Have you ever just sat and watched a candle burn, James?
It flickers and dances in the darkness, influenced by the environment around it.
But when that flame is brighter and hotter, that candle begins to exhaust its wick.
It burns faster; it takes in more oxygen from the environment around it…
In the end, it will exhaust all its resources and end itself quickly.
It begins to flicker and fade, suffocating as the air around it grows thin.
But you know as well as I do, fire is a living, breathing, and consuming thing.
It wants to eat, it wants to grow, it yearns to be more than what it started as.
That little candle wants to be an inferno, it wants to rage, it wants to destroy, to consume everything around it.
Years ago, I lit a little candle, James, and it consumed a home. It broke a family, and that fire is still burning.
That inferno consumed its mother.
It got a front row seat to its father’s demise.
It torched every relationship it should’ve had.
Captain Arcadia, the fire that started as my little candle…
It burned him, torching his confidence.
Wolf Fang Ayame, my fire predated the one set by Eclipse, and it forced Ayame to turn her back on her ally.
It has behaved in every way I’ve anticipated…
Haven’t you, James?
You watched as your dear mother, poor Sarah, took her last breath.
You led your father, Dear Maxwell Rijen, straight into the open maw of The Corporation, where he died.
You abused Captain Arcadia when he simply wanted to help.
You forced Ayame to abandon you because of the fact you cannot see beyond your own nose.
Hell, you did more to cause disillusionment and dissension within the Seekers than I could’ve ever imagined.
James, you’ve been the perfect experiment every time I need a new data point; I can just take from the raging inferno burning from within you.
However, that’s our dichotomy, isn’t it?
You burn, you rage, you stomp your feet like the manchild you are, and I get to take from you.
I took your mother, I took your father, I’ve watched and aided on occasion as you destroy every relationship you could’ve had from Master Ken to Felix Foley.
But James, you’ll always be the little candle I lit all those years ago.
However, now, the experiment is at its end, and it’s time I take the last thing I need from you…
The NXT Level Championship and when you walk into Ring of Dreams, be the inferno you think you are because when you breathe it in…
The reality will set in, you’re still, my little candle, and I will finally snuff my candle’s flame out, putting an end to this experiment once and for all…
As I get to watch the light fade from your eyes.