A/N: A new chapter is here! Rejoice! ;)

I noticed something. Whenever I tell the story from Syaoran's POV, less people review the story as compared to when I'm writing in Sakura or Fai's POV. Why is that so? Do you not like it when Syaoran tells his sad tale?

Anyhow, it's Kuro's turn to tell us a story. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Read and please leave a Review.

Now, on with the telling…

Enjoy.

I was frozen in shock for a moment; he had actually heard me.

"Are you here?"

He heard me!

"Yeah, I'm right here." I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice but what the heck. Finally, after six months, someone was able to sense me around. How could I not be excited at the prospect? If you find it so hard to believe, try being a ghost for the better part of a year, with nothing more to do than tail your friends around while they don't even know you're there.

I'm pretty sure there was big enough an excuse for me to act this way.

But much to my frustration, he gave no further reactions. If anything, a look of disappointment and despair overcame his features.

"Hey mage!" I yelled, waving my hand in front of his face but he just ignored me. "Oye, I'm right here you idiot!"

He just blinked a couple of times, his initially shocked and hopeful expression completely gone.

"I can't believe I'm going crazy at a time like this." He sighed before lying back down in his bed.

"No!" I yelped. I couldn't believe it. Not again. I couldn't stand being this way anymore. Why was I even around there? "Hey!" I tried shaking him but my hands just flew right through him. "Can't you hear me?"

Why did it have to be this way? For second, I had believed that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to help them find the kid since I knew where he was. Well sort of. I could at least give them clues to work out the location of the place the witch was keeping him at.

"I'm standing here!" I shouted in frustration. "Look at me you stupid mage!" I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. Why did it have to be this way? "I'm right here you idiot! I'm right… here…" I sighed, finally realizing it was of no use.

Whatever it was that had caused him to hear my voice, it was gone now.

I slumped down the wall next to his bed. Funnily enough, I didn't phase through it. In a few minutes, the mage was asleep and I was alone. Not that I had them with me otherwise.

I mean I'm a freaking ghost! No one can feel my presence. No one can see me and except for a couple of accidents they never even hear my voice. No matter what I do. No matter how much I yell or shout or try to create a ruckus, I don't exist for them. Not anymore. I'm nothing more than a friend who is gone from their lives forever…

Nothing more than a silent spectator, watching the events unfold from the sidelines.

"Damn it all…" I breathed, letting my head collide with the wall behind me.

-0-

The following day I tailed Sakura and the mage as they made their way over to that rat's, Peter's, apartment. I don't know why but the moment I had laid eyes on that man, I had gotten a feeling in my gut that told me that that man couldn't be trusted. The mage was normally very good at judging people, so I wasn't quite sure of why he was putting faith in this guy.

The air about this guy, it reminded me of someone who would end up stabbing you in the back. And I was proven right when he led them to an abandoned old factory on the outskirts of town and that Akira's apprentice showed up with her henchmen.

After exchanging a couple of words, Fai was locked in a battle with the apprentice and four other guys while Sakura was left to deal with the remaining three.

She took up a stance as that witch's minions approached her. In her hand was Syaoran's sword and she was holding it with the poise and refinement that only a top swordsman could posses. That idiot's spell did a wonderful job. At least now I wouldn't need to worry about her safety. Much.

It looked like she knew what she was doing. Moving into the perfect stance, making it seem natural enough to fool the onlookers into believing that the kata might have been drilled into her from a very young age. She observed her opponents warily as they circled around her with their weapons on the ready.

The three bastards attacked at her at the same time but Sakura gracefully ducked under the spear thrust towards her neck and rolled to the right to avoid the dual short swords aiming to slice her shoulder off. She then kicked the man holding the spear to the ground and protected her arm from being hacked off using the sword to block the incoming katana.

Slowly a feral grin formed on her face, reminding me once again of how much that girl had changed in the past six months. This Sakura was so different… So unlike the girl I had traveled with.

This girl, this princess, she seemed to almost enjoy herself as she fought those three, elegantly dodging the attacks, effortlessly blocking the sword thrusts and impressively slashing her own sword, attacking them with a ferocity I had never seen in her before.

The mage seemed to be holding his own against his opponents as well, he had already taken two of them down. I noticed the apprentice standing a little way off to the side, observing him fight with the underlings.

Fai threw one of the men into the wall behind him, knocking him out as the wall crashed on top of him. The other one met a similar fate not a couple of minutes later. It was then that the apprentice moved in to attack.

He tackled Fai to the ground but the idiot managed to throw him off, once again using my family's special attack to knock him down. Or rather, try to knock him down since the apprentice succeeded in deflecting the attack with ease.

Stupid magicians and stupid magic.

I cast a glance in Sakura's direction and was pleased to see that she was managing it nicely. She knocked two men down using the kid's elemental attack. I must admit, that idiot's magic is pretty impressive.

The princess ducked and swirled and parried with the last man left standing, but then, with one swift move, she sliced clean through the guy's chest. My jaw would have dropped to the floor if it could have.

Did she just kill a man?!?

Apparently, I wasn't the only one shocked by this action since the girl literally froze up, looking at her bloodied hands in disbelief. I saw the rat move towards her with a brick raised but she did not move. She didn't even hear the mage when he yelled at her like the world was coming to an end.

The brick came down and the princess stumbled after giving a small cry of pain. She collapsed on the ground. I looked back; the mage was still busy fighting the apprentice but at the same time trying his best to get to her as that buck-toothed bastard picked her up and ran towards the forest.

"He's getting away you idiot!"

Said idiot ran after the pair but his path was blocked by that apprentice.

"No!" he cried as the distance between him and the rat grew further.

"What, aren't you gonna finish the fight?" the apprentice said as he blasted the mage into the factory wall with his dark magic. He staggered to his feet, his blue eyes fixed on the quickly receding backs of Sakura and her captor.

"What the hell are you waiting for mage!" I yelled angrily as I turned around and hurried after them myself.

I think I could have imagined it but I swear I heard him respond with a soft "I'm going Kuro-tan".

By the time I looked, he was already casting some sort of spell.

The world around me began to phase once more, transiting into a dark room lit by a flickering light bulb.

Before me now was the bloodied body of my student who was hanging from the roof by his wrists. There were black, glowing petals whirling around him in a wild flurry. Where ever they touched his body, they would leave behind an ugly burn which oozed his blood.

He was screaming; his cries echoing off the empty wall around us but his voice was so damn hoarse.

His wrists were cutting against the metal shackles holding him above the ground as he thrashed weakly. After a while the cackling witch released whatever spell it was and the petals disappeared.

The kid hung limply, his head rolling over his chest as he gasped for air. Blood dripped down his arms and face and every other visible part of his body.

"Stay the hell away from him you crazy bitch!" I growled, putting myself between her and the kid. I don't know what I hoped to accomplish from that since she merely walked through me.

She walked through me as if I wasn't even there.

Which, if I thought about it, I really wasn't, but that's beside the point.

I was beginning to tire of all this. Of seeing them all so torn apart and hurt. And something inside my head told me that it was all because of me. Once upon a time I had slain so many, without a second thought. Enjoying the blood I shed. All in the name of gaining power and becoming stronger.

But I had changed, hadn't I? I thought I had managed to atone for my sins.

And even if I hadn't, why were the ones I held precious being used to punish me? Why were they the ones who had to suffer for me to learn my lesson? Surely there could have been other ways.

I never thought fate could be so cruel. But now, when I looked at the weak, quivering form of that once proud and determined boy, I couldn't help but wonder.

What had he done to deserve all this pain and suffering? This was supposed to my punishment, wasn't it? Then shouldn't I have been the one hanging from those chains? Why was it that my life had been ended in less than a second while he was made to suffer for every breath that he drew?

"Would you like to see your precious girlfriend again?" I heard her whisper softly behind me.

"You… Stay the hell… away from her!" I don't know how he managed it, but the kid seemed to have drawn on hidden reserves of energy as he struggled furiously against his bonds, his amber eyes burning with hate and there was so much venom in his tone that I couldn't believe that the witch was still standing.

"Or what?" she chortled as Syaoran kept pulling on the chains. Fresh blood began flowing from the cuts on his wrists but he didn't appear to have noticed.

She raised her hand and the kid froze. "Enough!" she growled quietly before she walked out of the room.

She was back in less than a minute with something similar to a hypodermic needle in her hand. Inside there was a grey-colored solution.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue as she raised the needle next to his face for him to look at more closely.

When he didn't answer, I figured that she had completely paralyzed his body, rendering him unable to speak.

"What?" she pretended to look let down but that crazy grin gave away her delight. "You don't even want to hazard a guess?"

"Fine," she breathed after a while, as she took the kid's face in her hand, positioning the needle next to his eye, "I'll just let you find it out on your own."

Drawing the same conclusion as me, he scrunched his eyes close, hoping to somehow protect them from what she was about to do.

"Now, now." She admonished him, as if he was a six-year-old boy who had done something wrong. I grit my teeth in anger as she moved her fingers to his right eye and forced it open. She forced the needle inside his eye, emptying half of the syringe before pulling it out and doing the same thing to his left orb.

The kid strained his eyes in an attempt to look at something, anything. But I could see the grey clouding his previously amber eyes.

That f**kin bitch had just blinded him!

With an enraged cry, I threw myself at her grinning face as she watched him with a satisfied expression. But just because I was ready to rip her head off with my bare hands, why would this time have been any different? None of my attacks even managed to touch her, passing through her like thin air.

The sound of Syaoran's pants and my own curses were the only sound in the room. At least for me, they were. For him I think it was just his own shallow breathing. Soundlessly, the witch turned around and walked over to the black metal door. Sliding it open, she stepped outside, "Don't worry boy," she said consolingly, "You'll see her sooner than you think."

My gaze traveled back to the kid, who was stepping around on his toes in a vain attempt to keep his body steady; maybe trying to lessen the strain on his chest and wrists. His unseeing eyes were still wide open, as though he hoped to regain his sight just by forcing them to look long enough.

I felt so sorry for him. And I really wished there was some way for me to help him.

"Kid, can you hear me?" I asked in a soft whisper but he didn't answer.

"Hey. I'm here you know." I tried again. Once again, I got no reply.

"Kid?"

"…"

"Come on, damn it!" I yelled angrily, punching the wall next to me but my fist flew right through it. "I'm right here! Why can't you hear me now?"

"Damn it all!" I hissed as I watched the kid who seemed to be in a self-induced daze.

"Saku-ra?" It was several hours later when I heard him croak her name in a weak voice. I looked up from my spot on the floor and saw his face alight with hope as he gazed in the right corner of the room. I followed the line of his sight and found nothing more than dust to look at.

"Kid who the hell are you talking to?" I walked over to him, waving a hand in front of his eyes but they did not follow the movement of my hand.

"Sakura," his voice was still hoarse but now it was filled with worry. "Are you alright?"

"Who the hell are you talking to?" I looked around in confusion but there was nothing there.

"Don't worry Sakura." His tired but reassuring tone made me look back at him. Really look at him.

Despite his general pallor, his skin was flushed. He was breathing heavily and I could see beads of sweat rolling down his body, mingling with the dried blood, creating trails of red-tinted water. At first I thought that maybe the kid had a fever but when I looked closely at his face, I noticed that even though his eyes were cloudy and unfocused, his pupils were dilated way beyond normal.

Just what the hell had that bitch put in him?

"It's not as bad as it looks." He spoke in the same throaty voice, licking his parched and cracked lips with an equally dry tongue. Not only that, but his cheeks had started hollowing and his eyes had sunk in their sockets.

It was only now that I had noticed these changes. I don't think he had had anything to drink ever since that witch had brought him here so I could easily tell that he was dehydrated. It must have been at least four days now. Maybe five. How much longer would he be able to hold on?

Obviously the lack of water and whatever the $%^# bitch had put in his eyes was making him hallucinate.

"What are you doing here?" He asked the thin air.

"Kid," I addressed him gently. "She's not here." He ignored my voice. Not that I had been expecting anything different. He was definitely not in the correct state of mind but...

"Did the witch hurt you?" his face transformed into a look of rage.

"Oye, Syaoran!" I uselessly tried shaking his shoulder. Maybe a small part of me was hoping that I might be able to hold him and that might jolt him out of whatever illusion he was seeing. "Sakura is with the mage."

His expression grew concerned as though he had just realized something.

"Where is Fai?"

"This can't be good," I muttered, watching the kid talk to nothing but an illusion in his mind.

Whatever the answer his delusional mind had received it had not been good news since, since the kid just froze up; a look of disbelief on his face as he stared blankly ahead.

"Syaoran. Oye!" I snapped my fingers in front of his face. "It's not real. Snap out of it."

"This is definitely not good." I muttered, feeling a wave of cold dread wash over my body when the kid gave no response, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Like a fish out of water.

A/N: Yes, Fai is still alive. You can put down those pitchforks and torches now.

So tell me, how many of you readers out there actually believed that he was dead? I really wanna know so please tell me.

Also, I'd like to ask a question. How many of you can tell me who I built Peter's character on? I mean it's just this world's version of another character in a really popular series. (I've given you more than enough hints. Care to take a guess?)