[Fuck... fuck. Akira's expression starts to change as Terry tells his story; he knew some of these things before, partial explanations of sorta kinda what happened and a bit of why Terry became the way he was. But hearing it now, all the sacrifices he made with the only leverage he had, the people he swore to protect all turning on him at once... the empathy is starting to show on his face. It's completely against what Joker's been trying to assert, that the rest of their problems and well-being were no longer a concern to them, that Terry represented nothing but an enemy who acted out of pure malice and then tried to scrabble together an apology.]
[At his heart, despite recent efforts to the contrary, Akira still has empathy. The balance is where the trouble lies. It's between justice for the wronged and vengeance upon the wrongful; a desire to help, and a desire to hurt. After all, anger is all well and good when it's directed in the right places, but the more pressure he puts himself under, the more that deep furnace starts to blast at the wrong times. In the wrong direction. Blaming Airi for relatively minor mistakes and deaths that couldn't really be prevented — this deep-seated unease and hostility towards Terry that he can't seem to shake, for no reason other than that he needs someone to hate to keep himself motivated — losing his temper and coming down on Kido and Red, when one just made some shitty jokes and the other's only offense was knowing when to pick his battles —]
[Akira opens his mouth to speak. He does have people to go home to, is the truth of it, and he doesn't want to go home to them like this. He doesn't want to lose even more control over himself, and take out his frustrations on even more of the people he loves. That's why he's so worked up about being a good person. Because once he starts to loosen his grip, it's all steep downhill from there. If he can't maintain it, how long until he really does become a monster?]
[— and he never gets a chance to say it, at least not right now, because this level of emotional connection and honesty is something that Joker will not abide. You know why? Because Joker is so close to crushing this empathy out of him and he's not going to lose it because of TERRY.]
1/2
[At his heart, despite recent efforts to the contrary, Akira still has empathy. The balance is where the trouble lies. It's between justice for the wronged and vengeance upon the wrongful; a desire to help, and a desire to hurt. After all, anger is all well and good when it's directed in the right places, but the more pressure he puts himself under, the more that deep furnace starts to blast at the wrong times. In the wrong direction. Blaming Airi for relatively minor mistakes and deaths that couldn't really be prevented — this deep-seated unease and hostility towards Terry that he can't seem to shake, for no reason other than that he needs someone to hate to keep himself motivated — losing his temper and coming down on Kido and Red, when one just made some shitty jokes and the other's only offense was knowing when to pick his battles —]
[Akira opens his mouth to speak. He does have people to go home to, is the truth of it, and he doesn't want to go home to them like this. He doesn't want to lose even more control over himself, and take out his frustrations on even more of the people he loves. That's why he's so worked up about being a good person. Because once he starts to loosen his grip, it's all steep downhill from there. If he can't maintain it, how long until he really does become a monster?]
[— and he never gets a chance to say it, at least not right now, because this level of emotional connection and honesty is something that Joker will not abide. You know why? Because Joker is so close to crushing this empathy out of him and he's not going to lose it because of TERRY.]
[FUCKING.]
[NOWELL!]