Homura calmly looked at Nataku after the boy made his demand, recognizing well the shell that they'd both apparently learned to act within. Though both Taishi seemed outwardly distant, Homura had little doubt that the emotions were still very much there, and very volatile. He'd have to tread carefully.
"They didn't fight for the sake of the gods. They fought for themselves, and that's why I can think fondly of that battle." The difference was critical, and it was important that Nataku understand that if he were to truly understand what Homura had become over the course of his long life. "But I will tell you, as you wish. I'd intended to all along."
Homura again turned to the flowers he so appreciated, and began recalling his history with a detachment that defied his true feelings. "Unlike you, because I was related to the Jade Emperor of the time, I wasn't immediately trained to be a War Prince. Instead, the gods kept me in prison--completely in the dark, except for a small bit of light that came from under a door, and the voices of the guards on their patrols. There was nothing in that world, and the only comfort I ever found was in learning that one day, I would die. For me, there was nothing else to put hope in.
But my death didn't come soon enough for the gods, and one day I was released. The Jade Emperor granted me my freedom, or at least, as much as they grant any being that they deem unclean." Nataku would know well what Homura meant by that. "In a clear voice, he asked me, 'How long do you intend to live?'
Yet I wasn't alive in any significant sense of the word. I still lacked a purpose, or desire. The only thing that had changed was my housing. The prison was still within me, and just as real. I was just as dead as I had always been."
Homura paused then, not for Nataku, but for himself, and a smile crossed his face. This was the part of his story he would always have fond memories of, regardless of how the gods had ruined its outcome. "Then I met someone. She was a god, a woman named Rinrei. But unlike the others, she didn't look at me with disdain. She didn't see me as a heresy, and eventually, we fell in love. Yet she knew my fate was to die someday, and it troubled her so much. That was when I finally found it: the desire to live, for the purpose of protecting the happiness of the woman I loved.
But no one knows better than the heretical beings just how cruel the gods can be." The happiness that was found in a memory was just as brief as the time he'd had with Rinrei. Now, anger marked Homura's expression, and his features grew tighter as he continued. "Taking a lover is something also forbidden to us, and the gods punished both Rinrei and I. She was taken into custody while I was left free, until another rebellion happened. In the wake of the then Toushin Taishi's suicide, and the uproar caused by three gods in their attempt to flee with a heretical boy to the Lower World, I was again put into that prison. I can't tell you how much time passed, but it was enough. And the next time I saw the outside, I was informed that the woman I loved was to be reincarnated to the Lower World as a human, and that I was to take on the title of Toushin Taishi."
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"They didn't fight for the sake of the gods. They fought for themselves, and that's why I can think fondly of that battle." The difference was critical, and it was important that Nataku understand that if he were to truly understand what Homura had become over the course of his long life. "But I will tell you, as you wish. I'd intended to all along."
Homura again turned to the flowers he so appreciated, and began recalling his history with a detachment that defied his true feelings. "Unlike you, because I was related to the Jade Emperor of the time, I wasn't immediately trained to be a War Prince. Instead, the gods kept me in prison--completely in the dark, except for a small bit of light that came from under a door, and the voices of the guards on their patrols. There was nothing in that world, and the only comfort I ever found was in learning that one day, I would die. For me, there was nothing else to put hope in.
But my death didn't come soon enough for the gods, and one day I was released. The Jade Emperor granted me my freedom, or at least, as much as they grant any being that they deem unclean." Nataku would know well what Homura meant by that. "In a clear voice, he asked me, 'How long do you intend to live?'
Yet I wasn't alive in any significant sense of the word. I still lacked a purpose, or desire. The only thing that had changed was my housing. The prison was still within me, and just as real. I was just as dead as I had always been."
Homura paused then, not for Nataku, but for himself, and a smile crossed his face. This was the part of his story he would always have fond memories of, regardless of how the gods had ruined its outcome. "Then I met someone. She was a god, a woman named Rinrei. But unlike the others, she didn't look at me with disdain. She didn't see me as a heresy, and eventually, we fell in love. Yet she knew my fate was to die someday, and it troubled her so much. That was when I finally found it: the desire to live, for the purpose of protecting the happiness of the woman I loved.
But no one knows better than the heretical beings just how cruel the gods can be." The happiness that was found in a memory was just as brief as the time he'd had with Rinrei. Now, anger marked Homura's expression, and his features grew tighter as he continued. "Taking a lover is something also forbidden to us, and the gods punished both Rinrei and I. She was taken into custody while I was left free, until another rebellion happened. In the wake of the then Toushin Taishi's suicide, and the uproar caused by three gods in their attempt to flee with a heretical boy to the Lower World, I was again put into that prison. I can't tell you how much time passed, but it was enough. And the next time I saw the outside, I was informed that the woman I loved was to be reincarnated to the Lower World as a human, and that I was to take on the title of Toushin Taishi."