Title: A Question of Existence

Author: Gypsy Dancing Girl

Fandom: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

Pairings: None

Characters: Clone!Sakura, Kurogane, mentions of Real!Syaoran, Fay, and Mokona

Genres: Angst, Family Hurt/Comfort

Rating: M

Warnings: Sensitive Content, Blood

Author's Note: This takes place during the Infinity Arc. It's dark. It's also ancient, I believe I wrote it sometime around the Nihon arc . . . I just forgot to post it. Disclaimer: Cutting is dangerous and never the answer. This is a literary work, and only meant to explore a character analysis.

There was the slam of the apartment's main door. Sakura barely noticed as she dragged the razor in a neat line across her skin. Only . . . it wasn't as neat as she had imagined it. Her hand was too shaky. It was short, more a long prick than anything else. Where was that unflinching determination that saw her through each chess match? Why couldn't she summon it here, where she truly needed it?

She lifted the razor, the edge sparkling with crimson and stared at the red liquid in almost a trance-like state. This was blood. This was her blood. She was real. Unless she wasn't. She was a created being. A created being existed, but does that make it real?

"I don't know if it's real," she whispered, the razor hanging lax in her other hand, as she studied the red stain.

The bathroom door suddenly opened and she turned her gaze upwards to meet Kurogane-san's. He stared down at her for a long moment.

She couldn't actually be in any danger yet. Not if Kurogane-san was still standing there. The ninja was a man of action in times of crisis. So Sakura lifted the bloody razor once more. Just to see what would happen.

Then Kurogane-san moved, and quickly. He stepped into the bathroom, plucked the blade from her hand and threw it out the open window. He crouched next to her and scooped her up in a flurry of her full petticoats, setting her on the bathroom counter.

Sakura held out her arm to him, fully exposing her work. "Is it real?" she asked, her voice soft, yet unbearably loud in the small room.

Kurogane-san cradled her thin arm his large hands, giving her a measuring look. "It's real," he nodded once, before placing a clean towel over the cut and applying pressure. "I don't want to see it again. Are we clear?"

"Hai," she responded, regaining some of her senses as the blood disappeared from her sight. "Gomen nasai."

"Don't lie," he remonstrated. "Where did you get the razor?"

Sakura cringed a little. "Fay-san's shaving kit. Please don't tell him."

"I wouldn't want to give him any ideas," the ninja muttered, lifting the towel to examine the cut.

Sakura let it go. She knew that Fay-san would never do something like that. Something that she and . . . and the other Syaoran could see and be hurt by. Fay-san would torture himself in silence and in shadows, but he could not bear to bring 'his' children pain. Fay-san was better than she was.

She watched silently as Kurogane-san stopped the bleeding, and wrapped her wrist with a delicacy that the swordsman would deny possessing in the first place. Just like he denied everything, but Sakura wasn't blind. Just because he didn't say it, didn't mean that they weren't 'his' children too.

Kurogane-san turned her cuff back down over her bandaged wrist, neatly managing the tiny buttons that narrowed it. Her sleeve hid everything.

"Thank you."

Kurogane nodded brusquely. "I'll be checking," he warned her.

Sakura nodded. "I'll be alright," she promised, and jumped down lightly from the counter to go find Mokona.

The End.