Watashi no Taiyou
By SMYGO4EVA

There had been many grey skies in both Kurogane and Fai's lives. Each grey sky in their existences symbolized a fault within themselves, a tragic memory that they would never want to relive. They were inevitable – they could not change them, how they appeared so suddenly after the happy rays of the morning sun, no matter how hard they tried.

It is when they realized that dark days were to come even after the storm had passed in the past, where the storm should have been and no longer lingering around them any more. It would be a price to pay, for them both.

The warrior did not shy away from his past. As a matter of fact, he was proud of it. His parents made him who he was today, as well as the others that had passed through his life – Tomoyo for instance. His own abilities carried him this far. He was not going to give up on his life without one hell of a fight. He was going to fight until every last drop of blood of the enemy was washed upon him in a bloodbath no one would ever soon forget, then not one minuet being would ever see him as weak, no one would.

The magician wanted to avoid his past as much as he was able. He did not want to discuss it at all. He did not want to think about it at all. Instances, flashes of the occurrences would jar his memory, but he would quickly dismiss them. For if he did, if he finally opened up about the past that had put him in such disarray, which would be the day when he would truly break apart into tiny pieces, unable to be repaired again.

For Kurogane, the memories of his parents were be beautiful, but also very painful, ripping his heart and his soul into two, making them in two halves that can never be a whole ever again, the connection between them lost forever and for all time, all because a part of a wish was to be granted, and not to be tampered with.

For Fai, the only thing he remembered was being an omen, an abomination because of his existence, along with his other half, his twin, his name now a reminder of what he had become and what he had lost, never to regain the piece of his heart that was cast aside for the sake of the people of a kingdom that was already doomed from the very beginning.

They both had reminders of their pasts branded into their bodies, their skin, every blink of an eye a tragic reminiscence of what they lost, and what little they have gained from it.

Full moons were always the same for them; in dreams, there were to be nights of pain and suffering, times when they all but lost their minds and completely lose their souls to the darkness. They have pondered vengeance, and in that path, all that mattered was blood – blood and death.

During what they had in their journeys, they both learned that affection was a cruel mistress, one who enchanted them differently with her beauty then abused them in their own worlds as soon as she had them fully in her grasp.

The journey proved to be both strenuous and a welcome distraction. They had different reasons to go on the quest with two people they had never met before, as well as with a white rabbit creature as their guide to the different worlds they perused. But within each world, they discovered new things about themselves, as well as each other.

In the journey, in the kingdom of sand, in the human chess game, in the realm of ice, and in the land of cherry blossoms, the warrior and the magician found that fate could be cruel and kind in equal measures, that they could retain their hearts even as their souls and minds slowly rotted away.

Now it was the beginning of the end of all time, of all hardship and all journeys. The real Syaoran was determined, the princess was awakening, and the Dimensional Witch was ceasing to exist. And they were once again doomed to transform alone, to bear the past's cruelty without any support or protection or love. Even if the wounds of the past seemed to have healed, the memories would always be the reminders of what made them who they were.

They seek the sun in the bleak grey skies, and they know that they will see it in due time. It may just take a lot of time and a lot of patience in the wait. The sun would become theirs again, and there would be nothing to stand in the way of the sun's blessing rays for as long as they lived.