Also posted on archiveofourown under the same title/username

This is perhaps the first part of a crossover suggested by FabHawk. Written with thanks to FabHawk and ninthfeather for thoughts, ideas, and more angst than was truly necessary

Timeline: Set amorphously during TRC's travels after Outo, with vague spoilers for Fai's backstory. They've arrived in the TWEWY universe, where the Reaper's Game demands a fee from each player and is won by partnered pairs who survive all seven days' worth of tasks

Title from the song Deadman's Gun by Ashtar Command

they've taken enough (you've given them all you can give)

December 23, 2020

"Fai," he called, but Fai didn't answer.

A quick glance showed that the wizard was equally engrossed in their new surroundings, but had apparently decided that there were no further threats to be had, because instead of keeping an eye out for more of those demonic frogs, he'd bent forward to examine the statue behind them.

It was the statue of a dog, perhaps, but it was hard to tell beneath all of the tarnish. The people of this world sure didn't seem to have any reverence for the statues they'd chosen to erect. Between that and the tiny demons he couldn't seem to touch with his sword, and the people who vanished into thin air in front of them, and then the snot-nosed teenager who pushed badges into their hands and then demanded some kind of payment in return before they'd managed to shoo him off, this world really wasn't making a very good first impression.

"Just what kind of world did you pull us into this time, pork bun?" he growled, poking his head around a bush to ensure that nothing had followed them.

Mokona popped out of Fai's hood with an indignant protest, "It's not Mokonoa's fault we ended up in this world!"

"But it is your fault that you dropped us in the middle of the street," he pointed out as he continued his defensive sweep across the walkway. "Again. Thought you going to stop trying to kill us."

"Hey!" Mokona hopped in a high arc, landing on Syaoran's shoulder hard enough that he let out a startled oomph and jerked back to avoid stabbing Sakura with the shiny new badge he was attempting to pin onto her cloak for her. "Mokona's not trying to kill everybody!" Mokona wailed.

"Then shut up before you bring some more of those damn frogs over here."

"Hnnnnnnn," Mokona whined, subdued, from the crook of Syaoran's neck. "Mokona isn't trying to kill everybody!"

"Oh, don't worry, Mokona," Sakura said, gently reaching out a hand. "We know that."

"Yeah," Syaoran added reassuringly, "Kurogane's just teasing you."

"Mean!" Mokona decided, popping up over Syaroan's head long enough to shout the accusation at him. "Kurogane's mean!"

Sakura giggled and soon Mokona was joining her.

Kurogane grunted and returned to his scan as soon as he'd finished rolling his eyes.

The street was so crowded that he couldn't catch any glimpses of the strangely crafted creatures that had attacked them earlier. Granted, the lack of screaming from the general populace probably meant that they weren't around at the moment, but there was absolutely no way to guess how long their reprieve would last.

They couldn't stand in this little alcove forever, and if his sword wouldn't work on the noisy little demons of this world, they'd need to get their hands on something that would.

His fingers traced the increasingly familiar pattern on the hilt of his replacement blade before regretfully sheathing it. It hadn't ever let him down before now, and the fact that its reassuring sharpness in his hands meant nothing here was yet another reason to hate this world.

"Fai," he called, turning long enough to get a look at him.

But Fai was still looking at the tarnished statue, peering intently at the plaque on the front of its base even though the likelihood of his being able to read this world's alphabet was exceptionally small, given his lack of success in nearly every other place they'd been so unceremoniously deposited.

"Oi," Kurogane called sharply. "Wizard."

Fai did turn then, like it was his first time hearing him, his eyebrows raised and face pleasantly inquisitive.

Kurogane stared at him.

Syaroan looked back and forth between them, and was the first to break the strange silence. "Is everything okay?" he asked.

"Why, yes, of course," Fai answered brightly. "Why do you ask?"

Mokona hummed before popping out of Syaoran's hood long enough to say, "You were zoning out a bit!"

"Yeah, you weren't answering Kurogane," Syaoran explained.

"Oh," Fai said after a moment before breaking into a smile. "How strange! I must not have heard you calling me," he laughed, eyes scrunching shut.

He kept laughing until Sakura pulled on the sleeve of his elaborate fur-lined coat. "Fai?"

He stopped abruptly and turned toward her with a strange expression frozen on his face.

She frowned. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"Yes…" he said slowly.

"But?" Kurogane cut in gruffly. He wanted to know what had put that expression on the wizard's face before he had the chance to smooth it away and pretend it had never been there.

"But," Fai said, his brows drawing together. "What did you just call me?"

All four of them looked at each other in mild stages of alarm.

"Fai," Sakura said, looking back at him in worry.

He pointed toward himself. "Me?" he asked, quizzically, the bubble of a strange laugh somewhere in the base of his throat.

"Yes?"

"… Is that a new nickname?"

"No?" Kurogane said, finally making a complete break from his patrol to walk closer and fully face their wizard. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded. "Do you…" he trailed off as another thought struck him. "Do you know who we are?"

"Why, what a silly question!"

But Kurogane didn't think it was a silly question at all. Not if something was as wrong as he was seriously starting to suspect it was.

"Of course I do," Fai said, after a moment of Kurogane's glowering examination. "Syaoran," he said, pointing, "Mokona, Sakura, and Kuropoo!"

"It's Kurogane," Kurogane ground out, only a little of his worry abated. Figures that even if he somehow managed to lose his own name, the silly nicknames would still stick somewhere in that perforated brain of his.

"Well, at least he got ours right," Mokona said, with a pleased expression.

"Well, of course, I'd get yours right," Fai said with an outstretched finger. "They're perfectly nice, sensible names that I can remember without any troubles at all~"

"And what about yours?"

Fai's face contorted a little as he tried to understand the question. "What about my name?" he asked.

"Um, well…" Sakura looked to the others for guidance.

Syaoran continued for her. "Well, if you don't want to be called by a nickname," he said, hitching up a shoulder, "then…"

"Well, I don't really have anything against nicknames," Fai said. "Although I haven't found too many options for myself. Also," he pointed out with his chin perched upon a darkly gloved hand, "the person who gets it usually knows they're getting it."

"Oh, is that right?" Kurogane growled.

Fai smiled brightly. "Or is at least familiar enough with it to know that they're supposed to respond! Kuro always knows when I'm talking to him~"

Kurogane was a little too on edge by whatever was going on to throttle the man quite yet, but just in case, Syaoran stepped in before he could even try.

"Okay, so what do you want us to call you, then?"

Fai looked down in mild confusion. "Well? You can call me by my name?"

"And that is…?" Sakura asked.

Fai blinked. "Sakura, are you feeling alright?"

"Y-yes."

"Because I think you may be forgetting some things." He paused to consider, then turned. "Although, that wouldn't explain the rest of you. Unless… is this a joke?"

He smiled, then, brightly, and leaned down to start scritching Mokona between the ears. "Oh, Mokona," he laughed, "you're so good at jokes! Are you sure it isn't one of your secret talents?"

Kurogane didn't have any patience for this. Not when they had just arrived in a new world and could be attacked at any moment and something was so very clearly wrong with Fai.

"Just answer the damn question, Wizard."

"Which question?" Fai asked. "My name?"

He still looked like this whole thing was a joke and that they were the ones who were being weird about this. But the more Kurogane looked, the more genuine Fai's bafflement appeared, and that was more alarming than anything else.

"Yes."

Fai stared at him, then at the others, and back to Kurogane. The smile had slipped from his face.

"Well," he began, then shifted, smiling brightly again. "It's just the same as it's always been," he said.

"Humor us," Kurogane said slowly. "And spell it out."

Fai laughed, and Kurogane could hear the edge of nervousness in it, even though it might have been convincing enough to fool the kids. "Well, you know I don't know how to spell with this world's alphabet-"

"Oi-" Kurogane growled, setting his shoulders and preparing to close the short distance between them and shake it out of the man if he had to.

Fai seemed to sense it, too, because he dropped the teasing tone and waved his hands in front of him to prevent the need for such extreme measures.

He looked at Kurogane for another moment before his gaze skittered off to the side. He couldn't seem to look at anything more than a second or two at a time and his smile was gone, now.

"Well… I mean, it's Yuui," he said in confusion, glancing between all of them so quickly that he didn't catch the immediate change in expression on any one of their faces.

"What else would it be?"