Chapter Eighty-Three

"Welcome home, Fai!"

Well, that's a more pleasant greeting than I was expecting, Kurogane thought, regarding the dark-haired stranger on the other side of the room. The man wore a bell-shaped cape that made him look like a butterfly with its wings folded inward, and he held his hands in front of his body in a manner that looked almost . . . polite. The man beamed at the mage like a father reuniting with his adult child after a long separation.

It was, Kurogane thought, just a little bit creepy.

"I had hoped that I wouldn't have to come back at all, Ashura-ou." Fai bowed his head, mimicking the king's posture.

This is the guy he's been running from? Really? Kurogane studied the king again, frowning. Though he could feel the wisps of magic swirling around him, his refined features and glossy hair made him look more like a politician than a warrior. Maybe that's where the idiot gets it from. But why run? And why does this guy seem so damn happy?

Beside him, the kid moaned, clutching his head. Kurogane stepped closer, then froze as Ashura spoke. "But you promised, Fai. You promised to grant my wish. And we've been waiting. The child and I have been waiting for you."

The child? Kurogane tensed, wondering what kind of sick bastard brought a child with him as he waited for a bunch of hostile travelers to appear.

And then Ashura lifted his cloak, and all Kurogane could do was gape. The creature—his brain scarcely recognized it as human, let alone a child—stood at the man's side, trembling slightly. His eyes seemed to bulge, the flesh around them worn away, skin draped over bones. Matted hair hung from his head, limp and dingy yellow. His fingers looked as if they would snap instead of bend because they were so thin, and his whole body appeared terribly fragile. Not skin draped over bone, but rice paper draped over glass.

He'd seen a lot of awful shit in his lifetime. Men slain in battle, women and children slaughtered by demons, nobles dead by an assassin's knife. He'd left behind plenty of bodies in his service to Tomoyo. Yet nothing—nothing—he'd seen could have prepared him for the sight of the starving, hollow waif before him. He could only stare, paralyzed, as his mind absorbed the scene.

And then a wall of magic slammed into him, and he collapsed under the cascade of memories.

He wasn't sure who he was anymore.

Identity crises weren't new to him. He'd had several, starting with the day he'd taken his brother's name and proceeding from there. He'd been a prince, an adopted son, a talented warrior, an unrivaled magician. He'd endured many trials, both emotional and physical. He'd vacillated between cheerfulness and despair, noise and silence, sobriety and drunkenness, perseverance and hopelessness. But now, as Ashura pushed those long-suppressed memories back into his head, he felt himself slipping again. Fai . . . Yuui . . .

He didn't know which he was supposed to be. He hadn't been Yuui in such a long time, yet as those memories slammed into him—the tower and the valley, the corpses, the mad king—he found himself crouching among the bodies, hearing his brother's voice for the first time in years.

His brother called him Yuui. Logically, he knew he'd abandoned that name and taken Fai's instead, clinging so tightly to it that it had almost become his. Yet that old name still called to him, bringing with it a flood of guilt and pain so strong that his body bowed beneath it.

His past played out, shifting between memories with the same seamless clarity of the screens he'd seen in Piffle World and Infinity. Being cast into the pit, separated from his brother by cold stone and height. Stacking corpses in a hopeless attempt to create a stairway to Fai's prison. Watching the sovereign who had condemned them fall into the pit, then drive a sword through his own throat, cursing them even as his mad ramblings turned into incomprehensible gurgles.

After a time, the magically-enforced vision relaxed, allowing him a sort of in-between view. He saw the pit where he'd suffered, but also the emaciated face of his still-childlike twin, standing at Ashura's side.

"The choice was made, was it not?" Ashura said, his voice distant. "At that time . . ."

The vision took hold of him again, sweeping him back to those last hours in the pit. Impressions that had only vaguely settled in his subconscious burst into clarity. The dark man—Fei-Wang Reed—reached through space and time, promising him a way out. For a price. There was always a price. A consequence. A reaction. He'd understood that, even then. My fault, my fault, my fault . . . Fai, I'm so sorry.

The vision shifted again, and he watched his twin fling himself from the tower. He appeared to float for a moment, as if suspended in the air, and through the remembered shock, a thought crossed his mind: Fai can fly. Who knew? And then suddenly he wasn't, suddenly he was falling, falling, falling.

His body hit the ground with an awful thud. The world itself went still, as if mourning.

"Stop . . ." he murmured, trying to drag himself back into real time even as he dipped beneath the surface again, dragged along with the current. New images flitted in front of his face, but they seemed . . . wrong, somehow. Not down, but up. Not open but barred shut. The tower.

"Only one can leave," boomed the voice that had taunted him from his nightmares for years. "You must choose between you and the other."

Choose. No. Fai was in the tower. He didn't choose. I took his choice from him. I killed him. I did that . . .

The images playing in front of his eyes seemed to disagree, drawing him deeper into his brother's past. He felt the echo of terror, of distrust, of desperation, and even though that Fai had disappeared years ago, he felt like an invader, stealing his brother's last memories just as he'd stolen his life, his name. Except . . . Except . . .

"Save Yuui," the real Fai whispered, his voice hoarse. "I'll die. Save Yuui."

Another shift, and he was lying back in the valley, crouching over his brother's corpse, dipping his fingers in the still-warm blood, and that somehow made the horror of it tangible, real. The air nearby shimmered like a heat mirage, and even through his shock, the disturbance alerted him. His frail body tensed, his mind reaching for magic that he hadn't been able to touch in a time immeasurable. He saw Ashura emerge from the space between worlds, the first living figure besides the Valerian King to fall into the pit. An angel of death, coming to take them both.

"I've come for you," Ashura said, reaching for him. Yuui clutched his dead brother tighter.

"From Gehenna?" he asked. "From Hell?"

"From another world."

His heart jumped with twin pangs of hope and despair. He must be here to take Fai away.

"Is this where you wish to be?" Ashura asked.

"There . . . is something I have to do, so I . . ." He trailed off, voice cracking from disuse.

"If so, you must not stay here. You must live."

Live, he thought. Why live when it's a crime to be born? Why live without Fai? Unless . . . Echoes of the dark sorcerer's words rang in his ears. Unless it was true. Unless I really can bring Fai back. But why does this man want me to live? The answer jumped to his lips even as he puzzled over it. "To be unhappy?" To be alone?

Ashura shook his head. "To grant me a wish."

A wish. What wish? What could he want from me? How will he hurt me? How will he betray me?

"Shall we go?" Ashura asked, holding out a hand. "This isn't the only world in existence. I can take you elsewhere."

Yuui stared at the offered hand for a long moment, torn between distrust and hope. And though he knew his hopes would end in disappointment, the chance to get out was too valuable to risk. He reached forward, hand trembling.

"What is your name, child?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it, hesitating. He'd chosen his own life over his brother's. He remembered that much on his own, despite the conflicting images from Fai's cell in the tower. He'd been selfish. I don't have to be selfish now. I should give Fai whatever I can. I should give him his life back. Or, if I can't, I should let him live through me. He firmed his jaw and looked up. "Fai. Call me Fai."

The world shifted again, and suddenly Fai (Yuui?) was sitting in the throne room, healthy and strong and much older than the children in the pit. He gasped, the parade of memories lurching to a halt. A warm pressure folded around his palm, just as it had back then, and he looked up to meet Ashura's dark eyes. "You must know," he said, "back then, that child was given the same choice as you. Fai . . . No, you're real name is Yuui, is it not?"

His body jerked, then went still.

Ashura went on. "You took Fai's name, though he was dead, and your name, Yuui, disappeared from the world. However . . ." and here he smiled, his face coming alive with amusement, "that does not lessen your guilt."

He flinched, bowing his head. That's right. No matter what happened, I lived. I walked away. And Fai didn't.

"Be at ease, Fai. The two you travel with have seen it as well. Seen your past."

No, he thought, nausea twisting in his stomach like a hot knife as he looked over his shoulder. No, no, no . . . Not them. Not them.

From halfway across the room, Kurogane's eyes glinted like rubies, dark with outrage. The last of his willpower crumbled under that stare. They know. They know what I've done.

"Now, shall we see the true you, Fai?" Ashura asked. "See the promises you made in your past? See everything that you know?"

He barely heard the words, his eyes locked with the ninja's face even as his mind cataloged the rest of the scene. Syaoran knelt on the ground, face drawn with pain as the castle's magic—Ashura's magic—wove twisting patterns around him. The boy looked frighteningly pale, his lips whitening as he pressed them together. Kurogane crouched at his side, an arm wrapped around his shoulders as if to protect him from the destructive magic. Or to protect him from me, Fai thought, pain flaring in his chest. His body collapsed in on itself at the realization. Traitor. Liar. Foe. They saw it all now, yet he could feel the memories nipping at his mind, demanding his attention as his old self bargained with Fei-Wang Reed.

Worse, he'd always known he'd betray them, and he still couldn't stop himself from hurting over it.

"And your other curse," Reed said, finally drawing him into the memory. His old self looked up, terror burning in his eyes. "You need not remember it. You will go on a journey. On this journey, you will visit many worlds."

He made me forget this, Fai realized, absorbing the new information with disturbed fascination.

"You will travel with a desert princess, together with the image of a boy I have prepared, and you will be the trumping move of my plan."

Plan, Fai thought. What plan? My other curse already activated. What's going to happen now?

Beneath his feet, the castle began to tremble.