"No. No I don't imagine he was the man you knew, but I can guess you already knew that." Her tone remained a somber one. The loss of Theron Ascania was on her hands more than anyone, a fact that was far from lost on Tsubaki.
"Ascania was a monster, just like we all someday become. It didn't have a thing to do with him being a Vizard, or with how his life ended." She skirted a quick glance to the Vice-Captain, letting her know the topic of conversation was no longer restricted in instance to the man she had once called her superior officer. "From the very first day you pick up the mantle of Shinigami, the person you knew, the friend you once shared laughter and secrets with, is gone."
"We are all monsters, Amaterasu. We begin as fledglings, learning what it is and what it means to fight, to kill. We do it to protect, to safeguard the balance. The creatures we kill do the same to protect their broods, to keep our numbers from overwhelming their own. It is a tug of war that began eons before Ascania, and will continue until the balance is lost, either when the soldiers outnumber the creatures...or when the last Shinigami falls."
"We are all monsters, and we all kill for what we deem the right cause. It doesn't matter your methods or morals, our job is to take life...a job people like Theron Ascania and myself became exceedingly adept at." She paused, realizing for a moment that she had accidentally spoken of herself in the past tense, as though the woman reciting the words was already dead as well. Cold feeling, that.
"There is good in you, but there is still darkness, bad, evil...whatever you want to label it with. We do not resign. We do not retire, Nana. Hollows do not hang up their fangs and claws in old age, content to rest their laurels and think back on the carnage of their past." She managed a weak smile, but it wasn't fooling anyone.
"Monsters fight, and monsters kill until the day that we die. Even the very good monsters. You will learn like I did, that black and white are lies. Illusions created by the enfeebling needs of our own consciences and sanity. I have lost my conscience, many would argue my sanity never existed. I have lost my station and my credibility among my fellow monsters." The twin leonine irises that used to burn with unquenchable fire looked at the girl with only embers, smoldering ghosts of the past that were a piteous thing to compare.
"What could have been is irrelevant, nothing more than cold comfort from the senses of guilt or a war of conscience. Those senses will kill you. Theron Ascania knew that, from the very moment he ceased to be the leader of the Blitzkreig to transform into the Herald of Death. He embraced his name because it meant finality for himself as much as those he held a blade in opposition to."
She managed a chuckle that couldn't have been more self-mocking if she tried. Fatigue, in every sense of the word permeated the sound, invoking a weary acknowledgment where laughter should have followed.
"I am a monster just as he was, as Inuzuri is, as each and every one of us are. Wealth can be gained, spent, and lost, then regained again in a moment's turn. Titles are granted, stripped, and returned...in the end they mean just as little as those who bestow them. There is only one true thing in our world that can be lost, and that is life."
She managed the same weak smile, returning the sisterly pat on Nana's shoulder.
"He lived well, he fought well, and he died well. In death we paint those we admire in the kindest color, knowing that they will never return. We make them what we need them to be to endure, to keep pushing on without them there. The day he died Theron Ascania became the Herald of Death for me, holding a blade against my own and calling for my blood."
The woman's voice grew distant, knowing that the words to follow may not have meant anything to any other soul save her own. But that was her truth, and the opinions and thoughts of others would never sway that.
"My death knell has been rung, and in a time very soon I will join him." The distant tone emboldened, imbued for the most fleeting of moments with the righteous fire and zealotry that had made her feared. Made her respected....made her a Captain. "That being said I intend to use my remaining time to fight as he did, to live as he did, and meet him at death's door every bit the monster he ever was."
[809/1,774]
[Fuck y'all I want a wordy turn too]
