Chapter Seventeen
Hien lay in shards across the battlefield.
Blood dripped from the Other's shirt, leaving little puddles of crimson wherever he walked. Corpses littered the ground, each laying in scarlet puddles. Flies crawled across the bodies, laying their eggs, though the flesh hadn't started to decay yet.
Syaoran took in the scene from above, heart quickening with horror. The Other glanced up at him, his mismatched eyes empty, merely acknowledging the watching presence. Those eyes turned away, focusing on some far off object.
His clone walked over several dead bodies, trampling them and causing little spurts of blood to rush out of their still hearts. The squishy sound of dead flesh shifting under his clone's weight made Syaoran want to retch.
The Other knelt down beside one of the corpses, a woman with sleek black hair, crusted with blood, and skin as pale as milk. A deep wound in her chest glistened with blood, a stark contrast to her white gown. Syaoran watched, disgusted, as his clone plucked a shining white feather from the woman's hand. The fingers hung at grotesque angles, broken in half a dozen places.
"Please," she whispered, voice hoarse. If Syaoran had possessed a physical body in that moment, he would've recoiled in shock. She's alive. How can she be alive with those wounds? "My daughter . . . My daughter needs that feather, she's ill."
The Other paid the woman no heed. Instead, he pulled out the jagged stump that was all that remained of Hien, and impaled the woman through the heart again, getting a cleaner shot this time. The light faded from her dark eyes, and her head fell limp onto the dirt road, splattering the blood beneath her all over her dress.
The Other removed the broken sword from the woman's chest, allowing a small, red river to flow out of her corpse, and examined it. After a moment, he cast the fractured blade away. It clattered against the steel armor of another corpse, then came to rest in a pool of red.
A little shudder went through Syaoran's heart. In that moment, he couldn't say which disturbed him more — the casual abandonment of the sword, or the unnamed bodies lying out in the open. The bodies, he decided after a few seconds. Definitely the bodies.
The Other held the feather out in front of him, as if in admiration. Then, with a rush of magic—Fai's magic, the magic he'd stolen when he'd eaten the magician's eye—the Other stored the feather inside his body.
Why? Syaoran wondered. Why are you still looking for the feathers? Fei Wang Reed only needed Sakura to travel through the worlds. There's no point in having you collect the feathers on your own.
Dark orbs formed around the Other, wrapping around him like some viscous liquid. Syaoran recognized the effect immediately, and willed his clone to stay in whatever dimension he was in now so they wouldn't have to cross paths anytime soon. A moment later, though, the viscous liquid engulfed him, and the Other moved to the next dimension.
Syaoran woke in his bed, paralyzed. He stared up at the ceiling, trying to come to terms with what he'd just seen. The rest of the apartment was silent, as if no one lived here.
Several minutes passed as the adrenaline faded from his system. Finally, he calmed down enough to move again. He threw off the covers and sat up, feet dangling over the edge of his bed. The red numbers on the clock read four-thirty-one. Too early for him to be awake.
Nevertheless, he sat there, more aware with every passing second. With a soft sigh, he brushed his matted hair back to its normal configuration and got up to go to the bathroom.
Once the most pressing business had been taken care of, he took a good look at himself in the mirror. Dark rings circled his eyes, the product of such a startling awakening. He lifted a finger to touch the soft flesh around his eyes, then sighed.
Perhaps the dark rings stood out because the rest of his face was so pale. The shock of what his clone had done had left his face as white as his sheets. As white as that woman's face, he thought, wincing as he recalled the way the light had faded from her eyes. No, don't be stupid. There's no point in thinking about it. She's dead, and there's nothing you can do about it except kill the Other next time you cross paths. He doubted he'd be able to do even that much, given how his clone had thrashed him back in Tokyo, besting him even with a broken arm.
Syaoran sat down on the floor, leaning heavily against the wooden cupboards of the bathroom. The bright lights and benign surroundings eventually drove the bleak thoughts out of his mind.
It's time to change the bandages, he thought, peeling the first layer of gauze away from his shoulder. After the two days he'd been wandering around blindfolded, the wound had looked puffy and discolored. He was glad to see, as he unwound the bandages, that the infection had yielded to first-aid and a decent immune system. Things are looking up.
He cleaned away what little remained of the blood, and wrapped fresh gauze around his shoulder. His arms were stiff from yesterday's training, which complicated his attempts at first-aid, but eventually, he finished wrapping his shoulder. "A few more days," he murmured to himself. "And I'll be ready to fight."
As long as he was caring for his shoulder, he decided to take a moment to examine the less severe wounds on his feet. These had healed rather quickly, and now only a few lesions remained to display the suffering he'd endured. He dabbed at those with some antiseptic, wincing as it fizzed against his skin. By the time he'd finished rewrapping his feet, it was past five. Almost a reasonable hour to be awake, he thought.
He headed back to his room and curled up in bed, hoping to catch another hour or two of sleep.
He didn't.
After an hour passed, he decided his mind was too busy to allow him the luxury of sleep. His thoughts wandered in circles, pondering the same problems that had kept him up last night: Seishirou, the Other, the next game of human chess at Infinity's arena. Kurogane said I'd have to fight to get better, he thought, trying to quell the unease churning in his stomach.
After an hour and a half of unsuccessful resting, he got up again and walked out to the living room to find something to eat. He opened the refrigerator, looking for milk for his cereal. His eyes fell across the square of mint fudge he'd brought back a few days ago. A fourth of it had been hacked off and, presumably, eaten. Someone's accepted the peace offering, he thought, lips stretching into a smile. The expression felt odd on his face somehow, as if his muscles had forgotten how to smile, and were stretching into that position for the first time. He realized that was exactly what was happening.
That's the first time I've smiled in years, he thought, lifting one hand to probe at the upturned corners of his lips. The thought made him smile wider.
A few minutes later, he was pouring milk over a bowl of crunchy, chocolate-flavored cereal, still smiling. His face was starting to hurt, muscles unused to the strain, but he couldn't seem to stop grinning.
Sakura's door swung open just then. Without thinking about it, he swung around and said, "Good morning, Princess."
She stared at him for a moment, an unfathomable expression on her face. Very quietly, she said, "Good morning."
Her less enthusiastic reply made him lose his smile. He bent his head down to his bowl and continued eating.
It seemed that as soon as one of his companions woke, the others surfaced. Within five minutes, Fai slipped out of his room, moving in a way that could only be labeled as dance-like. Kurogane woke last, rubbing his forehead groggily. The ninja swept past him, then dug some food out of the refrigerator.
"What are you doing up so early?" the ninja asked gruffly, biting into the sandwich he'd retrieved from the fridge.
He shrugged, not wanting to confess to the nightmares, the terror he'd felt at the mere sight of his clone.
It's nothing I can explain without telling them everything else, he thought. And I can't tell them much more than I already have without making it seem like I've been withholding important information. He shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, surprised at how hungry he was. He'd have to start eating lunch in addition to breakfast and dinner.
"Ready to go?" Kurogane asked as he downed the last spoonful of cereal. He nodded, then tilted the bowl up to his lips to drink the chocolate-laced milk.
The ninja grabbed Souhi and moved the sword to his hip. He actually looked more natural with the weapon there than he did when it was set aside somewhere. They walked out the door and down the hall.
When they reached the elevator, Kurogane said, "So, what's the real reason you were up?"
Syaoran panicked. "I just . . . couldn't sleep. That's all."
"Are you worried about Seishirou coming back?"
His body relaxed at the question. At least his mentor didn't suspect him of still having contact with his clone. He didn't have a choice, of course, but the implications were bad enough. "Seishirou might come back, and that would give us another opportunity to tie up loose ends, but . . ."
"I'll kill him next time I see him. He won't live long enough to hurt you."
Syaoran winced, but said nothing.
"Does that bother you?"
"Seishirou-san taught me a lot. Taught the Other, I mean. And me, too, I suppose. But you're right. We've got to kill him next time we see him. We have to get the feather back."
They reached the main floor. Kurogane rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're a lot more like the other kid than I thought."
He flinched, images of bloody corpses flitting through his mind.
"Not the monster he's turned into now," Kurogane went on. The words brought a torrent of relief down on Syaoran. "I mean the kid who asked me to train him in Outo."
"Thanks," he whispered as they walked out into the glaring sunshine outside.
Author's Note:
Well, the corpse-filled scene at the beginning probably wasn't enough to merit a mature rating all on its own, but I think it's a step in the right direction. More violence ahead, so stay tuned.