegasus. He had taken a group of his friends with him on a train and a bus, and then found a guide to take him into the heart of a cave behind a waterfall, where the bey had responded to him before he even touched it. Yes, he had struggled to master the vastly superior power of the Galaxy blade, but all he had done in the end was to ask the beast within to show him how to use it.

When Ryuga had lost Lightning L-Drago he had walked away at once, completely alone, to a volcano that shot streams of lava tens of feet into the air around him, and had learned on his own how to call on the power of the cosmos. He had remade his own blade, and had fought his own heart and constellation in order to master them. He had called it "rigorous training". Kenta knew first-hand how tough Ryuga had to be just to survive his everyday life, so what on earth could the Dragon Emperor have considered "rigorous"?

Gingka hadn't even been there when the star fragment struck his blade. He had left it alone with Madoka for mending, hadn't even paid much attention to her when she tried to tell him about it the following day because he was so interested in the challenge that had come from Kyouya.

Ryuga, on the other hand, had been wearing his heart on his sleeve – or more specifically his blade on his arm, which in Ryuga's case was pretty much the same thing. The star fragment hadn't just struck the bey, but had enveloped the blader.

No wonder. Kenta wrapped his arms around himself as the tumbling thoughts in his head suddenly skidded to a halt at the revelation. Ryuga and L-Drago – they were completely inseparable. You couldn't describe one without realising that you were describing the other. Powerful beyond belief, and nearly impossible to defeat. Constantly in motion, always moving and upgrading and improving to become even tougher. Fierce, cruel, aggressive and utterly, utterly loyal to the other.

Ryuga... Kenta could barely even think it – Ryuga was L-Drago.

And suddenly it all made perfect sense. They had all thought that it was the Darkness that had made Ryuga's eyes glow red from within, because that was how they had realised what was controlling Tsubasa. But Kenta could recall many occasions when Ryuga had glared at him and a red light had trickled into his eyes, and he knew that Ryuga would not tolerate the Darkness once he had realised how treacherous it was. So if it wasn't the Darkness, what was it?

L-Drago's eyes burned with fire.

Who else in the history of beyblade had ever been swallowed up by their own beast? Kyouya and Gingka were as close to their beasts as Kenta thought was possible, and Tsubasa had been taken by the Darkness, but never had any other beast attempted to rise through their blader, not even Darkness-filled Eagle.

Just L-Drago.

But, his mind argued, L-Drago always swallowed people up. That was what he did – he drew in all the power of his blader and then took them completely. It was what left-spin did... just not for Variares. Or Gravity Destroyer.

Just L-Drago.

L-Drago alone bound himself to his blader in such a way. Kenta could remember so vividly the many times he had seen the purple dragon erupting from the centre of Ryuga's chest, so unlike the emergence of any other beast. It had been as if L-Drago was literally living inside Ryuga – inside his heart. Even at the end of Battle Bladers, when L-Drago had swallowed up Ryuga and turned him into that terrible half-dragon, that bond had not been cut, could not be cut. Except that Ryuga had come back. Ryuga had fought free of it, had not allowed the transformation to go to its natural conclusion. What kind of strength of spirit had that demanded of him?

The spirit of the Dragon himself.

But... if Ryuga had given him L-Drago's power in that final transfer in the heat of battle, then...

Then he had given Kenta himself.

.

Standing between the centaur and the dragon, leaning against the latter, a tall, white-coated figure folded his arms and looked away to hide his smile.

"Well, that took you long enough, Kenta."

L-Drago and Ryuga have a far stronger relationship than any other blader, even Gingka and Pegasus. Ever since he was freed from L-Drago's control in Metal Fusion, Ryuga is the one who keeps talking about things like becoming one with the bey and understanding the bey, and even lectures Gingka himself on that topic. I don't think I am being unfair to Gingka when I suggest that he might just have been having it a bit easy compared to the Dragon. Please don't get me wrong - I love Gingka's characterisation, and he's *definitely* a better friend than Ryuga is, which is all for the good in a show about friendship, but either Ryuga is unnecessarily complicating his own life, or Gingka is being a bit too lucky when it comes to his bey...

On a separate note, I've sent off an email to the fanfiction . net support desk asking them to update the character lists to include the Metal Fury characters: Chris, Dynamis/Dunamis, Pluto, Rago, Johannes, Titi/Tithi, Yuki, Aguma, Bao, King, Ryuto and Motti, which they have done.

(They're the only ones I'm certain of the names of – when I know more, I'll send off another email. If I've forgotten someone, either email them or let me know and I'll include it in the next one!)

Looking forwards to seeing some stories about our lovely Legendary Bladers soon! *starts plotting...*