A/N: It's been a while since I updated this story... ((yes two weeks is a while)) These next couple chapters are basically fillers to take up space and time until the ending of this story. I don't know exactly how far away the end of the story is, but it's rapidly approaching.

Read, review, and hopefully enjoy.


"Fai-kun...calm down..."

Fai jabbed his Lunar staff in the direction of the two magicians that were in his and Kurogane's dining room. A deep and serious look was seated on his face as he threatened them with it. "No! I will not calm down! I wake up, find that there are strange people in this place who know my name, and Kuro-chan isn't here! Where did you put him! Who are you? Tell me or I'll make some sort of spell explode! Kuro-myu doesn't like that and you won't either!" He spoke at a very fast pace that shouldn't have been possible for someone of his language skills.

The two magicians faces softened and one of them chuckled despite the threat. "Make a spell explode?" The non-chuckling one raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly as he said this. "You haven't gotten past that stage?"

"Kuro-chan? Kuro-myu? Do you mean Kurogane-kun? I thought I was pushing it by calling him -kun, but you...oh wow you've pushed it way farther. Does he know you call him that? If so, how are you still alive?"

Fai made a growling noise and jabbed the staff at them again. This time the shorter of the two magician's grabbed the staff and pulled it out of Fai's grip. He studied it and ran his fingers over the designs engraved in it. "Impressive, you may end up being more powerful than Kurogane-kun..."

"Master Subaru, don't put thoughts like that into Fai's head." Kurogane seemed to appear out of nowhere and took the staff away from him before handing it back to Fai. "Seishiro-san you should stop him from saying such things."

The second magician pushed a pair of glasses up further on his nose and shrugged. "I can't really do that. I'm the weaker magician in our connection."

Kurogane sighed, "Oh don't start talking about connections..."

"Kurogane-kun..." Subaru interrupted Kurogane and Seishiro. "Are you aware of the nicknames that Fai-kun has for you?"

The mage of Chatile rolled his eyes and nodded, "Constantly...Fai, can't you even fake respect for me when we have guests over?"

"Why would I fake something I really have? I have tons of respect for Kuro-chii, just not in his name!" Fai said this in an overly cheery voice as he wrote out the spell that made his staff disappear in his hands. His serious and angry face instantly gone at the realization that these were the magician's from Teris and that they were perfectly welcome inside the house. "So you're Subaru and Seishiro? Ketsu's teachers?"

Subaru looked at Fai with a fairly blank expression before looking at Kurogane and whapping him on the side of the head. "You didn't tell him? That's an important detail of your like that your student should know."

"I didn't see a reason to."

Subaru shook his head with a sigh and smiled kindly at Fai. "Yes, we were Ketsu's teachers, but I was also Kurogane-kun's teacher."

Fai got a very fascinated look on his face and he took Subaru's hands as if they were best friends and grinned widely. "Really? Kuro-puppy learned magic from you? You knew him as a child? That must've been such a wonderful experience, I want to hear all about it!"

"He's really infatuated with you Kurogane-kun." Subaru laughed and squeezed Fai's hands before letting go of them. "Perhaps he's your connection?" The tone was teasing and yet slightly serious as Subaru looked to his old student.

Kurogane growled and folded his arms, "I've said it over and over again; there's no such thing as a connection, he's just fascinated with magic and teachers, just like all magic students are."

"Not all. You weren't fascinated by them."

Fai tilted his head. "What's a connection? Oh! Don't tell me yet! I'll go cook breakfast and then you can tell me!" The blond went to walk past Subaru and cook the morning meal but the green-eyed magician grabbed his shoulder.

"You don't need to Fai-kun, 'Kuro-chan' went and bought breakfast to save you the trouble."

"Wah? Really? Then...should I make tea?"

"I already made tea." Seishiro's soft voice spoke as he pulled out a chair from the dining room table and sat in it. "Would you like some?" The summoner offered a teacup to Fai in an almost lazy and yet deliberate manner.

Fai nodded eagerly and took the cup that was offered to him as he sat down. Subaru sat next to him and Kurogane went into the kitchen to set things up. "So...you want to learn about connections?" Subaru whispered as Fai watched the kitchen door intently.

"Kuro-wan is my teacher, I suppose I really should ask him about it..."

Subaru shook his head, placing his hand gently over Fai's. "Don't ask him about it. He won't tell you. Ever since I first told him about them Kurogane-kun has denied the existence of connections with all his heart. I'll tell you, and don't believe Kurogane-kun, they're real." Fai nodded slightly before Subaru continued in a low tone so that Kurogane wouldn't hear. "Connections are invisible bonds that connect you to one other magician. Magician's with connections often become lovers, but that's not their purpose. Really they just indicate two people whose fates are closely intertwined. The bond can be there from birth, or they can be made later on in life..."

Fai cut him off with a question. "You say connections are invisible...can they ever be seen?"

Subaru nodded. "They can be seen by the stronger of the two magicians that the connection binds together. The stronger magician controls the connection."

"And you think I have a connection with Kurogane?" Subaru nodded. Fai wrinkled his nose slightly, reached out, and seemed to hold something in his fingers gingerly. "Could it be this? I've seen it ever since I met Kuro-tan, but I've learned to ignore it since he never seemed to notice it."

Subaru squinted his eyes at the hand but shook his head unable to see anything. He looked back to Seishiro who also shook his head. Kurogane's teacher looked back to Fai. "Pull on it."

"But what if it breaks? It's so thin..."

Subaru smiled. "If it's a real connection it won't break unless you want it to. The binds are stronger than piano wire. Pull on it." Subaru watched with his calming smile as Fai tugged on the invisible object gently. From the kitchen there was a loud crash and a curse.

"What's wrong!" Fai yelled into the kitchen.

Kurogane's voice yelled back in frustration. "I tripped over nothing!"

Subaru chuckled and tapped Fai's shoulder to get his attention. "Yes. That's a connection. A very strong one too. I've never been able to pull Seishiro off his feet. The only thing that happens when I tug is he knows that I want him to come home or to wherever I am."

Fai let the object drop from his fingers and picked up his teacup again, placing it to his lips and sipping from it. "What does the connection do?"

"Well people who are connected either hate each other, or like each other very much. They're feelings for each other are on the same level."

Fai's face went a light pink color behind his cup. "I don't think that's possible...Kuro-rin doesn't like me very much..."

"I don't think that. He has to like you quite a bit for you to even be his student. Most mages and other magic users have quite a few students in their lives. They typically start to pick them up at thirty years of age and then they periodically take on others until they die. Kurogane-kun is about seventy-five years old and you are his very first student. That's why I came here."

Fai pulled the cup away from his face to reveal a surprised look. "Huh?"

"Of course. I rarely leave Teris. I'm not very comfortable in other kingdoms, but when Ketsu told Seishiro who told me that Kurogane-kun had a student I had to come see. I had to see what was so precious to him..."

Fai shook his head, the poor blond's face now a bright red color. "I'm n-not precious to him at all...I'm just someone Father asked him to look after and to teach."

Subaru chuckled pleasantly. "We'll see Fai-kun. We'll see."


"Oh no you don't." Ketsu grabbed onto the back of Seishiro's cloak as the summoner in glasses tried to rearrange some of the books on Ketsu's shelves. "You are not rearranging my books again! I haven't completely recovered from the last time you put my tomes out of place!"

"But Ketsu-kun, they're all out of order and unseemly..."

"Seishiro." Subaru called from the table where the mage watched Fai write. "Everyone has their own system. Leave the poor boy's tomes alone." Subaru gingerly took Fai's wrist and corrected one of his movements on paper. "That's a better way to write that letter."

Seishiro sighed and placed the book back where he had gotten it from. "All right, don't come to me when you can't find anything..."

"I didn't." Ketsu mumbled. "I went to Conner." The younger summoner went over to the table and peered over Fai's shoulder, a very small smile coming to his lips as he patted his back gently. "Good. Very good. Your improvement since you came here is phenomenal. Soon you should be able to do any spell you please as long as you memorize them correctly."

"Good. I'm glad. Kuro-min will be glad to hear that too."

"Master Kurogane will be very pleased. I can't imagine him being able to really teach you much without good handwriting."

"No...he really wasn't able to." Fai smiled sadly as he finished his alphabet for the third time that day.

"Well then this has been good for you." Ketsu took the paper and pen away from him. "You can go now. I'll expect you back in a week."

Fai nodded. "All right. Thank you Ketsu-chan."

Ketsu flinched at the -chan and shooed Fai from his store with one hand as he went looking for a book. Fai left the shop and waited outside for a minute before Subaru and Seishiro left the shop as well. "Where do you two want to go? Kuro-pup told me to show you around wherever you wanted to go."

The pair smiled lightly at him. "The market place might be nice. Exotic fruit or other foods. Although they shouldn't be that different...Teris isn't that far away."

"Market place it is!" Fai turned and waited for them to follow him. They did.

For a few minutes they were all silent until Seishiro's broke the silence at last. "Fai-kun?" Fai looked to the man a little bit surprised, Seishiro had so far been pretty quiet and only really spoke to Subaru and a little bit to Ketsu. Subaru had been much more talkative, although around non-magicians Subaru seemed very shy.

"Yes?"

"You're the prince of this country aren't you? Ketsu-kun mentioned that you were the adopted son of Ashura..." Fai nodded and Seishiro kept speaking. "Have you ever been to foreign countries?"

Fai shook his head gently this time, "Well, yes I have. Obviously the world I came from would have been different than this one, but as far as I can remember I've always been in Chatile."

"Why don't you come back with us? Come visit Teris? Both Subaru and I have a new student. I think they would both improve by seeing you."

Subaru made a sound from the other side of Fai that sounded strangely excited. "Yes. That's a wonderful idea Seishiro. Not only would that expand your eyes to the magical world, but it would help you diplomatically. It would be a good learning experience for you."

Fai bit his lip as the blond looked back and forth from Subaru to Seishiro, "L-leave Kuro-tan?"

"Well, Kurogane-kun would be welcome to come as well, but I doubt he would. He's too busy here...it would only be for a couple days. I promise Seishiro will bring you back within a week."

Fai bit his lip harder, he really didn't want to leave Kurogane for more than a few hours at a time, but he knew that there would come a day when he probably wouldn't see his mage for months at a time...when he was king. Also it would be good for him to see other places. He'd learn a lot. "If Kuro-myu says it's okay, I'll go."

The pair of elder magician's smiled slightly. "Wonderful."