Post by Value on Oct 19, 2015 17:23:49 GMT -5
Some wishes were swiftly made and swiftly gained or denied. A new TV. Ice cream. The light to turn green before you had to stop. They were fleeting, transitive and often without any real emotion attached to them.
Other wishes took years. Decades. Long held and cherished, they could become obsessions for the person who held them. To obtain that dream, their dearest wish…they could sacrifice anything. No longer just something that was wanted, but a core part of the person who wished. Their very identity wrapped up in the wishes, shaping their course in life as they strived for what they wanted.
That was true just for a human, whose lives were measured in decades. But then they died, and became spirits, who could live on for far longer than that. Would it be surprising, then, that a deeply held wish could warp a person? A true obsession they never noticed because it was the most obvious thing in the world. A soul might live and breathe that desire for centuries, striving for it but never reaching it. A change could occur, turning it from a wish into an unattainable dream like a star shining high in the firmament. What was once an actively pursued dream became something to only be wished for, but never pursued. Believing it was beyond your reach made it impossible.
Until you believed again.
For eight centuries, he had wanted this. Maybe not in this form, but Takua had pursued it. In-between gasps of sanity as his hunger receded, the Hollow he had been had hungered for this instead. In those moments, instead of a thirst for blood and souls, the emptiness inside of him had promised to be filled by redemption instead. That if only he could do this one thing, then the suffering he had caused could be…mitigated. The worst sin of all, the one he hated himself for, could at last be lifted. For eight hundred years, the lost soul had thought the answer lay in death. It was the only answer for so long. But he had tortured himself, demanding that it be earned. Such a redemption couldn’t be gifted to him, oh no.
He had to earn his happy ending. His own happiness couldn’t be achieved quite so easily as just walking into a Shinigami’s blade. It wasn’t fair to those he had hurt for him to find such an easy way out. The coward’s way. Unable to look at what he’d done, he could have simply run from it. Instead, or so he’d told himself, he could find his release by good works. Dying in that moment, to do something, was worth it. Dying because of that was worth it. Only then could he be redeemed. By his actions, not by running.
But then…
He would hardly be Hollow, then, if he didn’t hunger for something. It was the mark of the race, striving to fill a hole in their soul that could never be filled. He would have argued, up until this moment, that he knew that. How could he not? He was a researcher, and his own body and soul had been a study in the Hollow condition, along with, of course, corpses of all stripes. And he had lived with it. That constant, gnawing sensation in the pit of his soul. Something was gone, something was missing, and he would never be whole until he filled it. He just never would, at least not through souls. Instead that only deepened the hunger, each devoured soul as filling as strawdust.
He had sought this path instead. To redeem himself in some way, to let the souls he had devoured live again in the Cycle.
How pitifully sad that a Hollow had actually thought it could fulfill one of its deepest desires. As though the Hunger were limited only to souls, as though you could not instead hunger for redemption. Especially as an Arrancar, so focused instead on their Aspect of Death. But the hallmark of the Hunger is that it will never be truly filled. So how would the universe keep an Arrancar who refused to sate the normal hunger down?
A fingernail snapped backwards as Takua’s hand spasmed on the floor.
He didn’t even notice. Trying to find purchase. Find solid ground. His fingers seized nothing but smooth rock, polished clean by his fire. Slicked with blood. The Arrancar convulsed again, his back arching toward the uncaring stone ceiling, and a distant corner of his mind felt something break- it might have been a finger. It might have been all of them. If he could have felt the agony, he would have wept with joy.
It might have distracted him from the black abyss that had opened on his chest, spreading out from his Hollow Hole.
WC: 809 | GP: 10 | Total: 10
Other wishes took years. Decades. Long held and cherished, they could become obsessions for the person who held them. To obtain that dream, their dearest wish…they could sacrifice anything. No longer just something that was wanted, but a core part of the person who wished. Their very identity wrapped up in the wishes, shaping their course in life as they strived for what they wanted.
That was true just for a human, whose lives were measured in decades. But then they died, and became spirits, who could live on for far longer than that. Would it be surprising, then, that a deeply held wish could warp a person? A true obsession they never noticed because it was the most obvious thing in the world. A soul might live and breathe that desire for centuries, striving for it but never reaching it. A change could occur, turning it from a wish into an unattainable dream like a star shining high in the firmament. What was once an actively pursued dream became something to only be wished for, but never pursued. Believing it was beyond your reach made it impossible.
Until you believed again.
For eight centuries, he had wanted this. Maybe not in this form, but Takua had pursued it. In-between gasps of sanity as his hunger receded, the Hollow he had been had hungered for this instead. In those moments, instead of a thirst for blood and souls, the emptiness inside of him had promised to be filled by redemption instead. That if only he could do this one thing, then the suffering he had caused could be…mitigated. The worst sin of all, the one he hated himself for, could at last be lifted. For eight hundred years, the lost soul had thought the answer lay in death. It was the only answer for so long. But he had tortured himself, demanding that it be earned. Such a redemption couldn’t be gifted to him, oh no.
He had to earn his happy ending. His own happiness couldn’t be achieved quite so easily as just walking into a Shinigami’s blade. It wasn’t fair to those he had hurt for him to find such an easy way out. The coward’s way. Unable to look at what he’d done, he could have simply run from it. Instead, or so he’d told himself, he could find his release by good works. Dying in that moment, to do something, was worth it. Dying because of that was worth it. Only then could he be redeemed. By his actions, not by running.
But then…
He would hardly be Hollow, then, if he didn’t hunger for something. It was the mark of the race, striving to fill a hole in their soul that could never be filled. He would have argued, up until this moment, that he knew that. How could he not? He was a researcher, and his own body and soul had been a study in the Hollow condition, along with, of course, corpses of all stripes. And he had lived with it. That constant, gnawing sensation in the pit of his soul. Something was gone, something was missing, and he would never be whole until he filled it. He just never would, at least not through souls. Instead that only deepened the hunger, each devoured soul as filling as strawdust.
He had sought this path instead. To redeem himself in some way, to let the souls he had devoured live again in the Cycle.
How pitifully sad that a Hollow had actually thought it could fulfill one of its deepest desires. As though the Hunger were limited only to souls, as though you could not instead hunger for redemption. Especially as an Arrancar, so focused instead on their Aspect of Death. But the hallmark of the Hunger is that it will never be truly filled. So how would the universe keep an Arrancar who refused to sate the normal hunger down?
A fingernail snapped backwards as Takua’s hand spasmed on the floor.
He didn’t even notice. Trying to find purchase. Find solid ground. His fingers seized nothing but smooth rock, polished clean by his fire. Slicked with blood. The Arrancar convulsed again, his back arching toward the uncaring stone ceiling, and a distant corner of his mind felt something break- it might have been a finger. It might have been all of them. If he could have felt the agony, he would have wept with joy.
It might have distracted him from the black abyss that had opened on his chest, spreading out from his Hollow Hole.
WC: 809 | GP: 10 | Total: 10
