My friend Obsidian Butterfly-san wrote a story called "Broken," and this is a spinoff of that, posted with her permission. It will make much more sense to those who have read "Broken" itself, but hopefully if you haven't you can still enjoy this little snippet of Syaoran's awesomeness. :)
Last night, Ruthless the Runaway Bunny (the official name for Broken's plot bunny) met Boaz the Completely Random Bunny. They went out for a nice candlelight dinner and drank lots of tequila. I ended up having to get up in the middle of the night because their offspring wouldn't sit still 'till morning and really had to be written down right that second.
Kurogane: Uh, offspring? Aren't you MISSING something from that retelling?
Me: Yeah Kuro-moron, it's called "censorship." Ahem. Anyway, so this is what happened…
Silver-haired woman paused, surveying the trembling teen as he knelt with his back to her, his arms wrapped around a half-conscious Sakura.
"Let go," she commanded in a dead monotone.
"I won't," he replied in a whisper that held more resolve than he ought to be capable of.
The whip-like tendril of magic curled through the woman's long white fingers and slashed brutally across his back with a horrible sound of impact and tearing flesh, jarring Sakura into awareness as she felt him flinch from agony. She tried to push him away, shoving weakly against his chest. He wasn't even supposed to be here! He was supposed to be recovering back in Clow!
"Get out of the way," the charcoal-eyed villainess demanded, striking the lash against his flesh a second and then a third time. His eyes were closed, his jaw tight.
"I refuse!" he shouted, his voice cracking from disuse. Sakura could see sweat on his forehead. He was obviously still terrified and in a lot of pain… her blood boiled. He had suffered enough! If she had to give her life so he could finally have peace, than so be it! But the magic binding her strength was so strong; she felt like her soul itself was being siphoned out through her fingertips.
"Why?" his tormentor asked, one perfectly manicured silver eyebrow arching up in confusion.
"Because," he replied softly, "if I do, I'll cease to be!"
"You're saying she's the key to your life?" the woman interpreted, and then laughed, high and loud as she had longed to do all those days when she gloried in his despair, but had had to restrain herself from so that she did not break the illusion of being Sakura. "How perfectly ridiculous! After everything she's done to you, how can you possibly think of protecting her? Have you forgotten how she works? The way she worms her way past your defenses and gets you to trust you before beginning her sadistic routine over again?"
Syaoran's whole body was tense from distress and physical pain as she continued to whip him mercilessly, but he did not loosen his grip on Sakura, nor allow a single blow to fall on her.
"I haven't forgotten," he murmured, so softly that Sakura could barely distinguish one word from another. "I'll probably never forget. But…" He took a breath and sat up straight, turning his head to face the silver-haired woman and glaring at her with a spark in his eyes that should have been forever quenched.
"But I made the decision long ago; I decided that Sakura was the most precious thing in the world to me. I decided that I valued her happiness, even above my own; her life more than mine. I decided to love her, you bitch.
If I change that now, if I forget about that and let her be destroyed by you," his eyes hardened. "If I do that, I will cease to be. I will cease to be myself.
I would be broken."
For the record, plot bunnies are even more fertile than normal bunnies; they can have offspring just by glancing at one another.
Again, this will probably make more sense to those who actually read Broken, so if you're going, "huh?" Please head over to Obsidian Butterfly-san's page and take a peek at her story. It's good bloody fun, mwa-ha-ha-ha!
Fai: There is something seriously wrong with this girl's mind...
Me: Meh! Sane people never have any fun.