DISASSOCIATION

Subaru-kun, you really are a fool.
Each and every time we meet, you have that same wounded look in your eyes.
As if to say there was some sort of hope in our encounters.
Really, Subaru-kun... I should hope to think that you know me better than that by now.
But perhaps I shouldn't give you that much credit.  After all, after all these years, you're still no smarter.
And here you are, asking me to kill you - offering yourself up to me.
How quaint.  
Subaru-kun, you really shouldn't tempt me.  Your pain is really too beautiful, sometimes I don't think I have the proper will to resist.
Or perhaps it is your intention to indulge me.  Really, you are too kind.
Is there anything else you would like before you die?  After all, my favorite toy deserves a dying request.
...
Well, that wasn't exactly what I expected to hear, but then again, that is so like you.
Alright then... I shall pretend for you.  That love in your eyes was always more intriguing than your pain.
Because love is not something so easily understood as hurt... and you... have not looked at me that way since Hokuto-chan died.
But somehow... right now... it seems... wrong.
I am not quite sure why... but that peace on your face... that SMILE...
Subaru-kun, you've always had a beautiful smile... but this time, it doesn't do anything for me.
Actually, to be perfectly honest, the look of it irritates me.
That is quite an accomplishment, Subaru-kun.
I should kill you right now.  Are you ready?
...
/Seishirou-san./
You know, I can't stand it when you call me that.  It isn't so much the name, as it IS my name...
It is the fact that I KNOW that you aren't talking to me.
You're talking to HIM.
Normally, this wouldn't bother me... not with anyone else but YOU.
Ouside the ring of Dragons, you are the only person to know me for who I truly am.
And you are also the only one who still cannot come to terms with it.
You are the only one who still looks at me and sees a person that does not really exist.
I cannot tell you how much I resent that.
Subaru-kun, I once told you that I could not differentiate between people and things.
It made you cry... but you are such a hypocrite.
Because you also cannot look at me and see a person.
You simply see HIM.
A mask.  A dream.  A fabrication.  A thing.
Such a disappointment...  Yes, I'll admit it.  I am disappointed in you.  But not only that...
I hate you for it.
I have felt few things in my life, but I am almost certain that I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate your heart, I hate the way you cry, I hate the way you love HIM and never gave me a second look.
No one has ever made me feel regret before... but you... I regret the day I met you... regret falling under the spell your eyes cast...
I always like your eyes.  I like pretty things.  Your eyes are lovely, Subaru-kun.  I should like to tell you that.
I was perfectly content with my life until you came along and made me second-guess myself.
One does not miss what he has never been able to possess - to experience.
But you... oh, only you...
You made me wonder if I could ever truly feel... ever really love....
My mother once told me that I would be killed by the one I loved best -  for such a thing was beautiful.
I wanted to know.  So I chose you - one who shone as those he possessed all the love in the world.
And you... you with your feeling heart and self-sacrificing ways... you loved everyone.
Even him... maybe even the way he desired it.
And even if I could not learn from you what it was to love...
I suppose you can say you taught me what it was to need.
It wasn't quite the same as bearing sympathy or containing the absolute will to sacrifice for another...
It was more like curiosity... possession... and the desire for that warmth.
The desire for that certain something that could easy away some of that loneliness.
It is, after all, lonely, being who I am.
And given who I am, I certainly do not look forward to spending the rest of my life under a mask.
I needed to break free of that.
I wanted to have one person who could see me for who I was.
I chose you all over again.
For there was no one quite as qualified as you to bear the knowledge of who I truly was.
I probably wouldn't have killed you that day anyway, Subaru-kun.  I just wanted you to see.
I knew that the only way to discard HIM permanently was to shatter you, cruel as it sounds.
Your Seishirou-san loved you too much to play such a horrible joke on you.
But I am not HIM.  And I shed that mask gratefully, allowing you to see me as I really was.  
Pain and blood and misery.  ...and to accept that.
And I'd have to say the happiest you ever made me was in that one perfect moment...
Where you cried for me in my maboroshi - hurting and lost and bleeding... but also loving.
Looking at me and knowing that I was NOT your Seishirou-san, but loving me anyway.
It was absolutely beautiful.
But you are not the sort of person I imagined you to be.
You do not know what it is to love either, do you, Subaru-kun?
In that case, I am as much a fool as you.
I can tell you tried to separate him from me, but deep in your heart, you never stopped loving him, did you?
And even 9 years to sort that out in your mind does nothing to change that one, infuriating fact.
Even now, you can't disassociate him from me.  You're just like everyone else - you can't love me.
It is a rather unpleasant thought.
And really, why should I give you the illusion that I love you as you die if you cannot return that illusion and at least pretend for me as well?
You hate me for my deceptions.
And I hate you for yours.
You hate me for pretending that I was in love with you.
And I hate you for pretending that you could give me someone who could love me.
You will always have others around you.
I still have no one, Subaru-kun... no one but you.
So I won't kill you tonight... because in some twisted way, you are all I have left.
And for you to die quite this way is unsatisfying for me.
You are not exactly what I wanted you to be, but you are the closest I can get.
And so I am choosing you all over again.
If nothing else, then to have those beautiful green eyes of yours follow me into oblivion...
it would be wonderful.
But I am a selfish man - and I still want for it to be perfect.
I want for you to love me.
Because I want my death to be a beautiful thing.
So I will do what I can to help you love me.
I will hurt you.
And I will make you cry.
And I will break you all over again.
And I will show you how lovely your pain is to me.
Because there is no Seishirou-san.
I'll make you see.
He never really existed.
And I will have you know that the man standing in front of you is all you have left too.
Come out of your Dream, Subaru-kun... and look at me.
I'm all you have left to love.
I'm all there ever was.