Wan

The world they had arrived at was surprisingly...normal. No battles, no wars, no revolutions. Nothing seemed to be actually happening in the world at all. There was no magic which, though it made finding the feather easier, made the stay distinctively uninteresting. The fact that the feather hadn't caused any catastrophes or supernatural outbursts was rare enough for everybody to be happy with the world, except maybe Kurogane who kept glaring at his sword in its unuse.

"We should stay here for at least a day to make sure that's where the feather is. I've been reading at the local library and what's written there doesn't exactly match what the locals have been saying," Syaoran suggested, from where they were all gathered around a bench, Sakura sitting on it and playing with Mokona.

"That's a good idea, Syaoran-kun!" Fai exclaimed, throwing his arms up in celebration and then twirling towards the glowering Kurogane, latching his arms around his bicep.

"That way Kuro-pi and I can look around the town!"

"No," Kurogane interjected at once. Fai laughed as if Kurogane had been joking.

"Don't be mean Kuro-tan!"

"Mean, Kuro-tan is mean!" Mokona jumped in Sakura's lap. Kurogane snarled in their faces,

"Stop calling me that!"

"Come on Kuro-wanwan, wan, wanwanwan, wan wan wan wanwan"

"Oi!"

"Wanwanwan"

"Shut the hell up you moronic mage!"

"Wanwan, wanwanwanwan,"

"AARRGGHH!"

OoOoO

"How the hell did I end up here?" Kurogane muttered to himself, looking at the child-safe neighbourhood they were surrounded by. Mediocre, pastel houses with nice gardens, large sidewalks and kids rolling about in tiny bicycles, looking all happy and safe and naive. It was just plain weird, if you asked Kurogane.

"Look at that, Kuro-pii!" Fai enthused for the billionth time, grinning in a way which was too idiotic to be real. Kurogane glared at where Fai was pointing only to growl in response.

"Are you a complete idiot? Have you never seen a squirrel before?"

"Kuro-squuiiirreelll?" Fai asked and Kurogane tried really, really hard not to stab him.

"Look, Kuro-wanko! How strange!" Fai said yet again, and Kurogane was about to tell him to leave him the hell alone or simply stalk off when a long-limbed, bespecled boy ran in a rather erratic manner past, shouting,

"It's all you fault! You and your evil dog!"

Kurogane could only blink and frown as he spotted what the boy was referring too. There, in the lush grass of one of the gardens, lay curled up what seemed to be a large dog, brown and sleeping beside a light-coloured, sleek cat. They were intertwined together in a semi-circle, looking content to simply rest in the sun.

"Look! Look at how it's molesting Fai! Get your mutt off him!" the boy shrieked, short black hair flopping around and fluffing up in what actually reminded Kurogane a lot like a feline, but he was more surprised by other factors to dwell on the fact.

"Did that freak say Fai?"

"What a lovely cat!" the man with the name in question exclaimed, twirling towards the screaming boy, who started and blushed slightly.

"Oh, er, thanks. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout so close to you," the boy excused, smiling politely. Fai brushed him off happily.

"You never apologise to me," a flat voice said suddenly and they all turned to look at a tall, broad-shouldered boy on the animal-occupied garden, removing his fingers from where they had been plugging his ears. At once, the other boy's face turned red and he shouted,

"Doumeki, you cretin! Get your dog off of him!"

Fai was laughing as Kurogane watched in morbid amazement. So much for it being a normal world. Everybody here was crazy. Was Fai sure it wasn't Celes?

Doumeki looked down at the cuddling animals.

"Kurogane, come here," he said, which made Fai start and shut up suddenly whilst Kurogane himself tensed and stared in a mixture of horror and rage as he realised that Doumeki was referring to the dog currently licking the fur on 'Fai's' face. The dog, however, didn't even twitch at the call. Doumeki, to the other boy's rage, just shrugged and knelt down to where he had been gardening before.

"You! Trying to steal my cat because of your incompetent, lazy dog!"

Doumeki put a finger in his ear.

"Too loud, Watanuki," he said simply, and the bickering only seemed to intensify at that. Meanwhile...

"Heh heh heh..."

"Shut up. I don't want to hear about this ever again!" Kurogane growled at once even though he knew it was in vain.

"But Big Doggy, look how cute you are as a dog!" Fai giggled pointing at the Great Dane who was being crawled over by the cat, meowing incessantly whilst the canine seemed to ignore it completely. Kurogane's face scrunched up in anger.

"It's a coincidence! That isn't us!" Kurogane shouted and stomped away as fast as he could in those stupid 'low riding jeans' the evil witch had insisted was appropriate for the world when she had last communicated through the white meat bun.

"No such things as coincidences, Kuro-waan" Fai laughed, closing his eyes and grinning, and Kurogane had to pause for a moment because the expression had looked too genuine to be normal.

"Why are you so happy?" Kurogane asked, suspicious. Sure, Kurogane didn't have a doubt of how much delight Fai would take upon the recent discovery, but it called for a far more sinister smile than the content one Fai was sporting.

"What do you mean? I'm just happy that you have met your true identity, Ku-"

"Don't bother. If you're going to lie, say nothing at all and save your breath," Kurogane interrupted sourly, making sure to look at Fai in the eyes as he simply smiled an expression made of pure plastic before walking onwards again. The neighbourhood's friendly silence (Watanuki's faint screams still being heard in the distance) fell around them, though in between there was something a little tenser.

"If you must know, Kuro-sama," Fai started suddenly, and Kurogane shot him a sideways glance, "it's good to know that I've made a right choice," he explained. Kurogane frowned.

"And what choice is that?" Kurogane questioned, deciding to punch the mage if he said something stupid like 'name Kuro-wan after a dog'.

"That I chose to help Sakura and so fight alongside you. If in another dimension we are still together, that must be a good sign, right?" Fai asked, and Kurogane was caught by complete surprise at the sincerity. He grunted slightly in response.

"If you say so," he replied after a moment and Fai's smile, though it didn't widen, softened before turning cat-like.

"I do say so! Kuro-wan, wanwanwanwanwan!"

"Ok, I'm going to kill you now."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

A/N

This is...silly, but for some reason the idea wouldn't leave me. :3 (for those of you who don't know, wan is woof in Japanese. Aaah, it all makes sense now XD)

But man, I deserve a review from you just by putting Kurogane in low-riding jeans.

I gotta get myself summa dat.

Grrow!