Kurogane-san…

Fire burnt through Kurogane's veins. He needed air, but...

Help me…

He choked on the thick substance blocking his airway. He couldn't draw in a proper breath.

Please… help me…

Why… where… wha- he clawed at the thing choking him, numb fingers trying to grasp the offensive object as pain registered in his torso.

"Whoa!" Soft hands pushed his pawing fingers away. "Easy there, Steel."

He tried to resist. There was something in his throat!

"Stop struggling," a female voice ordered, but he didn't listen. He needed air. Could she not see that?

"I just spent a day and a half struggling on your deathbed to save your life, you stubborn mule!" the woman snapped, "Quit being so difficult!"

He gasped for breath, limbs flailing as he tried to remove whatever had been shoved down his throat, but the woman finally grabbed him and held him down.

"Stop trying to pull it out, you stupid oaf," she said, letting go of him for the second time, "Do you want to choke to death?"

By now, some distant part of his brain had realized that no, despite the thing jammed down his throat, he hadn't yet asphyxiated. In fact, his lungs filled with air of their own accord, his body taking in fresh oxygen without having to think about drawing a breath. Calming down a little, he slowly forced his eyelids to part, feeling as though they were weighed down by lead. A flesh-colored blob hovered above him for a moment, disappearing from his line of vision soon after, leaving him staring at a sterile white roof. Something warm flooded his veins, chasing away the burning sensation in his body. The pain from before numbed to a dull throb with each beat of his heart. He finally noticed the steady, mechanical beep that seemed to echo each pulse of pain.

"Feel any better now?" The fleshy blob appeared above him once again, resolving itself into a face, half-concealed by a medical mask. "You scared the hell out of us, you know," the woman told him as she bent over him to check something. Kurogane only half-listened to what she said, his mind working overtime as it tried to work out his current whereabouts. "From now on, I forbid you to flat-line on me, understood?" She pulled away to give him a stern look. "And doing that twice in a row is definitely out of the question."

In the brief moments that she held his gaze, Kurogane scanned whatever was visible of the face under the mask to determine who it was. Unfortunately, nothing about the kohl-lined amber eyes or the messy black hair streaked with strands of crimson appeared familiar. The woman behaved as though she knew him, but he couldn't recall having ever met her on his journey.

She must have noticed his confused stare, for she grew silent, worry clouding her eyes as she fussed over him some more. "What's wrong? Does it still hurt?" She turned to look at something outside his field of vision. "Maybe just give the morphine a minute to kick in, all right?" she suggested hesitantly before plowing on as though afraid he might interrupt, "I know you hate that stuff since it dulls the senses," she pitched her voice to sound manly- an imitation of him, perhaps? "but I really don't like seeing you in so much pain, Steel. Besides," Her tone lightened as she stepped away from him, her face crinkling in a smile around the edges of her mask, "Tommy would probably skin me alive for your suffering and we both know you love me too much to let her do something like that."

Kurogane tried to speak, but thought better of it when his throat screamed in protest. The look on his face must have been an amusing sight for the woman as she giggled, patting his bandaged shoulder.

"Don't worry. She's been itching to see you too," she assured him. "In fact, I'm willing to bet she's still hovering right outside the door even though I kicked her out yesterday. I'll go and get her now." She turned to leave but seemed to think better of it as she whirled around to glower at him. "Don't you dare try to be macho and get up when she comes in. If you rip anything open after all that hard work I put in, I am so going to stand by and watch you bleed to death." And then, as though she hadn't just been giving him a death threat, she turned back, gracefully moving towards the off-white door. Twisting the handle, she pulled it open and stepped through, closing it behind her.

The mechanical beep continued in sync with his heartbeat, allowing Kurogane to deduce it was a pulse monitor of some sort. Letting his gaze wander around the room, he took note of the multitude of machinery piled up around his bed. The clothes he had been wearing for the past week lay in tatters in one corner, right next to a plastic chair. He only got as far as making note of the medicine cabinet installed on the wall above the chair before his attention was drawn back towards the door as it swung open. The woman from before had returned, a pleased grin plastered on her lips now that she had discarded the mask, followed by a face Kurogane would recognize in any dimension.

Had he been breathing on his own, it would have hitched as he met that familiar lavender-eyed gaze. As it was, however, the only indication of him being surprised to see the woman here was the slightly faster beeping of the monitor.

"Looks like he's happy to see you too, Tommy." The woman chuckled, shutting the door securely behind her once more. "He's looked better, I suppose, but given the state he was in when we found him, can I just say that I'm probably the greatest healer you could have ever wished for?"

Kurogane only heard the cheerful woman speak with half an ear, the rest of his attention focused on Tomoyo, who stood as if rooted to her spot by the door. A steady stream of silent tears flowed down her face as she stared at him, a million wordless questions flashing through her eyes. She held his gaze for a moment, then threw herself at him, making him hiss in pain as her warm body barreled into his. She was crying openly now, sobs shaking her petite frame as she clung to him.

"Easy with the hugging there, Princess," the healer reminded Tomoyo, stepping forward to pry her away from him. "Remember what I told you outside? His insides are still knitting themselves back together. We don't want to risk internal bleeding now that he's finally out of the woods, do we?" Despite the relief offered to his suddenly pulsating chest, he missed her warmth around him. Nodding, Tomoyo hurriedly wiped away her tears, sniffling as she glared at him with bloodshot eyes.

"Where the hell have you been all these months?" The fierce display of anger appeared rather out of character for the Tomoyo he had known, and he belatedly realized that this was merely another version of the Tomoyo he knew. "I saw you go down in Sector 74-C. I thought you were- and…you've been alive…all this time…" She searched his face for what felt like an eternity before looking away, disappointed with whatever she saw there.

"Why?" she asked softly, refusing to look at him even as Kurogane noticed fresh tears making their way down her face. "Why didn't you come back here? If you couldn't have come back... Why didn't you try to contact anyone? Why didn't you..." she trailed off, her voice softening, barely audible over the erratic beeping, "contact me..."

I'm not who you think I am, he wanted to say, but found it impossible to form words past the tube in his throat, forcing him to settle for staring at her. This Tomoyo had known another version of him. A version that was, by now, most definitely dead because the laws of reality would not have permitted their group to land in that dimension if even one version of them still existed there. It was impossible for two versions of the same soul to exist in a single plane. The man Tomoyo thought she was complaining to was long gone, and here he was, unable to even answer her questions. He made to pull out the breathing tube, wanting to explain, but before he could grab it, the medic effortlessly pulled his hand away with a disapproving frown.

"You're not in any condition to be pulling that out," she said, "Tommy can wait a little longer to get those answers from you. She's waited this long, after all." The last part was directed towards Tomoyo, who merely gave her a stiff nod.

"Masooma, could you please give him a complete scan?" she requested, turning away from Kurogane as she made her way towards the door. "Now that we know he's not in danger ofwell, now that he's going to be okay, I think it's safe to test him for neural implants."

"Tomoyo... you really don't think that-" Whatever it was that Masooma thought implausible about the request, Tomoyo calmly cut her off.

"Steel has been missing for six months," she said, pausing by the exit long enough to cast one last lingering gaze in his direction. "Until he's capable of telling us where he's been, it wouldn't hurt to be safe. Besides," she added, "he'll approve of the precautions. Get Nixon to check for any outgoing transmissions on hidden frequencies while you're at it. We need to be certain he's clean."

Masooma hesitated for a moment, glancing between the two of them before sighing as she nodded. The healer walked over to the medical cabinet Kurogane had noticed earlier and fiddled around inside it for a moment, emerging with a needle that contained a sickly-looking orange liquid. Returning to his side, she stuck the needle into the bag of clear fluid that hung above his cot. Kurogane followed the swirling patterns the liquid made as it mixed with the existing fluid that trickled into his veins through the needle stuck in his arm.

Despite having woken up a short while ago, his body began to feel heavy, drowsiness overtaking him as the women discussed why it would be a bad idea to have Cavahall knocking down on their door. He only picked out words like 'not', 'losing,' and 'bastards,' figuring it meant something along the lines of not losing to the Cavahall soldiers. Soon, he was too tired to even keep his eyes open, and Tomoyo's soft voice and the steady beep lulled him back to sleep.

-0-

"Subject 224 going into shock," a nurse announced urgently as a convulsing body was rolled down the stark white hallways of the medical wing on a gurney. "Symptoms indicate Neural Implant Rejection. Requesting immediate assistance to stabilize the subject."

"Prep 224 for immediate surgical procedure," a cool voice said as the gurney was rolled to a stop near the end of the hallway. Soulless black eyes stared down at the thrashing creature.

"Ma'am?" she asked in confusion. "Despite the rejection, there is still a chance to salvage control on the subject. Why do you-"

"224 is a very rare acquisition," The speaker cut in sharply. "It is a Magirius Vampirosa."

Realizing her mistake, the nurse gulped nervously before nodding. If the Director was showing personal interest in the subject, she must have something in mind for it. The Director reached down with a well-manicured nail to trace one side of 224's face as it twisted in agony. A feral snarl escaped the subject's throat.

"Hybrids of this kind are very hard to come by, harder still to procure in such peak physical condition." The Director's soulless eyes turned on the nurse, making the latter stiffen in fear. "There are hardly any of its kind left. It would be very disappointing to see such a perfect specimen die." She let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching as the poor woman began to quake in her boots. Turning her back to the flailing hybrid, she gave one final warning. "It had better be alive by the end of the day."

The nurse looked down when the subject snarled, noticing the way sweat had plastered its blond hair to its skin. Its eyes rolled in their sockets, flashing between their usual blue and the Vampirosa gold as the 224 threw its head from side to side. Its breathing hitched, the hybrid's body arching of the gurney as it struggled against the straps holding it down before it crashed back down. A scream erupted from its throat, claws extending as it fixed its inhuman glare on her. She trembled, transfixed on the spot in fear.

"Please," she gasped when the creature spoke, "help me."

She bit her lip, watching as the hybrid's body went rigid for a fraction of a second before it began having another seizure. A pair of orderlies arrived to assist her, drawing her attention away from 224. Not wanting to discover what unpleasantness awaited her if she were to fail, the nurse pushed the gurney towards the operating room, sending an orderly to fetch the doctor in charge of 224.

A/N: So who's happy I didn't kill Kurogane? And who can guess 224's identity? (I know it's pretty obvious but go on guys, humor me. ;) ;) ) Oh and in case anyone is wondering, there will be OCs in this story (more than half my plots don't work without those guys) but I will also be trying out a lot of new things with my writing this time around so you will be seeing AU versions of a lot of canon characters from the manga as well. And! *drum roll please* Mokona will be getting its very own POV slots.

Now go ahead and drop me a review. You know you want to.