` If That's What It Takes `

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I don't know what to say.

For a moment, all I did was stare out at the past city of Tokyo, and I just... wondered. Where he was, what he was doing... and why. Why had I loved him? I thought that he was better off without me... and that I, too, would be better off if I was separated from my little brother. I loved him stupid, yes; somehow, though, there was something dangerous about that love that I saw in his eyes every time I looked at him. Something about him assured me that if I let him go on loving me the way he did, I was condemning him to death.

I gave him a choice. I told him that I didn't love him as much as he loved me, and yet that did not alienate his affection. That was why I sent him away; I knew then that he would never leave me of his own free will. I pushed him away... how was I to know that it was the other way around? How was I to know that it wasn't me that kept him alive, but rather the other way around?

It seems so stupid. I have a planet to preside over; I have my poor unhappy children of Nemesis to watch over. Why should I favour my grief over my duty? I loved my brother, yes, but why should my sorrow over losing him destroy the life that was supposed to be lived for my children?

I don't know why, but somehow, it is true. Sometimes, I think it would have been easier if he had just died. At least then, I would not have to cope with the empty, hollow feeling of unworthiness that Saffir's rejection has left in me. At least then, I would be able to go on with my life because I would simply have to accept the fact that I would never see him again.

But not like this... I will forever look at the things that remind me of what he was and what he has become. Every hall of my citadel echoes with his brief words; with every room I enter I can picture him in this chair, leaning against that wall... sleeping slumped over this computer or that report, his expression never changing... always melancholy, always blue.

I still remember the days when Saffir's nightmares were at their worst. Somehow, I knew when he was screaming his room down, even though the chambers were soundproof. I would wake up in a cold sweat, and find myself unable to go back to sleep. I would climb out of my own warm bed into the cool air of this Nemesis, and I would go to my brother... I would awaken him from his screaming nightmares by sitting on the edge of his bed and pulling him into my arms, cradling him until I felt he was calm enough to be awakened. I can remember the many times he would open those tired blue eyes and stare at me, almost unseeing... and I remember how thin and tired his voice always sounded after one of his nightmares. He would stare me in the eye and say "Oniisan, I love you so much, it makes my heart hurt."

It made my heart hurt, too, to see him suffer so. I don't know what his nightmares were about -- he never told me, and I never asked -- but I could guess. Saffir had been privy to a lot of sights and experiences over the years that would scar even the hardest of souls.

But without Saffir now, I feel... lost. Who will calm me when I have nightmares? Who will come to me to comfort me when I cry? No-one. I have lost the last person I can trust, the last person I can love... for Neo-Queen Serenity, my greatest love and desire, she loves me not.

And what can I do? I have failed my people, and I have failed miserably. I can't help but look out the window across the sky and wish that I were dead. Perhaps then the lives of these people can finally begin to heal... perhaps it is only then that everyone will be released from my obsessions and destructive ambition, and begin to live real lives again.

Without further thought, I turn around and go back to Nemesis. I know that even that peaceful city will not change my mind. The thought of running from my problems and living in the halcyon days of the twentieth century, in blissful anonymity... it doesn't appeal to me.

I loved my children. I loved them... and I only wanted to do what was right for them. I know that it may not have always seemed that way, and sometimes it was true. I was only doing it for myself, for my own ends. But the times that I was doing it solely for my children, my poor unhappy children of Nemesis, those times outweighed my selfish moments many, many times.

I remember how I was pulled out of my selfishness, too. Whenever I fell into my moments of excess, there was continually a voice that echoed through my mind, even when he was not physically there to do it.

I forget how many times he said that, but I took it very much to heart every time that he did. Somehow, my little brother had an incredible insight that I have never shared. I thought he was the sheltered one, the na•ve one, the one who never cared enough for the outside world to understand it the way he did. But he did... even if he rarely revealed it.

But now, I have lost that connection to that insight, and I have lost my direction. I am disillusioned; I don't know what I am to do. I feel...

I feel as if I have failed him. I have failed them... I have failed everyone.

It seems so weak, to sit here and stare at a blade which trembles even as I speak. What is that line? O happy dagger? Or perhaps we shall speak of an illusory dagger, one which shall not be used until the bell tolls for me... to summon me to heaven... or to Hell.

Melodrama. Yes... my life has become a melodrama, and I am lost... and what am I supposed to do? I think I am lost without a hope, lost without a trace, and these are the last words I have to say. I find that ironic; I am a demagogue, an orator, and I am lost for words.

I do not want to die. Who wants to end their life? Who wants to live through their own death? But... I want to be dead. I want to release everyone from my hold so that they can be happy again.

I do not want to commit this ritual suicide, this cleansing of my own conscience and the granting of the freedom of my people... I do not want to do it, because it seems weak, it seems the coward's way out. But there is no other way... I started this mission to give life to my people, and even though I have failed, I do not want to leave this great work unfinished. I do not wish to leave the burden on somebody else's shoulders... and I do not want to hurt anybody anymore. But it will free them even though it pains... for a moment, they will feel betrayed, and then it will be over. The tyrant will be dead and his rule over. I do not want to die, but if that is what it takes for my poor unhappy children to have a chance at living, then what else is there for me to do?

I do not want to hurt them anymore than I already have.

But that's what I'll do.

If that's what it takes.

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