continued from here || @the-smirking-fox
At that, his head turned downward and he clenched his teeth—though not in anger—before replying, “No. He died a short while before I came to Vale. He died saving me when I tried to save an old man from being beaten to death by White Fang supporters, an old man who ended up dying anyway just as he was thanking me. How do I know for certain that my brother’s dead?” To demonstrate, he used his Semblance to allow smoke to rise from his palms.
“I did the same to the others when I knew they were dead. It...it was the only thing that I could do at the time to keep myself from becoming hysterical. Old family tradition. The vermin, I just left as piles of ashes, but after cremating my brother and the old man... “ He tapped the pommel of his sword and the pendant he wore. Both of them had a very small, almost unnoticeable uncut diamond set into them. He gave a mirthless yet still stable chuckle. “Let me tell you: your brother dying thanks to you? That traumatizes you. Your uncle trying to use you as a weapon against the rest of the Faunus? That traumatizes you. Cremating your own brother and an old man, then turning their ashes into diamonds? With your bare hands? All at age twelve? That...that changes you. You’re the first person I’ve told about the diamonds. Few have ever noticed.”
Sun knew all to well how it felt to lose everyone you had, having lost his parents at such a young age, so he could sympathize more than most. There was nothing quite as traumatizing and life changing as losing your entire family...except, of course, feeling responsible for their deaths. Growing up alone, trying to find your own way and figure out who you are? That changes you too.
Sharp grey eyes took in the small diamonds as Ash pointed them out and Sun chewed at his lip thoughtfully, his fingertips absentmindedly went to the pendant hanging from his own neck, the last physical ties to his own parents that he had. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair that the world had to be so cruel for their kind when the only thing they'd done to earn the difficulty was to be born a different species.
“I’m sorry, Ash,” he says in a genuinely sympathetic way, “I really am. But you can’t blame yourself. What you did was the right thing and sometimes choosing the right thing...it’s the hardest thing to do. It shouldn’t have happened like it did, but it wasn’t your fault.”