❝ you know ... i was wrong about you, tanaka-san. ❞
komaeda’s smile is positively lurid, as if he was somehow invulnerable to gundam’s influence that birthed an empire and conquered a country. but then, better the devil you know. ❝ you’re not the saviour ... the beacon that i was waiting for. your actions are not the actions of a person who embodies hope. ah, i suppose it’s my fault for being so unobservant, blind until it was too late ... ❞
a languid sigh, more as though he was lamenting poor weather than the rise to power of an orphic dictator. the stone slabs beneath him are cold and dusty, but he revels.
❝ but ... it’s fine. the day you fall, tanaka-san ... the more devastating your reign upon the people ... this dark country will rise out of its own ashes. reborn, all because somewhere, somebody bright and brilliant had hope that the despair would end. you’re a stepping stone, tanaka-san ... just like me. hallelujah. ❞
and when you fall, i’ll be the one to put the coins on your eyes.
oh, yes, gundam tanaka may exert his regal airs, crush all who defied him like bugs betwixt his heel, and he’d be good at it too. he could send a city-state to their deaths on the nautical front, exploit the urchins, beggars and thieves and wear their hollowed bones like trophies, lavish and adorn himself in ornaments, artefacts, charms, wards, finery, rule society with fear & blood & steel and look good doing it to boot ! but beneath it all ——
the scent of a god-hated wretch just like him. the scent of a sinner. the scent of sin.
quietly, and gentle as rain, komaeda laughs.
