Disclaimer: I do not own anything it all belongs to CLAMP
Notes: I would like to thank my own history teacher for telling our class about the wonders of surgery before 1860...
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"Fucking Bastard!" Kurogane cursed as he pushed through several crowds of stinking, filthy people.
The group had landed in the worst possible place they could have. The streets smelled of rotting flash and were indeed littered with rotting corpses being slowly eaten by fat maggots inside what used to be organs.
It turned out later that the whole street had to share the same toilet which looked as if it had never been cleaned and had something resembling worms crawling about in the bucket of waste.
The houses were squashed together back to back and side to side. The walls were a single layer of brick and that was it, no insulation, the homes were totally bare. That was apart from the rats and their fleas scampering around in more faeces, whether it was human or not was beyond guessing as it was slowly rotting into the flooring.
The only thing the group had been given was a house number and a brief tour around the pitiful excuse for a town. The fumes from the factories were turning the air itself black as night. A thick fog covered the very tops of the factory chimneys as they polluted the town even more than it was.
Mokona had graciously contacted Yuuko who for a price had handed over cleaning products, which Kurogane was actually happy about receiving, a few buckets for collecting water and cleaning bedding which wasn't full of head lice and turning a dark blue with mould.
They had been there for only one day when the magician had fallen ill. The blond had taken no more than three small sips of the brown stained water, which was all it took to send him into a violent coughing fit. It seemed that even half vampires could be poisoned by a lack of a proper system to filter the toilet waste from the water supply. No one dared touch the water after that…although Yuuko sent various medicines and fresh food and water nothing seemed to help.
Soon the magician was coughing violently during the night he'd leave the house when it started to not wake the children. The ninja never missed it and on one night he decided that no matter what Fai wanted, in regards to them staying away from each other, he was going to help the man…
Fai was coughing, as he legs gave way sending him onto the dirt ridden streets below the toxic black fog. Several fresh bodies were in a pile waiting to be collected by the cart, flies hovered over them eager to feed off of the foul smelling flesh.
"Hey." Kurogane closed the door quietly as he could so he didn't awake to others sleeping inside.
Fai attempted to speak but was taken by another fit, doubling over in pain with the coughs becoming louder. His thin body was shaking terribly from both fear and the coughing.
The long blond hair which was normally tied up fell across his face, hiding the pain from the world.
Kurogane leant down next to the half vampire and gently started rubbing circles on the smaller male's back. He knew something was wrong when there was a sickening splattering sound.
Fai removed his hand from his face, looking through the parting of his hair and there as both of them had secretly feared was blood. It wasn't a small amount either, as another round of coughing blood soon started to paint the soot covered street in the crimson liquid.
Fai had been in a downward spiral since. There was no anger between the magician and the warrior only a fear of the worst to come and lies to the children. Kurogane was sure both the children had guessed something was wrong and remained quiet and out of the way as they searched for the feather Mokona had promised was in the world.
There was a false hope that it would be found before Fai fell too far to be saved. Since the vampire twins wouldn't be around to help a second time.
Fai had refused to eat as he slowly slipped into a phase of dizzy spells and hot flushes. He refused to let anyone near him apart from the one he'd been trying to push away.
Hey both knew that there were things unspoken between them, they both prayed together each night that it would be solved if the mage made it through his illness.
"I'm dying…I always wondered what it would be like…" Fai mumbled sleepily, his consciousness leaving him again.
"Don't say such things mage .The kids will hear…" Kurogane couldn't be angry at the mage this time for dying. He hadn't brought this on himself; the tainted water had done the damage.
"Come now…you and I both know it…and I'm sure you know that if we don't get to a far better world than this…" The mage trailed off when he caught an unusual look in the ninja's eye. It seemed to resemble a mixture of sadness and pain.
"I know…" The warrior admitted quietly, more to himself than Fai.
Fai had seemed to improve but it wasn't to last. The doctors had made house calls to everyone after an outbreak of cholera and they seemed disappointed with the blond's results. They had dragged him away from the group as he kicked and screamed threatening various curses on the doctors. They merely laughed and carried on their way.
Kurogane had nearly taken off down the very road the doctors had taken the mage. He was stopped by Syaoran.
The boy seemed to have gotten to know the city well, perhaps a little too well. There was a hospital in the main town where the patients were taken to. The boy had said.
The place could hardly be called a hospital Kurogane had thought as the remaining travellers made their way to buy tickets. The patients were cut open in front of people who could watch the poor people slowly die on a blood stained and possibly infected table. It was a place where the patients watched themselves being cut open with nothing but a few men holding them down.
"We can only afford one ticket…" Syaoran informed the group turning to the older male already thinking ahead. "If you were to go you mustn't cause a scene and kill anyone…"
Kurogane nodded he intended on getting the blond out before another man could even attempt to hold him down. He remembered trying that once when Fai had been afraid it had only resulted in more thrashing.
"Please get Fai back…" Sakura had pleaded although she didn't doubt the ninja's promise to rescue the mage before any harm came to him. "We'll find the feather while you're in there."
Kurogane had once again nodded and taken off with the remaining money the group had to buy himself into the operating theatre.
The only time Kurogane had seen the amount of blood he'd seen that day was on a battlefield way backing his home country. The front row of spectators, where the warrior happened to be, was nearly covered head to toe in the red liquid.
Screams and screeches filled the room bouncing off the walls and echoing through the room. The surgeons ignored everything and merely carried on peeling back flash and sawing through bones.
So far there had been one patient that had lost his several limbs which weren't meant to be taken the surgeon had merely waved it off as the patient was taken away, walking slightly odd. The second accident had been the surgeons assistant that was now missing three fingers after the surgeon had cut them off. One spectator had died when he thought he'd been stabbed, he'd died of fright in the end.
It hadn't been long after that before Fai was carried up still thrashing about and looking tired. There were visible bruises on his arms and legs that the warrior didn't want to know about. Atleast he didn't want to know about them until they'd left the world since he had a feeling the blond had been abused while he was being kept.
The blond was shaking like a leaf and he was roughly pushed onto the wooden table with its puddles of blood. Kurogane tried to keep his anger under control as the blond was held down by several men. He had to time everything right as Syaoran had said or he'd not only lose Fai's life but possibly his own too.
The surgeon had stood up and passed around the theatre waving various tools in the air and yelling something about growths which Fai was meant to have. Although the blond seemed to be thinner than he was with nothing growing out of him.
"Of course these eat away at the body causing them to thin and become weak and have trouble breathing." The surgeon lied easily although Kurogane saw through it the moment the gibberish had started.
"Sir, the body looks fine and the male looks healthy, merely panicked. How can you tell?" Kurogane was sure all eyes fell on him when he challenged the master surgeon on the town.
"Come down here then. Let me prove it to you." It seemed the boy had spoken the truth about the surgeons hating to be called liars.
As the warrior walked down the few steps he had he snatched up a nearby tool from the side bench without anyone noticing a thing. All he had to do was threaten the man and get Fai out of there without killing anyone.
As Fai and Kurogane emerged from the theatre they rushed down a side alleyway to hide until the children returned.
Their clothes were stained with blood from where the surgeon had thrown several instruments and hit bystanders. Some blood which stained them was their own, Kurogane had come off with minor scratches and scraps with blood on his fist from where he'd punched a few men in the faces, sickening clicks still fresh in his mind.
Fai hadn't come off so lightly, a knife like time had been lodged into his lower leg, dragged down by frantic hands of various people. The blood was flowing freely from where the skin was been exposed in a deep wound which was already turning slightly grey from the soot. The muscle could bee seen through the gap, seen moving whenever the blond attempted such an act.
"I'm going to die…All you just went through will be for nothing…" Fai whimpered as he clutched at the ground in pain.
"You're not…we'll get you to a world that has proper car, a world where they can heal all of this." Kurogane stroked the blond's face absently. "I promise you you'll be fine and that leg of yours will be fine…"
Unspoken words were shared that day as the two waiting to be picked up. They group was glad to arrive in a world where Fai could be treated, and mended physically.
Kurogane refused to leave the blond's side and for once the mage didn't mind. He'd just watch as the ninja he'd once hated had saved his life yet again.
Fai knew he owed Kurogane his life but he also knew that they both already owned each other. The talked more at nights gradually building themselves up again before the kids came for visiting hours.
Mokona would protest at how they weren't allowed to stay over night. The whining didn't last long as Fai made it perfectly clear to Mokona how we going to make things up as he linked arms with the warrior who was asleep in the chair.
"How did you know…?" Fai asked on night as he turned off the hospital bed light. "How did you know that even after all I went through that I'd live?"
"Death only comes to those who truly want it…" Kurogane yawned and placed his head on the dark plastic covered bed. Soon the ninja was softly snoring as a few stray hairs were blown by the deep breaths.
"That's my Kurogane…" Fai settled into his bed, which he had to admit might have been uncomfortable but was nicer than a wooden floor.
He blond linked his fingers with the other male and settled into a quiet sleep.
One day Mokona had contacted Yuuko and the witch had spoken of that plague ridden world. She'd speak of how it had been forced into two world wars and killed thousands possibly millions, bathing the world in blood. Yuuko had smiled and talking about how humans could be so cruel to one another without something to stop them.
Kurogane and Fai would exchange a knowing glance that only the two would know…
They'd forever remember how death only comes to those who truly want it.