All his life he'd been greedy.
"Damn kid…" He chuckled. Ouch. Note to self: don't laugh while dying. Dying. There it was again that peculiar word he'd never really understood. After all, dying was only a thing that happened to humans right. I mean, he couldn't really, actually be dying.
He couldn't help it, there was so much out there to desire and once you had it, there was always something else.
"…that was good." More laughter. More pain. Could he? Could he, Greed, the Ultimate Shield, actually be dying. Damn. Another bark of laughter. This is one weird-as-hell dream. He snorted. Scrap that theory, I'm not able to dream. Strange but true. Homunculi were in fact incapable of truly creative thought, and thus incapable of dreaming.
He'd always been searching, never slowed down to smell the roses.
"I'm greedy as hell," True enough, he could only think of one or two things he'd never wanted in his 250 year long life. Namely, the old hag, and the palm tree. Ewww. And maybe being sealed again.
After an entire life spent devoted to one thing, you'd think there'd be meaning to his death.
"Always out for myself." He found it almost amusing that at the end of a life spent pursuing his greed, all he felt while dying was that greed beginning to dribble out of the wound in his chest. Strange. He wasn't able to feel, so what was that tiny blot of warmth in his shrivelled heart doing there.
It was funny, really.
Strange. At the end of his life, unable to fulfil his goals, why was it that in some perverse twist of nature he felt content. No longer driven to obtain everything he could think of, he could appreciate life. How beautiful the room was. The lovely colour of his blood. And how utterly priceless the look on Dante's face would be when she realized he'd escaped for good. "She always said it would be the death of me."
All his life though, at the back of his mind had been a niggling voice of doubt.
"They pulled the strings…" He laughed inside. His parting gift to his fellow Homunculi would be a whelp with the power to defeat them. How ironic.
Once you had everything you'd ever wanted, what was left to fill the empty expanse of an endless life?
"…now cut them." His only regret was not being able to see their faces when they found out. Oh well. If there actually was some sort of afterlife and if homunculi actually ended up there, he'd see. Strange, he thought. I'm almost anticipating it. In fact, stranger still, as he lay dying, he felt almost content. The world seemed peaceful. Quiet.
Nothing.
That's when he realised. It was gone. The greed that had been the driving force of his life, the motivation that had made him what he was, was gone. He no longer felt the need to obtain everything he could think of, in fact, he was happy with what he had. Despite the fact he had nothing.
"I'm counting on you, kid…"
Nothing.
Ouch. Obviously those last words had been all that was needed, and suddenly the pain came rushing back. And with it something almost resembling regret. Regret for the items he would never obtain. Obviously, he thought to himself, my greed is back. He shuddered in agony, and decided screw weakness, this hurts. And then, it began to fade, all of the pain, the greed, the room, the boy. It faded. And as he vanished into the abyss, he realized. He was content, because he had left nothing behind. The closest he'd had to friends were dead, and the last would be fine. He'd never really cared about anything, so he felt no attachment.
Nothing.
In fact, his entire life had been a tragedy. A farce. If he had never existed, the world still couldn't care less. And as he faced up to the fact that everything he had ever been, had ever wanted, had ever done was worthless, Greed did something he hadn't done in a long time. Wracked with self-pity and shame, as he faded into darkness, deep down inside, he screamed.
Nothing…
…but the shadow of your Greed.