They Are Made From Lightning

ONE (一)

一

one

Tora

You let your fists do the talking.

Here, that was a rule that Tora lived by. Despite being a decently-educated girl from a small town, Tora still preferred to speak in language of power and pain. It was not an unfair, unreasonable sentiment. At Wing's fight club, it was the secret language. You had to live it, breathe it, speak it. Or suffer. Being someone who both resented suffering and loved feeling alive, Tora could survive abiding by those rules.

Dodge.

The punch came flying at her like an arrow poised to kill. But of course, there was ample time for her to scoot away. Softly and deviously, her muscles and synapses cackled with electricity. To her unlucky opponent – one second she was there, and she was gone the next. On the outside, she kept a grim, levelled expression. On the inside, she smiled.

There was a substantial number of things that were happening on the outside – as there usually was – to Tora. But that number could not rival the bright, buzzing internal world that she'd populated with a nice brew of electricity and thought.

Aim.

She sprung away from her opponent, opening up some space. He reeled back in surprise, pressing himself against the edge of the fighting ring. The time for thinking came to an end – she knew it was time to switch gears. This single moment stretched out. With brass knuckles fitted tightly to both hands, she bounded towards the man who swayed clumsily on his heels as he tried to steady himself. His aim was not weak but clumsy, and his balance uncentered.

Strike.

She clutched her brass knuckles tightly, and with a wide swing, slammed the coarse metal into the man's exposed sides. The sharp, corrugated claws of metal scraped the side of the man's body and tore through several layers of skin. At her fingertips, sparks sizzled like ephemeral shooting stars. It would've taken a watchful eye to notice this, and there were not many watchful eyes out there. Not at this day and age. The power that brimmed within her was wrestled into some discernible shape of a girl with a short, jagged haircut and metal at her knuckles. On days like this, she was thankful for it—because she could make out their faint whispers, the awry gossip that zipped through the crowd. She's a machine. She's a monster.

She hadn't quite decided if the whispers were to be taken as an insult or compliment. But she liked to reassure herself and think the latter.

The moment paused for such a length of time that its consequence was almost forgotten until a loud, sickening, splintering crack reverberated throughout the man's body. Like a roll of thunder.

She was lightning.

The man staggered back, eyes unfocused. He looked like he didn't know what was going on. He probably didn't.

Tora allowed him to draw near, and at times like this she felt like a puppeteer. In fights like these, she had to give it all or nothing. Wing's fight club did not stand on moral foundations of fairness and meritocracy. Once, a stocky opponent who fought with his fists more than his brain had his accomplice stand on the side of the ring to try to knock her out and beat her bloody with a metal hammer. Once, another fighter had pushed her out of the ring when he'd been cornered so that he could get more space. The word 'fair' could not even begin to describe the seductive, sparking underbelly of the Equatorial City. It stood on the shoulders of a world gone feral, and you could either submit, or rise to secure the throne.