A/N: I can honestly say I don't know where this came from. I think it had to do with rain and the soundtrack to The Road To El Dorado, but that's about all I know. This is for my baby, Pretty Crimson Eyes, who kept bothering me about this 'till I'd written it so she could understand it, which means we've been emailing back and forth quite some over this thing… :grins: And as it's her birthday today and I had no chance of finishing the birthdayfic I originally planned on writing her I'll dedicate this one to her and hope she'll extend my deadline :winks: Do enjoy!
I do not own BeyBlade!
Please do read and review!
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Fire, Thunder, And Rain
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Pain.
Such incredible amounts of pain that he was sure the only thing he would ever know was pain, his only feeling pain as well. Time and place had lost their meaning, if they had ever had one in the first place, and so had everything else. There was just pain and nothing more.
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After an eternity of torture his brain somehow managed to think something beside pain. Not because the pain had subsided, but because he suddenly found another word to describe his agony. Another word that printed itself inside of his head and steadily grew.
Fire.
On fire.
Himself on fire.
Flashes of light racked through his brain. Memories from an indefinable amount of time ago – days or maybe mere minutes, he did not know – played in vivid colors on the inside of his eyelids. Memories that made him toss and turn despite his skin screaming in protest. Memories of that one battle lost.
It did not make any sense. Fire was his very own element. How could the battle have ended the way it did when he had his own raging fire burning within?
What bothered him the most, though, was not losing. And neither was it the fact that he had not even considered the now almost entirely forgotten opponent something special, something that could threaten him and make him lose everything in one heart stopping moment. No, what not only bothered him, but also scared him into senseless oblivion and made him fear for his life and sanity was the other's bit beast.
The rational, logical part of his brain knew very well that no bit beast in the world was sufficiently powerful to do what he saw in his delirious fantasies. As for the part of his brain that took care of his emotions and feelings; it could not provide him with what he needed to confirm that everything would be alright. It was paralyzed by fear. Fear and pain.
And that was where his logic stumbled, stopped being logical and stopped making sense. Because no matter how many battles he had been in before, no matter how hard they had been, he had never, never, come out of a battle in his current condition. He had never experienced a bit beast that was actually capable of hurting him physically, setting him on fire as this one had done so swiftly.
He tried opening his eyes, wanting to prove to his logic that it was right; that he was not really burned and that his psyche had only played a trick on him to make him believe he was literally on fire. But it was all to no avail. His eyelids were so swollen because of the extreme heat wave he had been exposed to that he could not open them. It felt as if his eye lashes had somehow burned his eyes permanently closed. And, he realized, the attempt was almost ridiculous as the mere thought of moving anything just increased the over-all torture.
An almost silent moan escaped his otherwise tightly clenched lips, making him aware of the damage his ears must have taken. His hearing was almost gone. But his moaning also brought the damage of his lips and the tip of his tongue to his attention. Heavy burns now covered the sensitive mucous membranes inside of his mouth, making them feel like flakes of ashes ready to peel off at any given moment and giving him the feeling of having sand or dust in his mouth.
If he had been able to feel his teeth with his tongue he was sure he would have found them burnt and porous as well; damaged and destroyed just like the rest of him. He could feel how his fingernails were almost molten into his fingers, and he had a vague feeling that most of his hair was gone as well, sacrificed to the flames.
Had he not been in such a miserable state, anger would have caused pure adrenalin to curse through his veins. He would have been able to get up and pay the 'blader with the furious bit beast back; he would show him… But unfortunately it seemed that even his blood had been affected by the heat. It flowed painfully slow as if the fire attack had somehow made it coagulate, like he knew blood did when exposed to too high temperatures. He was starting to fear that it might just stop flowing and simply stiffen like the insides of an egg when boiled. He did not wish for that to happen.
As he was hit by that thought he could not keep his body from shivering just the slightest bit. And with the almost imperceptible shiver another worry was added to those already crowding his mind; the movement, however small it was, made his bones and muscles almost fall apart. The image of being boiled returned instantly. He knew that meat fell off the bones it had previously been fixed to when boiled, and he also knew that it was almost impossible to keep the two together when they had already been separated.
He tried to hold still. Tried with all his might to get his stiff blood to keep his flesh and bones together.
But as if to prove him wrong, to prove that not all liquid had been burnt away from his body, his eyes started watering.
He did not want to cry. He did not want to cry, he was not that weak, he still had his pride. But despite his feeble protests the tears continued. They were tears of anger and frustration, but also tears of fear, because what would he look like if he should turn out lucky enough to survive the manhandling he had been through?
That single thought increased the force of the welling tears pooling around his still closed eyes. And with the increased force, the tears inevitably ended up running down his cheeks to his neck, making the burnt skin even achier than it had been before because of the salt in his tears.
As an ultimate insult to his destroyed body – every hope of healing was by now as far away as the furthest star in the furthest galaxy – he started hearing sounds from somewhere that was not within him and had nothing to do with the horrifying bit beast. Maybe his hearing was not as damaged as he had thought because all of a sudden he started hearing sounds from the outside world. He was very sure that he could hear the faint sound of raindrops hitting every exposed surface outside of his window…
His window?
His window…
Right. He was in his room. On top of the covers of his bed. Time was still gone, but place had finally started existing again. Thank goodness.
The rain was an amazing sound. Dull to begin with, but as his hearing improved or the rain got stronger – he could not tell – it grew to even drown out the sound of the roaring bit beast inside his head. It felt as if the rain would wash over him any second now, and it was such a refreshing and cleansing feeling that he, for a little while, felt healed and well. But as he tried to move, overly eager to get away from the bed that kept him restricted and forced him to stay in his recurrent nightmares, his body winched in pain and fell apart all over again as the heat came rolling back in huge waves with only one purpose: to drown him in fire.
This set-back made him feel like a failure. He had been so sure that he could escape the fire and run into the rain, yet here he was once again restrained by it with no way out. He could still not open his eyes, but at least he had stopped crying, and apparently his senses were coming back to him, because he was pretty sure he could smell something that was not his own burnt flesh.
He could smell the rain outside. But this time he knew better than to start moving around. This time he remained as still as possible and reveled in the freshness from the approaching storm outside.
And what a storm it was! Had he been able to open his eyes he was sure he would have seen the raging storm clouds full of thunder, lightning and never ending rain. His safe haven would be right outside his room's outer wall of glass. His sanity and body would be secure there in the inferno of the most powerful forces Mother Nature had in her hold. If only he could walk through that glass. If he could only open his eyes and really see the storm clouds instead of falling back into hallucinations. Because that was just what it was, was it not?
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Once again time passed by without his knowledge. He let the horrible weather outside wash away his heart stopping fear and his all consuming pain. Despite not feeling exactly alive, he knew he would make it through if only the storms would continue to chase away his conscious thoughts and everything that hurt him so. He had a nagging suspicion that death might feel the way he was feeling in those very moments, but at this point even death did not scare him. He had been through Hell and he had survived. Death would be a pleasant welcome, should it choose to take him.
Just as that notion crossed his mind he was taken over by his emotions again. This time, however, neither pain, fear, nor relief flooded through him.
He was hit by a tidal wave of panic. It took and destroyed everything in its wake, leaving him with nothing but the need to run away and hide at the same time as desperately wanting to hold onto something. It hit him so hard that he could not move a muscle and that made everything worse, because if he could not move, he could not escape death.
And he wanted to live, he suddenly realized. He did not want to die. Even if life was pain and fire, and death was peace and balm for his tortured soul he still wanted to live more than anything. But why was that? What was it that could claim enough of his being to keep him from even wishing to die?
There was no answer for that. At least he did not have any. And while his mind struggled to comprehend what had just happened to him an enormous, white flash of lightning appeared on the inside of his eyelids followed not even a second later by a deafening peal of thunder almost strong enough to make the earth quake.
He was shocked beyond what he had thought humanly possible by the strike of thunder. Oh how he wished he could have his sight back! He needed to see, needed to be aware of what was going on around him, and not only having to rely on his hearing and the feel of the air circulating against his skin. He needed to see something real and not just these images his mind continuously kept flashing for him.
With the crash of thunder a new series of pictures had started. But where everything had been jumbled and muddled before, this line of pictures seemed organized, carefully picked to make sure he clearly understood what they were telling him
First there were eyes. Huge eyes like stars on a black night sky looking down at him with a smile and gentle care, soothing him in ways the rain had not been able to. Then the night sky moved, split up it seemed, turned into hair while the eyes closed. And he suddenly knew exactly what that hair would feel like sweeping over him, healing him, touching every little ounce of skin, and making him pure again,.
He shuddered in delight, glad he was not in the rain and glad he was not dead either. This experience he would not give up for anything.
But then the hair changed, came together again and turned into storm clouds. The eyes opened as well and there was slight change in their expression so that they now matched lightning. He saw lips part somewhere below the eyes. Red lips that formed a small o and blew gently across his skin, not too hot and not too cold. At once he was taken over by warmth, making all his nerve ends tingle. It all came together. He tensed up, and finally after pain tipped pleasure he was released to relax into the welcoming sound of the thunder singing him a lullaby.
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He awoke to the sound of somebody calling a name. His name. But it was too far away for him to remember and he did not particularly want to remember either. The thunder was singing to him followed by the rain, he had so desperately wished for earlier, washing over him, cooling him and making his brittle skin lay down again to heal and finally stop hurting him.
But the voice kept insisting that he should wake up, and how was he ever to say no to such a tantalizing voice, that even knew his name? It was impossible, and he knew that, so he strained his hearing to catch the name that apparently belonged to him. And he caught it.
Kai the voice sang. Kai, wake up. Open your eyes.
And because he could not help it, he did as he was told, just as he felt the rain sweep over his eyelids making them impossibly light.
–
Tenderness and care were the first things he recognized; surprise that his eyes would actually open without hurting him was the next. He wanted to look around, but could not. In stead he found himself captivated by eyes made of stars and lightning, hair cascading like a waterfall of night, red lips, a purring sound, and finally oily, slippery hands trailing across his upper chest to his hair where they fisted in the long tresses that were as undamaged as everything else.
Then he had not just dreamed up the almighty God of healing and peace. The God had been there all along.
The God had been Rei…
But that did not make sense, could not be true. And just as he was about to voice his confusion a gentle hand, the cool rain, placed itself over his mouth keeping it closed. He looked up into the twin pools of gold that calmed his beginning panic and made him relax while soft laughter pearled from the red, shiny lips having the same effect on him as the cool hands of the never-ending rain.
His eyes slipped closed again waiting for the voice to tell him what had happened. And the voice – no, Rei's voice. The voice was Rei – started speaking, explaining.
You were tricked, it said.
And then came a long tale of how it was possible to manipulate the human mind to think its body was dying when it really was not.
Rei spoke of ancient times when this technique, similar to hypnosis, had been perfected by wise, eastern, old men, who had passed their knowledge on to new generations. Rei himself had learned everything he could, but had never used his abilities because the state induced by this technique was deadly at best, what Kai had experienced at worst. And it was so easy to slip past a person's inner defense when said person's mind was occupied with other things; a battle for instance. Rei did not know this other blader, but he had recognized Kai's symptoms immediately and gone to find the only thing that could cure the strange disease: the oil that was currently being spread all over Kai's skin, wrapping him in a blanket of comfort.
But all that was somehow less important. Kai realized a long time later, when time had lost its meaning once again, that what truly mattered was that the oil reached all the places on his body that the artificial fire had burned. He would not be able to heal completely without it.
And so it came to be that slippery fingers gently brushed the bottom of his face followed by oily lips grazing his own with their touch; healing them and opening them so his tongue and the inside of his mouth could also be covered in silky wetness. A silky wetness that slowly but surely took over where there had once – a long, long time ago – been nothing but pain. All that existed now was pure bliss.
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The End
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