Loveless Fan Fiction ❯ Resonance ❯ Resonance ( Chapter 1 )

“I'm at least doing better, right, Aoyagi-sama?”

“That you are,” the older male replied, a smile playing across his face cryptically. “You actually managed to annoy Nisei into using a binding spell. I'd say that you were about ready to go find your own sacrifice,” he commented.

“I agree. We should all go for coffee or a few drinks to celebrate,” the raven-haired fighter said, a smile on his face as he leaned towards Seimei's one and only pupil.

“I'm not as old as you geezers yet,” she laughed softly, watching Nisei crumple his nose in disgust.

“Geezers? Only if you're buying,” he chuckled lightly.

“Not a chance! It's your job to treat young ladies, right?” His look at her clearly said `and who told you that?' “Isn't that right, Aoyagi-sama?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile, ruffling the girl's hair gently. “We'll all go out of coffee later, alright?”

“That's a promise?”

“Of course. You can go, Sayu-san.” Confident as always, the sixteen-year-old girl left the small hideout near the Seven Voices Academy, proud and eager to find her partner. She had no name - yet - but when she found her soon-to-be sacrifice she would also find her name. She walked through the forest trails, following the strand that represented their unit, hoping that her `other half' would be her soul-mate and best friend. Entering the city limits quite quickly, she let her tiring legs lead her to a bench overlooking a relatively small playground, and she sat there comfortably until the sun began to show signs of setting through the wintery clouds.

“It's beautiful,” she sighed enviously. She hadn't seen a sunset since her entry into Ritsu-sensei's academy and subsequent training by Seimei after she had been thrown out. It wasn't until now that she realised just how much she'd missed it.

“Yeah, it really is,” a young man replied, his voice almost too high to belong to a male. Pulling out a pad of paper from his bag, he grabbed the pencil resting behind his ear and began to sketch. Fascinated, Sayu just watched until she realised that the picture… was shining. Wrapped and seemingly glued to the drawing was the strand of power between Sentouki and sacrifice - the end of the strand connected to this artist.

“I'd been waiting for you,” the artist commented. “And you came.”

“You - you're my sacrifice,” she gasped loudly.

“Yep,” the tanned boy with the black-and-white conductor's hat replied with a smirk, his pencil dangling out from his mouth haphazardly. Raising his head suddenly, both sacrifice and fighter were temporarily deafened by the buzz of another Sentouki system, challenging them to a fight. “Should we go?”

“It's up to you,” Sayu ground out. Honestly, did this boy know nothing about sacrifices? They were in control of the fighter's actions, and so now… he must've never really known about us, she decided. Otherwise he would know better. Trotting off after him, she bowed her head meekly and entered the area.

“Ai! Midori! I haven't seen you in so long,” Sayu exclaimed, smiling brightly.

“Nagisa-sensei's pretty mad at you,” Midori informed her, his eyes narrowing. “She says that you've been in contact with Beloved.”

“So she sent you out to find Sayu and beat her up until she told you his location,” the unnamed sacrifice deduced in his high-pitched and feminine voice. “Sayu - I'm going to call you that for now - we're going to fight them.”

“I'll fight in the nameless mode I usually do, since we don't know our names yet.”

“Look, you guys,” Ai called from Midori's side, “we don't want a fight.”

“Neither do I,” Sayu murmured, barely loud enough for her sacrifice to hear. “I'm falling asleep here - fighting Breathless is gonna wear me out.”

“Then tell them as much,” the boy yawned. He didn't seem to care much, at least. When Midori started yelling, it appeared to be too late to say anything otherwise.

“Our name is Breathless! So intense you'll lose your breath!” When Sayu didn't respond to the challenge, Ai looked at her, confused.

“Please engage your fighter system, Kosaka-san… we don't want to hurt you without at least giving you a chance to defend yourself.”

“You wouldn't land a hit on us after my training, Ai,” she laughed, disdain in her voice as she spoke. “He's near Seven Voices Academy. That's all I know,” Sayu continued, flicking her tail back and forth as she spoke.

“You're lying,” Midori stated flatly, his tail bristling in the cold as snow began to finally fall with the night. “You know more, Kosaka-san. I'll take the information you gave me back to Nagisa-sensei, though.”

“See you later then, Breathless,” the boy at Sayu's side taunted. “Next time we'll fight. Until then, stay well!” Walking off quickly, he made no motion for Sayu to follow, and so she stood there for a moment, watching him.

“He's pretty weird,” Ai commented, narrowing her eyes at the retreating figure. “Just leaving his fighter here? I don't like it!”

“I won't say he's not strange,” Sayu replied with a heavy sigh, “but don't make fun of him. He's my sacrifice.”

“Good luck with that guy,” Midori said, obviously shooing her off and away. Once she was out of earshot, he glared at Ai. “You guys might've been friends once, but right now, she's the enemy,” he chastised. “Until Nagisa-sensei says otherwise, she's not our friend.”

—-loveless—-

“Wait up!” Looking all over, she couldn't find the boy. She saw some of his footprints, but she didn't know where he could have gone in such a short amount of time.

“I thought that you wanted to stay with your friends,” the boy hissed, watching her guardedly from a tree branch. “You meet your sacrifice the first day you go looking for them - because I was looking for you for years, and then you don't even ask my name but instead blatantly assume that I'll tell you everything instead. And then you don't tell me anything about yourself, and then you run off to go see friends - friends who want to fight you and possibly kill me - and when you don't want to fight, them, I let it slip! Everything you've done so far tells me that I'd rather remain the sacrifice of an unknown fighter - and perhaps I will yet! You've been nothing but self-centred since we met,” the boy told her angrily, his ears raised and his tail ruffled and straight.

“I - I had no idea…” Falling to her knees in the rapidly falling snow, she began to cry into her hands. “The day I'm finally allowed to find my sacrifice, I did everything wrong! It's not fair! It's just… not… right… to you, or to me!” Running off in spite of her sadness, she dashed through the snow, full of shame and sadness.

“Sayu-chan… I never meant for that to happen… I was angry… forgive me,” the boy spoke softly a few moments later, knowing that the fighter wouldn't let him approach her if she recognized him. Pulling off his hat, long ginger hair spilled down from the top of his head, and he pulled off the jacket to expose a much longer, form-fitting coat underneath. This in turn, revealed a girl's chest, long, willowy legs, and a slim figure that was curved and beautiful. Her face was unmarked by scars, though a stray pen mark had left a blue streak on her nose. Wiping it off with a long finger, she jumped to the ground below and shook her hair out.

He was actually a she.

Laying her shed clothes on the ground next to the tree, she trotted off following her fighter's footsteps, careful to hide the inside of her hand where it bore their name. Hearing a few muted sniffles, she slowed, knowing that this was the right place.

—-loveless—-

Sayu had lain there for almost fifteen minutes before she heard footsteps.

“Who's there?” she demanded, wild-eyed and upset.

“I didn't mean to interrupt you,” a girl replied, stepping out of her hiding spot behind a tree. Blue jeans showed off her long legs and lanky figure, and the long brown coat accentuated her curves. She was beautiful, Sayu instinctively knew. ”I heard crying and wondered who was out here.”

“It's alright,” Sayu replied shaking tears out of her red eyes as she brushed a spot on the ground off and motioned for the young woman to sit there before the snowfall covered it up again. “I had an argument with someone very important to me… I didn't realise that I had upset him so much.”

“If he cares at all about you, he'll forgive you. That's what friends do,” she replied, wrapping a gentle arm around the dark violet-haired fighter. “I would imagine that he feels awful right now because he didn't mean it - he was probably just angry and said things that came to mind instead of thinking them through before he spoke.”

“How do you know?” she managed to choke out.

“Because… I've already forgiven you, Kosaka Sayu,” she said, pulling her into a comforting hug. “That's what friends do.”

“You… no way… you can't be…”

“My name is Yamada Risa,” she said quietly, kissing the fighter's hand carefully so as not to scare her off. “I've been waiting for you for years. And now… look at the bottom of your hand,” the sacrifice murmured, gently turning Sayu's hand palm-up and placing her own hand in it. “Our name will appear on your hand as it did on mine.” A moment later, she released her Sentouki's hand and flipped her own over, revealing the same name on both of them -

Resonance.