"Above all, a royal princess must keep the safety of her chastity, and never yield to temptation, even though temptation is always near at hand." Having thus concluded her sermon on a princess' virtues, Princess Emeraude sent them all on their merry way, Sakura in one direction, Syaoran, Kurogane and Fai in the other. As soon as they were safely away from the princess, Syaoran rushed off in search of Sakura, saying he needed to make sure she arrived safely in her room, lest she should faint along the way. Fai had watched him leave, giggled, and then promptly attached himself to the ninja's arm.
"Ne, Kuro-chan, does your Tomoyo exhibit all those virtues Emeraude-hime just listed to us?" He let his silence answer for him; actually, he hadn't been paying too much attention to the princess' sermon as it seemed highly irrelevant to him. "Is she honest and just and diligent?"
He grunted in response, wondering why the flamboyant wizard was asking so many stupid questions. Why couldn't he just leave him alone?
"What about chastity?" That struck a cord, and he stopped in the middle of the hallway with the damn mage still clinging to his arm. Why did he have to go and mention that word? "Eh, Kuro-chan?" the mage persisted, insistently pulling on his arm. The room started to swirl around him, and he felt a little dizzy. He tried to continue walking, and he stumbled, would have fallen if the idiot had been holding onto him so tightly.
"Kuro-sama, are you feeling alright?" He growled and sideswiped at the wizard with a sword that he knew he was not holding earlier. No, he was not alright; he was having a flashback, damn it, and it was all the crazy man's fault. Except he could no longer blame the mage because he wasn't there, and as far as Kurogane was concerned, he did not even exist. He was back in Japan about a week before Tomoyo was going to send him away. Not that he knew that; he was blissfully ignorant of it all as he happily sliced down the man he had caught trying to sneak Tomoyo's room in the middle of the night.
"Kurogane-san, what do you think you're doing?" Turning to face Souma, he took no note of the fact that she had just come from the princess' room as he wiped his sword clean on the man's clothes.
"Tch…" Like Tomoyo was really going to chastise him for making a mess in the hall when Souma, apparent by her more than usual lack of clothing and ruffled hair, had obviously been sleeping and not fulfilling her sworn duty to protect the princess. She didn't even have any weapons on her.
"Souma, is everything alright?" Tomoyo stepped delicately out of her room and gasped. "Souma, I hope you have not done this." Kurogane tried to hold in his exasperation and refrained from pointing out that he was the only living person covered in blood.
Souma profusely proclaimed her innocence, and Tomoyo laughed saying something along the lines of Souma being such a good ninja. Kurogane growled and was about to offer his interpretation of Souma's skills, but stopped when he realized Tomoyo had yet to acknowledge his presence in the hallway.
He blinked a few times; she was blatantly ignoring him, and probably on purpose. She continued to pour praises on his fellow warrior, touching the other woman lightly on the arm. He was not jealous, not jealous, even though some of the princess' praises clearly should have been directed towards him. There was no way that old hag Souma was the strongest warrior in the land. He could have killed her easily by now if it wasn't for the fact that she was one of Tomoyo's most loyal followers.
"Oi!" He finally got tired of listening to his princess shower praises on a half-dressed, unarmed ninja when he was obviously the one who was constantly protecting her.
Tomoyo's smile faltered for a moment and she finally turned her attention towards him. "Oh, Kurogane, you're here." She smiled at him and several veins twitched as his blood pressure rose. Damn her, she had been ignoring him on purpose. "I suppose you are the one to blame for this mess in my sister's hallway." It wasn't that much of a mess; it was only one man. "What have I told you about needlessly killing people?" Oh, right, that was probably why she was being so cruel towards him.
Tomoyo looked sadly down at the dead body. "Honestly, Kurogane, I don't know what I am going to do with you. You cannot keep killing everyone you perceive as a threat, or else we may quickly run out of servants."
How was he supposed to know the man was one of her servants? He shouldn't have been sneaking around in the middle of the night. "What if he had been coming to kill you?"
"He was one of my sister's most loyal servants."
"Alright." He stared at the two women down for a few more moments; Tomoyo stared sadly back at him over the corpse and Souma seemed strangely defiant at the moment. "What if he had been coming to rape you?"
"Kurogane-san!"
"Hmph." He dismissed Souma's outrage; it wasn't his fault if she didn't like the way he was talking to the princess. The other ninja could just leave if she didn't want to hear it. "Somebody needs to protect Tomoyo's honor" he accused her. Maybe now the princess would see how useless Souma really was. She couldn't even comprehend the full dangers facing the princess.
He glared at her, daring her to try and defend herself. She could not deny that she had failed to adequately protect the princess' virtue.
"Kurogane, my honor is safe with Souma. If is none of your concern, nor is it any reason for you to be killing palace staff." She sighed and lowered her head. "I really do not think we can keep you here any longer."
"Tch…" He turned to walk away; the other palace servants could take care of the mess their comrade had made. He knew the princess' threat to send him away was empty; not only did she have no where to send him, she would never get rid of him. That would leave her with Souma as her sole companion, and Souma could never be enough excitement to satisfy her. He was perfectly safe.
The next few days passed in relatively blissful ignorance. Boring, blissful ignorance. There had not been a single threat since that man he caught sneaking into Tomoyo's room. It had been a month before that. The worst part was, Souma seemed to be calmly enduring the respite. While he was pacing around the courtyard like a caged animal waiting for some action, she stayed demurely by Tomoyo's side, looking as satisfied with this quiet life as she was when they were constantly on guard. She really was making Kurogane look like the bad ninja since she was the only one retaining her composure. It was infuriating and made him more aggravated and tense, in turn giving him the appearance of an even worse ninja.
Tomoyo simply indulged Souma. While she sent Kurogane off to do demeaning tasks such as helping the stable boys clean the stalls, Souma was permitted to stay by Tomoyo's side and comb her hair. Not that combing hair was not a degrading task for a ninja, but it certainly beat shoveling horse manure. And for some reason he couldn't explain, he got the feeling the two of them were sharing a secret and laughing behind his back because he had not figured it out yet.
After a particularly disgusting day in the stables, after he had properly bathed and reequipped himself in his armor, he decided to march to Tomoyo's chambers and demand to know why he was being forced into such menial tasks. He would not mention Souma's name; he figured it would be detrimental to his reputation to appear to be jealous of the other ninja.
He found Tomoyo where he expected her to be at this hour, safely in her bedroom. Souma was with her. Not that that was surprising, he had never managed to see one of them alone in years.
It wasn't Souma's presence that made him stop stunned in the doorway. It wasn't the fact that they were both sitting on the princess' bed. It wasn't even Tomoyo's slightly disarrayed gown. None of that alone would have bothered him in the slightest.
They were kissing, and Tomoyo's hands were definitely in places he considered inappropriate on Souma's body. Souma's hands were worse. Here he had been doing everything he could to protect Tomoyo's chastity and there was nothing to protect.
"Unh… Sou…ma…" He did not to hear his princess panting like that, especially when it was that poor excuse for a ninja causing it. He suddenly realized how bad it would be for him if they caught him standing there watching them.
He stalked away from the princess' chambers, aware that there was currently only two places in his body with blood. Astonishment was quickly turning to anger. She had been giving him all those humiliating tasks just so that she and Souma could do that. Damn them both.
A slight movement caught his attention on one of the far roofs. He smirked as he drew his sword, completely forgetting about Tomoyo's threat to send him away as he went to take care of this latest threat.
"Kuro-pu, are you okay? Did you hurt your head?" He groaned as he opened his eyes to stare up at a worried-looking blonde. "Maybe you had a little too much to drink at dinner." He shoved the man away from him as he sat up.
"What happened?"
"I asked you about your princess' chastity and you passed out."
Shit, now he remembered, and he also clearly remembered the events leading up to his exile from Japan. They had been hazy for a while, now everything was in clear detail and it was all that damn idiot's fault..
"Kuro-chan, your face is all red." The blonde gasped and pointed an accusing finger at the ninja. "You ruined your princess' virtue, didn't you? And here I thought you were her loyal knight, dedicated to protecting her virginity." He was being vastly annoying, and Kurogane wished he would just leave him alone. The entire situation was already embarrassing enough. First the flashback to the ultimate humiliation provided by Souma and Tomoyo, and now some fruit was accusing him of ruining his princess' chastity.
"Shut up," he groaned. All he had really wanted to do was go alone back to his room. "Souma's got Tomoyo's chastity well in hand," he told him, hoping that at least would shut the mage up for a little bit and give him the opportunity to escape to his own room.
"Souma? You mean that woman from Outo?" He got up and tried to sneak back to his own room, stealthily, like a good ninja would. A good ninja perhaps like Souma. But Fai grabbed his arm before he managed to take two steps. "Ah, Kuro-sama, I think I should make sure we get you safely back to your room so I can help you take care of your, ah, problem," he suggested with half-lidded eyes
Damn it. He had been hoping the mage wouldn't notice that. But the man seemed to notice everything that could be potentially embarrassing to Kurogane. Of course, if Kurogane did something that made him look like a hero, Fai would never notice something like that. "I can take care of that on my own," he declared, wrenching his arm away from the other man.
"But, Kuro-tan, it will be so much more fun if I help."
"No means no, damn it!" Sneaking was not going to work. He was going to have to run. Naturally, the idiot had to follow him, but all he really had to do was run faster and get to his room first and lock the door. Of course, he chose to forget that this world did not employ locks on the door.