Obi's smile turned kind for a rare second. "That's fair" he said. "And also disqualifying, because it means we have to ask the worst person near the last."
Everyone looked at Raizen.
The part of him that can give orders and not mind leaned forward automatically. The part of him that had watched a light go out and had been late stacked sandbags against his ribs and hoped the flood would be polite.
His parents' faces are never clear in his head. They come like warmth and then like smoke. Takeshi is too clear. He had learned to look at it and not fracture. It still steals air.
He could have said a football field of things. He picked the smallest sentence that wouldn't lie.
"I wanted revenge" he said. The fire popped. No one flinched. "And then I got someone else killed because I wanted it."
The circle adjusted itself around the weight of that with casual grace. Someone shifted a mug. Someone poked the fire. Hikari's hand stilled on her cup.
