08 [Video]
[Kanda looks a more centered now than when last he appeared on the network the afternoon before. He’s clean, for one, and there’s a different expression in his eyes--certainly not softness, but a comparative grounding and focus. He’s standing on the steps of Shibusen, and there’s an uncompromising set to his jaw.
His voice is cold and determined, completely without apology. It’s possible that he doesn’t know that what he’s about to say will alarm and upset some people, but more likely, he knows full well and just lacks the compassion to care. Kanda’s not in the business of softening the truth to spare anyone’s feelings, after all. ]
You people have heard by now where we’ve been--Yuuri, Winry, Miranda, and I. If any of you don’t want to believe it, that’s your damn problem. If you want to know what happened in the ten years between now and that future, then listen.
I saw someone’s stockpile of old news clippings and files while I was there. I read the reports:
A few weeks after Spirit’s death, while Shibusen mourns, the witches invade this city. They have a new weapon, one that we’ve seen before in someone else’s hands: the fear gas, which that madman Crane was using to attack people before he was captured.
Those who guessed he was with the witches, you were right. He supported them for years, became a chief in their ranks, and his gas might have turned the tide in the war.
But they had something else too: humans who they’d altered, given magic and animal traits to. They churned them out from factories. Hybrids: human-animal-witch. They lived like glorified slaves and they did the bidding of their creators and someone they just called “Mother.”
And it wasn’t just Death City that they attacked. In every country, every land mass, they had these modified hybrids along with kishin eggs and gas, and Madness moved with them.
[And here his anger seems to flare up a bit, and there’s a subtle quickening of his words.]
If we follow that path, in less than a year from today Shibusen will decide that this city we’re standing in is to be left abandoned for a hovel of hollowed out tunnels. The ones who don’t want to live underground, who no longer trust Shibusen to keep them safe, splinter off. They form a camp of their own in those mountains we can all see up to the north. [He points, though the mountain range is too far beyond the camera’s angle to be seen.] They live in a network of caves, sequestering themselves behind a calming wavelength shield.
But the witches continue to raze cities. Kishin eggs kill at leisure. Tens of thousands die, sometimes in the span of a day, a week. There aren’t enough meisters and weapons to oppose them. And slowly, over a decade, Shibusen loses this war.
We saw dregs, remnants--people hanging on to their way of life by a damned thread. When the forces of the Calming Wavelength Camp joined the battle, there was a glimmer of hope. But too little. Too late.
I have said this to Shibusen, and I will say it to all of you. If you don’t want that future, then do not consent to wait for the witches to come! Go out and find them! Find their factories, the places they make their Fear Gas and their slaves. Find this “Mother” before she can spawn her brood. And kill any witch that comes across your path!
His voice is cold and determined, completely without apology. It’s possible that he doesn’t know that what he’s about to say will alarm and upset some people, but more likely, he knows full well and just lacks the compassion to care. Kanda’s not in the business of softening the truth to spare anyone’s feelings, after all. ]
You people have heard by now where we’ve been--Yuuri, Winry, Miranda, and I. If any of you don’t want to believe it, that’s your damn problem. If you want to know what happened in the ten years between now and that future, then listen.
I saw someone’s stockpile of old news clippings and files while I was there. I read the reports:
A few weeks after Spirit’s death, while Shibusen mourns, the witches invade this city. They have a new weapon, one that we’ve seen before in someone else’s hands: the fear gas, which that madman Crane was using to attack people before he was captured.
Those who guessed he was with the witches, you were right. He supported them for years, became a chief in their ranks, and his gas might have turned the tide in the war.
But they had something else too: humans who they’d altered, given magic and animal traits to. They churned them out from factories. Hybrids: human-animal-witch. They lived like glorified slaves and they did the bidding of their creators and someone they just called “Mother.”
And it wasn’t just Death City that they attacked. In every country, every land mass, they had these modified hybrids along with kishin eggs and gas, and Madness moved with them.
[And here his anger seems to flare up a bit, and there’s a subtle quickening of his words.]
If we follow that path, in less than a year from today Shibusen will decide that this city we’re standing in is to be left abandoned for a hovel of hollowed out tunnels. The ones who don’t want to live underground, who no longer trust Shibusen to keep them safe, splinter off. They form a camp of their own in those mountains we can all see up to the north. [He points, though the mountain range is too far beyond the camera’s angle to be seen.] They live in a network of caves, sequestering themselves behind a calming wavelength shield.
But the witches continue to raze cities. Kishin eggs kill at leisure. Tens of thousands die, sometimes in the span of a day, a week. There aren’t enough meisters and weapons to oppose them. And slowly, over a decade, Shibusen loses this war.
We saw dregs, remnants--people hanging on to their way of life by a damned thread. When the forces of the Calming Wavelength Camp joined the battle, there was a glimmer of hope. But too little. Too late.
I have said this to Shibusen, and I will say it to all of you. If you don’t want that future, then do not consent to wait for the witches to come! Go out and find them! Find their factories, the places they make their Fear Gas and their slaves. Find this “Mother” before she can spawn her brood. And kill any witch that comes across your path!