My life has been a waste.
Ah, what a way to begin. But it is the truth, and the only one that I’ve ever known in my sorry existence. Allow me to explain.
My birth was unexpected, and unwanted. My parents already had their heir to the throne when I was born in Zeal, they already had their perfect daughter. They already had Schala. Next to her, how could I have been anything? Still, they tried to treat me with love, at least at first. They expected that, though I’d never ascend to the throne of Zeal, I could still make a decent wizard, a decent government official of some sort.
But then they discovered I did not have magic. Of course, I truly did, oh, I truly did, but it was worthless. It did not even begin to manifest itself until after Zeal fell, at a time when I wish I had not had it. Would that I could curse it, for without it, I would not be what I am… but would being Janus, dead, worthless prince of forgotten Zeal have been a better fate than living as the Magus?
Either way, Janus was no good child, no good creature. I was a hellion, basically, though not in the way that one typically thinks of a small child as being one. I was embittered to a world that pitied me, a world that pitied me for reasons I could not comprehend. I hated that pity. I took it out on everyone I ever met. I gloried in making little predictions based on my one talent; my ability to sense the black wind.
Would that I did not have that accursed power. Would that I could not feel the chill caused by feeling the devil at work run down my spine, would that I could not KNOW beforehand that Hell was coming to visit. Of course, one could ask if it’s better to know before, so that things can be stopped.
Idiocy. Nothing can be changed. All is run by fate… I was fated to be worthless, fated from the accursed day of my birth, my birth as unneeded son of Zeal.
I could not stop my mother from falling to Lavos, could not stop my entire homeland, or even… my sister, my dear Schala, from falling to his wrath. I tried twice. TWICE! The wonders of time travel… an abysmal triumph at best. I was allowed to relive the events of my past, I was allowed to watch my sister die again, and I powerless to stop it… I was allowed to watch my mother fall to Lavos again, to become nothing more than a puppet of his madness.
But I was only allowed to watch, not change.
Ah, the irony of my existence. I hated the destroyer Lavos so much that I sought to become like him. I joined the mystic race in an act of attempted genocide against my own race… I became their Magus. And I even told them that I would summon Lavos, that I’d summon that being I HATED to come kill the humans.
Of course, I intended to summon him to kill him. Of course… I used the mystics, just like I’ve used every other person I’ve ever met. And certainly, many of the mystics are heartless, deserve to be used. But… not all of them. No, not all of them. There were peaceful ones, and still I stirred that blood-lust within them, bade them to kill, to be killed. I toyed with their lives as though I was God… from what I now know, as though I was Lavos.
I even used the heroes… the Timestream Travelers. I met them when they came to stop me, came to end my Mystic War, came to stop me from ‘creating’ Lavos. Of course, I knew I could never have created something like Lavos, but to think that I was believed capable of it… it makes me tremble, if not in fear, then in the deepest sense of pain I have ever felt. I was made worse than Lavos, in their eyes. Oh, certainly, Lavos killed millions of humans, wiped the future of the human race completely out, but the Magus CREATED him. He created the one who snuffs out dreams, he thought up the antithesis of existence.
I joined them.. helped them gain back their Crono, their leader. I didn’t do it for them, or for him. Why did I do it? Perhaps… it was not pity. I have used every ounce of that upon myself. I simply recognized his power, and knew I could use it. Ah, yes. I wanted to use Crono, as well, so much that I would even defy death to make him useful to me.
And use him I did. With his help, and with the help of the other 5, I destroyed Lavos. Ah, bravo to the Magus. Of course, it wasn’t lost Janus that killed Lavos. No. Janus did not avenge the fallen of Zeal. The Magus avenged the fall of Janus, and let the other screaming voices of the Enlightened Ones go unheard.
I, as always, worked only for myself, for my own twisted gain. I told myself I killed him for Schala. Why? To find her? If I truly cared about her, I would have saved her the moment I found myself in 12,000 BC, would have saved her without ever becoming the accursed ‘Prophet.’ But no. I wanted a shot at Lavos, I wanted to off him for all the things he’d done to ME, without so much as a thought as to what it would mean if I failed.
I could have saved the whole kingdom. It wouldn’t have required much. I could have sabotaged the Underwater Palace, I could have destroyed the Mammon Machine. Perhaps it would have cost my my life to have done so, but Janus would have been saved… Zeal would have been saved.
So, of course, I did no such thing. In my arrogance, I believed I could exact revenge… could exact vengeance on Lavos for what he’d made me… for making me someone capable of creating destruction.
And now he’s gone, now that… abomination is gone from the face of the planet, and I am left. I have searched for Schala. She is nowhere to be found. Nowhere. And it’s all my fault, because I had to battle Lavos, with the fate of Zeal held as a wager on the outcome.
And for that, I am damned to be the Magus forever, and Janus is dead and buried.
And with the young prince, so is my soul.