nullorvoid | 004. [ANON TEXT]

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004. [ANON TEXT]

So once in a while we get this flashmob of people that show up and post all sorts of anonymous ethics stuff to the network and then they just kind of run off and then a couple months later it happens again, and I don't know if this place just has a revolving door of really inquisitive people or if it's the same people being really inquisitive on a schedule or what, so I'll just throw this out there to answer some of the questions you guys tend to throw out there if you really want to know.

1. Morality exists. "Good" and "evil" do not. I can try to explain this to you if you don't get it but people can't be truly good or evil, it's not something that happens. If you're wondering whether you're either, you're not.

2. People can't be broken either. I don't care what people say, on a fundamental level people can't be broken and you probably aren't either and if you're saying you are it's probably an excuse for not doing what you know you should be doing.

3. Everyone gets held responsible for their crap in the end. All of it, whether you meant to do it or not. Stuff you did that was bad, stuff that you did that you don't think was bad but hurt someone anyway, and all the good stuff too – you're going to get all that held up against you someday, either while you're alive or afterwards. So stop being a jackass and go make amends, you'll thank me later.

4. No one can judge the living. While you're still alive, you can change almost anything about your fate, so stop being stupid and go change stuff if you're not happy with the idea of dying tomorrow. Always make sure you'd be okay if you died tomorrow, just as a basic rule.

You can say whatever you want to any of that, I guess you can ask questions if you've got any, just know that I've got all of this stuff on good authority if you're bothered by any of this stuff or the answers you get. It weirds me out how many people don't know this sort of thing but it's something everyone kind of already knows back where I came from so I guess that's what's going on there. Do whatever you guys want with it or ignore it and go play with your fuzzy animals for a while, I don't really care.

[...Well, okay then.

Look, he's not used to actually talking to living people about this sort of thing. It's a little obvious, but there was an...attempt or something.]

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I appreciate that. I had never really given too much thought to what happens to us after we die. For a long time I was raised believing that we went to the world above, a holy land where the gods ruled, but that was a lie and since then I haven't been able to sort out my thoughts on the matter. Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me about this.

I guess my first question would be what happens after you've judged someone.

Okay first of all we need to have an agreement that my world might not be your world and for all I know you've got your gods and stuff going on over there. But where I'm from there's nothing like that. There's the world and there's the void, and then there's the tower where we decide where you're ending up.

When people die they show up in the tower, they meet me or someone like me and we judge them. After that, their soul passes on and either goes back to the world so they can be reincarnated as somebody else, or they go to the void, which is pretty much a graveyard for souls. If they get sent to the void they're completely dead and can't be brought back.

It's entirely made up. There aren't gods like that. The "gods" we worshiped are the people we're fighting against right now - they're the furthest thing from gods.

Even though our worlds are most likely different, it's very comforting to know that there is something after death. Reincarnation is a very nice idea, I think. I sincerely hope that happens in my world as well. How do you determine where the soul goes? Is it based on actions in the person's life?

Actions are part of it but intent counts for something. Good things can be done for selfish as hell reasons and we've got to take that into account, same for bad things that are done under the full belief that it wasn't a bad thing at all.

I see. That makes sense. I used to believe that people were either bad or good, but I don't think that's the case. It's sometimes really hard to believe that when I think about what we're up against back home, but I think even the people we're fighting have reasons for what they're doing. They must, it wouldn't make sense otherwise.

I have a question about what would happen to a specific person, but I'm not sure that's something you can answer without being able to meet him. Can I ask you anyway?

If you're asking me to pass judgement from a distance that's not going to happen. But I'm not going to stop you from asking either, go ahead.

I'll admit I'm fully curious about what sort of judgement you would pass on him, but I believe I need to talk about this in general, so even if there's nothing you can tell me, perhaps it will help. I apologize in advance if this gets long - I haven't talked to anyone about this.

The man in question is the leader of Adai village, where I was born and raised. He was in complete control of the village for as long as I can remember, and probably even longer than that. Adai is a very tiny village underground, like all of the towns humans occupy in my world. It could only support fifty people at the maximum, because of our limited supplies. I'm not sure how anyone found out that fifty was the upper limit there, but I imagine it must have happened well before I was born.

The elder created a fake religion so everyone would listen to him without question. We were told that going to the surface world would mean joining the gods. We would live a happy, fulfilling life if we were selected to go there. Someone was randomly chosen whenever the number of people in the village exceeded fifty. This happened for years and no one said anything. My mother was chosen and sent to the surface and I did nothing. The village chief became my family and he told me none of this.

I understand why he acted as he did. His primary concern was the survival of our village. He wanted to save as many people as possible. I think that's understandable. But the way he did it doesn't sit right with me. Lying to everyone and taking control, getting us to believe his every word so we would never question him... all of that is really hard for me to process. I trusted him. He was like a father to me and I think he was training me so I could take over someday. But in the end, he chose to send two orphans to the surface because they wouldn't be missed. They were children, younger than I am. He could have chosen me. I'm also an orphan. Would anyone have missed me?

If things had gone differently, I don't think I would have stood up for those kids. I think I would have let them die, because I trusted him. I trusted everything he had to say and I tried to believe that it would be okay.

I'm sorry, this got really long. I'm not sure I feel any better either, but it is nice to write all of this down. Even if there's no way you can tell me what you think would happen to him, I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

[And there's an easy answer that can be given to this, or at least for why he can't answer it properly; it's simple, logic-based, so obvious that it isn't until he's verifying for himself why he can't answer it that something seems to click over and he can feel himself go very, very still.

"H-Harada-kun's soul...? How do you get it to come back?"
"You need a soul to cast into the void in its place."

A person who intentionally causes the death of another is marked. This guy hadn't killed anyone himself, maybe, but deceiving someone in a way that leads to their death...

"What kind of person would it take to cast Harada into the void?"
"There's no way I'd ever do that!"
"Then you've already given me your answer, haven't you?"

...That's murder, right?

It takes him a bit too long to respond; thankfully it's a complicated story and an answer that requires thinking about, it gives him time to shake off the thoughts of stupid human girls and the level of trust that was necessary to get into that stupid elevator - not to rise to the surface, but knowing they'd go somewhere else entirely in hopes that someone else wouldn't.]

Like I said I can't pass judgement on anyone from a distance, it's just not going to happen, but if it makes it any better to you that's because I wouldn't be judging this guy at all in this case. I'm not supposed handle people like that because I don't have that much experience yet, I'm still pretty recent so I wouldn't even be allowed to see anyone like that because when I judge them I have to get their memories sent to me, I see and experience everything they have and people like that would screw me up.

People who do things like that are marked. You get like that when you kill people for unjust reasons, so not like in the case of war or in the line of duty or accidents but once you've committed murder. What this guy did to your mom and everyone else counts as murder because he wasn't honest about it, he didn't let them make an informed choice and that's a sort of messed up that I'm not allowed to have anywhere near my head yet.

So it's not judgement but I can tell you that there is a lot that's seriously wrong with that and I'm pretty sure that he'd be judged a lot more harshly because of all that, and if this is the guy you're not forgiving I can get why.

[Rossiu notices the delay, but given what he just dumped on an anonymous stranger, that's probably to be expected. It's going to take him awhile to form a response to what he receives in return.]

Thank you. I don't think I really need to know exactly what will happen to him, but knowing that it's messed up really helps. I figured it was, but I'm so close to the situation and it's difficult to consider it from other perspectives. I understand why he did what he did, but I think that's the most I can manage right now. Maybe in the future I'll be able to think about it with a clearer head, but for now knowing that what he did was really messed up helps a lot.

I feel much better now. I'm very sorry for sending all of this your way, especially when I don't even know who you are. But thank you very much for listening to me and helping me. I don't know if I can ever forgive him for what he's done, but I do hope that someday I'll be able to come to terms with everything. Knowing that I'm not mistaken and that what he did counts as murder really does help, in some ways. I'm not sure what that says about me and I'm honestly not sure I want to know.

It doesn't mean anything bad, just that you wanted closure on something and that sometimes you just want someone to tell you that something was screwed up and you're right to be mad about it.

Who knows, maybe I'll talk to you later now that I've got your ID. Weirder stuff has happened.

I haven't talked about this with anyone. Not here, not back home. I didn't want to bother anyone with it. We had more important things to worry about back home and here... well, I think I'm from a very messed up world in general. Almost everyone I've talked to has been from a much nicer, safer world. So I guess I didn't want to bother anyone with it here.

I do feel sort of bad for venting like this. I'm glad I got all of that sorted, but I really am sorry for sending all of this in your direction. If you would like to talk in the future, I'd really like that. Maybe I can make it up to you someday.

Trust me I've seen some messed up stuff even without working with the murderers, I get their victims a lot. So it's not like I'm going to be horrified or anything by stuff you want to talk about and it's not like you're bothering me, I get bored pretty easily so I'm not going to whine about someone wanting to talk to me in the first place.

Maybe I'll have to tell you about the world I'm from sometime. A lot of it seems to be pretty unbelievable, especially compared to a place like this.

...Then again, I'm not sure what that says about my world when Pokémon are more believable.

[WAS THAT A JOKE??]

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