A/N: Waaaaah! I didn't update yesterday! I'm a failure at life! GOMEN NASAI!

Ok, I know this is a totally lame excuse but I just didn't have any time to write yesterday. Yeah, I'm a loser.

Chapter 5

Seeing Double

"Ah! Kurowan—"

"Quiet."

"But Kurowan has—"

"You better shut your damn mouth, wizard!"

"Kurowan has grown a tail!" Fai chirped, clapping his hands joyfully.

"YOU STUPID ASS! I TOLD YOU TO KEEP YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT!" Kurogane roared, swinging a fist at the magician's face. Fai bent backwards to avoid the punch and grabbed the ninja's tail.

"Just look how cute and fluffy it is!" he sang, holding the sleek, furry tail to his cheek and rubbing his face up against it.

"LET GO OF MY DAMN TAIL, BASTARD!" the warrior shouted.

He jerked his tail out of the wizard's hand and dropped it. The tail swished angrily near the ninja's knees in exactly the same way that an annoyed cat's would. Kurogane muttered bitterly to himself; why wasn't Fai or Sakura growing any stupid body parts? Suddenly a mental image of Fai with a frog's tongue drifted across the ninja's mind. He could just see that son of a bitch magician using his new accessory to his advantage and shooting his tongue out to lick Kurogane's ear or neck when he wasn't paying attention. This thought angered him even further and he took his rage out on a low-hanging tree limb.

"I think Fai san is right, Kurogane san," Sakura said. "Your tail is very cute."

The ninja stopped abruptly and turned to face her, a vein throbbing in his forehead.

"Er…umm… I mean…ha ha…" Sakura laughed nervously, "just—just kidding!"

Kurogane huffed and turned back around as he continued to lead the way. He looked down just in time to avoid walking into a low, rusty metal fence.

"Hmm? What did you find, Kuromyu?" Fai asked, peeking around the ninja's shoulder. "Hey, it's a gate! Hyuuuu! Kuronya found a gate! Way to go Kuronya! You deserve a cookie!"

The wizard produced a cookie seemingly out of thin air and held it out to the warrior with an infuriating smile on his face. Kurogane's eye twitched.

"Get that sweet shit away from me," he growled.

"Look, the clock tower is just beyond those trees," Syaoran observed, pointing to the clock's glowing face through the branches.

Kurogane opened the gate and led the way through. As soon as all of them were inside, the gate slammed shut of its own accord, startling everyone.

"Hee hee! Kuropun was so startled that he got a bristle tail!" Fai giggled.

Indeed, Kurogane's cat tail had stiffened and puffed up at the sudden noise. Noticing this, the ninja's face took on a red flush.

"SHUT UP, DUMB ASS!" he snarled once more, again swinging his fist at the wizard.

"Ah! Look up there!" Sakura interrupted suddenly, pointing up at the clock.

Everyone turned their attention to the thing that the princess was pointing at. Standing up on the hour hand of the clock was a dark figure. The illumination from the clock's face shed enough light on him so that they could kind of make out his appearance. Oddly enough, the stranger bore a striking resemblance to…

"Hey look! It's Kuro chan!" Fai gasped excitedly, pointing up at the figure. Then he waved energetically. "Hi, Kuro chan!"

The alleged Kurogane double struck a rather girly pose as he waved merrily back at them. The Tsubasa group's Kurogane snorted derisively.

"I don't care if he's from a different world," the ninja said, "there's no way in hell I would ever do that. Not in my world and not in this one."

"Oh Kuropu, don't be such a killjoy," Fai beamed, smacking the ninja on the back. "Maybe this Kuropu just knows how to have fun!"

"Maybe this Kurogane is about to decapitate a certain dumb-ass magici--," the warrior began but was cut off by Fai shoving the cookie in his mouth. Kurogane choked and swallowed it with difficulty. "YOU DUMB ASS BASTARD! YOU NEARLY FREAKING KILLED ME! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM!"

The ninja whipped out his sword and swung it at Fai, who ran away, waving his arms in the air and squealing with glee.

"He really does look like you, though, Kurogane san," Syaoran agreed.

"Hmph," Kurogane said. Deciding to give up his chase on the wizard, he put his blade away. "Well, are we gonna go on in or are we just gonna stand outside and decide whether that's me up there?"

The four travelers moved towards the clock tower somewhat warily. If that Kurogane up there was anything like the one they knew, it wouldn't be out of character for him to jump down on them for a surprise attack. Syaoran kept his eyes nervously on the dark figure but he didn't seem to be thinking along these lines; he just sat down on the edge of the hour hand, dangling and swinging his legs off the side as he watched them enter.

The inner sanctum of the clock tower was dark and nearly empty with only a torch in each corner to light their surroundings. In the center of the room was a panel with two switches on it. Fai approached it curiously and leaned down to examine the switches.

"It doesn't say what they do," he commented. "Oh well, I guess we'll just have to try them both!"

"No! Wait!" the ninja shouted, but the wizard ignored him and flicked a switch. There was a loud electrical buzz and then…silence.

"Nothing happened?" Sakura asked.

"But what was that noise, then?" Syaoran wondered aloud.

"Hmm, well that switch was no fun!" Fai pouted. "Let's try the other one."

The wizard flicked the other switch.

"YOU DUMB ASS!" Kurogane snapped. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THOSE FREAKING SWITCHES!"

There was a loud grinding sound and one of the walls slid off to the side, revealing a hidden niche with some stairs that lead up. The four travelers looked uncertainly at each other.

"Should we try the stairs?" Sakura whispered.

Syaoran paused before nodding his head once and leading the way upwards.

The room they found themselves in next was one of the oddest that any of them had every seen; the stone floor ended abruptly, changing into a metal grate. The walls were tiled with yellow flagstones, a curious-looking trail of pink tiles snaking its way across the room on only one of the walls. There was a black rubber mat on the ground where the stone floor met the steel grating.

"What a weird ass room," Kurogane remarked as he looked around. "What's a place like this doing in a clock tower?"

"I don't know…" Fai said thoughtfully, frowning at Syaoran. Though the wizard hadn't voiced his thoughts, the boy knew what was on his mind: "were these strange obstacles supposed to be part of the illusion or had it been tampered with?". Who on earth would want an illusionary world that was littered with danger?

Syaoran stepped forward cautiously onto the black rubber mat. As soon as he put his weight on it, there was another loud grating sound and a stone door dropped quickly from the ceiling and blocked their way back.

"Ah ha ha… well, that can't be good," Fai laughed nervously.

Syaoran turned back around to face the metal grating that lay before him. The only way out of the room was to go across the strange flooring to the door on the other side of the room. Something about the metal floor seemed sinister though, and it made Syaoran nervous. Swallowing hard, focusing his mind on the task at hand, the boy took a tentative step forward. As soon as his foot touched the metal, there was a flash of light and a crackling sound and Syaoran was thrown back against the stone wall.

"SYAORAN KUN!" Sakura gasped, dashing to his side. "Are you alright!"

"I…I think so…" he replied slowly, blinking stars out of his eyes and rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the wall.

"So what happened there?" Kurogane asked no one in particular.

"It looked like Syaoran kun got shocked when he touched the metal part…" Fai mused. "The floor must be electrified."

Kurogane's eyes widened as a sudden burst of understanding came to him; Fai had turned on the electricity for the floor of this room when they had been downstairs. Now that they were trapped in this room their only choice was to deal with the repercussions of the wizard's actions and cross the electrocuted floor to the other side of the room.

"DAMN YOU, MAGICIAN! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TURNED ON THE ELECTRICTY TO THIS PLACE!"

Fai laughed nervously again and rubbed the back of his blond head. "Heh heh…oops."

Kurogane sighed, clenching his fist in frustration. "The only thing we can do now is get to the other side."

"Sakura chan!" Syaoran cut in suddenly. The princess's energy had just completely run out and she had collapsed into the boy's arms.

"Great. Of course. Perfect timing," the ninja muttered sarcastically. "It's not her lost feathers that are doing this to her; that girl's a freaking narcoleptic!"

Kurogane sighed resignedly and picked up the sleeping princess, draping her across his broad shoulders so that he could carry her across.

"Hyuuuu! Kurotan is so manly!" Fai cheered.

"You're gonna die real soon, bastard," the ninja vowed under his breath.

"There must be a way to get to the other side…" Syaoran said. "But how?"

Fai and Kurogane both studied their surroundings carefully, looking for inspiration.

"Can we use that rubber mat to cross on?" the wizard suggested after a moment.

Syaoran bent down and tried to move it but it seemed to be stuck to the floor.

"It's stuck," he reported.

The ninja remained thoughtfully silent as he scraped his brain for a brilliant plan. Then his eyes fell on the pink-patterned wall and he frowned.

"Do you think it has something to do with that strange wall there?" Kurogane asked.

"I bet it does!" Fai gasped excitedly. "Hyuuuu! My Kurobun is so smart!"

"That must be a map of the track we have to follow to get to the other side of the room," he said, ignoring the wizard.

The warrior cautiously approached the metal floor, took a deep breath and stepped onto the square of him which corresponded to one of the squares of the flagstone wall. Just as Kurogane had guessed, nothing happened to him when he touched the grate.

"I wanna try it!" Fai called.

The mage backed up against the wall and took a running jump at the square. He landed on the edge of the safe square, nearly falling off. Luckily Kurogane was able to grab his hand in time to help him keep his balance.

Ah, you saved me, Kuropon," Fai grinned apologetically.

Kurogane blushed slightly and turned his attention to Syaoran who was getting ready to make a jump for the safe spot where his three traveling companions were waiting. He ran, he jumped, he landed perfectly in the center of the square.

"Show off," grumbled the ninja.

A/N: I was short on writing time again today but I didn't wanna let y'all down and not update at all so here's a bit more for you. There I go with that lame-ass excuse again. Someone should twist my ear off and bury it in the yard.