[13]
Ashura’s whole thing aside, one thing I think is interesting is that Ashura shows everyone Fai’s past as a calculated inverted coup de grâce. He’s trying to force everyone’s feelings, to make them hate him, to make Fai willing to kill Ashura out of anger, out of desperation, out of despair.
Even aside from the fact that he has critically misread Fai to THIS degree, I love how badly he’s misjudged Kurogane too, who a) doesn’t agree with the ethics of finding out someone’s past against their will (as shown in Recourt), but B) doesn’t care about Fai’s past, as he said in Acid Tokyo.
Ashura thinks he’s won, but instead he’s earning Kurogane’s well deserved rage instead. And I think it’s worth noting that Kurogane doesn’t fly into instant violence here, because he both knows better and isn’t that kind of man anymore. Instead he takes in all the information presented to him and points out all the holes in the narrative.
He never says a single word against Fai’s apparent choices, or his role as a double agent, his original mission to kill Kurogane. Kurogane never wavers from Fai, despite Fai desperately fearing it - desperately thinking he DESERVES it. But Kurogane would never, and instead he knows what Ashura is trying to do, figures it out, and points it out to Fai even as he defends him. He plays into the situation to SAVE Fai, once again, and no memories forcibly shared with him would ever change his mind, even if they had been true.
After all, what does Ashura really show of Fai’s past except a scared and tortured child trying his best to survive - which is Kurogane’s own backstory too?
ANOTHER thing I love is that at this point in the story we’ve been maneuvered into only having part of our original cast left. We’re down Syaoran, and Sakura, Mokona is mostly restricted to the sidelines - and while Lava Lamp is here, he’s been put out of action. That means this arc was always meant to be purely focused on Fai and Kurogane - and specifically Fai AND Kurogane, together, as their storylines are so inseparable and so tightly wound around each other.
I just really like that it’s THIS. It’s SERESU of all places. It’s not about Sakura, or Syaoran, or Lava Lamp, or anything else at all. This is purely Fai and Kurogane, what they mean to each other, and how their love will change the course of the tragedy that is Fai’s entire existence.
And like. This SHOULD be a conflict. It’s what Evil Wolverine has planned for, for Fai’s whole life.
It’s what Ashura wants too.
It’s what WOULD have happened if they weren’t truly and deeply in love.
If their entire existence hadn’t been changed by the other’s presence. If they hadn’t fought for each other and chosen each other over fate again and again.
Their story was constructed for them; they were supposed to be each other’s fated arch nemesis, arranged a hundred years before they even met, but they fell in love instead and changed the entire pattern of the future because of it.
