This one's my fave out the the lot, and because I was bored, I've decided to write and extra chapter.
Rai : Mortality.
As he sat and waited for the storm to roll in from his perch in an old abandoned church tower, he supposed Takumi was right in a way, about how fleeting human life was. But Rai reckoned that life, in general, not just humans, was much more like lightning than fire.
Or maybe he was just biased towards his namesake.
While fire might burn for a while and then go out, it could be captured and made to last longer. But life was nothing like that. The harder you tried to hold onto it the easier it got to lose it. Far more like lighting, in his opinion.
Yes life was more like his element, Rai thought as he watched yet another thunder storm creep ever closer, the lightning arching across the dark mass of cloud, counting the seconds before the thunderous boom would be heard.
5 seconds between the light and the sound, 5 miles.
Life was fleeting, like lightning, impossible to grasp, only to shine brilliantly for a few moments before vanishing back into the inky darkness of the night storm. Those who try to contain it and recreate it artificially only got muted results. Those who tried to grab it by force got a nasty shot and a lot of pain for their trouble.
Fleeting, but it still left it's mark.
3 seconds. 3 miles.
He could smell the moisture in the air. This storm would be spectacular. Rai had no idea when he had first started watching storms. He mostly liked to entertain the idea that he had first done it from his crib as a baby when his bed was close to the window. Being the son of the ruler of the Solaris Islands had it's ups and downs though. His parents disliked his love of storms, mostly for the fear he would some day get lost in one and never come back.
Did he mention his parents were stupid?
1 second, 1 mile.
Rai jumped and gasped in excitement as a great flash of forked lightning raced across the sky. Clapping and grinning glee, he waited eagerly.
The roar of thunder sounded above him and he could feel the air tense in anticipation.
Rai braced himself against the tower of the crumbling building, hoping his makeshift lighting rod would hold out against the intense power.
Strike!
The deafening crack of lightning descending from the heavens was awe inspiring. Rai's trained eyes could only just follow the path of pure energy that raced earthwards, towards and then down his conductor. The ensuing explosion nearly made Rai fall out of his hidey-hole in the derelict church. With a grin on his face that vanished clean into his ears, he slid down the rope at such a speed that he rolled a few meters after hitting the ground. He stood and stared at the cared remains of the little carved person he had placed at the bottom of the lightning rod he had asked Hatako to make.
Oh yes, life, like lightning, was fleeting. But it would never be underestimated in it's power. One strike could change everything.
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