ALSO LISTEN. PLEASE IM BEGGING ANYONE TO ASK HIM WHY HE FCKIN PUT A HEART IN A SACK STOP JUST GIVING HIM A PASS FOR THIS. He just interprets this as Kanda asking him what item he killed for, though; why he chose to take a life when no one else had fallen to the same temptation.]
...For the Vick's. [this is still my favorite sentence to type.] For my sister.
And you needed to rip a guy's heart out for that, huh.
[He says it kind of blandly, like he's not personally horrified because he's seen way worse, but also. My man.
He sighs, though.]
...Humans do a lot of things when they're desperate. [It's not really his place to forgive or excuse Lucas here, and he won't even bother trying. It's not his business. But it's truly not the worst thing he's ever run into, and he believes Lucas when he says he hadn't intended to kill again. It is what it is.]
[BE MORE HORRIFIED. That said, it doesn't need to be emotionshare week to know that he feels so much Catholic Guilt over this. It is so clear from his expression alone.]
...That... At the time, I wasn't in a clear state of mind.
[He's never tried to make excuses for why he targeted Ichiban, but now that he can think clearly, he hates the version of himself that thought RIPPING HEARTS OUT WAS NORMAL.]
Anyway Lucas looks a little startled and there's a How—? that's unfinished even in thought form. HOW IN THE FCK. The way he's not even thinking about how Kate and Camille are out there drugging people.]
Oh... [HELP. HE WAS RIGHT. THIS DRUG TEA. They're just hoarding it this is so funny. There's a little ! of understanding.]
I do recall Cloud mentioning that. I wasn't aware such a thing was being given out, though... [FROWNING ABOUT IT but he really didn't wonder how Kate had managed to get her hands on drugs fucking help, drugs are just always floating around in his world. But then he shakes his head.] Neither of them drugged me.
It's not his world, not his life, but it's almost frighteningly easy to understand this memory anyway. Granted, the Order (as far as he knows) has never drugged its members this way, mostly because it never needed to--but atrocities committed in the name of God? Yeah.]
Of course it was the fucking church.
[He'd be willing to believe Relivers are basically demons tbh he doesn't even question that part BUT THE REST,]
[Sometimes... churches are bad! ALSO DON'T JUST BELIEVE RELIVERS ARE DEMONS JESUS. Well, this is fine. Except it's not fine at all.
It takes Lucas a second to blink his way free of the memory, because it's weird as hell being pulled back into that state of being when he's two weeks on detox medication and five drug-free. But Kanda's words and the way in which he says them are certainly not lost on him. He looks over, expression difficult to read but open in a sort of pained way.]
...Did you... Is the one that you know of-- also like this...?
[LOOK... between Akuma and his own backstory he just really has no patience for people who don't let the dead stay dead. Famine was his favorite npc until recently but it's because he was the least nosy so they didn't get into it in detail.
He doesn't know much about Relivers, but he does know that there's probably a pretty clear difference--namely, that Akuma are undeniably deadly, and they need to be destroyed without mercy for a bunch of reasons. It's not quite the same thing.]
They don't need to drug people. But they take in a lot of kids. Orphans especially.
[Young and vulnerable, desperate, the sorts that would agree to anything out of gratitude for a warm meal and safe lodgings.]
But yeah! Oops. Sometimes you just grow up thinking that these very obviously not demonic entities are demons that need to be killed because of drugs and brainwashing. It happens.
There's a thin little frown at that. Always the children suffering. is the thought that comes through, part of a whole slew of thoughts and feelings about that in particular. He still hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that he himself is a victim, but he can always feel empathy for other children who suffer.]
...I'm sorry. It shouldn't be like that. The church is meant to be a place of warmth and respite, and yet...
It's never been that. [Imagine loving and trusting in God. Couldn't be him.
And that's one difference between them: Kanda's nursed his hatred of the Order in his heart for so long that he doesn't know what it would be like to live in reverence and support. It's just... hatred has never won out, for him. Not really. Not like it did for Alma.
That, and--]
But it's that, or lose the war and all of humanity.
[He'll never forgive what was done to them. But he knows it was done in desperation, too. Worse desperation than what they face now, which is saying a lot.]
[Two different sides of the same fucked up religious coin... He's let go of his cult, but he still believes in the faith that he learned of partially through it. Life is a complicated nightmare web.
He spoke to Lavi about this once, though. About the personal sacrifice for the greater good, and what it looks like and what that meant to so many people in such different ways. His frown is small; he folds his arms over his middle.]
Desperation does much to a person, and worse to a society.
[Let alone a whole damn globe, but he'd never really be able to think in those terms, growing up in such isolation all his life.]
Even so... The future should be left to the children, not built on their backs.
[Life really is such a tangled nightmare... if Kanda had the time or inclination to do so, he'd realize just how complicated his connection to the Order is. Even now, he can barely acknowledge that he has no idea how to live outside of it. Who is "Yuu," if not an Exorcist?
Lucas isn't wrong, though. And Kanda--he's not really capable of sharing those sentiments, not when he's seen plenty of other kids put through the horrors of war for the sake of humanity, but it's not like he hasn't heard them. Children shouldn't be out there fighting or they're so young, this isn't right, whispered throughout the halls of the Order by those old enough to grapple with the means to the end. Perhaps that's another difference between them--that the Order is not entirely filled with zealots.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the void won't let Lucas's secrets go unreciprocated. So, he gets a memory in return.]
[YOU REALLY PUT SO MUCH PAIN IN ONE MEMSHARE AND DIDN'T YOU SAY YOU CUT IT IN HALF OR SOMETHING my god WELL!!!!!!
Lucas has grown up alongside the cruelties of the church, but without ever really having conscious awareness of it just because of how young he was when he was brought in, and the copious, copious use of drugs. So there are some things here that strike familiar to him - being bits and pieces of a person, shattered fragments of memories - but nothing quite so literal as a once-dead person dragged back into life and forced to shave away their humanity for the sake of the greater good.
Parts of that hit close to home, too, though, just in the way that it is possible to do those things in his world. Just... not quite so violently, Frankensteinianly, with the overarching goal to help but at such high cost to such young and innocent people.
To long for something you can't remember - familiar, but different. To see someone you know and love turn into something so full of fury, saying things like I can't stop, is a new and fresh horror that he's never experienced before, at least so far as he can remember, and it's a terrible thing. All of this is nightmarish, blood-soaked all the way through.
ANYWAY HE'S JUST SORT OF CAUGHT THERE STARING INTO NOTHING FOR A FEW MOMENTS AS HE TRIES TO PROCESS THIS WHOLEASS GIANT CHUNK OF ANOTHER LIFE HE NEVER LIVED IN ALL ITS FRACTURED TRAUMATIZED GLORY.]
[HELP HELP AAAAAAA I did but this is the worse half... SOMETIMES THE PAINTRAIN JUST NEVER STOPS ROLLIN!!!!
He crosses his arms tightly over his body, since he really would've rather focused on Lucas brutally murdering a guy because of cult drugs during this conversation, but GOD. SURE. HE GUESSES THIS MIGHT AS WELL HAPPEN!!! By now, enough people have seen this memory that he's no longer so instantly furious and defensive--there's still a guarded wariness to his emotions, because it is so deeply personal, but he doesn't lash out or storm off like he otherwise might have. (Not yet, at least, though the threat is always there with Kanda.)
He doesn't say anything, but the thought of desperation comes through anyway.]
People do such cruel, cruel things out of desperation. The desperation to survive, to win a war, to push forward through everything with the strength of others because that strength supports the entire world. Cruelty. Survival comes at such a high cost everywhere you turn.
It takes him a few moments to process that to the point where he can speak again. Though his fringe obscures his brows from view, it's clear they're furrowed, his expression one of pained sympathy-empathy and something vaguely apologetic. He's seen something deeply personal, after all, even if neither of them had a choice in it.]
...In attempting to preserve humanity, humans often lose it.
[That's the story of Relivers! Even setting his anti-Reliver brainwashing aside, there's no denying the horrors that a human without their heart can commit. For what he's seen of Kanda's memories, putting children through that, even for the sake of the world's future, is not something he could ever condone.]
[He's tense until Lucas speaks, ready to shut down anything pushy, any overly familiar sentiments he doesn't want to hear. The memory he'd seen from Lucas eases that, a little bit--it's not the same level of familiarity he shares with Mathis, but there's enough overlap here that Kanda is willing to give Lucas a little more patience than he might extend to others. Still, Kanda's temper is short even with his loved ones; it's not difficult to misstep, with him.
So it's fortunate that Lucas focuses on the bigger picture--broad enough that he... doesn't relax, but whatever the equivalent is, for Kanda.]
They keep failing anyway. You'd think they'd realize by now that God doesn't want them forcing it.
[Kanda with his shortass temper, but Lucas likes keeping everyone at arm's length himself, so he doesn't tend to delve into sentiments that he thinks might hit a little too close to home for any party involved. It's a touch easier, though still just as honest, to discuss the truths of their organization's failings. Or rather, the failings of the people who make those organizations.
He just thinks for a quiet second about the god he'd spent so long worshipping, and the god that he'd grown up with; two different things, both equally cold, callous, distant.]
People will also find ways to justify what they feel they need to do, even if it goes against the mercy and benevolence of a kind God. [A light, quiet sigh.] But I believe the tendency to do such things is why conflict exists even without an external force to fight.
[When lacking in real demons or Akuma, humans just become that. He's a perfect example.]
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ALSO LISTEN. PLEASE IM BEGGING ANYONE TO ASK HIM WHY HE FCKIN PUT A HEART IN A SACK STOP JUST GIVING HIM A PASS FOR THIS. He just interprets this as Kanda asking him what item he killed for, though; why he chose to take a life when no one else had fallen to the same temptation.]
...For the Vick's. [this is still my favorite sentence to type.] For my sister.
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What the hell is a Vick.
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...Vick's Vaporub. It was one of the swamp items.
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[He didn't pay a ton of attention to the other items in that shop beyond the resurrection board, but he did go see them, so. He remembers.]
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That's correct.
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[He says it kind of blandly, like he's not personally horrified because he's seen way worse, but also. My man.
He sighs, though.]
...Humans do a lot of things when they're desperate. [It's not really his place to forgive or excuse Lucas here, and he won't even bother trying. It's not his business. But it's truly not the worst thing he's ever run into, and he believes Lucas when he says he hadn't intended to kill again. It is what it is.]
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...That... At the time, I wasn't in a clear state of mind.
[He's never tried to make excuses for why he targeted Ichiban, but now that he can think clearly, he hates the version of himself that thought RIPPING HEARTS OUT WAS NORMAL.]
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He frowns a little.]
You weren't drugged too, were you?
[SURELY KATE AND CAMILLE DIDN'T DECIDE TO PRACTICE ON LUCAS FOR FUN FIRST? SURELY THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN.]
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Anyway Lucas looks a little startled and there's a How—? that's unfinished even in thought form. HOW IN THE FCK. The way he's not even thinking about how Kate and Camille are out there drugging people.]
Ah... Did someone say so...?
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[He hadn't heard of anyone else getting it but he assumed it was floating around out there AND HE WAS RIGHT.]
Cloud said they drugged him too.
[SO LIKE,]
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I do recall Cloud mentioning that. I wasn't aware such a thing was being given out, though... [FROWNING ABOUT IT but he really didn't wonder how Kate had managed to get her hands on drugs fucking help, drugs are just always floating around in his world. But then he shakes his head.] Neither of them drugged me.
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Then what?
[He's willing to believe Lucas's head was fucked with, but if it wasn't something like that, then...?]
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He opens his mouth to answer but you KNOW WHAT ANSWERS MORE SUCCINCTLY?? Memshare binch.]
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It's not his world, not his life, but it's almost frighteningly easy to understand this memory anyway. Granted, the Order (as far as he knows) has never drugged its members this way, mostly because it never needed to--but atrocities committed in the name of God? Yeah.]
Of course it was the fucking church.
[He'd be willing to believe Relivers are basically demons tbh he doesn't even question that part BUT THE REST,]
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It takes Lucas a second to blink his way free of the memory, because it's weird as hell being pulled back into that state of being when he's two weeks on detox medication and five drug-free. But Kanda's words and the way in which he says them are certainly not lost on him. He looks over, expression difficult to read but open in a sort of pained way.]
...Did you... Is the one that you know of-- also like this...?
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He doesn't know much about Relivers, but he does know that there's probably a pretty clear difference--namely, that Akuma are undeniably deadly, and they need to be destroyed without mercy for a bunch of reasons. It's not quite the same thing.]
They don't need to drug people. But they take in a lot of kids. Orphans especially.
[Young and vulnerable, desperate, the sorts that would agree to anything out of gratitude for a warm meal and safe lodgings.]
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But yeah! Oops. Sometimes you just grow up thinking that these very obviously not demonic entities are demons that need to be killed because of drugs and brainwashing. It happens.
There's a thin little frown at that. Always the children suffering. is the thought that comes through, part of a whole slew of thoughts and feelings about that in particular. He still hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that he himself is a victim, but he can always feel empathy for other children who suffer.]
...I'm sorry. It shouldn't be like that. The church is meant to be a place of warmth and respite, and yet...
[IT KEEPS BEING SO CORRUPT.]
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It's never been that. [Imagine loving and trusting in God. Couldn't be him.
And that's one difference between them: Kanda's nursed his hatred of the Order in his heart for so long that he doesn't know what it would be like to live in reverence and support. It's just... hatred has never won out, for him. Not really. Not like it did for Alma.
That, and--]
But it's that, or lose the war and all of humanity.
[He'll never forgive what was done to them. But he knows it was done in desperation, too. Worse desperation than what they face now, which is saying a lot.]
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He spoke to Lavi about this once, though. About the personal sacrifice for the greater good, and what it looks like and what that meant to so many people in such different ways. His frown is small; he folds his arms over his middle.]
Desperation does much to a person, and worse to a society.
[Let alone a whole damn globe, but he'd never really be able to think in those terms, growing up in such isolation all his life.]
Even so... The future should be left to the children, not built on their backs.
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Lucas isn't wrong, though. And Kanda--he's not really capable of sharing those sentiments, not when he's seen plenty of other kids put through the horrors of war for the sake of humanity, but it's not like he hasn't heard them. Children shouldn't be out there fighting or they're so young, this isn't right, whispered throughout the halls of the Order by those old enough to grapple with the means to the end. Perhaps that's another difference between them--that the Order is not entirely filled with zealots.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the void won't let Lucas's secrets go unreciprocated. So, he gets a memory in return.]
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Lucas has grown up alongside the cruelties of the church, but without ever really having conscious awareness of it just because of how young he was when he was brought in, and the copious, copious use of drugs. So there are some things here that strike familiar to him - being bits and pieces of a person, shattered fragments of memories - but nothing quite so literal as a once-dead person dragged back into life and forced to shave away their humanity for the sake of the greater good.
Parts of that hit close to home, too, though, just in the way that it is possible to do those things in his world. Just... not quite so violently, Frankensteinianly, with the overarching goal to help but at such high cost to such young and innocent people.
To long for something you can't remember - familiar, but different. To see someone you know and love turn into something so full of fury, saying things like I can't stop, is a new and fresh horror that he's never experienced before, at least so far as he can remember, and it's a terrible thing. All of this is nightmarish, blood-soaked all the way through.
ANYWAY HE'S JUST SORT OF CAUGHT THERE STARING INTO NOTHING FOR A FEW MOMENTS AS HE TRIES TO PROCESS THIS WHOLEASS GIANT CHUNK OF ANOTHER LIFE HE NEVER LIVED IN ALL ITS FRACTURED TRAUMATIZED GLORY.]
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He crosses his arms tightly over his body, since he really would've rather focused on Lucas brutally murdering a guy because of cult drugs during this conversation, but GOD. SURE. HE GUESSES THIS MIGHT AS WELL HAPPEN!!! By now, enough people have seen this memory that he's no longer so instantly furious and defensive--there's still a guarded wariness to his emotions, because it is so deeply personal, but he doesn't lash out or storm off like he otherwise might have. (Not yet, at least, though the threat is always there with Kanda.)
He doesn't say anything, but the thought of desperation comes through anyway.]
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People do such cruel, cruel things out of desperation. The desperation to survive, to win a war, to push forward through everything with the strength of others because that strength supports the entire world. Cruelty. Survival comes at such a high cost everywhere you turn.
It takes him a few moments to process that to the point where he can speak again. Though his fringe obscures his brows from view, it's clear they're furrowed, his expression one of pained sympathy-empathy and something vaguely apologetic. He's seen something deeply personal, after all, even if neither of them had a choice in it.]
...In attempting to preserve humanity, humans often lose it.
[That's the story of Relivers! Even setting his anti-Reliver brainwashing aside, there's no denying the horrors that a human without their heart can commit. For what he's seen of Kanda's memories, putting children through that, even for the sake of the world's future, is not something he could ever condone.]
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So it's fortunate that Lucas focuses on the bigger picture--broad enough that he... doesn't relax, but whatever the equivalent is, for Kanda.]
They keep failing anyway. You'd think they'd realize by now that God doesn't want them forcing it.
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He just thinks for a quiet second about the god he'd spent so long worshipping, and the god that he'd grown up with; two different things, both equally cold, callous, distant.]
People will also find ways to justify what they feel they need to do, even if it goes against the mercy and benevolence of a kind God. [A light, quiet sigh.] But I believe the tendency to do such things is why conflict exists even without an external force to fight.
[When lacking in real demons or Akuma, humans just become that. He's a perfect example.]
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