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Who: Uchiha Sasuke
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: Marsiva
When: This very moment.

(broadcast)

[ Sure there are bound to be the occasional less-than-thrilling broadcasts but this one may be a new low, with the camera focused in on a nondescript blob that turns out -- with some acquired distance -- to be a knee. The feed shakes then and there's the loud metallic tap tap of the device being knocked against the framework of one of the generic cots aboard the Marsiva. Tap. Tap. Tap. The only other sound is that of the painfully bland music in the background, without a word being spoken.

At least this inept user finally turns the communicator around to inspect it at another angle, granting any viewer a flash of dark and impractically spiked hair before the camera then focuses on equally shadowed eyes and a severe expression.

No, he's not going to panic. He probably already did that internally before he even tried to figure out the communicator ~~less than successfully~~. Send aid. ]

(action)

[ Sasuke will be easy to encounter either sitting on that cot and fiddling with his communicator, exploring the bay thoroughly, or staring with incredible and difficult-to-read intensity out into the murky void of space. Godspeed. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ... they're hedging back into difficult territory so quickly but he refuses to look away. ]

I know why he's angry with me. He's close to Ino, after all, and my actions caused her and the rest of the village pain. All that I can do that will matter is to show through my actions that I've changed.

I'm not going to beg for approval or forgiveness, because I'm not seeking instant gratification. I expect a difficult road.

[ redemption is a difficult road. zuko is certain he'll be on it for the rest of his life -- and it is difficult territory, and zuko can feel the tension, but there's a mutual quiet understanding. even if sasuke doesn't know zuko's story, he knows that zuko knows his. and zuko understands, on a personal level, how difficult this can be.

zuko's friends forgave him, but it wasn't instant. he had to earn their trust, particularly katara's, in order to be accepted. but zuko has the even harder job of forgiving himself, and finding his own peace. he's gotten better at it, and he's grown to understand why he made the choices that he did, but it doesn't help erase the pain his family has caused, or zuko's part to play in that. ]

... it is difficult.

[ finally. sasuke is sharing, so zuko can share a little too. ]

Who knows if it ever ends, but moving forward is all that really matters. People see it, in the end.

{ he pauses. ]

It's the right answer, anyway.

[ what sasuke said. ]

Aa. [ After a short pause. ]

Forgiveness isn't necessary. [ For one reason and one reason only: forgiveness implies that Sasuke wants to overcome his guilt and move forward to greater happiness, but that's never been his priority. His form of redemption involves avoiding past mistakes and making more objectively informed decisions for the future, one that will contain fewer children that had grown up the way he did.

It's not about 'moving on', not yet. Not when he has other priorities. ]

It's why I'm not going to try to 'fix' things with him, not now. Things may change in the future, but if I'm imitating some kind change for the purpose of popularity then it isn't genuine evidence of the man I want to be now.

[ zuko is quiet for a long moment after that, and he isn't quite so good as sasuke at masking how he feels. he looks conflicted, like he wants to say something -- but rethinks it, and draws in a quiet breath, letting it out slowly.

as always, the action soothes his feelings, and he seems to figure out a better way of what he wanted to say. ]

Who you want to be and who you are usually aren't too far away from one another. Sometimes your path gets disrupted and you stray away from where you're supposed to go, but the difference between failure and success is how willing you are to continue on the path you're supposed to be on, no matter what.

[ it took a long time for zuko to realize that his father was never going to approve of him, his sister was never going to love him, and his mother was probably never going to return. and it took him even longer for zuko to realize that he would be okay without all of that, so long as he stayed on the correct path. ]

So long as you're willing to keep going, regardless of what's in your way, you'll get forgiveness. Either from yourself or from the people you hurt.

[ zuko is still working on the first part. but the second part, he's done a fairly good job. ]

[ In some very small part of himself that he'd likely not be able to acknowledge consciously anytime soon, Sasuke thinks that perhaps Zuko's augment isn't the worst choice for him after all. And what a change that would be, from a naive prince to a violent outcast to a misguided youth to someone who's slowly able to become more like the advice-giving uncle who'd also made terrible mistakes once. ]

I agree.

But if your motivation is to be alleviated of guilt right away then you either don't comprehend the scope of what you've done or you're still thinking selfishly. It's... easy to look at the world and compare yourself to others, to notice how unfair life has been to you in comparison.

And yet taking action only for yourself, to alleviate your individual pain, brings back nothing you lost and serves to introduce more suffering into that uneven world. [ It's obvious that he's thought about this a Lot, regardless of how many of his crimes were actually about himself and how many were about his family. Zuko seems like he might understand the difference between those two, too. ]

What you lost isn't coming back, but you can't ignore that you lost it in the first place.

[ zuko says that much with great certainty, because that had been his entire problem. he lost his mother, he lost his family, he lost his title. he lost his home, and his position. he lost his aristocracy, and his throne. he lost everything, but instead of accepting it as lost, he pursued it. endlessly. violently. and eventually, zuko truly lost everything in an attempt to get something back he never had in the first place.

rebuilding that has not been easy, and zuko is endlessly grateful that he has people in his life that support him when he wants to quit. iroh and aang -- their presence here is sorely missed, and a hole that isn't filled, but he has katara, and sokka, and toph here. the rest of the members of the blue fish, too, help him when zuko feels like he can't really deal with what's inside his head. and at home, he has even more people.

but all of that can't replace what's lost. zuko has had to deal with that on his own. ]

It isn't selfish to be angry that something was unfairly taken away from you, and it's not selfish to want it back. But you can't let it consume you. It'll just destroy you, or take pieces away that you can't get back. And putting yourself back together once you've let yourself fall that far is difficult, but possible. Forgiveness, and attempting to confront your own guilt, is a part of that.

Aa, but neither of us would be able to speak to each other with this much clarity if we hadn't let it "consume" us, isn't that right? That part's assumed. [ Blunt but completely honest, just like Sasuke tends to be. ]

I never asked enough questions before I acted. If I was doing what was right, if I had enough information, if it was worth it. Now what I want is to gather more information, to learn how I can best apply the skills I still have. That takes priority over anything else... and if I can learn things about humanity here that I can take back home, I'll consider it worthwhile.

It doesn't take much for a fire to spread.

[ which is his way of quietly agreeing. zuko had managed to pull himself out of it, and find himself again, before he truly harmed anyone... but if he hadn't had iroh, or his friends, he surely would have been just as lost as sasuke was. if not worse. ]

[ but his posture relaxes slightly after that, and while he doesn't smile, his expression is a little less serious. ]

At least you asked questions.

[ a little dryly. ]

But it sounds like you're on the right path now. I believe what you say.

[ and zuko knows, from past experience, that sasuke is (more or less) a good person. deep down underneath all that trauma. somewhere. ]

You came with a bias that made you easy to convince. [ It sounds dismissive but in reality it's just another of his harmless jabs. ]

Ino's the same way, but... I believe she doesn't know everything. I don't know if it's wise for me to tell her or necessary that I do.

[ there's a slight roll of his eyes, though it's true. ]

... running away from it isn't going to make it go away.

[ zuko pauses ]

And if someone comes along who hates you, they would just tell her anyway. Better she hears it from you instead of someone else.

[ He's running through it in his head and there's absolutely no way that it comes out sounding good, and it'd be especially easy to hide considering that Team 7 had been the only ones present to hear his plans or witness his attempt to take Naruto out yet again. ]

Perhaps. [ And there's also the harsh reality that he isn't close to Ino and doesn't much value her opinion. Bastard. ] ... She's changed since I last saw her, though most of my memories of her involve her being a child.

[ blackmail material... if he were that kind of guy. ]

[ well. that makes sense. and zuko probably wouldn't spill his life story to, say, jet. because fuck jet.

but -- ]

I've lived through people showing up from different periods of time.

[ pause ]

It's not a fun time.

[ it is way easier to just rip the band-aid off, okay. ]

If it were someone meaningful to me it might be more difficult. [ Yeah, he's just going to be honest. This conversation is private anyway. ]

Regardless of her thoughts or feelings, we've never been that close.

You may have been, in another world, to her.

[ it's a gentle prod, but a no less pointed one. sasuke is talking to zuko, isn't he. ]

Besides, having people from your world who know what happened and understand it wouldn't be a bad thing.

She understands several general aspects. [ What Konoha is, how to use chakra, what it means to be a shinobi or a samurai or a civilian. But... the overlap in their lives has shrunk spectacularly in recent years; talking to her in a way that's more than an exchange of information sounds difficult. ]

My responsibility isn't to emulate another version of me she knew at one point.

No, your responsibility is to yourself, and what that means now.

[ so -- they're in general agreement. but -- ]

... I used to be in this world called Adstringendum, and when I arrived there, it was right after I... put myself back on the right path. So I knew what I wanted to accomplish, but I hadn't actually done anything yet. But the people there had no idea who I was, or what I had done, or hadn't done. So I didn't tell them.

[ which had been... freeing, really. and nice. really, really nice. ]

People knew that something had happened to me, or I had done something, but no one knew the actual truth because I didn't tell them. But someone from my world showed up a few months later and she knew me as someone who had destroyed... a lot of what she had cared about. And she told everyone -- and luckily, most of the people that I had already met understood why I hadn't told anyone, but it was a hard lesson to learn in trust. And honesty.

[ pause ]

The version of you that I knew there told her to shut up, it made it a lot worse than it already was.

[ katara and sasuke, if zuko remembered correctly, did not get along swimmingly at first. ]

[ Katara and Sasuke generally just sounds like a Bad Mix. ]

... it doesn't sound like she was unjustified in saying what she did. [ If someone like Danzou showed up here Sasuke certainly wouldn't hold himself back from warning everyone he knew about the disgusting nature of his past actions. Still, though... ] If I was close to you I can understand why I'd react that way, however.

Are you trying to advise me to air my crimes as public knowledge?

She was completely justified in saying, and doing, what she did.

[ zuko still wonders why katara cares about him to this day, tbh. ]

[ but then zuko stares a bit blankly and immediately shakes his head, holding up his hands. ]

No -- no. Please don't.

[ THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SHOULD DO. ]

I'm just trying to tell you that -- time works weirdly in places like these, and if you're not telling her because you don't want her to find out, chances are -- she might find out anyway. I should have told the friends that I made in Adstringendum the truth before someone else could, but I didn't. That's my point.

[ And again there's the word 'friend' with a reference to Ino just before it. Has he said more than two words to her in their world in five years?

He can't remember. ]

Already she's been told a number of secrets about me and my life by people that are just phantoms to me. [ Even if one of them is himself. It feels like a crushing invasion of privacy, but then it isn't as if that's not the case here with Zuko either. ]

If she asks me directly for more information, I'll consider answering her. But if someone else comes here and chooses to put me on trial again before I do... It won't be the first time. I'm ready to accept that too.

Welcome to the club, it happens to me all the time.

[ at least zuko has the grace to say it a bit tiredly. a lot of people here knew him, which didn't bother him so much. it bothers him that they all seem to be intimately familiar with his batshit crazy sister, but there's not much to be done about that. ]

It's your life, Sasuke; you can choose to share it with whoever you want. As long as you know that it doesn't always work.

[ obviously. considering their conversation. ]

One thing I've learned over the years is how to have fewer expectations for life. That includes in my dealings with people. [ And he's so emotionally constipated that he's become incredibly good at keeping himself repressed and therefore able to deal with severe anger and general depression remarkably well. Sort of. Maybe this isn't the healthiest form of self-control. ]

I won't be disappointed if my talks go badly. [ He's not really a shining beacon of hope or anything. ]

... it's still a little hard to believe that you know this much about me and still are maintaining this conversation. [ Sort of like how he never understood Naruto doing the same thing. ]

I've concluded that you have extremely shit taste in people.

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