It was a strange feeling, to hear the truth and feel nothing for it. He'd expected that, had Tosen lied all along, he'd have been angry. Had Tosen told the truth and been who he had been all along, he'd have been saddened. And yet, as Tosen spoke and identified himself as a person Sajin had once known, all he really felt was a settling feeling of exhaustion. Like golden dust particles drifting downwards on a soft, summer's evening. A tiredness wholly surprising by its timing alone. He wished, with all his heart, to simply sit, and sleep. He was tired.
"I had hoped," he spoke, voice low and soft but audible enough in the silence between them, "that you had not been who I had once thought you to be. I had hoped that you were a stranger to me, so that I may not mourn the death of someone who had never existed in he first place."
He was so tired. The war was over. He deserved, as well as anyone, to rest.
But he could not. Not yet. He was a captain, and though his bones were weary and his heart heavy, he was a leader, and his division looked towards him in their time of need with hope and faith.
Just as Tosen's once had. He had been a kind leader, albeit stern in his own ways. A good man.
"All along, you knew. You knew what actions of treachery you would commit, and yet you lived among us as a friend.”
