Syaoran awoke to an almighty ruckus and a woman yelling in anger, hinting that they might've landed somewhere unsuitable again. "Bluh?" he mumbled, trying to sit up, but a white, slender hand pushed him back again.

"You should keep still for a while, Syaoran. The change takes a while getting used to."

He blinked, and it really was strange, the way he was feeling so worn out, as if he'd run for miles and miles without stopping, or been in a really hectic battle. But the last thing he could remember was being transported, wasn't it? So what'd happened?

"Fai?" he mumbled.

"That's right." There was something… offwith the magician's voice. It'd always been light, but now… "You really should take it easy, you know. I know I was exhausted when I woke up."

"What happened?" Syaoran muttered weakly, lifting a hand to his head. It had started to pound madly, and his insides appeared to be in an uproar. Had he been poisoned somehow?

"Well," Fai said, in that tone of voice he used to cheerfully announce something really upsetting as if he was talking about the weather, "you remember how in Yama both Kuro-pon and I got black eyes just from being there?"

"What?" Syaoran rubbed his forehead, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. "Well, yes. I remember that." After all, it wasn't every day that his friends masqueraded as enemies and pretended to try to kill him for the sake of battle training, and also possibly to make a point.

"We~ell, it's a bitlike that," Fai said, too evasive for Syaoran's comfort. He was just about to ask what exactly the magician meant by that, when there was another crash, and Mokona's teasing voice rang out.

"Kuro-chan is pretty-pretty!"

"Come here you little bastard!" There was that woman's voice again, and from the sound of it she was pretty damn angry.

"That's not very ladylike Kuro-cha- Oh no, she's angry!"

Wait a second, Syaoran thought, starting to feel truly alarmed. She?

"I suppose," Fai said airily, leaning a bit closer with a smile, "that one might say that this is a bit more serious."

And that was when Syaoran realized it wasn't just Fai's voice that was off. The whole of him was off. Or rather, her. Because Fai was, rather visibly, a woman. Fai noticed him staring, and glanced down at herself as well. "It israther strange, isn't it?" she demanded, giving one of her newly acquired breasts a poke and causing Syaoran to immediately whip his head around, staring fixedly at the wall next to his bed and blushing furiously.

A hand descended and slapped Fai's away. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're embarrassing the b- the kid."

Fai laughed, waving her hand airily. "That hurt, Kuro-chan," she said, displaying no signs of pain what so ever. "And if that embarrasses her, imagine how much she'll blush when she sees herself."

Syaoran was at first too busy staring in abject horror at the black-haired, red-eyed woman glaring down at Fai, and didn't register what pronoun Fai had used directly. But after shifting uncomfortably on the bed, realizing in a horrible moment that things didn't quite feel like they normally did, the truth came crashing down on him. On her.

"I'm a girl too, right?" Syaoran said weakly.

Mokona came bounding from wherever it had been hiding from Kurogane, landing in Syaoran's lap. "Look, look! It's an adorable Syaoran-chan!" Mokona smiled widely as Kurogane muttered a long string of obscenities. "Everyone's a girl around here," it explained happily.

"We certainly haven't seenany men," Fai agreed. "And considering that this happened to us after landing here, maybe that's because it's impossible. As soon as you get here, you get turned into a woman." She tapped her chin thoughtfully with a long finger. "Hopefully, we'll get turned back once we leave."

"What do you mean, 'hopefully'?" Kurogane barked, her eyes widening. "I'm not gonna stay like this any longer than I have to, d'you hear me?"

"What, you don't like being a girl, Kuro-chan?" Fai demanded with a teasing smile. "But you look so cute like that. And those clothes Toya-san borrowed you look really nice on you, too."

"Don't. Mention. The clothes.You bastard."

Yes, Syaoran realized, as Kurogane raised a threatening fist and was promptly laughed off, she waswearing different, rather feminine clothes . For all that she was a woman at present, she still looked wildly out of place in the flowery print dress, but seeing as how being a girl had made the ninja shrink both in height and bulk, there probably hadn't been any choice. Fai's clothes were somewhat less girly – knowing Fai, she'd probably arranged it that way on purpose too, just to annoy Kurogane – but on the other hand they were a fair treat more revealing. Feeling a pang of panic, Syaoran glanced down at herself, and was relieved to find a fairly neutral nightshirt.

And then her brain, staggering under the weight of all the current strangeness, once more caught up with her. "Toya?"

"This is her house," Fai explained cheerfully. "Well, her and Yukito-san's. They took us in when we landed here, you see. People around here seem very accustomed to how this kind of transformation affect newcomers, and they're all willing to lend a hand if they can." She glanced slyly sideways at Kurogane. "Well, I say they're used to people's reactions, but someonereally overreacted to this whole thing. It was really embarrassing."

Kurogane growled, grabbing the laughing mage by the scruff of her neck. "I'll show you an overreaction, you smug little asshole," she hissed viciously, and as Fai raised her eyebrows and smirked suggestively, Syaoran promptly filed this into yet another thing she preferred not to know about her two travel companions.

Thankfully, Syaoran had been able to keep her own clothes. They were a bit… tighter than she was used to in some regions, but the general bagginess of them still allowed rather well for the changes in her anatomy. It was really unfair she thought, cheeks coloring slightly, that sheshould be so very changed, when the other two weren't.

Fai really looked more or less the same, unsurprisingly. There was a hint of hips where none had been before, an unmistakable curving a bit further up, and perhaps she wasn't quiteas skinny. But that was about it. She didn't even look out of place in women's clothes, because to be perfectly honest, it wasn't as if the clothes Fai usually wore weren't a bit feminine in the first place.

Kurogane looked… strange. Apart from her being more petite – that is, petite compared to a six foot six tall, well-muscled ninja – she didn't really look much different. Her features were still sharp, her body still lean and hard-looking, without much to label it as female, and of course her hair was still as short and spiky as ever. It would hardly make any sense for their hair to become longer just because they were women, after all.

On the other hand, the women that already lived in this country…

Seeing King Toya in long hair and a blouse and skirt had almost caused her brain to fuse together permanently. The high priest bouncing around the kitchen in a ponytail and figure-hugging jeans meant that she had to sit down for a while. All the while, Yukito hovered over her anxiously and wondered if perhaps she should sleep a bit longer – the more your body changed, she said, the worse the after-effects tended to be. This was accompanied by a delicate glance downwards, Syaoran blushing madly, and Fai laughing so hard she could barely stand.

Later – once tea had been prepared, Fai had been chased around the house for happily inquiring what Kurogane thought of lady underwear, and Mokona had raided the cupboards for anything edible – Yukito explained the particulars of this strange place which they had landed in.

"It is said there was a goddess who was the protector of this land," she began, and Syaoran hid a smile. It was so easy to imagine a young Sakura sitting by her feet, listening starry-eyed to the story being spun by the High Priest, probably to wear away some stormy afternoon. No matter which world they went to, it was always strangely comforting to find these fragments of home-away-from-home.

"Now, this goddess had a habit of taking mortal men as her lovers. But it wasn't until she fell in love with a mortal for the very first time, that she bore a child. A daughter." She folded her slender hands, gently resting her chin on them. Toya, who had gotten up to put on some more water, turned around to glance at her, before shaking her head and getting back to what she was doing.

"And this child, was she a goddess too?" Fai asked softly, trailing the rim of her cup with a slender finger.

"She was given the opportunity to be one," Yukito replied, giving Fai that look people usually gave the magician once they realized that the flighty and bubble-headed demeanor in fact hid a very perceptive mind. It was mainly one of surprise, but also one of worry. Fai always gave the impression that your innermost secrets were not as safe as you at first thought they were. "But she had the blood of a mortal in her veins, and her desires and wishes was that of a mortal woman. She could never be content with the life of a celestial being. And so she chose earth."

"Can't imagine her mother was too pleased with that," Kurogane cut in, spearing an apple on her cheese-knife, only to have it promptly stolen and swallowed whole by Mokona. Yukito smiled.

"She worried, as any parent might. And at first she kept watch over her child day and night. But then, as the years passed and nothing happened, she grew confident in her daughter's ability to make it on her own." She sighed, shaking her head. "And now comes the tragic part of the story. Because being the daughter of a goddess, she was of course very beautiful. And there was a man who noticed."

"Oh, I think I know where this is going," Fai remarked a bit sadly.

"Yes." Yukito sighed. "She did not love this man, and so she turned him down. But he was obsessed with her beauty, and so, in the night, he came to her house and stole what she would not give him freely."

It was strange, Syaoran thought, watching how Fai winced slightly and Kurogane scowled uneasily. She would have been discomforted by this story regardless, but being a woman whilst she heard it made it a bit more… real, she supposed. It wasn't as though that was a thing that could only happen to women, of course, but the fact did remain that as far as she knew, in most worlds she'd been to it was women who most often got treated in such a way.

"The goddess grieved for her child," Yukito continued after a brief pause. "And she struck the man dead from the skies. However, it did not end there, because the man lived on inside her daughter in the form of a child. She kept it secret from her mother for as long as she could, but on the night of her birthing, this was no longer possible. And when the goddess saw that it was a boy, in her anger she took up the poker by fire to slay the child."

"Oh no!" Mokona squeaked, horrified. Yukito extended a hand and gave the small creature a comforting pat on the head.

"The child did not die," she said, her voice soothing. "Because the goddess' daughter fell to her knees and begged her mother for the life of her child. Surely, she said, there must be some other way." She paused, giving her enthralled audience a smile. "And thus the goddess lowered the poker, and instead used it to draw a circle in the earth, large enough to encompass miles upon miles of land. And she said, 'No man shall ever come inside this line to hurt my daughters again'. And when she looked down, the goddess' daughter found that her child was now female, and for as long as she stayed within the circle, that was how she would remain."

Syaoran exhaled slowly. "I see. And this whole city…?"

"Grew within the circle over the years," Yukito confirmed. "Our city walls now mark the line in the earth which had since long been washed away."

"Seems to me the goddess didn't know a whole lot about women," Fai remarked lightly. "If she thought that it was only men that do harm in this world."

"Precisely," Toya agreed, leaning against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. "Our city is no more peaceful or just than any other place in this world. Seems to me the goddess mistook the cruelties of the human race for the cruelties of men alone." She shrugged indifferently." But it is not a bad place to be."

"But hold on a second," Kurogane said sharply, frowning. "If everyone here's women, then how… well, how come the whole city hasn't died out?"

"Ah," Yukito said. "Well, you see… it is not so that only female children are born here. At first, about half of the children born here are male. But on the third day after their birth, they change. However, should these children ever decide to leave the city, they will become male again." She stared out the window, a far-away look on her face. "When people here find someone that they want to spend their lives with, they usually go to their parents and ask them to what sex they're originally born. If one of them turns out to be a man, they leave the city to… arrange thing." She sighed, and Toya wordlessly reached out and squeezed her hand. "We asked our parents only six months ago. But it turns out that we were both born male."

Syaoran only barely stopped herself from saying, "I know". After all, it would be quite hard to explain how she knew. She waited for Fai to say something comforting, being still somewhat too shy to voice something of her own, but to her surprise it was Kurogane who spoke.

"There must be some other way you can fix things?" she demanded gruffly, glaring at some point in midair between the two women. She got an amazed look from each in return, and then Toya unexpectedly smiled.

"Of course there is," she said, giving Yukito's hand another squeeze. "We can adopt a child from outside the city."

"But thank you for your concern," Yukito said, inclining her head at the ninja.

"Kuro-chan is so~o considerate," Fai crooned, batting her eyelashes. "She looks so mean that you would never believe it, but deep, deep, deepdown, she has a heart of gold."

"Why you…" the ninja growled, making a grab for the mage, who danced easily out of reach with a laugh and a shout of "Oooh, now she looks like a meanie again!" Mokona bounced after with a gleeful "Wheeeee!"

"I'm sorry," Syaoran told their perplexed hosts, as Kurogane jumped from her chair and dove after the smirking Fai into the next room, growling threats. "They aren't fighting for real, honestly." There was a crash, and Syaoran winced. "And whatever that was, we'll pay for that."

"No problems, kid," Toya said with another shrug.

"They do care about each other an awful lot, those two, don't they?" Yukito asked with a serene smile, continuing to drink her tea even though a low ka-thunk and a giggle signaled that Kurogane and Fai's fight had just taken on a horizontal aspect.

"As much as you two care about each other, I'd wager," Syaoran agreed with a tired smile. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I saw the look on Fai-san's face when Kurogane-san worried about us," Yukito replied simply.

Ah, yes. Syaoran had seen it too. "Well, the two of them have taken care of me and Mokona and… someone else for quite a while. Kurogane is… the sort of man who makes a very good father. Well, when he's not a woman, that is."

"I see," Yukito said, and Syaoran had a feeling that she truly did.

"You know, there's something I do wonder," Fai said lightly, as they were getting ready for bed that night.

"What?" Kurogane snapped, preoccupied. She was rather busy glaring at herself in the mirror, and was in no mood for the mage's games. Not that she imagined Fai would care.

She was right, too, because Fai smiled widely and happily, draping herself over Kurogane's shoulders. "If we're women now, Kuro-chan," she drawled, tugging teasingly at her hair, "does that make us lesbians?"

"Shut up," Kurogane ordered brusquely, because she really didn't want to think about that right now. Everything felt strange and wrong, and Fai, while still being her Fai – hisFai, goddamnit – was at the moment… a woman. This bothered Kurogane more than she wanted to admit.

"You're no fun, Kuro-chan," Fai said, still smiling brightly. "Personally, I've always wanted to be a lesbian."

Kurogane shook her off without a word, stomping over to where Yukito had left a couple of nightgowns. She stripped out of the ridiculous dress without looking at the mage, pulling the shift over her head and thanking whatever god was responsible that thisat least was free of flowers. When she turned back, Fai had draped herself in the usual boneless fashion over the bed.

Stark naked.

"Put something on," she growled, turning away demonstratively. Fai sighed, and instead of doing as ordered she flitted over and twined her arms around Kurogane's waist. After the change in height they had both undergone, they were both about as tall, allowing Fai to rest her chin on Kurogane's shoulder.

"I know this is difficult for you," she said soothingly, annoying Kurogane even more because if there was anything she couldn't handle right now it was being condescended to, damn it. "You don't fancy women. I'm a woman right now. Really, it's not hard to figure out."

And even when she was determined not to play along with Fai's games, somehow the accursed mage managed to get under her skin and annoy her, just like that. "How come you're so damn calm then," she hissed, turning her head to glare at the blonde. "Youdon't fancy women either."

Every once in a while, Kurogane managed to say something that truly baffled Fai. This appeared to be one of those times. Her large blue eyes – strangely comforting in that slightly altered face – widened, and her mouth formed a silent "o". And then a delighted, wickedsmile spread slowly across her face, and she shook her head in mock disappointment even as she kept on grinning.

"Really now, Kuro-chan," she purred. "Whoeversaid that I'm not interested in girls?"

This was about the last answer that Kurogane had expected, and she stared at the mage as if she had just declared the sky orange. "You aren't," she protested. But then, seeing how the smug look on Fai's face did not waver, she heard herself add, to her own disgust, "Areyou?"

"I am just as happy with either," Fai said breezily. "I have to say, you thinking I'm only interested in men is rather… conventional of you, Kuro-chan. How boring. You really do disappoint me sometimes."

"But…" Kurogane objected, only to find that she really had nothing to attach to said 'but'. She had seen Fai flirting with women, after all. But she'd always assumed that he did it just because he could, like so many other things the crazy little magician did, and not because he was actually interested. She couldn't remain speechless for long, however, or the mage would take it as a reason to be even more insufferable. So she switched track, and instead said, "And how did you know I'm not interested in women?"

"I didn't," Fai admitted with a shrug. "I suspected it. But it wasn't until we came here that I knew." She gave Kurogane a very direct look. "You're upset about being a woman, but you're even more upset about mebeing one."

Kurogane had no answer to this, no way to deny it. As if to drive home her own point, Fai pressed suddenly against her back, so that she could clearly feel the soft swelling of her breasts. She shifted uncomfortably, but Fai would not let go. "Look, it's not that big of a thing," she wheedled. "Surely we can go without sex for a short while without having to resort so sulking?"

But Kurogane still wouldn't answer, and it wasn't for the reason Fai thought. Because Fai had unwittingly brought up something that disturbed her a lot more than simply them being temporarily female.

Fai liked girls.

The thing was, Kurogane had always seen all other men as opponents in a way. Having Fai only meant that the stakes were upped a bit, and anyone who knew the ninja would say that he only liked things better that way. He was used to fighting for what he wanted, and no man had ever bested him in a fight.

But if there was one battle he could not win, this was it. Kurogane could not best a woman at something so simple as being female. And that was frightening.

She stood for a moment, frozen by this thought, by the very realization that there was something in this world that she just could not give Fai… only to be shaken out of this momentary paralysis by the most obvious thing in the world. She was glad that Fai couldn't know what she was thinking, or the mage would undoubtedly have laughed at her.

After all, right now… she wasa woman.

Turning so quickly that Fai let out a small gasp, she had had the slim blonde pressed against the wall in an instant, her lips locked over the mage's in a fierce kiss. It was rather satisfying to feel Fai instinctively arch against her, an urgent sound escaping her lips and resonating through their kiss. Skilled fingers raked her nightshift up, eager for skin, and moved with slightly disconcerting skill over a body that Fai couldn'tbe familiar with.

After a few more hungry, sloppy kisses, Fai finally managed to pull herself together and pull away. "You... really don't have to do this," she gasped, nonetheless grinding instinctively against the thigh that Kurogane had forced between hers.

"Shut up," Kurogane snapped. "This might be the only opportunity you'll ever get of fucking a woman again, you idiot, so you'd better enjoy it."

Fai blinked, and then a peal of laughter broke over her lips, barely broken by the brief kiss she pressed to Kurogane's nose. "I see. So that's how it is." She let one hand drift downwards, doing something that had the ninja gasping despite herself. "How very silly of you, Kuro-sama." She caressed her lover's cheek with a playful smile. "But I'm not going to complain."

And as the night drifted on, Kurogane found that she had very few complaints about the situation at hand herself. It was true that being with a woman felt strange to her, but the underlying wrongness of it was rather quickly cancelled out by the rightness in that it was still Fai, no matter her current body. And the way the intimacy between them worked the same way, the way Fai looked at her just the same when she was a woman, as he did when he was a man – with no less love, and with no more desire – soon put her worries to rest.

The next morning Syaoran was eating breakfast in embarrassed silence, having finally been coaxed into girl clothes by the fact that garments which had never chafed before had suddenly turned excruciatingly painful. She didn't look up when she heard someone skip-hopping down the stairs, but she did look up when there suddenly was a series of bright, blinding flashes, for all the good it did her.

When the black spots had finally faded from her vision, she found Fai, dressed in tiny shorts and a shirt that showed off her stomach – no difference there– twirling the small, high-tech camera they had acquired in Piffle around her finger on the string which was attached to it. Fai had asked Tomoyo-san for it, and had gotten it for free against the promise that he'd take lots of pictures of Sakura-chan in her princess clothes for her the next time they visited Clow.

'"There!" Fai said cheerfully, and then dove out of the way as Kurogane barrelled down the stairs and attempted to grab the camera from her. "I took some of Kuro-chan in her new, pretty clothes too," she added redundantly.

"Uhm, why?" Syaoran asked weakly, holding onto Mokona who was bouncing up and down and squeaking,
"Mokona too! Pictures of Mokona! Mokona is pretty!" The small creature had a large red bow attached to the tip of each ear.

"For Sakura-chan, of course," Fai thrilled, still keeping out of Kurogane's reach. "I wanted her to have a lot of nice pictures of our adventures, since she can't be with us."

Syaoran blinked, and then laughed silently. "That's what you meant when you said the camera was a present for a friend."

Fai nodded, smiling the gentlest smile possible, and Syaoran noticed how it made Kurogane stop dead, all incentive to fight gone. "Yes, that's right. I can't imagine a better present for the princess than memories, can you?"

After a short silence, during which Syaoran and Fai smiled widely at each other, Kurogane snorted, glaring half-heartedly at the two of them. "You aren't bothered at all by this, kid?"

Syaoran grimaced. "A bit," she admitted. But then she shrugged indifferently, eyes going to Fai, who was still smiling triumphantly. "It will make Sakura smile, though."

And that settled it. Although Fai never managed to get Kurogane to put on the lingerie she bought for her. Not that he would've showed that to the princess.