WARNING 1: This fic is dark. I do NOT believe that the Syaoran/Sakura relationship is like this. If you want something closer to how I think it is and/or should be, look at some of my other fics. Almost all of them to date are happy Syaoran/Sakura, even if they're old, and I'm working on another one that, should it ever see light, ought to be a lot less in the dark category. But if you're up for deep, angry cynicism in a not-quite-worst-case scenario, you've come to the right place.
WARNING 2: I base this fic on the original premise of Tsubasa, NOT the way it turned out, which I frankly can't make heads or tails of. If you are totally adverse to something differing from canon, this fic may not be for you.
DISCLAIMER: Tsubasa is not owned by me. If it was, this would never make it into the plot, which probably makes it better that I'm a fanfic writer so I can look into things like this without it exploding too much.
"Only after one has tasted the bitterest of bitterness can one be a superior person." - Unknown author.
The first time he ever came close to hating her was over a surprisingly simple affair. It wasn't even true hatred. He was helping her to make cookies. He, never a master in the kitchen, was decidedly lagging in skill in the culinary arts behind the princess; surprisingly for someone with servants to do her will at home, she was extremely self-sufficient, even before circumstance forced her hand.
As he helped her clumsily with rolling out the dough, she mentioned, casually enough, how that best friend she could never remember was helping her one time. It was a comedic story of misplaced dough and ill-fated pastries.
It was also one Syaoran knew well. He was, after all, that mysterious friend. He heard a story of his own shadow. Again.
That damnable shadow. The mysterious figure Sakura chased after, but never could seem to find no matter how hard she looked, blithely believing eventually she'd find out who it was. No doubt, Syaoran thought to himself bitterly, intending on declaring her affections (and dare he venture, love?) when she found him. But he knew that she never would, at least if the witch had been right, because she'd never look six inches to her side for him.
In the potpourri of unwelcome, unpleasant emotions he'd felt - something he'd become used to as the stew of bitterness thickened with each passing, painful reference - a new flavor in the unique, poison bouquet of taste he experienced every time he had to imbibe of the cup of remembrance thanks to Sakura.
Resentment.
Perhaps it was the day, perhaps it was some odd reaction to something he ate, perhaps hearing for the thousandth time about a relationship he would never have again had finally eroded his once-limitless patience. He would never know why this particular incident triggered this reaction, only that it did. It had been, before, as if there was a wall deep in his heart, preventing even the slightest negative emotion from referencing the girl with any lasting impression. But all walls will break if they are struck hard enough or often enough, and after hundreds of strikes, hearing of hundreds of memories where he should have been but wasn't, it seemed that a crack had finally manifested itself.
He put on his best smile, talked with her, finished the cookies, and didn't eat one. Instead, he went out into the yard and trained until well after nightfall, enduring the agony of his muscles as a self-inflicted punishment, only stopping after Kurogane himself came out to tell him that if he kept it up he'd sprain something. The ninja was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for and likely knew something was wrong, but also knew that to prod at it too roughly would likely be like sticking his finger in a wound.
It was some time after that he felt the resentment again, similarly going out into a field, their lodgings at the time having no yard to train in. However... he didn't stay out quite so late, and Kurogane didn't need to argue quite so much to get him to come in.
The resentment came easier then. While Sakura, his princess, his lady, his sovereign, continued to be blithely unaware of just how much damage she was inflicting on the boy who gave up everything for her, he knew deep in his heart that nothing he said would stop the torrent. Just one more day, he told himself, just one more day, maybe the next feather will circumvent fate. He'd seen it before, of course; in their journey they'd seen a few instances where fate was not quite so absolute as Yuko liked to believe, at least if one looked into the matter deeply enough.
Though he never could find any 'deeper' way to look at this one. He'd looked and looked for some silver lining, told himself endlessly that the quest wasn't over yet. For a time, it worked.
And then one time it appeared that he'd committed the murder of a child.
He hadn't. Even in his bitterness, he'd never do that, but thanks to a demon it looked like he did, when he'd really managed to save a village. Sakura shrieked. She paniced. She wailed at how her guardian had turned to evil, not giving him a chance to explain. It was in part due to the magic of the place, but only in very, very small part, scraping away a tiny vestige of her control, showing just how thin a thread by which her faith in him dangled. Had she more than a tiny sliver of it, he'd likely have avoided enduring the lamentations – and accusations – of the princess. He knew these details thanks to Fai's magical training, though at the moment, he wasn't sure whether or not he'd rather have remained ignorant.
She hadn't given him the benefit of the doubt. Hadn't given him a chance to explain. The situation soon resolved itself, with reality being shown shortly after the demon's magic dissipated with it's life force. She apologized.
Putting on his best face, he accepted, uttering some words to make him feel better. Pure lies. The damage had been done.
The wall of his heart, cracked from hundreds of small, careless strikes from the very girl it continued to beat for, finally caved.
He hated her that day.
Sometimes, he thought to himself, he was fairly certain Kurogane had figured out something had gone terribly, terribly awry between the two.
They'd found his world, saved Tomoyo from the untimely intervention of Fei Wong Reed. Fai – unfortunate how their wizard friend had a similar name to the bastard who caused all this, Syaoran thought to himself – had left them long ago. To what end, he couldn't be sure, though he'd done it to save the rest of them, he knew that much. But Kurogane had stayed with them for much longer, continuing to teach Syaoran and Sakura the essentials of battle, the art of the blade. Sakura, being more magically inclined, did far less, but knew how to handle herself in a fight.
But for Syaoran it was different. Holding Hein in his hand was a release. He could channel himself through the graceful, destructive motions of bringing death to an enemy, even if it was imaginary. For a moment, he could think everything was alright, and he wasn't simply on an endless, repetitive quest with no end in sight.
But only for a moment.
Before they parted from Kurogane, the ninja asked that he speak with Syaoran alone.
They spoke with words, though the meaning was much more than mere vocabulary could convey. The ninja told him that, if he'd like, he could stay with him. Stay at the castle. He did not pressure him. But he also said he didn't have to continue. Made it clear, in fact.
Earlier, Syaoran would have balked at the thought.
But the look on Kurogane's face had said it all when the young warrior hesitated, a few seconds passing as though he was almost trying to bring himself to consider the offer.
Kurogane knew. Perhaps not everything. But enough.
A grim, singular nod from the ninja, as Syaoran declined. The ninja also knew that were their positions reversed, he would likely continue as his student was about to. Kurogane wished him well, wished that their paths would cross again, and that whatever spirits may be guiding this quest would lead Syaoran to what he was really searching for.
They hadn't seen him since. That was years ago.
They were older, now. Syaoran had grown from a lanky teenager with strong, but thin muscles, into a young man. Fleet of foot, strong of sword, handsome of features. Sakura developed no less, her beauty accentuated with her woman's curves in full bloom. Time had little meaning in their journey, but had Syaoran estimated their ages he would approximate it at about 24 years.
24 years. Departing at about age 15. His memories went back to being found at about the age of 4. 11 years as an archeologist and adopted son... and 9 years as a warrior. He'd spent nearly half his life trying to save his princess. In 9 years a lot of things could happen. In 9 years, Syaoran could have grieved his 'one true love,' moved on. Found another woman. Had a family. But no matter how hot his hate for her burned, his heart wretched at the very thought of abandoning her, of ever having another, even for a single night.
He hated himself for that.
His martial and magical skills had improved from long, battle-worn experience and careful study. There were few who could stand against him in combat, between his magical strength and swordsmanship. Sakura's combat strength was far less. But in magical ability...
...she was a goddess.
She was his goddess.
She outstripped him, he knew. She surpassed him. And with every feather they'd gathered, one among thousands, and every battle they won she only got a little stronger, making him wonder if at one point he'd simply be obsolete, and his continuing to fight in her stead would simply be a convenience for a girl who no longer needed his help. Perhaps he already was.
A selfish part of him was less than pleased at the prospect of being the instrument of his own irrelevance, should it come to that.
He chastised himself for thinking that. But he did it anyway.
He did a lot of things anyway.
Her beauty still captivated him, her smiles still rewarded him by simply seeing them, her voice still rang like music in his ears. But there was never an 'I love you,' never any acknowledgment they were anything more than friends, and rarely that much. Had it just been that he probably could have bitterly accepted it. But her sheer obliviousness, the slightly careless way that she simply didn't even realize he was in pain every second of every day tore at him. She spoke of a love long lost that was sitting next to her, a forgotten ideal that with the combination of missing memory and reminiscence grew further and further from the real thing every day. He wondered silently, if by some miracle she ever found out, if she would be disappointed he'd been at her side the entire time, would accept that every time he tried to explain, the words bouncing off as though he were hurling a rubber ball at brick, making no difference whatsoever save for tiring his arm.
He wondered quietly at things he could have done differently, at least at night when she and Mokona were asleep and he was alone to brood and ponder his fate. He had accepted long ago he'd likely never return to Clow alive. He thought he was alright with that, but he wasn't sure, though he did know he wanted 'out' to find a new home more than he wanted to return to his world, should such an opportunity arise.
But he also wondered what she could have done differently.
His logical mind, with its knowledge of anatomy and magic, told him that it was likely that the princess could have done nothing to retain the memory of her 'most precious person.' And that he had paid the price for both of them in their travels. And now he was living with that price.
But his heart spoke differently, and quietly pointed out places where that explanation just didn't FIT. Yuko had said that the price was Sakura's memories, but it seemed that fate had already taken those memories from her; Yuko was just informing him of the bad news. He'd seen cases where willpower allowed people to go further, think better, act in a superhuman manner, saving entire worlds with one great act powered by sheer determination, ignoring physical laws to the contrary. In fact, on many worlds, such a feat was often considered the basis of the origin of magic so many eons before.
And yet, for all of the love they supposedly shared, as precious as he was supposed to be to her, he silently wondered why she had never seemed to use her will to try to call back THAT memory. The memory of who this shadow person was. Nor even seemed to expect it. Why she'd never tried to "will" her way past the blackouts inevitably coming whenever she got just a little too close to the truth. Why she couldn't have held on to that memory just a little harder, why she couldn't have expressed it even subconsciously, why it seemed that every trace of him was gone.
His mind told him it was impossible.
But his heart knew better. He wasn't sure if that was genuine instinct, or just plain resentment that, after so many years, simply didn't care if it was possible or not, though he suspected there was a large chunk of both in there.
He was almost afraid to ask one of the experts they encountered along the way, and so he never did. Because somewhere deep down, he knew that his logical mind thought that there was a chance that his heart could be RIGHT. And he didn't know if that knowledge would finally break him like a thousand demons and ten thousand soldiers hadn't.
He wondered if he was but a dalliance to her after all, a novelty she couldn't find in the palace. A simple peasant that a fickle goddess was no longer amused with, and as such would not favor with rain. He was dying of thirst in the barren land of his heart, but it didn't seem that his body could just finally get around to, at last, mercifully dying, putting him out of his misery.
But like that same peasant in a land where dust blew where soil once supported plants, he dragged himself to the altar of his goddess to worship and pray for the rain, even as he cursed her bitterly. He wasn't sure if it was love. Or devotion. Or a true belief that in the end his hard work would be rewarded somehow, in some way.
Or perhaps, like the peasant, it was simply because he didn't know anything else.
He crossed blades more with Fei Wong Reed as of late.
The callow youth that the evil sorcerer simply couldn't manage to kill was no longer a callow youth too big for his britches. He had grown into a man, and an extremely powerful one, at that. The attacks the wizard employed in response were far less dallying, far more dangerous.
And far less successful.
With every battle Syaoran fought, his rage increased. One of the few advantages of this 'arrangement,' as he mired in his resentment for her, was that the battlefield he so often took to was a perfect outlet for the venom in his soul. Mercy was something he often forgot or deliberately ignored. He often spared his enemies while she was looking, no longer sure if it was because he didn't want to disappoint her or he just didn't want to listen to her bewail the deaths of people and beings that would eviscerate them both given the chance. But when he could get away with it he showed none, letting himself be a callous, rage-filled warrior, letting the darker inner self he could never stand to let Sakura ever know existed show in all its hideous glory. Often enough this was to cut a bloody path to Fei Wong himself.
As the feathers were gathered and their enemy – the one being in the universe he knew he hated more than the princess he also loved so dearly – grew more concerned, he had taken more often to the field. Likely he'd expected his masterwork to have been completed by now, but time and time again the princess and her knight defeated his forces, most falling to the wrath of his blade. Without fail Syaoran attempted to cross blades with the master of darkness himself. At first he had proven to be a powerful swordsman, someone Syaoran though the could never equal.
But with every battle it became more and more obvious to Syaoran's adversary that something just wasn't RIGHT here. The strikes he hit with had a viciousness that he hadn't quite anticipated. Fei Wong taunted him, asked where his heroics were now. Raised the old cliche of pointing out to the hero that if one looks into the abyss too long, one day the abyss may stare back. He hoped he would get Syaoran to pause, show a weak spot as he wrestled with ethics in his mind even for a moment. However, things did not go quite as he had anticipated.
That was the last day that Fei Wong had both arms he came into this life with.
In subsequent meetings the physical damage had been repaired, but he was more cautious, more careful. He went out of his way to avoid battle with the boy, now a man, but often enough failed. He was reserved in fights, careful to be more defensive. Syaoran was not so, letting his rage sing in his veins like a symphony from the depths of Hell, his wrath spilling like a river that had destroyed the dam constraining it. Either he would let someone else feel his pain, some small fraction of it, someone who DESERVED it, or he would be felled in battle and no longer have to worry about the pain. Although it had always been the former, hence why he'd lived to fight on, he was no longer entirely certain just how much he cared if it one day turned out to be the latter, just so long as one or the other happened.
On some level, Fei Wong knew this, adding to the tyrant's unease. The old man was wise with the world, even as he was foolish with his desires. He knew that a man who had nothing left to lose was often far more dangerous than any other, and perhaps the wizard wondered if even Sakura herself was a hedge he could use to defend his own life with should circumstances arise.
If Syaoran didn't know better, he'd say the dark wizard who was the architect of his pain had become AFRAID of him.
Syaoran felt that gratifying in a deep, gravel-filled part of his gut, one filled with resentment and shattered dreams of a life with a princess with auburn hair.
Yet the auburn-haired maiden remained oblivious, only occasionally complimenting on how he was 'almost' as good as Kurogane.
Almost.
Although he never expected to surpass his teacher, an edgeless pang of tired disappointment slipped through his consciousness every time that happened, too exhausted to really be attached to hate or rage.
He'd have hoped that his lady would at least be rooting for him over their former teammate.
He'd tried to tell her of his feelings for her once. Damn it all, whether or not she ever remembered that shadowy figure.
She tried to tell him gently. She loved him.
Like a brother.
The three words that sting a young man with a smitten heart more than a thousand cuts with a thousand pounds of salt in each, duplicitous words that seem to take the sting out of a 'probably not' and 'no,' but actually cause the wound to fester and spread, doing far more damage than had it been left to its own devices.
But she had 'someone' back home. 'Someone' she would wait forever for. 'Someone' who she planned to tell she loved.
He was fighting a shadow of himself, a ghost. He'd tried to explain that he was indeed her memory, but each time he did she turned glassy-eyed, falling over like a puppet with its strings cut, before coming to life again moments later, without even a recollection of the previous conversation.
In a way, he realized ruefully, he was his own greatest enemy, and the one that he could never hope to conquer.
He knew that he'd never be able to defeat the ghost of himself in her heart.
He no longer tried, but often, very often, thought of the results of his attempts. Thought of leaving or giving up, but every time, she'd call his name, or smile at him, and like the dog he felt he was, found himself helpless but to follow his master; try as he might, he was still her slave.
Some might think that a sakura tree, the bringer of cherries, could never yield bitter fruit.
Syaoran knew better.
It was times like this he knew, no matter how he loved her from the bottom of his heart, and no matter how he tried not to, that he hated her from the bottom of that same heart.
But it was also times like this that he realized he didn't know who he hated more, if it even mattered – her for forgetting him, or himself for continuing to love her anyway.
This fic was born from reading a lot of angsty fics about Syaoran and Sakura. They seem particularly hard pressed to get much attention, and especially to get unequivocally happy endings. And somehow, if the Sakura-never-gets-it thing were pushed to the hilt, and it went on long enough... I think Syaoran just might start to rot on the inside, even if he'd never desert her. Hence one reason I rather like the idea that somehow she 'knows,' deep down. But here, she clearly doesn't, so we get to see Syaoran's angstometer maxed out.
Anyway, reviews are encouraged!. It might encourage me to put a much happier fic out, and at least tell me if this one sucked. Thanks for reading!