Heartless

1.                  She turned on Ritsu … the woman, the one who would become Soubi’s mother.  She let him be paralyzed by chains and restraints.  She stood over him with the man, the one who would be Soubi’s father, and she laughed.  “Good-bye, Ritsu,” she said.  “You don’t know how to love, only own, and you don’t own me any more.”  Then she smiled horribly.   “I’ll give you one last wish,” she taunted him.  “I’ll be the one to rid you of your ears and tail.”  A flash of scissor blades followed by pain.  He saw her wrap his severed tail around her throat like a fur piece, then he was blinded by his blood.  He recovered, but he was never quite the same.  He was never quite sane. 

2.                  Soubi was given to Ritsu-sensei when he was six years old.  Ritsu gave him away when he was seventeen.  In the eleven years between, Ritsu taught Soubi what he knew best--how not to feel. 

3.                  Soubi did not remember his mother’s face.  The truth was … neither did Ritsu, not really.  When he remembered what had happened between the woman and him, it seemed like a story he had read or heard, something that had happened to another person.  It was a myth, yet it was the myth on which he had built his only religion. 

4.                  Ritsu always spoke of Soubi in glowing terms to his colleagues.  To 7 and to Nagisa, he praised the boy’s power, his skill, his single-minded dedication, and his obedience.  Ritsu predicted Soubi would be a consummate fighter though he never uttered a word of praise to the boy himself.

5.                  From the day they met, Soubi hated Ritsu-sensei.  Hated him and was desperate to please him.

6.                  He did not object the first time Ritsu touched him sexually any more than he did the first time Ritsu struck him.  Quite simply, his body was not his own.  It belonged, and he belonged, to his teacher. 

7.                  Ritsu-sensei never beat Soubi out of anger or raped him with desire.  When he did these things, he was coolly self-possessed, remote, as though he were watching from a great distance.

8.                  On the walls of Ritsu’s office, there were frames that held the bodies of butterflies, wings spread under the glass to show their full beauty.  Whatever Ritsu-sensei did to him, Soubi would concentrate on the butterflies.  Even years later, their wings filled his mind, and no matter how often he drew or painted them, he could not get them out of his head. 

9.                  Sometimes, it occurred to Ritsu-sensei that he had nothing but Soubi, nothing in the world but this child of a woman he had loved once.  At these times, Ritsu would be kind. 

10.              It was only when Nagisa saw that his ears were gone and yelled at Ritsu, her voice full of anger and disgust, that Soubi realized he should be ashamed.  Up to that point, he had looked upon sex as just another of the disciplines Ritsu-sensei inflicted upon him. 

11.              Soubi had always thought that he and Ritsu would share a name.  He would be Ritsu’s fighter, and Ritsu, his sacrifice.  It would all make sense then--the years of training, of discipline and punishment, the beatings and the rapes.  In Soubi’s mind, at least his education would be to a purpose.  Denying Soubi this slim measure of sense in his senseless life was Ritsu’s final cruelty, and the only one Soubi ever really held against him. 

12.              The woman, the one who would become Soubi’s mother, took everything Ritsu was and walked away.  In retaliation, Ritsu hollowed out her son, fashioned the boy into the slave she should have been, then handed him over to Aoyagi Seimei--a master even more sadistic and beguiling than himself. 

13.              After Soubi was gone, Ritsu-sensei could find little satisfaction in what he had done.  He had devoted more than a decade to his vengeance on the woman, yet she was not there to see it.  She really was dead, and, without Soubi, no part of her remained.

14.              One time, Ritsu broke.  He called Soubi’s cell phone just to hear his voice, but when the line picked up, he spoke.  “I miss you,” he said, simply and coldly.  His only answer was the sound of Seimei laughing.

15.              Soubi didn’t die when Seimei did.  He should have, but Ritsu was glad he didn’t.  Things were as they should be once more.  Ritsu was a Sacrifice without a fighter, and Soubi was a blank fighter--an unrealized possibility waiting to have a name written on him. 

16.              After Seimei died, Soubi called Ritsu.  There was anger in his voice, anger and bitter hurt.  Hanging up, Ritsu felt a certain triumph.  He had trained Soubi to be empty inside, yet, clearly, speaking to Ritsu had provoked a torrent of feelings in his former student.  Ritsu still owned Soubi.  He always would.

17.              “You don’t know how to love,” the woman who would become Soubi’s mother told him.  “Only own, and you don’t own me any more.”  After that, Ritsu’s heart was not just broken, it was no longer there.  He saw to it her son did not know how to be loved, only owned. 

18.              Every time a new band-aid appeared on Ritsuka’s hands or face, covering a fresh wound, Soubi felt like he was going to be sick.  He hated Ritsuka’s mother for what she did to her son, but, most of all, he hated how Ritsuka made excuses for her, how he tried to please and appease her, how he clung to her even as she lashed out at him.  She deserved to be hated, and Soubi wished Ritsuka could hate her just as he wished he could hate Ritsu-sensei.

19.              After Ritsu was wounded by Aoyagi Seimei, Soubi went to his teacher in the hospital.  There was a bandage over the place where his eyes had been.  “You gave me to Seimei,” Soubi said.  “He threw me away.  You should have kept me as your Fighter.  I would have protected you.” Ritsu recognized Soubi’s voice, but the words were lost in a dark fog of pain and painkillers, and what he heard was a memory saying, “You don’t own me any more.” 

20.              What name would they have been bonded under if they had been joined as Fighter and Sacrifice?  Soubi painted the characters for the words that fit.  Devoted.  Enslaved.  Despoiled.  Betrayed.  Shattered.  In the end, the name he chose was Heartless.