Chapter Eighty-Six

The bruised side of his face hit the ground, a sharp pain next to the sudden numbness of his lower body. No, he thought, his breath coming in ragged gasps. No, this can't be happening to me . . .

But it was. From just above his waist down to his toes, Syaoran felt nothing—no hint of pain in his lower extremities, no response as his survival instinct commanded him to get up, to fight. Nothing at all.

He'd fallen so he was facing the center of the room. He watched Seishirou lower his shape-shifting blade, watched it retract into his body.

He wasn't smiling.

No, Syaoran thought, heart pounding. It seemed to be the only organ in his body which had any measure of sensation. He could no longer feel the knot of anxiety in his stomach, could no longer feel anything below the line where his spinal cord had been severed. It was as if half his body had died, when he'd hit the wall. Maybe it did . . . Maybe the rest will follow.

His mentor approached, each footstep measured, deliberate. Syaoran's eyes flashed to the man's face, but Seishirou's eyes were obscured by the glasses he'd donned on the steps. In that moment, it was as if he was some faceless entity—a ghost trying to bring him to whatever afterlife existed for a creature like him.

No, no, please no, this is all a dream, let it be another nightmare . . . His hands groped for his sword. He needed some way to defend himself. And then what? part of his mind criticized. Crawl all the way up the stairs? Pray the others decide to come back for you? Wait around to get eaten?

Those concerns were great enough to occupy hours of thinking later on—hours he would perhaps spend trying to fend off the dragon-like creatures that infested this accursed, cold place as he crawled up the steps. His whole life, he'd been reliant on his legs. He'd used them to walk for miles and miles, traveling various countries and worlds. He'd used them in self-defense to fend off the worst attacks of his foes. He'd relied on them even more than his arms, as if they were pillars of support. And now, they were limp, noodle-like things, sprawled carelessly over the ground. Useless. Immobile. Dead weight he'd have to drag up the canyon if he had any hopes of surviving.

Maybe Seishirou will show mercy and kill me, he thought, fingers loosening around the hilt of his sword.

Seishirou took the final steps toward him, then stopped, just out of his sword's cutting range. Several seconds passed in silence.

"You wouldn't have been able to fulfill my wish, after all," Seishirou said softly, kneeling down beside him. "How unfortunate."

Part of him wanted to feel betrayed by the lack of feeling in Seishirou's voice. The rest of him knew he'd been betrayed a long time ago. From the very beginning.

"I thought, perhaps, you might be the one person able to defeat me. Admittedly, the ninja gave me a few good fights, but I was certain you would be the one to surpass me eventually. You knew my techniques, my style. You should've had an advantage. But it seems I was mistaken."

A small surge of anger rose in Syaoran—just as useless, at this point, as his legs. He could do nothing, say nothing, to ruin Seishirou the way he'd been ruined. Seishirou could dodge his magic, would see the assault coming a mile away, as soon as he reached for his sword.

The anger pulsed and seethed as Seishirou spoke.

"I suppose there's no point in me staying here. This canyon is rather eerie, and I'd like Fuuma to live out his last days in peace, since he won't live much longer."

Pulse. Like a heartbeat driven faster by anger.

"Of course, I expected you to be more clever in your fighting, given how smart you were. But perhaps your analytical abilities apply only to books and artifacts."

Pulse. Stronger now, as fury pushed the weak anger out of the way and took up residence in his heart.

"In the end, you never understood your purpose here. And from the way you left your friends in Infinity, you didn't understand your purpose there, either."

Pulse. Fury transitioning into something else, something cold and sharp, like a steel edge. Not anger, not exactly. Something else, something that lingered in his veins, chilling his blood like ice water.

Seishirou sidled closer, his features turning almost tender as his hand snaked under Syaoran's face. He tilted Syaoran's chin up, as if the awkward angle would allow him a better view. Syaoran's eyebrows angled down.

"Perhaps," Seishirou said. His voice was such that Syaoran wondered if he was deliberately exposing the manipulative edge that had been skulking under the surface since Infinity. "it is as you said in Cirrus. That you bring disaster wherever you go, like a butterfly of doom."

Pulse. Colder than anger, but born of the same seed. Cold and dark and deadly.

Hate. Syaoran hated him.

Pulse. Cold and dark, but also potent, spiraling out of control faster than he could reign it in. Memories of the circus world flashed through his mind. That hatred had been nothing but a pitiful echo of this one, and he had killed that ringmaster without reservation or regret.

Pulse.

Pulse.

Pulse . . .

Seishirou had used him, broken him, turned him into a monster. Far greater offenses than those of the ringmaster.

A leather hilt under his fingertips, easily within reach, topped with a long, sharp blade . . .

Pulse.

Hatred seethed inside him, fighting for retribution, warring with his self-control, battling the shattered splinters of the gratitude he'd once felt.

Syaoran's hand coiled around the hilt of his sword, knuckles going white with the force of his grip. Even if he had to crawl out of this canyon, even if he got picked to the bone by the dragons, he knew he'd be able to endure it all, so long as he never had to see Seishirou's face again.

Perhaps the dark-haired man had thought his student's arms had been paralyzed as well, or perhaps he was simply unprepared for the sudden strike. The tip of Syaoran's sword bit deep into the left side of Seishirou's chest, burrowing between his ribs and piercing his pericardium. His features lit up with shock, just for a second, before blood flooded out between his lips. The man coughed, further damaging his internal organs. Crimson droplets spattered everywhere—across the walls, across Syaoran's face, across his clothes. It wasn't until he saw the half-insane smirk on Seishirou's face that he realized the older man wasn't coughing, but laughing.

"It seems I've misjudged you grievously," Seishirou croaked, more blood spilling out of his mouth. Syaoran would've pulled the sword out, would've let the blood run from the other man's heart and end this whole disaster of a battle, except for the brittle joy in Seishirou's expression. "I didn't think I could push you to it. Truly, I'd lost all hope that you could—" He coughed again, more sticky fluid flying free of his lips.

Push me to it? Syaoran thought as his anger receded. "What do you mean?

Another laugh. More blood. "Here I thought you were going to do it with your magic, like we've been practicing, but you went ahead and used your sword like—like that ninja taught you! Ha! It shows how little I know of teaching."

It seemed so strange that a man in the throes of death should be so exultant, but Syaoran couldn't move, not even to rip the sword out. "I don't understand."

"Hitsuzen was against me from the very beginning! I knew that. Of course I knew that. Bringing someone back from the dead may be a sin, but I thought bringing someone back from near-death might be possible. But Yuuko-san said even that carried a price too great. She said, 'The value of a life can only be matched by that of another life.' And since Fuuma's death was certain—" He broke off into another fit of laughter, choking on his own blood as he did so. The words replayed over in Syaoran's mind, rearranging themselves in the only sensible order.

Seishirou's laughter died down as pain flickered across his face. His brief euphoria seemed to be diminishing.

Quietly, Syaoran said, "This was your price."

The dark-haired man nodded weakly, fading faster and faster with each second. "It was. My life for my brother's." He choked on another mouthful of blood, but quickly regained control of himself. "But I . . . I didn't want to die by my own hand, so I . . ." He lowered his head.

"That was why you attacked me in Infinity," Syaoran whispered. "You were trying to get me to kill you."

Seishirou's head bobbed like the head of a rag doll.

"That's why you went after my friends in Cirrus. That's why you turned me into a vampire. Everything you did . . . was to make me hate you. so that when I . . ."

Seishirou nodded again. "So that when the time came for you to kill me, you would hate me so much . . . that it wouldn't hurt you. That you wouldn't agonize over it, or feel like you did the wrong thing."

Hot tears rose to his eyes, obscuring his vision so all he could see were blurs of black and red. "And you never told me?"

"You're too honorable. If you had known, you never would've been able to—" A spasm of agony twisted his features, this one longer and more intense than the last. Twin trails of tears burned down Syaoran's cheeks.

"Seishirou . . ."

"I have lived longer than most, much longer than my brother. I decided I would take this chance—even knowing I might not be able to revive him. To accept this price, regardless of the outcome. I rolled the dice of fate . . ." He looked over to Fuuma, still lying against the opposite wall, still unconscious. A sad, genuine smile appeared on Seishirou's lips. "And I lost."

"Lost? You mean—"

"Yes. I lost. The second price to restore his life was what I needed from you. The second price would have been your magic."

"My—" He broke off, remembering Seishirou's words in Infinity, the assurances that he would only need him to work a few spells when they reached the time and place they'd been searching for. The lie that hadn't been a lie.

"If you had killed me with your magic instead of that sword, my blood would've transferred the magic as payment to Yuuko. You would have been without magic, and I would have lost my life, but Fuuma would have lived. But it didn't work out that way. The witch would call it Hitsuzen."

Syaoran's voice quavered. "So, it was all for nothing? I . . . did this . . . for nothing?" He gestured helplessly to the wound on Seishirou's chest.

"It wasn't for nothing," Seishirou assured him. "Whatever happens to you now, you'll be stronger for it. And I . . . Well, let's just say a pair of twin vampires will be glad to hear I'm gone."

"Seishirou . . ."

"Don't mourn for me, Little Wolf." He lifted one hand to the top of Syaoran's head to tousle his hair. "It's better this way."

Seishirou blinked slowly, as if on the edge of sleep. His sad smile, born with thoughts of his brother, deepened. Syaoran felt the weight shift on the end of his sword, pulling the blade down to the ground, and knew Seishirou was dead.

This is his price, Syaoran thought, removing the sword and cradling the red-stained blade next to his chest. This is the price of a life . . . He closed his eyes and let the world disappear around him.