Chapter One-Hundred-Eighteen
The sacred tree shook.
"What's going on?" Kurogane demanded. No one answered; growling, he strode over to the tree trunk, branches rippling and cracking around him as he tried to climb up to reach the princess. The mage darted past him, using his vampire strength to pull himself into the boughs, where he could shelter Sakura from the tree's spidery movements. After a few moments, the shaking subsided as whatever disturbance had agitated it withdrew.
"Can't you go after the kid?" Kurogane called, hoping the mage would have retained some echo of magic. Enough weird shit had happened in the past half hour to make him hope for some loophole.
"My magic is gone, now," the vampire said, shaking his head. "Even if I could go after Syaoran-kun, I'd wait, no matter how painful it would be."
Kurogane looked at the upper branches of the tree where the kid had disappeared. "It's not always about protecting the people you love. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is trust that they can take care of themselves." He grit his teeth. He hated being unable to do anything, hated that panicky, helpless feeling in his gut. Part of him wanted to call the witch and ask her to send him to the kid, however high the price. But this wasn't about protecting the boy.
This was about trusting him to come back alive.
"Mokona wonders if Syaoran will be all right," the pork bun said, ears flattening.
Kurogane glanced at the creature, sighing. "We're all wondering the same thing. The kid's tough. He'll survive." He has to.
"I can no longer wander through dreams," Tomoyo said, walking toward the sacred tree. "All I can do now is trust in them. Trust that they will come back to us."
Tomoyo believes in the kid, and she's only known him for about a month. If she can believe in him so easily, then I should be able to do the same. He tried to cling to the hope Tomoyo held, but it went against his usual approach. He preferred action over faith. But trust . . . He trusted the kid in everything else, so why not this?
You know why, whispered a voice in his mind. The kid's last words echoed in his mind: "I'll be back with Princess Sakura."
Was it wrong, Kurogane wondered, to feel a little stab of jealousy over the kid running off to rescue the princess? Obviously, the boy hadn't meant for him to take it that way, and when he came back with the girl, that would be one less thing for all of them to worry about. Envy had no purpose here. So why did that handful of words strike him like a series of punches? Why did a small part of him resent the kid for going after the princess? Was it because he loved her—or, at least, one version of her?
"You seem worried," the mage remarked. Kurogane glared at him, more out of habit than malice.
"Obviously."
"You think he's taken on too great a challenge?"
He almost nodded. But that wasn't really the problem, and ignoring that would do him no good. "No."
Fai studied him. The light caught his eye, making it glow like molten gold. "Is it because you're afraid he won't come back to you?"
Kurogane stiffened. Damned mage sees too much, he thought. "Maybe."
Fai smiled, a gentle, honest smile that had Kurogane lifting his eyebrows in surprise. "I think he'll surprise you, Kuro-sama. Syaoran-kun is most loyal to those he loves; if he were going to leave you, he would let you know."
"He'd still be gone," Kurogane grumbled. Why should it matter if I know ahead of time? He'll still leave. If he gets the chance, he'll choose his princess over me, no matter what I do. His eyes narrowed, the source of his resentment becoming clearer in his mind. He knew who the kid would stay with, if given the choice. He knew it wouldn't be him. And it hurt. It hurt in some metaphysical way, somewhere deep inside that armor couldn't protect.
"You shouldn't doubt him," Fai said. "He's given you no reason to distrust him."
"I don't distrust him. I just know that if it ever comes down to me or his princess, it's always going to be her. And I'm fine with that."
Fai blinked, his smile fading. "Are you?"
"Is this really the place for this discussion?" he asked through his teeth, jerking his chin toward the others. Tomoyo, Souma, and Amaterasu stood a dozen meters away, and behind them, Seishirou and Fuuma chatted, their expressions gratingly carefree.
"I suppose not," Fai said. Then, quieter, he added, "But I doubt Syaoran-kun had any idea you'd react this way when he left. He has so much at stake, and so little time to think about his choices. I'd be surprised if it even occurred to him that you might interpret his actions as him choosing her over you."
"What are you, a mind-reader?"
An amused smile flashed across the mage's face. "No. I've just had more experience in relationships than either of you, so I know what it's like. Couples fight over all the wrong things sometimes. This isn't something you need to be worried about."
"Whatever," Kurogane grumbled, glancing up as the tree branches started to quiver again. But despite his dismissal, the vampire's words did make him feel better.
He just wished he could do something besides wait.
The tree shuddered, a crack shooting up the trunk and widening into a fissure. The boughs supporting the three of them quivered, and for a second, Kurogane remembered the way the porch had trembled before the roof had fallen on him. He remembered little else from the moments before the collapse—he'd tried to play off his injuries, not wanting to worry the kid, but he'd taken a hard hit to the head and incurred some mild amnesia. Still, he remembered that shaking, as if the world itself were about to fall apart.
Something's happened, he thought. Another fissure opened up in the trunk. Kurogane almost snatched the princess from her bed of branches before he remembered that she had some sort of connection with the sacred tree, perhaps even with the dream world itself, if he'd understood Tomoyo's explanation correctly.
"Look!" Fai said, pointing to the higher boughs. A dark substance leaked from the fissures, floating like smoke that didn't rise. That can't be good, Kurogane thought. More cracks formed, and more of the smoky substance flowed from the heart of the tree. When a patch of bark flaked off the trunk to reveal the churning black mass inside, Kurogane turned to the mage.
"What's going on in there?"
"I don't know," Fai said, eyes narrowing. "Whatever it is, I can't imagine it's good."
Abruptly, the black mass within the tree erupted, rushing out of the opening like water through a broken dam. It slammed into them, inexorable, a current so powerful that it swept Kurogane away despite his grip on the lower branches. Distantly, he heard the mage calling out for the princess. Half-submerged, Kurogane had to wait for the liquid to shove him aside before he could see the place where the princess lay. Those branches still held, but barely, and one of her arms dangled, pulled away from her resting place by the rushing liquid. As Kurogane watched, a bubble formed in the stream, growing bigger and bigger—as large as a boulder, or a cottage—before bursting to reveal the kid locked in battle with his clone. What the hell?
The pair tumbled, avoiding the flood as they landed on the grass near the base of the tree. The clone held one of the princess's feathers—probably the one Seishirou had held only a few minutes ago—but Syaoran knocked it free as soon as they landed, and the feather rose through the air, glowing softly. Both Syaorans looked up, seemingly unaware of the flood holding everyone else back, and Kurogane gave a frustrated snarl at being unable to intervene. Letting the kid fight Seishirou had been one thing—at least Seishirou had some humanity, as pitiless and dangerous as he acted. Letting the kid fight his clone, though . . . He needs backup. He needs me.
The two of them jumped into the air, grasping at the feather as it floated upward. Neither of them were going to reach it.
And then Kurogane realized that the feather wasn't their target. "Kid, don't!" he shouted, not even sure which kid he was yelling at. His words were lost to the rushing black waters.
The clone moved first, his sword—the sword Kurogane had bought him in Outo—snaking out to strike Syaoran. The kid retaliated, matching his image's move in an instant. Steel flashed in the dappled sunlight.
Something materialized between the two of them, appearing as if from the air itself. It happened so fast, even Kurogane's eyes couldn't track it. Only when he recognized the princess, dressed up in a gown he'd never seen, blood dripping down her torso from two different wounds, did the chaos freeze. Both Syaorans stared at her, unmoving, suspended in the air by wisps of black smoke. The princess turned slightly, her lips forming words Kurogane couldn't hear. Whatever she said made the kid wince. She turned to the other kid—the clone, the one who had traveled with them for months before losing his humanity in Tokyo—and raised her voice. "I am the same as you. I am only an image of the real Sakura."
Kurogane flinched. The boy had spoken of this once, when they'd been alone together, and Kurogane had wondered how much the kid knew that he didn't. Now, he wondered how much courage it had taken for the boy to say anything about it at all. To allow himself to share something so painful.
"You also knew, didn't you?" Sakura asked, turning to Syaoran. "That I wasn't the real Sakura. That's why, back in Tokyo, you said those words." She paused as Kurogane tried to figure out what she meant, but she continued before he could. "Your Sakura is waiting for you."
Her body began to dissolve, shattering into a whirlwind of petals. First, her feet disappeared, then her calves. Kurogane watched the transformation, confused, horrified, awed. Her voice softened until he could no longer hear it, while her hands dissolved. At the end, she fell into the clone's arms, her body almost gone, and lifted her head to murmur something into his ear.
And then, like a drop of water merging with a pond, she disappeared.