Settings: Set in Nihon, about three years after the final battle with Fei Wong. However, some chapters will be flashbacks to the final battle.

Warnings: Swearing. And...well...a kind of depressed Kuro-chan, I suppose.

Disclaimer: No. I do not own Kurogane or Fai or...anyone else who appears in this story and doesn't belong to me. Yeah...that made sense.

Author's Note: Well, this was inspired by a dream. A very odd dream. A very odd, very depressing dream. Not at all how I want Tsubasa to end.

Where months had passed, Kurogane felt years.

Patrolling the outer wall in the silvery rays the almost-full moon cast down on the world, he sometimes felt ancient. It hadn't been long since that journey --

since that man --

but he somehow felt as if the youth were drained from him.

Sometimes he simply had to pause. Stop where he was, take a deep breath, remember, and try to let go.

But letting go was the hardest part.

During that final battle, when he'd lost Ginryu, he'd been distraught. As if it were a person. As if it were the most important thing in the world, that sword. And maybe it had been, once upon a time, when all he'd had to live for -- all he'd had to protect -- was his honor, his father's honor. And that was why he mourned the loss of that sword, the very symbol of that honor.

But it wasn't until Fai fell that he realized that the sword didn't matter. He'd thrown away a lot of swords for good causes. Like, the replica Ginryu to make it back home.

Sohi to save Fai.

And, by Hell and Heaven and everything between, if he'd had Ginryu that time -- the real Ginryu -- if he hadn't already lost it by then, he'd have thrown it away, too. He'd have thrown it and his other arm away, maybe a leg. Hell, his life.

If it could save him --

Fai --

then Kurogane would've thrown it all away.

But he hadn't had Ginryu. And he himself hadn't been there. Not at the time, not when it mattered.

Not when Fei-Wong made his move.

Not when...

Kurogane halted his patrol, raised his hands to his face. His ring fingers found his temples by memory, and they drove themselves into the soft areas, as if being doing so they could gorge out everything-- the headaches, the memories, the awful feeling that one is aging too fast for the world around them.

But especially the memories.

Author's Note: So, there you have it. A disturbingly-depressed Kuro-wanka.

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