The man couldn’t help but stare at Seele for a moment, a little surprised. No, a lot surprised. It wasn’t the reaction he expected, that much was for sure. He took a sip of his tea as he deliberated on how to respond. It wasn’t often that he was left speechless, but then again, it wasn’t often that he was willing to converse with anyone for more than five minutes. In her defense, she had definitely warned him, so this was on him.
Kazuki stared at Seele for a second before deciding to bite. “I don’t have any skill in Divination,” He told her, eyebrows furrowed. “So I’m not sure what you mean.”
For what it was worth, she appeared not to have expected his response either. She covered her mouth to smile, then shook her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t try to be funny, I’m dreadful at it. What I meant was, I don’t think things have gone as badly as you think they have.”
That was where he disagreed, shaking his head as he looked down at his cup. “All I could do last night was go over my kit and think of all the different things I could have done. Could Aaginim have lived if I had made a different decision? In the heat of the moment you can only act, there isn’t time to deliberate. The demon made quick work of them--and would have likely done the same to us if it hadn’t been for the rest of the group giving it everything they had.”
The levity seemed to leave her, just a bit, and her smile weakened with sympathy. “You make it sound like you weren’t even there.”
“I may as well have not been. It didn’t make a difference,” Kazuki let out a surprisingly bitter remark, his free hand running over his face. He could feel his heart racing as he gripped the cup, something deep in his chest wanting to come out. “The DPS as well as you and Sif finished the demon. We wouldn’t have won if it hadn’t been for all of you.”
“Kazuki,” Seele said, and it seemed as though there were a lot of words there on the tip of her tongue. But she went quiet for a moment, eyes distant with thought, and then she looked at him again. “People are allowed to make mistakes.”
Kazuki stared at Seele in disbelief, slowly shaking his head before putting the cup down. “No, I’m not--” He stopped himself, pinching the bridge of his nose as he recovered. She was dangerously close to something he wasn’t ready to admit, but there wasn’t any running from this conversation. Would opening up and getting everything out now be for the better? Just the thought alone was enough to make him withdraw into himself.
“That isn’t true anymore,” He finally spoke, exhaling a huff of exasperation. “Mistakes get people killed, we learned that the hard way. We have to be smart about who we associate with and who we can rely on, because all it takes is the wrong person doing the wrong thing and then it’s all over.”
She nodded, folded her hands in her lap. “That’s a high standard, Kazuki,” she said quietly. “Do you think you meet it?”
The disbelief was plain on Kazuki’s face, the normally muted expressions giving way to shock. It was a fair question to ask after all--did he meet the same standards he expected out of people? There wasn’t a time in his life that he didn’t constantly ask himself the same thing. The hypocrisy was astounding and above all it was shameful. By the time he finally tore his gaze away, the silence had already replied for him.
“I have to meet it,” He said. “I can’t fail.”
She was silent again, but her eyes never left him. Her hands came up onto the table, she seemed almost to be in prayer. Moments passed, or minutes, before she spoke.
“You’re sinking, Kazuki,” she said softly. “You’ve tied yourself to an anchor and you’re trying to swim, but the longer you hold onto it, the deeper you’re going to go. I said people are allowed to make mistakes. What I should have said was that they need to make them. You can fail. You are going to fail. What matters is what you do after. If you run from failure, if you run from responsibility, then you don’t learn anything. Right now, our friends need us to learn from our mistakes, not hide from them.”
Was that what she thought? Seele was wrong, he wasn’t sinking, there was no anchor, there was a world whose rules had changed and screwed him over at the worst time and it had cost them lives. Did she want him to let more people die? He hadn’t even been around to watch Enos’ death and every time he closed his eyes he could see the poor guy’s lifeless body, his last and only mistake resulted in Aaginim dying in front of his fiance!
Taking in a breath, he didn’t realize how shaky he had become, deciding to look Seele straight on. “When we first went into the room, I broke from the group and went for Priscilica because...” He slowly admitted, finding it hard to actually admit out loud, but it needed to be said. “I thought it was better to save the people we could than to waste resources on someone who clearly would never make it. Had I gone to Aaginim first, he might have lived. You can’t tell me I have to make mistakes, because my mistakes mean people die. Aaginim is dead because I made the wrong decision, because I failed. And that’s unacceptable no matter how you try to look at this. Don’t tell me I can fail, because I can’t. The stakes are too high for it to be any other way.”
She waited until he had finished, didn’t flinch or anger, didn’t fight his eyes. “We could be having this same conversation about Priscilica right now. But she’s alive—would you tell her you should have left her defenseless? Sure, maybe the demon would have left her alone, maybe, if you hadn’t gone to Luci’s side, it would have turned on her instead. In every one of these worlds, is it your fault?”
The answer was on the tip of his tongue, but saying it out loud felt like he was justifying Seele’s pseudo analysis. He perched his chin on his hands, elbows propped up on his knees as he stared down at the table. The previous exhaustion he had was catching up with him again, but even if he managed to work his way out of the conversation and throw himself into bed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that Aaginim is dead,” He finally responded. “And that much, no matter how I try to look at it, is my fault. I failed him and Luci. And there’s no changing that.”
“Fair enough.” Seele said. “I don’t agree with you, but maybe it’s not my place to push you so hard to agree with me. Instead, I’m just going to ask that you don’t…” she paused, whatever she meant to say dying there on her lips. “Don’t give up. If you’re going to take the blame, accept the responsibility. People need us now, our friends, even strangers, and the fact is that even if we try and fail, it’s better than not trying at all.”
Kazuki took a hold of his cup again as he leaned back into his seat, drinking to buy himself a little time. That was what he kept telling himself, but he supposed it was easier to let himself drown than to fight. He had accepted that Luci would never forgive him, was there really more to be done than that?
But speaking of trying and failing, there was one thing that definitely applied to. “I don’t think anyone else will be as convinced. I’m not sure they’d forgive what I said,” He sighed. Why didn’t he just keep his thoughts to himself?
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