Chapter Fifty-One
For the first time in over a week, Syaoran slept without nightmares.
It was an odd sensation. The void of sleep passed quickly, but the darkness tugged at the edge of his consciousness, trying to pull him back into a state of awareness as if his body feared falling too deeply asleep.
Even so, it was the best night of sleep he'd had since Kurogane-san had gotten him drunk in Infinity. When Syaoran woke, the sun just peeked over the stone lip of their cave. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, blinking.
"Ah, you're up," Seishirou said. Syaoran turned to see the dark haired man perched in front of the fire, a pot of water suspended on a makeshift structure in front of him. Is he making breakfast?
"Good morning, sensei."
The man rolled his eyes. "I told you before, call me Seishirou. We don't have to worry about such frivolous formalities."
Syaoran frowned, and a small voice in his head whispered, You want to make him happy, don't you? "Yes, Seishirou." The name ended on an awkward note, lacking any sort of honorific. Syaoran looked to the older man for approval, which he received in the form of a smile. "Um . . . What are you making?"
"Broth for Fuuma, if he wakes up. He usually does, every few days, and I have to make sure I get as much food into him as I can."
Don't you need something to make broth from? Syaoran wondered, before he saw the corpses of two rabbits sitting beside the campfire. He stared at the bloody holes where his mentor had evidently run his claws through the creatures, waiting for the bloodlust to overtake him.
It didn't. He stared at the unappetizing spots of red, inhaling deeply as if that would somehow make them smell more delicious.
"How long did it take you to hunt those?" he asked.
"About half an hour. The first one was easy; I caught him by surprise. The second one was tougher. I chased him a quarter of a mile before I caught up to him."
Syaoran stared at the corpses. The trials of the hunt seemed so insignificant now that they were both dead.
"Would you like to try some when I'm done?" Seishirou asked, stirring the pot slowly as he dropped several bones with meat hanging off them into the mix. "The flavor profile will seem different now that you're a vampire, but it'll still taste okay."
His eyes slid over to Fuuma, lying unconscious on the other side of the fire. The warmth had done him some good, apparently, because rather than being stiff with cold, his limbs were relaxed. Like he's asleep instead of comatose, Syaoran thought, returning his attention to his teacher. "We'll see."
Seishirou watched him a moment longer, cocking his head to the side. "It's been a few days. You must be getting thirsty again."
He shuddered, shaking his head without even bothering to process his condition. After he did so, he realized he felt thirsty. It wasn't exactly the same as normal thirst. He could push it to the back of his mind, but now that it had been brought to attention, his throat tightened up. He swallowed thickly. "I'm fine."
"You shouldn't neglect your thirst. It'll tamper with your self-control."
He thought of the woman with Souma's face. "I'm not thirsty."
Seishirou didn't push the issue as Kurogane might have. He went back to making broth. Several minutes passed, and Syaoran began to feel awkward just standing there. "Is it okay if I go practice my drills? I need to work on them."
His new teacher didn't even look at him. "Go ahead. Just be back before sundown."
Syaoran pulled his sword from within his body, using a similar method he'd used to store Sakura's feather before Fai had tried to kill him. He felt a rush of anger at the memory. Fai didn't even say anything, he thought bitterly. He just stuck his claws through my heart like I was some faceless enemy.
He walked almost half a mile through the snow, glad the frigid air didn't affect him as strongly as it affected humans. I'll still need a coat to fit in, but I can't sense anyone else around here, so it doesn't really matter.
Eventually, he settled in a small clearing surrounded by trees. Kurogane hadn't taught him much in the way of actual swordsmanship, mostly focusing on tasks to improve his balance and perception. He never trusted you with real sword techniques.
Syaoran shoved the thought away and focused on the drills his clone had learned. For three hours, he worked mostly on his stances. When he'd escaped Fei Wong Reed's spells, his body had been forced to relearn everything, from walking to fighting. If his muscles hadn't been so weak from his time as a prisoner, he might've been able to vanquish the Other in Tokyo. With the added strangeness of his vampire body, he had to teach himself the basic movements all over again.
Front stance, he thought. If he'd been working with Kurogane-san, he'd only have had to listen for the commands. As it was, he was alone.
Alone. You will always be alone. He bit his lip, moving into the next stance. No matter who you're with, no matter where you go, there is no one who will understand you. Everything that's happened to you has made you an outcast. There's no safe place.
You need to widen your stance, he told himself, adjusting appropriately as soon as he noticed the problem. Kurogane had told him—him, not the Other—how important it was to have a solid stance. Every detail was crucial. Feet parallel. Legs shoulder-width apart. Front knee bent. Back leg straight.
He stepped forward again, swinging his sword to get a feel for the weapon again. He'd used it in practice all of three times, and hadn't used it in a fight since battling the Other in Tokyo. The weight of it felt odd in his arms, though it was not so tiring now that his body was stronger. You're still weak, he thought, swinging it more forcefully as he stepped forward. Another part of him said, Take a wider stance, or you'll lose your balance.
He kept moving, carving paths in the snow wherever he went. After three hours, most of the snow in the clearing was trampled flat. Despite the lack of soreness in his arms, it seemed like a good time to stop. I should be eating lunch now, he thought. I should be sitting down on the park bench and trying to catch a few minutes of rest. I should be waiting for Kurogane-san to bring something from one of the shops for us to eat. He frowned, leaning against a tree and closing his eyes. Perhaps it felt natural to rest because it was habit. Syaoran knew he didn't have to eat, and that there was little point in resting when the tears in his muscles healed so quickly that he didn't even feel the ache of exercise, but he didn't think his mind could tolerate much more of this without at least a short respite.
So he sat there for a few minutes, letting his mind drift to other things. If I keep traveling with Seishirou, chances are I'll run into them eventually. What if they mistake me for the Other? Or maybe they'll think I'm just an alternate version of myself, another matching face like the people we've encountered in worlds past. Or maybe I won't see them again for a long time, and they'll continue aging while I stay the same. He imagined Sakura, thirty years old, having moved on with her life. She'll probably have a family by then, he thought, feeling a strange pang in his chest. Sakura always liked kids. She'd want to have at least one or two.
He tried to imagine that, tried to see the faces of Sakura's children, years down the road. But whenever he tried to picture their faces, his mind went blank. He just couldn't think of Sakura's features mixing with anyone else's to have a child.
I'll probably see her again before that, he told himself. After all, there wasn't much time between when the Other saw Seishirou in Outo and when I found him in Infinity. It's possible that the similar nature of Yuuko-san's magic things draws the people in contact with them closer. But if that's the case . . . I might not be done helping Seishirou. I won't be able to stay with them, if I find them.
He drew his legs in closer and wrapped his arms around them, resting his head on his knees. Even if I did find them . . . Fai tried to kill me. They obviously didn't want me around in Infinity. Why would they want me back after I betrayed them? If they didn't think I was dead already, they'd be thinking of ways to kill me.
Sakura wanted you to stay, part of him reasoned. She tried to stop you from leaving. She was crying when you left.
The memory of tears running down her cheeks played across the inside of his eyelids. He remembered touching her face, trying to memorize her features before he left, feeling her soft skin against his fingertips. She'd asked him not to leave, testing his resolve in a way their enemies never had. He had faltered, his control breaking just long enough for him to brush his fingertips across her fragile cheekbones, to touch her for the first time.
She wanted me to stay, he thought, as his breathing hitched. She wanted me to stay, I could see it written across her face. I should have. I should've stayed with her. She was the only thing tethering me to this journey. I should have stayed.
A darker voice whispered, No, you should've squashed any affection you had for her so you could do your duty. You should never have allowed anything to cloud your judgment, least of all the opinions of someone who was still missing half their memories.
It's not my place to feel anything for her.
That's right. So you might as well kill any lingering affection right now because she's never going to love you like she loved the Other.
"Never. I will never love you."
Syaoran flinched. That part was just a dream.
A true dream, and you know it.
She wanted me to stay.
She wanted someone who wore the same face as the Other.
She needed me.
The only thing she needed was a reminder that the person she cared about existed in another world.
Syaoran buried his face in his hands, taking a deep breath.
The cold voice went on. She will never care about you, and even if she did, you're still a commoner, and a foreigner at that. Caring about her will only cause you more pain.
"I don't believe that," he whispered, talking to himself again. Just like you talked to yourself in Infinity because no one else deigned to speak to you.
Because they hated you.