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"THERE WILL ALWAYS BE THOSE WHO DARE TO BRAVE THE LIGHTNING'S GLOW."
TOMO, I WISH I NEVER HEARD YOU utter those words.
You were brave enough. You were so brave, I envied your courage at times.
But it was the lightning's glow that didn't even leave ash in your body.
It was the lightning's glow that left me without hope, in despair.
It was the lightning's glow that separated us for the same eternity it strived for.
At sunrise, guilt would tear my heart apart and by sundown sorrow would stitch it back together clumsily, my chest tightening around the area to compensate. By night a torrent of thoughts containing nought but you flooded my mind, loosening the stitches of desolation and ready it for the sunrise to come, like an incessant loop. For you who I loved and yet would die unknowing of my affections. For you whose sparks are as soft as the gentle winds Barbatos sends through Teyvat.
The home I found in the thunder's roaring and wind howling was swiftly replaced with the suffocating scent of burning decay. Your decay. The image of your pain-stricken yet satisfied face was burnt into my retina, your skin melting and grotesquely squelching as the searing flash of light pulverised you. And now, the faint outline of your disintegrating body is present in each thunderbolt I witness.
Kazuha had whisked away your dying ambitions as it began to die along with your body, it was the single intact memorial of you, and it had been taken. I gave chase, naturally, and screamed Kazuha's name as he adeptly manoeuvred across the uneven ground, propelling himself with the help of momentum and his vision with every step.
Was there even any hope to catch up with a person like that?
I returned to Tenshukaku that sundown, picking up your shattered katana and holding it close. The shards of metal dug into my skin, and yet the sting of it didn't affect me. I put each chip, molecule of dust and shard into my bag, vowing to myself to fix it one day.
Tama, the white cat you had left behind that waited so diligently near the steps of The Almighty Shogun's palace followed my figure with her gaze curiously as I hastily passed. I pivoted, facing the cat behind me and calling her, prompting her to trail after me. The handle of your weapon felt cold yet the fabric on it was singed and still a little warm from the sheer force of the Musuo no Hitotachi, all of this from a powerful move from the archon I revered.
