Behind the veil (D7, LM, Open)

[Kitsu Kanna]

"The Empire is ancient history. Behind each samurai stands tenth and tenth generations of their ancestors, down to the very dawn of the Empire. We are defined in our very soul by what happened during the previous millennia, and our daily actions will still impact our descendants in the millennia to come. There is no present time, only a continuum between the past and the future.

In layman's terms: My actions are not my own, they also affect my parents and my daughter. One does not simply cut themselves from the stream of what was and what will be."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo inhaled deeply, steadying herself to deal with such heavy topics this early in the day.

"So should we not by that logic act with knowledge and compassion both, to improve upon the future? After all, if you do nothing, the status quo only continues. The Empire did not reach the stars by merely sitting idly by and believing that what worked yesterday will also work tomorrow."

[Kitsu Kanna]

"I literally don't see what compassion has to do with the current subject."

Kanna was puzzled more than anything else.

"I told you I was searching for dutiful servants of bushido for my book and the Susumu had an ancestral debt of honesty to work for so they wouldn't fit the bill. Compassion does not make oranges out of apples.

It's even... Kinda the opposite of what you're suggesting? When someone has made a mistake, it's not compassion to turn a blind eye on their wrong ways. You're neither helping them nor anyone else that way. Compassion is telling the faulty samurai about the bad they're responsible for and support them through their efforts to fix what they did."

[Susumu Yakumo]

"Perhaps that is how you see it, Kitsu-san, because you already decided that you think me and my kin are deceitful and bad - faulty samurai even - simply because of the circumstances of our founder ages ago," Yakumo's tone turned more serious, as she narrowed her eyes.

"I brought up Compassion, and Knowledge, because people act without kindness towards the my kin and treat us like shit without even knowing who we are. Therefore, a lack of Compassion and Knowledge - and without those two, you're left with ignorant hatred. Just like you are doing, Kitsu-san - so consider this your one chance now to reconsider your words because I will not tolerate you insulting my Family and my Clan."

[Kitsu Kanna]

"It's not how I decided it. It's how karma works. It's how the Celestial Order works."

Kanna grabbed a nearby pebble and let it fall to the ground.

"The rock falls down because that's how the law of gravity works. It's not going to fall upward because it would be easier. If I was to throw it higher, it would take more time to return to the ground, and if I was to send it into space it wouldn't find its way back here. But the law of gravity would remain the same nonetheless.

As the natural laws of Meido are inflexible, so are the natural laws of Yomi."

Kanna adjusted her glasses, passably displeased.

"You do realize we're talking about theological issues the Kitsu have been working on for 3,000 years, not something I just made up, right? The spiritual world has its own balancing mechanisms, cogs that turn without paying attention to the mortals they might crush.

You might have heard this legend about a Crane family which for several hundred years had to live with an allergy to iron making them unable to draw their sword all due to a misunderstanding with a powerful spirit generations ago? This is not fundamentally different. The past makes the present, and one cannot change the past."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo looked down at the Lion, wishing she could just stomp her out now like the insect she was.

"Kitsu Kanna-san," the honorific came out a tad harsh as the Spider was reminding herself that she was going to maintain courtesy, even in the face of idiocy and insults. "You have called the entire Susumu Family liars - claiming we are not dutiful servants of Bushido. Repeatedly, you say my clan is lesser and are only mistakes who do not understand the concepts of Bushido."

"I gave you one chance to reconsider these things you have said directly to me, giving you the benefit of my Compassion to change your future for the better, but you give me no other option; this matter will be settled with blood in a duel, and you will be made to pay for the insults you have repeatedly levied at my Family and my Clan - whom I will remind you are acknowledged as a Great Clan just like the Lion are, by the wisdom and grace of the Heavens through their chosen divine representative, the glorious Emperor."

[Kitsu Kanna]

"I didn't say that?"

Kanna wasn't sure if the musician was playing a courtly game or if her confusion was genuine.

"I said there was a karmic debt that needed to be paid, that each Susumu that embraced honesty contributed to alleviating it, but that that wasn't a task that could be achieved over the course of only a few generations.

At which point did you get the idea it meant something like 'all Susumu lie, all the time'? That's almost a complete contradiction to my previous statement. If your family was fully unrepentant, then the debt could never be paid, not now, not in three hundred generations, just never."

[Susumu Yakumo]

"I suggest Kitsu-san takes a moment to reflect upon the words she has said, for remember that you have meant every word you have said to me, as you claimed to not be someone to lie and a samurai always speaks with Honesty and Sincerity."

Yakumo resisted the urge to make it into an even more back-handed remark, just as the Lion had oh-so-innocently asked her if she knew what Honor was. As if she wasn't born and raised a samurai.

"Accidentally meeting you, I hoped for a courteous conversation with you, but this has been anything but. I have nothing more to say until this matter of insult to my kin has been settled."

Taking a deep breath, Yakumo turned around and began to walk away, not even caring if Kanna might've felt insulted that she so easily turned her back to her without so much as even a bow. It was a great relief to turn away, as she felt her face burning red with all the anger and upset boiling up beneath. This Lion was no better than the bullies from her childhood years.


/exit Yakumo unless stopped.

[Kitsu Kanna]

Kanna was puzzled more than anything else.

Not that she expected anything good to come from a conversation with someone at the bottom end of the honor chart. But the issues hadn't arisen where she would have expected them. For someone who had been raised in the idea the Spider (and everyone in that honor range really) were a legacy of evil, and that basically anyone, her first, had a karmic debt they needed to erase through a life of diligence, it was more or less the nicest way she could integrate them in her moral framework.

Well, for lack of understanding, might as well be polite.

"Good day to you Susumu-sama."

And she returned to her contemplation of illusions.

/thanks for scene