Why?
Why oh why oh WHY a demon-eater, of all things?! I mean, at least you’re an anima, but I’d’ almost have preferred you be a florus — or even a symbi!
Why, at least then I wouldn’t have had to put up with such — such…!
UGH!
I SWEAR! There is no concept more frustratingly irritating than government!
…
Okay, well, perhaps that’s not entirely true, but…
UGH!
Things are so much easier when I can be in charge! But since I’ll only disappear if my physical body dies, I can’t exactly become a Dead One.
Ooooh…! I’d say you owe me, if not for the fact that you will never have the opportunity to pay me back.
Oh — WOE IS ME!
I know I said this was a rather decent governmental system — and I MEANT that! — but…
Ugh. NOTHING makes dealing with authority figures easier in ANY world, I swear!
And them being the Symbi just makes it MORE frustrating!
Alright…! Alright…
You can get through this… Just…
Remind yourself of the good things!
The Symbi are good leaders — the system works. It’s just that they’re slow-
-No! No, they’re, um… Thorough.
Yes… Yes. Thorough.
Which is good! Them being… Thorough.
And, um… (c’mon, you can come up with something else)
… Impartial! Yeah.
… Yeah!
Yeah, the Symbi are unbiased in their rule over the Anima. The Anima are compassionate in their rule over the Florus. And the Florus are, um… motivated — in their rule over the Symbi!
Right. Yeah.
… Ugh. This isn’t helping.
Am I in a mood? Perhaps I’m simply in a mood.
… No. I can’t even convince myself of that.
Ugh! Time to admit it to myself: I miscalculated.
Yes. It’s true, Future Heir. Even after an entire lifetime of studying how to navigate the Crossroad, mistakes are all but inevitable.
You see, then, why even my ice-cold heart had pity on you?
… Heh. I can hear some of my past loves mocking me for that statement. “Ice-cold?” they’d say, “When the source of this breakdown you’re having is–?!”
…
Heh…
Get used to having a broken heart, Future Heir. It’s the only kind you’ll ever have.
You’ll think you’ve gotten over it, and then it will start bleeding again the moment you see, for example, a brainwashed “peacekeeper” forced to murder an innocent child.
Haugh… Why?
Why did you have to be a demon-eater?
… Why did my aim have to miss?
I wanted to live my final life in a peaceful world! I thought I’d aimed for the center of a peaceful portion of this world’s timeline — not the END of its peace!
You may have figured this out by now, but the “lower-leaders” were just peacekeeper-soldiers trained by the Dead Ones. They didn’t really hold their own authority.
Well, they did, but… only as far as their — our — job entailed.
We were trained to keep the environment peaceful and, well, balanced. Because if an area became too over- or under-saturated in an energy type — people could die.
Granted, balancers were the greatest threat to that balance.
If a balancer became too prizmally “hungry” for the energy type they needed, they would end up setting a Balancer’s Flame; anyone who came into contact with the balancer, and then anyone they came in contact with, and so-on, would become a breeding ground for the balancer’s energy type.
The Dead Ones did everything to avoid that disaster.
Not the least of which was inundating the balancers with mental blockages and conditioning against setting Flames.
So you see, balancers naturally held quite a lot of power, but, if anything, they were the lowest class of citizen.
… Hey, honest question: Can you call people “citizens” if there are no countries? ‘Cause there weren’t countries on my homeworld — the Dead Ones ruled over all Illunira.
… Eh. Whatever, I guess. There used to be countries before I was born, but that was generations ago.
Before the “War of Instability.”
See, the reason balancers were so feared wasn’t just because of how powerful they were.
But because they used to be the ruling class.
Originally, every world leader was a balancer. But they started fighting over contradicting ideals and their desire for each others’ resources. (So, y’know. Typical reasons.)
The Symbi were the ones who came up with the new system — as the name I picked for them might suggest, they were quite adept at “living in harmony.”
According to them, we needed unbiased rulers. And who better to be unbiased than the Dead Ones? After all, before this new system went into place, they weren’t even interested in interacting with the Illunirans — before, they just wanted to live what remained of their time here in peace, floating above the clouds and… doing whatever it was they did up there in the atmosphere.
… I suppose the saddest bit might be that this world’s government really does work quite well, otherwise — having those who have no stake in Illunira’s affairs be in charge is quite ingenious. The “Dead Ones” themselves are just… Fascinating.
This same-world afterlife is one of those “alien aspects” I’ve grown quite fond of, but this is the first I’ve seen the two states-of-being interact so often.
In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that the very act of bringing them in would create the very same biases that dooms every government to failure.
But… That distance from the livings’ affairs has its drawbacks as well, of course. There’s always some catch in imperfect worlds like these.
Heh. I say “like these” as though I’ve ever managed to reach a perfect world! Here’s another piece of advice, Future Heir:
Although… I suppose I can’t say for sure that the balancers didn’t deserve to be treated the way the system treated them. I don’t really know what Illunira was like back then.
Don’t bother trying to reach a “perfect world.”
-It’s not that they don’t exist! They do!
But since you originated from an IMperfect one —
Crossroad of Infinity 
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