Author's Notes: Rated T just to be safe, for language (come on, it's a Kuro-fic, there HAS to be coarse language) and a vague reference to two men in bed together. Story takes place between Piffle and LeCourt. Complete author's notes will be tacked on at the very end of the final chapter.
Many thanks to Ninja-America of deviantArt for being my beta-reader and characterization coach for Kurogane, allowing me to use some of your roleplay dialogue directly in this little fanfiction, and all the Tsuba-chat~ 3
Kurogane was bored. Or at least, he could have indulged in the luxury of being bored if a certain hyperactive idiot had been out of the way.
They were currently stranded in the most unbelievably uneventful world in all the universes and dimensions that ever did or would exist, with no feather to find, no demons or monsters to fight, and not even anyone else's business to stick their noses into. The weather was fine, the climate temperate, there was forage-able food aplenty, the local fauna seemed utterly uninterested in any interaction, and though the travelers kept traveling on foot each day, they never found any signs of civilization.
They would have had the white dumpling warp them away after a cursory look around, but the little blob had plaintively reported that her magic seemed to be suppressed by some outside force. Dimensional travel was out of the question, and she had found that she could not even communicate with the witch to negotiate a wish to escape this place. An inquiring look at the blonde wizard had only received a helpless shrug and shake of the head in reply. Discussion and exploring had proven equally fruitless, but after ten tense days, the wizard had announced that he had some good news and some bad news.
The good news was that he could sense the dampening power waning slightly as time passed, and that he thought it might be tied to the ever-present moon that hung in the sky day and night, the shadow of some other planet creeping over its immense face and turning the pale blue sphere slowly but surely into a crescent. The bad news was that so far as he could tell, full eclipse was still about three months away.
The princess had seemed relieved and the kid resigned. The two airheads had done some bizarre little celebratory dance of hope and joy together and then fallen to plotting what to do during their little "vacation". Kurogane had cursed.
They had fallen into a simple routine within a couple of days. Kurogane and Syaoran would break camp in the morning while the others prepared breakfast, then they would continue walking in the same direction as the day before, still not discounting the possibility of finding people, and occasionally stopping to gather fruit and nuts, grub up some roots, or try to catch fish if they came upon a promising-looking river. A midday meal was taken whenever Fye announced that he would die in some ridiculously dramatic manner if he didn't eat something soon, which usually coincided with Sakura starting to look fatigued while trying to convince Syaoran that she was fine and didn't need to rest just yet. Kurogane would use the brief argument he always started with the wizard to keep them walking just a bit longer - endurance wasn't built by stopping at one's limit but by exceeding it, after all - but he never pushed it very far.
They would keep walking after the meal, stopping as soon as they found a suitable - or by the wizard's definition, "pretty" - spot to spend the night, and while the blondes and bun set up camp, Kurogane would continue training the kid in the art of sword fighting. About once a week, they would stay an extra day or two at a campsite and set snares and traps nearby in the hopes of game to vary their diet. Each day ended with a third meal and random conversations, firelight flickering across their faces and moonlight in their hair. It was undeniably peaceful, and though this world didn't have the elegance of his home country, Kurogane could admit it to be a decent enough place to be stuck in. He could certainly imagine worse places to have to spend a few months, and sometimes, when the wizard was in a quiet, contemplative mood, the ninja actually found himself relaxed and at ease, his shoulders loose and his attention wandering as he idly watched the two kids chatting comfortably together or the wizard's blue eyes soften and seem far away as they stared into the fire.
Totally unacceptable.
He became aware of the crisis one night after his thoughts drifted yet again and he came as close to dozing off as one could without actually letting their eyes shut. A sharp pop from the fire snapped him back to awareness before he began nodding. He blinked, tensed and found himself staring at nothing. To his chagrin, the nothing he was staring at happened to be in the exact same location as a pair of blue eyes that were watching him intently. And then that rat bastard smiled and winked at him.
Amazingly, it got even worse after that. Kurogane began to get up, declaring gruffly to no one in particular that he was going to sleep, and as he stood he realized with a shock that his hands were empty and that he couldn't recall exactly where he'd left his sword. Though he immediately caught sight of the weapon lying on his cloak nearby, it offered little in the way of actual relief. Just because nothing had jumped up out of the earth to consume them yet didn't mean that it wasn't going happen in the next few seconds, and though whatever influence the moon was exerting over the magical abilities of the others couldn't affect Kurogane's instinct and battle-sharpened senses, it all added up to exactly jack squat if he couldn't remain alert. The ninja decided that though he was keeping up decently with his physical training, his mentality was decidedly out of shape, and that needed immediate rectification.
Thankfully, the situation was easily remedied. He had been sloppy in letting it happen in the first place, but all that was required was for him to be aware of the issue and stay focused. Letting his guard down hadn't exactly resulted in any overt changes in his behavior so reverting to keeping it up went largely unnoticed as well. The kid seemed to pick up on it almost unconsciously and it appeared in his actions in small ways, such as more frequent scans of the horizon as they traveled and occasionally getting up quietly in the middle of the night to take a quick walk about the perimeter of their camp, but nothing was mentioned. The princess once ventured to ask if there was something on his mind and the bun accused him of sulking because there weren't any monsters to fight, both of whom Kurogane brushed off, one a bit more violently and literally than the other. The wizard at first just gave him a few quizzical looks and joined in on the white dumpling's teasing, but within a few days Kurogane suddenly knew that Fye - curse him - had figured out what was behind the subtle shift in the ninja's manner and was just waiting for an opportune moment to tease the will to live out of him.
It seemed that this world was not only boring and mage-incompatible but was also possessed of a perverse sense of humor, because the opportunity presented itself the very day after the ninja came to this realization.
The party came upon a large, shallow depression in a meadow late in the morning, like a giant's thumbprint in the grass. From rim to rim, the concavity was filled with heart-shaped leaves, delicate white flowers and berries ranging in colors from pale green and yellow to a rich, deep red. Tiny pastel butterflies fluttered through the perfume that the blossoms and berries alike were exuding, and fat bumblebees moved lazily about, exuding a low thrumming sound like a quiet purr.
"Strawberries!" Mokona exclaimed, leaping off of her current ride's shoulder and disappearing into the berry patch in a splash of white petals. Syaoran knelt and picked one of the red fruits curiously, then fell into a conversation with Sakura about similar berries called "Althea's hearts" in one of the countries he'd traveled to with his father. Fye joined in on the chatter while rummaging among the foliage - for Mokona or berries, Kurogane couldn't tell or care less.
The flowery, sweet scents drifting up from the sun-warmed plants tempted the ninja not at all and he stayed aloof, looking around while the others played in the dirt. A short distance ahead, a small river meandered toward them with an honor guard of dark bushes on either side, and a shift in the breeze brought with it a heavy, sticky scent that promised more ripe fruit hidden in those glossy leaves. Kurogane mentally groaned at the thought that the others would likely want to make camp here to gather provisions, and unless they came up with something as abysmally stupid as wanting to actually camp out at the bottom of the berry patch itself, blind on all sides, he really had no valid reason to make them move elsewhere.
Was it possible for a person to suffocate despite having plenty of air to breathe?
"Kuro-ruu!"
Here we go, Kurogane thought to himself resignedly, and turned to glare at the approaching man as hard as he could without damaging his eyeballs. Fye approached with a handful of berries and - good gods - some white flowers tucked behind one ear, coming up close and as cheerful as if the dark-haired man was smiling in welcome instead of scowling in warning.
"Mokona says there are berries by the river that make good travel rations, and we can fish and lay snares while they dry. I don't want the children to be bothered at night by the 'bum-bell-bees' though, so will Daddy go find a nice campsite somewhere a little ways away?"
"Drop that stupid joke already!" Kurogane barked, relieved that he at least had a choice of campsites and determined not to let any gratitude show in his demeanor. It was far more likely that the wizard had come to send Kurogane on this errand simply to pull out that joke about them being a family than that he knew the ninja wouldn't want to spend the night immersed in the cloying scent of flowers and fruit and was giving him an out. Grumbling under his breath, he turned without actually replying to the request and set off in search of a decently defensible spot with good visibility about the perimeter to spend the night in.
Fye watched him go, smiling wryly and nibbling on a strawberry.
"Daddy's not enjoying his vacation very much," he murmured to no one in particular, and then the smile turned positively wicked.