Disclaimer: Yes.

Woo, an update XD hopefully things will begin to move along now that such a big milestone has been passed. By the way, do you guys think that after the story catches up the current state of things, should it pick up where the anime left off, or keep following the manga?

And on a more random note, have any of you read Marriane Curley's "Guardians of Time" trilogy? I'm reading it for the first time in a few years, and it's even better than I remember. Ahg, I love Arkarian!

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Time seemed to make noise as it slid by, though for Soubi there was no knowledge of time. The last he saw of Seimei was when he told him to dispose of the body, and when he turned upon finishing his task, he was alone in the park. Encased in the darkness broken only by the coldness of those innumerable stars, he moved toward home shaken, barely breathing and barely human. He watched the clouds of smoky breath as they rose up before him like smoke above a forest fire.

He did not recall the walk being this long before, and as he trudged toward home he could think of nothing but the sight of those cold, dead eyes at stared up at him, still open. It was a haunting image that he could not banish from his memory, and it hovered there behind his vision like an omen of things to come. He was barely conscious of the cold wind biting at his cheeks, so bitter were his thoughts.

"This can't end well…" he muttered, shivering at the thought that Seimei-- his Seimei-- had committed murder, and with that knowledge came the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same again. "What were you thinking, Seimei?"

Trying to keep his mind away from these terrible thoughts, Soubi looked down and watched the sidewalk, remembering how those months ago it had been decorated with dark spatters of his own blood that he had followed home like Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs. Seimei had brought forth that blood, and it was eerie to Soubi to think that he always associated blood with Seimei. The two were one and the same; displeasing Seimei meant he was going to bleed, and if he was bleeding, he had done something to displease Seimei. The blood that had poured from Naimei's wounds was, of course, an indication that he had done something to make Seimei very angry. He could not even begin to fathom what it could have been, however.

Home loomed before him, and Soubi reached gratefully for the knob, stumbling into the warmth of his modest house. The door closed behind him, blocking out the wind, and he slumped against it, breathing heavily. The house was silent, and he caught sight of Kio still sleeping in his bed, completely unaware of the terrible situation at hand. His ears were gone now, and the top of his head looked strangely bare without them. Soubi felt the sudden urge to crawl into bed with Kio and hide under the blankets as he had when he was a child, when he had believed nothing could get him if he did so.

"Pull yourself together, Soubi," he muttered as he walked past the mirror hanging on the living room wall and caught sight of his pale face, a smudge of blood on his cheek. There was also blood on his shirt, and he quickly slipped out of his unbuttoned jacket to avoid getting any on it.

"Sou-chan?" a groggy voice from behind him whispered, and he turned to see Kio sitting up in his bed, watching him through half-lidded eyes. For a moment Soubi barely recognized him without that pair of pale blonde ears on top of his head, but he shook off the feeling and looked steadily at his friend. He watched as Kio's wide eyes grew even wider. Kio slipped quickly out of bed, and Soubi could see the goosebumps break out over his bare skin as he moved across the hardwood floor toward him. Alarm was plastered over his face, and he moved toward his friend, not even seeming to notice he was naked. "You're covered in blood, Sou-chan! What happened? Are you okay?"

Soubi made an attempt to answer and quell his friend's fears, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. Kio reached out to grip his shoulder, and in those eyes Soubi saw fear, raw and immeasurable. He nodded slowly, but Kio's face remained frantic, and he was clearly beginning to panic.

"Are you hurt, Sou-chan?" he reached out his hands and ran them down the front of Soubi's blood-soaked shirt, searching for injuries beneath the fabric. Soubi could only stand frozen for a moment, and then finally reached up and carefully pried Kio's hands from him, regaining his bearings. He couldn't afford to fall apart, not now.

"I'm not hurt, Kio. I'm fine. This isn't my blood…" a small shudder ran through his body as the words passed his lips. Confusion overtook Kio's features, though there was relief mixed in. Slowly, Soubi turned toward the window and allowed his eyes to scan the jeweled stars. Slowly as he replayed the evening's events over in his head, a sense of heavy terror began to fill him. He could feel darkness looming ahead once more, blocking out everything else in its path.

What had Seimei done?

XXX

"Ritsu!"

With a labored sigh, Minami Ritsu looked up from the butterfly he was drawing from a jar. The rubbing alcohol had taken affect, and the little creature was lifeless now, its fragile wings still and no longer fluttering. He placed his work on the table so she wouldn't knock it out of his hands and directed his attention to the blue-haired woman in front of him, who looked stressed beyond measure.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked with little interest, flicking back a lock of silver hair and adjusting his glasses. He didn't have time for her theatrics at the moment, and he was more displeased than he could even show at her interrupting him in the middle of such a delicate process.

"It's all your fault!" Nagisa said, pointing a finger at him. She was dressed, as usual, in an outfit that made her look like some bizarre fairy than a teacher. Ritsu sighed and looked down at his table, making a mental note to lock the door next time. Nagisa always seemed to have this effect on him, both irritating and amusing him at once.

"What's my fault, if I may ask?"

"You told Aoyagi Seimei about how you paired my Naimei with Akame Nisei, and now… he's dead!"

Ritsu was alarmed, and looked up at her quickly to make sure she was sincere. She looked far too wounded and angry for this to be some kind of misguided attempt to make him feel guilty for no reason. Her eyes were slightly red, though she would not allow any other clue that she had been crying to show. Her pride was almost as heavy as his own, something they were both very aware of. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" she looked close to hysterics, and Ritsu would have given anything not to be in this situation right now. He strongly wished that he had chosen to install the trap door he'd been thinking about. "I didn't get an answer from him on his phone, so I used the locating device that was planted in him--"

"--by you…"

"And when I found him he was lying in a clump of bushes… dead! There was blood everywhere! He'd been stabbed multiple times and… the word WORTHLESS was carved into his stomach."

"And so you think this was done by Aoyagi Seimei?" Ritsu asked, removing his glasses and rubbing at the sore spot on the bridge of his nose that they had created. The tension was coiling into the pit of his stomach as he slowly acknowledged, somewhere deep down inside where Nagisa couldn't see, that this was his own fault.

"Of course it was Seimei!" Nagisa, though she still seemed distraught, looked almost irritated, as though it was obvious. "He wouldn't have done this unless he wanted someone to know it was him, right?"

Ritsu sighed and replaced his glasses, reaching down and picking up the delicate dead butterfly. "Aoyagi Seimei gives those around him the Name he sees fit. He wanted to see Soubi-kun as his own Fighter, so he carved BELOVED into his neck. It was his way of giving him the Name and claiming him as his own. But with Naimei, it seems he wanted it to be made clear that WORTHLESS was the only Name he saw fit."

"And why would he do this? What motivation could he possibly have had for killing my Naimei?" Nagisa was flying into hysterics again, tears welling in her eyes, though she tried desperately to push them away. She didn't look like a doll at the moment; she looked like a fraught old woman. Ritsu felt himself almost feeling sorry for her, knowing the deep affection she held for most of her students.

"It's because Naimei was paired with Akame Nisei, and Akame is Aoyagi's true Fighter. It seems Aoyagi is trying to right the order of things," Ritsu stared intently at the butterfly in his hand, taking in the frailty of its deep blue wings, no longer able to flap when bound by the shackles of death, the fate that had been forced onto it that it had no hope of changing. "I'm curious, Soubi-kun. What are you going to do now?"

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Hopefully I'll update soon :3

Also, yay! This story has officially passed the 50,000 word mark! WOOOOO!