Chapter Thirty-Three

The ninja hit him again, but Fai was too numb to feel the blow. He blinked.

"Don't be stupid," Kurogane snarled, his breath hitching again. He didn't seem to realize what was happening to him. Fai hadn't either, for a moment, too stunned by the tears to really process what they were.

How much have I hurt all of them? he wondered, watching the ninja's face with a sort of morbid fascination. Kurogane's anger seemed to give off a radiant heat, pouring into the room, but the trails of saltwater running down his face were so at odds with Fai's expectations that it took him almost a minute to organize his thoughts.

"I didn't mean to . . . It was the curse," Fai whispered, flinching when the ninja glared at him.

A moment later, a look of exasperation flitted across Kurogane's face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I . . ." He swallowed thickly. And I criticized Syaoran for keeping secrets, he thought. "It was a curse. A long time ago, a curse was placed on me, one that forced me to kill the first person with greater magic than mine. I thought . . ." This time, his own breathing hitched. It's been a long time since I've cried, too. "Syaoran had one of the feathers, maybe trying to keep it away from Seishirou, I don't know . . . It more than doubled his magic power. Even so, if my magic power wasn't halved like this, I wouldn't have been compelled to kill him. It just never occurred to me that something like this would happen."

The ninja was staring at him. Some of the fury had faded from his crimson eyes, letting the other emotions bleed out. Having lived as long as he had, Fai recognized the look of grief etched into his features.

"If anyone, I might've expected Sakura-chan to excel far enough to surpass my magical power. By that time, I might've been prepared, might've split off from the group. But I never . . ." His voice wavered. "I never meant to kill Syaoran, not even after . . ."

"Enough," the ninja said softly, the back of his hand coming across his moistened face in an almost casual gesture. But Fai knew he was wiping away the tears. Seeing the ninja show sorrow instead of pure rage was rather like a child seeing their parents weep for the first time.

"I'm sorry," Fai whispered.

Kurogane said nothing for a long moment, regaining control of himself. "There's no way we can follow them, wherever they are. We have to go back to the princess."

Fai winced. "She'll be distraught."

"Yeah, well . . . So am I." He didn't sound distraught, though, not anymore. Just weary. The ninja extended a hand out to him. Fai took it and allowed the dark-haired man to pull him to his feet. His jaw and nose hurt fiercely, but not quite so bad as it should have. Rapid healing. Mild response to pain. Superhuman abilities. He thought of the fight, how Kurogane's sword had bared Seishirou's flesh to the bone, remembering the man's rapid attacks, the ease of movement even after the brutal cut.

"Did you notice anything about Seishirou?" Fai asked, his voice still thick with guilt. "Anything strange about the way he moved?"

"Yeah. He moves like you do."

Then it's not just me. "Do you think he's . . ."

Kurogane nodded. "I do."

Fai said nothing else, just nodded back. It has to be, he thought. That's the only explanation.

Seishirou felt the impact with the ground, but he didn't bother to take stock of his surroundings. He channeled his magic through the device in his eye to call the witch.

She was ready for him. Whether she'd seen the disaster as it had unfolded or just happened to be sitting nearby her black communication creature, he couldn't be sure. "Is it time?" she asked.

"Yes. I have the payment."

She blinked, a frustratingly slow movement, then nodded. "I will take it later, when you're done." Her image disappeared from existence, and a sharp pain jolted through the flesh around his glass eye. A moment later, a glowing bulb flew free of the magic eye and came down on the ground, jingling as it moved. Seishirou snatched it up and rested it over the boy's chest while he worked.

The bulb, as Yuuko had explained it two weeks ago when he'd made the deal, would keep Syaoran's body hovering between life and death for a limited time. Seishirou only hoped he could repair the damage before the glowing artifact stopped working and keep the boy's brain from dying.

The cut in his wrist was still bleeding profusely, not yet healed. Seishirou moved his bleeding arm over the boy's mouth and allowed the blood to drip down between the boy's lips. The Little Wolf writhed, like an animal caught up in a wire fence. "Drink," Seishirou commanded, hoping some semblance of consciousness remained in the boy's oxygen-deprived brain. Syaoran kept struggling, almost knocking the magic sphere away from his heart. Seishirou moved his hand over the sphere, holding it to Syaoran's chest. It was the only thing making his punctured heart beat.

"Drink, Little Wolf," he murmured, pressing his bleeding wrist down so his blood trickled down Syaoran's throat. His frantic struggles redoubled, and a shrill scream pierced the air. "You trusted me once, trust me now."

His struggles eased a bit, and he drank deeper, tears streaming from his eyes as the foreign blood worked its way through his system, healing his damaged heart. Seishirou held him down until the glow faded from the magical bulb. When Syaoran continued to writhe in pain, he felt a pang of relief. "That was close," he whispered to himself, knowing his charge was probably too far into the transformation to make sense of his words.

Becoming a vampire was the most painful experience Seishirou had ever known, and he hated himself for forcing it on the boy. There really was no other option, though. The dream-seer he'd met in Piffle World had given him the forewarning to prepare for this disaster, but he had not expected everyone to cut it so close. Another minute and he would've been dead.

The struggles of a moment ago had been an unconscious reaction to the vampire blood in his system, but now, Syaoran woke. A scream tore free of his throat, and his hand clutched his chest, where the blood knitted the cardiac muscle back together. From what Seishirou had studied of vampires, the most painful parts of the transformation tended to culminate around fresh injuries. The screams grated on Seishirou's sensitive eardrums, and he held his hands over his ears, trying to shut them out.

When that didn't work, he turned to Fuuma. His brother looked almost like a corpse, sprawled across the ground in the position he'd fallen in. Seishirou quickly moved him into a more comfortable position, laying his cloak down on the ground so the dirt wouldn't steal Fuuma's body heat quite so readily. These little actions failed to distract him from the howls of the Little Wolf.

Gods, why can't the transformation go any faster? he wondered, shaking his head. He looked around, assessing his situation now that the most dire concerns were out of the way. They seemed to have landed in a jungle of some sort, not unlike many he'd seen in his travels. Given the way the boy was screaming, it was lucky they were far from civilization. An interruption now would be inconvenient at best and fatal at worst. New dimensions were not always kind to their visitors.

We'll have to find our own food, he thought, looking at Fuuma. Hopefully, there will be people within walking distance. If not, though . . . His eye slid back to the boy, sobbing as the foreign blood shred apart his body cells and rebuilt them. Once he got through the worst phase of the transition, he'd need to feed, and the only human within biting distance was Fuuma.

Seishirou moved to the boy's side and rested one hand on Syaoran's forehead. His wrist, pouring blood just a few minutes ago, had almost completely healed, though there was still some fluid that hadn't gotten into the boy's mouth. "Sorry about this," he murmured as the boy whimpered. "It was the only way to keep you alive."

The boy's back arched, and another grating scream clawed its way up his throat. A moment later, the screech doubled in volume, a sure sign that the transformation was near its end. Seishirou held him down so he wouldn't injure himself flailing around. Almost a minute passed, until his arms started to ache. In the final moments of the transformation, Syaoran's whole body jerked, the movement fierce enough to throw Seishirou back. The boy shot to his feet, retreating until his back pressed against the trunk of a jungle tree.

Seishirou looked up to see a pair of hungry gold eyes staring back at him.