Title: The Dream Must End
Prompt: Drifting in the Echoes
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Nothing major; if you made it through the violence and creepiness that cropped up sometimes in TRC you'll be perfectly fine.

The dream must end;
I will it so.
And I will walk
wherev'r you go.

"This rather puts me to mind of that world we stopped in briefly after Koryo," Fai commented, squinting as he attempted to distinguish something of their surroundings through the uniformly thick fog that they'd dropped into. "You remember, with the lake and the tiny underwater city?" The misty swirls were noticeably thicker in this world, however, turning land and sky both into a grey shadowscape. Though nothing ominous or threatening could be discerned, neither could anything cheering, reassuring or even comfortingly normal, and his first reaction to this new world they'd dropped into was a vague unease.

Kurogane only gave a non-committal grunt at first while making a quick survey, narrowing his eyes and bringing up one hand to block out some of the glittering sunlight. He tried to recall the place the wizard had mentioned, but though he had a good eye for detail and a reliable memory, that was just too many worlds ago. It had been a short, uneventful stay followed by too many hearts broken and hopes shattered, too many piercing shocks and poignant moments stacked on top of it for it not to get lost among his recollections. After rifling back through his memories a bit he did manage to piece together a mental picture of fog wisping between rough-barked trees and a great lake from which the kid had fished a glowing scale large enough to have fallen off a dragon's haunch. The fog was missing now but the landscape that stretched for miles all around them was similar, he supposed; all green and growing and crossed with sparkling waterways.

"Suppose so," Kurogane agreed, hoping that this sunshiny, bird-song and blossom world would prove as serene as that other one. It had only been a few weeks now since they'd left Piffle for the second time, and some relative peace and quiet in which to get used to his new arm would not come amiss. "Seems safe enough at least."

Fai was a little surprised at the ninja's easy classification of this eerie, fog-bound world as benign, but they'd certainly been through enough together for trust to have been earned several times over, and he did not question the decision either within himself or aloud. As he lost track of Syaoran when the young man moved a bit further away from him, he recalled that the two swordsmen had ways of seeing even with their eyes shut and assumed that this special sight was assisting the red-eyed warrior in his assessment. The theory was borne out when the ninja's student reappeared and announced that he'd made a discovery. Fai doubted that he himself would have been able to discover much more than his own nose in all the obscuring fog.

"I found a tree stump with what looks like axe-marks and a trail nearby," Syaoran announced, walking up to the others with an unusually quiet and quiescent Mokona curled up in the crook of one arm. "I think we should follow it and see if we can find out what sort of people live here." He made it a suggestion but it was out of politeness and respect, not any sort of reluctance to take command. Fai was older and Kurogane stronger, but they treated him as their leader in this journey more and more, especially since leaving Clow - and Sakura - behind. They all of them desired to protect the princess's happiness and work toward finding a way to reunite her with her love, and restore and reunite the two other souls that resided within them besides, but the quest had always been and would be primarily Syaoran's.

And of course, as Kurogane had mentioned in Tokyo, promises and quests could be two- or three-fold. Syaoran's continuing journey was the shared quest of all three men, openly acknowledged. They also all knew that Kurogane's first wish still remained in play; to go home and resume the life he'd left behind. What remained unspoken - though perhaps understood all the same - was Fai's new wish.

He'd originally wished never to go back to Celes. That had been cancelled out, and by his own word and will. His new wish was something of the opposite in nature; he wished to go home. The way he defined the word "home" was a bit complicated nowadays, or very simple from another perspective. It wasn't that he wished to live in any particular world, though his visions of the future generally involved paper screens and layered robes. It wasn't that he yearned for any specific lifestyle either, though he certainly hoped for an occupation to interest and opportunities for learning. He really just wanted to stay with one particular person.

He'd skirted very near the edges of that topic in Clow, before the three men and Mokona had made official their immediate plans. He hadn't ended up needing to reveal his whole heart at that moment, however, because there had been no conflict in Fai's wish to see Syaoran's quest through to the end and his wish (desire, need) to remain with Kurogane. Perhaps he'd still communicated something of his thoughts with a look, or perhaps they'd just naturally come to that place in their relationship, for things began to change after that.

They'd restored the princess to her home and family and continued on, just the four of them. Their travels were no longer directed by warlock or witch but by the little gem hanging from Mokona's ear. Success was no longer measured in feathers gained and enemies vanquished, but hope gained that their quest might someday end. Syaoran was still as determined as ever but his steps were a little bit lighter, and Mokona even more their jester and cheerleader and darling now that Sakura was no longer there with her ready smiles and optimism. Fai, for his part, joked a little less and Kurogane smiled a little more.

And they kissed.

In what he'd judged to be reasonable increments, Fai had continued creeping his way closer and closer, sneaking into the other man's room when they were separated and hopping right into bed with him when they weren't. Kurogane's grumbles had never completely faded but he'd soon picked up the habit of facing in instead of away, and of slinging a heavy arm across a slender waist. Fai's courage had stalled a bit after he'd gotten his puppy trained to cuddle, but Kurogane had picked up the slack. The blond had leaned up to nuzzle a rugged jaw one night and been met with a kiss instead.

Fai hadn't complained. Kurogane had, whenever Fai'd tried to sneak one kiss too many or even just one kiss at all in too public a place, but nowadays their pre-sleep routine generally included a fair amount of snacking on each other. Hands sometimes went a-roaming but clothes tended to stay on and kisses were really all they'd shared so far. Fai hadn't complained yet about this either. It was more than he'd looked to get not so long ago and he wasn't about to toss it aside in impatience for more.

Right now, sneaking kisses was far from the front of his mind, but he did crave closeness. Untrained in the ninja's way of seeing without the use of his eyes, the wizard took a step closer to the sound of Kurogane's voice. Or at least, Kurogane's non-committal grunt.

"Mokona seems to have tired herself out with that last jump, too," Syaoran added, with a nod toward the white bun now snoozing in his arms. "The visibility's not so bad that we can't find our way around, and I want to get her under shelter before dark if possible." The young man glanced back down as their smallest companion murmured something unintelligible in her sleep, and missed the quizzical looks he got from the others.

Visibility's fine, thought Kurogane, frowning at the bright sunlight illuminating the landscape around them.

I can't see a thing, thought Fai, squinting into the mist.

= = = = =

Fai woke up to find that the fog had swallowed him up.

It was his first thought, and a highly appropriate metaphor however implausible it might be in fact. He'd felt surrounded by it when they'd first landed, but he'd still had a sense of sky above him and dirt beneath, of left and right and his companions nearby. Now the fog was everywhere and all around him, leaving him disoriented in the extreme. He couldn't even tell if he was truly standing up, as he couldn't sense up nor tell what he might be standing on.

He knew for certain that he was no longer lying down as he ought to be, and then a cold wave of confusion swept over him as he realized that he couldn't remember clearly where and how and on what he'd been sleeping in the first place.

Think, think, remember.

They'd landed. Had hardly been able to see two feet ahead of them. Fai suddenly recalled walking through the fog after visualizing the drop down into it, and then his most recent memories began to unlock and return to him.

They'd walked, Syaoran leading and Fai trailing him so closely that he'd nearly trod on the young man's heels a time or two. Kurogane had followed further back, barely visible as a shadowy blur in the mist. Fai had looked back now and again despite knowing that the man could very well take care of himself - and others - but soon gave up on it. Whenever he'd looked forward again Syaoran had gotten a little bit further ahead of him, a little bit blurrier, and he'd had to take a couple of quick long strides to close the gap again.

Sakura-chan was no longer with them but perhaps something of her luck still favored their group, for they'd found a couple of small buildings after just a few miles. They'd found a stable first, and while Fai had felt his way around in the unpleasant mix of fog and darkness the others had gone to check out the rest of the grounds. Kurogane had reported back that while there was an orchard and spacious garden the place looked more like a residence than a working farm or ranch, and Syaoran's report had corroborated this.

The young man had found a cottage attached to the gardens with the front door only secured by a simple latch. There'd been no one home but Syaoran had cautiously nosed around and discovered a disorganized study stuffed from floor to ceiling with bottles and boxes, books and scrolls. There'd been herbs and roots hung everywhere to dry and several mortars and pestles as well. The only orderly part of the room had been a large shelving unit filled with neatly labeled bottles and books. As far as Syaoran had been able to tell they were the uninvited guests of a healer or scholar of some sort.

The whole place had looked well kept up but the owner or owners apparently gone elsewhere, and rather than make themselves too much at home in another's house the men had decided to bed down in the small stable. It too was empty but showed signs of recent use, with fresh hay still smelling of summer piled high in the loft.

Nothing had come at them out of the fog during their walk, the temperature was mild enough for them to make do with their cloaks and a nest of hay, and they were too used to roughing it to be all that tempted by the idea of proper furniture. They'd drawn some water from a well and eaten a light meal out of their packs, and the only real trespass they'd committed besides taking water and space was that Syaoran had borrowed some books out of the cottage's surprisingly large collection. Ingrained politeness had bowed before intellectual curiosity and the mildly specious arguments that he was only borrowing, not even taking the volumes off of the property and that reading them wouldn't take anything away from their value so there would be no harm done.

Fai had wrapped his cloak snugly around his body, draped himself over a pile of hay with a still-slumbering Mokona tucked under his chin, and fallen asleep while gazing at the dim glow of the lantern that marked where Syaoran was sitting and poring over a book. He hadn't been able to make out the exact outlines of his companion with all the moisture still swirling thick in the air, pouring past the doors, spilling through cracks and almost seeming as if it was welling up from the very floorboards. Kurogane had been entirely out of sight standing watch, but Fai'd known he was there too, and the wizard who'd been alone in too many ways for too many years had taken comfort in the presence of his companions and fallen asleep smiling.

He'd woken up alone, and definitely did not feel like smiling anymore.

"Syaoran-kun?" he called softly, futilely searching the grey nothingness all around him for lantern-light. "Mokona? Kuro-sama?"

Feeling a tiny bit foolish and a great deal uneasy, Fai lightly tamped his feet around to get a sense of what he was standing on and then knelt to feel around with his fingers as well. No Mokona, not a single wisp of hay, not even the seams of any floorboards. He found something solid beneath his feet once he looked for it, but it was strangely difficult to identify. It was almost as if he was wearing his old gloves again, and unable to sense fine details with his fingertips.

It was like the fog; no definition.

Fai shivered, and as if the action triggered the sensation, he was suddenly chilled with more than fear. He could sense no spell at work on him or his immediate surroundings and yet here he was, alone and cold and without an explanation for why he was either thing. He'd been through more tight spots and rough situations than he cared to tally but since falling in with the others he hadn't had to face them so completely alone. This...this being cold and cut off and confused by how it had come to this reminded him of before...

Snow crunched under his foot and he startled, not having any recollection of moving his feet at all. Certainly no recollection of the temperature dropping enough to bring ice crystals out of the sky. But then again he couldn't remember standing up out of the hay and sleepwalking off to get lost in the fog, either.

His heart rate picked up at this new development, and not just because there was snow under his feet when he looked down, when before there had only been mist swirling around his ankles. It wasn't like Jade where the snow had been soft and deep, piled thick and smooth in drifts that sparkled like pure white piles of sugar. As he watched, the mist faded - or the snow spread - around him, revealing more and more of what had before felt like smooth, dry ground.

He saw snow and ice, packed and old, revealed cold grey stone in places like rotted out patches from a threadbare blanket. Fai stared and stared at a stone (horribly, horribly familiar, and how terrible that he'd - they'd - been there long enough for even the cobbles to have been imprinted on his mind) in between the toes of his boots, watching the visibility spread faster and faster in his peripheral vision. It spread until he lost the faint creep of motion and still his vision remained fixed on that single stone until dry, stinging eyes forced him to blink.

It's not real. It's not real. I remember the sky falling and Ashura-ou coming to get us, I remember meeting the clones, - the children, - Mokona, Kuro-sama. I remember Celes. I remember finally letting him go, letting him rest. He's not here. I'm not here, not really. Whatever this is, it's not real.

He screwed his lids shut just long enough to take a deep breath. Holding on to the mental image he conjured up of red eyes (like garnets, like coals, like hot hot blood) to remind him that there was a future to this terrible past, Fai opened his eyes and quickly lifted his head to take a look around at his newly visible surroundings. He'd steeled himself for the sight of the accursed valley where he'd spent so many years but it was still a terrible shock to see it again, and the breath left his body in a gasp that barely escaped being a sob.

The valley where he'd spent so many years could have never been forgotten and he'd even had to suffer through a review of his memories during their brief and ill-fated visit to Celes, but it was another thing altogether to be standing in it again, surrounded by cliffs so high they disappeared into the clouds and trying not to see the shapes underneath all the snowy mounds. The sluggish, dead air felt thick in Fai's lungs as he forced himself to move, picking his way carefully so that he had only to have the snow compress and squeak under his boots and not hear the snap of dry bones or feel the soft squelch of something even worse.

His pounding heartbeat was clamorous in his ears, increasing in noise as he made himself walk around the base of the tower that still loomed so high above even though he knew it had been destroyed. The valley, the tower, the snow and bodies and still stale air were all as they had been before and he knew what he would see after ten more paces. In one place only was the monochromatic palette relieved, and Fai shook his head in denial when he came upon the dark red streaking across all the snow and stone.

It's not real, it's not real, it's not real...

Even as he chanted denial within his mind, his body was moving faster, yearning to hold his brother one last time, careless now of how he stepped and even striding over the body of his uncle without hesitation. It wasn't real, not really real, and yet it was still Fai and the wizard caught up the fragile form with a desperate eagerness. The body was light enough to be the mirage he knew it must be, straw-dry hair and brittle bird bones held together with skin as pale and thin as parchment.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry I miss you so much I love you always love you never forget you never never I wish I could have saved you oh Fai I'm so sorry I'm so sorry

He went on and on, not caring for a moment that he was lost in a fog, trapped in a memory. The wizard rocked back and forth, cradling the dead body tenderly and emptying his heart of all the things he hadn't been given time to say in Celes, lingering in the farewell embrace that had been denied him at the last. He understood, even appreciated the reason Kurogane had held him back at that moment but the impulse of a person being left behind was always to yearn for one last touch. That lost opportunity had left a small bruise on him, barely noticeable among all the gouges and breaks but still there, still tender when unexpectedly pressed.

When enough apologies and declarations of love and regret had been poured out to leave him feeling empty of them for the moment, his thoughts turned toward gentler expressions, like the transition from deathbed confessions to gravesite murmurs. Long limbs loosened slightly from about the desiccated body so that blue eyes could pore over the face below; wasted, shrunken and yet still somehow beautiful to him. The wizard brought up one trembling hand to carefully smooth down the tangle of dry locks as he continued his communion.

Now that he'd had time to think of it with a calmer head and healing heart, he wondered that he'd been so taken in by the illusion Ashura-ou had shown him, of a corpse with accusing eyes stabbing a finger toward him in condemnation. Even if the memory Fei-Wang Reed had twisted about had been truth; even if he had actually sacrificed his brother in a moment of selfishness, Fai - the real Fai - never would have blamed him. The older twin would have rejoiced that his little brother had escaped, and lived, and found happiness. Knowing this now, believing it as he'd never allowed himself to before, the wizard curved his lips in a trembling smile and shared thoughts that he knew his brother would have found joy in.

We got out, Fai...we got out. And I'm free now. I'll never stop missing you but I'm okay. I'll be okay. I wish you could have come too; I wish you could have met everyone, seen all the worlds we've been to. You would have loved sweet little Sakura-chan and dear Mokona, and admired Syaoran-kun so much. And Kurogane...I can't even explain it. He would have protected you. He protects everyone, fights all the monsters, isn't afraid of the shadows...not even the ones inside.

He thought of red eyes and spiky black hair, a deep voice and strong body, and looked up at the swirling grey nothingness that obscured the sky above. As he looked away from the body in his arms, his thoughts seemed to follow, breaking away more firmly from this memory-mirage he was in and seeking out the companions of his present again. Fai looked down at his brother once more and this time spoke aloud, though in not much more than a whisper.

"I don't know why I'm here," he admitted, "but I think this will be the last time." Fai bent and kissed the corpse in his arms tenderly on the forehead, then carefully unfastened his cloak and unfurled it over the snowy stones as best he could with a few flicks of his wrist. If this was but some illusion, his clothing was not really being affected. If it was somehow real, he could very well spare a cloak.

He laid his brother's body down on the white fabric and wrapped the former crown prince of Valeria - king for a short time in fact, once their uncle had committed suicide - in the makeshift shroud carefully. As he stood he tried to think of something to say, but the words were all gone now, and so he merely stepped backwards a few paces, thinking to bow to his brother before turning away and trying to find his way out of this place, this time, this memory.

The heel of his boot struck something hard that clattered and rang against the stones, startling him. Fai glanced quickly down to see a longsword skittering over the cobbles and froze at the sight of the blade, tarnished even in this time-locked place by old blood that had dried and cracked and flaked away. The body of his other kinsman that he'd carelessly passed by earlier demanded his attention now, and the wizard felt a renewal of fear at suddenly discovering his uncle's body so close by him, face down and arm outstretched toward his boot as if--

The corpse heaved itself halfway off the ground and clawed its way closer, and Fai cried out and staggered back. He slipped on a icy patch and fell heavily to the frozen stones, his usual grace and agility deserting him in the face of this horrific development. Hands and boot heels scrabbled across grey stone and dug into snow and ice as the wizard crawled backwards in a panic, eyes locked onto the sight of his uncle's corpse lurching after him, eyes empty and mouth a gaping cavern, dried blood matted in a long beard and crusted on grasping claws.

Fai knew how to defend and deflect and evade and escape, had fought off demons and dragons and machines and men, but faced with this he was nothing more than a terrified child again, living a nightmare he'd had countless times between his uncle's fall into the valley and Fei-Wang Reed's fateful appearance. There should have been plenty of room between him and the cliffside but he found himself backed up against it after only a few feet of distance had been gained. Desperate glances to either side showed him dead bodies piled high, and beyond them it was only darkness and mist closing in on him again. He was trapped.

The fact that the scene was a faithful representation of an old nightmare should have reassured him once more that none of this was real, but fear crowded out logic and reason and hope, leaving only the shrill, panicked cries of a child seeking help from everyone, anyone, no matter how implausible it was that they should appear to aid him.

"No no no no NO, help me, oh God someone help me, please! Fai, Fai, Ashura-ou, oh God, KURO-SAMA!"

He shrieked the last as bloodstained fingers closed around his ankle, and as if the name had worked as a summoning charm a tanned hand appeared before him, reaching down out of nothingness to grab him by the collar and jerk him violently upwards. With dizzying speed the misty shadows that had been slowly obscuring distances rushed in on him from all directions, and instead of being yanked onto his feet in Valeria he was being hauled out of a deathtrap designed of his own magic. Drifting snowflakes turned into hot blood raining down from the place where the ninja's left arm should have been, Fai's clothing from Clow with its geometric designs was now the fur- and fleur-trimmed finery from Celes, and instead of his dead uncle clawing at him, he faced Kurogane, all gritted teeth and grim determination, once more sacrificing his blood and body because he could not bear to see Fai die.

He hadn't been rescued from his memory; he'd simply transitioned into a different one.

//...ve to...//

The wizard startled at the faint echo he heard, recognizing Kurogane's voice even in just two syllables and yet not seeing the ninja's lips move. The fragment of a sentence had seemed to come from so far away, too, like a distant shout lost in the fog. He couldn't even tell where it had come from and was torn between straining after that voice and focusing on the dying memory-man in front of him. He reached up - confused for a split second to see his hands covered in black gloves again - but before he could get a hold of the ninja's coat to draw them closer together the other man's voice rang out again, louder this time.

//...hearing me?...//

A shadow of a memory from long, long ago. The ninja's voice ("Are you even hearing me?!") had pierced the blessed darkness he'd sunk into after being chased away from consciousness by the overwhelming pain in his head (his heart; oh Syaoran-kun, you can't, you can't), and had sounded so angry and outraged and hurt that Fai had actually struggled to wake up into agony again out of concern for the man he'd gotten too close to. He whipped his head around now, tearing his eyes away from the bleeding man in front of him to search for the source of the ninja's voice, and as if breaking eye contact had snapped the tether that was holding him in this memory Fai suddenly fell.

Kurogane's hand was gone, Kurogane was gone, and so was Celes or Valeria or wherever it was that the ninja had pulled him out of. Fai fell, but did not fall back into the swirling spiral trap of a closing world or into the frozen grave pit where he'd spent so many years. He fell through the surface of a great pool but on the other side was not purified water and a sleeping vampire but thick, shadowy fog, and then he just...stopped falling. He did not land on his feet, he did not fall on his side. He simply stopped falling and was once again where he'd begun; lost in the fog.

Fai clenched his jaw and as before, cast about him with his senses. And as before, he found nothing. Casting a simple spell to brighten the dimness did nothing; the sphere of light he conjured up slipped out of his control and dissipated as if it were made of the same mist that surrounded him. He cast a scrying spell and a fireball with much the same results, and on this encouragement he dared not attempt teleportation. Besides, if he didn't know where he was, it would be difficult and possibly dangerous to send himself away. Who knew but that he would only end up separating himself further from his companions, making it more difficult for them to find him?

For he knew they would look for him, once they discovered him to be lost. Though...perhaps they were lost too and that was truly Kurogane's voice he had heard, not just another memory fragment. On that thought, he called out for the man again, facing this direction and that and waiting after each shout. There was no answering call, but after straining his ears a while Fai thought he could discern the faint murmur of speech. It was a soothing, constant murmur but frustratingly faint, and he could get no sense of where it was coming from no matter how he turned his head to listen, as if he were in a circular cavern where echoes bounced all around until lost.

He paced a few steps into the fog - he couldn't see any landmarks to guide him back to his original position, but it wasn't as if he could get any more disoriented - to listen again, and was rewarded with what sounded like a word.

//...st follow m...//

Follow me? Fai wondered.

They'd been traveling together for years now and despite the ninja's strength and height and battle experience, the warrior had very rarely taken the lead, acting instead as support. He'd played guardian and knight protector, bodyguard and hired muscle, and even when falling into the role of father and head of household hadn't gotten into the habit of giving orders and directing their journey. The one time he had, the one time Fai remembered him commanding his companion outright to follow his lead, had been in Yama.

There, unlike in other worlds where they'd had Sakura-chan to focus on protecting, Syaoran to guide them and Mokona to translate, the two adults had not been on equal footing. In each world before they'd both been new to all the sights and sounds, customs and clothing. But in Yama, Kurogane had been able to speak to the locals and seemed familiar with everything, from food and drink and the dishes they'd been served in, to the clothing and armor and how to handle the reins of the animals they'd been given to ride. Fai - unable to communicate and with suspiciously foreign hair color and mannerisms - had been utterly dependent on the ninja for all their daily needs and even simple safety.

He recalled the other man making a curt gesture to tag along over and over, sometimes grabbing one of Fai's wrists and tugging impatiently, other times giving him a quick shove between the shoulder blades to direct or re-direct. The wizard had felt like a pet on a very short leash and had once or twice attempted to convey the idea of having become the Big Doggy's Little Puppy now that Syaoran-kun was not around, but had only gotten a cuff upside the head for his troubles. Head-smack aside, he'd enjoyed it all, truth be told.

At mess, on the training grounds, in battle, Kurogane had kept him close. Even when an exercise or the tide of battle had separated them briefly, keen eyes had constantly flicked toward him and Fai'd made sure to keep up his end of the eye contact as much as possible. Especially at first, his survival and success had depended largely on following Kurogane's cues and the simple commands that the ninja conveyed through hand gestures. Stop. Go left. Go right. Get down. Come here. Go back. Follow me.

Eventually he'd learned the words to go along with the gestures, as well as some other simple phrases like "time to eat", "go to sleep" and "gimme that" as well as something he thought might be "I'm going to kill you".

He remembered with piercing clarity one battle in particular, where an ambush had caught one of Yasha-ou's units unawares. Kurogane had snapped at Fai to follow him even though they'd been to the moon castle enough times already that the wizard didn't need to be reminded to stay close anymore, and then dug his heels into his beast and raced off to mount a counter-attack and rescue effort. All on his own. Their own.

It had been enough months that Fai had begun to foolishly hope - despite Sakura-chan, despite his brother - that they would never be reunited with the others to continue dancing mostly unawares to Reed's music. It had not been enough months that Fai had shaken off the guilt and ever-shifting fear that came over him when he thought of his orders to kill Kurogane, however, and so it had filled him with a sudden strange and painful happiness to understand how well the ninja trusted him now.

Not quite three months in that world and time, and Kurogane had placed so much faith in the wizard by then that he would drop his rear guard almost entirely so long as Fai was at his back. He would sleep heavily so long as it was only the two of them in the tent. And he'd raced off to battle a hundred men with confidence, knowing that together they had been nigh on unstoppable.

In that moment, Fai had wished to stay in Yama for the rest of his life.

Thinking of the ninja speaking the command to follow him brought the memory of that fast, fierce ride up a twisting defile to mind, and then suddenly there were hoofbeats in his ears. The ground solidified under his feet and trembled, and a rider passed so close by him that his sleeves fluttered against his arms in the wind thus created. The beast reared and snorted as its rider hauled back hard on the reins and turned it around, and Fai knew who the shadowy form trotting toward him in the fog must be. Or at least, whose memory it was a reflection of.

Kurogane kicked his mount forward, breaking through the mist and bringing the animal to a halt just a couple of feet away from the bewildered wizard. The man was arrayed in the simple clothes and light leather armor he'd worn in Yama. His eyes were black and a headband crossed his forehead. His appearance was as it had been back then, but Fai had no memory of the man looking down at him like this, contemplative and a little confused at first, and then grinning at him and offering his hand, palm up in silent invitation.

Well? that look and smirk and gesture said. Come on.

It was as if his memory had solidified and attempted to answer that long-ago wish of his heart, to stay in that country, with that man. The animal the ninja was astride was snorting and pawing at the ground as if it too was impatient for his answer, and Fai stood there, honestly puzzled as to what he was supposed to do. Was this a trick being played upon him, or an indication of a way out of the fog?

"If I go with you, where will we go?" he asked the Kurogane from long ago, but all he got was a careless shrug and a gesture to hurry up. The beast's long ears had pricked forward at the sound of the wizard's voice and its hooves stilled, and in the quiet between one breath and the next Fai heard the broken echoes in the fog again, this time seeming to come from behind him.

//...on't go anywhere...//

Still Kurogane's voice, and still too far away to make out more than one or two words at a time, but it seemed more real to him than a silent Kurogane who seemed perfectly willing to let him indulge in escapism. Fai turned on his heel and ran into the fog, and when he glanced back, the Kurogane he remembered from Yama was lost in the mist.

He stopped after only a short distance, afraid of losing his bearings in his uniformly featureless surroundings. One swirl of fog looked like every other, and he closed his eyes entirely while calming his breaths and listening for the voice again.

//...idiot...//

Fai burst out in a laugh despite his predicament, caught off guard at this one word drifting through to his ears at such a time. Oddly enough it reassured him that he'd chosen correctly earlier, in turning his back on the mirage and following the echo instead. That...that was his Big Doggy, his grump and growl, his inexorably kind and stubborn ninja. Kurogane would have never agreed to turn his back on the children, abandon his mistress and give up on vengeance. And Fai knew now, too, that it wouldn't have answered. Responsibilities shirked and duties forgone never brought true happiness, unless you someone managed to throw away your heart, soul and conscience at the same time. If you left something behind, it was always behind you, and Fai had had enough of looking back over his shoulder.

"Where are you?" Fai cried out, still laughing slightly, and then huffed as another whisper filtered through the fog to him.

//...ight here...//

"Not helping," the wizard muttered, though it had, actually. Hearing the voice again helped him pinpoint where it seemed to be coming from, and he stepped forward again. He stepped and stopped, listened and started forward again a few times, and still the murmurs were not getting any louder, though he thought he might be catching more and more words as he walked.

"I don't suppose you could come to me," Fai murmured, thinking aloud more than actually attempting to communicate. He smiled to himself again as he pondered over how he, who had spent so much of his life shivering in that cramped little space between a rock and a hard place and waiting desperately for someone to come and rescue him, had fallen in (fallen in love) with someone who was firmly of the opinion that if you were stuck somewhere you should get up off your ass and get yourself unstuck through whatever means possible.

This character trait of the ninja's wasn't defiance so much as it was faith, something that Fai had run out of countless years ago and only recently rekindled in his heart. Faith in goodness and mercy, faith that hope sustained would eventually become hope fulfilled, faith that no matter how long the night, it was worth it to wait for the dawn and be warmed by the sun.

"So please take me away..."

Fai stopped walking, stopped smiling, and listened. The murmur was gone, replaced by a song.

"Take me far away..."

He turned to his left, squinting into the fog, and soon enough perceived a glow in the distance that quickly resolved itself into a spotlight shining down upon Oruha as she graced the Clover's stage with her beauty of person and voice.

"Any place...that isn't this place..."

Blue eyes dropped away from the songstress to glance down, and instead of seeing the mists clear to reveal a tile floor under his feet, the wizard found himself seated on a barstool. He could see someone else standing immediately to his left, and didn't need to glance up to check the face. Fai frowned and listened to the song in silence, trying to understand these shifting scenes. He was following Kurogane's voice through a fog that only faded when it wanted to show him something that he remembered. He'd begun alone, trapped in a recurring nightmare, and since screaming for help he'd passed through memories of times spent in the ninja's company.

Like stories told instead of read from books, however, the memories were fluid. Changeable, based on his thoughts.

Very slowly, he looked up to the ninja and broke away from the script of his past.

"If I ask you to be the one to take me away, will you?" he asked softly, no smile on his face now, no teasing in his voice. Before, he'd been hurt more than he could have ever expected by the declaration that his personality was exactly of the type that the ninja despised. He'd told himself it was no more than he should have expected, that it was in fact desirable that it should be so and would make their eventual bloody break easier if they got no closer to each other than they already were, and other such lies.

Now, he steeled himself for fresh pain, but of another type.

The man standing next to him didn't speak, didn't nod, but he did let a faint smile tug at the corners of his mouth and reach a large hand out toward Fai's face. The blond flinched back, slapping away the offered caress and hopping off of the barstool.

"This is pathetic," he hissed, eyebrows knitted fiercely over eyes that glittered with anger. "What I wanted was pathetic. You're pathetic." He spat this last at the Kurogane who stood at the bar, looking at him now with an unfamiliar twist to his smile.

"The you that I used to daydream about is so stupid and weak. He'd never offer to rescue me, to hide me away safe from the dark. He'd kick down the door and drag me out into the night, he'd make me fight but he'd guard me while I got to my feet. He'd make find my own strength, not let me curl up and stagnate in my weakness!" His voice had risen while he spoke, and when he finished yelling at the memory-mirage he suddenly froze to find everyone in the bar - Kurogane, Oruha, Caldina, the staff and guests - all standing with their arms hanging by their sides and staring at him with the same expression of sorrowing pity. Even the faceless guests that he didn't really remember somehow had the same look on their face and it didn't fit any of them, as if they were wearing someone else's expression like an ill-fitting mask, and the doll-like sameness of everyone's manner froze the blood in his veins.

"Kuro-sama?" he called faintly, not meaning the man he could see in front of him. The Kurogane from Outo broke out of his unnatural stance and began walking forward, and Fai backed up, calling out again, louder this time. "Kuro-sama!"

"Not you," he hissed to the mirage, fear spiking as the other figures in the bar also began to move toward him. He didn't want to bolt when he wasn't certain anymore what direction to run in, but the scene was disturbing in the extreme. "You're not real, you're not him. Kuro-sama?! Go away! Kurogane!"

The name was out of his mouth in a burst of cluttered emotion, and before the sound of it faded from his ears he was already clapping a hand over his mouth. If the turn of his mind determined the memories and nightmares he was having to walk through--

His thoughts scattered like songbirds startled by a gunshot as he was grabbed by the shirtfront and slammed up against a wall that hadn't been there a moment ago. It crumbled and dropped chunks of old plaster and concrete all around him, and he slammed his lids shut at the wave of nauseating pain that stabbed at his left eye. He kept his hand over his mouth to strange back the scream and then suddenly there was a large hand clamped around his wrist, attempting to tear it away.

Fai resisted instinctively and the concrete wall behind him suddenly creaked and gave like cheap wood. Blue eyes flew open and he stared into a field of black and red and sun-kissed skin. Kurogane, of course, but not soaked with blood and water and half-clothed in the tattered remains of a white shirt. Instead, a red headband zig-zagged with black, red blood from their most recent chess match and black clothing that had to be washed twice every night to get the stains out, red red eyes and a black look in them as the prey struggled to get his predator to take his first feeding.

"No," Fai whispered, struggling just as hard as he had back then, though for different reasons. "No. NO!"

//...don't...//

"Get off me! Let me go!" He could see long black sleeves on his arms now, and whether it was the memories of being starved and weak or that nightmare state of being unable to command his own body, he could not break free.

//...at you're seeing...//

"This isn't real! You're not real!" Fai cried, even as he could feel his eye teeth itching in their sockets and the old burn in his throat begging to be soothed with blood.

//...nd of my v...it, idiot, come back!...//

The last phrase burst on him at nearly normal volume, right into his ear, and though he could see Kurogane's hands before him - one wrist laid open and being shoved in his face, the other hand struggling to pin down the vampire's - he could feel someone grab him by the collar and shake him. In a rush of adrenaline he kneed Kurogane savagely in the groin and then kicked one of the ninja's ankles out hard enough to break bone. The man staggered and then doubled over choking after Fai shot a fist straight out into the other's throat.

Not bothering with any feelings of concern over what was - hopefully - just a mirage, the wizard spun on one heel and took off into the fog. He ran and ran and did his best to keep his mind from wandering, only focusing on keeping to the same direction as best he could. His unruly thoughts kept twitching toward memories he definitely did not want to be reliving or to daydreams best not indulged in now, and he determinedly concentrated on the mental image of a plain white piece of paper when he could not command utter blankness of mind.

After a while he stopped again, focusing on his heartbeat and breaths and then closing his eyes and listening when he had them under control.

//...st keep following the sound o...//

Fai startled at being able to hear so much clearer now. Kurogane's voice still faded in and out but longer strings of words were intelligible, and he was able to get a better fix on direction as well. Holding on to the murmurs that drifted to him out of the fog like a lifeline, the wizard started off again, but walking quietly this time so that he did not lose the sound of the ninja's voice in his footfalls.

He began to piece together what the man was saying, and between the oft-repeated advice to follow him, Fai found that the man was just...blabbing. After finishing what sounded like a recital of different species of fish, the ninja began describing a bedroom in utterly uninteresting detail. The wizard listened in perplexity to an inventory of a side table's drawer; scissors, two balls of grey thread, a paper of needles - three of them - formerly sealed with a blob of yellowish wax, a handkerchief, something that the ninja thought might be a leather thimble, a little cloth bag of pebbles tied with string, two candles and a dead beetle. Then there came a disgruntled sigh, and

//...amn it hurry up; I'm running out of thi...//

"Impatient," chuckled Fai, but he did pick up his pace a bit.

//...I have patience y...running out after...//

"Can you hear me?" the wizard blurted out in surprise, halting his steps for a moment to peer this way and that into the fog that pressed close all around him.

//...ourse I can, I'm right here...//

"Here where? Kuro-sama, all I can see is...well, nothing."

//...st keep following my...'ll see eventually...//

With a sigh at still being both literally and figuratively in a fog, Fai did as he was bid and kept walking briskly. He attempted to enliven the conversation a bit by making comments, but the ninja immediately shut him down, telling him to concentrate on walking and nothing else. Kurogane then continued to talk of bizarrely commonplace things, describing the comparative rates at which two droplets of water were sliding down the side of a glass, detailing how many stitches there were to one side of a quilt patch, calculating how many stitches were probably in the whole quilt and then describing a spider's progress across the ceiling of the room he was in. Wherever that was.

//I'm going to go crazy if I have to keep this up. Look, I'm just going to start counting.//

"I can hear you much better," Fai replied, pleased to be able to catch whole sentences now.

//Good. Keep coming. One, two, three...//

As Kurogane progressed through the numbers, his voice grew louder and clearer in Fai's ears, and the wizard began trotting, jogging and finally broke into an easy run when he found that he could still hear the man over his footsteps.

//...forty-nine, fifty...//

The ninja's voice stopped for a moment and Fai did likewise.

"Kuro-sama?" he queried anxiously.

//Just had to take a drink. Come on. Fifty-one...//

Fai took off again.

//...two hundred twenty three, two hundred twenty four, two hundred...//

"I can see something," Fai said hesitantly, faltering to a stop as he looked through the thinning fog toward a dim glow.

//Behind you or in front?//

"In front."

//Keep going, and tell me what you see.//

"Just a light, like a lantern," Fai reported, and stepped forward again. As he got closer, the light grew and the fog continued to burn away, as if he was approaching a small sun.

"It's bigger now. Taller than I am. The size of a small room, I guess. I can see something...shadows, or...oh!"

//What?//

"You. I can see you sitting in a chair, next to a bed. Your back's to me. Someone's sleeping in the...oh my God."

"Just come closer," Kurogane said, his voice reaching the blond quite normally in the confines of the little bedroom they were suddenly in, and turned around in his seat to look back toward Fai. Red eyes were roaming instead of looking directly at the wizard however, and it unnerved the blond almost as much as the fixed gazes of the illusions at the Clover bar had. Fai took an involuntary step back and flinched when he fetched up against a wall instead of retreating into the fog he'd just come from.

Clenching his hands into fists, the blond cautiously walked over to the bed where another he lay. It was reassuring at least, to see his own chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths. His cheeks were pale, but not unnaturally so. Whatever this situation was, it didn't seem that he'd died and let his soul go wandering off, at least.

"Are you within five feet of the bed?" Kurogane asked, still looking all around the room, sometimes passing his gaze over Fai but never seeming to see him.

"Yes," the wizard responded, and cringed at the sight his own lips moving in time with his words. The blond on the bed barely exhaled the word where the one standing spoke aloud, but Kurogane turned his head to listen to the whisper.

"Finally. Stay there for a sec while I wake you up," the ninja said.

"What?" Fai asked, but did not get a response. He watched the other man reach over to pick up a cup of water and then dump its contents on the blond lying in the bed.

= = = = =

Fai bolted upright, sputtering and coughing and utterly disoriented. One moment he'd been standing up, nice and dry and somehow invisible, and now he was tangled up in bedsheets and blinking wet hair out of his eyes.

"What...appft...what happened?" He lost the opportunity to listen for an answer as he inhaled a droplet and started in on an extended coughing fit.

"Later," Kurogane said, standing up and stretching. "I have to go to the bathroom. Get out of bed and get changed - our packs are in the corner - and do NOT fall asleep or I will kick your ass awake this time." He delivered this threat with a glare and growl that the blond found ridiculously refreshing after the quiet and quiescent mirages he'd had to confront.

Shivering from the sudden bath, Fai lost no time in obeying orders once the ninja had slammed his way out of the room. He stripped out of his damp top and used a dry section of bed sheet to towel himself off before changing into a fresh shirt. Remembering the injunction to stay awake with a shudder, he avoided even sitting on the bed and paced the room instead, looking around and frowning. It was unfamiliar, but he recognized it all the same. The furnishings were exactly as Kurogane had been describing them. The neatly sewn curtains and quilt, the side table and knobby little rug, the solid wooden furniture and bubbly window glass; they were all there. The only thing Fai couldn't spot was the spider.

One thing the ninja hadn't described to him was the collection of drinking ware clustered on the side table. Besides the tumbler that had been upended over his face, Fai counted five cups of thick glass or ceramic, all emptied out or containing only a gulp of water. There were three mugs as well, one half full of what smelled like tea, long gone cold.

How long had Kurogane been sitting there, trying to reach him with his voice alone?

The ninja returned, raked red eyes over the wizard quickly and then gave Fai a light tap on the chest to back him into the chair that he himself had been occupying a short while ago. The unnecessary physical contact was unusual but Fai - who'd uneasily patted himself a few times as if to make sure he was really there - thought he understood the impulse behind it.

"Last thing I remember is falling asleep in a pile of hay," Fai prompted as he perched on the edge of his seat. Kurogane sat down across from him on the bed, making the frame creak. The wizard glanced at the window and involuntarily tensed at the sight of the fog still clinging thick to the glass. The room was well lit by lamps, but when he looked, he could still see misty tendrils curling in the corners and seeping under the door.

"You're in the house now," the ninja said. "The doctor who lives here came home late and let us in, especially once--well, first things first. You can see fog outside, can't you."

Fai blinked in surprise and replied in the affirmative.

"I can't," Kurogane mentioned with a shrug. "Neither can the locals. It's just you, the kid and the bun."

"...magic-users," Fai said, frowning.

"There aren't any on this world," Kurogane confirmed with a nod. "Not anymore, at least. Used to be generations ago, but then this fog came and before anyone could figure out how to fight it, the mages drifted off. Sometimes they could be called back, but eventually they were all lost."

"Lost how?" Fai asked. "My body was still right there on the bed."

"Your mind dissipates somehow," Kurogane replied, shrugging at a concept he could hardly understand. "Your soul or self or whatever loses its form once you're unconscious and becomes part of the fog, gets lost in itself. The kid thinks maybe that's what the fog originally started as; one mage's soul lost and drifting and looking for something familiar to be a part of again."

Fai frowned and rubbed at his arms as he digested the disturbing information, trying to skim the important bits out as quickly as he could and leaving the smaller details for later.

"Syaoran?" he queried almost immediately, anxiety for the other magician of their tight-knit group welling up so quickly that the last syllable of the young man's name strained out in a near-squeak. Reassurance came quickly in the form of an amused snort from the ninja.

"You should know better," Kurogane replied. "Kid never goes to sleep when there are books to be read. That's where he found out about this thing, in fact. Started in on some old legends, realized that you might be in danger and then tried to wake you up."

"What about Mokona?"

"I'll get there," the ninja replied, and while this non-answer was supremely unsatisfying so far as gaining enlightenment went, the fact that the question was treated so casually at least gave Fai the hope that their minuscule companion's life was in no grave danger.

"He hit the books again while I asked around," Kurogane began explaining, and his audience of one huffed out a short laugh at the picture his imagination painted. The warrior was by no means the same bloodthirsty, hard-hearted man Fai had first met at the Dimensional Witch's shop, but the fierce temper that was the outer prickle to the kindness that made up the core of this man still thrived. He could imagine the ninja tearing through whatever hapless population was in the vicinity of the cottage, snapping and snarling and spreading fear wherever he went like a dire plague of his own.

"Neither of us could find anything useful out," the ninja admitted, with a disgusted twist to his mouth. It made sense to Fai; with all those in danger already dead and the threat invisible to those who remained, it was only natural for the story to fade into legend and myth, badly kept up and many important pieces missing entirely. "The bun was already passed out but the kid managed to send a message to the wish-granter's shop and ask for help."

It had, in fact, been little more than a desperate gamble of an experiment in magic and hope, with the comatose dumpling acting as a focus point for Syaoran's magic, but the ninja did not see fit to detail how close they'd been to helplessly watching half their party get lost in an invisible fog, dooming Syaoran to the same fate eventually and stranding Kurogane in a world where his friends had died before his very eyes.

"That glasses-kid said we needed a special charm to call the bun back, but that there was another way for you," the ninja continued. "The kid's still in the living room using the charm - shouldn't be more than an hour more - and you know what happened to you."

"Not really," Fai confessed with an amused huff. "I think I understand the concept of the fog and know I followed your voice back, but why would you be able to lure me back, and not Mokona?" The wizard had half-expected some comparatively simple explanation of the differences between a creature created and a man born, but the question seemed to catch the ninja off-guard. Fai blinked and then tipped his head as he watched the man break eye contact and growl irritably while shifting in his seat. It was the Kurogane version of a blush and stammer.

"That thing is a wing sprouting, world hopping, alcohol guzzling, bottomless pit half-filled with stupid jokes. Who knows why she got so lost? As for me being able to call you back, we've just spent more time together than the others, is all. You'd know my voice best."

Fai leaned back in his chair and hummed contemplatively while Kurogane glared, looking like he was daring the wizard to poke holes in this rather threadbare theory.

"You have done a lot of yelling at me," the wizard mused, a faint smile curving his lips.

"That's because you've done a lot of dumb things," the ninja grumped.

"I would have thought you'd be afraid I'd run away from your voice."

"Not likely," Kurogane snorted. "You know by now I'd have chased you down somehow and beaten the stupid out of you."

As before, the declaration of violent intent only served to uplift the wizard instead of cast him down.

"Yes, I know," he replied, as smiling and content as if he'd received an outright declaration of love. He was proud to be able to understand the other man so well now, where before the mindset and values that drove the ninja to decisions entirely opposite to his own had seemed so foreign. The happy expression lasted only a few seconds and then Fai was straightening up in his seat with a frown creasing his brow.

"What now, though?" he asked. "Syaoran-kun and I can't stay awake for more than a few days at a stretch and Mokona was affected as soon as we arrived." The problem and question seemed to have been anticipated, for Kurogane only nodded.

"You're going to have to magic us out of here the moment we get the bun's brain stuffed back into her body," the ninja said, and gave the wizard a moment to take this in. Blue eyes dropped to the floor as Fai made calculations for transporting four people - well, three plus a bun - while trying to shield Mokona from the effects of a fog he didn't entirely understand. He'd have to examine the charm being used to see if it could give him some clues, or even hope of it being able to offset the effects of the magical mist that threatened them while he worked.

"All right," Fai said softly, nodding as he mentally sorted out details, and then lifted his head with a faint smile. "Any requests as to destination?"

"Don't get creative," Kurogane growled, not a mage himself but knowing at least that the more complex the spell, the greater the cost to the caster. Moving them out of this world was one thing. Directing them to a specific destination was another. "I'd rather take our chances than have you on your knees vomiting blood just so we can have tea in Clow."

"Clow would be taxing," the wizard admitted with a slow nod, and then looked up through a fall of fair hair. "Nihon wouldn't be half so difficult though. And doesn't it make sense to extend a little extra effort than to risk jumping from the fog into something even worse?"

There was a very brief pause, a slight drift in those red eyes, and then a decided shake of the head.

"The easiest safe world. Doesn't have to be any one in particular." And when it looked as if Fai would press the point Kurogane added, "I'll go home eventually. Don't need to keep looking to see if it's still there."

The wizard nodded over this and then left his seat, settling down near the foot of the bed where none of the water had splashed and making himself comfortable by leaning against the wall of muscle so conveniently nearby. A minutes crept by in companionable silence, then part of another, and then Fai spoke.

"I saw things in the fog."

"The kid mentioned something about people reliving their pasts," the ninja said with a nod.

"Nightmares, too. I'd think of something and it would trigger a related memory," the wizard murmured, inching in closer. He thought a moment and then put two and two together. "Is that why you were going on and on about fish and the things in this room? So nothing you said would trigger another illusion?"

"Something that like," Kurogane agreed, and then spoke again, his voice off-hand and casual to someone who didn't know him. "You were talking in your sleep."

Fai thought back to the recollections he'd had to walk through, and the things he'd said - screamed - in those moments of panic. He must have sounded terrified, and with all the trials and tragedies they'd lived through no wonder the ninja had been concerned about what the wizard had been seeing. He nuzzled into Kurogane's arm a bit and pondered over the turns of his own mind that he'd had to take a rather unique look at. What he had believed, and believed he'd wanted. What he understood now, and valued.

"One of the memories was of the Clover bar," Fai mentioned, in a tone that he tried to make more casual and lighthearted than before, and then began singing what he could remember of the tune Oruha had sung.

"I want to be happy with you.
I want to be your happiness too.
So please take me away. Take me far away.
Any place...that isn't this place."

Fai trailed off and then craned his head back to peer up at the ninja with a smile that had a touch more cheek in it than the last.

"You didn't like that song very much, if I recall. Or at least the message." Fai got a grunt in reply. Taking a breath, he began again but with different words. The tune became a little awkward, the new lyrics being added in on the fly as they occurred to him, but judging from the ghost of a smile that crept over the ninja's face as he listened, the man found it an improvement.

"I'll find my own happiness.
But I want it to be with you.
So let me stay with you, wherever you go.
Any place...but most likely Nihon in the end whenever that happens to be."

Fai finished with several extra syllables tacked on quickly, stretching the last note out to such a silly-sounding extreme that he giggled the lyrics more than he sang them. Blue eyes flickered back up to check the audience's reception of this revised version, and the smile that ghosted about the ninja's lips tugged an even wider one from the wizard.

"Better?" Fai asked.

"Yeah."

The singer beamed under this simple but meaningful exchange (the lyrics are better, they suit me better, because I'm better now and we'll be even better together as we go) and then bounced off of the bed, announcing that he was going to check on Syaoran's progress and get a look at - and more importantly a feel for - the magical charm being used as a Mokona lure. He was back in just a few minutes and threw himself cross-ways over the bed, squirming into the rumpled blankets as if making himself cozy in a nest.

"Syaoran-kun said that it would probably be another half-hour," Fai reported, and then gave a comfortable sigh, blinking slowly as if preparing to drift off.

"No sleeping," Kurogane cautioned sharply. Heavy-lidded eyes cut upward to the ninja hovering threateningly overhead, and Fai smiled, slow and sure.

"Keep me awake then," he invited, and laughed when he was pounced.

...and kept laughing helplessly as Kurogane sat on him and proceeded to tickle the breath out of his lungs.

~the end.

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