IC Contact;

[hellrisen02]

"Yo! I seem to have my hands full at the moment, so shoot me a message and I'll get back to ya. Later~."
[functions; voice, text, video, file upload.]

Comments

[d33tached]

It would appear that he will no longer be engaging in the aforementioned training sessions.

That's what he claims, anyway.

[A petulant child, D33 thinks. He wouldn't make it a day underground. He'd be killed for his insolence.]

[hellrisen02]

[Well y'ain't wrong, Deedee.]

Oh. Great.

We'll see how his tantrum goes, but I wouldn't worry about it too much on your end.

What'd you do?

[d33tached]

Nothing to warrant that reaction, I can assure you.

[He's innocent, Dad.]

[hellrisen02]

I didn't ask for your judgment call, I asked for what you did.

[d33tached]

I spoke with him regarding his recent network post.

[hellrisen02]

"Instigate". The word you're looking for is instigated.

Thanks, really needed that.

[d33tached]

My intention was to speak with him, not provoke him.

[hellrisen02]

Well guess you learned your lesson on that, huh.

[Then again, the way D33 talks is more likely to provoke anyone, so that's not really surprising.]

[d33tached]

I suppose I should have known that there would be little point in attempting to reason with the child.

I have little interest in speaking with him further either way.

[He was just trying to help, Dad.]

[hellrisen02]

He's less of a child than you think. It's just that he's still a child in all the worst ways.

Sorry about that. That's my fault.

[d33tached]

Your fault?

How so?

[Again, D33 really has no understanding of parental relationships and how they can affect one's development.]

[hellrisen02]

I haven't really been there for him. In the past.

And when I was there, it was because there was no choice but to train him. He hasn't had the fair shot at care that he deserves.

I know that things were taught differently where you came from, but children aren't meant to be soldiers, D33.

[d33tached]

[D33 doesn't get it. He really doesn't. He'd never had a parent to speak of - not so much as a guardian to watch over him, either. There had been women, professional care-givers to provide basic health and education needs. That was it. As far as he's concerned, he'd survived just fine without it. And he doesn't act like a petulant, reckless brat because of it, either.

[He doesn't get it.

[And then he reads that last line, and his stomach feels sick.

["Children aren't meant to be soldiers." Even where D33 came from, even where things were taught differently, he could see the truth in that. He could see it in M47's soft, gentle eyes, the way they'd follow D33's movements around with stars in them. He could see it in how the boy struggled with simple commands, in the relentless torture which he underwent, in the way in which D33 had struck him, in the way that he hadn't stood up, wouldn't stand up, didn't stand up again.

[Not just M47. Children. Children who learned to stop laughing, to stop crying, to stop playing or imagining, to stop asking questions.

[Children weren't meant to be soldiers. D33 had made them soldiers. Shinigami had made them soldiers.

[And so Warlock had been robbed, then. By his own father.

[D33 tells himself that he doesn't get it.]

You've said it yourself. You had no choice.

[Wrong. There is always a choice. And D33 knows that too. But it's easier to pretend like their isn't. Like he hadn't murdered that boy with the soft, gentle eyes.]

[hellrisen02]

No, I didn't, after that point.

Because I gave him the choice. I couldn't deny him, after that.

[He'd let Jr. choose his fate for himself, for as much as he could, given their situation. For as much of it was survival vs a personal thirst to correct the wrongs of the world. For Duo, it had been his own vengeance, taking his life into his hands and making himself the weapon, the scythe, Shinigami's hand.]

[For as much as it had been a choice to be 'Shinigami'. For as much as it had been his son's.]

[Regrets and weakness and swallowed empathy.]

It's just that we made the best soldiers, isn't it.

[d33tached]

[Duo's words hit D33 hard yet again. It isn't difficult to figure out what he means.]

You too, then.

[It isn't a question. It only makes sense, really. Maybe somewhere deep down, D33 had been hoping that it wouldn't be true. But Shinigami knows him so well - he always has, even from the very beginning.

[Of course he would. They were the same.]

[hellrisen02]

[It's funny. He's never actually had to admit it to anyone this way, before. In the City, it was apparent to anyone that spoke to him long enough, spoken of factually, just by pure virtue of his age; back home, they were legends that kept themselves in the shadows of the hopeful new era. And here...]

[Here, he was just another old vet, no reason to suspect anything abnormal about it (relatively speaking, for an imPort). No one noticed, no one questioned, and no one cared. Empathy wasn't spared for grown men on the battlefield. That was why he had to be the one to hold onto it.]

Do me a favor and lay off him.

[d33tached]

Very well.