NOTES: Hey, I actually wrote one without a relationship! ^^; No hints on this one, because it's WAY too easy. And Kenji can't guess either, for the same reason. Well... he can, but it won't count.

---------

You don't understand. You've never understood. My pride is so important to me. You can't realize the pain you're causing.

I almost hesitate to tell you. I know that you dislike causing people pain, but for you to hold back would change who you are. I don't want to be the one who destroys you. Not that way.

Still, it hurts me. That every time I become more powerful, I am still behind you. Every new level that I reach is a place that you found long ago. And it shouldn't be that way! I should be stronger than you are. What right do you have to take that away from me?

I should have been the hero. And yet every time I tried, you always managed to show me up. Come to think of it, I never even would have become a hero if I hadn't been trying to show you up.

Though I have fought it since I met you, I think I may finally have accepted the realization that haunts me. What makes us so different. You are stronger than I. I don't mean physically, though you have proved that time and time again. I mean your spirit.

You fight for your heart. For the hearts of others. And though I don't want to admit it, your heart may be stronger than my pride. There is something pure about you. Something different, that attracts people to you and makes them loyal. I never had that. I doubt I ever will.

So why is it so hard for me to believe that you may have succeeded over me? Because it wasn't supposed to be you. It was supposed to be me. I was supposed to be the one, the hero of my people. Now all that is left of my people is you. And you are your own hero.

Why is it that I will never have what you have? I want it. But it is not attainable. Your purity is not something that can be gained through training, no matter how hard you try. And I have tried. Lord knows I've tried.

How did you get to be so pure? Was it growing up here, with these people? Was I ruined for purity from my raising? Or from my birth? Or are you simply pure because you are innocent? Because you are too foolish to know the true darkness of the world?

Would that I had your ignorance.

And yet... sometimes I see in your eyes a determination. The strength that I do not have, that knows no doubts because it must succeed. Because you are fighting for what you truly believe in. Your purpose.

Yours. And not mine.