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[swordhardy]

@swords

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[swordhardy]

What? That you’re lucky?

[worldbent]

The other half.

[swordhardy]

That I’m cute?

[worldbent]

I regret every time I have ever allowed you to touch me.

[swordhardy]

No you don’t.

[worldbent]

[HE HATES YOU SO MUCH]

matoba has sent you an attachment "idiot.jpg"

[swordhardy]

Oh. That.

You must have noticed it as well. It seems like we’re drawn to each other, for better or worse.

[worldbent]

[Wth that's kinda gay..]

Yes. I supposed it was the resort's meddling.

But I think you know why.

[swordhardy]

Fate, and a bar of soap.

[worldbent]

More the former, but the latter didn't hurt. The natural magic in this place is a little stronger than I expected.

I know a man like you back home. He gave an opening when he should not have, and now his left arm is the host of an ayakashi. Fearing the influence of others, he locked himself away in the mountains, no longer able to accept or combat the weakness in his heart that twisted him into what he is now.

Will you end up that way too, Rokurou Rangetsu?

[swordhardy]

Do you really want to know? You almost sound worried about me.

An exorcist shouldn’t worry about a daemon’s heart. There’s no reason to.

[worldbent]

Ayakashi do not have hearts. They borrow those of humans.

What does that mean for you, I wonder?

[swordhardy]

Guess I'm heartless. That's even less for you to worry about.

[worldbent]

I'm sure that you wish that were true. Is that why you are so eager to embrace your corruption? Do you think it will protect your heart?

[swordhardy]

Maybe I'm just a bad, bad daemon.

[worldbent]

Bad at being one, certainly.

Well, Rangetsu-san, I have no interest in petting your very human ears. But if you are feeling lonely, I have told you before that I will never leave one of my brethren in need.

[swordhardy]

I don't understand you. Why do you refuse to acknowledge that I lost my humanity? You've sensed it — the malevolence. I'm fine with being a daemon.

[worldbent]

You are a human, Rangetsu Rokurou. You were born human, raised as a human, have a human's perspective of the world. You have barely lived enough years to understand what it is to live, much less to forget what it is to die.

You understand the joy of birth and the terror of death. You understand the weight of taking a life, and you understand how quickly life can slip through your fingers.

Humans understand that: life is beautiful because it is ephemeral. That is something a spirit- a being who has come into the world as a reflection of human existence, or as a byproduct of nature, who was not born and only fades away- could never understand. Ayakashi and humans can never understand one another. We are contrary existences. And that is why you will never be one of them.

Not for at least a few centuries, anyway. But that won't be my problem.

[swordhardy]

…

You’re pretty soft-hearted, huh?

[worldbent]

I am a human who has not forgotten what I am, despite what I must be.

Perhaps someday, you will stop making excuses.

[swordhardy]

Funny. An exorcist that cares about a daemon because he’s not so far gone. The exorcists where I’m from would rebuke you for that.

[worldbent]

Now, let's not get carried away. "Care" is a little much.

I can only assume that the exorcists from your world have a lot more room to care about useless things like moral grandstanding.

[swordhardy]

They don’t consider anyone turned into a daemon to be human, even if their turning was only a short time ago. That is the standard.

You, on the other hand… you’re something else.

[worldbent]

You're certainly unsightly. That much is certain.

But the mind of a man with the strong spiritual powers of an ayakashi? Now that is something useful. Unless you lose yourself, what reason is there to dispose of you?

Perhaps it is different where you come from, but in our current state, the exorcist community is in no position to be picky. I will not prematurely rush to destruction with anything that still has its uses. That includes those who see fit to make themselves my enemies, and also impure, inconvenient existences like you, Rangetsu-san.

[swordhardy]

What do you mean by “no position to be picky”?

Not that I care about the state of the exorcists, but you make it sound like you’re a dying breed.