Chapter One: Strain
"Ritsuka! Ritsuka!"
The first words that had left his lips when he'd met his fated Sacrifice. Loveless. Aoyagi Ritsuka. Now, they came out in a rasping cry. Those words had been the only thing Ritsuka heard from his Fighter's lungs. The ravenette had never even gotten a proper name from his Sentouki. Just this. And as rumor had it, the youngest Aoyagi couldn't remember anything from the age of ten and below.
So the memory was naught.
The Sentouki for Loveless cried for his partner again. Louder. His voice cracked and it came out as a thin, sick scream, and he woke himself. Damp and hot, he rolled to his side, struggling with the sheets of his futon. They clung to his frame and his mouth was dry. Uncomfortable beyond belief, he thrashed and managed to get the damnable cotton off.
Better. But not there. He ran his tongue over thin lips to attempt to get fluids going, and found no avail. He whined, throat sore, stomach rolling and angry as he looked around for a glass of water.
Sick for a week and they didn't bring any today! He flattened his ears and turned to the side of his futon, panting, sweat-slick and feverish. Again, no water glass left for him. Not today. He felt better than he had in the last few days for certain. His fever had broke, and had returned more mildly...
The Fighter retched. The few contents of his stomach would have come up in a nasty mess across the wood of his suite, but a tin dish had been put there in expectancy of this. No water, but a mess dish.
Loveless groaned and wiped the foul spittle from his mouth, before rising to a crouch, sheets clinging to his ill frame. Taking the time to simply breathe, his stomach calmed, and with it, his shivering subsided. Good. Another groan of protest, and he pushed himself slowly to his feet, padding towards a mirror that rest against the wall. A full body mirror. He approached it nude.
A look of determination crossed the teenaged male, and he even perked up his pale ears. This was a familiar ritual to him. For a moment, he stood, staring at his reflection. Searching. Always searching. Longing. Needing.
He was no Blank.
He bent and sighed, tracing his hands across the Achilles and moving upwards. Reaching his tail's base, he gave up. Kneeling there by his mirror, he stared again at himself. Questioning.
His name was Loveless. He was the partner chosen by fate itself for the Aoyagi boy. And yet... And yet he was not there. He was not with his partner. It hurt. Oh how terribly so, too! He longed for Ritsuka. Needed his other half. He was half a decade the others senior, but that did not matter. He had been born for Beloved's younger brother.
Silence.
Silence.
*Snap!*
Fury. White-hot and ice cold, all at once. His stomach roiled, and his expression darkened as he stared at the mirror. His bare shoulders he was no longer seeing, but the face of Beloved's sin. Agatsuma Soubi. He'd only seen the adult once, maybe twice. But he needed no more than that, even if it was never in person.
Agatsuma! The adult whom had served Aoyagi Seimei. And lived and thrived in the sin of surviving Beloved's Gisei. He claimed it was told of him, rumors said. But a Fighter does not survive their Sacrifice. Even a faked death.
Agatauma Soubi...
He whom took a second name. Loveless. Beloved. Loveless. The name was not his to have. And yet he did. It tore Loveless' true Fighter to shreds inside. He wanted to scream. To cry. His heart fluttered in his chest as he crawled away from the mirror, ill and hot and quite infuriated. He shivered as he let off a high, thin scream through his teeth, and collapsed on his futon. His hands shook as they found a pillow, tearing uselessly at it as he screamed again. This time, he screamed no words, but was yelling for Soubi.
Yelling for Soubi's blood.
I'll kill him! This Agatsuma Soubi has no right to live! His mind clung to this like a sacred mantra. But it ceased with a cold turn of his stomach and he retched, choking as he tried to force out what could not. Afterwards, he found no use in moving, and clung to his clawed up pillow for support, trying to calm himself as fever flushed his system. He groaned.
VRRRR! VRRRRR! VRRR! VRRRRR!
The boy started, and looked up, panting faintly. His phone.
It vibrated on the wood table in his room, and he rose to get it. Forgetting his ill state, he rose and ran for the device. Plucking the charger's chord from the cell phone, he looked at the screen. Miss Nagisa.
He stumbled a moment, but righted himself, and answered the call. "Hello, Miss Nagisa?"
"State your name, kiddo."
"Loveless. Fighter."
"Good. We're going out today, Loveless. The worst of your flu broke the other night. You're well enough to come now. Hurry up. You know I'm impatient!"
"Yes Miss Nagisa. Right away." He looked towards the small weather calender. It was snowing today. It would be cold. "Bye Miss Nagisa," he hummed, waiting for her goodbye. She was fond of him. She might have something more to say, even.
"That's all, my dear. Bundle up - Goodbye. I love you." The line went dead.
Even so, his face twisted in an angry bout of grief and he flattened his ears. "Don't say that! Miss Nagisa, that... that's not yours to say..." he half sobbed into the Phone, pulling it from his ear and setting it down. His eyes where bright with fever and tears. But tears did not come.