Notes: Eheh, sorry this took so long~~ I intended to post it before October ended since I knew once we hit November NaNo would eat my soul and I'd never get this done, and then life intervened and it was November and, well, NaNo ate my soul ^_^;; Anyway, I finally got this edited, so here's the final chapter, at last..

oOo

It was impossible to tell the passing of time in the dark cell, so Kurogane wasn't certain how long he had been waiting for someone to come for him when at last the blank-faced women reappeared from the shadows. He thought he must have fallen asleep at some point, because the candle was nearly spent by the time he was conscious of movement in the room. As the women approached him the silver powder that had remained scattered on the floor swirled up again, solidifying into chains that wrapped around his arms and held him tight. Without a word the women took hold of the chains and led him back down the dark caverns to where Fei Wang was waiting beside the Pool of Souls. Above it, held aloft by an extensive network of silver chains, was a strange construct that looked like an ornate double door made from hundreds of small sheets of paper. Crooked runes were scribbled along the bottom edge of the door in thick black ink. The silver markings that had surrounded the Pool before were still there and Fei Wang was just finishing the last of them as Kurogane was led in. Ginryuu still lay where Kurogane had dropped it, abandoned and ignored.

Fai was there as well, still cloaked in black and skulking in a dark corner, glazed eyes staring at nothing. He didn't even turn his head as Kurogane was dragged into the room and tied down between two rocky outcroppings that jutted up from the floor just inside the circle of spells that surrounded the Pool of Souls.

"At last, it seems the time has come," Fei Wang said, smiling as he approached Kurogane. "It is time for you to grant my wish."

"Die in a fire," Kurogane snorted, surreptitiously checking the strength of his bonds. The chains bit sharply into his skin, refusing to give even an inch.

"My, so rude, even to the end." Fei Wang chuckled to himself. "It will do you no good. You should be honored, Kurogane. If you are lucky, you may even catch a glimpse of it before your soul is consumed, of the place where miracles are granted." He stepped back to stand parallel with the hanging door. "After all this time…at last, I will see her once more." He slammed a palm against the floor and one by one the silver markings suddenly turned gold and began to glow. The color spread outward in rings from where Fei Wang stood, growing brighter and brighter until it reached the spot where Kurogane was held bound, a sacrifice on an altar.

The signs beneath his feet remained a dull silver.

"What?" Fei Wang took a step towards Kurogane, staring down sharply at the silver markings beneath his feet. "All conditions have been met. The spell cannot fail."

"Look closer." Fai's voice rang out as he got to his feet and strode slowly forward.

"I see nothing…" Fei Wang's eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at Kurogane. He drew in a sudden sharp breath. "Impossible! You can't have…" He shook his head. "I see no sign of plague in you. How could a mere human such as you defeat that infection?"

"He didn't. I did." Fai moved closer, golden lights reflecting triumphantly in his mismatched eyes.

"You!" Fei Wang whirled. "You cannot-"

"It is my plague," Fai said. "And Kurogane's infection was not like that of any other person I've encountered. It hadn't taken root properly in his soul." At last Fai smiled. "I simply took it back."

"Your infection, was it?" Fei Wang seemed to disappear into the shadows, melting into the darkness with a speed Kurogane's eyes could barely follow. One moment he stood before Kurogane and then suddenly he was beside Fai and the blond was on his knees clutching at his face, blood dripping between his fingers as he held his hand over where his golden eye had once been.

"It was never your infection, my dear," Fei Wang said. As he spoke he held something aloft in one hand, the bloodied orb that had once been Fai's eye. In the lingering light of the half-finished spell it almost seemed to be moving.

And then it was moving, the dripping blood turning black and thick like tar, curling in on itself over and over again, growing larger with each movement, until the thing perched on Fei Wang's bloodstained hand was something resembling an enormous bat with a single golden eye.

"Foolish puppet," Fei Wang spat, glaring down at Fai's bleeding figure. Noting that Fei Wang's attention was elsewhere, Kurogane quietly tested the chains again and was gratified to feel them finally giving just slightly beneath his strength. "Believing so blindly. Did you truly think I was…ah, how did I put it before? A 'collector of souls'? That goes against the very idea of what a Lord of the Underworld should be. It is my job to send those souls on in peace, not to chain them here. For that, I needed to create something else, something that would bind them to me so that I could use their power to grant my wish. But there are limits in the ways a Lord of the Underworld can interfere with living humans. I needed an agent, an accomplice if you will. So I created my precious plague demon."

Fei Wang ran a hand over the demon's wings, like a proud falconer praising his bird.

"It was unstable on its own outside of the Underworld, of course. It needed a proper human host to truly exert the full strength of its powers. I had hoped that infecting the pregnant girl would allow my demon to take full control of the child, but fate was against me. She bore twins and that nearly ruined it all. Split in two, the demon could not maintain itself properly, could not spread the plague as it was made to do. If left alone, it would only corrode itself more, its power waxing and waning in fits and starts, drinking in the spirit of its own host in a desperate attempt to sustain itself — a phenomenon you must be aware of, as it is what affected your dear brother. It would all be a demon's futile death throes, of course. Or were you not aware? Once the worst of those fits of his subsided, my demon inside of him would have died and he would have been freed of it." Fai's head shot up, single blue eye wide and haunted, and Fei Wang seemed pleased by the look of utter horror that was creeping over the blond's face. Kurogane strained harder against his chains, a sudden sense of dread coming over him.

"You were so easily tricked," Fei Wang gloated, his attention only on Fai. "My pet was weakened so, it would not have been able to take over another human host unless one offered himself willingly. But who? What fool would so quickly agree to be taken over and violated by a demon? I had never expected to be so fortunate. If all had gone according to plan, the thousand souls of Celes would have been all I needed to grant my wish at last." Fei Wang's face darkened. "And then that king of yours ruined it. I can only trap the souls of those who die of the plague, their souls bound in chains of darkness and dragged into my domain. All those people you killed with your sword managed to escape me, leaving me with only a paltry three hundred or so souls trapped in my grasp. And what use had I for those? It was enough to simply set them upon you and leave you locked away listening to their voices, worthless to me, and I unable to recreate the process that brought my demon into being in the first place. It would be nearly enough to drive a person into despair…until a single fool from Suwa listened to a voice in his dreams telling him to explore the mountain ruins, to seek the treasure there."

The glowing symbols began to dim slightly and Fei Wang shook his head.

"Such a waste," he said. "I had hoped to keep you alive as a contingency. But it seems I am out of options. After all, I only need one more soul. A soul that was in proximity to Suwa…and infected with the plague."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and the form of the black demon began to change again, coalescing into a long black sword with a bat-shaped hilt. Fai looked up at him dumbly, still dizzy from shock and blood loss. Kurogane realized what Fei Wang had planned only a moment before it happened but could do nothing with his body still bound in chains, cursing his own useless strength as Fei Wang raised the sword high and brought it down, impaling Fai straight through the back.

"You bastard!" The cry tore itself from Kurogane's mouth but Fei Wang ignored him, staring down with some satisfaction at Fai as the blond coughed out a mouthful of blood, blue eye staring uncomprehendingly at the blade protruding from his stomach. With a single jerking motion Fei Wang pulled the sword out of Fai's body and Fai crumpled into a painful bloodied heap. Beneath the blood on his trembling fingers there was an unmistakable black stain beginning to spread.

"One soul is as good as any other," Fei Wang mused. The magic signs around him began to glow bright again, the color cycling from gold to red. There was a light haze like shimmering dust that was beginning to float around the hanging door and the clear white paper was darkening black as if someone had set a match to it, the color spreading out like creeping ink from the words scrawled across it. Fei Wang smiled and in a single contemptuous movement kicked Fai's limp body into the Pool of Souls.

"No!" Kurogane felt a wave of red anger shoot through him and suddenly the chains that held him broke into pieces, dissipating into silver powder as he half-fell forward onto the floor. Kurogane reached down for the abandoned Ginryuu as he advanced on the spot where Fei Wang stood.

"Oh, it's you." Fei Wang dismissed him as if he was nothing. "You are free to go now, of course. You are of no more use to me."

"Shut up," Kurogane growled through gritted teeth. "Stop this damn spell or whatever the hell you're doing. Let him go."

"Don't be a fool, Kurogane," Fei Wang said, slowly bringing the black sword up into a fighting stance. An eerily familiar golden eye blinked at Kurogane from the hilt. "Is that one lost soul really worth your life? He betrayed you, as I recall."

"Because you told him to," Kurogane said. "Because you tricked him."

"He was still a willing participant," Fei Wang said. "Nothing is going to stand in the way of achieving my goal, not now when I am so close. I will give you one last chance: leave now, and no harm will come to you. Otherwise, I will have no choice but to kill you. Nothing will change either way, you realize. The Celes brat, the people of your country…they will all still be sacrificed to fulfill my wish."

"I thought I told you to shut up," Kurogane snapped.

"Always violence," Fei Wang said, shaking his head even as he readied his sword. "If that is how you wish to do this…"

He began to melt into the shadows again, just as he had when he'd attacked Fai. Kurogane was ready this time and easily parried the attack, closing his eyes and letting his instincts take over as he raised his sword the moment Fei Wang appeared out of the darkness beside him. The black sword flashed out again and Kurogane dodged and deflected it, smiling grimly to himself. The Lord of the Underworld was good, that was true, but the man's skills were nothing compared to those of the boatman Kurogane had fought in the Drowning Sea and that, at least, was a good sign. Kurogane risked a glance out of the corner of his eye at the Pool of Souls. The ghostly glow that always surrounded the Pool was growing brighter, and the magic signs had transformed from red to blue. The paper door had solidified into smooth black stone and had opened just a crack, a thin sliver of bright light leaking out from behind it.

"You should pay attention to what's in front of you," Fei Wang taunted and the tip of the black sword suddenly changed into something thin and whip-like, flashing out to wrap itself around Kurogane's sword hand. He didn't bother wasting his breath with a curse as he was forced to drop Ginryuu and roll to one side to avoid being skewered by Fei Wang's next blow. The sword fell uselessly to the ground as Kurogane forced himself into a crouch, blood dripping from his injured hand. He had been cut in just the same spot where the scar still remained from when his father had placed the demon inside of him.

Open the cut wider. The sound of Erebus's voice in his head made Kurogane start in surprise. He hadn't heard anything from the demon in hours and even his earlier rage had been all his own, not tainted in any way by demonic power. There was something in the demon's voice that was different than usual.

"What—?" He barely got the words out before he found himself dodging another of Fei Wang's strikes, the black sword having transformed once again into sharp steel. This time the other man's sword came close enough to cut him lightly across the chest. Kurogane's quick reflexes managed to save him and he moved away, picking up his own sword awkwardly as he did. The demon sword was still restlessly changing form, the hilt curling its way over Fei Wang's wrist like some kind of contented cat.

You have no time to question, Erebus's voice came again, full of urgency. Your friend's soul will not hold out much longer. Widen the cut on your hand with the sword, quickly, at the spot where the scar is.

"If this is a damn demon's trick, I'll kill you myself," Kurogane growled low as he sliced his own sword over his palm.

"Doing my work for me?" Fei Wang asked mildly, approaching him with an air of forced casualness that set Kurogane's teeth on edge. "You are boring me."

Any intended reply Kurogane would have given was cut off as he felt a sharp spike of pain radiating up and down his arm. There was something silver dripping from his palm.

"What is that?" Fei Wang's voice was suddenly urgent. "This presence…" His eyes narrowed alarmingly. "Impossible! I saw inside you! That was only a minor demon, nothing more!"

"Perhaps." The voice reverberated in his bones and seemed to come from almost nowhere. Kurogane could only stare as the last shred of silver fell away and a humanoid figure began to form in front of him.

"Father?" The words tore themselves from Kurogane's lips before he could stop them. No, he realized almost as soon as he'd spoken. Not quite. There were clear similarities though, in the body and face and in the curling dragon tattoo that Kurogane would have recognized anywhere. The man looked back at him out of deep blue eyes and smiled sadly.

"No," he said, and Kurogane knew that voice. For once it was not twisted in rage and hatred, but still it was the voice he had heard in his head for a thousand years.

"Erebus?" he murmured, dumbfounded.

"Not quite that, either," the man said. "In a manner of speaking." He raised a hand and a sword seemed to materialize out of nothing. It was made of thin and bright silver, and the dragon on the hilt looked like an exact twin of Ginryuu. "I will take care of this, Kurogane. You have someone you need to protect, yes?"

Fai's tortured face flashed through his mind and Kurogane glanced quickly from the stranger to Fei Wang and then over at the Pool of Souls. The signs surrounding the pool had turned blue and the door was opening ever wider. There was no time to wait for explanations. Kurogane ran towards the Pool.

"No one will stop my wish from being realized," Fei Wang said. As he spoke the black sword began to transform again, the demon wrapping itself further up his arm and then reaching out to latch onto his torso as if the man was fusing with it. "Not even one such as you!"

"We shall see." The stranger's form was changing as well, growing larger and less human with every word. Something sleek and silver darted into the sky and the black writhing mass that was Fei Wang followed it.

Kurogane stared up at them, barely able to see them now in the darkness above the cavern. He thought he could see the shadows of something familiar, something with sharp claws and wide, expansive wings and a reptilian tail…

No. There was no time for this now, not when the door was still opening wider with every moment that passed. Kurogane readjusted his grip on his sword and dived into the Pool of Souls.

He wasn't expecting it when his feet hit what felt like dry land. He was standing in the middle of wide flat plane, surrounded by darkness on all sides. Souls floated like dimming candles in front of him, their already thin and ethereal forms growing less defined even as he stared at them, the once recognizable faces becoming blurred as if rubbed out by an invisible hand. Already he could no longer identify any of the faces he had seen when he'd first looked into the pool.

Kurogane reached forward and his hand met something barely seen and immovable, like a wide flat plane of glass that separated him from the floating souls. It was bone-chilling cold to the touch and he pulled his hand away with a hiss of pain. There was a frigid wind blowing all around him and the souls were moving in a strange circular fashion, as if caught in an unseen whirlpool on the other side of the barrier. Other than the wind and the muffled sounds of the battle above the bottom of the pool was utterly, eerily silent.

There was no sign of Fai and Kurogane moved quickly forward, eyes desperately scanning the area all around him. If Fai's soul was effected by Fei Wang's spell the way the rest of the souls had been the blond would be impossible to spot. He would be too late.

That was when Kurogane saw him, blood-splattered clothes standing out like a beacon amongst the white and gray of the other souls. Though the bloodstains were still red, however, Fai's body was already turning gray, the skin and hair leeched of all color. Even the stab wound in his abdomen had turned from red to black. The wound was bleeding sluggishly, as if somehow the Pool of Souls was affecting it. Kurogane ran over to him and pressed his hands against the barrier, ignoring the sharp chill that bit at his fingers. Fai was curled in a tight ball of pain, eyes closed and chest barely rising and falling with each shallow breath.

"Wake up, you damn idiot!" Kurogane sheathed his sword and pounded a fist on the barrier that separated them.

Fai stirred weakly and then his one remaining eye opened, the color still a bright blue. His other eyelid was covered in blood and shut tight.

"Kuro…gane…?" His voice sounded weak and curiously muffled, as if they were speaking to each other from either side of a door.

"How the hell do I get you out of there?" Kurogane demanded, pounding on the barrier again. When Fai didn't answer he slammed a fist right beside where the blond's head was. "Well? You know about this kind of crap, right?"

"You can't break it." Fai pressed a hand against his side of the barrier and Kurogane could see that his fingertips were still dyed black. "You aren't infected. It won't accept you."

"I don't want to be accepted or anything else like that," Kurogane snapped. "I want you out of it."

"You need to get out of here, Kurogane," Fai said urgently. "You can't be here when the spell completes, it will-" His words cut off with a sharp gasp of pain as another bit of color was leeched away from him. He seemed to float slightly backwards away from Kurogane as if carried by an unseen current. The souls around him were swirling faster, the black blurs of their mouths opened in a low moan of pain that reverberated throughout the pool. Fai winced and half-raised a hand towards his ear.

"I don't care," Kurogane said, slamming another fist uselessly into the barrier. From somewhere high above him Kurogane heard a demonic howl and the door opened another inch.

"You have to go," Fai repeated. "You're going to die if you stay here, Kurogane. The spell is nearly complete. You have to leave me here."

"Who the hell are you to tell me that?" Kurogane said. There was blood forming on his knuckles and his hands were beginning to feel numb but he kept slamming his fists against the barrier. "You bring me down here and then — idiot — you drag me away again and stay behind and you keep thinking I'm just going to leave you. The hell I'm doing that. Do you get it, idiot? I'm getting you out of here."

"Just leave me here!"With an effort Fai half-swam forward and once more pressed his hands against his side of the barrier. "Kurogane, please. I won't lose anyone else important, not again. Do you understand that? Why do you think I took the plague out of you, if I was willing to sit back and watch you die?"

"You took the damn plague from me because you're a stupid fucking martyr, that's why," Kurogane snarled. "That's why I'm getting you out of there so I can hit you and knock sense into your damn idiot head."

"You don't have the demon's strength anymore!" Fai argued. "Human strength can't break this barrier. It's no use, you need to-"

"If you tell me to escape one more time I'm going to cut your head off with my sword once I get you out," Kurogane interjected. "Don't you get it, you stupid moron? I already decided this. I'm not going to sit back and ignore things anymore. If there's something I've decided to protect, I'm going to do it. I'm not letting go of anything else." He slammed another fist into the barrier. Blood was beginning to seep over the unseen surface.

"Kurogane…" Fai's fingers reached out as if they could touch the blood. "I'm starting to think I should be the one knocking the sense into your head."

"At least we understand each other," Kurogane said with a grim smile. His fist hit the barrier again, but this time when he pulled his hand away there was something besides blood left behind: a thin spindly crack, barely seen, spreading underneath where he had hit the barrier.

"Impossible.." Fai clinically ran a hand along the crack from his side of the barrier. "It's—it's weakening."

"This entire damn place is impossible," Kurogane said, aiming another punch at where the crack was. The crack slowly began to spread across the surface of the barrier in front of them, an intricate spiderweb pattern as if the barrier was a half-broken window.

"I don't know what will happen if you break the barrier," Fai told him. His voice was ragged and breathless, and even as he spoke something seemed to be pulling at him from behind again, tearing his hand off the surface of the invisible wall. He grimaced and stubbornly pulled his hands forward to press them against the crack Kurogane had made. "It's not safe to stay here. If it breaks, all these souls will be set free."

"Good," Kurogane said, smiling. "Then I'll save them, too. Anything to wipe the smug smile off that damn Fei Wang bastard's face."

Above him something inhuman screamed. Kurogane glanced briefly upwards but all he could see were two enormous shadows flitting through the air. The door was nearly open.

Kurogane hit the barrier again as hard as he could and then bit back a gasp of pain as his hand broke through at last, splinters of clear glass breaking free and digging into his arm deep enough to draw blood. The part of his arm that was beneath the barrier immediately felt heavy and numb, as if there was a block of ice attached to his shoulder. The souls around him seemed to shudder and then suddenly swirled away from where he was standing, like leaves stirred up by a harsh wind. Fai gave a sharp gasp of pain as he was pulled roughly away from the barrier, one hand flinching back to touch his sluggishly bleeding wound. A thick clear liquid was dripping slowly out of the hole Kurogane had made and it made his arm burn where it touched his skin. Even so Kurogane pressed himself up closer against the barrier, ignoring the way the broken edges of the crack sliced at his skin as he forced the rest of his arm through the hole. He reached out his hand towards Fai.

"Take it," he told Fai. "Let's get out of here."

"You can't get us both out of here," Fai said, hands at his sides, staring down defiantly at Kurogane out of one blue eye. He seemed to be having some trouble speaking and the souls around him were swirling in an agitated manner. There was blood flecked on the corner of his mouth.

"Then we stay here together," Kurogane said, meeting that gaze steadily. "I'm not leaving you behind. I don't care what you say, what you've done, any of that crap. You're coming with me." He grit his teeth and slammed his other fist down on the barrier as he tried to reach his arm out farther. "Either we go together, or we don't go at all. Do you get understand, you idiot?"

Fai held his gaze for a moment longer before shaking his head, a small weak smile spreading over his face.

"When you say it like that, Kuro-rin, I don't know how I'm supposed to refuse you." He steeled himself and in one movement forced himself forward, reaching for Kurogane's hand.

Suddenly the souls around him swirled away again and Fai cried out in pain as he was pulled back by the invisible current. Kurogane couldn't bite back his own grunt of pain as the current pulled at his arm, nearly wrenching it out of its socket. Fai's blue eye was impossibly wide and he was saying something Kurogane couldn't hear over the sudden rush of sound, as if he was standing in the center of a whirlpool. The souls around him were screaming and Fai suddenly fell back in a protective stance, hands going up reflexively to cover his ears.

"Come on, you idiot!" Kurogane yelled at him over the roar of the crying souls.

Fai's eye met his and the blond's face grew grimly determined as he fought against the force pulling him away, trembling hands moving away from his ears as he reached out desperately for Kurogane's slammed his other fist against the barrier and suddenly he felt something give under his fist.

Above them there was another cry, high and keening like the death knell of some great beast, and something large fell heavily to the floor. The sigils glowing around the Pool of Souls flashed suddenly white-hot and the souls around them began to glow brighter and brighter as the doorway above burst into dust.

There was the sound of shattering glass and Kurogane felt Fai's fingertips brush against his as his vision was drowned by white.

oOo

He awoke with a heavy weight on his chest. Kurogane slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and blinking wildly to dispel the spots that clouded his vision.

He was sitting in a room, or at least a place he assumed was a room. There were no visible walls or roof, nor even a floor. To his left as far as the eye could see there was only white, while on his right there was just black, both stretching out into infinity beyond him. There were objects that appeared to be furniture scattered here and there, a white couch, a black chair. They sat upon nothing and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their placement: the couch was sitting a good foot and a half above where Kurogane himself lay while the chair was slightly lower, yet there was no indication of any kind of sloping floor. Everything was simply there, floating in a space of its own creating, as if the rules that applied to the normal world had no function here.

Something stirred in Kurogane's lap and he looked down, realizing with a start that Fai was lying there. One hand was pressed weakly against the stab wound in his abdomen, which appeared to have stopped bleeding for the moment, and the color had returned to his features. The black stains on his fingers were still there. Kurogane pulled him close, looking wildly for any sign of life.

"Kuro…pon…" Fai's eye fluttered weakly open and he managed to give Kurogane a shaky smile. "The light…hurts, a bit."

"You'll get used to it in a minute," Kurogane said, adjusting his grip so that Fai could see better. "Where the hell are we?"

"Not sure," Fai murmured, eye closing briefly in pain as he tried to move. "I-I can't see quite right. Give me a minute."

"This is the Infinity Room." The new voice made Kurogane's head snap up even as he pulled Fai protectively closer. Some feet away from him a door opened up from nowhere to reveal a human figure. It looked like a teenage boy in glasses, holding a tray of tea and descending black stairs that unfolded beneath him as he went. He was smiling calmly, as if bleeding strangers appearing out of nowhere was a normal occurrence. A black butterfly fluttered around him, coming to rest of the edge of the white couch. Kurogane stared at the boy for a moment, trying to recall where he'd seen that face before.

"You!" Memory came surging back to him. "You're the bastard in glasses that sent me to work at that damn prison!"

"Yes, that was me." The boy set the tea down on a table that had appeared out of nowhere. "It's good to see you again, Kurogane. My employer thought you'd find the job useful."

"Useful," Kurogane repeated grimly. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the boy. "Employer?"

"The mistress of the Infinity Room." The voice came from the direction of the butterfly and as Kurogane turned it suddenly disappeared and a woman sat there lounging on the couch, clad in an ornate black dress adorned with white butterflies, smoking idly from a long black pipe. "You may call me Yuuko." She turned her eyes towards the boy. "That will be enough for now, Watanuki. We have other guests who will need your attention."

"Of course." The boy in glasses bowed briefly to her and then disappeared back up the stairs. Yuuko turned to regard Kurogane calmly, eyes and expression unreadable. There was something about her voice that had been familiar, and it took Kurogane a moment before he was able to place it: it had been the second, deeper voice belonging to the white rabbit-thing he'd met at the crossing of ways.

"Is someone going to tell me what the hell is happening?" Kurogane said warily. In his arms Fai suddenly began to laugh, the sound half-choked by blood.

"This is where he was trying to go, isn't it?" Fai managed to drag himself into a sitting position. "The place where wishes can be granted."

"Correct." The woman, Yuuko, took a long puff on her pipe.

"Then it worked?" Kurogane said slowly. "The damn bastard made his wish come true and destroyed all those souls? Then how the hell are we still alive?"

"That man's plan did not work," Yuuko said severely. "The Infinity Room is a place that can only be visited once."

"But we're here," Kurogane said.

"And Fei Wang is not," Yuuko said with a mild shrug. "You two, on the other hand, have never been here before. And you won't be again."

"Then you granted him a wish once," Fai said. "Am I correct?"

"You are." Yuuko nodded. "Once, long before either of you were born, there was a human man obsessed with death. In time, he began to fall in love with the very idea of it and he came upon a thought: what if he could become a lord of death? Surely that would be the greatest power of all. So he searched and searched until at last he found himself here. He asked me for a wish, and I told him the price it would require." She blew a ring of white smoke into the air. "I warned him to choose his wish wisely. I told him there would be no second chance, so if he were to wish, he should make a wish that would leave him with no regrets. But in his arrogance, that man refused to listen. And when he found that his wish was not what he thought it would be, he tried to summon me again. But that is impossible. A heart's desire is something that can be bought once, and only once. If the wish is squandered there is no changing it. To do so would be to break the very fabric of the world." She turned to face Kurogane. "Well, Kurogane of Suwa? What is your wish?"

"Mine?" Kurogane repeated dumbly.

"You would not be here if you didn't have a wish," Yuuko said with a languid smile.

Kurogane's eyes immediately slid down towards Fai's blood-stained clothes and black hands.

"No," Fai said, too quickly. He would not meet Kurogane's eyes and he was half-covering the wound with one hand as if trying to hide something.

"I didn't even say anything yet," Kurogane snapped.

"You don't know what you're asking, Kurogane." Fai's voice was final. "Trust me this time. You can't pay that price."

"What the hell are you talking about? It's not-"

"You've noticed?" Yuuko's question was directed at Fai, who looked away but nodded nonetheless. "This is a place that exists outside of time. As long as you are here, you will remain in the state you were last in."

"Meaning?" Kurogane could feel a sense of dread creeping over him.

"Meaning that as soon as we leave here, this wound will bleed out while the plague takes me over," Fai said quietly. "You should know about this, Kurogane." He stared at his black hands as if they belonged to someone else.

"That wound is mortal," Yuuko said gravely. She met Kurogane's gaze evenly. "No wish comes free. You must pay a price equal to its asking…and make no mistake, Kurogane, what you are asking for is a life."

"It's still my wish," Kurogane said, unmoved. Fai grasped his arm tightly.

"No," he said stubbornly. "Kurogane-"

"I don't care!" Kurogane snapped and Fai flinched slightly. "I told you, idiot. I'm not letting you die. Not before, not now." He turned back to Yuuko. "Save him. That's my wish."

"There is price." Yuuko's voice was calm and matter-of-fact.

"Fine," Kurogane said. "I'll pay it."

"The price for a life is steep."

"What about a thousand years of deaths?" A new voice spoke up before Kurogane could. He turned to look as the boy with the glasses suddenly appeared, leading another figure through the unseen door. The newcomer descended the steps calmly to stand before Kurogane.

It was the human-shaped thing that had appeared out of nowhere to fight Fei Wang Reed, the thing that looked almost like Kurogane's father. In the brightness of the Infinity Room the differences were more pronounced — the face seemed younger and less battle-weary, and there was a streak of silver in its long black hair. There was something in that face that made Kurogane stare, trying to recall where he had seen it before. At first he'd dismissed it as simply seeing the ghost of his father in the stranger's face, but now he felt that it must be something else, something that was hovering just on the edge of his mind.

He found himself thinking suddenly of his mother's shrine and then it came to him. The tapestry that had hung on the wall, the one that featured the two guardian gods of Suwa. The goddess of the moon, Tsukuyomi—

—and the dragon god of protection, Ginryuu.

Ginryuu stood before Kurogane for just a moment before falling to his knees in a deep bow.

"I fear all my apologies can never be enough for the pain I have caused," the dragon god said in low tones that were unmistakably the same as the demon Erebus but no longer twisted with rage and bloodthirst. "This is the least I can do to repent."

"Wait a damn minute," Kurogane sputtered. "You' re…"

"Ginryuu," the man said. "And Erebus, as well. Two sides of the same coin."

"What the hell is going on?" Kurogane muttered, staring.

"Long ago I made a pact with the people of Suwa," Ginryuu said, standing up stiffly and Kurogane suddenly noticed the blood on the god's hands. "That I would protect them and keep them safe. To this end, my spirit has been passed down among your ancestors, sealed into the soul of the one designated as Guardian of Suwa. The last of these was your father." Ginryuu's eyes lowered and Kurogane was surprised to see the grief in them. "When the plague came, only those protected by the two gods of Suwa were spared. Your parents hoped to be able to pass this protection on to the people of Suwa, but that was impossible. Only my vessel and Tsukuyomi's priestess had the divine power needed to hold off the plague. When you fell ill, your father chose to sacrifice his own protection in a last attempt to save you. I agreed to his plan." Ginryuu shook his head. "But there are things even gods cannot predict. You were already infected when my spirit was transferred into you, and your father hoped that despite this my presence would be enough to cancel out the effects of the plague. What happened instead, no one could have predicted. The plague was purged from your soul, yes, but instead of leaving you whole it infected my own spirit instead, twisting me into the demon of destruction you called Erebus and leaving you with the curse of a dying a million deaths without rest."

"So that's why the Underworld bastard said I was still infected," Kurogane realized. "Because of you." A thought struck him and he glanced down at Fai, who was taking everything in with no visible sign of surprise. "You! Did you know?"

"I suspected," Fai said with a shaky smile. "I could tell that it wasn't a normal demon. That night I was in your room, when the demon clawed its way out of you, I was able to see the signs of plague clinging to its body. It should have been impossible for a true demon of the Underworld to be infected by the shadow plague."

"And because I was neither human nor demon, the plague was not attached to my soul the way it would have been to that of a normal human," Ginryuu said. "Once the infection was taken from me it took some time to return to my true self or else I would have tried to intervene sooner. As it was, defeating Fei Wang Reed took much of my strength."

"Wait," Kurogane said. "How the hell did you get rid of the infection?"

"Silly Kuro-rin." Fai was the one who answered. "How do you think?"

The memory of the night in the cell and Fai's lips on his came rushing back, and Kurogane looked away to cover the sudden flush in his cheeks. Fai gave a small laugh that ended in a quiet whimper of pain, reminding Kurogane that there were far more important things to worry about. He looked back over at Yuuko, who was watching them impassively. Ginryuu followed his gaze.

"Is that sufficient payment, Mistress of the Infinity Room?" the dragon god asked. "The thousand years of nightly death that Kurogane has endured from my presence…that is more than enough to pay for a life, I would think."

Yuuko nodded.

"The payment is accepted." She blew on her pipe and a ring of smoke curled around her fingers. She was still watching Kurogane and Fai with interest. "And you, Fai of Celes? You have a wish for me as well, do you not?"

Kurogane's eyes widened in surprise as Fai painfully pulled himself off of Kurogane's lap and limped forward to stand before Yuuko. His blue-eyed gaze was still filled with pain but when he spoke there was no weakness in his voice.

"The trapped souls of Suwa. What happened to them?"

"They were freed when Fei Wang's spell failed," Yuuko told him. "They have moved on to where they should have gone all along."

"And-" Fai half-raised a hand to his ear, winced and lowered it again. "And the souls he managed to trap from Celes?"

"They were held in a cage apart from those of Suwa," Yuuko said. "Those voices still ring in your ears, so you should already be aware of this. They are trapped in the Underworld and will remain so until a new Lord comes to take Fei Wang's place, should that one choose to release them."

"Set them free," Fai said. "I don't care what the price is. Set them free."

"You idiot!" Kurogane grabbed him by the arm, ignoring Fai's sudden grimace of pain. He didn't care how tight his grip was, as long as he could hold tight enough to keep the blond from doing another stupid, suicidal thing. "How many times do I have to beat it through your skull? I'm not letting you do this."

"Please, Kurogane." Fai's voice was surprisingly light and there was no pain in his smile. "I'm not doing this because I want to die or anything like that. I'm not giving up. But this is something I have to do. You protected the things you promised to protect. I want to do the same."

Kurogane stared at him for a long moment and then finally let go of his arm.

"Fine." Kurogane faced Yuuko again. "I'll pay the price too."

"Kurogane-"

"We can pay the damn thing together, right?" Kurogane said sharply. Fai looked about to protest, then shook his head in surrender.

"What will I do with you, Kurogane?"

"I don't want to hear that from the likes of you."

"There is no need for this." Ginryuu stepped over to join them, bowing low before Yuuko. "The price…allow me to be the one to pay it."

"You know the terms?" Yuuko asked. "You will not be a god of protection anymore."

"I know," Ginryuu said. "But only one of my people remains and I believe he will survive well without me." He looked over at Kurogane and smiled, looking enough like Kurogane's father that it made Kurogane's breath catch in his throat. He looked away with a snort to cover the sudden onslaught of emotion and Fai's hand brushed lightly against his.

"Very well, then." Yuuko touched Ginryuu's hand with her pipe and Ginryuu's silver clothes began to darken to black. "In order to free the trapped souls, you will take Fei Wang's place as Lord of the Underworld. Will you still pay?"

"I will." Ginryuu straightened.

"Then all wishes have been granted." Even as Yuuko spoke Kurogane suddenly felt slightly dizzy. The room seemed to be dimming before his eyes and he fell weakly onto his knees, Fai falling down beside him. As darkness covered everything he thought he heard Ginryuu's voice.

"Farewell, last child of Suwa. Live on, and be happy."

oOo

Kurogane was getting tired of waking up in strange places. He blinked his eyes against the sunlight as he sat up and took stock of his surroundings. The stark white and black of the Infinity Room had faded away and he was sitting in the middle of what looked to be a flower-filled meadow. The sun was shining brightly above him and a cool wind blew by. There was the slightest scent of smoke on it and Kurogane could see a spot in the far distance that suggested he was not too far from civilization.

He noticed then that he was alone and Kurogane quickly stood, immediately looking around for Fai. His gaze landed on the blond sitting a few feet away, back turned and face staring up at the sky. He didn't turn as Kurogane walked up beside him.

"It's quiet," Fai said softly. His clothes were still stained with blood but the wound in his stomach seemed to have healed without a trace and the black was gone from his fingers. He smiled up at Kurogane with both eyes open, his left eye colorless and blind. "It's quiet, Kuro-sama." He touched a hand to his ear. "It hasn't been quiet for so long…"

Kurogane nodded in understanding. The voice that had been swimming in the back of his head for a thousand had gone silent at last. In some ways it felt strange, as if he was missing a part of himself, but it was a feeling he was thankful to have. For the first time in a thousand years, all his thoughts and feelings were his and his alone. He touched a hand against the hilt of his sword, running his fingers over the carving of the dragon. The last of Suwa, and yet somehow this time that did not feel quite so lonely.

"What will you do now?" Fai was looking at him again. Kurogane shrugged.

"I'm not going back to the damn prison again, that's for sure," Kurogane said. "Even if it's still standing. I'll find something to do, I guess. I'm mortal now, anyway. So are you."

"I know." Fai held up a hand in front of his face as he stared up towards the sun. "It feels strange. It's been so long since I felt…human."

"Idiot," Kurogane snorted. "You were always human." He sighed heavily. "Let's get going. I'm not spending all day in this stupid field."

Fai blinked at him curiously.

"You're coming with me, right?" Kurogane looked pointedly away from him, trying his best to sound nonchalant as he held out a hand to help Fai up. Fai looked surprised for a moment before a smile found its way onto his face.

"When you put it like that, Kuro-sama, how could I refuse?"

Fai reached up and took Kurogane's hand.