Translator
The concept of lies were nothing new to Copen.
Every day interactions drowned him with them; every reassuring sentence of him being a good person, every placation that he was doing god's will.
He drank from them fully when given. That didn't mean he was naive; on the contrary, he was rather cynical, which made every errant word of doubt he had thought of or had been thrown his way dismissed because if he couldn't trust his family to not lead him astray, then who could he?
Not himself, that's for sure. Fool someone once, shame on the liar. Fool someone twice and shame on the one who was lied to. Be fooled for the rest of one's life and turn said lie into faith, parade oneself around like a hero who does what must be done, who else but himself would be shamed.
Should his mentor feel shame? After all did she not already know the truth?
Was the reason she had been so understanding and careful with him, because she'd rather have a broken son than a dead one?
Would she have intervened if she knew he'd go missing only a few months later?
He doesn't know.
Should his companion feel shame? For humoring his delusions? For if she were a true friend, would she not have confronted him about the path he walks for his greater good?
Rather than smile and follow, and aid him in slaughter for reasons she knows are completely wrong?
No. He has no right to feel anger at her. Not when she has chosen to be with him. Not when her existence, her warmth, her smile is the one droplet of good he made in an ocean of sin.
The truth is not the release he'd have believed it to be. It is a seal no longer able to contain the sludge within, in whose reflection he gazes at and sees that the true monster was him all along.
He is wicked.
And that truth will never be hidden again. Death will not soothe his pain, when it is no more than a hindrance that can be taken away by his companion. There is nothing else he can do but feel.
Feel that he should be punished. Feel that others should gaze upon him in disgust and judge the true him. But he doesn't want to be seen, bringing attention to it would mean sticking his neck out, and he knows that rather than be lopped off, warm arms would surround him. Promising salvation when he deserves none of it.
He is a demon and his cause is not just, and evil must be eliminated.
Not through his own work, never. That would be cowardice. The last thing his companion would remember him as is someone that was selfish and weak. And rather than feel relief at the end of one more evil. She would blame herself for not seeing the signs sooner, for not reaching out in time.
But if he dies from the hands of someone else, she'll have nothing to blame herself for. Nothing but a moment of bad luck, something that she would've had no control over. An end that she can wrap a tie around after taking down whoever killed him and letting worms rend his buried flesh.
An evil demon roams the world, bringing calamity wherever it brings.
One day, a brave hero manages to sever it's body in twain.
The birds sing, the children dance, for the wicked is dead.
A fitting end for scum like him. A bad seed that never should have bloomed.
Yet…
There are moments when doubt strikes again.
When a beautiful view dims the urge to scratch like there's bugs under the surface of his skin. The sound of a whimsical laugh pushing away the gnaw to shut himself down and never reactivate.
Those moments, when he has failed to keep the veil hidden enough and she looks at him with sad eyes, whispering those terrible words about how she understands how he feels or how he is everything to her and if he cannot see himself living another day then live at least the next minute.
He wants to hate her so much for the mirage of hope it gives him. That little short moment of delusion in which he believes that he doesn't want to die after all, that moment when he becomes a hypocrite yet again, drugged on the thought that he isn't broken beyond repair.
That he wants to live with his family again, even if he has to know them all over again. That he wants to see his muse smile as often as she normally did before, be as loud as she wants to be rather than be overly conscious and treat him like he's ill if not slightly insane rather than fully awake.
He wants to eat good food, instead of it all tasting like ash. He wants water to not taste like mud.
He wants to see someone smiling in the mirror, he wants to be better no matter how long it takes.
He wants to be worthy of seeing tomorrow.
But then he remembers that the nagging voice is wrong. He is better off dead, he is a pitiful, disgusting man who deserves to die covered in every filth and curse the world can throw.
Why lie to himself again when it doesn't stop the truth from being painful?
Fighting to stay alive is pointless when he has nothing of value to bring. Every death he caused was for the sake of falsehood. The world was never one that needed him to save it. The blood on his own hands is more than his own. Each breath he takes is for the sake of taking someone else's.
He promised he would try to live for his own sake.
The one he made the promise to is basically dead and so it no longer binds him.
His muse would miss him.
She can go home and learn to love a better Kamizono.
It's a simple equation really. He cares about family, he cares about justice. He has neither.
Ergo he is null. He can repeat the words a thousand times, but let's make it short and simple.
Sisyphus should lay down and let the rock crush him. Then there will be happiness.