Protecting the President (Brea/Benjamin/OPEN)

[Vash, the Angel's Moon]

I chuckled. "Sorry for startling you. I can't ever let this thing out of my sight, but I wasn't sure how you or the President would react to it - so I had one of my sisters put that little invisibility charm on it." I shrugged, popping my shoulders, while I looked at the sword.

"THat's an old sword," I said casually. "Well taken care of, though; you only get that kind of sound out of a blade that's been constantly kept in top shape."

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"This sword has been in my family for, well... At least one thousand years, if not more. It was my fathers before me and his fathers before him, but that's as far as my memory serves, my father much preferred the bottle and belt over the sword, although I should be thankful he preferred the belt to the sword, I guess." Not to mention is had the souls of numerous of it's former users, but he left that small detail out.

[Vash, the Angel's Moon]

I nodded, sympathetically.

"There are many souls attached to that sword," I said quietly. "Likely, it once belonged to one of the Itan-Sha. Can I... see it?"

I watched him for a response; I'd recognized the wielder as much as the blade, but I couldn't say so unless I wanted to have a lot of awkward explaining to do. Not that I wouldn't this way, either, but at least this way, I could pretend to be a historian or something.

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"I have a good memory." Brea said, bluntly as he turned the sword so it was held out towards Vash, hilt first. "You remind me of a man I saw once, in a camp a while ago. He wore a similar jacket to the one you wear, never got his name though, only saw him the once, he was gone as soon as blood was shed in the battle. If he was still there, I never saw him."

[Vash, the Angel's Moon]

"A predecessor, probably," I lied. I remembered the day well, now that I thought about it. I cursed myself mentally for getting close to someone who might recognize me. "If that's the case, then you're Brea Cao-Wei, the Itan-Sha who rose with the Saints last year."

I took the sword from his hands, feeling the souls caught within the blade; most were content to be there, having accepted their aterlife, noble Itan-Sha to the very end. They served their descendant well. I smiled faintly, a couple wisps rising from the blade to greet me.

But not all of the souls within this blade were so calm; many, many were vengeful, raging against the enemies who had stolen their lives from them and trapped them within the blade. Unable to find peace and lashing out at the still-living man who wielded the sword, their rage grew with each passing year. Darker, twisted versions of my friendly wisps rose from the blade, clinging to the hands where I held it, drawn out by my power.

"You have a lot of skill to wield such a tainted blade," I said quietly, my eyes resting sadly on the sword. "The souls within are angry, and would not serve any living man easily."

I handed it back to him, the dark wisps still clinging to me as I withdrew my hands.

[Brea Cao-Wei]

"I've had a lot of time to practise." He replied, gently caressing the blade of the sword, before sliding it back within its sheath. He and that weapon had been through so much together, it felt weird for him to have to take it back from the hands of another, still, the weapon felt the same so it's not like he could complain at all.

"The sword is tempermental, at best." He said "It has a tendency sometimes to just blunt itself ever so easily, making it near useless in battle, but then equally, some days I will find it sharper than any blade I have ever seen, cutting through steel and armour like a hot knife through butter. I got lucky in Santo-Luce, it was having a good day."

He shook his head "But I ask you one question, please do not question my intelligence when you answer either, how have you lived so long?" He had no doubt this was the same man he had seen walking around Kain's camp.

[Vash, the Angel's Moon]

I smiled sadly, holding up my hands, where the wisps and their dark cousins swarmed at each other, caught in perfect balance as they flowed around my arms, a metaphor for my power.

I closed my eyes and both sets dissolved into sparks of colored light. THe darkness drained from the tainted fragments, mixing with the untainted ones until six new, whole wisps rose to play around my fingers before disappearing, as if absorbed ino my own body and soul.

"I serve Death," I told him without lying. "It does not take its own children so easily."

The truth - I told it, alright. Had Shiira not fallen to the mob that night, she may have lived a thousand years as well, bolstered by my power and the blood of Ketuluna in her veins.

Then I took a deep breath, throwing aside those dark memories.