Summary: Something goes wrong between dimensions.

Warnings: Kurofai, established relationship. This is post-series so spoilers for the end. There will also be spoilers for Fai's past later. Hinted TouyaYuki, Douwata, and other CLAMP pairings. Swearing, innuendo, a bit of violence later on perhaps? I'm not sure if the rating will go up in later chapters. We will see.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Dimension traveling was like flying.

Or so Fai privately felt.

Of course, he had often gone world-walking even before he had joined their strange ragtag little team on their adventure. But those times were different from now in the same way driving was different from simply hitching a ride. The feeling of surrendering all control, soaring along with the current of Mokona's magic in that beautiful space between world, it was exalting, exhilarating.

He was well aware that some hated the time spent in that limbo, because it was like careening wildly out of control with nothing to ground oneself. But Fai trusted Mokona, trusted her and her enviable ease in navigating that dangerous space, trusted her to land them safely in a safe world.

Their journeys had always been unfailingly smooth—no easy feat, he knew from experience—and whilst they had landed in water and smashed stalls countless of times, they had never: landed in the middle of the ocean with no land for miles, been deposited in volcanoes, or been dropped from a height that ensured death upon landing. Mokona's landings were comparatively precise and unerringly safe, though Kurogane might have disagreed. Fai was thus pretty content to relax in the embrace of her magic and let himself be washed away in the current.

And so, he was surprised, to say the least, when he felt the safe confines of Mokona's magic circle jolt violently mid-transportation.

"Mokona?" Syaoran called worriedly, "What's going—"

His question evolved into a sharp cry as they were jerked roughly from their path once again.

As the currents of Mokona's magic jerked once more, an impossibly vast presence smashingly made itself known to Fai's mental wards and sent him reeling.

"Th—there's something interfering with Mokona's magic." Fai shakily said, still recovering from the impact of all that magic on his magical receptors.

Quickly grounding himself, he restabilized his wards. Remembering his training with Ashura-ou in mental defense and offense, he pummeled the other magic user with his own formidable aura, knowing it would probably have the same effect as it had on him earlier. He quickly extended a small tendril of thought, slithering into a small crack in the other's mental barrier and forced it wider, squeezing his way in.

A child in the flames. Blood pooling over white marble. Blood soaking into the carpet. Blood on the curtains and on the grass and on the burning pyres and anger and grief and loss, loneliness, bloodlust hurt hurt hurt hurt HURT!

Then the barriers were up, and he was trapped. The other magic user began to constrict around him, crushing slow and deadly like a snake, an impossibly strong anaconda. And it was strong, terrifyingly so, even more so than even Ashura-ou had been as he had been struggling against Fai's sleeping spell with all his might.

WHY, WHY, WHY?

The presence raged within his mind with all the destructive force of a typhoon. Fai shrank back into a small corner of his own mind and attempted to brace himself against the enraged blows raining blindly onto him. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to dig up such traumatic memories, unintentionally or not. He began to panic as the presence began to spread further into his mind, delving into his memories in squirming tendrils. Like a tree sinking its roots into rock, spreading and squirming deeper until concrete split, the consciousness wormed in deeper. In blind rage, it could easily shred his mind to pieces. It had happened in the Celesian court once before, when he had been much younger. Ashura hadn't let him see that particular court wizard after the incident, instead locking the man all the way across the castle. The healers had come back after a few weeks, shaking their heads, and Ashura had the wizard sent quietly out of the castle to be put out of his misery. Fai had no idea what the victim must have been like to warrant Ashura's reaction, but he did know that he absolutely did not want to turn out like that. He struggled, but it continued to spread, deeper, deeper.

Yuui.

No. Those were personal.

Fai laughing. Fai kissing him on the cheek, snuggling into his back.

No!

Yuui. I love you.

Fai twining their fingers together as the court watched. Fai watching him with that strange knowing look of his in the carriage on the way to the tower.

Get out!

Yuui. Yuui. Yuui.

Underneath, a single crack snaked across Mokona's magic circle.

Fai's tiny fingers reaching for him from between the bars of the tower window. Fai's voice, lost in the distance between them, calling for him. Fai falling. Falling. Falling.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

I love you, Yuui. Let's be together always.

The presence abruptly released him and withdrew from his mind. Fai found himself back in his physical body, wheezing and spasming slightly from the shock of nearly being strangled to death, thank you very much. Before he could wonder at the reason for the abrupt withdrawal, an impact against the shields surrounding jolted them again.

Below him, Mokona's magic circle shattered, and they were falling, falling, falling...

A/N: Cough. Yes I'm aware I haven't finished Frailty yet, but... BUT! I mean there are tonnes of people out there who start new chaptered stories without finishing the old ones. I can indulge myself this once, can't I? And erm. This is actually one of the only exceptions to my self-imposed "finish at least half of the story before publishing the first chapter" rule. I'll have the first chapter up soon, I hope. But the second chapter has not been written yet. Since I'm writing as I go along, updates may be like, super duper long in between. So err... Le gasp! Who is this new and strangely powerful guy whose crashed Mokona's spell? (He is not an OC, but an actual CLAMP character.) All will be revealed in time!

Reeee-view!