Erena: Hey guys! It's me, with another Loveless fic headed your way. Lol. Keeping with the current themes of character-pieces for the badass characters of our favorite manga, I present to you "Dangerous & Moving", featuring Nisei. Bear with me guys, because I love that bastard.
Recommended Listening: "Dangerous & Moving" by: t.A.T.u.
Dangerous & Moving [Nisei]
Of the families--clans--that made up the seven of Septimal Moon, it was Nisei's own ancestors who were famous for their talent. Latent, it was--'ambient' in text-book terms. It made them special.
As a child, his parents petted the name engraved by the gods across his hand and told him he was the beloved of heaven. He believed them, too, because he was good--why shouldn't all the universe love him?
He practiced his skills with his father, whom he resembled most; they raised him as a Fighter, teaching him words and phrases. He wasn't raised on fairytales and birthday parties, but rather on encyclopedias, syllabaries and grueling spars. By the time he was seven, he was the top of his class--so to speak. Rather more, there were few in his family his own age (or older) who could match him.
His cousin once said he was an arrogant little git.
But why shouldn't he be, Nisei responded.
I am Beloved.
Locked away from the outside world behind the high walls of his glitter-and-gold home, Nisei was pampered. Spoiled. He knew it and wasn't afraid to admit it. So what if the servants scrambled to find his favorite chocolates; who cared if the gardener was forced to replant an entire bed of rare African roses? The flowers were in his way and Nisei would be damned if he'd let a flower-bed ruin his shortcut to the pool on the southern-most patio.
The servants would do as they were told; the gardener would get over it.
He was Nisei and he was special.
When he turns thirteen, he's introduced to his sister. She's only ten and the spitting image of their mother, eyes of dark-redwood and raven-black in the hair. Why she's been kept apart from him, no one bothers to explain--but Nisei doesn't care. On her hand, in precisely the same place he bore his mark, she wears hers.
His smile is mean--cruel, even. Some people swore that before that day, Nisei was redeemable. But after...
No one held any illusions.
They were given to one another, as a pair unit. To train, to spar--to improve. Nisei's treatment of his sometimes-Sacrifice, sometimes-Fighter sibling was harsh, unforgiving.
Because he was Beloved...
And she was Worthless.
When he is sixteen, he nearly kills her.
As his pair-unit, she is connected to him; as his blood-sister, there is more between them then simple strategy. So, when she disappears for hours at a time--when she should be at his side--he's furious.
When he finds her in the kitchens, making idle conversation with one of the serving-men, he drags her by both arms into the garden and commands her into submission. She takes her punishment at his hands--binding spells, suffocations, illusionary pains; she deals some back too, chafing against his control as she sometimes does. He finds her refusal to bow amusing and takes her deeper into the shadows of the garden--away from prying eyes--to press her into the back of a sturdy oak. His eyes bore down into hers, his lips tilted upward in a crazed curve.
"You are mine, sister." He breathes it into her face, his breath fanning her cheek. "You are mine to inflict pain upon; mine to command in battle. You suffer at my hands or you can be rewarded by them. The choice, as always, is yours."
She stares up at him in silent defiance.
"Of course," he adds, "you are not permitted to speak, touch or embrace any man who is not family--father, or myself. I will not allow it."
Her eyes narrowed, though she said nothing.
"Only I may touch you, sister."
He laughed, kissing her cheek even as his fingers encircled her throat in the lightest of threats.
"And only I may hurt you."
He's insane, in some ways. They both know it. He's never been in love and he has no real care--but he cannot stand to share what is his. And she is most definitely his possession. His pair-unit; his sister.
What the servants see and what their parents sense--no one speaks of it.
Because he is Nisei, and he's special.
When he's seventeen, he's introduced to the Sacrifice--Aoyagi Seimei--and the tangled, troublesome political pool of Septimal Moon. He's taken in by the still-earred boy and finds the same sort of cold distance in his gaze that Nisei feels in himself.
Aoyagi-san's eyes brushed over Nisei and his silent, shadow-present sister and their smooth, black hair which spilled over their shoulders. His lips crook at one corner, just as cruel as Nisei's ever were.
This Seimei is intelligent, quick.
Cunning.
And best of all, he too is beloved of the gods.
Beloved.
Aren't they special?
Nisei leaves his family's lacking-bosom to follow Seimei across the continent and around the world. He kills when he is told to kill and he maims when he's not otherwise ordered not to. He delights in watching the inferior opponents writhe in the broken, shallow darkness of their own misery and drowning them in the tide of spellwork.
There's nothing like it and his hands are cold, made so by the icy-chill of his blood and the frozen arrogance of his smirk.
Seimei, for his own part, is a complex puzzle and an unsolvable mystery--and at the same time, an utterly simple being. He has no respect for the lives of others, for the world in general. All he speaks of is Ritsuka-kun and living for himself. All in all, Nisei ponders his Sacrifice in silence.
Seimei says Nisei is a pet, a trained dog on the attack or a rabbit, cute for the holding.
Nisei gives up on trying to reconfigure Seimei's opinions.
Nisei knows they're special, together.
That's enough.
He first runs across the impostor when he's on his mission for Seimei--not that the mission itself was all that difficult. Mediocre, as missions went. A battle was just the sort of distraction he needed.
Even without his Sacrifice, he was sure this stranger would be no challenge.
But then the man called himself 'Soubi' and the ghost of a name from Seimei's ramblings rose in Nisei's mind--sharply. Of the other one called Beloved. Of the impostor, who stole his name.
He can see the scars, carved into pale flesh across a bare throat.
Nisei's fists loosen into a streaming of pale fingers tipped in sharpened nails--claw-like. His grin is feral, deadly--frightening. His eyes glitter like fractured sapphires in his face and he advances on the tall blonde.
His gaze stays on the jagged scarring, the word pressed into skin.
Nisei sincerely hopes it hurt like a bitch.
Because he's special and Seimei is special. And this bastard is not.
The impostor would never be beloved, like them.
Though he doesn't get the chance to kill--or break, or maim or rip to tiny, irreparable shreds--the man called Soubi, Nisei makes note of every detail and keeps the anger fresh in the back of his mind, to call up on will.
Seimei's got another mission--another plan. They're going to the academy that hides Septimal Moon--to 'see' the man called Ritsu-sensei, who knew too much.
Seimei tells him Ritsu was Soubi's teacher.
Nisei's eyes narrow and he prays Seimei isn't in one of his contrary, merciful moods.
As for himself, he has a good night of it. He got to take hold of that precious, blonde civilian outside the academy doors--the friend of the impostor and as such, a wonderful hostage. Nisei imagines a thousand ways to torture the fool, starting with the metallic rings in his ears and the glasses on his face. He could crush the lenses and make the fool eat it.
But then, even better, he has the fortune to run across the impostor himself--and the kid who takes Seimei's thoughts away. The one called Ritsuka. A little ear-innocent version of his Sacrifice--the image amuses Nisei greatly. But, of course, Ritsuka is not Seimei because he's not Beloved. Not even special.
At least in this battle, the impostor knows his place. He calls himself--him and the kid--Loveless.
Nisei's lips curl.
Damn right.
And he is Beloved, as it has always been.
But...maybe...not Beloved enough.
Seimei has gone, leaving him behind--but Nisei heard that he took Ritsu-sensei's eyes with him and that cheers him somewhat. But still...
Seimei must have heard my call...still...he didn't come.
Abandoned by his Fighter, left behind in the den of the enemy. Would they torture him, he wondered? Probably--though maybe not. His captors are the impostor--Soubi, he knows--and the kid, who radiates innocence and speaks of pacifism.
Nisei feels ill.
Chained up, locked in a stone room in a building with seemingly no inhabitants--no one to bewitch or spell into letting him out. No one he could cajole with his sweet words or command with his spelled-voice.
No Sacrifice, to amplify his power.
For all the he was a natural talent with ambient power and matchless grace--he was helpless now. In the face of his solitude, he thinks of Seimei--and how he repeatedly reminded him that he was a pet.
Of his sister, called Worthless. Of her power, which might have been enough to free him. But she would not come. Not to him.
He thinks of the ones called 'Loveless' and the way they should not have been able to bond--and somehow had.
Nisei thinks of himself and remembers that he is Beloved.
But, in the gloom of this sudden defeat...
...in the face of his own vulnerability...
He thinks that, perhaps, he is not quite as special as he's always thought.