Shūmatsu
By SMYGO4EVA

When Fai D. Fluorite remembers all that has happened in the quest for the feathers, the memories are still fresh within him, even though he has been on the journey with Kurogane, Syaoran, Sakura and Mokona for a while now. Sometimes he felt as if he'd had been on the journey with them forever, as if their journey would never end, never cease, never come to a conclusion. It wasn't a bad idea, actually.

Except he knew that eventually it would come to an end. Eventually Syaoran would gather all of the feathers for princess Sakura. Eventually Kurogane would want to go back to Nihon again. Eventually Mokona would stop being so cheerful. Eventually they would have to part ways.

But where did that leave him? It wasn't like he had a home to go back to, unlike Kuro-sama. His home had been destroyed in his mind – it would never be the same, not after all that had happened between him and…he didn't want to think about it. Even after all this time…after everything…the hurt still stung in his body, like a scar that refused to heal, for healing would be acknowledging the hurt. He didn't want to acknowledge the hurt that he felt to the others, for if he did, it would wound them in different ways. He would inevitably change in their eyes, turn into someone who deserved pity, when in reality he did not want any. He did not want to break their illusion, their own ideas of him - he did not want to see that deep inside, he was as weak as could be.

Especially Kurogane.

Fai did not want to think of his reaction, what he would think if he knew about his past. At times, he'd think that if he did tell Kurogane, that deep down, internally, he would feel better, but Kurogane would spit in his face for being so frail, so weak as to not handle his past better. It pained him to think of this – if he wasn't too much of a coward to do so.

And then…

There was the mysterious woman.

Xing Huo was her name.

He had encountered her…in a dream…in a kekkai…and she already knew about his past.

There was nothing to hide, no veneer to mask his already broken disposition.

How she knew about his past was still up for debate in his head, his mind which was already swirling, when she did what no one else had…she had serviced him. She made him feel what he didn't know he could – and let him do things that he never knew he could…with what emotions, what power he didn't know he possessed. At the time, he couldn't tell, couldn't fathom if what he was doing was just being obedient, or of his own volition.

He could say that Xing Huo was the first person who ever showed him what he was really capable of. He had been taught many things over the course of his life by a handful of people, but no one really let him show them what he could do, and when he did, they either were caught up in their own matters or not paying attention entirely.

He also could say that Xing Huo, this ethereal and mysterious woman, could be the first woman he was completely enamored with. There was Chii, but she was of his creation, something he made to resemble his dear late mother, and she was also a portal to other dimensions, so that was the end of that. There was also princess Sakura, but alas he only saw her as a dear friend and a daughter to him, the sister that he never had, so again that was the end of that.

Xing Huo was different however.

She was beautiful despite her dark ties to the master Fei Wong Reed, swathes of dark curled hair fallen down past her shoulders like silk and making her shadowy eyes appear brighter. She possessed such lovely features, a macabre sense of thinking, and a lovely figure complimented by her obsidian dress, a comparison to his black clothing. The twin color was the mirror of how they saw the world, black as death itself.

She had ultimately corrupted him, making impure by giving him pleasure that surely made him writhe under her sensuous touch and made him gasp, moan, and arch in ecstasy. He had learned of ways to give the pleasure she gave him back to her, fluting and giving her feelings that she had never experienced in her existence, as a compensation for her doings.

He would feel that these deeds that they both anticipated in, giving each other pleasure in sin itself was wrong, but he was too ensnared by her to care. He allowed this because even in a few short moments, he would be enveloped not by horrible pain but by the beautiful agony that waited in the acts he committed with her. Even for just a few fleeting moments, the magician Fai would escape the world.

Lies and truths begin to blur, as well as sanity and utter madness.

What scares Fai the most when he remembers the journey wouldn't the bloodshed or the emotional torment or loss of Syaoran Sakura, Mokona, or Kurogane; it's the small smiles of Xing Huo, the look in her eyes when she heard the gears of a plan working in her head and the small but melodious gasps and moans she emitted when he gave her sheer bliss. They were both just pawns in the master Fei Wong Reed's cruel game of chess, and in the end, the end was more of the same, a means to an end, no more, no less.

Nothing more.

And nothing less.