Chapter Text
A Lightning is flashy and eye catching, almost as much as the Sun soaring above. It strikes powerful, quick and defensive. Taking damage upon themselves to let their fellow elements thrive is built within its nature. A spectacle to be seen and destructive it can be should it be angered.
Without a Sky, without a place to protect, he stays dormant. Keeping to himself, his vibrant Green rests within his chest, unseen by the world. Single-minded, his efforts lay solely upon his creations, his creations of glass, metal and scientific reasoning.
The thought of a Sky was illogical. His and every other flame had reasoning; the physical manifestation of one's Soul was a difficult but not impossible thing to comprehend. The idea of something designed to envelop his Soul in a sense of Home sounded implausible.
For what use was a Home if you could just build one yourself?
Yet everything told him it existed. It was in his very belief to be skeptical. He needed to see it himself to decide it was truth. So, when that invitation came, denoting him as one of the seven strongest, he decided to go. Merely for the chance of seeing just how different the Strongest Flame Users were compared to the usual.
It was there, when that woman walked towards them that he’d first felt Orange brush against his Soul. Having always heard of the enticing allure of Sky flames he’d expected more, despite his skepticism of it all. He’d expected to be enthralled or at the very least interested in her existence.
In the end, she was just like everything else. Something insignificant and not worthy of his attention. His own experiments required more and enticed him more than she had. Still, he stayed.
When she offered a place of residence, an underground lab all for the taking, funding and free will to do as he pleased, who wouldn’t accept?
It had been planned to avoid them all. Simply bide his time for the missions to run out and for his contract to end. It hadn’t been planned to bond with the others. Both in person and in Soul.
They’d annoyed him. Their pushy and all too overbearing flames constantly brushing against his own was a necessary evil to keep what he’d been given.
He couldn’t even remember when exactly he’d let them in. He couldn’t remember when he’d started anticipating seeing that violet haired man burst through his lab doors. He couldn’t remember when he started getting used to the two Rains squabbles. He couldn’t remember when he started sitting in on the Storms training in the dojo. He couldn’t remember when he started debating with the Esper about logistics. He couldn’t remember when he started lounging on the couch, a coffee in hand, with the hitman. He couldn’t remember when he stopped feeling threatened by the donna’s presence.
He couldn’t remember when he started letting his guard down.
Upon that realization, now with something so illogical and wrong hung from his neck, he’d been aghast. How could he have let that happen? Him? The man known as Da Vinci’s Reincarnation?
The fact he’d been tricked, bamboozled, by such a simple ploy as Home was miraculous. Nothing about it made sense and so he pushed it back. If it had no logical reasoning, then there was no reason to even think about it! Ignoring it was as easy as snapping his fingers.
No matter the times the others showed up at his doorstep, trying and sometimes even begging him to understand, he sent them back. What was there to understand when it made zero sense?
He could still move his hands, albeit more limited courtesy of his new much smaller form, he could still move, he could still do his experiments. That was all that mattered. All that mattered was that he kept doing what he’d always done, creating something new to fuel his greed.
If he examined and tested the device clinging to his throat while he was at it, who would care?
It wasn’t like it was anything that mattered. In fact! It kept him young, never allowing him age despite the decades that passed. All the more to keep it around!
If he just ignored the way it pulled at his flames. If he just ignored the way he felt weaker every passing year. If he just ignored the way the others slowly lost motivation to return to normal. If he just ignored the way everything felt all too large, and he felt all too small, then it would be alright.
Because what reason was there to acknowledge something that had no reasoning?