Chapter Text
Fai
In hindsight, Fai should not have been surprised by the rather disappointing state he found things in when he arrived at the Dimension Witch’s shop. To say that things tended to not go well or smoothly for him would be an understatement, after all, but when a man has spent the majority of his unusually long life preparing for a single moment, well, he cannot help but build said moment up in his head, conjuring up all sorts of grand ideas of what it might look like. Truthfully, Fai could not say just what his exact expectations for that time had been, but, for starters, he hadn’t anticipated things being so wet.
This wetness was the first thing that registered for him once the world transfer had finished. Fai took a moment to gather his bearings—traveling between dimensions was a jarring experience, to say the least, and Fai had only done so once before, many, many years ago—and felt the rain falling all around him. This did not seem like a particularly auspicious start to his journey. Then again, given the nature of the journey, perhaps it was fitting.
It did not take long for Fai to discern that the world transfer magic he had performed had been successful. The woman standing before him—unusually tall with long, dark hair and piercing red eyes—was clearly the Time Space Witch. Fai’s ability to sense the magical capacity of others immediately set his hair on edge; this woman exuded power. It was impossible not to feel uneasy in her presence, especially considering that he was well aware of the fact that this woman had the potential to become his enemy, to prevent him from seeing his mission, a mission he had sworn to complete at any cost, to its end.
Still, it would be most unwise to become lost in these anxieties and to, in turn, show any sign of weakness at this crucial moment, so Fai donned a smile perfected over years of practice and affably asked, “Are you the Dimension Witch?”
Introducing himself as Fai. D. Flourite, the magician of Celes, Fai responded that they were in a place where any wish could be granted when the witch, Yuko, asked if he knew where he was. When questioned about the nature of his wish, he responded that it was never to return to his home world. This was not exactly a lie; when Fai thought of Celes, of Ashura asleep under the water and Chi hastily transformed into netting, which Fai knew would ultimately do little to trap his king should he awaken, it was impossible not to feel a flicker of terror. In truth, though, it was a very different wish, one made long ago, before he’d set foot in Celes, before Chi even existed, that had brought him to Yuko’s shop.
Fai did his best to surreptitiously survey the others who had joined him at the witch’s shop. The unconscious young woman was clearly the desert princess whose memories his master had turned to feathers and scattered throughout the dimensions. Fai immediately silenced the part of himself that balked at the cruelty of the act, that recoiled at the sight of the girl’s lifeless body. Such sentiments would not serve him well on this journey.
Fai knew that the young man cradling the girl in his arms was the person who had been chosen by his master to collect her scattered feathers, but something was not right. This boy was clearly not some soulless being created by Fei Wang to do his bidding on this journey; the desperation in his eyes as he pled for Yuko’s help and the lovingly protective way he clutched the princess close to him told Fai otherwise. Clearly something or someone had interfered with Fai’s master’s plans, and Fai had to contend with the fact that there were likely to be many things on this journey that he had not anticipated, had not been prepared for.
Fai also had to contend with just how real these two children seemed.
Still, the children were not the ones to ultimately capture Fai’s attention.
There will be one other who will be sent on the journey, Fei Wang had told Fai all those years ago in that cursed valley. If you ever meet that child…remember that he belongs to the witch. He is not my enemy alone. He has the ability to hinder your wish as well!
Fai chanced a glance at the man whom Fei Wang had referred as the witch’s pawn. The man was tall, exceptionally so; he stood a full head taller than Fai, who himself was taller than most men. Fai caught a glimpse of hardened muscle in a bicep that Fai suspected was thicker than his thigh. Sure, Fai was a very slim man, but still. The man was dressed entirely in black, and he carried a longsword with an elaborate hilt fashioned into the likeness of a dragon. Alarmingly, the man’s face was spattered with blood, blood that clearly was not his, and his red eyes looked very angry. Fai thought that none of this boded well for him.
Then the man, whose name was Kurogane, began speaking.
“Who the hell are you?” he gaped at Yuko.
“I’m not getting any of this!” he complained a moment later.
“What kind of crap are you spouting?” he yelled when Yuko began explaining the terms of their upcoming journey.
As Kurogane sputtered like a petulant child, Fai became increasingly sure of two things. The first was that the witch’s pawn apparently did not have a clue what was going on. The second was that Fai was fairly positive that this man, who flew into an immature rage when Fai teasingly called him “Mr. Black,” would be easy to outsmart and outmaneuver. When Yuko took Kurogane’s sword, clearly his weapon of choice if his reaction to losing it were any indication, as his payment for being able to travel to different dimensions, Fai felt even more confident in his assessment of the situation.
Admittedly, Fai had never been a particularly good judge of character. A history of trauma at the hands of others, long periods of isolation from people, and a deliberate choice to never allow his relationships to develop into anything beyond surface level pleasantries had not exactly granted Fai much experience in understanding the inner workings of other people. Still, he felt certain that his take on Kurogane was correct. He felt certain that, were it to become necessary, he could kill Kurogane.
***
It was in the first world that they traveled to, a bright, cacophonous place called Hanshin Republic, that Fai began calling Kurogane nicknames. The custom in that place was to add different suffixes to people’s names based on factors such as gender, social status, and the nature of one’s relationship with the other person. Fai rather liked the idea, so Syaoran became Syaoran-kun, Sakura because Sakura-chan, and Kurogane…well, Fai had lots of different nicknames for Kurogane.
Each time Fai called him by a new nickname, the man reacted in the same childish manner, angrily reminding Fai that his name was “Kuorgane” and demanding that he knock off the shenanigans. It was all quite amusing.
Their first night in Hanshin Republic Fai and Kurogane shared a bedroom.
When the man with whom they were staying, Sorata, suggested that the two men room together, Fai happily agreed over Kurogane’s angry protests despite the deep unease the prospect raised within him. Well, having an opportunity to learn more about his potential enemy could prove valuable, Fai decided.
As he and Kurogane settled into their beds—if one could call them that, as they were really just mats laid out on the floor—Fai made certain to keep a smile locked into place, hiding any trace of what he was really feeling, what thoughts were going through his head. Fortunately, Fail had plenty of practice with that.
“So, Kuro-tan,” he began as he folded both of his fur coats and placed them nearly in the corner of the too small room alongside his boots.
“Kurogane,” Kurogane replied curtly before he could continue.
“Right, Kuro-rin.”
“It’s Kurogane!” Kurogane practically shouted.
“Ah, you shouldn’t yell,” Fai responded with a laugh. “That’s no way to act when you’re a guest in someone else’s home.”
“Are you always this annoying?” Kurogane grumbled. “I’m thinking that maybe you don’t want to return to your world because there’s a bounty on your head for being the most irritating man in existence.”
“So mean, Kuro-sama!” Fai whined with a fake pout. “Since we’re going to be traveling together, we should become friends!”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” Kurogane replied. “I don’t want to be anyone’s friend. Look, I told you already, I just want to get back to my own world, so do me a favor and shut up so I can get some sleep.”
“Ah, right! And where is your world, anyway, Kuro-chi?”
Kurogane raised an eyebrow at the question, giving Fai a measured look. His response came more slowly than Fai had anticipated. “I said it back at the witch’s place. My world is called Nihon, same as that place we were in, apparently.” Kurogane paused for a moment before continuing. “Where is your world?”
The question caught Fai off guard, but he gathered his bearings and faltered for only a moment before righting himself. “Hmm, this may be a conversation for another time, don’t you think? After all, you did say you wanted to get some sleep.” Kurogane responded by tsking and rolling onto his side, an indication that he had accepted Fai’s decision to stop to the conversation.
Apparently, Kurogane was not as thickheaded as Fai had first believed. Not only had he realized that Fai had been fishing for information, but in returning Fai’s question to him he had made it known that he would not be letting his guard down so easily. Well, Fai supposed that fact alone was useful knowledge to have.
Fai had not intended to sleep that night, but apparently the task of transporting himself to the Dimension Witch’s shop had been more physically taxing than he had realized, and sleep won out in the end. That night Fai dreamt of a phoenix, an elegant and majestic bird that towered over him. It did not speak to him, simply stared him down with a measured look. Fai did not allow himself to flinch and returned the creature’s gaze despite the phantom ache in his back where his tattoo in the likeness of that very bird had been before Yuko had taken it from him as payment for the opportunity to travel between dimensions. He did his best to stifle the memories that began to well up inside him, threatening to reach the surface, memories of the only man to ever show him kindness, memories of a man whose slow descent into madness went unnoticed by Fai until Celes was awash in innocent blood…memories of a man who was no doubt ruined simply because he spent time with Fai.
Just like everyone else, Fai thought bitterly. I’ve brought suffering to everyone I’ve ever loved, and many others besides. Fai knew the legends associating the phoenix with rebirth, but he held no illusions that he would ever be granted such a gift. A person such as himself was not deserving of that kindness.
***
When Princess Sakura woke with the return of her feather in Hanshin Republic, the girl was like a shell of a person, her mind having been wiped clean of all its memories. Her green eyes blinked incomprehensibly, recognizing nothing as she stared at her surroundings, recognizing no one as she stared at the people gathered around her...recognizing not even Syaoran.
Fai watched as the boy who had risked life and limb in a strange land just to retrieve a mere fragment of the princess’s soul steeled himself at the young woman’s response, swallowing slowly before forcing himself to smile (and, oh, if Fai himself did not have his fair share of experience performing that particular trick) and addressing his most precious person with impersonal formalities. The boy then slipped outside, unnoticed by his bleary-eyed princess, into the rain.
As Fai and Kurogane watched Syaoran as he stood outside, Fai wondered aloud if the boy was crying. Kurogane, unsurprisingly, prattled on about how Syaoran simply had to become stronger.
Fai responded by telling Kurogane that there is a certain strength needed to cry when you should.
The statement surprised Fai himself, who had spent a lifetime burying his pain. Your smile, Fai, has done much to heal my heart. When Fai thought of Ashura, it was still that man who came to mind, with his kind eyes and gentle manner. How could Fai reconcile the image of the man who rescued him (no, not just him) with that of the man covered in blood, a dazed and distant look in those once kind eyes?
Perhaps it was time for Fai to resign himself to the truth of the second image. After all, when had Fai’s smile really done anything to heal anyone?
Fai kept a keen eye on his new traveling companions in their next destination, a place named Koryo, where they met the young spitfire Chu’yan, who was determined to protect the land she called home. Although most of Sakura remained missing, the girl’s sweet disposition was immediately on full display as she comforted and bonded with Chu’yan. Syaoran remained steadfast in his determination to complete his mission regardless of how painful it may be. (Fai briefly found himself wondering if the Syaoran in whose image this boy had been made was like this, too, but caught himself and refused to let his mind stray down that particular path for too long.) Then there was Mokona, the familiar Yuko sent along to whisk the travelers between the dimensions, who had both far more power and far more personality that Fai could have ever anticipated. It was simply too difficult to not allow himself to get caught up in her antics, particularly when they involved Kurogane.
Teasing Kurogane only proved to be more and more fun over time, as each annoying nickname sent the large man further into a tither. Still, Fai made certain to keep a shrewd eye on the other man underneath the playful façade. He could not afford to forget that this man could someday be his enemy, could stand athwart of the path that Fai had spent untold long years preparing to walk.
Fai learned that Kurogane was something called a “ninja” in his home country. Fai was unfamiliar with the term, but based on the information Kurogane had divulged about himself since the beginning of their journey, he surmised that it referred to some kind of soldier or assassin. Well, that was not exactly surprising, Fai supposed, and it went a long way to explain the blood that had covered the man the night their paths first crossed at Yuko’s shop. Fai also learned that Kurogane had been sent away by the princess of his land, someone named Tomoyo, for killing his enemies indiscriminately against her wishes. (Kurogane still seemed quite loyal to this Tomoyo despite all his grumbling about her “stupid” and “unfair” punishment, and Fai catalogued this information as being potentially useful.)
A man skilled in combat who had racked up what Fai imagined was a pretty hefty body count was not exactly the person he had hoped to be potentially facing in a fight, but, well, it would have been foolish to expect anything about this journey to be easy. The question, then, became, could Fai kill this man who was so much larger and stronger than himself if need be? If he used his magic (magic that brought suffering and pain and destruction, magic to fight and to maim and to kill…magic, Fail supposed, well suited to a person such as himself) then there was no doubt that he would be successful, but, ah, that was not an option. Fai supposed he would just have to outsmart the ninja.
Despite the fact that Kurogane genuinely seemed clueless as to the purpose and nature of their journey (and Fai couldn’t help but wonder why the witch had left her pawn entirely in the dark about the war she and Fai’s master were waging against each other), the ninja, it seemed, was a bit more perceptive that Fai had anticipated. He confronted Fai the night before their party was to raid the ryanban’s castle to retrieve the fragment of Sakura that was trapped in Koryo, addressing Fai frankly (and, oh, so unlike Fai himself in that regard) while the children and Mokona slept nearby.
“Why won’t you use your magic?” Kurogane asked, looking Fai squarely in the eye.
“Ah, but I already explained it, Kuro-pi. I turned over the source of my magic when Yuko-san took the marking that was on my back as payment for me to travel between worlds.”
“That’s bull. That witch herself said so when you tried to tell that same crap story earlier.”
“But now my staff is gone, too. How can you expect a magician to use magic without his staff?”
Kurogane didn’t look away, didn’t blink, keeping his gaze even and level on Fai’s face. “You’re lying.”
Well, yes, of course Fai was lying. Fai lied all of the time. He liked to think he had gotten to be rather skilled at it. To have his lie spotted and called out so quickly and bluntly was unnerving.
Fai only hoped Kurogane failed to pick up on the moment of unease that gripped him. Fai took a moment to compose himself as familiar words echoed through his mind, words that sounded as clearly as they had that day when they had been spoken so very many years ago.
I know your magic. It is true, Fai! You could be wandering lost on some far-off world...and I could come for you.
Fai laughed briefly, and it sounded forced and unnatural, so unlike the fake laugh that he thought he had perfected. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kuro-pond!”
“Whatever,” Kurogane huffed, and then turned his back to Fai.
Using magic was not an option. Fai’s magic would have to be left behind with the corpses and ghosts of the cold, dead country from which he had fled. Still, even without his magic, he would not fail in his mission. He would lie, and he would lie, and he would lie, and he would kill if need be….He would do whatever must be done to finish what he had set out to do.
He would do whatever must be done to bring back Fai.
Kurogane
Kurogane was going to kill Tomoyo.
No, forget that; apparently he couldn’t kill Tomoyo (not that he actually would, anyway), because Tomoyo had placed a curse on him that would lessen his strength whenever he took another life. It was all terribly unfair. All he had been doing was protecting the princess to whom he had sworn his allegiance, his life. If the assassins who sought to harm her and the empress ended up dying at his hand because they were stupid and slow and incompetent and weak, well, that wasn’t his problem, was it?
Evidently it was a problem, however, because Tomoyo had placed a curse on him and sent him away from Nihon, away from his home, through some strange interdimensional portal she had apparently created using her powerful magic (and, gods, was that a strange sensation) into some foreign world with foreign people, to some crazy witch with weird clothes and an annoying, arrogant way of speaking to him, as if she were mildly amused by the fact that he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Although Kurogane himself had no magic, he had honed his senses keenly enough over years of intense training to know that this woman possessed it to a degree beyond anything he had ever encountered.
The others were strange, too—an unconscious girl and a boy clinging desperately to her, both wearing clothing that was nothing like people wore in Nihon.
It was the other man who had arrived at this bizarre place alongside himself, however, that most caught Kurogane off guard. Tall and thin in an elegant, almost feminine way, he had large blue eyes (what kind of person has blue eyes?) and the lightest hair and skin Kurogane had ever seen. Like the witch, the man also exuded an incredible amount of magic. Kurogane briefly found himself wondering if he was some kind of snow kitsune turned human and briefly glanced to see if the man had a tail before banishing the notion away as absurd.
Kurogane learned just how absurd the notion was when the man began talking.
The man, Fai D. Flourite (a ridiculous name, Kurogane immediately noted), introduced himself as the magician (as if it wasn’t obvious that he was a magician) of some place called Celes, and he grinned and laughed and called Kurogane “Mr. Black” and went along with the witch’s irritating statements with a stupid, inane smile on his face that made Kurogane want to throttle him (and, no, this had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the man seemed to have some understanding of what was going on while he did not). No kitsune could possibly be that annoying.
Kurogane attempted to maintain his bearings when the witch took his beloved Ginryu from him (not Ginryu in truth, of course, but it was a blow nonetheless) and informed him that this was payment to allow him to travel to different worlds, which he was supposed to do with the boy and the unconscious girl and the dumb blonde magician in order to retrieve fragments of the girl’s memories, which had been scattered across different dimensions, with the help of some creature that looked like a white manju…or something like that. Apparently only by doing this would he have any chance of returning to Nihon.
As Kurogane felt the pull of magic begin to whisk him away from the bizarre witch and her bizarre world, he thought, however briefly, that perhaps whenever he was free of whatever curse Tomoyo had placed on him that he would, perhaps, kill her after all.
***
If the world Tomoyo had deposited Kurogane in was weird, the world where the witch sent him and the others was stranger still. Buildings taller than Kurogane had ever seen made of material he could only guess at towered over him on all sides. Bright, garish lights (Kurogane didn’t even know what was producing the light) blinked and shone and flashed in his eyes. The place was so, so loud, and there were no trees and no flowers and no plants. Kurogane immediately hated it.
In theory, being inside one of those strangely tall buildings and away from all of the chaos outside should have brought Kurogane some degree of relief, but things inside the tiny set of rooms in which he found himself grated on his nerves to no end. All of the others who had been at that odd witch’s shop were there with him: the unconscious girl and the young man who had held her lifeless body, the blonde magician, and the white manju creature. All of them annoyed him.
The manju bounced around the room and climbed on his head and into his lap and squirmed inside his cloak and said “puu!” and made weird faces, and Kurogane wanted to throttle her. The magician smiled a vapid smile and sat with his limbs stretched out like some damn cat and continued to call him “Mr. Black,” and Kurogane wanted to throttle him, too. The boy continued to clutch the body of the unconscious girl and vowed to retrieve the fragments of her soul that had been turned into feathers and smiled earnestly and gratefully when the magician and manju agreed to assist him in his quest. Kurogane wanted to throttle him for being naïve enough to believe that if he simply tried his best and had help from others, he could save his princess. The boy needed to learn that tragedy was a part of life, and sometimes a person couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Kurogane didn’t like this world and didn’t like these people. He didn’t want anything to do with an unconscious girl and memories that had been turned into feathers and a desperate boy and a bouncing manju and a blonde magician with unnaturally colored eyes and a suspicious smile.
“Search or don’t search. That’s up to you. It’s got nothing to do with me! I’m here to get back to my own world. That’s the only reason I’m here. Don’t expect me to stick my neck out for you. Don’t expect me to help you. I won’t do it!” Kurogane wasn’t going to lie to these people about who he was and what his intentions were.
Kurogane’s hosts in this strange land were a teacher who somehow managed to grate on his nerves even more than his new traveling companions and the teacher’s wife, who was supposedly a miko but was nothing like any of the many miko Kurogane had ever known. The teacher waved around a puppet in his own likeness and babbled on about something called a “kudan,” which supposedly attached itself to everyone in that world…or something. Kurogane was pretty sure that he wanted to throttle him, too. Then the teacher suggested that Kurogane and the magician share a room for the night, and Kurogane knew he wanted to throttle him.
The magician grinned and called him stupid nicknames, but Kurogane was not a dumb man, nor was he a naïve one, and he recognized this façade easily and was quick to pick up on the fact that the man was fishing for information and that he was also loathe to give up any about himself. Underneath all of that false cheer,
it was clear that the magician was leery of him and that he was sizing him up as a potential enemy. Kurogane, being a ninja, naturally did the same.
Kurogane did not know much about the magician, but he knew that, despite the man’s flippant statements and mannerisms and slender, almost frail-looking body, he was dangerous.
Kurogane had not intended to sleep that night, but apparently all of this business of traveling between dimensions had been more physically taxing than he had realized, and sleep won out in the end. That night Kurogane dreamed of a dragon, a towering blue serpent with clear, sharp eyes. It did not much resemble Ginryu of Suwa or the other dragons of Nihon, but Kurogane recognized it as one of their kin all the same. The creature did not speak, but its gaze bore into Kurogane, measuring him, assessing him. Kurogane did not flinch, returning the creature’s stare, but felt the scar on his hand twitch, and found himself thinking of another dragon, one he could still see coiled around the arm of another man.
Kurogane had spent years trying to emulate that man, trying to make himself worthy of his legacy. When had he lost his way so badly?
***
Kurogane hadn’t become the finest ninja at Shirasaki Castle by accident. He had earned that distinction through years of training and practice and honing the skills most crucial to his chosen profession. Observation was one such skill: observation of one’s surroundings and environment, of one’s friends and enemies. Ever the consummate ninja, Kurogane turned his aptitude for observation onot his new companions. The kid was earnest and determined to save the unconscious princess. Despite being naïve in some ways, he was surprisingly perceptive in others, and it didn’t take long for him to display a degree of bravery and strength that Kurogane couldn’t help but find impressive. Kurogane wasn’t interested in this mission, wasn’t interested in these people. He certainly wasn’t supposed to like them. Yet he found himself beginning to like this kid despite himself.
The magician was less straightforward. Always grinning, always teasing, the man very much came across as the fool. He was, however, clearly not a fool, and Kurogane quickly became increasingly sure of his initial assessment that determined that the man was dangerous. As Kurogane watched the magician flit through the air on only the wind produced by his kudan, a self-assured smile on his face, Kurogane could not mistake the degree of comfort and familiarity the man had with combat. This was a man who had seen his fair share of battle.
Later, when the sleeping princess awoke following the return of her feather, devoid of all memories, including memories of the kid, and the kid went outside to hide his tears in the rain, the magician had looked out after him and said, in response to Kurogane’s comment that the kid needed to become stronger in order to keep from crying, “I also think there’s a certain strength that’s needed to be able to cry when you should.”
For once, the magician wasn’t smiling. The look on his face was distant, unreadable, and Kurogane couldn’t help but find himself wondering what was really hidden underneath the man’s cheery façade.
It was becoming increasingly clear that the magician was hiding a lot. In the next world, a place called Koryo that was, blessedly, more similar to his own Nihon than that blasted Hanshin Republic had been, the man only served to frustrate Kurogane even more, first by lying and saying that he couldn’t use magic when he clearly could and then by refusing to use his magic even when their lives were on the line while fighting a blasted witch who had lobbed balls of burning water at them and used the power of illusion to manipulate their environment against them.
If there was one thing that Kurogane could not tolerate, it was a man who refused to fight to his full ability, even when his life was at stake.
Afterward, when the witch and the man who controlled her had been defeated and the princess’s feather had been returned, the magician laughed and smiled as if the whole thing were one big joke.
“I was so shocked when Kiishim-san kissed you, Kuro-pon! I never expected that!” The magician was grinning stupidly, fingering one of the sleeves of his now tattered robes.
Kurogane didn’t respond and began walking away. The magician quickly followed.
“You should have seen your face! Well, did you enjoy this kiss, Kuro-rin?”
“No,” Kurogane said tersely, both because he hadn’t enjoyed the kiss and because he had zero desire to engage in this conversation
The magician had caught up to him and was now matching Kurogane’s long strides. “I wonder why Kuro-sama doesn’t like the rain,” the magician said softly.
“And I wonder why you’re running away from your home and some sleeping mystery man and refusing to use magic that you clearly possess,” Kurogane returned, and he was satisfied to see the smile temporarily slip from the magician’s face. “Don’t ask questions that you yourself aren’t willing to answer,” he finished before walking away. This time the magician did not follow.
Kurogane wasn’t interested in this infuriating blonde idiot. Kurogane was only interested in getting back home to Nihon, to returning to his role as a ninja and to serving Princess Tomoyo. That was all that mattered—no some food-stealing manju, not some princess who had lost her memories, not some kid with fire in his determined eyes, and not—certainly not—a magician who grinned and lied and kept his secrets hidden deep inside.