Chapter 2

Touches of Black

Syaoran felt himself lagging behind everyone, his footsteps occasionally dragging along the cold ground. It had snowed again the previous night, forcing himself to retreat to his room, and now they faced a dreary, cloudy day, trudging through nearly knee-deep snow, with more falling.

Hands shoved deep in pockets, face buried in the collar of his coat, the amber eyed young man stared listlessly into the distance ahead of them. Slightly ahead of him, walking abreast of Fai, Sakura was faring little better, looking distant and distracted. The oldest two of the group and Mokona had remained silent about the teenagers' states since they had begun, but soon they'd need to split the group up to search, saving them time.

It was Kurogane to break the silence. "Up ahead is one of the main thoroughfares of the city, and there's a café on the corner. Fai and I talked, and we've decided it would be more time-efficient to split up and search. Syaoran, you're with me, and..." he set his jaw, obviously reluctant to speak his next words. They came out forced, gravelly from his throat "We'll be taking the white manjuu..."

Mokona jumped for joy in Fai's arms and launched itself at Kurogane, who caught it with one hand by the ears. "Ouch! That hurts! Kurogane's being mean!"

Kurogane glared accordingly. "I'm not being mean, you're being annoying."

Mokona whined and struggled in the large man's grasp before he finally dropped it- right on Syaoran's head. This broke the teen from his introspective state, and he blinked comically as Mokona leaned forward, staring at him upside down.

"Is Syaoran okay?" the little creature questioned, voice soft.

Syaoran smiled, and it was actually genuine. "Yeah, Mokona. I'm alright. I'm just... thinking."

"'Bout what?" The fluffy white creature inquired, cocking its head to the side.

And the teen shook his head. "Nothing you should be worried about. Well, shall we get going?"

Fai exchanged a look with Kurogane, then turned to Sakura who seemed to be watching Syaoran and Mokona's exchange intently.

"Yes," the magician said. "We'll meet here... oh evening time. About six?" He looked to Kurogane again, and the ninja nodded.

"Yeah, that'll give us..." and he looked around for a clock, but found none. "A few hours."

They split up at the intersection, Fai and Sakura heading right while Syaoran and Kurogane crossed the street to the left and continued on. There were few people out in the cold, snowy weather, and every one they did encounter spoke in clipped, harsh tones. Not that either of the two travelers could blame them, they didn't want to spend much time out in the freezing weather, either.

It was nearly nightfall by the time Syaoran and Kurogane stumbled, shivering cold and covered in snow, into the café. Fai and Sakura had already been served it seemed, and more than once judging by the number of plates on the table. They were the only four in the restaurant beyond the servers. The two males shook the snow off of themselves and hung their coats up on a rack near the door before joining their other companions.

"Kuro-tan! Syaoran-kun! Welcome back!" Fai greeted, raising his voice though he didn't need to.

Kurogane's eyebrow twitched. "And how long have you two been sitting there?"

Fai blinked, brows darting up. "Oh I dunno... over an hour, I'd say."

The ninja growled something beneath his breath as he settled himself into his seat. Syaoran bypassed the table and headed for the restroom, but not before handing Mokona off to Fai.

"I don't get it," Mokona said, through the chatter of its own teeth. "Why's he so out of it?"

Fai forced a laugh. "He probably just has a lot on his mind."

"He seems kinda sad," the little creature continued. "Whatever he's thinking so much about can't be happy." It curled its paw into a fist and hit it on its other palm. "We need to cheer him up!"

"I think we should leave him be," Kurogane interrupted, mouth half-full of some sort of pastry.

"I-" and it was Sakura this time, emerald eyes firmly planted on the men's room's door. "Somehow I think this might be partly my fault."

"Don't say that, princess," Fai admonished gently. "It's probably something he has to work out on his own. He'll be alright eventually."

"But... don't you think it's gotten worse since last night...?" She asked, finally looking back to the rest of the group. Fai managed a one-shouldered shrug. Kurogane seemed to think about it a bit harder.

"Maybe a little," the ninja finally stated, raising a spoon full of some warm liquid to his lips with his left hand. He missed his mouth dramatically and spilled the contents of the spoon all over himself, rousing a laugh from the other three.

"Kuro-pi still isn't used to his mechanical arm, is he?" Fai teased, resting his chin on one hand.

Kurogane growled a curse and opened his mouth to snap out some sort of scathing remark, when a waiter ambled up to the table. "Hello again, on this fine snowy evening."

"Hello," Fai said in return. The waiter smiled and held up a notepad.

"I see you've added a couple to your numbers. Is there anything I can get else? The soup these two ordered earlier must be cool by now."

Kurogane didn't even need to think about it. "I'll take a fresh bowl of soup. Doesn't matter what kind, so long as it's hot."

The waiter nodded and added a mark to the pad before looking beyond the three at the table to the fourth member approaching from the back of the restaurant. "And for you sir?"

Syaoran blinked, pausing on his approach. "Ah, I'll have some tea. And um..." He looked at the table, trying to decipher what everything was. "What kind of pastries do you carry?"

"Well, everything from croissants to donuts," the waiter said, smiling broadly.

"Croissants...?" Syaoran felt the side of his mouth twitch up at the thought. "I'll take one of those, then."

The waiter nodded and disappeared, and Syaoran seated himself under the scrutiny of his other companions. He looked confused and surprised all at once by the stares he was receiving, until he finally managed to vocalize his thoughts. "... What's wrong?"

Fai's face cracked into a large grin. "You were smiling."

This time, Syaoran's face turned bright pink. "What about it?"

"It's a nice change," Sakura answered, looking pleased.

The young man knew he couldn't say anything else without stuttering like a fool, so instead he stared down at the table, avoiding eye contact with everyone. The waiter returned, interrupting the awkward tension to serve them their orders. "Now don't stay for too long, you're gonna want to get out of here before the snow gets too bad."

The group muttered varying degrees of affirmation, until Fai, who seemed to be debating something, spoke. "Is it always this snowy? I realize this place is in the mountains, but it's a bit early for this much snow yet."

The waiter frowned and looked out the window. "It gets like this every once in a while, sometimes even in the dead of summer. Most folks think it's the goblins and imps in the forest outside the city up to mischief. Usually it'll snow for a few days and bury the city, then it'll all melt off a few days later and nothing will happen again for a while. It really mucks things up though when people can't even leave their houses to get to work. But we've adjusted to it."

"There are goblins and imps out there?" Syaoran said, surprised.

"Well yes," The waiter smiled. "You've got one for a pet, don't you?" And he looked at Mokona. "You know, there's nice ones, but the ones out in the forest they say are usually foul tempered."

The group exchanged a look, as their minds simultaneously reached one conclusion. Fai, of course, handled the rest of the speaking.

"Thank you for the information," the magician grinned, his one golden eye sparkling. The waiter returned the smile and wandered back to talk to the one chef on duty.

The group ate their snack as they whispered to each other in hurried tones their plan. If what the waiter said was true, in a few days passage to the outside would be clear, and they'd be out to explore; since it was obvious Sakura's feather was not in the city, perhaps they'd have better luck outdoors.

They returned to their hotel in much better moods than they'd left with, despite the weather.

And, true to the prediction, only a little over a week later, the snow had melted off to little more than banks in shady places in suddenly and unseasonably warm weather. Out the group went, led by Kurogane as usual. Sakura had tagged along after they weighed their options and the danger and decided it would be alright if she were to come along. The ninja kept wary, his sword left within easy reach should he need it; he had a feeling there were much worse things in this forest than what had bitten Syaoran earlier. Fai brought up the rear, seemingly enjoying himself as he watched the forest pass by them, but he was as aware as Kurogane, though armed with nothing more than a large branch he'd found shortly after they'd began their hike and had split in half to make two walking sticks- He'd given the other to Sakura so she'd be able to keep pace with her bad leg.

Onward and upward they walked, and all of them noted a distinct change in the air- it was getting very cold, very rapidly. They had expected it would've gotten a bit colder as they trudged higher, but it didn't take long before all of them were hunched in their jackets as a bitter wind blasted all around them.

"Something isn't right," Sakura stated finally as snowflakes began to fall in a violent flurry.

"Yeah, this whole thing reeks of magic," Fai called back, raising his voice to be heard over the howling wind. "This seems a lot like the freak snowstorms the city's been having. Whoever it is must know we're coming."

They could only walk for a short time more before they decided they needed to seek shelter among the many rocks of the mountainous terrain. They fought the force of the wind as they looked for a viable break in the rocks, but just as Kurogane was about to announce he'd found some place that looked promising, a shrill scream pierced the air.

"MOKONA!"

All three of the males turned to see something white go flying through the air downhill, and Sakura chasing it, disappearing into the flurry of snowflakes.

"Sakura!" Naturally, Syaoran was right on her heels but a split second later, hit by a gust of wind, he stumbled before continuing on and out of Fai and Kurogane's sight. The mage tried to go after them, but his arm was caught by the black-haired ninja.

"If you go after them," Kurogane's voice bellowed over the screaming wind. "You'll never find them now. I don't like it either, but we need to get into shelter. Trust Syaoran, he'll see them through this."

Fai could only watch downhill helplessly as he was pulled into the rocky outcropping.