A/N: Pockysnightmare, you have your chance right in here to ask Fai-san your question.


Chapter Eight: Lecourt

I resettle myself onto the cushion, my legs trembling slightly. My face is flushed and my hair far more than lightly windswept. All of you are giggling uncontrollably and I see that Tomoyo-chan has kept you entertained with engaging conversation that I dearly hope had nothing to do with Kuro-tan's and my…preoccupation.

I clear my throat awkwardly, and glance down to reassure that my robes are redone properly. Kuro-chan is rather impatient when he…er…

Going on.

The giggling is increasing and you start asking me what exactly happened. The questions get even more scandalous—more specific, asking for greater details. My eyebrows shoot up. I didn't even know young girls could speak of these…terms.

I shake my head with a grin. If I said anything at all, Kuro-chi would murder me. You all roll your eyes because you know he would do so as soon tear off his own head. Which, I must agree to.

My eyes widen a bit when one of you asks if there is a video camera in our room. I tip my head. A video camera? I might've heard of it during one of our more advanced worlds, but do enlighten me about what this entails.

You eagerly detail how it records visually and audibly, how it can replay and be edited—how it can copy one record into dozens. I cough again. Yes…I hope this video camera isn't breakable. If it's made of anything less than diamond, Kuro-tan will find some way to break it.

But we are getting out hand, aren't we? And this world is the one that leads to the story's first climax.

I had a slight suspicion what that feather book's abilities were…and part of me didn't want to say anything. It would just give Kurogane another chance to find out about my past, and he already had enough of me as it was—I was falling to pieces because of him, and they were so small and sharp that every time I tried to gather them I ended up pricking myself and breaking them further.

Another part of me wanted to use it to find out about Kurogane's past. Surely if he made such a big deal of mine, his would be something worth witnessing as well, no? And it was a childish idea of revenge. He had done all of this to me. Mangled me in ways no one ever had and he'd forced me to fall in love with him. In my world, in my eyes, that was criminal. A crime worthy of capital punishment.

No one had asked me if I wanted to fall this deeply—because when you fell, you couldn't return to the precipice. Not unless someone reigned you back in, and no one would ever want me to return. They'd shove me off and be done with it.

And that was nothing less than what I deserved.

But it was Kurogane who first picked it up, and Syaoran who first used it—however unwillingly. I could never ask what he saw of Kurogane's past. I resolved to myself that it wouldn't matter anyhow. Kurogane was the sort who wouldn't be held back by what had happened to him, and focused on everything and only anything that was happening now.

Of course, afterward came another one of my mistakes—every time I made one, they escalated to a higher step. The largest one of all was yet to come.

I used magic. Simple as that. I used it and gave Kurogane another reason to accuse me and give his enigmatic little statements and hate me and despise me and know that I was a coward and—

He already had more than one reason to do all of those, and I had to hand him another one. I kept giving them to him, and taking each blow in silence. I didn't retaliate because it was a useless war, and I would lose anyway. I could never win a war like this against someone like Kurogane. I was in love with him, yes, but I was not happy with him. Not at all.

Yes, I smiled and flitted around him and I kissed him, but my true feelings showed that one time we had sex. I was enraged with him.

My world was falling apart because of him. Not that it wasn't already in tatters, but he just made it worse. He accused me of saying that I didn't value anyone's life but my own and now I cared for Sakura and Syaoran and Mokona and how my smiles were false and oh, how he was so tired of my idiocy, and why couldn't I just quit it, and why couldn't I tell the truth and—

Stop.

Stop it.

Just. Stop. Please.

I couldn't do it anymore. I was losing and I was sick of it. Everything was going wrong because of him. I wasn't just losing this game—this war—I was losing myself. My lies were failing, my realness was seeping through the cracks, and the ravines in my heart were growing bigger and bigger and it was only a matter of time until I fell completely in.

I was falling. And when someone falls—they panic.

And my panic took the form of a serene smile. We were already being whisked away to the next world—for the first time, borne on my own magic. It'd never been easier to use it. I would be the last person in any world before I would admit that the reason my magic sang and twirled around us—joyously out of its cage—and transported us with smoothness that even Ashura couldn't teach me…was because it was near Kurogane.

I couldn't do this. I needed to end it.

Soon.