Define Faith (Working Title)
By EmptyWord
Disclaimer: Loveless is the property of Yun Kouga, Ichijinsha, Tokyopop, Media Blasters, and others I may have missed. Not me.
Warning: An inexperienced writer, a multi-chapter fic (around twenty installments), eventual Kio x Soubi shounen-ai, and a bit of blood and violence. There are notes at the end, and if you choose to read on, I do hope you enjoy!
Prologue
Two thousand and seven years had seen about as many marvels as the earth had to boast, but one more unpublished jewel lay hidden in the proverbial clearing in the woods. Had Little Red Riding Hood stumbled upon that scene instead, she would have happily married the Big Bad Wolf.
"Spell Battle!" announced the beginning, and indeed, a battle of magic – true, unfeigned magic – followed.
"I accept." The quiet words were no sooner in the air than the clearing in the woods shifted into another dimension. In a blink, the trees crystallized and the sky beyond them went white. Two leaves froze in the midst of their downward spiral, sharp veins salient like swords in the stillness.
Beneath the foliage, invisible lines lashed around the battle arena, outlining the barriers between the opposing teams and binding each pair, Fighter to Sacrifice, Sacrifice to Fighter. Battle had been declared, and the lines would remain until the battle had finished.
The Fighter to the left started it off. "Wind of steel, cut through their flimsy skins and draw out the wells of blood!"
A single word glowed against both their arms, spelling out "MATCHLESS" in perfect unison, letter meeting letter. As if in answer to this perfect harmony, a rush of power flashed from their joined bodies and struck like lightning toward their opponents.
The other team stood directly in the line of fire. In comparison with the Matchless team, they made an odd, ungainly couple, standing with careful distance between them. One was thin enough to suspect an eating disorder, and one looked as though all color had been leeched from his skin. One was old enough to stand twice the height of the other, and one was young enough to possess intact ears. Nothing about the pair was fluid, and they gave the impression of mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces forced against each other, vulnerable and easily broken in their illogical union.
And yet, neither wore the appearance of deer caught in headlights. As the violent surge of magic came within arms reach, the Fighter said calmly, "Impossible."
The single word, spoken with the assurance of one who has never known failure, thrummed with power enough to splinter the attack into insipid white threads falling harmlessly to the ground.
Danger so easily averted, the Fighter then added a negligent wave, as if brushing a fly aside. "Wind is wind. Steel is steel. Neither exists within the other, and it is folly to rely on poetic expressions."
Matchless exchanged a surprised look. They had been informed that the team they challenged now was a discordant one, a Fighter and a Sacrifice who were utterly unsuited, and indeed, when they first laid eyes on the Loveless team, the two presented a visual clash so unnatural and unpleasant they knew this was game, set, and match. No team like that could survive a second in battle, or so they had thought.
The Loveless Fighter raised his hand in a deliberate move, voice rising like the tide. "Steel alone is enough to tear the skin and slice through vital human organs."
The simple, almost clinical statement, billowing on the sails of a stentorian voice, gained a power it should not have had and fell upon Matchless like Achilles in vengeance.
A scream tore from the throat of the Matchless Sacrifice as his body arced like a lick of flame. His partner grabbed at him with disbelief, mind refusing to accept the impossible horror his eyes presented. When his Sacrifice lay limp in his arms and blood stained his sleeves, he knew a moment of crushing terror he had never experienced before.
"How –" he snarled, Sacrifice unconscious against him. "You are inhuman –" No team he had ever faced possessed this level of power; it was inconceivable that a Sacrifice should be knocked out in a single attack.
"This is disgusting," he spat. "You're breaking the rules." They were clearly unbonded and incompatible and should by all rights be annihilated. Only the singular strength of the Fighter maintained their existence, not teamwork, not harmony. It was cheating!
The Loveless Fighter gave no sign that he heard, but the other Fighter's eyes were drawn immediately to the man's collar, where, beneath a thorny spiral of scars, was engraved the name "BELOVED."
There it was. The final proof that Loveless was as deformed and mutant a team as their world had ever had the disgrace to see.
"I will not fight a team that does not even share the same name," he bit out, fury crackling around him. He had come to win this battle; he had not come to debase himself and his partner by crossing words with so shameless a pair of deviants.
"You have the right to forfeit," answered the man who dared to call himself Loveless while sporting "Beloved" on his throat.
The Matchless Fighter would have lashed out at that, all rationale lost to anger, had he not caught a glimpse of movement just beyond the clearing. Caution abruptly surged foremost into his mind, and he spun around to leave, to disappear with his partner as quickly as he could. Complaints about the Loveless team could be made later; there was a more pressing problem.
There had been a human witness.
If anyone had told Kaido Kio that any of his friends had magical powers, he would have invited the man – or woman – out for a drink since the guy could undoubtedly tell quite a tale.
If anyone had told Kio that Agatsuma Soubi had magical powers, he would have angrily told the person off. Soubi was mysterious and strange at times, but that did not point unerringly to the supernatural. Soubi was an artist after all, and artists were seldom defined as "normal." And if Soubi often displayed the emotional capacity of a block of wood, it did not mean he wasn't human. He was just repressed, thought Kio indignantly.
Besides, he'd stopped believing in magic when he was five. There were so many other things to believe in.
But what he'd learned at age five was rapidly coming into question as he brushed leaves out of his hair, spying on the scene unfolding in the clearing in the woods.
There was no disputing what his own eyes saw, and that was a glimpse into another world. A world that Soubi belonged to.
As he watched, trembling with the shock of realization, thoughts and memories tumbled through his mind, and he made one unwelcome connection after another. Soubi's unwavering attachment to Seimei, followed immediately by an equally strong attachment to Ritsuka; Soubi and Seimei's unexplained injuries, and Seimei's mysterious death; and Soubi's curiously demure use of language, always so polite, as if afraid to raise his voice.
What shook him the most wasn't the existence of magic, wasn't that Soubi had never told him about it, wasn't even that Soubi and Ritsuka were much closer than he had thought, but that he had never known.
A roil of blackest emotion settled heavily in his stomach, and Kio felt queasy. The signs had all been there, and he had been unforgivably blind and deaf.
How could I not guess...?
And when the battled ended and the dust settled, the other team fleeing into the trees, Kio had yet to right his world. So when Ritsuka said, "Why did he run? I thought he was going to fight," and Soubi turned to stare through all the silly, insignificant leaves straight into Kio's supposedly hidden eyes, Kio could not open his mouth to speak or gasp or laugh anymore than he could believe that he had been so very wrong about Soubi all this time.
"Kio?"
How innocent, mused Kio, feeling faint. It was as if Soubi did not possess a voice like Zeus's thunderbolts, as if he had never even swiped at a fly.
Despairingly, he knew, once upon a time, he would have believed in it.
A/N: This is kind of melodramatic, isn't it?
I wish I had a really good reason for starting this off with a battle sequence, especially since I've written a fight scene maybe, hm, once? And that was at least four years ago. Incidentally, four years ago was also the last time I attempted a multi-chapter fanfic – which, er, is incomplete today. In addition to that, I will try to keep this story as angst-free as possible when pretty much all I've written and read in the past few years have been chockfull of angst. So, you see, I am forging into completely new territory here. Still willing to stick with me?
So far, this adheres to information we're given in canon (if we're talking the anime; I'm afraid I haven't yet gotten my hands on the manga, which I understand is still in progress) and will be my version of "what happens afterward," but I promise you this gets more AU with each chapter. It will be Kio x Soubi, as stated above, and I don't believe Yun Kouga ever plans for that eventuality.
I have nothing against Ritsuka – I really, really like his character, if anything – but Kio x Soubi has always made more sense to me, and Kio is just a truly wonderful person.
All questions, comments, critiques, flames, and musings are welcome, and thank you for reading!
July 7, 2007