THIS IS NOT A STORY CONTENT CHAPTER. Hope I didn't raise your hopes unduly. This is ONLY a notes and trivia chapter.
The following is a collection of notes and/or corrections about my long story, The Wizards of Ceres. These are things that either didn't have an explanation which could fit smoothly into the story, or were brought up after the story was published by readers wanting clarification.
Obviously, spoilers for The Wizards of Ceres.
Chapter 1 - Captain Kurotsunagi
A number of people asked why the character of Kurotsunagi was included, and some found him off-putting. There were a number of reasons that went into the decision to create and use him, most of which simply didn't translate well into the text.
The primary decision was that the character of the 'Captain' of Fai's patrol had to be an OC. Actually, this character was originally going to be Kusanagi, the Dragon of Earth from X and Yuzihara's demon-hunting partner; while writing AUs I prefer to use existing canon characters in minor roles when I can. The reason that couldn't be the case here is that even in an AU of Tsubasa, some of the basic principles of the Tsubasa mythos still apply, such as the one about souls being shared across dimensions. Since the Captain was doomed to be killed by the demons, his soul would be completely destroyed and he would not be able to appear in any other universe seen in Tsubasa. Thus, he had to be an OC, and I changed his name to reflect that. (The other three members of that patrol were all real characters; Ryuuo is from RG Veda, Yuuto from X, and Dar is an expy from The Sharing Knife.)
As for why his appearance and characterization roughly resembled Kurogane's, there were two reasons for that. One is that I was setting up for Fai to mistakenly call Kurogane "Kuro-chan" on their first meeting, thinking he was the captain, and have Kurogane react appropriately to that. The second is much more meta. When I first started writing for Tsubasa, my first attempts at Kurogane's characterization were very bad; he was a shallow, stupid, hair-trigger-temper caricature of himself. I scrapped the sections that I had written that came out that way, but referenced them obliquely in the character of Kurotsunagi, a little way of telling myself "Kurogane doesn't really act like that, so this must be a completely different person who just happens to look like him and share a similar name."
Chapter 2- Fai's concussion; Fai's title
Strictly medically speaking, Kurogane should not have let Fai go to sleep unsupervised; he was badly concussed and in danger of slipping into a coma. So why did he? The short answer is that Kurogane is not a doctor; he only knows rudimentary first aid and medical techniques, mostly what he can use to patch himself up after a fight. In our world, that tidbit is so well known as to be memetic - "If someone has a concussion, don't let them fall asleep" - even if we don't know the medical justification behind it. But in this world medical science is not so advanced that this fact would be universal knowledge, so Kurogane is not aware of the danger that can be posed by head injuries. Fortunately, Fai was lucky this time and his injury did not get worse during the night.
Chapter 3 - Bella
Another reader wondered why the horse was not named either Chii, as fitting for Fai's companion, or Seul, after the white Mokona (and Kurogane's horse named after the black Mokona.) The simple reason is that I didn't want to mislead the audience into thinking that the horse was magical, a shapeshifter, or anything more than what she is: a horse. Instead, she's named after Bella from Twilight, because I thought she'd make a better horse than a human.
Incidentally, Kurogane's horse is named Futsunomitama, after the legendary sword, but since he doesn't get particularly sentimental about his horses and doesn't use names when he can avoid them in the first place, it never comes up in the text.
Chapter 4 - Tomoyo
In case anyone was wondering what's up with Tomoyo, she's deaf and mute from birth. The version of Tomoyo in the world of the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle movie, the one with all the birdcages, was subject to this, and I found myself liking the idea enough to really want to use it here. Fai would have identified Tomoyo as a mage, gifted with telepathic power; she can read the thoughts of those nearby but can only 'speak' to them if she is touching their skin. Unless, of course, the other person were also a mage; but there are so few magic-users in Nihon that this has never come up.
As an aside, the parallel between Fai losing his companions and Kurogane losing the soldiers Amaterasu sent with him was deliberate, although we didn't know about it until now; the fresh guilt and sorrow of those deaths was part of what prompted Kurogane to pick Fai up and care for him, not wanting another death on his conscience so soon.
Chapter 5 - Fai and Sakura
I actually did a lot of agonizing over the exact nature of Fai and Sakura's relationship. While it was obvious to me that Fai did not love Sakura romantically - for one thing, he's gay, and for another, he helped change her diapers - I was not at all certain that she would not be romantically in love with him. I had to consider the dynamic between her and Yukito in the original Card Captor Sakura series; it's very much in character for Sakura to be hopelessly in love with an attractive older man who treats her kindly, and Fai is very much her type. That she loves him powerfully is clear enough, and she's young enough that she's not yet fully aware of the difference between familial love and sexual or romantic love.
Having her be in love with Fai would add an extra complication to the romantic side of the story; she is well aware that her father has arranged the marriage between them, and that Fai is not entirely happy with it, which would in turn make her deeply unhappy to know that he did not return her feelings. To say nothing of how heartbroken she would be when Fai threw her over for Kurogane. The question was, did I want to have to address those complications, or not?
Ultimately I decided to err on the side of her not being in love with Fai, having her address him as 'niisan' and to share Fai's discomfort at their betrothal.
Chapter 6 - The title "D"
The fact that the "D" in Fai's name was supposed to be a title, or rather a ranking, in the original canon always confused me. Since he's the only Ceres wizard we see, who exactly is he being ranked against? However, since this version of Ceres is full of wizards, we can assume that they fall into various letter-coded ranks that represent power levels, like the clovers in Clover. In this case, I would say that each letter rank represents a discipline that the wizard has mastered - wizardry, magery, sorcery, etc. Most of the wizards have either one or two; Fai is quite unusual in having four, since very few people are able to manage so many different thought structures involved in different kinds of magics.
Chapter 7 - Shortbow vs. longbow
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 see it in enough fic that's out there to make it seem like a natural choice. But then I reminded 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.
Chapter 8 - Tomoyo and Kendappa, the geas
This scene was included partially to fulfill this story's Bechdel quota - in other words, a conversation between two women, who talk to each other, for more than 30 seconds, about something other than a man. Technically this may still not qualify since they are discussing a man - Kurogane - but since they aren't discussing him in a romantic context, and the main point of the conversation is still about them going to war, I think I'm still in the clear.
About the geas; Fai was actually telling the truth, more or less, in chapter 6 when he described how the geas functions (although he lied about what task he was set to, of course.) Most of what it's doing is simply placing a block on the bulk of his magic, except for what he uses to accomplish his goal. In other words, the geas will allow him to use magic against Kurogane, but not for any other purpose. But apart from that and a few other minor functions (specifically, allowing Fai to track Kurogane in the wilderness) the geas is largely inert. It doesn't compel or punish him in any other way for inaction or wrong action.
I went back and forth when writing this on what exactly the nature of the geas should be, or even whether to include it at all - I wanted to include one just because I wanted to get Fai's tattoo in there, but at the same time I didn't want to make it seem as though he were being controlled or forced against his will to do what he did. I felt that would diminish the emotional impact of the struggle Fai feels, being forced to choose between his loyalty to Ashura and his love for Kurogane.
Chapter 9 - The Windhome Glacier
Windhome is a variation on 'Windam,' of course, the third Magical Knight to companion Rayearth and Seresu.
I am well aware of the fact that glaciers do not actually work like the one Fai described; a real glacier would take thousands of years, not hundreds, to cross so large of a distance. In addition, heavy blizzards with a large amount of snowfall could never occur in such close proximity to a real glacier. I originally wrote this shift of weather patterns as being the real reason for the famine in Ceres - the glacier swallows up all the rain and moisture in the region, making them unable to grow crops - but then realized I'd contradicted myself in the next chapter and took that section out.
You could propose that there's an in-story reason for the glacier to behave like it does; perhaps the huge concentration of magical and spiritual energy that Fei Wong Reed is amassing in the south is drawing heat out of the northern regions, resulting in the unnatural proliferation and growth of the glacier. Or we could simply say "a wizard did it" and leave it at that.
Chapter 10 - Fai's broken arm
I started out by saying that Fai's left arm and leg were broken, but then in the next scene had Kurogane feeding Fai because his dominant arm was broken. Oops! Maybe Fai is a leftie?
Chapter 11 - A few notes on language
In case anyone was wondering (although nobody asked,) Yes, they are speaking Nihongoessentially throughout the entire fic. Ceres has its own language, but Ashura has made Nihongo the official court language and requires all his nobles and ministers be able to speak it fluently. (Although in practice, some are more fluent than others.) Fai himself is completely bilingual; although the patrollers were likely speaking Ceresian among themselves, when Kurogane addressed him in Nihongo the very first time they met, Fai responded to him in the same language.
If I'd approached this a little more methodically, I could have attached more import to the languages, especially in regards to Kurogane's initial mistaken assumptions about Fai. Although Fai speaks polite Nihongo, he certainly doesn't speak high court or Imperial family nihongo,which may be why Kurogane was so shocked to find out that Fai was part of the royal family of Ceres. Generally, when we lack other information, we tend to assume that the people we meet are like us. So Kurogane jumped to the conclusion that Fai was close to him in age and also close to him in social rank; distantly related to nobility, maybe, but a working stiff nonetheless.
Mostly, though, I really just hate the trope where character A looks at character B and decides from their "noble brow" or "uncalloused hands" or "refined airs" that they must be a member of the nobility. It annoys the crap out of me and so Kurogane (perhaps lacking sufficient experience with different social groups) missed those cues entirely.
The Ceresian language, which we only see a little of, is mostly based on Russian. (The only real indicator of this is that when Ashura is speaking to Fai in the tunnel, he refers to him as malchik moy, Russian or a close equivalent for "my son.") Since I know much less of Russian than I do of Japanese, almost no Ceresian text is or will be rendered in the story; it will simply be commented in the text that they are not speaking Nihongo.
Chapter 12 - Valerian superstition
What happened to the twin princes was actually reflective of an even older and more brutal set of infanticide practices in Valeria. In the old kingdom, twins were not merely bad luck; identical twins were born when a demon, a doppelganger, attached itself to an unborn baby. (Sometimes they were let to grow up for a year or two, in order to determine if they were truly identical or merely similar-looking fraternal twins; fraternal twins didn't carry the same stigma.)
The question then became how to determine which twin was human and which was a doppelganger. Since demons were thought not to need to breathe, the traditional method of identifying them was trial by water, which meant holding both twins underwater simultaneously until one of them drowned. If the other twin was still alive, it was assumed to be the demon, and the surviving twin was then burned alive.
Not that either Fai nor Ashura would have any way of knowing this, but the queen actually could not bear to see her babies killed, so she begged the king to lock them away instead. Imprisoning them and slowly starving them to death was seen as a more civilized alternative to the usual method of trial by water. If things had not been as confused in Ceres as they were when Fai finally died, and if Ashura had not invaded shortly after, then Yuui probably would have ended up being burned as a demon after all.
Side story - Fai's name
One conversation that I wanted to include, but just couldn't find a place for in the text, regards Fai's name.
Fai's last name, Flowright, is actually Ashura's clan name. Way back when in Ceres before the centrally dominant monarchy really got started, powerful clans tended to take their names from the mines that their territory controlled. The clan that Ashura's family came from took the name from the distinguishing mineral in their region, fluorite, which became the clan name Flowright.
When Ashura's clan became kings, they gained the right to use the country name, Ceresu, which takes precedence over their local clan name, (and so Ashura is Ashura Ceresu rather than Ashura Flowright, although technically he is both.) As Ashura's adopted son and heir, Fai actually has the right to use the royal name Ceresu as well, but he does not claim it, instead choosing to adopt the widely disused name of Ashura's personal family line.
Chapter 13 - Ashura's duel
In case you were wondering why Ashura would consent to duel with Kurogane: remember, he never does anything without an ulterior motive. In this case, he's anticipating going up in armed combat with other soldiers of Nihon, possibly even the Empress herself. He's using Kurogane as a guinea pig to learn about the Nihon style of martial combat, and develop counter-strategies for it. Of course, he doesn't tell Kurogane any of this, and Kurogane hasn't figured it out on his own. Please don't tell him, it would just break his heart.
This chapter was originally going to have another scene, where Kurogane gets into a fight with some of the other wizards. The primary antagonist was going to be Eriol, a fourteen-year-old wizard apprentice with as much raw power as Fai and as much discretion and good sense as your average teenage boy. Eriol was going to taunt him with insults about Nihon women breeding with giants and bears, in an effort to goad Kurogane into losing his temper and attacking him, until Yukito interceded and broke up the fight.
However, I had a lot of trouble visualizing it clearly enough to get it down, and by the time I'd completed the other three scenes in the chapter I found I was over my word count anyway... so I decided to leave that scene out and distill it down to a reference at the start of the next scene.
Chapter 14 - Dreams and nightmares
A number of people wondered what future events Kurogane's dreams were predicting in this chapter. The short answer is nothing - only two people in this series have the power to see the future, and neither of them is Kurogane. His dreams are nothing but manifestations of his own conflicted feelings; that he thinks of Fai, wants to see him again, even lusts after him, but at the same time he is afraid of what Fai might do if unleashed against his home country, and afraid of the thought that he might have to be the one to stop him.
Also: Tomoyo really doesn't get to foresee much of the future in this series, alas; certainly not with the detailed clarity of her canon series. Indeed, all of her plot-significant visions (the attack on Esui, the destruction of Suwa ten years before) were concurrent, not predictive. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call her "clairvoyant" than "precognitive."
Chapter 15 - Seishirou
The inspiration for this version of Seishirou is definitely dev_chieftan's fic "Spell" (http :/community ./ kuroxfai/ ) which I highly recommend that you read if you have a strong stomach. I knew about Seishirou from Tokyo Babylon and X, of course, but I hadn't really thought about him in a while and had never seen him much in fanfic.
Originally I didn't really have anyone to fill this role, since Kyle Rondart was already elsewhere; I supposed I was just going to have Fei Wong Reed there doing it himself, although it really wasn't his style. But reading that fic just made it so blindingly clear: Seishirou was perfect for the role. I edited the villain's job to include a slightly more veterinary tone - creating the demons out of animals rather than summoning them from a different dimension - and the Master of Demons was born.
Chapter 16 - Pinned to the spot
Since Kurogane can't really perceive what's going on with higher levels of magic, some of the depth of Seishirou's sadism went over his head in this chapter. Magic is a function of the human soul as sustained by the life force of the body; it is NOT supposed to be outside the limits of the body like this. In practical terms, what Seishirou did to Fai here was akin to cutting him open, pulling his guts out and nailing them to a table. It won't kill him right away, but it hurts like a motherfucker, and in the meantime he won't be moving very far away from that table.
Chapter 17 - Spring flowers
In this chapter the season has rather suddenly become spring. I'd been attempting to keep track of a coherent timeline (and distance scale) for this series, but parts of it are a bit fuzzy. Going by my original schedule, this story should have started in the fall - late september to early october - and should just now be getting into mid-january.
But, after thinking it over I realized it makes a lot more sense for this to be a lot later, more like late winter/early spring. Very few people, even Ashura and his wizards, will wage war in midwinter; and the coming of spring makes more sense thematically with the birth of Kuro and Fai's romance and the end of the war. Also, I started writing this in November, so fall and winter imagery was easy to come by - but it's summer now!
Chapter 18 - Fast recovery time
Another chapter where real science conflicts with the necessity of plot, alas. Severe hypovolemic shock like what Kurogane experienced takes weeks, not days, to recover from - unless you're given transfusions to replace the lost blood, an advantage Kurogane definitely does not have. He definitely should not be back in fighting form in under a week like what is shown here - but oh well. I didn't think to check on the medical facts until after most of this chapter had already been written, by which time it wouldn't really make sense to change it. Um, a wizard did it?
Chapter 19 - Fai's magic and right eye
Just to confirm - Fai's right eye was NOT restored in this chapter, nor was he restored from being a demon to a normal man. The only thing he got back was the portion of his magic that Seishirou had extracted from him. I wrote this story before I'd finished the manga, so I had no idea whether or not Fai was supposed to get his eye back and return from being a normal; but within the context of this story, such grievous losses couldn't be restored easily without making it feel cheap. So they're gone forever.
Also, while I don't insist that Kurogane is a virgin in the main story, I definitely think he was in this story. He was extremely socially isolated, spending most of his time alone and not integrating well with society even when he was among people. Add that to the fact that he focused all of his passions and drives towards killing demons; and the fact that this version of Kurogane is almost exclusively sexually attracted to men (as opposed to Fai, who is attracted to both - which is the reverse of how I see them in their canon selves) and you have a recipe for a virgin demon-hunter.
Chapter 20 - Retelling the battle
Figuring out how to tell the story of the wizards' battle with the demons in southern Nihon was my main sticking point in this chapter and caused me the most headache. The story has remained in fairly tight exclusive Kurogane and Fai POV throughout; suddenly shifting to another POV in the last chapter would have been disorienting. The first few devices I came up with - telling it from Syaoran's POV, Tomoyo recounting it in a letter written to Kurogane, or Yukito sharing a mage vision with Fai - were either too flat and unexciting, or threatened to drag the story on for several more chapters. Eventually I settled on the parallel narratives as a way to tell the story, but skipping quickly to the relevant details, while bringing a sense of balance between the two countries who have been priding themselves on opposition this whole story.
The identities of the messengers changed several times while writing the chapter, too. The Ceres wizard was originally Hisoka (of Yami no Matsuei,) but I couldn't envisioning him panicking in the way that was required. Then it became Watanuki, but that was not a good fit; for one thing, Watanuki would almost certainly fall into Nihon in this universe, but for another, Watanuki is too strong a character to use in a throwaway role like this one. I eventually settled on Kazahaya of Legal Drug as a person with the same spazzy type of personality as Watanuki; but with the appropriate coloring, magical talents, and relative anonymity.
The Nihon messenger also changed identities twice; from Syaoran (having Syaoran and Fai meet at this point in the story would add too many complications) to Fuuma (see above story about his being too strong a character for this role.) At last I settled on Sorata, and then of course had throw in the brave, cool-headed miko who was prepared to sacrifice her life to stem the tide of demons!