Calling the Old Man Out

[foolishjustice]

[Goro has barely been seen since getting back from the Fissure, only leaving his room briefly to eat a couple times a day, coffee in hand and looking half asleep. Now, though, he seems to finally be properly awake...at approximately 8PM.]

Good...erm, evening, I suppose. I’m sorry I’ve been so absent lately, that Fissure must have taken more out of me than I thought.

But, now that I’m recovered, there’s something important I need to tell everyone. The last batch of new arrivals included a man named Masayoshi Shido. He’s my father, and a truly despicable man, who has had numerous people killed for his own convenience or benefit. He even had my mother killed to cover up the scandal of my birth.

[Here he holds up a phone, showing a picture of Shido...with what looks like avocado and cheese smeared on his face and a shrimp up his nose, wearing the most tiredly Done expression as he reaches for the offending crustacean.]

I injured him in the forest in retaliation for the things he’s done to me, one of my boyfriends, and countless others, but don’t mistake him for someone who deserves your pity. He’s physically not much of a threat, but he is a skilled schemer and manipulator, and-

[ Which is the moment that the video will shake, and a very brief flash of a familiar face (spoiler: Akira’s) can be seen. Off-screen, he’s gently pressing a kiss to Goro’s cheek, whispering that he loves him. Don’t mind the view of a ceiling for a moment, guys - it’s a nice ceiling, at least?

… He’ll properly make it up to Goro, later, if he can? For now, though, he gently brushes the fingers of one hand through his boyfriend’s hair. Akira’s face can properly be seen, after he takes a quiet breath. He looks… well, how most would remember? Only with a bit more of a tiredness to it, maybe.

Though, that’s not taking away from how serious he looks as he speaks. ]

... and, while Goro is right about all of that, there is one more detail I feel should be taken into account. Shido isn’t a good person, but he’s well-aware of that now. He’s done unforgivable things, but his eyes were opened to all of it after his ass was kicked.

[ JUST SAYING… ]

Anyway, nobody has to worry about him. Besides, he knows if he tried anything, he’d have to answer to all of us from his world, and then some.

[ JUST SAYING... ]

[This is the point where Goro takes his tablet back, looking a bit huffy.]

It’s true, he isn’t likely to be a threat now. But he absolutely doesn’t deserve anyone’s kindness or sympathy.

Comments

[founderinglight]

And if I may be blunt, you are the person he has hurt, and only a teenager besides.

I am a man who has lived with my guilt and regret for longer than your entire society has likely existed.

I do not expect you to understand why I have the perspective I do on this matter, but it will not change. So long as he seeks to follow the path he's been set upon, the better person that he has a chance to become, I will not disregard it.

A person who sees only the weight of the past cannot move forward into the future. And I will not have it said that I did not extend the opportunity to move forward when I seek it for myself.

[foolishjustice]

You're right. It is impossible to move forward while held back by your past. That's yet another reason I can't forgive him.

Did you think to wonder, how it is that I know he's ordered people other than my mother assassinated?

[founderinglight]

It sounds to me like you're letting your past control you utterly.

You will not change my mind, Goro. No matter what atrocity it is you name. Because no matter what it is, even if I have not done more and worse myself, I can say with certainty that Ardyn has. That does rather come part and parcel with 'attempted omnicide of the entire planet via daemonification and eternal night.'

[foolishjustice]

Haven't you already acknowledged that your own viewpoint regarding your brother is distorted?

[founderinglight]

To the point that I don't know what the 'right' viewpoint to hold is.

But that does not change the facts of his actions, merely my view of them. And even disregarding that view, I am not the only one who has decided that he deserves something other than to be made to crawl and feel as though he is the scum of the earth for what he's done.

[foolishjustice]

Then I doubt they were ever forced to commit gruesome murder under threat against their own lives.

[founderinglight]

...

You do realize he met them all in a killing game?

Not to disregard your experiences, but he very much did meet his family in a killing game.

[foolishjustice]

Another one like the Reaper's Game?

...Regardless, unless he was the one behind it, their feelings wouldn't be directed at him.

[founderinglight]

Rather worse, actually, from what Kurama told me. It was for television.

And the Noctis from that place found some degree of forgiveness for him even so, so the point remains, I'm afraid.

[foolishjustice]

I think I'll want the details of that later. I don't think I'm in any mental state right right now to think about it.

I can't forgive Shido. After everything he's done, all the ways he's made me and the people I care about suffer, after having dedicated so much of my life to enacting justice for his crimes...I can't.

[founderinglight]

Better to ask someone who was involved, anyway.

I do not ask you to forgive him. I just ask that you stop attempting to convince me that there is nothing about him that could ever be worth kindness.

[foolishjustice]

Do you know what it's like, to stand by and watch people offer comfort to someone who ruined your life?

[founderinglight]

Do you know what it's like to watch your descendants worship, for two thousand years, the god who destroyed yours?

There is nothing to be gained by comparing suffering, Goro.

If you do not wish to see it, look away. You at least have that option.

[foolishjustice]

I can't influence what people do when I'm not around.

[founderinglight]

Nor do you have the right to.

You have made your case and you must now leave it up to everyone else to decide, for themselves, what they are going to do or not do about it. How they are going to treat him, and how they are going to treat you.

That's the way the world works.

[foolishjustice]

I know a fair bit about how the world works.

And if people hate me for what I've revealed today, it's only what I deserve. Much of the blood on his hands is on mine as well, after all.

[founderinglight]

I care not a whit for what it is you've done.

I care for how you're acting, right now, at this moment.

Which is every bit as entangled in irrational thought as I am.

[foolishjustice]

I'm not unaware. I would probably have a Palace myself, if it were possible for a Persona user to have one.

But knowing my view of certain things is distorted doesn't really do much to help straighten it out as long as the source of the distortion is still there, does it? And besides, the last time I stopped caring anything about Shido, it was difficult to find a new motivation in my existence.

[founderinglight]

Then allow me to pose this question.

If he were dead - whether or not it was by your hand - what would you do with the rest of your life?

[foolishjustice]

My duties as a Composer, and whatever it took to keep my boyfriends happy. Otherwise, I don't know. Until recently, I never even expected to survive long after accomplishing my goal. I'd planned to turn myself in to give my victims a sense of closure and report the other members of his conspiracy, and with the number of officers he has working for him, I would have been surprised to make it to a trial.

[founderinglight]

Then perhaps you should start considering it.

What it is you value, aside from revenge and hatred.

Who it is you want to be, when all is said and done.