/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>45748651
I snuffed out so many lights that year. It was so easy, so easy to let go and feel nothing at the evil things I did. I began to crave it, that apathetic void, like a pain killer, it kept the mind-killing agony of loss at bay. Every so often I'd relapse, swear I'd confess, confide in someone, make amends, once I even chopped off my hands, but the cold, so cold, would settle in and remind me of what I had to do.

When I had finished, for just a single, solitary second I felt satisfaction. It was the last, errant emotion anyone would ever feel. For one hundred years, everyone was allowed to live, upon which they would die and trade their place with someone new. The world was made constant, there would be no more curses, no blessing, I had slain fortune. So, with nothing left to do, I took my place in line, and waited for my turn to die.

And it was so cold.

---

Serenity. It wasn't an emotion I was accustomed to as an Amanojaku. Really, I thought it was some con invented by Buddhists and the like to get people to live frugal lives and give generously to the cause. Now, I wasn't so sure.

When I had flipped open that thread Goro had pointed me to, it was like the world had opened anew. I didn't shun happiness, love, and the other things other people so enjoyed, instead I sailed above them, happy and content.

I would've been glad to lie there for all eternity, had I not felt the touch of my lover, beckoning me to his side, so I followed, gliding on the seas of the serene world we found ourselves in until I landed upon an isle occupied by just a tree and a little girl.

"Mother Seija, I knew when Father Goro arrived you wouldn't be long." She said.

Like a wisp, I flew around her and prodded her cheek, not feeling the need to jeer or make light of her. She gently shrugged me off.

"My, you seem to enjoy not existing? I'm quite jealous you know." She told me with a smile.

I smiled back.

"Well, another first! a visitor who's not stupified. I almost fear I'll not have moments like this for quite some time. Ah, what I'd do to ask you to stay for a spell longer, if only that were for me to decide, but unfortunately, your existence approaches and something must be done." She said, plucking a petal from the gleaming tree.

"Mother Seija, you haven't forgiven yourself for what you did to Father Goro have you?" She asked.

As if a log had hit me in the head, I stopped. No, this awful feeling, this 'pleasure' that was rapt in pain. I didn't want it! I screamed with my eyes at the girl to take it back, let me have my lover, don't dredge that terrible deed to the surface!

She looked sympathetic. "I'm sorry, but these are your feelings after all, your futures as well as your penance. If you wish for Oiwa and the other child to be happy, you must make amends, it's the only way to set your piece into place."

"Tsukuyomi." I thought, taking the petal.

"Tsukuyomi? Ah, that's a bold name. I'm sure my sister will love it."

---

The battle had been Hell on earth. I didn't know who we had fought or what it was for, all I knew was that we'd won and...

I looked across the field and saw him, Goro, holding our two children, they were crying and he looked at me, an expression of grim acceptance. Across his body where brands, black, encrusted burns that made massive scars across his face and the rest of his body. Closing his eyes, he, and our children, faded from view.

...and that I had chosen my desires over my family.

I gave chase, for years, decades, centuries, I ran after him. Sometimes I'd get a hint, a rumor, enough hope to squash later. Eventually I gave up looking.

Journeying, I went to every temple I could, every pathetic place of worship I could find and I prostrated myself, begging for a chance at salvation, at mercy and redemption of some sort in the small hope I would see my family again. Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto, Christian, Muslim, whatever, they all sent me away, threw me to the winds, and they were right to.

One day, while I was aimlessly wandering, I found a mountain, a heft of pure, solid stone. I set myself beside it, knelt, and slammed my head into it. Again and again, day after day, I wracked my head against the stone. Sometimes I'd pass out, other times weather would take me, but because of this awful, forsaken Youkai body, and the legends I had earned in that battle by my betrayal, I yet lived.

I cried for penance, I yelled in fury at the world, I did everything one could imagine someone slamming their head against a mountain would do, until one day, I was on the other side.

Looking back at the hole I bore, I thought about my family, about the faces so many years of smashing one's head against a rock couldn't erase, and I lied down, and waited to die.