Chapter Six

Something about the new Syaoran just didn't sit right with Fai. The boy had been sitting at the dining table for six days now, obviously uncomfortable, permitted only on the silent insistence of his clone's mentor.

Maybe it was because the boy shared the same face as the one who'd ripped his eye out of his socket, but for whatever reason, this replacement's mere existence chafed at Fai like a poorly-made winter coat. But he'd felt such stirrings of disquiet before, often in the moments before a fight or sneak attack. His warrior's instinct was a fined-tuned security system, adept at spotting threats well before they manifested themselves. Becoming a vampire had only sharpened this sense.

Six days, he thought. And not a word out of him.

His remaining eye flickered up for a moment as Syaoran stood up. Sakura stiffened in her seat, fingers tensing around her fork. Kurogane didn't react.

Fai watched Syaoran walk over to the sink and rinse his plate, like he did every night. When the faucet stopped flowing, Fai heard him set the plate on the countertop and walk over to the door. There he paused, as he often did. The magician seldom looked at him, but from the ninja's reactions, he guessed the boy stood there looking for some sort of approval before he went out.

Across the table, Kurogane gave an infinitesimal nod. The door clicked as it opened, then brushed against the thick fibers of the carpet. In the past few weeks, Fai had noticed a definite improvement in his senses. His ears were much more sensitive than before, and his sight was sharper despite the lack of depth perception. Even his sense of smell and taste had noticeably improved.

It had been a pleasant surprise to find that he could still eat solid food. It didn't sate his appetite, as it had before, but the myriad of tastes available to his changed palate made him inclined to eat with the others, regardless of who showed up at the dinner table.

"We're running low on things to thaw out," he said, as the tension leftover from Syaoran's presence faded. "Does anyone want me to get them something from the market?"

Mokona popped out of Kurogane's shirt, much to the ninja's surprise. "Mokona wants Fai to bring back more pancake mix!"

"Got it. What about you, Sakura-chan?" he asked, knowing the girl sometimes liked to dabble in cooking when she was sure the new Syaoran was locked away in his bedroom.

"Whatever you think we need," she murmured, pushing a pile of rice around with her fork. She'd made the rice herself, insisting on doing something besides sequestering herself in her room. It worried him a little that she didn't have the appetite to finish off what was on her plate. Stress upset the digestive system, that much he knew, but if it was affecting her that much, any strength she had left would drain away.

Fai finished what remained on his plate and rinsed off his dishes, planning to wash them when he returned from his shopping trip. He walked out the door.

Syaoran looked up, his expression expectant. As soon as he saw Fai, his eyes dropped down as if he'd been hit over the head with a frying pan. All his muscles tensed, and he retreated a step, pressing his back against the wall.

Fai took only a moment to observe the boy's startled behavior, wondering if it was fear or guilt making him jumpy, then continued walking down the halls. Half his attention remained on the boy, even after he passed him. His ears listened back for any movement, his neck tensed as he prepared himself to look back at any sound. Still not right, he thought, uneasy.

"Fai-san?"

His head whipped around, much faster than he would've been capable of moving it a few weeks ago. Syaoran's face paled as he witness the unnatural movement. "Yes?" Fai said, waiting.

"I'm s-sorry."

He said nothing. The boy composed himself, the tremors no longer running up and down his body, but the color didn't return to his face even when he spoke again.

"I should've gone to Tokyo sooner. It's my fault that you're . . . that those things happened."

Fai stared at him a moment longer, feet glued to the ground. The boy dared to lift his two brown eyes up to look at him for some response. Matching eyes, some part of him thought. The rest of his thoughts hummed on a frequency too high for him to organize, overpowered by the shock.

He turned, too fast to look like a mortal movement. His legs carried him through the halls, his steps so soft and quick it almost felt like he was gliding through the air rather than running. At the first stairwell, he turned and half-ran, half-fell down the steps, feet flying too fast to control his movements. In less than thirty seconds, he'd reached the main level, breathing hard.

Several minutes passed as he stood at the bottom of the stairs, hands shaking. His breathing echoed in the confined space, rattling with the rest of his body. He slid down, leaning heavily against one wall, until he sagged down onto the bottom step, head in his hands.

If he'd gone to Tokyo sooner? He struggled to regain control of his breathing. He couldn't. He shouldn't have come at all, he thought bitterly. He should've left as soon as his work in Tokyo was done, instead of lingering with the group, drawing his clone in.

He should have left so Sakura wouldn't have to mourn the other one.

Syaoran flinched when the door to their apartment swung open again, but this time, it was Kurogane who came out.

"What got into you?" the ninja asked, arching an eyebrow at his sudden movement.

"Nothing."

Kurogane looked like he was about to press for an answer, then sighed. "How's your shoulder?"

"Much better. I just changed the bandages." He'd been wrapping them when the ninja had knocked on his door to announce dinner, and the clean wrappings made him feel better about the healing gouge in his shoulder.

"If it starts to hurt, tell me."

"I will."

They started down the hallway, moving at the steady, purposeful pace they always did when moving through the apartment complex. They made it down to the first floor without any difficulties. Syaoran had half-expected to run into Fai on their way out, but the magician had apparently slipped away before they'd reached the main level.

Kurogane led him down the same path they took every night to get to the park, seeming preoccupied. It wasn't until they passed the park that Syaoran started to wonder what the ninja was thinking about. He hesitated, unsure if interrupting his conjectures would be wise. He decided to stay quiet.

They walked almost two miles, beyond the range of Mokona's translation abilities. The coherent conversations humming around him dissolved into senseless babble, and his body tensed up. Kurogane kept walking, not even paying attention to the shift. Syaoran began to wish he'd had the guts to ask where they were going when his teacher would've been able to understand him.

They stopped in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Kurogane turned towards him, holding a folded up square of cloth in his hands. "Outo," he said, moving the black cloth so it rested over Syaoran's eyes.

It's going to be a long night, he thought, lifting his hands to tied off the blindfold. A gentle hand came down on his good shoulder, and Kurogane murmured something he didn't understand in the slightest. Maybe "good luck"? he thought hopefully.

The hand lifted, and he was alone.

Without the training his clone had gone through, he would've been totally helpless on the car-crowded streets and bustling sidewalk. As it was, he was barely perceptive enough to avoid walking into people. His shoulders bumped pedestrians and objects, and whenever he got hit on the injured side, his face wrinkled up in pain. Twice, he nearly walked into oncoming traffic, jerking back an instant before getting hit by a passing car. Several drivers honked at him, and he heard strings of words he could only imagine were curses. After a few close calls, he started edging toward the buildings lining every street, running his fingers along the bricks so as not to lose his way.

Every step he took was laced with caution, but that didn't stop him from tripping half a dozen times. Within half an hour, his nose was bleeding from the repeated falls, and his palms were abraded with scrapes from hitting the sidewalk. He tried to pick up on what the people around him were saying, hoping that some tiny portion of their language would be similar to one he'd learned in all his travels with his father.

Not my father, he reminded himself sternly. Not my life.

He found it hard not to draw parallels, though. The Other had learned to find his way in the country of Outo fairly easy. He'd been close enough to Mokona to understand the people around him and ask for directions, though, and Kurogane hadn't taken left him more than half a mile from where they'd been staying. Was this his roundabout way of exiling him from the group? That didn't seem likely after insisting on training him.

In his abstraction, he ran into a wall. He didn't think about it any more after that.

He walked for hours. Once in a great while, he would catch the edge of a conversation, and turn in that direction, convinced Mokona must be close by and he was headed in the right direction. Each time that happened, he lost track of where he was and wandered out of the creature's range. Finding it again was never easy, and he wondered if Mokona was on the move, perhaps traveling with Fai as the magician went through his shopping, or moving around with Kurogane, in a deliberate attempt to make finding his way back more difficult.

Regardless of the reason, he was having trouble homing in on the apartment complex. His legs grew sore and his feet sorer, and after a time, he decided to sit down on a bench as he passed by, just to rest for a moment. He hadn't been sleeping well, and compounded with the unexpected exertion of this exercise and the throbbing pain in his shoulder, fatigue wore him down sooner than he would've liked. His eyes were already closed under the blindfold. It was only natural, once he took a moment to sit down, that he'd fall asleep.

He dreamed of the Other.