Elysium

II.

I have seen a man die, once.

I was twelve and I was crying. He was a brutal murderer who sacrificed others for his own needs. He let himself be used as a tool, and in turn unjustly used others. There was not a single redeeming feature about him, and yet I began to cry uncontrollably the moment he uttered soft farewell words to his enemies, regretfully wishing he could evade hell.

Why is that?

I realize I have stopped believing in God the moment I understood what I lived for. I realize putting one's faith in the unseen is scorned as weakness. I realize I am too tired to pray everyday, and I notice how I am the happiest when those spiritual burdens are left forgotten.

So why, I have to wonder, did I wish that man would go where he wanted to?

I truthfully didn't want him to go to heaven or hell, if such perfect balance of paradise and martyrdom existed. He didn't deserve either. I wanted his spirit to linger, but his body to quietly decompose within the earth without signing in Satan's little black book.

I wanted him to find his own meaning.

I wanted him to seek his own path.

I guess, in a way, I simply wanted him to be free.

-

You think you know the world when you're young. Bold, brash and naïve are we in our greatest years, falling under the misconception that our future is in our hands. How much of our lives do we really control? How much of it is being controlled, subjected to the unknown's every whim?

It is a funny thing, power. The insatiable greed for strength surpasses all other senses, consuming you, swallowing you whole, until spitting you out weak and battered when you grow wary of power and power tires of you.

I think this is what happened to you.

You were so frail and skeletal the day you limped back into my arms, falling unconscious. There was no love in this action—only a man who had lost against the dangerous, unwritten rules of power. Your life was very dependent on whether I had forgiven you. Even if you didn't speak a word, I knew. No one in Konoha wanted you. Everyone hated you. Everyone despised you. Tell me, how did it feel to be so unwanted? How did it feel to lose everything you ever cared about?

Then I can relate to you. We human beings are driven by primitive instincts of lust. We are such disgusting, filthy creatures, satisfying this lust with selfish motivations and an intense competition of life and death. To reach you, I did everything I could to keep you. I lied, I cheated, I bargained, lost a friend and almost died. When I woke up in the quaint hospital room, you were, I perceived, already gone.

That day, since many years, I began to cry again.