Chapter Seventy-Nine
Kurogane saw the mage move and reacted as if he hadn't just watched him slaughter the princess. He ran, shoving past the kid as the wizard raised the still-dripping sword into the air, angling the point toward his neck. Not fast enough, he thought, visions of his mother being skewered flitting in front of his eyes. You never have been fast enough.
His hand closed around the mage's, stilling the sword before Fai could swing it toward his own throat. His knuckles whitened with the force of his grip. "Don't you dare wound anyone else with that sword," he said, his voice deadly quiet. I've seen too many people hurt today. "Not even yourself. You hear me?"
Fai turned, his single eye so wide, it looked at if they would fall out of his skull. Despite this, his pupil had narrowed to a slit, and his iris flickered between blue and gold. Kurogane pulled back on the man's arm, trying to wrest the sword from the idiot's grip. The mage's body remained rigid, his fingers refusing to release the hilt. When his glassy eye focused in the distance, Kurogane glanced over. The boy stood halfway across the arena, his expression torn between shock and betrayal. Goddamn it, the ninja thought. This shouldn't have happened. This wasn't how this journey was supposed to go.
The gold faded from Fai's eyes. He slumped, collapsing face-first on the floor. "I'm . . . sorry . . ." he whispered, voice loud in the silence. Belatedly, Kurogane realized that the audience had cleared out, having finally realized they'd been in danger.
The kid hurried over, either too stunned to contemplate revenge or hoping the closer proximity would give him an opportunity. Kurogane gave him one warning glance before a shout broke through the silence. "What went on here?"
That should be obvious, Kurogane thought. Somewhere, one of us made a mistake. We let this happen.
"What of the future?" asked the man Sakura had called Eagle. The black-haired man who'd accompanied him to the match looked up.
"It's changed. These three are still alive."
Still alive? The words echoed hollowly in his ears. Still alive? In what sense? What were they supposed to do now? What was the point of this journey, now that the princess was dead? "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded. A faint tremor slipped into his voice, and he squashed his sorrow, shoving it aside for later. Unconsciously, he stepped forward. As the men who'd accompanied Eagle stepped between them, Kurogane paused.
"You'll get an explanation," Eagle said. "From us, and from one other."
"Everybody!" A squeaky voice broke through the tension. Shit, Kurogane thought, looking over as the meat bun bounced through a sliding door and into the kid's arms. "What's that blood from? Are you hurt? Sakura—where's Sakura?"
The kid clutched the pork bun in his arms, tremors radiating down his body. He didn't answer. And when a circle of light shot out from the jewel in Mokona's forehead, he didn't have to.
"Yuuko!" the meat bun cried. Beads of moisture formed around the creature's eyes. Tears.
In the circle, Yuuko lifted a tube the length of her forearm. Her expression was serious, unwavering. "The princess is in here."
In a tube? Kurogane thought. What the hell? Some part of his mind wondered how that had become such a common event—the boy had spent seven years in a tube, trapped by Fei Wang Reed. Now the princess had stored herself in a tube that couldn't have held her head.
"Princess Sakura's soul is currently residing in dreams," Yuuko continued. "That is what the she wished for."
He looked up and saw hope flaring in Syaoran's eyes. The boy took half a step forward, then stopped, apparently remembering that the witch resided in another world. Kurogane just stood there, numb. She wished for this? Why?
"It seems that the princess could see the future within her dreams," Eagle cut in. "Exactly as my man Lantis can."
A yumemi, Kurogane thought. A dream-seer.
"I saw the future," Lantis said. "In the final chess battle, that man stabbed princess." His eyes slid over to the mage. Fai slumped under his stare. "Then he killed his two other companions. His actions broke him, and after that, he—"
"Stop it!" Mokona cried. But the words, and the images that came with them, had already burned themselves into Kurogane's mind. He saw how it would play out. Saw the mage ripping the sword out of the princess's body, saw his eyes glazing over as the shock, the despair, drove him to strike out. Saw himself standing between the wizard and the boy, sickened by the thought of killing one of his own, but forced to make a choice as the mage attacked, his magic raging out of control. Saw himself fall, too torn up to fight, body broken by the sheer force of Fai's magic.
Saw the kid turn to flee. Saw him being cut down anyway. Saw it all because he'd seen so much death in his twenty-eight years that those images jumped to his mind, impossible to block.
He lowered his eyes, hiding the flash of pain that darted across his face.
"That's too sad to even think about . . ." the pork bun said after a moment. And for once, Kurogane agreed.
"The princess tried to change what she saw in her dream," the witch said. "She risked her life doing it." Yuuko lowered her eyes. "The princess didn't want Fai to stab her. In a dream, she saw what would happen to him if she did. But that was a curse so powerful, it could not be avoided."
A curse? he thought, some of his anger draining away. His eyes slid over to the mage, still crumpled on the floor. The blond didn't react at all as Yuuko continued. "So the princess made a decision. 'If I can't avoid that event, then I will change the future that comes after,' she said. And she paid the price of her good luck to make it to the world to which she wished to go. She paid another price. One that would keep you all from dying."
"What price?" the kid asked. If Kurogane hadn't been listening for it, he would've missed the quaver in his voice. The fear.
She wouldn't have paid for our lives with hers, Kurogane thought. She's not that stupid. She wouldn't throw away everything. But it would have to be a heavy price, to save all three of us. He thought about it for a moment. Aside from her good luck, the princess hadn't had much to lose. Something from her home world, perhaps? That doesn't make sense either. If we could give up something from our home world, the witch would've probably had us do that by now. No, it's something she had here. Or something she could have had.
The answer came to him in a sudden flash of insight. "That right leg of hers."
Every eye in the room turned to him. His fingers curled to make a fist.
"But didn't Sakura lose the use of that leg because of the injury?" the boy asked, seeming shocked.
"She might have been healed, in another world," Yuuko said. "However, even if it meant she could never use her leg again, she wanted to make sure that you all—including Fai—came out of this alive. She was determined to break his curse." Her wine-red eyes slid over to Fai. The magician stared at the ground for a moment, looking somehow broken despite his lack of injuries.
"So she knew . . ." Fai whispered. "Sakura-chan knew that I've been lying all this time."
Fury surged through his veins, held in check only by the knowledge that the princess had done all this so they could all live. "Why would anyone lie, except to cover up important, painful truths?" Fai had said. And now Kurogane understood what he'd met.
"I knew . . ." Fai went on, his voice seeming to come from far away. "I knew that one of Sakura's feathers was in Ceres."
And you never thought to tell us? Kurogane wanted to roar. The witch intervened before he could. "Princess Sakura learned of it only after her power to see the future in dreams returned—when her feather in Tokyo was returned to her."
"So the princess is a dream-seer, too," Kurogane said, summing it up.
"A long time ago, a feather fell into Ceres," Fai said, not looking at any of them. "And with its power, I made Chi." He looked to the witch. "I met Syaoran and everyone else at your shop. It was there that everyone else told you what they were searching for. But I never mentioned it." Now, he turned his gaze to Syaoran. "You have magic powers of your own. You should know about another lie, right?"
Silence settled between them. Am I the only one who has no idea what's going on? Kurogane wondered, frustrated.
After a time, Syaoran spoke. "I saw it through the Other's eyes. When the princess's wings broke apart at the ruins, the High Priest of Clow said something. He said 'All of the princess's memories have vanished. They are nowhere to be found on this world.' But right after that, during those first few hours of traveling, you pulled one feather out of the Other's clothes and told him it must have stuck there when the feathers had scattered. If that had been true, the High Priest would have known about it." He raised his head, a silent accusation glimmering in his eyes.
"Yes." Fai looked down. "I brought a feather with me at the very start."
So you really have been lying the entire time, Kurogane thought, gritting his teeth. And now it's led to this.
"You kept your distance from me," Fai said to the kid before turning to the witch. "And you knew about it, too, didn't you? You knew about all the lies I was telling. And the first time I came to your shop, it was raining. But the rain never touched you. At that time, your magic was even more powerful than mine, though I still had both eyes. For that reason, you kept yourself in another dimension, right?" Without waiting for an answer, Fai looked away. His single eye clouded over. His voice went flat, dead. "I was cursed to kill anyone who possessed magical power greater than mine. And you knew I had that curse on me."
Kurogane stared, all the details clicking into place. Holy shit. That's why he's been acting so distant. If his magical power comes from his eyes, and he's only at half-power now, that means he's much more likely to slaughter the first powerful magic-user he comes across. And now he has. His anger guttered out like a candle in the wind.
"You knew it all along." The mage's voice reverberated with sorrow. "So why? Why did you send me with them?"
"Because it was your wish."
"Even though I had this trap inside me?"
"Yes. Even with that. You meet and join with others, and what you do after is entirely your decision."
Though the witch had spoken softly, Fai's head snapped up. Horror flooded his face, and he wrapped his arms around his chest, as if to protect himself from the unspoken accusation.
"One question," Kurogane said, crossing his arms as he looked at the glass tube in the witch's hand. "Why is the princess living in that thing?"
"One of the princess's feathers resides in dreams. After all, dreams themselves are one of the worlds."
"And Sakura saw the future in a dream?" the meat bun asked, sounding uncertain.
"Yes." Yuuko's expression turned grim. "And she knows that the other Syaoran will come into dreams to seek it."