[nick / name]: Jane

[series]: Loveless

[character]: Ritsu Minami

[character history / background]: Brief Description

What is known of Ritsu's history centers mostly around his student Soubi Agatsuma. Nothing is known of his childhood.

The Seven Voices Academy is a school specifically for Fighters (Sacrifices also attend the academy at later dates upon uniting with their respective Fighters). Ritsu once attended the academy, and later became the principal.

Ritsu is also part of the Septimal Moon group that supposedly killed Seimei, a group loosely connected with the Seven Voices Academy. Although he once mentioned that he was not part of the Septimal Moon, according to one translation, he most likely meant that he was not a member at the time of Seimei's death, as Seven confirms his membership later.

Soubi was only six years old when his parents died, and Ritsu took him in and became his guardian, his teacher, his owner. Being a Sacrifice himself, Ritsu took it upon himself to train Soubi to become the ideal Fighter, to withstand pain. Once Soubi was cultured to perfection, he searched for the perfect Fighter to compliment him, and found Seimei. Though Soubi assumed Ritsu would become his Sacrifice, Ritsu avoided the issue, asserting the fact that he already a Fighter, despite the fact that said Fighter died.

It has been implied that Ritsu intimately knew Soubi's mother. Ritsu claimed that she was merely a co-worker, and that they mutually agreed to not see each other, suggesting a relationship. He compared Soubi to Soubi's mother physically but labeled her a "despicable woman." It is implied that he also took Soubi's virginity, and Nagisa vehemently claimed that he only did so because Soubi looked so much like Soubi's mother.

During the years between finding Soubi's Fighter and Soubi's return to the Academy on Ritsuka's request, it is assumed that Ritsu continued his work with the academy and Septimal Moon. However, when an intruder enters the academy, he meets Seimei, expressing his absolute loathing and regret for relinquishing ownership of Soubi over to him. A fist-fight supposedly ensues, resulting in an immediate loss of eyeballs. He is hospitalized, and despite his hatred, he orders Soubi to defend Seimei and keep him alive.

[character abilities]: None; He is a Sacrifice, one that receives damage in battle.

[character personality]: Ritsu is at best uninterested and at worst cold. It wouldn't be too off the mark to say he is incapable of laughing or smiling out of mirth or good will. No, no. Ritsu is most often seen with an indifferent look on his face, a calm and collected individual who is rarely angry or surprised. Perhaps not so much stoic as interested in his own agenda, as he is often noted as a workaholic.

Ritsu seems to hold an appreciation those with talent. Soubi, of course, was his favorite student, the boy with the highest potential to be the strongest. He often recognizes that potential in other students. As a teacher, he is strict and unforgiving, cruel, cold, heartless. His philosophy is that a great Fighter must know pain and be able to withstand pain. A Fighter must give himself or herself to the Sacrifice. Thus, he goes about familiarizing Soubi with the burn of pain, the cracks of whip, and possibly even rape. He insists that pain is the proof of living, that it is necessary. However, he seems to have reservations about pain without purpose. Ritsu used pain to teach, to educate. He believes that Seimei, on the other hand, used pain senselessly. The name wrapped around Soubi's neck? Oh, how he disapproves.

Though his methods are cruel, Ritsu holds a sense of right and wrong. He has a strange sense of justice. A loss is not a loss unless governed by a strict set of rules, and a win is not a win unless governed by those same rules. These beliefs were even driven into lessons with Soubi. So much that, as a teacher, he had confidence that Soubi would not break the rules, despite the danger of severe injuries.

He does not waste words, saying what he needs to say to get to the point, get the information or the reaction he wants. Soubi mentions that Ritsu has a nasty way of saying things, phrasing things just so to get a rise, to cause hurt. Sometimes his insults may even seem teasing in a strangely calculating manner.

Most of all, though Ritsu believes a Fighter belongs to the Sacrifice, Ritsu holds an odd control over Soubi and knows it. Ritsu owns Soubi, regardless of the Sacrifice. He has upmost confidence in his creation and is concerned with Soubi's ownership. He chose Seimei himself, but was Ritsuka qualified to own Soubi? To control Soubi?

In the end, Ritsu is simply a strange man with a strange obsession.

[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: Volume 9, chapter 7; After he is bandaged and laying on the hospital bed

[journal post]:
[Voice]
This is not the hospital. Nor the academy.

It's noisy here.

I ask for information and assistance.

And- Soubi-kun? I know you're here. Be a- Ah, be a good boy. I have a surprise.
[/Voice]

/>[third person / log sample]: One by one by one. First the mother then the son - the good boy, the subservient student, and yet he knew this paradise would disappear because he'd made it that way, because those were the rules - and all he had left was this awful, awful woman with strange clothes, strange hair.

One by one. Like his eyeballs, plucked clean and painful then smeared on the wall like the paint on Soubi's canvas, so red, so red. And he missed pushing up his glasses, looking down at Soubi who'd always been so small, commanding. The hospital wing in the Seven Voices Academy seemed quiet and dull in comparison to the black of his office amongst the staring butterflies and scars against that little, pale back.

He missed it all.

Oh, but that wretched, wretched Sacrifice, ruining what he had built with careful hands and rampant whips, tricked and stole, tricked and stole. Ritsu thought he was the perfect Sacrifice for his Soubi. His cute litte Soubi.

And Soubi, the cutest and the best, obeyed so well, so wonderfully. Just like he'd taught him. Never raising his voice, gritting his teeth. Bearing it and withstanding it all just like he'd taught him.

The pain burned where his eyes were supposed to be. He touched lightly at his bandages. Like student like teacher, perhaps. Like the unravelling past, perhaps. He should have been used to the dull burn. Pain was his life. Damage. Break apart. His skin knew the wordspells best by now.

He jerked slightly when a smaller hand rested on his own. Nagisa had been so quiet, and now she was fretting again. So loud, so loud. Not like his Soubi. Not quiet at all like his obedient, submissive Soubi. The boy with no will because he'd made him that way.

Even now, he ordered his Soubi, owned him. Even now, dignity and sight stripped with cellphone pressed to his ear, he gave his orders and expected obedience.

At the very least - a scoff and perhaps gripping her hand a little tighter - he wouldn't have to be reminded of that despicable, despicable woman who looked so much like her son.