...Away from the turmoil of the cities of the Donshua estuary in Kachan an ancient tradition remained alive. Towards the North lay a vast country still engulfed in wilderness. For many days one could walk without entering any world of people, and there the spirits of the elements and animals thrived still following the song of nature.
There were paths that led to the monasteries of the North, but few were willing to undertake such a voyage, for the many of the spirits were mischievous and would send the weak-hearted home. They composed many difficult tests to challenge those who entered to test their will to overcome. To cross permission was needed and a right of passage had to be endured and accepted. Yet although the difficulty was grave there were no ill-spirits living in those forests. Not in the green forest, nor the forest of fire.
Not even in the night forest did they exist, because the overwhelming majority of the spirits that occupied the ethereal plane of those forests were subjects of good.
One day, coming from nowhere a young child knocked on the door of a monastery in one of the forests. When a priest finally opened the door he found a small boy looking up at him with bright almond shaped eyes that pierced into his soul. The priest found himself thinking that those were the shiniest eyes that he had ever seen. "They contain the sun in them," he thought, but quickly he let the though dissipate into the thick mountain air and spoke: "Young man, what are you doing here? Where are your parents and where have you come from?"
The young boy spoke with an accent the priest had never heard before and told him that he did not know where he had come from and how he had gotten there. He did not remember where his parents were nor who his parents were, and most of all he did not know where he was and what he was doing there, but that he felt a need to enter the monastery and live there with the priests.
Although he was confused by the boy's words and did not know what to do, the priest experienced a great compassion for the child's predicament. Somewhere within he sensed a rising warmth spread and he said: "I cannot accept you as an aspiring monk to our order, but we have been short of hands to tend the gardens for some while now. Come in and I will present you to the main hand, may god's light shine through him and take you in to our home."
So the young boy was accepted to the Chi-Kiashna monastery, and came to be known as running thunder by all at the monastery.
Sentsuo, the main hand, head of the gardens took running thunder in with the love of a father, for in the boy he saw himself. He had also been an orphan who had ended up at the monastery. His parents had been casualties of a war between monasteries and he had been saved from flames by the now senior priests from the Chi-Kiashna after they had set their enemies monastery on fire. All those at the monastery had been exterminated in a bloody battle yet he had been spared by god. He was found in a room surrounded by intense fire, holding on to his mothers lifeless body at the age of four, and was rescued by a superhuman warrior priest by the name of Ckamn.
Ckamn became Sentuo's spiritual father and personally equipped him with all the weapons of understanding that had been made known to him in his experience. The ascendancy of Ckamn was believed to be other-wordly for besides being a warrior without parallel, he was also of an unusual physical appearance. His ears pointed up like an animals and his eyes were like those of the eagles. It was said that he could fly over people when he jumped up to the air, and that when he leaped towards an adversary his hands became claws and his teeth became his toughest weapons to defeat.
But Sentuo never showed much promise at following Ckamn's footsteps in the art of warfare for he was much too docile. The seniors considered his to be more of a rooted type and found that his favourite role was to tend the gardens. They believed that the warrior spirit was not within him.
Sentuo surely was a peaceful kind of man and luckily for Rolling Thunder he was endowed with one of the biggest hearts known to man. His kindness knew no bounds.
So Rolling Thunder found a home under the wing of Sentuo, who let him know right away that by renouncing violence he had also renounced the right to become a priest, and that without that status he could not open the door of priesthood to Rolling Thunder. Only spiritual children of the priests could become priests and he was not a priest, only a humble gardener. The gates were closed to Rolling Thunder's priesthood.

Although Rolling Thunder was of such a tender age he showed uderstanding of Sentuo's words and nodded in agreement. His only words were: "So be it."
So the days passed as rolling thunder grew up under the guidance of sentsuo. As the young monks would practice their ancient art-form of war, rolling thunder would question sentsuo about the nature of their practices. Sentsuo was wise as well as good hearted. And through careful observation during his many years of service he had acquired a good deal of knowledge and a profound understanding of these matters. Gently and with due pace the secrets of the clans art-form was revealed to rolling thunder.
The essence of the learning passed on to the young monks was based on the observation of the natural world. Their battle moves were influenced by the offensive and defensive movements of the tiger, of the snake and of the eagle. And their character and conduct was aimed to reflect the fluidity, adaptability and strength of water.
Rolling thunder decided to spend every spare moment walking and learning in the forests nearby amongst the animals in the midst of nature. He was not allowed to learn from the teachers in the temple, but why learn second hand from them when the teachings originally came from the wild anyway.

So rolling thunder watched and learned, and watched and learned, slowly becoming filled with power and advancing in the teachings unnoticed. Only senstsuo knew what was going on, observing with special interest and satisfaction.
One day while rolling thunder was walking through a forest he witnessed a wondrous sight. Two extremely large bears were fighting each other in a great display of strength. Standing on their back feet they parried and attacked, seemingly equalled in match. But then all of a sudden, as if they had been warned by an invisible voice they stopped fighting each other and turned to look straight at rolling thunder. Rolling thunder felt a shiver climb his spine, yet at the same time he was at peace. The shiver came from the heartfelt admiration of a beauty unseen before, and the peace from the intuition that he was not going to be hurt for there was something of the magic in the air.
The bears stood magnificent on their feet watching rolling thunder attentively with expressive eyes. They were telling him something.
Then as if mutually agreed they both turned to face each other again to resume the fight. The bear on rolling thunder's left swung at the other who dodged the blow and replied with a blow of his own that struck him dead centre on the chest and sent him flying backwards against a group of young trees. Injured and defeated the other bear left the fighting grounds head bowing low in submission.
Rolling thunder was left alone with a gigantic bear to face, but instead of charging the intruder the bear sat down on the ground calmly and proceeded to lick his paws clean. After he had cleaned himself he turned to a frozen rolling thunder and spoke in the voice of a man.
-"Your fight is coming too my brother thunder. I am here to represent the fighting spirit that is in you. When need ordains it you will be a warrior of the highest degree, for in you resounds the might of the animals. Run to the temple rolling thunder, and witness change."-

Rolling thunder was alarmed by these last words, and turned towards the temple with all the speed he could muster. He ran across valleys and over hills carried by the wind that was pushing him forward. Soon he had arrived, and what he saw were flames blazing in the main hall, consuming the very history of it, destroying what had taken centuries to build. A great battle ensued, and both the teachers and students fought an invading army over the lifeless bodies that now covered the ground. Everywhere he looked he saw wrath, pain and suffering. Until he saw sentsuo fighting for his life he was detached emotionally from the battle, but as soon as he witnessed sentsuo's struggle, the heat rose within him and his tempers flared up. He raced into the heart of the battle killing all who crossed his path. Under the power he possessed many were crushed that day. But the power was not enough to save sentsuo or the temple, and when the battle had finished only rolling thunder was left standing on a mount of dead warriors.
He looked to his side and saw the last flicker of flames still eating at what used to be the main hall. Nothing was left untarnished. So rolling thunder left the battlefield in low spirits, and again walked towards the unknown.

After much walking rolling thunder arrived at a busy city that thrived with commerce near the It-chen grasslands. Emotionally wounded and physically drained he staggered along the noisy streets looking at everything without particular interest in anything, until he saw a group of young boys playing a ball game in an alley. Two teams disputed over a ball, each team working at attacking and defending a goal, all united by a common objective. There was laughter in the struggle, something which rolling thunder had never known before.
He sat down and watched the children passing, dribbling, shooting and defending and he was completely captivated by the game. When the children had finished playing and were about to leave, rolling thunder stood up and approached the group. He asked the boy with the ball if he could try it.
Smiling at him the child handed him the ball. "What a funny man," he giggled to himself, "it seems as if he has never seen a ball before."
Rolling thunder hadn't, but he controlled it as if he had. At the first touch he already displayed a talent beyond normal, balancing it on his foot and holding it there without movement. Then he began to experiment with the ball by kicking it up to air and catching it with his foot on the way down, never letting it fall on the ground. "They use their heads too," he thought, and so he kicked the ball higher and stopped it on it's way down with his head, holding it there for a long time.
The children were amused and amazed. "What a great ball player, what a champion!!" They all screamed together. "Please play with us mister, teach us your tricks, then we will be able to beat all the other teams!"
Rolling thunder laughed with pleasure and excitement. "First you must teach me the rules little ones." Without giving it any more thought one of the kids explained the game to him:
"You see mister, there are two teams, each defending their goal and wanting to score in the other team's goal. There can be many people in each team, but the number has to be equal in both of them. For professional games there are eleven players in each team and a referee with a whistle who knows the rules and calls the fouls. He can kick anyone off or just show them a yellow card to warn them that they better be careful…"
Rolling thunder listened attentively as the child continued to explain the rules, and found the game fascinating and ultimately challenging. "I can only share with you what I think would be the best way to win." He told the kinds, and they all cheered together.
Everyday they would all meet at the field to play football, and the kids who could would bring rolling thunder some food from home to eat. In this way he survived in the city. The rest of the day he would spend training himself, or thinking about the game and of the best way to play it. He taught all the children the animal touch technique he had developed in the wilderness.
Unlike in the temple he would accept and train any child indiscriminately, without regard to background or class, and soon he had a large number of students.
Word had gotten to the streets, and many people began to show up and watch the games, for the teams rolling thunder coached had become the best in the city, and some of the children were even drafted to important professional junior teams.
All eyes in the neighbourhood were on rolling thunder, and so were the eyes of a scout of the most important and historic team in the city. The scout began to visit daily to observe and study rolling thunder teaching the children, and would watch him with special attention when he showed them his moves when giving them examples. The opportunity was too good to miss, and the scout approached rolling thunder with the offer to join the ranks of the famous team he represented. Urged by the kids rolling thunder accepted the offer, and a new time began for him.
He was now a professional football player, and even though every morning he was under the obligation of training his skills with the professional team, every afternoon was still his time to train the children.
It was finally the moment for the first game of the season, and rolling thunder was placed in the starting team. The stadium was full of people waiting in anticipation for the match to start, and as the players all stood side by side facing the public, rolling thunder felt grateful for finally being accepted as part of a team and allowed to fight the battle for them. He loved everything about representing something greater than himself: he loved wearing the outfit, embodying the colours, defending the insignia, and most of all he loved the task of protecting the inviolable space of his team while attempting to conquer the opponent's.
The game started and the playing began, each team readying itself in its positions of attack and defence. Only a few minutes in and the game had already won an exhilarating rhythm, with all the players fervently struggling for possession of the ball, when then, all of a sudden rolling thunder caught hold of the ball and began to run towards the opponents goal with it. A few players tried to rough the ball out of him by knocking into him and trying to force him out of his route with shoulder pressure, but rolling thunder was like a bull and was unmoved from his trajectory. He used their own brute force to provoque a fall under their own weight. He lifted his head from the dribble, and with eagle eyes he saw the whole field before him and the position of all the relevant pieces of the hunt to him, and turning sharply from the edge of the field he began to speed towards the goal at an even greater speed, just like a bird of prey swooping down from the sky towards its target. The last defender and the goaltender were now before him, coming towards him with the intent of covering his shot angle. The possibilities flashed through rolling thunder's mind, and he decided. A shot towards goal would be the safest and most obvious choice, but the angle was mostly covered by the two players before him, and so when the time to shot at goal was right, rolling thunder lifted the ball from the ground, trapping it between his foot and his shin, and leaped over the two players who had jumped to the ground to finish covering his shot angle. At that moment rolling thunder had the spirit of the tiger in him, jumping over an obstacle when attacking its prey.
He found himself at the mouth of the goal, and he softly kicked the ball into the goal as he looked back towards the players and the crowd. Suddenly a great roar could be heard, and it sounded just like the roll of thunder, it was the crowd cheering and screaming in disbelief. As he looked at his coach and team-mates he saw great big smiles of joy on all their faces, and he was happy.
No skill like this had ever been seen in those parts, for rolling thunder had the rare touch of the greats, and this goal was just the beginning of a short but fruitful career.
Time passed, and rolling thunders fame grew without precedent. He was the new hero of the town, and everywhere he went he was recognized and approached, which bothered him some. He was happy playing in the team, but he did not like being singled out, so he began to be more reclusive about his social life. His only friends and companions outside the team were the children who flocked towards the sports school he had put together with his payments, but he did not mind that at all, for in the children he saw himself, and was content with that. Their continuous thrill and excitement about his teachings of the animal, would contaminate him and help him deal with the pressures of fame, and the haunting memories of a painful and unclear past. You see, rolling thunder did not know where he was from. He had become a young man in a distant temple, and was now in a strange and confusing city, and in all this time, the nature of his movement had been the search for his roots, which sadly he had not yet found.

The football league continued, and the team was ranking first, thus aspiring towards the international competition between the champions of each nation. Rolling thunder's game kept evolving, and soon he was considered to be the best player to have ever set foot in that land. H was nicknamed "the great animal".
When the team won the national league, the newspapers and magazines began to write that the great animal was the pride of the nation, and would surely be considered to be the greatest player in the whole world. Before leaving to play the championship in a distant land, rolling thunder made one last visit to his school and instructed the young teachers he had educated in the football way of the animal movement. He was to be gone for a long time he thought, and he wanted to see all the students one last time.
When all the kids and young men had arrived rolling thunder had them all sit before him on the grass. He gave each of them his thanks for their love and support, and told them what he thought was their greatest asset to be developed throughout their career. Then he told them all that he had only one question for each of them, and that the question was the same for every one of them. He wanted to know if they were happy.
Without exception all the students stood up and gathered around rolling thunder, hugging and holding on to him. "Don't speak as if you are leaving for good rolling thunder," they said, "we are all very happy because of all you have given us, and we will never forget it. Please don't leave us, please don't ever leave us."
Rolling thunder was moved to tears and told the children that he would always be with them, in whatever shape or form. He picked up his bag and got into a car that was taking him to the airport. In the car the great animal asked himself why was he feeling so melancholic, and he shrugged it away by saying: "I will miss those kids. "
Soon he was on the airplane with his fellow team players, all heading to the big competition. Little did they know that through their great effort, and the great animal's crescent brilliance, they would reach the final and play a game that even history could barely forget.
It was the day of the final, and the sky had a different shade than usual. It was as if the whole day was a sunset for the sinking of a great big sun. The players entered the field, motivated by their extraordinary success that year, and by the thousands of people who had travelled a great distance to cheer them on. That day they were the pride of their nation.
With a blow into the whistle the match began, and a fierce struggle took place for dominion over possession of the ball. Both teams were evenly matched in both skill and strength, and despite their efforts, none could surpass the other and conquer the other's goal. The game was gruelling, until the end the score was null, and the match went into overtime.
According to rules, in overtime there is a sudden death of the opponent once one scores in their goal. Expectations ran high for the adepts of each team, as everyone hoped for the end of such a nerve wrecking game. Rolling thunder had been focused on defence for the whole match, and now was the time for his unravelling. There was thunder in the air, and he caught the ball near his own goal. Running faster than he had ever run before rolling thunder dribbled the ball towards the intended goal with superhuman intensity. Anyone in his way was simply trampled over as he stampeded to the other side of the pitch. He was a wild elephant breaking for no one great or small on his path.
As he approached the goal he began to feel light and saw a brightness form in front of him. He sensed that it was the answer to all his questions, and he felt bliss running through his body and spreading out in his mind. The goal had become a wide galaxy full of beautiful colours and stars, in the centre of which a great spiral could be seen, leading to blackness. He was running through space with the ball, covering light years with each step. Rolling thunder felt the urge rise and kicked the ball with the strength of all his intent, sending it hurling through space in the direction of the black hole.
A great roar suddenly came from all directions, and rolling thunder woke up in the football field. Standing still before the goal he spotted the ball once again, resting in the net. He had scored the goal that had ended the match, and the cheering from the crowd was deafening. The other players in his team were running towards him, as were some of the public who had invaded the field, but all of a sudden another great thunderclap was heard drumming it's way down from the clouds, and seven streaks of lightning were seen descending from them. They came down to the field and all struck rolling thunder simultaneously, enveloping him in a blue and red ball of light. All the others covered their eyes to protect them from the bright light, and when they noticed the light to have faded rolling thunder was nowhere to be seen.
He had been taken back to his birthplace, and given the answer to his life-long questioning.

From his work and the school rose a nation of shooting stars in the world of football. Players that were aware of nature and the way of the animals, balanced people who had a positive influence in the world.