TITLE: Unintended Consequences

AUTHOR: Tiffany Park

CATEGORY: Humor, Crackfic, obviously AU

SPOILERS: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Chapitres 150 through 172, in particular, but you probably should have read the whole thing for this story's ending to make sense.

RATING: PG

CONTENT WARNINGS: Some bad words. The character traits and behavior of everyone involved may be just a wee bit exaggerated and even, gasp, non-canon at times (this means often). The dialogue is unapologetically OOC. This story contains massive and ridiculously overblown Fai-angst.

SUMMARY: And now for something completely different: What if King Ashura had actually explained to Fai and the gang just what the heck he was trying to accomplish? Would it have helped anything? Of course not.

STATUS: Complete

ARCHIVE: Please ask first

DISCLAIMER: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and its characters belong to CLAMP, Del Rey Ballantine Books, Random House Inc., Kodansha Ltd., Funimation, and probably a whole bunch of other people and companies I know nothing about. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Apologies to all the poor, innocent readers. Blame it on the angstfest that was "Choosing Priorities." I needed some cracky insanity to clear all the gloom out of my head, and have now inflicted the fallout on all of you. BTW, a number of lines were lifted from a variety of old TV shows, movies, and what have you, for no better reason than because it amused me.

ADDITIONAL: Just an FYI: A better formatted copy of this story will be archived on my AO3 page, at http colon / / www . archiveofourown dot org / users / Tiffany_Park (Curse you, FFN. Your software is getting better about detecting disguised URLs. *sigh* Please translate the word "colon" and "dot" to the right characters, and remove the spaces to get the URL).

Unintended Consequences

By Tiffany Park

From his lair in his private, pocket universe, a smug Fei Wang Reed lounged comfortably on his throne, watching a group of beleaguered travelers in his high definition, 3D magic mirror. He gloated. This time, his foreseeings were correct and his plans would come to fruition. This time, there truly was no escape.

The mage had finally worked up the courage to return to Seresu, and as expected his fellow itinerants had insisted on joining him on this latest joyride.

The girl's soulless, dead-not-dead body was already there, waiting.

And King Ashura was awake and free of his mystical imprisonment.

Perfect. All the actors were in place, and the curtain was about to rise—and fall soon after—on the wizard's not-so-grand finale.

Fei Wang Reed grinned. There was no chance in all the hells that the angst-ridden mage would escape. Stupid, overwrought brat. Fei Wang's only regret about his latest scheme was that the mage's inevitable ending would actually be something of a mercy—if not for him, then for everyone that had to put up with him. The fool had remained absurdly mopey his entire life, even after he'd been pulled from hell and handed a cushy, privileged life by that irritating wizard-king. It had actually gotten tiresome watching him constantly indulge in pointless angst while living in luxury. He was the poster boy for Guilty Rich People. What an idiot. He deserved what was coming to him. No, Fei Wang corrected himself, he deserved worse. Much, much worse.

Fei Wang had wanted the mage to feel traumatized and guilty enough over his brother's death so he could be easily deceived and led astray, but hadn't counted on this much guilt and gloom, nor on it spilling over into every, single, freaking aspect of that stupid mage's life. That much depression and despair was, in many ways, a hindrance. It made that moron hesitate and second-guess himself at the most inopportune moments, and yet on other occasions to act so recklessly that he was literally daring Death to take his life well before the proper time. What a pain.

Ah well, Fei Wang thought with resignation, it was probably for the best. If that mage weren't a walking bucket of sloppy neuroses, this plan wouldn't work, anyway.

And Ashura—if Fei Wang hadn't needed him for the mage's final act, that insufferable, interfering monarch would be dead already. The nerve of him for that stunt he had pulled! Suppose that backwater king had actually succeeded at his original aim of removing both the mage's curses from the beginning? Years and years of careful planning on Fei Wang's part would have been ruined! Of course, the Witch's plans would also have been screwed up, so it wouldn't have been a total loss. But even so, Fei Wang would have had to rework everything, and that would have been just too aggravating. Ashura was just as much of an idiot as that mopey, brooding brat he'd raised. Imagine, putting the course of reality second to the fate of an orphaned waif! No king should ever be that impractical. Ashura's one saving grace was that he was nicely ruthless when he'd finally gotten serious about forcing the mage's hand.

Wasn't it just too bad for both of them that, even with his magic restrained, Fai D Fluorite was so ridiculously overpowered that not even The Gods Themselves would permit him to use spells very often or at full strength? Ashura had never had the remotest chance of exceeding his whelp's power and forcing the first curse to take hold.

Fei Wang Reed smirked. And it was also too bad for all the Witch's minions and co-conspirators that Fluorite would never be emotionally capable of killing the man who had been the only father he had ever known, even after that man went out of his way to prove himself a crazy, bloodthirsty murderer who just plain needed killing.

A sad pair of fools, that's what they were, each trying to save the other from predestined fate and neither willing to administer the necessary coup de grace. If it were just the two of them on the stage, nothing conclusive or even very interesting would happen from now until Doomsday.

Good thing there were others along for the ride. Frustrated, irate, short-tempered others. Fei Wang Reed snorted. His former prisoner and unwilling spy, that foolishly earnest and determined boy, was almost irrelevant, as all he seemed to be doing was applying some extra screws to the main players' tightly wound, over-touchy emotions. He and the Witch's manufactured creature could both be dismissed. They would contribute little more than background noise to the melodrama.

The Witch's Suwa minion, though, he would trigger the mage's doom, as well as his own, just by allowing his testy, impatient nature free rein as was his wont. It seemed that no one had ever bothered to teach that man any forbearance. Or if they had tried, the lesson had not sunk in as well as one might have hoped. Impatience, irritation, frustration, and bad temper in general would seal the deal.

Yes, Fei Wang mused, of all his schemes to date, this one was positively foolproof. Which was a good thing, considering the impossible fools he was forced to work with. Everyone would play their parts exactly, like mediocre TV actors told not to improvise on pain of losing their paychecks. Their very natures guaranteed Fei Wang Reed's own success. Not even the ever-erratic Fai D Fluorite could screw up this stratagem.

"I love it when a plan comes together," Fei Wang Reed cackled, rubbing his hands together. He rather wished he had a mustache to twirl. "Hmmmm, that reminds me. I haven't seen the A-Team in years." He leaned on one elbow and pondered his magic mirror. "I wonder if this thing can get the Oldies Channel?"

But then the mirror's newfangled 3D display showed that the battle in Seresu had begun, and he decided that watching some magicians and swordsmen duke it out would be more entertaining than catching reruns of an ancient '80's show about Wisecracking Guys With Guns. Besides, he could always pick up a few A-Team DVDs when he got some spare time. And while he was at it, maybe he could dig his old Fantasy Island VHS tapes out of storage. He'd always loved seeing that Tattoo guy yelling "The plane! The plane!" in that odd and entertaining accent that turned "the" into "de." And the way Mister Roarke screwed with his guests' greatest dreams—all the while claiming the unexpected outcomes and consequences were their own fault and also making the suckers pay through the nose for the privilege—well, that was truly inspirational. That man had style. Fei Wang admired the exact same qualities in the Dimension Witch, as well, when he wasn't trying to beat her at cosmic strategy games. They all had a lot in common, when you thought about it.

However, guilty pleasures were for later. As Fei Wang always said, new fun before old reruns. First he had his own schemes to oversee and shepherd to completion. He magicked up a big bowl of popcorn and settled in to enjoy the show.

Kurogane fought through the pain in his left side, forced his head up, and took in the situation in a flash. Everything had gone to hell, and yet, something about it wasn't right. That lunatic king could have killed all of them easily, right from the beginning...and yet he was toying with them, drawing the battle out. Maybe he was just crazy, or maybe he really did want to force Fai to kill him.

But then, wasn't that kind of suicide plan crazy enough? Suicide-by-Fai? Seriously? What was up with that?

Syaoran was pinned to a wall by magical icicles, and Fai... That idiot mage was doing nothing! The lunatic king had him by the throat and was ranting at him, chewing Fai out over his suicidal tendencies.

Well, Kurogane could certainly relate to Ashura's frustration on that particular topic. He'd berated Fai about that exact same subject, himself. Fai hung limply in the king's grasp, doing nothing to defend himself, just taking the abuse. That moron.

Although, now that Kurogane thought on it, when he'd vented at Fai about his damned death wish, Fai had been completely passive then, too. Might be some airy-fairy psychobabble business to that...

Fai coughed up blood, and still King Ashura railed at him. Kurogane gathered himself, and his fingers clenched around the hilt of his sword.

Suddenly, in mid lecture, the king complained, "Oh, what's the use? You just spewed up blood and you still won't do what is necessary, will you?" With a defeated sigh, Ashura released his grip, and Fai collapsed to his hands and knees.

Still passive, Fai coughed a few more times and stared down at the floor.

"Honestly, Fai, what's it going to take?" Ashura asked with undisguised exasperation. "I've dredged up an illusion of your brother, flaunted your past, exposed your darkest secrets, threatened you, your princess, your friends...I even managed to draw blood from your ninja pal over there..."

Kurogane growled at him in warning, his red eyes flaring dangerously. His hand tightened even more on his sword. The pain in his left side burned, and he used the drive it imparted to jump to his feet. Behind him, the icicles holding Syaoran melted, releasing the kid. By all appearances, it seemed the fight was over, at least for the moment. Kurogane wondered how long the unexpected truce would last.

Unimpressed by the ninja's foul temper, Ashura said to him, "Oh, hush. It's your own fault for being so slow to dodge. I wasn't actually expecting to do more than graze you. I've been told that super-ninjas were supposed to have super-fast reflexes. And I've been led to believe that you're the best of the best."

"You did just graze me," Kurogane snarled, offended. "Besides, it was just a lucky shot." Wait, what did Ashura just say? Who had led him to believe anything?

Ashura's eyes flicked to the bleeding wound in the ninja's flank. "If you say so."

Kurogane lost his train of thought at that taunt, and almost ran Ashura through right then and there. Truce or no truce, it would be no problem to just cut the madman in half. It would be so gratifying.

Mokona hopped over to the ninja. "Kuro's bleeding," the creature bleated in distress. "Syaoran, Fai, Kuro's bleeding!"

Fai didn't move, but Syaoran came over to him and inspected the damage. "It's not too bad, it's really just a flesh wound," he said, ripping off some already torn clothing and pressing it to the wound. Kurogane bore the treatment stoically, pretending that it didn't hurt at all. After all, it was just a graze. A graze wouldn't hurt much. Not at all.

Fai's gaze followed Syaoran's hands, and he winced at the bloody damage. He looked accusingly at Ashura, but then he gasped. "Blood!"

"You idiot," Kurogane hissed at him. "Of course there's blood. Everyone's bleeding. We've been fighting, or hadn't you noticed?"

Mokona chirped, "Mokona's not bleeding!"

"You don't count, you fuzzy pork bun!"

"Mokona's the best! Mokona's unscathed! Mokona's undefeated!" Mokona bounced up and down, punctuating each word with a cute little hop.

"YOU DON'T COUNT! YOU WEREN'T EVEN FIGHTING!" Kurogane raged.

Fai collapsed into a blubbering mess. "I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—"

"What are you going on about, mage?" Kurogane jumped as Syaoran tightened a makeshift bandage around his middle. "Hey, take it easy, kid. I won't die from a scratch."

"Hardly a scratch," Syaoran murmured.

"It's just a scratch," Kurogane insisted, casting a sidelong glance at the nutjob who had inflicted the "scratch."

Fai slowly stood up. He lifted a hand and gestured at the injury on the king's right arm. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he babbled again. "I didn't mean to do it—"

Ashura rubbed his face. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Fai, just stop it. I was happy when you finally lost your temper and drew some blood. I thought I was finally on the right track, but then you went and tried to kill yourself along with me. You dumb kid."

Syaoran blinked stupidly. "You dumb kid?" he whispered to Kurogane.

Kurogane shrugged. "Well, he is Fai's dad, for all practical purposes. Even if they are both pretty screwed up right now." He was actually a little jealous. From the visions of the past Ashura had shown them, it appeared that Fai had had a pretty decent life once he'd gotten to Seresu. Kurogane couldn't complain about his own life, but he hadn't had any real parental figures after his own parents had died. Tomoyo was the closest thing to family he'd had when he'd been growing up. No one would ever call Empress Amaterasu motherly—she'd probably execute anyone who dared—and then he'd been apprenticed to train as a ninja at a pretty young age. Not that he was complaining, he'd wanted to do that, but sometimes he thought it would have been nice to have a dad around...

Just not the crazy dad part, of course.

Ashura looked over at them. "He is a dumb kid. Always has been." He sighed theatrically. "You take care of them, feed, clothe, and educate them, raise them as your own, give them everything they ever wanted... And then, after all that, they won't even murder you when you tell them to." Ashura sighed again. "In fact, they go to outrageous lengths to keep you alive. I ask you, is that any way for the kid to show his gratitude for everything I've done for him?"

What a ridiculous speech, Kurogane thought. It was just the sort of silly nonsense Fai could—and frequently did—come up with. Kurogane needed no further proof that this man, capable of the same kind of absurd lack of reason, had raised Fai.

Ever literal, Syaoran began, "Well, actually..."

"Who asked you?" Ashura said.

"Um, you did?"

"I'll have you know I'm mad," Ashura declared, while looking perfectly sane and behaving in an utterly calm and rational manner. "You can't trust anything I say."

"Is that so?" Kurogane asked cynically. "You seem to be able to turn it on and off at will." Not unlike a certain blond mage, in fact.

"It comes and goes," Ashura conceded with a half-hearted shrug. "Besides, it keeps inconvenient questions to a minimum. Insanity is an excellent excuse for all manner of things. You'd be surprised how much slack everyone cuts you if they think you're not all there."

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised at all," Kurogane grumbled with a disgusted look at Fai, who cringed. "At least now I know where he gets it from."

He also now knew where Fai had learned how to be such a giant pain in the neck. Heh. The nutjob king had raised the idiot mage. It made such perfect sense.

"He always was an excellent student," Ashura said, smiling proudly at Fai, who cringed again and managed to look even more traumatized than he had during the fight. Kurogane almost smirked. Kids were always embarrassed by their parents.

Wait, what was he thinking? He wasn't supposed to be amused. He was pissed off. He needed to remember that. "Okay, so we've established that Fai is an ungrateful, spoiled brat because he won't kill you on command," Kurogane said, putting as much annoyance and cynicism as he could into every word. "It's not like we didn't already know he was spoiled and entitled. It took long enough before he started pitching in with the chores and the work and—"

"My son works?" Aghast, Ashura said to Fai, "You mean you voluntarily perform common, manual labor?"

Shamefaced, Fai gave a tiny nod and hung his head.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" Kurogane yelled at them both.

"Maybe that's fine for someone like you," Ashura sniffed, "but Fai is royal—"

"You're a damned snob, you know that?"

Ashura actually had the nerve to look insulted, and even Fai appeared offended and ready to defend his foster father.

Kurogane wanted to smack them both.

"Never mind!" he snarled before either of the idiots could retaliate. "Argh, you two are so aggravating! And here I thought Fai was bad just by himself." Kurogane got the conversation back on track again by demanding of Ashura, "Now, would you please explain just what the hell you think you're trying to accomplish with this stupid farce?"

"It's hardly a farce..."

"Bullshit. Nothing you've done makes a lick of sense."

Ashura folded his arms across his chest and gave Kurogane a disapproving look. "That's no way to address a king," he chided. "You've been completely rude and disrespectful this entire conversation, and now you're descending into profanity. Didn't Tomoyo teach you any manners at all?"

Kurogane had been about to snap back that Ashura himself hadn't exactly been a paragon of mannerly conduct, but that last, surprising question distracted him from his irritation. "You know Princess Tomoyo?" He recalled how Ashura had mentioned just a little while ago that someone had told him Kurogane was the best ninja around. Next time he saw Tomoyo, Kurogane vowed, he was going to kill her.

"All the dreamseers know each other," Ashura replied airily. "We're always bumping into each other in our dreams."

"Of course you are." Kurogane pinched the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger to ward off an incipient headache. Why was he even surprised that the nutjob king had just admitted that he was a dreamseer like Tomoyo? "You're all in on it together, aren't you? Every last one of you. Pushing us along and manipulating our lives." It answered so many questions...

Ashura smiled enigmatically.

In response, Kurogane growled.

"Wait a minute," Fai broke in, looking completely shocked. "You're a dreamseer like Princess Tomoyo? That's why you always had all those bad dreams, because you saw the future in dreams? This future? How did you keep something like that hidden from me for all these years?"

"It wasn't hard. You always were a bit self-absorbed, Fai," Ashura told him.

"I'm self-absorbed? At least I've got the guts to kill myself and not ask anyone else to do it! I've never massacred an entire population just to get more magic power! You should've explained a long time ago—"

"How could I explain? Would you have kept your mouth shut long enough for me to finish? It would have been quite a change. You never did listen to reason," Ashura said in that long-suffering and condescending parental tone that all children, no matter their age, recognize and despise.

And as often occurs when a parent uses that particular tone, especially with an adult child, the child blew his top. "Reason? What reason can there be for all this?" Fai shouted, gesturing at the most recent destruction all around them. "I know you were trying to get rid of my curse before, but you failed and now it's too late, so why bother continuing when I came home? Why try to make me keep that stupid promise when you could have just jumped off a tower before I got here so I didn't have to see it?" He stopped and cringed at the memories that particular method of suicide evoked.

"There's a very good reason for why I kept trying to—"

Completely out of patience, Kurogane threw back his head and howled at the ceiling. Ashura and Fai dropped their dysfunctional little family squabble in favor of gaping at him.

"All right, now that I've got your attention," Kurogane snarled, "you've got some 'splaining to do!" He pointed his sword directly at Ashura's face. "Come on, stop dithering and spit it out already. You just said there was a method to your madness." He deliberately made that sound as insulting as possible. It wasn't difficult, as his rapidly deteriorating temper was aggravated by the throbbing in his side.

Ashura's lips twisted, but he only said, "You won't like it."

"I already don't like it."

"Honestly, my way was a lot easier for everyone."

"Easier for everyone, or just easier for you?" Kurogane challenged.

"Well, both. But mostly easier for Fai."

"You think all that was easier for him? You really are crazy."

"Told ya."

"Quit stalling." Kurogane lowered his sword and waited.

Ashura nodded to Fai. "He's cursed. There were two curses on him, actually. You've already seen the effects of one of them."

At that comment, all eyes swiveled to Sakura's dead-not-dead body. Specifically, at the gaping, bloody perforation in her middle.

"Yes, that's right," Ashura said. "That's the result of the curse I failed to lift before Fai ran away from home. Please don't hold it against him. It wasn't his fault. I'm sure that by now you must realize whose fault it really was. I showed you the source of those curses when I showed you Fai's memories, as well as most of what's going on. There really isn't any need for—"

"Tell us, anyway," interrupted Kurogane, "and make it comprehensible. Fai's memories were a mess, and we were all fighting the whole time! How are we supposed to remember all the details? You're to blame for all that. You know you owe us all a decent explanation."

The king scowled. "Fine. There's this incredibly powerful, evil sorcerer who's manipulating everyone from behind the scenes and attempted to make Fai his pawn through some ridiculous promises..." Ashura paused, taking in the lack of surprise and impatience from his audience. "I told you that you already knew about him."

Syaoran looked up from his sad contemplation of Sakura's body. "We know him," he said in an expressionless tone of voice. "His name is Fei Wang Reed. I've met him personally, so I know he's a real bastard. You wouldn't believe what he did to me. He has a wish that will damage or destroy all existence, but the details of what it is? I don't know." He shrugged.

Kurogane said, "He killed my parents and sent monsters and his weird soldiers to overrun my home country. And you've shown us what he did to Fai. None of us have any reason to love him. Both he and that rotten Dimension Witch have us all jumping through hoops like trained monkeys. We only know that it's of use to him, and that the Witch thinks it's also going to somehow stop him from annihilating everything. She won't give us any decent information, so that's why I want you to talk!"

"Did you realize that Fei Wang Reed wanted Fai to kill you specifically?" Ashura queried Kurogane conversationally. "That was the real setup. Seresu and I are just collateral damage, and that sadist was counting on Fai's inability to kill me. You've been a target all along. That was one of those foolish promises Fai made to him. Fortunately, he never was able to make himself follow through, any more than he was willing to kill me."

Kurogane stopped and stared at him, vaguely recalling some bizarre words that Ashura and Fai had exchanged during the fight, something about it coming down to killing him or killing Ashura. Now it made more sense. Not that it really bothered him. Ever pragmatic, he dismissed it in favor of the current dilemma. "It didn't happen, so it doesn't matter anymore."

"No? It should. Fei Wang Reed considers you a serious obstacle, because he was never able to influence you. That's why he wanted Fai to eliminate you. He still thinks it will happen if I don't succeed with my own plan—"

"What matters to me right now is that you keep avoiding the subject!" Kurogane yelled. "You know what's really going on, don't you? You're one of those useless dreamseers. You know reality is falling apart, and I bet you know why. So give it up, will you, and tell us why it's happening and how exactly to stop it!"

"That would be TMI," was Ashura's unenlightening response.

"TMI?" Syaoran looked utterly bewildered. "What's that?"

"In another world, it stands for Too Much Information. TMI is against the Dreamseers' Code of Ambiguity and Obfuscation," Ashura said primly. "We all sign the contract in blood. It obligates us to be as uninformative, unhelpful, and cryptic as we possibly can, while still providing the occasional hint—or shove—to keep the rest of you moving along. You'd be hindered by too much knowledge about what you're doing. Trust me, it can be paralyzing."

"You have got to be kidding me," said Kurogane. "Seriously? Actually knowing something relevant and useful for a change would hinder us? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."

"TMI interferes with free will and independent choice of action."

"What difference does it make? Nobody's letting us have those things anyway!" Kurogane roared, frustrated all over again. He stomped around in a circle, waving his arms impotently, so enraged at all dreamseers everywhere that he completely forgot about the pain in his side. The new pain in his neck was much, much worse.

Ashura looked to Fai. "When this is all over, you really need to get him into some anger management classes or something."

Fai nodded in mute agreement.

"All right, all right, I'll stop," Kurogane said, coming to a halt and facing the latest nemesis in a long, long line of irritating nemeses. "Back to the two curses on Fai." The king seemed willing to talk about that, so Kurogane would settle for what he could get.

"Right," Ashura conceded with a sigh. "One—the one you've seen in action—forced Fai to kill the first magician he encountered that was stronger than him. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been much of a problem, since there never were many mages who could overmatch him when he possessed his full strength. In fact, I can only think of three off the top of my head. None of them ever lived in this world, one has been dead for a long time, and one is in...an interesting state. However, when Fai lost half his power along with his eye— And what happened to you, anyway?" he suddenly demanded of Fai.

"Long story," Fai said, shooting a quick glance at Syaoran. "I really don't want to discuss the eye thing."

"No, I don't suppose you do," Ashura said regretfully. "I'm sorry about that. I did foresee that it would happen, but I didn't see how, or how you would survive the shock of losing the eye, and so much of your magic and life essence along with it." He sighed. "If I'd succeeded before you left home, it might have never happened, but at least you lived through it." Then he rounded on Fai and scolded, shaking a finger, "But I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the vampirism! Fai, what have I told you about consorting with strange entities?"

Now Fai looked defensive. He protested, "It wasn't my fault! Honest!"

"Vampirism is the VD of the arcane community," the king lectured. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: When you keep company with vampires, you need to use protection!"

Kurogane almost sniggered. Fai had the supernatural clap. It was pretty funny. And to think, that weird psycho Seishirō guy had actually wanted to catch it, to the point of chasing a couple of vampires all over the multiverse!

Then he sobered. The crazy king would not look kindly on the way Fai had caught the vampire disease. Combined, unaccustomed senses of guilt and nerves washed over him, and defensively he babbled, "Vampire blood was the only way to keep him alive after he lost his eye! The shock of that almost killed him! Under the circumstances, I'd have thought you'd approve, since you were so pissed that he tried to die just a little while ago!" He deliberately avoided mention of his own, rather significant part in giving Fai a metaphysical STD. Ashura was Fai's dad, after all, and had already made clear that he was not averse to committing murder—and in particularly messy ways, too.

Ashura's expression was a strange combination of repelled and appalled. "I suppose if it really was the only way to keep him alive..." he allowed reluctantly.

"It was! It was!" Mokona bounced up and down, ears flapping in wild directions. "It really, really, really was! Fai was dying, and the vampire blood kept him alive!"

Ashura didn't look completely convinced by a half-rabbit, half-pork-bun, hyperactive magical creature. Kurogane couldn't blame him.

"It was," the ninja stated again, with as much confidence as he could muster. "We never would have allowed it, otherwise." He noticed that Syaoran was keeping his mouth firmly shut, and that even Mokona wasn't so reckless as to tell the king the full truth about how Fai had become a vampire.

Really, though, Kurogane had never before considered that vampirism was basically the magical equivalent of the clap. But now that he gave the idea some thought, it made sense, what with all the sexual fantasies people had about vampires and the quasi-sexual way it was transmitted in said fantasies...not to mention all that neck biting...and blood drinking and blood games and mesmerizing eyes and all those perverted vampire-sex-obsessed novels he'd read and... "What the hell am I thinking?" he blurted out, giving himself a smack upside of the head to dislodge those disturbing mental images.

Everyone stared at him. He shook himself. "Never mind!" He needed to divert attention back to where it belonged. When in doubt, attack. He pointed at Ashura again and ordered, "You just get back to your explanation."

"My explanation?" Ashura looked confused for a moment, then recovered. "Oh, yes. Where was I?"

"After Fai lost his eye and half his power—" Kurogane prompted with uncharacteristic patience. He succeeded in his aim, and everyone focused on Ashura again. With luck, no one would question or even remember his own little lapse...

"Oh, right," Ashura said. "Anyway, when he lost half his power, the field of candidates who could trigger his first curse widened a great deal. The end result was that that poor girl managed to increase her own power just enough to make her the curse's target. Which, I might add, was exactly the same thing I was trying to accomplish."

"Her methods were a helluva lot better," Kurogane sneered, already knowing Sakura's reason, and not willing to accept that Ashura's was, at its core, the same. The sheer volume of blood Ashura had spilled and the angst generated provided Kurogane with a good excuse to refuse even considering the idea, even though Sakura's way had also resulted in angst and blood, although to her credit the blood had been her own. Well, aside from that shed during those stupid, exploitative goth games...

It wasn't like Kurogane had any argument with ruthlessness per se, nor with spilling buckets of blood. After all, back home he'd indulged in plenty of killing sprees himself. It was his duty as the strongest and foremost ninja in all Nihon, and the exercise of his honed skills was always a fierce joy to him. Anybody who wasn't strong enough to hold him off deserved the full consequences of their defeat. No, the reason for his prejudice was far more prosaic. Simply put, he liked Sakura and disliked King Ashura.

"It was the only way open to me at that time," Ashura said. "Besides, my plan would have gotten rid of both curses, thereby killing two birds with one stone."

"Three birds, you mean, since you'd be dead, too," Kurogane said disagreeably. "So, how about some details on this second curse?"

Ashura cast a wary glance at Fai, who was settling firmly into his accustomed state of anguish. "I'd really rather not say out in the open like this. Can we go somewhere private?"

"No, we can't go somewhere private!" Kurogane lifted his sword, half in threat, half in defense. "You think I'm an idiot? You think that I'll just go off alone with a self-admitted insane wizard who has shown absolutely no qualms about committing massacres, picking ridiculous, illogical fights, or tinkering with his foster son's memories?"

"I promise not to—"

"Hell, no!"

"You can bring him along." Ashura nodded to Syaoran. "He's a magician as well as a warrior. Two against one should be good enough odds for you—"

"Right now, you outclass everyone here!" Kurogane yelled. "It was obvious you could have flattened us all whenever you wanted. You were just holding back for reasons of your own!"

"You do realize that it doesn't matter whether you go off alone with me or not, right?" Ashura taunted him. "Since I could 'flatten you' whether you're alone with me or here with a group. Heavens, I could even change all your memories so everyone here just accepts a convenient fake rationale. You have quite a problem with logic, don't you?"

"Oh, just explain yourself!" Kurogane paused to catch his breath, and to let his brain catch up with his temper. "Explain that second curse. From the way you've been acting, I have a bad feeling about it."

"Of course you have a bad feeling about it. There's really no good feeling to have about a curse, now, is there?"

Kurogane wanted to howl at the ceiling again.

"Please explain it," Fai begged in quiet tones. His lower lip trembled piteously. "I didn't even know it existed until you showed us those last memories. What is it? Why would it make you behave so...so...and do such terrible things? What about it still makes you want me to kill you? How could you do that to me? How could you try to make me do something like that? Haven't I done enough awful things already? Why me?" He looked like he wanted to cry.

But then, when Fai wasn't giggling inanely, he often appeared on the verge of tears, so Kurogane didn't worry particularly much about it. Come to think of it, now Kurogane knew where the idiot mage had learned to hide most everything behind a vacuous smile. The nutjob king had also kept an insipid, unconcerned little smile on his face throughout most of that recent, stupid fight...

Gad, they really were two peas in a pod. Fai times two. Kurogane thought the universe might implode.

"Fai..." Ashura said, drawing out the name. Once again, when addressing Fai, he actually looked regretful. Like a normal human being, in fact, which Kurogane knew he most certainly was not. "Fai, I'm sorry. I just wanted to remove that curse before..."

"Before what?" Syaoran said.

"Yes, before what?" Kurogane said. He fingered his sword. "What will it do, and how will this stupid farce you've arranged get rid of it?"

"To remove the second curse, I must die by Fai's hand," Ashura stated flatly, no longer attempting to obfuscate the truth or to soften the blow. "That is the only requirement built into the curse by that bastard sorcerer we all know and love so much. Were I to die in any other manner, including illness or old age, it will activate. When it activates, it will take control of Fai's magic to trap him, and whatever world he currently inhabits, in a mystical prison-sphere. When it completes its formation, this magic will cut off all methods of escape to any other worlds. It will close down that world forever, contracting and crushing into nonexistence everything and everyone it encapsulates. As Seresu is already...depopulated...it seemed the best place to force the issue. If my Fai fails at this task, Fei Wang Reed will succeed and the multiverse will die, because the essential team who can stop him will be irreparably shattered. A couple of you might be able to escape, but because it will be his own magic powering the curse, Fai will be doomed." He looked straight at Kurogane. "And Fei Wang Reed was hoping you'd try to save Fai and be doomed right along with him."

Speechless, everyone gaped at Ashura.

"Huh," said Kurogane. "Sure didn't see that one coming."

Syaoran stared at him, then at the king, then back at Kurogane again.

Ashura shrugged at their reactions. "I told you that you wouldn't like it." He said to Fai, "Do you understand now why I didn't want you to go putting me to sleep again? Don't deny it, I know that's what you were aiming for. Now that you know I'm a dreamseer, do you honestly think I want to go back to sleep?"

Stung, Fai protested, "I wished you good dreams!"

"Oh, like that accomplished anything useful. Think about what's been going on, child! I wasn't about to let you lay any more enchantments on me." He added with disgust, "Just like I won't ever allow you to throw your life away by dying along with me, like you tried to do a little while ago. That sadist's curse does not have to be your ultimate destiny. Only one of us need die here, and I decided a long time ago that it wasn't going to be you!"

To judge by the expression of absolute horror on his face, Fai was thinking about what was going on, and had become too overwhelmed with the revelation about his curse, along with all its unpleasant implications and consequences, to even consider retorting further to the disapproving parental proclamations.

Syaoran said naively, "But wouldn't that sleep enchantment work? I mean, if you were asleep again, Fai wouldn't have to kill you, and nothing bad would happen, right?"

"Sooner or later, I'd just wake up again," Ashura said. "Magic doesn't last forever. What's he going to do, spend his whole life coming back to Seresu every so often to put me to sleep all over again? Utter idiocy, and there are way too many other flaws to even begin to list. I mean, what if I woke up, slipped getting out of the pool, and broke my neck? It could happen. Seriously, trying to keep me asleep is a terrible plan."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Fai interrupted, coming back to life and flapping his arms like a hyperactive dodo bird. "Back up, back way up. This really is all about me, isn't it? It's because of me? This really is all my fault? Everything?"

"Oh, dear," Ashura sighed, sounding resigned. "Here it comes."

"Eh?" said Syaoran.

"This is what I was trying to avoid. I knew this would happen. It's always a bad idea to give Fai too much information and the time to process it."

Fai grabbed his head with both hands and babbled his own conclusions about the situation: "It's true, then. I really am a destroyer! I've always brought unhappiness and doom to everyone around me! I'm a curse and a bane! My mere existence means everything will go bad!" He pointed at Ashura. "You've just admitted it! You did it all because of me! Everything that has happened here is all my fault!"

Struck dumb by that tirade, Fai's friends could only gawk blankly at him. Fai's foster father just looked tired and bored.

"Fai," Kurogane said with exaggerated patience, "what he just said is that it's Fei Wang Reed's fault, not yours. That bastard sorcerer screwed you both over, just like he screwed over the rest of us." Kurogane was really quite surprised to find himself defending the nutty king, but Fai's rant was pretty absurd.

"This is why I didn't want to get too close to anyone!" Fai wailed, captive to emotion and oblivious to reason. "Not even anyone here! Eventually I would've killed you all! Fei Wang Reed made me promise, but it would've happened anyway! I'm an omen of misfortune, just like everyone always said!"

"Will you stop obsessing about that omen nonsense?" Ashura snapped. "That was just a stupid superstition from Valeria. No one in Seresu ever said that about you. You haven't had to put up with that garbage in almost two decades. Get over it, already."

"Even my own mother said so!" Fai yelled. "It must be true! She wished me and my brother had never been born! She killed herself because of us!"

"Yes, well, what I think of that ignorant, selfish—"

"Don't you say those things about my mother!" Fai shrieked. "Don't ever talk about her like that! She was practically perfect in every way!"

Ashura rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes," he said with weary resignation, like he'd suffered through other conniption fits like this one a hundred times before. "You adored her, although why I'll never know. That's why you made your brother's magical guardian look like her. But those ridiculous ears you put on her—"

"You shut up about Mother and Chii!"

Mokona was cowering behind Syaoran. "Fai," the little creature said in a tremulous, squeaky voice, "Fai, please calm down. Please be happy again."

"Fat chance," Kurogane muttered. The idiot mage was too damn high-strung, and looked like he might fling himself to the ground and drum his heels against the polished stone floor, exactly like a seven-year-old brat throwing a temper tantrum.

Then, confirming Kurogane's low opinion of his maturity, Fai started bawling. "I get it now, I really do. I'm why all this murder and madness happened here."

"Actually," Ashura said, "the murder and madness were going to happen anyway. That's something the family acquired from an ancestress-queen's unfortunate affair with a death-god way back in our lineage, and it pops up every millennium or so. Why do you think I never had natural kids of my own? Not that it did any good. Any child of mine would always have done one better than me and annihilated the entire world."

Fai let out a despairing moan. "Oh, that's my second curse. I'm a destroyer. It all fits together. It's all of a piece. I'm the doom of everything. I'm the bane of existence. Oh, woe, woe..." He covered his face with his hands.

Ashura threw him a frustrated glance. "Sorry, Fai. I guess I could have worded that a little more gently—"

"Gee, ya think?" Kurogane groused.

Ashura continued as though the ninja hadn't spoken, "—but it really does seem inevitable that my child, adoptive or blood, is destined by the gods to be a world-killer. At least I'm trying to fix that, if only you'd cooperate!" He caught himself and locked eyes with Kurogane. "Anyway, to answer your original question, that's what's going on here. There really wasn't anything I could do to stop the family insanity from overtaking me, so I figured that at least I could put it to productive use. When that didn't work out, I—"

Fai dropped his arms and lashed out again, "When that didn't work, you tried to goad me into killing you! Oh, I finally get it! No matter what anyone says, I really am an omen of misery and doom! You're saying you did it all for me! That makes it my fault! The ruler of Valeria went mad and killed everyone there and then before he killed himself he said it was my fault, mine and my brother's. And now the same thing's happening here, too, all over again! You went mad and killed everyone, and now you want to die, too, just like in Valeria, and you say it's all for me!"

"Pretty bad coincidence, I'll give you that, but the underlying intent was different. Now, for once in your life, you've got to deal with things, Fai." Ashura shrugged. "Sometimes life's a bitch."

"A Witch, you mean," Kurogane snarled, thinking of the manipulative woman who had thought this whole acid trip across dimensions was a good idea and charged them exorbitant payments for the privilege of getting even more screwed over by Fei Wang Reed's schemes. Kurogane still couldn't stand Yūko Ichihara.

Ashura didn't look the least bit surprised by the correction. "Actually, I never had very much to do with her. But I can't disagree with you. She does possess a certain unique..." he hesitated, then finished diplomatically, "...charm...that's all her own."

"Charm. Heh. Funniest thing I've heard in a year," said Kurogane.

Numbly, Fai sat down on the floor, still caught up in his own hysterical little world. He continued jabbering, "And if I don't kill you, you say that you'll die for some other stupid reason..."

"Everyone dies, Fai," Ashura interjected. "It happens to all of us sooner or later." As an aside to Kurogane, he grumbled, "Fai never did get that grim little fact through his thick skull. He still believes that Fei Wang Reed can somehow bring his brother back to life. That's how he got into this ridiculous fix in the first place."

Fai didn't hear any of it. "...And then this curse I carry will activate and destroy me and any world I happen to be living in at the time. And then everything else will die, too! I really am a world-killer! I really do harm things just by living. My whole life really is a crime and a sin! Everything that's happened here has happened because of me!" Fresh tears ran down his cheek from his one good eye, and his hands made tight, trembling fists. His head bobbed up and down in time with his sobs.

Kurogane muttered, "This meltdown is getting way out of hand..." He looked at Ashura. "You raised him. Don't you know any tricks to calm him down, or at least shut him up?"

"Ordinary methods like naps and timeouts never did any good when he worked himself into a state. It always took time for him to wear himself out, along with some uncommon distractions." He lifted a hand and created a flurry of glittering, multihued sparkles that swirled over Fai's head in a variety of intricate patterns and chimed softly like delicate, crystalline bells, but Fai's hysterics didn't slow down. In fact, confronted with the beloved sights and sounds from his childhood, he just cried harder.

"You're making matters worse!" Kurogane sniped at the king. "He's not a little boy anymore, even if he is acting like one, so that won't work!"

In response, Ashura uttered that doting, well-worn parental refrain that makes all adult children squirm in embarrassment: "He'll always be my little boy."

"Bah. Your little boy is all grown up. Even I know you can't manage him with his baby toys anymore. You're completely incompetent at parenting!"

"I'm incompetent? So proclaims a ninja who can't control his temper, blusters about like a halfwit oaf, and wears a lot of bright red," Ashura retorted, banishing his magical mobile with an abrupt gesture. "That's a real inconspicuous color for an assassin to skulk around in."

Kurogane brandished his sword. "Try saying that again!"

Ashura looked unimpressed. "Oh, please. You know what will happen if you kill me."

At that thoughtless statement, Fai bawled at the top of his lungs. Kurogane reamed out an aching ear with his little finger and glared unsympathetically.

Then the idiot mage's meltdown progressed to full-blown fried, and he collapsed so that he ended up lying on his flank. He curled in on himself, eye scrunched shut, arms wrapped around his middle and knees drawn practically up to his chin, and grew very, very still. After all that caterwauling, the sudden quiet struck Kurogane as peculiar, a calm before a storm. But Fai didn't resume his tantrum. Instead he started mumbling, "Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life..." over and over again.

"Oh, geeze," groaned the exasperated ninja.

Sounding fatigued, Ashura said, "I told you TMI was paralyzing. See what's happened now?"

"I didn't think you meant it so literally!"

Syaoran said timidly, "What do we do?"

In silence, the three functional people (and one magical, floppy-eared creature whose functionality was always suspect) pondered their latest dilemma. Fai stopped chanting his lamentations and curled up tighter, making pathetic and annoying whimpering sounds all the while.

Finally, Ashura griped, "If my dumb kid had just killed me when I originally planned for him to do it, none of this would have happened. He'd never have stabbed that poor little girl over there—" He gestured to Sakura's body, and at this Syaoran flinched, but Ashura ignored it. "...He'd probably still have all his magic power and his eye, and you'd all have had a head start on Fei Wang Reed. Even if he'd killed me just a little while ago, things would have been better. You certainly wouldn't be in this fix, and the rest of the multiverse would still have a fighting chance to survive."

"So how does any of that help us now?" Kurogane demanded, impatient for answers, not repetitive complaints.

"Well, the solution to that second curse is still the same..."

Kurogane shook his head. "You are certifiable. Completely wacko."

"No, not at the moment." Ashura glanced at Fai. "Just desperate to give my son a chance at life. It's not like I actually want to die, you know, but it's the only way to save Fai. Celestial justice must be served, and the threat of my insanity coming back full bore again really isn't much fun to live with. Anyway, my time is over, and yours is still just beginning."

"This is insane," Kurogane grumbled, oblivious to any irony. "The universe has really messed with us but good, hasn't it?" He huffed out a disgusted breath. "How did I end up in the middle of this disaster? I lived a proper ninja life. I was good at my job. I was reliable, awesomely talented, the best and strongest professional killer in all of Nihon. How did my life get this screwed up? I never deserved this. It's got to be personal. The gods hate me," he concluded. "That's what it is."

"Hate them back," Ashura advised him. "It works for me."

Kurogane snorted at that rare slice of pragmatism, and acknowledged the reminder that no one present deserved any of the crap that The Powers That Be had dished out to them over the course of their lives. It wasn't just him that the gods hated.

No one needed to tell him to hate them back. When he was motivated, he was as good at carrying grudges as he was at merciless killing.

Fai stirred. He breathed deeply for a few moments, then squinted and raised his head, propping himself up on one arm. He wiped his face on his other sleeve.

Kurogane scowled at him. "Are you here to stay, or is this just a short visit?"

"Oh, that'll help," Ashura said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Shut up. Like you've been doing any better."

Fai looked wobbly, still half lying on the floor. Kurogane decided to let him be for a bit.

He returned his attention to Ashura. "So that's that, then. The gods hate us all, and have decided that it's you or us."

"My choice has always been to save Fai, but when you come down to it, it's me or the entire multiverse," Ashura stated. A shroud of eerie calm fell over him even while he once more pronounced his own death sentence.

Kurogane told himself it was just the crazy talking, and not to let that uncanny appearance of peace and contentment creep him out.

The king continued, "Killing me and saving Fai will interfere with, and possibly even botch, the rest of Fei Wang Reed's plans. A solution that helps to save all of creation has got to count for something. It would have been better for everyone if Fai had lost control and struck a lethal blow in the heat of battle, defending himself and protecting you lot, but beggars can't be choosers."

"Yeah, I suppose," Kurogane grudgingly admitted.

"And it's simple. Simple solutions are always best."

Says the man who concocted that ridiculously elaborate and convoluted suicide-by-Fai scheme that spans almost twenty years, Kurogane thought sourly. What he said aloud was the absolute truth: "Sounds good to me."

While Ashura's unnatural serenity about his own fate was somewhat disconcerting, Kurogane felt not even the tiniest hint of doubt or conscience about dispassionately planning regicide with the target king himself. Kurogane was, after all, a professional assassin, through and through. He wasn't exactly inclined to sentiment. Besides, he'd been wanting to skewer Ashura since he'd first met the man.

However, this so-called "simple solution" was complicated and prone to failure, because it was entirely dependent upon an erratic, unpredictable, and overly emotional blond wizard's ability—or lack thereof—to murder his own foster father in cold blood.

Said wizard hadn't been able to bring himself to do anything to save himself even while the king was strangling him, so the odds that he could manage a deliberate, calculated patricide were pretty damn low. Kurogane spared another glance at him. Fai was still looking rather numb, hazy, and completely out of it. Meltdowns were always exhausting, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and the severity of Fai's had put him through the metaphorical meat-grinder.

But Fai's less-than-acute mental condition gave Kurogane a great idea. Crazy was the order of the day, so crazy would have to solve their problems, and Fai was in the perfect state for a crazy plan to work. The mage wasn't in his right mind at all. He was passive, foggy, and probably suggestible, and might not even realize what had happened until it was all over...

Kurogane beckoned the king to come closer, and, looking curious, Ashura obliged. Kurogane then bent down by Fai and helped him to his feet. Keeping his free arm wrapped around Fai to support him, Kurogane placed the sword in the dazed magician's hand and said, "Go for it."

Ashura's mask of unconcern slipped a little, and he blinked in surprise, but nevertheless he stepped even closer to his foster son without hesitation. He leaned forward, kissed the top of Fai's head and murmured something to him that no one else could hear, then moved back into position and resumed his peaceful pose.

Fai whined like a wounded animal.

Alarmed, Syaoran protested, "I don't think this is really the best—"

"Shut up," Kurogane snapped. "We're going to get this over with." To Fai, he said, "Here, you hold it like this." He adjusted the sword in Fai's hand. "And then you just give one quick, hard thrust. Make it fast. Fast is good."

Fai whimpered, dropped the sword, and slumped, limp as a ragdoll. His eye closed again. But for his slow breathing, he might have been lifeless.

"What the hell?" Kurogane said, staring at the dead weight hanging in his arms.

Syaoran observed, "I think he's gone completely catatonic. I tried to tell you this wasn't a good idea."

"Well, that's just great." Kurogane glared at the idiotic, damn fool, airhead of a mage. Of all the times to just curl up and try to die!

"Fai ran away again, didn't he?" said Mokona with surprising acumen.

"He always did come up with creative ways to avoid dealing with his problems," the king said.

Kurogane wished them all to perdition. Frowning, he thought for a moment. "Maybe we can salvage this. Here, let me..."

Grunting out a litany of curses, he propped the senseless Fai up against his shoulder. Then, gritting his teeth against the sudden flare of pain from his almost-but-not-quite-forgotten injury, he carefully bent down to retrieve his sword. Fai's head drooped, and he drooled on Kurogane's black and red armor. Kurogane scowled at that, but a plan was a plan.

He carefully wrapped Fai's nerveless fingers around the sword hilt, and used his own hand to keep the mage's in place. Like an amateur puppeteer, he manipulated Fai's hand and arm, raising Fai's arm so that the tip of the blade was pointed at the center of Ashura's chest. The sword wobbled and threatened to fall, so Kurogane gripped his own fingers more tightly about Fai's to keep them both holding the weapon steady.

Ashura had watched this entire operation in silence. Now he just shook his head with an unreadable expression on his face. But the annoying king had fought an entire battle while wearing a similar look, so Kurogane thought it probably didn't mean anything.

Then again, unlike that fight, this time Ashura wasn't smiling.

"There," Kurogane said, satisfied that he managed to keep the idiot mage's lax and unknowing hand on the sword. It was really hard work, and rather clumsy. Still, it should serve. All it would take now was one good, hard, gratifying shove...

"Does it count if we do it this way?" he asked Ashura hopefully. The king was still shaking his head, and now was also looking at Kurogane with pity, as if the ninja were the insane one.

"I'm afraid not," Ashura replied, and Kurogane at last tasted defeat. Then Ashura added, "All this will do is activate that curse. Fai has to be the one to do it, not you. His brain has to be functional while his body performs the actions. His will might not be controlling those actions, as with that first curse, but he has to be mentally present and his own muscles or magic have to provide the impetus—"

"He has a brain?" Incredulously, Kurogane looked at the catatonic mage. "All this time, and I never guessed." He huffed, taking back his sword and letting Fai flop down onto the floor. The ninja felt quite irate and frustrated. He'd really wanted to make Fai lunge forward. Driving his sword through the aggravating king's chest, even second-hand like that, would have been such a satisfying solution.

"I see you know him well," observed Ashura. "Imagine what it was like raising him from childhood."

"I feel your pain. Sometimes it seems like I'm raising him from childhood, too."

The king and the ninja shared a commiserating look.

Kurogane snorted. "I guess it's true what they say, then."

"Hmmm?" Ashura said with an enquiring expression.

Kurogane said, "Insanity is inherited. You get it from your kids. He's certainly made me crazy enough."

"Indeed."

Kurogane scowled at that smug agreement.

"So what do we do now?" Syaoran asked.

"As always, we wait on Fai," Ashura said with a resigned sigh. He'd been doing that a lot lately. "Have patience. He's easily distractible, so he'll probably snap out of it sooner or later."

Kurogane rolled his eyes. Well, at least he'd have some time to get the wound in his side patched up a bit better.

Fei Wang Reed stared incredulously at his magic mirror and commented, "What a bunch of idiots."

The mirror's large 3D imaging system vividly displayed the scene in what was left of Seresu: Ashura had sat down cross-legged on the floor, hunched over with his elbows propped on his thighs and resting his chin on his fists. Syaoran sat next to Sakura's soulless body and looked depressed. Kurogane and Mokona took turns poking at the traumatized magician. Kurogane used the end of his sword hilt. Mokona used its paw. Fai just curled into a tighter ball.

Fei Wang Reed shook his head. He'd known they were all fools, but this was beyond ridiculous.

"I sure never foresaw this particular scenario," he said with frustration. "And even if I had, I would have written it off as the result of some bad mushrooms or something." His fists clenched, and he scowled ferociously. "Oh, it's too irritating. I had it all mapped out. Damn it, now I have to figure out another way to collect all those memories and trans-dimensional experiences from that clone girl's body, or I'll never prove I can beat Clow!"

Thanks to that stupid, inconsistent, neurotic, pain-in-the-ass mage, Fei Wang had a ton of rework to do. He hated reworking his plans. He'd been so sure he wouldn't have to do any rework this time, but noooo. And to top it off, that meant no A-Team or Fantasy Island reruns for him anytime soon. That made him even grumpier. He'd been looking forward to watching Tattoo point and shout at the vintage prop job, Roarke's Island twist dreams into nightmares, and Hannibal put together outrageously complex, violent, and infallible schemes—a talent, Fei Wang grudgingly admitted, that he was lamentably lacking—at least the infallible part. He could manage the complex and violent parts just fine.

Peevish and completely out of sorts, he got up and kicked his bowl of popcorn across the room. Fluffy white corn puffs and a few unpopped kernels tumbled through the air like confetti and scattered on the floor. Still aggravated, he turned his back on his mirror and the damned idiots it displayed in stunning, state-of-the-art 3D, and stomped out of the room.

Sometime later, while the aforementioned idiots in Seresu were all still sitting around getting bored with watching Fai snivel and whimper incoherently, Princess Sakura's body dissolved into swirling pink flower petals that blew away on the cosmic winds.

Not long after that, the entire multiverse went as crazy as King Ashura, and began to crumble and collapse in on itself. In the far, far, faraway distance, a wailed "Nooooo! The plan! The plan!" issued from Fei Wang Reed's throat as he was sucked into the very doom that he himself had engineered. A long stream of popcorn and a huge library of old '70's and '80's VHS tapes and DVDs spiraled in after him and vanished into well-deserved oblivion.

An extended, dyspeptic belch worthy of Galactus on a bender might have followed, but as there was no one to hear, of course the multiverse didn't really make a sound.

Doing the pan-dimensional, omni-temporal equivalent of doubling over the porcelain throne, the multiverse barfed out all its dark energy then imploded into a naked singularity. In embarrassment, it popped out of existence, never to appear again.

Sing it now:

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

September, 2012

For anyone who is interested, here are the attributions. Even if nobody cares, it's always polite to give credit where credit is due:

"And now for something completely different" was the catchphrase from Monty Python's Flying Circus

The Gods Themselves is the title of a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, but the phrase goes at least as far back as Friedrich Schiller's Die Jungfrau von Orleans from 1801. Asimov's story involved a parallel universe and how energy and matter exchanges with it would result in the destruction of the Sun, the Earth, and possibly even the Milky Way Galaxy.

"I love it when a plan comes together." Hannibal Smith, The A-Team

"The plane! The plane!" Tattoo, Fantasy Island. From Wikipedia: 'This line, shown at the beginning of the show's credits, became an unlikely catchphrase because of Villechaize's spirited delivery and French accent (he actually pronounced it, "De plane! De plane!").'

Suicide-by-Fai. A riff on "suicide by cop." From Wikipedia: "Suicide by cop is a suicide method in which a suicidal individual deliberately acts in a threatening way, with the goal of provoking a lethal response from a law enforcement officer or other legitimately armed individual." In this case, Kurogane has recognized that Ashura was trying (and failing) to provoke a lethal response from Fai.

"My son works?" King Jaffe Joffer, Coming to America

"You've got some 'splaining to do!" Ricky Ricardo, I Love Lucy

"You really are crazy." Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon

"...practically perfect in every way." Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins

"Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life." Lord John Whorfin/Dr. Emilio Lizardo, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. The protagonists in this movie were attempting to stop aliens from another dimension from starting World War III and destroying the Earth.

"The gods hate me. That's what it is." "Hate them back. It works for me." A riff on Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs' grim banter from Lethal Weapon: "God hates me. That's what it is." "Hate Him back. It works for me."

"Oh, it's too irritating. I had it all mapped out." Fairy Godmother, The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella

"The plan! The plan!" A riff on Tattoo's "The plane! The plane!" from Fantasy Island

Galactus is a world-devouring demigod who first appeared in Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four comic book way back in the 1960's.

"It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." Refrain lyrics for the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M.