Eien: This story is written in the second person. This is a narrative style where, instead of me writing "John did that." or "I did this.", I write "You did it." The "You" in question, will always be a character inside the story, of course. For an excellent story in the second person, check out Bungle in the Jungle. It's a Harry Potter fic, and was mostly responsible for my decision to use this narrative style. Massive thanks to my Beta Reader, Queen Sydon.

Written by: The Road to Ultima Grey
Beta Read by: Queen Sydon
Genres: Adventure/Horror/Mystery/Suspense + One Other
Text Version: RR1

Prologue: In Medias Res

Everything is inevitable.

Three words to condemn the idea of free will to a death in ignominy.

If one is part of the world, well. Think about that phrase. Part of the world. Not individual from it. A cog. Naught more, and usually less. Hopes, dreams, and ideas are delusions. Free will? Just a comfortable damn lie. There's only one true path out of the hell of predestination, and even then, it can only be gained with consent... most of the time.

For one to truly be free, the only way is to escape The World.

You had done that, and yet...

For anyone else, this kind of fate would be sheer hell.

Freedom's price is something beyond difficult, because to be cut off from the world is to become a sovereign existence, governed by no law save that of equivalent exchange. A price for a price. A boon for a boon.

Beyond that...

You do not grow old.

You will never die.

By now, you are more than a human.

But also less than a god, and...

Most would kill for something like that, for that perfect immorality, but then, they hadn't lived it. Sometimes you wake up in the night, after having a dream of everyone you once knew, and it was so real, and then- Then you open your eyes, and the phantasmagoria fades away in half an instant, those memories, so clear, so pristine, fade and become muddied, dirtied, and corrupted. And then?

Then they are gone, and there is only Present day, Present time... as the cold laughter of death rattles against your subconsciousness.

Most would die before paying such a price. Two hundred years ago, you almost did. The egg almost cracked, and those memories, those precious memories, were almost lost forever.

In the end, though, it was pointless. After death, there is only rebirth. You lost your chance to reincarnate with your friends long before that day, and besides, even if your soul was the same, even if your face was the same, memories are life, and to loose the is to die. It would have been another person wearing your body and soul. So you chose to live, and you stood still, frozen in the moment of being twenty, as the world passed you by, anon and forever.

And as you lived, you learnt a harsh truth.

Souls have a finite lifespan.

Familiar faces slowly fade away.

Four hundred years into it, and you recognized nobody.

The gate to The World beckoned for you. Singing a subliminal siren song, 'come to me, oh warlock, come, and I'll offer you salvation. come and I'll erase your pain, your worries, your heartaches. all it will take is three credulous steps.'

And you-

You took a step.

And another.

It drew closer.

Just a gate.

Not really a boundary

The air crackled.

And then.

Then.

He came in.

Impossible, was your first thought.

Merely improbable was your second.

There was not set time of waiting between reincarnations, and so...

So it wasn't impossible, for you to see Tsubasa one last time. Though, in this life he had taken another name.

Syaoran.

Li Syaoran.

You held out a barely trembling hand and greeted him, welcoming him to your shop. After a moment, he reached out, and shook it firmly.

"Everyone who comes here has a wish, Syaoran. What's yours?"

Silence, and then-

"I heard you could teach me magic."

And that was impossible. You had spent the last generation living in absolute seclusion.

"Who told you this?" You ask more sharply than you had intended. He nevertheless answered. One word, and a name you would grow to curse.

"Kyuubey."

At the time, you didn't recognize it. Your function, however, mandated a price.

"Kyuubey was correct, though the wish won't come without a cost. Wishes never do."

"I know," said the boy. And he said it with such precise intonation that you knew that he did, in fact, know. You nodded. As long as he knew what he was beginning, you had no regrets, and so, you told him the price... And he accepted it.

You wondered why anyone would ever accept such a price. You wondered for a long time, until eventually-

Eventually, you decided that the reasoning behind it all didn't matter. You simply relaxed, and let time's weave unwind, and watched as the young man became a mage.

Considering the price, it was almost bittersweet.

Because this was the last time your other self would ever live.

And the price had been the majority of his remaining lifespan.

But some dreams are worth such costs. You yourself had such a desi-

But then, perhaps not. After all, you had almost betrayed yourself.

And then four months ago, he had disappeared, and it hadn't come as a surprise at all. His time was up...

And you couldn't accept that. So you went searching, and you looked everywhere. From the real world to the land of dreams, to the vague, half-forgotten spaces between madness an unreality. There hadn't been a trace.

People are not supposed to disappear so completely, and especially not from you. Even the dead left traces. After having lived for so long, you could count on three fingers the beings with higher magic than yours. Of those, two were dead, and the last...

Everything is inevitable.

The last wasn't even a human. It was The World itself.

You found yourself at once taken aback and completely was so incredibly typical that it was hard for you to even feel bitter about it. Knowing that you were completely outmatched, you wove a passive detection web over his Country, sat back and waited. Two hours ago, the web finally caught a trace of him, and the signal had just now become strong enough for you to use it a a locus for a Way.

You pulled out a piece of small woven fabric, unremarkable and bland save that the threads were made of metals more rare and precious than gold could ever be, and tugged on one of the strings, unravelling it. As it began to fall apart, the air in front of you began to waver and distort, finally giving way to reveal a door set against the air. It was a pathway that would lead to wherever you most needed to be.

Gathering your power around you, you formed a cloak to protect yourself from the world, and for the first time in thirty years, you left the Marble that contained the shop, for the real world.

Stepping through the threshold... felt wrong. Immediately the air grey thick with tension as enormous amounts of ambient magical energy were directed to crush you.

You were a mistake.

You were a fault.

You would be rectified.

And it hurt. Even his your barrier, a barrier that the world would never be able to breach, it hurt.

As your pain intensified and you slowly walked down a path made by magic itself, you wondered for the two hundred and thirty second time how she could do it. Yuuko. The witch of dimensions. The previous owner of the shop.

How had she been able to walk as she pleased, not feeling any of The World's malice...?

And with a faint memory, you realized she hadn't. There was always a slight... tenseness, about her, when she left. Faint, but present.

Hell, considering her circumstances, it had probably been worse. No wonder then, why she had hired you. Besides that convoluted mess of time-loops, of course.

Finally, you reached the other door, and regardless of the thick rage of The World, opened it, and stepped out before a tower and an absolute impossibility.

Just in front of you, Syaoran was dismounting from a still-idling motorbike. The machine was silver, and carried about it a subtle air of danger. More, though, it was filled to the breaking point with pure magic. Syaoran removed his bone-white helmet, and turned around. His eyes widened when he saw you before narrowing dangerously.

"Kimihiro." He said, his voice like ice in the flames of hell.

You were originally planning to ask if he was all right, but he wasn't. You knew it from the moment you saw his eyes. They had changed, to the point that, had you not seen him from the back first, you might have had trouble connecting this person with the Syaoran in you mind.

They were cold, hot, still, in motion. It was contradiction, a corruption, a forcing of the self upon the self, over and over and over an- You snapped out of it. Barely.

Forcing yourself to remain absolutely calm, you glanced back, and looked again. None of the happiness, nor the subtle confidence you saw in them before remained. What is there is rage, hatred, and raw madness. Not insanity; no, insanity is what happens when you no longer know reality from dreams. Madness is worse. More dangerous. More volatile. More contagious.

It had almost infected you, just then.

Syaoran didn't remind you of the young man who you had known, so much as a bomb that could explode at any second.

And yet... despite that, he had not broken. Not yet, at least. But then, there was something else... off. And hundreds of years locked in a position more dangerous than any remaining on your homeworld had taught you to stay on guard until you knew everything.

All the magical power in the world wouldn't save you from a broken neck.

"Syaoran..." Out loud, you acknowledged him. Internally, you'd found a feeling that you couldn't quite place. There was something... wrong about this entire scene. Something real was missing, or perhaps, something unreal was found.

Then you noticed the thin, almost emaciated frame of the girl behind Syaoran. She sat... limply. Like a puppet with the strings disconnected, and yet that wouldn't have been nearly so disturbing as the actual truth. Puppets are still. They do not think, nor move, nor breathe.

And the girl was doing all of these things.

And.

You.

Recognized.

Her.

Kinomoto Sakura was slouched over behind your pupil, pale as death, and you understood. You wished you hadn't.

But you said nothing.

The damage had already been done.

And reversing it was as impossible as reviving the dead.

"I'll buy something from you, Warlock Beyond Time." Syaoran interrupted your thoughts. The use of your title- your hated title, cuts through your thoughts like a knife.

Shaking yourself from the all-consuming emotion, you asked, "... what is it?"

"A room at the building behind me. Indefinite stay. No questions asked. No seekers able to find us. She needs a safe place to recover."

"And what about you, Syaoran?" You ask the question even if you know the answer to come, because even after living for half a millennia you are unable to keep yourself from caring, even when It's not your business.

"I will be fine, Kimihiro."

"Your room, Syaoran. Forty-seventh floor." You say, holding out the keys that had appeared in your hands, guided by nothing more than your desire for them to be there. He snatched them away.

"What about the concealment?" Your shield against the world began to crack.

"Worked into the keys." Piece by little piece.

"What price do I have to pay?" As ever so slowly.

"There is no need," You lie. "You already paid the price when you were hidden from me." And The World then took its pound of flesh.

Without another word you turn around and walk through the door in the air, shutting it behind you. When your foot lands back inside the shop, you stumble and fall to your knees and hold your hand to your mouth as blood pours from it. Recoil. To alter anything about the world, requires the results to come to zero. Anything else, you pay with your body. To actively subvert its will carries the greatest cost of all.

To be completely honest about it, you should be dead now. As it stands, your heart needs to be rebuilt. But that's a simple thing, Here beyond The World.

"Was that really necessary?" A familiar voice asks from above you. With a trembling arm, you push yourself over onto your back and look into Doumeki's face as darkness begins to creep in from the edges of your vision.

"Aa... Yeah... it was. He had to understand that I didn't abandon him."

"And you didn't?"

"Of course not! It's just... the price for finding him... was greater... than anything I could pay."

The soul of your friend might have said something else, but if he did, you didn't hear it. You would survive. Syaoran was... safe, if not unharmed. That was enough.

But just before you faded completely, you remembered an ugly truth.

Syaoran had never been cut off from the world... and for all your protections, that hotel room was a part of it.

Was anywhere truly safe?

Everything, after all, is inevitable.

Eyes open, and you slowly draw yourself up from the futon.

"Mizuna... Fetch my travelling clothes. We're heading to Misaki Country."

An unseen voice replied, "Hai."