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Pleasure Slave	By : Capitalist Category: +. to F > Card Captor Sakura Views: 84321 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 42
- 43
- 44
Chapter 43
‘trap’

On the morning of the new moon, Touya was surprised to step outside and find that the forest – a sea of lush green ever since his arrival – was now speckled with patches of gold and orange. The dip in temperature last night must have been enough to trigger the color change, though it looked like the day would be just as warm as yesterday. About time, really; Touya had been starting to think the valley summer would go on forever. Up in the mountains, he was sure, autumn had come weeks earlier and villagers would be scrambling to reap the last of the harvest and repair any rooftop damage before an early blizzard hit.
Vaguely, he noticed that he’d just thought ‘the mountains’ instead of ‘home’, but he didn’t bother to dwell on that. Behind him their bed was empty; Yue was gone long before Touya woke up if the coolness of the sheets was any indication. Maybe he was worried too, for all his cool assurances that the Void was no threat. He’d already retreated to his room of crystals, keeping his magical watch over the canyon, leaving Touya with nothing to do but wait.
Not exactly just wait, of course. Because if there was one thing Touya understood, it was that he had the ability to sense Void’s approach as well. It wasn’t as refined or sensitive as Yue’s perception, he was sure, but he could still find a nice quiet place and try to concentrate. He wouldn’t be able to do anything beyond that, but it was important that he do something. If there was anything Touya hated, it was uselessness.

Nearly all of the day went by before Touya began to doubt his fears. The morning and then afternoon rolled by peacefully as always, fresh breeze playing with the multicolored leaves below him. Touya watched a few whisk through the air and then fall to the ground from his vantage point up on a rooftop. It wasn’t exactly the closest he could get to the back of the castle – not ready to risk getting caught by Yue if he tried that – but it was high and clear of distractions. Surely if he was going to feel anything, especially now that he was actively trying to do so, he would feel it here. Yet nothing.
Well, Yue did say that the Void didn’t always attack on a new moon. Moodily Touya watched the sun start to sink in the west. He supposed that after two hundred years, or whatever, it must have learned to change around its strategies. To keep Yue, and Keroberos, on their toes. Must be stressful, always living on the defensive, never knowing from which way the attack would come –
Something flickered in his mind, and Touya stood up sharply. But as soon as he’d felt it it was gone again, light as a feather skittering away on the wind. Not at all like that heavy, unyielding pressure he’d felt last time it attacked. Probably it was just his imagination, bored after spending the day on a lonely rooftop and obsessing over the possibility of attack. Tensely he strained to catch it again, but there was nothing.
“It’s too hard,” Touya muttered, and turned away from the wall. “Too hard to just sit and wait, never knowing when it will come – just that it will. For more than two centuries… I don’t know how you do it, Yue. Considering what you’ve had to cope with -”
Touya hesitated, then reminded himself that he was alone and no one would ever know.
“- you’re not so terrible after all. Maybe, just a little, I admire you.”
But he was not alone after all, which he only realized in the split second between a violent shove from behind and the hard stone rushing up to meet him. After that, everything was black.

Yue, with his vast experience and power, felt the presence of Void more keenly than Touya did. In seconds he was out of the castle, bow forming in the air, bristling and ready to protect his master’s castle at all costs. Below him the creatures were swarming up the cliff wall, directly beneath the castle, and the nearest bared its teeth at him. Surely it wasn’t attempting to invade the building again, was it? Yue thought Void was smarter than that. With a snarl he swept in to attack, and the monsters scattered. It didn’t matter – crawling over the wall they made easy targets for his arrows, and had no cover. One after another they turned to ash and rained back down into the darkness, hopefully to scatter over the head of their master.
This was too easy. Yue scanned the surrounding woods carefully, checking to make sure Void hadn’t sent some of its soldiers into them while Yue was distracted here. Yet there was nothing. For whatever reason, the Void had sent its force directly to the castle in a straight climb that was nothing but suicidal. And it must have realized it, because finally its creatures turned tail and fled down the cliff in unison, scattering from Yue like cockroaches confronted with light. Yue knew better than to pursue. For centuries he’d fought off Void with the advantage of his high position, and flight, and he would not be seduced by an apparently panicked retreat into abandoning that advantage to fly down into the Void’s stronghold. Especially when the moon had turned its face from earth, depriving him of the moonlight. There was nothing to be gained from flying down there.
In minutes everything was quiet again. Yue floated in cautious circles just inside the canyon, watching for another attack, determined not to repeat last time’s mistake. He must be sure this time. The sun set, the dusk thickened, and night cloaked the world in darkness. Yue’s eyes saw through it easily enough, and still there was no movement from below. He couldn’t even sense its presence anymore. It was as if the attack had never happened.
When the stars had appeared in the sky and still nothing happened, Yue finally gave up. If Void was finished then Void was finished, and if it tried another surprise attack Yue would feel it in time. He swerved and soared up out of the canyon, not bothering to enter his castle but flew directly around it to alight on his own balcony. Touya had been fretting about the Void for so many days, Yue was anxious to see him and prove to him that all was well. The bedroom, however, was empty.
A fire crackled in the fireplace, but there was no slave lolling on the rug with a book. The bed was neatly made and undisturbed, the door to the empty bathroom wide open. Touya should be here, and he was not.
An uneasy feeling stirred, but Yue pushed it aside. Touya was probably in the music room, or the library, because he didn’t think Yue would come back to the castle so quickly. He’d be very relieved to find out he was wrong. So Yue went to check one, found it empty, and then the other, only to find his slave wasn’t there either.
So quiet, up here. Angry at himself for being intimidated by his own castle’s silence, Yue stalked out of the library and decided his slave was definitely due for a spanking… once he’d found him. Was he with his sister, perhaps? Yue turned toward the stairs, then remembered that at least once before Yue had found Touya up on the castle rooftops, at about this same time of night. Gazing off at those mountains that were once his home –
Yue’s fists tightened in irritation and he dove out of the nearest window, soaring skyward. Within seconds he was over the edge of the roof, but there was no sign of Touya. Like a swallow Yue dipped and swooped around the jutting towers and turrets, for the top of the castle was anything but level. He checked every roof for his slave and found nothing, and would have turned to go inside again if his eye hadn’t caught a strange dark stain near the rear of the castle. He did not know why he paused and flew closer to investigate – perhaps that unease was stronger than he’d allowed himself to acknowledge. All he did know was that when he landed beside it, the coppery smell of blood was thick in the night air. Deep scratches in the low wall just two paces away showed where the Void had launched to attack.

Several floors below, Sakura and Syaoran were enjoying a quiet moment together when they both shivered. Instinctively Sakura burrowed into Syaoran’s arms to escape the unexpected chill.
“Did you feel -” It was barely autumn, and her balcony doors were closed. Sakura’s voice trailed off in shock when she realized she could see her breath, gathering in a cloud of frosted vapor as if it were midwinter. It was the same for Syaoran, who hastily tucked Sakura’s head under his chin before she could see his wary fear. Could anything make Yue this angry?
All throughout the castle, servants shivered and huddled beneath their blankets to escape the furious cold, and still the temperature plummeted, until the stress became too much for the glass. Everywhere, at once, windows burst into a thousand fragments. Several people screamed, but Yue did not hear them. He was already over the edge of his castle and diving into the darkness.

The hard throbbing pain in Touya’s head was what woke him up, and immediately he wished it hadn’t. Just opening his eyes made him wince – and if it hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell they were open. Dark, nothing but dark, was it night? Why did his head hurt so much?
Touya stirred and tried to reach for Yue, and that was when he discovered the rest of him hurt almost as much as his head. A sharp pain searing his ribs made it hard to breathe, and from the feel of things his body was peppered with bruises. And this wasn’t his bed, no, he was lying in a heap on cold hard ground. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, triggering nausea and dizziness. Where was Yue? Touya tried to croak his name, knowing something was very wrong, and that if Yue answered then at least he’d know not to be afraid.
It was not Yue, however, that spoke.
“It moves.”
The voice was no louder than a whisper, but it echoed around him, resonating in the darkness and in effect seemed to fill Touya’s head with the noise. It was cold, and flat, the voice of death itself. Even though his body was limp and weak, Touya could feel his heart start to beat faster.
Next to his head, the darkness rippled and separated from itself, moving closer to him. He froze when the ghost of a touch tickled his neck, so light but so cold.
“Mmm,” sighed the voice of death. “Yes, it belongs to him; there is no doubt. A rare find, indeed.”
The touch faded and Touya gulped for air, or as much as he could in his condition. He couldn’t stay like this, crumpled on the ground like someone’s garbage; lifelong pride demanded he at least sit upright. Acutely aware of his protesting muscles and fresh blood loss, Touya pressed his palms to the earth and pushed himself up onto his knees. The motion made his head swim, and for a second he imagined the air was swirling in a miniature funnel before him. Then he realized it was not his imagination, it was the peculiar sight of a darkness darker than night. Something without shape or form, or even solid substance – the antithesis of existence. The Void.
“You,” he managed to get out, his voice hoarse but steady, “made a mistake.”
The voice of death seemed slightly amused. “It dares to speak. Human, do you know what I am?”
“I know what you are.”
“You know that I can kill you with a simple touch, and there will not even be a body left behind?”
“Yes.”
“You speak boldly for one who knows these things.”
“I also know that you hate Yue, who keeps you trapped here, and that you’re constantly seeking a way to defeat him. I know that you took me, hoping he’ll fly down here to rescue me. And I know that he won’t do that. He’d never risk his life and the safety of the whole valley for me. You made a mistake, Void, I am not special to him. I’m just his slave.”
He tried to keep a straight face while speaking but it was difficult, without any one specific thing to look at. The Void’s response was a hollow chuckle.
“If you speak the truth and he does not come, then I will eat you and next moon I try again. But I think, human, that you are lying. That you have the nerve to do so to my face is impressive. Is that why he likes you?”
Touya swallowed, and with difficulty kept his chin high. “What face? All I can see is an inkblot.”
“Impertinent creature.” The darker-than-dark twisted and warped, stretching itself into a vaguely humanoid shape. “You wish to speak to a face? Then I shall oblige you.” Indistinct lines billowed and stretched, until Touya was looking at the smoky mirror image of Yue. It smirked at Touya’s expression.
“Surprised? You shouldn’t be – I am, after all, his twin.”
“You… what?”
“Did he not tell you? No of course he wouldn’t, Clow’s dazzling child is too beautiful and proud to consider himself related to a thing like me. For all he wishes it were otherwise, however, I was born on the night of his creation. Always there must be balance, negative for positive, death for life. I am the opposite of his existence. Just because I was not expected does not make it any less true.”
“That doesn’t make you his brother. Not like Keroberos is.”
“Was I not also born by Clow’s hand?”
“A mistake he spent the rest of his life trying to correct.”
The Void snarled, and Touya flinched. “What do you know of it, little human boy? Clow was a fool that meddled with forces beyond his ken, blinded to the repercussions by his own arrogance. How dare he be dismayed by my presence on this earth, when his hand brought it about?”
“He didn’t know that he was creating you too, if he’d known -”
“He would have done it anyway,” the Void interrupted smoothly. “He would have his love slave no matter what the price.”
To that Touya had no answer, because he had the feeling it was probably true. “Only after years of allowing me to grow in strength and size did he bother to acknowledge me, and then only to try and kill me. But even the great Clow cannot kill death itself. Now he’s gone and his prize son carries the burden of guarding me, a fight he can never win. His pathetic devotion to our creator will kill him one day. I will see to it.”
Touya’s instinctive response to that promise was to growl. “Yue won’t lose to you.”
“He will. I am invincible, and he is not. It’s only a matter of time, and that is something I have much of. Then I only have to destroy the younger brother, and I will be free.”
“To wipe out my entire race. Yue will never let you.” Painfully, with excruciating slowness, Touya stumbled to his feet so that he might look the Void in the eye. “You’re nothing but evil, chaos, and death. He will fight you until the end of the world if he has to.”
Its eyes turned pale, like a ghostly flame, reminding Touya of how Yue’s eyes lost color when he grew angry. “Have a care to speak respectfully, human. You stand before great power.”
“Power that has done nothing but prey on the helpless, from what I’ve seen. How strong you are, to attack a girl trapped in a cage. You might be invincible, but how can you call yourself powerful when you do nothing but tear down and destroy? You can’t build, you can’t create, you have nothing to give to this world. You can only take.”
The Void’s eyes smoldered. “It is my nature to consume all that lives, the more of it the better. You call me chaos, human boy? No, I am everything peaceful and silent. It is the world above us that is chaotic, a screaming cacophony of human emotion. Love, hate, anger, lust, grief – the people inflict them on one another incessantly and drive themselves to despair. I eliminate that emotion and bring release from pain. I bless the world with my perfect harmony.”
“If you are such a blessing then Clow would not have sought to stop you,” Touya countered. “There might be suffering in the world but there are good emotions too, reasons worth living for.”
“Such as love?” scoffed the Void. It raised an incorporeal hand to Touya’s chest, who forced himself to stand absolutely still and not jump backward. He sensed, very rightly, that Void only had to press and his life would be snatched away into the darkness. “Yes, I can see it in you. Love is the worst of them all, responsible for hatred, envy, and depression at its worst and sheer stupidity and waste at its best. Its victims worship it as though it were a faithful and protective god instead of the capricious zephyr it is, and are left broken, dispirited, or dead in its wake. My brother’s grief, raw and hard after the loss of his precious Clow, was an especially delicious treat.” Gloat spreading across its otherworldly face, the Void turned aside and stepped away from Touya. All around them, eyes glowed in the dark as their audience looked on; at least twenty of Void’s monsters surrounded them. They did not blink. They did not shuffle or jostle against one another. All of them kept their gaze fixed on Touya with unwavering intensity, a unified extension of the Void’s will.
“Did he think his master immune from death, I wonder? That their love was so ‘special’ it was above earthly considerations? Spoiled little brat. He deserved every minute of his torturous sorrow. Even if his younger brother were not there to protect him, I would have let him live just to watch him suffer.”
“For something that claims to repel emotions, you seem to have a very good grasp on hate. Why does love bother you so much, why does their love bother you so much? Did it hurt, knowing you were every bit Clow’s son as Yue was but unwelcome and hated in that castle? Yue was his greatest love, but you were nothing but an accident and abomination. Were you jealous?”
One of the monsters leapt forward with jaws open wide, pulling up short and snapping them together just an inch from Touya’s head.
“Your impudence irritates me, human boy. Do you not understand how close you are to death?”
Touya had stood his ground, due almost as much to pain-deadened reflexes as sheer grit. Ignoring his shaking hands, Touya kept his chin high and eyes on the Void.
“I know how hard it is. To stand on the outside of it, looking in, and know that what they had is so perfect that there’s no room for you. They loved each other more than anything, and we’ll never be able to compete. I know how it hurts.” The monster beside him twitched and Touya swallowed, heart banging away inside his chest with fear. It was impossible to read that face.
“But that doesn’t mean you have to destroy all the love in the world. You don’t have to kill.”
The Void moved, just a step, then streamed across the distance between them like funneled smoke to stand directly before Touya again. Cold fingers moved to his chin and he tried to jerk it away; patiently the Void caught him and held him.
“Brave,” it commented. “And honest. I see more clearly why he picked you out and kept you close, a high-spirited plaything to keep him entertained. You interest me as well, human boy. You are his prisoner just as I am, yet for some reason you show loyalty toward him. There is no need for such a useless emotion. If you behave yourself, tonight, when I’ve killed him I will let you go free. Your life I will spare.”
Silence reigned in the depths of the canyon, offer hanging in the air expectantly. Touya never replied. As the two of them stared at one another tension rippled through the Void and its monsters.
“He’s here.” It looked up, and so did its monsters. All in perfect unison, precisely simultaneous. For one second, no eyes were on him. And Touya bolted.
He surprised even himself how fast he moved, maybe because his life depended on it. The circle of creatures penning him in had been broken by the one that leapt forward, and he darted through the gap before the Void even had a chance to react. A surge of adrenaline had masked his injuries – for now – and he sprinted through the darkness without a glance for the terrain or for the beasts that were surely coming for him. His eyes were on just one thing, and that was the bolt of pure white light descending towards them at a fantastic speed.
“YUE!” Frantically he waved his arms as he ran, praying he’d be heard. “YUE IT’S A TRAP DON’T- oof!” He cut himself off with a grunt when one of the Void’s soldiers tackled him to the ground. Futilely he pummeled at it with his fists, fighting to get free, and its response was to merely snatch one of his arms in its razor-lined maw. Casual pressure snapped the bone in two.
Touya couldn’t help it; he screamed. The pain exploded in his arm like a white-hot bolt of lightning, so intense that when his scream trailed off he could only sag limply against his captor and fight no more. A couple flashes of blue light zipped through his blurry vision and he blinked, trying to focus. Over their heads Yue hovered, blindingly white against the black, so bright that he lit up the darkness around them. Again he drew his arm back, preparing another arrow, this one aimed at the Void itself. His eyes were sheer crystal with rage.
“I will kill you for touching him.”
“You cannot kill what is not alive, brother. I would have thought Clow at least taught you that much. Or did he fashion you to be all beauty and no brains?”
Yue fired, but the arrow hit some invisible shield of the Void’s and vanished. It smirked. “I told you. But you are welcome to come a little closer and try again.”
The Void beckoned in invitation, and even from here Touya could see the hatred and frustration seething within Yue. He did not move, and the Void laughed.
“I thought not. You know you have no chance against me, frail living thing. That you came so far, when you have never dared to dive so deep before, is remarkable. This human slave means so much to you?”
Yue had kept his eyes firmly off Touya until now, but the taunt proved too much. His gaze flicked to his slave and then back to the Void again, his fear visible for no more than a heartbeat. The Void, however, had missed none of it.
“Traitor,” it hissed. “And what of Clow, your beloved master? You wept for his death and swore to love only him; now you give yourself to a mere boy? Have you forgotten already?”
“What would a despicable creature like you,” Yue snarled defensively, “know of love?”
“I know how well it can be used against its disciples. It will only take a moment to kill him, Yue. And what a relief it will be to rid the world of his noisy and confused feelings. Surrender to me, however, and I will let him live.”
“No!” Touya shouted, before Yue had a chance to react. Frantically Touya waved his one free arm, tugging fruitlessly against the jaws that held him prisoner. “Don’t listen to it, Yue, you can’t do that!”
Again Yue glanced at him, an unreadable look in his eyes. “For the thousandth time, slave, I must remind you that it is not your place to tell me what I can or cannot do.”
“But it’ll kill you!”
“Your concern is touching, but my decisions are none of your affair. Just be the good, obedient slave you usually are and stay – right – there.”
He gave Touya almost no time to grasp his real meaning before drawing back his arm and releasing. The arrow flew fast and true, but this time Yue was not aiming for the Void’s main form. It pierced the monster that held Touya captive directly in the snout and it roared, head half-disintegrating with the movement. Touya was away like a shot in the same second, sprinting at a speed only doomed prey can match, and knowing it. In the edge of his vision he could see the Void’s monsters swarming up both of the canyon walls, trying to get high enough so that they might leap onto Yue and drag him down. Yue paid no attention to the threat, diving and gliding low over the floor. He’d made his decision, and it was too late to go back now. They would either die together, or survive together. Good left arm raised straight and high, Touya drew on the last of his strength and leapt.
Yue caught him solidly around the wrist without even slowing, the angle of his flight already curving up. Touya caught just one last glimpse of the Void’s face, and the murderous determination flaming in its eyes made him wish he had not.
The Void attacked. Displaying his incredible strength, Yue yanked up his arm and tossed Touya high in the air as if he weighed no more than a child’s doll. For a brief moment while both his hands were free the bow reappeared, and several beasts that tried to pounce from the canyon walls met swift and terrible ends. Then Touya fell earthwards again and Yue caught him, spinning from the momentum of his weight and tossing him back up into the air again. Glittering shards of that diamond-like weapon shot out in all directions, drawing screams from the Void, but this time it was harder for Touya to see what happened. Yue’s frantic flying and tossing him here and there was keeping them both alive, but Touya had suffered a concussion that night and was starting to feel rather dizzy. The world kept turning upside down, then rightside up and then sideways. Sometimes he was in Yue’s arms and they were hurtling toward the stars, and sometimes he couldn’t see anything but darkness. His arm and his lungs hurt terribly. Dimly he heard Yue’s raised voice, pleading with him not to die, ordering him not to die – he was always so bossy. And such a worrier…

Yue dealt terrible damage to the Void, but he was outnumbered and dangerously encumbered by the frail human he carried. He might not have made it out of the canyon if backup hadn’t arrived, his brother streaking past him like a flaming comet in the night sky. Void could not regroup quickly enough and within minutes every one of the creatures was on fire, disintegrating into ash. He had not had the time or free hand to spare for calling his brother, but Keroberos must have been close enough to the castle to sense the battle. Leaving him to demolish their pursuers, Yue flapped to his balcony and nearly stumbled upon landing. Clumsy! He must be more careful, Touya was unconscious in his arms and covered in blood, it didn’t seem possible that he was alive.
Unaware of his own shaking hands, Yue laid him out in the center of his bed as tenderly as if he were glass. He was barely breathing… Yue was saved from a total descent into panic by Keroberos landing on his balcony. The glass doors had shattered, for some reason, so he simply floated inside.
“Tsk tsk, Yue, I leave the castle for two weeks and everything goes straight to hell. Can’t I trust you with anything?”
“Help him!” Yue barked, in no mood for his brother’s teasing. “Don’t just stand there, heal him, now! He’s going to die!”
“He’s not going to die, and it wouldn’t kill you either to say ‘please’.”
“Please,” Yue begged, dangerously close to collapsing on the floor in a heap. Keroberos raised his eyebrows, looking his brother over more carefully and likely realizing it. A quiet sigh escaped him.
“Alright, calm down. Let’s have a look.” Lightly he jumped up onto the bed alongside Touya, and nudged at his shoulder with his muzzle. “Get those rags off him, already.”
Yue’s slave never wore anything but the finest silks and linens, all immaculately cleaned and pressed, but after everything that he’d been through tonight his clothes were in ragged, bloody shreds. Hastily Yue tore them clear, swallowing quiet sobs when he saw the bruises and gashes covering his body. Four puncture wounds crossing his chest still bled, and there were identical marks on each leg just over the knees.
“You can see the bite radius,” Keroberos muttered. “Looks like Void had him carried down in its mouth, he was lucky it managed not to bite down any harder than it did. Just two cracked ribs. He’s got a broken arm, too, and that’s a nasty wound on his head. Plus a fair amount of blood loss, a few scrapes here and there… Yue, you can breathe. He’s going to make it.” Gently he placed a paw over Touya’s heart.
“No, wait! Wait!”
“What is it now?”
“There are scars on his back too… old ones. Can you heal them too?”
Keroberos lowered his head to Touya again and snuffed, breathing in and out a couple of times. “No can do. He doesn’t want to let go of them.”
“What?” Flummoxed, Yue stared and Keroberos could only shrug. “You mean he wants them?”
“That’s what his body says. Now be quiet, and let me concentrate.”
Again he put his paw over Touya’s heart, and closed his eyes. The healing power of Glow belonged solely to the sun child; only the younger of the brothers could mend injuries and restore health. Yue had never envied him for it until now. Anxiously he watched the golden light kindle from within his brother’s chest and then move through his leg into Touya’s heart, where it began to circulate and spread throughout his body. Bleeding dried up and gashes began to close, and his slave flushed feverishly and twitched.
“It’s a little painful for him, with the process so accelerated, but he’s fine. The bones will have knitted by dawn.”
Yue touched longing fingertips to Touya’s hot brow. “Can’t I just -”
“No. You keep your fancy opiates to yourself, you can’t mix moon and sun magic on a human! Fire and earth, Yue, you should know better.”
That was right, he did know better, it was just so hard to think clearly with his slave at death’s door. Keroberos was settling himself on the bedsheets next to Touya, perceptive gaze sizing up his big brother. “And for heavens’ sake, sit down before you fall down. You’re an absolute mess, and tonight of all nights is no night to be pushing yourself.”
Yes, he was right about that too. Wearily Yue collapsed into a huddle on the bed opposite the lion, but still his hands would not stop shaking.
“It took him. Didn’t it?” Yue nodded, and Keroberos huffed in exasperation. “Terrific, a new card for the Void to play. How did it even know what he meant to you? No, never mind, I know. It must have smelled it on him when it invaded the castle. It’s not just your scent that’s all over him, Yue, your magical presence clings to him, he’s totally permeated with your essence. Hell, I thought he was you that day I met him – you couldn’t have handed a bigger invitation to Void.”
Yue flinched and dropped his eyes.
“It took him on a gamble that you’d risk yourself to rescue him, and you were stupid enough to prove it right. Considering it’s the new moon, it’s a miracle you and your slave survived.”
“What else could I do, I had no choice!”
“Yes, you did. Yue, you have the responsibility of guarding mankind from the Void, your life is not something to be thrown away for no reason!”
“No reason?” Yue echoed, horrified. “What about Toya? How could I leave him to die at the Void’s hands?”
“Sensibly, if you had any respect for the mission Clow left us with!”
Yue opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by a weak groan. Touya stirred, and groaned again.
“Yu- Yue…”
“Shh, Toya, I’m right here.” Hurriedly he took his slave’s hand and kissed it, resting his cool hand on Touya’s forehead even if he had to hold back his magic. “You’re safe, rest now.”
His fingers flexed, as if to reciprocate Yue’s grasp, then relaxed again when Touya slipped back into sleep. Unhappily Keroberos watched the exchange, his tail twitching restlessly.
“Well, never mind what’s done. You rescued him, you were lucky to live, and here you are. But Yue, now the Void knows.”
A cold stone of dread dropped into Yue’s stomach. So preoccupied with Touya’s safety and recovery, it had not even occurred to him to consider that. “It knows, and you can depend on it coming after your slave again. Why wouldn’t it? He’s human, weak, unable to defend himself, and apparently you can’t resist following him even into the Void’s lair.”
“Oh no,” Yue heard himself whisper.
“He’ll have to go, Yue.”
“No!”
“Yes,” Keroberos insisted. “Sakura told me they’re from the mountains, way up in the peaks. Void hasn’t made it that far in years, and even if it did your scent will eventually fade from him. He’ll be safe, back home in his village, no longer a target. Stop shaking your head at me like that, you know damn well it’s the only solution!”
“No, he can stay here and be safe. I’ll keep him safe, I’ll keep him close me to every hour of the day. I’ll chain him to me if I have to.”
“And I’m sure he’ll really really appreciate that,” Keroberos responded dryly, “but I think he’d probably just like it better if you let him go home. Or does what he wants not matter?”
“He’s my slave,” Yue said in a small voice, beginning to feel his hands shake again. “He’s mine. I don’t want to lose him.”
“So you’re willing to risk his life for your needs? And you call me greedy.”
“I’ll protect him!”
“Until he wishes he was dead, I suspect. Yue, won’t you wake up and look at yourself? You are obsessed with this boy, and that obsession almost killed him tonight. If you love him, don’t you want what’s best for him?”
“Who said anything about love?” Yue snapped, and Keroberos groaned.
“Again? Still? You’re as blind as you are stubborn, you stupid idiot!”
“I do not love Toya, I only love -”
“Save it. You didn’t just risk your life to rescue a simple toy from the Void. It knows, I know, everybody knows except you… and your equally dense slave.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yue insisted, feeling strangely panicky even though the danger was over and Touya was healing. “You don’t know what I shared with Clow. Nothing could ever replace it! You don’t know. You don’t know.”
“I know enough to get out of here before I lose all patience and kill you myself,” Keroberos grumbled. “Clow warned me that I might have to take care of you once he’d gone. I just never thought he meant something like this.”
He bared his fangs at Yue and turned, jumping off the bed with barely a bounce in the mattress to disturb Touya. “Looks like I’ll have to mend a few windows in the castle later on. But right now I need sleep. I’ll be in Sakura’s room.”
He popped over the pile of glass shards and took flight, a welcome respite for Yue. Yet even though his brother had gone the words they exchanged had not, and the harder Yue tried to ignore them the more they needled at his heart.
“I’ll protect you,” he promised the sleeping Touya. “I swear it on the moon, the stars, whatever you wish. I’ll do anything, but I cannot let you go because I need you…”
He really was so selfish. How could he keep Touya here, knowing what danger it presented, knowing what might happen to him? But how could he let him go, to live in a faraway village where Yue would never see him again? He couldn’t bear the thought of it, couldn’t breathe just imagining it. He would rather die than live without Touya.
The incredible stress and hardship of the night had taken their toll, and Yue was ready to break with exhaustion. His shoulders convulsed once, twice, and then hot and hard sobs ripped from his chest like an unstoppable flood. He cried as he had not even done for Touya’s attempted escape, anguished tears falling on Touya’s body and smearing the dried blood. He shed tears for what nearly happened to his slave and what might well happen to him again, for what nearly happened to Yue, and how utterly he’d failed his master in risking his life so foolishly. And he wept for the helpless knowledge that if he had to make the choice over again, he would have done the same thing. Everything was going wrong, but without losing Touya there was no way to correct it, and that he would not do.
It was a circular trap that could not be escaped, and eventually the worn out Yue cried himself to sleep while trying. How long that took, he could not say. He did not even realize it happened. He only knew that when he opened his eyes again, something was different. His face was dry, his hair neatly combed and braided. And though his head was still bowed, it was no longer over the still form of his slave. He was kneeling… in the old birdcage that was once his bed. Starlight shone merrily through the vast windows. Someone turned the key, opening the door, and Yue permitted himself to raise his head.
“Oh, my poor Yue.” Smiling gently as always, Clow bent forward and offered a hand. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Because I’m just that evil, that’s why.
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Pleasure Slave