I had some blood curling thought, that the Master Chief will inevitably sacrifice himself… for Humanity…
“Death… will not halt the plans set eons before… they have motion, and will not be stopped by any obstacle, until our promise is concluded.”
I said sacrifice, as death, to the Master Chief is merely a means to an end… for filling his purpose… and doesn’t really feel the full depth, or penalty it entails.
“Our job, as soldiers, is to protect Humanity… no matter the cost.” ~ John-117
This seems to be his indoctrinated Spartan-II mind and purpose taking over… whenever the going got tough… he would just remain courageous and stoic… never faulting… yet now… something’s changed… he cannot remain so calm without Cortana, his crutch to being human, or the constant deaths of friends around him…
The Master Chief will most likely be questioning a lot of things… and feel Human at the end of the Reclaimer Saga… yet he will feel punishment and true sacrifice he maybe imprisoned… witnessing the destruction yet he is immobilized and just their to witness… always trying to escape, to assist… always hoping.
Humanity at his core is hope… the will to go on… when all else looks bleak and effortless. John used to be the hope of Humanity… but he will actually need to find something to hope for… to for fill what it means to become Human.
The Precursors/Gravemind will feed of this hunger… his longing for escape… and slowly transition John to unite with the Flood… not by force but by option… John chooses it. The Gravemind may in-fact indoctrinate John… about Cortana, Halsey, Johnson, Keyes… how even in death they are with us.
And so John’s actual sacrifice maybe his freedom… a fate worse then death. Imprisoned within his body and mind… one purpose… no end. He will become a Flood at his core… but with the Ur-Didact GEA he may have a slight
impermanence of memory… and this be reminded about his purpose to Humanity… and how he needs to kill the Flood once and for all… He may unite with a altered Halo core which changes the frequency to that of only the Flood super cells… decimating the entire legion. This would finally give John transcendence… death… which is yet another journey.