What is a home?
I'm twenty-seven years old, yet I can't even answer that.
Empty. That's what I am. I've drowned in a lifetime of regrets, viewing myself as something other than human. At the very least, I'm someone beyond saving.
As for destiny, it doesn't exist for me. Everything happens because of past decisions. The present is nothing more than a result, a direct consequence of the past. Things don't happen simply because they are written.
Now, standing in the rain, surrounded by the only element that lets me connect with who I used to be, I looked up at the sky. Or what was left of it, since black clouds had covered it completely.
For some reason, the rain always starts at night on October 14th. It's as if the sky, in some twisted way, wants to remind me of that fateful day.
The fire that started a massive blaze and eventually took everything from me.
Eighteen years have passed since then.
I stood frozen on the sidewalk. Around me, people ran for shelter, holding newspapers or plastic bags over their heads.
"I should have known..."
"I'm going to be late. I bet I'll catch a cold."
They cursed the sky.
I kept walking until I found a bench in a plaza somewhat distanced from the others. It was a bit dirty but comfortable enough.
As I sat down, the rain brought back the words I've always remembered. They resurfaced in my fragmented mind.
"The strong exist to protect the weak."
I was only eight when my mother taught me those words. I had simply asked what my teacher meant when she said, "Hikari, you are the best in the class." The younger me expected something simple, something I could understand. In a way, she did that. She told me I was special, unique. But she never answered whether I should calm down or think about what I wanted to become. She only said this:
"The strong exist to protect the weak. Your strength isn't made solely to hurt. It must have another purpose. The weak will remind you that you are human."
I'm sorry, Mom, but you were wrong. No one was able to make me feel human. Since you left, everything turned to darkness. My name lost its meaning. There was no longer light, only shadows that consumed me until today.
"Mom... I miss you so much."
But I wasn't originally this erased existence.
In elementary school, I was the kind of child who made teachers smile unintentionally.
"How smart!"
"How strong!"
"How cheerful! How do you do it even when you're hungry?"
They were normal questions for children my age, but ones I could never confirm. Then the fire happened.
A strange light drew me outside. By the time I realized what was happening, the house I loved so much was engulfed in flames. A man who always gave me candy held me back as if I were a wild animal. In retrospect, I was. I bit him, scratched him, kicked, and screamed, yet he wouldn't let go.
"They're inside! Let me go save them!"
"I'm sorry, kid. I'm so sorry."
By the time the fire trucks arrived, the flames were already dying down. The fire chief wrapped me in a blanket and asked again and again if there was anyone else. I only pointed toward the house.
They found my parents three hours later on the second floor, still embracing each other.
The man holding me tried to shield my eyes, but I heard someone vomiting in the bushes.
The hardest part was the funeral.
Everyone said things like "Poor thing" or "They're in a better place." As if death were better than a Saturday.
"At least they didn't suffer." But I had heard the paramedics talking.
Later, I looked up "smoke inhalation" in the dictionary. They breathed until they fell asleep, but before that, they had to cough. They had to be terrified. They must have thought I was suffering the same fate, not knowing if I was safe.
"Hikari is a strong boy."
I let out a cynical sigh. An eight-year-old boy didn't want to be strong. I wanted my mom. I wanted my dad. I wanted my own bed. Strength was the only thing left when you could no longer cry.
Standing before the closed coffins, I felt nothing.
They told me it wasn't appropriate for a child.
My parents became secrets hidden in boxes. I couldn't even dress properly for the funeral, so I wore borrowed shoes.
After that, I arrived at the orphanage.
I lay on the bed in the corner, staring at the ceiling. The water stains formed silhouettes of continents. Mom used to play that game with me with the clouds.
"What do you see, Hikari?" she would always ask.
"A dragon!" I would answer, pointing to a particularly large and fluffy cloud.
"Yeah? And what is the dragon doing?"
"He's flying to the castle to rescue the princess."
She would laugh with that laugh that made everything seem better, hugging me tight.
But now Mom wasn't here. The water stains weren't clouds. And no one asked me what I saw because no one cared.
Now, only empty memories remain.
A few years later, I joined the Kendo club. It wasn't a personal choice. The orphanage counselor said I needed a way to release energy in a healthy manner, as if the problem were excess energy and not the lack of everything else.
I wanted to laugh in his face. I wanted to ask him exactly how hitting other kids with bamboo swords was going to fill the hole the fire had left in my existence.
How ironic.
I became very good.
As both a surprise and a punishment, I became the best in the club. Not because I stood out through effort or talent, but because I saw the world differently. In a way no one could ever understand.
A kind of "AI" existed in my head. After my parents' death, it took control of my body. It slowly distanced me from feeling human. With every day that passed under its dominion, I stopped believing that this "AI" was part of me.
That wasn't all.
As I walked through the night on October 14th at exactly 10:38 PM, letting the rain fall on me, I noticed something that froze me. It wasn't the weather. It was something else, something far more mystical.
When the drops hit my skin, I could feel each one of them. Not the sensation of getting wet, but something else, as if they were speaking to me.
From that day on, I realized I could control water. But it wasn't something I commanded. It was a medium of communication. It wasn't an abstract concept or a strange power manipulated like in fairy tales. They were part of me, and I was part of them.
Later, I realized I could do the same with the other elements. Though with fire, there was still hesitation.
How could I expect fire to want to communicate with me when I wanted to reject it?
However, over time I understood that the fire was not to blame. In fact, the therapists expected me to hate it or tremble before the flame of a small candle, but that never happened. I couldn't fear it. Even if I tried, in the end, I understood that fire was passion, pure energy that gives warmth.
It is simply there, just as I exist.
It didn't choose to destroy my family that night, so I couldn't hate it.
...
And now, at twenty-seven, under this rain that freezes me to the bone...
"If only I could..."
Return to being that child who laughed without pretending, who asked a thousand questions.
"Return to having..."
A mother who smelled like bread, a father who, even if he was absent for work... Wait.
I froze instantly. My father said something days before the fire. We were in this very park, right here where I am now.
"Higher, Dad, higher!"
"If I push you higher, you'll go flying."
"I don't care!"
He laughed, but when he put me down, his face turned serious, as if he had a premonition.
"Hikari, listen well. No matter what happens, no matter how hard life gets, you have to live. Do you understand? Live fully. Don't just exist. Live."
"Dad?"
"Promise me."
"I... I promise."
If only he knew that I forgot his promise and followed Mom's instead. Protect the weak. If only he knew that for eighteen years I didn't live, I only existed. Somewhere, I think he already knew.
I tell this as if it happened to someone else. Maybe because I feel that Hikari died in the fire too. But my thoughts were interrupted by the characteristic sound of a truck skidding on wet pavement.
"What...?"
My head turned faster than my thoughts. By the time I started processing what was happening, my body was already moving.
It was a little girl. Defenseless, with a broken ankle in the middle of the road. Her father had desperately placed himself between her and the danger, but he hadn't realized the truck was approaching at full speed.
Between the rain and the roar of thunder, plus the fact that the truck had its lights off, they hadn't noticed it. When I started running, I had only three seconds to save them. In those three seconds, my mind raced through dozens of possibilities, desperately looking for a way. Any way to succeed.
I could stop the truck using my powers without needing to physically approach. But if I did that, there would be no escape for me. Cameras, cell phones, the gaze of the terrified father witnessing a man defying the laws of nature alongside his scared daughter. Everything flooded my mind like an inevitable vision.
At first, I would be seen as a savior, a chosen one. But I knew that with time, that idea would turn into fear. I would be investigated, bled for experiments. Finally, I would cease to be human, becoming something with nowhere to run. Looked at with terror. An anomaly.
I couldn't allow myself to be seen that way.
"What do I do?"
[Time remaining: 00:02]
Save her and save myself at the same time. Execute the final command, the "end" of my life's programming. The end of non-existence. Neither heroic nor virtuous, but the most selfish and, at the same time, the most human act: protecting the weak.
I threw myself between the truck and the girl. For an instant, in a cosmic flash, I saw the same thing in her brown eyes that I saw in my mother's.
"I'm sorry."
I waited for the impact. The end of everything. I didn't care about anything anymore. It was just the final program executing. Flesh against metal. In those final fractions of a second, the elements answered my call. As if understanding my last will, they accepted my fate without resistance and granted my last wish.
Then came the impact.
For the first time, I felt pain so intense that every nerve in my body exploded. I was broken completely. In that moment, I ceased to be something else and returned to being a fragile human. A human who could die.
But then, the elements rose of their own will. The wind roared against the truck, the water turned the asphalt into pure friction, the fire choked the engine in an instant, and the earth created a perfect ridge to halt the charge before it reached the girl and her father.
The driver was drunk, and through his negligence, he had almost killed an innocent girl with a future. So the elements didn't care if he survived. They had only one priority: the girl. My last wish.
"Forgive me, Dad."
I couldn't keep the promise. I didn't live. I'm sorry, I really am.
"Forgive me, Mom."
Because the dead can no longer protect anyone. My life ended in a contradiction.
[System Error]
──×××──××─×××××─××
[Loss of control over elements upon death]
Hellfire.
W-what the hell is this terrifying sensation?
When I opened my eyes, all I could see was a pure white world. Little by little, my vision began to clear. Where am I? I tried to turn my head. I tried to move my hands. But my body wouldn't obey me.
"—! ———, ——— — — — ——!"
Once I finally grasped what I was seeing, I realized the truth: I had reincarnated as a baby. My "new parents" had been fighting until the second son was born—the one who looked like the man.
A few minutes passed, and everything returned to calm. To be honest, that was all I needed.
My senses were too raw to endure any more shouting. Even so, I couldn't express anything. No words, no crying, not even babbling.
The woman called my brother "Rudeus." I didn't understand her words, but that sound was different from the others, repeated with intention.
And now, when the woman saw me, I assumed it was my turn.
She started saying names that I instinctively rejected because, to be honest, I didn't like them at all. Am I worrying about a name?
"— — — ———— ——...!" the man said. "— ——— ——— ——, ————."
I tried to close my eyes to return to the darkness, but the giant man brought his face close to mine.
"— ———— ——— ——? ...He... llo... ri?"
That sound... Hi... yo... ri.
It sounded too much like Hikari.
Did they know who I was? No, that was impossible. But that name carried the weight of twenty-seven years of failure. I didn't want to be Hikari again. I didn't want to be the "Light" that went out.
"— ———— ————!"
The man insisted again. He suspected something, searching for another combination of sounds in his throat.
"—————... Da... i... ki?"
Daiki.
"Dai" for Great, "Ki" for Radiance.
Without giving the order to my brain, the corners of my lips stretched slightly. It was a spasm, an involuntary reflex in the absence of pain in that word.
"Da... i... ki," the woman repeated.
Why are my facial muscles moving? I didn't give the order... Ah, it feels... good.
"—, ———. — ——— 'Daiki', ——— ——— — — —!" the man laughed, saying my name correctly.
"———— ——— — ——— ———?"
Daiki...
Ah... and I really had lost my elemental control. I tried to find a connection with the elements again. I reached out for the wind, for the moisture, for the light of the candles... but I found nothing.
There was no answer.
I felt... alone.
And, in part, that reassured me.
For the first time, that weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
Maybe, just maybe, now I could have another chance.