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toku100challenge's drabble prompt memedate posted: 2024-05-06
summary: Kudo Rinne was raised by her father.
word count: 561 words
notes: fill for toku100challenge's drabble prompt meme
content warnings: self-hatred, daddy issues
In the world of alchemy, truths and fact were one and the same. Kudo Rinne, raised to follow the rules, knows this in her heart, that the facts were the rules, that Chemy and humans could not live together, that her father is a traitor, that the Abyssalis Sisters set out to cause untold harm with their unknown intentions.
Kudo Rinne, though young, knows the opposite, too: that there is truth in what is false, that lies are a hot commodity traded for secret, underhanded knowledge. To be raised in the world of alchemy is to know that there is nuance in such a corrupt world.
To be raised by a father such as hers, Kudo Rinne would be dim if she did not understand this.
Standing in the stillness of the Alchemist Academy, waiting for Hotaro to return from school, quickly put upon him by his memory, having forgotten his books in a classroom and hurried out, Rinne waits, and while she waits, she stews in herself.
That's the difference between her and Hotaro, she thinks; this impulsive nature, how quick he is to move, to fight for what he believes in. In contrast, Rinne sees herself as a snail, moving at a glacial pace, or even stuck in place, but knowing, all the same, that she only has herself to blame for her nature.
It would be easy to blame her father for how she's turned out, for this sorry excuse for an alchemist, supposed determination a cover for her weakness, masquerading as a fighter when she is nothing more than dead weight compared to Hotaro, compared even to the Abyssalis sisters, who are at least respectable for their resolve.
But, she thinks, no, she knows, at the same time, that she is destined to be this way, destined for worse.
If her father was capable of stealing 101 Chemies, what does that mean for her?
In the sterile Alchemist Academy, Kudo Rinne ponders her predisposition to duplicity, to the treachery her father perpetuated all those years ago, abandoning her with his tarnished status and nothing more.
She folds her hands in front of her, feels them trembling slightly. She looks down and shuts her eyes.
Hotaro says that her father had his reasons, that his traitorous nature is a cover for something more.
Rationally, Rinne wants so desperately to put stock in his unwavering faith. Rationally, she knows there is some level of truth to his words, that there is something suspicious about the truth the alchemists have sworn by for the past decade.
After all, lies are an asset, wielded by even the most irrelevant of alchemists to gain the upper hand. Truth may be fact in this world, but lies and half-truths are far more coveted than blind obedience.
But Kudo Rinne was raised by her father, and her father taught her that the rules were of the utmost importance, that breaking them is akin to breaking the ties that bind.
If weakness is one failure of hers, then her biggest failure is far uglier than she had fathomed; that her adherence to the rules is yet another effect of her father's deceit.
In the Alchemist Academy, Kudo Rinne waits for her friend. In this moment, she wonders if she deserves even a sliver of the kindness he offers her, knowing what runs in her blood.