"Sometimes the world needs a demon." [i] Lance said quietly, almost like he was quoting someone from long ago.[/i] "If there were no monsters willing to do their job, we'd have a shortage of men and plenty of demons. The world's lucky they have half-decent ones like me." [i] It was clear Lance owned up to his true nature, being a demon. But he obviously didn't concern Lucien as such.[/i] "Or maybe not."

"There is no good demon, Ronin. We make up ur excuses and justify ourselves for whatever reason with our own strength. We deny our beastly nature - demons and monsters are one and the same, after all. The greatest trick the Devil played on mankind was tricking them into thinking he didn't exist." Lucien said that last last sentence quietly with a slight smile, as if only understanding a joke he himself made. "Because I know that if there weren't any others demons for you to feed on yourself, you'd be driven mad and devour the ones you love the most," he says with not more than a solemn whisper heard by both of them, "the only thing keeping you from that being the fine line of ideals. But when everything you value is wiped away and destroyed, those ideals mean nothing. Think about another demon you think you have vanquished in the past, Ronin. Another monster devoured for your hungry blades. Were they always such a monster? Perhaps they were like you in another life, convinced their inner demons could be used for good."

"Even God thought Lucifer beautiful before he cast him out heaven." [i] Lance says with a smile, like that was a joke only he was privy too.[/i] "I suppose I am a demon Lucien. But the ones that I've vanquished never had a sliver of good in them. I believe our monsters are born within us from the day we come into existence, that they are innate."

"Yet if they are innate, then that is to imply that people like us have been consumed by them. You are as much a demon as your children are still innocent parts of mankind. And I beg of you, Ronin, never let your kin turn into a monster. If there's one thing we can agree on, it's that our bloody fate is ours to carry alone."

"You got that right.." [i] Lance muttered, but then looked back up at Lucien, an intensity to his eyes.[/i] "Tell me Lucien, what do you believe makes someone a man, and not a monster?"

Lucien met Lance's look with a look of slight pain hidden beneath his fiery hazel irises. "If you give a man a blade he asks himself, 'How can I defend myself with it?' If you give a monster a blade he asks, "How can I kill people more efficiently with such a tool?" Those who are monsters are men who have submitted to demons - their own, Youtou and so on - and obtained a power because of such. We make deals with our own Devils, Ronin. I don't mean demons literally either, if anything I speak mostly figuratively. I once knew a man from my home from a group who sought to call themselves the 'high class' of society by teaching themselves and following the ideals of Old-Earth existentialism. But much like his brethren he was corrupted, perverted by his own desires. I know him very well - he tried to kill me, after all. A man's own love runs so deep within him that, when it is twisted into hatred, it becomes all that he knows." That last part seemed pained for him to say; a man reflecting on the long winter of his past.