![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ACCOUNTABILITY.
[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?
[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?
no subject
1/3
no subject
3/3
[ ... That has to be it, right? She knows that might be one leap too many, particularly in this situation, but. It makes sense, right? How he "warned" her about Hanyuu back then. ]
cw: suicide, suicidal ideation
[And there was that enigmatic smile again, except this time...the joke only Kirei understood didn't seem all that funny anymore.]
The woman I married was very ill. I wanted to see what would happen if I reached for 'normal' happiness others find in a loving family. And at the end of two years, as her condition deteriorated and still I felt nothing, I reached the conclusion that someone as broken as me did not belong in this world.
So I went to her before I destroyed 'an evil that goes against God'--myself. And I told her the truth, my conclusion; I could not love her.
Claudia Ortensia looked at me and said 'No. You do love me.'
And she killed herself. In her dying breaths she looked at me and concluded I must have loved her, because I was able to shed tears over her death. But what I had realized in that moment was...I wanted to kill her. I wanted to see her trust shatter and the false image of 'Kirei Kotomine' that she had so loved destroyed before her.
Do you see now, Elda Marker? Hanyuu Furude? All of you?
You can not change anyone's truest nature, no matter how deeply you love them or how far you would go in the name of that emotion. No matter how you choose to view someone, they are who they are and the way you look at them does nothing to improve that.
no subject
She knew she had to be right, but all the same, that story... that story sends a chill down her spine, one which she doesn't know how to quantify. Because for all of her thoughts so far about how multiple beings have the same soul, abut all the growth in her love, the companionship she felt before now - the whole thing had made her assured that they could handle everything here. Maybe even befriend the damn shadow out from under his nose.
This.
Her first thought is simple: No, something like that does not have a right to exist.
But she knows she can't act or even voice that instinct. She needs to delve deeper. ]
... That was awful of her. I don't imagine you want my pity, so I won't voice more than that.
no subject
[He snapped that briefly, the shadows around him flaring up again.]
You have no place to judge who she was or what she did. I will not say it a second time.
no subject
Very well, I wont.
[ A beat, and she even bows. His name is Japanese, so he'd get it: ]
I'm sorry.
[ Because the death of a "loved" one under circumstances like that is awful. She'd know. Her James died because he was soft hearted. The terror she felt for Hanyuu dying because she was altruistic. Maybe she's actually more selfish than Kirei? ... No, if someone had insulted either of them for it, she'd have killed them. ]
no subject
A woman so willing to do something like that, to prove that he loved her, when only...he...
"You can not change anyone's truest nature, no matter how deeply you love them or how far you would go in the name of that emotion. No matter how you choose to view someone, they are who they are and the way you look at them does nothing to improve that."
Those...words resonated with Lusamine far more than she would have liked. She didn't know why--well, she did, but she didn't wish to acknowledge it...]
...Would you have wanted to have her love you despite that, instead? Or would you not have asked her to change?
no subject
But I couldn't. And though she knew I was hollow and empty, she still chose to delude herself into believing 'Kirei Kotomine is capable of loving me'.