Shattering Humanity-Chapter 133: ’Cogito Ergo Sum’

{5:05 PM In the half full cafeteria within Sanpaku}

Both Dom and TayTay are clearing plates of food in comedic fashion while both Sol and Charybdis watch from the other side of the table in half disgust and half amazement.A beautiful display with a variety of different foods being overshadowed by gross displays of max gluttony at work.

As Dom leans back and gives up his attempt to out eat the giant of a man, Taylor grabs his competitor’s unfinished plate and dumps it on top of his own food and returns to the plate without losing his original pace.

Sol: "Slow down there Big Guy, how many times do I have to tell you that you might choke!?"

Charybdis chuckles and takes a bite of his own ham steak.Char: "I don’t think he’s chokin’ anytime soon, Sol. Whether it’s with food or fighting.From what Uncle Mina told us, Taylor had one of those two Roronora Clowns on the ropes, even before Shelly and Katsu showed up. I’m sure he could’ve taken on both of your attackers with ease."

He holds up his thumb to the ’Giga-Beast-Man’.

Char: "Just don’t let that blind rage go and end up hurting an ally or your Momma, okay big fellah?"

TayTay, with the messy, full mouth, nods and swallows his food. Revealing his food covered, big toothed smile.Sol lets out a ’mother’s sigh’ and reaches over the table with a napkin.

Sol: "Come here, Big Guy."

TayTay: (giggles) "MaMa."

Sol wipes his mouth and the glutton continues his destruction of the pile of food in front of him.

Dom: "Aaarrghh, I’m not feeling so hot you guys... Goddamn Tay... you fat... fat... God I can’t even think straight I’m so stuffed with food. How the hell do you digest all that so quickly, you monster?" 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Dom almost throws up but holds it back and leans back further in his chair to stretch his stomach. Trying to create more room for his swallowed mistakes.

Daisuki overhears the half joking question from the defeated amateur eater and approaches the table with a simple lunch tray of food, his eyes puffy from what looks like heavy crying but he talks like the ’Jupiter’ that they all know him as. He sits down next to Taylor while talking to them all.

Daisuki: "It’s the reason for his existence and his reason to continue living as far as we know. Combined with the simple fact his body is loved by the world’s energy, this young man definitely has the potential to be an actual ’Human Nuke’, capable of killing cities of people without any troubles but the annoying cries of those in his path.Luckily, Saku was able to point you in the right direction, huh Buddy?"

Taylor again nods with a mouth full of food and swallows.TayTay: "Sock. Friend.Sock. Teach me, how to friends."

Sol is amazed by the sentence Taylor was able to concoct to express his appreciation for the Yin delinquent.

Daisuki smiles and takes a small pitiful bite of his food.

Daisuki: "At least one of us can."

The rest of the group gives him sympathetic looks and Sol puts her fork down and stands up.

Sol: "Where are Shelly and Katsu?! Didn’t they come back with you after rescuing Itsuka?!"

Daisuki doesn’t look up from his food and the silence pretty much answers the question for the table.

Sol: "Don’t tell me they went to save ’Shithead’ from the mess he put himself into?!"

Daisuki’s eyes shimmer with a tear coated gloss.

Daisuki: "I promised all three of them...the first day Squad 40 met. Back in the old steak house restaurant in Mount Nona. I told them that I would help guide them and lead them in the right direction so ’I could die knowing humanity is ascending towards the ultimate level of greatness’."

The group is listening, with no members from Squad 40 present, to the self doubt of the Squad mentor’s decisions.

Daisuki: "But what I allowed Katsu and Shelly to do, in the passion and heat of the emotional moment, was that the best option to help humanity reach the ultimate pinnacle?All of these misfortunes, forcing those three to play the roles as ’terrorists’ that they’ve been mislabeled as, and the events that led up to a true angel of a woman, being seriously injured over the one she loves. Since leaving the mountains, those 4 young adults have suffered and have had a metaphorical and literal barrel directed at them, all because of me. From the regretful failures of my life before the apocalypse, to my lies trying to hide those mistakes as if they never happened, and my inability to be a true leader.To simply steer the next generation in the proper direction, I can’t even do that right.I feel like I am losing my purpose. My existence only has the resumé of a demon influencing dysfunction and leading chaos towards the innocent. No matter how hard I try, the decisions I make only lead to the ending of the existence of those who have caused no harm.Why am I fated to live as a demon in this world?"

Char and Dom listen with full focus and empathy towards the man who has been trying his hardest to do what he feels right, in hopes of atonement for his personal mistakes. Tay is fully invested in the food in front of him as he finishes scraping the plate.Sol looks displeased with the pitifulness of the ’Head Hancho’.

Sol: "Tsk. Existence this. Existence that. All you ’deep thinkers’ are the same, you get depressed over your own scary thoughts, leading to unanswerable questions, making others around you start thinking in the same depressing way.That’s why Taylor is the most intellectual, compared to all of you. He doesn’t sit there and ’ponder the universe’, he just lives and loves."

Char: "That’s cuz it takes at least a double digit IQ to ponder the universe."

Sol’s fist connects to the top of the blue haired Gunner, knocking him to the floor.Sol looks back towards Daisuki.

Sol: "How do you know this energy collecting universe, based on pseudoscience, even exists anyway? How do you know we aren’t characters in a fictional story being scripted to say certain things, do certain things, and making us believe it’s all our own free will? The average human can only recall 25% of their life’s memories. Maybe our backstories haven’t been written yet and we’ll ’remember’ them once they have been."

The boys listen to the lecture from the only present female, as well as the youngest current member of Takamagahara. Char gets up and sits down. He gives an answer while looking at the table in front of him, concentrating on his words.

Char: "’Cogito ergo sum’.’I think, therefore I am’.It is one of the most important sayings to keep the ’philosophical faith’ of our existence alive. Even before technology and computer programs, ancient philosophers wondered how they could prove ’THIS’ was all real.What is ’THIS’, that we are all experiencing, as life from a single individual point of view?"

Taylor sniffs a rib sandwich and eats it in one whole bite.

Char: "The ability to ponder on ideas and each individual being able to say ’cogito ergo sum’ out loud, meant only two things for the philosophical pioneers. That there was a mistake in the ’programming’ or ’creation’ of their existence as an ’organic machine’, that our senses mold a false reality to our brain encased in our skull. OR, there is no ’mental prison simulation’ at all, and this existence is not a manufactured reality, but a natural reality where one can wonder whether something ’is’ or ’isn’t’.Whether something is possible or impossible. Whether something is worth living for or worth dying over.All on their own."

Sol, having the prickly attitude of a teenager, snaps back with a seemingly childish but also highly advanced philosophical follow up question.

Sol: "But how do you know anything is actually ’real’? You could be a drug addict on a permanent trip in a dirty bathroom of a 3rd world country. This could all be a dream."

Dom picks his teeth with his fingernail and smells what he pulls out, then flicks it away.

Dom: "Dreams have no continuity, even in repeating dreams there are small differences that the dreamer doesn’t recognize or remember.Dreaming was probably the catalyst for Plato and Aristotle to begin their individual philosophical journeys to find the answer. Being able to achieve the physically impossible in our dreams proved Plato’s theory right, that the only true reality is the ’world of ideas’ in our minds. So if we are just characters in a fictional world, created by the ideas of some nerd, technically we exist no matter what.Geez, and you all act like I’m the one with the slow keep up..."

Sol continues her unwavering attempt to break the philosophical session with a seemingly arrogant but philosophically beautiful question into more thinking amongst them.

Sol: "By saying dreams have no laws, that’s a law in itself, no? So that’s a self contradicting statement.You can’t have your defense be dreams having no laws, then proceed to establish laws. The sole contradiction breaks the theory completely. Plus, I’ve failed in dreams before, doesn’t that make dreams a reality with the rules you’ve set forth?"

While the four men sit stunned by the incredible philosophical adversary, another fellow Takamagahara member hears the question and Aiden sits down across from Sol.

Aiden: "You sure like to play the contrarian during these discussions, huh Sol?"

Sol shrugs and locks human eyes with the #1 genius of Sanpaku.

Sol: "Someone has to, right?"

Aiden gives a friendly smile to the young 16 year old.

Aiden: "Well, since you’ve created a personal philosophical false positive error in Dominic’s theory, biased off your position in this discussion, I’ll step in. Your failures in dreams are where nightmares come into play. Whether the dreamer fully believes they are capable of achieving such wishes or doesn’t yet realize their potential, the dream becomes a nightmare if the undesirable outcome happens before awakening and returning to existence. The dreamer will be thankful for the false reality, proving they are vulnerable to the lows as well as highs of life.’ Law should combine both persuasion and compulsion’. This was in reference to human social laws, but if you willingly, try to reference that statement to an example of what may be the dream to one person, being seen as a nightmare to another."

Sol: "But, if a person fails in this, ’free willed existence’, it could actually be because the loss was predetermined to happen. What is impossible and possible, is decided by the one who ’writes the script’ or ’programs the code’."

Aiden: "What is seen as impossible by the masses at the beginning of a day’s morning, can be changed and influenced by the leadership of one extremely persuasive individual, over night. Because conflicting ideologies exist and create hate, dysfunction, and sorrow, it is an example of an independent existence."

Sol: "Because it was meant to be that way from the start, by predetermined planning of a true ’Designer’ of this universe.But in order to comply without mental breakdowns from all of us ’side-characters’ we think all this is natural and our own choices."

Daisuki’s eyes widen from the last statement made by the young girl and this time he gets up in anger, slamming his hands down on the table. Silencing the few other groups in the cafeteria.

Daisuki: "No! If you’re allowed to continuously deny and only believe in ’your’ reality as the truth, then I’m allowed to see my belief in this reality as the truth, too! THAT is the proof ’I’ need! You kids may not always get along, and you are all a pain in my fucking ass! But goddamn it, I love you all, and you’re all a family now whether you like it or not! You’ve all been pushed out from the remaining societies and into Hell or unjustifiably accused of hurting the innocent! But I’ll be damned if I feel guilty for unleashing the hounds. Especially on an actual demon, who physically punished Itsuka for her crimes of love. Guilty, only of loving a delinquent introvert, who has been starved of the compassion of a female human soul his whole life."

The alien heterochromic eyes of the always Squad 40 Mentor holds back tears and looks forward with all resolve.

Daisuki: "I trust that those three will come back safe, without harming any of the innocent, or I swear, on my life as a man ’wanting’ to do the right thing, I will kill myself."

The entire cafeteria goes into shock from the declaration of their highly respected leader

Daisuki: "If any innocent or non-hostile Roronora Civilians get killed by my three disciples, in their invasion attempt, I will call off my wedding with Scylia, and I will kill myself. Before I accidentally lead more chaos and horror to more innocent!"