Disclaimer: I do not own Tsubasa or the characters Yuui and Fai.

Events of the Tower

Yuui slowly opened his eyes, feeling a sudden, violent jolt of profuse coldness shoot up his spine. Sitting up, he realised why. The floor in the base of the tower was covered in patches of thick snow; Yuui himself was already half-invisible in the pure-white substance. Shivering, he stood up and brushed the snow off his clothes and scraped his long, tangled blond hair off his face. Without warning, he trembling knees gave way and he fell hard onto them, on a section of the floor not blanketed by snow. He winced as a sharp blow of pain travelled up his legs. It was a same as always. It had been . . . he didn't know how much time had passed since the Valerian emperor had committed suicide right in front of him. That horrific moment had been crystal clear in his head ever since. He could still remember the sword slashing into the emperor's neck, the blood spewing everywhere . . . it was just haunting. Since then, he had given up on all hope of escaping from this hell. Tears sprung up in his eyes, and he tried his best to blink them away, to no avail. It was the same every day. He would wake up, would actually believe he was in a warm bed, but would then realise where he really was; locked in a tower with only one other live human being, surrounded by bodies that would never decay. He gasped. The other person. He unenthusiastically raised his head to look up at the very top of the tower, at the rusty bars set into the bricks. There was no one there. Yuui lowered his head with a painful sigh. Then, a moment later, he jerked his head up again and tried to yell, "Fai! Are you there?" but his voice came out as nothing more than a pitiful croak. He felt tears filling up his sapphire-blue eyes again. His twin would never hear him. In fact, Fai often yelled things down at him, but even if he strained his ears, he was never able to hear what Fai was attempting to get across to him. And now he was even crying. Before they, the twins of misfortune, were locked in the tower for sinners, Yuui had always, always been the strong one. He had always been the one who would never give up, no matter what sort of disaster occurred, and the one who had comforted his brother when he was down, and after their parents had died. But now he was the one who was crying. Ever since he had realised that there were no more left alive in Valeria, Yuui had seemingly lost all of his psychological strength, while Fai had been the exact opposite and had gained strength. All the energy seemingly drained out of him, although it was only early morning, Yuui's fragile body went limp and he collapsed back onto the snow-covered ground.

Fai's eyes flickered and opened. He was lying in an uncomfortable position on the bare ground, in the unbearable prison that he had to reluctantly call home. He lifted himself up and staggered unsteadily to the dreaded bars. Grabbing a firm-as-he-could-manage hold on them, he raised himself up, digging in his toes until he could see over the top of the brick wall. What he saw almost caused him to let go of the bars and fall onto the floor. Fortunately, he managed to hold on and felt a deep stab of pity in his heart. His twin brother was lying face-down on the floor thick with snow, his thin body shaking uncontrollably, his dirty blond hair spread around his shuddering form. Fai was horrified. "Yuui! YUUI!" He turned his voice up to full volume, making his throat ache, but he was positive that his incredibly hoarse squeak of a voice was neverthelessinaudible to his suffering twin. Defeated, he slowly slid down from the bars and into a sitting position, leaning his back against the rough brick wall. Yuui had helped him overcome his troubles numerous times before they had been imprisoned in this hell. But Fai had never given him anything in return. "If there's anything I can do for Yuui, I'd like to," he whispered aloud. "But . . ." He looked down at his own skeletal body. "I don't really think there's anything I actually can do right now." His clear blue eyes gave birth to fresh, pitying tears. These tears, however, were not the same as the ones Yuui had shed some time ago. Instead, they were tears of pure compassion for his brother. "I'm already only skin and bone, and both physically and mentally weak." His voice wobbled. "How am I supposed to help Yuui?" But despite that, Fai was desperate to become strong, just like his brother. So if he could return the favour sometime later, it would still be worth the effort.

"Fai! Fai!" Yuui tore down the hallway, only aware of his own footsteps thumping stridently on the squeaky-clean floor. Moments ago, his brother had screamed something that had echoed all the way outside the abandoned building, where he had gone into while Yuui had been wandering aimlessly around outside. Panting, Yuui had no idea what Fai's words had been, but judging by the fear and desperation in his voice, it couldn't be anything good. Yuui skidded to a stop in front of a door studded with colourful, glittering jewels. It was ajar. His heart going at a million times a minute, he carefully peered inside, and stumbled backwards in horror. His mother was standing in the centre of the empty room, holding a terrifyingly sharp sword to her chest, looking as if she was about to cry. Fai, however, was pushing himself backwards against the wall a few metres away from her, speechless with shock and horror. Yuui went completely white. Gripping the edge of the doorway, he staggered unsteadily and reluctantly inside. "Fai . . ." he whispered. "Mother . . ."

They both gasped, pivoting around to the doorway. "Yu-Yuui," Fai spluttered. "You have to do something . . . Mother's going to–she's going to . . . "

Fai didn't have to finish the sentence for Yuui to know what was going on. His breath was coming in quick gasps. "Mother . . . you can't." His voice was wobbling out of control. "You've . . . still got . . . a life to live . . ."

"No, I don't. Not anymore. Not since you two, 'the twins of misfortune' came along. Everything's ruined. Everything. But I can't hate my own sons . . . and so . . . and so . . ." Her voice was starting to wobble too.

Yuui was horrified. "No . . . Mother, please . . ." He glanced across at Fai, who had silent tears streaming down his pale cheeks.

Their mother was on the verge of tears again. "I have to. Just get out of the way."

"Mother!"

It was too late. Their mother flung back her shimmering blond hair and plunged the sword into her chest, before either of the twins could react. She fell onto the floor, blood spurting profusely out of her wound. Fai let loose an ear-piercing scream. Yuui wanted to scream, but no sound would come out of his mouth. Before he knew it, he had flung himself forward, and was shaking his mother intensely. "Mother!" he yelled frantically. "MOTHER!" But her eyes were already empty and meaningless. Yuui felt a huge lump form in his throat as tears began filling up his jewel-like eyes. His whole body numb and shaking wildly, he reached out and gently closed his mother's eyes with a trembling hand. Then he turned away, to find Fai still against the wall, his eyes huge, his body unmoving. All of a sudden, he collapsed sideways, hitting the hard, shiny floor with a dull thump.

Yuui had no clue how he made it back to the palace, but he did, carrying his twin on his shoulder all the while. His whole back ached, but he would do anything for Fai. Fai was half of him, after all.

Yuui's eyes flung open. He was breathing quickly, and his forehead was soaked with sweat, in spite of the freezing weather. His whole body was shaking and he felt like he was going to puke. That had been . . . He shivered. It had been a memory. One of the most terrifying memories of his life. Up until now he had tried to push it to the back of his mind, where it could just linger without haunting him day and night. But now it had been brought to the front of his mind again by a dream that seemed to have no reason to occur. For the second time that day, Yuui felt incredibly painful tears stinging his eyes. But this time, he didn't hold back. He simply rolled into a tight ball on the rough ground, burying his face in the filthy sleeves of his sinners' clothes, and let it all out. For countless minutes he sobbed, letting loose all his burdens and inner emotions that he had been attempting to hide from everyone for so long, including himself.

Still sitting against the wall, Fai tried to distract himself from the difficulties of the tower by thinking about the pleasant times he had had with his brother in the past. But it obviously didn't make matters any better, if not worse; thinking about the past only made him sad. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Just like any day, he felt as if all the energy had been drained out of him, like water being sucked into a plughole. The twins hadn't received any food or water since they had been captive in the tower, but Fai highly suspected that they were constantly being given nutrients magically; they'd be dead if they weren't. But it clearly wasn't enough, since they had lost a great deal of body weight.

Yuui took in a few deep, shuddering breaths. That was it; he had let everything out. His body felt extraordinarily light and floaty, as if a tonne of weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His mind, too, was numb and weightless. Sitting up and wiping the tears off his face with his sleeve, he suddenly felt a fresh wave of physical strength, one he'd never experienced before. He pushed himself onto his feet and felt immensely strong, at least compared to a few minutes ago. A thought suddenly struck him. He hadn't believed in himself. That was why. That was the reason for him to feel weak, all this time. Ok, he thought. I'll find a way. To escape from here. But until I do, I'll just have to find something worthwhile to pass the time with. It'll be better than sitting here, racking my brains until my head aches, at least. Yuui made his way over to a pile of bodies clumped together, half-buried in the thick, freezing snow. He knew it wasn't his business to search through others' clothes, but what else was there to do? And besides, there was a chance that there'd be useful information piled up in there. He gingerly began dragging bodies out of the snow, rummaging through pockets, bags, anything that had been thrown into the tower along with the innocent citizens of Valeria. He found items such as pocket watches, jars, writing implements, just useless everyday objects. But he couldn't just take them without permission.

After an hour or so, Yuui was becoming more and more impatient. There was nothing of use to him, not in this miserable place. That is, until something unusual caught his attention. It was a small bag, slung onto an arm of a girl who looked about double his age. Her blond corkscrew curls lay in a tangled mess beneath her, and her thick Valerian coat was ripped and stained with long-dried blood. Despite the peaceful expression on her face, Yuui felt pity wrench its way into his heart. No innocent Valerian deserved to die this way. But the thing was . . . it because of him and Fai. They hadn't really done anything . . . they'd just been born as twins, but from that time onwards, Valeria had been suffering. It's all because of us. The horrible words echoed in Yuui's head over and over again. It's ALL . . . because of US. He shook his head violently and forced the thought away, setting all of his concentration on the bag. It was a pretty, dark shade of purple, decorated with intricate gold swirls. A flap was secured with a shiny, silver latch. Yuui hadn't noticed it before, but there was something strange about the bag. When he touched it, he had an odd feeling, as if . . . something was stirring inside it, waiting to spring out. A light bulb suddenly lit up in his head. Magic. That had to be it. There was nothing else it could be, not in this country. Magic was the main technique here. Yuui was tremendously excited. He'd known what magic felt like, all those years ago. But ever since he and Fai were locked in the tower, he'd seemed to have forgotten. Still, now he remembered. It was a peculiar sensation, one of those difficult to put into words; it was sort of a bizarre tingling, starting at the bottom of your spine and travelling upwards. It was true that magic was ineffective in the tower, but the presence of it obviously wasn't. Yuui could hardly contain himself; he wanted to jump up and down like a lunatic, but decided it would take up too much energy. He could practically feel his heart jumping around in his chest as he reached across and tugged at the latch. The flap was released with a click.

Bored and tired, Fai decided to observe his brother's actions again. He repeated his movements of hauling himself up and looking through the bars, and let out a sigh of relief. Yuui was awake, in fact looking a lot happier than usual, despite the fact that Fai had just seen him having a nightmare. Fai wondered what on earth had gotten into his twin; Yuui was dragging bodies into a clump, the bodies that he had hidden under the snow so long ago. It was so . . . strange. Yuui had been terrified at the sight of those bodies, but now . . . he was playing with them? Fai knew it was no use to try to get Yuui's attention, but truly, what was he doing? Fai watched in silent confusion as Yuui's concentration landed on a small purple bag, which he pulled off the owner's arm and tugged open. An excruciating tingling suddenly erupted in Fai's spine. He let out a yell and unintentionally let go of the bars, resulting in another explosion of pain, this time a consequence of his back coming into contact with the ground at full force. But Fai cared more about what the tingling had meant. He knew that feeling. It was very, very familiar. But . . . what was it?

Yuui had been thrown onto his back, about three metres away from the bag. His whole body was stiff with shock and throbbing with pain. What was that? He'd never been blown back by nothing before . . . no, it had to be magic. But . . . why had such a thing occurred? He tentatively picked himself up and walked up to the bag, fearing that the same thing would happen. He stopped a few steps away from it. Nothing. He took a few more steps. Nothing. He knelt down and cautiously poked it with his finger. Nothing. Yuui breathed a sigh of relief, but then sharply drew in a breath. There's something inside. He held the bag up and angled it so that the sun's rays lighted up the mysterious object. What he saw almost caused his heart to leap out of his mouth; he had never been so surprised in his life. It was a whip. These sorts of whips were not used for animals (which Yuui thought was downright cruel), but for combat. Some, like this one, even possessed magic. Yuui carefully lifted it out of the bag, and stared at it in awe as flickers of sunlight caught onto it. It was a beautiful lilac (The owner seems to really like the colour purple, Yuui thought.), and three glittering . . . amethysts, were they? Well, whatever gems they were, they were set near the handle. And the handle itself, as Yuui's eyes travelled to it, was flawlessly wrapped in strips of a firm mauve fabric. Overall, the whole whip was almost longer than he was tall.

Fai attempted to pick himself up without having to scream out in pain. He pushed himself up, using the wall as support, and clutched at the grimy bars before he could fall again. His back felt like it had just been tortured by a five-hundred-tonne hammer and then roasted in a two-thousand-degrees-Celsius fire. But then a horrible thought entered his brain. If that 'thing' had caused him to fall like that, then what could have happened to Yuui? Yuui, oh please, please be okay, he thought as he gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, but still barely bit down on a scream as he tried to acquire an adequate view of the base of the tower. His first two endeavours were both failures. He couldn't lift himself very far above the ground before his spine, ribs and neighbouring muscles yelled out in agony for him to stop. On his third try, however, he somehow managed to elevate his body to the correct height, and slowly let his eyes open. His breath coming in quick gasps, he shook his filthy blond hair out of his eyes and forced himself to direct his vision downwards. It wasn't what he'd expected at all. In fact, Yuui looked as if no harm had come to him whatsoever. And he was taking something out of the bag. "No, don't, Yuui," Fai whispered in desperation. Whatever was in the bag could really be dangerous. But . . . what? The mysterious object caught the sun's light; it was a whip. No wonder. That was what the 'thing' had been. So it was a magic whip. Everything was becoming clear to Fai. But he still had two more questions. Why was his twin brother looking through, and presumably taking, other people's things? It wasn't like him at all. And what was a magic whip doing in a place like this? Besides, it wouldn't be magical anymore. Not in here. Assured that Yuui wasn't harmed, Fai let himself slip gently to the ground.

Yuui had been so intrigued with the exquisiteness of the whip that he hadn't noticed that there was something else inside the bag. When he finally had the sense to look, he saw it. A piece of rolled up paper, tucked into a small pocket inside the large one. The top of the roll was sticking out through the flap securing it, so small Yuui had hardly noticed it. Both excited and petrified, he warily pulled it out. In neat and tiny cursive, and of course, in violet ink, the girl had written: "To Prince Yuui/Fai (I apologize for not knowing which one of you is at the base)" Prince? Yuui couldn't have been more shocked. Ever since he and Fai had been born, everyone had refused to call them anything but 'the twins of misfortune'. So just who was this girl? Yuui undid the lavender ribbon and unrolled the message. With a pounding heart, he began to read:

"Young Prince, I am afraid that, after you read this, you will most likely find that I am insane, although I am not quite sure if it is true myself. My name is Fuuki Amethyst. When I first heard of twins being born to the second Prince of Valeria, I felt rather sorry for them. It is not fair that you are the ones who are causing numerous catastrophes in this country, when technically, you are doing nothing. It is not fair for you to carry all the burdens on your own shoulders. I personally believe you will need to be capable of defending yourself, must you leave this place. And therefore, I present to you this Amethyst Whip, the treasure of my family. Its magic, however, will not work until you discover a way to leave the tower. Given that my life will be over shortly, this magnificent weapon is of no further use to me. Feel free to treat it in any way you desire. I thank you for discovering this letter, and I wish you all the best in the future. Fuuki Amethyst."

Yuui realised his hands were shaking. This girl–Fuuki–she had to be insane. No one in their right mind would give a magic whip to the twins of misfortune. But she had said to treat it in any way Yuui desired, so . . . he shook his head. He couldn't take it. But maybe, if he used it to learn a few things in the tower, and then if he could find a way to escape . . . he could leave it where it belonged–with Fuuki. Yuui almost smiled, before his dry, cracked lips wouldn't take it anymore. "Thank you, Fuuki," he whispered, leaning down to softly stroke her hair.

Upon waking up the next day, Fai ran through his usual routine–dragging his fragile body up and peering through the filthy bars to check if his brother was okay. What he saw almost made his eyes fall out of their sockets. Yuui was . . . practising using the whip. With the wall. What was he thinking?

Over . . . Fai had no idea how long, but it did seem to be quite a while, Yuui's combat was looking extraordinarily proficient for a child who had been imprisoned at the base of a tower until his hair had grown long and ragged, and his body as thin as a skeleton. Every day, as Fai watched over him, he would throw a piece of rubber or whatever it was at the wall and either dodge or block it, to quicken his reflexes. Where the rubber had come from, Fai had no idea.

Yuui was sitting against the wall, exhausted from practising. One day, he thought, we'll get out of here. And then I'll teach Fai how to use the whip. But in the end, I'll still throw it back down here.

And at that moment, a doorway appeared, and a man peered through, smirking.

And of course, you know what happens next (if you've read up to that part). Please review! ^_^

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