There is a man with yellow hair. There is a snake with yellow hair. Which is stronger—man or snake—remains a mystery, but Kurogane does not turn away strangers, forbids himself that restraint, because had he been turned away in that vital moment of loss, would he be a man, now? He doesn't know. So the stranger at the door comes inside, hiding his snake's tail with an overly cordial smile, but Kurogane hears the distinct slither.

That night, he sleeps with a blade in his hands. He dreams of a world and the stranger is there, unable to speak his language, but they fight a war that isn't theirs—Yama, it's Yama, that's the country, isn't it? That morning, he wakes with his blade, and it goes back into the drawer. The yellow-haired stranger is gone and has left no trinket to his memory but a piece of gold: a coin with an unfamiliar language upon it. Kurogane keeps it, but he doesn't know why.

There is a woman, a girl, a priestess with black hair and she rescued Kurogane, inspired by a kindness the man begrudgingly learns. Tomoyo is the only person to know the name his mother and father gave him (they would have been included, but they died, of course, and that is the point). She takes his child fury into the wells of her hands and molds him into something good, so in his gratitude, he promises to protect her. He does.

She has a dream that death is coming to this country, to Nihon, and she cannot stop it. He swears to protect Nihon. She says that this threat will not be dissuaded; it sees their joy and health and must take it. He reminds her of the strength of his sword, but she only responds in pitying smiles.

"That is not strength," she says. "It is a weapon."

"Tell me what this threat is," he responds.

"It will not be answered by your sword," she promises, and she whispers his given name like an apology, and he cannot retaliate, for she is holy, and he has sworn his life for her safety. He leaves. He comes upon his house again, but the door is left open, so he holds his sword before him, parting the air, because this is the only strength he lets himself know.

It is the yellow-haired stranger, stepping into the doorway. He looks at Kurogane and offers the exaggerated smile of a liar. Kurogane wants him to leave, but he cannot turn away a stranger in need, no matter how strange said stranger is. He does not lower the sword.

"I see that you typically let yourself into strangers' houses where you come from," Kurogane announces, measuredly, but the stranger shakes his head, eyeing the blade with a half-lidded stare. "This is not the custom in Nihon. Should you do it elsewhere, you'll meet more hostile men."

"A room for the night," is what the man says, but his tone is bright, and his accent unfamiliar. "You wouldn't throw strangers to the street, would you?"

"No," Kurogane confirms, but he regrets it, because the man's smile does not change.

"Is it the custom in Nihon to greet your guests with swords?" the man asks.

"No."

"It is beautiful. You should be proud to have it," the man remarks. He adds, with no semblance of fear, "The knife in your drawer should be threatening enough, though I appreciate your dramatic flair."

Kurogane sheaths his sword.

"Who are you?"

"A fool," the man replies, "and nothing but that. I wish no trouble upon you. I simply need a room for the evening, as you provided before, and I wanted a familiar place."

"Why?" Kurogane asks.

The man's smile becomes tight, and he does not answer. That night, Kurogane dreams of a king in a cold place, begging for death, and the yellow-haired stranger refuses to give him that. In the morning, the stranger is gone again, and leaves behind a second golden coin.

Kurogane guards his home, which is a mile from Tomoyo's temple, but falls asleep on his porch despite his efforts to remain vigilant. He wakes with a startle, sitting upright with his sword in his lap, distracted by those strange dreams. The yellow-haired stranger populates them, pleading for death and pleading for life, but Kurogane feels dirty, as if these dreams should not be his, that the audience is another man with his name. He fights sleep, fights the dreams, but cannot evade them.

Tomoyo shrieks when Kurogane drops the coins in her palm, jolts her arms back under their billowing sleeves, and they fall to the shrine's floor in a strange percussion. Tomoyo falls backwards upon her throne and he rushes to catch her, demanding, "What is it? What is it?"

She cries, hysterical, but speaks no language he recognizes.

"What is it?" he barks. "What's wrong with them?"

The snake, the stranger, with yellow hair and blue eyes, and Tomoyo's eyes are rolling back into her head, and he shouts at her until other, wiser guards pry his arms from the priestess, forbidding his return until he is ritually purified. Kurogane is too angry to go through with it—to ask how it works, actually, because he doesn't know—so he storms home, turning the coins in his fingers, starved for an explanation.

Kurogane dreams of a human chess game, of cutting his palm so that another man may live, but he doesn't know what it means. It does not feel like a dream. It feels like a memory, one that isn't his, but one that is too familiar to be so foreign.

The stranger appears in the evenings—sometimes several in a row, but it is terribly sporadic, and he vanishes for weeks between. Kurogane wakes to hear the familiar clank of bottles. He rises from his porch to find the intruder and finds the stranger struggling with a sake bottle, and the man does not take pause upon seeing Kurogane, but thrusts the bottle into his arms, as if he had always lived in the house and is not unwelcome. Perhaps this is true. Kurogane takes the bottle, studying the stranger.

"Your coins are cursed," he says.

"Oh, naturally," the stranger replies, grinning. "I apologize for being away so long. Did you miss me?"

"No."

"But you did think of me."

Kurogane frowns. "Yes," he says. "The coins. You left me cursed coins—why?"

"I miss the taste of sake. Share the bottle and I will tell."

Kurogane, for reasons he still does not understand, opens the bottle and hands it to the stranger. The man smiles, accepting, and they venture to the porch in the cool evening air. The man takes a seat on the flat porch outside, dangling his feet like a child, and Kurogane joins him, sword in his lap, torn between protecting Nihon from Tomoyo's foreseen threat and paying attention to the stranger. He will never admit to loneliness, but he feels it. Tomoyo has not let him return to the shrine, claiming he was cursed by the coins, and must enact a purity ritual. Kurogane has no idea how to do this, even now. So he accepts the bad stranger's company, despite his evil gifts, because he is a lonely man.

"Nihon is very beautiful," the stranger says, taking a swig. "The land is good, and the people are happy. I would have liked to grow up, here."

"Where did you come from?" Kurogane asks.

"A cold place," the stranger replies shortly. He hands Kurogane the bottle. "It does not matter. I can never return there."

"You're a fugitive," Kurogane assumes.

The stranger raises a brow. "Strength, looks, and brains—you must make the women salivate." Kurogane returns the assertion with a steely gaze, so the stranger chuckles, waving a hand. "I tease, of course. You are a principled man with no sense of pleasure. You wouldn't recognize a lover if he walked to your doorstep."

"You might think you're talented at deflection," Kurogane says tightly, "but you are a fugitive, and I should know what you've done before you spend another night in my home."

The stranger's smile wavers. "There are crimes you've committed that you do not dare name, but I should not press you to unearth them for me. Do not press me for the same."

Kurogane sees a flash of blood, his mother, his father's hand falling from a beast's mouth with the sword still clenched in its death grip, and he shakes the sights from his head. No, it is not the business of this stranger, so perhaps the stranger is correct. "Your name, then."

"Fai," is the man's easy reply.

"That is not your name," Kurogane asserts.

"No, but you will not give me yours, either," Fai says, and the grin returns. He steals the bottle back into his hands and jerks his head back, taking a long gulp. Kurogane puzzles himself over this predicament.

Finally, he says, "Call me Kurogane."

"A beautiful thing, isn't it?" Fai asks. "A name we choose. With it comes a new life and better future." He pauses. "You asked of the coins. I suppose it is only fair to tell you the truth: they are cursed, but I am cursed, so it is only natural."

Kurogane blinks. "Why leave them, then?"

"You were kind to me and the world is not often that way," Fai replies, and his smile is off-putting for the words it frames. "It was probably a bad decision, now that I think of it, but I hoped you would remember me."

"Nihon is not home to yellow-haired men. Of course I would remember you."

Fai's expression becomes unreadable, and he looks away, looks at the trees, the moon, sitting in a place which is not his home but a refuge, an escape from something so dangerous that the man dare not name it. He laughs.

And from then on, Fai appears like a mirage every few months, leaving coins in his wake. And for all the he smiles, Kurogane knows that something terrible waits to rear its head.

He dreams that he has cut off his own arm to save someone's life, and he hears unnatural winds, feels a terrible biting cold, and a man's weak hand grasps his, begging to be left behind yet desperate for it not to happen, all the same. He saws off his own arm and pulls the man through the other side, but he does not understand it, and he tries to see Tomoyo, but she will not let him inside the shrine until he is cleansed.

Tomoyo orders him to bury the coins and complete the purity ritual. Kurogane buries the coins at the border of Nihon, as far as he can travel, and follows the instructions she sent by courier. He lets the tide roll over his legs for thirty minutes, holding his eyes shut, and prays to be cleansed. Tomoyo lets him back into the shrine, delighted to have her favorite protector, and he asks her what she knows of the blond man. Tomoyo hesitates, muttering, "You only just completed the purity ritual. I shall not dirty your spirit with such knowledge."

Fai does not return after this, after the coins are buried, but someone else does. At first, he is nearly relieved to think that Fai has resurfaced, but the stranger at his door is entirely unfamiliar: a boy, this time, with brown hair and tan skin and earnest eyes. He looks at Kurogane as if startled to see him, stumbling on half-phrases. He carries a toy-looking animal with a shapeless, white body, and the creature gapes—does it?—at Kurogane.

"Uh, yes, hello," the boy manages, and despite his appearance, he has no accent. "I am very sorry to bother you, but—"

"Out with it," Kurogane orders, and the boy blushes rich red.

"Have you seen our friend?" the odd animal in the boy's arms asks, and it has a high, childlike voice. "His name is Fai and he is tall and has pretty, yellow hair, and—"

"No," Kurogane replies curtly. Fai is a fugitive. If people ask after him, Kurogane should not betray the man's trust, even if Kurogane barely trusts him. He has no idea why he feels that way, or why he thinks to protect the strange man. "Why? Who are you?"

"We're—well, we're his friends," the boy says, and his tone deflates, hope leaving. "We thought he might have come to visit you after he ran. My name is Syaoran."

"And Mokona!" the animal adds.

"We are worried for him," the boy continues. "He is on a mission he can't complete. No one can. If you see him…" Syaoran pauses, looking at Kurogane as if he spotted the lie, as if he knows that Fai has passed through, left his coins, but Kurogane's face offers him no room to say so. "…please, please tell him he did nothing wrong, and we forgive him."

"Tell Fai we miss him very much, especially Mokona!" Mokona cries.

"Fine," Kurogane says. "If I see the guy, I'll tell him. But I haven't seen him."

When Syaoran asks apologetically for shelter, Kurogane grants him that—he can't refuse him, and he's just a boy, and as suspicious as Kurogane is, Syaoran clearly is worried (if not for Fai, for something else). They share a small meal while Kurogane questions them, and Syaoran is from a strange, hot desert country and it sounds nothing like the place Fai alluded to, so Kurogane wonders how they came upon the yellow-haired man, how they happened upon him, here, in Nihon, but he does not ask. There are some things, he senses, he should not know.

(Yet.)

A week after this meeting, Kurogane takes his horse to the border of Nihon. He scrambles, searching for that familiar plot of dirt, throwing clumps of dirt behind him. His horse watches, vaguely interested, as Kurogane succeeds. He unearths the coins. He does not know why he does it, but he takes them into his hands and thinks of apologizing to them. A foolish thing. He is not foolish enough to do it, but foolish enough to take them back into his home, dropping them on his table.

Fai appears that very night, soaking wet, trembling with cold, and Kurogane opens his door once more. Five months passed without this man's arrival, and Kurogane is, admittedly, grateful to see him.

"Did you think of me?" Fai asks.

"No."

"You're a rotten liar," Fai muses, and Kurogane makes some noncommittal sound. "Of course, you think I am an even more rotten one, and you would be correct."

"Hmmph."

"You do not change, do you?" Fai wonders, and he looks so miserable for a moment that Kurogane spins the man around, checking for wounds, certain for a brief second that Fai must be dying if the smile fails so plainly. No blood. He pats Kurogane's shoulder, looking curious. "Why did you change your mind?"

"About what?" Fai gestures towards the pile of dirty coins on Kurogane's table. "Oh. That."

"Yes. That," Fai agrees. "Your priestess went through such trouble to cleanse you, and you ruined all of her good work, rode across the country, and brought them home. Why?"

"Since you're so talkative, would you mind telling me why you're dripping all over my floor?" Kurogane counters.

"I would mind. You won't answer my question," Fai scolds, but the smile nearly returns. His teeth chatter. "If wet clothes are so unforgivable in Nihon, I will gladly go naked."

"Don't do that!" Kurogane snaps, and he dashes out of the room, grabbing his clean sleeping robes, and thrusts them towards Fai. "Lay your things on the porch to dry and wear this. I'll be damned if you 'magic' yourself here only to catch a cold."

"Kurogane—always the thoughtful host," Fai muses, and he starts to strip, shameless, so Kurogane leaves the room for several minutes. He returns after he hears his front door slide shut, and Fai is standing in foreign clothes—not foreign to Kurogane, but they look positively foreign on Fai—with a pleasant expression. "Thank you. I should 'magic' myself here more often, if I may borrow the phrase."

"So you won't tell me where you've been?" Kurogane sighs, and Fai shakes his head, bright-eyed. "Fine. Your friends visited. They were looking for you—thought I'd know where you went, somehow. I'm curious, myself."

"Interesting," Fai replies tonelessly, the smile vanishing entirely.

"They said they forgive you," Kurogane adds, and Fai's face whitens. "The animal sort of thing misses you, apparently, in case you wondered."

"Is that so?" Fai asks, but he sounds suspicious, and his voice holds no music.

"They don't have an accent. You do." Kurogane waits, but the other man offers nothing, simply staring dumbly in return. "Why?"

"I learned your language myself," Fai sighs. "They simply speak it."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Fai's mouth quirks. "Kurogane," he murmurs, "I am tired of your interrogations. Save them for another time. I just want to have something good for a little while. Will you refuse me that kindness?"

Kurogane does not know what it means, and Fai drinks the rest of Kurogane's sake that night, drinking much more than necessary, filling the air with poorly masked misery. He smiles, cups Kurogane's face in his soft, pale hands, and studies the man's face like it is a beloved, familiar painting. He says, "You brought my coins home, knowing what your priestess would think. It must cause you pain, knowing she won't let you back into the shrine, and you love her."

Kurogane does not know why, either. For all he wishes he did, he doesn't. But there is something he can say, so he does: "I am devoted to her. I care for her. But it isn't the 'love' you think."

"In every world," Fai murmurs, "you never change."

The boy, Syaoran, returns many months later. Before he speaks, he orders his animal companion to sleep, and Mokona obliges by going utterly limp and snoring. Syaoran pokes the animal, but nothing comes of it. He takes a breath, gathering courage, and looks up at Kurogane. "Let me in."

Kurogane frowns. "Why?"

"I know you," Syaoran mutters. "I know you have questions—ones he won't answer. I want information, just as you do, so let me in."

Kurogane glances at the animal.

"Mokona has a tender heart," Syaoran sighs. "I don't want her to listen to us."

For some reason, Kurogane opens his door, and lets the boy inside. Neither man takes a seat, too wary of one another, but Syaoran has stubborn eyes and an even more stubborn countenance. He places Mokona on a table, patting her on the head, and turns to face Kurogane. "I know he was here."

"Apparently," Kurogane returns. "Just as you apparently know me."

"I do," Syaoran confirms. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"Kurogane," Syaoran murmurs, "you have been my friend for years. You have protected me and taught me how to fight. You saved many lives and risked your own for ours."

"I don't know what the hell you're on about," Kurogane snaps. "I've met you—once. I don't know you."

"I know you don't, but I know you very well," Syaoran says. "It might not be you, but I know your soul."

"Oh, sure," Kurogane replies, unimpressed. "My 'soul'—why hadn't I guessed?"

"Fai keeps coming to you for a reason," Syaoran counters, voice rising. "Don't you want to know why a random stranger keeps showing up? Why he doesn't tell you things? Where he goes—and why? You can't say you aren't at all curious."

"He is running from people," Kurogane says. "You're the only ones who have come asking for him. I don't know where it is he goes or where he comes from. He comes here and leaves. He doesn't tell me anything. You can't find him from me."

Syaoran's face flashes with a sudden grief.

"What is he running from?" Kurogane asks, because he realizes this is it, this is the only way he'll learn, and Fai will never tell him the truth. Syaoran's expression looks pained in the afternoon sun. He rubs his face. "You said he had a mission he couldn't complete. Tell me what it means. I don't get it."

"He did something he regrets. He wants to correct that mistake."

"And it's something he can't correct."

"He never can. None of us can," Syaoran murmurs. "I know you don't understand me. I don't expect you to, but I really missed you, Kurogane, and even if you don't know me, I'm so glad to see you."

Kurogane feels that this warmth is meant for someone else, someone missing, but the boy is misfiring, shoving affection towards him like an unwanted gift, like so many cursed coins he keeps in a drawer, refusing to bury. "There is another 'me'."

Syaoran nods.

"Something happened to that 'me'," Kurogane gathers, and the boy looks away. "Is it his fault?"

"I don't know," Syaoran confesses. "I don't know."

He dreams that he is sparring with the boy as practice, that Syaoran is blind in one eye, and he puts a blindfold on the boy and sends him on a mission. Fai scolds him for doing this, but Syaoran returns to them, unscathed, looking more like a man. Fai runs to the boy as if Syaoran is his son, arms wide open, and it is familiar, despite its strangeness, and he wakes to no beasts in Nihon but to a pained heart.

"Tell me about the other 'me'," Kurogane says, and he is bold simply because Fai did not appear at the door, but in his own bed while Kurogane lay in it. Fai, with no regard for personal space, lets himself under the thin sheets and presses his forehead against Kurogane's back, and when Kurogane speaks, he feels Fai shaking his head. "The kid told me there's another 'me'. He says that's why you keep coming back."

"You don't want to know about that," Fai replies, trying for firmness, but only sounding weary.

"I think I do. You're in my damn bed, aren't you?"

"You are always so perceptive," Fai says playfully, but Kurogane will not accept it. "Do not make me tell you."

"The kid wouldn't tell me, either."

"Syaoran is a good kid," Fai murmurs.

"What happened to 'me', Fai?" And Kurogane realizes it is the first time he's said the man's name to him, even if it is a false name, and Fai wraps his snake arms around Kurogane, huddling against his back, seeming smaller than Kurogane recalls him being. "Fine. Don't tell me. But tell me what the other me was like."

"Just like you," Fai says into his back, muffled.

"How did you meet him?"

"A bit like this," Fai replies. "I was running from something. He was running to something. We helped the children—you've met only one, I know, but he really is a good kid, and we thought of them both as our children. We helped them find their way and we saved the world because of it."

Kurogane snorts. "Saved the world? That's a little dramatic."

"You like the dramatic, Kurogane," Fai says gently, and Kurogane can feel the smile against his spine. "I met him and we all ran together, and I thought I could be happy, that I could hold something good in my hands, but it never lasts. I'm a cursed man. I told you that, just as I told him, but you both are terrible listeners."

Kurogane realizes that Fai is holding him, wonders why he didn't notice it before, but it seems oddly comfortable, so he remains there. It feels natural, somehow, for this man Kurogane meets at odd hours to show up and cuddle him in his own bed. Perhaps it was natural for the 'Kurogane' Fai knew before him. "Were you…?"

He lets Fai infer his meaning. Fai does. "Yes. But he was better at love than I was. He understood it in ways I never will. You are both good men."

"Why are you here?" Kurogane asks, finally, because he does need to know. Even if Fai won't tell him what happened, he needs to know this. Fai's mouth hovers above his skin, hesitating upon a kiss, but he never delivers it. Kurogane doesn't know if he wanted the man to. "I'm not the one you wanted."

"I'm frightened," Fai whispers, "and you are something safe and good—the only thing."

And Kurogane knows that none of it is a lie, this time, so he lets Fai cradle him like a desperate widow, wondering about the other man, the 'other' Kurogane that brought these strangers to his doorstep.

He dreams of meeting a witch in the rain, and Syaoran holds a girl with copper hair in his arms, a picture of desperation and determination. Fai appears, completely dry despite the downpour, and smiles at him. This is not Kurogane's memory, but it seems real, and he hears his voice in a brash and angry tone—asking to go home, just to go home, while Fai wants anything but that.

He wakes and Fai has already left. He finds a gold coin, the only proof he has of this man's existence, already clenched in his hands, and his bed is a blizzard. He searches his home for the man, calling for him, but Fai is gone.

Fai does not return for three months. Tomoyo's courier arrives with strict orders—she will see him if he obeys her, this time, by keeping the coins buried and finishing the purity ritual. Kurogane obeys because Fai has not returned, despite his patience, and he follows Tomoyo's guards to the outermost edge of Nihon. When he arrives, Tomoyo sits upon her own horse, and she smiles upon seeing him.

"I am happy to see you," she says, "and glad that you have found your reason."

Kurogane buries the coins under her watchful eyes, but he keeps their spot memorized, should he need to retrieve them. Tomoyo and the guards escort him towards the beach on the southern border of Nihon, where he strips to his skin and lets the tide swim over his legs for the expected thirty minutes, shutting his eyes, praying for purity. Tomoyo has a lovely, lilting voice, and she sings a blessing as he prays.

When all has finished, she reaches out her hand, and he kisses her wrist. Her expression is warm and fond, and for a bit, everything feels normal, as if this is what he's supposed to do. He is supposed to be protecting Nihon, and by 'Nihon', he means Tomoyo, because she is a country to Kurogane.

"Thank you," she whispers, as if hearing his thoughts.

Kurogane says nothing because he is an honest man, guileless, and Tomoyo is the girl who saved his life as a child. He owes her his very life for that favor, and he does not forget it. He bows to her and she chuckles, asking him to stand, so he does.

"When will death come to Nihon?" Kurogane asks, recalling her vision. Tomoyo loses her playful grin at that, but she is steadfast, gentle.

"Never," she says. "I think I know how to stop it."

Fai does not return for an entire year. Syaoran visits frequently, desperate, and Kurogane learns more about the 'other' Kurogane who journeyed with them. He hears of a quest to find feathers, of strange places, of a princess regaining memories and strength, of a man bent on destroying all worlds simply to bring a life back, and Kurogane even meets the princess in question. She is familiar: he saw her in a dream. Sakura looks upon his face and weeps, embracing him, but he does not know her. Still, Kurogane claps her on the shoulder, as he never quite learned how to comfort a person in grief. She despairs from the relief of his face whilst knowing he is not the one they want. He is not 'their' Kurogane. But he seemed good enough for Fai, he thought, until that man dropped off the face of the planet.

"How did he die?" Kurogane asks. Sakura only cries at that, dashing from the room, which certainly never means something good. Syaoran, pain in his face, shakes his head.

"I don't know," Syaoran mumbles. "We were separated. Fai was with y—him. When Mokona takes us to different worlds, we don't always come in one piece, and this time, I landed away from them, only with Mokona. Everyone in the city had died—it was terrible, and there was so much blood—and we never found them there, but back where Yuuko once lived. Fai used his own magic and brought Kurogane's body there—for safe keeping, I think—and left, but I never saw him."

"Do you think Fai killed him?"

"No," Syaoran says. He frowns. "Yes. I don't know. Fai is good, I think, but he can be awfully wild, just like you—or him. Both of you. I don't know. I need to know what really happened and Fai refuses to be found. He keeps coming to you, though, so I keep trying to find him, here."

"I think we all are, kid," Kurogane sighs, and Syaoran looks at him with his horrendously misplaced affection, smiling. "I'd like to find him, too."

Kurogane goes to the border of Nihon, where he buried the coins, and is greeted by one of Tomoyo's holy guards with a horse. The man leaps when he sees Kurogane, startled, first, because it is so late and Kurogane is difficult to see—but he leaps, second, because it is Kurogane. He waves his arms about, yelling, "The priestess forbids this! Go home at once!"

Kurogane has one hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to withdraw it, to eliminate this nuisance, but he can do nothing of the sort. Tomoyo will punish him for killing one of her men. He knows this because he did it, once, on an unrelated issue, and she never let him forget it. So Kurogane opts for a less deadly yet equally threatening strategy.

"Move," he says. It is not a very good strategy, for the guard does not move. "Move it." Clarifying the comment does not help. "Get the hell out of my way." This also does not work. "I'll chop your head off."

"The priestess will never let you into the shrine again," the guard reminds him. "Be rational, brother. The coins are cursed and she doesn't want you to touch them, but she certainly doesn't want you to behead me. This is for your protection. Mine, too. Don't behead me."

"Hmmph."

All of his strategies fail, so Kurogane retreats, waiting for a few hours, before returning to the path. The guard remains, warning him to leave, so Kurogane leaves. He comes back the next evening and finds a different guard, but the same situation. For over a year, Kurogane returns to the spot on different days at different times, but it remains guarded, so he retreats to his empty house.

Kurogane dreams that a different Tomoyo heals him and says, "You are home, now. Your wish is granted", but he feels distinctly bad about it, wrong about it, and her smile becomes heartbreakingly kind, wavering, trying hard to stay strong on her face. "You will not stay long, will you?"

"I can't stay," Kurogane says, but it is not him, yet it is, and he only has one arm. "The children need me."

"I need you, too," Tomoyo says, "but I know. I foresaw it, that they should change you."

He nods. She says his real name—and he wakes up, shuddering, and goes to the shrine. The priestess is asleep, but she wakes when he asks for her and leaves her bed, her hair tied up in an elaborate knot on the top of her head. Kurogane realizes, dumbly, that her hair is not naturally wavy, that she merely styles it to look that way. She offers a tired smile.

"I'm having dreams," Kurogane tells her, "dreams that shouldn't be mine."

"They are memories, Kurogane," she replies. "They are your memories, but memories of a different you. Souls are the same, no matter the world, and when the wizard appeared, he broke the fine filaments that kept your soul tidy and kept the memories organized. I think this is the cause. It is not clear."

"I don't get it," Kurogane huffs—because it doesn't make sense, and nothing does. "You know about this. Why don't you tell me?"

"Do not make me do this," she says, and her voice trembles, startlingly raw. "You know enough on your own. Do not seek to know more, Kurogane, for I will not tell you."

"Why?" he asks, but his voice is sharper than he intended, and bitter tears come to the priestess's gentle eyes.

"If you know more," she whispers, "I will lose you."

He meets the princess alone, which is surprising, but she brings Mokona and smiles at his door. She has a strange energy about her, but he supposes she should: if Sakura has been through all the nonsense Kurogane has learned about, she should be that way. She tucks her copper hair behind her ear, asking, "May I join you for a meal, Kurogane?"

She is a nice girl, he knows, so he lets her in. Mokona dances about and demands sake. Kurogane thinks the toy-animal reminds him of Fai, but he doesn't dare to say it. He brings a bottle of sake to their table and a quick meal, breaking bread with the princess. She eats surprisingly ravenously and not at all the way a princess should, but this is more amusing than anything.

"Where's the kid?" he asks.

She glances up, answering with a mouth full of food, "He was in a spectacular fight in our last world. Watanuki is taking care of him. It pains me to leave him, but I am not foolish enough to think I'll be much help to him. He is in good hands."

She smiles, swallows her food. "Besides," she says, "I wanted to see you."

No one ever visits unless they want something of him, so Kurogane isn't optimistic about this. He raises a brow, sipping sake. "What for?"

"Just to see you, Kurogane," she replies. "My companions are often fantastical and I should be grateful to even speak with a level-headed friend."

This makes Kurogane chuckle. "That's it?"

"And to apologize," she adds, which halts the cheerful rumble of Kurogane's laughter. "My companions come to you because they miss a man who was like you to an exact degree. I am guilty of the same. It is not right of us; you are a different Kurogane, and I know you have been very confused by all of this."

Kurogane nods. "Right."

"I like you just as you are," she says simply. "It's as if you're the brother of someone we loved dearly. I cannot stop my affection, as odd as it seems to you, but I think you are very good. I hope you will consider me a friend, as I consider you one of mine."

"You really are a good kid," Kurogane murmurs, thinking of Fai. She beams, blushing. "Sure. We're friends."

"Thank you."

Kurogane realizes, suddenly, that the annoying toy-animal has been silent this entire time. He looks about the room and sees the creature lying on its back, chugging the last bit of sake. He leaps in his surprise, shouting, "You stupid glutton! That's my last bottle!"

Sakura is giggling and Mokona releases the bottle, whining, "Kurogane Two is so mean! Mokona was thirsty, so thirsty! Wahh!"

Kurogane pinches the animal's ears, scolding it, and Mokona is crying (but with a great deal of humor, as if this is all a great deal of fun), and Sakura is laughing hysterically. When he looks back at her, her face is bright pink and she claps her dainty hands, regarding him with a great deal of love he doesn't deserve, but—he thinks of her, for one bizarre second, as his favorite daughter, and he can't help the smile that forms.

When she leaves, she gives him a flower—"This is the flower that has my name, and it may not be much, but you deserve my thanks"—and he holds it in his hands, but it is too light, too natural, and all he really wants is the cool shine of those mysterious golden coins.

Two years pass without Fai's return, and Kurogane sees the children too often, the toy-animal too often, but all he longs for is the company of a man with yellow hair and aggravating smiles. He prays for Fai's return, but the wizard never obliges. He gets on his horse, thinking he'll be in a great deal of trouble for disobeying the priestess, but Tomoyo surely has stopped protecting the coins by now. He leaves for the border of Nihon, where cursed gold lies buried, preventing the return of the man he misses.

Tomoyo herself is there, this time, and she has no surprise upon seeing him, but he is quite surprised. He pats his horse, getting off the beast, and approaches the priestess. She nods at him. "Hello, Kurogane."

"Where are your guards?" he asks. "Why are you here?"

"I knew you would return here," she replies. "Try as I may, I cannot prevent the future. I thought I could."

He scowls. "Let me pass."

"I will," she promises, "but I must warn you: what you plan to do will hurt me."

"The coins?" he asks. "Will the coins hurt you?"

"No," she says.

This is all useless, this conversation. Kurogane points at her, declaring, "You told me Nihon would face death. This was years ago. Nihon remains standing."

Tomoyo thrusts out her hand—an offering—so he kisses it. She grimaces painfully, tears burning at her weary eyes. "You will leave here," she whispers. "You have met the people who will take you from me. You are my Nihon, Kurogane, and your departure is a death."

He stares. "It was a metaphor, then."

"Of course," she replies, "but I mean it, sincerely."

"Why didn't you just say that?" he asks. "I keep myself awake to guard the country while you've been going on about metaphors. Here I am, preparing for monsters, and you're talking about nonsense."

Tomoyo smiles sadly. She asks, "Will you leave, then?"

"Leave? I don't know what you're on about," Kurogane snaps. "No one asked me to go anywhere. Not the kids, not the animal thing, and not Fai. Where the hell would I be going?"

"He hasn't asked you," Tomoyo murmurs, "because he can't return."

"Why?" Kurogane demands. "Why can't he come back?"

"You buried his coins."

"You told me to bury them! You said they were cursed!" Kurogane's mind is racing, and Tomoyo looks at him with guilt in her eyes. "You made it so he couldn't return, didn't you?"

"He is cursed, Kurogane," she apologizes. "He used dark magic, and it affects everything he touches. It disrupts my visions. When he is here, I cannot fulfill my duties as a priestess."

"What is the curse?" Kurogane fires. "I swear, if 'curse' is a metaphor for something else, I'll—"

"He murdered, Kurogane, with his magic," Tomoyo interrupts, and it is the clearest answer Kurogane has heard yet. "It taints all things, just as it tainted the coins, even if he only used them as a marker—something that could beckon him back to this world during his travels. When you gave me his coins to inspect, I saw his memories and saw terrible things—lovely things, too—and I could not withstand it. His magic stems from an awful, dark place, and he has used it for unnatural things."

Kurogane blinks. "Priestess," he says, "I have served you since you rescued me. Do not think I could forget my loyalty because an idiot with yellow hair shows up at my doorstep."

Tomoyo nods, but she replies, "Even so, you returned to disobey me and bring the coins back to your home, effectively cursing you. You are devoted to me, Kurogane, but your heart is somewhere else, and I cannot control that." She steps aside from the mound of dirt where the coins lie, waiting to be taken home, waiting to bring Fai back. "I release you from your duties."

"What?"

It sounds like she is leaving him. He thinks she is. She curtsies, always gracious, but he is her Nihon just as she is his Nihon. If she releases him from his duties, he has no Nihon. Nihon was not facing death, but facing his departure, and she thwarted Fai's return to stop that. Kurogane demands that she reinstate him, but she doesn't; she only asks that he help her onto her horse. Because Kurogane is dutiful, he helps her. She takes his hand for one last time, trying to smile at him.

"I forgive you," she promises. "You are a free man, now, to do with your life as you wish."

"Don't do this," he whispers. "Don't send me away."

"But you are the one who chooses to go," she replies. "I accept it, now. I did not, before, but I accept it. I have no say in the matter. You returned to disobey me and bring him back, but that is destiny."

She leaves, finality ringing in the air, and Kurogane stands over the plot of earth. He swallows and falls to his knees, digging with his bare hands until moonlight reflects off a pile of golden coins, and he gathers them into his palm, folding his fingers around them like a protective nest, and he feels the greatest grief and joy he has ever known.

"Fai," he whispers into the dark. "Fai."

When he returns home, tired, hands black with dirt, the very man he has waited to see is sitting at his table, his hair too long, and Fai smiles—because despite it all, despite his loyalty to a priestess, despite his devotion, he cannot keep Fai buried.

Despite all his attempts at good manners, he smacks the man across the face. Fai does not retaliate, but looks as if he expected it. Two years. Two years of worry, of Syaoran's miserable face watching him like he expected a father-figure but received the wrong model, of Tomoyo's holy guards standing by the coin's burial spot and refusing to let him past, of dreams of strange and unfamiliar places, of memories that are not his but must be his, because the people say his name like they love him, and—two years of that is enough for anyone, especially Kurogane, who wears patience like an ill-fitting coat.

Fai, at his table, looks for all in the world like he belongs there, and perhaps he does. He rubs his cheek, smiling calmly at Kurogane, and says, "I am glad to see you've changed your mind."

"Where have you been?" Kurogane demands. "Two years!"

"Two years?" Fai echoes. "Oh dear. It has not been so long for me. I went to a few worlds, but I found nothing of value. I had an awful time in the last—they imprisoned me! Can you imagine that?"

It is then that Kurogane notices missing teeth and a thick, white scar over the man's lip. Kurogane leans forward, simmering down, and inspects it. Fai's smile looks extraordinarily uncomfortable, then, and his lips pinch together to cover his teeth.

"Open your mouth," Kurogane grunts.

"Mm-mm," Fai refuses.

"Don't be a child. Open your mouth," Kurogane scolds, and Fai begrudgingly obliges. He tries to speak while he holds his mouth open, so his words come out in an awkward drawl. Kurogane thinks Fai says, "I look hideous without them, so be kind", but Kurogane doesn't know. He frowns, shaking his head at the man, and brings Fai a glass of water. Fai drinks gratefully.

"Does it hurt?" Kurogane asks, and Fai spits out his water, laughing.

"My pride hurts, but it is nothing a bit of magic can't fix," Fai admits. "Perhaps I wanted to be selfish and have you worry a bit about me."

When he smiles again, his teeth are reformed and white, but the scar remains. Out of curiosity, Kurogane reaches, touching it, and finds that it is real. Fai raises his eyebrows, startling Kurogane from his observation by declaring, "Don't you get any ideas and start touching my teeth, now—you won't find anything good of it. Or maybe you will."

"You don't need fucked up teeth to make me worry," Kurogane mutters. "I want to hit you again, but I think someone's done enough of that for me."

"So you did worry," Fai observes, smiling. "You missed me, didn't you?"

"Sure."

"Is that why you brought the coins home?"

Kurogane hesitates, but he nods. "I wanted to see you." He pauses, adding, "I only just learned what the coins did—they brought you back here. Tomoyo only told me they were cursed. Had I known…"

"You would not have buried them?" Fai asks. Kurogane nods again. "You're a sweet man, you know, no matter how you try to hide it."

"I don't try to hide anything," Kurogane counters. "You do that."

"I do, don't I?" Fai murmurs thoughtfully. "Yes, I do."

"I'm not the Kurogane you want," Kurogane asserts, and Fai's face becomes pale. "The one you want is dead. You only come to me for comfort, but I'm not the one who can really help you."

"I tried to bring him back. That's all I wanted to do," Fai admits, and his smile is fragile. "I'm the reason he died. I thought I would die. I was going to die, myself, to see him again, but I know what he would have told me. He never let me die, after all, so I traveled around until I found you—the same soul, and you're approximately his age, so I stayed, learned the language, and… I just wanted him to wake up. There were things I never told him that I needed to."

Kurogane finally takes a seat. "Tell me, then."

"It's not the same, Kurogane," Fai scolds him gently.

"He cut off his fucking arm to save you," Kurogane reminds the man, "and I've cut off my ties with the most important thing in my life to see you again. I see his memories in my dreams. I saw what he did to save you. I saw what you did to stop him from doing it. Hell, I don't know where his memories stop and mine begin. I love the kids. Do you understand? I don't love kids, but I love them. When Sakura visited, I thought, 'my daughter is here'—do you know how fucking weird that is? She isn't my daughter, but I thought that."

Fai's eyes flash.

"Tomoyo said your arrival 'broke the filaments' that kept my soul's memories organized, so they're all blending together, so it might as well be 'the same' at this point. You couldn't tell him something, but you can tell me something."

"Oh, Kurogane," Fai murmurs, and he reaches out, grasping the man's hand. "I'm so sorry. You must be so confused."

"I already know you wanted to say you loved him," Kurogane fires, squeezing Fai's hand, "because he knew that."

Fai looks solemn. "I killed him."

"Obviously."

"What do you mean, 'obviously'?" Fai counters. "I killed him! I didn't mean to do it, but those people were coming after us, and I wanted to stop them, but my magic—it was out of control. He died with them because I'm the worst fool in the universe. I ran because I'm a coward, like I've always been, and I can never forgive myself."

"You're an idiot."

"No, you're an idiot," Fai returns, "because you're about to forgive me, just as he would."

Kurogane lets go of the man's hand and holds Fai's face in his dirty palms, looking into his eyes, and Fai stares tentatively back, stubborn, miserable, frightened, and—hopeful, somehow. Kurogane doesn't know why he does it, but he kisses the yellow-haired man's forehead, and Fai fights back a sob.

"You're the same in all worlds," Fai mourns. "Always the same."

The children appear, and Fai is sleeping in Kurogane's bed, unaware, but Kurogane wakes when he hears his door slide open. He sits up, looking upon the sleeping man, and moves the yellow hair off Fai's face. Fai is sleeping like the dead, not stirring, so Kurogane gently leaves his bed and shuts the door behind him. Syaoran, Sakura, and Mokona stand in the main room, hopeful and nervous. Kurogane thinks 'my children are here', and he can't stop that warm thought from coming.

"He's sleeping," Kurogane warns them in a low voice. "Let him sleep."

Sakura's eyes well up and she claps her hands over her mouth. Syaoran nods as if it's the most difficult thing in the world, whispering, "How is he?"

"Tired," Kurogane replies, "but alive. He's alive."

"There's a feather, here," Syaoran murmurs, glancing at the table, glancing at a pile of dirty coins. Mokona's eyes look bizarre and she jumps about in his arms, restless.

"The feather, the feather!" Mokona shout-whispers. "Fai left us the feather!"

"The coins?"

"Fai is a powerful magician, so he changed the feathers!" Mokona explains. Mokona is evidently bad at whispering. "Mokona knows this!"

"Let. Him. Sleep," Kurogane orders through clenched teeth.

Mokona quiets down, but points towards the coins with her long ears. Kurogane sits the group down after he decides to make tea—he is not normally so hospitable, but he knows this is a special morning, so he makes them tea. Sakura stares at the coins with her hands pressed together, her chin resting on her fingertips, and Kurogane, again, thinks 'my daughter'—another unbidden, yet natural thought. He brings them tea, and they thank him.

"It was an accident," Kurogane explains quietly. "He tried to protect them—the other 'me' and himself—but his magic went beyond his control. He was afraid of what he did and wanted to bring the other 'me' back to life. He couldn't, obviously, because no one can do that."

"As I suspected," Syaoran confirms. Sakura's expression is serious. "We forgive him. We know it was an accident. That was all we wanted to tell him."

"Fai would never hurt Kurogane on purpose," Sakura adds.

"He still killed him," says a voice, and it is Fai, wearing Kurogane's sleep robes, clutching the wide sleeves like an anchor. For the first time, Fai has no accent at all—it is Mokona's doing, and Kurogane realizes that Fai really did learn his language by himself, but with Mokona's automatic translation, the accent vanishes. "I killed him. Intentional or not, I killed him."

Sakura leaps out of her seat, rushing towards him, but Fai holds up his hands to stop her. She doesn't listen; she runs towards him, embracing the man, crying, "I missed you so much—how I've missed you!"

Syaoran approaches the man, now, and Fai cannot deny them, evidently, because he stops fighting. He lets them crowd around him, holding him, and looks at the children with wonder and sadness. "You should not forgive me for what I've done. I cannot. Do not give me your mercy."

"We love you," Syaoran says, and he is steady.

"We love you," Sakura echoes.

"Mokona loves Fai the most!" Mokona protests, and despite everything, Fai smiles at that. With hesitant arms, he gives in, wrapping himself around the children. Kurogane feels as if he has seen this before, even if he knows he has not, and a strange pride and affection stirs in his stomach. Fai bends his head, burying it in the hair of the children he loves, and Kurogane does not know if his own memories—or the other Kurogane's memories—are what drive him to see Fai with such warmth, but he does not fight it. He swallows, heart heavy, and leaves them to recover together.

For several hours, the family discusses their journeys, what they have done, and Fai recounts a meeting with Watanuki, one where he begged to exchange his life for Kurogane's, but Watanuki cannot grant that wish. Fai pleads and pleads, but he cannot bring Kurogane back; he cannot undo the great, sharp hand of death, but he so badly wants to. He leaves Kurogane's corpse in Watanuki's care and uses the magic he once disdained to travel to foreign worlds where he recognizes no language at all. Without Mokona, every voice says nonsense, and Fai pantomimes things and learns how to be quite effective with that. Still, he finds nothing.

He finds Nihon and thinks it is Kurogane's home. To his surprise, it is a different Nihon, and a different Kurogane lives there. Fai is so overwhelmed to see the man alive that he decides to stay, to study the language. He finds an innkeeper and pays for lessons with his magic. He has a feather—one that was in the world where he killed the man he loved—and keeps it hidden on his person. The feather has incredible magic, and he uses it, learning the language with such a fast pace that his tutor is gob smacked. Once he knows enough, he travels to the other Kurogane's home, considers kissing the man (but does not, because this Kurogane does not recognize him), but opts for staying the night. He considers ending his life there, amongst the company of a man so similar to the one he loved, but he doesn't. Something stops him, and it is the familiar rumble of Kurogane's voice.

He leaves a coin—one part of the feather—and goes to other worlds, trying to find how he can exchange his life for Kurogane's, but no one can help him. So he returns to this Nihon, to this Kurogane, but something happens. He can't find the world. The coins are buried under holy soil and his magic can't detect them, so he wanders to other worlds, fretting, realizing that this Kurogane does not want to see him. He tries many times, but cannot come back. When he finally does, he knows the man has changed his mind, unearthed the coins, and he is grateful.

It lasts a short while. The coins are buried again. He can't come back. He lives a lonely life and realizes he is after the same thing that Fei Wong Reed was: restored life—the same thing that brought Kurogane to him in the first place. He would rip the universes apart to bring Kurogane back, but Kurogane would not want that. Time works differently for him, and the two years the other Kurogane experiences are only three months for Fai. Fai uses magic in a foreign land, where magic is considered evil, and plays nicely, sitting in prison, until he senses the coins once more. He escapes, returning to the other Kurogane, broken teeth and scars and loss.

The other Kurogane is the same as the one he loved in many ways, but he has not experienced the same worlds with Fai. He is a different man, though he shares a soul with someone Fai treasured. Still, Fai comes back to him, because even a Kurogane that doesn't know him is home.

Sakura holds Fai's hand because she loves him, because she is his daughter—if not by blood, by devotion. Syaoran is his son for the same reasons. And Kurogane was the father of these people, but this Kurogane is not. He is a different person. But Fai cannot help himself, and he loves this man's soul, even if he is not the same.

Kurogane listens to these stories and hears words that Fai isn't saying—'love' being one of them—and doesn't want to part from him again. Syaoran pours the coins into Sakura's hands and she instantly falls asleep, slouching over on the table. Fai strokes her hair and excuses himself, returning to Kurogane's bedroom. Wordlessly, Kurogane follows him, lingering in the doorway. Fai loosens the sleep robe, hair lit in a golden halo from the morning sun.

"You've stopped running," Kurogane says.

"I never stop running," Fai corrects him, shaking his head with a sad smile. "Of all people, you should know that, Kurogane."

"Hmmph."

"I cannot stay here anymore," Fai confesses, looking towards a window. "I must go with the children."

"They're mine, too," Kurogane says, and he doesn't know why he says it—he doesn't know why he does half of the things he does, now—but it comes out, authoritative, and Fai's posture stiffens. "You aren't leaving alone."

"You don't know what we're doing," Fai answers.

"Yes, I do. We're giving the princess back her memories."

"You have no obligation to do that. This isn't your journey."

"If I don't go along, you'll be an idiot and probably get in loads of trouble," Kurogane counters. Fai's laugh comes lightly. "You're always trying to do the noble thing, sacrificing yourself, and I won't let you do that."

"Typical Kurogane." Fai turns to him and adds, "I killed him. I won't kill you, too."

"He didn't die," Kurogane argues. "I'm seeing his memories. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he gave them to me so he couldn't die. Or you did, by coming here, breaking the filaments or whatever that nonsense is. It doesn't matter. They're my memories now, and they're my children, too. You can't force me to stay behind."

Fai listens, but doesn't seem to trust those words. "I saw him die. I saw the moment life left him."

"Yeah? I saw you hit me—him—no, it really is me—because I saved your life. I saw you at that witch's place, when it was raining and you didn't get wet. I saw you lose your eye and get it back. I saw lots of shit because I was supposed to see it, because he showed me that, because I am him."

"Kurogane…"

"And I know your damn name!" Kurogane snaps. "It's not Fai—that's your brother's name. You're Yuui."

"Don't call me that," Fai says stiffly, "Youou."

Stalemate. They stare at each other and Fai slips the robes off his shoulders, revealing scars that Kurogane somehow recognizes and others that he does not. Fai's eyes dare him to speak, to challenge him, and Kurogane is not a coward. He challenges. He closes the space between them, grabbing Fai's chin.

"He got it wrong," Kurogane says. "The other 'me'. He got things wrong. He wanted to make it right, so he showed me, showed me where he got it wrong, so I could do this better. I don't like fucking up. I'm not going to fuck this up."

Fai whispers, "I killed him—he couldn't have…"

"You brought him back, whether you like it or not." Kurogane comes closer to him, touches his forehead to Fai's. "He's me. If you kill me, it's pretty damn obvious that I'm coming back—look at us. I got memories that aren't mine, but they're mine, now, and I know everything I need to."

"It isn't the same," Fai insists.

"Yes, it is." Kurogane narrows his eyes. "I came back, didn't I?"

Kurogane is from Nihon. Kurogane is from another Nihon. Kurogane is from every Nihon in the universe, and he has memories from all parts of his soul, memories of scattered worlds, of a princess, of doubles, of a kid who lost his freedom to save her, of a wizard who ran because he could not kill the man who gave him a second chance, of a wizard who ran headfirst towards death because of his fear, of saving that wizard too many times, of fighting by his side, of protecting these children, of being a surrogate father to seemingly fatherless children, of never saying he loved them, of always thinking that confession was a weakness, but this Kurogane, this Kurogane with an open soul, with memories from all parts of him from different worlds, recognizes everything.

Fai's expression before him falters, eyes welling up, and Kurogane draws the man to him, not letting him run. Fai can run from worlds, from mistakes, from deaths, from responsibilities, but he cannot run from love, and he cannot run from Kurogane.

"I love you," Fai says into Kurogane's shoulder. "I should have told you."

"I know," Kurogane replies. "I should have, too."