The Price of Electricity

A/N - Please don't ask. I figured, well, the title's The Price of Secrets, one of the drabbles is the Price of Caring… let's have a third thing in this little series, something a bit more light-hearted. So here it is. The real reason why Fai is running away. Please feel free to say, "WTF!" when you read it. And then if you've seen the anime, look back to the first episode. It's true. It's so, so true.

Disclaimer - don't own, don't own, don't own.

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Magic swirled around them, and dissolved away into nothing, neatly dropping the companions into a large snowdrift.

"Stupid manju!"

"Ufufufu!" chortled Mokona, popping up to the surface quickly and easily. The small white creature watched his friends struggling to get out of the snow, still chortling happily.

"Mokona loves snow!"

At last the four humans stood, brushing snow off and out of their clothes, beginning to take in this strange new world.

"Oh!" Sakura gasped, looking around in delighted wonder. "Oh, it's beautiful!"

They stood at the bottom of a rocky hill, climbing upwards into the sky until it seemed as though it would touch the clouds… and then came the realization that it really was touching the clouds, because this hill was in among them.

Looking out over the sky beyond the hill, the group could see vast floating islands, torn from their rocky moorages in the earth and thrust up into the sky. Built upon them were fantastic structures, practically cities on some, stretching outwards towards the blue curve of the horizon of the surface faintly visible far, far below.

Somebody asked the magic question.

"Is there a feather in this world, Mokona?"

The voice was oddly strained - and not Syaoran's. It was Fai's, and he was ashen-faced, though he kept his face low to hide the look in his eyes.

"Mokona doesn't know!" Mokona said, after a moment's silence as the little creature tried to figure it out. "Mokona senses a lot of power - but Mokona can't tell if it's the power of the feather or not!"

"Well, that's useless," groaned Kurogane.

"Well," Fai said quickly, a matching strained smile on his face, "This is a world of great power and magic. That's probably what you're sensing. Ok. No feather here. Let's go on to the next world!"

"Why?" Sakura asked, a strange look in her eyes. "This is a beautiful world. Can't we stop here for a little while?"

"No, I think we should move on, right, Syaoran-kun? The feathers are the most important thing. And… and I don't think this is a good world to stop in. I don't like the feeling I get from it."

"Fai-san, is something wrong?" Syaoran said quietly.

"N-no, not at all, why do you ask?" Fai tried a careless laugh, but it did not come out right at all.

"This is your world, isn't it?" Kurogane said harshly. "That's why you want to get out of here so badly, right? Well, I for one am not going anywhere until you tell us why you don't want to be here."

Fai stared down at his hands, deathly pale. He bit his lower lip, hesitated, started to speak, closed his mouth again. He seemed to be struggling with something, something that he did not want to reveal, not ever. But at last, he confessed:

"I…… I left all the lights on in the palace when I left. Ashura-ou will kill me if I'm here when he wakes up and sees the electrical bill I left behind," Fai said very quickly and in a shamed voice.

"Eh!"

"What the HELL -!" screamed Kurogane in complete and utter disgust.

Mokona was the only one to take action. "Good enough reason for Mokona!" Mokona piped up, and cutting off the ninja's exasperated swearing in the middle, sucked them back through the interdimensional corridor.

"You goddamn lying bas -!"

And they were gone… leaving the palace of Celes still glowing brightly behind them.