[They're very different people, he and Giorno. There's never been a moment in Polnareff's life where he worried about losing himself-- about becoming cold and detached, some kind of killing machine. He knows enough to know it's possible, and perhaps in the right set of circumstanes it could be achieved. But it's never been a worry for him, because he's never fought anyone or anything that didn't deserve it.

The words they use are a little similar, though. Protecting people, but Giorno goes about it so differently. With fear and power, not through sheer muscle, but through manipulation, though pointed gestures and moves. And he can see that coldness shining through, in the simple way he says he might have killed his mother and stepfather-- not with any real cruelty or enjoyment, but simply a fact. I might have, and god, but Polnareff can't understand that level of detachment.]

I was nineteen.

[He tips his head.]

I don't know how much you know about me-- about all of that. But I think enough, yes? [He'd looked terribly upset at the mention of Sherry, anyway, which is the confirmation Polnareff needs.] That was my introduction to all of it. Before . . . Chariot and I, we'd never really done much in terms of fighting. Certainly not to that kind of level. I'd stand up to schoolyard bullies, but . . . it wasn't anything dangerous, not at all.

But after . . . once I hit nineteen, once Sherry died, I knew. I knew I'd kill Geil, and I knew I'd kill anyone who helped him. And I did. I beat the hell out of people to get a lead, I followed every clue I could-- he wasn't subtle, so it wasn't hard. And along the way, I fought and fought and fought, because it was easier to do that than think.

[He's rambling, he thinks, and shakes his head.]

I think . . . I looked at you and I saw someone who didn't fight, who doesn't need to fight to live here, not the way we do at home. And I was . . . stupid enough, maybe, to think that was all there was to it.