Kindness
by James Nero

Disclaimer: I do not own digimon
Author's notes: This is an angst filled Ken fic so enjoy. There are hints of Kenkeru kind of. Thanks to my beta reader, she knows who she is!

We do what we do
Because of who we are.
If we did otherwise we wouldn't
Be ourselves.
--- Dream, Neil Gaiman Sandman

What do I know of kindness? I who crushed an entire world beneath my boot heel. I would do it again and again laughing maniacally each time. You chosen children can say what you want of me that I was manipulated, controlled, but let me tell you it was my decision to do the things I did no one else's mine and mine alone. How could any of you possibly understand?

You Iori-kun whose hatred of evil borders on obsession you see me as the enemy still and I have long fallen from the heights of the Kaiser.

You Daisuke-kun ready to embrace me with open arms; I could do more damage to your little group than the Kaiser ever dreamed possible. With your courage and your friendship, You are ignorant of what I can do.

Maybe you Miyako-kun, you see me as a prize a possession nothing more, you and your puppy love I could shatter you like so much glass. Love is the grandest of weapons when it is a blind love like yours.

Hikari, the child of light, as blind as all the rest, you are the worst of all. You and I are polar opposites your light would consume me or my darkness you.

Last there is you Takeru... I wonder sometimes about that fight at my base. Did you do it because you are a hero, or maybe for other reasons... you said you loved me once is that still true? If only you could see what everyone else sees Hikari slipping away from you into the arms of Daisuke, I wonder if you weren't so blinded by her light would you see me? Hope is something that is foreign to me, I wonder does that say something of its bearer. Will you remain far from me as well?

All of you fools, you say that Ken Ichijouji is not cruel that he is not the Kaiser. Osamu taught me all about cruelty, he taught me how to make someone worship you even if you beat them whipped them and insulted them. Osamu taught me that the line between hero and villain is a thin one as thin as a drop of blood. Looking back on my actions as Kaiser I think that my brother would be proud of me, I truly do.

You'll say I'm wrong that I am still suffering from the darkness. Who the hell do you think you are? Tell me what gives you the right to tell me what I am? I myself know all to well. You don't know me none of you do. You with your loving parents and with families with that safe place and with those kind hearts you can always turn to no none of you know me. You don't know what it's like to be ignored, neglected, betrayed. To go to those that every fiber in your being tells you will love you and to find nothing. To look into your mother's eyes and find them devoid of love. No loving hands tucked me into bed at night; no soothing voice sent away the monsters under the bed. I was left alone with those monsters, in the darkness.

Then of course there is my father. Takeru you are one of the lucky ones, when your father left you he literally left. You didn't have a reminder of all the pain he caused. I tried to be a good son, I really did I did my best in school at sports everything all for nothing. My father ignored me; he was always there though a symbol of everything that I was not. For him I was always the other son, nothing more no one of consequence. In fact I remember one time he literally tripped over me, didn't say a word just kept on walking. That's all I was to him an annoyance, something to be pushed aside or thrown away. It's like he was there but at the same time he wasn't, but he always did remind me of my faults always with the words, "why can't you be more like Osamu?" I wonder can any of you feel the love yet?

Now we get to my brother. Both you and Hikari have brothers Takeru I wonder have you ever lived a lie? I hated my brother but at the same time I loved him. Both these feelings utterly consumed me. One of them was a lie and in retrospect I am not sure which one. Two equal, opposite emotions held my heart. It was crushing and the only person I could turn to for help was Osamu himself. On that note I know that both you and Hikari probably idolized your older siblings at some point. Takeru more so for the obvious reasons, after all a younger brother is supposed to idolize his older sibling. You saw them as a model for yourself I bet you wanted to be just like them.

I did not idolize my brother, I worshipped him. He was my god could either of you possibly understand? He was and still is my god, the sole defining force in my life; he is what drives me. To be totally subservient to a person and to love him for enslaving you, you have no idea. He used to hit me, yell at me and hurt me in so many other ways, I loved him for it, and I hated him. I loved him for the attention, hated him for the pain. He was all I had in a world that abandoned me. Even now long after his death, every thought and action is ruled by what he taught me. I remember each time he would hurt, he would make me say a phrase, and he used to make me repeat it like a mantra when he beat me.

"Osamu is the only one who cares."

For hours on end "Osamu is the only one who cares." All the nights I would go to bed saying those words and I'd wake up mornings those being my first thoughts. It was true though he wasn't playing mind games with me. The things he did to me neither of you could grasp. Physically, emotionally, how else do you think I learned to use a whip so well? I know how much it hurts the sting on the leather, I know how to use it to cause pain, and Osamu taught me. He taught me when he used it on me. I know exactly what those digimon that I whipped felt like, I'd do it again I truly would. Why would I do it again? I enjoyed it, hearing their screams just as my brother enjoyed hearing mine. It is a matter of control and Osamu taught me all about control, all the finer aspects everything there is to know. I do not blame him for my actions; I did them, as I said the decisions were mine and mine alone.

How is that for brotherly love? A far cry from learning the harmonica isn't it Takeru? Even farther from learning to play soccer huh Hikari? You see none of you know me, nor could you. The rest of you are even further than these two and yet you still try to bring me into your little group. Now that you know the truth, I wonder will you still try? Yes I think that you would. I'm not quite done yet we'll see what happens once I have said what I needed to say.

Then as you know Osamu was taken from me, gone in the blink of an eye. My god, my idol was no more and I was bereft, alone and shattered. Then I met a man named Yukio Oikawa and he changed my life forever. He told me about something called the dark spore; he also gave me a date, time and a section of the digital world. So I went there at the instructed day and time I went with Ryo as a matter of fact. On that day I changed for the better. I became stronger, faster and smarter; I became the Kaiser, no I became Osamu. It was heaven for me; to be my god, I was perfect in every way possible.

I still am even without the glasses and the cape without the whip and that cocky smile. I am still Osamu. The point is it was my doing, my choice from the very beginning. I am not a child of random chance everything from the very start has been calculated, premeditated; contingencies have been planned for everything is as it should be. I knew that I would fall, as the Kaiser the day I put the glasses on, I knew someone would rise and stop me it was all part of the plan. You are probably wondering why I would become the Kaiser in the first place if I knew I would lose. It was one hell of a ride, by the time you "defeated" me. I achieved what I wanted. I had a hell of a lot of fun in the process. You have seen my definition of fun.

I am evil crafted in the mother's womb made hot with fatherly ignorance and forged by the hands of a god. I will have nothing to do with you any of you courage, friendship, love, sincerity, light, hope or kindness. I am not a man in the form of a monster, as you seem to think that I am lost in darkness. I am the monster in the form of a man who knows exactly what he is doing.