from skybluescramble:

Hey, this is me and yes, I hereby deliver another Card Captor Sakura fanfiction to you.

You can call me running away from finishing Damsel in Distress, Daidouji but lately I've been hitting a wall in certain parts of the story. I have the whole plot with me, but I still cannot decide the best way to connect the dots together and write them down. Meanwhile, out of the blue, this idea popped out in my mind when I was in a brainstorming session.

So this is the prologue.

I know it's not much, but please enjoy and tell me what you think.

PS: forgive my bad english, and thanks to Lemon Sherbet for checking up this chapter.

DISCLAIMER:

Card Captor Sakura/カードキャプターさくら

CLAMP©1997

SUMMARY:

He made a big sin in the past by doing the prohibited.

Now, he must repay for what he has done. But the one who holds the key is her.

:: : SCARLET : ::

.

.

.

PIECE #0:

The Past, The Present, or The Future

.

ALL she could feel was water.

Water everywhere.

Trapping her inside, drowning her to death; too much water for her to push her head up to the surface.

Her chest hurt.

Her throat burned.

Her lungs screamed in their need of oxygen.

Help! She desperately shouted, but as she opened her mouth to speak, only bubbles came out and she knew it had been a stupid decision. She had lost more air for her survival. To make things worse, she had also gulped down a lot of water accidentally. Her lungs screamed harder. Her eyes were in pain due to the direct contact with saltwater for a long time, her brain didn't work because of the lack of oxygen, her muscles and nerves were going to numb, the ice-cold sea had frozen them.

Am I going to die…? She wondered in her last consciousness. Dear God, she was only twenty!

Is Daidouji Tomoyo going to die here? In the Pacific Ocean, where her body was never likely to be found?

But then, when she was just about to give up, her hazy and blurry vision caught something.

A tall figure.

It appeared beside her limp body from nowhere.

That was probably a man's figure, and he wore something like… a hooded cloak? Underwater?

However, Tomoyo was too tired to give a damn. She could hear voices inside her head, mixing up one with another. And beyond the chaos, strangely she heard someone's voice that was clearer and louder than everything. She couldn't figure out whose voice it was, yet it didn't matter anymore.

"Come with me."

That was it.

And everything went pitch black.

AIR… air… air…!

She felt the water was gone. She opened her mouth in a desperate attempt to take as much oxygen as possible to fill her burning lungs until she choked, saltwater spluttered out from her throat. Shifting to her side, Tomoyo found she was now lying down on the wet earth.

Was she alive?

Yes, it felt so.

Who saved her? That hooded figure?

She blinked a few times to make her vision clearer. The very same silhouette of the mysterious man whom she saw in the water was standing up three meters away. He walked slowly, approaching something that looked like a black pile of clothes near the cement wall.

Tomoyo gasped. It wasn't a pile of clothes.

It was a human.

She cringed in pain as her whole body ached. Tomoyo had no idea where they were; it was only a wide room surrounded by a great, strong wall with earth floor. She turned her attention to the hooded figure, and her breath caught in throat when she realized that the third person in that room was a boy.

A ten-year-old boy, to be exact.

God. What the heck is going on here?

Using her arms as a support, she tried to get up, wanting to approach that boy and check whether he was okay or not, but something restrained her. She looked back and noticed a big, heavy chain wrapped around her left ankle.

"Reincarnation of Clow Reed." She heard the hooded man speak to the boy with his deep, rough voice. "Let me ask you one thing. Why did you beg me to let go of your other self?"

"Obvious, isn't it?" To Tomoyo's surprise, he answered bravely, raising his head to face his opponent with gritted teeth. His face was so dirty with earth, just like his ripped clothes. "He has no business with this shit."

"You know, I can always find him…"

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" The boy shouted in rage, even though he was already worn out and powerless. "I'm the one with Clow Reed's memory! I'm the one who carries his power! Let him go free, please. I alone will take responsibility for what Clow has done. Please…"

The hooded man snorted. "Interesting…"

"Can't you just let him go?" Tomoyo said with every power she could muster, making them turn their attention to her. "He's only a kid! How could you do such thing to the weak?"

Silence.

Then,

"Daidouji Tomoyo." That mysterious figure was now making his way towards her, dragging the boy along with him. Mortified, Tomoyo trembled in anticipation (and pitied the poor little boy for being treated so badly), but she wouldn't let him know that she was frightened. "I won't tell you why you are here now… because I know you'll understand later."

"Who are you?" She hissed.

He let out a cold laugh.

"Me? I'm not even human. I'm something you humans call 'The Punisher', 'The Judge', 'The Doom', or whatever. I have many names. Choose which one you like the most."

Forcefully, he grabbed Tomoyo's left arm. His fingers, although looked as normal as a human's, were bony and long, with thick, pointy, and sharp nails at the end of each finger. Without words, he cut her wrist with his thumb's nail.

"AH!"

Tomoyo screamed in pain, yanking her hand away from the pain but his grip was way too strong. She couldn't get free. Blood oozed from her wound, staining the earth with deep red colors. The hooded figure dragged the boy closer, and—Tomoyo gasped in shock—dropped some of her blood in his mouth. He coughed, choked, wriggled in agony as though his whole body was burning, yet Tomoyo could see that the man with hooded cloak (or the creature that took shape of a man) stayed still, watching the boy groan and whimper just like observing an object in a scientific experiment.

"Stop it! Stop! Stop!" Tomoyo pleaded. "Don't you see it's hurting him! Please stop!"

"It's something he must pay—"

The boy writhed…

"Stop! I say stop!"

"—for what he had done to 'The Soul'…"

His body jerked upwards… and fell to the cold ground…

Unmoving.

"NOOOO!"

She screamed at the top of her lungs, and then the vision blurred.

.

to be continued.