That, at least, was a question Harpuia was used to hearing. One that he certainly never stopped asking himself. Fefnir and Leviathan might have been content to simply do whatever their moods dictated, but Harpuia had grown very used to having to juggle all the pieces of the big picture.
That said... it wasn't a simple question, not by any means. One he was still formulating an answer to for himself. But coming from Zero... that he would even ask Harpuia that felt strange. Harpuia didn't exactly have high hopes that Zero would ever do as he said, no matter how many bossy tendencies might have existed within him. For him to even be asked in the first place was most definitely nothing Harpuia had ever planned for. Certainly, he had begun to suspect that Zero was the sort who needed someone to place his belief in -- to do the hoping for him. But was Harpuia the sort of person that Zero was looking for...?
Harpuia laced his fingers together, gazing down at them pensively. "What you do is not my problem," he announced. No use in trying the high-handed diplomatic act when Zero had already shot it down; with all the pride Harpuia had built up around himself, he wasn't a likely candidate to lower himself to extending an olive branch too commonly. "But I expect that now, I..." He trailed off, not especially wanting to voice what he expected to happen. Even if only for a little while, he expected to stop.
He had been running more or less nonstop from the moment that Zero had struck Copy X down. He was a soldier, and a proud one at that, but he wasn't immune to what had been lost in that time. He hadn't once dared to pause long enough to mourn what remained of Phantom, to let the loss of Master X sink in -- he couldn't afford to waste a second on personal weakness.
But now, with Neo Arcadia in ashes and the number of Guardians reduced to two, he no longer had urgent objectives pressing in at all sides, but the weight of war pushed down twice as heavily. Like it or not, this roadblock forced him to take a moment to stop and catch his breath, and that inevitably meant things catching up with him. For all his trying, the heart that hummed within him was not as impenetrable as he had strove to make it. He would grieve, because he had lost things he'd loved dearly and vividly.
His voice was tight when he answered, taut under the effort of staying detached and professional. "For now, it falls to us to accept things as they are. It's wasteful to try and move forward before you're prepared."
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That said... it wasn't a simple question, not by any means. One he was still formulating an answer to for himself. But coming from Zero... that he would even ask Harpuia that felt strange. Harpuia didn't exactly have high hopes that Zero would ever do as he said, no matter how many bossy tendencies might have existed within him. For him to even be asked in the first place was most definitely nothing Harpuia had ever planned for. Certainly, he had begun to suspect that Zero was the sort who needed someone to place his belief in -- to do the hoping for him. But was Harpuia the sort of person that Zero was looking for...?
Harpuia laced his fingers together, gazing down at them pensively. "What you do is not my problem," he announced. No use in trying the high-handed diplomatic act when Zero had already shot it down; with all the pride Harpuia had built up around himself, he wasn't a likely candidate to lower himself to extending an olive branch too commonly. "But I expect that now, I..." He trailed off, not especially wanting to voice what he expected to happen. Even if only for a little while, he expected to stop.
He had been running more or less nonstop from the moment that Zero had struck Copy X down. He was a soldier, and a proud one at that, but he wasn't immune to what had been lost in that time. He hadn't once dared to pause long enough to mourn what remained of Phantom, to let the loss of Master X sink in -- he couldn't afford to waste a second on personal weakness.
But now, with Neo Arcadia in ashes and the number of Guardians reduced to two, he no longer had urgent objectives pressing in at all sides, but the weight of war pushed down twice as heavily. Like it or not, this roadblock forced him to take a moment to stop and catch his breath, and that inevitably meant things catching up with him. For all his trying, the heart that hummed within him was not as impenetrable as he had strove to make it. He would grieve, because he had lost things he'd loved dearly and vividly.
His voice was tight when he answered, taut under the effort of staying detached and professional. "For now, it falls to us to accept things as they are. It's wasteful to try and move forward before you're prepared."