Happiness for those who seek it.
Is happiness a reward? Is happiness a goal? Is happiness a mirage in the desert you wandered into by mistake, but from which it's now too late to return?
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 seeing what's beneath it.
Those who diligently fight for their dream should, in theory, receive a reward. Right? That's what they teach in books, fairy tales, sermons. Everything that glitters goes to those who don't give up.
However…
However, in life, everything is much less glossy. In life, everything is much less forgivable.
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 maddened monster. Without feelings. Without pity. Without the right to forgiveness. A monster tired of the game he created himself.
And perhaps they were right.
I made a contract. With one of my own creations. We started a game. A game with a name that sounded like a verdict: 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. Me towards them. Them towards me. Like two sides of a coin engraved with "it's all over".
But why? Why couldn't they understand?
I didn't choose to be the pinnacle. I had to. Like the one who stands above all. Like the one who must decide when it's even painful for others to breathe.
I made a decision.
Unshakable.
Like a king pronouncing a sentence on his subjects to save the very same 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.
Let everyone die or let half perish? Anyone would choose the latter. But not everyone would want to be the one who chooses.
I destroyed more than half of what I myself had created. With my own hands. By my own decision. And all so that the others would have a chance to continue 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, he agreed.
He wanted power.
Such power that could destroy everyone.
I granted it.
Perhaps there were other paths.
But they are impossible.
I created countless hierarchies.
Placed higher beings upon them.
True Gods, not a metaphor, but a title.
And lost everything. Half my power. Connection with them. Control. Forever sealed in my own world. Locked away. Like a book no one reads. I could only watch as my creations marched to their doom, without even the ability to warn them.
Irony? Perhaps. I had absolute power, but I turned out to be 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 truly existed.
All I wanted was to regain the lost power. Only it would give me a chance to stop the coming disaster. The Great Disaster.
But even for one who commands fate itself… even for him, an end is destined.
Standing above all life and death, you don't expect your own demise. You are sure it's impossible. You are immortal.
But the man who cast everything aside. His essence. His nature. Himself, he proved that an end can come. Even for those above death.
His name was Yahweh.
He is the one with whom I made a contract.
He is the one with whom I started the game.
Four years. An eternity of pain and suffering, compressed into a pitiful human measurement of time.
We lost our feelings. We became not humans, not gods, but… something. Empty. Like beasts that have lost their instincts.
We had a goal. Only that. The ego screamed deep inside 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. Hammered in the nails. Forgot.
But sometimes…
Sometimes I wanted to scream. From the pain. From this pain I've been dragging behind me all this time.
I became a monster. In their eyes. Accepted their gaze. Accepted my new guise. Erased myself. Created another, the one they saw me as.
Not for recognition.
Not for victory.
But to save the lives of those who came to hate 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 will still find yourself in an abyss.
An abyss you dug yourself.
As long as you are merely a piece in someone else's game, as long as you are not playing but are being played… you have lost.
— How ironic, — I growled. — Even now they consider me a murderer. A monster. Accuse me of a crime I didn't commit!
But… I don't care. I don't care what the others think. I know it wasn't my doing. And that's enough for me.
I'm not going to crawl before them, begging them to believe my alibi.
Only one youth is on my side. Without proof, without benefit. He continues to believe. Continues to prove my innocence to the others.
And that's enough. You really are… an amazing guy, Aragi.
I recall he said he came here from the future. From a future where humanity lost. Lost the game for its existence.
He is the only one who survived. He and his friends. Survived among unknown creatures… X.
But there's a discrepancy in this story.
Aragi… such a world should not exist.
Then who are you, really?