Chapter Eighty-Two

"Get down!" Kurogane shouted, and though Fai was not accustomed to following orders without reason, the command was so forceful that he obeyed immediately.

It was a good thing, too, because a fraction of a second later, something smashed into the wall just a foot away from where his head had been. He looked up, eyesight sharpening as his body transformed.

At first glance, the creature appeared to be some sort of prehistorical bird. The membrane of its wings were like those of a bat, but the ruffled plumage on the creature's neck and legs suggested otherwise. The tail was long and featherless, like that of a reptile. For one wild moment, Fai thought it was all those things, mashed into one. And then the creature pulled its head from the rock and the pieces resolved into one picture.

The dragon shrieked again, and swiped at him with its claws. Fai jerked back, and had to dance away from the edge of the stairs to keep from falling. A deep hiss emanated from the little dragon as it craned its neck to bite.

A flash of silver filled Fai's vision, followed by splotches of red. It took him a moment to realize that Kurogane had used Souhi to behead the creature.

"That was—"

"Shut up," the ninja snarled, turning his head in every direction to search for more threats. Fai didn't really see the point. Even with his sharpened eyesight, he couldn't see more than a few feet into the bluish haze. Kurogane almost certainly couldn't see far enough to detect any oncoming threats. Then again, he doesn't need to see to detect such threats.

Sakura knelt down beside the dead creature, his lips slipping into a frown. Fai watched, waiting for her to say something. But after a moment, she stood up and looked down the steps with a grim expression.

Kurogane made a frustrated sound and relaxed from his crouch. "I can't sense these things."

Oh, Fai thought, feeling as if the stairs had turned to air under his feet. That's not good.

"No," Sakura said softly. "Because they're ghosts in this world."

Their group was silent for a moment. Finally, Kurogane sighed. "Come on. The sooner we find the feather, the sooner this fog will lift."

They started forward again, moving more quickly down the stone steps. Occasionally, Kurogane would stop, his whole body rigid, his hand going to his sword. Silence would descend on them for a few seconds, then they'd move forward without a word.

The stairs seemed to go on for miles, and Fai wondered if there was truly a bottom to this canyon, or if the rift was bottomless. With magic running so thick in the air, the possibility seemed much more likely than he wanted to believe.

But there was a bottom, and as they neared it, the Mist cleared somewhat. Being able to see, however, only made things worse.

A moss-like substance coated the ground, giving off a faint luminescence. Unlike normal moss, however, it was cobalt blue, as if the Mist had concentrated here on the bottom to form a solid substance. More disturbing than any of that however, was the way it moved—like grass rippling in the breeze, except the air down here was stagnant.

"Do you think this is what's giving off the Mist?" he asked, nudging the squishy stuff with the toe of his shoe.

"Looks like it. Hey, manju, which way to the feather?"

Mokona peeked out of Fai's shirt, ears flat against her back, and pointed. "That way. It's close."

The ninja nodded and started out across the see of blue. The moss made squishing sounds under his feet.

"There are hundreds of ghosts here," Sakura whispered, looking around. She didn't seem anxious, exactly, just . . . alert.

"Are they friendly?" Fai asked.

Sakura frowned. "Not all of them." She rested a hand lightly on her sword, keeping her eyes on the path. The motion made Fai's breath catch in his throat.

I must truly be drifting away from them if I can't even read Sakura anymore, he thought, frowning at her easy reliance on the weapon. She scanned the area for threats, just as Kurogane was doing a few feet ahead. And when both of them recognized a threat approaching from the sides, they drew their weapons.

"Stay behind me," Kurogane ordered, stepping between them and the threat. As Fai looked up to examine their enemy, he caught sight of a dozen feathered monsters slicing through the air. This seems like an awfully normal world to have such strange creatures, he thought, claws coming out as he prepared to face any that slipped past the ninja's guard.

None did. The ninja called out some attack Fai's language had no translation for. White light poured from his blade and shredded the dragons apart. Bloody chunks fell into the moss.

"This world seemed so normal on the surface," Fai said. "But it has its dangers, too, it seems."

Sakura shook her head. "This place was not originally part of this world. It's a shard of another world, that came into this world and gathered around one of my feathers."

Kurogane glanced back at her. "How do you know so much about this place?"

She shrugged. "It's not familiar to me, but it's . . . Somehow the energy is different, between this place and the rest of Sapphirine. The sounds of their cries are different." Her eyes drifted to the chunks of flesh. "Look."

Fai looked and saw how the flesh had liquefied where it had landed. "They're dissolving."

She nodded. "The creatures stay down here so that when they die, their bodies go to feed the moss. And they can't fly out of here because they need a certain concentration of Mist to survive. At least, I think that's it."

Fai nodded. The explanation made sense to him. Kurogane just shook his head like he couldn't believe they were talking about this.

By tacit agreement, they started moving forward again. After a while, the canyon narrowed. They could have walked shoulder-to-shoulder, but it would've been a tight fit, and impaired their fighting abilities if more monsters had come to attack. The passage suddenly opened up, and they reached a massive, circular expanse, overflowing with the cobalt blue plants. At the center of the room, a stone pedestal rose from the ground, giving off an unearthly light. And at the center of that light was one of Sakura's feathers.

It was near the bottom that they first encountered the dragons.

Seishirou reacted before he could, shredding one of them apart with his claws. Two more followed in quick succession, screeching like the first. Syaoran snatched one by the neck and slammed it into the wall, splattering blood across the smooth stone and killing it. Seishirou took out the other, first snapping its neck, then trampling it underfoot.

The farmer stared as if he'd just witnessed a train wreck. His face was as pale as moonlight on a sand dune. His breath came in ragged gasps, as if the Mist itself was choking him. "What—What are you?"

Syaoran realized his claws had come out. He withdrew them, suddenly panicked. What if this man started screaming? What if he brought a hunting party down here to wipe them off the face of the earth?

"We're vampires," Seishirou said, smiling. "Which is lucky, because these things that just attacked us would be quite difficult to deal with if we were mere humans."

Syaoran bristled at the last part. "Mere humans" sounded so arrogant. Even if humans weren't as physically strong, certainly they were worth the same as vampires. Perhaps more, given that vampires couldn't survive without their prey. And Sakura is human . . .

The farmer swayed, as if he were about to faint. And then he was pointing his rifle at Seishirou's chest. "Stay back!" he shouted. "I will not be influenced by your unholy compulsion."

Seishirou pushed the gun aside, a catlike grin crossing his face. "You really shouldn't have done that."

"No!" Syaoran shouted, realizing what his teacher was about to do. But the exclamation came too late. Seishirou ripped the gun from the man's hands and took hold of his shoulder, shifting Fuuma so he slumped off to the side.

With one smooth motion, Seishirou shoved the farmer off the stairs and into the depths of the chasm.