A/n: Hey, fellow readers. I just wanted to say one thing before the chapter. I wanted to apologize for not posting in a while. The past weeks were really busy with me, for both school and just life. I had a lot of assignments to complete before their due date along with finishing up projects that are not entirely done yet. But I just want to let you all know that I am not going to leave this story unfinished. I really want to complete this book with an ending I'm hoping you all are going to enjoy. The good news about all of this is that school is almost over and I get to graduate in the upcoming month, so I'll have more time to work on my story!!

I'm not going to have this author's note be that long, so that'll be all for now. Enjoy this chapter, even if I tried to complete it all in one day. I hope it doesn't sound too rushed... :)

3rd POV

The time is midnight and little (Y/n) is already on her way to "S" for the tournament that's going to take place in a few minutes. As she was skating on the sidewalk, she had her focus on the ground. A depressed-looking expression was plastered on her face, which made it show that she hasn't gotten over everything that Reki told her earlier.

No matter how hard she tries to think of something else, just the thought of not belonging in a place like Okinawa lingers in her head.

'Will I ever be able to keep up with my friends here? Is it really worth my time to try and fit in like everybody else?'

Those thoughts would never leave her head. She lets out a sigh as she starts to get closer to her destination. Upon arriving at the gates, she walked in and kept her hood over her head. She doesn't want anyone to know how she's feeling because it's none of their business to know what's going on with her in her life.

But because she was looking down, she didn't notice a light-blue-haired boy approaching her.

"Hey, (Y/n)," Langa's voice was heard, which causes the (h/c)-haired girl to look up at him. Langa was smiling down at her, but in a concerned way, knowing very much of the incident that happened when they spoke with their redhead friend. "Is everything alright?"

(Y/n) does nothing much but nod her head as she looks down again with those sad eyes of hers. Langa could tell that whatever Reki said still bothered her, which is understandable. You can't expect anyone to get over hurtful words that quickly. He nods his head to show that he does understand and places his hand on her shoulder, ushering her to follow him to their friends.

Once they make it to the group, Miya is the first one to notice the two's presence. He looks over at them with a confused look on his face as he speaks. "Langa. (Y/n). I thought Reki would be with you, but I guess he decided to not enter the race after all," the cat skater says as he looks up at the board of listed names for those who are competing in the tournament.

Langa looks down as he thinks about his other friend with his hand still resting on (Y/n)'s shoulder. "That's right. He's not." Langa's tone of voice made it sound so downhearted and saddened, which catches Miya's ears as he looks back at him with the same confused look he had on earlier.

"What happened?" he asked the snowboarder. Langa couldn't find the words to explain everything that happened between him, (Y/n), and Reki. Speaking of, the said child keeps her eyes on the floor, not bothering to ask what the two were conversing about. It's like it doesn't even matter anymore.

Miya seems to have noticed this about (Y/n) and gets even more concerned as he looks at her empty eyes. He places his hand on her other shoulder in a friendly way as he asks her, "Are you okay?"

(Y/n) knew what he said in Japanese and decided to just nod her head without saying a word, hoping that the teen wouldn't ask any more questions about Reki. But even though she was expressing that she was okay, Miya could obviously see that she was not. The spark he once saw in the child is no longer there. All he sees is a blown-out flame that is surrounded by nothing but emptiness.

But before Miya could say anything else, Shadow lets out a chuckle, which draws the three's attention towards him. "I bet he's just being a wiener about Adam!" he says with a laugh. Even though (Y/n) might not know what he said, she could tell it was probably something about Reki, which made her feel a little worse than before. Miya squeezes her shoulder as a way of telling her that it was all right and that she shouldn't worry about it.

On a side note, Cherry and Joe seem to have noticed the girl's expression as well, making them also worried. Cherry, though, looks at her with those gold-examining eyes of his. It makes him wonder what had happened to her to make her seem so depressed. It's as if his mother mode was activated to find out what was going on with (Y/n) in a protective manner. There was only one question that was being asked in his head:

'Who hurt her?'

~~~~~~~~~~

The first qualifying group to skate consisted of Adam, Miya, and a few other skaters. In the end, Adam and Miya were the first two to cross the finish line, so they will be going to the next round.

The second qualifying group included Joe, (Y/n), two other skaters, and a group of five sketchy skaters. The child in the group doesn't seem to be focused too much on the race though. She continues to look down as she thinks about Reki. That was the only thing on her mind.

Joe looks down at the girl with a look of concern. He may not know what's going on with her, but he's hoping he could at least relieve some of the tension she is feeling inside her. "Hey, kid. Don't worry too much about it. Just focus on this race and you'll be fine," he tells her in a reassuring English tone of voice.

(Y/n) doesn't look at him, but her gaze leaves the floor as she looks at the track ahead of her. She lets out a sigh as she straightens out her hood, making sure that it was still over her head. "Okay," she says in Japanese, surprising Joe a bit, but a smile grows on his face as he sees at least some determination in her eyes.

"That's the spirit," he mumbles as he looks at the race track in front of him, getting ready as the traffic lights start to count down.

Red...

Red...

Red...

Red...

Green

Joe was the first one who took off, followed by the two random skaters, the child, and the group of masked skaters. (Y/n) was trying to keep up the pace as she continued to look down. For some reason, she wasn't feeling as excited as she usually gets whenever she would race against someone. That feeling in her heart was not there. It made her wonder why.

But she soon breaks out of her thoughts when she feels a presence beside her. More like, presences. She looks around her and notices that she's surrounded by the five hooded, masked skaters. Her eyes widen at the sight. She was not expecting something to happen like this.

"Bet you haven't seen anything like this before, have you, kid?" one of the masked skaters says, his voice sounding muffled due to the mask in front of his face. Even though (Y/n) didn't know what he said, she could tell that she was in trouble.

Joe hears this and looks back at the skaters with a glare. "Someone's not playing fair," he says to himself as he starts to slow down his speed a little, hoping he could help the girl in any way.

But before he could do anything, the ringleader of the group takes out a metal rod and holds it over his head, ready to strike down at the child. "This is gonna be so much fun!" he says as he swings the rod down, aiming directly for her head.

(Y/n) sees it coming and sends the ringleader a glare as she bends her knees. In one swift movement, she easily dodges the rod from hitting her and breaks out of the circle the group formed around her, pulling a rail slide as she goes on the turn. After landing back on her board, she could hear the skaters catching up to her.

One of them takes out his metal rod and prepares to strike the kid. "Take that!" he yells as he swings the rod at the girl's legs. But to his surprise, he pulls an ollie, causing him to miss her by an inch. But as soon as the wheels on her skateboard left the ground, another masked skater comes up from behind her and is ready to use his metal rod as she's in midair. "I got her!" he yells as he bashes his metal rod forward.

(Y/n) gasps when she sees it coming and lifts the tail of her board up, having the rod hit her wheels instead of her. With the momentum she has, she pulls a 180 in midair, which frees her wheels from the rod and also causes the skater to lose his balance. Her board lands on the ground as she is now skating backward, straightening herself out after the turn by ollieing herself up and rotating her skateboard, returning it to its original spot.

She easily passes Joe as he looks at her with an impressed look on his face. "Not bad, kid. Looks like you don't need my assistance after all," the six-pack skater says to himself as he keeps his eyes on the child. But while doing so, the ringleader of the sketchy skater group catches up to Joe as he glares at the hooded girl.

"You won't get away from me!" he yells, which doesn't go unnoticed by the green-haired male.

"That's cute, but no," Joe says with a stern look and proudly punches the ringleader in the face, breaking the mask while doing so. No one hurts his child!

(Y/n) and Joe continue to skate as the male starts to catch up with the (h/c)-haired girl. Everyone on the sidelines cheer for the two as they got closer to the finish line.

"Here they come!"

"There's Joe and Phoenix!"

"You got this, kid!"

"They dusted those losers!"

The two cross the finish line, almost tying, but you could tell that Joe was the first one to cross the finish line. (Y/n) stops once she was declared as the second skater who will continue to the next round, but something feels different.

She looks down at her feet as she thinks to herself, 'What's going on? Every time I skate, my heart would radiate this excited feeling inside of me... I'm not feeling that at all. My heart feels nothing but emptiness.' I place my gloved hand over my chest, clutching my jacket as I find myself staring off into space. At that moment, she felt so alone...

As she was in her own thoughts, she was oblivious to notice a tall figure walking towards her. It wasn't until she felt a hand rest on her shoulder that she decided to break her gaze from the ground and looks up, tensing up when she realized who was standing beside her. That bright red skating outfit could never go unnoticed in a crowd of people as his dark-blue spiky hair cascades down the right side of his face.

'Adam.'

"How lovely. What a wonderful performance. Like flying sparks." The Matador of Love says in English as he grabs onto the hand the girl had over her chest and holds it in his free hand. "Your talent is exhilarating. You really stand out from everyone else here. It surprises me more and more every night to see your improvements taken into action."

There it was again. She stands out from everyone else. (Y/n) looks down with a blank look on her face, not even bothering to look up at the pro skater when he spoke. It makes her wonder if she is that different from the people around her. Adam seemed to notice her distress, which makes him wonder what was going on in the nine-year-old's mind.

But before anything else could happen, Joe walks up to them and places his hand on (Y/n)'s other shoulder. "Leave her be, Adam," he tells the male as he ushers the child to follow him and get away from the psycho.

(Y/n) picks up her skateboard as she follows Joe back to the others. Her mind doesn't seem to be functioning properly as it was all over the place. Many things were entering her brain and leaving it at the same time. She's never experienced anything like this before and does nothing more but hope that it goes away soon. Joe's hand never leaves the girl's shoulder as they both leave the factory and head back to the main area of "S."

By now the next group of qualifiers were up. The group of skaters included Cherry, Langa, and other random skaters. The race had started and the AI skater was already in the lead with Langa tailing after him.

The pink-haired skater looked so determined to beat Adam's record that he wanted to kick things up a notch. "Carla. Type long," Cherry tells his AI board as she responds back to him saying, "Okay, Master."

Almost like magic, the board extends into a longer one as the pink hues on it glowed as he races down the rocky track. He was able to make it past those sharp turns even after the new development on his board.

It confuses a cat boy as he looks up intriguingly at the huge screen displayed for the other skaters to watch the qualifying race. "All you have to do is make it to the top two to move on to the final round. Why is Cherry being so dramatic?" Miya asks without breaking eye contact with the race.

"He's going up against Adam. He needs to stand out," Joe answers. The black-haired teen looks up at the said male, who was holding (Y/n) in his arms so that she is able to see the displayed screen from there, with a confused look. The green-haired male looks so focused when watching his childhood friend speed through the track without a struggle.

"What?" Miya questions, sounding way more confused than before.

"He's focused on beating Adam's time," Joe puts it simply. The child in his arms doesn't look away from the race as she watches intensely at how fast Cherry is skating. She could tell that he was trying to come out in first place as a way to prove that he has what it takes to be the best of the best skaters out there.

In the end, Cherry crosses the finish line with Langa following a few seconds after. They both stop and Cherry looks down at his skateboard in desperation. "Carla. Report." Carla's voice chimes through the skateboard as she says the time it took for him to make it to the end of the race.

"Four minutes exactly."

That was the same time Adam had when he skated earlier. Cherry looks up at the said man from where he was standing with an unbelievable stare. The Matador of Love looks down upon the AI skater with a cigar in hand. Even though you can't see his eyes from the mask, you could tell that he sees how his rival is trying to one-up him. He seems interested in what Cherry's next moves are as a puff of smoke is exhaled from his mouth.

But in the end, things never change.

(Y/n)'s POV

Now it was Shadow's turn to race. Joe still held me in his arms as I watch the clown skater compete with other random skaters.

'Wow, he really believes he could come out first before anyone. Heh, it kind of reminds me of the time I beat him in a beef the first time Langa was brought here.' The corners of my mouth lift up a little at the thought of that as I try to distract myself from the current situation that would never leave my head. It seems to be working, though. 'Hehe. Good memories.'

I was too focused on Shadow on the huge screen that I was so cut off guard when I see an unfamiliar and unknown skater speed past him. My eyes widen a bit when I see that. Many people in the crowd started to cheer at the sight of this new skater, which confused me a bit.

"Huh? Who is that?" I ask myself. Joe and Langa seem to converse in their language, probably wondering who this guy is as well. Looking down, I see Miya looking at his phone, reading off the listed contestants who are qualifying in the current group right now. I lean toward the boy as Joe makes sure that I'm still secure in his arms.

I look at the listed names and see Miya focusing on one specific name. The words weren't translated for me, so I had to go on my own phone and translate the name from there. After translating it into English, I see the words on my small screen and it read... Snake.

I look back up at the screen just in time to see Shadow throwing his firecrackers at the Snake skater. I was thinking that he was going to struggle with those things, but what happened next surprised me.

The unknown skater pulled an ollie, spinning his skateboard while doing so. The rotation of the board launches the firecrackers back toward Shadow, which surprises him as well. I couldn't believe it. He was able to avoid them with ease.

'I mean, not trying to brag or anything, I was able to dodge those firecrackers the first time I raced against a certain someone. *cough cough* Shadow *cough cough*... Sorry, I'm still trying to distract myself from my current situation.'

Brushing my thoughts aside, I watch as Snake crosses the finish line before anyone else. From beside Joe and me, Cherry says Carla's name and asks her something. Carla responds back by saying the numbers three and fifty-eight. He must have asked for the time it took for Snake to make it to the end, which took him three minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

I stare up at the unknown skater with admiration in my eyes. He was wearing a green bomber jacket and black sweatpants with a red cap covering his half-covered purplish black hair and unviewable eyes. It made me wonder...

Who exactly is this guy?