Chapter One-Hundred Forty-Five

"Kid!" The word tore from Kurogane's throat, as hoarse as if he'd swallowed broken glass. He surged through the crowd of faceless warriors.

"Wait, don't!" the mage shouted behind him. Kurogane sensed his sudden movement forward and threw himself to the side before the vampire's hand could coil around his arm. "You can't fight him! You can't fight magic!"

"Shut up!" he snarled, head whipping around as he glared at the mage. Fai stopped, and for an instant, the cluster of drones around them seemed to go still, as if waiting. "I don't care how much fucking magic the clone has—I'll cut down anyone who tries to stop me, even you." He brandished his sword, slashing through a dozen of Fei-Wang's faceless soldiers with a few vicious swings.

Wordlessly, the mage melted into the knot of soldiers and shredded them apart with his claws, as he'd done moments ago with Kurogane at his back. More drones poured in from rifts in the air, a never-ending army. He rammed his sword through any that stepped into his path and ignored the rest. Fury seethed in his veins, churned like the winds of a hurricane. His gaze never wavered from where the boy lay, half-submerged in the reservoir, his clone holding him up by the collar of his shirt as the water around them turned pink with blood.

The edges of Kurogane's vision took on a reddish haze, and the air itself seemed to warp with the intensity of his fury, even as a part of his mind told him that was completely fucking ridiculous. The world narrowed until all he could see was the kid's face, features slack, peaceful except for the spots of blood on his cheeks. An older, deeper anger settled over the fresh fury—an anger born in Suwa, the day his parents had been killed. An anger like screams in the night, like warm steel in his hands, like the glow of burning buildings. With it came an ache like fields of ash and bones picked clean by monsters. He let that fury wrap around him, letting it consume everything: grief, despair, pain.

The clone tilted his head back, regarding Kurogane with an empty expression. He raised one hand, a string of symbols flowing from his fingertips. Kurogane brought Ginryuu up, an unrefined burst of energy exploding outward from the blade, a blend of several techniques at once. The glowing runes cut straight through the attack. Gritting his teeth, he held his ground, forcing himself to take a step forward as the spell broke around him. The effort cost him more than he wanted to admit. It felt like he'd walked straight into an oncoming hurricane, and he bore a dozen lacerations along his face and arms that he hadn't had moments ago.

He shoved the pain aside as a second blast whipped through the air. Ginryuu took the brunt of the attack. The enchanted steel flexed at the impact, a movement so subtle that Kurogane wouldn't have felt it at all had he not become attuned to Ginryuu's magic.

When he didn't stop his advance, the clone turned to face him more directly, pulling the sword he'd gotten in Outo—the sword Kurogane had taught him to use before his betrayal in Tokyo—out of the kid's chest. Blood glistened on the tip of the blade, dripping down the steel. The clone began to scrawl more spidery symbols in the air, weaving a ribbon of magic around the blade of his sword.

Kurogane's eyes flickered to the kid, then back to his clone. "Get away from him."

"No."

His knuckles whitened with the force of his grip. "That wasn't a suggestion. Get. Away. From. Him."

The light from the spell made shadows flicker across his face. Magic hung in the air like the pressure before a thunderstorm, bringing with it the smell of burnt wiring. It didn't take any knowledge of magic to know it was the kind of spell that could make the earth shake or call lightning from the heavens. And it didn't take a wizard to know that the complex weave of runes in the air was enough to destroy everything in the ruins, himself included.

The mage had said he couldn't fight magic. But damn him if he was just going to stand there. He swung Ginryuu, releasing a wave of fire that surged through the reservoir, sending clouds of steam into the air. At the same moment, the clone released his spell, a massive, shadowy bubble appearing in front of him, consuming everything it touched. Kurogane's attack bounced off the expanding globe, rebounding somewhere behind him. And then, all at once, the bubble doubled in size, slamming into him.

The world went dark for a moment. He found himself lying face down in a pile of rubble, his prosthetic arm fragmented from the elbow down. Frayed wires and fragments of metal hung from the mechanical stump like viscera, and the pain crackling through the rest of his body was very, very real.

But he was alive. With his good arm (which was only "good" in the sense that it hadn't been torn off at the elbow), he propped himself up, breathing hard. The movement send a sickening wave of pain through him, and his vision went spotty for a second before he remembered where he was. You can't fight magic. The words echoed in his mind, reminding him of Fai's existence. "Hey, mage, you alive?" he called, annoyed at the weakness in his own voice.

"Barely," Fai said from somewhere to his left.

Well, that's something at least. It took an effort tantamount to holding a mountain on his shoulders, but he turned his head toward the mage's voice. "What about the kid?"

Amidst the rubble, a thin, shaking hand rose, pointing toward the far side of the reservoir. "Over there. I can't . . . We can't get to him."

No, we can't, Kurogane admitted to himself. We'd die trying. The kid's probably already dead. He turned his head toward the kid. The clone had the boy by the collar of his shirt and was unceremoniously dragging him to the rift from which Fei-Wang watched the battle. Syaoran's body had gone completely limp, and his cloak hung in ribbons. Kurogane collapsed in on himself, suddenly too tired to move. What was the point? he thought bitterly. What was the point of it all, if he ended up dead anyway?

Before, fury had kept him standing. But now that anger withered, and even knowing everything their enemy had done, he couldn't scrape together enough strength to stand, let alone fight. Even the twinge of anger he felt at the clone's careless handling of Syaoran's body couldn't get him on his feet.

It was over.

The Other jerked Syaoran up by the collar. "Play dead."

What? Syaoran opened his eyes a crack, peering up at his clone, still half-expecting him to slam Hien's point into his heart. Instead, his clone stared at him for a moment, his mismatched eyes empty of everything except . . . Determination? Resignation? Pity? There was something there, but . . .

He didn't have any more time to think, as the Other started dragging him through the reservoir. As they moved through the water, Syaoran spotted a trail of blood rising up from a deep cut on his clone's foot. He stared at it, the gears in his mind turning. He couldn't remember causing that injury. In fact, he couldn't remember injuring the Other at all. So how . . . ?

They reached the edge of the pool. Syaoran repressed a wince as the Other dragged him over the cracked cement steps. It took him another moment to realize that his clone was taking him to the rift in space and time where Fei-Wang Reed waited. Like a cat laying a dead mouse on their owner's doorstep, Syaoran thought dully. My body is nothing more than a trophy. Except . . .

Except the Other had not killed him when he'd had the chance.

Except there was a cut on his clone's foot that he hadn't inflicted, a cut that could have come from the tip of a sword being thrust downward through his flesh to make it look like he was stabbing Syaoran in the heart.

Except the sword in question hung from the Other's left hip, within easy reach of Syaoran's own hand.

Except the Other had told him to play dead.

It didn't make sense.

Fei-Wang Reed chuckled as they reached the top of the steps. "That boy is a descendant of Clow Reed. Even dead, his body contains enough of that heritage to be of use to us. Well done."

Syaoran let his head loll even as his mind raced with the implications of what was happening. What reason could the Other have had for sparing him when he could have so easily finished him off? What reason, except to defy Fei-Wang? What reason, except to act of his own free will, just as his princess had told him to do in Nihon? He did listen after all.

Fei-Wang went on in a tone that suggested he was speaking more to himself than to his supposed minion. "Yes. If the image is destroyed, then we can simply transfer the image's soul into the original's body. And, for as long as I wish, he will serve me, until he is ground to dust." The man let out a deep laugh, peeling away the transparent barrier separating his pocket dimension from this one.

Syaoran reached out, snatching Hien and yanking it from its sheath. He spun it in his hands, the movement graceful, elegant, and drove the blade into Fei-Wang's chest.