[ Go ahead and ask away. His answers would simply be, "A friend" and "Not this." While there's truth in the fact that, during his some seven hundred years alive, J hasn't been able to successfully open his heart to many. It would still be a lie to say the demon would feel nothing at all upon learning that Barnaby's plans for future disobedience earned him a permanent expulsion from this war and existence itself. ]
Is that what he would do? Your Kotetsu. [ J remembers with frightening clarity that moment during their joint Innocence infection, when Barnaby's love had poured into his body like the breaking of a dam. Would a man worth that kind of immeasurable adoration simply abandon Barnaby in his most desperate hour? The sort of person who would appeal to his fellow Kenoma's sense of justice and righteousness, Hell- someone who could even measure up to Barnaby's expectations, that wouldn't be a man who could look on and expect Barnaby to fend for himself in dire straights. So perhaps using that sore spot, a dead man loved and lost, might remind Barnaby of what he's asking here: For J to potentially watch him orchestrate his own destruction. ]
Would you really expect him to leave you, to face this alone? [ Barnaby's action are so self-destructive that J can't help but point it out in the vaguest terms. His decisions are setting things up to pit Barnaby against the world at large, unless he can so easily assimilate into the very faction he's been working to destroy these last few months. He has serious doubts the Pleroma have such short memories, or are ready and willing to trust one of the legion orchestrating their destruction. The faction his mindset more readily aligns with could spell his doom just as easily as theirs.
A shard makes bodily death less of a lasting concern, but all it takes is the destruction of that soul-bound crystal left behind, and Barnaby won't be coming back to rattle the hornet's nest a second time. ] I sincerely doubt it.
So why are you so dead set on believing everyone else should let you down? [ In this crucial moment, Barnaby would do well to not conflate J's inability to change the other man's stubborn mind with the assumption he's just going to kick back, sit on his hands and doing nothing. He's not an altruistic being by any means, but J is too selfish a creature to simply let what he likes senselessly fall to ruin. ]
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Is that what he would do? Your Kotetsu. [ J remembers with frightening clarity that moment during their joint Innocence infection, when Barnaby's love had poured into his body like the breaking of a dam. Would a man worth that kind of immeasurable adoration simply abandon Barnaby in his most desperate hour? The sort of person who would appeal to his fellow Kenoma's sense of justice and righteousness, Hell- someone who could even measure up to Barnaby's expectations, that wouldn't be a man who could look on and expect Barnaby to fend for himself in dire straights. So perhaps using that sore spot, a dead man loved and lost, might remind Barnaby of what he's asking here: For J to potentially watch him orchestrate his own destruction. ]
Would you really expect him to leave you, to face this alone? [ Barnaby's action are so self-destructive that J can't help but point it out in the vaguest terms. His decisions are setting things up to pit Barnaby against the world at large, unless he can so easily assimilate into the very faction he's been working to destroy these last few months. He has serious doubts the Pleroma have such short memories, or are ready and willing to trust one of the legion orchestrating their destruction. The faction his mindset more readily aligns with could spell his doom just as easily as theirs.
A shard makes bodily death less of a lasting concern, but all it takes is the destruction of that soul-bound crystal left behind, and Barnaby won't be coming back to rattle the hornet's nest a second time. ] I sincerely doubt it.
So why are you so dead set on believing everyone else should let you down? [ In this crucial moment, Barnaby would do well to not conflate J's inability to change the other man's stubborn mind with the assumption he's just going to kick back, sit on his hands and doing nothing. He's not an altruistic being by any means, but J is too selfish a creature to simply let what he likes senselessly fall to ruin. ]