ACCOUNTABILITY.

[blackmass]

[The sound of footsteps is slow, but deliberate and without hesitation. And as they echo through the room he walks into view lacking fear, lacking hesitance, lacking...much of anything at all.]

[He's tall--perhaps taller than his profile had implied--wide-shouldered and built like an unbreakable fortress wall, wearing the solid black of a priest; the light catches a gold cross around his neck to confirm the fact. And as he steps forward, his long coat (the deep purple of poisons and nightshade itself) trails behind him before coming to a stop as he does.]

[A smile cut across his gaunt and pale face, but it was far from a pleasant one. It was the enigmatic smile of someone witnessing a joke only they found humorous, and yet it did not reach the dark and emotionless eyes that scanned the room briefly as though the priest was carefully calculating what course of action to take.]

At last we meet face to face, my Apprentices.

[The voice that leaves him is recognizable as the same one that was heard only moments before, but clearer in person. Now it seems to ring like the largest, deepest bells of Notre Dame itself, no louder than an ordinary speaking tone--the result sounds more like distant thunder heralding an oncoming hurricane.]

[The real difference lies not in how he speaks, but what he says. The short, impersonal sentences of the weeks prior are at last discarded, and the man before them speaks as a true preacher--a true wordsmith--would address his congregation.]

Rejoice and be proud of your accomplishments. Each and every last one of your number, dead or alive, has truly exceeded all expectations I had for this group. And now you have clawed and scratched your way here, on the backs of your fallen friends' struggles and failures. You have proven that their own accomplishments would not be in vain simply by standing here before me--I do not doubt that your success is the wish most of them held in their hearts, at the very end of their lives.

[He places a hand over his own heart, taking on a tone that nearly sounds genuinely proud...until a patronizing current begins to run through each syllable like a deadly undertow.]

Do you perhaps feel satisfied? You would be right to, for making it so far. Your sorrow, desperation, joy, determination...all of it has been a magnificent thing to behold as you fought to reach this point in time. Each second of it has served its purpose, and served it very well. I am one who believes such struggling and effort deserves to be rewarded, and so this alongside my own endless gratitude is what I will grant you in return for all that you have done for me.

My name is Kirei Kotomine.

[He holds his arms out slightly to his sides, a gesture that would almost seem welcoming if 'Kageshirou' did not react and coil--completely harmlessly--around his arms like a black serpent. The smile he wore turned to a razor-edged smirk, the challenge set before the remaining Apprentices clear even without his next words:]

And now that we have properly met, tell me: shall we continue our discussion?

Comments

[blackmass]

That's enough.

[Kirei snapped that much at the entire room, voice like a crack of thunder overhead. The shadows around Kirei's arms stilled, but the ones coming from himself were near-frantic.]

All of you are...just like her. You see what you choose to, rather than accept Avenger for what it is. You expect it to be something other than it was made to be, something against its very nature, and you dare to act as though you care for it at the same time?! What you care for is a fantasy. Your idealized version of Avenger that can connect with others and...coexist, instead of destroy.

[His hands gripped the lectern tightly, putting cracks in the material as his voice increased in frustration.]

You don't even care that you can not even manage the basest form of respect for it by acknowledging what it is!

You're exactly like Claudia and you may as well die as blissfully ignorant as she did!

[firstaid]

So you're asking that we accept you and Avenger as you are without asking you both to change...

[There's a 'but' hanging there, however, she remains silent since this is rocky territory.]

[blackmass]

I don't care if you accept us or not.

Do not ask us to be anything other than we are.

[firstaid]

[She's silent for a bit, thinking on this. She's honestly not sure if there are 'right' words to say...]

You are beings who take pleasure in destruction and death. Most people would call that 'wrong'. To try to change you is to take away your one pleasure, the one thing you find aesthetically beautiful. Without it, you find no beauty in this world and seek other means to find it.

I imagine you seek acceptance for who you truly are. Rather to be allowed to live as you truly are. However, in a world where people don't like their possessions destroyed, nor do people like to die, it's hard to find a place in it.

[blackmass]

I don't want acceptance, aren't you listening? I just want to know...if my creation in itself was wrong. If my existence is wrong.

Avenger is...the only other thing made 'evil' from birth. So nothing else can understand me or answer that.

[firstaid]

I was listening, my apologies. I suppose it was just something I misunderstood.

[A deep breath.]

However, if you exist, then I don't think it's wrong for you to exist.

[There's a pause from her.]

Though I would like to ask: What is the definition of 'good' and what is the definition of 'evil'?

[iaspis]

You are alive. That by itself means your existence is not wrong.

[acherontiastyx]

...

What if there isn't an answer, though?

[acherontiastyx]

It kind of fucking sucks, though, because hell. I don't believe anyone should be fucked over for who or what they are or change to suit other people instead of themselves.

But like. I'm also not gonna say that means we should spare your asses, because you basically jerked us all around because it made you happy and because you wanted to feed us to the shadow thing, and you two... probably need to die or something so we can save our friends. Or something.

But you are a friggin' Garchomp and we're a newborn friggin' Magikarp here.

So what the fuck.

[matchbreaker]

[ Honestly, she winced a little at Kirei's outburst.

... She was enjoying Hanyuu's line of reasoning there, but- ]

....Claudia was "Gretchen."

[ Let's knock that out, a bit hesitantly, first ]

[blackmass]

...You are correct, Elda Marker.

Claudia Ortensia.

[matchbreaker]

[ . . . Okay, she's going to make two leaps of logic here. ]

You loved her. [ And based on what he said earlier: ] Or rather, wanted to kill her.

[blackmass]

I already told you. I have no capacity for love.

[But he went very still and quiet, prying a white-knuckled grip off the lectern.]

...I didn't know that was what I wanted. Not until it was too late.

[matchbreaker]

[ . . . Another leap: ]

She loved you.

[ Another leap: ]

And you didn't get to kill her.

But she died all the same.

[sportadork]

[... man it's probably quiet enough to hear a pin drop in here--]

Your Gretchen. Claudia. [pause] It is a very pretty name.

[blackmass]

...

She was a good woman. As pious and well-intentioned as Gretchen herself.

[sportadork]

The way you talk, she seemed to think a lot of you.

[oyashiromama]

[if only she had the ability to stop time here so she could catch a breath and think]

These words...have they been- have they been said to you, in the past?

[blackmass]

...She knew what I was. What I still am even now. And despite all of it, that woman was a saint who loved me unconditionally.

[His voice was even now, back to the calm and quiet tolling like funeral bells.]

She was wrong. She saw what wasn't there. What was never there from the start.

[oyashiromama]

But...she loved you... Do you think it was only because...of what she hoped you could become?

[blackmass]

It was what she believed I was.

You said you knew flower language. White hydrangea--hortensia--it also carries the meaning of 'gratitude for understanding' or 'sincerely heartfelt feeling.'

[elepe]

[...oh.

Well, that was...certainly interesting, but also very...weird. She doesn't like this feeling. She didn't want to feel this weird, almost pitying feeling--]

What...happened to her?

[blackmass]

She's dead. She died what must be over a decade ago.

[elepe]

[...it's not quite what she was asking, but perhaps prying further would be tactless.

So, Lusamine nods.]

I see, then. I suppose I do not understand what you feel, but...

[...]

Her death must have had an incredible impact, then. Of some sort.

[blackmass]

[sure did]