The Weapons We Wield
Disclaimer: I don't own. Now, on to the dark and broodiness…
Summary: There is something sinister about a gun. Introspective piece from Vincent Valentine's point of view.
There is something…sinister…about a gun. It is metal and smoke and fire, it is thunder and wood and cold.
In battle, a gun is impersonal. With a sword, you face your enemies. You see their eyes as you kill them – all the pain and misery and life and promises. You smell the lifeblood as it stains your hands; you hear the cries of those who will cry no more.
You kill figures with a gun. Faceless, emotionless. The thunder drowns out the pain; the smoke drowns out the blood. A gunman can hide behind his weapons.
A gunman does not kill people. He kills enemies.
Yet, a gun is coldly personal. A sword requires training to be a viable battle weapon. A sword symbolizes ancient codes and honor which weigh down the wielder and shape the weapon's use. When you lift a sword, you use the hands of your master, his teacher, and on through the ancestors to wield it.
A gun requires skill and practice, but it does not require a mentor. Any punk off the streets can pick up a gun and become a killer. A name, a history is not required by a gunman. A gun is not shared; it is the extension of the wielder itself. It is a manifestation of their own hate and destruction.
He does not fear looking his opponents in the eyes as he kills them. Too many deaths stain his hands from his distant past. Too many lives have been ended by knife wounds and chokeholds, too many gone in the name of service to a company that preferred its deaths to be impersonal. Meeting his opponent's gaze seems a fair repentance for his past sins. If he must take a life, the least he can do is acknowledge his opponent's humanity before snuffing it out.
He thinks sometimes that he carries his guns because it is so personal. He had a name that meant nothing outside the gates of Shin-ra. He had no clan to turn to for guidance. He learned to fight as all nothings on the street do: with bloodied lips and broken souls. He became good with his fists, and he became good with a knife. When he stole his first gun, he became a terrible force. And the path he walked was paved with red.
His achievements and failures belong to him and him alone. The sins he bears are his alone.
He prefers to think that he carries his gun because it is so personal. But sometimes, dark thoughts seep in, and fears become uprooted.
A gun to the head is one of the easiest ways to kill a human. Up to the temple, a roar of thunder, and eternal night. And when monsters eat away the soul and a human becomes no more than an angry beast, then they must be put down in the way all dangerous beasts are. No fight and no deliberation, a practiced motion, and the beast is no more.
That, he fears, is the true reason he carries a gun. That one day, he will need to slay the monsters beneath his human skin.
I hope I kept Vincent in character! This is my first real serious piece.
Note: The last part about the gun is slightly inspired by Sanzo's reason for selecting his pistol in Saiyuki.