There was an icky stain on the Persian carpet that he'd somehow missed the first time he went through the house on his daily cleanliness crusade.
Poised to exterminate the unwelcome interloper, Combat Butler (his official title and position was Ninja Bodyguard, but his Mistress far preferred a ridiculous alternative, Tomoyo having fallen head over heels for a brainless harem comedy anime, one of her frequent sallies into 'commoner' stuff) Kurogane mulled its possible origin.
Well, aside from that oily snake Hiiragizawa visiting Hime-sama yesterday, nothing happened–
He froze.
"Tomoyo…"
"Kyah! Eriol?"
"Come on. Let's."
"What? Here?"
"Here is fine."
"But it's unhygienic!"
"And we're about to get even dirtier."
"Ah! No! S-stop it!"
"Your lips protest, but your body wants it."
"Oh! Ah! Unh! Hunf! Ooohhh…"
Kurogane caught himself leaking blood from both his nostrils.
"Hiiragizawa… you bastard…"
Overreaction
A KuroganeXTomoyoXEriol Fic
Disclaimer: Card Captor Sakura and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles belong to CLAMP.
Dedication: To Setsumi-san. Here's the challenge fic you requested of me.
Hiiragizawa Eriol could not help but be impressed. "It really is a big house," he told his two equally awed companions for the umpteenth time. "Perhaps it is the Daidouji Manor's particular magic. A feeling of it being larger than life…"
Maybe I can finally clear that mix-up with Tomoyo regarding–
He startled. His foresight was screaming its lungs out. His chest and shoulders suddenly felt like they were being squeezed by impossible pressure.
"Master!" Nakuru officially and audibly sounded the alarm.
"Something powerful is coming!" Spinel confirmed.
Instantly materializing his magic staff, Eriol whirled to face his foe– and promptly sighed in relief.
"Oh."
It was just Kurogane. Tomoyo's bodyguard was always angry. Though it seemed the man was a touch more miffed this morning…
"Ah, Kurogane-san," Eriol began, "I'm glad to see you again-"
"Don't be…"
"Hmm? Whatever is the matter?"
"You are..."
Eriol was not half the reincarnation of Clow Read for nothing. Still, despite his foresight and magically-enhanced physical abilities, he just barely managed to dodge the two-handed overhead slash that still managed to part the front of his navy blue crop of hair.
"What!"
"Tsch..." Kurogane wrenched Sōhi out of the brick pathway he'd just smashed. "I missed…"
"Hold it right there!" Nakuru blurted out as she came out of her transformation.
"I won't let you hurt Master Eriol!" the similarly metamorphosed Spinel swore.
"Kurogane!" The unnerved Eriol could have sworn the ninja had been intending to actually kill him for real. "What is the meaning of this?"
"You know exactly what this is for…" Kurogane brandished his sword angrily. "I'm going to make you pay for what you did to Tomoyo-hime-sama…"
"What are you talking about?"
"There is no perversion my Zankantou cannot cleave!"
"… what?"
"Less talking, more fighting!"
"This is madness!" Spinel exclaimed.
"Madness? Madness? This! Is! Sparta!"
"This is not going to end well," Eriol dryly observed, recognizing that quote.
"Kyahhhh!" Ruby Moon mode Nakuru shrieked
"Ulp-" Spinel began.
"Kurogane Smash!"
Heaven Or Hell! Let's Rock!
Daidouji Tomoyo happily hummed to herself. She felt like a million dollars. Today would surely be just grand.
KABOOM!!!
She sighed.
"Kuro-chan is going after salesmen again…"
She took a few minutes to reach the manor entrance, even armed with complete knowledge regarding all the shortcuts to the vastness of her home. The closer she came, the explosions not only got louder, but also fiercer, the ground shaking. She even spotted a good number of antique jars and vases about to topple over– at least until the various breakables realized that coming apart before their owner was quite the disgraceful blow to their pride, and so promptly recovered their balance.
"He's really worked up," Tomoyo commented to herself. "He's so like an attack dog…" She giggled at a mental image of Inu-Kurogane on a leash. "Maybe I should walk him more. Or buy a bigger leash. Maybe even a chew toy."
She pushed the double doors open. "Kuro-chan, I've told you before, you don't have to seriously try killing the salesm–"
Fires flickered across the charred wreckage of the walkway to her home's entrance. Whimpering wildlife, what few pathetic survivors remained, fluttered and staggered towards her, to cluster around the refuge of her cutely-shoed feet rooted immobile to the thankfully intact welcome mat.
Smack in the middle of Armageddon: Daidouji Manor shakily staggered three humans and a winged black panther.
Nakuru appeared to have just gotten up from a bed of roses, the kind sporting inch-long poisonous thorns and fire ant colonies, following a sleepless night that felt far more like a waking nightmare complete with incest-intending Yue.
Spinel resembled a black hedgehog. The steel anti-tank trap, that is.
Eriol somehow managed to retain his air of stylish coolness despite his suit reduced to rags, his hair up in arms and his previously indestructible spectacles sporting opaque cracks.
And Kurogane? The smoke curling off his hide set off Geiger counters. Even the magically insensitive Tomoyo winced at the smoldering residue of a thousand and one offensive-type spells radiating off him.
To say words fled the Daidouji heiress was similar to describing World War Two as a historical oopsie.
"What happened?" she finally managed to ask.
It was a testament to Eriol's infinitely level head that, despite just surviving termination with extreme prejudice, his reply was typically understated.
"Tomoyo, perhaps you should have a word with your bodyguard…"
Kurogane almost gulped.
His Goddess never glared. He didn't even think she was capable of experiencing true negative emotion. Not to mention openly expressing such. Or that she knew how to direct such feelings onto other people.
Yet there she stared hard at him as if he were a naughty puppy caught red-pawed in the act of thrashing the house (not far from the truth), her sky blue pupils nailing him to an imaginary cross, her mouth an immutable line that mathematicians would have declared impossibly yet perfectly straight.
"Kurogane."
He withered. No mean feat, considering he was twice her height and thrice her weight. Then again, Hell hath no fury like a woman who currently forswore nicknames in light of her displeasure.
"Yes, Hime-sama?"
Not one trace of lip on his part. Tomoyo's official censure deboned people faster than a master fillet chef.
"Explain yourself."
But he couldn't. He didn't want to. She'd kill him. Or, worse, laugh at him.
"Kurogane."
He blabbed.
Pink graced Tomoyo's cherubic cheeks.
"You actually thought Eriol and I had sex in the living room?" she exclaimed.
Eriol developed a hacking cough that wouldn't go away.
Nakuru struggled to pick up her lower jaw from the charbroiled ground.
Spinel had fainted on a pool of blood that had gushed out his nose. The wuss.
Kurogane felt impossibly tiny.
To the ninja's ultimate horror, Tomoyo averted her eyes from his general direction.
"Kurogane no baka…"
Her dismissive disappointment hit Kurogane like a Spinzaku spin kick to the heart. Never mind that a spin kick generally aimed for the head. Spinzaku' spin kicks affected head, heart, body, mind and soul, life, all your reincarnations and afterlife. And yes, Kurogane knew of Code Geass; Tomoyo forced him to watch it with her. He had wondered to any dimension witch listening as to what kind of idiot character designers created character designs like Lulu and Spinzaku.
But he had shamed himself. Shamed the man favored by his Mistress. Most of all, he had shamed his Mistress, She of Midnight Hair and Sea Eyes.
Kurogane roared like a maimed animal. Out came a gleaming tanto. The knife hovered over his head. "I will commit seppuku to clear my good name!" he declared.
"Humph." Tomoyo seemed not to care if her bodyguard spilled his guts across her feet.
Ironically, Eriol and Nakuru were the ones to stop Kurogane.
"Now, calm down just there!"
"Uwahhh! Stoppu! This is a love-comedy challenge fan fiction, not a snuff film!"
"Let me die, you!"
Suppi remained limp across the ground.
Plastic glasses, Band Aid wrappers and the tatters of his dignity littered the floor of Kurogane's quarters.
She hates me.
Glug.
She hates me not.
Glug.
She hates me.
Glug.
She really hates me.
Glugugug.
I need a better drinking game, Kurogane sorely thought as he tore open a new glass.
"Kurogane?"
Startled, he choked on his drink.
"Ah!" Something, a pair of soft somethings, thumped upon his back. They didn't help him at all, but they felt wonderful.
"Are you all right?"
His Mistress looked over him. Her soft hands were balled up from hitting his back in an attempt to help clear his throat.
"Hime-sama…"
"You shouldn't drink. Drinking is bad. Where did you get alcohol?"
He held up the cover from one of the empty glasses for her perusal.
"Oh. Refresh Mineral Water." Tomoyo winced. "That's horrible. Why are you drinking that?"
Because I'm punishing myself.
"Were you really worried for me?"
"…"
"You didn't have to overreact. Eriol-kun couldn't have done that to me."
Of course he couldn't. He's the epitome of the British gentleman and all.
"After all," Tomoyo brightly stated, "Eriol-kun is gay."
Yeah, he's–
Kurogane's face bounced off the table and yanked him over his chair. He gaped at his Mistress from where he crash landed on the floor.
"What?"
"Yes. He's gay."
"Yes!"
The blue-haired boy who was half the reincarnation of the most powerful sorcerer in the world sighed.
"Cheer up, Master Eriol," Meido Nakuru attempted. "It's not the end yet. I mean, sure, that stupid Narutard just had to spoil everything. But we can still go tomorrow to tell the truth about you to Daidouji-chan. Right?"
"Yes, I know… still…"
I'm not gay…
He froze.
Wait… I'm getting a vision… what the–
"Kuro-chan?"
"Hime-sama…"
"Wait! What are you doing?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm taking you now, if you know what I mean."
"What! Y-you devil!"
"I love it when you talk dirty."
"No! Oh! Oh, God, no! No…"
Eriol caught himself leaking blood from both his nostrils.
"Master Eriol?"
"Kurogane… you bastard…"
"Kuya," Jessica tells the Author, "You're evil."
"I know."
"And it's Christmas, too."
"Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho, ho."
"Hay, naku…"
Owari/End/Katapusan