[Gently.] You're a sacrifice because it's in your blood. Because the threads of your being wrapped around your core tie to somebody. Because you exist to command. Because you don't want to do anything else. [His voice hardens, picks up the strength he knows Ritsuka needs.] You are Loveless because you were born with that marked on your soul. It is your strength and your face that you show in battle. It's not a weakness, Ritsuka. True names never are.

[The air is thick-- and Soubi cuts off abruptly. He has no orders to help Ritsuka. He's treading a dangerous, fine line. This boy, who doesn't need love to be strong, still depends on Seimei's love-- and that is how Seimei wants it to be.]

Maybe you will have to wait. Maybe you'll find your fighter late. I'm the wrong person to ask... I don't know why you weren't told. [Seimei wasn't involved "all of a sudden", and Ritsuka's sacrifice ability isn't news. But sacrifices don't explain "why" to fighters. And the "why" that Soubi can best guess at isn't anything that Ritsuka should know. It's that Seimei wants Ritsuka to depend on him, and Ritsuka, as a sacrifice, wouldn't need to.]