He had fallen asleep... he was dreaming.

It was cold... so very cold. And he was hungry... so very hungry. The bodies piled around him didn't stink. They were frozen by now. He looked up at the tower.

"Fay!" he called weakly, "Fay..."

"I'm here Yuui," came his brother's voice. He was relieved. Fay was still alive in the tower.

"I'm going to reach you, Fay. Just wait. I'll get there... and then we'll get out of here together." Yuui assured him. Fay didn't give a reply.

Desperately, Yuui began to drag bodies to form a pile. If he could get it high enough, maybe he could reach Fay's window. He dragged as many as he could into a mound against the side of the tower, and began to climb. His fingers scratched against the bricks, scraping and bleeding. He was almost there... and then he fell.

Up in the tower, Fay was speaking with a man. He was a strange, frightening man with a monocle and a square face. His clothing was stamped with a strange insignia.

"Do you want to be saved?" the man asked him.

Fay shook his head. "No. Get Yuui out of here."

The man nodded and sank into a portal. He then appeared before Yuui on the ground below. The same question was presented.

"Do you want to be saved?"

"Yes."

The image became fractured, and seemed to be glued together from other pictures.

"No, that's not right..." Fay thought to himself, his dreaming mind piecing together an image from the shards. The truth. He knew it was the truth. After Ashura of Celes had died, he saw it.

"No." he answered, "Get Fay out of here."


He sat up slowly as the sun of a new day played over his face. At first, he was unsure why there was a strange void in his stomach, and then he remembered. Sakura... and Mokona... and Syaoran. They were gone. But Kurogane...

He looked beside him, and this time his heart nearly stopped. Kurogane wasn't there. The ninja was nowhere to be found. He scrambled out of the bed, nearly tripping over his own two feet.

"Kurogane-san?" he called, "Kurogane-san!"

The door of the room clicked open, and there he was. The ninja stared at him, confused. Fay tried as hard as he could to keep from pouncing on the tall man in relief. He stared back into those confused red eyes.

"What's wrong?" Kurogane asked him.

"Kurogane-san... you scared me..." Fay admitted, "I thought...that you had vanished as well..."

"Idiot." scolded Kurogane. "I can't vanish. If I disappeared, you'd die."

He was right. Fay smiled thinly. Kurogane couldn't possibly vanish. If it was his brother behind it all, then surely he didn't want him dead. Surely...

He reached out towards Kurogane to place his hand on the ninja's arm, to say 'I know you won't vanish'. His hand went forward, expecting to hit something solid. But it didn't. It was as though he was swiping at an apparition. His hand passed right through Kurogane. Kurogane's eyes went wide. Fay's hand was suddenly through his chest.

"What..." he asked, but he was cut short as his image got fainter.

Fay desperately tried to grab him, but each time all he got was a handful of air. Kurogane watched helplessly as the magician tried to grasp at him, to pull him away from what it was that was making him disappear. The last thing he remembered seeing what Fay falling to his knees, blue eye wide with shock as Kurogane faded into oblivion.

"Kurogane-san... Sakura-chan... Syaoran-kun... and Mokona..." he whispered faintly, his voice as weak and empty as his heart. He folded into himself. Just as Kurogane had, the entire world began fading into a black void around him. There was a sense of cold nothingness, weighing down on him, suffocating him. Like he had been buried alive in the blackness. He felt nothing, he heard nothing, he could see nothing, and he was utterly alone. First there was five. One by one they went away. Mokona... and then Sakura... and then Syaoran... and finally Kurogane. Everything that meant anything to him now had been taken away.

"I don't understand..." he said, his voice lost to the inky prison he was trapped in.

And so the five would become four, the four to three, the three to two, and then there was Fay.

And nothing more.