Chapter Fifty
Fai had lied to her.
Sakura stared at the wall, bedsheets draped over her body. Every muscle ached from her hours of wandering, her escape from Shougo and his friends, her days spent practicing her hoverboarding. Her heart ached most of all, from far too many things to count. Today, she'd lost the last precious shards of innocence and trust she'd clung to after leaving Clow with Syaoran, and with that lost had come a strange sense of clarity. She knew Fai was lying to her, knew it because she had sensed the ripple of magic around him when she'd told him of her dream, because he had insisted that the mad king who had tortured her in that nightmare was different from the king who shared his name, the king Fai had claimed to admire. She knew Fai was lying because the same things that had broken in her today were somehow broken in him, too.
What if he and Ashura are working together? she wondered, heartsick for even considering it. What if this is all some plot to assassinate me, or capture the rest of us? Would Fai really be able to lie to all of us for so long without anyone noticing? It occurred to her that her other companions had noticed and elected not to say anything. Or perhaps they'd thought they had no way to prove their suspicions, just as she had no definitive proof of her own. Kurogane must have noticed, she thought, closing her eyes for a moment. He acts so coldly to Fai. He must know something isn't right.
Thinking that one of the few people she'd believed she could trust could be lying to her was unsettling, but she had learned some hard things about trust from her experience with Shougo. She'd believed he'd had good intentions when he'd expressed an interest in teaching her hoverboarding. And then he'd had one of his friends drug her so she could be confined to a small room until the end of the tournament. It wasn't so hard to believe, then, that Fai had only pretended to be on her side. Not hard to believe. Just terrifying.
Beyond her bedroom door, she heard Fai announce that he was going to bed. Her body stiffened, a sob catching in her throat before she forced it back. She felt so tired, but she couldn't sleep, couldn't even close her eyes without having all of today's nightmares dance on the backs of her eyelids.
She waited. Fai's door opened, then closed. Minutes passed. Ten, fifteen, twenty. Would Fai be asleep yet, or would he be tossing in his bed, wondering if his lies had been good enough to convince her? Did someone who lied so often lose sleep over their deceptions?
Half an hour passed, and all the while, she listened for signs that Fai might still be awake, but also listening for signs that Kurogane was about to go to sleep. She wanted to speak with him, which she guessed would go over better if she didn't have to wake him up to do it.
When she was reasonably certain that Fai wouldn't be getting up and moving around, she slid out of bed and tiptoed over to her door, wincing as every step put pressure on her bandaged feet. She pressed the button by her door to open it, flinching at the mechanical whir it made as it receded into the wall. She left it open, not wanting to risk another noise, and headed to the living room.
Kurogane looked up as she entered, setting down the thin book he'd been paging through so that it laid with its spine facing up, pages open to where he'd left off. Sakura paused at the mouth of the hallway, then grabbed a slip of paper—a receipt, she thought—and slid it neatly into the book. "Syaoran-kun would have a fit if he saw you leave a book like that," she said quietly, riffling through the pages. It appeared to be some sort of graphic novel. "I didn't know you could read this world's language."
Kurogane shrugged. "The pictures tell the story just fine. The words aren't important." He paused, regarding her. He wore the flashy, synthetic suit that had come with their hoverboard—protective gear, according to the label Syaoran had read for them—but he had his home-world's helmet in his lap, a hard black shell that would protect him from all but the most powerful blows. "You all right?" he asked.
No. "I wanted to talk to you about something."
He nodded, shifting over so she could sit down. She took a seat next to him, staring at the table in front of them. Could she trust Kurogane? He seemed too abrasive, too easily annoyed by propriety and social conventions to make a good manipulator. Was that deliberate? Were he and Fai working together somehow, pretending to fight like vipers while secretly scheming against her? That seemed unlikely. That, or Kurogane was a far better actor than she'd given him credit for. You have to talk to someone, she told herself. Syaoran would be safer to talk to, but he's still missing so many of his memories. You can't add another worry on top of what he's already dealing with.
Kurogane sighed. "If you've got something to say, then say it."
"I think Fai-san has been lying to us."
If her chosen topic surprised the ninja, he gave no sign. "Okay. Why?"
"It's just . . . I have dreams," she said quickly. "Not regular dreams, but . . . I see other places, other worlds. Sometimes I see inside other people's dreams. I saw into one of your dreams once." She saw him stiffen, then looked away. "Nothing . . . nothing too important, I don't think. You were fighting demons with . . . with another version of that woman at the bakery," she realized.
"Souma," Kurogane said flatly. "Her name is Souma. And you're a yumemi. A dreamseer."
She nodded. "I met Tomoyo. She told me a little about what I could do, but we didn't have much time together before she had to wake up. I think she was checking up on you, watching your dreams."
"She always was nosy," Kurogane grumbled. "What's that got to do with the mage?"
"Earlier today, before I woke up in the bakery, I met another dreamseer. King Ashura." She watched his face carefully for any signs of recognition, but his red eyes didn't so much as flicker. "He . . . He did horrible things. He killed people, burned villages, or . . . or maybe he just let those things happen. I don't know. But he seemed . . . broken somehow. In the mind."
"Yeah?"
"He had control over the dream. I don't know how; he must be more powerful than I am, or more skilled. He wanted to show me how dangerous it was to walk through dreams without knowing how, and he . . ." She pressed her lips together, heat flooding her eyes. Her next breath trembled. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "That part doesn't matter."
"He hurt you." Anger hummed beneath the words.
Her breath caught. After a long moment, she nodded. "I couldn't get out," she whispered. "I tried—Tomoyo told me that all I had to do to escape a bad dream was to ask to be let out, but it didn't work, and I . . . After, when Fai-san was bandaging the cuts on my foot, he said something."
Something flickered in Kurogane's eyes. "What did he say?"
"He was quoting his . . . adoptive father—that was how he referred to him. The king of his country." She paused, organizing her thoughts. "He was talking about him a little, and then he said a name—Ashura. King Ashura. The person in my dream. And I . . . I told him about what I'd seen, but he said that the Ashura I met had to be a different King Ashura. But that doesn't make sense. Not when all the alternate versions of people we've met through these worlds come from different walks of life. The Souma I met in the bakery after I woke up was different from the Souma you knew, and we've met an alternate version of my brother, and he wasn't royalty in that world. I know there may be many versions of this Ashura, but how many of them could be kings? And what are the odds . . ." She trailed off, wiping her eyes. "What are the odds that the king I met and the one Fai knows are two different people? It just doesn't make sense."
A pregnant silence hung in the air between them. Kurogane leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and glaring at the table. After a long moment, he closed his eyes. "That idiot has too many goddamn secrets," he said at last.
"I don't know what to do," she whispered. "I don't know why Fai-san would lie about something like this, unless maybe he doesn't know. And what if he really doesn't? I'm sitting here, thinking he must be lying, but what if he really doesn't know that his king is a monster?"
"The idiot's too smart to miss something like that. He'd know something was up." Kurogane opened his eyes and looked at her. "I don't have any answers for you. I don't know whether that king is the person he's been running from, or if he's acting on some sort of twisted sense of loyalty. Tomoyo would be the person to ask, if you see her again. She knows a lot of other yumemi."
Sakura looked down, nodding absently. Even if Kurogane had no answers, just being able to talk to him about her own worries had reassured her.
"None of what you just said explains where you were before you passed out," Kurogane said. She waited for him to say more, to accuse her of getting herself into danger, to demand to know what she'd done and where she'd been. Instead, he waited, still and silent, and as the minutes passed, her resolve crumbled.
She told him everything. About how she'd disguised herself so they wouldn't notice her when she returned to the hoverpark to ask for Shougo's help. How she'd only realized she'd been drugged moments before she'd passed out on the sidewalk. How she'd woken up to find herself in a cramped room, trapped and alone and so desperate that she'd actually convinced herself that Shougo had come to save her when he'd arrived outside her door.
Then the harder things. How she'd gotten out of her cell. How she'd removed her shoes so that her footsteps would be quiet in the tiled hallway. How Shougo and his friends had found her anyway. How she had escaped by flinging Shougo's own knife back toward his face. She cried at that part, the silent weeping of someone too shell-shocked to sob.
"It was horrible," she said at last, her voice wavering. "I don't even know if he's still alive or not." She bowed her head, waiting for Kurogane to declare her a monster.
"You were very brave," he said instead.
"I . . . No, I . . ."
"I know it doesn't feel that way. The first time you take a life . . . Well, the first time I took one was intentional, and I figure that makes it easier, but it's still hard. Not knowing is worse. But your life was in danger and you had every right to protect it. Remember that."
"It was hard for you? The first time you . . . killed?"
"It gets easier" was all he said.
I hope it does, she thought, wiping her eyes. I really hope it does.
