[center]Hyakune su Jikankizami, Ra[/center]

The Empress' visions were like a storm raging through an otherwise peaceful land - promising death, destruction, and oppression. The sights and sounds felt familiar to a woman who had lived out the lives of many others in order to gain their secrets, but the aura of severity that coursed through these visions was something Ra herself had only felt on occasion. The sensations tried to assault her - bombarding her with information that it was assumed she could not begin to understand and process - but for a woman like Ra, the visions were not as dark as they should have been. As they passed over her, and she returned to the confines of reality, her face was unchanged - as were her emotions. She had seen the suffering of her brethren first hand as a child, and those who were weak had died. It brought back memories, not necessarily unpleasant ones, of her childhood struggles - of how she and the others born into her generation had had to live.

To the Hyakune, there was no greater crime than weakness. Their children were expected to steal their own bread to become strong, and the fates that befell the weak and unfortunate were almost horrific - but Ra had always been strong of mind, and she had passed the metaphorical ceremony easily. Her own brothers and sisters had not been so lucky, and she had been trained not to help them. Watching them die had, she supposed, given her a buffer against the recoil of horrifying thoughts and scenes - she had experienced all of her tragedy already, a little more was not going to perturb her. Even as a young child, she had found the suffering unnecessary, but she had also found that she did not care enough to actually help them. Empathy had never been strong in the Hyakune, and she was no exception to that rule.

During her teenage years, Ra had surmised that the world was better off under someone else's control - when left to themselves, humans wrought destruction and chaos upon themselves. They would tear themselves apart for the bread that another had, and wage wars for trivial reasons in order to better their own agenda or find some demented profit amidst the chaos that ensued. It was far better for those destructive urges to be quelled by the soothing control of another. It was the tyranny of thought and free will that brought them to the brink of destruction, that brought them to their hate-filled ways, and it was freedom from that tyranny that could bring them peace. Empress Shoko was one of the few with both the will and power to make that happen, and that had been what had caused Ra to join the Empire in the first place. Another had finally understood the cause of the suffering in the world.

Things were rarely as clear-cut as they seemed, however. There were people who were just, and kind, and proved that they could exist peacefully with their own free will... But those people were far and few between. If they understood the suffering that their brethren caused, the wars that had been started, the families that had been destroyed by the wanton nature of the human condition... They would have joined the movement to strip the unworthy of their basest desires. Surely, knowing what she knew, anyone would come to the same conclusion? Questions that did not have answers. They were for another place, for another time, as the world around her returned to reality and the forms of the people in the room became visible once again.

Shoko, Yakoul and Ryuza left fairly quickly to deal with the Shukaku, and Ra was left again with Namine. It was a familiar situation - but they had been interrupted before, and there was answers to questions that Namine had asked that needed to be said.

"She's right. When left to our own devices, we will allow the less virtuous things to creep into our minds and overtake us. You travelled the world for a time, didn't you? Is there really a spirit of peace and co-operation that binds the masses, that they might take it upon themselves to overthrow the corrupt ones that rule them? In all of my years, I have never seen it. I have seen only the innocent who suffer and can do nothing about it... The Empress has a sense of perspective that we lack - and this lack of perspective casts shadows of doubt upon our resolutions, staining them that they might falter. No matter the sides of this war, is it not the weakest among us who deserve the greatest protection? The Rebels fight for their liberty - for their right to exercise their power upon the world, to make their marks upon history... But they see only the glory of this war. They see liberation from an oppression that would seek to strip them of their glory... They do not see the families that they tear apart. They do not see the children they make orphans, or the elderly that they let starve to death with their needless crusade. I know that you are on the side of those who need the most help, sweet Namine, and there are no questions of where your loyalty lies... But the Empress' methods will be justified by peace. It will be our job to stop the needless suffering where we find it."