Chapter Twenty-Three
"Shall I kill her?" the Other asked, as if it was the most normal question in the world.
"Don't!" Syaoran yelled, unable to do anything, unable even to extend a hand in reproach. The Other seemed to hear him well enough, though, because a smirk crawled across his face.
My face, Syaoran thought, disquiet slithering through him. All but the eyes.
"But she has a feather." His grip tightened around the woman's abdomen, her broken hands clutching the feather tighter as she whimpered. With dreamlike certainty, Syaoran knew this woman had magic, had been using the feather to increase her power. Knew that, even with the boost in her ability, she wouldn't be able to break free of the clone's hold.
"Don't . . . Please don't . . ." he pleaded, since the wounded woman seemed incapable of speaking.
"We're looking for the feathers, remember?" the Other said, probably the longest string of words he'd pieced together since losing what remained of his soul back in Tokyo. He moved the dagger, a cheap-looking thing probably taken off one of the corpses he'd left in his wake, to the woman's throat. She whimpered, tears pouring down her fair skin. Dried blood had crusted in her hair, dying the golden strands a dingy red-brown color.
The woman must've been in awful pain, because she released the feather right then, letting it drift down to the ground.
"There," Syaoran breathed. "Let her go now."
The Other's smirk widened, and he moved the dagger once across the woman's throat. Fresh blood spurted from her carotid artery, and seconds later, her rigid body went limp. The Other discarded her corpse like a piece of wrapping paper. "She got in my way," he said. "so I killed her."
Shock robbed him of all but the most rudimentary words. "You're a monster."
"We're the same, you and I. Born of the same soul, carrying the same powers. Only I'm stronger, I have more magic than you ever will. And I . . ." He kicked the corpse away, snapping several of her ribs. Even though the woman was too far gone to feel any pain, the total disregard for her snuffed-out life made Syaoran gasp. "I do not show mercy."
"Monster . . ."
"If we're the same person, that makes you a monster, too."
"I'm not a monster!"
Another voice echoed behind him, causing him to whip around. "You are," Sakura said, her jade eyes boring into him with a steely glint.
"No," he whispered.
"You are, and you know it."
"I'm not a monster!"
Her face changed, jaw coming back slightly, skin going pale white. Her eyes went from green to gold, and one eye disappeared under a black eye patch. "I do want you dead," Fai said, in the same frigid tone he'd used a few nights ago.
Syaoran felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. All around him, the landscape blurred and changed, shifting between dimensions in fast forward. He saw Clow, then the Hanshin Republic, then Koryo, then Jade . . . All the way up through Infinity, where his companions' eyes looked on with apathy.
Syaoran snapped awake, rising up into a sitting position and hitting his head on the edge of the fountain. Pain shot through his entire body, like a lightning bolt, and his hands flew to his head, clutching the impact wound.
"Are you okay?" someone asked. Sakura, he thought, wondering why she would care after . . . Oh, that the dream wasn't it? He rubbed his head, eyes clenched shut.
"Syaoran-kun?" This voice seemed to come from farther away, and had a deeper quality to it. When he identified Fai's voice, his lip twisted in fury. You said that, he thought. That wasn't just a dream, you really said that about me. And now you're acting like you never did! He crawled a few feet away from the fountain, trying to recover from the hit he'd taken.
"What?" he demanded when he was focused enough to speak. The magician processed his tone with apparent surprise.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
Again, the mage seemed surprised by his anger. As the pain faded, Syaoran realized why. He doesn't know I heard him. He thinks everything is still fine between us. There's no reason for him to believe otherwise. Working through those thoughts dulled his anger a little; it dropped down to mild annoyance.
He looked around, noticing the blackened bricks of their apartment building. The city stank of smoke, even after allowing the compromised structure to air out overnight. Some people, who had taken refuge in the park, were still covered in ash, and even the grass had a fine layer of gray over it. As he took stock of his surrounding, he realized one of their party was missing. "Where's Kurogane-san?"
Fai looked around, rubbing his head as if trying to recall where the ninja was gone. The gesture was so much like the magician the Other had known that Syaoran forgot, for a second, the tension between them. "I think he said something about breakfast."
"Oh." I suppose that means our training will be delayed. He sighed, unsure if he should feel relieved about getting a break, or worried because the most reliable member of the group was somewhere else.
"Don't worry. Kurogane will be just fine."
Truthfully, he was more worried about the magician dropping the nicknames than he was about his teacher actually getting hurt, but with the peace in their group hanging so precariously over the edge, he decided not to say anything. Instead, he stood up and started stretching out, in the hopes that Kurogane would be back soon. As he moved, he realized how sore his right hand was. How hard did I hit Seishirou yesterday? he wondered, staring at his swollen knuckles. A darker part of him thought, Hard enough to knock a few teeth loose, I hope.
He sat down on the edge of the fountain, resting his head in his hands. Between the nightmares this morning and the restless sleep of the days before, he was exhausted. Even as he struggled to stay awake, his eyelids slid shut, and his head bobbed up and down.
"Maybe you should go back to bed," Fai suggested.
"There's no point." The day's not going to get any better if I have to watch my clone again. If I was even watching him. The rest of it was all a dream, maybe he was, too. He nodded off again, catching himself just as his head jerked back up.
"It'll be harder to practice if you're tired like this," the magician went on. Syaoran made a concerted effort to keep his eyes open.
"I don't want to sleep."
"And why not?"
Because I'll have nightmares. He gritted his teeth in irritation. "I just don't."
"Syaoran-kun . . ." Sakura said. For the first time in weeks, he heard an edge of concern in her voice.
He tried to control himself as he stood up. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine."
Seconds passed as she said nothing. He wasn't sure why he'd expected her to. I'm not the Other. She doesn't care enough about me to reason with me.
"And what good would that do, anyway?" he said to himself, lifting a hand to his forehead.
"What was that?" Fai asked, confused. Syaoran jumped, surprised to realize he'd spoken aloud. I have to keep my guard up around them, he thought irrationally. I can't sleep and I can't let them hear me talking to myself.
"Nothing. I'm going to go look around, see if I can find any more information about this city's history. If there's another feather in this world, we have to find it." He walked off, not waiting for a reply. Why would they answer me? he thought bitterly. I'm nothing to them.
The park was a tiny patch of land, scarcely larger than their destroyed apartment. Syaoran walked beyond the ash-covered grass, across the closed off street, then down the sidewalk, his eyes scanning everyone and everything he passed. If there was one thing he was good at after his years of imprisonment, it was watching. Every detail carried some significance, it was just a matter of figuring out which details pertained to him, and which were unnecessary to remember.
Watching. I'm always watching. His gaze swept up and down three other streets as he turned the corner, taking in dozens of cars, hundreds of faces. As he moved further from the site of the disaster, the shades of gray faded from the objects, revealing their true colors. Two streets away, he saw a blue car, a red fire hydrant, the sleek black contours of a new skyscraper. People strolled down distant sidewalks, none looking at the scarred bricks of the Ephemeral Apartments. Their colorful clothes and clean faces seemed like a protest against the disaster, a denial that it had happened.
A single, gray figure stood still among the bustling city, as stationary as the black lamppost he leaned against. Syaoran approached the figure, moving with thick crowds of city residents across the overflowing streets. When he reached the man, he stood there, awaiting a response.
Seishirou turned. "I'm surprised to see you here so soon, Syaoran-kun. Have you come to make a deal with me?"
"I have."