Happiness for those who seek it.
Happiness — is it a reward?
Happiness — is it a goal?
Happiness — is it a mirage in the desert you wandered into by mistake, but from which it's now too late to turn back.
Is it true that happiness is found by those who fought for it? Probably yes. That's the answer if you look superficially at the glossy side of the coin, without peeking at what's underneath.
Whoever fights diligently for their dream should, in theory, get a reward. Right? That's what books teach, fairy tales, sermons. Everything shiny goes to those who don't back down.
However... However, in life, it's much less glossy. In life, it's much less forgiving.
Such a path. The path of struggle always has a price.
You don't get happiness. You get pain, and after pain comes hatred.
Hatred for what you fought for. And hatred from those you tried to protect.
They considered me a deranged monster. Without feelings, without pity. Without the right to forgiveness. A monster tired of the game he created himself.
And maybe they were right.
I made a deal with one of my own creations; we started a game. A game with a name that sounded like a sentence: inevitable fate. For everyone who played it, there was no choice.
In this process, not a game, not a battle, but precisely a process, we absorbed hatred into each other.
I toward them, they toward me, like two sides of one coin scratched with "it's all over."
But why? Why didn't they understand?
After all, I didn't choose to be the pinnacle. I had to, as the one who stands above all. As the one who must decide when it's painful for others even to breathe.
I made a decision. Unshakable, like a king passing sentence on his subjects to save those very subjects.
In the process of this merciless war, everyone died. Every step, new blood. Even if humanity was at stake, even if the alternative was the end for all... the decision still remained a decision.
Die all or let half go? Anyone would choose the second, but not everyone would want to be the one choosing.
I destroyed more than half of what I myself created, with my own hands. By my own decision.
And all so that the rest had a chance to keep living.
Did they understand me? No. They hated. How can you understand someone who sacrifices you for others? How can you forgive someone who grants you salvation at the cost of pain?
One person... one agreed. He wanted power, power that could destroy everyone.
I granted it.
Perhaps there were other paths. But they are impossible.
I created countless hierarchies. Placed higher beings on them, and lost everything. Half my power, connection with them. Control. Forever sealed in my own world. Locked. Like a book no one reads. I could only watch as my creations headed toward doom, without even the ability to warn them.
Irony? Perhaps. I had absolute power, but I became a pawn. Someone else's piece. In someone else's game.
Their fear of me was natural. Like a child fears the monster under the bed, so they feared me. A monster that perhaps really existed.
All I wanted was to regain the lost power. Only it would give me a chance to stop the impending disaster. The great disaster. But even for one to whom fate itself is subject... Even he is destined for an end.
Standing above all life and death, you don't expect your own demise. You're sure it's impossible. You're immortal, but the person who cast aside everything. His essence, his nature, himself, he proved that an end can come. Even for those above death.
His name was Yahweh. He was the one I made the contract with. He was the one I started the game with.
Four years. An eternity of pain and suffering compressed into a pitiful human measure of time. We lost feelings. We became not humans, not gods, but something... Empty. Like beasts that lost their instincts.
We had a goal, only that. The ego screamed deep in the soul that we didn't want this, that we hated it.
We silenced it. Sealed the feelings at the very bottom of our consciousness. Closed the lid. Nailed it shut. Forgot.
But sometimes... Sometimes I wanted to scream. From the pain, from this pain I've been dragging all this time. I became a monster in their eyes. Accepted their gaze, accepted my new form. Erased myself, created another, the way they saw me.
Not for recognition. Not for victory, but to save the lives of those who hated me.
Such is the fate of those who seek happiness.
You can follow it. You can fight to the last, but in the end, you'll still end up in the abyss.
The abyss you dug yourself.
As long as you're just a piece in someone's game, as long as you're not playing but being played... you've lost.
"What irony," I growled. "Even now they consider me the killer. A monster. Accuse me of a crime I didn't commit!"
But... whatever. Whatever the others think.
I know it's not my doing, and that's enough for me. I'm not going to crawl before them, begging them to believe my alibi.
Only one kid is on my side. Without proof, without benefit. He keeps believing, keeps proving my innocence to the others.
And that's enough. You're really... an amazing guy, Aragi. I remember he said he came here from the future. From a future where humanity lost. Lost in the game for its existence.
He was the only one who survived. Survived among beings unknown to me... X. But there's an inconsistency in this story.
Aragi... Such a world shouldn't exist.
Then who are you, really?