Tsubasa Chronicle Fan Fiction ❯ At the Base of Shall N'Ak ❯ Ya'isid Ma'gue ( Chapter 2 )

Thank you to the 40 people who visited my story. I was afraid no one came to MediaMiner's Tsubasa section anymore. However, nobody reviewed. =( I hope that doesn't mean that all of you who read chapter one hated it. Please leave me a review after you read. Even if you did hate it; let me know why. Perhaps I can fix it.

 

Word Count: 2,644

Spoiler: I used information from the Celes arc, but the setting is from somewhere in between Tokyo and Infinity and has been slightly altered to suit my desires.

Disclaimer: Neither Tsubasa, nor Stargate has ever been, is, nor will ever be mine.

 

Now, on with the show!

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“Syaoran-kun! Sakura ran up to the bars as two guards lead the boy through the open door. “Are you alright?”

 

“I'm fine, Hime,” he answered, trying and failing to hide the blush forming on his cheeks. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yes,” she said, her voice quiet. She looked directly into Syaoran's eyes, who, by now, was standing just outside the cell while the guards unlocked the bars.

 

Fay placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder, “We're all well, Sakura-chan.” She smiled up at him. He took a quick glance at Kurogane before turning back towards the front of the cell, “Well, I suppose that means it's my tu-”

 

Kurogane jerked his attention away from the kid and the falling shield, and planted it firmly on Fay. The mage looked as though he was seeing a nightmare standing right before him. All of what little color Fay had was gone. His eyes were open wide, and were quivering slightly. Never had Kurogane ever seen Fay looking this scared before, but when he looked, nothing was there.

 

“Oi.”

 

“Where's Mokona?”

 

“Let's go.”

 

Jerkingly, the smile returned, “Actually, I'd like to stay here. I don't know any more than Syaoran-san and the others. I'm sure you've gotten everything you need from them.”

 

“Move!”

 

Fay actually took a step back.

 

“O-oi.”

 

“Jaffa, cree!”

 

One of the other guards pointed one end of a staff he had been holding at Fay. The mage only smiled, “I imagine that weapon does not simply stun those it is fired upon?”

 

In answer, the guard pressed a button and the tip of the staff opened with a sizzle of orange energy. Fay's smile never left his face.

 

“If you do kill me, you won't be able to get any of the information you have assumed I possess.”

 

This time, the guard smirked and turned his weapon on Sakura. The princess took a sharp breath, but stilled when Syaoran stepped in front of her. Apparently, it did not matter to the guard who he killed, as he did not react to Syaoran's movements.

 

Fay's smile disappeared. He stared hard at the guard with ice-cold eyes before taking a step forward. The guard raised his weapon and took hold of Fay's arm, shoving him out of the cell and towards the still open door. Kurogane watched him disappear until the last traces of him were gone.

 

He wondered about the mage's behavior. Fay had been terrified of something, and if it were possible for Kurogane to feel such weak things, he would have had to admit that this fact had him worried as well. Whatever he had been afraid of, Kurogane wasn't able to see it. It had come suddenly, just as the guard had taken the barrier away. Kurogane knew this could only mean one thing: the mage had sensed something.

 

He quickly question Syaoran and determined that the boy had not been harmed, nor had he learned much of anything while he had been gone. He thought that he might be able to retrace his steps to find where he was taken, but it would be difficult as he would have to do so backwards. He had come to in time to be pushed out of a large room with a bed and a mass of unrecognizable technology, and down the maze of identical halls back towards the cell.

 

Kurogane grunted and gave the guards a good glare before returning to his brooding against the far wall, “Get some sleep.”

 

Kurogane-san?”

 

“That stupid mage is the last one of us to be interrogated. If anything is going to happen, it'll be when he gets back. You two should sleep before then.”

 

The two of them nodded. Sakura followed Syaoran over to the wall at Kurogane's right, where he sat, and she laid her head in his lap. Twenty minutes later, when Kurogane glanced over at them, Syaoran had fallen over, and they lay tangled in each others' arms. The ninja felt something pull in his chest, and he shifted a bit, as though to throw the feeling off.

 

Fay had been gone an hour and a half before Kurogane (who by now was “shifting” quite often) decided to wake the kid.

 

“Oi.”

 

Syaoran stirred.

 

“Kid.”

 

He opened one eye, and when he realized that Kurogane was looking at him, sat up.

 

“How long were you gone?”

 

“I'm not sure; I wasn't awake for most of it.”

 

Kurogane glanced at the guards in irritation before looking at Syaoran again, “Wake her up.”

 

“But…”

 

“She was the only one who was awake for all of our interrogations.”

 

Syaoran sighed, but bent over to prod Sakura into consciousness, “I'm sorry, Hime, but Kurogane-san would like to speak with you.”

 

Sakura sat up, wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked at Kurogane, waiting for him to speak.

 

“How long were we interrogated for?”

 

“I can't really be sure. I suppose not too long, even though it seemed like a long time. Probably half an hour.”

 

Kurogane grit his teeth, grunted and shifted.

 

“How long have we been asleep?”

 

He took a moment to answer, “An hour and a half.”

 

Neither Syaoran nor Sakura fell asleep again. The three of them waited in silence for another 30 minutes before anything else happened. Finally, they heard the familiar sound of a door springing to life. Sakura, and even Syaoran, jumped up and moved towards the bars. Kurogane sat up straighter, but did not move from his position against the wall. He heard feet begin to move down the hall, and knew from the way they fell that Fay was being held up and drug along by two guards who stood on either side of him. He steeled himself, trying to prepare for whatever condition Fay may have been in, but what he saw when the mage appeared could not have been prepared for.

 

Sakura gasped when she saw him, and Syaoran let out a tiny, “Fay,” while he moved to comfort his princess. Though it went unseen, Kurogane's reaction was the biggest of all. He leaped to his feet, eyes narrowed on the mage, heart pounding in his chest and hand reaching for his non-existent sword.

 

Fay was pale, paler than even the snow in Celes, Kurogane imagined. There were bruises all over his once pristine face, and his lip had been busted in two. He leaned heavily on the guards, and his breathing came in stuttered gasps. The guards smirked at their reactions and Kurogane swore he'd gift them a slow, painful death.

 

The barrier came down, and the guards focused weapons on each of the cell's occupants, “Get back and stay there.”

 

Kurogane didn't move, but the kids moved to stand next to him, Sakura clutched tightly in Syaoran's arms. The bars were opened, and the guards threw Fay in, but before he could hit the ground, Kurogane had caught him in his arms.

 

“Bastards.”

 

The guards who brought Fay in laughed as they left. Kurogane waited until they were out of his sight, and after he had thrown a good glare at the remaining guards, before he adjusted himself. He laid Fay down on the ground. He then took off his cloak, gathered it up, and placed it under the mage's head. He felt justified in doing this because the idiot magician probably had a concussion, and he had to elevate his head to keep the blood from pooling there.

 

He felt around Fay's head looking for any lacerations. He found none, but he did find something else that made him stop. As he ran the pads of his fingers along Fay's temple, he felt a strange bump. He pushed back the golden layers of hair and discovered that a small circle of metal had been attached to him. Sakura, who had been leaning over his shoulder, gasped.

 

“That's…!”

 

Kurogane swiveled his head around to look at her. She was tracing her fingers along her own temple. She tore her eyes away from Fay to look at him.

 

“They put one of those on the side of my head when they first brought me into that room. I felt them take it off again before they brought me back.”

 

Syaoran stepped up to stand beside her, “Before they brought me back, I felt the same thing.”

 

Kurogane rumbled out a low noise in affirmation, thinking that that must have been what he felt when he had first woken up in this place.

 

“If they took it off of us, why did they leave it on Fay-san?”

 

“Who knows?”

 

Kurogane decided to ignore it for the time being. He resumed checking Fay for hidden injuries, running hands along his arms and legs to check for breaks. He was in the middle of checking Fay's hips when the mage began to stir.

 

“K-kuro?”

 

“Don't talk.”

 

He continued checking Fay's body, but the mage's breathing became more labored.

 

“Kuro, it-it hurts.”

 

Kurogane looked sharply back at Fay. Never in the past had he ever admitted that an injury was hurting him. He reached back for Fay's shirt and lifted it above his stomach. He sat, seething in anger at the bruising covering his body.

 

“I'm sorry, Kurogane. I swear I put up a fight, it's just-”

 

“Shut up.”

 

Fay finally opened his eyes and looked the ninja in the eye. Kurogane could see the hurt there, and knew he should say something, but found he couldn't even remember the simple words to do so.

 

“Go to sleep.”

 

Fay hesitated a moment before closing his eyes and shifting into a more comfortable position. It didn't take him long to fall asleep, and for that Kurogane was grateful. He was more than a little pissed off. He wanted to kill every last soldier in that place for what they had done to Fay, yet he was disgusted with himself for feeling that way. The mage had come back to him a changed man, all hint at a façade gone, and he desperately wanted to know what had happened to cause that change. Yet he, just as desperately, didn't want to know anything.

 

The mage was more than changed himself; he was changing Kurogane as well. The ninja hated that fact more than he had ever hated anything before, yet at the same time, his heart welcomed it.

 

Suddenly, Fay gasped. Before Kurogane could turn his attention to him, he noticed that the guards quickly glanced at one another. Fay was now breathing erratically, and his face was scrunched up in both pain and terror. He rolled himself into a tight ball, but Kurogane could still see the tear that glistened on his cheek. He was moaning, though it sounded distinctly like protesting. After a short while, his sounds began to be punctuated by words.

 

“N-no…please! Don't!”

 

“O-oi.”

 

“Please!” Fay's cry was nothing more than a pain-filled whisper. Kurogane didn't know what he should do, but he knew quite clearly what he wanted to do. Reaching out with a large hand, he took a firm grip of Fay's shoulder and roughly forced him onto his back and out of his protective ball.

 

Fay immediately threw open his eye. He stared at the ceiling, fear still running rampant across his face. Finally, he slowly blinked, turning his head to the side. When he opened his eye again, he was looking at Kurogane. The ninja could see the question there, but it seemed the mage couldn't find the words to ask it.

 

“You were having a nightmare.”

 

Fay visibly relaxed, but Kurogane knew that mentally, it was a different story. He knew that the mage had just had a vision of his past. Fay didn't acknowledge that, however, and Kurogane didn't feel the need to force the issue.

 

Sakura slowly approached and knelt down beside Fay, “Fay-san, do you want to talk about it?”

 

Fay sat up to face her. Though the action pained him, he did his best not to show it. He smiled, “It's nothing, Sakura-chan, just a dream.”

 

“But Fay-san, you were so scared!”

 

His eye became dark, and his smile completely empty, “Then it must have been a scary dream, ne?”

 

“Y-yeah.”

 

Kurogane looked away. The façade was back. For some reason, now that he had seen the real Fay, he couldn't stand to look at the fake one anymore. Even when he heard the mage get up and walk towards the bars, he didn't look.

 

“Ne, Soldier-sama?”

 

“Shut up.” Kurogane's voice held the promise of retribution if he was disobeyed, but he still did not look at the mage. He felt a small sense of relief when Fay did not speak again.

 

Silence fell upon the cell. Not even the small chirping of a bug or the soft rushing of a breath could be heard. It was deafening and Kurogane knew that it was only a matter of time until the mage spoke just to break it. Sure enough, a short while later a light voice did ring out through the dark silence, but Kurogane was surprised when it wasn't the mage's.

 

“How long do you think they'll keep us in here, Syaoran-kun?”

 

Syaoran looked each guard in the eye before answering, “I don't know, Hime.”

 

Silence reigned again. This time, it was left unbroken. After a while, even Kurogane couldn't stand it. He turned to look at the mage, but when he did, any sound he might have uttered died before it even reached his throat. Fay was staring at him. No smile marred his now all but healed face to hide the truth of what lay beyond it. The sadness welling in his eye was tangible.

 

For a moment, Kurogane felt frozen. This was Fay, the real Fay. The ninja felt sick with himself for the feelings the real Fay rose within him. His heart felt cold, his stomach sick. His airways were constricted. Fay didn't turn away, didn't try to cover himself with a smile.

 

Kurogane took a slow breath, forcing himself to get a grip. He swallowed, not immediately trusting his voice. But when he opened his mouth to speak, Fay's face changed. His jaw stiffened and his eye grew rounder. His brows shifted closer together and his body grew tense. His lips parted and his chest rose suddenly in a silent gasp. For, seemingly, no reason at all, Fay was gripped in fear.

 

Kurogane narrowed his eyes and would have spoken if the mage had not beaten him to it, “No,” he whispered. Fay had little more than breathed the word, but to Kurogane it couldn't have been louder if he had shouted it. He stood, crossed the room and stood before the mage. Fay cowered before him, tears streaming down his face, “Please, don't!”

 

Disgusted, Kurogane reached down and grabbed the mage's arm with the intention of hauling him to his feet, but when he did, Fay flinched and cried out with a broken voice, “Please, Ashura-ou!” Kurogane released him and jerked back, stunned.

 

“O-oi.”

 

Fay flinched.

 

Kurogane shut his mouth.

 

Fay flinched.

 

Kurogane knelt before him.

 

Flinch. A whimper. Fay curled himself into a protective ball once again.

 

Another flinch.

 

Another.

 

“Please…s-stop.”

 

Flinch.

 

Kurogane practically growled as he spun to face the guards, leaping to his feet, “What the hell is going on?”

 

Fay whimpered behind him. The guards looked at one another before turning their self-satisfied smirks on Kurogane.

 

“Answer me, damnit!”

 

To his surprise, one of them did, “He is being punished.”

 

“What the hell does that mean?” but they would say no more.

 

He turned to face a panting mage behind him. Whatever the hell just happened, it seemed to be over now. He sighed and, just as he had done before, arranged Fay into a more comfortable position. As he did, Fay spoke, “I'm sorry I ruined your dinner, Ashura-ou. From now on, I'll always smile for you.”

 

There you have it! Please drop me off a review before you go. ^_^