One hundred days was nothing in comparison of other stretches of time in his life. It was barely enough time to watch a season turn. It had taken that many days at least for him to fully recover from the bad fit of marsh fever he'd contracted while still a child. Two years and more had gone by while he proved himself worthy of entering the ninja corps. He'd spent most of his life mastering the sword skills that had saved his life and the lives of his companions - those now and before - many a time.

One hundred days was nothing, and yet his days and nights felt so different now that it was as if thrice that length of time at least had passed since they'd fallen out of the sky over Yama.

They'd never stayed all that long in a world before this, sometimes only stopping mere hours before moving on, and so he'd hardly had time to accustom himself to each new place before they were being swept away by the little white dumpling again. He'd acclimated, certainly, adjusted and adapted as had been necessary, but hadn't gotten comfortable. The fact that Yama was so close an approximation to his home helped a great deal, certainly, but most of it was the simple fact that they'd had plenty of time to come to know the place.

One hundred days gone and they were so firmly established in the daily life of the castle, army and surrounding capital city that it was as if they'd always been there. Fai's fame had a good deal to do with this. Much to their relief, they'd found that there was no need for the mage to put on any show of supernatural powers to prove his supposed godhood. The manner of their arrival and Fai's fair looks seemed proof enough, and no one ever challenged their claims.

To Kurogane's mind, the status the mage was accorded seemed in keeping with the respect and interest an ancient spirit or minor god might engender in Nihon. Fai might actually qualify as such in fact, given his magical abilities, though he refused to make good use of his power. He even shared qualities with some popular spirits, being by turns playful, mischievous, generous or helpful.

They were given gifts, but they were gifts only, not sacrifices in exchange for petitions to do great works such as bring rain or halt a plague. People approached the supposed deity with lively curiosity rather than fear, respected or perhaps even humored any whims he had, and whatever oddities they might notice about the blond seemed to be shrugged off as something to do with the way of the spirit realm and not something for mere mortals to trouble themselves in understanding. Fai had so far managed to maintain perfectly the lie that he understood the language and simply could not or chose not to speak, but had he suddenly exposed the truth of himself it was likely that they could have passed it off as some strange test or joke.

Fai was in fact slowly gaining fluency but Kurogane still wouldn't have trusted him to speak even if he'd needed to. Their language exchanges had continued every night with few interruptions - three of those the days that new stories were delivered to Kurogane - and by now they could hold halting conversations in each other's language, though they very likely sounded like a couple of two year olds. Fai's accent and sentence structuring were terrible, and judging by the puzzled looks and bursts of laughter they caused, Kurogane's were downright atrocious.

Another little way in which their life was good but peppered with some small problem was that their daily needs were attended to without their needing to lift a single finger. Eventually Kurogane's pride was soothed by the fact that they were allowed to join the army and contribute something to the country. The king had insisted smilingly but firmly on paying them a proper wage for it, as if they were not already being recompensed richly in food and drink and living arrangements. The ninja had tried to talk Fai into throwing a bit of his god-weight around on the matter but surprisingly Fai had talked him into accepting the pay graciously instead. The mage had explained with disjointed phrases and the aid of some little figurines they'd fashioned out of acorns - the crackers tended to crumble and get sticky - that the money might come in handy in another world.

They were paid in coins of various shapes and sizes and as the money had piled up Kurogane had ventured out and exchanged the smaller coins for better, and then later some of the better coins for lumps of ore and precious stones, keeping their wealth compact and also varied in case one thing or the other had no value in other worlds. They spent a little of it here and there, too, and learned how to politely insist on paying for their purchases instead of letting shopkeepers gift them everything. They couldn't turn away the spontaneous gifts without giving offense or at the very least hurting some feelings, but the items that they sought out on their own they made sure to pay for.

The nightly battles at the castle above were become a part of their routine as well, with its own rhythm that they'd come to know as well as their own heartbeats. Arming themselves, Fai always giving some little tweak or tug to the cloak around the ninja's shoulders with a sly grin, the steady ride to the clearing, faring well to the sun's light and waiting for that wavering shift in the air that signaled the start of battle. And then the roar and clash that was the signal to kick their mounts forward and join the fray.

Kurogane had wondered in early days if the enemy king would provoke any kind of telling reaction from the mage, even if Fai continued to refuse to communicate anything directly. Perhaps it would even lead to some sort of conclusive battle. But once they'd gotten near enough to catch sight of Ashura-ou he'd been disappointed, and Fai seemingly relieved. This Ashura, then, was not the person that Fai kept looking over his shoulder for. Or at least, was not the correct version.

Finding out that their enemy was not truly their enemy, merely a country that the country they were guests in was at war with, caused a slight shift in Kurogane's thinking, almost without his realizing it. He had no personal stake in this war, nor did the mage, and the result was that they joined the army and yet kept themselves separate from within it. They were a part of Yama, but not citizens. A part of the fight, but not army. They were only a team of two, and it worked better that way than Kurogane could have predicted.

They had early on gained the admiration, then respect of their fellow soldiers and could and often did work well within a squad or platoon, but the ninja felt more freedom in focusing on fighting, not protecting fellow soldiers of varying skill and sense scattered every which way around him. Fai by his side was a different story; the mage knew to stick close, communicated with a jerk of the head or a simple hand gesture before peeling away, and was more than competent at protecting himself. He never signaled for assistance, but then again he hardly ever needed it and Kurogane had so far always been quick and close enough to provide support.

The ninja by himself was a force to be reckoned with, cutting bloody swaths through white and red uniformed ranks. Fai, with a quickness and accuracy at his bow that even Kurogane had never seen the equal of, more than earned the honor he'd been granted immediately upon arrival. Together, side by side and back to back, they were unstoppable.

And it wasn't just the two of them fighting together; it was Kurogane allowing it, welcoming it, and that was another proof of how much time had passed since they'd first arrived in Yama. Time measured not in hours gone by, but in trust gained and guards lowered. Falling asleep at night to the sound of the other's breathing and waking up to see them utterly loose and relaxed or clumsily rising out of sleep. Taking every meal together, almost always privately in their rooms even now because of Fai's clumsiness at his chopsticks no matter how often Kurogane attempted to teach him. Falling into little intimacies simply because they were thrown together so, no matter what hesitations or doubts they might have come into the room with.

They'd settled into the habit of sitting side by side for their meals instead of facing off across the table as was traditional for a meal for two. Every sixth day especially, when the kitchen served an elegant meal of raw fish, preserved shellfish, fresh vegetables and cold fruit jellies, they pushed their plates together so that vegetables and seafood could be traded away. Sometimes dessert was a trio of hot, crunchy black sesame puffs filled with sweet bean paste that Kurogane actually liked, but he found himself leaving one - two lately - on his plate, enjoying the sight of Fai savoring them with appreciative hums.

Sometimes they turned out into the streets for their morning meal, meeting up with whoever of their fellow soldiers were not on duty or occupied in drills, and grazing their way through the little stands and wagons of the street vendors. Fai handed out countless sticks of roasted meat and fragrant rice dumplings as well as piping hot potatoes in greasy paper, purchasing food with coins and popularity with his generosity and smiles. After their stomachs were filled they staved off the oncoming heat of midday with chilled wine and fruit ices until it was time to sleep. With the advantage of having fought alongside them as brothers in battle, the men of Yama's army tended to treat the two of them more as equals, both Kurogane as equal to Fai and Fai himself as equal to a mere mortal. From fellow soldiers to good comrades was a very short step, easily bridged by Fai dropping his deity act and acting more like his usual self.

All in all, Yama was not the worst place to have to cool their heels while waiting for the bun and brats to join up with them again, or for word from Yasha's outriders to come that the young people been found somewhere outside the kingdom. Everything they needed for daily living came easily to them, but they still had to fight for their lives. There were enemies to face off against but also allies to rely upon. It was like Outo and yet far better, not just because Yama reminded him more of Nihon, but because he and the mage were working better together than they had before. Much of it was due to Fai, and the rest to Kurogane being able to appreciate it.

Kurogane did not credit himself with having had any life-changing impact on the blond with one short speech, but it was undeniable that Fai was much more forward facing in this world than he had been in the virtual reality of Outo. He sat down to each language lesson with much more attention and engagement than Kurogane had ever hoped to see, only occasionally detouring into silliness. He perfected and protected his god facade with dedication, never making their place precarious through carelessness. Most arrestingly, at least to Kurogane, the mage never made the same mistake he had in Outo, of being careless with his own life. He fought, and fought well, with the focus and will of one determined to live to see the next dawn.

And Kurogane, for his part, could admit to himself now that not only was this world not the worst one to be stuck in, but that the mage was not the worst person to be stuck with. He'd always suspected that there was a great deal more to the man than what met the eye, but now he could tip the balance of his suppositions in favor of good rather than evil. Unpleasant incidents very likely tainted Fai's past, memories ripe with the hot tang of blood and sweat or bringing with them a surge of bitter regret and self-castigation perhaps, but now Kurogane tended to lay them to the account of mischance or politics, ill luck or deliberate evil. He laid the blame at the feet of others and gave the mage the benefit of the doubt.

Fai had changed, and with him, Kurogane's opinion. The blond was no longer just that irritating, empty-headed lazy-bones whose every speech and mannerism reeked of deception and who held his own life cheap. Now he was the man who sometimes went to bed with ink still staining his calloused fingers after taking extensive notes on how exactly to pronounce the name of a certain animal. Now he was the comrade whom Kurogane trusted above all to watch his back in battle. Now he was the one who, week after week, progressed through various wishes haltingly communicated that the missing children and bun should meet up with them soon, be safe and sound, be well and well-fed, not be fretting in worry over the adults they were separated from, and be having fun wherever they were and whatever they were engaged in doing.

Now he was the man who was beginning to smile new smiles, carving out new places in the catalogue that Kurogane had been building of what certain expressions meant. Training, survival instincts and simple suspicion had prompted the ninja almost from the very beginning to keep a close eye on the mage, to try and understand him better. He'd spent time interpreting certain smiles as more than what they'd seemed and now had an ever-increasing store of memories of smiles that were exactly what they appeared to be.

Perhaps it was because they'd begun without much ability to communicate, but Fai offered Kurogane more simple honesty in his body language and expressions in Yama, whether he knew it or not. When attempting to exchange a phrase that couldn't be easily conveyed, such as the differences between "can't", "won't" and "don't want to", they'd had to throw all their efforts into detailed pantomime in addition to drawings or acorn maneuvers before they could begin to guess what phrase in Nihongo or Celesian was needed. Exaggerated expressions and play-acting left little room for subterfuge, and the need to drop his air-headed act so that he could throw himself into acting out surprise or horror or hesitation naturally led to Fai forgetting to pick the act back up after their language lesson was over.

They were gaining fluency in each other's native language, and the ninja was gaining understanding of the mage, but there were still things Kurogane didn't know how to communicate. Or rather, he knew enough to probably cobble together a good enough approximation of a phrase, though the words might not be perfect and his grammar possibly bad enough to merit laughter. But he didn't know how to say, "you're different now; you've changed for the better" without sounding stupid and silly and weak, so he never attempted it.


Author's Notes: And here I attempt to explain how two men managed to earn enough in the army in less than six months to pay for a place to live, entry fees into a race, and four hovercraft in Piffle. Just their salary couldn't have done all that, so I added in ore and minerals that might have been affordable in Yama but near-priceless in Piffle for their rarity or uniqueness. The more I think about it, the more I realize that CLAMP really handwaved a lot. LOL

...and as I typed this I just realized something. Mokona swept everyone away directly from Shura, didn't she? (Also why did Kurogane and Fai warp to Shura instead of returning to Yama?) Kurogane and Fai didn't have time to pack bags and I doubt they would have been carrying around their entire net wealth all the time, and yet in Piffle Sakura mentions Kurogane and Fai handing over their pay from the army in order to pay for the dragonfly racers. Did Mokona somehow know what luggage in Yama belonged to Kurogane and Fai and remotely sucked it up while taking everyone to Shara? *gets headache*