Disclaimer; I do not own Tsubasa. If I did, I would be one rich little fangirl. One very rich little fangirl.
Warning; Kurogane-sama will be even more OOC in this chapter than the last one. Just a quick note.
The Missing Magician
Makayla hummed to herself as she collected the dishes from dinner. She wasn't a big fan of cleaning, but Fable always put her in a good mood. And of course, she took great pride in the very, very obvious jealousy that Kurogane had practically been oozing from every pore in his body. Not that he'd ever admit to such a thing. The ninja was too proud to do such a thing. Not that it really mattered, now that she thought about it. He didn't admit to anything. Ever.
"Makayla-san?" the twenty-one year old shuddered as she turned to face Syaoran.
"Just Makayla's fine, Syaoran-kun," she reminded him, smiling brightly. "What is it?"
The archeologist frowned slightly.
"Have you seen Fai-san?" he asked. "I haven't seen him since before dinner."
Makayla frowned in turn.
"Now that you mention it," she muttered, "I haven't either. "I'll go check his room, okay?"
The boy nodded before disappearing into his bedroom. Makayla quickly headed into the back of the apartment, where the mage and Kurogane shared a room. It was empty.
Frowning deeper, the girl walked into the room and cast a quick glance around. The first thing she noticed was that Fai's unbelievably thick jacket was no longer hanging in the closet. The next was the small, neatly folded note lying on Kurogane's bed. She unfolded it, but it wasn't in any language she recognized immediately. Russian, maybe. In any case, she had no way of decoding it just then. And if her hunch was right, she wouldn't need to. All of the mage's belongings were gone, and the room was a mess, as if someone had been searching through it. She noted with vague amusement that Kurogane's bed was made neatly. So he hadn't left without saying goodbye, exactly. He'd done one more nice thing for the ninja first.
Then it hit the twenty one year old exactly what this meant.
"Damn," she muttered to herself, bolting from the room. First things first, she had to find Kurogane. He'd probably know where the magician may have gone, being the last one to see him. And she should probably tell Syaoran, too, before the boy decided that he'd find out where his friend had gone and told Sakura about his disappearance. Which, she knew, would not be good.
Sighing to herself, Makayla stuck her head in the teenagers' room.
"Syaoran-kun?" she said cheerfully, smiling brightly at Sakura. "May I speak with you?"
The archeologist nodded. Makayla smiled at Sakura again before turning to face Syaoran. She was dreading this conversation already.
--
Kurogane stared at the amber liquid he had been drinking, lost in thought. It was rare for him to be thinking so deeply, he knew, but he had a really bad feeling about… well, about something. Stupid sixth sense, acting up after a few glasses of this… alcoholic beverage. He honestly had no idea what he was drinking, being unable to communicate with anyone due to the fact the bar he was in - ironically called Sesshu(1) Shouki(2) - was out of the pork bun's translation range. Which was good, because that meant that the very pissed Makayla approaching him wouldn't be able to tell him why she was pissed, thus adding to his unknown amount of unnecessary knowledge.
"Kurogane-sama!"
And then he remembered that she was fluent in Japanese. The ninja found himself wanting to pound his head into the table he was sitting at hard and long enough to cause brain damage.
"What?" he snapped as she halted in front of him, glaring in a way that reminded him of him.
"What the hell did you say to Fai?!" she demanded, apparently not realizing that she was shouting in Japanese. Probably a side effect of spending three years in Japan after high school graduation. The swordsman glared at her in return.
"What makes you think I said anything to that damn mage?" he replied, still glaring.
"Because he left, that's why!"
The ninja took a moment to process what she'd said. Gone?
"He's probably exploring he city," he said after a moment, returning to his drink. Why should he care, anyway? He shouldn't. In fact, he should be glad that the magician was missing - it meant that he was leaving the ninja alone.
"He's not," Makayla said quietly, voice dripping with barely contained fury as she thrust a small note at him. "If he were exploring the city, he wouldn't have left this, now would he?"
Kurogane growled as he unfolded the paper. It was written twice - once in what was most likely the mage's native language, and once in Japanese, obviously a translation of the original message. He glared at the girl over the sheet of paper as he began to read.
And then his heart stopped.
It was only two words. Two simple, in any other situation meaningless, words.
"Where'd you find this?" he asked, throat dry. Makayla stopped redirected her glare at the bartender, who was apparently saying something she didn't particularly like.
"Dumbass," she muttered as he walked away, turning to Kurogane. "It was on your bed. Now, what the hell did you say to him, Kurogane?!"
The ninja growled at her.
"None of your buisness," he snapped, standing and pushing past her. The mage… he had to find that damn mage. He would not deal with a crying princess and a closed off kid because of his blatant stupidity. And he would not be dealing with a pissed off Makayla, either, because she could be just as scary as him when she was pissed. And besides all that, he was furiously irritated - not worried, dammit, the mage wouldn't die here - because the idiot had decided to take off without a word to anybody. The question he was faced with was why he would do something so painfully idiotic.
I hate your fucking guts!
The swordsman slowed as he remembered what he said to the magician. The mage was an idiot, but he wasn't weak enough to take that to heart, was he? No, definitely not.
"Kurogane-san!"
The ninja turned slightly to see Syaoran sprinting toward him.
"What?" he snapped for the second time in twenty minutes. He was really starting to lose it.
"I wanted to help look for Fai-san," the kid said, eyes determined. The swordsman shook his head.
"No," he replied. "Stay with the princess. She'd get worried if we all disappeared."
Without another word the swordsman resumed his march through the town. Syaoran hesitated a moment before slowly heading back to the apartment. Kurogane glanced at him as he turned a corner. At least he'd have less to worry about now.
Sighing to himself, the swordsman resumed his search.
--
Makayla searched for the mage frantically, wondering where he possibly could have gone. He wasn't in any of the bars, wasn't in any of the stored, and he sure as hall wasn't back at their apartment. So where the hell could the mage possibly be? It made no sense for him to just take off like that, no matter what had happened. Which meant that Kurogane had said or done something so painfully stupid he didn't even realize the depth of his painful stupidity.
She closed her eyes and leaned against a nearby wall, trying to clear her head.
If I were a depressed mage, where would I go? she thought to herself. What would I do?
No answers came to her. She just leaned against that wall, trying to cal down enough to think. Where could he possibly be? What was he planning to do? And why had he only left a note for Kurogane? There were too many questions, and not nearly enough answers. If she knew the mage a bit better, she might have found him by now.
Think, dammit! she snapped at herself. He's depressed, we know that much. And we know he's not exactly determined to live, and he doesn't want to burden the others. So if it were me…
The bridge. It was so painfully obvious. If he honestly believed they'd be better off without him and didn't want to cause trouble for them, he could throw himself into the river, he'd be twenty miles away in ten seconds with how fast the current was right now. But that wouldn't kill him. Not quickly, at least. So he was probably planning on killing himself and then falling into the river. Which was the smart choice, really.
Swearing to herself, the twenty-one year old sprinted toward the bridge. Hopefully someone would get there on time.
--
It took Kurogane a slightly longer period of time to reach this conclusion. Not that it was his fault, of course. He didn't exactly know a lot about this city, so while he could figure the plan out quickly enough, he had no way of knowing where the bridge was. So it was lucky for him that Makayla appeared out of nowhere, sprinting past him in the opposite direction. It took the swordsman only a second to realize where she was going and follow her.
She was much faster than he had anticipated, however, and he lost sight of her in minutes. Cursing her to die a million painful deaths, He sped after her.
--
She was too late.
Makayla could tell that the second she saw the blood pouring from the mage's wrists. It was only by some strange twist of luck that she caught him before he plunged into the river below and managed to pull him over the edge of the railing.
"What the hell are you doing?" she hissed at him as she grabbed the sleeves of his coat and used it to try and stop the bleeding. Fai smiled weakly up at her, barely conscious. The twenty-one year old scowled as she tore the edge of his shirt off and wrapped it around his wrists.
"You're an idiot," she continued. "How do you think Sakura-chan and Syaoran-kun would feel if you died?"
The mage had passed out before she finished speaking, not that that stopped her. Still muttering to herself, she realized with a shock that he hadn't only slit his wrists. There was a - rather dull, she noted - box-cutter buried eight inches in his chest, right where his right lung should be.
"FUCK!!"
--
The ninja heard Makayla's anguished scream when he was about fifty feet from the bridge. A strange feeling of dread stealing over him, he somehow managed a final burst of speed to the bridge. He froze when he saw what the mage had done to himself.
From the swordsman's hand fell a small, crumpled up note with only two words.
Goodbye, Kurogane.
A/N; AAAAHHHHHHHHH! Oh my god, I'm horrified at myself! I'm so sorry! I'm so very, very sorry! Please don't hate me! My nightmares made me do it! I didn't want to, I swear! Oh my god! I'm so sorry Fai! I hate this chapter! I hate Google more for giving me the idea, but I still hate this chapter. I'm gonna be having some graphic nightmares tonight…
Reviews? Please? So I can finish the story?
(1)Sesshu - sobriety
(2)Shouki - soberness