For in_loveless_memory.

[bloody_spy]

[Some conversations get personal quickly. But Nisei isn't emotionally invested enough in this one to mind. The serious look you're getting is mostly because he can tell that his smiles and lack of remorse were making you angry.]

[Nisei would emphatically reject the idea that he was forced. He is no one's victim. And he is Seimei's friend, even if it doesn't work both ways. That's normal, for a fighter, though it isn't something he's entirely comfortable with. Not caring is easier to explain than caring. It's a neutral space, in him, where you have a strong feeling. But he's not indifferent to what he did; he's undisturbed by it.]

[He wouldn't want you to insult Seimei, so he doesn't object. As long as you *know* you're letting your brother off the hook for, if anything, the more serious part of this, you aren't going to do anything too drastic to Nisei. As for being "sick" ...] I've been told that. But this is my true face, Ritsuka. I have many that get me in less trouble. But I don't have another one that's really me.

Comments

[in_loveless_memory]

[Ritsuka knows how he acts around Seimei. But he loves Seimei with so much of his heart. He once told Soubi that even if someone he loved betrayed him, killed him, or hurt him he would still love them. Seimei had been his safety for so long. He had been the only person besides Osamu that he would talk to. Seimei had been there for everything and anything and was always gentle. Seimei had been the only one to stand up against mom while their own dad would never patch Ritsuka up after his mom's abuse.

But Nisei is not Seimei. Nisei has been nothing but cruel and disgustingly without remorse in all his actions. Just like Ritsu-sensei, Nisei had little issue with doing cruel things. He hissed softly.]

How can you happily wear such a face?

[bloody_spy]

[What you're asking doesn't bother him. But the judgment in it, the contemptuous, implicit "you shouldn't be that way" that you aren't saying, does. So, with his intuitive sense for weak points, he turns your question around.]

You'd know about trying to be someone you aren't. Does that make you happy, Ritsuka? Has it ever? When you hurt things just by existing -

[He doesn't think he has to finish that sentence. Not with you. Spying on you for Seimei has given him all too clear a view of how you interact with your mother; how you let her define you.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[It's interesting, in a way, how Nisei can pull out the darkest emotions in Ritsuka. Nisei makes Ritsuka want to be violent. It makes him want to hurt the older boy. Nisei's barbs and jabs hit so accurately that the violence it pulls out of Ritsuka almost seems natural and that scares him. He had been fine with Soubi hurting Nisei. He didn't care about Nisei being tied up and injured at the Academy. He had wanted Nisei to be hurt. He had wanted Soubi to destroy Nisei and knowing that scared him deeply. How could one person he barely knew make him so angry? How did Nisei know him so well as to be able to make such hurtful and wounding comments?

He gulps and his fists clench. He wants to hit Nisei. He wants to hurt him and Ritsuka fights every fiber in his being to do so. His teeth clench as he tries not to let such a comment hurt, straight to the heart though it had hit. He wants to say "I don't mean to do it." His own psyche was so warped he couldn't even think that his mother was wrong trying to force him to be the old Ritsuka. That it was wrong for him to try and be what she wanted. No, Ritsuka's mind could only focus on the fact that he was hurting his mother by existing.]

You don't know anything. [Because he doesn't know how Nisei had snuck into the house. He wants to believe Nisei is ignorant of the issues going on in his home.]

[bloody_spy]

[Heh. Nisei makes most people who can actually see him want to be violent. He's survived this long because he's devious and strong, not from a lack of enemies. But there's only so far he can afford to antagonize you. He more than learned that when you turned your back on him at Goura. And this time, he wasn't actually trying to make you angry at all. He just ... you're harder to read than most, and more like your brother than he can tell you. Nisei doesn't like the glint in your eye, the sudden flare of power and fury, but he accepts it readily. In silence, as there isn't much he can say, just now, that wouldn't dig him in deeper.]

[He knows you're angry because he perceives you too clearly, and knows things you wouldn't share with anyone. He knows it's not because his words missed the marks, but because they hit them. No fighter has a right to see sacrifices in this light, as human beings with human damage. But this is his particular gift, and the basis for most of his spells - the ability to make people face exactly what they fear might destroy them. He is darkness, and he spreads it. And suddenly, he knows how to answer.]

Then perhaps you should stay away from me.

[He's given you a way out, but he hopes you won't take it. Seimei wouldn't. Walking away from someone who knows how to hurt you, without knowing why they can or whether they will, isn't ... intelligent. And while it would make his life easier, Nisei has long preferred dangerous-and-requires-skill to easy. That is, when his risk-taking isn't getting him chained to a post and tortured.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[In many ways, Ritsuka is nothing like Seimei. But in some ways, they are eerily similar. Seimei had been, after all the one to raise and protect him in the two years he could remember. However, when Seimei was angered, he never flew into a rage. It never even showed except the tone of his voice or the narrowing of his eyes. Ritsuka isn't so skilled or subtle about his ire. He hisses, his tail frizzes and swishes. His anger is much more raw, overt, and physical.

But where the way they expressed their rage differed, their reactions could be quite similar. He does not take the out when it is presented. He doesn't want to take it.]

Is that all you can offer?

[bloody_spy]

[Ohoho, that gets you a smile. A real one, though it's tinged with malice.]

It's not really a fighter's place to offer. What would you like?

[Not submissive at all. Just ... sharply interested in what you might say next, and inwardly delighted at the strength of your reaction.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[Ritsuka wants nothing more than to hurt Nisei like Nisei hurt him. His eyes are narrowed but then he sneers. Such a look on Ritsuka's face doesn't belong.]

It might not be a fighter's place, but you're not much of a fighter. If you were Seimei would actually care. [He doesn't know Nisei, but he does know his brother, despite what others have said.] It must be difficult knowing that even though you actually have the name of my brother, he won't actually see you that way. [He knows the words are hurtful, but he wants Nisei to hurt. He wants Nisei to be upset. And there is no Soubi to remind him not to do so, not to stoop to that level. Only Nisei can make Ritsuka act so cruel.]

[bloody_spy]

Oh, it is. [Pure venom, coating a rough sort of purr.] But the only way he'd love me is if I were somehow you. You're the one person in this whole, meaningless world, that he wants to be accepted by.

[Nisei's played too many headgames, and been hurt too many times, for your words to distract him. They burn in deep, but he doesn't have to hide that. He has nothing to gain by pretending you aren't important. Not when Seimei would throw him under a train, for you.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[The problem lies in that Ritsuka knows this. He knows that Nisei can't (not won't) hurt him physically because of Seimei. But that doesn't mean he's safe from Nisei. Nisei brings out the worst in him. He shreds apart the filter Ritsuka has over his words. Without Soubi or Yuiko or anyone, Ritsuka will not hold back. Nisei is there in front of him, and Ritsuka wants him to suffer]

How does that feel, knowing that Seimei didn't even pick you first as his fighter? That when he was in front of Soubi, he had been willing to take Subi with him again?

[bloody_spy]

[It wouldn't take a sadist to understand what you're getting, out of this. But he does. He toys with an answer that puts what you really want out of reach, for a moment - ] It feels like belonging to your brother, Ritsuka.

[And then gives you a more satisfying one.] Like knowing that the one person who made everything about me make sense, for the first time in my life ... was *this close* to never picking me up in the first place.

[He's hiding a lot, with an answer like that. Justifications, specifics, memories - and the proud creature he was before he met Seimei, who had no interest in obeying a sacrifice. But you don't need any of it. You couldn't care less. You want his pain, and he's had people attempt to manipulate him with it often enough that he's relatively unthreatened by that. The squirming, alarmed, trying-to-get-away reaction that a normal person would have ... Nisei can't feel. You can tell he hurts, but it doesn't seem like he hurts more for showing it to you. Only a person who's faced the worst in himself head-on could tell you so dispassionately what he's feeling. As for Soubi, since you brought him up ...]

What's it like to own a fighter who's neurotic from having been abandoned?

[in_loveless_memory]

[It's a lot to take in. Nisei felt complete around Seimei, but Seimei obviously gave little regard to Nisei. Ritsuka knew that it wasn't so rare for sacrifices to feel nothing for their fighters, Bloodless was a perfect example. But more often than not, fighter and sacrifice felt like they completed one another. Natsuo and Youji, the zero girls, Breathless... He didn't... feel complete with Soubi. He had accepted Soubi as his fighter but this notion of being "complete" he just didn't feel it. Even Nisei with his horrible attitude and his ability to piss off Ritsuka with a single word... Why did Seimei have to have him as a fighter? Why was it someone so vile?

At the mention of Soubi his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched.]

You were beaten by that "neurotic" fighter. How does that feel, Nisei?

[bloody_spy]

[Dryly:] You may have noticed being sane is not a prerequisite for being a good weapon.

[What he'd like to say is Soubi beat me because you accepted him. He couldn't have done it alone. But he has several good reasons not to tell you that, beginning with the fact that it's probably true. Nisei saw Soubi's head sag, when he called the other fighter an impostor. He knows he could break that blank, just by making the most of his insecurities. But first, he'd need to separate him from you. It's not something he's planning on doing - not after Seimei decided that Soubi should be your fighter - it's just not a possibility that he's willing to sabotage, either. He's never cared who's the better fighter, so to the extent that your comment made him *want* to argue, it's because he has such a personal dislike for Soubi.]

[Nisei couldn't give you an unbiased opinion of why Seimei makes him feel whole even if he wanted to. He is the mirror image of your brother; more tampered-with, in places, less prone to odd delusions ... different in a hundred subtle ways. But the shock of recognition between them was indescribable, disconcerting on a level that threatened them both. Neither had ever looked at another human being before and thought "I know what you're trying to do, because you're me." Seimei denied it then and denies it still. In the long run, Nisei can't. His sacrifice is his highest truth - the only thing that's ever felt worth being loyal to. Seimei, on the other hand, might betray this just to prove that he can. Just to show himself that the only attachments he allows are the ones that he deliberately created. Knowing that and functioning anyway is ... something Nisei can't explain how he does, or why. And it's weird, because for all that Seimei can't - won't - be there for him, the way they relate in a day-to-day sense suits him perfectly. What he wants, Nisei is good at. What he's repelled by (like actually having to touch his fighter) would make them both uncomfortable. Seimei took Soubi's worship as his due, but he never appreciated it. Whereas Nisei, who despises that kind of groveling, gets some measure of respect. Because he never hesitates to ask for it. He's slightly more than a servant, even though in practice, he's considerably less than a friend. Nisei is ... someone your brother never has trouble relating to, vicious and awful as he is.]

[in_loveless_memory]

So then what's your excuse?

[He countered blandly. He didn't know how close Nisei had been to beating Soubi. Soubi had never lost after all. Not in front of him. Soubi was unbeatable even though they didn't share the same name and to Ritsuka, that meant more than he understood. However, Ritsuka still knew so little about the world of sacrifices and fighters. He still could only just barely call Soubi mentally and he couldn't think to do it naturally like so many could. He couldn't feel other pairs nearby or see the thread wrapped around him for more than a few minutes. How could he be a sacrifice? Why did they WANT him to be a sacrifice?

Who decided names and pairs anyways? Why did they have to fight? The rest of the world didn't seem to know about fighters and sacrifices, so what was even the point of having them? What did they do? What was the purpose of a sacrifice and fighter pair?

Why did Seimei belong to this world, and why were people like those teachers allowed to run it? He gazed at Nisei and his anger shifted and changed into something more like... disinterest. Not pity, he could never pity Nisei for anything. Although, he could just... not care. While Nisei could be the mirror image of Seimei in some aspects, so too could Ritsuka. Bored purple eyes gazed at Nisei as he regarded the whole... system that they were caught in.]

Why are you even fighting, Nisei?

[bloody_spy]

[You get a distinctly sharp look, feral and unwilling to be baited.] I only need an excuse when Seimei's displeased with me. Or did you think that the only fighter worth having is one who's never lost?

[Nisei's a bit taken aback by how much you don't understand, how much you don't see the point of.] If you mean why I'm in play right now, Seimei would be dead if he wasn't fully armed. Seven Moons is trying to kill him.

If you mean why I'm part of this whole underworld in the first place ... I'd suggest you try leaving, except you probably can't. They keep trying to drag you to the academy, don't they, every time Soubi's out of range. [Considers for a moment.] Let's just say they weren't, though, and you could tell Soubi to go away and let you be a normal boy. How long could you go through the motions before it all started to drive you crazy? Actually, let's start small. Have you tried to exist without a fighter, since Soubi showed up? You know, gone off with your outsider schoolmates ... tried to act like their lives are interesting and the things they worrry about actually matter. [Nisei raises an eyebrow, knowing full well which world you belong to, and that the more contact you have with this one, the harder it is to care about anywhere else.]

It's always a little awkward if your powers are taking their sweet time. And Soubi - can't match you right off the bat because he's a blank. You have to know what you want and shape him into an acceptable partner. But that doesn't make you any less of a sacrifice. [It just means you're doing the pair-bonding work with someone who took on your name, rather than being born with it. Someone whose presence won't hit you like a bolt of lightning, whose thread isn't coiled around your soul unless you put it there. Nisei suspects he knows why Seimei arranged that for you.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[Ritsuka knew that the academy was after him, and yes, Nisei was even right. They kept trying to drag him there at any opportunity. They were after Seimei too, Ritsuka had wanted nothing more than to discover who had murdered his brother... except his brother was alive. There was so much he didn't understand. But why was Seimei a part of it anyways? Soubi, Ritsu-sensei, all the teachers were so much older. It was an established system but for what? What was the purpose of this "underworld" as Nisei put it. Why FIGHT!

His ears twitched at Nisei's hypothetical. After Seimei had "died" and Soubi hadn't yet entered his life he had been lonely. He didn't want to interact with his classmates. He felt separate from them. He had gotten close to Yuiko and Yayoi, admittedly, but he didn't care about anyone else in his class. But he liked Yuiko and Yayoi. They were his friends. He was friends with Osamu. They had nothing to do with this world of fighters.

But did he prefer the world of fighters over the world of Yuiko? His eyes narrowed.]

Don't try to make me out to be you. [He hissed.] Just because you're incapable of functioning in both worlds and you've chosen the worlds of pointless fighting doesn't mean we all have. [But... was Nisei right? What about the other fighters. Natsuo and Youji hadn't attended the normal school until after meeting him. And Breathless? They seemed to live in the academy. What about their parents?

There were so many questions he had, and Soubi and no one else seemed to be able to answer them. Thanks to the mangaka not providing actual answers to said questions. Could he be away from Soubi now though? Now that he met the pervert he...]

[bloody_spy]

[Nisei is aware of the attempts at kidnapping, thanks to his spying on Ritsuka. But as that's not the only way he could know about it, he doesn't mind bringing it up. Seimei's reasons are, as always, unorthodox and personal. But he had a hereditary position of some importance at Seven Moons. And he was only three years younger than Soubi when he claimed him as his fighter, so while the age difference between him and Ritsu is very great, it's not pronounced between Semei and Soubi. Not since your brother reached his adult height, anyway. The system itself ... is too old and vast for Nisei to make sense of. It has an implacable, internal logic, but the direct connection, the "this is where we will stand, in relation to the whole" depends on the sacrifice.]

[Nisei isn't going to denigrate your having friends. It's just difficult to maintain interest in low-intensity social attachments, when you belong to an environment that would traumatize anyone normal. You were getting a little of that, from living with your mother's rages. There was something in your life that made the emotional ups and downs that bent other kids out of shape, at school, seem trivial and stupid. Seimei's "death" further separated you from them. But having a fighter, and still trying to be home before curfew, must be a whole other level of weird. You couldn't be yourself to begin with, couldn't share what you were going through even then. And now that you (finally) don't have to face it all alone, Soubi wants a relationship that's turned up to eleven. At least. Or better said, doesn't know how to exist without it. Where, exactly, does that leave your friends, Ritsuka? Do they even know you? But Nisei has the sense not to put you on the spot by asking.]

[It irks him that you think he chose to be a fighter, and think he's incapable of - ] You're assuming a lot. I manage out there. It's the ones that did well at Goura and actually believe they're objects that have trouble, if they have to interact much with outsiders.

There's nothing pointless about having magic in your blood. Your school's done a real number on you, if you don't understand fighting. That world doesn't have less violence. It's just concentrated in fewer hands. [Said with thinly-diguised contempt, for anyone who expects to be protected but thinks the weapon protecting them is a necessary evil at best. Nisei has had to fight since he was tiny, and thinks pacifism is an extremely stupid luxury.]

[in_loveless_memory]

Magic? Is that what you decide to call it? [He had yet to hear anyone call it anything other than just word spells. He supposed you could call it that. But at his demand about violence his eyes narrowed.] Don't think me naive just because I don't think violence is the answer to everything like you seem to. There are better ways and your thinking that there can't be anything other than violence and because you have power that just makes this world dangerous. It's stupid people with power, that school isn't any better for wanting to kill Seimei. Violence perpetuates violence. Seimei hides because they're trying to kill him, and then blinds Ritsu-sensei.

For someone who claims who "manages" don't you dare lie to me that you show people your true face. You lie otherwise that very violence you like to tout would be used on you all the time. [Because Ritsuka himself just wants to hit Nisei, he can only imagine the adults that want to do worse.] You aren't better than me because I try to make my mom happy when you just lie as a whole.

[bloody_spy]

I didn't decide to call it anything. But I can shatter steel just by talking to it. [And break people just as easily.] Word spells are magic.

Violence has limits. A lot of things can be worked out with more subtlety. But only as long as there's someone there, in the background, carrying the "or else." You haven't been forced into any number of things because Soubi's will is enforced with word spells. And the people you were around, before you met him, couldn't fight worth a damn. So your sharp tongue was weapon enough. [To Nisei, can't fight and I'm scared to are serious weaknesses, that outsiders gloss over with an abstract, generic objection to using force. They wouldn't survive Goura if their lives depended on it. Without Soubi, neither would you. But you need a lot more protection than a normal sacrifice would, because you're treating violence like an optional thing, that will only be used against you if you agree to play by those rules. And it isn't. It really isn't.]

Of course I don't show most people my true face. But if I've seen theirs, it's despite their best efforts to hide it. So how am I lying, Ritsuka? And anyway, if what I really am is singled out, I'm under no obligation to stand quietly and await punishment. [It's faintly sardonic.]

[in_loveless_memory]

[Ritsuka's reason for hating violence is different than Kio's. It isn't that he doesn't believe it exists and even as he says there's a better way, he knows sometimes it really does come down to violence. But he doesn't want to fight. He hates fighting and the pain it causes. He is susceptible to it daily and he knows how it hurts. Ritsuka has built up lie after lie to protect himself from his mother's abuse, his father's neglect, the world of fighters and sacrifices. He has to protect himself because even though he's been given new knowledge of this strange underworld, that knowledge has been put into a mind with an already shaky foundation. Soubi's mind is fragile from his abandonment but only Ritsu-sensei, Seimei, Nisei, and even Ritsuka were only the ones who could truly break him. Soubi was a blank fighter desperately seeking a sacrifice and from every loss, a part of him would break a bit more. But Ritsuka? Ritsuka was created broken. He had no memories of his past ten years. He had lies and abuse on every side of him. He had built walls to defend himself and his mind but those walls were easy to destroy.

Ritsuka was vulnerable to anyone that got into his walls. Not just his fighter, but anyone who really knew how to hit the right targets could get him to fall apart, could bring him to his knees.

And Ritsuka, on some level, knows that. He doesn't want to use violence. He doesn't want to see anymore get broken or destroyed. He wasn't scared of violence. He faced it daily and refused to run away from his mother or yell at his father. He just refused to allow that to be used on anyone else. It didn't make him naive. Despite knowing nothing of the world of fighters and sacrifices, he was not naive to how people treated one another and the cruelty in their souls. But he refused to believe that was the only thing in them. Yuiko was proof, Natsuo, Youji, Soubi... all of them despite born and raised for the world of fighters seemed just as content hanging out and enjoying spending time with other people. He took a deep breath.]

It doesn't always need an "or else." There are enough people in the world who genuinely want peace and actually have the power to bring it about. We are not just base creatures who exist only for violence.

[bloody_spy]

[You mean you're not, is right on the tip of his tongue. But he doesn't say it. You have enough reasons to hate him already. He goes with something less dismissive.]

If you're such a peaceful person, how come you're always two provocations away from looking like you want to hit me?

[[Mun is headdesking at Nisei's idea of "non-confrontational."]]

[in_loveless_memory]

Looking and doing it aren't actually the same though. And because it's you.

[bloody_spy]

[You get an eyeroll, at that.]

Okay, put it this way: a feeling that makes you leave me to Soubi's nonexistent mercy and chained to a wall isn't just your business. It's affecting me.

And really? I don't know why you have such a problem with me.

[in_loveless_memory]

Why should he show mercy to you? And if you don't like getting chained to walls, perhaps you shouldn't antagonize the one doing the chaining.

[bloody_spy]

He's not remotely the point. You are.

[Because you're the one rejecting violence, or trying to act like you have a problem with it. He doesn't expect mercy from Soubi, and Soubi couldn't expect it from him. But they're using roughly the same parameters on each other. And you're meta-criticizing something he can't see how you'd live without.]

[in_loveless_memory]

After all the crap you put me and my friends through, why would I decide to be nice to you. You thought I was a good boy as if you knew me. But you know nothing about what I'm really like.