Fifth Blood

[speakveryclearly]

[Unusually for this network user, the transmission is purely Audio. A great deal of transports will of course recognize the voice as belonging to Kanaya Maryam. Strangers will hear a fifteen-year-old female, naturally rather mature and composed, doing her best to sound even more so. She speaks crisply and briskly with no mercy, like the distinctions between American and British English are to be stalked into a dark alley and shot in the back of the skull.]

The armageddon that occurred in the world of Elmer C. Albatross isn't the only one that's ever occurred in paradox space, you know. Just ask Asuka Langley Soryu or Rei Ayanami or Shinji Ikari. Any of them can tell you that the end of a world is always at least as ugly a thing as what happened on May Twenty-First. Anyone who escaped the planet Alternia before the meteors struck can reiterate the sentiments that Exsilium is a far better alternative to no planet at all. For many of us, Exsilium is our home now and we'll fight literally to the ends of an Earth for its sake.

I know not all of you feel that sort of debt to the Initiative. You do want to go home, this isn't your war, it's their fault. That's really too bad. Because if we let the United Earth have their way and don't develop Initiative in both senses of the word, we're all going to be post-apocalyptic refugees before long. We come from dozens of worlds. Would you like to take arms with the Initiative to fight against the reckoning, or watch each one meet the same fate Elmer's world did?

[An open question, Exsilium.]

Comments

[fortissimos]

I guess people see things differently.

[ Which doesn't stop her from being annoyed about it, but what can you do. She doesn't look terribly enthralled by the show — living something tends to suck most of the enjoyment out of watching an idealized version of it — but she pays enough attention to comment on it. ]

That's because they work together. It doesn't work that way for us, though. Even if it helped me, I wouldn't associate with anyone using their powers for selfish reasons.

[speakveryclearly]

...I'm not sure I can say that with the same amount of confidence.

[Kanaya is lost for a little while, at least thirty seconds, before elaborating further. This form of entertainment is not just foreign to her but has an appealing aesthetic novelty, which is something she doesn't find herself thinking about Earth artifacts very often. Considering Sayaka's apparent dislike of the genre, she begins to seriously consider asking to borrow these later to watch without her.]

I don't want to limit whom I can assist that much, you know?

[fortissimos]

[ She shrugs. ]

That's your choice. But if someone hurts people, or just stands by while others get hurt... then they're the real bad guys. There's no excuse for it.

[speakveryclearly]

I know that. It's just... [Different on Alternia. Or is it? Kanaya's impressions of Earth are so discrepant from one another. Irreconcilable.] Narrowed down a lot that way, you know?

And sometimes collaboration is exactly what it takes to change the hearts of people like that. But it's all on a case-by-case basis.

[fortissimos]

... Maybe.

[ Just getting that admission out of her is a minor miracle, and even that's only because she's dealt with Kyouko long enough to see change in action. ]

It doesn't matter, though. Other people can do what they want, and I'll just keep protecting everyone. [ now you're sounding like a magical girl again ]

[speakveryclearly]

[Dealing. It's always dealing. Never pleasurable, until much later on.]

That's a good work ethic. [All she says for a little while, as the episode finishes up. While the ED starts to play:]

...do you want to keep watching this? Or would you prefer something else?