Disclaimer: See first chapter.
We're going into all new material now! …hopefully I don't mess the whole thing up as I write it. –already spotting inaccuracies- gah.
And thank you for the review, saint maglor. It's been a while, so I'm glad you're enjoying it.
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You could choose much about a formal fight. The weapon you used, the person you fought, whether it was to the death or the pain or otherwise, but you couldn't choose if you didn't start the thing. Currently, the ceremony (which, Kurogane had discovered by asking around, was really a fight) had been pushed back three times—from morning to late noon to nine at nine. It stuck then.
By the time the full moon had pulled over the horizon, the four fighters stood in the third garden, a collection of swords beside them. Umi wore a suit of light-weight, blue-tinted armor and carried a sword half again as long as her arm. Ascot, the tall red-haired not-quite-boyfriend Ferio had mentioned, was serving as her second. When Kurogane had introduced Fai as his own second, the princess had scowled, throat tensing.
"Fine. Make sure he doesn't take a role before he needs to."
"You don't trust me?" Fai said pleasantly, handing Kurogane his sword. Umi watched his hands every moment and said nothing.
"Just keep an eye out for the giant slugs," Kurogane told him.
"But they're random encounters!" Fai intoned brightly, drawing back to stand next to Ascot.
"The hell's a random encounter?" the ninja asked, turning to face Umi, sword drawn.
"Princess Fuu was telling me, apparently it's when—oh, attacking!"
Kurogane moved to block it immediately, though he had seen the move coming a while off. Umi scowled again and it irked him.
"Have to signal less if you're going to ambush," he taunted gently. The blue-haired girl set her lips in a thin line and began a straightforward attack. They traded blows—she wasn't awful—until their seconds were thoroughly bored.
"I imagine your immigration level is low," Fai said, watching the two battle.
"She doesn't do a duel for everyone's receipt ceremony," Ascot said. "Honestly, it's been a while and it seemed most appropriate for your friend."
"Ah, well, if that's the case. What happens if Kuro-nin wins, by the way?"
"No one on our world that she's challenged has defeated her." Ascot smiled to himself. "No one that she's challenged."
"The special friend of your cook?"
"Lafarge is very much exempt. If Kurogane wins, Umi will determine whether or not she wants you in the country. She was doing that anyway, but the battle… clears her head. Like I said, she wanted to fight and so did your friend. Ah, we may need to step in."
Fai looked. "No, he's about to—see?"
"I didn't think anyone could do that without dropping the sword!"
"Kuro-chan can~ ah, but you might need to help there—"
"No, she's—ah. I'm not sure we approved the use of magic. Umi?"
"Worth it to see Kuro-nin gagged and frozen. Wheet-woo, Umi is amazing!"
"So you'll step in," Umi said evenly. The magician blinked, glanced at Kurogane, who was trying to remove the invisible binding. Before Umi could come at him with that fiendishly long blade, he was behind her.
"It's really not fair to use magic just to switch to me," he said as Umi whirled.
"Why not? You're the one I want to fight and if the ninja wasn't so good with a blade, I would have challenged you as the biggest threat."
"I saved your ballroom!" Fai protested mocking, ducking under her backhanded swing in a sly retreat towards Kurogane. If Umi had used the immobilization weave he thought she had, it should be relatively easy to…
"Clef said you would do good things and bad, that we needed to figure out for ourselves what kind of threat you posed. That you could bring down all Hikatsu with your lies if we didn't make you change."
"Very open-minded person, this Clef," Fai said, keeping his tone light enough to belay suspicion. He was almost to Kurogane. "And what did he propose you do, to me?"
The comment was only to stall her while he pulled apart the magical weave binding Kurogane: it was an acquired skill to pull apart someone else's spell without using any magic of his own and he'd had time to hone it. He then stumbled against Kurogane, intentionally bringing them both down. The ninja scrambled to his feet, lowering the sword. Umi didn't imitate the movement.
"I'm bored," she said.
"Not an excuse," Kurogane replied.
"But Kuro-rin, it's late and the lady is bored. It would be polite to—"
"If she and I bow out, you and Ascot will be duking it out," Kurogane said coldly and shouldered his weapon. "C'mon girlie, finish what you started."
"On the contrary, I already have," Umi said. "I hereby deny you access to Hikatsu, on the grounds that your friend plans to bring some doom on us."
"Doom?" Kurogane said incredulously; at the same time, Fai said "ooh, really? Can you be more specific?"
It was getting colder and Kurogane would have preferred to continue the conversation inside, but he let Fai launch into polite protest.
"I would never do anything to harm this country, Princess."
"You can't prove that," the girl said sternly. "We do not allow everyone access here or we would be overrun with threats. You are a casualty of the rule."
"But we are travelers, seeking feathers that contain the memories of one of our party." He took a step forward, then another. "We've already identified that there's a feather near this place. You cannot condemn all of us for—"
He vanished. Kurogane already had his sword drawn, but didn't move. Fai had a habit of getting into problems bigger than himself and he wasn't about to leap into a battle on this one.
"Where did you send him."
Umi flipped her hair; she wasn't comfortable with this situation. "A neighboring world, which will return all of you to your journey without a detour in Hikatsu. But we have sent the feather with him. You've no reason to return. Sakura and Syaoran will be coming with you—"
"If your magician can manage that," Kurogane said dryly. Ascot seemed about to fall over and his voice was thin and reedy when he spoke.
"Just starting the spell. It catches you, him, the pair, and the creature. Umi just wanted to speak to you first."
Umi took up the conversation. "You have to tell Fai something and I wanted him gone as soon as possible. Without this information, you will be trapped on that world permanently."
"And what's that?"
"Your 'Fai' must get you out himself. There are other measures in place to assure this. If we simply let you go away, he would return here and I don't like putting Ascot through all this."
"I'm fine—"
"Sit down already!" both Umi and Kurogane snapped. Ascot obediently sat down.
"Fai wouldn't hurt your world," Kurogane muttered. "And he doesn't have magic to get us out of some prison world, so if that was your plan—"
"The sand monsters have never come as close as they did last night. Not til you came. Clef said Fai possessed great magic once, more than enough power to summon them if he wanted."
"Yeah, possessed. He's got nothing. We have nothing."
"But they came," Umi insisted. "The monsters came and gave you an excuse to rip up a perfectly good tuxedo and have an admittedly good time killing things in my ballroom. If he did it, or anything else dangerous, under some idea that it would make someone else happy… we have a fragile world, Kurogane. It's been broken before."
Kurogane grunted. There was nothing he could say to dissuade them. "Just don't forget to send the kids and chew toy along."
"We haven't. Good luck."
A three-fingered wave and the world was engulfed in blackness. Not unconsciousness— Kurogane stood in the dark, took a breath and smelled the dank cold-wet-underground scent of a cave. As his eyes adjusted, he could see spots of daylight through cracks in the rock-ceiling above. It was a different time here so it was indeed a different world. Great. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened, he thought, and started following the light.
For the first time in a while, he hoped Fai had some magic kept in reserve. Otherwise, they could be down here quite a while.
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Annnnd they're off Hikatsu, and I managed to solve a plot conundrum in my head to preserve continuity. Yay, experimentation!
Reviews are appreciated.