<div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><span class="bbc_u">On the Rocks</span></strong></span></div><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/siPDgO7.jpg)</div><strong>NAME:</strong>Albion<br/><strong>DAY:</strong>April 15th, 2021, 7:30 AM~<br/><strong>LOCATION:</strong>Albion's Flat<br/><strong>TAGGING:</strong>Nerissa<br/><strong>EXTRA:</strong>Discussion time.<br/><strong>WEARING:</strong>As pictured, partially loose, minus tie<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"I'm not asking you to believe it, I'm just coming up with something rational for my most irrational drunken experience yet. Tale it or leave it." Albion sighed. He should have expected it wouldn't have sounded good for her to hear, but he really didn't have any other way to think about it. He didn't lust that hard after Nerissa... Though she certainly was not pulling any punches, earning a soft chuckle from him. "You're absolutely right, I am stupid... I'm afraid of us becoming real because affection like that might make me more vulnerable. I thought I couldn't be hurt if I kept you at a distance, but..." He flashed back to the year prior, closing his eyes as he remembered when Nerissa needed him most, and he turned her away... Then later that night when he saw her ruined home. "... It turns out it only hurts more."<br/><br/>He shook his head, trying to help her get that idea out of her head. "Maybe a little embarrassed... I've been such a hard case that if I started showing affection in public, it would be... Weird. The bigger concern is if others saw us together, especially those I would consider enemies, they could use you to get to me. Or me to get to you if you have any one like that... But I know that's just a poor excuse. The real answer is just to become strong enough to protect what I want.." He reasoned, which... Wasn't untrue, he just needed to train his power more. "Part of me would enjoy the idea of being able to hug and nuzzle you any time I wish, but it'll take some time for me to get used to, sorry..."<br/><br/>She had a point though... She could have had a different man every night, but only if she could turn her feelings off. His hand came up, brushing a thumb gently up along the length of her ear. "That you haven't is a greater show of your testament  to looking for proper love instead of living with a fabrication like I do... I won't deny being called a pervert though, that would be a pretty bold-faced lie " He sighed. He could also be a mess of contradictions more often than not, but it all came down to him sorting out his feelings and just... Coming clean.<br/><br/>Then the truth of the diner discussions came out, and he heaved a quiet sigh. "I was afraid of that... Well, you would be the first I've told that, but... Yes, I did. In my youth when I came to Japan me and my family quickly realized that there was no true safety anywhere in the world. I suppose we asked for it coming to the place they were all pouring out from, while they worked to help reinforce shrines as if they would help stop the demons." He closed his eyes.<br/><br/>"Studies on the occult and research on the arcane really couldn't have prepared them for everything that would happen. I don't even know when they died, or how, I just... Spent a few days without my parents coming home before I forced myself to realize they were probably dead. They only wanted to help, and they only added to the body count." He muttered quietly, dragging his hand against her ear. "Orphans in that period of time weren't uncommon, though finding them alive probably was. Me and so many others, we got rounded up... Not to be saved, but to be trained... It was a sick joke that I never got until everything was said and done. What could snot-nosed brats do that the adults couldn't already?"<br/><br/>It was clear he didn't like this tale, but he pushed on. "Young and dumb, that's what we were. We were sngry, we had nothing to lose, and we were told we had everything to gain. Freedom, our lives, revenge most of all, a world without demons. We were trained to hunt them like wolves in a pack, using anything and everything we could, even their own weapons if the opportunity arose. We succeeded every now and then, other times we had to run, sometimes lose one or two... But they called us soft, weak, that we didn't have the conviction to fight the demons. We had to become demons to fight them." He continued, narrowing his eyes.<br/><br/>"Survival... Of the fittest. That's what it all amounted to. Maybe they had succumbed to some demonic trick by a Calder demon or struck a deal with one who represented Osefo... Whatever the case, they organized us and made us fight among one another. People who befriended each other, bled together, they wanted us to treat one another as enemies. Some were all for it, the especially bloodthirsty ones. I made sure I always killed them first... But sooner or later they caught on, and made me fight against close friends... Each time I won  it never felt like a victory. I have their struggles still carved into parta of my body to this day, but the one that hurt most... My final fight against... Her." He forced himself to look into Neri's eyes now, the mistiness evident in them.<br/><br/>"Risa, I called her, short for Risako. She was there as long as I was, we fought together so much, laughed, had dreams and delusions of grandeur of a brighter world...How<em>poetic</em>then, that to properly become as cold, indifferent, and merciless as the demons, I had to kill her... Or her kill me. You know what I did?" He asked, closing his eyes, before he shook his head. "I couldn't do it. Beaten and bloodied, we fought, and yet... I couldn't do it. I waited for her to just end it, to save herself and... Pfft... S-she couldn't do it either. We had so much blood on our hands, we were just the two monsters left. Maybe we could escape, disappear..." It sounded hopeful, but... Happy ends didn't exist in this tale.<br/><br/>"The demons wouldn't allow that... The<em>real</em>demons. A warpact of those who served under Zelkova, just a roaming band of violence and murder looking for fun any way they could get it, whether that meant torturing, pillaging, killing, or violating anything in their way, all in the name of their war-reveling God. Our instructors either died in battle or died trying to flee, I don't care. I would gladly kill them myself if I saw them today, but we were also targets. I tried to pull her to safety, but I was thrown away. The power of real demons, blessed by their god, was just too much. I still have the burns on my chest from that time, they've never been able to properly heal." His free hand lazily traced his chest, while he looked up at the ceiling.<br/><br/>"Risako... Like any willing female, she was given the choice. Submit, or die... She was a monster through and through though... She chose to die. All it took was one of our IEDs... And she managed to kill at least one of them... Along with herself, while I just floated down Tokyo Bay as the last one to live from that... That shitty semblance of false resistance. I looked back on it ever since and I wonder to myself if it was all a deranged joke I was too stupid to see back then, or someone's mad dream of a better world built upon the backs of the sacrificed. To this day, I haven't found an answer... Even to this day I still hear them, like specters in my mind, wondering how or why I was still alive or to join them, and each time they start up, I just try to drink myself stupid to forget or at least not hear them... Except Risa... I can't see her anymore. Maybe she went to Heaven, while we're all stuck in Hell... Wouldnt that be nice..." He struggled to suppress a sniffle, before he sighed.<br/><br/>"I just... Wandered after that, until I'd heard about SOPHE, and the rest is history. I trust the brass of SOPHE about as well as I trust my instructors in my youth, and so far I've kept distance from just about everyone... Or at least I thought, but I suppose you and Toshiro have been exceptions to that rule, and even Lily has found ways to befriend me... Or at least friendly enough to haze me, which is fine too. Leasick... Well, fellow degenerate there, not much else to say." He gave a quiet chuckle, before he reached up with both hands, stroking her ears. "And now... You know my story. There's more from my joining SOPHE onward, but for the most bit, if you're wondering what's made me what I am today, now you know."