A Tsubasa Quick Fic based on my headcannon that Syaoran suffers nightmares. There's no way that killing all those people didn't affect him.
As time went on, the nights did get much easier.
"You took them away from me!"
But sometimes, the voices still haunted him, echoing through his mind and burning into his memory even further. They'd left an imprint forever, something he couldn't just forget.
"I'll kill you, you bastard!"
During the day, when his focus was mainly on Sakura, it was easier to ignore. Everything was easier to ignore when you were holding the hand of the girl you loved, as she smiled bright as the sun, her laugh tinkling like a bell as she splashed in the cool water of the pool they'd been playing in.
"Please, don't kill my daddy!"
A child, a young boy, shielding his unconscious father with his own body. Syaoran stares down at him coldly, unmoved by the child's tears. He has been unmoved by everything for a long time now. Or maybe not so long. The passing of time doesn't occur to him so much anymore either. It could have been weeks since he'd left the others behind, in a whirlwind of pain and confusion. It could have been months.
Even years.
The point of the matter was, nothing had moved him in a while. Not the tears of this child, or the many children before him. Not the wives, their hair wild as they screamed. Not the father, who bent over the prone, cold bodies of their offspring. Not Fai's screams of agony as he ripped the blonde's eye clean out of his head. None of it had stopped him, none of it had given him even a moment's pause.
His sword cut smoothly into the body of the unconscious father, who, luckily for him, didn't feel the moment of his own demise. It was all just over as suddenly as it had begun. It hadn't been his choice to come into this world, and it hadn't been his choice to leave it.
The child screamed, tears streaming out of his suddenly crazed eyes, in way that vaguely reminded him of something.
"Kurogane-san," he'd thought. "Kurogane-san looked like that when his mother was killed."
The thought vanished before it could do anything to his heart or soul, and he touched his cheek, aware vaguely that there was something on it. His hand, which had become much rougher in the time he was away, even rougher than it had been before, despite all the work he'd done in his life, came away red, red as a blood moon, as red as the sand in Clow could become at night, as the light of the night shone down on each glittering particle.
"WHY!?" the boy screams, his voice cracking. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?"
Why?
Why had he done it?
Why?
WHY?
WHY!?
"Syaoran, wake up!"
His eyes open and he gasps for breath like he's been under water, and was seconds away from drowning. The room is mostly dark, with only a small crack of sunlight breaking through the blinds. The sun was rising. Slowly, but surely, daylight was coming to save him from the hell that night could become.
Next to him, Sakura was looking down at him, her beautiful jade eyes filled with so much worry that he thought that she might cry.
"You were having a nightmare, Syaoran." she whispered, her lip quivering as she drowned in the pool of helplessness she was trapped in. She wanted to help him so badly, but there was nothing she could do to take away the guilt he suffered from.
"Yeah. Yeah. I...I was."
He didn't elaborate further, because he didn't need to. She knew what his nightmares were about. She hugged him tightly, lifting him off the soft, well worn mattress they slept on.
"Syaoran, it wasn't your fault. You know that, right?"
And he did know that. He did know it wasn't his fault. He hadn't been in control of his own body. He never would have done any of those things otherwise. Not a single one. He never would have hurt an innocent person, a child, Fai-san.
"I know." he croaked out, lifting his hands to his eyes, knowing from past experiences that they tears would quickly come. "But...But I'm so...I'm so sorry, Sakura. I'm so sorry."
When she felt his body begin to shake, she too, began to weep, her small body shaking on top of his. "Don't be sorry Syaoran. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault."
"I'm so sorry." he whispered. He'd never been able to tell any of them that, never told their families. And he never would be able to. He could never say sorry to the hundreds of children who had become orphans, to the hundreds of parents who had lost their children, but had to carry on anyway. To the wives or friends. To the husbands and boyfriends. None of them.
Hundreds of people. Hundreds of victims had fallen at his blade, their lives flickering out like a flame that had been blown on with great and sudden force.
"So many..." he whimpered, and Sakura let out a small sob.
"I know. I know, Syaoran."
Would there ever come a night where the guilt didn't consume him, didn't hunt him down like a predator that slowly stalked it's prey through the day? He didn't think so. To be able to not feel guilt about it now was much worse than not feeling guilt about it then, when his own emotions had been stomped down into the bottom of his soul.
He would never forget their faces, not a single one. He owed them that much.
"Don't cry, please." Sakura begged him, hugging him tighter. It was the only thing she could think of to do.
Syaoran held her back, his arms wrapping around her like she was his anchor to this world, the only thing still holding him there.
"No. Cry all you need." she said next, and her words released him from the self imposed restraint he'd managed. He opened his mouth and cried as loudly as he wanted, knowing it would happen again, grateful, but also guilty, that she would be there to witness it, and tell him it wasn't his fault.