Hougyoku
Warning: Spoilers for the end of the Karakura Town arc, also depressingness. May well be written as a story in its own right... I actually have something I came up with using this concept but I have no time to write it all up. D8
A/N: This is... surprisingly thoughtful. I came up with a weird idea given the nature of Hougyoku that Aizen talks about. I do not own Bleach, however.
The child sits there, half-asleep, waiting in darkness.
It's been a long time since he's known anyone else's presence. Their emotions called out to him when they approach him, giving him meaning to his existence. Without others, there is no reason, no purpose for him to exist, simply emptiness. He doesn't know what Hell would feel like, but certainly the sensation of being so disconnected from the rest of the universe is... unpleasant, to say the least.
There is no mouth, no eyes, no skin, no tongue, no nose - none of these things can give him confirmation of his own existence.
He wishes for acknowledgement, but finds none, not even from his own father who has long since abandoned him with deep indigo-tinged fear of him, along with the others who had been messes of raging crimson and violet draped in shadow. He untangled them again, like his father wanted him to; it only earned him this... this... emptiness.
He isn't sure what he did wrong for his father. All he has done is what father wanted, nothing more.
Happiness, he has long since decided, is the best emotion, ever, a bright beautiful thing that lights up his being and resonates within. It's something he's only felt from father a few times, but he wanted to change that. Except then there were other people than just father around, and he wasn't sure who he should make happy, or how he should do it because some of them wanted so much.
So he tried for all of them.
(Even the man who was sad inside, the one who screamed out at the world that he wanted to die and finally find peace at the hands of someone stronger whilst desiring more strength.)
(Even the man who wanted nothing more than to see his experiment come to success, his father.)
(Even the man who desired justice above all else, vengeance for the woman who had been cut down.)
(Even the other boy, the one who desired something precious to him to be protected.)
Except it was so difficult and things didn't work out the way he wanted them to, and he didn't make people happy, and then father himself had been afraid of him and cut him off from the rest of the world in a cage where he couldn't sense anything of the outside for a long long time.
He decided a long time ago that the word was lonely, and it hurt. He didn't like pain, either.
And then... someone found him and took him out of the cage.
There was the explosion of emotion again against his deprived body, with the rage and lust and sorrow, emotions of raw spirits whose hearts had been torn out, and people whose emotions were purer, but in some ways worse. The one who was sad inside was there again, with a request this time (and besides it wasn't as if he wasn't going to do it anyway) but he took off their masks and tried to heal their hearts, as best as he could. It didn't quite work the way he wanted it to, though, and they weren't really the same as before, but it was a bit better. Just a little.
So he helped as best he could.
A girl came round after a while, shining silver, coloured with fear. He could tell she didn't really want to be here, but was worried over something else.
He just wished he could tell her it was all going to be okay, because he'd make it okay if it wasn't okay of its own accord.
And eventually there were more people who came for her, even without his help, but they were... different from the others, somehow. Neither like father nor the heartless creatures, somewhere in between...
And then there was the boy, the one that the lonely man was interested in.
He'd been forced to stand by and wait and let them die (because they'd given up, some of them, and happiness was greater than death even if it hurt).
Then things had happened. A lot of the other people (like father) had fallen. Father himself had come.
He'd saved the other boy (who was older now, not really a boy any more like him) from losing what was important to him, but the lonely man hadn't wanted him to live any more.
And then the boy, the one who burned so brightly and captured the lonely man's attention, had turned up, and been stronger, broken the loneliness for a little, even if it was just for a few seconds with fear. The lonely man had done something strange then, he wasn't sure what, but he was pretty sure he wasn't with the lonely man any more.
That was good, though. Maybe he'd done something right and the lonely man didn't need him, even though that thought was kind of sad and he didn't want to think about being left behind again.
He just hoped the lonely man was happy now.
Even if he had to wait forever in the darkness, it would be okay.
Someone would come. The bright boy would come find him, and then he'd help make him happy and everything would be better because then nobody would ever have to be alone again.
So he waits, patiently, in the loneliness... but it's okay, because he knows it'll end soon, like it did for the other lonely man.
