⛧ Aʟʟᴇɴ "ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ᴘʀɪᴇsᴛ" Wᴀʟᴋᴇʀ ★ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
likethelight) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deernet2022-05-21 05:40 am
likethelight) wrote in deernet2022-05-21 05:40 am
video; un: an.exorcist
[ Deep breath, come on, you've got this. ]
...just because someone becomes a beast, it doesn't mean they stop being human.
[ The video comes on and it's an older, slender teenager with stark white hair; pale grey eyes and a strangely delicate bright red mark slashed across the left side of his face. He seems to be in a courtyard of sorts, one of Amaterasu's guardian saplings is behind him in full bloom. He's only visible from the chest up, but the chair he's sitting in has handles behind it-- looks like a wheelchair. Whatever is taking the video also appears to be a flying sort of thing that bobs slightly. It's trying to hold this video still, but really... ]
Most of you probably already know this. [ His head cants to the side with a lightly apologetic smile. ] Some of you might even be able to still hear or reach them despite that form.
But not everyone does, and it's still too easy to say "oh, it's safer and quicker to just kill them. You don't save monsters." [ The official creed of the Hunters... but he's diplomatic enough to not say that aloud. ] Or "oh, a Sleeper can just come back." Except it isn't just us. Someone else who isn't... most of them who were human... they aren't like us. [ He smiles softly, but in a way that doesn't reach his eyes. They hood, bittersweet. ]
They're just dead then. The soul suffers until the end. Maybe beyond.
It doesn't have to be like that though. [ He seems a soft-spoken sort with a lilted voice, but his tone shifts then and becomes more certain. ] They aren't just a monster, and they don't have to stay one. Even with what they've become -- the soul is still human. Some part of them still wants to be saved; to be themselves once again. And they can. [ Mostly. At least so far in his experience. ]
Some of us have abilities that can let us purify or reverse what corrupted them and bring them back. Some of us-- [ he pauses, looking for a moment just a touch overwhelmed as his eyes drift to the side, the smallest curl of a touched sort of smile at the corner of his mouth ] ... a number of us, we're trying to do something to change things. At one of the old monasteries in Crenshaw.
[ But he closes his eyes. Deep breath, you can do this.
He lifts his eyes back up to the "camera", his expression schooled now with a quiet sort of determination. Chin up, eyes forward. ]
My name is Allen Walker. I'm an Exorcist. [ Clearer, more certain: steady. Rung like a quiet bell. ]
Who's been able to save someone who became a beast?
[ More importantly: ] Who wants to?
[ It's more determined and clearer still. ]
...just because someone becomes a beast, it doesn't mean they stop being human.
[ The video comes on and it's an older, slender teenager with stark white hair; pale grey eyes and a strangely delicate bright red mark slashed across the left side of his face. He seems to be in a courtyard of sorts, one of Amaterasu's guardian saplings is behind him in full bloom. He's only visible from the chest up, but the chair he's sitting in has handles behind it-- looks like a wheelchair. Whatever is taking the video also appears to be a flying sort of thing that bobs slightly. It's trying to hold this video still, but really... ]
Most of you probably already know this. [ His head cants to the side with a lightly apologetic smile. ] Some of you might even be able to still hear or reach them despite that form.
But not everyone does, and it's still too easy to say "oh, it's safer and quicker to just kill them. You don't save monsters." [ The official creed of the Hunters... but he's diplomatic enough to not say that aloud. ] Or "oh, a Sleeper can just come back." Except it isn't just us. Someone else who isn't... most of them who were human... they aren't like us. [ He smiles softly, but in a way that doesn't reach his eyes. They hood, bittersweet. ]
They're just dead then. The soul suffers until the end. Maybe beyond.
It doesn't have to be like that though. [ He seems a soft-spoken sort with a lilted voice, but his tone shifts then and becomes more certain. ] They aren't just a monster, and they don't have to stay one. Even with what they've become -- the soul is still human. Some part of them still wants to be saved; to be themselves once again. And they can. [ Mostly. At least so far in his experience. ]
Some of us have abilities that can let us purify or reverse what corrupted them and bring them back. Some of us-- [ he pauses, looking for a moment just a touch overwhelmed as his eyes drift to the side, the smallest curl of a touched sort of smile at the corner of his mouth ] ... a number of us, we're trying to do something to change things. At one of the old monasteries in Crenshaw.
[ But he closes his eyes. Deep breath, you can do this.
He lifts his eyes back up to the "camera", his expression schooled now with a quiet sort of determination. Chin up, eyes forward. ]
My name is Allen Walker. I'm an Exorcist. [ Clearer, more certain: steady. Rung like a quiet bell. ]
Who's been able to save someone who became a beast?
[ More importantly: ] Who wants to?
[ It's more determined and clearer still. ]
[ ooc: for those who want to poke around in person, there is also an open mingle log for Sanctuary!
CW: mentions of prior character death throughout ]
CW: mentions of prior character death throughout ]
2/2
Then, his answer. Diplomatic in every sense and it raises his hackles. You're evading the question. How many times has he been given a similar response from his teachers, Heroes who thought he was too young to understand; placating a child. He didn't care for it then, he doesn't care for it now. But Allen isn't someone he wants to clash with, so he refrains himself from calling him out like he did with the Chief of Police, choosing instead to believe that he means well. Still, he's blunt in his response. ]
You don't believe it, then.
no subject
It's why he has to hesitate, wondering why that is. We're of a like mind on this, right? So why...
He worries at his lip for a moment, weighing that. He really hates that this isn't a conversation in person, too, and he's contemplative before he responds. ]
...did you know the monsters they keep for sport and Hunter practice at The Gate aren't just monsters, but often Beasts? [ Speaking so gently still. ] Human ones, too. And they howl and wail worse than most others because of it. That's why Alayne had to make me an eyepatch for the tournament. [ Because it was deafening being that close to them, both to his eye and mind. Painful, like something grabbing the root of your eye and twisting when he didn't do anything because he couldn't. Not that the eyepatch helped that at all but at least then he wasn't scaring people with its appearance. Not great for his own corruption levels either, and he'd been getting moody and a little disconnected by the end of it. ]
People who have lost their loved ones to Beasthood are terrified of that, you know. That they end up there and can't even know the mercy of a quick death. That they're so close, and yet impossible to reach or give any relief to. [ Those people you see him stop and talk with on the street for sometimes great length, especially those who recently knew someone who became a Beast or disappeared and likely ended up that way. These are the things he wants to talk to them about, why he wants to get to know them, and to understand what their hopes and fears are. That when it comes down to parents, siblings, children, loved ones... it isn't just black and white. It isn't just Beasts must be put down. Most would still give anything for them to be safely returned if they could.
None of them would ever want to see them used in sport, too. Sport. Hunters run that and keep the pens. And you better believe he was scouting those as best he could to see how well guarded they were. ]
Some of them are scared even when they first turn, even if they know the Hunters will always protect them and keep them safe. Did you know when people started finding out what I could do they'd find me and beg me to find their loved one who turned before a Hunter did?
And I couldn't... more often than not, I couldn't. I could have, but I didn't get there in time. More often than not, someone else got there first.
[ It's... a mindfuck. Absolutely haunting to someone like Allen, especially when he could never find them and there was only one likely guess as to the outcome. And absolute driving force behind him being so uncompromising now.
So he's still speaking gently, like this is the sobering thing it is, but his eyes settle on where Shouto's are on Tim's projection. Shoulders set, chin up, eyes gentle; his sort of determination. Please understand him-- ]
I don't think any of that is right, no. Not when any effort to try and save someone afflicted in such a way goes against their "law". There's no justice in a law like that. Even when there are more than a few Sleepers who have become Hunters who skirt that part of it to follow their own ideals--
We're so few. And I doubt they'd like it if any of us were caught being sympathetic when this has been the way their society and organization has always been. I don't want to invalidate anyone's genuine desire to protect people, but... the ways that people who become beasts get treated--
...it's just wrong.
[ So, no... No, he doesn't. ]
...Why are you asking me, anyway? [ It's quietly sincere, if a little worried-sounding. ]
What do you think about them, when you've been a Hunter far longer than I ever was?
no subject
No!
How could he, after he's spent nearly a year wrangling Beasts of every kind, encasing them in his ice and dragging them to the Lumenarium to give the Blood Ministers a chance to save them. Did you really think he'd let you deal with his brother the same way you dealt with the beasts of your world? With the Akuma?
What are Akuma?
If he'd known. He wouldn't have lost control. Wouldn't have interfered. Would have helped him even, but he'd been stupid. Naive. Because he didn't ask, it cost you, your life and still you ask him WHY?!
And his answer, when it comes, is just as devastating as that of the Akuma. Every word, every syllable cuts into his subconscious, chipping away at the image he'd built of the Hunters as a whole. While Allen runs through every encounter, more and more red flags are raised, forcing him to backtrack and question the organization he'd dedicated the last year serving. Question HIS judgement. What kind of Hero missed so much? Even if he couldn't see the people inside the Beasts, he should have at least suspected something. He clashed with the Hunters enough to move away from all that he'd been taught at UA and patrol alone. He'd let himself be blinded by the story they spun to the public.
Did you know...
His eyes widen in acute distress.
Did you know...
A shimmer of gold flickers in the background and the winter coat of a snow leopard covers the bottom half of the video and Shouto holds onto Kizu just out of frame, fingers digging into the heavy coat, needing something tangible to hold onto.
Did you know...
And it's perhaps the gentleness with which Allen says it that's the most damning. Quiet, hesitant, not because he had issues with his thoughts, but because of who he was addressing, a Hunter in every sense of the word. The very people he thought of as... and he understands now. Reads between the lines a little too late.
Why are you asking me this?
Because he knew something was wrong. That he was missing something, only... he never expected it to be ALL of this. A complete overhaul of his perception of an institution he never understood from the start. How foolish was he?! What else didn't he know?! No wonder he hasn't felt like he's changed at all since he arrived. He was still so damn ignorant! Stupid! He hadn't changed at all since his brother had to tell him who he was before Shouto realized the truth of all those encounters with him. All those subtle hints and he'd been blind. Was still blind.
What does he think?! Why does he even care? How... how could he still stand him? After killing him. Then waiting for him as if he wouldn't hate to see him there. His thoughts start to deteriorate from there, corruption creeping at the edge of his subconscious influencing his thoughts and cornering him in the dark. ]
I think... I don't know them at all.
[ Then Kizu is there, snapping at the footholds and tearing at the mid-levels of corruption within his mind. Her work invisible but for the strained expression on her Sleeper. ]
Have this conversation another time.
[ Her voice rings out through telepathy, nice enough to dismiss them before the screen cuts off and she drags her Sleeper to the Farther Shores to the Guardian Sapling. It'll be some time before his levels lower enough to call him back. ]
no subject
It's a belated realization that has Allen taking a sharp breath, as that wasn't the reason he would have guessed. When the other boy's eyes widen and unfocus like that, and he can see the descent of a spiraling sort of despair beginning that's only confirmed when he sees the ripple of Kizu appear. And the fucking worst is the feeling of helplessness at realizing that from here there's almost nothing he can do.
Shit. Look what you did now
"I don't know them at all"....? Allen pitches forward, almost dislodging himself from his chair in the process in his alarm. ]
Shouto? [ Kizu, you're right he thinks, but you can't mean— ]
Shouto, wait—!
[ But the screen's gone. Nothing. And he's left staring for a moment at the blank space and Timcanpy's quietly apologetic demeanor as he processes what just happened, and that it's over just like that. One blink, two...
—and he grabs a stack of paperwork from his nearby desk and throws it as hard as he can because goddamnit fucking shit it's the closest thing he can reach. Shit. Shit.
A minute passes as tries to collect his racing thought. Maybe two, fisting his own bangs in a punishing sort of grip before he looks to Timcanpy, grimacing lightly for a moment. Before he makes up his mind. ]
Where are you?
[ If there isn't any answer after a few minutes, he'll try again. ]
I thought you knew. I'm sorry.
[ If he realized that was what it was about... then he would have gone about it so much more delicately. But if there isn't a response to that either, then finally: ]
Shouto, I'm worried.
[ And if, after all of that, there STILL hasn't been a response within half an hour...
Well, what do you expect? For him to just wait around and pray that "oh, he'll figure it out and be alright" while braiding some flowers? No. He's grabbing his coat and he's heading out to look for him. They'll have the conversation another time Kizu, yes, but if you think he's not going to want to be there for him right now you're mistaken. And Tim... well, he relied on Tim to guide him even before when he wasn't an Omen. It was the golem's purpose. To find things and lead Allen to where he needed to go.
Also, after a while of wondering places he could be, he would actually begin to have a pretty good guess. And Timcanpy an even better one. ]