Summary: The final battle.
Warnings: Kurofai, established relationship. This is post-series so spoilers for the end. There will also be spoilers for Fai's past later. Hinted TouyaYuki, Douwata, and other CLAMP pairings. Swearing, innuendo, a bit of violence later on perhaps? I'm not sure if the rating will go up in later chapters. We will see.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
The bird turned it's head, limpid eyes curiously seeking the source of the voices. A small chirp issued from its throat and it lost interest. With another quiet twitter, it hopped over to the side of the cage, its little feet clinging tight to the bars of the cage as it held itself sideways. It trilled a long note as it looked out of the window, and then dropped back onto the swinging bar in suspended in the middle of the cage. It cheeped twice, then sang a half-song before stopping again.
The boy stepped forward and peered keenly into the cage.
"I haven't had visitors in such a long time," the stranger in Fai's body continued sweetly, "Are you here to kill me?"
The silence was as good of an answer as he was going to get, but the boy was unperturbed.
"They all tried to kill me too, back then," he informed them, "But I showed them. I showed them all. They burnt the way they tried to burn me. Shall I burn you as well?"
"Wait…" Yuzuriha called weakly, "Don't you know that by keeping Fai here, you're destroying this universe? Look, you can already see this world breaking apart!"
Around them, the iridescent rips pulsed ominously, worlds pushing and expanding and breaking into one another; the end of reason. At the centre of it all, the image of the little boy tilted his head to the side, a innocently considering look on his face.
"Perhaps it'd be better for everything to end," he said after a moment of consideration, "The world will be created anew, and all the evil people will be gone."
Blue eyes turned back to them, and Kurogane hissed as the boy slid his arms around Fai, pulling the other blonde into an embrace.
"Don't you see?" he said with utmost conviction, "He and I… we're the same. And together, we can cleanse this world of evil."
"You're insane!" Kurogane accused disbelievingly, and although the child's face did not change in expression, he exuded the distinctive air of amusement.
"Those who have yet to see the truth cannot possibly understand the philosophies of the enlightened," he told Kurogane, somewhat condescendingly, "The world is full of fools, and they are the ones who condemn the enlightened as insane."
"Shut up!" Kamui hissed, "You're so deluded that its sad."
The eerie porcelain face turned slowly to the new speaker, and a moment later, a child's bone-chilling laugh tinkled through the air. Still, the child's face did not shift past expressionless serenity, and those coral lips did not part with in time with the mechanical laughter.
"Poor children," he murmured, "You are the deluded ones."
With a snarl, Kamui drew a bejeweled sword.
"Talking to you is useless!"
Metal clashed in screeching disharmony.
What is it singing?
A small, pale finger inched through the gilded bars of the cage. It stroked against the well-groomed plume atop the songbird's head. It trilled a startled note, hopping away from the intruder.
It sings of love.
The finger withdrew, and a moment later returned, pushing cake crumbs between the bars—an offering. Hesitation, then the bird hopped forward and pecked at the crumbs with a low churring sound deep in its breast. Small as it was, the finger was a giant in relation to the bird. Slowly, carefully, it curled and tickled along the neck of the creature, stroking gently. Chirping with a temporal satisfaction, it rubbed against the finger, and pecked up the crumbs remaining on it.
For the northern winds that would carry it upon her back. For the sky, an entity as old as time, that cradles it within her. For the clouds, the trees, the rain, the sun. For nature, because it is an unexplainable, indescribable love that all animals have for the world that gives them life.
The songbird pecked away the last of the crumbs, and the finger withdrew. The little creature was quiet for a long moment, busying itself with searching for crumbs on the floor of the birdcage, on its own pale blue breast. Finding none, the doleful tune resumed, the songbird stilling on its perch and facing the snowfall once more.
And it sings of yearning. For that loved world that it's never known, but a world loved and longed for still.
For a long moment, it was as if Kamui were suspended, blade screeching against an invisible barrier mere feet from the boy's face. Then with a discordant clang, lightning sizzled in crackling lines across the surface of the barrier, shooting from the point where Kamui's sword collided with it. With a pained cry, Kamui was thrown backwards. His sword clattered to the grass some distance away as he landed, tumbling until he rolled limply to a halt. He twitched as the last of the lightning tore through his body, and at the other end of the meadow, the little prince doubled over the side of his throne. Blood splattered over the grass.
Ignoring the cries of alarm and the stunned body of his comrade lying in the grass, Kurogane charged for their vulnerable enemy with a battle cry. The robed figure straightened up, pristine. Blue eyes stared at him from beneath yellow-brown lashes for a moment, enveloping him like a mechanical sea. It swallowed him up, and all he could see was that endless blue, blue, blue.
Suddenly, the entire landscape morphed. Beneath him, the ground rose with a terrible groan; a tsunami of grass and earth. He stumbled backwards, gripping tightly to his sword as he fell back, tumbling down into all-encompassing darkness—
He opened his eyes to the sight of utter blackness, and for a moment, thought he was blind. Then he rolled over and saw forbidding walls of intertwined bark and withered black leaves, looming in the dim light. He was surrounded on both sides by the woody vines, and the sky was stifled with heavy darkness above him. Kurogane stood up and placed a palm against the tree bark encasing him inside a tunnel of darkness. Between the gaps of the vines, he thought he could see outside… He leant closer, squinting through the wall.
A figure knelt absently in the middle of the lighted clearing, fair hair lit up in the light like a flame. At his back, the robed child sat, carding through unbound blonde hair with careful fingers. Kurogane's eyes widened.
"Fai!"
A whisper from behind him made Syaoran draw his sword, spinning around to face—
Nothing.
Discomforted, he lowered his blade, but did not sheathe it. After staring into the impenetrable darkness for a moment longer, he turned around and continued to walk. He was in some kind of maze. They had been fighting the magic-user and suddenly he had been falling into some chasm. He had probably been knocked unconscious somewhere along the way, because he had woken up in the darkness, blood caking the back of his head.
He ran his fingers through his matted hair, wincing as they came away sticky. He didn't feel concussed, and although his head hurt, he was thinking clearly. The walls on either side of him was made of intertwined bark. He had tried taking his sword to it, but the wood had refused to give. He'd tried magic, first to burn the vines away. When the wall had refused to catch fire, he'd tried a few other spells. Finally, he attempted to conjure up some magic-fire to light the way, only to find that the flame did nothing to penetrate the darkness around him.
Right now, the flame was still sitting in his palm, but although it glowed brilliantly, he couldn't even see his hand beneath it. When he waved his free hand in front of his face, he saw nothing of the movement. Spreading his senses out, he could sense nothing for miles and miles and—
A flicker.
His eyes snapped open, though it made no difference; the back of his eyelids provided the same view as the landscape around him. A presence like a flame moved in the distance. It was faint, but so very familiar. He leaned forward, frowning as he tried to place that presence. It was…
"Syaoran?!"
A stone seemed to drop into the pit of his stomach.
"Syaoran? Where are you? Where's everyone?"
"Sakura!"
He turned towards Sakura's presence, but found himself confronted with a wall.
"Yuzuriha-chan? Kurogane-san? Yuuko-san?!"
He pounded a fist into the wall, barely wincing when a jagged edge of the bark slashed his knuckles open, and not faltering even when warm liquid began to run down his wrist.
"Sakura? Sakura, can you hear me?"
"Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Moko-chan? Answer me!"
She couldn't hear him. Syaoran swore, and began to try to find his way to her, around the wall.
"Yukito-san, no one is answering! Can you send me to their world?"
"No! Don't come over here!"
He began to run.
Why do people put birds in cages? That's terrible.
Terrible, echoed the whisper down the cold, empty hallways. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. As if the walls themselves were murmuring the word. And as the murmur rebounded down the corridor, it seemed to get louder and louder. The sad, helpless whisper rose into an accusative roar. Terrible, it yelled, you're terrible. Terrible. Terrible! How terrible they were that no one even stepped foot in this wing anymore, knowing that they lived here. The entire wing of the palace was void of life. Except them. Except the pretty little songbird. And in the emptiness the serpents hissed. Terrible! Terrible! Terrible! Like a hoard of satanic devils, hissing and spluttering in his ear. He couldn't hear. He couldn't think. He didn't know what to do.
He was lying on his side, curled up in a bed of withered leaves. He rolled over, sat up, and found himself surrounded by trees.
Yes. He had been knocked out of the clearing and into the forest, hadn't he? He remembered crashing through the leaves of a short sapling, branches tearing at his limbs, and then finally smashing into a trunk and falling unconscious. Even now, his back was sore, from neck all the way to his toes. Groaning, Subaru climbed to his feet, and shot a wary look around him. He couldn't even see the light of the clearing from here, and had he really been thrown back that far? It was like he was on the path walking in all over again, except this time he was off the path, surrounded only by darkness.
He was abruptly aware of the fact that he was completely, utterly alone.
Casting aside any childish fears of the dark (how was it that he felt so old, when he could still remember blushing at his twin's inappropriate comments just days ago?), Subaru started forward, leaves crunching underfoot. Kamui… Kamui was still in the clearing. He was unconscious, vulnerable, defenseless. Was he even alive? Had the electrocution killed him as well? No, no, no. Perhaps he was—
The others will take care of him, Subaru told himself firmly. Just concentrate on getting back there, and stop worrying. He walked a little faster, and promptly collided with a tree trunk. He swore, and tried to make his way around it in the darkness. What a thick tree it was too. It was wider than he was and—
"Subaru…kun?"
The whisper was weak, but he'd never forget that voice.
"Is that you?"
It was the voice of the man that (he loved) had ruined his life. He found himself compelled to follow the girth of the tree with his fingertips, until he felt smooth, cool crystal. Labored breathing issued from the tree, but he could see nothing in the darkness. With a mounting horror, he conjured up a small flame.
And screamed.
Sealed into the tree in front of him, crystal creeping slowly over his body like a spreading glacier, was Seishirou.
A single gold eye squinted at him, pupils contracting in the sudden light. The other eye was still swathed in white bandages, now stained with spots of red. Subaru found himself reaching up to touch that eye. (his fault.) At his touch, Seishirou winced.
"Ah, ah, Subaru-kun," he scolded teasingly, voice weak, "Don't touch. I think it might be infected. Haven't really changed my dressings since I got, heh, all tied up over here."
Subaru wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear from the man, especially after said man had killed his sister, crippled his grandmother, and broken his heart. But one thing was certain…
"How dare you speak to me like nothing has changed?"
He hadn't expected this.
"Oi."
The figure in front of him did not turn, only continued to sprint forward, and Doumeki reached out for a fluttering sleeve, calling out more desperately.
"Watanuki."
Abruptly, there was silk between his fingers, and with a riippp, Watanuki's sleeve tore. Whipping around, Watanuki stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, his now bare forearm clutched protectively to his chest. Finally recognizing him, the wide-eyed stare narrowed into a glare.
"So you do know my name," he grumbled as he stepped forward, "I actually thought otherwise."
Doumeki shrugged.
An inhumane groan issued from behind the wall to his left, and Watanuki started.
"What's that?"
Doumeki said nothing, did nothing, as Watanuki absently stepped closer. A moment of silence. Their breathing was strangely loud in the darkness. Long fingers were clenched in his sleeve, and—
Something very large rammed into the vines, and suddenly he could hear nothing but an earsplitting roar.
Reacting instinctively, he pulled Watanuki away, planting himself between the smaller man and the source of danger. Watanuki's fingers intertwined with his own, and then he was being yanked along.
"Run!"
They ran. His heart pounded loudly in his ears with every jarring impact of his feet to the ground. Behind them, the beast roared again, and with a crash, he heard the wall give way. He heard Watanuki scream, and then he was suddenly aware of a very large something charging right past them. It impacted with another wall, assumably in front of them, and Doumeki's heart stopped right there.
They had almost run into a dead-end.
Gripping Watanuki's fingers tightly in his own, he spun on his heel and yanked his companion along with him. He trailed his free hand against the wall as he ran, to make sure they didn't bang into anything in the pitch blackness. Watanuki's sharp breathing from behind him was frightened, bothering on breathless sobbing. Another roar, and then something crashed into the wall a short distance behind them. Watanuki let out a terrified shriek, just as his fingers disappeared into empty space.
He turned sharply into the side-route, yanking Watanuki along with him. He continued to sprint down the new tunnel in the maze, not daring to even turn around to see if the beast was following them. An enraged roar, and a crash some distance back.
The ground fell to nothingness beneath him.
And then they were falling, falling, tumbling over and over as he wrapped himself around his smaller companion and then— his fingers scrabbled over gnarled vines, missed. He made another desperate grab, and their freefall was brought to an abrupt halt. Watanuki took in a sharp breath.
"Doume—"
The branch snapped, and Watanuki was screaming as they fell once more. With one arm wrapped around the smaller youth, he reached out with the other, and grasped nothing. They crashed through some sparse branches, sharp edges whipping at their arms and legs as they fell; Doumeki tried to keep Watanuki from the brunt of it. Then suddenly…. impact.
Their fall came to a painful stop as they crashed to the hard ground. Doumeki winced as he felt his leg snap beneath him, then grunted as Watanuki landed on top of him.
"Are you okay?" he breathed, trying not to sound winded, and tried to ignore the ache when Watanuki scrambled away from him until he smacked into a nearby wall.
"I'm fine!"
Watanuki stood, brushing himself down almost indignantly. Not that Doumeki could see much in the darkness.
"Stupid Doumeki, holding me like a girl and—hey! Get up! There's already little enough space in this hole without you lying about like a lazy pig!"
Watanuki was right, they were enclosed by tree bark on all sides, and Watanuki was pressed right up against the wall. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he was stunned by the sudden lightning flash of white-hot pain. At his pained hiss, Watanuki quietened.
"Doumeki?"
He did not answer. Watanuki crept slight closer.
"Are you okay?"
He felt cool fingertips brush over his thigh, sweeping down until…
"Oh god."
He said nothing as he felt Watanuki begin to gently probe his broken leg.
"Your leg is broken."
Watanuki sometimes still surprised him with his tendency for redundancy.
"I know."
A sharp intake of breath, and then Watanuki's other hand was tightening in his collar.
"I know?" he hissed, "Is that all you have to say? Your leg is broken and all you have to say is I know?!"
He froze as he heard a wet sniff.
"You're always getting hurt because of me!" Watanuki accused thickly, "Have you ever asked me what I felt about that?!"
"Watanuki," he said, reaching out blindly for his friend, only to have his hand slapped away.
"Are you in love with me?"
He froze.
"Answer me!"
Unrequited. He'll never love you back.
"….yes."
But he couldn't lie.
There was a quiet gasp, and then there were lips pressing feverishly against his own, hands running desperately over his shoulders. A quiet moan, and then he clenched his fingers into Watanuki's clothing and kissed him back. It was messy, desperate. Watanuki yanked on his hair, and then the distinctive rustle of clothing being removed filled the tiny space. Doumeki did not protest, only opened his mouth when he felt the wet sweep of tongue over his lips, but Watanuki pulled away with a shuddering breath.
"Do you want me?" he whispered.
"Yes," Doumeki answered without hesitation, and Watanuki dove back in for another kiss. He pulled away shortly, and began to mouth at his collarbone.
"How much?" he murmured.
So much I could die, Doumeki thought, but didn't say out loud. He felt Watanuki's lips spread into a smile against his neck.
"Really?" Watanuki whispered, and Doumeki frowned in confusion; he hadn't said anything, "That's too bad then."
"Wata—"
"Because I'm not Watanuki Kimihiro."
Snow fell. In the foreground of the fluttering white flakes, a little blue songbird chirped quietly, and fluttered around its boundaries once before settling down on its perch again.
To yearn for something means that you haven't completely given up yet. To yearn is to hope.
But what is there to hope for, in a situation so hopeless?
Hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless. This is hopeless, hissed the palace walls, you are hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless. Desolation set in. Was there any hope? Any at all? Any that a songbird could escape its cage? Or would it be trapped here, in this empty wing of this cold, unforgiving castle, forever? The bars of the cage were so strong, and the bird so small and so frail. How could it escape? It was hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless!
Unless…
Unless a greater something reached in and took it away. Away from the gilded bars and the great, unkind castle. Away from the sneering nobles and the unsympathetic king. Away. Away from it all. To a true elsewhere. An elsewhere where it could be safe and treasured. Where it no longer had to sing of yearning.
But no one would come. No one would come to take the little songbird away. And here it would stay, singing its sad song to an empty castle until the day it died. Alone. Hated. Demonized.
There is nothing to hope for, in a situation this hopeless.
Suddenly, wet tendrils snaked around his neck and tightened. As he choked, Watanuki grinned at him with a madman's grin that grew wider and wider until his mouth tore open in a grotesque parody of a smile. Doumeki clawed at the tendrils around his neck, too breathless to even scream. In front of his very eyes, Watanuki's face began to dissolve into the same black tar as a distorted voice issued from those blackened lips.
"What's wrong?"
He felt the rest of Watanuki's body dissolving against him, crawling wetly over him and enveloping him in a smothering embrace. Those gaping black lips kissed him again, and they tasted like death and decay. He jerked back as monstrous laughter filled the darkness.
"Are you scared of me?" the not-Watanuki asked, sounding amused, "I thought you loved me?"
His vision started to go black at the corners, a vignette to the mangled portrait of Watanuki's dissolving face. Those gaping lips opened in a floppy grin, revealing white, even teeth that began to dissolve into slime as well. Black lashes slowly fell off, and pale eyelids shrunk back to reveal the eyeball. With a sickening pop, a single blue eye slipped from the mess of slime and rolled over the floor until it came to rest, its blue iris staring accusingly at him. He felt his eyes slipping closed, brain shutting down as he gasped weakly for air.
"Die for me."
A distant bell sounded.
A flash of crimson lightning lit the inside of his lids. The not-Watanuki shrieked, and suddenly the tendrils slipped away from his neck. A long inhumane moan faded into silence.
Doumeki opened his eyes, and he saw a blood-red butterfly, fluttering above him.
The bell sounded again.
Wake up.
And the world around him ripped apart.
Freedom.
The word eliminated the whispers that echoed down the corridor.
It sings of freedom, and hope, and dreams. There might be a day when the doors get rusty, or the bars erode. There might even be a day that someone comes to unlock the door, and take it away. Out of the cage. Out of here. It sings in waiting for that day. It sings for the day it can rise from the ashes of this cruel world of fire and brimstone, and truly soar. Victorious. Magnificent. Free.
The caged bird sings of freedom.
"Fai!"
There was an almighty groan as the darkness—no, as the illusion began to fall apart. Through the dissolving apparition, Doumeki caught sight of a flash of red once more. His eyes flicked instinctively to it, and for a split-second, he thought he caught a glimpse of the red hairpin that Yuuko had been wearing in her hair…
"Fai!"
And then it shot straight through a clear dome that shattered apart with the impact, shot forward, forward, and struck Fai in the middle of his forehead. It splattered across the blonde's face. Blood. His eyes snapped open, and he began to scream. Doumeki stood. The magic user whipped around, reaching out as if to comfort the shrieking man.
Around him, his comrades were groaning, lying on the ground as if they were waking from a bad dream. A nightmare of magical makings. He ignored them as he found his gaze caught by the white glint of a blade. Kurogane launched himself forward with a formidable battle cry and the little prince struck out at him. An ice-shard tore past the warrior's side, but the magic-user folded to the floor. Magical overload, Doumeki realized, he's using too much magic.
Cracks ran through the world in front of him, and then the last of the illusion shattered.
"Get this farce over with!"
The back of that tousled blonde hair, against the black of the eternal-winter-eternal-night outside, was like a pale winter sun. A winter sun that spoke of a potential for magnificence. In the summer, it would rise into the sky, uninhibited by the cold, unforgiving winter. And silhouetted in the dull light of that window, the boy seemed so much older and wiser than his age of six should have allowed. He seemed all-seeing, all-knowing, all-accepting. He seemed perfect.
Won't you sing, little songbird?
The songbird trilled clearly.
Sing until summer. Sing until the days are warm and the winters thawed. Sing until the snow is gone and spring comes again. Sing until the day you can fly from the ashes of this terrible, terrible world, and be free.
"Fai!"
A small, pale finger inched through the bars once more. The songbird chittered happily as a soft fingertip stroked it gently.
Yuui, called the boy softly, Let's free it when summer comes. Mother is long gone, and she no longer has need of Serina's tunes.
Under his gentle fingers, the songbird sang a single quiet, hopeful note.
Sad blue eyes flicked towards him, staring at him secretively from under pale lashes. Plump lips stretched in an almost apologetic smile, and in that moment, that serene doll's face broke. Blue eyes seemed to swallow him up in a sea of regret and broken acceptance and a desperate, desperate wish for another's salvation. A blinking of pale lids, and the thread was broken. The little prince turned back to the chirping songbird.
Serina, Serina, he crooned, If I find freedom first, won't you promise me that you'll keep singing until you find it too?
A bell.
Sing, little songbird.
A bell.
One day you will rise from the ashes, and be free.
"Fai!"
A bolt of crimson lightning tore through the corridor as the little prince turned back around, eyes closing in a serene smile.
Yuui, he said, no matter what you do, I'll always lo—
His brother's face distorted, a grotesque protrusion pushing from its centre for a second before a red dagger ripped through like a dart through rice paper. Cold blood splattered across his face and as he parted his lips and screamed, a voice rang out in his mind.
Wake up.
A stretch of meadow extended past a shimmering, giggling, trickling brook, up a sloping bank into the forest that obscured all but the very tips of a great, white castle. Under his fingers; a throne of knotted, twined bark, and ahead of him, ahead of him.
A preadolescent little figure turned towards him with wide blue eyes, in those familiar white robes he'd seen in his dreams. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. Pale, pale skin that glowed unnaturally like an orb that was slathered in light to look like the moon. A face painted onto a fake.
A world cracking around him, crevices running over a canvas of blue skies and green grass and daisies. The impostor crumbled.
A little window projected into the air, a frazzled brunette appeared over the shoulder of a ebony-haired witch, sleepwear askew and , leaping up into the air, sword whistling overhead as he glared down with vindictive red eyes . A frozen moment. The child-figure gazing up at the man with shocked blue eyes, and the descending warrior like a god of justice bringing punishment down on a wicked wizard.
"Get this farce over with!"
A child's scream that distorted into a monstrous sky shattered, like glass, like shimmering shards of mirrors that flew apart to reveal the unadorned backing of its frame; a part of it never meant by its maker to be seen by others. The grotesque roar faded to a man's howl, cutting off into wounded whimpering.
The blonde rose slowly, advancing menacingly from his gnarled throne.
At his feet lay the crumpled figure. A horribly disfigured eyelid closed as the beast whipped its face away, dirty yellow-brown hair flying in a tangled and matted mess. It was shabbily dressed in grey rags that were so torn they barely clung to his scarred shoulders. Not robes of the color of untouched snow. Not hair like the winter sun. Not pale skin like moonlight, but skin dark and marred. And defeated, fallen, without its dazzling veneer of purity, the creature lay in the cracked, grey dirt, covering its face with dirty hands and sobbing. Through the blackened fingers, he could see the terrible, terrible scars; the memory of a raging fire.
"Don't look," it cried, "Don't look at me."
The world around him, liberated from all illusions, was dark and grey. The trees were black and bare, the sky was stifled with a heavy blanket of darkness through which not even the stars could shine. The brook had long since dried up into cracked, brown earth, and the grayish, dead ground was devoid of grass. The grand throne of oak was a mangled black trunk like a withered old crone. But most horrible of all were the cracks; like bolts of lightning ripping through space itself, like torn seams through the ground and the sky and even the empty spaces; pulsing and quivering and groaning like a god collapsing under a great weight. Breaking. Tearing. And the beast responsible lay cowering on the ground in front of him.
In the background, Kazahaya continued to scream as he lifted the monster by its bony throat. Kurogane collapsed to his knees, clutching to his bloodied side. The creature scrabbled at the fingers around its throat, choking it, killing it slowly by inches. The emotions hit him hard, all at once, and he almost doubled over from the sheer force of it.
Dashed hopes and shattered dreams and anger and grief. Grief for his perfect brother like the winter sun, who had never been allowed to reach his true magnificence; for his mother, who they had loved though she hated them so; for Serina, the pretty, sad little songbird who they had never freed, who had probably died alone in that empty wing. And then came an irrational hatred, an irrational grievance; they hadn't even been allowed to see summer one last time before being condemned to the tower.
Through blurred vision his fingers tightened, and the pathetic thing in his grasp whimpered.
And it was all because of wickedness like this thing, he thought terrible, terrible monster who had tricked him, who had hurt his lover, who had caused these terrible cracks in the sky, who had broken the world, who had not a care for the destruction of the dimension. Who had impersonated Fai. This wicked, wicked thing.
Coldness seeped through his free hand into a blade of deadly ice, as glowing runes swirled around his wrist. Kazahaya screamed.
And wickedness must be punished.
That grotesquely marred eyelid slid closed, head lolling to the side in resignation as he raised the icy dagger.
"Yuui…"
A bell.
Fai blinked.
A bell.
"Stop! Stop!" Kazahaya screamed, "Don't kill him! He's—"
"Yuui…" murmured the creatu—no, the man in his hold, the single eye unobscured by dirty locks sliding open again to look at him with a strange, desperate love, "Yuui, I…."
The eye was blue.
Fai's fingers loosened, and the person collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, gasping as he curled up in the dirt, filthy hair strewn over the ground and over its face like a shroud. Hair that gleamed a pale wheat under the grime and muck.
A sob issued from the cowering figure.
"Yuui, I lo—"
Fai dropped to his knees and brushed those dirty blonde locks away. He only caught sight of a mangled cheek before that single blue eye shut tightly closed, and the man turned his face away, defensively curling up in a tight ball.
"Look at me," he pleaded, "Let me see."
"Don't…"
He gently cradled that face in his palms.
"Let me—"
The skin was wrinkled under one palm, but smooth under the other. Brushing blonde locks aside, he tilted a scarred chin up.
"—see you."
"No!"
It was Fai.
A/N: Erm... Surprise, surprise! Hehe, hehe, heh? Yeah, sorry about that long long hiatus there. As you people know (or do you? hmm) I had my end of year exams. And then strangely enough, you'd think that after the end of years, I'd have a moment of rest but nooo. Then I had my literature final graded oral assessment, then I had my math final graded assignment, then I had my economics graded assignment. And then... well yeah. You get the idea. After a whole year of endless deadlines (curse you, IB!) you'd think I'd be used to deadlines every week— and trust me, I am, I get nervous when I find myself in the midst of the rare week without any deadlines— but this time was somehow really too much! The end of year examinations kinda killed me, and then I always kinda fall ill after a period of extreme stress. Then while I was sick I was like OH NO I STILL HAVE OTHER DEADLINES. And really, my school has really bad planning. It was like this. (Math is the toughest paper in my subject combination because I take HL, not SL.)
MATH THE LAST PAPER. OKAY ITS DONE. CRASH. Three days of no school. First day back: LITERATURE ORAL PRESENTATION. (So during the three days I had to prepare for it.) And then, omg, time to fall ill and properly crash— NO WAIT. MATH ASSIGNMENT. Cue ten days of hell, the last two days in which I didn't sleep. The morning it was due, I kinda left the house at 5.30am (because I finished my task then) went to school, handed it up, and then went home and slept for the first time in two days. Okay... its time for me to fall sick and crash and— NO WAIT. ECONOMICS ASSIGNMENT. Now I have to wake up and do it although I'd dearly love to catch up on two days worth of sleep. And why again did I choose HL Math instead of SL math? SMITE ME FOR MY FOOLISHNESS. And why did I choose to do HL Economics instead of like Chinese or something? (Though economics is admittedly not that bad.) SOMEONE KILL ME NOW!
Yeah... You get the idea.
In the gaps between, I kinda got sucked into the SPN fandom because... DEAN WINCHESTER, THE HOTTEST THING SINCE FAI D FLOURITE. But seriously. Fai is hotter. Because his ponytail seriously rocks. *Clears throat* Okay. Erm. Yeah. Then after climbing out from the dark angst-hole that is the SPN fandom, I tumbled headlong into the even angstier X fandom. Seisub! I mean, I've read X and TB before, but this is the first time I've REALLY gone crazy over fic and AMVs and just reading and reading and omg, I even read the chinese translation of Leareth's In my Line of Work during my chinese deadline to convince myself I was doing work. And then I did AMVs instead of writing (my youtube name is now kichopo, and don't expect to find anything good because I'm a jack of all trades that is also a master of none.) Leareth is like. Come here and marry me. Breathe made me breathless, and In my Line of Work made me squee, and then there was so many other works. Insaneidiot is awesome. Her crack is awesome. Gosh, I love writers. It's too bad I really only read a few of the X writers for Seisub. Because... seriously, Seishirou is hard to write. Everyone tends to slip into OOC! Seishirou. Because... because a Seishirou with feelings is a OOC Seishirou! HE'S A GODDAMNED PSYCHOPATH FOR GOODNESS SAKE.
Err... Anyway, I'm sorry if the chapter sounds frazzled and disorganized. Because I was kinda frazzled and disorganized when I wrote it and... now that the final climax is kinda like out of the way, I foresee only two to three chapters more before From the Ashes officially ends. Yeah. And. Yeah. The prince who is the magic user is kinda like, insane R!Fai of this world. And I'll have to explain how that happened in the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed.
(And since I'm still ensconced in my Seisub obsession phase, here's a snippet of Seisub. Though the "unrequited" Douwata love kinda took unexpected dominance for a bit.)
Please review!