This collection was previously titled "the insignificance of mulberry" - I re-titled it and rearranged the oneshots. :)
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and its characters do not belong to me.
ink on my back
Fai acquires a tattoo in Yama.
It happens in the capital of the city three months after they've joined Yasha's army. It happens one day, when Kurogane's away training new steeds for the soldiers, and Fai wanders around the markets with a pocket full of gold, wages from their work on the battlefield that he has hardly any use for.
There are plenty of soldiers with tattoos. Ones with arms covered in black ink, ones with red-traced chrysanthemums and skulls and harsh, angry words, ones with human faces on their biceps and demon masks across their backs.
He doesn't need to ponder upon the design he wants. He already knows.
He stands out among the dark-skinned, dark-haired people of this country in a way that puts him on edge every time he makes his way into the public eye, but in the dim, quiet light of the tattoo shop, with its walls plastered with paper drawings and simple wooden chairs in the middle of a cluttered room, the tattoo artist watches him without judgement in his eyes.
Fai gestures that he wants a tattoo inked on his back, produces some ingots to ascertain the price. Somehow, they iron the necessary details out without any talking on Fai's part, and he draws his design on a large sheet of paper with sure, steady brushstrokes. The tattooist transfers the design onto his bared back; he looks at it through a large mirror, nods, and they begin the inking.
It isn't painful, for all the various needle-brushes look like they'd hurt. Fai feels the man stretch his skin and puncture it rapidly with his needles, leaving the perforations stained with ink from a little tube nestled in his other hand.
The tattooing takes hours, and by the time they're done, Fai is satisfied with the bold, dark lines across his back. This time, the wings of the phoenix are crossed in front of itself, no longer spread onto his arms, and his back aches with the emptiness where Ashura's magic once hummed.
The tattoo is a ghost, much like he is.
He wears the bandages into battle hours later, doesn't give much thought to the sunburn-prickle of his skin as he draws his bow and takes down enemies just as quickly.
After, when the battle is over with for the night and they're peeling their armor off behind the canvas walls of a private bathing area, he hears the quick intake of Kurogane's breath.
For an instant, he hesitates, fingers on the edge of his blood-speckled bandages.
Then he decides that there's no way he can hide this from the warrior forever, so he peels the dressings off in a single smooth motion.
It's almost unfair, intimate, how Kurogane should see his tattoo before he even lays eyes on it himself. He feels the touch of a crimson gaze as he makes his way into the bathing area, seats himself on one of the wooden stools and pours a bucket of cool water down his back. Pain hisses down his back like fire across kerosene.
Kurogane says something, a jumble of consonants he doesn't understand—there's something reluctantly admiring in his voice, like praise. Fai doesn't dare to look at him, merely continues with his cold bath, smoothing gentle fingers over the black ink lines.
It's a phoenix, powerful and beautiful like he (Fai) could never be, and it serves as a reminder of Ashura, as well as the future he's chained to as surely as there is ink embedded in his skin.
The tattoo takes weeks to heal. He sleeps on his hands to keep from picking at his scabs, and his skin mends well. Kurogane glances at it from time to time—he knows. He feels careful, calloused fingers on it after, when he's most certainly not looking at the other when they fuck.
It's like a companion, that tattoo. Fai talks to it sometimes in Yama (because no one else will understand him) and it takes the edge off his loneliness. Sometimes it feels as if the tattoo understands him (and it would if he imbued it with a little magic, but he doesn't).
.
Then the kids show up, and they're swept into the technology-saturated world of Piffle. Kurogane tries to root out the meaning of the tattoo, but Fai dances around the question each time.
.
In Tokyo, Kurogane gains a similar sort of marking on his back; a reminder. It's much like the phoenix on Fai's skin, but Kurogane's is a whorl of red, like the roaring blaze of a dragon, a phoenix, Fai's magic.
Unlike Fai, Kurogane rises with the flames at his back. He loses some and gains some, while Fai curls his resentment around him like his ink-black phoenix defends itself.
.
In the chessboard world of Infinity, Sakura traces her fingers over Fai's tattoo, whispers her hopes that he will someday find peace. It feels like a blessing and yet, not quite.
Then Fai stabs his princess and he's burning and burning like a wretched chick on fire.
.
In Celes, Ashura dies, and the tattoo is all that Fai has left of his benefactor. Kurogane makes a sacrifice.
In Celes and then Nihon, Fai learns what he means to Kurogane. Kurogane's sacrifice is burning, cauterizing dragonfire that imbues Fai with a new sort of strength, and he finally crawls out from his smoldering pile of losses and misdeeds.
In Nihon, Kurogane gains a new arm and rises again. Fai rises along with him, back-to-back, phoenix to brilliant flame, each marked by their hurts and gains and their strengths and weaknesses.
.
In Clow, Reed finally dies, and it's a new beginning for them both.