Title: Pure Heart, White Mage
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, religious themes
Spoilers: None; AU from canon.

Summary: Kidnapping, curses, and assassination - and at the middle of it all is the Puritan Church. In the midst of a political and magical upheaval, Fai must face the choice between preserving his faith - and protecting those he loves.

Author's Note: Please read this note or you may be very confused.

This fic was written for the remix challenge held on the kuroxfai community on Livejournal in October 2011. That means that it was intentionally and deliberately modeled on another author's fic, to the extent that some sections of the text are nearly word-for-word with the original. This was done with the author's knowledge and permission. Please do not accuse me of plagiarism or unoriginality if parts of this fic seem uncannily familiar to you.

The fic being remixed is Black Cat, White Mage by sweetjerry. (Known as Lotten on - you can find her page through my Favorite Authors tab.)

"You're out of men to hide behind, pig," Kurogane growled, and took a step forward. Rain sluiced down his blade, cutting currents through the bloodstains to drip in a pink-tinged waterfall onto the ground.

The mercenary captain ground his teeth, but took up the challenge as he leapt to attack. He was a big, heavy man and no doubt was accustomed to using his size and bulk to drive his enemy backwards and overwhelm them before he cut them down. No doubt it was an effective tactics against others; not against Kurogane. Instead, Kurogane just let him come, locking his enemy's sword with his own and digging in his own heels to absorb the enemy's momentum. For a moment the two of them hung, locked in combat - the mercenary captain's two-handed grip straining against Kurogane's one - and then Kurogane lifted his leg and slammed his foot brutally into his enemy's stomach.

The man was wearing chain-mail, but that could only stop an edged blade - against such a blow as this one it might as well have been paper. The captain grunted in anguish and staggered back, the tip of his sword dropping to the ground. Kurogane followed him, sweeping the hilt of his sword around in his fist to crash against the side of the man's head, dizzying and stunning him. The force of the second blow actually dented the metal of the helmet, twisting it around his head and blinding him; the captain shouted in consternation as he desperately reached up to pull the helmet around so he could see out of it.

Before he could get his wits back, Kurogane brought his sword around again - edge-first, this time - and slashed deeply into the muscle of his arm, forcing the man to drop his own sword. He staggered to his knees - defeated and knowing it - and looked up at the Knight with vicious hatred writ loud on his face.

"Demonspawn!" the leader shouted at him, blood and spittle running from the corner of his mouth as his eyes blazed with hatred. "You're too late, whatever you do! God knows the righteous, and this whole depraved country will be consumed by war and hellfire! The black father will take -"

Kurogane was not paying any attention to the man's ranting; he had heard this a dozen times, in various languages, since he'd been away on the Crusades. He drew back his arm and sliced him almost negligently across the throat, cutting him off in a choked gurgle mid-sentence.

He waited only long enough for the body to topple, certain that his opponent was really dead, before turning to find his allies. Three dead, one had gone after Fai, that left one for Syaoran - and somehow the idiot had gotten separated from him, driven halfway across the clearing by his larger opponent. The mercenary towered over Syaoran by two heads, and both his arms and his weapon gave him a much improved reach; still Syaoran was able to hold his own, blocking or parrying each of the savage, killing strokes.

Yet despite that, he wasn't pressing any attacks of his own - only a few tentative strikes from Kurogane's training repertoire, easily countered by an experienced fighter like the thug he faced. He lacked the bloodthirst, the killing drive necessary to see a vulnerable moment and act on it, the narrowing mindset where all that mattered was spilling your enemy's blood on the sand as fast and as thoroughly as possible.

Fool boy, Kurogane thought grimly, I told him this was no place for an amateur. His sword was still stuck in the mercenary captain's neck; he had to brace his foot against the body's chest and struggle to pull it free. Before he could move across the clearing, though, he saw a small figure creeping out of the woods behind the pair locked in melee. Another mercenary? Kurogane's adrenaline-fueled lunge across the battlefield was arrested when the newcomer positioned themselves behind Syaoran's opponent, raised their arms, and belted the mercenary across the back of the head with a club.

The man let out a noise like a gurgle and staggered forward; Syaoran's sword, raised in a parry stance, pierced him through the lower chest more-or-less accidentally. The boy yelped and scrambled backwards, eyes wide as blood spilled from his enemy's abdomen just as Kurogane caught up with them.

"Sensei!" he blurted out, eyes bugging out of a pale face. Kurogane couldn't tell whether he meant it as an appeal for help, a cry of a relief, or a protest against the sudden specter of mortality - or all three. He glanced down at the fallen mercenary, appraising the wound; it was serious, but not immediately mortal, so Kurogane finished him off with a quick thrust to the heart. The mercenary jerked once, gurgled, and went limp.

"I've told you a dozen times, don't get in a fight if you aren't going to be serious about it!" Kurogane shouted, turning on Syaoran in a fury born of fear. "This isn't the training salle! When someone is trying to kill you, you had better to be ready to kill him, or you're just crow-bait walking! If it hadn't been for this guy's help -" Kurogane started, then abruptly halted as he took in the identity of Syaoran's unexpected savior.

He'd never had direct business with the Cattalina orphanage, apart from those youths like Syaoran who became squires to the Knights Templar. However, he'd heard far too much of Syaoran's enthralled descriptions of his lady-love not to recognize the wide, blinking green eyes - although he couldn't for the life of him remember her name. "You!" he said in astonishment. "God's blood, what are you doing here?"

Both the youths were visibly shocked by his language, but Kurogane couldn't bring himself to care. "Um -" The girl looked just as shocked and pale as Syaoran, and she still clutched the heavy branch she'd used as a weapon in both hands, as though she expected to be attacked again at any minute. "I came with Fai-san, and he - and we -"

"By the Father and his hosts!" The familiar voice rang out across the rain-drenched battlefield, and Kurogane's stomach - unfazed by any of the blood or death of the day so far - did an odd little flip as Fai advanced across the slippery grass towards them. "What were you thinking? You idiot, I told you to stay back in the trees, out of sight - what if anything had happened to you? And where did you get that club -"

"But he was trying to hurt Syaoran-san!" the girl protested, somewhat weakly. "And besides, you told me to take the stick, and if anything came after me, to hit them with it -"

"If they came after you! I meant for you to defend yourself, not throw yourself into an armed fight between warriors - " By the sound of it, Fai was working up to a full tirade. For once he didn't even try to cover up his true feelings with a smile or a laugh, and the angry scowl that he turned on his young charge - as well as the furious flash of his blue eyes - made Kurogane's mouth go dry.

This was not the right moment for this.

Kurogane glanced around the soaking clearing, taking automatic inventory of the carnage. Apart from the one that the kids had inadvertently tag-teamed, there was the leader halfway across the battlefield, with his two lieutenants lying in tumbled heaps not far away. Kurogane was less surprised than he ought to have been to see the one that had gone after Fai lying face-down in a puddle, not moving; there was no visible blood or wounds, but a faint smell of ozone permeated the air. That made five, and with the one Kurogane had killed earlier - wait a minute -

His thoughts flew back through the confusion of the fight. The one mercenary he'd struck on the arm, severing tendons and muscle and forcing him to drop his sword. He hadn't pressed the attack on Kurogane after the first downpour had cleared, and in fact Kurogane hadn't seen him again for the rest of the fight.

He swore under his breath, too preoccupied to take notice of the three pairs of surprised and/or reproving eyes that turned on him. "Kurogane! What kind of knight uses such language in the presence of a lady -"

"There's still one out there," Kurogane interrupted him brusquely. His hand clenched around the hilt of his sword, and he forced himself to his feet; the battle-craze had had time to drain, and he staggered dizzily as the cold and pain of his injuries assaulted him. Battle's not over yet, he told his body ruthlessly, and set off at a stiff lope towards the edge of the clearing. "One I hit on the arm, but it wasn't enough to kill him -"

"That one?" Fai caught up with him easily, the smaller man moving as fluidly as though he'd never been in a fight at all. "I saw him running off downstream after you killed the big one - what's wrong?"

Kurogane changed direction, veering towards the river in response to Fai's words. The low-hanging branches and thick summer undergrowth slowed him; he slashed at it with his blade, but the water-heavy foliage resisted him. Fai tagged along behind, keeping up seemingly effortlessly. Of course, he hadn't fought and killed five other swordsmen today, Kurogane thought with resentment; just like a Holy Sorcerer, to leave all the heavy lifting to someone else.

The plants finally gave way before them, and Kurogane burst out onto the clear space of the riverbank, gravel crunching under his boots. He thought briefly of bowshot range and clear line-of-sight, not knowing whether these mercenaries were the same bowmen from earlier - but no missiles came at them from the other side of the river. Movement from further down the strand caught his eye, and he saw the grey-and-brown figure of the last mercenary stumbling away as fast as his legs would carry him.

"Kurogane, let him go," Fai was saying beside him. "They failed - he won't be back to trouble us again. And you're hurt, you need treatment - "

"We can't let any of them escape!" Kurogane said, and steeled himself to run in pursuit. A wave of dizziness engulfed him as his injuries screamed, and what he amounted to was more of a stagger than a run, but he grimly set himself to continue. "If he gets word to his boss -"

Fai grabbed Kurogane's arm hard enough to jolt him to a stop. Kurogane whirled to face him, a snarl on his face. "Mage -" he started.

"Hush," Fai said. He was frowning up at the heavy clouds overhead, oblivious to the water sheeting into his eyes. He raised his right arm towards the clouds, and blue light glowed from his hand as he uttered a few words in Latin that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

A horrendous crack of thunder sounded overhead, and Kurogane's vision seared with a bolt of blue light that rent the world from sky to ground.

Momentarily blind and deafened, he swayed without balance and would have fallen except for Fai's supportive hand. When his vision cleared, he found himself staring at a smoking pit on the riverbank. There was no further sign of their runner.

"There," Fai said. He sounded incredibly smug. "Not bad for the range, is it? Much more accurate than a missile shot - and more effective, too -"

Kurogane found his voice. "You idiot!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Fai sounded hurt. "You were the one who said, and I quote, 'We can't let any of them escape, we can't let them get back to their boss.' Now you're calling me an idiot? I call that ungrateful."

"Yeah, I didn't want any of them to escape because I didn't want their boss to know where we are!" Kurogane roared. "But now they don't need to hear from any survivors, because you just lit a goddamn signal fire showing everyone in a five-mile radius that we're here!"

Fai let out a loud, exasperated sigh. "Kuro-pon, we're standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. Lightning strikes happen - I don't think anything will seem out of the ordinary…"

"Yeah, except most of the time lightning that comes out of a storm isn't blue!" Kurogane snarled. "You and your show-off…"

He took a step forward, and his injured leg suddenly gave way underneath him; the world blanked out for a moment as he fell, only to jolt back into place as his knees hit the gravel bar. Strong hands caught him before he could keel on his face, and Fai helped him sit up on the muddy ground with his back against a bigger stone.

"You really need to take it easy, Kuro-pon," Fai said, and for once the easing tone he usually adopted was completely missing from his voice. "You've lost a lot of blood. That was a close fight - you're lucky we found you when we did."

He was right about that, although Kurogane wasn't about to admit it. "What are you even doing out here, anyway?" he grumbled. "With the kids in tow, no less? Don't tell me the General sent you out here to beg me to come back."

Fai laughed, sounding startled. "Actually, nothing of the sort," he said, and Kurogane kind of wanted to smack him for that condescending tone. "No, no one sent me to look for you - frankly, I'm not sure the Knights would take you back unless you were ready to do some pretty serious genuflecting."

"Not likely," Kurogane grumbled. "So if nobody sent you, then why are you here? Don't tell me you finally wised up to what I told you, and left those assholes to their own devices." Although he struggled to keep a skeptical tone, Kurogane couldn't help but feel hope rise in his chest at the thought. If Fai had changed his mind, and come looking for Kurogane on his own initiative…

"No -" Fai fell silent, the garrulous man unusually hesitant to speak for once. "Well - not exactly."

"They didn't kick you out, did they?" Kurogane said with rising interest. What could goody-two-shoes Fai Flowright possibly have done to annoy the Elders that much?

"No!" Fai said, quickly and sharply. He sighed. "It's a long story, Kuro-pon, and it's kind of complicated. I'll be glad to tell you everything, but we really need to find the kids again and get somewhere under shelter. Despite your tough puppy act, you are hurt, and we can't stay out all night in this rain."

"We're not going to get back to any kind of settlement before dark," Kurogane said grumpily. He finally got the leverage to sheathe his sword - it really needed to be cleaned and dried, but that would have to wait until they got to safety, and he couldn't do anything else as long as he had it in his hand. "I've been on the run from this pack of losers since morning."

"That's no problem. We'll camp out!" Fai said, regaining his cheery demeanor as he scrambled to his feet. "Kitty and I have been doing it for a few days now. All we need to find is some sort of shelter from the rain. Where did Kuro-sama leave his pack and gear?"

"I didn't," Kurogane grunted. "Everything I've got is on me now. All my campaign gear belongs to the Order, and I sure as hell wasn't going to beg them for it when I left."

"Eh?" Fai turned wide blue eyes of astonishment on him. He whistled. "How unusually shortsighted of you! Have you been sleeping in trees like a monkey, then? Bare to the wind and rain? It's not been cold these past few nights, but still - "

"I've been sleeping in inns," Kurogane snarled, bristling at the slight on his competence. "I didn't anticipate pissing off a crazy spy lady enough to send an army of mercenaries after my guts!"

"Hmm," Fai said, cocking his head to the side. "I can see there's a long and complicated story for you to tell, too."

"But that's for later!" He grinned, and offered his hand to help Kurogane to his feet. "Once we're all cozy in front of a fire. We don't have enough blankets for four people, though, so we'll have to share!" He winked outrageously, and Kurogane felt a small spike of anger at the mage's typical, outrageous flirting."

"Oh, sure," he said with more than a trace of bitterness in his voice. He reached out and took Fai's hand, hauling a little more forcefully than necessary to get to his feet. "I'll be sure to keep my sword between us then, so that you don't have to worry about your precious vow of chastity."

"Actually…" Fai staggered a bit as Kurogane made it to his feet; somehow Kurogane ended up with the mage very close into his personal space. Fai stared down at their still-clasped hands; after a moment's hesitation, he swallowed and then spoke again. "Actually, I'm not under any oaths right now."

"What?" Kurogane said, almost putting a crick in his neck as he turned to stare at Fai. "The hell? I thought you said they didn't kick you out!"

"They didn't!" Fai denied vehemently. "It's… it's complicated. But when they sent me on this mission they renounced all of the vows I took to the order, so that I could… do whatever I had to do." He started to move forward, but the tug to his arm when Kurogane didn't move with him pulled him back.

"Sometime soon," Kurogane said, "you really have to tell me about this supposed mission. I like it already." Deliberately, he squeezed Fai's hand.

At last the mage lifted his head to meet Kurogane's gaze head-on, and the jolt that went down Kurogane's spine as their eyes locked. There was lust in Fai's eyes, and the same bright and happy excitement burning got as Greek fire that had attracted Kurogane to him in the first place. As well, though, there was still a caution that shadowed his eyes and tightened his smile - a fear not of the consequences, but of knowing that there would be no consequences to stop them from taking the next step.

Voices sounded in the woods behind them, and the swish and crash of bodies stumbling through the undergrowth. The two of them came back to awareness of the situation with a start, and their hands sprang apart as though burned; Kurogane's went quickly to the hilt of his sword, then stopped as he recognized the voices as friendly. "Sensei?" his student called, blending with the girl's voice; "Kurogane-sama?"

"We're over here, children," Fai raised his voice as he turned away from the warrior, and Kurogane stalked over towards the water's edge with a growl. Didn't it just figure that for the first time in years they were out of the stifling walls of the convent, free of Fai's stupid vows and the disapproval of the elders, and Fai had felt the need to bring along an audience.

"Are you all right?" he said abruptly as Syaoran cleared the tree line. "Did you see anyone else in the woods?"

"No, no one else," Syaoran said with a quick nod. The little nun followed behind him, one hand fisted around the reins of their mule; the animal balked and snorted, obviously not liking the reek of ozone drifting downwind from the lightning strike, but she kept a firm hand on him.

"You were gone for a while, and we got worried," the girl said, turning big pleading eyes on Fai. "And - and besides, the men in that clearing - they -"

"I thought Kitty-san should get away from that place," Syaoran said in a hushed whisper. "She shouldn't have to see such ugliness and violence."

By the pale greenish tinge that lingered in his student's face, Kurogane thought that the girl wasn't the only one who'd wanted to get away from the reek of blood and death that had permeated that clearing - if that wasn't just the shock talking. He sighed. The mage was right; they needed to find shelter, not only so he could treat these stupid injuries but so that he could coach his student through the aftermath of his first real life-or-death battle. He owed it to him, as part of a knight's training.

"All right," he growled. "We're all here - now let's get the hell out of this rain."

"Kurogane! Language!" Fai reproved him - but his eyes were laughing.

The rain settled in steadily as twilight fell. Syaoran scouted ahead as Sakura led the mule, with Kurogane leaning somewhat ungraciously on Fai's shoulder. Just when Kurogane was gloomily certain they would have to spend the night in the woods in the rain after all, an excited shout from Syaoran reached his ears.

Syaoran had found an old abandoned parish church; it was centuries old, built to serve a town that no longer existed here. When a fire had raged through the church they had not bothered to rebuild it, simply abandoning the building and moving to a larger town. Tthe windows were knocked out by wind or animals, and drafts blew through the gaps in the walls, but the roof overhead was still whole.

Within short order they were able to clear the dirt and droppings and cobwebs from the nave, and even gotten a fire started from the remains of the wooden benches that had once been pews. The only piece of furniture that remained intact was the altar stone, a large block of neatly cut marble centered in the pulpit.

"Little Kitty," Fai called out as the kids were busily unloading the aggravated mule. It seemed somehow sacrilegious to bring a mule inside the church, but the animal could hardly do any more damage to the place than the wild animals already had done. "I hate to have to ask you to go out again, but very soon it will be dark. I need you to go find the old church's garden and get some healing herbs for Kuro-chan."

"Are you sure it'll be all right?" she asked worriedly. "What should I look for?"

"Mandrake and tormentil would be best," Fai replied, "but there might not be any left in the garden - don't go out of shouting range of the church. If nothing else, there should be some lady's mantle by the riverbank that would work in a pinch."

"I'll go with her!" Syaoran immediately volunteered, and the two of them stamped out of the church into the rain-filled twilight with more energy than Kurogane could even think of mustering, at this point.

As the echoes of the childrens' voices faded, he turned to face Fai, who was looking at him with a faint smile on his face. "All right, what are you up to?" he growled.

Fai returned a patently fake look of innocent. "Up to? Now why, Kuro-suspicious, would I be up to anything?" he said.

"I know damn well that mandrake is a primary reagent in half the spells you guys cast," Kurogane said. "Even you wouldn't be so stupid as to leave home without a good supply of it on you. Why'd you pretend you didn't have any?"

"Because I wanted a moment of privacy, Kuro-chan," Fai said, and his smile turned subtly feral. He pushed away from the wall he'd been leaning on and approached Kurogane with something resembling a stalk.

"Is this really the time for this?" Kurogane said, although without much real heat. He didn't want Fai to think that he could just walk over Kurogane all the time - but at the same time, who the hell was he to object to Fai finally giving in to what they'd both wanted for so long?

"Do you see a better time in the near future?" Fai breathed, inserting himself neatly into Kurogane's personal space and winding his arms around the warrior's neck. His hand exerted an insistent pressure on the back of Kurogane's head, and he bent his head obligingly until their lips met in a searing kiss.

Fai backed Kurogane across the floor until something hit the back of his thighs, and he sat abruptly down on the flat surface. "Oh, for God's sake. On the altar, seriously?" he demanded as he broke away from Fai's mouth.

"Why, Kuro-chan, and here I thought you were the one who didn't care for such delicate sensibilities," Fai said, grinning cheekily. He pressed his knee impatiently between Kurogane's, nudging his legs apart until he could stand between his thighs, then kissed him again. Fai's mouth tasted of salt and lightning, and his hands on Kurogane's upper arms were scorchingly hot.

"Besides, there's nowhere else to sit in here," he said breathlessly when they broke apart for air. His nimble hands went to work undoing Kurogane's armor, and Kurogane hissed as he had to tug rather roughly at some of the buckles that had broken or bent in today's combat. "Unless you'd want to try sitting on one of those pews… it's up to you, Kuro-stoic, but I'd be the one picking the splinters out of your backside afterwards…"

"Stop sounding like you'd enjoy that so much," Kurogane grumbled, raising his arm to allow Fai to heave the steel cuirass over his head. He breathed a sigh of relief once it was off; and while he'd rather not have Syaoran around as an audience, thank God he was going to have his squire around tomorrow to help him get this thing back on.

He shivered as the cold air hit his damp clothes; between the rain and the sweat of battle, his shirt was pretty much soaked through. Fai's hands returned the next moment, though, and even though the mage had to be just as wet from the rain he didn't show it. Probably cheating with magic, Kurogane thought, even as his one hand slid up the outside of Fai's leg and splayed across the base of his spine.

The sound of Fai's moan in his ear was just as gratifying as he'd always thought it would be.

"You're cold," Fai breathed, as his palms skimmed over Kurogane's shoulder and back.

"It's raining outside and I'm sitting around in my undershirt, what do you expect?" Kurogane snapped.

"It's more than that though," Fai said, and he pulled back and opened his eyes. His pupils were dilated, although they contracted back to normal as Fai looked him over more clinically, hands touching the red-stained slashes in Kurogane's shirt. "How much blood have you lost?"

"Dunno," Kurogane said.

"I'm serious," Fai warned him in a voice that held a hint of steel.

"So am I," Kurogane returned. "I was a lot busier concentrating on getting hits in on them than counting the ones they got on me!" He stopped to consider his condition; weak, dizzy, cold, throbbing - and not in the fun way - and compared it with his experience on the battlefield. "I'm not in any danger. I would have told you if I were."

"Hmm," Fai said, his tone clearly expressing his disagreement. He ran sensitive fingers over the gash in Kurogane's side - it was hours old by now, and was leaking blood only sluggishly. Kurogane couldn't help the wince, and Fai sighed. "First things first," he said.

He'd only gotten the shirt halfway over Kurogane's head - with much wincing and snappish comments on both sides as he'd pulled the cloth away from the wounds - when the sound of voices in the doorway told them the kids had returned. Syaoran had brought along a load of branches, in addition to Little Kitty's wrapped bundles of herbs, and he set them beside the fire to dry for firewood later. Both of the kids - especially the girl - looked dismayed when presented by the sight of Kurogane's scarred, bloody chest; but he displayed such indifference to the cuts that they soon got over their hesitance.

Little Kitty was actually the one to tend to him, with Fai mostly supervising; Kurogane was doubtful at first, but then he saw the way the activity calmed and relaxed her, taking her mind off the slaughter and danger of earlier. He raised his arm over his head and tried not to let a blush heat his face as Fai and Little Kitty between them wrapped bandages around his torso; he'd been treated in field hospitals for similar wounds a dozen times, but never simultaneously by a maiden and his… whatever they were going to be to each other. Lover? Paramour?

"Hey," Kurogane said, watching the girl bite her lip in concentration as she pinned the bandage on his remaining arm. "I saw you, during the fight. That was pretty brave of you."

"Really?" Little Kitty looked up at his face, her green eyes wide in surprise. Then she flushed, and looked back down at the bandage she was tying. "Th-thanks."

"You might want to get something sturdier than a branch next time, though," Kurogane continued.

Fai huffed out his breath, and leveled a nasty glare at him. "Don't encourage her to do foolish things," he warned in a low tone.

"I had to!" Little Kitty said, picking up the argument as if no time had passed. "Syaoran was in danger! He might have been killed!"

"Then Kurogane would be the one to help him, if he couldn't help himself," Fai snapped. "Not you!"

"Kitty-san, it wasn't worth you putting yourself in danger for," Syaoran said from across the chamber, his voice placating. "I would have been okay for a little longer, and Sensei was already on his way."

"But you told me to defend myself," Little Kitty protested. "Why doesn't that mean I should protect the ones I care about, too?"

"She has a point," Kurogane interjected, before Fai could explode. "In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea to teach her some tricks for self-defense."

"What?" Fai and Syaoran chorused simultaneously, turning their shocked gazes on Kurogane.

"Stop giving me the evil eye," Kurogane told his companions, although his gaze locked with Fai. "Get past your knee-jerk reactions and think for a moment. We're probably going to be attacked again, and even with the three of us guarding her, it's still possible that they might slip past us. What if someone had grabbed her during the fight today, when you and Syaoran were off distracted by the other mercenaries? We were all so busy fighting, we might not have even heard anything."

"Oh no, I couldn't," Little Kitty gasped. "I don't know - I don't know anything about swords."

"Kurogane, you can't be serious! She's just a child!" Fai exclaimed. "And a girl, at that! You can't possibly be suggesting teaching her how to fight!"

"She's the same age as Syaoran, and he's been training for four years," Kurogane said flatly. "You've known her since she was a babe, so it's no wonder you'd still see her that way. But the plain fact is she's in more danger than any of us - she's got to know how to defend herself."

A sullen silence followed - Fai knew he was right, but he wasn't ready to let go of his protective mindset. Kurogane knew all about that, but he also knew that you did children and apprentices no favors by wrapping them up in swaddling cloth.

"At the very least, she needs to know how to get away from any enemy who tries to grab her," Kurogane continued. No one would expect violence from someone that small, and it didn't take much strength of limb for a stomp on the instep or a kick to the groin to be effective. "She's a bit small for a sword, but it would be a good idea to get her a knife, maybe something she can hide in her clothes."

"And who would teach her to use it? You?" Fai's voice had a dangerous bite.

"Me?" Kurogane snorted disbelief at the idea. "Are you kidding? I'm twice her height and more than twice her weight. No, I figured the kid could do it."

"Syaoran?" Little Kitty said, startled, even as the boy in question exclaimed "Who, me?"

"Sure," Kurogane said, turning to face his student. "You know more about what a shorter, skinnier fighter needs to know against a bigger opponent - let's face it, pretty much any enemy she faces is going to be bigger than her. And besides, re-teaching your lessons to someone else will help you learn them better."

Syaoran's objections folded, and Little Kitty was listening to this debate with growing delight. Fai still looked like he was ready to argue, so Kurogane leaned in and said under his breath "And besides, it will give them lots of opportunity to go off and practice together… and leave us alone."

After a long moment, Fai said in a voice of grudging amusement, "You fight dirty, Kuro-warrior."

"I fight to win," Kurogane corrected him. He straightened up from the altar and stretched, wincing as his various injuries pulled. But he didn't feel the sharp pain or trickling liquid of renewed bleeding, so he supposed he'd live. He reclaimed his undershirt and put it on carefully; it was wreck, sliced into tatters and stained with blood and mud and sweat, but it was the only one he had with him, and there was no chance that either Fai's or Syaoran's spares would fit him.

Syaoran had found some food in the baggage they'd offloaded from the pack mule, and he brought half a loaf of slightly stale bread over to Kurogane, then went to set up a camp stewpot to boil. The girl, shivering now that she was no longer moving around and keeping warm, moved to sit in front of the fire and held her hands out towards it.

"Sensei," Syaoran said, coming to sit crosslegged in front of the fire, next to Little Kitty. "Why were all those men after you, anyway? Were they bandits?"

"A long way from the road for bandits," Fai said thoughtfully. "It looked more like they were hunting you specifically. What happened, Kuro-pon? Did you beat them at cards or something?"

"I'd never seen'em before in my life before today," Kurogane admitted around a mouthful of bread. "At a guess, Xing Hua sent them after me. She was awfully pissed the last time I saw her."

"And who's Xing Hua?" Sudden jealousy sparked in Fai's eyes, and Kurogane almost laughed. "Some lady whose honor you offended?"

"Hardly," Kurogane snorted. "She tried to hire me for a job. I told her that wasn't the kind of job I was interested in. She tried to have her minions kill me, and I killed them instead."

"You did?" The girl looked at him apprehensively, and Kurogane could tell she was picturing another pitched battle like today.

"There were only two of them," Kurogane assured her. The stew was smelling pretty good, so he reached his long arm over to dip the bread in it to soften it.

"Still, hiring seven new mercenaries to hunt you down seems like something of a disproportionate response," Fai mused. "Who was this Xing Hua, some spoiled noble scion, with more money than sense and a vindictive streak a mile wide? And what in God's name did she want to hire you to do, anyway?"

"I doubt it." Kurogane thought back to his conversation with Xing Hua, the little cues and affectations that had all seemed so off to him. Not to mention what he'd found in the money pouch he'd taken off her. He straightened up to look Fai in the eye, and said in a deadly serious voice, "She tried to hire me to assassinate High Priest Tsukishiro."

"What!"

"I said no," Kurogane pointed out. The food tasted pretty good, and he hadn't eaten for almost a day; Syaoran passed him a wooden bowl, and he leaned over to ladle out some of the soup.

"I should damn well hope so!" Fai exploded, and Kurogane considered calling him out for swearing in front of a maiden, if the situation hadn't been so serious. Both of the children looked astounded; he wasn't sure they'd even noticed the slip. "She wanted you to kill a man of the church? Why?"

"I don't know. She didn't explain all her reasons to me," Kurogane said with some irritation.

"But, this is awful!" Syaoran exclaimed. "We have to tell the authorities right away!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Kurogane demanded. "I was on my way to the nearest garrison when they jumped me. I was trying to limit civilian casualties as much as I could - I didn't expect you to come charging in with a couple of kids in tow!"

"I wouldn't put anyone in danger if there wasn't a good reason for it," Fai said sharply, a trace of real anger flashing in his blue eyes. "Let alone a child!"

"I hope you don't expect me to just take your word for that," Kurogane said flatly. "What kind of quest could have taken over your brain that would make you think it would be a good idea to drag a maiden along for company?"

Fai sighed. Then he took a deep breath and sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders. "If you must know," he said, "I didn't 'drag her along' on my quest. She is the quest. The Council ordered me to take her and flee from Cattalina when it proved no longer safe, to ward her and keep her hidden from those who sought to harm her."

"Her?" Kurogane's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Why her? What's so special about her?"

Fai moved to stand behind the girl and placed his hands on her shoulders; she looked up to give him a quick, anxious smile before she returned to staring at Kurogane, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. "Because she is Princess Sakura," he said simply. "She is the lost daughter of King Fujitaka and Queen Nadeshiko."

Kurogane stopped chewing, and for a long moment the crackling of the fire was the only sound to be heard. He put the dish aside, and spent a long moment scrutinizing the girl in the firelight. "Huh," he said. "Yeah, I can see that, I guess."

Syaoran sputtered in disbelief, while the girl perked up visibly. "You can?" she said excitedly.

"She's the right age. And I've been to court enough times, I know what the King and Queen look like," he said, picking up his discarded bread and stew again. "I can sort of see the resemblance - you've got the Queen's face, or will once you're a little older, but your dad's coloring."

"Really?" the girl - Sakura - said in utter delight.

"Sure. Haven't you ever seen pictures? What are they teaching you in that convent?"

"Well, the pictures in the book aren't very good," the girl said, flustered. "And I never had any reason to think -"

"You're taking this awfully calmly, Kuro-pon," the mage said in a strangled voice.

"Was I supposed to freak out?" Kurogane demanded. "We've got priests and wizards, assassins and conspiracies and mad spies. Am I supposed to be surprised that there's a lost princess in the mix? It just figures with a fairy tale like the one we've landed in."

"You think all those things are connected somehow, Sensei?" Syaoran interrupted, his brown eyes intent.

"Don't see how they could be not connected," Kurogane said. "You said that it was Nihon who sent the magical attack against Princess Sakura, right?"

Little Kitty nodded, but Fai hedged."Well - we don't have any actual proof," he said. "All we know is that the attacker used a variant of Puritan Church magic. The only enemy of Clow that we know who has the capability of doing that would be… is Fei Wong Reed."

"Who?" Syaoran said, puzzled.

Kurogane answered for him. "The Apostate," he said. It was not really a surprise that Syaoran didn't recognize the man by name; to most of the younger generation of Clow, his name was lost to the mists of history; they only knew of the Apostate, the evil and demonic figure who had denounced the light of God and founded his own satanic cult in Nihon.

Syaoran inhaled sharply, his face paling. "The Apostate, he's real?" he said in a half-whisper. "I thought - I've heard all sorts of stories… they say he sold his soul to the Devil for magical powers, and now he has big black bat wings, and goat's horns on top of his head, and a magical eye that can steal your soul if he sees you without your face covered…"

How the boy could be so knowledgeable about court gossip and politics, and yet so credible about stories clearly made up to frighten children into behaving, Kurogane would never know. But that was always Syaoran's biggest weakness - for such a smart boy, he would believe anything if you pitched it to him with a straight face.

"He is not any kind of a demon," Fai said, his voice sharp with irritation. "Trust me, he's just a man. I never met him in person, but plenty of the older Revered Mages remember him from his time in the Order of Holy Sorcerers. He always did have a flair for the dramatic, so he dressed in big sweeping black robes and a monacle to look more intimidating, and grew his hair out in that stupid sticking-up style - probably to make himself look like he had a halo around his head."

Little Kitty gasped, and Fai broke off mid-rant and turned towards her with some concern. "It's all right, Katherine," he reassured her. "He's dangerous for certain, but he's just a man, and like any man -"

"But he's not just any man, Fai-san," Little Kitty whispered, her eyes huge. "He's the devil in my dreams…"

"What?" Fai's attention riveted on the girl. "What dreams? What dreams are these?"

"I've been having them for months," Little Kitty said, blinking rapidly. She wrung her hands in her lap. "Every night I dreamt of a man, with white streaks in his black hair, and a forked beard growing from his chin, with one glass eye and terrible dark horns around his head. He never spoke, but I always got the feeling that he was searching for me, somehow, and I was terrified that he would find me…"

"How is that possible?" Fai whispered. "You've never seen what he looks like -"

"It could just be a coincidence," Kurogane said to Fai. "If she'd heard stories about the Apostate, or seen a portrait of him…"

"All the portraits or descriptions of that man left in Clow were destroyed long ago," Fai said savagely. "And no one who remembers what he looked like speaks of him any more. Most of the children don't even know his name."

Fai took a deep breath, and knelt down in front of the girl. "Katherine, why did you never tell me about these dreams?" he said, making his voice as gentle as possible.

Tears brimmed in Little Kitty's eyes. "I thought I was dreaming of the Devil," she said in a small voice. "I thought he was trying to tempt me to… to do evil things. I told Father Miguel in confessional, but he just said to concentrate on prayed and put it out of my mind…"

"Of course, Miguel doesn't know a prophetic dream from a tea leaf," Fai muttered savagely. "If only we'd known earlier -" He cut himself off, shaking his head.

"It doesn't matter now," Kurogane said. "But this pretty much seals it, doesn't it. That fork-bearded bastard is the one who's been searching for her, and the one who attacked her in Cattalina."

Fai looked at Kurogane. "But you didn't ask if it was the Apostate that attacked Princess Sakura," he said. "You asked if it was Nihon. Do you think Fei Wong Reed is working together with King Ashura on this one?"

"Yeah," Kurogane said. "Because I think they're all in this together. Xing Hua - that's the woman who tried to hire me to kill the priest - she's a Nihon agent."

Little Kitty gasped aloud, while Syaoran went pale with shock. "Are you absolutely sure?" Fai asked, leaning forward intently.

In response, Kurogane reached around to his belt and dug out the pouch of money he'd taken off Xing Hua. He tossed it towards Fai, who caught it mid-air and pulled the drawstring free. Inside was not only money - coins of various denominations both silver and gold, minted in both Clow and Nihon styles - but a thick, heavy medallion of lead. Fai spilled it onto his palm and tilted it towards the light, which glinted off the incised wings-and-diamond of the Nihon Royal Seal. Fai's indrawn breath hissed past his teeth.

He looked up at Kurogane. "This proves it," he said. "Nihon is trying to meddle in the court at Celestina."

Kurogane nodded agreement. "There's just one thing I don't get," he said.

"What's that?" Syaoran wanted to know.

"Why now?" Kurogane asked simply. "Did he know where she was all along, or not? If he didn't know, then what changed so that he found out? If he did know, then why did he wait until that very moment to launch his attack?"

"It's impossible," Fai said, but he didn't sound very certain of it, Kurogane thought. "There's no way he could have known for that whole time…"

"Nothing unusual happened in the last few weeks, I don't think," Sakura said. "Unless you count Syaoran and me - well - but that can't have anything to do with it." She blushed.

"Was anything going to change soon?" Kurogane asked.

"Kitty-san was going to take her initiation into the Order soon," Syaoran put in. "Maybe he wanted to stop that from happening."

"The convent and the orphanage are about equally well guarded," Kurogane said, envisioning the church complex in his head: walls, moats, gates. "It wouldn't be any harder to attack her there, if he wanted her dead."

"Yes, but he's never wanted her dead," Fai said, and his voice was uncharacteristically grim. "That's not what this has been about - not from the beginning. He wanted her alive, so that he could wipe out her mind like a soulless doll, and implant whatever ideas of his in her empty body that he wanted to."

Sakura shivered, and Fai looked down and mustered a smile for her, hugging her tightly for a brief moment. "I won't let it happen, Little Kitty," he said gently. "But it won't help you any to be ignorant of the dangers. Fei Wong Reed will show you no mercy."

"All right, so he doesn't want to kill her," Kurogane said. "He wants to control her. For what? No offense, Princess, but you're just a daughter - not even their eldest child. Touya is the crown prince, and while he's not as blindly devoted a Puritan as his parents, he's dutiful enough. He'd never give his allegiance to Fei Wong Reed and his scum, no matter what he tricked the little sister into saying or doing."

"Um, actually," Syaoran said unexpectedly. "I guess you hadn't heard…"

Fai and Kurogane both looked at the boy in surprise. "Heard what?" Kurogane said.

"W-well, about the friction between the Prince and his parents," Syaoran said, stuttering slightly with surprise at being asked. "Prince Touya is usually very obedient, yes, but - not always. Recently his parents have been putting pressure on him to end his - relationship with the High Priest so that he can get married. He's refused, but they won't take no for an answer - it's causing a lot of bitterness between them."

"What? Why now?" Fai said with surprise. "His parents have been fine with it for years."

"Yes, but the Archbishop has been petitioning them lately," Syaoran had said. "That's why he's spending so much time at Anna-Metrushka. I thought you would have heard about that - it is Church business, after all."

"Well, yes," Fai admitted with a slight flush. "But it's never been part of our business, the Holy Sorcerers."

"Why's the boy being such a stubborn pig about it?" Kurogane asked. "He can always meet Yukito in secret even after he's married - he has to know that he'll need to take a wife sooner or later. Clow needs an heir. Boy's got duties."

"They've suggested that, but the Prince still refuses," Syaoran said with a shrug. "He's young and in love, and just because he's dutiful doesn't mean he's not stubborn. Also, from what I hear some of the younger nobles - especially the ones that are wealthier, but lower ranked, like Kyle Rondart - have been spending more time with the Prince recently, and encouraging him to defy his parents. It's got a lot of people worried, especially because a lot of people are suspicious about where the Rondart family suddenly got hold of so much money."

Syaoran looked up, and noticed that all three of them were staring at him, with varying degrees of surprise and admiration. He blushed. "What?" he demanded.

"How on earth do you find all this out, Syaoran?" Fai said. "If you were a spy, I'd be worried about how you get so much information in so short a time."

"I'm not!" Syaoran yelped, his blush going fiery red. "I just ask people, that's all! People like to talk about what's worrying them!"

"I think Syaoran-kun is very smart," Little Kitty said defiantly, glaring indiscriminately around the room while her hand curled around Syaoran's.

"So Rondart has a sudden influx of money," Fai mused, rolling the golden Nihon coins through his fingers. "Money like this, I wonder?"

"All right, so the kid and his parents are having a spat," Kurogane said. "That still doesn't explain what good it would do for Nihon to kill Yukito. Everyone knows Prince Touya hates Nihon because he still thinks they stole his sister. If they killed his lover on top of that, he'd never forgive them."

"Not unless he thought it was someone else who did it," Little Kitty said slowly. "Then he'd get mad at them, instead."

"What?" Fai sat up straight. "Who else would it be?"

"If Xing Hua could hire that many mercenaries," Syaoran said, following Little Kitty's line of thought. "Why not just attack the High Priest directly? But instead, she tried to hire you. Why you? She had to know it was a risk, approaching an outsider for this mission."

"I'm the best," Kurogane said simply. "Probably she'd heard my reputation."

"She might have heard a lot more of your reputation than you think, Sensei," Syaoran said gravely. "Think about it. The Puritan church is clamoring for Touya to put aside his lover, but he won't. Then a renegade Knight of the Templars - one famous for denouncing sin and corruption within the Church - comes back a few weeks later and kills the High Priest. What would that look like?"

"You're not suggesting he would blame the Puritan church for the murder?" Fai said, aghast.

"I think that's exactly what she wanted to happen," Kurogane said grimly.

"Then the Princess turns up from the dead," Syaoran gave Little Kitty a wan smile and squeezed her hand. "All full of ideas about the wonderful miracle of Libertarianism - prince and princess, both of them united against the Puritan Church, and against their parents."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Fai sputtered. "Why would anyone believe that the Church Elders would send an assassin after one of their own order? If they were really so displeased with him, all they'd have to do is recall him from his post. In the absolute worst case scenario, excommunication - but assassination? Of one of our own clerics?"

"Mage, stop thinking like a respectable priest for just a minute," Kurogane said sharply. "How rational d'you think the prince is likely to be when his own boyfriend has been murdered, apparently by Puritan assassins? He's going to completely lose his shit."

"Kuro-sama!" Fai came back to himself with a start. "Don't use such obscenity in the company of the children."

Kurogane rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter now," he said impatiently. "Don't you see - they tried to hire me to do their dirty work for them. I refused, so they tried to kill me to shut me up. But that doesn't mean they haven't already hired someone else to do the same damn job!"

"If the Crown Prince went against the King and the Queen, that would divide everyone," Little Kitty said, thinking aloud as she worked through the implications of such a plot. "Some people would support the King, but other people would support the Prince, just because he's younger and he'll be King someday. It - it might mean war."

For a moment silence hovered in the abandoned church, and the horrific specter of a bloody revolution roiled through the damp air. "Just like what happened in Nihon," Fai said softly. "Parent against child - friend against brother - Puritan against Libertarian."

"It would be the perfect time for King Ashura to strike," Kurogane said, thinking through the strategic implications of such a civil war. "Just when Clow's defenses are down, the soldiers not knowing who to obey - in rides King Ashura and his army, and bang! He could be sitting in Celestina before anyone knew what was happening."

"And then Ashura dies, and leaves Fei Wong Reed an empire of two countries," Fai finished, his face bleak and pale.

"We can't let this happen!" Little Kitty cried out, horrified. "We have to stop them!"

"I know, Little Kitty, but how?" Fai said. "Kuro-hound is strong and brave, and Syaoran is clever and loyal, but it's not like we can invade Nihon by ourselves."

"We can at least go to Celestina to warn the High Priest," Kurogane said firmly. "Tell the royal family all we know about the plot."

"We're going to Celestina?" Little Kitty said, immediately diverted by the thought of returning to the city of her birth, the family from which she'd been separated. "The capital! The castle! The actual cathedral of Anna-Metrushka. Oh, Fai-san, are we really? This is so wonderful!"

Syaoran, however, looked worried. "But we don't have proof for most of this," he said. "What will we tell them if they want to know how we know?"

"This, at least," Fai held up the lead seal that had been in the money pouch. "We know that an enemy agent is abroad in the land, and that she tried to hire people to assassinate the High Priest. Even if we can't prove anything beyond that, hopefully we can at least protect Yukito."

"They'll listen to us, at least," Kurogane said. "When a former Knight Templar and a Revered Mage say something, people listen."

"Well, then," Fai said lightly into the silence that followed. "If that's all settled, it's late and we're all tired, and some of us are injured. I suggest we get some rest, if we're to set out for Celestina in the morning."

~ (discontinued.)

Author's Notes: This fic is officially being discontinued. My apologies for starting an epic-style fic and then abandoning it halfway through.

As the earlier Author's Notes stated, this was a remix of an existing fic. The fic it was based on, Black Cat White Mage, is also a work-in-progress. Its published storyline stops - more or less - in the same place, with the four travelers deciding to go to Celestina to prevent the assassination of High Prince Yukito. Since I don't know how sweetjerry intended to conclude her own fic, this one ends here.

It might be that someday I'll come back and pick up this story in order to provide it with some sort of closure, but don't count on it. I have a lot of other projects in the queue, including new chapters of Heralds of the White God, Not Quite Paradise, Missing Worlds, Family Portrait and a few other standalone pieces which were placed on hold while I worked on this challenge.

Thank you for reading!