Isn't that Arashi from X 1999? Not Ashura....anyway, I'm still going on a slight shonen-ai theme. Plus, if you think about this, it relates back to Yuki and Touya too. Like Yukito, Fai has a false smile to hide his pain, and has elements of magic....maybe Ashura is like Touya, and they were friends as King and magician...but let it develop into something more.
As to the sealing...if Ashura got wounded in battle, Fai may have sealed him to save his life. But Ashura may think that Fai betrayed him (like Inuyasha and Kikyo), which could be why Fai's afraid of him now.
***Fye referred to Aschura as a "she" in fact like the other characters he meets her counterpart in the Kudan world!***
Ashura is a man.
Maybe there was a mistake in the subtitle?
I don't know if Ashura was good or bad in R.G. Veda, but I have the feeling Fai had to seal him away because he feared what he would do.
Um, well, I haven't actuall read any of RG Veda, but I've heard a lot about it, and Ashura was, to my knowledge, good, in RG Veda. (note: TokyoPop is translating RG Veda, but I've yet to get it. It's one of the series next on my list). Which, if Ashura is absolutely evil in Tsubasa, would be extremely interesting. With all the crossovers characters that we've had in Tsubasa, to have Ashura be evil would be the biggest change Clamp has done to the crossover characters. Yet, if Ashura isn't evil, then why, pardon my French, is Fai scared shitless of him? Something that Ashura did has made Fai desperate enough to turn traitor to his country and give up the entirety of his previous life.
And as for the question of Ashura's gender... Well, Tsubasa is calling him Ashura-ou (King Ashura), so Ashura is clearly male in Tsubasa, but from everything I've read about RG Veda, Clamp's original Ashura was completely androgynous- s/he had no gender whatsoever. Interesting.