TITLE: Devolution
PART: One-Shot
CHARACTERS: Ryuugazaki Rei
GENRE: General.
DISCLAIMER/S: The Free! series and all its incarnations do not belong to me. Under no circumstances could the characters mentioned here be called mine. Standard disclaimers apply.
DEVOLUTION
As far as the eye can see, there was nothing but darkness. Rei swallowed nervously, a burgeoning sense of doom made his fingers twitch before tightening their hold on his kickboard. It's now or never. He thought, shaking the fear twisting his gut painfully.
He was the only one who didn't have the capability to swim competitively. He was slow and awkward in the water, two things that would put his team in jeopardy. He wanted to swim with them. He wanted to be friends with them. These were people who were putting their hopes on him so they could advance further into the competition. But what was he to do?
Until now, he thought that although water has always been mankind's greatest ally, it was also its greatest enemy. Nature definitely had valid reasons why some fish leapt out of the ocean to live on land and develop legs and feet. They were made to walk, not swim. There was no sense going back into the deep recesses of that endless blue.
Yet there he was, trying to calm himself enough to leap back into the ocean where his ancient scaly ancestors belonged. He had to devolve to evolve, turn into something new - something completely different so he could satisfy his desire to prove himself worthy of being in the swimming team.
"It's now or never."
Taking a deep cleansing breath, he gritted his teeth and dashed into the dark, ominous water.
ENDE