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

[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'?

[blackmass]

Is that not obvious? Everything I and Avenger stand for--death, destruction, suffering--are 'evil'.

[firstaid]

Those things, both good and evil people don't like them. Yet you enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy watching a flower bloom or when I receive gratitude from healing someone who was injured. We both... yearn for that same feeling. That would classify that very feeling as evil.

[blackmass]

...Someone did say to me once that there is no one fixed type of 'joy'. He said that I was confused because I failed to understand that.

I don't think I ever understood it. Even if such things make me happy, at the same time I know it to be fundamentally wrong. Is it not then 'evil' in some measure because of that?

[firstaid]

To be completely honest? I don't really think so. It's as if your logical side of yourself and your emotional side of yourself are at war. Your logic dictates that you should find joy in what is 'good' yet emotionally, you find it in what is 'evil'. Since those two very things contradict one another, naturally, one would be confused.

It's because of that, I can't peg you as an evil person. I've seen evil people, those who are unwilling to change and sacrifice many for their own gains.

I watched a good person walk the path of a criminal because the law was on the side of evil people. And people called him 'evil' as a result.

I'm not trying to appeal to your humanity-- you've said over and over it's useless. I'm merely stating my opinions.

You are who you are and you've reflected on this a lot. I believe that says more about you than anything. It sounds like you truly just want to understand yourself and why you are like this when no one really has an answer for this.

[blackmass]

...

[He didn't answer. It seemed, briefly, like he was trying to counter Estelle's words somehow, but...]

[For once, the Wordsmith was speechless.]

[firstaid]

I see. So that was what you were searching for this entire time.

[She closes her eyes.]

Despite whether you want it or not, just let me say it: I forgive you.

I'm doing it for my own peace and nothing more, as Jasper said before.

[iaspis]

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

[blackmass]

You can't say that with any certainty. Do flawed gems not exist for you? Is that not a mistake in their creation?

[iaspis]

It is not their fault they were not created to the standards of the Diamonds.

When I first arrived here I would have agreed with you, but no longer.

[blackmass]

...And what is it which changed your mind?

[iaspis]

The humans here.

They do not live by a pre-defined purpose. They create their own purpose. They tell others who they are, what they are, and that is how they earn respect.

What comes naturally to them does not come naturally to Gems, who far outlive the individual of their species. And they showed me again and again that they had strength when you sought nothing more than to create despair.

[blackmass]

So what if I did? What if 'creating despair' is who and what I am?

[iaspis]

Are you satisfied with that?

If you were to die now, this very moment, would you be proud of what you have done for yourself?

[blackmass]

[No hesitation:]

Yes.

[acherontiastyx]

...

What if there isn't an answer, though?

[blackmass]

...What.

Explain yourself.

[acherontiastyx]

I don't know. I don't... think there's a reason for everything that happens in the universe.

Like, yeah. If you get struck by a meteorite, it's because it's been hurdling through space at however million miles an hour and it just happened to go through the atmosphere and hit you.

But I don't think there's some kind of master plan about why that happened or wrongness inherent in that meteorite. It just happened. Sometimes shit just does.

[blackmass]

[i mean. he's still catholic, so like...???]

There has to be something. Can you truly believe in a world with no rhyme or reason to it?!

[feistytrader]

...No, Guzma's making a lot of sense. Sometimes you just wake up one morning to a lot of meteorites.

[acherontiastyx]

I mean, yeah? I dunno. I guess I don't know how your world works or whatever. But hey, back home sometimes shit really just happens for no reason.

...

I guess it's a pain not really having anyone to blame for it, but at the same time, it's nice to know nobody's really got it out for you, either.

[blackmass]

You would ask me to accept such a thing? If I do that, then all of this will have been for nothing. Including the deaths of all your friends.

[acherontiastyx]

...well, I mean, I've never really given you the benefit of thinking you had a good reason for putting us through hell like this, so that doesn't bother me much. Honestly, this whole... issue you have is honestly a better explanation than I thought it'd be.

But I mean. If that's the case, you technically did get an answer out of this. It's just not what you expected or where you expected it to come from.