The music: Antimatter - Epitaph
Note: This short story happened because the song Epitaph by Antimatter hit the author upside the head with imagery as presented below (and was, thus, the main source of inspiration - look up the lyrics if you're interested), and because Soubi likes to sleep with the window open. No, really.
Disclaimer: Loveless is not mine. If it were mine, I would not be writing fanfiction.

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Transcendence
by Rhea Logan

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It was just a rough sketch – shaky lines, lacking shapes. It did not matter all that much; he could fix it later. A faint trembling settled in his untrained hand, anxious to translate the picture his mind had conjured up into something tangible, something to remember it by before it fled. He would add color, too, if time allowed. Fine things were to Seimei's liking, so he would make it beautiful.

Soubi scowled at the imperfection of the drawing. He would have to try harder to make it good enough. His lines were too strong, black from pressing the graphite of his pencil too hard an overwhelming tone where it should have been accents alone. Nervous, he closed his eyes, breathing deeply once, twice, until the fluttering of his heart reduced to bearable and his excitement faded enough to let him concentrate.

This should cause far less trouble, he thought. It was a simple room with a window, half-open for the sunshine – not there yet - to seep inside. Two butterflies, caught in a carefree dance against the background of glass. These were free, if not drawn; free enough for Soubi's imagination to let them fly out of that window if they – or he - so wished. These were happy, he mused; or they would have been, if they were real. Not pinned to a board, serving only to please a collector's eye. Not like in--

"Soubi-kun."

Soubi jumped, flipping the paper upside down on pure instinct before he bowed his head, as was expected of him.

"Sensei," he said, frozen in that position, all but inanimate save the heaving of his chest. Damp palms stuck to the paper, stiff fingers curled around the pencil.

"Let me see that drawing."

The voice was not as stern as it could have been, to Soubi's surprise. Yet something in its undertone bade him keep his eyes downcast. He knew this demand; an order lightly veiled in a layer of polite interest, interlaced with a promise of change.

"Yes, sensei," he managed meekly. Unsticking damp skin from thin paper was murder on the piece – the pencil smudged, and those crumpled edges, those wrinkles across the white surface... he would start all over again. To give a thing this crude to Seimei would shame him beyond words.

The trembling was back in his hand; Soubi kept his head low as he handed the paper to Ritsu-sensei. He did nothing wrong, he assured himself, yet awaiting a verdict from his teacher made time come to an uncomfortable standstill.

The verdict came, disguised as a soft, disapproving sound. Then, "What is freedom to a butterfly?" he asked.

Soubi felt his ears wilt and his tail fall into a nervous twitch. He was sure he blushed as well; a wave of heat welled up in his chest and settled in his cheeks. Was sensei indeed expecting an answer to that? Rhetorical though the question seemed, the silence that stretched between them smelled of anticipation – his own, most likely – bidding him speak.

It's happiness, Soubi decided, and told sensei as much. He gave himself a mental punch for letting the trembling carry onto his voice. "I think."

Sensei's answer was silence again. Soubi could not shake the feeling that his choice of an answer was most unfortunate. An unforgivable sin, to fail to meet expectations, and he shivered at the thought.

"Follow me," said Ritsu-sensei, turning to leave before Soubi could recollect himself and find more befitting words.

Soubi sprang to his feet, determined not to disappoint any further. This was no game, he thought as he struggled to catch up with sensei who walked in strides far longer than his own. This was training; he was a measly student who had yet to be shaped into what he was destined to become. Ritsu-sensei had told him so; it had to be true.

"Close the door," came a sharp command, the teacher's voice only slightly rough around the final word, with otherwise elegantly hidden impatience.

Soubi obeyed. He kept his eyes low, but he pressed the back of one cold hand to his hot cheek for a short, fleeting moment, to ease the burning there.

"Butterflies are such feeble creatures." Ritsu-sensei replaced the drawing he had been holding with a large jar that sat on his desk. "Look at me, Soubi-kun."

Soubi willed himself to meet sensei's eyes. He gave a small nod of his head. The colorful, dead display framed on the walls seemed to stare at him, too, with expectant eyes – a ridiculous thought, yet an unsettling one. Soubi was glad for a focal point he understood; sensei's face, while passionless in its unreadable mask, was at least human enough.

"Freedom means destruction, for a butterfly. Inevitable disappearance from the circles of the universe." Ritsu-sensei approached, holding the relaxing jar in front of him like the most prized possession. "Death itself does not maim it, if it dies in skillful hands that know how to preserve its beauty, so that its existence becomes significant."

Soubi could not tear his eyes away from the contents of the jar. Yet another specimen – a glorious one - that would soon make a fine addition to sensei's already impressive collection of preserved beauty, as he called it. Soubi felt like one, albeit alive. He nodded again, careful to keep his own face blank even as he wondered if he was one, to sensei, and why he had been called.

"So, as you can see, your assumption is flawed," sensei said, a suddenly gentle note in his tone. "And you, Soubi-kun, should not bear to hold a false belief."

Soubi felt himself shrink under Ritsu-sensei's gaze. He focused on the jar again. Sensei had explained its purpose before; dry insects were placed inside to let the moisture soften them enough for one to spread their wings. Shaped to look their best, they were beautiful even in death, yet loathsome in their stillness, in their helplessness.

"I understand, sensei," he said quietly, the silence a hint of his cue to speak. This was different than before, he realized. He had not come here to pin this butterfly to the board, had he? Ritsu-sensei stood, patient without words and soon, Soubi was not sure what kind of response – or lack thereof – was appropriate for him.

"Take off your shirt."

Ritsu-sensei issued his command, but he stayed in place, not moving a step to make room and Soubi himself dared not move his feet. His eyes unfocused slightly as he complied; he let his mind adjust to the well-known circumstances he knew would occur. Ironically, he calmed down at once; that procedure, familiar enough, dissolved his confusion. He turned his focus inward to move his mind beyond the pain that had yet to strike, to render himself more durable than the lash sensei used to exercise his control.

"You will hold this." The jar in sensei's outstretched hand, a safe anchor for Soubi's eyes just seconds before, burned him with its very presence. His breath caught as he began to realize what was being asked of him. "Stay on your feet. You must not drop the jar, Soubi-kun. The specimen it holds is precious to me."

Soubi swallowed thickly. The first beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. The room was unnaturally hot; stiff air saturated with a sickly scent of fear Soubi knew he was forbidden to feel. Yet he could not help it. He reached for the jar, timid hands trembling; his mind raced through sensei's words to the rhythm of the wild pounding of his heart.

Ritsu-sensei leaned in, ever so slightly, until the strands of his silver hair brushed, feather-light, against Soubi's cheek. "This is your Sacrifice. You cannot sway."

Soubi braced himself, readjusting his hold on the jar. "Yes, sensei," he said, but he wondered if such a stunt was possible at all. The jar was too big for a steady grip, his hands insufficiently small, and he had little faith in his own endurance, now that the glass was already slippery against his sweat-covered skin. He gritted his teeth at the first crack of the whip, eyes screwing shut - tighter, stronger - his muscles flexing against the strike. He let a soft sound escape his lips, testimony to his efforts to hold steady.

"You must not make a sound." Ritsu-sensei's cool hand brushed long, light brown hair away from the back of Soubi's neck. "Keep your eyes open. You cannot protect your Sacrifice if all you are concerned with is your own pain."

Not a sound. Soubi nodded. His skin burned – not yet broken, he suspected – warmth spreading across his back, melting into his natural heat, amplifying it until it wrapped him 'round and 'round.

Another swish of thin leather cut through the still air, and the second blow, hard enough to send Soubi involuntarily forward, drew another muffled sound. He bit down on his lip, too hard, and promptly ignored the taste of his blood in his mouth. He clutched the jar – closer to his chest, just like this, the cool glass soothing on his fevered skin.

"Pain is an emotional thing." Ritsu-sensei splayed his fingers between Soubi's shoulder blades. "It can only dominate you if you allow it to. You must not think you are in pain, Soubi-kun, or it will stand between you and your objective. You are moving through it. Through and beyond."

Move beyond pain. Soubi struggled to contain every relevant piece of information at once in his mind – the third blow came unexpected, much harder, and he swayed violently on shaking legs. Keep your eyes open. The jar trembled in his unsteady grip, slick with sweat, all but slipping away. Protect your Sacrifice. He wished sensei would stop to let him wipe his hands, but he dared not ask.

A soft rattle of the lenses in Ritsu-sensei's glasses reached his ears. "Excluding finesse, a Fighter is everything a butterfly is not," he said. "Which one are you, Soubi-kun?"

Soubi drew a long breath, letting his eyes slide shut for a split second before he remembered he had been ordered to keep them open. "A Fighter," he said, trying for a tone of mature certainty and failing miserably.

"Then," Ritsu-sensei grazed a fingernail along a sore trail his lash had left on Soubi's back, "you must not wish for a window through which to escape."

The hand was gone; Soubi swallowed around an uncomfortable dryness in his throat. He almost bit his tongue when the whip struck him again, the blow the hardest so far, the most painful. He could not keep the moan from slipping past his chapped lips. Sensei's voice was a faint sound at the back of his mind, not loud enough - he squeezed his eyes shut, careful only not to drop the jar, or fall to his knees, or both. Ripples of pain flickered at the ends of his sensitized nerves. How was he to move through it, if its burning tendrils restrained him like this?

"Your path is that of your Sacrifice. Your window, if you will, beyond which lies not freedom, but obedience." Ritsu-sensei laid his hand against the sore skin of Soubi's back. "You must bend to his will, as you bend to mine. Do you understand?"

He pulled back, removed his hand in a sharp movement. The whip cracked without warning. An affirmative caught in Soubi's throat as sensei's strength, lent to the lash, cut into him like hot knife into butter. Soubi lost balance; he realized an instant too late that once he reached out his hands to keep himself from falling, nothing stopped the jar from crashing onto the floor.

The breaking of glass was deafening.

Soubi looked down at the glittering shards with wide open eyes. For a moment there he forgot his pain, the burning of skin and unshed tears. Words of apology scattered through his mind, his tongue too stiff to articulate them.

"A careless Fighter is a worthless one. Like a butterfly mutilated by a pointless death outside of its destined net. Your Sacrifice is like this specimen, one of a kind. If you fail..."

A shudder passed through his body; Soubi curled his fingers into fists, his muscles tense, his eyes fixed on the wasted butterfly at his feet. You're at fault, a voice in his mind whispered, its sound bearing uncanny resemblance to that of his teacher's. You're disgraceful.

Another swift swish cut his train of thought short mid-word, the whip too quick, too merciless - too deserved. A cry of agony forced its way out, restrained by a thread. His knees buckled. Soubi fell to the floor with a moan he failed to stop in time; he expected the pain to subside, yet it erupted anew in his palms and knees. He looked down through bleary eyes, caught the sound of sensei's shoes clicking against the floor, and found himself unable to focus on both at once. Blackness rose up and swept through his vision, tainted red.

"If you fail, you will follow the path you laid with your ineptitude."

Soubi looked up, straining to see past the blurry veil. Ritsu-sensei stood in front of him, his hand outstretched, a white piece of paper between his fingertips.

"You may return to your room," he said, a terse command that told Soubi the lesson was over.

He was not quite sure he could endure it much longer, anyway. He was kneeling in a warm pool of slowly seeping blood, shards of glass from the broken jar still ripping into his flesh, but all sensation sans the warmth somehow gone. He could be in shock, on the verge of losing consciousness, for all he knew. Or perhaps it had worked, at last, and he was moving through this pain unhindered, detached. Soaring past and beyond the boundaries of self. He wondered what spurred him onward, with no one to fight.

His answer was there, in sensei's hand. Then it landed in crimson stains between his knees. Soubi cringed inwardly at the pang in his heart as he watched the butterflies drown; pathetic, beyond aid. He moved his hand, a small piece of glass sticking out, tiny drops of blood trickling down its edge. The paper was wet, so easily torn as he picked it up.

He would draw a new one, once his hand healed. He looked down at himself, attempting to assess his pitiful state. Only when he heard the click of the door closing behind Ritsu-sensei's back, Soubi allowed himself a quiet sigh. It was a small loss, he told himself, not one he could never amend. He would try harder, next time, for Seimei, and he would draw the window open as wide as the paper allowed.

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February 28th 2006