Chapter Ninety-Five

Syaoran stayed in his room only a minute or two before the stress overpowered him. "Shit," he murmured, curling up at the foot of his mattress. "Shit . . ."

He sat there, fingers pressed to his temples as if doing so would assuage the pain of Seishirou's betrayal.

It didn't.

Abruptly, he leaned forward and started digging through the blankets for the cloak Kurogane had retrieved for him. It was buried at the bottom of the pile, under his discarded clothes. Syaoran clutched the black piece of cloth to his chest, trying to fight the sobs clawing their way up his throat.

Seishirou had lied to him, betrayed him, manipulated him, and Syaoran still couldn't let him go.

"Shit . . ." he whispered again, dragging the back of his hand across his face. It came back sticky with tears.

Suddenly, the room seemed too small. Suffocating. Like a plastic bag stretched over his head. He had to get out of here.

Clutching Seishirou's cloak to his chest, he slipped out of his room and headed toward the exit at the end of the corridor.

"Going somewhere?"

He froze, breath catching in the back of his throat.

"You know by now that vampires have a heightened sense of hearing," Fai said, his footsteps creaking against the wooden floors. "I could hear you over the storm, and the palace gossip."

Syaoran didn't turn. Couldn't.

"Where are you going?" Fai asked, his voice softening.

Away. Far away. "I don't know."

"That storm is getting pretty fierce."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. Fai sighed, his volume dropping low. "I won't stop you. You need time to grieve."

"No, that's not—" He broke off, not sure what he was doing. He didn't need to grieve, he needed . . . what? Closure? To stand in the rain for a while? To be alone?

"I won't stop you," Fai repeated. "But come back this time, okay?"

Through the sharp pain in his throat, he could barely choke out a response. "Okay."

"I'll tell the others not to worry, so don't do anything that would force them to, okay?"

You're starting to sound like Kurogane-san, Syaoran thought, hearing the trace of authority in the magician's voice. Then again, he'd always sensed something under the surface with Fai. Something buried deep that flickered to life every once in a while, like a candle lit by a spirit.

He managed to nod before he ripped open the door. Frigid rain splattered his hair.

Sakura stared at the dining room door, too stunned to speak. Seishirou killed someone? And made Syaoran watch? she thought, shuddering. Her pulse pounded in her throat, clamping off any words she might've said.

"Damn," Kurogane muttered, his tea and bread roll all but forgotten on the table. He stood. "Kid!"

I should never have pushed for an answer, she thought. Of course there are things he wouldn't want to tell us. She stepped forward, wincing at the sound her leg brace made when it hit the ground. Though her leg was stronger, and the brace sturdier, the constant reminder of her deformity irked her.

That didn't matter now. What mattered was that she'd hurt Syaoran, and she had to make things right before he disappeared again. She sprinted after him. "Syaoran!"

"He's probably back in his room," Kurogane said, moving with her to the door. It hung open after Syaoran's hasty exit.

Sakura nodded. "Right." They ran down the hallway, knowing how much ground they had to make up. If Syaoran could move at supernatural speed like Fai, that meant he could've already made it to his room and closed the door behind him. With every step she took, the bottom of her brace clunked against the floor, a reminder of how weak she was, how crippled she'd become.

How helpless she was to relieve his suffering.

It took them a good three minutes to arrive at Syaoran's room. It was placed as far from their own quarters as possible, for reasons that made little sense to Sakura. He'd been so badly hurt when they'd come here—how could he have been a threat to anyone?

Fai stood outside Syaoran's door, his face back to the grim expression he'd worn in Infinity. Sakura felt her heart drop into her stomach.

Yet she couldn't stop herself. She swept past Fai and ripped Syaoran's door open. She had to see the evidence for herself.

There was no way the room could ever look cluttered, as few pieces of furniture as there was. But the blankets had been tossed haphazardly off the straw mattress, which sat at an oblique angle to the line of the wall. A wooden cylinder had been knocked over nearby, perhaps cast aside in his frantic rush to escape. From the lip, a crimson droplet hung, threatening to fall onto the floor.

Sakura turned back to Fai, moving as if both her legs were crippled. "He's gone."

"He's coming back this time. He told me so."

Kurogane responded before she could. "You let him go? Out there?"

"He was on the verge of a panic attack."

The ninja moved as if he was about to strike the mage. Fai's shoulders stiffened, his eyes flashing gold. Kurogane managed to hold his temper and start yelling instead. "Do you realize how dangerous this world is? What if he strays beyond the wards? He doesn't know what he's doing."

"He's shown himself to be a capable magician in his own right. I'm sure he's smart enough to stay behind the wards."

"What if he doesn't come back? What if he gets caught up in a landslide caused by the rain? He could die!"

Fai's voice was cold. "You think commanding him to stay here will do him any good? If we don't give him his freedom, he'll run away for good. Look—" he added, intercepting the ninja's argument. "I don't like it either. If I'd thought it could've waited until conditions were better, I would've stopped him. But he needs time to grieve, and he needs it now."

Sakura stared at the escalating fight, heart hammering faster. How could they fight like this when everything was just starting to get better? she wondered. The muscles in her arms twitched, itching to rip her sword out of its sheath. But my sword is gone, she thought. It broke in the canyon.

Kurogane continued to argue, reining in his fury a bit. "I have lived in this world, this country, all my life. I know the dangers better than anyone else, and even I can acknowledge how perilous this world is if you don't know what you're doing. I will not let the kid wander out into a storm like this."

"Well, I wouldn't have let Sakura wander out into Tokyo at night!" Fai shouted. The mention of that incident flung Sakura back to the dying world, to the sudden agony in her leg as the metal rod pierced it, to the nausea she'd felt when she'd shot the monsters there.

It's the same, she thought, feeling the blood drain out of her face. It's exactly the same situation.

The corridor fell silent, the last echoes of the argument fading away. Kurogane's crimson gaze overflowed with barely leashed fury. The line of his jaw stood rigid, the cords of his neck sticking up as he fought to control the rage boiling so close to the surface.

And then, so suddenly it made Sakura wonder what she'd missed, Kurogane sighed and leaned against the wall, perfectly calm. He closed his eyes for a moment, then tilted his head up to look at the ceiling. "So what now?" he asked. "Since you've been in this position before."

Fai hesitated, a dozen different emotions flitting across his face, too fast for Sakura to recognize. After a moment, he exhaled softly. "We wait. Warn the medical staff so they're ready when he comes back. Prepare ourselves for whatever's changed in him in the meantime."

The ninja nodded once, then cracked his knuckles. "Come on, Princess. There's a room where you can practice your techniques until the storm's over."

"But Syaoran—" She bit her lip, stemming the flow of words as she might stop the flow of blood from a cut. There was nothing she could say, now that the others were decided, that would sway them.

Nothing she could say to justify following Syaoran when he was making the same choice she'd made in Tokyo.

Kurogane looked at her, waiting to see if she'd finish her sentence. When she didn't, he started down the hallway again.

Sakura followed.