The Telling of One Billion Ghost Stories (draft) - Epilogues
MUCH BELATED ETA: After far, far too many years languishing in awkward draft form, I've finally got this thing re-edited and posted to AO3, where it can be read in one place without your having to mess around with 30+ different LJ posts. Enjoy!
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Side Story 1
It wasn't precisely over there, not when they still had the return journey to make. Yuzuriha was waiting to meet them outside with all her exhausting cheerfulness. The birds themselves, already flown halfway across the country and now asked to carry close to twice the load on the way back, were not so accommodating, and had to be rested more frequently during the return flight. There was plenty of time to fill Watanuki and the girls in on the at least the basics of their rescue on the way, and for once in his life, Fye had very little need to embellish any details.
Flying did not particularly agree with Watanuki. It probably wouldn't have agreed with him even if he hadn't already been through enough traumatising new experiences in the last twenty four hours to last a lifetime, though that might not have been strictly why he held on to Doumeki all the time they were airborne.
After all that, dealing with Fuuma for the first time really should have been more than he deserved.
***
There was an electrified security fence surrounding the perimeter of the camp, cunningly camouflaged to look to the untrained eye like little more than an easily scaled barrier of piled junk. Subtle enough to trap a gullible interloper, but no serious obstacle.
The camp within was small and dusty, a cluster of low, acid-eaten building kept in only as much repair as it took to keep them standing. It looked like an easy target, but also like a target too poor to have anything worth taking. Like the fence, it was a simple, tasteless illusion that didn't greatly impress him, nor did it do much to lessen his disdain for the thought that anyone would choose to live in squalor like this. All was quiet as he walked between the buildings, the empty silence of a place utterly deserted by everyone who lived there, until a voice behind him commented, "Snooping around while the family is out, Kamui?"
Kamui did not startle and didn’t bother turning immediately, though he did grind his teeth together quietly. He'd learned not to be surprised at hearing that voice out of the blue years ago - really, this was something he'd half expected. "The 'family' are less than an hour's journey away from us. You are here for the same reason."
"Well, our Yuzuriha's done a lot for them, and they will have had quite a day. I do have a vested interest in finding out whether my investment has paid off," said Fuuma, with a smirk Kamui could hear. "We wouldn't want Kurogane forgetting to stop by the Tower to settle up the details of our deal."
When Kaumi turned around Fuuma was slouched against the side of a building as though he'd been there all day, though he certainly hadn't been there two minutes ago. "Assuming they have met their objective, I will have as much reason to remind them that they are in my debt as you."
"Ah, that's right," said Fuuma casually, "You were offering to cancel out that awkward little debt as incentive for my help with this. Still so eager to be rid of that?"
Kamui made a point of ignoring the question. "Though if your treasured birds haven't brought them back, I don't see that I'll have much cause to consider you've done anything to repay that debt at all."
"Harsh, Kamui. I expect they’ll be counting themselves lucky if Yuzuriha's methods of transportation are the worst challenge they've faced. We had better hope they had some basis for all that confidence."
"You doubt they will succeed?" Preventing these conversations from devolving into something that would make an awful mess of the surroundings usually did require selectively not hearing a good deal of what was said.
Fuuma shrugged as if to suggest he wasn't too concerned on the subject, not to mention familiar with Kamui’s use of selective subject changes. "We'll know soon. Kurogane is the sort of man who has a decent idea of his own means."
"And his own value to you and me, too well for my comfort. No-one else would have dared ask us a favour like that one," said Kamui bitterly.
"Hm," said Fuuma. "I will grant you that point. It’s not so comfortable for the likes of us to be relying on an outside camp this like, is it?”
"Of course not. We have become far too accustomed to the storm warnings they provide us to give up that luxury, and yet we have no other way to obtain them. It is shameful how dependent on them we have become. And look where it has gotten us!"
“Did you ever think of offering them a permanent place at the Diet Building?” Fuuma asked conversationally.
“Even if I had, they would not have accepted. They’re too accustomed to their independence.”
“All too true. For all that Kurogane pretends to be indifferent to leadership he’ll never be satisfied with taking instructions from anyone else again. And if they ever joined one of us or the other it would only throw everything out of balance. With the sort of attention they call to themselves, we may have been regretting that anyway by now.
“Then again,” Fuuma went on, “I wonder how long this way of life of theirs might last? There may come a time when even their weather reports are not the commodity they used to be. We don't get half the acid storms today that we saw five years ago, and five years from now…"
"…they will be half as rare again, and knowing when one is due will be worth twice as much," Kamui finished. "They should worry harder about whether they will still be able to deliver. After an event like this, they can only hope the day doesn't come when they begin to attract more trouble than they anticipate for us."
“But they do make the landscape more interesting." said Fuuma with a smile, then he glanced up, his expression levelling out. "Now what could that be?"
With the reluctance of someone used to assuming everything was a trick, Kamui looked over his shoulder to see four small dots appearing in the sky above.
***
After the day they'd had, Fuuma was really more than any of them deserved to have to deal with, let alone both him and Kamui at once. However, by the time the travellers were coming in to land, eyes drawn inexorably towards the welcome sight of home, the figures of the two interlopers had been easily spotted and just as easily identified. Few others would have dared to do what they were doing so openly.
Yuzuriha saw it all a bit differently. "Fuuma!" she called as soon as her mount had landed, waving to him from her perch on its neck. "You came all this way to greet us?"
"Oh, that and to bring them the bike they left behind at the Tower," Fuuma added, as if casual favours were nothing out of character. "So, how did it all go? Find everything you were looking for?"
The question was more directed at the others, who had fared generally worse for the long flight, but Yuzuriha beat them to the answer. "It went great! These guys found all the friends they went to look for and we got them all back in one piece. We've never flown nearly this far before but the birds all managed just fine, even if they are going to need to sleep for a week when we get back. I'm so proud of them."
Kurogane dismounted stiffly, holding on to what poise he could still muster out of grim necessity. "Whatever favours we owe don't include permission to trespass on our camp when you please." He shot a look at Kamui, justifiably suspicious about the odds that any place those two met would still be intact by the time they left, though for the moment, the two of them seemed to be doing a determined job of ignoring the fact the other was there.
Fuuma gave the satisfied smile of a man who had been made to endure a good deal and was now looking forward to being able to name his compensation. "Hard to be sure, when we didn't get as far as we didn't get as far as discussing exactly what the value of this favour was going to be."
“Fine,” said Kurogane, too tired to argue, but not too tired to negotiate.
Watanuki all but fell from his own saddle, too exhausted even to be properly relieved to be back on solid ground, and froze as he found himself looking Kamui right in the eye. He wasn't wearing any kind of eye patch, and the dead white of his sightless eye was as good as a name tag.
Doumeki hopped down from his own saddle to stand beside him as Kamui treated this new member of Kurogane's camp to a considering look. Apparently finding nothing worthy of further interest he let his attention drift on to the other unfamiliar camp members. "What a collection you have here," he muttered disdainfully to no-one in particular.
Watanuki looked so stunned Doumeki wondered whether he was actually letting himself feel a little insulted to be so easily dismissed. He gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't you think they'd have tracked you down years ago if they were interested?" Watanuki appeared to be pretending he hadn't heard - relieved but almost past caring when he was already so much past his limit for having his world turned upside down for one day.
Kamuit continued to treat Fye, Chi and Kohane to more cursory inspection as they dismounted around him, with barely even that for the familiar sight of Syaoran, before Sakura, dismounting last of all, took a stumble on landing back on solid ground, stepped forward again while finding her feet and looked up to find herself staring almost straight up into Kamui’s face. He stared back in mild surprise as Sakura blinked up at him, seemingly unsure whether it would be more or less rude to step away at this point.
"You're… Kamui from the Diet Building, aren't you?" she asked shyly.
"Aa…" Kamui replied vaguely, not sure what to make of her.
Sakura dropped into a respectful bow. "Syaoran told me what you did to help us get home. Thank you, from all of us."
"It's… nothing you need to thank me for," said Kamui awkwardly, touched and not sure what to do about it. Doumeki wondered for the first time whether their old decision to keep Sakura within the safety of the camp while others handled chores like dealing with these people had been as wise or as necessary as they’d let themselves assume.
It was certainly a day for revelation.
The matter of the value of the camp’s gratitude certainly wasn’t ‘nothing’ to Kamui, which was more than evident shortly after when even he could no longer keep himself from having his say in Fuuma and Kurogane's continuing negotiations over just how many months it would be before they had to pay for a storm warning again. The number shuffled up and down in increments, Fuuma was accused of being unnecessarily difficult, and most of the rest of the camp filed away into their respective quarters to leave them to it. Kurogane bore it all with the determination of a man who ran out of patience for this sort of debate years ago but knew that showing it would only make everything take even longer.
Finally, after what was really only a matter of minutes but which felt much longer, all relevant agreements were reached, and Fuuma told Kurogane where his bike was and swung himself up on one of Yuzuriha’s unladen birds in preparation to leave.
“Need a ride home, Kamui?” he called suddenly.
“I can make my own way,” was the unsurprisingly blunt response.
“Something worth being proud of,” Fuuma commented with unusually sincerity. He may have said more, but it was lost to under the sound of wingbeats as the tired birds made their way back for one last trip through the sky.
***
With their ‘guests’ gone, Kurogane could finally allow that everything was, in every way that needed to be dealt with today, finally over. It was high time for the camp members to get some long overdue rest, but for himself he’d hit the point of being too tired to register how tired he was. It was going to take at least a day or two more before everything would sink enough for him to be sure how much had actually changed. It didn't bother him particularly, but in stepping through his doorway, Kurogane could only observe it had been a day of too much upheaval for the familiar to be very comforting yet. That should have included Fye's habit of taking any opportunity to invade his personal space by following him in here, but for once Kurogane couldn't resent him for that. They'd need to have this conversation sooner or later - he'd been putting it off enough years already.
Fye slumped by the doorway, and looked around the room as though having similar thoughts. "So much excitement, and all we have to show for it is a return to the status quo. What a waste," he smiled ruefully. "Here we are, very probably the only people ever to beat Tomoyo at her own game, and there's no-one within a hundred miles who we can show off to about it."
Kurogane may have been too tired for this conversation after all. "You think that counted as beating her?"
Fye quirked an eyebrow. "Considering that we let her lead us all that way and still got out again despite all her attempts to convince us otherwise, yes, I think that's a victory to be savoured for a good long while."
“That doesn't mean much,” said Kurogane bitterly. “We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if she hadn’t decided to let us go.”
"Oh, no doubt about it," Fye agreed without hesitation. "She even made it convincing enough that one could almost believe that was all she planned to do all along. But there wasn’t any other way she could have lost gracefully once we’d made it so very clear to her that there was nothing she could possibly say to us that would make us willing to stay."
Kurogane had nothing to say to that. Fye took on a distinct look of surprise. "My goodness, you're not still feeling guilty about leaving, are you? Even after you were just reminded of everything she ever put you through."
"She wasn't wrong," said Kurogane, awkwardly trying to express something that had never stopped nagging at him. "I never liked her methods, but… the Complexes were something someone needed to do, and it probably couldn't have worked without her there.”
"But you said it yourself right to her face,” Fye sounded increasingly exasperated, “she doesn't need you. Oh, she may very well have claimed she needed someone to treat her judgements to the critiquing they deserved, but I would bet just about anything that all she ever wanted was a sounding board who could be counted on to point out all possible objections to her crazy ideas and let her practice her justifications before the general populace got hold of them. Nowadays, I imagine she's had to get used to being her own harshest critic, and that isn't as easy as you think when you've made a career out of making your clever obfuscations so good that even you start believing your own lies. I doubt it was ever about being right or wrong just as long as no-one questioned her. If you really feel the need to go back to being a crash test dummy for new kinds of psychological manipulation, then I'm going to have to tie you down and beat some sense into you myself!"
Fye was almost panting by the time he was done. Kurogane wondering how long he'd been sitting on that little outburst. Years? "Those are bold words from someone who only met her in person a day ago."
Fye gave another wry smile. "You were probably always too close to her to notice how she loomed over the lives of everyone else - even to the other Complexes, where people might only see her once or twice a lifetime. You may as well remember who you’re talking to while we’re at it; you'd be amazed the way a life long practice of having to lie through your teeth just to make everyone around you believe you were the same person they spoke to yesterday makes you appreciate the same sort of creative spin-doctoring in others. Gives you a bit of perspective on the subject of whether you're really living in the paradise everyone else thinks you're in too."
Kurogane caught his eye and let himself hold it for longer than he'd ever let himself before over the years of their acquaintance. "You knew right from the start, didn't you?"
"Who you were?" asked Fye. "Of course. It would take more than an ugly new outfit to disguise a face like yours. You spent far too many years at Tomoyo's side not to make yourself recognisable, Kuro-dear."
It was true, though he'd never had much of an official position. It had been more of a behind the scenes sort of job. "I wouldn't have thought people paid any attention to the guards standing next to her."
"She didn't outshine you as much as you imagine," Fye said fondly. "Not any more than the Flowrights' tale being a case from outside your own Complex would have kept you from taking notice of a few faces, hm? But then there we were, finally having our fateful meeting out in the middle of nowhere like the lost souls we were, and you seemed so set on pretending you hadn't the faintest clue who I was that it was all I could do to play along with the pretence I believed your rugged good looks could have grown up somewhere uncivilised."
Put that way it did seem silly that Kurogane had avoided the subject for so long - excepting one detail. He never had found out exactly who he'd met that day. "Which one were you?"
Fye blinked, uncomprehending.
"The Flowrights is a plural," Kurogane reminded him. "You used to have a brother." Fye's expression slipped, not quite enough to make Kurogane regret bringing up the long overdue subject, but enough to prove he'd hit a mark.
"Oh yes. I did, didn't I? And a father too - even a mother once, much longer ago. As for which of them I was…" Fye shook his head, "would you believe I don't remember? One of us was called Yuui once, but we spent so long both being Fye that I'm not even sure I could tell you whether that was me."
Kurogane regarded him solemnly. "What happened?"
"To the other Fye?” His voice took on a wistful note. “Only what I suppose we'd always been waiting for."
"Waiting for?"
"We'd always known there wasn't space in the world for both of us,” said Fye, as if that made any kind of sense. “One way or another. Just surviving to see this brave new world was more than most people born when we were deserved. It must have been terribly selfish of us to ask for more. I don't think either of us believed we'd deserve to have anything good ever happen as long as we were both trying to share barely enough room for one."
Kurogane frowned. "Do I need to tell you how crazy that is?"
"Oh no, I am guilty as charged on that account.” Self-mocking as the statement was, Fye declared it without the slightest reservation.
"That hasn't stopped you missing him," Kurogane guessed.
“Not for one day,” Fye sighed, looking down at his hands. “But our father went through so much to give us a place in the world, and the last thing I said to my brother was a promise to him that I'd make the best of it. I wouldn't give up. I've got two lives to live for now.” Still looking down, he added. “Now I hope that’s going to be enough talking on these cheerful subjects for you for one day, because I for one am well past being ready for bed.”
Kurogane didn’t argue.
***
Sakura had kept looking at Syaoran since they’d got back. Not for reassurance, though that may have been some part of it, but with an expression of wonder, like she’d never seen him before. Eventually, it had gone on long enough that he had to ask her, “Is something wrong?” and with that the floodgates opened.
“It’s your ghosts!” Sakura admitted tearfully. “Kimihiro told you about them, didn’t he? The ones that always haunted you. They’re gone! I thought nothing could ever make them you, but now they’re gone.”
It was like all of the supernatural to him, he didn’t have the mental framework to understand properly, but… “That’s good, right?”
Sakura sniffled and nodded her head in an awkward motion that wanted to turn into a shake. “It is good. It was never good that they were haunting you. I always wished something would make them leave you alone, but when it happened this way…” she gave a broken sob. “They were what was protecting you. When you walked into that storm with all the angry ones, they were the only thing that stopped the others from killing you. They all got torn away! I never liked seeing them, but if they hadn’t been there, you…”
Syaoran wrapped his arms around her and held her while she sobbed into his chest. “Sorry for scaring you.” Sakura gave a louder sob and clutched at his shirt. “It worked out for the best, right?”
“Those ghosts,” he started when she’d calmed down a bit. “It was since we burst out of that place all those years ago, that same Complex?”
“You remember what happened?” asked Sakura, looking up into his eyes.
“Bits and pieces. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but the ghosts got angry that day too, right? That was how we made it out. I survived then, so I thought maybe I could do the same thing again. And it worked - sort of, even if I didn’t know how.”
Sakura looked slightly comforted, but not wholly ready to forgive the incident. “But the ghosts are gone now. They’ll probably never come back. If anything like that happens again…”
“I’ll call Shizuka,” said Syaoran firmly. “He didn’t know if it was going to work either at first, but he made it through on his own. That’s his power, or something. I know even I have to rely on others sometimes. And you take care of me too. I won’t let myself get hurt for it.”
“Promise? Sakura begged, staring into his eyes.
“I promise,” said Syaoran, as Sakura wiped her eyes.
***
It was a while before Doumeki got the chance to say anything much to Watanuki. When they got back, his first priority was to make sure Kohane was alright and could be safely put to bed, where she fell asleep almost immediately, so bone tired after everything she’d been through that there was nothing left keeping her going. Doumeki had half expected Watanuki to be in the same state, but when they did get back to Doumeki’s building, Watanuki’s first move was to make it very clear that he really wasn’t going to believe that everything was really over and Doumeki had come through all that without a scratch until he had personally examined every inch of Doumeki’s person in intimate detail. Doumeki was not the least inclined to object. If nothing else, sex had to be a far healthier way of using up left over adrenaline than any of Watanuki’s usually flail-heavy neurotic behaviour.
It was afterwards, both of them stretched comfortably within arm’s reach on the mattress, as relaxed as they’d have any right to be for a while, that Watanuki mustered that accusatory tone Doumeki had been familiar with within hours of his acquaintance to say, “Do you know what? I’m not surprised.”
Doumeki rolled over to face him properly and waited for the elaboration that had to be coming.
“I’m not the least bit surprised you came after me. You are all of you here exactly crazy enough to do something like that. And,” Watanuki went on, his voice finally cracking under the strain, “you are exactly crazy enough to have made it work.”
There were tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes - barely visible if Doumeki hadn’t had the aural cue in Watanuki’s voice to cue him to look for them, but he was making no attempt to hide them now it was out in the open. He gave a rough, hiccoughing sob. Doumeki stretched an arm out to stroke gently down Watanuki’s back as he sniffled into the pillow. He’d earned the right to this much.
“It did work,” Doumeki pointed out when Watanuki was calming down a little.
“You didn’t know it was going to,” Watanuki muttered indignantly.
“No. Had to be worth a try though.”
Watanuki let out a long, deep sigh. “Some day, I am going to stop wondering how you people could possibly be real, and I’m going to start cursing the fact you didn’t find me years ago.”
“Not quite there yet?”
“I’m getting close,” Watanuki admitted. He pulled his face out from where he’d been laving a dampish patch in the wad of cloth they used as a pillow and rolled on to his side. Somewhere in the process of that motion an arm he’d been lying on landed perhaps not so accidentally on the edge of Doumeki’s collar bone and trailed slowly down his chest with a look of absent concentration - like he still, after all this time, needed physical contact to believe Doumeki was real. “I still don’t even know how you did any of it, but I’m not sure I want you to tell me, because I don’t think I’ll believe you actually pulled it off even if you did explain it.”
“You were the one who told me I repelled evil spirits.”
“I didn’t tell you you should go wandering right into them when you knew they were there and that angry. You made that part up all on your own and you aren’t going to get to blame me for one bit of it. I’m sure it was only your shear bloody-mindedness that made it work.” He paused for breath and went on. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of that Tomoyo person either. From what you all were trying not to have to say about her it was all some twisted thing with Kurogane from the start and I just got caught in the crossfire.”
Doumeki hesitated and had to remind himself that he had no good reason not to let Watanuki know. “She was researching your ghosts.”
Watanuki’s hand stilled. “Like what they were doing to Kohane…” He shook himself. “I did guess that much, but…”
“Not all the same,” Doumeki had to admit. “There was a reason no-one was killed when they all went mad. Something she’d done. Didn’t catch how it worked.”
“I suppose that’s worth something.” Watanuki allowed.
“She was going to try to convince you you wanted to stay. Well, all of us, but it was mostly about you.”
“How wonderful,” Watanuki muttered, in a tone Doumeki couldn’t easily interpret. “No more getting stolen. No more living on meat even a scavenger wouldn’t touch. No more people getting killed…”
“Would you have been tempted?” Doumeki asked.
“No,” said Watanuki firmly. “I can think of no place on earth I would less like to live than that.”
“I thought so.” The nagging spectre of doubt Doumeki hadn’t paid any attention to since arriving evaporated, just like that.
“Well, good!” said Watanuki sleepily, snuggled a little closer and went quiet. After a minute, his breathing had evened out enough that Doumeki guessed he’d probably gone to sleep.
Doumeki curled his arm around him a little tighter. Some small corner of his mind reserved for thoughts he wouldn’t usually have entertained when not this exhausted wondered what he could have done to deserve someone like Watanuki, with all his complications and neuroses, invisible monsters both real and left in his head after a lifetime of abuse, powers even he would never entirely understand, and crushing need to help even the worst of people just as long as he’d done something that would make a difference.
Probably nothing that balanced out. But he could wait to pay it back. They’d have time.
Will be back to worry about how long it's going to take to edit this monster into a finished version neurose about how much better it was meant to be throw the obligatory OMG IT'S DONE party later. \o/
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 32, Side Story 1
It wasn't precisely over there, not when they still had the return journey to make. Yuzuriha was waiting to meet them outside with all her exhausting cheerfulness. The birds themselves, already flown halfway across the country and now asked to carry close to twice the load on the way back, were not so accommodating, and had to be rested more frequently during the return flight. There was plenty of time to fill Watanuki and the girls in on the at least the basics of their rescue on the way, and for once in his life, Fye had very little need to embellish any details.
Flying did not particularly agree with Watanuki. It probably wouldn't have agreed with him even if he hadn't already been through enough traumatising new experiences in the last twenty four hours to last a lifetime, though that might not have been strictly why he held on to Doumeki all the time they were airborne.
After all that, dealing with Fuuma for the first time really should have been more than he deserved.
***
There was an electrified security fence surrounding the perimeter of the camp, cunningly camouflaged to look to the untrained eye like little more than an easily scaled barrier of piled junk. Subtle enough to trap a gullible interloper, but no serious obstacle.
The camp within was small and dusty, a cluster of low, acid-eaten building kept in only as much repair as it took to keep them standing. It looked like an easy target, but also like a target too poor to have anything worth taking. Like the fence, it was a simple, tasteless illusion that didn't greatly impress him, nor did it do much to lessen his disdain for the thought that anyone would choose to live in squalor like this. All was quiet as he walked between the buildings, the empty silence of a place utterly deserted by everyone who lived there, until a voice behind him commented, "Snooping around while the family is out, Kamui?"
Kamui did not startle and didn’t bother turning immediately, though he did grind his teeth together quietly. He'd learned not to be surprised at hearing that voice out of the blue years ago - really, this was something he'd half expected. "The 'family' are less than an hour's journey away from us. You are here for the same reason."
"Well, our Yuzuriha's done a lot for them, and they will have had quite a day. I do have a vested interest in finding out whether my investment has paid off," said Fuuma, with a smirk Kamui could hear. "We wouldn't want Kurogane forgetting to stop by the Tower to settle up the details of our deal."
When Kaumi turned around Fuuma was slouched against the side of a building as though he'd been there all day, though he certainly hadn't been there two minutes ago. "Assuming they have met their objective, I will have as much reason to remind them that they are in my debt as you."
"Ah, that's right," said Fuuma casually, "You were offering to cancel out that awkward little debt as incentive for my help with this. Still so eager to be rid of that?"
Kamui made a point of ignoring the question. "Though if your treasured birds haven't brought them back, I don't see that I'll have much cause to consider you've done anything to repay that debt at all."
"Harsh, Kamui. I expect they’ll be counting themselves lucky if Yuzuriha's methods of transportation are the worst challenge they've faced. We had better hope they had some basis for all that confidence."
"You doubt they will succeed?" Preventing these conversations from devolving into something that would make an awful mess of the surroundings usually did require selectively not hearing a good deal of what was said.
Fuuma shrugged as if to suggest he wasn't too concerned on the subject, not to mention familiar with Kamui’s use of selective subject changes. "We'll know soon. Kurogane is the sort of man who has a decent idea of his own means."
"And his own value to you and me, too well for my comfort. No-one else would have dared ask us a favour like that one," said Kamui bitterly.
"Hm," said Fuuma. "I will grant you that point. It’s not so comfortable for the likes of us to be relying on an outside camp this like, is it?”
"Of course not. We have become far too accustomed to the storm warnings they provide us to give up that luxury, and yet we have no other way to obtain them. It is shameful how dependent on them we have become. And look where it has gotten us!"
“Did you ever think of offering them a permanent place at the Diet Building?” Fuuma asked conversationally.
“Even if I had, they would not have accepted. They’re too accustomed to their independence.”
“All too true. For all that Kurogane pretends to be indifferent to leadership he’ll never be satisfied with taking instructions from anyone else again. And if they ever joined one of us or the other it would only throw everything out of balance. With the sort of attention they call to themselves, we may have been regretting that anyway by now.
“Then again,” Fuuma went on, “I wonder how long this way of life of theirs might last? There may come a time when even their weather reports are not the commodity they used to be. We don't get half the acid storms today that we saw five years ago, and five years from now…"
"…they will be half as rare again, and knowing when one is due will be worth twice as much," Kamui finished. "They should worry harder about whether they will still be able to deliver. After an event like this, they can only hope the day doesn't come when they begin to attract more trouble than they anticipate for us."
“But they do make the landscape more interesting." said Fuuma with a smile, then he glanced up, his expression levelling out. "Now what could that be?"
With the reluctance of someone used to assuming everything was a trick, Kamui looked over his shoulder to see four small dots appearing in the sky above.
***
After the day they'd had, Fuuma was really more than any of them deserved to have to deal with, let alone both him and Kamui at once. However, by the time the travellers were coming in to land, eyes drawn inexorably towards the welcome sight of home, the figures of the two interlopers had been easily spotted and just as easily identified. Few others would have dared to do what they were doing so openly.
Yuzuriha saw it all a bit differently. "Fuuma!" she called as soon as her mount had landed, waving to him from her perch on its neck. "You came all this way to greet us?"
"Oh, that and to bring them the bike they left behind at the Tower," Fuuma added, as if casual favours were nothing out of character. "So, how did it all go? Find everything you were looking for?"
The question was more directed at the others, who had fared generally worse for the long flight, but Yuzuriha beat them to the answer. "It went great! These guys found all the friends they went to look for and we got them all back in one piece. We've never flown nearly this far before but the birds all managed just fine, even if they are going to need to sleep for a week when we get back. I'm so proud of them."
Kurogane dismounted stiffly, holding on to what poise he could still muster out of grim necessity. "Whatever favours we owe don't include permission to trespass on our camp when you please." He shot a look at Kamui, justifiably suspicious about the odds that any place those two met would still be intact by the time they left, though for the moment, the two of them seemed to be doing a determined job of ignoring the fact the other was there.
Fuuma gave the satisfied smile of a man who had been made to endure a good deal and was now looking forward to being able to name his compensation. "Hard to be sure, when we didn't get as far as we didn't get as far as discussing exactly what the value of this favour was going to be."
“Fine,” said Kurogane, too tired to argue, but not too tired to negotiate.
Watanuki all but fell from his own saddle, too exhausted even to be properly relieved to be back on solid ground, and froze as he found himself looking Kamui right in the eye. He wasn't wearing any kind of eye patch, and the dead white of his sightless eye was as good as a name tag.
Doumeki hopped down from his own saddle to stand beside him as Kamui treated this new member of Kurogane's camp to a considering look. Apparently finding nothing worthy of further interest he let his attention drift on to the other unfamiliar camp members. "What a collection you have here," he muttered disdainfully to no-one in particular.
Watanuki looked so stunned Doumeki wondered whether he was actually letting himself feel a little insulted to be so easily dismissed. He gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't you think they'd have tracked you down years ago if they were interested?" Watanuki appeared to be pretending he hadn't heard - relieved but almost past caring when he was already so much past his limit for having his world turned upside down for one day.
Kamuit continued to treat Fye, Chi and Kohane to more cursory inspection as they dismounted around him, with barely even that for the familiar sight of Syaoran, before Sakura, dismounting last of all, took a stumble on landing back on solid ground, stepped forward again while finding her feet and looked up to find herself staring almost straight up into Kamui’s face. He stared back in mild surprise as Sakura blinked up at him, seemingly unsure whether it would be more or less rude to step away at this point.
"You're… Kamui from the Diet Building, aren't you?" she asked shyly.
"Aa…" Kamui replied vaguely, not sure what to make of her.
Sakura dropped into a respectful bow. "Syaoran told me what you did to help us get home. Thank you, from all of us."
"It's… nothing you need to thank me for," said Kamui awkwardly, touched and not sure what to do about it. Doumeki wondered for the first time whether their old decision to keep Sakura within the safety of the camp while others handled chores like dealing with these people had been as wise or as necessary as they’d let themselves assume.
It was certainly a day for revelation.
The matter of the value of the camp’s gratitude certainly wasn’t ‘nothing’ to Kamui, which was more than evident shortly after when even he could no longer keep himself from having his say in Fuuma and Kurogane's continuing negotiations over just how many months it would be before they had to pay for a storm warning again. The number shuffled up and down in increments, Fuuma was accused of being unnecessarily difficult, and most of the rest of the camp filed away into their respective quarters to leave them to it. Kurogane bore it all with the determination of a man who ran out of patience for this sort of debate years ago but knew that showing it would only make everything take even longer.
Finally, after what was really only a matter of minutes but which felt much longer, all relevant agreements were reached, and Fuuma told Kurogane where his bike was and swung himself up on one of Yuzuriha’s unladen birds in preparation to leave.
“Need a ride home, Kamui?” he called suddenly.
“I can make my own way,” was the unsurprisingly blunt response.
“Something worth being proud of,” Fuuma commented with unusually sincerity. He may have said more, but it was lost to under the sound of wingbeats as the tired birds made their way back for one last trip through the sky.
***
With their ‘guests’ gone, Kurogane could finally allow that everything was, in every way that needed to be dealt with today, finally over. It was high time for the camp members to get some long overdue rest, but for himself he’d hit the point of being too tired to register how tired he was. It was going to take at least a day or two more before everything would sink enough for him to be sure how much had actually changed. It didn't bother him particularly, but in stepping through his doorway, Kurogane could only observe it had been a day of too much upheaval for the familiar to be very comforting yet. That should have included Fye's habit of taking any opportunity to invade his personal space by following him in here, but for once Kurogane couldn't resent him for that. They'd need to have this conversation sooner or later - he'd been putting it off enough years already.
Fye slumped by the doorway, and looked around the room as though having similar thoughts. "So much excitement, and all we have to show for it is a return to the status quo. What a waste," he smiled ruefully. "Here we are, very probably the only people ever to beat Tomoyo at her own game, and there's no-one within a hundred miles who we can show off to about it."
Kurogane may have been too tired for this conversation after all. "You think that counted as beating her?"
Fye quirked an eyebrow. "Considering that we let her lead us all that way and still got out again despite all her attempts to convince us otherwise, yes, I think that's a victory to be savoured for a good long while."
“That doesn't mean much,” said Kurogane bitterly. “We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if she hadn’t decided to let us go.”
"Oh, no doubt about it," Fye agreed without hesitation. "She even made it convincing enough that one could almost believe that was all she planned to do all along. But there wasn’t any other way she could have lost gracefully once we’d made it so very clear to her that there was nothing she could possibly say to us that would make us willing to stay."
Kurogane had nothing to say to that. Fye took on a distinct look of surprise. "My goodness, you're not still feeling guilty about leaving, are you? Even after you were just reminded of everything she ever put you through."
"She wasn't wrong," said Kurogane, awkwardly trying to express something that had never stopped nagging at him. "I never liked her methods, but… the Complexes were something someone needed to do, and it probably couldn't have worked without her there.”
"But you said it yourself right to her face,” Fye sounded increasingly exasperated, “she doesn't need you. Oh, she may very well have claimed she needed someone to treat her judgements to the critiquing they deserved, but I would bet just about anything that all she ever wanted was a sounding board who could be counted on to point out all possible objections to her crazy ideas and let her practice her justifications before the general populace got hold of them. Nowadays, I imagine she's had to get used to being her own harshest critic, and that isn't as easy as you think when you've made a career out of making your clever obfuscations so good that even you start believing your own lies. I doubt it was ever about being right or wrong just as long as no-one questioned her. If you really feel the need to go back to being a crash test dummy for new kinds of psychological manipulation, then I'm going to have to tie you down and beat some sense into you myself!"
Fye was almost panting by the time he was done. Kurogane wondering how long he'd been sitting on that little outburst. Years? "Those are bold words from someone who only met her in person a day ago."
Fye gave another wry smile. "You were probably always too close to her to notice how she loomed over the lives of everyone else - even to the other Complexes, where people might only see her once or twice a lifetime. You may as well remember who you’re talking to while we’re at it; you'd be amazed the way a life long practice of having to lie through your teeth just to make everyone around you believe you were the same person they spoke to yesterday makes you appreciate the same sort of creative spin-doctoring in others. Gives you a bit of perspective on the subject of whether you're really living in the paradise everyone else thinks you're in too."
Kurogane caught his eye and let himself hold it for longer than he'd ever let himself before over the years of their acquaintance. "You knew right from the start, didn't you?"
"Who you were?" asked Fye. "Of course. It would take more than an ugly new outfit to disguise a face like yours. You spent far too many years at Tomoyo's side not to make yourself recognisable, Kuro-dear."
It was true, though he'd never had much of an official position. It had been more of a behind the scenes sort of job. "I wouldn't have thought people paid any attention to the guards standing next to her."
"She didn't outshine you as much as you imagine," Fye said fondly. "Not any more than the Flowrights' tale being a case from outside your own Complex would have kept you from taking notice of a few faces, hm? But then there we were, finally having our fateful meeting out in the middle of nowhere like the lost souls we were, and you seemed so set on pretending you hadn't the faintest clue who I was that it was all I could do to play along with the pretence I believed your rugged good looks could have grown up somewhere uncivilised."
Put that way it did seem silly that Kurogane had avoided the subject for so long - excepting one detail. He never had found out exactly who he'd met that day. "Which one were you?"
Fye blinked, uncomprehending.
"The Flowrights is a plural," Kurogane reminded him. "You used to have a brother." Fye's expression slipped, not quite enough to make Kurogane regret bringing up the long overdue subject, but enough to prove he'd hit a mark.
"Oh yes. I did, didn't I? And a father too - even a mother once, much longer ago. As for which of them I was…" Fye shook his head, "would you believe I don't remember? One of us was called Yuui once, but we spent so long both being Fye that I'm not even sure I could tell you whether that was me."
Kurogane regarded him solemnly. "What happened?"
"To the other Fye?” His voice took on a wistful note. “Only what I suppose we'd always been waiting for."
"Waiting for?"
"We'd always known there wasn't space in the world for both of us,” said Fye, as if that made any kind of sense. “One way or another. Just surviving to see this brave new world was more than most people born when we were deserved. It must have been terribly selfish of us to ask for more. I don't think either of us believed we'd deserve to have anything good ever happen as long as we were both trying to share barely enough room for one."
Kurogane frowned. "Do I need to tell you how crazy that is?"
"Oh no, I am guilty as charged on that account.” Self-mocking as the statement was, Fye declared it without the slightest reservation.
"That hasn't stopped you missing him," Kurogane guessed.
“Not for one day,” Fye sighed, looking down at his hands. “But our father went through so much to give us a place in the world, and the last thing I said to my brother was a promise to him that I'd make the best of it. I wouldn't give up. I've got two lives to live for now.” Still looking down, he added. “Now I hope that’s going to be enough talking on these cheerful subjects for you for one day, because I for one am well past being ready for bed.”
Kurogane didn’t argue.
***
Sakura had kept looking at Syaoran since they’d got back. Not for reassurance, though that may have been some part of it, but with an expression of wonder, like she’d never seen him before. Eventually, it had gone on long enough that he had to ask her, “Is something wrong?” and with that the floodgates opened.
“It’s your ghosts!” Sakura admitted tearfully. “Kimihiro told you about them, didn’t he? The ones that always haunted you. They’re gone! I thought nothing could ever make them you, but now they’re gone.”
It was like all of the supernatural to him, he didn’t have the mental framework to understand properly, but… “That’s good, right?”
Sakura sniffled and nodded her head in an awkward motion that wanted to turn into a shake. “It is good. It was never good that they were haunting you. I always wished something would make them leave you alone, but when it happened this way…” she gave a broken sob. “They were what was protecting you. When you walked into that storm with all the angry ones, they were the only thing that stopped the others from killing you. They all got torn away! I never liked seeing them, but if they hadn’t been there, you…”
Syaoran wrapped his arms around her and held her while she sobbed into his chest. “Sorry for scaring you.” Sakura gave a louder sob and clutched at his shirt. “It worked out for the best, right?”
“Those ghosts,” he started when she’d calmed down a bit. “It was since we burst out of that place all those years ago, that same Complex?”
“You remember what happened?” asked Sakura, looking up into his eyes.
“Bits and pieces. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but the ghosts got angry that day too, right? That was how we made it out. I survived then, so I thought maybe I could do the same thing again. And it worked - sort of, even if I didn’t know how.”
Sakura looked slightly comforted, but not wholly ready to forgive the incident. “But the ghosts are gone now. They’ll probably never come back. If anything like that happens again…”
“I’ll call Shizuka,” said Syaoran firmly. “He didn’t know if it was going to work either at first, but he made it through on his own. That’s his power, or something. I know even I have to rely on others sometimes. And you take care of me too. I won’t let myself get hurt for it.”
“Promise? Sakura begged, staring into his eyes.
“I promise,” said Syaoran, as Sakura wiped her eyes.
***
It was a while before Doumeki got the chance to say anything much to Watanuki. When they got back, his first priority was to make sure Kohane was alright and could be safely put to bed, where she fell asleep almost immediately, so bone tired after everything she’d been through that there was nothing left keeping her going. Doumeki had half expected Watanuki to be in the same state, but when they did get back to Doumeki’s building, Watanuki’s first move was to make it very clear that he really wasn’t going to believe that everything was really over and Doumeki had come through all that without a scratch until he had personally examined every inch of Doumeki’s person in intimate detail. Doumeki was not the least inclined to object. If nothing else, sex had to be a far healthier way of using up left over adrenaline than any of Watanuki’s usually flail-heavy neurotic behaviour.
It was afterwards, both of them stretched comfortably within arm’s reach on the mattress, as relaxed as they’d have any right to be for a while, that Watanuki mustered that accusatory tone Doumeki had been familiar with within hours of his acquaintance to say, “Do you know what? I’m not surprised.”
Doumeki rolled over to face him properly and waited for the elaboration that had to be coming.
“I’m not the least bit surprised you came after me. You are all of you here exactly crazy enough to do something like that. And,” Watanuki went on, his voice finally cracking under the strain, “you are exactly crazy enough to have made it work.”
There were tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes - barely visible if Doumeki hadn’t had the aural cue in Watanuki’s voice to cue him to look for them, but he was making no attempt to hide them now it was out in the open. He gave a rough, hiccoughing sob. Doumeki stretched an arm out to stroke gently down Watanuki’s back as he sniffled into the pillow. He’d earned the right to this much.
“It did work,” Doumeki pointed out when Watanuki was calming down a little.
“You didn’t know it was going to,” Watanuki muttered indignantly.
“No. Had to be worth a try though.”
Watanuki let out a long, deep sigh. “Some day, I am going to stop wondering how you people could possibly be real, and I’m going to start cursing the fact you didn’t find me years ago.”
“Not quite there yet?”
“I’m getting close,” Watanuki admitted. He pulled his face out from where he’d been laving a dampish patch in the wad of cloth they used as a pillow and rolled on to his side. Somewhere in the process of that motion an arm he’d been lying on landed perhaps not so accidentally on the edge of Doumeki’s collar bone and trailed slowly down his chest with a look of absent concentration - like he still, after all this time, needed physical contact to believe Doumeki was real. “I still don’t even know how you did any of it, but I’m not sure I want you to tell me, because I don’t think I’ll believe you actually pulled it off even if you did explain it.”
“You were the one who told me I repelled evil spirits.”
“I didn’t tell you you should go wandering right into them when you knew they were there and that angry. You made that part up all on your own and you aren’t going to get to blame me for one bit of it. I’m sure it was only your shear bloody-mindedness that made it work.” He paused for breath and went on. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of that Tomoyo person either. From what you all were trying not to have to say about her it was all some twisted thing with Kurogane from the start and I just got caught in the crossfire.”
Doumeki hesitated and had to remind himself that he had no good reason not to let Watanuki know. “She was researching your ghosts.”
Watanuki’s hand stilled. “Like what they were doing to Kohane…” He shook himself. “I did guess that much, but…”
“Not all the same,” Doumeki had to admit. “There was a reason no-one was killed when they all went mad. Something she’d done. Didn’t catch how it worked.”
“I suppose that’s worth something.” Watanuki allowed.
“She was going to try to convince you you wanted to stay. Well, all of us, but it was mostly about you.”
“How wonderful,” Watanuki muttered, in a tone Doumeki couldn’t easily interpret. “No more getting stolen. No more living on meat even a scavenger wouldn’t touch. No more people getting killed…”
“Would you have been tempted?” Doumeki asked.
“No,” said Watanuki firmly. “I can think of no place on earth I would less like to live than that.”
“I thought so.” The nagging spectre of doubt Doumeki hadn’t paid any attention to since arriving evaporated, just like that.
“Well, good!” said Watanuki sleepily, snuggled a little closer and went quiet. After a minute, his breathing had evened out enough that Doumeki guessed he’d probably gone to sleep.
Doumeki curled his arm around him a little tighter. Some small corner of his mind reserved for thoughts he wouldn’t usually have entertained when not this exhausted wondered what he could have done to deserve someone like Watanuki, with all his complications and neuroses, invisible monsters both real and left in his head after a lifetime of abuse, powers even he would never entirely understand, and crushing need to help even the worst of people just as long as he’d done something that would make a difference.
Probably nothing that balanced out. But he could wait to pay it back. They’d have time.
Will be back to worry about how long it's going to take to edit this monster into a finished version neurose about how much better it was meant to be throw the obligatory OMG IT'S DONE party later. \o/