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death may be the only absolute freedom
Weird people behaving weirdly
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He is here, now. Sitting on a hill (well, floating, held by the light of his soul), surrounded by fog.
Why is he here? What caused it?
He died, making a sacrifice. Was it the right thing? What would make it right?
Is that an expression of his freedom, his existence not obeying the normal rules of causality? Or, like some of the Lilin believe, life is a trap from which death does not grant escape?

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"Hello! Do you hear me?"

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"Just couldn't not notice you, well, floating here. In the middle of the Grand Differentiation Valley!
...
Who are you?"

(He scans for magic. The magical background is increased as usual for the valley. Nothing about Kaworu is detectable as magic to Raz's senses. Which is very weird, in such circumstances.)

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"The Angel of Free Will."
Kaworu keeps staring in the distance, barely reacting.

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"That implies that angels are 'of' something. And that you are the only one Of Free Will. Which doesn't fully align with my understanding of angels. Are you some sort of...Exarch? Or Manifestation?"

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"I...am a manifestation."

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"Were you waiting for me? Are you sent to deliver a message, about my current mission, or what is happening generally?"
After all, freedom and messages seem, in the context of divine beings and manifestations, to be...wait, no, wrong metaphysics, nevermind.

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"Not to my knowledge.
I had no intention to meet you, or tell you anything. Nor any other intention.
But fate often works regardless of our wills."

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"You would probably know, being a manifestation of free will.
Why are you here then? What are you doing? Unless youre just, you know, meditating, thinking about life."

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"I do not know why I am here. Or anywhere else. I do think about life."

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"Why would you..not be anywhere?"

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"I died. And did not expect to continue existing. Not in a physical form capable of...sight, and speech."

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"Huh. Well, that's not that rare an occurrence in the omniverse. Relatively speaking. Even has three-syllable words that describe it, and such! People have many theories about why that happens. Though I personally think most of them are nonsense."

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"How did you die, and what all did you do, or wanted, before?"

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"I was created with great power, and no set course. My choices would determine the fate of the world. My kind, if able to fulfill their purpose, would destroy humanity. The strongest of them, I chose to die rather than let that happen.
I do not know what I wanted, exactly. Love. For Shinji, who fought to save humanity. Fulfillment of prophecy, but it would have been fulfilled either way. Freedom, to choose unexpected actions, go against my nature. And to die."

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"Don't know who this Shinji is, but am totally in favor of saving humanity. How could you go against your nature, though, if your nature is free will? Isn't that paradoxical?"
He assumes it all happened in a different world, if happened at all. Isekai is evidence of favor. And he doesn't expect to get clear answers on interdimensional geography from this guy. He barely understands it himself.

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"The nature of angels, as of all creatures, is to survive, by destroying their enemies. Doing so would have been the simplest course of action for me.
I was born with the destiny of freedom, so I could choose. According to the prophecy. It is paradoxical. So I was never told what my fated choice is. Only that this destiny exists, and I had the freedom to decide, and what the prophets themselves wanted me to do. I acted against their desires, in the end.
But maybe they told me lies. Or were mistaken. There is no way to tell."

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"They could have lied about the nature of angels! Considering this is not at all what I think the word 'angel' means. Though words are always flawed. And...actually, do you notice the language you are speaking in?"

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"Words are the expression of thought. I do not need to learn a language to say the right words."

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"Here you go then, the imperfection of automatic translation through the noosphere. I think.
What exactly do you mean when you talk about angels, though? I want to understand."

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Passing through the barriers between souls is easy for the Vessel of Adam. Thoughts flow directly between the two speakers:
The Seed of Life, falling to Earth. Shattering into pieces. Each continues living. Endless energy flowing, constantly changing, shaping itself into unimaginable forms. The ground shaking, space bending into impossible shapes. All seek to return to the source, be combined together, a process of mind-shattering power.

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!

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"Fuck! That was unpleasant. You know, people who aren't as enlightened and mentally stable as me might consider that 'horror beyond mortal comprehension', or something like that. And showing it to them as a hostile act!"

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"You wanted to understand."

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"I totally did, yeah."

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"And you are the...strongest, of this bunch?"

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"A human vessel for the echoes of the original Seed. Considered first by the humans, yet the last of the angels."

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"Your levitation, or anything else you might be doing, is not magical. Not 'arcane energy', that is. There are other types of mystical energies, which i studied! But don't have a good way to actually measure."

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"So you died, and, uh...what now? What will you do?"
Most incarnations of Raz, including this one, have what D&D rules would consider to be "Charisma 7", or 8.
He wants to fully know the worldview and moral/metaethical considerations of this guy, as he does for all people he speaks with. But he doesn't have a good way to just ask that. Even if Raz himself is never embarrassed about seeming to say something wrong, and this gu-the Angel Vessel seems to not care about human norms of politeness or conversation flow. But questions should still be coherent and relevant!

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"I have no goals, no purpose. To be divine is to be passive, for all action and desire is caused by imperfection.
I made my one decision. Chose freedom from plans, and goals. And life itself.
It...didn't work? Is it freedom from death itself, dying and not being beholden to it, or is the inability to die itself a lack of freedom?"

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"You know, I think you were spot on about fate causing things without our own intentions. Because that is exactly my situation, too! Regarding death, I mean.
Did you die only once, or several times?"

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"Adam died, creating me, which might count. Only once after that, as I know."

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"I am, sort of, dying constantly. And yeah, death is weird without the finality.
For me it is a lack of freedom, to some extent. Being forced to live. I do like some things about living, just not everything. It's, you know, work. But it's good too. I don't think I could exist forever if I actually really enjoyed it. That was part of a...compromise, sort of? That I am given an oppurtunity to do my job, which I don't enjoy, but will never abandon.
But...not abandoning it is not a lack of freedom? It's a choice I would mostly make anyway. And life is sometimes less hard, less work. Certainly if I always had divine powers! There isn't that much difference between not being able to die, and always choosing not to? A real choice is not random, it's resulting from your goals and values. Well, unless you get into the differences between Choice and Decision. And whether you consider the Mind-Heart dichotomy to be a useful model of reality.
I think what I am saying is that whether things are freedom or not is not important to me, just whether they are good or bad.
If it is very important to you...I still think freedom is contextual. You are unfree if you are unable to do something you want or need, but not otherwise. Unless you value freedom so terminally that at every point, you need to be able to make every single decision with every result. Which I am not sure is possible. Even if you are some sort of hyper-god, that just has logical contradictions.
But the freedom of doing what you want is almost always attainable, if not very easy."

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"That makes sense..."

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"Do you have any physical needs? Can you imagine any kind of bad thing happening to you, because of external circumstances?"

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"No. I am an angel, protected by the light of my soul."

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"You don't have internal motivations beyond thinking, and currently the only external one is answering my questions, right? Though you do that in more detail than I would expect otherwise.
But you could just sit here, for hundreds of years, doing nothing, if you don't decide that you should?"

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"Yes."

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"Are there any things you enjoy, would prefer to be true, find being better if they existed, or were present, despite not being motivated to try and get them?"

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"Music is good. The beautiful harmony."

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"Music is great! I am not myself any good at singing or playing, unfortunately."

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"And, most importantly, do you think that, despite not having any goals, or wanting anything, do you prefer to have some goal, to believe something is worth doing, if you manage in your deep meditations on the nature of reality, to prove yourself you should? Would you...be happy if you found a reason to?"

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"I think I would."

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"That is great!
I think i can help you. In addition to having some very similar experiences – I am genuinely surprised that my guesses about your internal state were so accurate – I also worked on philosophical principles behind logically convincing an individual capable of complex thought, but without any value-belief, to adopt a maximally-coherent altruistic utility function. And they told me it was a waste of time. Ha!"

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"Except you were altruistically motivated before, right? It's not that you never had goals, you just stopped having them after fulfilling them? Or anti-fulfilling them."

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"I loved Shinji. I didn't want to kill him. And I saw that the life he was defending was better than the great design of the prophets. Which probably was itself a lie."

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"How would you describe the experience of love?"

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"Its nature was as transcendent and impossible to truthfully capture with words as it is for all humans I heard of."

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"Ok, that's fair, I didn't experience it at all, it was wrong for me to presume, and also expect accurate descriptions when I too am often unable to describe things.
Do you still feel the love, though? Is it part of your motivation?"

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"I love him. But there is nothing to be done. I let him kill me, as there was no other choice...or was that just another lie?"

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"Well, I can't guarantee success, but 'find a way to reach Shinji again' is exactly the sort of terminal goal that can drag a lot of instrumental ones with it! It's what's called 'convergence'. And i happen to be a person not unfamiliar with interdimensional travel! I am not currently capable of it. And don't know whether I will be. But as an immortal being, the option of 'do stuff, because in another 7 centuries something might come out of it' is always open to you!
There are things like 'have research organizations', and 'have people who trust you and are therefore willing to help you', whatever your goal is. Which some generalize to 'acquire resources', but while it is somewhat true, the process of acquiring resources when you don't have any other goals often ends up evil, or otherwise...game-theoretically inefficient, so I don't advice you to actually internalize this generalization.
I am less immortal, and also have things to do, but if everything goes right for me I could help you. If the world is not destroyed, that is. Which is what I meant by 'things to do'. And what I need help with. Which you can help with a lot, if your power is as great as...well, if I correctly interpreted the communication."

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"Do you have a name? Or care about the concept of names at all?"

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"There are many names that can refer to me.
Adam. Kaworu Nagisa. The Fifth Child. Tabris."

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"Good enough!
How does that quote goes...
You Seem Trustworthy! Would You Care To Join Me On My Noble Quest?!"