A/N: Let the muses attack and coagulate into a mass of crap that I can't even swim through. XD Well, one of my oneshots have been completed, and I have about three more plot bunnies on my profile still waiting to be written. Excuse me. :)
Disclaimer: TRC does not belong to me. :( I wouldn't have let it drag on for 100 chapters before actually moving (even though the character development was needed a bit)
Enjoy. :)
"You can't live without me."
"Then I will die," I replied flippantly in the way I knew he hated so much.
Kurogane stomped forward and I let him grab my yukata and lift it in that intimidating sense that was supposed to frighten me.
If I was hiding anything, I probably would have been. If I hadn't already been frightened for Sakura-chan, I probably would have crumbled.
"Haven't we already gone over this?" he hissed, not two inches from my face. I concentrated on his warm breath puffing against my face in a comfortable way, not listening to what he was saying. "You can't kill yourself."
I looked up into those brightly flaring crimson eyes, making my face cold and indifferent with an internal difficulty that was only abated by the thoughts of Sakura-chan. "You have your own princess to protect, Kurogane. Should you be wasting your time dallying over me?"
Tomoyo-hime, by some wicked trend of fate, had been kidnapped along with half the country to some neighboring overseas continent called "China".
However, Sakura-chan's body had been taken in the siege, until Tomoyo-hime herself had warped her to another discreet dimension. However, it was not the Dimension Witch's place. There was no guarantee that she could have landed in any specific place--Tomoyo-hime had not been able to cast that spell because she had already been losing consciousness at the time.
The Dimension Witch could not tell us where the body had been sent. Last time, I had been the one who had stabbed her--she was the one who had ripped the dimensions and pulled three into one--that timeless place, Infinity, and Celes. That timeless place could not be entered unless someone sent them there by magic. Celes was an open dimension, so she had gone there.
Now, the only choice was to use Mokona and hope that fate would do me a good turn--before the time rift between dimensions caused her body to be torn apart by weather, age, or other interference by humans that could not understand the meaning of her soulless body.
Humans, I thought. At least now, with the curse of being a vampire and reliant on the man in front of me, I could distance myself from that lonely existence and weakness.
I felt no pain.
"It's because you're worth the time, you idiot!" He was barking in my face now, and slammed me against the wall. Just like Kamui, I didn't even flinch.
"Let me go, Kurogane," I said, my voice low. I needed to leave.
"No."
I laughed a mirthless laugh. "What is tying you to me, Kurogane? Sentimentality? You, of all people, should know that that's dangerous."
His eyes had widened at my implication and then narrowed somewhat dangerously. "That's what you think. Is believing so hard?"
The connotations were recognized as soon as the words were out of his mouth--maybe even before. My own eye narrowed. Back in Tokyo, he had said the same thing. However, it had nothing to do with Sakura-chan. My eye looked directly into those bloody depths, my confidence shaken yet holding more firmly than ever. We would never have been able to become something. Perhaps, if he had tried when I had crossed the line. Perhaps. I had not even known until he had saved my life. Nevertheless, I avoided the implications. "She doesn't even have her own soul."
"That's not what I was talking about, and you know it." The omission of my name was duly noted, and I cracked a sarcastic laugh.
"Too afraid to use my name, Kurogane? Go ahead. I've already used yours."
Even as I laughed in his face, I knew he wouldn't do it. We were both cowards in that sense, yet…
"Fai," he barked. The laugh had frozen midway, but I forced it to continue. I couldn't allow him to gain the upper hand, not now, not even as I was clinging to Sakura-chan's name like a chant and prayer to ward off this man.
"You sound like a dog calling to its master, Kurogane. Or would you prefer Kuro-wanwan?" I almost applauded myself at how harsh it came out. I don't think I was even hearing what I was saying next, but my voice continued on, rising in pitch, almost sounding hysterical: "Afraid to believe, Kuro-rin? Afraid to let go of me? You're nothing but a hypocrite."
I didn't notice the tears running down my cheeks until a rough hand smeared them away. A betrayal without my own accord--revealing the pain, the shock left over from Sakura-chan's disappearance, and the numbing despair of leaving Kurogane.
I really had to just love the kindest bastard in the world. I hated it.
He just had to stare at me with (no, not pity) that frightening sense of understanding before he backed away. "Go. I'll wait for you here," he said gruffly. "You better not die while you're looking for the princess."
I wanted to collapse to the ground with defeat that this tearing was doing to me. Torn between a man that knew and understood, something that probably had used up all of my luck in my pathetic life, and my princess that would die if I didn't retrieve her body.
In truth, I was afraid for myself as much as her. If I slept, and her soul was in the world of dreams, would she haunt me then, too?
Like Ashura-ou?
I stopped myself from shuddering, and looked at Kurogane with my golden eye. And then, this man, who I may never see again because of the sheer amount of worlds.Would he haunt my dreams as well? Would I haunt his dreams? I would die without feeding for a maximum of a month. If I couldn't find Sakura-chan by then…
I dragged my clothed arm across my face, getting rid of the tears. They were useless. I bowed to him formally, saying, "Thank you."
I could sense him scowl, but then, Mokona had opened the door and asked worriedly, "Fai?"
I smiled reassuringly to it, saying, "Let's go, Mokona."
Mokona hadn't been reassured in the slightest. It was the most perceptive one of them all, having no biases with an empty past. However, it had already said its farewell to Kurogane, so Mokona opened its mouth, and the seal appeared underneath us.
I wasn't sure if Kurogane heard me say "I love you" over the magic circle's erratic bursts of light, but I didn't need to know. This way, if I died, I would leave with an empty conscience. This way, I would have at least tried to tell him.
This way, I could run away to a place he couldn't follow if he decided to refuse me.
I waved, and then Kurogane disappeared from my sight, leaving a hollow feeling in my chest.