"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.