For I have Sinned
Alhazred - [email protected] - www.almasymarquis.com/~stairway
Kikaider and all related material is ã Bandai.

What is real? How do you define 'real?'

How do you define human? What separates a human from something else, from a creation or a...a mad machine? Is it flesh, bone, blood, feeling?

Feeling...feeling is where the real confusion waits. But isn't confusion a feeling too? If I don't understand feelings, how can I even be confused?

I am confused. I...I'm downright sick. Am I sick? This one is confusing. Is 'sick' a feeling? An emotion? Part of the dark...

It must be, I don't have a stomach to feel sick with. So it must be a feeling, right? I've never felt this before. I don't know how to deal with it. I feel...I suppose this is what humans call being sick to their stomach. I'm not sure, I just...feel like that's how it is. Like Mitsuko would be telling me this if she were around to ask.

I really should find her. At the very least, she and Masaru probably worry. They probably wonder where I am, if I'll be back, they shouldn't have to...

...they shouldn't have to...

...I want my guitar.

They could live with a little worry. I need my guitar. If I know them, one of them has it. It just hadn't seemed like a big deal even after I'd learned just what the thing was for, but now...I've never missed it until now, until...until I can feel selfish.

Sick. Selfish. How sick can I get before all I want to do is curl up and sob? How sick was Mitsuko when her mother pulled the tri-

How did she cope with that? How did she watch that happen and go on so easily? I want to know. I want to know because I don't care how much watching that could've hurt...it hurt more to...

...kill my brothers...

I had no choice...

...to acknowledge that the ends justify the means. The ends justify the means. It's a simple concept. It's so simple and so easy to put into practice. He had to be stopped. He was insane. He had to be stopped. I didn't care how.

...so I killed my brothers...

And it wasn't like Dr. Komyoji's other robots, they never felt like family, but Ichiro and Rei...They would understand. If they could've known at the time that they were...

They were in my way.

Saburo, how did you live like this? I can't stand knowing both sides of the coin, the evil side of human nature as well as the good. How could you only know the other and be so damned sane? I hate you for that. Is this what you wanted me understand? How to hate? How to hold evil in my heart and let it loose for the world to see?

When I let it dictate my actions...when I plowed through Rei and Ichiro...I liked it. It felt like true freedom. But I know it wasn't. I know that believing such a thing would only be kidding myself. Maybe you didn't know that.

Or maybe you did. Even knowing that, I can feel the temptation to let go. To kill, to destroy, to be truly free for as long as I let myself and fall from grace for twice as long when I'm done. Dr. Gill's brain crushing in my hands was one of the most exquisite things I've felt since the day I woke up.

So why do the birds still bother me when I think about them? It wasn't like I'd known any better at the time and still...

Is this truly what it means to be human? To fight back at the evil in my heart so the rest remains untouched?

...if it is, than I failed that day.

I killed my brothers.

That's a pretty big failure. I can hear Ichiro laughing about it now...

...but he's not. Because he's scrap.

I wish he were still alive, I wish they were all still alive. But this isn't a mistake I can learn from and just clean up. I can only learn from it. No lesson is worth that price.

But now I know.

I even wish you were here, Hakaider. Because you knew...this. You wanted me to know and I think if you hadn't started believing it to be impossible, you would've kept toying with me until I understood.

And I want to understand. I'm not like Pinnocio, I can't go on with life like normal after suddenly feeling all of this, I can't!

I don't understand. I thought I understood before Mitsuko fixed my arm, when she warned me not to be angry, not to build my conscience around anger and revenge. I thought, after that night, I understood being happy sometimes, sad other times, loneliness, companionship...and love.

At least, I think it was love.

But I don't understand any of it like I thought I did. Why does hate come as easily as love? Why does selfishness come as easily as the calm I crave playing my guitar?

Why are feelings like this?

...I'm so confused.

~fin~

Refs:

-The opening line is from The Matrix.