Loveless #9

[pinned_butterfly]

So. Another volume is in English. If you practiced Japanese more, you wouldn't need it. English manga is no good anyway; it destroys the flow of words.

Not that I would expect you to understand that.

It probably won't last in America. This sort of manga never sells. Practice some kanji and leave me alone.

Comments

[bloody_spy]

[You poor fool. Nisei can see you have yourself convinced, but that's not enough to sway him. Not when your lies are resting on belief and desperation and air. Being a blank suits you in so many ways, doesn't it? You don't belong. You shouldn't exist. You've overwritten yourself so many times it's amazing you still have open space to write on.

Nisei drags his hand single-mindedly over your scars, eyes narrowed to slits, feeling the echoes of Seimei's knife through his fingers, and his own name charged, aching, and thrumming with magic. This is what you're controlled with. This is what you're obedient to. He'd hate you no matter who you were, for bearing these marks, but he hates you, specifically, for who you are. And yet ... he can afford to touch this. Though your reproach lances out at him, that can't hurt him. The pain he feels is temporary, and better still, utterly under his control. He could stop at any point and he doesn't, because he was born with the name that Seimei impressed on you; born with more of a right to identify himself as BELOVED than you will ever have.

You had no business daring to pretend that you were anything more than a replacement - a nameless fighter with enough power behind your spells to be worth claiming. That's all you have going for you, in practical terms. But he won't punish you for your impersonation, because you wouldn't be alive when he finished. There's too much anger there. Pulling out any of it would pull out all of it, and no. For all your brave talk about only being as vulnerable as you want to be, you like it when other people make choices for you. And continuing to exist isn't a burden he's going to relieve you of today. He'd rather watch you pine, and hurt, and avoid looking at your own face every time you pass a mirror. Such deep self-loathing under your defensive pride, but every time he's said as much, the fact that he can see it shocks you. It shouldn't. You're not hiding as well as you used to.]

I can't tell you how funny it is to watch you insist that you're fine while you bleed out on the floor. [Deadpan.] Everything you think you can keep to yourself, everything you're biting back for the sake of your nonexistent dignity ... I don't need it.

[Nisei takes his hand off your neck to mop the blood out of your eyes, and then pulls his hand back and hits you hard against the side of your head, an openhanded slap that rings out painfully inside your ear and makes the room sway dizzily. He leans down to your level, putting his head close enough to your other ear that his hair brushes against your shoulder, and says in a perfectly audible undertone,]

You're the lowest of the low, Soubi. You couldn't be there for Ritsuka, and your real master is disgusted with you. You know what you're good for? Sating my hunger for pain. You provoked this, and I know why. It's because you deserve this. Pretending you're better than me gives you a comfort you don't get to reach for. It wasn't ever okay, but now you've really run out of excuses. You're not the perfect anything. Not anymore. So don't.

[pinned_butterfly]

[You couldn't be there for Ritsuka. The words echo in his ears, high-pitched and sparking in the aftermath of the slap Nisei planted against his face. He feels his body growing hot with the pain and tries to swallow the fear that is welling inside of his stomach. Not fear for himself - fear for Ritsuka. If he doesn't protect Ritsuka, Ritsuka is in danger from forces he doesn't yet understand. Seimei will protect his body, but his mind? Seimei... can no longer protect Ritsuka's feelings. Not now that he's revealed his true nature.

He feels himself gagging, his stomach bucking inside of him, the thorns strangling him from all sides. His eyes slide shut: he must stay calm, he must fight it. He must protect Ritsuka.

You couldn't be there for Ritsuka.

Soubi's Fighter Field expands suddenly outward, cradled deep within his body so that it explodes from him in a blast. The thorns seer and shake; there is static in Soubi's ears and ozone on his tongue. He cannot fight, not physically. He has not been ordered to fight. But he can use his own magic to defend himself. He can rebuff Nisei, just a bit. He must protect himself. To protect Ritsuka.]