#//he is already planning to help her change thAT SDFJHGSFGHJSDFGHJ

[doomxdriven]

"Woah, all that?" Tanba first replies, eyes widened a bit, a hand placed over his mouth, "You had one awful father there if he did all that. I can't understand the ways some people torture their children-- people like that don't deserve to live." Listening to Sylvia, Tanba felt a pang of anger in his heart, of disgust, the latter which he didn't feel very often. Disgust not at Sylvia, naturally, but at her father, after hearing how they treated her. It sounded like there was even more that happened to Sylvia, too, going off what she said, but hearing what little bit he did here was enough to grind Tanba's gears, both because he hated the idea of ANYONE being so cruel to Sylvia and because her father's actions reminded him a whole lot of his own father's. The abuse, physical and emotional, the neglect, the unbridled torture, it may have been in different forms and with different ends in mind, but Tanba felt like he knew all too well the things Sylvia had gone through, and it left him feeling nothing but true disdain for her father.

It did irk Tanba too that, at least initially, his dream mirrored that of Sylvia's father's in her eyes, so he felt it was necessary to clear the air on that a bit. "I can't really blame you for likening your father's goal to mine; I didn't really elaborate too much on it did I? Let me change that!" Tanba claps his hands, and instantly, a small group of crows comes flying into view, all of them helping to carry a large piece of paper that they then somehow attach to a nearby wall. One of the crows, carrying a pen in its mouth, flies over to Tanba and drops the tool in his hand, and after this he walks over to the paper that had been set up and starts drawing.

"Ruling the world isn't all there is to my goal, there's a few layers to it; firstly, I'd rule the world, rule humanity, but Shinobi would be at the top of the food chain with me." With the pen, Tanba gestures to some badly drawn figures who were supposed to be shinobi, with an even worse drawn version of himself above them. "I'd be resurrecting all my former Iga friends with the Grail, all my former vassals, maybe even some Shinobi from the Koga, too." A big maybe on that last part-- Tanba was still debating on whether or not he wanted to resurrect Mochizuki Chiyome just to gloat in front of them. "I wouldn't be changing much of the world or humanity apart from elevating myself and Shinobi in general above everyone else."

Tanba goes on to draw a poor representation of that Ruler Servant he and Sylvia encountered before, the one who had been masquerading as a Church priest, and then points at the drawing as he continues, "I know some people would use the Grail to wipe out all evil from the world or bring total peace or something cliche like that, like our friend right here, but not me. Forcing humanity to be good, forcing them to be peaceful, taking away their freedom to choose between good and evil, that would be taking away what makes them human in the first place, and I'm having none of that." Tanba wanted to see himself as ruler of humanity in its entirety, its good and bad, and if that meant he ruled over an ultimately imperfect world then so be it-- not only would it be more interesting that way, it would be the right way, in his opinion.

Tanba then begins to purposefully try and draw a very, very insulting picture of a certain Demonic Archer servant, one Sylvia likely never saw before but who she would soon become aware of when Tanba cheerfully declares, "Oh yeah and somewhere in-between all that I'm going to resurrect Nobunaga with the Grail and then viciously murder them! Maybe I'll resurrect some of Nobunaga's loved ones too so they can watch it happen, that'd be real juicy." Because why not inflict as much suffering as possible on Nobunaga and everyone they cared about? "But that's the whole dream of mine, wayyyy better than whatever your father's trying to go for!"

Tanba pauses for a moment, mouth agape, before turning away from his collection of terrible artwork and asking, in a still cheery though noticeably surprised tone, "Oh oh oh, wait, before I started talking, did you say your father is involved in THIS war? As in he's still alive? You didn't kill them after everything they did?"

Sylvia’s gaze levels with his. He doesn’t know just why he had it in him to apologize either. It was as he said- he’d never say sorry for a life taken, feel guilt, feel shame for anything that he had ever done in his life. So why was he, genuinely, trying to level with her now? What had changed in him?

“That is true, and I won’t take this for granted you know…” Sylvia responds slowly, her gaze lowering again. Here it remains on her folded hands. The thump of her heart rings in her ears and slowly, she realizes she’s almost endeared by the way he was acting. Who would have believed he’d ever own up to his mistakes with her? “An apology from you should be treated like a treasure.” She jests with good nature. 

Only after this, and his own asked explanation, does Sylvia finally lean back in her chair. It’s difficult to mull over the weight of her feelings and what she perceived as the possibility of trauma rearing its ugly head at that time. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely, but the reminder was there.

“It’s a long story.” Sylvia admits, her hands finally unballing. It’s here she allows her right to run through her hair as if to soothe herself. “But for now, I believe all we have is time, so I hope you don’t mind if I drone on.” 

Sylvia would have rather not explain all of the wounds her father left on her heart. He deserved the explanation, but she found it difficult to know where to start. Did she speak of her entire life or simply what had triggered her feelings? There was a wealth of her past he did not know of and for the time they would be with each other, Sylvia didn’t want him to know. 

Funny that, how all worked out. She had to tell him…

“My father was not a particular mage of any great standing,” she starts slowly, folding her arms over her chest as if to guard herself from the memory of him, “but he wished to be, and in that, the obsession to become something far more consumed his life. However, during his own grail war and loss of the servant who saved him, he realized that he’d reached the peak of his own potential. In the end, he wished to pass his legacy onto a stronger mage, a stronger child, and so, I was born.” 

It’s here she pauses again, shrugging her shoulders slightly in thought. She was not at all impressive, a weak mage by her own merit, weaker still when she was being raised by her parents. What more could she have said to explain her feelings to him? All too little and all too much.

“I wasn’t at all what he imagined. From what I was told, I was born fairly sickly and reasonably, if I were not to survive, they’d simply try again. But I managed, and so I was what my father had to work with.” ‘Work with’ was something of an extreme, she realized, one thing she hated most. “He took many short cuts when it came to my training; nothing was off the table. I don’t know how many artificial circuits he placed within my body simply to fit his standards.” Another pause, a sigh leaves her and she has to hand wave away the memories. “Well, putting it bluntly, there’s a lot of things he did that I can’t lay out for you all in one story,” she explains then, raising her gaze once more to look at him, “the reason why I reacted the way I did, Tanba, was because your wish resembled him in such a way, in that moment, I had lost sight of you and only saw him.” Sylvia was ashamed to admit it, her eyebrows knitting together slightly, emotion caught in her throat as she swallowed. “My fathers wish, why he is once again participating in this war- to destroy humanity and create a world of mages that he will rule over. In all his inadequacy and my failures to carry on his legacy, he has grown to believe he can simply rebuild our world and rule over it as a god.”