Author's Note: *throws more fireflies and kisses at everyone*

Cloverfield: I broke it down into chapters out of the desire to work all the plotbunnies and details in that I'd originally clipped out due to time constraints, but in hindsight I find that it makes it a little winding and dragged-out. I think I'll just proof and make minor edits and upload pretty much as-is. *mwee* Thank you so much. I adore and admire you so much that knowing my writing appeals to you just makes me wriggle all over the place. 3

LapisLantern: Your comment surprised me at first because I hadn't realized how much man-porn I actually write. *laugh* I guess it makes sense, since many of my stories are prompt-driven and request a sex scene. The ones I wrote with much more freedom on plot (Five Dead Kisses, Remembrance, The Vigil, and now Illumination) tend not to have so much sexual content, so perhaps that's actually my natural comfort zone. ^^ Illumination will be complete in four parts, so you have some more "slow & sweet" to look forward to~


On the third night in the glowing world, Kurogane took first watch and waited to be approached. His keen hearing would alert him of any being or creature approaching through the thin forest on their side of the river, but the noise of the water made it necessary to look as well as listen for possible dangers on the other bank and so he looked about for a spot slightly distant from the water but with a good line of sight across and beyond it. The ninja eventually settled himself against the twisted, turning, golden-glowing trunk of a tree that looked vaguely like a wisteria and waited. He waited not for dawn, for danger or even for time to pass so that he could wake the kid for the next watch. He waited for the kid and bun to fall asleep - or at least for the kid to feign sleep with determined politeness while keeping the bun firmly tucked under his chin - and felt his mouth stretch ever so slightly into a faint smile as a familiar aura drew near.

Whether the mage was in a subdued sort of mood or the influence of the ethereal scenery was being felt or what it was, no words were spoken as Fai sidled up and leaned against the section of bark next to the ninja that just happened to be vacant. Without consciously thinking it through, Kurogane always put the mage on his left these days whether they were walking or fighting or even just standing idly around. In battle it was the practical thing to do; the mage would be more out of the way of Ginryuu and could help protect the ninja's vulnerable side. And when not in battle, Kurogane didn't bother trying to figure out why it just felt right to have Fai there...on his left, near his heart, standing in place of the arm he'd left behind in Celes like a visible reminder of what he'd gained in exchange for what he'd sacrificed.

To his relief, Fai never made much of a fuss over his missing arm once the wounds from having his prosthetic practically ripped away from his body had healed, despite this oft-occurring proximity. When they were alone like this, the mage would sometimes crumple a bit of Kurogane's empty sleeve in his hand or lean into the ninja as if trying to make up for the lack of a limb with his own form, but that was all. They'd exchanged blows and kisses and long, speaking looks, and words on top of all of that would have been superfluous. They expressed their regard for each other in how they acted, reacted and interacted, and for Kurogane who had grown up in a culture that esteemed reserve and circumspection, the lack of words was no lack at all.

The two adults stood together in a companionable silence for a while, enjoying how serene their surroundings were despite the constantly wavering lights and the incessant background noise of a world bursting with life. Shifting breezes set the trees to whispering, the river never stopped its happy burbling, and all around them insects and birds and strangely squishy water creatures called to each other in warning or challenge or longing. If the lights had been artificial and the bustle born of men and machines it would have been intolerable, but being of nature it was all harmony instead of chaos.

"This reminds me of Shara," Fai murmured suddenly. Kurogane glanced down but the wizard was gazing out at the river where a swarm of bugs was dancing over the shining waterway.

"The...fireflies, I think you called them," the wizard continued, smiling now, probably at the memory of his first sight of the eye-catching insects and the fun he'd had in chasing them through the fields near Souseki's temple. Kurogane couldn't really remember what the bugs had looked like and whether they'd been near counterparts to the fireflies of his home. He'd been too busy watching the wizard's face and wondering if this was what the man looked like when he forgot to laugh on purpose and just laughed.

"Celes was too cold for insects like this. We just had dark little creepy-crawlies; worms and beetles and the like. I never thought insects could be so vibrant and beautiful."

"You'll either love or hate summers in Nihon. Bugs everywhere, all sizes and shapes and colors, and some noisy as hell." The ninja could very easily imagine the wizard disappearing out of doors so long as the sun was up, chasing butterflies and dragonflies and hunting for helmed beetles, then coming home covered in mosquito bites and ivy rashes. He wasn't certain how long the Celesian's entomological enthusiasm would last under the sweltering heat, but while it did, it would be manic.

Fai did not comment on Kurogane's manner of speaking and the underlying assumption contained within it that the mage would eventually settle down in the ninja's homeworld, only nodding and saying casually that it sounded like fun. This was another new thing between them that had sprung up and rooted without ever being discussed; Kurogane would sometimes speak of Fai living in Nihon in the future as an established fact, and Fai never made any objection. He never confirmed and committed either, but the ninja shrugged that little matter off. It was embarrassment or nerves or perhaps something else entirely, but while Fai did not argue against the plan, the ninja deemed the lack of outright agreement unimportant.

After Celes, when Kurogane had thought about how the mage no longer had a home to run from or return to, he'd found a little spark of gladness in his heart which had startled him. There ought not to have been any joy in the idea that someone he so liked and admired should have to suffer the loss of his entire world, and yet there it had been. He'd been glad that the possibility of needing to part permanently from the wizard due to Fai's desire to go back to Celes had been erased. As for where the wizard might make a new life for himself, the ninja hadn't even had to think about it. Fai's need to return home had no longer been a consideration. All that had remained was Kurogane's need to return home and their need to remain together.

"Summer..." mused the blond. "Yama was the only placed we stayed long enough to watch the seasons turn, but we landed in late autumn and only got to experience their colder months. All I've really lived and known is winter."

"Our seasons are more extreme," Kurogane noted, remembering the half-year they'd spent in Yasha-ou's kingdom and how the mildness of the climate had given him no real sense of the seasons changing. There had hardly been thirty degrees' difference in temperature between the dead of winter and the full flush of spring, and the dark-haired man who'd grown up watching torrential spring floods succeed snowstorms that buried entire villages to the rooftops found the blandness of Yama's climate distasteful. "You won't have the opportunity to get homesick for snow but you might melt during summer."

"I'm getting the idea that Nihon is a country of extremes," Fai stated with a faint laugh. "When it's hot, it's hot enough to melt people. When it's cold, it'll freeze the puddle people into icicles. The men are all deadly warriors with no sense of humor and the ladies are all beautiful dolls dressed in miles of silk with hair down to their feet."

"...in Celes, is everyone an idiot?" Kurogane asked dryly, with a rather disgruntled twist to his mouth at this ridiculous review of his home. He didn't bother bringing up Souma, whose hair was shorter than Fai's and who wore less fabric on her entire body than Kurogane had on his legs. Souma wasn't a "lady". She was Souma. And Fai wasn't being serious. He was being Fai.

"I'm Valerian, Kuro-sama, remember?"

"Raised in Celes though," the ninja retorted, with no high opinion of either place. Both countries had been cold and ruled by cold-hearted maniacs who thought nothing of harming innocents. Kurogane's opinion was decidedly biased and probably as overly simplistic and shallow as Fai's light-hearted summary of Nihon, but it hardly mattered; Valeria had fallen and Celes no longer existed. And even beyond these things was the fact that Fai would not be returning to either as to a home.

"True," Fai conceded, and then let his gaze drift from the dance of glowbugs and grow far away. "They were similar in many ways, too. Long winters and a short growing season, similar clothes and languages, both ruled by kings and bound by traditions and superstitions...they were still beautiful to me, despite all that I suffered. I guess home is home, no matter how painful."

Kurogane frowned a bit as he thought this over. He didn't disagree with the sentiment, but didn't like to think that Fai would be thinking back to the homes he'd lost with regret, unable to settle down into a new one because of the differences he would forever be seeing all around him. After recalling the memories of Fai's terrible, terribly long youth, the ninja once again brought up his homeworld, but this time drawing parallels instead of highlighting differences.

"Nihon's probably not so different," he offered. "A unified country under a single ruler, a strictly ordered society 'bound by traditions and superstitions' like you said."

"What sort of superstitions did you grow up with?" Fai queried, tipping his head to look up at the ninja, face alight with curiosity and expectation. Kurogane floundered a bit, trying to think from an outside perspective of all the little beliefs that were woven into his way of thinking. Residual memories of his companion's childhood brought one superstition to mind fairly quickly, and from there it became simple to hop from one thought to another.

"Twins are lucky," the ninja said, to the obvious surprise of a twin who'd been shunned as accursed from the moment of his birth. "So are carp, cranes and frogs." He got a little snort of laughter from the blond at this rather eclectic mix of good luck symbols.

"What's considered unlucky in Nihon?"

"Killing spiders in the morning, stepping on the border of matting, sleeping with your head facing north...things like that," Kurogane answered, relating whatever popped into his head first. Truth be told there were probably hundreds of ill luck bringers that he didn't even consciously know he avoided; they'd been things he'd simply grown up with and never thought about.

"'Things like that'?" Fai repeated with a slightly incredulous laugh, though he kept his voice down so as not to disturb their slumbering companions. "Kuro-tan, those things have even less in common than cranes and frogs. Why are they all bad luck?"

"How should I know?" he growled irritably. "They just are. Or are considered, at least. They're probably just as meaningless as Valeria's superstition about twins. That's all they are; superstitions." He got another long look at this, and put a little crick in his neck as he deliberately stared back, daring the mage to argue the point. He knew that Fai understood the truth of his twin's death now, but the idea that all that he and his brother had suffered was due to nothing more than an idea - and a false one to boot - that had taken root in their culture long ago was more difficult to embrace. It would be freeing to think that he was not actually an accursed being, but at the same time, perhaps horrifying to think that so much had been lost for something so meaningless.

"What about religion?" Fai asked quietly, after a long, drawn out pause. "Beliefs instead of superstitions? Valeria and Celes were monotheistic, with a lot of festivals and ceremonies focusing on thanking God and the saints for protecting us from dark forces."

Some of the words the wizard used did not translate smoothly despite Mokona's talents, but Kurogane got the gist of the idea and shook his head.

"In Nihon, worship focuses more on nature, not a single god or goddess or the priests that serve them. I guess it's more like...there are spirits or gods in almost everything - the moon, rivers, animals and trees - and you're supposed to respect it all."

"Animals and trees, too? How do you make furniture and dinner without sinning, then?" Pale eyebrows quirked up at him at this obviously puzzling concept.

"I said respect, not venerate as untouchable," Kurogane replied a bit testily. "That's what makes it so important to understand the value of life; so that you don't take it - or take it - lightly. The burden of needing to kill to survive while understanding the weight of what you're doing is what sets man apart from beasts and demons. It's both a curse and a blessing."

The fair head near his shoulder nodded and the mage's expression was thoughtful instead of amused, which served to soothe the ninja's temper somewhat. Kurogane had no super-religious sensibilities to offend, but discussions about such things were much more the kid's forte than the ninja's and Fai's honestly puzzled queries had made him feel a bit clumsy and awkward in explaining the profound and beautiful. There was another break in the conversation while Fai apparently digested what had been said, and then the wizard spoke up again.

"You mentioned demons. Are they like the ones we fought in Outo? Or are they more like devils that oppose your gods?"

"No...well, sort of." To Kurogane, those unliving constructs had been demons in name only; more like machines from Piffle programmed to kill, where the demons of his homeworld were living things filled with malevolent intent and often possessed of deadly cunning besides. Worthy foes for honorable warriors. But for Fai, who spoke of saints and devils, perhaps the differences were not so great. "Think of it more like...all the gods and spirits of the land being in harmony with nature, but sometimes someone or something becomes twisted and dark. A curse, or bitter hatred...some people even become demons in order to gain power for the sake of revenge."

"Sounds more like you're describing monsters," Fai commented, and the word came over to Kurogane and made him think of ghosts and apparitions, not demons.

"Are we having the apple-pear-raki conversation again?" the ninja asked with a sigh, and the mage grinned.

"I think so. Do you have ogres? I know you must have dragons. What about faeries and sprites? Trolls? Unicorns? Gryphons? Mermaids and centaurs?"

"Quit it," Kurogane said, trying to keep up with the sometimes awkward translations of words foreign to his language. "You're going to break the bun. Yes and no. We've got tons of sparkly things that old men claim to have bedded in their youth as well as bloodthirsty monsters to scare children into obedience with. You can get the details later."

He'd wanted to end the back-and-forth comparison without quite killing the conversation, but it worked a little bit too well, and Kurogane quirked one eyebrow at the way Fai fell immediately silent with a compliant nod and went back to staring out at the water. His curious gaze went unnoticed as the wizard leaned into his side ever so slightly, more body heat seeping through cloth than actual pressure against his skin, too close to lock gazes. They'd had conversations like this before, where the questions and banter and debate and discussion would spin out and out but then suddenly snap like a thread stretched too tight. Not all of their talks ended in such a manner, of course, but there seemed to be no real rhyme or reason to the ones that ended abruptly. They'd talked of Celes, advanced technology and music without the talk dying suddenly, but something about Suwa, political history and literature had made the mage shy away from continuing the conversation beyond a certain point.

The blond head next to him tipped slightly as if to lean against the shoulder that ended so abruptly on the ninja's left side, pulling his thoughts back to the present. It was almost a cuddle, and Kurogane waited, knowing through recently gained experience what might come if he stayed quiet and still. If the circumstances were favorable - if they were alone, and Fai was in a softly somber sort of mood, and Kurogane were quiet instead of stonily silent or grouchily grumbling - the wizard would often gravitate to him closer than mere friendship allowed, slowly and by minute increments. And if Kurogane continued quiet and calm, allowing each new degree of closeness, eventually Fai would steal a caress of some sort. A light brush of skin on skin, sometimes fingertips, sometimes lips, and once a playful nose rub that had made him blink and then chuckle. It would last as long as it lasted, sometimes just that one caress, other times stretching out longer over too few minutes, and then the pale form would turn aside or slip away.

The cautious approaches and sudden shies away seemed to speak of fear. If it was only inexperience, the ninja thought that Fai would have been laughing at their joint clumsiness and ignorance and taking delight even in their fumbles. Fear of rejection should not have survived once Kurogane had leaned in to return that first kiss.

On the other hand, no man could ever accurately measure and weigh another's past and calculate all its effects. Though the wizard was now free of the curses both magical and mental laid upon him, it was probable he was not yet - and possibly never would be - completely cured of all the ill effects of his own history. It took time and experience, too, to gain confidence in one's self as Kurogane well knew. He hadn't been able to call himself an able swordsman or ninja in truth until he'd spent years and years in learning, training and perfecting his skills. He hadn't been able to think of himself as a true man in his own heart, and with complete honesty, until he'd proven his own worth to himself over time and through trials.

Fai was confident now in his own worth and strength in many ways; his abilities in battle were proven beyond any doubt, as was his intelligence. The blond also had no insecurities about being a reliable traveling companion, invaluable asset to the team and worthy, worthwhile friend. But perhaps all this new confidence did not translate to being half of a couple. Romance was not something one could study in books and immediately know, or study in a class and take tests on. Considering the hatred he'd grown up with from both those around him and his own heart, it was a simple matter to conclude that Fai had always kept everyone at a careful distance, not just his current traveling companions, and allowed himself no intimacies, physical or otherwise. Inexperienced, and partnered with Kurogane who, while certainly no blushing virgin, also had a history of shutting people out of his heart, Fai was perhaps struggling to find his balance in this new role of lover.

The ninja waited, feeling - to his mild amusement - an anticipation that was like the thrill of waiting for an assassination target to show up where expected, though it was not bloodlust that made it necessary to control his movements and breathing and pulse. Fai's kisses enflamed him and his shyness made him hold back, and Kurogane found that he enjoyed this conflict of base instinct and self-control. It was even familiar and comfortable. His formerly too-bloodthirsty nature against his ingrained honor. Vengeance against circumstances. The call to battle on a vast gameboard against the chains restricting his movements.

Anticipation always warred instantly with desire, and if the wait stretched out for too long, it could certainly lead to frustration and impatience. He was still in that place where the ache was just a pleasant warmth instead of a scorching fire, and could - and always did - wait these moments out patiently, letting Fai determine the beginning and end of each little contact between them. He also waited them all out for the day that those hesitations, uncertain glances and sudden breaks away would end, knowing it would be good, knowing it would be all the better for being at the right time, and enjoying in the meanwhile the pleasures of anticipation and letting his imagination fill the dark unknown with pleasant scenes.

Today, the setting was such that the ninja fancied it might influence the sometimes skittish blond to linger a while in soft sweet kisses, but he eventually found himself mistaken. Very much so, in fact. He wasn't surprised when the mage slowly turned about so that they were facing one another, and Kurogane brought his hand up to rest lightly against a lean hip as pale hands crept up along his torso to rest at his shoulders as if exhausted by the climb or daunted by the remaining distance to go before they could meet behind his neck. That fair head, bleached even paler in the wan light, was still bowed slightly and the ninja wondered if it would tip up for a kiss or if Fai would simply lean into him further, wordlessly asking for an embrace. A few heartbeats passed and then he was suddenly gazing down into blue eyes, but there was only time for a quick glance before Fai leaned up and in, seeking his lips.

Kurogane had been expecting a kiss and yet was startled by it. He was startled by how cold the hands were that slipped around his neck and tugged his head down, startled by the tension he could feel through his palm and against his chest, startled by the way Fai kissed him. The only kisses he knew were the wizard's and he hadn't been kissed by him quite like this before, but years of practice had honed his ability to read people and he knew without reasoning it out that this kiss was desperate. Forceful but not out of lust, lingering but not out of hunger, insistent but not out of need; it was not anything more or less than desperation, and Kurogane had no idea why it should be so.

It was good and yet disturbing, like tasting a poison and finding it flavorful. He'd automatically responded, always greedy after the feel of those soft lips and the teeth behind them, reveling in the warmth of blood and breath and all the proofs that this person was still alive and here and his, relishing the feel of that lean body pressing against him as he clenched his hand into the fabric of the wizard's shirt and held him close. But the memory of that flash of blue - uncertain, unhappy - and the way Fai was even now clutching at him as if he might be swept away by a rogue wind...

As if prescient, the wizard broke away from him just as Kurogane decided to do the same, but where the ninja was only planning to part their lips a few centimeters so that he could look into those worried, worrisome eyes and ask what was the matter, Fai broke away; turned, pushed and darted away without a word. Even when Kurogane unthinkingly shot his hand out to grab one slender wrist, Fai only looked at him, pleading to be let go with everything except for words. Looking at that pale face, feeling the tension in a body canted entirely away from him and seeing in those blue eyes not just the dancing reflections of the lights around them but a kind of terror made Kurogane feel for the first time that it might indeed be fear instead of shyness causing all this skittishness, and his hand loosened to let the man go.

For now.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Nothing approached to threaten the little group, and Kurogane roused Syaoran after a few hours so that the boy could take his turn at watch. Fai seemed to be asleep or at least was acting it so well that it was obvious he did not wish to be disturbed, and when the mage woke the others up the next morning he seemed serene. He gave Kurogane a small, rueful sort of smile that seemed to speak a sort of apology, and having the strange scene of last night at least acknowledged instead of ignored kept the dark-haired man from pressing for more.

Again...for now.