Clarity.
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"It's still their world, Wesley. Structured for power - not truth. It's their system, and it's one that works. It works because … there is no guilt … there is no torment, no consequences. It's pure. I remember what that was like. Sometimes I miss that clarity." – Angel, Angel: the Series, Episode 21, 'Blind Date.'
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He's not sorry.
He supposes he should be. Isn't that what Battousai wanted him to be? Isn't that what he was supposed to realise?
But he's not.
He still thinks about murder. Still thinks about violence and bloodshed and the satisfaction of causing it.
He still thinks about books and philosophy and language.
He still polishes his kodachi every morning.
He has tea with her every morning.
The blades shine in the sunlight, reflect back cold light and the promise of swift death. The promise of safety and strength.
But he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
Sometimes he's angry. Still.
He supposes he shouldn't be. Isn't that what Battousai wanted him to stop being? Angry and hurt and vengeful? Wasn't he supposed to realise the futility and stupidity of his search for anger, for revenge, for strength?
But he hasn't. He's still angry.
He still thinks about the Edo Castle, about the muted sadness in the walls and the sense of time resting in the very foundations of the building. Thinks about the history there, and the history he had wanted to make, the history he had wanted to change.
And he's angry.
But he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
The sun hurts his eyes, gleams off the unsheathed blades, and he remembers steel flashing in the dark as he cut through skin and flesh and bone. Remembers fighting for a cause larger than himself, for something that meant more than personal gain, personal revenge.
And he isn't sorry.
But he should be. God, he should be.
He wishes for it, again. Wishes for the clarity of knowing what he was doing, of following orders and giving them, of that knife-edged precision that ruled his life, that allowed him to kill without questioning himself, questioning his morals and his ethics and his decisions …
… without questioning his sanity.
But he never really questioned his sanity. He still doesn't.
He should have.
He remembers cutting down Okina, Okina who'd raised him and loved him and honoured him, and he feels sorry. He remembers the Gatling gun ripping through Shikijou, and he feels angry. He remembers slicing down Shishio's men, remembers Seta Soujirou and his blank smile … and he feels nothing.
Shouldn't madness feel different?
Shouldn't he know that he's mad?
Or afterwards, when the madness is over – shouldn't he know that he had lost his mind? Shouldn't he wonder at what had possessed him to do all that he did?
But he doesn't.
Is it because he's still mad?
The kodachi call to him, beg him to lift them up and slash and slice through air, paper-thin when horizontal, death forged into steel, steel that could bring down anything …
… steel that never got to spill the blood of war.
… steel that never made a change.
But he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
"Aoshi-sama?" she says. She's always saying something. Always.
He loves literature. There is something beautiful about words, something subtle about phrases and sentences, about the rise and dip of syllables, something that cannot be conveyed in a painting, in a picture. In real life. Words are lethal, like his kodachi, beautiful, like his kodachi … they form a dance, complex and invigorating, like a whirlpool that sucks you in … deeper and deeper … He supposes he finds literature so captivating because he himself cannot wield words, cannot master the complexities of language, of tone and inflection and facial expressions.
"Aa?" he says.
And she talks. He gets lost in her voice, in the high-pitched recital of her day and her worries and her thoughts, and he thinks he should be listening.
He thinks he should be sorry.
But he's not.
Is this sanity?
Sometimes, when he's especially angry and pessimistic, he wonders what it would be like to have things be clear again. To make sense. For his mind to be focused, for his thoughts to flow from one to another seamlessly, for him to stop thinking in disjointed sentences that followed no logic …
He doesn't feel sane.
The kodachi call him to him, burnished metal and sharp edges.
But he listens to her voice and drinks his tea and says nothing.
He thinks of succumbing again, thinks of remembering their faces over and over until they blur and there's nothing left but flashes of blood and muscles and ripped skin … thinks of picking up his blades and walking out after Battousai, after Kanryuu, in a world where his mind is blank and what he does is who he is, where there is no guilt and no torment because it is their memories that he is appeasing … and his mind is so blank …
He had felt saner when he was mad.
But then, he doesn't think he was mad.
He thinks of the glory they would have had if Edo had burned, if Yoshinobu had never retreated … and he's not sorry. He wishes he still didn't want to be the strongest, wishes the blades didn't seem so enticing in the morning sunlight, wishes he regretted being obsessed with power and strength … and death.
But he's not sorry.
He's just so, so confused.
So he listens to her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
Who is he, now? He doesn't know. Is he a man worth dying for? Is he a man who deserves to live? Is he a man who deserves to be loved? Is he a man who deserves peace? Is he a man who will ever achieve peace?
Who is he?
Is he the man who vowed to kill Battousai, or is he the man who fought Shishio to save Battousai's life? Is he the man who cut down Okina with a blank mind and a shuttered heart, or is he the man who bandaged up Misao when she was six and fell off a tree-branch? Is he guilty? Is he forgiven? Should he be forgiven?
Who is he?
Is he mad?
Is he sane?
He doesn't know.
So he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
Because forgiveness is only granted when repentance is felt. And he doesn't feel repentant. Not for everything. He is sorry about Okina, sorry that he hurt Misao, sorry that he chose the easy way out, chose the blankness and the clarity instead of the chaos in his brain … but he's not sorry for everything. Not for all the lives he took in the Edo Castle, and not for all the people he's killed since. Not for all. Some. Who didn't deserve it, perhaps. But not all.
He should be sorry.
Battousai is sorry. It's why he atones. Why he fights with a reverse blade.
The kodachi call to him.
He can't imagine ever fighting with his kodachi held backwards.
That's not who he is.
Or is it? Is it who he can be? Is it who he wants to be?
He's just so, so confused.
He still wants to be the strongest. He still wants to be the man Misao's eyes light up for. He still dreams of Hannya's expressionless mask and mismatched eyes. He still dreams of staccato bullets and flying blood.
He still wants to be powerful. He wants to lose himself in power, in the pursuit of it, wants to fight and win and fight and win and kill and think nothing else, never have to sit and think again, because he hates his thoughts, and when he's fighting and he's winning it doesn't matter, everything makes sense, because that's where he's supposed to be, that's what he's supposed to be doing, and he misses it.
He misses that clarity.
Misses that purity. Of violence and death and blood and nothing – nothing – else. Violence and death and blood and more violence and death and blood, and no torment, no break, no consequences …
But he listens to her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
It had been the coward's way to deal with life. Losing yourself in blackness, in emptiness. Losing yourself in an ideal – forgetting who you are. Who you were. And it works.
God, it works.
But did he really lose himself? Did he really forget who he was and what he wanted? He knew what he was after, he knew why he wanted it, he knew he would do anything to get it … so how had he forgotten himself?
He is just so confused.
He misses that clarity.
And he's not sorry about it.
But he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
Why?
… Why?
Why does he not walk out of here with his kodachi swinging? Why does he not still pursue the holder of the title of the strongest? Why does he sit here and drink tea every morning, over and over again, as she talks and he refuses to listen, refuses to answer? If he misses his madness, misses the clarity evil – and had he really been evil? Cruel, yes. But evil? – had given him … why does he not achieve it again?
Why does he not go mad again?
Or sane. Because for him, that blankness, that clearness, is the closest he's ever come to sanity.
Because madness is chaos.
Sanity is peace.
He had been at peace, then. He had felt peaceful, at least, and was that any different from being at peace? When he had attacked Shishio's men, before Seta Soujirou stepped out, he was at peace. Time did not move, he moved, his mind clear and still because everything around him conformed to what he wanted it to be …
He made it conform.
And everything was so blank.
He misses that clarity.
But he looks at her and drinks his tea and says nothing.
There must be something left in him, after all, some vestige of true sanity, if he still sits here. Not the inverted definition he gave to sanity, but the true one, the sanity Misao had, and Okina had, and Battousai had. The sanity that was not peace, but logic.
But that sanity was confusing, and conflicting, and wasn't that madness, then?
He just doesn't know.
But he's not moving. He's sitting here, and maybe he's mad and maybe he's sane, but he's sitting here, and maybe that's enough. Maybe he can be mad, within, if he does not project his madness out on the world. And maybe if he keeps it in, maybe then he'll be sane.
Or maybe he will learn to redefine madness.
He doesn't know.
Maybe his mind will never be clear. Maybe his goals will never be pure. Maybe he will always be tormented, and always be guilty. But maybe he's saving others hurt by suffering, maybe, if he keeps it in, Misao will be happy, Okina will be proud, Battousai will be able to say he has redeemed another soul …
So he looks at her and he sips his tea and he says, "Thank you for the tea, Misao."
And she looks at him and she smiles, and for this he'll sit here for longer, even with the disorder of his thoughts and the chaos in his brain, and she says, "You're welcome, Aoshi-sama."
Perhaps it's enough, just to sit here. Perhaps he doesn't need to be truly sane.
Perhaps he doesn't need his thoughts to be clear.
He just needs to sit here.
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