By Yasha-hime
I stare at the flame cupped in my hands, its edges hard and sharp, its light painfully bright. My thumb slips, and the flame vanishes as if it had never existed. I strike the flint again, and it returns, bright and pure as ever.
Pure...
Mesmerizing...
I stand in the dark with no other light but this precious little flame. Blue at the bottom, painfully golden in the middle, thinning away into deeper orange at the tip. My eyes seek nothing but this bit of light, and the darkness crowds in on me. This flame is the only thing keeping it at bay.
I want to make it grow. I want to make it consume the world the way it did this stupid building. This tiny flame could cleanse everything, could burn away the filth and the decay, if I let it escape. If it were to be set free, if it could be nurtured, it could grow and grow into a force nothing could stop.
It could burn away the darkness and leave only light. Pure, agonizing, beautiful light. Then the darkness would never be able to touch anyone again. It would never be able to touch me again. There would be nothing to fear, nothing to hate, nothing to kill. It would all be gone.
"Bocchama, ane-ue wa--"
"Urusai, Basson," I mutter at the annoying voice in the darkness. Go away. I don't want you here. You're a part of the darkness. You're coming from the darkness. You can't touch me. I'm the light. The flame.
"Ren!" A hand captures my wrists, putting out the fire again. I flinch as the hard, cold electric lights flare, hurting my eyes. I glare up at her proud face; Nee-san glares back at me, and I see an echo of the fire in her eyes. "Don't do that, Ren. You promised me you wouldn't play with fire anymore!"
I yank my wrists out of her grasp and shove the lighter in my pocket. "It's just a lighter," I mutter sullenly. "I wasn't going to light anything with it. It's almost out of fluid by now, anyway." My poor, captured flame, trapped inside a plastic cage, bent to the will of whoever holds the cage.
"Ren..." Nee-san reaches her hand out toward me, but
then drops it abruptly. "Please, don't light anything now. The Shaman Fight is too near. Please don't jeopardize your chances this way." Her voice is cool and unemotional on the surface, but I know her too well. I can hear what she doesn't
say. She's afraid of the flame, but drawn to it the way a moth is.
She's afraid of me, too.
"Don't worry," I say over my shoulder to her. "I have no intention of jeopardizing my chance to become the Shaman King--in any way."
I will become the Shaman King. I will be free, and I will burn away all the filth and the decay, and the darkness will never touch me again.