Chapter Nine

Kurogane looked up when the door opened, taking a deep breath for the first time in hours. He'd known the kid liked to read, but spending an entire day at the library seemed excessive.

Assuming that was the reason the kid had left in the first place.

Kurogane set aside the washcloth he'd been using to wipe the counter and turned, sensing the kid's familiar presence. He was about to look down again, pretend the day trip was normal, when he saw Syaoran's face.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Syaoran flinched, fingers tightening around the key in his hand. With mechanical movements, he slipped the key into the open pocket of his backpack and zipped it. Then, like an awkward teenage girl displaying a new, uncomfortable dress, the boy turned to face him.

A deep purple bruise marred the side of Syaoran's face, concentrated around his eye. His eyelid was swollen shut. For one instant, Kurogane had an awful recollection of the magician's empty eye socket, but then his eyelid open to a narrow slit, revealing the bloodshot sclera behind it.

Kurogane released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, then dropped the dishrag on the counter. "What happened?"

"I got into a fight." Syaoran shifted uneasily, as if he was afraid of the reaction his words would provoke, but more than anything, Kurogane was baffled.

"When? With who?"

Syaoran shook his head. "I didn't know them. They said they'd seen me in the tournament."

Kurogane stiffened, eyebrows pulling together. He'd met people like this in Nihon—fools who'd been arrogant enough to challenge him. Kurogane remembered the fury he'd sometimes felt, the urge to kill. Even with Tomoyo holding him back, he'd slain many such men in duels of honor.

"Well, did you win, at least?"

The kid paled, eyes drifting to his feet. "I . . . I got away." His hand drifted to the swollen ring around his eye, and a faint gasp broke through his control.

At the sound, Kurogane tensed. While he'd fought for his honor more times than he could count, he'd rarely been seriously hurt in the process. Seeing the kid flinch at the barest pressure hit some nerve deep inside him.

"Did you say you wanted to fight them?"

"No!" Syaoran squeaked, wincing as if the volume of his voice had hurt him.

Kurogane felt a spark of anger kindling somewhere in his chest. Anger at the people who had done this to the boy, yes, but also anger at the world. The kid already carried enough pain. He didn't deserve to have even more suffering heaped upon him.

He didn't deserve to have his shoulder broken either, but that didn't stop you from breaking it."Come on. Let's get you cleaned up." He rested a hand on the kid's good shoulder and led him to the diminutive bathroom. Once there, he picked the kid up by the ribs and hoisted him onto the countertop so they were eye-level with each other. Kurogane lifted a hand to move the boy's hair out of the way, only to have the kid flinch at the touch.

"Easy, easy . . ." Trying not to startle the boy any further, Kurogane modulated his voice. "Let me look."

Uncertainly, the boy opened his eyes. One of them, anyway. Kurogane brushed the kid's hair back, gritting his teeth when he felt dried blood crusted in Syaoran's scalp. "It's not the worst battle wound I've ever seen," he said, the tip of his thumb tracing the edge of the bruise. The swelling extended up into the kid's hairline, but Kurogane didn't feel any breaks or soft spots. The boy might have a concussion, but he'd live. "You're going to have to stay awake tonight, in case it gets worse."

The kid took a deep breath. "What happens if it gets worse?"

"Then we take you to the hospital, and hope you pull through."

A ghost of fear flashed across Syaoran's face, hidden so quickly Kurogane couldn't have been positive if he'd really seen it. He ran his fingers through the boy's hair, slicking it back. "It'll be all right. Like I said, I've seen much uglier battle wounds." Some of the injured had even survived.

Syaoran looked down. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be stupid—there's nothing to be sorry about, so don't even worry about it."

He shook his head. "No, I'm troubling you. I can—"

Kurogane lifted his hand to the boy's chin. "No more. I'm going to stick with you until I'm sure you're going to pull through. Now hold still so I can wipe the blood off."

"Okay."

He went to the bathroom cupboard and grabbed one of the washcloths from the stack. He wet it down in the sink, feeling a familiar twinge of annoyance at the unresponsive plumbing before the first trickle of cold water came through. Once the cloth was sufficiently soaked, he wrung it out and turned off the water.

The kid had closed his eyes, but when the wet rag pressed against his swollen flesh, he took in a shuddering breath. "Hey. You're going to be all right," Kurogane told him, though he suspected the boy was going to have a miserable recovery.

It was strange how, even after years of killing and violence, his hands remembered how to be gentle. Kurogane wiped the washcloth across the dry trail of blood, tracing his thumb along with edge of the bruise with such a light touch, the kid never flinched. When he was done, he set the washcloth aside and rested a hand atop the kid's head. Syaoran closed his eyes and leaned forward, silently accepting the contact.

"Kurogane-san?"

He lifted his hand from the boy's hair. "Yeah?"

"I . . . I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

Syaoran raised his eyes to his, then looked away, as if embarrassed. "It's just . . . This will probably seem strange to you, but . . ." His shoulders turned inward, fingers twining together awkwardly in his lap. "I'm glad you taught my clone how to fight. I might be lying dead in an alley right now if you hadn't, so . . . Thank you."

Kurogane regarded him for a moment, thinking. If this kid had learned things through the other kid's eyes, did that mean they were still in contact? Or had their connection shattered when the other kid had betrayed them in Tokyo? He'd known this boy had the memories of the first one, but did that transcend beyond intellectual similarities? Was this kid emotionally inclined, because of those experiences, to tolerate the ostracism he'd been enduring all this time? Would his body respond the same way in a fight as his clone's? Did his memories include muscle memory, as well?

Instead of asking any of those questions, Kurogane said, "Let's get some ice on that eye, all right?"

With the grace of an uncoordinated seven-year-old, the boy jumped down from the countertop and wobbled, leaning against the doorframe for support. Kurogane gritted his teeth, wondering if it was wise to take him to the hospital now, make sure the injury hadn't damaged his brain in some subtle, irreversible way. When the boy walked out of the bathroom with no further troubles, however, Kurogane relaxed.

The kid went straight to the kitchen and pulled a plastic bag from the cupboard. He filled it with ice before resting the bag over his swollen eye. The look on his face when the cold plastic touched him was somewhere between pain and relief.

He doesn't rely on us as much as the other kid did, Kurogane realized, watching as the boy perched himself on the arm of the couch. Even if he looks the same on the outside, he's a lot more mature.

Briefly, Kurogane wondered if all the time the kid had spent in captivity had actually fostered the self-reliant mindset he possessed now, or if it had been so isolating that it didn't occur to him to ask for help. How aware had he been during his imprisonment? Aware enough to remember the other kid's experiences, obviously, but aware enough to mature and develop? It occurred to Kurogane that the kid's mental age might be well beyond his apparent physical age. What must it be like, trapped in a body too young for him, limited in ways he shouldn't be?

He took a seat on the couch beside the boy, watching him hold the ice to his swollen face. After a moment, he resolved to ask the question dominating his thoughts. "How old are you?"

The boy glanced over, as if surprised, then opened his mouth. No words came out, and his eyebrows knitted together in a pensive expression. "It's difficult to be sure. Physically, I'm about fifteen. I can't keep track perfectly, given the nature of this journey, but that's my guess. Mentally . . . I don't know. I watched the Other live for seven years before I broke free of my imprisonment, but that time doesn't necessarily match up with how long I was actually trapped. But assuming that it does, and taking into account that I didn't actually experience everything as I would've if I'd been there in my clone's place . . . I'm about twenty, I think. Maybe twenty-one."

Kurogane nodded slowly, digesting that. Seven years, he thought. That kid was trapped in a tube for seven fucking years. His throat tightened with barely leashed fury. What kind of bastard imprisons a fifteen-year-old kid in a tube and makes him watch his clone living life in his place?

But he knew the answer to that: the same kind of bastard who would stick a sword through a priestess's heart, who would let demons lay waste to an entire province, slaughtering everyone in their path.

"Is there a reason you wanted to know?" Syaoran asked.

He shrugged, still absorbed in his thoughts. There was nothing, in any world, that could possibly justify what Fei Wong Reed had done to either of them, but that didn't change the fact that it had happened. Reed's actions made the space-time witch look like a saint.

The kid sighed.

Kurogane arched an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"I can go back to my room, if I'm bothering you."

"You're not bothering me."

"I appreciate what you're doing, but I know things are strained right now, and my being here isn't helping."

Kurogane snorted. Honestly, sometimes the kid could act as stupid as the mage. "If you really think hiding in your room all day is going to keep them from hurting, then you might as well go."

Syaoran flinched, fingers tightening convulsively on the icepack. His eyes narrowed; he stood.

Kurogane reached out and caught the boy's arm before he could go far. He pulled Syaoran toward him, not releasing his wrist until he stopped resisting. At last, the boy's arms fell limp at his side, the icepack forgotten in one hand.

"Sit down," Kurogane said. The boy hesitated, shoulders going rigid. A spasm of pain flashed across his face when they did, and Kurogane was reminded yet again of how he'd hurt him.

The universe was horribly unfair sometimes.

"Sit down," he repeated softly. "It's all right."

The kid stared at him, obviously struggling to process his tone. For a moment, his whole body was rigid, mistrustful. Was he remembering the night Kurogane had shoved him into a wall?

Finally, Syaoran exhaled and returned to his previous spot on the couch, as far from Kurogane as possible.