Untapped Devotion
By SMYGO4EVA

What had been foretold was not in vain.

Four travelers had been through hell ever since they had made it to the condemned metropolis of Tokyo, where revelations have been revealed and blood has been spilled in more ways than one.

The princess's heart was torn into two.

The Syaoran they knew was an imposter.

The magician had lost an eye, and became a monster to save his live.

The warrior had become tied by fate with the magician.

Crimson marked all of them, staining them for all time.

Now this…

Suddenly in everlasting darkness, so pitch black that it was almost indescribable to even fathom.

He was in that very blackness.

He, Kurogane, the black steel warrior, was amidst such dark shadows.

There was nothing but the darkness. It was eternal, silent and endless.

The blackness was overwhelming, completely ridding the black steel warrior of his sight and ability to see where he was at this moment.

He wasn't one to let that hinder him, not by a long shot.

From where he stood, he saw that darkness was so powerful, so flooding that he couldn't even see his hand if he lad lifted it up in front of him.

"Damn it. What is this place?" He then saw flashes of the dank and grey underground of the Tower, which was a great contrast to the place of black right now.

"No, it's not it. There was a light there."

Kurogane narrowed his dark red eyes, squinting and seeing that was no light. "No. Not here." He had hoped to see what was ahead of him, and began to walk forward, hearing his footsteps grow louder by every possible second.

What is this place? Why is it so dark that I can't even see anything? Well, I can find out soon enough…

These thoughts rang out again and again in the warrior's mind, but did little to faze him. All they did was raise his suspicions.

Kurogane felt a chill crawl past him, halting him for a brief moment.

It was a feeling – a bad feeling, like the slick blackness had found out of his presence and was taking him, telling him to go further.

What the-?

He turned around swiftly, only to see more darkness in his wake.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

He scoffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance. Looking forward, he kept on walking in the set direction, feeling more of the icy chill try to crawl under his skin.

His eyes then settled upon something far from him, squinting to see what it was.

A light.

A red light.

Kurogane scowled.

Figures.

With a small grin, he kept on walking towards the red light, making it easy for him to know where he was heading towards.

The light got brighter and brighter as he got closer to it, and with that, he started to run.

Fists clenched and his legs carrying him seemingly on their own and at their own speed, Kurogane began to run faster, the red light becoming brighter until the light was too bright for his eyes to handle.

He skidded to a halt, his chest feeling as if it was to burst, heaving and getting as much air as there was. He put his hands on his knees, catching his breath, but he squinted his eyes once they landed on the now blinding bright light.

It came from a room, where the open doorway was just waiting to be entered, like a centuries-old gate.

The warrior scowled once again. "Well this is just great, now this light wouldn't blind me and I still won't know where I am."

He took a deep breath and placed one foot forward.

Before he could fathom that step, he felt a tug at his foot, almost like something hard was put in front of it to make him lose his footing there.

He couldn't think of one thing before he found himself landing on the floor, falling right on his face, a yelp emitting from him, his feet falling right under his form, the hard floor knocking the wind right out of him.

"Ow. What the hell?" He grunted in annoyance and in pain as he achingly stood onto his feet, dusting himself off and settling his eyes forward.

The red light had dimmed considerably and had coalesced with black in the room he had fallen into. Black darkness and blood red coated the room from top to bottom, almost consuming to the senses. He was used to such dark colors, but he couldn't help but feel the icy chill that had led him to this place.

The silence in the air was deafening, so overpowering that the warrior couldn't help but be mute as well.

But he wanted to scream, just to break the forsaken air that stilled everything. Just so the silence would be broken.

He refused to, though. It would be against his better judgment to just reveal himself to a potential enemy; he would be done for in a millisecond. For now, he could only stare at what the colors represented to him what they encompassed to everything else.

Death.

What the hell? Wh-What is this place?

He looked around, his form cascaded by the shadows of blackness within crimson, the weight of it all soundless and quiet, but speaking in volumes.

A beat.

He set his eyes forward, something caught in his vision, setting the unforeseen object in his sights right before him.

His eyes widened.

His heart almost skipped a beat.

A choked gasp escaped from him.

He felt his entire form freeze, the sight in front of him being too much to bear in a single second.

Fai, the magician, appeared to be unconscious or asleep, still in his dark black shirt, matted by dried blood, and khaki trousers stained by what appeared to be something clear and white on the front. He was supposedly resting in the lap of a darkly-clad woman, who had her legs curled underneath her and her black gloved hands stroking the magician's flaxen blonde hair, caressing it in a nurturing and careless manner before her hand took notice of the eyepatch that was upon where his other eye once was and would never return.

Kurogane couldn't speak – he couldn't move an inch. He began to feel sick at the very sight of it: someone who appeared to be of darkness had the magician, frail and weak, in their grasp, simply lulling him into a sense of belonging just to toy with him.

It chilled him to the core.

It made him feel sick.

He clenched his fists, anger bubbling, his temper beginning to flare, narrowing his piercing red eyes and his teeth gritted in suppression.

The woman looked up; her dark charcoal eyes had set themselves on the warrior a few feet away from her and the magician. She tilted her head and ceased her hands' movements on the sleeping magician's head.

"Why hello, steel warrior," Her voice as thin as wisps of smoke. "So good to see you."

Kurogane finally managed to form words, his voice strained out of his mouth.

"Wh-Who are you? What have you done to him? What have you done to the magician?"

The woman thinned her eyes, possibly in recollection. "I have not done anything to harm the mage. I believe that you and I both know of the pain that he has been through in his life, am I correct?"

Kurogane stiffened at the mention of it

There's a slight pause.

A small smile placed itself on the woman's features. "Is that a yes or a no?" She mused, even though it was clear she already knew the answer.

Kurogane glared at the mysterious woman, slighting the chance of being caught in a trap.

"No."

Her smile didn't budge. "I don't suppose you'd want to know anyway. I was only giving the wizard the pleasure he so desperately deserves."

The warrior felt his heart drop, his breath caught in his throat at what the woman just said. A bubble of anger rose inside him – shock and confusion mixing with seeping anger was all that festered.

"What? What do you mean by that?"

It was infuriating how little her expression changed, as if he was in front of a lifeless doll instead of another human being.

"You don't know? You don't know of the hidden desires of the one that you care about…the one that you love?" She closed her eyes, not hiding the self-satisfaction that seemed to radiate from her.

The anger that the warrior had suddenly vanished upon hearing those words - What was she saying? She was implying that he cared about the magician…more than what would have been called the trust that they had.

Or once had…

"You miserable wretch - get your hands off of him." The warrior hissed as he walked towards the woman holding onto the magician. The woman lifted Fai from her lap, snaked her arms around his torso, and rested her head on his shoulder, his head supported by her shoulder, leaving his neck exposed.

"Oh come now, steel warrior, can't you tell? Can you not see the dear magician's feelings for you? Or are you too much of a coward to even see it for yourself?" Her voice took on a carrying, lilting condescending tone that made the blood inside the warrior's flesh boil.

"Can't you tell, or are you too afraid to beyond his lovely smiling façade, the one he paints on his face so he wouldn't get hurt, so you wouldn't get hurt of you found out of his checkered past?"

Kurogane could only stand there while the woman held onto the blissfully sleeping Fai as she let one hand stroke his face tenderly, paying extra attention to the place where the eyepatch covered his lost eye.

"It saddens me to see him weak and defenseless like this, but…."

She let a finger trail down his porcelain face.

The warrior gritted his teeth.

"The fragility he bears makes him even more beautiful…."

Her careless glances and her almost seductive ministrations upon the magician's face were taunting him.

Letting him see what he didn't have.

What he couldn't have.

Because he was too much of a coward.

His blood kept boiling under his flesh, almost alit with by the anger growing inside.

His eyes were crimson red, narrowed into thin red slits, a stare burning with rage yet so cold that the sun itself would freeze over.

That would be of her doing.

Before he would have a second thought, the warrior walked over to the woman, knelt down, and took her hand away from the magician's face, his hand seizing her wrist in a painful bind. He leaned into her view, his red eyes set into her dark, fathomless ones.

"You let go of him. Now." He whispered to her through gritted teeth, his words cold and brimming over with an unspoken wrath.

The woman's smile faded, but she knew in his voice that her thoughts were justified; that would be her only victory there. Then again, so was her little conquest.

"Very well then – take him."

The woman let one hand stroke through the magician's blonde hair before the warrior held his arms out and caught the magician as his body slipped to the side.

Kurogane then gathered Fai into his arms, one arm wrapped behind his shoulders and the other under his knees. He picked up the faint scent of blood and lilies from the mage's hair.

He stood up and turned on his heel when the woman spoke.

"Oh, steel warrior…"

The said warrior rolled his eyes and turned around, focusing his attention on the woman.

"What is it?"

The woman let a small smile flute across her features once more, sending the same icy chill down the warrior's spine, one that had felt it so many times that he would have gotten used to it by now.

"Take special care of the dear magician – he's very fragile and very weak. We don't want him to break so easily."

Kurogane kept his dark red eyes fixed on the ground, his piercing gaze filled with enough hatred that it may have withered the floor underneath if he had stared for long enough.

He then looked down to the magician, blissfully unaware of the events regarding him. His face was pale and white as snow, his one eye shut as if to close off the world around him, his mouth lightly bruised and his breathing soft and delicate. His entire form felt heavy to the warrior, heavy and still, but fragile enough to hold carefully so he wouldn't shatter.

He looked over at the woman, intent evident on his features,

It was unnerving.

"What is your name?"

The smile was still upon her face.

Her glass eyes reflected a light that he didn't fathom.

"Xing Huo."

He narrowed his eyes and turned on his heel, carrying the unconscious mage in his arms, walking forward and never looking back.

He didn't want to look back.

They would never speak of it again.

Not now.

Not ever.

Not ever again.

FIN

(A/N. Well, this would be the oneshot sequel to 'Marumekomu' and both that story and this one took place in Acid Tokyo, after the events have come to pass. I wrote this one done in two days, after I wrote 'Lingering' at 5 in the morning. This was a request made by a new Livejournal friend zoloxjoshua. I hope you liked it!)