Two Months and a Half Later
The skies over Musutafu were clear, but the field behind Takao's house looked like it had just been through a thunderstorm.
Bolts of white-blue electricity arced from his hands into the air, searing streaks across the sky before snapping out like vanishing serpents. Each discharge buzzed with sharp intensity, the kind of power that once would have dropped him unconscious after a single use.
Now? He was still standing.
Sweat rolled down his face, soaking into the collar of his singed hoodie. His breathing was heavy but controlled. His legs ached, but they held.
There was no migraine not yet.
Thunder's pretty much a warm up now, he thought with a half-grin. Stamina is the only thing that limits it.
He took a few slow steps across the charred grass, toward a makeshift target he'd set up, a rusted metal panel bent across two cinder blocks. It was dented, blackened with previous hits.
Takao raised his arm again and muttered.
"Aspect of Zeus: Lightning."
A sharp crack! split through the air. As a bolt surged from his fingertips, smashing into the target with pinpoint precision. the metal hissed glowing orange, The cinder blocks shuddered. The ground trembled faintly beneath his feet.
Takao's knees bent slightly with the force, his hand shook from the sheer exertion, his body buzzed with the static electricity surrounding him, and his vision blurred.
'Good. That one pushed me.'
He exhaled slowly, carefully turning off the Aspect.
Lightning was no longer overwhelming. His body had adapted over the weeks, not to the electricity itself, but to the neurological load of channeling such raw force. The danger wasn't being electrocuted.
It was what came after.
Headaches like thunder rolling through his skull.
Nosebleeds when he overshot his limits.
Sometimes a dizziness so sharp it was like falling off a roof while standing still.
Today, he had a nosebleed. Just a small one. A trickle down his upper lip. That was a win.
He wiped it on his sleeve, breathing evenly.
Nearby, his notebook fluttered in the breeze, each page weighed down with rocks and full of notes: diagrams of hand gestures, details on breath control, precise timestamps for how long he could sustain each variation of the Aspect before the first symptoms hit.
Two months ago, Thunder gave him migraines that lasted hours. Now he could maintain it for up to an hour while sprinting full-speed without so much of a thought.
Lightning, though, wasn't about control.
It was about refinement.
He crouched and touched the ground, letting static dance across his knuckles. "Aspect of Zeus: Lightning forty percent output," he muttered.
Electricity burst to life in his hands, crawling up his arms and swirling outward like a lasso. It whipped around him in a controlled, sweeping arc tight, aggressive, yet also elegant.
The sound was sharp, but not explosive. The arc obeyed his commands circling once, then twice…
Then sizzled apart, unraveling in a spray of sparks as Takao released the aspect.
He stumbled back, a sharp pain appearing behind his eyes.
'I lost it at controlling it around my arm, but that's still better then yesterday.'
There was no pain in his limbs. No burns. His muscles didn't seize. It felt like his brain was overheating, like he was pushing the throttle just a little too far without stalling the engine.
'Just a little more training and it might be battle ready.' He thought with a wide smile
All of a sudden the back door to his house creaked open. "Takao! I said one hour!" his mother's voice called across the yard.
He flinched at the unexpected shouting from his mother. "Yeah! Im wrapping up!"
"You said that half an hour ago!"
He gave a tired smile and waved a hand, static crackling faintly from his fingers. "Five more minutes!"
The door closed again her muttering audible even from a distance.He chuckled softly, then looked out at the scorched earth he stood on.
It wasn't perfect, he still had a long way to go, but two months ago, the power of the gods nearly broke him just by tapping into it. Now, he could strike with it, shape it and walk away still standing.
He turned toward the house, hoodie slung over his shoulder. The sleeves were charred again, and the hem was torn. 'I need a to stop forgetting to take it off while training.
Before stepping inside, Takao looked up. The stars were faint, blurred by city lights, but still there.
The sky.
Clear.
Calm.
For now.