Quickly, Oh So Quickly

Dane Soar

This is the sister fic to 'Slowly, Oh So Slowly' though you don't have to read that to get this I suppose, but it would help. This is both an older piece of work and a tad over dramatic, just like the other story.

Newly edited and reformatted some.

"Regular"-- Talking

Italics-- Flashback

(Kurogane's POV)

"…S…sorry t…to fail on…. on you all…" Fai whispered. And just like that, he was dead. No longer would he annoy the hell out of me, or smile like a fool.

I wasn't sure what I felt about it. I had seen many an ally die on the battlefield, but not one of them had ever made it up to friend status. Maybe they just hadn't lasted long enough.

I didn't feel anything when they died, but for some reason, I cared about the mage's death. It struck a cord in me that I never had even known existed. Was this strangely empty feeling what grief felt like?

"You alright?" Syaoran asked Fai as he staggered slightly.

The magician smiled, but it looked forced as he used a tree's trunk to steady himself and Kurogane could see that he was hiding a wound with his coat. "I'm quite alright," he said, a bit too quickly.

"Well," He didn't care if the mage was stupid enough to get hurt, it wasn't his problem. So he turned to the forest to leave, "I saw at least three head this way, I'm off to mop up the survivors. Come on."

"So the villagers can live in peace!" The Princess chimed in, in that happy but completely missing the point of what they were doing. When you were paid for your work it somewhat negated the heroism.

"You know," they turned to look at Fai. "I think I'll wait back where we left our gear in that barn. I'm feeling a little tired." He looked pale. Probably a stab wound, maybe a few broken ribs, nothing fatal, Kurogane paid it no mind.

"I'll go with you," offered Syaoran to the mage as he started to walk away.

"No, no," he called over his shoulder. "you keep going, I'll be fine." As he started back Kurogane noted the limping and the mage's effort to hide it.

But he left anyway, he didn't care. It wasn't his problem.

And now the mage was dead.

I didn't get it; it wouldn't fit together in my mind. The wound shouldn't have been fatal if he had bandaged it. He didn't have to die.

"What should do you think we should do?" The kid was looking me right in the eye, waiting for me to say something, to take charge.

I shook my head.

The princess was standing with her hands over her mouth, frozen until Syaoran-kun went over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"Why is he still smiling?" She whispered, tear streaming silently down her cheeks. We looked at her in surprise. "If he's dead, why is Fai-san smiling like he's happy?"

"Maybe he is." I said. "This would be how he would want it."

Farther into the forest, they had come on the rest of the demons.

It was over in a few fast and bloody moments.

Cleaning his sword off, Kurogane sheathed it and inspected what they had done. Corpses strewn in various poses, splashing the trees with blood.

"Did we get them all?" asked Syaoran-kun looking around.

"I think so." He said with a sigh.

The princess's eyes fell into a half-mast. "We need to go back." her voice was soft and it seemed as if she was seeing somewhere else. "We need to go back right now, before it's to late."

The men stared at her. Little did they know she had some hint of what was to come.

"Why would he want this?" asked the princess. "Fai was always so happy. I know he wouldn't want to die."

She was wrong, just because the magician was smiling all the time didn't mean he was happy.

I stood and tried to wipe the blood off my hands. This wasn't the first time I had blood on them, but I couldn't seem to get it off this time. "We should bury him."

Both the princess and the kid looked at me surprised at my sudden declaration. "What?"

"We should bury him now, in a few days he'll start to rot."

The princess clapped a hand over her mouth, going very pale.

"There was no need for that." Syaoran-kun snapped, moving to comfort her. "If you don't care about what happened to Fai-san, you can at least pretend to honor his memory." His voice was bitter.

I realized, to my great surprise, that I did care. I cared that that damn mage was dead, curse it. I was a veteran of a hundred battles, why should this one death matter to me more than all those others?

But it did, and I wasn't at all sure why.

Turning away, I looked at the wall for a long time, trying to sort out my thoughts. "You would think I wouldn't," I said. "you would think…" But I didn't really know how to end the sentence.

"You miss Fai-san, don't you?" Mokona said. "Even without crying."

My gaze was drawn back to the body on the floor. There was blood staining the floor, and the magician was smiling glassy eyed at the ceiling.

He pushed the door open, and they froze. Sakura-chan was the first one to react. She screamed.

"What happened here?" he was so surprised he couldn't manage anything else.

Fai's blood was all over the floor of the barn, he turned his head to look in their direction but didn't seem to really see them.

Both the kid and he knelt by him, Kurogane raising his head a little off the floor though there was no hope it would do anything. There was too much blood for the blasted magician to have a chance. Damn him! Why didn't he bind the wound? Why didn't he save himself?!

"Fai-san, are you alright? Can you hear me?" The kid asked leaning over him worry on his face. The princess was still standing by the door staring.

Fai's eyes began to glaze, he looked like he was about to leave on the long trip. "Hey, stay awake there," Kurogane said. "don't die on us you idiot!"

"Why's there so much blood?" Sakura-chan said, unable to tear her eyes away from it all, Mokona, on her shoulder, holding on tight and watching with wide teary eyes.

Fai's eyes were misted over, but the mage gasped, opening his mouth trying to speak but almost failing. Smiling like he always did he whispered through bloody lips in the softest voice. "…S…sorry t…to fail on…on you all…" Then the magician that had run for so long from something, was gone.

Clenching my hand so hard my nails bit into my skin, I looked at his body, looking at how motionless it was, the expression too still so it looked even more fake.

This would be so much easier if I didn't care! Damn.

It was so odd how quickly, oh so quickly, your friend can become just another corpse to bury.

END