[Blake lets his eyes drop away, trying to give the kid some privacy. He's not that good at dealing with crying people, as much as he runs into it in his line of work. Hugs and "there, there"s aren't going to bring anybody they care about back from the dead.]

[When Ishimaru speaks, Blake's eyes snap back to him.] That's bullshit.

Nobody knows the future, and nobody can tell you when you're gonna die. Are you gonna let somebody else tell you what you do?

Hell, there's somebody here who tells me I killed somebody a while, and he's not lying. Thing is, back in the real world the guy's not even dead.

[Hearing what he's been through, that doesn't sound as naive as it might. Usually people who say that stuff there being good in everybody are the ones who've never been hit in the face with all the proof to the contrary.]

[Something in the back of Blake's head, a beaten thing that'd crawled off to solitary confinement a long time ago, whispers something about how if a child locked up in some kind of sicko bloodsport can keep from turning bitter and angry...]

[Blake's voice has an odd sort of surprise.] You're something else, kid, you know that?

Me, I can't even remember when I gave up on that kind of thing.