Chapter One-Hundred-Four

Kurogane arrived to find both the kid and the magician passed out on the floor. "What the hell?" He stalked over. What the hell are they doing? As he reached down to pick the magician up off the floor, Tomoyo-hime cried out.

"Do not touch them!"

He froze, his hand inches from Fai's hood, then drew back. "Why not?"

Tomoyo approached, pushing past him to kneel down beside the pair. Kurogane shuffled back, wondering what she'd sensed that he couldn't.

The Tsukiyomi lifted her hand so it hovered above Fai's forehead. Her lips framed the words for some incantation, too low for him to hear. A moment later, she did the same for the kid, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. Slowly, she stood. "They've moved to another world."

"That's impossible," Kurogane scoffed. They're still here.

Tomoyo frowned. "Their bodies remain here, but their souls have moved to another plane of existence."

Kurogane glanced around, looking for the white pork bun in the hopes that the creature would have some answers. Mokona popped out of his shirt, plopping down beside the others. A small whimper rose from the creature's throat. Frustrated, Kurogane said, "Yeah, so what does that mean?"

"There are enchantments on both of them," Tomoyo explained. "It's the same presence I sensed in Sakura-chan's room."

Kurogane's spine went rigid. Not them, too. "So it's him. The Other."

Tomoyo nodded. "It seems Syaoran-kun has been under these spells for a long time. I imagine they've been inert up until now."

"No," Kurogane said, eyes narrowing. "They haven't." He thought back to the night he'd gotten the kid drunk in Infinity. Even then, the boy had admitted to having nightmares. Dark circles around his eyes had declared every sleepless night he'd endured. They were never just nightmares, he thought. Even then, he was tormented.

Tomoyo looked at him. "What do you want to do?"

"What else is there to do?" he muttered. "I'm going after them."

She nodded solemnly. "I won't be able to bring you back if things go wrong."

He glanced at the boy, unconscious, probably unaware of how dismal things had become, and said, "Things have already gone wrong. I'm still going."

Tomoyo lifted her hand to touch his. He felt the distinct tingle of magic running up his arm. "This will ensure you move to the same world they're in. If you are determined to go, I will send you."

He bowed his head. "I'm going."

"Do what you must do," Tomoyo said. Kurogane felt the tendrils of magic curling around him, pulling him into the dimensional sea. "And don't forget what I told you."

"I won't," he said, as he disappeared.

Syaoran wiped the ashes from his face, trying to figure out what had happened in the time between his blackout and his awakening. All he could piece together was that he'd switched worlds while he'd been unaware.

He stood up, brushing ash from his clothes. There seemed to be little point, given the puffs of gray falling from the sky like dark snow. This world seemed to be covered entirely in ash—mounds of gray shifted in the wind like the sand dunes around Clow, puffs of it falling from the sky despite there being no apparent source. Even when he closed his eyes, letting his other senses range out, searching for enemies, he sensed nothing except for the shifting dunes.

It's like this world has already ended, he thought, taking a few tentative steps forward. Just like Tokyo.

He wandered, wiping the miniscule particles from his face every few minutes so they wouldn't get in his eyes. Faint light shone through the clouds, illuminating the barren path before him. The light seemed scattered somehow, as if it wasn't coming from a single source, but from the whole sky, behind the stratus clouds. Like the sunset of Sapphirine, the effect was both heavenly and eerie.

"Hello?" he called, not sure if he wanted an answer. "Is anyone out here?"

He heard a faint warbling behind him, like the giggle of a child, but when he turned, no one was there.

"Hello?" he called again, stretching his senses as far as they could go.

A shriek tore through the air, demanding his immediate attention. His legs carried him to the source of the sound, feet scattering ash everywhere as they hit the ground.

By the time the scream died out, he'd reached the source of it. Lying in the ashes, a woman with wavy brown hair stared up at the sky. A crimson splotch on her dress drew his eyes, and he saw the narrow slit in her outfit where something sharp had pierced her chest. Her neck craned up to look at him, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Abruptly, she started sobbing. "Kill me . . . Please, please, kill me . . ."

He recoiled from the sound, from the words themselves. The woman's hand shot out to grab the collar of his shirt. Syaoran heard the distinct crackle of her joints as her broken fingers scraped together.

"Kill me," she begged, more blood running down from the corner of her lip. "Please, please kill me . . ."

Before he could, the flesh of her hand sagged and fell away, dripping onto the ash like grease falling off a piece of steak into the bottom of a grill. As her flesh gave way, her broken bones were left exposed. In seconds, all that was left of the dying woman was a skeleton.

What is going on here? he wondered, ripping free of the corpse's grasping hand. The bones fell in a pile at his feet, clattering together. They dissolved into ash where they landed.

Syaoran stared at the ground for a long moment, horror creeping over him. It's just a hallucination, he told himself. You have them a lot. This isn't real.

"Syaoran-kun?"

His head whipped around, claws shooting out even as he recognized the voice. He forced himself to relax, to think rationally despite the panic clawing its way through his chest. "Fai-san?" he asked, unwilling to approach the voice after what had just happened.

The magician stepped out from behind a nearby sand dune, his eye scanning the horizon. Relief flickered across the magician's face as their gazes met. "I'm glad I found you," Fai said.

Syaoran focused on making his claws retract. "Are you . . . That's really you, right?"

Fai blinked, then looked around, as if he wasn't sure the question had been aimed at him. "Yes. Why? Have you run into someone who looks like me in this world?"

He looked down. "No."

"Oh. Good. That probably means we both survived, then."

Syaoran blinked. "I don't understand."

"Well, if you're you, and I'm me, and we're both talking to each other, that either means we're both permanently dead or, as neither of us can talk to spirits, we both survived. Since you were still alive when I was cutting away those spells, I can only assume it's the latter."

"What spells?"

Fai's smile faded. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

The magician's eyebrows came together, his lips turning down in an unnatural frown. Syaoran's heart quickened.

"What don't I know?" he asked, hearing the tremor in his voice.

"The other Syaoran . . ." Fai began. Syaoran flinched. "I don't know when it started. I didn't even realize he'd put spells on you until they took effect. But the spells he's put on you have been weaving through your body for a long time."

"How long?"

Fai hesitated.

"How long?" Syaoran demanded, stomach churning. How long has he had his claws in me? How long has he been manipulating me?

"A long time," Fai whispered. "Probably since Tokyo."

Tokyo.

The world tilted at the strangest angle, the ground pulling up on one side. All feeling vanished from his lower extremeties, just as it had when Seishirou had paralyzed him in Sapphirine. Only this was worse. Not mere damage to his body—not something he could recover from—but a total violation of his mind and soul.

A cloud of ash rose around him as he hit the ground. A single word kept echoing around his mind, tormenting him.

Tokyo. Tokyo!

"Syaoran-kun!" Fai squeaked, darting to his side. "Are you all right?"

All right? he thought, wondering at the sheer inappropriateness of that phrase. All this time, the Other has been taking control of me, slipping into my thoughts. All this time, and I never knew how great his power over me was. I thought he was only in my dreams. I thought I was in control. But I never was. Never. "No," he whispered. "I'm not all right."