Chapter 10 — “I'll do it. I will be useful.”
The night was deep. The stars barely dared to peek through the thick branches of the forest. Absolute silence, as if the earth itself contained its breath.
Lightning ran.
It ran as if his life depended on it. As if everything he had lived - everything that had failed - he was chasing him with sharp teeth.
His breathing was heavy, his eyes fixed, almost furious.
A word was repeated in his mind with the rhythm of his steps:
"Time... time... time..."
Trisha's voice rumbled in the depths of her mind.
"You can change the rhythm of the battle. Even time... you can decide it."
Lightning gritted his teeth.
"Now more than ever... I must be useful to them..." he whispered as he stopped in the middle of the quietest forest he had ever stepped on in his life.
The silence was cruel.
There, with his chest agitated and his heart aching, the memories attacked him mercilessly.
The battles.
The wounds.
The screams of his friends.
And he... just running.
"What did I do? Who did I really save?"
He fell to his knees.
He cursed.
Not for coward, not for weak...
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But because deep down, I had always been afraid of not being enough.
And now, in the face of the abyss of his impotence, he said it without a voice:
"I'm a hindrance..."
And that word burned him more than any wound.
But then...
A spark.
A small electric spark burst between his fingers.
His breathing was agitated. Anger emerged. It wasn't anger at the world.
It was against himself.
"Why was I born with this if I can't even help others!?"
His body trembled.
Sparks surrounded him.
His speed began to overflow, distorting the earth around him.
A bestial aura began to sprout from his being. Something primitive. Something... unleashed.
I was going to explode.
But just when chaos became inevitable...
An image appeared in his mind.
John.
His smile.
His voice back then, when he met him.
"You're fast... faster than anyone I've ever seen." But what impresses me most about you is not that...
It's just that, even so, you stop to look at the others.
The aura staggered.
The spark receded.
And then, Lightning remembered.
His childhood.
A humble neighborhood.
Broken streets.
Children like him, hungry and without a future.
He stole for the first time... not for him.
For the children. To give them milk, bread, blankets.
And that night, Juan appeared.
"And who is that for?" he asked him without judgment.
"For mine."
"Then run." But not out of fear... run for them.
That was the first time someone saw him.
Lightning swallowed saliva.
Hot tears slid down her face.
It wasn't that it was going to be useful.
It had always been.
I just... I hadn't seen it.
"I don't want to be the fastest...
I want to be... the one who arrives on time.
He took a deep breath.
His eyes opened, full of conviction.
A winged rabbit crossed through the bushes.
Lightning followed him.
He accelerated.
But it failed.
He closed his eyes.
And he thought.
"What if it's not about running anymore?"
He opened his eyes.
The rabbit hadn't stopped...
It moved so slowly that it seemed static.
And there, he understood.
It wasn't about running faster.
It was about altering the environment.
To influence the time of others.
"I... can slow down the world.
"I...
I can decide when the battle starts!
The wind exploded around him.
Golden sparks burst from his feet.
The earth cracked.
The entire forest was shaken.
And Lightning smiled.
"I won't be a burden again."
I will be the one who decides the rhythm of destiny.
He jumped to the open sky, leaving a steal of silver light.
He felt lighter.
More complete.
"Thank you, Trisha." Thank you, Juan.
And while his figure disappeared among the trees...
The scene changed.
Juan, suspended in the air, meditating on his mountain full of peaks and empty, opened one eye.
He felt a wave of energy run through the bi-universe.
And he just smiled.
"I knew you wouldn't fail me, Lightning...
End of Chapter 10.
