Title: The Wizards of Ceres, chapter 7
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R in later chapters. This chapter, PG-13 for violence, blood.
Summary: The countries of Ceres and Nihon are on the brink of war again, but Kurogane Demon-Queller has more important things to think about; like protecting the borders of his country from the dark and hungry beasts that roam the wilderness. At least, he did, until his path crossed with the King of Ceres' latest gamble to win this war...

Author's notes:
I kept having to resist the urge to describe Fai's weapon in the text as a longbow. It just rolls off the tongue a lot better than plain old 'bow,' and I do see it in enough fic that's out there to make it seem like a natural choice. But then I remind myself that a longbow is anywhere between six and seven feet tall, weighs over a hundred pounds, shoots arrows the length and weight of your arm, and is almost impossible to aim. It's more of a siege weapon than a precision weapon; the intent of the longbow unit is to release a volley of armor-puncturing shots together in a high parabolic arc so that the momentum as it comes down kills anything in a wide swath under it. Fai would not be using a weapon like that for these purposes and he certainly could not be carrying it on a horse.
On the other hand, the Japanese discipline of kyuudo was actually intended for horseback archery, which is why they draw their bows the way they do, down from overhead instead of back from the front. So we'll just say that Fai's weapon is a reinforced shortbow, which still packs plenty of punch and is much better at hitting small targets when fired in a straight line.

"Hey, wizard."

Fai looked up from where he was crouched over the bow, rewrapping the arrow plate, and smiled at him. "You know, for someone who complains so much that I get your name wrong, you never use mine, either."

Kurogane waved this away impatiently. "About that. I've been thinking. I wanted to ask you something."

"What did you want to ask?" he replied.

Kurogane hesitated, not quite sure how to phrase his question. "What d'you call... people like you? Men who use magic, I mean. I don't know much about magic in your country -- or any country. Do you have some special name in your own language, or is it just 'magic users' ?"

Fai's eyebrows went up, and his hands paused on the binding of the bow. "Is there some particular thing that's sparking this interest?" he said. "I thought you didn't care for magic."

"I don't. But if it's going to be important, I figured I ought to know. You said..." Well, actually Fai hadn't said as much, but he'd implied it, "that outside of Nihon, men train in magic instead of women."

Fai put down the bow. "Yes. In fact, Nihon is fairly unusual in that respect. In most places, most practitioners of magic are men."

"How do you know that?"

Fai smiled at him gently. "Kuro-chan, this is my profession. It's my business to know. The library at Ceres has books from countries all over the place, far beyond the boundaries of the Nihon empire; some places that don't even exist any more. They all tended to have their own ways of practicing magic, though, so there's not just one word for male magic-users, no. It depends on what you specialize in."

This was not proving nearly as straightforward an answer as Kurogane had hoped. "Specialize? What does that mean?"

"Well..." Fai sat back, leaning on his hands and crossing his legs in a more comfortable posture under him. "What we call magic isn't as rare and specialized as most people seem to think. In a very general way of thinking about it, it's merely the energy that exists in the world, the energy of plants and animals and people as well as of stronger symbols such as runes and words. The question is not where to find it, or even who can see it, but how they choose to channel and shape it. Different cultures and different disciplines do it in different ways, and give it different names depending on what method you practice."

Kurogane figured he was following about half of this. He tried to get back on topic. "So... what's the method that Ceres people practice?"

He wasn't absolutely sure Fai would answer that question -- it bordered on giving away dangerous secrets -- but after a moment Fai merely said, "Well... leaving aside some kinds of specific talents that seem to be inborn, like precognition or healing, and looking only at the kinds of magic that anyone can train in and study... there are a few broad categories. Wizardry is one. Wizards use runes, or words, or symbols of power to construct a spell, which has a predetermined and specific effect. It's by far the most comprehensive and best-documented way of practicing magic, but it is limited to what you can do with the symbols themselves, and it can't be done without the proper tools and preparation."

That made some sense to Kurogane; it sounded a lot like the wards his mother had maintained. Although he'd stick his head in a bucket before he thought of his mother as a wizard. "So are there other kinds of magic, that don't take that kind of preparation?"

"Yes, a few. Sorcery is one of those. Sorcery deals with the control and channeling of elemental forces, like heat and cold, fire and water, or lightning; people who practice that are called sorcerers."

"Controlling fire, as in, magically creating fire?" Kurogane frowned -- this was impinging uncomfortably close to some personal things.

Fai smiled. "Mm, it's possible, although creating fire where there is none is a little different, and is a much bigger drain on the sorcerer's energy. I was thinking more in terms of controlling a fire that actually exists, making it bigger or smaller or directing it where you want to go. Depending on your skill -- and how much of your life energy you can spare, of course -- a sorcerer can also cause immediate physical effects like moving or stopping things, or putting up a barrier."

Kurogane was getting the feeling that he was going to be quizzed on all this, later. "A barrier. Like the wards?"

"That's a little different too. Those were built over time and sustain themselves through a physical object. I'm talking more about an immediate barrier that the sorcerer would create right in front of him, and it lasts only as long as he's concentrating on it, or until he runs out of power. There's also magery. That's a power that comes mostly from the mind; it allows the mage a certain sensitivity to magic, and between two mages of equivalent skill, silent or long-distance communication. The aptitude for that does seem to vary widely from person to person; training and skill can only get you so far, you either have the ability or you don't.

"Then there's also what we'd call natural magic, and there --" Fai was getting more and more enthusiastic on his subject, gesturing animatedly and with a vivid sparkle in his eyes. " -- this is where the boundaries of what we call magic start getting really fuzzy. Natural magic deals with plans and animals, and other creatures and systems of the natural world.

"On the more dramatic end, powerful shamans can do things like taking on the shapes of animals, or even controlling the weather; but natural magic also includes much simpler things like communicating with plants and animals. Or even herbalism, creating potions or spells with magical effect out of plants that exist perfectly naturally in every mountain meadow. Even cooking has an element of this kind of natural magic in it, taking raw ingredients that we can't eat and transforming them into something we can. Who can say where the boundary lies between mundane tasks, and magical ones? It's all the same energy, in the end."

Kurogane was getting a headache. He'd thought it was a simple question, and hadn't expected an academic lecture. "All right, enough. I get the idea, there're lots of different titles depending on what kind of magic. So back to the question I actually asked you -- which one of these titles applies to you? Wizard, mage, sorcerer, shaman, or what?"

There was a pause, and then Fai coughed apologetically; for a change, he actually looked embarrassed. "Well, all of them, technically."

"What?!"

"Well, I've studied all of those fields, and can practice them, to some extent. I'm stronger in some areas than others, of course, but I think it's fair to say I'm proficient in all of them."

Kurogane was absolutely convinced that the wizard was putting him on, teasing him somehow, even if he wasn't exactly sure of the punch line. "I don't believe it," he said abruptly.

"What part of it don't you believe?" Fai said, in a tone so patient that it had to be mockery.

"I don't believe that you could have trained in all those types of magic! Even if they are real, and I'm not convinced of that, even if Ceresdoes have them in its library, there's no way you could have learned about all of them well enough to do them in just a few years! You're way too young for that, even if you started studying as a kid."

Fai stared at him in what appeared to be genuine astonishment, and then broke into peals of laughter. "Too young? Kuro-chan, how old exactly do you think I am?"

"You..." Kurogane found himself suddenly shaken by doubt; hastily, he revised his mental estimate of Fai's age up by a few years. "I don't know, twenty-one, maybe twenty-two? Even so..."

"The same age as you are? We could have been childhood friends together? Oh, my goodness." Fai took a breath, got a hold of his laughter. "Kuro-chan, I began the study of magic when I was seven years old, and I've been studying for more than three decades now."

"What?" Kurogane stared in disbelief. "You're shitting me!"

Fai spread his empty hands in denial, smiling slightly. "Sorry," he said.

Kurogane refused to talk to him for the rest of the evening.

In the bright light of morning, Kurogane took a close, hard look at Fai. It was still hard to believe that this slight, smooth-faced boy with the easy laugh was in his middle age; there wasn't a wrinkle or blemish in sight. Something to do with all that magic? Probably in at least one of those kinds of magic there was the secret of eternal youth, or something even weirder than that. "So -- do you want me to believe you can do every kind of magic that exists?"

"No, no!" Fai assured him. "Not at all. There are some schools of magic that we don't know very much about, either because they're purely theoretical or because they're guarded secrets -- like conjuration, for instance. That's one of the biggest holes in our library at Ceres, it's very frustrating." Fai frowned, as if in remembered injustice.

Kurogane thought about this. "So what do you call someone who does 'conjuration?' "

That surprised a brief laugh from Fai. "Good question. I suppose you could call them warlocks -- or witches, for females -- but I don't really know, because so far we don't know anyone who does that kind of magic."

"Even you?" Kurogane asked pointedly.

Fai shook his head. "When I said nobody knows much about it, I meant it. Conjuration refers to a largely theoretical branch of magic where you create portals -- doorways -- to another place, through which you can instantly transport an object, or yourself. It requires immense amounts of power and control, and the slightest mistake can be fatal."

The idea intrigued Kurogane -- instant teleportation between places had a lot of possibilities, both on the individual and the large scale. Transportation of assassins -- armies -- supply trains -- "That sounds handy," he remarked.

Fai looked at him askance. "Have you really thought it through? Creating such a portal involves ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe itself! If you're lucky, the other end of the portal will wind up somewhere in our world -- and not in the heart of a volcano or the bottom of an ocean. If you're not lucky -- do you have any idea what exists outside of the boundaries of our world? What kind of creatures live out there?"

"No," Kurogane said, taken aback.

"Neither do I," Fai said. "Because nobody who's ever done that has come back to tell us."

"Oh."

Fai straightened his shoulders, having made his point. "Anyway, there are types of magic I don't do because they're too dangerous, like that one. And some schools I've studied but just don't have the talent for, like medicinal magic, and some schools I've studied but would really rather not have to do, like necromancy."

"Necromancy?!" Kurogane stared at Fai in shock.

"Magic that deals with dead things, or talking with dead people, or --"

"I know what it means! I want to know what the hell you mean, you don't like to do necromancy -- so does that mean that you havetried it, at least enough to know that you can do it?"

"I really prefer not to have to do it," Fai said mildly. "Dead people aren't very good conversationalists. Nothing like you, Kuro-pon!"

Kurogane decided he wasn't going to ask any more. Ever.

The rest of that day passed in strained silence, as Kurogane tried to work through the implications of all the information that had been thrown at him. Even after they banked the fire, the usual signal for Fai to shut up and go to sleep, Kurogane kept fidgeting and shifting around uncomfortably.

"Kuro-myu," Fai said from the other side of the fire, "you know, it really is quite silly for both of us to stay awake all night. Why don't we take shifts? Lack of sleep makes puppies cranky!"

"Don't call me that," Kurogane said, raising his head from his usual sleeping posture; sitting with one leg braced against the ground, chin tucked against his chest. "And I always sleep like this."

"Then that's probably why you're always cranky."

"Have you considered the possibility that you're the reason why I'm always cranky?" Kurogane grumbled.

"Impossible!" Fai stated cheerily. "Anyway I don't see how you hope to get any rest, sitting up like that. Didn't I guard you perfectly well when you took that bath --"

"Which I didn't intend to take --"

Fai smirked at him. "Come on, lie down and get some sleep. It'll be good for you, you'll be more on your game and ready to fight any demons that we find, okay?"

Against his better judgement, Kurogane spread out a blanket and rolled up in it. "If I find you asleep when I wake up later, we're going back to the old way," he said firmly.

"Night, Kuro-nyao!" Fai sing-songed. "I'll wake you up after midnight, or if I see any of the walking dead approach, okay? With the full moon and all."

"Very funny, mage," Kurogane snarled, and turned away from the fire.

He stayed wide awake for hours, though.

Halfway through the morning, Kurogane noticed Fai's chatter slow and stumble, and finally die. It wasn't that he missed the incessant noise, or in any way begrudged the silence; it was just unusual, that was all. And when he glanced back at Fai, behind him on the trail, he caught a grimace on the other man's face, so unlike his usual empty-headed smile.

"Oi," he finally asked, after the second of these. "Something wrong?"

Fai looked up at him, startled, and blinked. "What makes you think that?" he parried, trying to make his voice unconcerned.

"If you're sick or something, just say so. We can stop for an hour."

"No, it's... no, nothing like that," Fai assured him. But he still had the same crease between his eyebrows, the same small frown on his face.

Kurogane waited a moment, and then prompted, "Then what is it like?"

Fai sighed, and then nudged his horse a little further up the trail, until he was riding alongside Kurogane instead of directly behind. Kurogane was grateful that at least he didn't have to keep his head cranked over his shoulder to continue this conversation. He waited.

After several minutes, Fai said, "Yukito is calling me."

"Calling you?" Kurogane said, startled. "What -- like you call the animals?" Now that was just creepy.

"No," Fai laughed, although it sounded slightly strained. "Not exactly. This is a direct communication, aimed at me specifically. And it goes two ways. He's calling me, but I don't have to answer."

Kurogane waited for clarification, but Fai apparently considered this explanation enough in its own right. "Who's Yukito?" he prodded him.

Fai flashed him a considering glance, before saying after a moment, "Second senior wizard to the King of Ceres."

"Oh," Kurogane sat back in his saddle, startled by this news. "So he's kind of your boss, huh?"

Fai smirked at him. "We prefer not to think of ourselves in such hierarchical terms, but I guess you could say that."

"Does he know where you are?" Kurogane frowned. "Wait -- could he come and find us here?"

Fai laughed, although there was a dry note in it. "No. He could never leave Ceres to come after me. He's the focus of far too many boundary and scrying spells to be able to pass the borders of the kingdom."

"That's something, I guess." Kurogane brooded on this information. "So why is he trying so hard to talk to you, anyway?"

Fai shrugged slightly; he moved his horse a few steps ahead of Kurogane's, so that Kurogane was no longer able to directly see his face. "Probably, because the King is annoyed with me."

Kurogane drew in a breath, feeling a twinge of sympathy. Being in the doghouse with the ruler of one's country was never fun; his pride was still smarting from the dressing-down Amaterasu had given him before he left. But all the same... "Wait, why would he be annoyed with you? Didn't he send you on this mission in the first place?" But no, Fai had never said that, had he? He'd only implied it.

Fai glanced back over his shoulder at Kurogane. "As a matter of fact, not as such, no."

Kurogane clenched his teeth. "So you ran off from your post, came out on your own? Why?"

"Well..." Fai hesitated, then sighed. "I thought that the demons were the more important threat. I still do. We have to learn to counter them before it's too late. The King doesn't think so, but I do. That's why I'm here." He nodded in calm resolution, as he turned to face forward again.

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "Great. So not only am I stuck out in the middle of the wilderness with a crazy wizard who won't even use magic, he's a runaway wizard, too. Potentially with a league of other wizards wanting to hunt him down and bring him back. That'sdefinitely what I wanted to hear. All we need now is a couple of angry potential fathers-in-law howling for your head, and the scenario will be complete."

Fai tried to protest that image, but he was laughing too hard; he very nearly fell off his horse.

They were approaching the limit of what Kurogane thought of as his regular patrol; not only the farthest point from the Nihon walls that he normally went, but also the part where the rolling wooded hills began to give way to more broken, barren, and rockier territory. They'd been climbing upwards for about a day, winding their way through a series of small canyons with scrub-like trees lining the rock lips. Kurogane's intention was to get to a lookout point he knew, where they could get a good view of the lands to the west and the north before turning around and making the descent.

On one particularly treacherous slope they'd both dismounted and were leading their horses, and, not for the first time that day, broken out into an argument. At least, Kurogane thought, he was having an argument; Fai was just being ridiculous, as usual.

"So if you're not going to wear a helmet, what's the point of even wearing armor at all?" he was making the perfectly valid point. "You're leaving some of the most vulnerable parts of your body completely exposed -- you might as well just slap a bright red target on your head and be done with it."

"But I couldn't wear a helmet like Kuro-chan's," Fai said in a reasonable-sounding tone that was anything but. "How could I see anything that was around me on any side? I'd have no peripheral vision at all. I'd be half-blinded!"

"That's why you don't rely on your eyes alone!" Kurogane shot back. "You have to develop your senses so that you can feel attacks coming, even from your blind side or from behind you. Once you've done that it doesn't matter how limited your field of vision is; and until you have, you'll be vulnerable from all directions anyway."

Fai hummed a little, "But if that's the case," he said, "if I'm going to use magic anyway, I'd rather just do what I have been doing and not wear a helmet."

"How many times do I have to tell you? It's not magic!" Kurogane began heatedly, but Fai wasn't even looking at him. Instead, those ice blue eyes were scanning over the rocky edges above and around them.

"Speaking of things on all sides," Fai said brightly, "I think we have company, Kuro-chan."

Kurogane snapped his head around and looked up; sure enough, almost-but-not-quite hidden against the stony background, there was a scrape and a shudder as a human form retreated out of view. "Crap."

"Whatever shall we do?" Fai said softly, keeping his eyes on the skyline and not even looking down at Kurogane. "Perhaps these gentlemen want to talk with us?"

Kurogane considered. "This file opens up a little further on. If they want to put us in a bottleneck, they'll probably be waiting there," he predicted.

"We could turn around and go back down," Fai suggested.

"They'd just follow us."

"All right then," Fai said, amused. "We walk into the lion's den. And then what?"

Kurogane didn't bother to answer; he just reached back and adjusted Ginryuu in the scabbard.

True to Kurogane's guess, they turned the last bend in the rock wall to see a line of figures blocking the way. "Stop right there!" one of them called, and Kurogane did, rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles while he sized up his opponents.

Five of them visible ahead, seven stationed on the rock walls behind and above them. All men, grubby and hollow-eyed, dressed in ill-fitting clothes and pieces of armor. Definitely bandits, and Kurogane shook his head in disgust. Some people were just too stupid to live. "Well?" he called back ungraciously. "What do you want?"

Fai laughed. "Always so rude, Kuro-chan!" he called out teasingly. "Here we are guests in their territory, and you can't even phrase yourself politely. Try 'What can we do for you gentlemen?' Just like that."

Some scattered, coarse laughter from the rocks around them, and Kurogane rolled his eyes. The bandit standing a little forward and higher than the rest -- almost certainly the leader -- laughed the loudest, like a braying mule, before he said, "What do you think we want? Pay us our toll."

"Not your road," Kurogane observed, and the leader grinned unpleasantly, showing the remains of a few very bad teeth.

"It is now. We ain't in the empire of Nihon any more, boys. We got tired of fighting other people's wars for a pittance, got tired of slaving away for those whores up in Edo. No more taxes, no more laws! We're starting our own empire, and if you're in our territory, you're gonna pay our toll!"

"You're insane." Kurogane's shoulders tensed, anger at the insult to Tomoyo beginning to tinge his vision red.

Fai leaned in, and asked in a tone of interest, "What are you going to do about the demons? How long do you think you'll last, out in the middle of demon territory like this? You've only made it this long because this place is so broken up and rocky, they can't catch a good scent."

"What do you think we are, children?" the leader scoffed; although Kurogane thought he saw some of the other men shift uneasily when demons were mentioned, and exchange nervous looks. "We don't believe in fairy stories! And if any some damn demons do show up, we're ready for them! We've got fifty warriors --"

"Like hell you do," Kurogane snorted. "You've got twelve men, no horses, and not a decent weapon among the lot of you."

"We'll have more before today is over. We'll even let you walk out of here alive." Given the smirk that accompanied that line, Kurogane was inclined to doubt that assurance. "All we want is your money, your horses, your gear, and --" the man leered and winked, a truly disgusting sight -- "your woman."

Next to him, Fai abruptly stopped laughing. "Hey!" It was Kurogane's turn to snicker at Fai's suddenly sour expression, and when the mage glared at him, it turned into an outright chortle.

"Why does everyone assume that?" Fai demanded of no one in particular, as Kurogane made an effort to . "Do I have breasts? Do I have a pretty hairstyle? Am I wearing a dress? No, I do not and I am not!"

"Enough talk," the bandit leader called out, suddenly serious and threatening. "Pay up."

"Yeah, I don't see that happening," Kurogane called back, and reached back for his sword.

"Hands off!" the leader called a warning, and there was a sudden scraping sound as the seven who'd been in concealment stood up; Kurogane glanced around him to see half a dozen bows and crossbows in various states of repair being aimed in his direction. "You're outnumbered and outgunned! One wrong move and you're a pincushion!"

"Well, Kuro-sama," Fai said in a low voice, tone still disgruntled, "what do we do now?"

"Kill them," Kurogane said, and his sword left the sheath.

He heard the shouts as he leapt forward, and the snap of bowstrings and the clack of bolts ricocheting off of rock -- and at least one hard, heavy tung as they struck his armor, and bounced back. His vision had gone to black and white again, focused on the figure of the bandit leader ahead of him; the world narrowed down to just him and his kill.

Another blow struck him, shaking his entire body and rocking his stride, but he shifted his weight outwards and kept going. The bandit barely had time to fall back two steps, mouth opening to shout, hand clawing for the weapon at his own belt, before Kurogane was on him, and Ginryuu came around in a broad sweep that took his head off his shoulders in one clean blow.

The body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and Kurogane whirled around, blood arcing out in a fierce spatter as he brought his sword to bear. Now he was able to take in the rest of the battlefield, and breathed in relief when he saw that neither of the horses had been hit. He would have been upset if they'd gotten hurt, but in a life or death situation there was no waiting on them.

It took him a little longer to locate Fai -- not a sprawled heap on the ground, not locked in one-on-one melee combat with any of the swarming dark figures on the sides of the ravine -- he finally located him by the bright flash of hair... up a tree on the far side of the ravine, twenty yards away.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" he called out, but Fai didn't respond. One of the bowmen had pulled his aim around, and fired a wild shot in Fai's direction; he dropped and swung out of its path in a smooth movement, one hand on the bole of the tree for balance. The bowman pulled another arrow for another shot; Kurogane was about to move in his direction, not at all sure he could get there in time, when something dark and fast came hissing down out of the tree, and struck the bowman in the neck. He crumpled in a heap, gurgling and clutching at the thing lodged in his throat; Kurogane's tantou.

"Gods damn it!" Kurogane roared. "How many times are we going to have this conversation about not throwing your only weapon away?"

"It's not my only weapon, Kuro-chi!" Fai's voice floated down to him, and silhouetted against the sunlight he saw Fai brace himself against two branches, and in one smooth moment unsling something from around his chest -- the bow, Kurogane realized, and wondered when the hell he'd had time to get it off the horses.

Another heavy impact of a crossbow bolt warned him that he couldn't waste any more time standing around and staring. When he turned to face the source of it his left shoulder joint scraped to a stop mid-movement; the bolt had lodged in the joint, hindering his movement. "Ah, shit," he muttered, and turned his attention to the situation on the ravine floor once more.

Some of the bandits were panicking, scrambling to escape in all directions, but others had by now decided that trying to take him down with missiles was impossible, and were ganging up on him instead, wielding knives or clubs or even one cheap, rusted sword. A small smile played over Kurogane's face as he set his stance; the lot of them combined didn't weigh half of even what a small oni did, and none of their weapons had a chance of getting through his guard. All they were accomplishing by this was putting themselves conveniently in reach of his sword.

It was over within minutes; Kurogane was barely even breathing hard when he finally lowered his sword and counted bodies. Five on the ravine floor, six counting the beheaded bandit leader; three more in still heaps on the ledge above. That left three to escape, and Kurogane growled in his throat as he caught sight of one of the bowmen from before, scrambling over the rocks a hundred yards up. Too sheer a face for him to climb; if he tried to get up there in this armor he was just as likely to bring the unstable face down on himself.

"Mind if I borrow that, Kuro-pi?" a voice said from right by his ear; Kurogane jumped and nearly skewered the mage, who'd dropped down on his left side. "The hell!"

"Thank you." Fai grabbed hold of the arrow lodged in his shoulder joint, and yanked; Kurogane stumbled as it pulled free. Fai had brought the bow down from the tree with him; he spun the arrow around and drew it carefully, adjusting for the mismatched length and style of the arrow, and let it fly.

The arrow wobbled mid-flight; instead of striking him in the center chest it landed in his lower back, right under the kidneys; the man screamed in agony and lost his grip on the rocks, rolling for a dozen feet before he hit free air and dropped; the scream ended with a very final crunch when he hit the ground.

"Not bad," Kurogane allowed.

"Shoddy fletching," Fai disagreed. "No wonder it wouldn't fly straight. What can you expect from amateurs, I suppose?"

"Guess so," Kurogane said, and squinted up at the rocks; no sign of the surviving two bandits. Well, if twelve hadn't been a threat, two likely wouldn't be either -- unless, of course, they had a larger band hidden back in the caves somewhere. But he doubted it.

Looking around at the slaughterhouse the ravine had suddenly become, Kurogane lowered his guard with a sigh. "Well, let's clean up this mess."

"Did you enjoy that?" Fai asked, from the ledge above, where he was retrieving the tantou from the body of the ill-fated archer.

"Don't forget to check them for money. Not likely that any of their gear will be worth crap, but check for anything easy to carry," Kurogane called up to him, kicking over the body of the bandit leader and bending over to examine it; if any of them were likely to have anything worth taking, it would be him. "Yeah, it was a nice little exercise."

"Was it," Fai said, and something in his tone caused Kurogane to glance up.

"You aren't coming over feeling guilty, are you?" he asked. "They started it, you know. They would have killed us both for the clothes on our backs. They're nothing but parasites."

"Mm."

"Look at it this way," Kurogane said. "Forget that they were criminals; they were walking bait for the oni in this area. They'd lasted out here what, a few months? They wouldn't have lasted a year before they would have been caught and eaten, and then their souls would be taken for demon food. And if they'd ever gone back to Nihon, they would have been crucified as thieves and murderers. This is the best ending they could have come to, and it spared any other victims that they might have come across in the meantime."

"But they were still men," Fai said softly. He looked up to meet Kurogane's gaze, his piercing blue eyes unusually serious. "I thought you preferred demons. I thought you didn't like fighting humans."

"I don't," Kurogane said, and looked back at the man he'd beheaded, so effortlessly; at the other five he'd killed afterwards. "Because it's too easy." Much too easy.

There was no food to be foraged, this high above the tree line, but they managed to scrounge up enough scrub brush for a fire, and Fai located a lone yearling duck, with a ring of darker spots around its neck and a crimp in one of its wings.

Kurogane eyed it with disfavor. "Let me guess," he said. "The duck's name is Bluefeathers or something like that, and he was supposed to have flown south months ago, but he injured his wing and was separated from his flock, and is now bravely trying to make the yearly migration on his own."

"Something like that," Fai agreed.

Kurogane stared at the duck. The duck fanned its feathers and cocked its head at him, giving a low honk.

"Want to eat him anyway?"

"Yeah."

They came to the top of the ridge early the next day, and Kurogane was able to get his look over the landscape at last; the light was behind them, looking to the north and to the east, rapidly burning off the last of the morning mist.

The forested hills below them were a patchwork of dull colors; dark green conifers mixed further down with the bare black of denuded trees; further on there was still the yellow and brown of autumn leaves clinging to the trees. Miles away, to the north, was the curve of the wall that marked the boundary between Nihon and the wilderness; and far to the north, but still crisp and clear into the distance, the snow-frosted mountain range that was Fai's home.

He looked over to see the wizard, eyes half-lidded and expression intense, staring off into the distance. "Hey, Kuro-sama?" the mage asked quietly.

That was one of the plainer pet names, which Fai used when he was being unusually serious -- although never serious enough to use Kurogane's real name -- or when his attention was being taken up by other things. It dismayed Kurogane that he was learning all the variations on this annoying habit. "What?" he said, maybe a little too sharply.

Fai didn't seem to notice, though; he pointed out towards the north and the east, at a tangent to the direction that they'd come. "Do you see that hollow, about five miles away, between where that saddle runs into the river?"

Kurogane looked at the spot in question. "I see it... what about it?"

"Do you see fog there?"

A chill went down Kurogane's spine, and he stared hard at the hollow, then transferred his gaze to the mage. "No," he said. "No, there's no fog there."

A smile curved Fai's lips that had very little to do with humor, but a lot to do with hunting. "Then I think we've found our prey," he said.

Descending the north face of the ridge was harder than getting up to the lookout point had been; there were no paths on this side at all, and while the high-branched conifers made the woods look open and airy, the openness was deceptive. They had to lead the horses, wending their way among clusters of trunks and deadfalls, over sheer drops and down steep faces whose apparently solid surfaces gave way in showers of gravel and dead needles. By the time they'd gotten back to level ground again they were both scratched and bruised. And wary.

"Can you tell me anything about what class of oni we're facing?" Kurogane asked in a low voice, checking the draw of Ginryuu in its scabbard for the fourth time. He'd done his best to describe to Fai the different kinds of oni that he had faced over the years, and the different dangers that each kind presented, but he'd never been terribly good with words and it didn't mean as much until facing the thing itself.

"I've got no idea," Fai retorted, voice somewhat strained. "I can't see it at all -- that's the whole point of the magical concealment, isn't it? All I know is that it's there."

"Mm." But Kurogane was beginning to be able to sense it, the closer they got -- an uneasy feeling, an insidious taint on his mind. He kept his senses open and wary, scanning their surroundings for anything out of place.

All the same it was actually Fai who found the first traces -- or rather, Fai's horse, shying suddenly and sidling to the side, "Bella!" Fai exclaimed, putting a hand on her neck. "What is it, lady?"

Kurogane nudged his own horse closer, leaned over to look. The hooves had nearly trodden on a human skeleton, lying in some disarray in a scattering of torn clothing. The bones were white and bare, but fresh; it was hard to tell, but he didn't think the skeleton was complete. "Here's the first one," he said aloud. "This is a recent kill."

"Who was that?" Fai sounded half-sick, half-fascinated, staring at the bones. "Do you think -- any connection to those bandits we fought, in the higher reaches?"

"No way to tell now," Kurogane shrugged, and pushed his horse onwards. There was a look in Fai's eyes like he wanted to disagree with that, wanted to do something more, but he chose to follow Kurogane wordlessly.

They passed a few other skeletons, including one that Kurogane identified (but did not name to Fai) as female; and a burnt-out clearing with a charred and tumbled heap of leather in one corner that had probably been a tent. The oni was no longer there, but he thought he could feel it not too far away.

"It's close," Fai said, and he nodded in agreement. "The fog is thick, now."

"We'll leave the horses here," Kurogane said, and he dismounted with a small grunt, glanced around for something to fix his reins to. He didn't take his horse into battle; not only was the Suwa style of swordsmanship not suited for it, but it was a sure way to lose a horse, and he didn't particularly feel like walking back to Edo.

Fai blinked at him in some surprise, tilted his head in inquiry. "Why?" he said. "I thought you said the demons only drink human blood, and aren't interested in animals."

"They aren't," Kurogane responded sharply. "But the big ones can cut a horse in half with one blow, and they will, to dismount you. And you can't armor a horse the same way you can armor a person."

"That's true." Fai bent his head down towards his mount's head, a hand resting between her ears. The horse stamped, and whinnied, a strangely defiant sound. Fai straightened up and smiled at Kurogane. "Bella says she's willing to take the risk."

Kurogane eyed him warily, then shook his head. He wasn't going to argue with a horse. "Fine." He resigned himself to having to ride double with the mage, when his horse got killed. And tried not to look forward too much to that possibility.

They continued on, and soon neither of them would have needed special senses to find their quarry; they could hear it, crashing through the undergrowth -- and from the echoing sound of breaking wood, the forest itself -- floated between the trees to their ears. They came out suddenly into a clearing on either side of the bank of a broad, shallow river, and stopped.

"Here," Kurogane said, and unsheathed his sword at last, finding solid footing as he took a battle stance. "We'll fight it here."

Fai looked faintly confused. "Don't we have to find it first?" he asked, his horse sidestepping uneasily away from him.

"No." A sharp smile curled up one side of Kurogane's mouth, and he raised his head to stare into the shadows on the other side of the river. "It'll come to us."

The oni burst out of the patch of shadows on the far bank, and one small pine toppled to the side as it bulled through. It roared, the noise shaking the treetops, and Kurogane took the few seconds before it closed the distance to size it up. Only one, this time, but it was a large one, its head towering some ten meters in the air. It went on four massive legs, covered with filthy, matted gray fur; but its top half reared above the four massive legs with a torso and arms almost like a man's, if any man had a spider's face, two sets of mandibles around a chittering mouth under (Kurogane counted six) round, glowing yellow eyes. He searched for -- but did not see -- the telltale bulge on the monster's chest and throat; not a host, then. He breathed relief for that fact; he never had gotten Fai to wear a helmet.

It roared again, the mandibles splitting its mouth wide, and then charged, sending the river fountaining in waves around it. "Crap," Kurogane muttered as he did a rapid recalculation; no way he could take that charge standing. Instead, he waited until the monster was almost on him, massive three-toed fists swinging down at him, before he moved. He slashed with Ginryuu as he lunged, and the blade sliced through filthy fur and skin; some black blood beaded and flew off, but it was only a superficial cut. Armoring under the skin this time, no doubt, and he mouthed another curse as the monster spun to follow him, much faster than he would have guessed from its size.

An arrow came hissing from the monster's right side, and struck the side of the monster's face beside the mandibles; then a second one, further back on the head towards the neck. The oni roared in fury and swiped a massive paw at the missile, but Kurogane could tell from the angle and the length of shafts still protruding that they had been no more than superficial hits, no more damage than his attack with Ginryuu had done.

Kurogane took advantage of the monster's distraction to press forward, lending all his strength to slashing blows on the oni's flank. He caught a glimpse past the monster of Fai, still on the horse, cantering furiously to maintain the distance while he handled the bow and drew another arrow. For the first time Kurogane could appreciate Fai's weird communication with his mount; without reins or a halter it meant that he could use both hands to draw and fire the bow, and still be able to keep his seat on the horse and control her with his legs alone.

He saw an opening, and changed the angle of attack; grinned as he felt a blow connect at all, saw Ginryuu sink deeply into the bulking muscles of the beast's flank, severing a tendon. It wouldn't be so fast to turn now, he thought, as he yanked his sword free in a spray of blood.

A chittering noise sounded from right above him, and he looked up -- right into the hideously deformed face of a rat-like creature, yellow eyes glowing, less than a foot from his face. He didn't have time to dodge as it launched itself at him; he flung up his left hand to block it, and the thing latched onto his arm, four limbs clawing and raking at the plate with unbelievable strength. The thing was the size of a large dog, and Kurogane's breath hissed in as three more pairs of glowing yellow eyes focused on him, from where they'd been roosting on the oni's humped back.

He retreated, still struggling with the first rat-like monster; it looked a little like one of the vermin, but holy crap he'd never seen one this big, or this strong, or with almost hand-like paws clawing against the catches of his armor. It was pulling him off-balance, hampering his ability to swing -- or to reach for his second weapon, not that he could have brought Souhi to bear at such a close distance anyway.

The second rat-thing leaped from the monster's back and landed on his shoulder. It began raining blows on his head, which couldn't break through the heavy plate of his helmet, but set his ears ringing and his vision dizzy with the force of them nonetheless. The bigger oni was turning to face him again, braying in triumph; slower to move and with its right leg dragging, all right, but nothing impeding the speed or crushing strength of its arms.

Another hissing sound, from somewhere he couldn't see; a jolting impact to his head, and then with a hideous squeal the rat-thing released its grip on his neck and fell writhing on the ground, an arrow lodged in its back. The wizard must have circled around, to get a clear shot him without the monster in the way. A second arrow knocked off the one clinging to his left arm, and he was finally able to shift his stance and bring Ginryuu to bear. No more fucking around; he inhaled deeply and focused his ki, centering on his sword arm, and out beyond the reach of his hand.

"Senryuu hikougeki!" he roared, letting the blast whip outwards, following the point of the sword; the howling blast of energy ripped into the monster, making a dent against the armoring at last. The oni actually staggered back, letting out an earsplitting bellow of pain and outrage at the attack.

"Oh, nice recovery, Kuro-pyon!" a light, breathless voice called from behind him.

"Shut up and fight!" he snarled, not taking his eyes off the main opponent. Three of the rat-things were crumpled corpses around his feet; where was the fourth one? He heard the same unearthly squeal from behind him, and the distressed scream of a horse, but there was no time to turn and look; he just had to hope that Fai could deal with it himself. He narrowed his eyes at the shambling monster in front of him, his breath coming hard and quick, searching for weak points. Where -- where, on this monstrosity, would its armoring be weak, its vitals be exposed...?

His earlier attack had torn the oni up the left side, the torso and the head; one of its eyes was cut out, leaking black fluid, but it seemed to be able to turn its head and adjust for that. Not a direct passage into the brain, not there. The chest and throat were exposed in this up-rearing position, but so massively armored that he didn't think even a dragon blow could cut through it. The other tendons -- perhaps...?

Another arrow came humming over his head and struck the oni in the neck, then burst into flames. Kurogane snarled in frustration -- that was still not the right technique -- but he couldn't fault its effectiveness. The oni howled, massive arms sweeping up to try to claw at the blue fire spreading over the filthy fur of its head. It reared upwards, the front two legs leaving the ground in a ponderous heave.

Kurogane saw his opening and attacked in the same instant. The oni's lower chest, underbelly and innards were exposed in that moment; he darted forwards, for a moment actually under the rearing legs. He had to duck a bit to get in position, but not much; and then he planted his feet, threw his head back, and called out "Tenma-ku ryusen!" as he directed the blast upwards into the softer underbelly.

Fire exploded, in the massive hollow cage created by the oni's ribcage and plating, and Kurogane was knocked flat to the ground by the backblow. Dazed, he barely had the presence of mind to roll to the side and then scramble on his hands and knees, as the flaming ton-heavy hulk collapsed nearly on top of him. He didn't quite make it; one of the heavy limbs landed across his back, and for a moment he lay stunned, half-blinded by the stench of charred fur and demonic flesh swirling around him.

Hoofbeats on the gravel strand in front of him jerked him back to his senses; he gripped Ginryuu in a panic, not that he had the leverage to swing from this position. But it was only Fai, the magician as winded as Kurogane had ever seen him, sweat dripping down his forehead as he panted for breath. He was grinning like a lunatic, though, as he slid off of his horse's side and reached down to give Kurogane a hand out from under the oni's corpse.

"Not bad," Fai panted, once he'd wrestled Kurogane free and the demon hunter was on his feet, "except for the encore there, I'd hate to see poor Kuro-pyuu buried under half a story of roasted demon. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to blow up a house you're standing under?"

Now Kurogane had a chance to look over the battlefield; he located the fourth ratling's corpse, slashed and trampled, halfway down the gravel strand. The horse had a long scratch down its side that was bleeding sluggishly, but seemed otherwise unharmed, and Fai was still carrying the black-stained tantou in his left hand.

"Not bad yourself," Kurogane returned, then coughed cinders out of his throat. "At least this time, you knew better than to throw your damn weapon away."

Fai shrugged a little, and grinned even wider. "Well," he said, turning to face the still-burning corpse, "shall we head away from here and find a place to rest and clean up? Or shall we make camp right here tonight? Here we have campfire and dinner, all in one."

Kurogane groaned.

They did find another place to camp, after all, on a mud flat several miles upstream from the demon hulk. The proximity of the river meant that they had a chance to take turns washing, which delighted Fai, although Kurogane rather thought that he needed it more.Fai hadn't had a burning oni explode in his face, after all.

Fai chattered excitedly as they made camp, bouncing around like a cricket -- Kurogane guessed he was still wound up from his first oni kill and not sure how to channel the nervous energy. So much for the maturity of age, ha, not that he'd ever really been able to think of Fai as older or wiser in any way. Neither of them suggested weapons practice -- somewhat redundant at this point -- and they both feasted on leftover food from last night's dinner and travel rations without complaint.

"Hey... Fai," Kurogane said at last, allowing himself the brief luxury of using the mage's full name. Fai looked up at him, blue eyes wide in surprise.

"You weren't half bad back there," he said, gruffness in his voice belying the real emotion. "You could probably train up into a real demon-hunter."

Fai smiled, sensing the compliment behind his words. "You really think so?"

"Yeah," Kurogane said. "I... wouldn't mind having you at my back again." He stood there for a moment more, feeling awkward; he wasn't used to giving praise. He finished it up by giving Fai a firm nod, emphasizing his words.

"Thanks, Kuro-chan." Fai was still smiling, and his voice was cheerful; Kurogane couldn't understand why his eyes looked somehow... sad.

Maybe he wasn't looking forward to them parting ways ahead; with the oni defeated, and the patrol circuit nearly completed, Kurogane would be returning to the Edo capital soon, and Fai... back north, where his king and the other wizards were waiting to vent their displeasure. Maybe. Kurogane didn't pretend to understand what was going on in the mage's mind, any more than he pretended to know anything about Ceres magical politics.

Abruptly, he stood, shoveling a layer of ash over the fire to bank it down to coals. "I'm going to sleep," he said. "You take first watch."

"Okay," Fai said agreeably. Kurogane half expected him to follow up with teasing about Kurogane going to bed so early, about how quickly he tired out and had no stamina -- oh, gods, he'd been hanging around with the mage for too long if he was having stupid arguments with him in his head without the other man even saying anything.

He shook his head to clear it of fatigue and wizards alike, and turned to roll himself up in a blanket and sleep. Whatever was bothering Fai, he'd deal with it in the morning.

"Good night... Kurogane," Fai said, and the strangeness of hearing his proper name from the wizard almost pulled him back from the brink of sleep.

It was near midnight; the moon was reaching its zenith overhead, the half-circle casting a faint pale light over the woods. Fai was still sitting in front of the banked fire, enjoying the heat of the glowing coals on his face. It was funny; back in the high passes of Ceres a night like this would be frozen solid, or howling with subzero winds; but even this late-autumn chill felt cold, against his back. He'd spent too much time out here, in the lowlands, away from his country.

Kurogane was still sleeping, the sound of his breaths -- not exactly snores, just deep rasping breaths in a slow, distinctive pattern -- assured Fai that he was truly asleep. He'd learned, over the past few weeks, the difference between Kurogane lying still and alert and tense and Kurogane truly asleep; the same way he'd learned the difference between Kurogane quiet because he was thinking and Kurogane quiet because he was sleepy, Kurogane irritable because he was hungry or Kurogane annoyed because of something Fai said or did, Kurogane growling out of embarrassment or irritation and Kurogane truly angry. He'd studied all the variations of expression, of mood.

He wondered if it would annoy Kurogane to know just how easy it was to read him, when he thought he was doing such a good job of hiding his feelings, his reactions. The demon-hunter spent far too much time by himself to know how to lie effectively to other people. But then, Kurogane was disturbingly good at reading his own reactions, too, when he thought he was hiding them so well. The strange looks that Kurogane had given him by the campfire that evening had proven that. He was a sharp observer, a quick study; it was hard to hide things from him for too long. Fai smiled to himself, a melancholy little smile. But the other man hadn't asked, hadn't pushed him; didn't like to meddle when it was none of his business.

Fai leaned over and reached into his gear, pulled out Kurogane's war knife. Almost the first thing Kurogane had ever given him, from their first meeting; it had saved his life half a dozen times since. He drew it, slowly to mask any noise, and studied the blade in the firelight. How very like Kurogane it was; plain and unornamented, but elegant and deadly, beautiful for its very purity of function. How beautiful. It hummed in faint resonance, even now, with the owner to whom it had been attuned.

Fai brought the blade of the knife up to his face, pressed his lips against it briefly. Closed his eyes, then opened them again with a sigh. There was not much use in denying to himself, at this point, that he was in love with Kurogane; and a more hopeless emotion he'd never known, considering who they both were. Considering what he had to do. The past few weeks had been like a dream, a fantasy where there was no one else in the world but each other.

But... the dream must end.

He stood up, quietly in the dark of night, walked over to where Kurogane lay sleeping, truly sleeping. He was a bulky shape in the dim light, black-painted armor swallowing the firelight; but Fai knew from observation that there was one spot where the helmet joined the neck that was only lightly armored.

"I'm sorry, Kurogane," he whispered, and brought the knife down, hard.

~to be continued...