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Ninja And Tears

Fai stared up at the ceiling of his room, watching a beetle crawl across it before the lighting changed and it became a lion, roaring silently to the heavens. Another change in lighting and it was replaced by a barking puppy…

Hmmm… I wonder if Kuro-tan's still pacing back and forth outside?

He glanced through the window. There was no sign of him, but a loud growl sounded from outside before a scared looking nurse stumbled through the door, revealing Kurogane crouched on the floor outside for a moment before it shut again.

"Hello, um…" the mage greeted, trying to read her nametag. "Mayu-san?"

The nurse smiled at him as she gently pushed him back onto his pillows, turning the light on so she could check on his wounds.

"Your looking much better, Mr. Fai," she said, smiling brightly. "That's good. I was afraid that…"

The magician raised an eyebrow.

"Well…I heard you got a visit from Evron earlier," she explained, beginning to remove his bandages. Fai cocked his head to the side nd did his best o look confused.

"Ev…ron?" he repeated slowly. "Who's Evron?"

"A self-pitying ass who takes pleasure in screwing with people's heads," Kurogane growled through the door. The magician smiled.

"Oh," he said in a cheerful tone. "You mean the young man who was here earlier? With blonde hair and red eyes?"

Mayu nodded slowly, checking his heart beat before rewrapping his bandages. He could tell she knew he was faking his smiles - his heart was beating furiously against his ribs as he recalled their conversation earlier.

"Don't worry about him," she said soothingly. "He just… well, Makayla wouldn't let him do any permanent damage, and I doubt your bodyguard outside would let him through the door."

"Damn straight," the ninja growled from outside. Mayu smiled brightly.

"You two remind me so much of Makayla's parents," she said, her eyes gaining a distant look. "They were always inseparable, even after the accident…"

"Accident?" Fai asked, smiling at her. "What accident?"

The nurse shook her head.

"You'll have to ask her yourself," she said, finishing with his wounds and hurrying out of the room. The mage sighed. Why did it seem that everyone was in a hurry to be done with him today?

You're useless. Why would anyone want to be with you?

The mage shuddered as he remembered Evron's words.

You actually think people like you? How foolish. Anyone with eyes can see how useless you are. Hiding everything, even when people open up to you. And yet you think there's someone out there who can stand you? Fool. Only the useful end up happy, and the useless are thrown aside. Society has always been good at finding and rejecting people who have no purpose in life, and believe me, you're useless. Why would anyone want to be with you? You don't have the right to love or be loved.

"Ha…" he muttered, turning back to the ceiling. "How can a complete stranger know so much?"

He stared at the ceiling, but no animals came to comfort him. There were only the shadows now, shadows with no definite shape or purpose, other than to prove the existence of others.

His door opened, revealing Kurogane, who stifled a yawn as he plopped into the chair next to him that Makayla had brought in earlier.

"Mage, you'd better-" the swordsman stopped. "Hey, are you alright?"

The magician grinned brightly.

"Of course, Kuro-rin," he replied. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The ninja frowned and reached over, wiping something wet from under his eye. With a shock, the wizard realized he'd been crying, and he turned away, ashamed to have let his mask fall so far.

"What happened?" he asked, only the slightest trace of worry in his voice. Fai smiled nd shook his head, not turning toward the ninja.

"Nothing," he answered cheerfully, staring at the wall. "I'm just… tired."

He could tell that the swordsman didn't believe him.

"Fai…"

The wizard jumped slightly and turned toward the ninja in time for him to be pulled into a tight embrace.

"Stop lying to me," the ninja muttered into his hair. "You know I can't stand it."

The mage buried his head in the swordsman's chest.

"Why do you care?" Tears were streaming unchecked down the magician's cheeks, wetting the ninja's shirt. "Why would you possibly care? I'm nothing but a burden-"

"Stop saying that," the ninja snapped, pulling away from him. "You aren't a burden, and you never were."

The magician stared down at the sheets of his bed.

"Why do you care?" he asked again, not looking at the ninja. He felt Kurogane lift his head until he was facing him, forcing him to look forward. He stared at him for a moment before leaning in and kissing him.

The mage froze. Why?

The ninja broke away from him.

"I care because you're the most annoying person in existence," he said, frowning, "and you're too dense to see what's right in front of you. I care because you've already decided that your life is meaningless and don't care if you live or die. I care because you say that you don't want any of us to be hurt for getting involved with you, and yet you don't realize what your death would do to everyone around you." He hesitated a moment. "And I care because despite all that, I can't stand to think of continuing this journey without you. I can't see how I survived without you before."

Fai stared at him. He…what?

"But why?" he demanded, pulling away from him altogether. The ninja growled.

"Because I love you, dammit!" he snapped. "Believe me, I wish I didn't, but that's just the way it is!"

The mage stared at him for a moment. Love…me?

"Liar," he hissed. Shock registered on the ninja's face for a moment before he stood and turned away.

"Believe what you want," he muttered, leaving. Fai stared after him.

How could anyone possibly love anything so broken?

--

Kurogane wanted to scream. He wanted to scream until he couldn't scream anymore, and then he wanted to scream some more, until he couldn't even breath. Pain unlike any he'd ever felt shot through him as he collapsed outside Fai's room. White hot, mind numbing pain with no source, no rhyme or reason. It just hurt, almost as if someone had stabbed him through the chest with a flaming sword. He just wanted it to end, for everything to go back to how it was before the mage's suicide attempts, before that demon Makayla called her brother showed up, before he left Japan. He wanted to be back home, where there was no blue eyed mage to slowly kill him in his own way, where the only ones he gave a damn about were Tomoyo Souma.

"Something wrong, Kuro-bozu?"

The ninja glared at Evron as the teenager walked toward him, smiling.

"Did the useless idiot do something stupid again?" he asked. The ninja growled threateningly at him, anger replacing pain as the boy crouched down in front of him.

"Aw, are you acting as guard dog?" he taunted. "Cute, but troublesome. I was hoping to have another chat with Fai. So if you'll excuse me…"

He tried to step over the ninja to open the door, but Kurogane was too quick for him, and he pulled him down onto the floor again.

"You aren't going near him," he growled, standing and positioning himself directly in front of the door. Evron smiled.

"How cute," he hissed. "Are you trying to protect your boyfriend from me? Possessive much?"

The ninja ignored him, not moving even a fraction of an inch. The blonde sighed.

"Fine, I can have a conversation through a closed door," he muttered to himself before calling out, "So, Fai, how are you? I'm well, of course, but you should know that, shouldn't you? I mean we only saw each other twenty minutes and forty-two seconds ago. Did you think over what I told you? That's the least a useless ass like you could have done in the past few minutes."

A low growl sounded from the ninja's throat as he glared down at the teenager.

"Leave him alone," he hissed, taking a step forward. "He isn't useless, and I'm willing to bet anything you told him was a pile of crap."

Evron grinned up at him.

"I didn't tell him anything but what he wanted to hear," he replied easily, taking a step back. "I was just playing with him. Is he broken already?"

"No," the ninja's voice shook with barely controlled rage. "He was never broken, and he will never be broken."

The teenager grinned at him again.

"Yes, he is," he returned. "He's broken beyond any possibility of being fixed."

The swordsman lost it. Giving up on common sense, he buried his fist into the teen's gut, sending him tumbling backwards a few feet. He grinned at the furious ninja as his fist connected with the boy's chest.

"Enjoying yourself?" he whispered. "I'm happy for you, but this is annoying, isn't it?"

So saying, he side stepped the ninja's next attack and threw a punch of his own, which Kurogane easily dodged and landed one lat blow on the back of the kid's head. The patients surrounding him looked terrified, but they kept their mouths shut.

Still fuming, the ninja turned and threw the door to Fai's room open, shutting it tightly behind him and locking it. He didn't look at Fai as he dropped into the chair again, instead staring at the floor. He could feel the mage staring at him, but he didn't say anything. The ninja found the silence rather unnerving.

"Go to sleep," he said after a while. Fai didn't respond, only rolling over onto his side. He sat in silence for a while before glancing up at the mage. He was staring at him still.

"What?" he snapped finally. The magician smiled, real smile, and the ninja's heart stopped.

"Thank you," the wizard mumbled, rolling onto his back. The swordsman stared at him. Thank you…?

Kurogane sighed as he leaned back in his chair. It was barely three in the afternoon, and he was exhausted beyond all reason. He closed his eyes, unconsciously reaching for the magician's hand as he did.

To his surprise, the magician didn't try to pull his hand away. Opening one eye, he saw that the mage had fallen asleep. Smiling to himself, the swordsman tried to follow his example.

--

It was cold. The freezing winds bit at bare arms and feet, chilling him to the bone. He shivered as he tried to see his brother, locked all the way at the top of the tower, but to no avail. The steady thump of the dead falling from the edge had stopped long ago, causing the young boy to believe it was night, but he couldn't tell, for in the Pit time stood still. Preserving the dead in an endless sleep. He shivered again as he approached the mountain of corpses that served to remind him of all the wrong he'd done, that he was nothing but a curse upon his country, and that because he was born his brother was trapped in that damn tower, separated from every other living thing.

He caught sight of a small child, wrapped in its mother's arms.

"Even one as young as this?" he muttered to himself. "What could one so small have possibly done?"

"It's because of you…"

The child whirled around to see a blonde eyed boy with crimson eyes, anger and hate etched in every corner of his face, giving his eyes an unreal gleam.

"What purpose could you possibly serve?" he continued, scowling. "Look at what you've done to the people of your country. To your own brother!"

"N-no…" the child muttered. "It's not my fault… is it?"

"It's all your fault," the boy hissed. "If you hadn't been born, your brother could be living happily with his family and friends…"

"No…"

"But you already know it, don't you?" the boy smiled as he pointed behind him. "That you caused so much pain…"

The child whirled around, but instead of the mound of corpses was his brother, dead on the ground, having fallen from the tower.

"You remember, don't you?" the boy whispered into his ear. "Your pointless existence caused all of this. And when offered a chance to end it…" the scene changed again, and a dark haired man with a creepy chin stood in front of him, a different him, a him who looked right at him and begged the man to save him. "you didn't even think about your precious twin, did you?"

He collapsed in front of the scene s it changed yet again, revealing a dark haired man with sad eyes, his hand outstretched, smiling kindly as he took him away. Then another scene swap, and the same man was standing in the middle of a room full of corpses.

"This was your fault, too, wasn't it?" The stranger's voice held a hint of glee in it. "And what happens to your companions when he awakens will be your fault as well…"

The child stared at the scene in horror. It's all my fault…

A picture of a black haired, crimson eyed man flashed before him, briefly, and the stranger let out a hiss of rage.

"Damn him," he muttered under his breath. The child glanced up at him, but looked quickly away as the image came again, and evolved - he could see the same man smiling as he fought with demons, then again as he faced off with a small brunette.

Kurogane…

And then the man was embracing him, holding him tightly against his chest, his heart beating in time with his own…

He deserves better.

They all deserve better.

--

The ninja growled to himself. The mage and his stupid nightmares… and yet upon failing to wake him, here he was, instead trying to comfort him. He wondered briefly of how he could have changed so much since Tomoyo sent him away. He'd never have considered trying to comfort another human being, that was for sure.

He could feel the mage shifting against his shirt, and the swordsman released him as he woke. The mage stared at him for a moment before turning away. The ninja stared at him, feeling as if he had just been suffocated. The way the wizard had looked at him, how he'd simply turned away as the light reflected off his cheeks…

He was crying.

A.N; Okay, whoever thought Kurogane-sama was going to cry, shame on you! He's not that OOC… yet. Not for another chapter, at least. And I know I forgot about Makayla and the others, but I wanted to focus on KuroFai in this chapter, because they were basically ignored last chapter, and I felt guilty about how mean I've been to them… and yet I ended up being mean anyway! ARGH!

Reviewers get a new chapter.