Death the Kid (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
symmetrophile) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
caughtinanetwork2013-05-03 08:34 pm
symmetrophile) wrote in caughtinanetwork2013-05-03 08:34 pm
Entry tags:
[video] in before eeveelution jokes
[It's late. Or too damn early. Somewhere in that ambiguous area, like 3:00 in the morning, just fine for certain parts of the alien population and a god-awful time for the rest. But here Kid is, addressing the network from the confines of a room in the island-side village.
One can just make out a few figures (Maka Albarn and Rin Okumura) behind him, sound asleep in their bed.]
I have a very important announcement to make, one that simply cannot wait until morning!
[The grim reaper, looking more lively than he has since... well, since the bubble cracked, stoops out of sight of the SFC, and reappears with an Umbreon in his arms. Beaming with the pride perhaps only a father might have for their child, he declares:]
This is Pip, and he's become even more beautiful than ever!
[It is indeed Pip, recently evolved, and he is still fat. He is also a she, but Kid never investigated that closely. Promptly forgetting about the SFC in his eagerness, Kid retreats with Pip in his arms to bend over Maka.]
Maka, Maka! Wake up! I don't want you to miss this!
One can just make out a few figures (Maka Albarn and Rin Okumura) behind him, sound asleep in their bed.]
I have a very important announcement to make, one that simply cannot wait until morning!
[The grim reaper, looking more lively than he has since... well, since the bubble cracked, stoops out of sight of the SFC, and reappears with an Umbreon in his arms. Beaming with the pride perhaps only a father might have for their child, he declares:]
This is Pip, and he's become even more beautiful than ever!
[It is indeed Pip, recently evolved, and he is still fat. He is also a she, but Kid never investigated that closely. Promptly forgetting about the SFC in his eagerness, Kid retreats with Pip in his arms to bend over Maka.]
Maka, Maka! Wake up! I don't want you to miss this!
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Look, Kid, it's not meant as any offense to you or your dad. I'm sure he's a great guy, and you're a pretty good person yourself. And besides that, it's not the whole 'cherishing the lives of humans' thing that bothers me about Gods anyway.
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Even more now that he knows he has a brother, of who and what he is.]
What bothers you about gods?
[What was that about keeping his mouth shut?]
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[NOPE shutting it down now. It was already problematic enough when he tried to explain it to Marie.]
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[Can't stop, won't stop.]
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[Still denied, Kid.]
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[Kid is relentless, okay.]
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[Now he is offended.]
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[Whoops. Offending people seems to be a skill of his.]
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The crease between Kid's eyebrows deepens. He's actually hurt, but the sting sits right up against the guilt of knowing he had ruined everything with a foolish dream that he might be able to help everyone and prove himself worthy in the process.
And who knows about his screw-up better than one of those who had personally assisted him? He let him and everyone else down. How could he expect Shiro to confide in him?]
Of course. I've failed everyone and I've disappointed you in the past. It's foolish to think I deserve to know.
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Sorry Kid, Shiro does not put up with pity parties. He's actually even more disappointed in Kid now, out of everyone else here he had expected Kid to at least be able to pick himself up off the ground and keep going despite past failures.]
If you keep going on like that, I'm going to come find you and knock some sense into you. I'm not disappointed in you.
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That's why there's no relief when he says that, just a sort of befuddled impatience, as if Shiro had just contradicted some irrevocable law of reality because it was inconvenient.]
...What?
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[Go ahead and be befuddled, Kid. You might actually get an answer from him if this conversation continues like this.]
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[It's a startled pair of syllables, punctuated by an equal number of confused blinks. He glances around himself and, finding nothing there to help him understand this seeming ignorance of what strikes him as inevitable, he continues:]
A reaper must be perfect! As a future guardian of order, governing and maintaining the balance between good and evil throughout the lives and deaths of all beings within his domain, he must be without fault, his plans and actions foolproof, flawless, and precise!
Who wouldn't be disappointed in a god that screwed everything up?
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[He's being honest here.]
Honestly? I hate Gods that are perfect in every way. I despise the perfection, the need for everything to be in just the right place and for everyone to do exactly as their God commands or else face the wrath of a thousand punishments. Perfection isn't something to aspire to be, it's a sign of weakness and stagnation.
[Unfortunately, Shiro is muuuuch more on the 'chaotic' end of the spectrum. He's still decidedly a good person, but definitely chaotic good.]
I respect you more for your mistakes, because it shows that you're capable of learning from them, which is more than I can say for most gods.
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The Kishin, who inspired only dread, terror, and fear as far as his madness reached, had a shocking connection with himself and his father. It was at first unbelievable. And then came the inevitable question: If it was true, then why were they so different? Was Kid one day to fall and become just like the Kishin? Or was he - with his disconnected Sanzu lines and all - created incomplete, brought into being flawed so that he, too, could not become so great a danger to the world?
But if he was created incomplete so he could learn...
It's too difficult for Kid to conceive of becoming a god who did not achieve perfection, that perfection is weakness, so instead:]
Humans don't need a tyrant. That's not what a reaper is.
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That's the difference between a benevolent leader and a tyrant: free will. The moment that line is stepped over, the moment a god assumes they are perfect and so they know what each person wants and doesn't ask them anymore, that's when they've gone too far.
[It's dangerous, for him to say this. Kid is a god himself, or a god-in-training, or whatever he is. But Kid is also way more human than any god Shiro has ever met, and maybe Kid can learn this lesson before it's too late for him.]
It's possible for humans with a lot of power to make the same mistake. Kings have become tyrants since the beginning of time. The difference between a powerful man and a god is that men can be overthrown or killed if they go too far, or if that's impossible then all the people have to do is wait half-a-century or so and time will take the tyrant instead. That can't happen with gods.
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[As an afterthought, Kid adds:]
If you ever meet Black*Star, I hope you keep what I just said to yourself.
[Or Kid would never live it down.]
Only the soul is everlasting. Yet, even a soul can be crushed. When it comes to a god or to humans, both of them have souls. Therefore, neither are immune to destruction. Be that as it may, I understand that fear.
If the Kishin were to supplant my honorable father as god, the world would know a fearsome tyranny never before experienced. That would be the sort of god you expect, a cruel hand that offers only terror, madness, and death. An unstoppable force not unlike other worlds' "grim reapers" of legend.
That is why--
[He has more to say, but he hesitates.]
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They're pretty lucky if they haven't.
But Shiro isn't going to argue with Kid about it. Feelings don't change easily, and just having put the thought in Kid's mind is enough for now.]
From what I've heard, your Kishin is pretty similar to Satan from my world, so I understand that. It's lucky you don't have to worry about them here, at least.
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The only real plague had been the Witches and their destructive instincts, but Death City produced an endless stream of Meisters and Weapons to combat them over the centuries.
More recently, the Kishin and the Madness he threatened to spread over the globe had risen as a new and more terrible threat, but mankind had, for many generations, enjoyed a freedom to grow as they wished, provided they did not corrupt souls or worse, consume them.
It doesn't help that Marie and Kid are both naive in some rather distinct ways.]
Satan and the Kishin...
It's Rin's connection with the greatest threat of your world that drives him to overcome what makes others suspicious of him. His and Maka's courage are among the things I admire most about them.
Perhaps in time I too can have the courage to surpass the bonds of such a relation. Presently, however, I fear our world will only have another Kishin should I fully awaken as a god.
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[Orrrr maybe Kid had been thinking about this kind of thing all along. Whoops unexpected depths.
But if Kid could become a Kishin, does this mean he's related to Kishin somehow? Or maybe there's multiple death gods in his world and Kid and Kishin are just two of them.]
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It may be less about what I feel for humans and more what I am predisposed to become. After all, I've learned recently that my father had one other son before me. Just prior to the Coral's most dangerous drop in power, in fact.
[Yeah, right around when Kid became especially intense and keen on the idea of SAVING EVERYONE doing a very stupid, very reckless thing.]
Will a love of humanity matter? Or am I predestined to follow the Kishin down the same path? I had hoped to find out for myself, but I wasn't able to fully awaken.
I was too afraid of failure.
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Shiro figures words of encouragement won't help so much without some context, which is why he says what he speaks next.]
Is Rin going to become Satan's tool for taking over the world simply because he is predisposed to become that?
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[And if he faltered? Maka and he would be right there to remind him.]
And if Satan were to manipulate him without his knowledge for some similar end, it wouldn't change my opinion at all -- Rin would absolutely make things right again, no matter the cost. That's simply the kind of man he is.
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And the same is true of you too. You are what you choose to be.
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