Post by Takuya on May 29, 2009 22:47:15 GMT 1
The beginning was in darkness. Legends tell of a dark time, long ago, when the first of man entered this world. Ushered in by the divine, man walked on the earth and there was change. Wherever man went, his wisdom and his grace brought life and vitality to the earth. All was in balance. Man lived and died, like all animals, and there was balance. But man was not the same as the animals with whom he lived. Man’s mind bore greater fruit than those of the beast, and with that fruit came energy, and the essence of true life. Such was this power that allowed man to live with such passion. This passion, this life, was not content to be extinguished when man died.
So it was that the Spirit Realm was created. Man was not content to die in peace and be gone, like all those who came before him. Man, in his passion, brought into the world a second world, the mirror of Earth. Where life flourished, in our world death thrived. Where there was earth, and body, and matter, in our world there was air, and spirit, and energy. All that we know was formed from this. And so there was balance again, even in the world itself. Ever turning, like the earth, the flow of spirits went from life to death, where they returned again to life. On both sides new life and death was created, ever flowing and renewing. For a time, there was balance, and in that balance there was paradise.
And then there came a day when man’s wisdom had grown vast, such that the power to upset the balance was in his hands. Man was tempted by his wisdom, by the promise of a better life if only the life of the world was made a little worse. It was a temptation and a trick, but man fell for it, and so began the upsetting of the balance. As man brought the other under his control, the balance of man and nature was broken, tipping all scales by tipping but one. In this paradise for the race of man only, his life was long and peaceful while the world suffered. And so man did not die, as he should, but lived, and the balance of death was poor indeed. But as balance will always find a way, the waning paradise found its answer in damnation.
The first murder was committed in man’s paradise. The first life, taken intentionally without need, out of anger, and hate, was made on Earth. And so, overwhelmed with the weight of what he had done, the murderer committed the second murder of the earth, taking his own life. So born were the first two hollows, the empty souls. The first was he who had been killed, lost and confused in the land of death, rent from all he held dear too early. In his bitterness and anger, he was consumed. The second was he who had killed, trapped in the land of the dead by the weight of his crime, unable to bear the stain of destruction on his hands. In his guilt and sorrow, he was consumed.
And so the darkness spread, and grew, and the Hollows grew stronger, and multiplied. The lands of death were soon filled with the sands of quartz and the trees of crystal, and in the south of the lands of death grew the great desert that burns with hatred to this day. In this place, thick with the remains of broken souls, the hollows became mighty. But as all things must balance, the people of the land of the death, the full souls, the pluses, hunted to near extinction, found in their souls a kindred spirit, birthing to this world the Shinigami, foes of all Hollows. They, too, grew strong and multiplied, and the balance in death was restored. But it was only a balance of death, not of life. The Earth remained a land of horrible imbalance, and the Hollows knew that both they and the Shinigami were only the results of imbalance. And so, they ventured into the earth to balance the world again, to remove humans from the earth and bring about ultimate order once more.
But the Shinigami, more human than the hollows, could not bear the death of men, and so they chose to defend the living, to protect the imbalance, unknowingly. They thus became the enemy once more, the foe, the endless rival. There was balance in the war for many years, but slowly, it was destroyed again. The Shinigami became too powerful, too strong, and so the first hollow, the lord of all hollows, restored the balance once more.
His mask was removed, and with it some of the anger and vengeance of was cast into nothingness. The Arrancar was born that day, and the full savagery of the Hollow within sealed away. And so with it was stripped some of the darkness in the soul of the Arrancar, a darkness that would be returned to the earth when the Vaizard would be born. But for a time, there was balance again, as the rising strengths on either side of the world found balance every few centuries, with great forces paving the way to victory for one side or the other for a few decades here and there. Always, the darkness is matched with light, always the light reformed to meet the darkness. So has the war raged, for more years than can be remembered.
The true meaning of the war has become lost from the minds of both sides. In centuries past, even the humans themselves have joined the war. Ever grows the strength of the united races, human and Shinigami, against the lone Hollows. But ever has grown the might of Hollows, matchless, to meet those of the souls who would prevent the world from being returned to it’s natural state. The meaning of the war has disappeared, but the war will rage on ‘till it is rediscovered and the glorious end brought with the extermination of human life on earth…
So it was that the Spirit Realm was created. Man was not content to die in peace and be gone, like all those who came before him. Man, in his passion, brought into the world a second world, the mirror of Earth. Where life flourished, in our world death thrived. Where there was earth, and body, and matter, in our world there was air, and spirit, and energy. All that we know was formed from this. And so there was balance again, even in the world itself. Ever turning, like the earth, the flow of spirits went from life to death, where they returned again to life. On both sides new life and death was created, ever flowing and renewing. For a time, there was balance, and in that balance there was paradise.
And then there came a day when man’s wisdom had grown vast, such that the power to upset the balance was in his hands. Man was tempted by his wisdom, by the promise of a better life if only the life of the world was made a little worse. It was a temptation and a trick, but man fell for it, and so began the upsetting of the balance. As man brought the other under his control, the balance of man and nature was broken, tipping all scales by tipping but one. In this paradise for the race of man only, his life was long and peaceful while the world suffered. And so man did not die, as he should, but lived, and the balance of death was poor indeed. But as balance will always find a way, the waning paradise found its answer in damnation.
The first murder was committed in man’s paradise. The first life, taken intentionally without need, out of anger, and hate, was made on Earth. And so, overwhelmed with the weight of what he had done, the murderer committed the second murder of the earth, taking his own life. So born were the first two hollows, the empty souls. The first was he who had been killed, lost and confused in the land of death, rent from all he held dear too early. In his bitterness and anger, he was consumed. The second was he who had killed, trapped in the land of the dead by the weight of his crime, unable to bear the stain of destruction on his hands. In his guilt and sorrow, he was consumed.
And so the darkness spread, and grew, and the Hollows grew stronger, and multiplied. The lands of death were soon filled with the sands of quartz and the trees of crystal, and in the south of the lands of death grew the great desert that burns with hatred to this day. In this place, thick with the remains of broken souls, the hollows became mighty. But as all things must balance, the people of the land of the death, the full souls, the pluses, hunted to near extinction, found in their souls a kindred spirit, birthing to this world the Shinigami, foes of all Hollows. They, too, grew strong and multiplied, and the balance in death was restored. But it was only a balance of death, not of life. The Earth remained a land of horrible imbalance, and the Hollows knew that both they and the Shinigami were only the results of imbalance. And so, they ventured into the earth to balance the world again, to remove humans from the earth and bring about ultimate order once more.
But the Shinigami, more human than the hollows, could not bear the death of men, and so they chose to defend the living, to protect the imbalance, unknowingly. They thus became the enemy once more, the foe, the endless rival. There was balance in the war for many years, but slowly, it was destroyed again. The Shinigami became too powerful, too strong, and so the first hollow, the lord of all hollows, restored the balance once more.
His mask was removed, and with it some of the anger and vengeance of was cast into nothingness. The Arrancar was born that day, and the full savagery of the Hollow within sealed away. And so with it was stripped some of the darkness in the soul of the Arrancar, a darkness that would be returned to the earth when the Vaizard would be born. But for a time, there was balance again, as the rising strengths on either side of the world found balance every few centuries, with great forces paving the way to victory for one side or the other for a few decades here and there. Always, the darkness is matched with light, always the light reformed to meet the darkness. So has the war raged, for more years than can be remembered.
The true meaning of the war has become lost from the minds of both sides. In centuries past, even the humans themselves have joined the war. Ever grows the strength of the united races, human and Shinigami, against the lone Hollows. But ever has grown the might of Hollows, matchless, to meet those of the souls who would prevent the world from being returned to it’s natural state. The meaning of the war has disappeared, but the war will rage on ‘till it is rediscovered and the glorious end brought with the extermination of human life on earth…
