Aku Reminisces on his Formation

Aku rolled his eyes as he watched through his scrying screen as the Samurai described him as a being of pure evil. Not that it wasn't pleasing to hear himself described, rightfully, as the ultimate evil but there was a very distinct difference between being ultimate and being pure. A very important one.

Pure evil was, by nature, destructively volatile, so bad that it tended to interfere with itself. It reached for nothing beyond immediate existence and destruction, a contradictory pair of goals if ever there were any. Essentially, it was just another way to describe pure chaos.

Aku's preceding forms had been pure evil. As a piece of the great darkness of before, he had flashes of memory from a nearly mindless thing that, from what he could gather, simply tore apart anything that got in it's path as it squeezed between star systems or soared from galaxy to galaxy.

Then, when the gods had come to destroy this…it could hardly even be called a being… and his piece escaped to land on earth, it collided with the ground. There it had fused with some great plant, it's the large stalks sprouting from it's root system numerous enough to be called a forest in it's own right.

There was an interesting fact to think about. Aku supposed that made him part nature spirit, didn't it? He'd pondered over this often, sometimes enamored by the idea of actually being a legitimate part of the world he ruled over. Others he found himself disgusted at associating himself with the weak forms that were beneath him.

Anyway, once he took on this new form, he gained the first step toward true, sentience…purpose. Mind, it wasn't a complicated one. To survive, just as most life wanted to do. The closest thing he had to actual thought at that point was urges. To eat so he could expand further and to expand his reach so that so he could eat more. It was all rather repetitive… circular. It's really rather boring to recall, in all honesty. Not that he found it boring at the time. There was no understanding of such concepts. He'd just done what he needed to do… Beyond that, he couldn't comprehend possibly doing more. He didn't have a level of self-awareness that let him consider the concept of this 'more' unless related to growth and food. He would have to be able to actually think to understand that idea.

But thought didn't come until the arrow and spell meant to destroy his pure evil with goodness. The one released by the samurai's own father. And that arrow was the key that unlocked the world to Aku or maybe Aku to the world.

Until that moment, his magic had interfered with itself spreading and contracting in an unpredictable manner that often cancelled it's own effects out, if he wasn't reaching for his next meal, that was. Then he could summon enough power to reach, leafless trees capable of tasting the air for chemical signs of his prey sprouting out of his liquefied form of darkness. Beyond that, he was so at war with himself that he could ultimately do no more with his magic than make swirling eddies of darkness or stir up bubbles. And that wasn't even on purpose!

Then the arrow purified a small space within his central pool, the closest thing to a core that he had. It painfully destroyed the darkness but left behind a calm within that he'd never had before. It changed the magic it touched as it spread, forcing it to become a calmer type than what he had always been throughout the eons he had existed up to that time, essentially destroying the nature of what had been there before.

If it had spread as far as was intended, he would have ceased to be Aku. He's not sure that he would have been anything more than a large pool of wild, raw magic. But that was not what happened. Those who helped design the spell had miscalculated how much evil they were facing. They had underestimated by a comically wide margin…off by entire orders of magnitude. So, they purified what was essentially a tiny part of him. He chuckled at the mere thought. The spread of this purifying power stopped, leaving a tiny, altered point within him, a central around which the rest of his being to be drawn to.

His magic, which had always been at war with itself, found a medium to organize itself around as the purified spot diffused into the rest of him. It used the form at it's disposal, of 'tree' and 'tar,' to build a form to channel into and then somehow managed to bring forth awareness in the process. That was Aku's first moment of true consciousness.

Millions of years of just existing and then to truly awaken for the first time…nothing could measure up to that moment. The ability to think after going so long without…to feel emotions after all the nothingness…to truly sense the world and interact with it beyond pushing things out of the way or consuming them…it was incredible. With that tiny shard of goodness, he was given the gift to bring order to himself so that he might comprehend the wonder of being a part of the universe.

And with that awareness came Aku's desire to want more. Within moments of getting this slice of reality, he knew he wanted the whole pie. And with the drive and power to back up that desire, he would not be denied. Everything would be his or be destroyed.

Honestly, he was surprised the Samurai never figured that out. After all, weren't the warrior spirits of his own people awoken by being exposed to darkness, under the effects of which they became more weaponized forces of good. The Samurai knew that well, Aku was sure, and he had probably been told what his father's arrow had been meant to do. It shouldn't have been a large leap of logic for the human to make.

Then again, Aku might be giving the human too much credit. His greatest foe had proven that he could often be a foolish creature, after all.

But, for Aku, there was no more important distinction than the difference between pure evil and ultimate evil. A tiny but important spark of good, enough to allow him to achieve an internal unity. This was Aku's 'darkest' secret. The true source of his great strength but also his greatest weakness.

But, with the ability to feel elation at existing and the desire for everything soon came another emotion. One that arose from understanding that he had something worth keeping.

When the emperor who awoken Aku and sired his greatest foe came riding in on a cloud with a blade forged to harm him, Aku did not immediately comprehend the significance of it's existence. The idea of 'death' was one he had yet to contemplate. He was still on a high from his first night of sentience, and happily wielding his newly controllable powers to subjugate the first populace he intended to make his.

Even with the first burning slice of the blade, and several after, he didn't get it. At first, he felt shock and curiosity at the new sensation that was pain.

This quickly turned to anger as it wasn't exactly a fun experience to be hurt. How he had raged as the blade kept cutting through him, burning him…awakening half comprehended memories of the great darkness as it's pieces were seared away. He wanted to swat the man responsible for all this pain like the annoying bug he was.

And even then, a small part of him relished the new experience of this deep, powerful emotion. The rush it gave him was incredible.

But at some point while the man slew the Aku's self-created army with that blade, it finally sank in. This sword could end it all for him. It could take everything, all he was, all he had become and all he might be, in an instant.

The flames his burning rage were quickly extinguished by stone cold fear flowing through his veins far more efficiently than he had flowed across the land over the eons.

It was the first emotion he didn't much enjoy, to be honest. Not one bit.

From this fear rose his first and greatest hatred. For the blade. And by association, whom ever would dare wield it against him.

That night had ended with the emperor stabbing his blade into the ground and forcing Aku's consciousness to sleep in the form of a tree. It had only been for a few years but after that one night of being, it had allowed true hatred to grow within Aku and heat every corner of his mind upon his return, as he promised he would in his last words before his slumber.

So Aku glared at the screen before him, his gaze full of hate, hiding the fear beneath as the Samurai escaped his traps and defeated his minions time and time again in his futile attempt to stand against the ultimate evil which ruled this land.

This is something I wrote a long time ago. I keep stumbling upon it and then forgetting about it. I decided to just post it. I hope the readers enjoyed.