The tall, physically superior man whose skin was a model of tanned perfection casually paced in front of a man tied to a chair. The powerful, handsome man whose name was something along the line of Toujours stood on a bleached white balcony whose architecture and culture was perfect. The sun came down warmly and gracefully on his head, and he seemed perfectly cool and poised beneath it. The man tied to the chair, known as Humilde, was thin and sickly in contrast to the might of Toujours. His face was cut and smashed from having sustained an apparent beating. In Toujours' presence, he could not speak, but there was a burning vitality his eyes that was relentless. A sea breeze blew on his unwashed hair, and it gave him some measure of comfort in spite of his damaged body and his sickly appearance.

"I'm having some wine. Naturally, you can watch, but you can't have any," Toujours said, smiling with his perfect row of white teeth. He took a wine glass from nowhere filled with a blood red liquid which was called Chianti, and then he sort of swirled the glass with his tanned, manicured hands. This action released the aroma from the wine, and the smell antagonized the nostrils of Humilde. He sat there, and watched the bastard drink his wine, and he could do nothing but watch with his intensely hungry eyes. All around him the breeze blew warmly and comfortably. So long had he waited to come here. In the end, however, he had to deal with Toujours. The man stood proudly in the middle of his fresh white balcony, with the rich blue sea at his back and the red-tiled roofs of the seaside town stretching to the land's end and to the onset of the perfect sea. Far beyond, clean white sails were perched on the water and they caught the serene breeze that carried them along to some equally magnificent destination, because here everything was to be marveled. And amidst this grandeur Humilde sat, pathetic, wretched, and filled with some undeniable hatred that he should have been ashamed to possess. But he had been shamed beyond shame and he felt nothing of his hate. He had seen too much pain and death to have this bastard Toujours mock him further. And to think that Humilde felt Toujours responsible or this agony.

"I know what you're thinking," Toujours said suddenly, his voice smooth and even and profound. The wineglass was gone, and now he focused Humilde's attention to his broad, tanned chest which shown through his immaculate white shirt that had only half its buttons buttoned. He smiled, emitting a faint chuckle that leaked out a quiet arrogance that Toujours had no choice but to have. "I want you now to hear what I have to say, and I know you'll listen."

Humilde wished he couldn't, but he had nothing to grant his wish. Perhaps, that's why he was here.

Toujours, in his grace and harmony within himself, strolled along in his glorious sun and breeze, and began: "You once started a fight with a boy because he made jokes about your fat sister. You wished death on a bully that tormented you about your big ears. You stole comic books from a store when your father would not give you money to buy them. You had sex with a woman who was pregnant with another man's child because you two felt you were in love with each other. You would not attend the funeral of your mother because you and her never saw eye to eye on religious ideologies." Toujours looked at Humilde with a belittling menace to his eyes, and he shook his head. "How petty." Humilde glared at him, but he was powerless, and felt that he always had been. The wonderful Toujours continued to pace. "The worst thing you did was deny my power. You even went further than that. You tried to convince others that I was a criminal, a brutal slave master, and all sorts of other slanders that aren't true."

"They are true," Humilde said with viral anger in his voice. "You just make up your own version of truth that is little more than a bunch of dogmatic propaganda for the weak minded. You're a petty despot that enjoys judging people, and you're really a coward."

Toujours smiled at him. "What was that? I couldn't hear you." Indeed, Humilde realized that he hadn't said a thing. He had thought of the words, but they had not been said. "We can add to your list of faults your apparent reliance on foul language." His smile broadened as he continued: "Yes, add it to your long list of faults that is a testament to your kind and is a mark of an eternal imperfection in you and all that are like you. You see, if it wasn't for me, you would have died out a long time ago. I saved you. To me is due all the credit. I love you and nurture you, and all your pathetic kind can do is further insult me everyday, every moment that you breathe."

Humilde strained against the ropes that bound him to his uncomfortable chair, his lean face distorted in anger, his dead soul yearning for redemption and a chance to lash out at its tormentor. "You made us this way. You created us imperfect and you put us here with Diavolo and then you wonder why we aren't the way you want us to be. You make us ugly and you kill our parents and you raise up dictators who enslave us and torture us and rape our wives and children and you wonder why we aren't perfect like you. You created us to torture us, to throw us into despair now and forever. You're fucking sick. I ha-"

Toujours sighed, and it was a great noise that silenced the inferior Humilde. He looked at the minor figure tied to the chair with no expression at all. There was no sympathy in those vibrant eyes of blue. There was no compassion or pathos. "That's right. I made you that way, and do you know why? I did so because I could. If you don't follow my way, then you die. Simple. You know why? Because I said so. You have a problem? You don't think it's fair? If you feel that way, then you can die. I created the rules, and that's that." He shook his head, taking one last look at the feeble little rebel surrounded by all of his uselessness and frailty, while he stood mighty and alone in his bleached perfection. "A pity you didn't realize this while you had the chance. You would have fallen in line like the others, and that would have been that. But, you chose free will, and that only brings death, because when you play my game with my rules you can't win without me. So, now you can die, and this time forever." Humilde could feel one last gust of warm sea breeze on his battered face before seeing Toujours dismiss him with his hand, and then blackness.

Slow, infinite pain.

A/N: Who is Toujours? Hmmm..Please review and bash the hell out of me or perhaps agree with me. Whichever. I'll appreciate either one, and a thanks to those that review.