[13]
I love how in this moment Fai and Kurogane are putting on their best “I have no idea who these people are so I’m definitely not reacting in any visible way or giving them any special attention” act.
And they sell it SO well that Syaoran, Sakura, and Mokona all can’t really tell if it’s them or not.
I also love that there’s NO REASON for them to keep this facade, whatsoever, EXCEPT for the fact that Kurogane kind of wants to fight Syaoran for a bit as training. Or testing. Or, most likely, fun. Because Kurogane LOVES to fight, and here is an opportunity? To fight Syaoran seriously? And have Syaoran inherently believe that it’s a real battle with real consequences? It’s the perfect Clamp day gift!
I suppose it’s also possible they didn’t want to burn their allegiance to the Yasha army just yet, after spending six months trying to get to the bottom of the Ashura mystery. Maybe?
(It’s most likely just the fighting though let’s be real)
But I DO love that CLAMP have established this narrative so deliberately that even when the audience is like “Yeah that’s probably them” there’s still enough narrative doubt that you see their follow up fights and have to go “... but ARE they? Are they really?”
CLAMP weave together the most deliberately misleading narrative in every single arc, and this really is no different. While we’re trapped in the ‘is that Fai and Kurogane?’ question they’re backdoor uploading several Thematic Concepts into our Tsubasa awareness that will become Core Plot Ideas in like a hundred and twenty chapters. See also; having to fight members of Tsubasa family for real, the importance of eye colour and how it ties to identity, shadow clones of people walking around like regular people, and allowing trans-dimensional suffering in order to tempt the idea of bringing back someone from the dead!
You know, the fun stuff.