Her anger was unhidden, and he could tell that it was directed at everyone, including herself. The tone was somewhere between a furious yell and a cold rebuke. It felt like he was being scolded by his parents. Although, he hadn’t felt as close to them as he did with Jill. And they especially didn’t earn the right to it like she had.

“Why are you all so arrogant? Nothing that has happened since we’ve met belongs to any one of us. At the very least all four of us have taken a piece of the blame. Don’t let it destroy you, push it all onto something else. I for one, am going to push some of it onto those shitty beings that don’t do a damn thing. No matter what you think, there were beings that could have stopped all this.”

Jill gave each of them a look, almost as if she was ready for any response. When nothing came, she nodded her head a single time. The motion was small but noticeable. Her words didn’t fix everything, and they certainly didn’t change the situation in his mind. In fact, he couldn’t even shed any of the blame and guilt that he carried. However, it did change his perception. Not of the guilt within himself, but of the hands that also gripped it.

Now that he was looking for it, he could picture his friends holding onto the blame for themselves. It wasn’t that he thought that they deserved it. No, he would never blame any of them. It was that he could practically feel their hands holding it up with his own. It was kind of like they all held a single great weight. He alone could carry it, and that had been exactly what he tried to do. They didn’t let him through and grabbed onto the weight too. Even if they weren’t really helping him lift it, he could feel reassured knowing that they were.

Nothing about the situation had changed, and the memories that were torturing him kept cycling in his mind, but he felt like he could grasp them now. Look at each one and feel for who had shared in his blame. Unlike Jill suggested, he didn’t push the blame but noticed those whose hands had been there. It kept going further, back each memory seeming to change ever so slightly. The situation with his brother was different now. He could practically imagine his brother carrying the blame himself. Mash knew that there was nothing he could do to shift his brother’s role. Even if he tried to snatch away the blame, that would never be an option.

His thoughts weren’t limited to only the past year though, and they extended beyond that. Into a past, he had unknowingly run from. It delved back to that first day, that moment when he had killed Jason. That day was a distant figment of his past, although it wasn’t one that he struggled to remember. Mash could see that moment in a different light. He could almost picture the wooden stick in his hand, and the boy’s death as it plunged into his eye. The accident wasn’t truly an accident. As much as he had tried to abandon his emotions, he saw that there was more to that moment. The class’s influence was only one part of it.

He had decided, even before the fight to end it violently. The images seemed to become firmer as he thought about them. Almost as if he were reliving the moment, he could picture how slow the boy had been moving. How easy it would have been for Mash to have done something different. But he had not made those smarter decisions. Instead, he chose to rise to the other boy’s protest and lash out. His aim hadn’t been to kill the boy, but he had been planning on hurting him badly. He hadn’t even felt the smallest bit of concern as he planned to aim for the throat. The memory's clarity was almost unrealistic now, and he felt like Priscilla had hand in remaking it.

When he fought Jason, he wanted to hurt him. To scare him badly enough that he would never want to bother Mash again. Mash could see now how he was a product of more than just himself. The way he had been completely fine with an attack like that. Before he had not seen the wrongness and felt nothing after the boy had died. He had believed it to be nothing. It was like he almost expected the boy to die and had pushed him out of his mind as soon as it happened. Mash could see now why he had seen nothing wrong with the situation before. He had planned to seriously injure the boy even before the fight started. It was just an expected reaction, considering what the kid had said. Although, he couldn’t actually remember the words. Even Priscilla could not help him reconstruct the details that he hadn’t paid attention to.

The memory continued and almost slowed as Mash took at the moment again. That surreal feeling of meeting his expectations and the nothingness that had followed. It was like the situation was nothing unusual, and he felt something different now. As he looked at the scene like a spectator, he felt disgusted and disappointed. It was just directed at himself, but the spectators who had done nothing to stop them. He bet the scene was familiar to them because fighting like that was obvious. Even now, Mash still enjoyed fighting and his spars with the others were far more dangerous than that fight. The difference was that he was free now to feel the weight of his actions. Something he hadn’t considered then, or maybe ever before.

Other memories flashed and new thoughts mixed with them. The general had punished him and had acted awfully to Mash, but he had probably had his hands on more of the blame than Mash did. What had Mash done after that, he had gone right back to his routine and even done things in obvious protest. He had continued to use sticks, and publicly reminded the general of his own guilt. Honestly, as he thought about it more, he was surprised that he still had his head. Mash wondered if the man himself understood a little about classes. He had been harsh and vindictive, but what else could he expect. It’s not like he would just ignore the person who killed his son openly mocking him, even if Mash had just been a kid.

It was strange. There was so much he could see now. Why hadn’t he ever tried to think of it? A small part of him knew the reason. He had forced himself to look forward, to keep moving. It was almost like he had been using endure ever since it happened. He had just been running along, accepting what came without really looking back. That had been what lead to the situation now, and he wondered if he could’ve avoided this. Though that was just hindsight. How much of his past had he been avoiding? It wasn’t just that moment with Jason, there had been many things he thought little of. The stuff with Leah was little more than an afterthought in most situations. The stuff with the orphanage was a nightmare that haunted his dreams but didn’t affect him otherwise. Even the recent things with Krall were already a fading mirage.

Mash had known that he wasn’t a great person, but he had still thought he was doing good. But that was laughable. He was far from even being a decent person. He could see that now. No matter what his intentions were, and what he wanted to do, his actions were not that of a good person. The way he had moved forward without ever looking back at his own actions was bound to lead him the wrong way. He was basically just trampling over everything as he mindlessly chased a goal. How had ever expected to accomplish something with that kind of mentality?

Now, he could see it. The memories of everything revealed exactly what he had been doing. The way Priscilla had revealed them, let him see himself from a different perspective. He hadn’t been trying to help people, he had just been trying to satisfy himself. To prove his misguided beliefs. To push those beliefs onto others and ‘save’ them.

A low, broken laugh slipped through his lips. The sarcastic laugh hung in the air. It was stale as it returned to his ears, and he knew that it was directed inward. The past was something that could easily consume him if he let it, and he couldn’t let that happen. That was what almost happened, and he knew it. He had been on the edge. Mere inches from being overwhelmed by the past. His heart had felt like it was dropping, but he knew that more would’ve broken had he succumbed to it. But Jill’s words had reached him.

The memories were overwhelming, but all he could think of was trying to run from them. Priscilla had known better and had shown them to him. Had provided order to the chaos so that he would have no option but to see them. If he had run away again then there would have been no hope for him at all. It had been too close. A single skill would’ve made all the difference. Now, he knew better though. Or at least he hoped that he did. He wouldn’t let himself forget about this, or about anything else.

The past was not something to run for, nor was it something to push off to later. It wasn’t just a dream or nightmare, to call back on when he needed it. No, the past had always been something he was supposed to face. Like anything, he needed to challenge it. To question himself in those moments and to learn from them. It scared him more than a little, but he couldn’t do anything to ignore it. That would only be causing him more problems, not to mention what it would do to those around him. He owed it to the others to at least try and face his past.

It wasn’t something that would just happen though. Even if he wanted to just get it over with it, he knew that he couldn’t. He needed to do some serious reflection and that would take more than a single night. With how effective Priscilla was at showing him his past, he didn’t know if it would be done in a whole day. Plus, he noticed that the other three were giving him some strange looks. Their expressions had shifted slightly, but he still saw them looking at him with concern. Although, they kept sending glances between one another. Eventually, Luke sighed and rested his hand on Mash’s shoulder.

“Mash, you need to shake out of it. Try talking, it might help. The creepy laughs aren’t going to help…”

The words uttered, turned Mash’s gaze around. His own eyebrows were raised now, and he swept his gaze over all of them. As he took them all in, he saw their expressions shift as well, and Red was the one to continue as Luke trailed off.

“You're fine? Did you use it!”

Her tone shifted as she spoke. Her first question was spoken in complete confusion, then it twisted into anger. She looked ready to chew him out, and while he probably deserved it, this time she was wrong. He shook his head quickly. His words sounded odd as he was able to move his head quickly.

“No. I just, uh, feel a little better. Thanks for that, by the way.”

As he spoke, he stopped and looked at Jill for his last words. It was her words that had done the most, and he wanted to show his gratitude properly.

“Your words did a lot. But I’m not exactly sure what to do with them yet. Honestly, I don’t have any clue about what to do. I need some time to think.”

Mash was tempted to leave it at that. He felt more shame now than he did earlier. How could he admit that he had never reflected on his past? It was like he had been living like a kid. Like he hadn’t changed at all from when he first got his class. He realized it then. It had been known as a coward’s class, and for the first time, he felt like that was a title he deserved. Power wouldn’t change that. Even if he was willing to fight a dragon, that didn’t make him something he wasn’t. He was no hero. Nor was he that chosen being of fate. No, a coward was the only thing he ever was.