The Confessional Game
Prologue

---
Author's Note: SPOILER WARNING. Consider yourselves warned. This involves characters who are spoilers before volume five, but since it's not canon-verse, it's not really that big of a deal. That's about it. Oh, yeah. And the mansecks. But then, this is Loveless, isn't it? Hehe.

----------------------------------------------------

Late night television is usually filled with tales of deviancy, stories of the basest depths to which mankind can sink. Meant to attract those who thrive on the suffering of others, who take a strange pleasure or curiosity in watching other people's misery.

Akame Nisei never watched TV before eleven p.m.

He was watching now, as a news reporter blathered on about some charity or other -- how utterly boring. His eyes were half glazed with disinterest and a need for sleep, fixed unseeingly on the ten-by-twelve screen. The woman stopped talking, and a young boy came on. Nisei felt his interest perk. He knew that face from somewhere...

"Seimei, you might wanna come in here," he called, fishing out the remote from under a pile of magazines and turning up the volume. The boy's voice filled the house, just as Seimei entered the room, a towel wrapped around his waist. He stopped, about to chide Nisei for calling him during a shower, when he saw the image on the screen.

"I don't know who you are," began the boy, voice trembling and slightly tinny, "but please. Listen to me. I -- I know he probably doesn't mean anything to you, but that's my older brother you have. Please, give him back. I love him so much, I miss him! I won't be angry, but please, just bring him back safely. Please! Wherever you are, just let him go. Let him come home. Please -- please don't hurt him!"

The trembling voice dissolved into hiccoughing tears, and the woman reporter returned to view as the video footage cut off. Seimei's eyes were still on the television, but his mind was obviously somewhere else. The woman's voice droned on: "That was Aoyagi Ritsuka, speaking today about the kidnapping of his older brother, Aoygai Seimei, seventeen years old. We hope his pleas might touch the kidnapper's heart and that Seimei will be released without injury. However, if you have any information regarding this crime, please call your local police. Any tips are greatly appreciated. We have yet to find out the kidnapper's purpose, but it is believed that he used Aoyagi to escape from the mental facility at which he was being held. The kidnapper's name is Akame Nisei, twenty-six years old. More on this story will be broadcasted as the information becomes available..."

Seimei stared.