Disclaimer: I don't own the Dynasty Warriors fandom. Really. I just write fanfiction.
A/N: Ages ago I wanted to write a fic about Cao Cao, and I'm glad I finally managed to do it. ..I'm still not entirely happy with this final result to be honest, but I had fun at least trying to 'get' Cao Cao's POV, anyway. Oh! Something I should mention: this was written with DW7 in mind, so there are spoilers for the Wei story mode here (almost all of the way through). And the son of Cao Cao that features in this fic is Cao Ang... just in case you're not sure about that later.
Burning
He had always been brilliant.
..'What arrogance!', you say? ..Oh no. 'Arrogance' implied conceit – inferred excessive and ill-placed assurance of your own capabilities. He however, was under no such delusion.
'Confidence'.. That was the word. That was what Cao Cao possessed. An accurate description.. and that confidence was nothing but well-founded.
He had always been brilliant.
No pretension. Just belief. It was fact – difficult to deny, that he was one of talent; of skill; of intelligence and charisma.
It was not up for question in his mind, for his past was ever evidence in itself.
Yes.
Brilliant. He was brilliant – a brilliant, brilliant man, and..-
So was his ambition.
..Ambition.
Of course. Completely natural – a brilliant man ought to have brilliant dreams – but that wasn't the point.
Ambition.
No pretension here; no lies. He was fully aware of it.
Cao Cao was an ambitious man. Desire and drive like a searing flame, emanating so brightly from him that it might as well personify him.
Never had a day gone by when that ambition had been absent.
It had fast become.. fitting. He, who had such ability – that was not in doubt, and he should not be in doubt.
It was as a blaze – he felt it burn; brilliance, just like himself. So strong that it might be intimidating to a lesser man, but he was Cao Cao.
This was power. Raw and also the promise of more – if he could but utilise it. And he could. He knew he could – he would, because it was all so clear.
Clarity. That was what it brought. Clarity, and a torch to light the way. He could see it. He could sense it, the sheer drive.. Smell it, that alluring scent stretching into the distance.
His eternal beacon – just like he would be, to the people and this ailing world. Chaos ravaged the land, cloaked and choked the air. Darkened survival and prospects.. Yet he, Cao Cao.. His brilliance was enough to cut through it.
Undoubtedly.
His path could be nothing else.
..Time to start forging it.
Motion was easy. With his fervour and drive and that ardent ambition he could not and would not be stopped.
Move.
Move.
Move..!
Get out of my way!
Resistance was expected but not acceptable – they didn't see.. this was the only way that the chaos could finally be got rid of. Cao Cao was the only one capable of banishing it.
Momentum. Momentum and momentum. Burn on and on.
Don't stop.
Don't stop.
..Especially when the road was.. troublesome. Especially then. Obviously.. Such irritations had been accounted for. They were bound to occur, but if you were as collected and ingenious as Cao Cao was, most damage could be effortlessly averted.
Nothing would dampen his spirit. Nothing would dampen that ambition, roaring inside – order would be made reality when it was all his!
There was no stopping. Not now.
His vision, fixed on the goal and that better future that he would create, could only grow ever closer.
Moving..
Closer..
And closer..
Ambition..
Growing..-
Oh-so-brilliantly...
…
(..Yet..)
Ah.
Here's the drawback. What a beacon you are, burning so brightly there was no room for anything else – what a beacon you are, yet what use can you be when they are following another? What a beacon you are.. Yet...
Such light
Blinding light-
That path..
Could he really see?
...His vision.
(His ambition.)
Nothing else.
His vision, unyielding, like himself – fixated and stubborn and uncompromising because that was necessity.
Yes.
...No regrets.
It was only.. natural.
He was as steel – cold steel, to control that inner fire.
He had accepted that. That was.. responsibility. Nothing could be compromised in order to realise his brilliant, brilliant ambition... Not even himself.
Keep moving.
He would not stop. Strength was needed to endure all the fire, but he was not lacking in any.
Though he burned.
It burned
It all burned- And he-
Yes... He...
Despite his constancy.. Despite the steel and the composure and his calculating plans and that... ambition.
(The fire.)
He...
..Was.. Tiring.
Or was it simply that he was slowing?
Slowing, so that everything else was catching up with him?
..It burned.
No.. Not that ambition – not really.. Little left alight in his ageing eyes, scant torching and contorting... Most escaped and gone.
Though he felt the fire, still... Those flames, as they burned burned burned at Chibi.
...He remembered everything.
No regrets.. little ambition, but everything else that was overdue.
That was what haunted his dreams, now. All those ghosts. ..Too real. Realer than they had been back then, somehow. More vivid, now that his pounding head was looking around.
(The true drawback.)
When the flames were dimming, and the light didn't care enough to see leagues into the future..
There was the damage.
The aftermath.
The loss.
The loss that had not been given even a second glance.. Festering, he realised, in the face of his deliberate, calculated neglect. A wound gone untreated for so long, and how it...- how he...
Ached, from it.
If it was not that battle (and the aftermath of that inferno when his footfalls thudded thudded thudded like the battle drums long ago like his heartbeat thud thud thud like his footsteps thud thud.. thud.. thud.. Heavy – like the crushing shock of defeat crushing him raw from the blaze so far out of his control..? But a moment but thud thud thud a grip like a vice his head struggled even now..-), there were plenty other echoes able to spring upon his attention.
Blackness.. Darker than the spots upon his vision, and a sheer void into his heart. That terrible night bleaker every time it was recalled – memory upon memory-
Foresight blinded for failure to settle in – trapped, cornered? But the insult merely rankled beside the more cutting events that had come – sacrifice upon sacrifice in a display of heroism and tragedy.
Two major pieces swept from the board – though of course, the pretence had eventually thinned out, now buckling, buckling; shuddering at the force of what gaped behind it.
Cao Cao felt it, like he had never known the meaning of it before.
How could he not..?
His son. Sweating face set in inspired, solemn determination before the finality of his duty. Cao Cao had been hurried but the pride had surged despite everything (my son.. a Cao till the-), even if the grief was only too quick to clinch and eclipse it.
They had been blocked out, but he could imagine the sounds of that clash, and of course he had no need to conjure up the silence – the premature (empty) silence (absence) that had haunted him every day in the background since.
And Dian Wei...
Larger than life and lost to death, but Cao Cao remembered. He closed his eyes and his treasured bodyguard stood, taking every. Single. Hit arrow after. Arrow. Punctuated split second after split second...
..Piercing..
And still! Still Dian Wei had not fallen, not in life, but in death he could plunge endlessly...
...-
Never an end. Not to this. Not to this – or perhaps there was just that much to catch up on. Loss. Loss like you wouldn't believe.
His price to pay.
He was in no doubt. He had never been in doubt, about that. His ambition was brilliant, even purifying, but stand too close to the fire and you will get hurt.
Foe.. and friend alike.
It had been... All been...
Necessity.
(His lips tugged into a smile.)
(Bitter. So vacant – more so than even the one that had adorned Xiahou Yuan's corpse.)
..It still.. hurt.
Yuan's laughter reverberated in his dreams, ghostlier than all the other deceased put together. Recognisable, but inexact to his memory and intangible.. Just out of reach.
Missed terribly.
A ruse and a plan that had sealed Guan Yu's fate – an exhibition of his usual brilliance, but the closer spirit that had been snuffed out that day...
It had indeed dampened his own, bile rising in his throat, the loss... cavernous.
How he had kept moving after that...-
Hah. No. He was incapable of anything else. He was not one to ever travel backwards. Though he was forced to admit..
His path did not stretch on much further.
His sight ahead was dying for a reason.
(There was not much left to see.)
..Only a fool would describe the world as 'slowing down'. It was his own pace that was increasingly leaden, now, as he started to drift at the same time.
(Not long.)
Confined to rest in his room, exhaustion was his constant bedfellow. And yes.. Finally, he had not the energy – not the will left to attempt to outrun or dishonour this pain any longer. However blatant a weakness this was... He was..- No, he chose to be.. engulfed by it.
He opened his eyes, and drank the tidal wave in.
Just this once.. There was no true fire left to be quenched, not any more. Nothing left to drown, that wasn't already emptying.
He felt.
(Ambition now aside no more pride only accomplishment – sadnessemptinessnostalgiacaringpainsomuchPAINjoyandgrief everythinginbetween...-
However.)
Not a single regret. As ever.
Never any regrets.
He had rejoiced and he had mourned (oh had he mourned).. He had made easy choices, right choices, difficult choices (agonising choices) but nevertheless – here was the unforgivable thing:
He could not regret it. One bit, despite it all.
He would do every last thing again.
Burn and burn and burn... and burn for it, if necessary.
(..Or.. Was that actually his ambition talking? Still?)
Hah..
(No matter. If any yet smouldered, the sparks would die along with himself.)
…
Perception was stark, even as it faded. Thoughts started to dwindle.. His feelings, a drying stream. Any brilliance, soon to be ash.
No regrets.
Thankfulness, certainly. Like all else, it was about time that was acknowledged.
("Xiahou Dun – I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.")
(My fierce, brilliant friend.. Loyal, to the very end.)
No regrets, but a nod to that barren, barren guilt. The long-held truth he could finally stop denying.
("Dian Wei, I can finally tell you I'm sorry... Xiahou Yuan, forgive me...")
(Reality is finished. Let us walk, side by side again, in our dreams.)
And possibly.. the warmth of hopefulness, even as he plunged, down.. down.. Into that greatest, most unknown void of all.
Death itself.
