Black Butler Imagines

Good Enough

((In case anyone is wondering, yes, this is an AU.))

"You need to stop blaming yourself, none of this was your fault." You chuckled, your hands clenched as you looked out over at the battlefield. It was once a beautiful landscape full of beautiful flowers and simply bursting with life and love and hope. It used to be a centrepiece for advocating hope and encouraging people to continue on living even when life was at its harshest. Now... now it was the scene of a bloody war waged between demons and beings that weren't quite human.

"People have died today, people under my care, and I was unable to save them. They all entrusted their lives to me, and I failed them. All of them! How is this not my fault?!" Your friend, Lizzy, stood beside you as she also looked over the landscape, blood soaking her clothing.

"Because no matter what happens in battle, you always have that instinct to protect yourself. Nobody blames you; in fact, everyone thinks you to be a hero. Okay, so people died today, but that is the price you pay in battle. Thanks to you, we won this fight. We won because you lived, because you protected yourself." You snarled, tears springing to your eyes. It is my fault! They died because of my incompetence, why can't you see that! Their blood is on my hands, their souls weigh upon my shoulders!

"Do you have any idea how many people are dead because I wasn't clever enough, wasn't quick enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough?" You suddenly let out a scream and punched the nearby wall, foul satisfaction rippling through your body as the pain became apparent and blood dripped to the floor. Lizzy sighed, walking over to you and pulling you into a hug.

"I know you have had people die before, people you cared about too. But let me tell you this if nothing else: you are loved; you are cared for; you are needed. People will never not need you."

"I don't need you... You're useless... How dare you come in here and act like you deserve my love you ignorant brat!"

"But, I..."

"I don't care. Get the fuck out of my house and never, ever come back!"

"You shouldn't tell your friend lies like that." You pulled away, walking off, bloody footsteps left in your wake as you went to visit the bodies of the fallen warriors who had entrusted you with their lives and had paid dearly for it.

"Don't blame yourself! Nothing that has ever happened to you has been your fault! Don't carry their weight upon your shoulders! You'll collapse!"

"I am sorry I couldn't save you, my friends."

***

He watched her silently from the shadows.

She was different to the others... They needed her to continued living if they wanted to succeed, and were apparently willing to sacrifice many more people than what was needed to attain that...

But she wasn't happy about that. She valued their lives despite being so strange to them. Did she even know her own ancestry? Did she even realized the amount of pure and raw power she contained within herself? If they pushed her down the wrong path...

They would pay dearly for it.

But then, did they care? They most likely were aiming for that anyway. He had seen the weapons they had hidden far away from her eyes, he had expected them to use them on the battlefield, but apparently not. That then meant that they were to be used to put her down if ever they tired of her or she lost control.

However, if -- and when -- she discovered they hadn't been on the level with it... even those weapons wouldn't stop her from going on a rampage. They wouldn't even make a dent in her rage and pain.

But until then there was nothing he could do. So he leant back against a blood soaked tree and watched her as she collapsed on the murdering grounds, tears streaming down her face as she whispered fervent apologies to all those who had placed their lives within her blood-soaked hands. And there he waited even as her quite sobs turned to guilt-ridden screams and eventually back to small sobs and then deep breathing as she fell into the deep sleep of the mentally and physically exhausted in a pool of rapidly coagulating blood.

An even then, he waited.