This is my fist Tsubasa fic, so you'll have to let me how I do on their characters, story placed right after the Celes deal.

Disclaimer:Do not own Any of these characters.

The pain was incredible. During the fight he hadn't felt it, but now as the adrenaline fan out, he felt the pain in full. He could feel himself wobble, his vision blurring. He toppled over, landing painfully on his back, without the strength to feel the new shock of pain. But he knew this place, the sky, though filled with rain, was the one that had watched him grow up. The ground beneath them was the ground he had run across many times. He smiled at his to companions and allowed darkness to come. The last thing he saw before blacking out was the mage's and the kid's face's, shocked and tear filled, as he tightened his grip on the wizards wrist, unwilling to let him go.

Fai and Syaoran watched, shocked as the man they had always seen as indestructible fall to the ground, pain etched into every feature. But the last thing they saw on the mans face before he lost consciousness, was the most surprising. He smiled at them, not the usual smirk or half grin, but a smile, small and sad but a smile. Then a single tear slid down his cheek as he looked at the sky and slowly slipped away.

They sat there for a while, while Syaoran awkwardly held a soulless Sakura, while trying to help Fai stunt the flow of blood the continued to stubbornly flow from Kurogane's side and shoulder, where his arm should have been. It was Syaoran that saw the riders come galloping down the plain. He said nothing, knowing Fai wouldn't hear him and to the fact that they couldn't do anything about it, they couldn't more Kurogane, nor could they move fast enough to get away. The riders easily and quickly surrounded them. Their leader, was a woman with tanned skin, approached them, angry look on her face.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

Syaoran remained silent, as did Fai, though he turned to face her.

"Tresspassing on her Imperial Majesty's lands without a pass or identification of allowance is punishable by death!"She said it like a challenge.

And still no response.

With an angry motion, she reached for the blade at her side.

"Talk!"

Another demand, this time enforced with a hiss of metal as she drew a thin sword from its sheath.

This, inspired a reaction, though probably not the one she was expecting. Fai was immediately in a fighters crouch, and was beginning to bare his fangs at the woman, when Syaoran's cry quickly turned his attention back to the man on the ground.

"Kurogane-san!" That cry, he also noticed, caused the woman to back-peddle visibly.

The ninja was still bleeding, though the flow had stemmed a bit, it was still at an alarming rate. He was visibly paler. He was dying, his face in an odd sense peace, as though in acceptance of this fact.

The woman slid off her horse and stepped forward uncertainly, while astonished mutters swept through the group with her.

"K-kurogane?" she whispered, in an uncertain manner, as if she spoke to loud, he would disappear. She stepped forward tentatively, only to take a hurried step backward as Fai snarled viciously at her.

They stood frozen for a moment as the "clip-clop"of a horses trot echoed around them. The figure they saw upon the horse, was none other than Tomoyo. Fai's expression softened when he saw the young princess, remembering the help they had received from her double in another world. She rode up, the men around them parting for her to get through.

He looked up at her with a broken expression, and opened his mouth to talk.

She silenced him with a smile.

"He will not die, I promise." was all she said.

It was all she needed to say, Syaoran realized as he saw Fai's slim form slump, tension released, and exhaustion and relief swamping him. Defeated, he looked back up at the princess.

"Help him..." was all that slipped out between his pale lips before he too lost all strength to keep upright.

Syaoran lunged forward awkwardly, preventing the mage from giving himself a concussion. This seemed to give the woman he slowly recognized as Souma, the courage to come forward to help. She gave a few barked orders and Fai and Kurogane were quickly loaded on to horses and sent running back from the way they came. A man stepped forward and murmured a few gentle words he didn't understand. He took Syaoran's arm and helped him put Sakura up on a horse, the man quickly loaded Syaoran behind her and began to walk the two after their companions. The princess and her bodyguard walked on either side of them, as the rest of the troop circled them.

He couldn't help but be at peace for the first time in a long while, slumped over on a horse, clutching Sakuras soulless body feebly, soaked to the bone in the freezing rain, surrounded by a group of grim faces soldiers, though he could see the looks of worry some of them sent after the quickly disappearing shapes of the horses that bore Kurogane and Fai, as well as the ones that he himself and Sakura received. They cared, not falsely worried for them, lest they lose money in work they could do, like during the chess tournament and other various worlds they had been to, and Tomoyo's overall aura of kindness.

Suddenly it was all too much. He could feel his resolve slipping, and tears began to make tracks down his face until he was visibly sobbing. Had he been receiving heated glares filled with mistrust, he knew how to handle that, he could face his enemy's, he could face anger and hatred, but how do you face kindness, not having to do anything for it other than except it? He didn't know. Right now he just wanted to be safe, he wanted all of them to be safe. Mokona, safely curled up under his cloak, Kurogane and Fai now in the care of Tomoyo, he realized there was nothing else he could do but pray to whatever god that was listening to let them all be healed in the end.

And finally, as if a god had heard him, was sent into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Well, thats it for now, please Review

Cloud