Disclaimer – I couldn't possibly even begin to claim the brilliance that is CLAMP's work.

Another 'from the thoughts of Kurogane' installation. This time taking place in Japan as Kurogane tries to deal with losing an arm, regaining Fay, and generally having to put up with Yuko's meddling without the witch even being present.

Recoup

Kurogane had known that someone was waiting outside of his room. He'd assumed that it was Syaoran since, having saved Fay's life again, it was rather doubtful that the mage would be happy with him. Not that he cared; he'd rather Fay be acting stupid and angry than nothing and dead.

So, when Princess Tomoyo called out to that person standing just beyond sight and said, "I am sorry to have kept you waiting. Please feel free to enter," Kurogane couldn't have been more surprised when Fay walked in.

Fay did look angry, though, so Kurogane felt a little better at having been right about that.

He didn't say anything as Fay walked up; what could he say? He wasn't sorry for risking his life to save Fay. He'd do it again in a heartbeat without ever wondering why. Fay probably wouldn't appreciate that sentiment, though. Once Fay reached his bedside, still looking pissed off, Kurogane managed to say "Hey" which was woefully inadequate, but…

What else could he say?

Tomoyo took that as a cue to take a deep breath, close her eyes, make a quick mental prayer for the best, and get out of there on the pretext of giving them a little privacy. Kurogane was more than certain she just wanted to get out before Fay gave into his anger and really let him have it. As loyal as Kurogane was to his Princess and as much as he cared for her, there were times when she could act just a smidge cowardly.

Now was one of those times.

Then, without warning, Fay lashed out with his fist, hitting Kurogane on his head. Kurogane fell backwards, shock written on his face as his remaining hand shot up to rub the spot where Fay smacked him. The grin on Fay's face was equally disconcerting, making Kurogane's shock increase and gave him the sneaking suspicion that his own expression was, by now, quite comical.

"That was payback, Kuro-sama!" Fay exclaimed.

Kurogane couldn't help the smile that lit up his face at the sound of that ridiculous nickname. Despite how great it had felt to know that Princess Tomoyo was proud of the person he'd become on his journey, it was Fay's genuine grin and the return of the idiotic nickname that really lit a fire inside him. He hadn't felt this exhilarated in a long time, if ever. Not even the thrill of battle compared to this.

Kurogane just wasn't certain why.

"You're about to get punched out, you creep!!" He stood up, his smile belying his words.

"Oh, really?" Fay shook his head and laughed, darting just out of reach. "You've got to catch me first, Kuro-rin."

Never one to turn down a challenge, Kurogane lunged after the lithe mage. Already he found that he had to compensate for the loss of his arm. His balance was off and he had to ignore the phantom feeling of it that came and went.

After a few moments, Kurogane managed to latch onto Fay's wrist and drag the blonde to a standstill. He suspected that Fay had let him win, but he was having too much fun to be upset by it.

Fay panted lightly for breath, grinning at Kurogane, who smiled right back. But as the moment passed, Fay's smile began to fade as he regarded Kurogane, particularly his missing left arm. He wandered closer, his wrist still in Kurogane's grasp, and reached up as if to touch Kurogane's left shoulder. His hand paused just inches away, though.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not really. More like an itch, if anything." Kurogane let out a sigh and shrugged. "Being one armed is going to take some getting used to; I'll need to find a new fighting style. I… I'm still going with you, Syaoran, Princess Sakura, and Mokona."

"Good." Fay let his head drop forward to lean against Kurogane's chest. "This is your home, though… and I know Princess Tomoyo is very important to you. After what happened… after what I did… no one would be mad if you decided to stay here. It was your wish to come home, after all."

"Hey…" Kurogane released Fay's wrist and brought his hand up to Fay's chin, pushing his face up so that he was looking into Kurogane's eyes. "Yeah… Princess Tomoyo is very important to me. She saved me from a very dark place once. The thing is… my home isn't here anymore. My home is with you… and the others. I think you underestimate how important you've become to me."

"Kurogane. Fay." The two jerked apart at the sound of Princess Tomoyo's voice. She watched them in amusement. "Syaoran is awake. If you two would come with me, I'll bring you two to where he and Mokona are. From there, we can go to Princess Sakura."

-=-=-=-=

"It's Sakura!" Mokona exclaimed from his perch on Fay's shoulder.

Sakura was breathtaking. She looked as though she was merely sleeping in a hammock made of large ribbons of fabric that matched the shade of pink of the Sakura blossoms in the tree that she lay ensconced upon. The look on Syaoran's face, though, was heartbreaking. He rushed to her side and peered down on her as though she were made of porcelain too delicate to risk touching.

Apparently this Syaoran really did love Sakura as much as the other Syaoran did. Poor kid.

"The wounds on her body have been attended to." Princess Tomoyo spoke with a sad tone of voice. There was something she wasn't saying and Kurogane startled himself by feeling irritated with her. He'd been annoyed with her before, and even spitefully angry, but never on anyone else's behalf before.

Today was just full of surprises. Somehow Fay had become more important than the Princess and the rest of his friends felt equal to her in his heart. When did this happen?

Mokona leapt at Tomoyo. "Thank you, Princess Tomoyo! But why is Sakura in a tree?" Mokona landed on her sleeve and scrambled up to perch on her shoulder.

"That is a sacred tree of the Country of Japan. The one with the longest lifespan."

"It's 'Sakura'…" Syaoran filled in. "A cherry tree. The tree has the same name as she does."

Kurogane straightened up and exchanged looks with Fay. He'd recognized the tree, but until Syaoran had said it aloud, the fact that the girl and the tree had the same name hadn't sunk in. Names had a particular significance in Kurogane's world. Judging by the look on Fay's face, he knew about the significance of names as well.

In Japan names could be used in magic, so people guarded their names closely. Two things – people or otherwise – could magically share their life with one another if they had the same name. The Sakura tree must have been connected to Princess Sakura.

"So you've come back, Kurogane," Empress Amaterasu, Princess Tomoyo's elder sister, said. Her sudden appearance startled Kurogane and he turned to look at her and Sohma.

"Yeah."

Amaterasu pinned him with one of her unnerving, unblinking stares for a moment and then smirked. "It seems you've come back slightly improved."

"Huh?" Kurogane narrowed his eyes.

Turning her attention away from Kurogane, the Empress smiled benignly. "We welcome you, my guests, to rest in this castle for a short time." She looked back at Kurogane. "You will continue your journey, will you not?"

Kurogane nodded sharply, but he felt less certain now, surrounded by everyone, than he had when he'd been alone with Fay. To be a one armed man in a fight was to be a liability, no matter how talented that one armed man might be. Fay didn't look at him and Kurogane feared that Fay was thinking the same thing.

"Also," Empress Amaterasu continued, "we have one other guest."

"Who's there?" Mokona asked, peering over Tomoyo's shoulder. "Fuma!"

Sure enough, there was Fuma, the guy who traveled from world to world doing odd jobs and collecting unique items for clients... and the brother of Seishiro, the vampire hunter who had stolen one of Princess Sakura's feathers.

"Long time no see, huh?" Fuma laughed and caught Mokona as the little puff ball hopped into his arms. "On the other hand, I have no idea if your flow of time was anything like the flow of time I went through." He sounded rather amused as he spoke, but Kurogane didn't feel all that amused. Seeing Fuma was a sharp reminder of everything that happened in Tokyo.

He couldn't quite push out of his mind the memory of horror when he realized that Syaoran, the other Syaoran, had eaten Fay's left eye and had every intention of taking the other or the way it felt to hold Fay helplessly as the two Syaorans fought each other, only able to shield the mage's body when the attacks got too close. Worse, however, was the memory of stark terror when he was told that Fay was dying and that, worse, Fay had wanted to die.

Kurogane hadn't felt that frightened since the death of his parents and it had made him so angry...

Shaking off the memories, Kurogane forced himself to concentrate harder on the conversation at present.

Fuma was pulling something out of a sack he'd been carrying around. It was cylindrical and, at first, Kurogane couldn't see it very well. But then it was revealed: a glass tube carrying a prosthetic arm. Despite never having seen one before, Kurogane knew exactly what it was intended to be; it was the replacement for the arm he'd cut off in Celes.

But there was going to be a catch connected to it. Fuma ran errands for Yuko, after all, and odds were that this was one. Kurogane couldn't imagine that he had anything left to pay for something like a new arm and, even if he did, he didn't want to make any more deals with her right now. So instead of asking 'how much?' he went with, "what's that supposed to be?"

"Call it a prosthetic arm," Fuma said. "There wasn't time to pretty it up with skin. In other words, sorry it's naked." Fuma patted the top of the cylinder. "Still, I think you're going to need it."

Fuma was right. Kurogane didn't want to make any deals with Yuko, but being the one-armed guy made him a liability. The prosthesis would keep that from happening. He had every intention of sticking with Fay and the others, so... yeah, he was going to need it.

Yet... how had he known?

"What are you bringing it here for?" Kurogane asked, then shook his head. "No, before you answer that, how could you have known about this?"

Fuma shrugged, his smile never wavering. "Yuko told me all about it. See, this was the other promise to Yuko-san that I promised."

Syaoran stiffened, probably recalling Fuma's words from Tokyo. As it was, Kurogane didn't like that he was right about Fuma acting as Yuko's go-between. He wasn't like the others, he didn't have magic to trade or anything left that was truly valuable to him except his friendships with the rest of the group and he couldn't trade that without completely losing himself. Of that he had no illusions.

"I got this little item," Fuma continued, "from a world with a fairly high level of mechanical skills. A world called Piffle."

Kurogane glanced at Princess Tomoyo and, for a moment, imagined she looked a bit like her counterpart in that world, a corporate girl instead of a princess. He shook off the image and looked back at Fuma. "What's your price?"

"I've already received my reward. My fees were paid by Yuko-san."

The smile on Fuma's face told Kurogane that the man was purposely avoiding the question. He hated it when people got evasive like that. It meant they had something to hide; Fay did it all the time and he was much more skilled at it than Fuma. "Well, I haven't given anything to the witch."

That was when it clicked. Fay was evasive all the time...

He wouldn't...

Jerking around to face Fay, Kurogane felt his mouth go dry. What had Fay promised to that witch to buy him a new arm?

"I've given my promise to pay the witch-san," Fay said, looking into Kurogane's eyes. "I did it while you were sleeping." Then he raised his right hand, looked up, and drained all the blue from his eyes, collecting it in a magic circle.

"Fay!" Mokona shrieked. "The color of Fay's eye turned to gold."

Kurogane felt his chest go tight. He couldn't breathe. Surely Fay wasn't going to... but then he still had his vampiric blood, so then maybe...

"The blue color of my eyes was the source of my magic," Fay said blithely. Mokona, please deliver this to the witch-san."

"But..."

"It's alright. I can see perfectly well." Fay held the magic fragment out to Mokona. "This was the very last of my power."

"Don't do it!" Mokona was panicking now, but the way Fay was acting had somehow calmed Kurogane's fears. "If Fay looses his power... Fay!"

"I won't die, even without this. The vampire blood will keep me alive." Fay turned and locked his gaze with Kurogane's. "I won't hand over anything that amounts to giving my life away. Not anymore."

A small smile crept onto Kurogane's face at Fay's words. He'd first noticed Fay's self-destructive tendencies early on during their travels. He wasn't certain what had changed, exactly, but he knew that it was something he had done. Somehow, he'd managed to give Fay a reason to go on living. No matter what came next or what they'd have to endure, Kurogane now knew with certainty that Fay would fight for himself as well as the rest of them.

Nothing was the same as it used to be, but Kurogane couldn't help but feel like he'd just gotten back something very, very important.

A/N – I loved this part of the manga, particularly because it emphasized just how important Kurogane's become to Fay. Before, Fay felt he had no reason to live; now Kurogane is Fay's reason to live. :)