Smoke hung over the land like a shroud.
What had once been the Grove was now a scar — blackened earth, fallen trees, and faint embers glowing like dying stars.
Ejiro stood amid the ruin, his robe torn, his hands trembling around his staff. His breath came shallow, but his eyes were sharp. He was searching — for the boy who had once stood beside him.
Then he saw him.
Shango stood at the center of the destruction, barefoot and silent, the air around him rippling with unseen energy. The mark that once graced his arm had now consumed half his body — glowing in steady, pulsing light. The sky above him churned, gathering thunder that had no clouds.
Ejiro approached slowly.
> "Shango."
No answer. Only the soft crackle of energy.
> "You must fight it, boy. The Grove's power isn't yours to wield—"
Shango turned.
His eyes were bright gold, but behind them, something ancient stirred — something older than the gods men worshipped.
> "The Grove chose me," he said, his voice layered — human and divine, mortal and storm.
> "Yes," Ejiro replied, steady now. "To keep balance, not to become it."
For a heartbeat, silence. Then thunder rumbled again, closer this time — not from above, but within Shango himself.
---
He saw flashes — not visions, but memories that weren't his.
Temples burning.
Oaths sworn in lightning.
The first Shango — Arinze — raising his hand to the heavens and shouting, "If gods will not protect us, I will become their wrath!"
And then — betrayal. The gods striking him down, binding his essence to the Grove, leaving him to sleep until the cycle began anew.
Shango fell to his knees, clutching his head as the memories crashed like waves.
> "He's inside me," he gasped. "The first one. He's trying to take control."
Ejiro gritted his teeth.
> "Then you must remind him whose body this is. The storm may remember, but it answers only the one who commands it."
---
Lightning arced between the clouds, striking the ground beside them.
The force threw Ejiro backward. Shango rose again, his aura flaring — the wind screaming, his eyes burning brighter.
A shadow loomed behind him, massive and regal — the silhouette of Arinze, the first Shango, formed entirely from thunderlight.
> "I am not your enemy," the spirit thundered. "I am your inheritance."
> "You destroyed everything!" Shango shouted.
> "I gave everything," Arinze replied, voice echoing like drums in a canyon. "Men feared gods until I taught them fear of thunder. I became their balance — and for that, they caged me."
Shango's body trembled, torn between the two voices.
> "You were caged because you forgot mercy."
> "Mercy weakens order."
> "And without mercy, order becomes tyranny!"
The air split. Lightning poured from the sky in rivers. For a heartbeat, both figures — the boy and the storm — stood locked together, mirror and reflection, old and new.
---
Ejiro rose unsteadily, blood on his lips, and drove his staff into the ground once more.
> "Enough!" he shouted. "Both of you are storms — one past, one future. But only the living can choose what the storm becomes."
The Grove's mark on Shango flared white-hot. The glow spread across his body, drowning the darker fire.
Arinze's form began to waver, his voice breaking apart in the thunder.
> "You cannot erase me…"
> "No," Shango whispered, tears mixing with rain. "But I can redefine you."
He lifted his hand to the sky.
A single bolt of lightning descended — not in rage, but in harmony. It struck his chest, searing every nerve, every thought, every doubt — until the light was all that remained.
Then silence.
---
When the storm finally cleared, Shango stood alone.
The mark was still there — but calmer now, its glow dim and steady.
The Grove's ashes were warm under his feet.
And though he was breathing heavily, the air felt… balanced again.
Ejiro limped toward him, smiling faintly.
> "You've done it."
Shango looked at his hands — still trembling, faint sparks dancing between his fingers.
> "I don't know if I've won… or just begun."
Ejiro nodded slowly.
> "Both. The Grove will heal. But the Veiled Flame won't stop. They've tasted power, and they'll return — stronger."
Shango looked toward the horizon. The clouds were parting — sunlight spilling through in slow, golden waves.
> "Then I'll be ready," he said quietly. "If the storm must rise again, let it rise through me — but this time, not in anger."
Ejiro smiled faintly.
> "Then perhaps, Child of Thunder, you've learned what your ancestor could not."
Thunder murmured softly in the distance — not in rage this time, but as if in acknowledgment.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of rain — and the promise of something greater on the horizon.