Disclaimer: The characters and settings of Card Captor Sakura do not belong to me, but to the talented artists of CLAMP. I do not profit from this story, and, as I am a poor, struggling college girl, there really *is* no reason to sue me. ^_^
Categories: E/T, S/S, Drama, Dark, Future
Rating: R (profanity, violence, darkness, adult themes)
Author's Notes:
I've been around the fanfiction community for a very long time, but since this is the first time I've come out with a fic in *years*, I may be a bit rusty. ^_^;;
Warning: I'm a college student (go engineering majors!), so I will most definitely come out with chapters very, very slowly, and even more slowly around midterms and finals. I don't mean to be, well, mean, but that's just how life is. Please be patient. ^_^
Feedback: Constructive criticism, whether positive or negative, is welcomed and very appreciated. Flames will be ignored or laughed at extensively.
Archivers: Please ask first. Thank you.
Synopsis: The devastating consequence of a past mistake badly breaks a young man's spirit and slowly drives the only one with the power to heal him to the edge of madness. (E+T, S+S)
His palms burned as he gripped the mage staff that his enemy held menacingly close over his head, and he was sickened to hear flesh--his own flesh, he observed mechanically--sizzling against the black heat to which it was exposed. The dark power dimmed his vision drastically, almost blinding him, and he felt as if he were suffocating under the intense burden of fighting back. He was drowning, as surely as he knew this was going to be his last fight, and his motions were heavy, lethargically slow, the pressure in his mind and his heart and his lungs growing too much to be bearable for very much longer. Breathing became a serious challenge, and thinking clearly enough to cast any kind of coherent spell was too great a task for his frayed mind, already overwhelmed with preventing the enemy from contaminating his thoughts.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted smoky tendrils of tainted magic surrounding him, in position to envelop him in their deadly embrace, and he gritted his teeth in cold anticipation. As his adversary assaulted him with another mental attack, his knees nearly buckled under the tremendous weight of the enemy's physical power and the strain of maintaining a magical barrier.
He had already failed anyway, he realized detachedly, seeing the motionless figure lying just a few meters behind the enemy and feeling the sharp stab of loss and sorrow in his heart all over again.
He had never hated anything as much as the evil he was facing, and he wished desperately that he could exact his vengeance upon it. But in his bloody condition, there really was no way he could win. There was no escape but death, and he very badly wanted to welcome it.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He didn't want to fight. He just wanted to do something to express his grief, and tears stung his eyes as he glimpsed her limp form lying so far from his reach, reminding him that he had arrived too late to save her. Her beauty, her long, rich tresses of silky hair, her honey-light voice, her wonderful smile, her deep, deep kindness and wisdom, her strength, and her unconditional love all flashed before his eyes in the memories he had of her, and he wanted to weep for what he had lost. He wanted to show the world what it had lost.
Perhaps if he had been in a more delusional, more selfish state, he would have welcomed death gladly and passively, but then the rational part of him unexpectedly reasoned against suicide.
What about your daughter? it asked stubbornly, rationally, jolting his world into perspective with an abruptness that shook him to his core.
What about your son?
What about the friends you made?
What about your family?
How will they feel?
How will they live?
He was reminded, all of a sudden, that she was not the only one in his world, that his world wasn't isolated from everything and everyone else. His world was connected to others, and those connections stretched beyond one life, beyond even one lifetime.
Thoughts of people he loved encouraged him to fight, and they inspired him to at least die trying to destroy what he should not have released in the first place. He couldn't let his loved ones share this sad fate. He couldn't let them shoulder the burden that he alone should have been carrying for his own foolishness and his own arrogance in a time long past.
If he was going to die, he thought decisively, then his enemy was going to die with him. He wouldn't give evil another chance to hurt anyone else again. He would make sure of that.
He collected his thoughts until the burning sensation in his hands was replaced with a blissfully warm numbness, and with a final surge of raw power and desperately single-minded concentration, he shoved forward, surprising his opponent, and focused the damaging force of his remaining power into his enemy's face.
Even in his weakened state, he still had a large amount of magical ability left.
"NOW YOU DIE!!!" he yelled savagely, for a moment lighting up the darkened confines of his mansion with the brightness of the immense power he unleashed.
The enemy, arrogant and believing that victory was inevitable, was taken aback by the sheer determination in its prey's eyes. Before it could even react, it was obliterated by the young man's accumulated power. In an instant of controlled rage, the fight was over.
The young magician gaped at where his enemy once stood, exhausted beyond any hope of recovery. So much had been going on at once that as soon as his enemy was gone, the absolute stillness in the air jarred him, and he shuddered. In the silence and darkness that followed, the young man swayed on his feet, cold chills wracking his bruised and battered body, his hair, matted with sweat and blood, falling over his face.
The fight had ended so quickly that he was startled into thinking. Stunned into asking what the hell was going on. Shocked into wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now, now that his world had ended. He was shocked into simply *feeling*.
And he hurt.
In the silence and the darkness, he choked back a sob as he stood, wavering, looking around with a dazed expression that betrayed the fact that he wasn't really seeing anything anymore and that nothing in the world mattered to him. His face, usually set in a secretive grin, now twisted into a pained, bitter smile, a grotesque parody of the whole, happy man he had once been.
But he never again would be.
He simply stood for a few minutes, disoriented, before he found the will and the energy to move again.
His ragged breathing was the only sound in the room, and as he stepped forward, an unnaturally loud crunch beneath his foot made him aware that he had just stepped on his glasses. He looked down at the mass of twisted metal and crushed lenses, almost chuckling bitterly at the thought that his shattered glasses perfectly symbolized his heart. Cursing as his initial shock began to wear off, he moved forward, brutally flattening his glasses completely under his shoe as guilt constricted his chest.
He knew his weakness had caused her death, and he knew that his weakness had caused the deaths of two other beings he loved just as well. If they were alive, they would have come running to him to care for him, but since they weren't smothering him with love and attention as would be required after such an ordeal, they were most definitely gone.
And that hurt even more.
As much as they liked to believe they protected him, he still held their fragile lives in his hands. His failure had cost them dearly.
But it hurt most of all to know that she was dead because of him. She was dead not because her life was inextricably tied to his as the others' were, but because she loved him, and he loved her.
Holding back a grief-stricken sob, he staggered clumsily to her unmoving body on the floor, crumpling to his knees as he reached her side. And when he saw the battered condition her body was in, the shredded clothes revealing injuries in her skin that were too deep and too tainted with blackness to heal, tears finally fell from his eyes. His shoulders shook uncontrollably, and all he could think of was how badly he wanted to be where she was because without her, there was nothing left on earth for him. Without her, he had no future, no life.
So he would join her in the next life.
He'd done his duty, hadn't he? There was no more reason to stay on this planet. He just wanted to be wherever she was.
For several long moments, he stared at her face, beautiful in the mocking slumber of death, and he longed to see her alive to smile at him once more. But the smooth skin of her cheek was cool to his seared, seeking fingers, and no amount of magic he had or that anyone had would bring her back.
Yet he yearned to be where she was.
He remembered a spell he had learned long ago, when he was still studying different styles of magic from around the world. He had never thought to use it before, dismissing the spell as unreliable superstition, but it was precisely this kind of magic that had caused the enemy to appear, and he no longer had any choice but to believe in its power. So he used it.
With a final, shuddering breath and a spark of dying energy, he closed his eyes and murmured, "Reunite me with her... anima mea."
He vanished.
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Falling
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A Card Captor Sakura Fanfiction
By Dark Rune
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"Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor;
for even death is one of the things that Nature wills."
- Marcus Aurelius Antonius
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-= Part One: Blind =-
On any given Thursday night, twenty-three-year-old Daidouji Tomoyo would usually come home to her penthouse apartment in an upscale part of Tokyo at around eight o'clock. Her neighbors, most of whom were equally young, equally rich, but necessarily arrogant socialites, were consistently out by this time at dance clubs or elite social gatherings. As a result, she had, after almost six years of living there, learned to expect at least some much-needed peace and quiet at home.
So on any given Thursday night, Tomoyo's normal routine consisted of hastily eating some microwaved dinner while listening to news on the radio (8:30), putting finishing touches on the designs of several outfits due Friday (9:00), making and taking phone calls from various co-workers while frantically canceling and rescheduling meetings depending on the deadlines she had to somehow manipulate into postponement (9:45), debating heatedly with the current VP of design because he was an arrogant bastard who only wanted to sleep with her even though she had the power to fire him whenever she wished but didn't because he was such a brilliant businessman (10:30), and, finally, taking a shower followed by a nice, heartfelt crying session, before at last going to bed (11:00 and later).
Anyone else would have probably fallen apart under the amount of stress Tomoyo faced, but she wasn't anyone else. She had lived through her rigorous schedule for the past two years, after she had started Daidouji Designs, a highly successful line of fashionable clothes that had eclipsed even the biggest names in fashion from New York. She wasn't going to fall apart now.
Really, she wasn't.
With a schedule as tight as hers, where she had designated time slots for crying and where she had calculated she could live on five or so hours of sleep anyway, she had no time for falling apart. Especially when she didn't really need contact with other human beings that were sympathetic to her. It wasn't as if they boosted her productivity and creativity anyway.
She wasn't lonely or anything.
Really.
She wasn't.
The phone suddenly rang, jolting Tomoyo out of her thoughts and causing her to jump in shock. Blinking as she shook her head, she belatedly realized that she had been standing in her kitchen for the past five minutes or so, frowning absently at her dinner inside the microwave while her thoughts wandered to today's routine.
She grimaced, ruefully setting the microwave timer as she headed quickly for the attention-starved phone. The likelihood of one of her employees at Daidouji Designs calling was slim because they all knew that bothering her any time before nine o'clock could potentially cost them their lives. Tomoyo figured that the caller would be either her mother or a telemarketer, and it was already hard enough to tell the difference.
Sighing as she reached the living room, she picked up the receiver with the kind of dread reserved especially for snakes and other unpleasant, slithering things, and she remembered to restrain her irritation. Whoever was calling was not the one who caused her stressful life, after all, unless it was that annoying VP. Or a telemarketer.
Then all hell would *really* break loose.
She didn't have a chance to actually say hello into the phone, however, because the moment she put the receiver next to her ear, she was assaulted by a frantic barrage of questions sent by the voice of a young woman that Tomoyo loved very dearly.
"Tomoyo-chan!!! Are you all right? Is everything okay there? You're not hurt are you? Is everyone else doing well? How are you doing?"
Of course, that particular string of questions sounded more like, "TomoyochanAreyouallrightIseverythingokaythereYou'renothurtareyouIseveryoneelsedoingwellHowareyoudoing," and it took all of Tomoyo's self-control not to burst out laughing at the unexpected disruption of her normal routine.
"Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo grinned, feeling strangely relieved and energized just by the sound of Sakura's voice. "Slow down, please. I can't understand a word you're saying. How are you? How is Li-kun?"
Tomoyo heard a deep breath on the other line as well as what sounded like the low, indecipherable rumblings of Li Syaoran's voice, and she smiled. She heard from Sakura and Syaoran, her husband of a little over a year, about once every two weeks, which was actually pretty often considering the Li's were living in Hong Kong and Tomoyo was a very busy woman.
Syaoran had taken over as Clan Leader a year ago, after graduating with a degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo, and he was always busy conducting business deals and negotiating contracts with his associates. Obviously, Syaoran's work required him to live in Hong Kong, so Sakura had not hesitated to go with him. Sakura was, after all, happy being a part time supermodel while furthering her magical studies under the tutelage of Syaoran's mother.
All of them were very busy with their lives, so Tomoyo was surprised to hear from them, especially when they were scheduled to call the next weekend. The Li's were very prompt and polite, knowing that Tomoyo was an equally busy woman who should not be bothered on weekdays, so something almost certainly happened to force them to contact her. Tomoyo bit her lip; whatever it was sounded urgent.
With possible disasters ranging from divorce to Syaoran accidentally murdering Touya-san with a cheap, wooden chopstick nagging her thought processes, Tomoyo tried to keep her stomach from twisting into knots and failed. As long as nobody died and no one was getting a divorce...
"Tomoyo-chan, gomen ne," Sakura, sounding much more in control of herself, apologized, somewhat to Tomoyo's relief. At least Sakura was capable of being coherent, which meant that whatever happened wasn't *too* serious. "Syaoran and I were just wondering how you were doing."
Of course, Tomoyo understood that Sakura was still very, very deeply worried about something, but she was trying to hide it. Her attempt to conceal her worry, however feeble, might have worked if Tomoyo weren't Sakura's best friend of over a decade and if Sakura hadn't already given away the fact that she *was* extremely worried.
"Tell me what's wrong, Sakura-chan," Tomoyo said bluntly, not bothering to mask the concerned, knowing tone in her voice. "Do you need help with something? Is there something wrong with the baby?"
"No, no," Sakura sounded suddenly relieved, and Tomoyo was glad that she had brought up the subject of Sakura's pregnancy to bring her best friend back in focus. "The baby's fine. It's still on track with six months left. But... that's not what's bothering us, Tomoyo-chan."
"Well don't leave me in suspense. I'm perfectly all right *now*," Tomoyo assured them, "but I'd like to know if I won't be all right in the near future."
"It's just that..." Sakura hesitated, and Tomoyo could almost picture the wheels turning in her friend's head. "Syaoran and I sensed something... something terrible. And for once, it's not even after my magic."
Perplexed, Tomoyo pointed out, "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Iie..." Sakura sighed audibly. "It's just that... whatever it is... it's coming after you, Tomoyo-chan. I don't know why, but it's headed specifically in your direction."
Tomoyo was too shocked and too confused to speak. These were her friends, arguably the two most powerful magicians in the world, and she trusted their judgment automatically. Still, she had always been on the outside of the magical circle, the constant observer, so she wasn't used to being so directly... *involved*. Still confused, she opened her mouth, but no words would form in her mind.
Silence prevailed for a few moments, and suddenly the air seemed so much darker.
"Tomoyo-chan?" Sakura's voice sounded faint, distant to Tomoyo's ears. "Are you there? Tomoyo-chan?"
At first she thought she was imagining it, but Tomoyo's vision became gloomy and blurred, thick with darkness and heavy foreboding of some unspeakable evil. She tried moving, but her actions were lethargic as the air fought against her movements. It was as if she was underwater, unable to breathe and desperately grasping for air. Her vision dimmed further, nearing pitch black, as if she were sinking further under an ocean, drowning while the tremendous pressure crushed her lithe form. For some reason, her hands started to hurt badly, and she couldn't remember how she had even injured them in the first place. She was weakening, and she couldn't even feel her knees.
Are my legs still there? she mused absently, forgetting where she was and what she was doing here in this cold, dark place, forgetting Sakura-chan and Li-kun and Daidouji Designs, and bringing her life, her sad, lonely life, into sharp focus.
She struggled to breathe, but she was drowning. She struggled to reach the surface, but something was pulling her down.
It would be so convenient to just close her eyes forever and rest. She needed to rest from all the troubles she was facing. Rest would be good...
"TOMOYO-CHAN!!!" Sakura was screaming frantically into the phone, over and over and over again, sick with worry, and Li-kun's voice echoed in the receiver, strong and clear and equally worried and angry, but Tomoyo couldn't hear them.
In the end, it was the microwave beeping that drew Tomoyo out of her disoriented state. Suddenly she was on alert, hearing every decibel of Sakura's feverish cries and every inflection of Li-kun's angry roar on the phone... which she had somehow dropped on the floor. She couldn't remember when she had dropped it, and she couldn't remember why she was sprawled awkwardly on the floor as well, dizzy and shivering on the cold, unyielding hardwood.
The world was spinning around her, but she managed to focus on the phone on the floor and reached for it as if she were blind.
She sat up slowly, the cordless receiver clutched tightly in her shaky grasp, and then she spoke into it, finally recalling that pregnant women really shouldn't be worried to the extent that she was worrying Sakura, and that powerful men with pregnant wives like Li-kun really shouldn't be worried to the extent she was worrying Li-kun as well. "Sakura-chan, Li-kun, don't worry. I'm... okay. I'm okay. I'm okay."
She repeated that affirmation silently like a mantra, but she wasn't so sure she could so easily convince even herself.
"Kami-sama, Tomoyo-chan, what happened? You weren't speaking for at least a minute. You just cut off in the middle of a sentence, and there was a loud bump, and, and..." Sakura trailed off. Tomoyo could practically see the shuddering breaths the young woman was taking. Tomoyo could almost see the way Li-kun wrapped his arms around her, soothing her, one of his hands moving low over her belly as if he could protect their child as well while offering comfort to her. He was probably shaking too, but he was more composed than his wife who, in her state, was prone to mood swings.
Tomoyo had the grace to wait a few seconds for Sakura's panic to subside. When she was sufficiently calm, Sakura took a deep breath and asked in a collected manner, "What happened? Syaoran was about to call 'Nii-chan to drive over there and see what was wrong with you. We couldn't sense anything, and it really frightened us. It nearly sent me to pieces, Tomoyo-chan."
Tomoyo was touched by their concern, but she couldn't really tell them a lot, as much as she wanted to do so, because she could hardly figure things out for herself.
Grimacing as a sharp pain lanced through her head, Tomoyo wondered if she was coming down with some kind of virus because she had been working herself too hard. She had yet to take a vacation, after all.
"I... I don't know what's wrong. I think I may be catching a bug or something, so don't worry about me," Tomoyo said honestly, a little shaken by her weird experiences, none of which quite fit the symptoms of any normal illness. Given her inability to elaborate any further on her own condition, Tomoyo steered the conversation towards the reason for Sakura and Syaoran's unexpected call. "I don't remember anything. Just that you were saying something about something terrible heading for me?"
"Un," Sakura replied, with some effort to control the concerned sniffs threatening under her calm exterior. "Well, whatever it was appeared about fifteen minutes ago. Something big happened then, but neither of us is sure what it was. It was big enough to affect the Earth's balance of magic, and it's sweeping towards Japan, coming from the East over the Pacific."
"How's the weather in Tokyo, Daidouji-san?" Syaoran suddenly spoke up for the first time. Tomoyo realized that Sakura had probably put her on speaker phone when she had abruptly stopped talking. "And, please, answer me seriously because it's not one of those trivial 'small talk' questions."
Out of both curiosity and deep respect for her friends, Tomoyo glanced out the window and described what she saw. "It's dark. Really dark. And it's freezing outside as well. The skies are covered by storm clouds, and it was raining heavily when I got home. I think it's still pouring. It'll probably turn into a thunderstorm pretty soon."
She was met by a tense silence, and her unease grew steadily. She didn't need to be told that the storm was unnatural, that it was probably the work of a magician with unknown, evil intentions; their silence said it all. But she wanted to be reassured, and she found herself longing for the days when her friends used to sit in front of her, inadvertently allowing her to at least read their expressions and deduce what they were thinking. Using her sharp observation skills, she could always guess from the way they moved and interacted that everything would be all right, that they would be able to handle the situation, and that there was nothing to worry about.
Sakura and Li-kun always were open books to her, but since she was trying to read their minds when she couldn't see them, when she couldn't catch glimmers of hints from their body language and their expressive eyes, she had to take her clues from their voices. And right now, they weren't saying anything remotely helpful for her mental and emotional stability.
"Are your doors locked?" Syaoran pierced the tense silence, but his ominous question only served to darken the mood even more.
"H-Hai," Tomoyo nodded an affirmative reflexively, even though they couldn't see her. "I always lock them."
"Whatever happens, keep the door closed and stay away from your windows. Maybe call a friend to stay over with you, and that might keep you safer," the Li Clan Leader advised, and Tomoyo found herself even more frightened by the seriousness in his tone. A wave of disappointment came over her when she realized that she *had* no friends to invite over, even if she had wanted to anyway.
I would have invited you guys, she thought, and the bitterness in that automatic reaction surprised her.
She had learned more about herself tonight than in the past two years working at her dream job.
"What's going on?" she asked finally, feeling more frustrated than before as a cold chill ran down her back.
"We don't know," Sakura answered grimly, "but we've already booked a flight to Tokyo. We should be there on Saturday. I'm sorry we couldn't be there any earlier, Tomoyo-chan. We don't know how much time you have. You should probably stay with my onii-chan until we get there."
"I'll be fine by myself," Tomoyo insisted, relieved with the knowledge that her friends were coming to protect her. "I'll just wait until you guys get over here. You can stay in one of the extra rooms in my apartment."
"We were actually planning on that," Sakura, sounding considerably more cheerful than before, agreed. "That's the only way we can keep an eye on you, after all."
"It's settled then," Tomoyo said.
"But Tomoyo-chan, I insist that you stay with my 'nii-chan anyway, just for tonight and tomorrow night. I'm sure he and Yukito-san won't mind protecting their honorary little sister, ne? And they don't live too far away from you so you could probably-"
Tomoyo almost missed the flash of distant lightning.
But an instant later, there was silence.
Tomoyo blinked at the phone in her hand for a moment before she nervously decided that the storm had most likely cut the phone lines. To test her theory, she hung up and then picked up the phone again, and the absence of the dial tone confirmed her suspicions.
While she might not have appreciated the fact that the storm cut her connection to her best friends, she *did* appreciate the storm cutting off her employees and that irritating VP from her for the night. She guessed that in that respect, this Thursday might turn out to be better than most.
Somewhat shaken but deciding that there was little else she could do, Tomoyo went back into the kitchen and took her dinner from the microwave, feeling strangely paranoid. She cast furtive glances around her well-lit apartment, unable to squash the sensation that she was being watched but stoutly ignoring it.
Just as she sat down on her couch, mentally debating whether or not she should take her best friends' advice and seek shelter with Touya and Yukito, two knocks on the door effectively interrupted her musings.
She froze.
Syaoran's very serious, very grim advice echoed in her thoughts, and her blood quickly ran cold.
Don't open the door. Whatever you do, don't open the door.
She knew she would anyway.
Sakura was sitting on the couch in the living room with her hands over her mouth, unconsciously rocking back and forth. Her emerald eyes flashed with concern and unshed tears of worry, her gaze shifting from the phone sitting on the tea table in front of her, to Syaoran, who was pacing nervously beside her, to the clock on the far wall, and back to the chillingly silent phone once again to repeat the circuit.
Syaoran, for his part, continued his pacing, raking a hand through his unruly chestnut hair several times before he glanced at his watch.
"Syaoran, what if she gets hurt?" she murmured, her intense gaze fixed on the phone. "What if we don't get there in time? What if she doesn't take our advice and runs into something she can't handle?"
He sighed. "We can't do anything. We can't call anyone in that area because of the storm so even if we did want to communicate with your brother, we couldn't."
"But don't you think it's strange that I can't even contact Yue-san?" Sakura asked, finally voicing her deepest concerns. If she wasn't able to even connect with her own guardian, then something was definitely interfering, and interfering with Sakura, the most powerful magician in the world, was a formidable feat that only a strong force could accomplish. Even Syaoran would have difficulty trying it.
"Yeah. That really bothers me, too," her husband growled. He stopped pacing, opting instead to sit beside Sakura so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders to reassure both of them. "I don't know what to do in this situation. The best we can do is wait to get on that flight to Japan."
Sakura's concern only increased as something else occurred to her. Although she was usually gullible and naïve, she could also be incredibly perceptive at just the right moments. This happened to be one of those moments.
"It's strange that the new private Li jet just happened to break down today, isn't it?" Sakura remarked, and Syaoran only hummed a noncommittal response, not willing to let his wife know that he had also just come to that same, suspicious realization with a growing sense of dread. Whatever was preventing them from going to Japan was undoubtedly powerful and already a step too far ahead. "I think that may be another bad sign," Sakura concluded.
Syaoran tried to downplay the seriousness of what she was suggesting in an effort to reduce the stress she was already feeling. "It could be. But it's probably not a big deal. Don't worry."
"I just feel so... useless sitting here, waiting," Sakura admitted, frustration seeping through her voice. "It's not fair that Tomoyo-chan's the target. She can't defend herself, and we can't defend her from here..."
"Maybe that's the whole point," Syaoran muttered gravely. "Maybe she's being used as leverage against us. I don't know."
Sakura burst into tears, and Syaoran instantly regretted his words. "It's all my fault! If she hadn't known me, she wouldn't be in so much danger..."
Alarmed by his wife's unpredictable outburst, which was an expected development of pregnancy but worried him constantly anyway, Syaoran tightened his embrace around her and kissed her temple gently. "Iie. Don't ever think any of this is your fault, Sakura. We'll just have to find some way to protect her from here, and pray that she takes our advice and seeks refuge with your brother. Even though he is a jerk."
She sniffed. "You're right. But even though he calls me a kaijuu, Onii-chan is *not* a jerk."
He smiled warmly, glad that she had acknowledged his effort to lighten the atmosphere, and he pulled her close so that her head lay against his chest and his chin rested in her hair. For a few minutes, they just held each other, helping each other banish the worries in their hearts and minds.
Suddenly, she spoke again, surprising him just as he started to relax. "I think I know someone who might be able to help."
"Who?" he asked, shooting her a questioning look.
He could feel her smile, and he unconsciously braced himself. "Eriol-kun."
Syaoran flinched out of reflex and too many years of conditioning, and Sakura almost laughed.
Hiiragizawa Eriol had become one of Syaoran's best friends, if not his best guy friend, in high school, and Eriol had even stood as Syaoran's best man at the wedding. But before they were ever on good terms, the damage had already been done to Syaoran's nervous system. It had been too late; now, he just automatically winced whenever he heard Eriol's name.
"If anyone would know how to solve this problem," Sakura was practically beaming, "it would have to be Eriol-kun."
Syaoran flinched again.
But he had to admit, as Sakura reached for the phone, that the idea had merit.
When she was younger, Tomoyo mastered several forms of martial arts because her mother had insisted on Tomoyo's possessing the ability to defend herself. Tomoyo had been reluctant at first, being a prim and proper lady, but she eventually found martial arts to be a fun exercise. As with everything else she ever tried, she excelled at the different styles of fighting she had learned.
So even though Tomoyo was scared stiff about whatever lay behind her apartment door, she was confident that although she would inevitably lose against a magician, she could at least go down fighting and leave a lasting, painful mark on her would-be executioner. Tomoyo saw no point in sitting in the living room, cowering in fear while waiting for the enemy to quietly enter her apartment and surprise her, so she immediately took action.
Armed with a short staff that she practiced with regularly, she approached the door, caution apparent in her light footsteps and the loose, but determined set of her shoulders. All rational thoughts were nearly gone from her mind, replaced instead with instinct, finely honed senses, and the overwhelming fear that she might meet her end within the next five minutes.
At last, she stood in front of the door and looked through the peephole, only to find that the hall was too dark--unnaturally so--for her to see anything. Troubled, and well aware that this could be an illusion, Tomoyo raised the staff in her right hand and reached for the doorknob with her left.
"Here we go," she muttered under her breath, her heart racing as shivers ran down her spine.
The moment of truth.
She flung the door open, poised to attack, only to find what she least expected: Hiiragizawa Eriol.
Bloody. Battered. Soaked in sweat and blood and rain. In tattered clothes. Without his glasses.
But the greatest shock of all was the horribly dazed and pained expression on his face and the tears in his unseeing eyes. His dark blue eyes seemed to be gazing blankly into her own, but his sight was truly fixed on a point beyond her, a point infinitely distant from this time and place, and she knew it.
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." she murmured hesitantly, all the fear and panic she had felt replaced by horror and sympathy and concern.
He was silent, and his gaze remained blank and blind even as she frantically tried to figure out what she should do next. Then, a genuinely confused look crossed his features as his eyes came into focus and he registered who she was.
A silent moment passed, and then he sobbed. Brokenly.
She had never heard a sound as heartwrenching and sorrowful in her entire life, and she hoped that she never would hear anything like it again. No one deserved that kind of suffering. Instinctively, she reached her arms out towards him, wishing that she could somehow ease his pain.
He fell forward, but she caught him, his cold, drenched, haggard, bone-thin frame landing in the warm circle of her arms, before he fell any further.
She caught him before he could sob again.
She caught him before he shattered.
She caught him.
And her soul wept with his.
-= End Part One =-
Chapter Started: November 21, 2002
Chapter Finished: November 26, 2002
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003
Please send all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!
Copyright (C) 2002 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved.
Categories: E/T, S/S, Drama, Dark, Future
Rating: R (profanity, violence, darkness, adult themes)
Author's Notes:
I've been around the fanfiction community for a very long time, but since this is the first time I've come out with a fic in *years*, I may be a bit rusty. ^_^;;
Warning: I'm a college student (go engineering majors!), so I will most definitely come out with chapters very, very slowly, and even more slowly around midterms and finals. I don't mean to be, well, mean, but that's just how life is. Please be patient. ^_^
Feedback: Constructive criticism, whether positive or negative, is welcomed and very appreciated. Flames will be ignored or laughed at extensively.
Archivers: Please ask first. Thank you.
Synopsis: The devastating consequence of a past mistake badly breaks a young man's spirit and slowly drives the only one with the power to heal him to the edge of madness. (E+T, S+S)
His palms burned as he gripped the mage staff that his enemy held menacingly close over his head, and he was sickened to hear flesh--his own flesh, he observed mechanically--sizzling against the black heat to which it was exposed. The dark power dimmed his vision drastically, almost blinding him, and he felt as if he were suffocating under the intense burden of fighting back. He was drowning, as surely as he knew this was going to be his last fight, and his motions were heavy, lethargically slow, the pressure in his mind and his heart and his lungs growing too much to be bearable for very much longer. Breathing became a serious challenge, and thinking clearly enough to cast any kind of coherent spell was too great a task for his frayed mind, already overwhelmed with preventing the enemy from contaminating his thoughts.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted smoky tendrils of tainted magic surrounding him, in position to envelop him in their deadly embrace, and he gritted his teeth in cold anticipation. As his adversary assaulted him with another mental attack, his knees nearly buckled under the tremendous weight of the enemy's physical power and the strain of maintaining a magical barrier.
He had already failed anyway, he realized detachedly, seeing the motionless figure lying just a few meters behind the enemy and feeling the sharp stab of loss and sorrow in his heart all over again.
He had never hated anything as much as the evil he was facing, and he wished desperately that he could exact his vengeance upon it. But in his bloody condition, there really was no way he could win. There was no escape but death, and he very badly wanted to welcome it.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He didn't want to fight. He just wanted to do something to express his grief, and tears stung his eyes as he glimpsed her limp form lying so far from his reach, reminding him that he had arrived too late to save her. Her beauty, her long, rich tresses of silky hair, her honey-light voice, her wonderful smile, her deep, deep kindness and wisdom, her strength, and her unconditional love all flashed before his eyes in the memories he had of her, and he wanted to weep for what he had lost. He wanted to show the world what it had lost.
Perhaps if he had been in a more delusional, more selfish state, he would have welcomed death gladly and passively, but then the rational part of him unexpectedly reasoned against suicide.
What about your daughter? it asked stubbornly, rationally, jolting his world into perspective with an abruptness that shook him to his core.
What about your son?
What about the friends you made?
What about your family?
How will they feel?
How will they live?
He was reminded, all of a sudden, that she was not the only one in his world, that his world wasn't isolated from everything and everyone else. His world was connected to others, and those connections stretched beyond one life, beyond even one lifetime.
Thoughts of people he loved encouraged him to fight, and they inspired him to at least die trying to destroy what he should not have released in the first place. He couldn't let his loved ones share this sad fate. He couldn't let them shoulder the burden that he alone should have been carrying for his own foolishness and his own arrogance in a time long past.
If he was going to die, he thought decisively, then his enemy was going to die with him. He wouldn't give evil another chance to hurt anyone else again. He would make sure of that.
He collected his thoughts until the burning sensation in his hands was replaced with a blissfully warm numbness, and with a final surge of raw power and desperately single-minded concentration, he shoved forward, surprising his opponent, and focused the damaging force of his remaining power into his enemy's face.
Even in his weakened state, he still had a large amount of magical ability left.
"NOW YOU DIE!!!" he yelled savagely, for a moment lighting up the darkened confines of his mansion with the brightness of the immense power he unleashed.
The enemy, arrogant and believing that victory was inevitable, was taken aback by the sheer determination in its prey's eyes. Before it could even react, it was obliterated by the young man's accumulated power. In an instant of controlled rage, the fight was over.
The young magician gaped at where his enemy once stood, exhausted beyond any hope of recovery. So much had been going on at once that as soon as his enemy was gone, the absolute stillness in the air jarred him, and he shuddered. In the silence and darkness that followed, the young man swayed on his feet, cold chills wracking his bruised and battered body, his hair, matted with sweat and blood, falling over his face.
The fight had ended so quickly that he was startled into thinking. Stunned into asking what the hell was going on. Shocked into wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now, now that his world had ended. He was shocked into simply *feeling*.
And he hurt.
In the silence and the darkness, he choked back a sob as he stood, wavering, looking around with a dazed expression that betrayed the fact that he wasn't really seeing anything anymore and that nothing in the world mattered to him. His face, usually set in a secretive grin, now twisted into a pained, bitter smile, a grotesque parody of the whole, happy man he had once been.
But he never again would be.
He simply stood for a few minutes, disoriented, before he found the will and the energy to move again.
His ragged breathing was the only sound in the room, and as he stepped forward, an unnaturally loud crunch beneath his foot made him aware that he had just stepped on his glasses. He looked down at the mass of twisted metal and crushed lenses, almost chuckling bitterly at the thought that his shattered glasses perfectly symbolized his heart. Cursing as his initial shock began to wear off, he moved forward, brutally flattening his glasses completely under his shoe as guilt constricted his chest.
He knew his weakness had caused her death, and he knew that his weakness had caused the deaths of two other beings he loved just as well. If they were alive, they would have come running to him to care for him, but since they weren't smothering him with love and attention as would be required after such an ordeal, they were most definitely gone.
And that hurt even more.
As much as they liked to believe they protected him, he still held their fragile lives in his hands. His failure had cost them dearly.
But it hurt most of all to know that she was dead because of him. She was dead not because her life was inextricably tied to his as the others' were, but because she loved him, and he loved her.
Holding back a grief-stricken sob, he staggered clumsily to her unmoving body on the floor, crumpling to his knees as he reached her side. And when he saw the battered condition her body was in, the shredded clothes revealing injuries in her skin that were too deep and too tainted with blackness to heal, tears finally fell from his eyes. His shoulders shook uncontrollably, and all he could think of was how badly he wanted to be where she was because without her, there was nothing left on earth for him. Without her, he had no future, no life.
So he would join her in the next life.
He'd done his duty, hadn't he? There was no more reason to stay on this planet. He just wanted to be wherever she was.
For several long moments, he stared at her face, beautiful in the mocking slumber of death, and he longed to see her alive to smile at him once more. But the smooth skin of her cheek was cool to his seared, seeking fingers, and no amount of magic he had or that anyone had would bring her back.
Yet he yearned to be where she was.
He remembered a spell he had learned long ago, when he was still studying different styles of magic from around the world. He had never thought to use it before, dismissing the spell as unreliable superstition, but it was precisely this kind of magic that had caused the enemy to appear, and he no longer had any choice but to believe in its power. So he used it.
With a final, shuddering breath and a spark of dying energy, he closed his eyes and murmured, "Reunite me with her... anima mea."
He vanished.
Falling
=============
A Card Captor Sakura Fanfiction
By Dark Rune
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"Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor;
for even death is one of the things that Nature wills."
- Marcus Aurelius Antonius
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-= Part One: Blind =-
On any given Thursday night, twenty-three-year-old Daidouji Tomoyo would usually come home to her penthouse apartment in an upscale part of Tokyo at around eight o'clock. Her neighbors, most of whom were equally young, equally rich, but necessarily arrogant socialites, were consistently out by this time at dance clubs or elite social gatherings. As a result, she had, after almost six years of living there, learned to expect at least some much-needed peace and quiet at home.
So on any given Thursday night, Tomoyo's normal routine consisted of hastily eating some microwaved dinner while listening to news on the radio (8:30), putting finishing touches on the designs of several outfits due Friday (9:00), making and taking phone calls from various co-workers while frantically canceling and rescheduling meetings depending on the deadlines she had to somehow manipulate into postponement (9:45), debating heatedly with the current VP of design because he was an arrogant bastard who only wanted to sleep with her even though she had the power to fire him whenever she wished but didn't because he was such a brilliant businessman (10:30), and, finally, taking a shower followed by a nice, heartfelt crying session, before at last going to bed (11:00 and later).
Anyone else would have probably fallen apart under the amount of stress Tomoyo faced, but she wasn't anyone else. She had lived through her rigorous schedule for the past two years, after she had started Daidouji Designs, a highly successful line of fashionable clothes that had eclipsed even the biggest names in fashion from New York. She wasn't going to fall apart now.
Really, she wasn't.
With a schedule as tight as hers, where she had designated time slots for crying and where she had calculated she could live on five or so hours of sleep anyway, she had no time for falling apart. Especially when she didn't really need contact with other human beings that were sympathetic to her. It wasn't as if they boosted her productivity and creativity anyway.
She wasn't lonely or anything.
Really.
She wasn't.
The phone suddenly rang, jolting Tomoyo out of her thoughts and causing her to jump in shock. Blinking as she shook her head, she belatedly realized that she had been standing in her kitchen for the past five minutes or so, frowning absently at her dinner inside the microwave while her thoughts wandered to today's routine.
She grimaced, ruefully setting the microwave timer as she headed quickly for the attention-starved phone. The likelihood of one of her employees at Daidouji Designs calling was slim because they all knew that bothering her any time before nine o'clock could potentially cost them their lives. Tomoyo figured that the caller would be either her mother or a telemarketer, and it was already hard enough to tell the difference.
Sighing as she reached the living room, she picked up the receiver with the kind of dread reserved especially for snakes and other unpleasant, slithering things, and she remembered to restrain her irritation. Whoever was calling was not the one who caused her stressful life, after all, unless it was that annoying VP. Or a telemarketer.
Then all hell would *really* break loose.
She didn't have a chance to actually say hello into the phone, however, because the moment she put the receiver next to her ear, she was assaulted by a frantic barrage of questions sent by the voice of a young woman that Tomoyo loved very dearly.
"Tomoyo-chan!!! Are you all right? Is everything okay there? You're not hurt are you? Is everyone else doing well? How are you doing?"
Of course, that particular string of questions sounded more like, "TomoyochanAreyouallrightIseverythingokaythereYou'renothurtareyouIseveryoneelsedoingwellHowareyoudoing," and it took all of Tomoyo's self-control not to burst out laughing at the unexpected disruption of her normal routine.
"Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo grinned, feeling strangely relieved and energized just by the sound of Sakura's voice. "Slow down, please. I can't understand a word you're saying. How are you? How is Li-kun?"
Tomoyo heard a deep breath on the other line as well as what sounded like the low, indecipherable rumblings of Li Syaoran's voice, and she smiled. She heard from Sakura and Syaoran, her husband of a little over a year, about once every two weeks, which was actually pretty often considering the Li's were living in Hong Kong and Tomoyo was a very busy woman.
Syaoran had taken over as Clan Leader a year ago, after graduating with a degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo, and he was always busy conducting business deals and negotiating contracts with his associates. Obviously, Syaoran's work required him to live in Hong Kong, so Sakura had not hesitated to go with him. Sakura was, after all, happy being a part time supermodel while furthering her magical studies under the tutelage of Syaoran's mother.
All of them were very busy with their lives, so Tomoyo was surprised to hear from them, especially when they were scheduled to call the next weekend. The Li's were very prompt and polite, knowing that Tomoyo was an equally busy woman who should not be bothered on weekdays, so something almost certainly happened to force them to contact her. Tomoyo bit her lip; whatever it was sounded urgent.
With possible disasters ranging from divorce to Syaoran accidentally murdering Touya-san with a cheap, wooden chopstick nagging her thought processes, Tomoyo tried to keep her stomach from twisting into knots and failed. As long as nobody died and no one was getting a divorce...
"Tomoyo-chan, gomen ne," Sakura, sounding much more in control of herself, apologized, somewhat to Tomoyo's relief. At least Sakura was capable of being coherent, which meant that whatever happened wasn't *too* serious. "Syaoran and I were just wondering how you were doing."
Of course, Tomoyo understood that Sakura was still very, very deeply worried about something, but she was trying to hide it. Her attempt to conceal her worry, however feeble, might have worked if Tomoyo weren't Sakura's best friend of over a decade and if Sakura hadn't already given away the fact that she *was* extremely worried.
"Tell me what's wrong, Sakura-chan," Tomoyo said bluntly, not bothering to mask the concerned, knowing tone in her voice. "Do you need help with something? Is there something wrong with the baby?"
"No, no," Sakura sounded suddenly relieved, and Tomoyo was glad that she had brought up the subject of Sakura's pregnancy to bring her best friend back in focus. "The baby's fine. It's still on track with six months left. But... that's not what's bothering us, Tomoyo-chan."
"Well don't leave me in suspense. I'm perfectly all right *now*," Tomoyo assured them, "but I'd like to know if I won't be all right in the near future."
"It's just that..." Sakura hesitated, and Tomoyo could almost picture the wheels turning in her friend's head. "Syaoran and I sensed something... something terrible. And for once, it's not even after my magic."
Perplexed, Tomoyo pointed out, "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Iie..." Sakura sighed audibly. "It's just that... whatever it is... it's coming after you, Tomoyo-chan. I don't know why, but it's headed specifically in your direction."
Tomoyo was too shocked and too confused to speak. These were her friends, arguably the two most powerful magicians in the world, and she trusted their judgment automatically. Still, she had always been on the outside of the magical circle, the constant observer, so she wasn't used to being so directly... *involved*. Still confused, she opened her mouth, but no words would form in her mind.
Silence prevailed for a few moments, and suddenly the air seemed so much darker.
"Tomoyo-chan?" Sakura's voice sounded faint, distant to Tomoyo's ears. "Are you there? Tomoyo-chan?"
At first she thought she was imagining it, but Tomoyo's vision became gloomy and blurred, thick with darkness and heavy foreboding of some unspeakable evil. She tried moving, but her actions were lethargic as the air fought against her movements. It was as if she was underwater, unable to breathe and desperately grasping for air. Her vision dimmed further, nearing pitch black, as if she were sinking further under an ocean, drowning while the tremendous pressure crushed her lithe form. For some reason, her hands started to hurt badly, and she couldn't remember how she had even injured them in the first place. She was weakening, and she couldn't even feel her knees.
Are my legs still there? she mused absently, forgetting where she was and what she was doing here in this cold, dark place, forgetting Sakura-chan and Li-kun and Daidouji Designs, and bringing her life, her sad, lonely life, into sharp focus.
She struggled to breathe, but she was drowning. She struggled to reach the surface, but something was pulling her down.
It would be so convenient to just close her eyes forever and rest. She needed to rest from all the troubles she was facing. Rest would be good...
"TOMOYO-CHAN!!!" Sakura was screaming frantically into the phone, over and over and over again, sick with worry, and Li-kun's voice echoed in the receiver, strong and clear and equally worried and angry, but Tomoyo couldn't hear them.
In the end, it was the microwave beeping that drew Tomoyo out of her disoriented state. Suddenly she was on alert, hearing every decibel of Sakura's feverish cries and every inflection of Li-kun's angry roar on the phone... which she had somehow dropped on the floor. She couldn't remember when she had dropped it, and she couldn't remember why she was sprawled awkwardly on the floor as well, dizzy and shivering on the cold, unyielding hardwood.
The world was spinning around her, but she managed to focus on the phone on the floor and reached for it as if she were blind.
She sat up slowly, the cordless receiver clutched tightly in her shaky grasp, and then she spoke into it, finally recalling that pregnant women really shouldn't be worried to the extent that she was worrying Sakura, and that powerful men with pregnant wives like Li-kun really shouldn't be worried to the extent she was worrying Li-kun as well. "Sakura-chan, Li-kun, don't worry. I'm... okay. I'm okay. I'm okay."
She repeated that affirmation silently like a mantra, but she wasn't so sure she could so easily convince even herself.
"Kami-sama, Tomoyo-chan, what happened? You weren't speaking for at least a minute. You just cut off in the middle of a sentence, and there was a loud bump, and, and..." Sakura trailed off. Tomoyo could practically see the shuddering breaths the young woman was taking. Tomoyo could almost see the way Li-kun wrapped his arms around her, soothing her, one of his hands moving low over her belly as if he could protect their child as well while offering comfort to her. He was probably shaking too, but he was more composed than his wife who, in her state, was prone to mood swings.
Tomoyo had the grace to wait a few seconds for Sakura's panic to subside. When she was sufficiently calm, Sakura took a deep breath and asked in a collected manner, "What happened? Syaoran was about to call 'Nii-chan to drive over there and see what was wrong with you. We couldn't sense anything, and it really frightened us. It nearly sent me to pieces, Tomoyo-chan."
Tomoyo was touched by their concern, but she couldn't really tell them a lot, as much as she wanted to do so, because she could hardly figure things out for herself.
Grimacing as a sharp pain lanced through her head, Tomoyo wondered if she was coming down with some kind of virus because she had been working herself too hard. She had yet to take a vacation, after all.
"I... I don't know what's wrong. I think I may be catching a bug or something, so don't worry about me," Tomoyo said honestly, a little shaken by her weird experiences, none of which quite fit the symptoms of any normal illness. Given her inability to elaborate any further on her own condition, Tomoyo steered the conversation towards the reason for Sakura and Syaoran's unexpected call. "I don't remember anything. Just that you were saying something about something terrible heading for me?"
"Un," Sakura replied, with some effort to control the concerned sniffs threatening under her calm exterior. "Well, whatever it was appeared about fifteen minutes ago. Something big happened then, but neither of us is sure what it was. It was big enough to affect the Earth's balance of magic, and it's sweeping towards Japan, coming from the East over the Pacific."
"How's the weather in Tokyo, Daidouji-san?" Syaoran suddenly spoke up for the first time. Tomoyo realized that Sakura had probably put her on speaker phone when she had abruptly stopped talking. "And, please, answer me seriously because it's not one of those trivial 'small talk' questions."
Out of both curiosity and deep respect for her friends, Tomoyo glanced out the window and described what she saw. "It's dark. Really dark. And it's freezing outside as well. The skies are covered by storm clouds, and it was raining heavily when I got home. I think it's still pouring. It'll probably turn into a thunderstorm pretty soon."
She was met by a tense silence, and her unease grew steadily. She didn't need to be told that the storm was unnatural, that it was probably the work of a magician with unknown, evil intentions; their silence said it all. But she wanted to be reassured, and she found herself longing for the days when her friends used to sit in front of her, inadvertently allowing her to at least read their expressions and deduce what they were thinking. Using her sharp observation skills, she could always guess from the way they moved and interacted that everything would be all right, that they would be able to handle the situation, and that there was nothing to worry about.
Sakura and Li-kun always were open books to her, but since she was trying to read their minds when she couldn't see them, when she couldn't catch glimmers of hints from their body language and their expressive eyes, she had to take her clues from their voices. And right now, they weren't saying anything remotely helpful for her mental and emotional stability.
"Are your doors locked?" Syaoran pierced the tense silence, but his ominous question only served to darken the mood even more.
"H-Hai," Tomoyo nodded an affirmative reflexively, even though they couldn't see her. "I always lock them."
"Whatever happens, keep the door closed and stay away from your windows. Maybe call a friend to stay over with you, and that might keep you safer," the Li Clan Leader advised, and Tomoyo found herself even more frightened by the seriousness in his tone. A wave of disappointment came over her when she realized that she *had* no friends to invite over, even if she had wanted to anyway.
I would have invited you guys, she thought, and the bitterness in that automatic reaction surprised her.
She had learned more about herself tonight than in the past two years working at her dream job.
"What's going on?" she asked finally, feeling more frustrated than before as a cold chill ran down her back.
"We don't know," Sakura answered grimly, "but we've already booked a flight to Tokyo. We should be there on Saturday. I'm sorry we couldn't be there any earlier, Tomoyo-chan. We don't know how much time you have. You should probably stay with my onii-chan until we get there."
"I'll be fine by myself," Tomoyo insisted, relieved with the knowledge that her friends were coming to protect her. "I'll just wait until you guys get over here. You can stay in one of the extra rooms in my apartment."
"We were actually planning on that," Sakura, sounding considerably more cheerful than before, agreed. "That's the only way we can keep an eye on you, after all."
"It's settled then," Tomoyo said.
"But Tomoyo-chan, I insist that you stay with my 'nii-chan anyway, just for tonight and tomorrow night. I'm sure he and Yukito-san won't mind protecting their honorary little sister, ne? And they don't live too far away from you so you could probably-"
Tomoyo almost missed the flash of distant lightning.
But an instant later, there was silence.
Tomoyo blinked at the phone in her hand for a moment before she nervously decided that the storm had most likely cut the phone lines. To test her theory, she hung up and then picked up the phone again, and the absence of the dial tone confirmed her suspicions.
While she might not have appreciated the fact that the storm cut her connection to her best friends, she *did* appreciate the storm cutting off her employees and that irritating VP from her for the night. She guessed that in that respect, this Thursday might turn out to be better than most.
Somewhat shaken but deciding that there was little else she could do, Tomoyo went back into the kitchen and took her dinner from the microwave, feeling strangely paranoid. She cast furtive glances around her well-lit apartment, unable to squash the sensation that she was being watched but stoutly ignoring it.
Just as she sat down on her couch, mentally debating whether or not she should take her best friends' advice and seek shelter with Touya and Yukito, two knocks on the door effectively interrupted her musings.
She froze.
Syaoran's very serious, very grim advice echoed in her thoughts, and her blood quickly ran cold.
Don't open the door. Whatever you do, don't open the door.
She knew she would anyway.
Sakura was sitting on the couch in the living room with her hands over her mouth, unconsciously rocking back and forth. Her emerald eyes flashed with concern and unshed tears of worry, her gaze shifting from the phone sitting on the tea table in front of her, to Syaoran, who was pacing nervously beside her, to the clock on the far wall, and back to the chillingly silent phone once again to repeat the circuit.
Syaoran, for his part, continued his pacing, raking a hand through his unruly chestnut hair several times before he glanced at his watch.
"Syaoran, what if she gets hurt?" she murmured, her intense gaze fixed on the phone. "What if we don't get there in time? What if she doesn't take our advice and runs into something she can't handle?"
He sighed. "We can't do anything. We can't call anyone in that area because of the storm so even if we did want to communicate with your brother, we couldn't."
"But don't you think it's strange that I can't even contact Yue-san?" Sakura asked, finally voicing her deepest concerns. If she wasn't able to even connect with her own guardian, then something was definitely interfering, and interfering with Sakura, the most powerful magician in the world, was a formidable feat that only a strong force could accomplish. Even Syaoran would have difficulty trying it.
"Yeah. That really bothers me, too," her husband growled. He stopped pacing, opting instead to sit beside Sakura so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders to reassure both of them. "I don't know what to do in this situation. The best we can do is wait to get on that flight to Japan."
Sakura's concern only increased as something else occurred to her. Although she was usually gullible and naïve, she could also be incredibly perceptive at just the right moments. This happened to be one of those moments.
"It's strange that the new private Li jet just happened to break down today, isn't it?" Sakura remarked, and Syaoran only hummed a noncommittal response, not willing to let his wife know that he had also just come to that same, suspicious realization with a growing sense of dread. Whatever was preventing them from going to Japan was undoubtedly powerful and already a step too far ahead. "I think that may be another bad sign," Sakura concluded.
Syaoran tried to downplay the seriousness of what she was suggesting in an effort to reduce the stress she was already feeling. "It could be. But it's probably not a big deal. Don't worry."
"I just feel so... useless sitting here, waiting," Sakura admitted, frustration seeping through her voice. "It's not fair that Tomoyo-chan's the target. She can't defend herself, and we can't defend her from here..."
"Maybe that's the whole point," Syaoran muttered gravely. "Maybe she's being used as leverage against us. I don't know."
Sakura burst into tears, and Syaoran instantly regretted his words. "It's all my fault! If she hadn't known me, she wouldn't be in so much danger..."
Alarmed by his wife's unpredictable outburst, which was an expected development of pregnancy but worried him constantly anyway, Syaoran tightened his embrace around her and kissed her temple gently. "Iie. Don't ever think any of this is your fault, Sakura. We'll just have to find some way to protect her from here, and pray that she takes our advice and seeks refuge with your brother. Even though he is a jerk."
She sniffed. "You're right. But even though he calls me a kaijuu, Onii-chan is *not* a jerk."
He smiled warmly, glad that she had acknowledged his effort to lighten the atmosphere, and he pulled her close so that her head lay against his chest and his chin rested in her hair. For a few minutes, they just held each other, helping each other banish the worries in their hearts and minds.
Suddenly, she spoke again, surprising him just as he started to relax. "I think I know someone who might be able to help."
"Who?" he asked, shooting her a questioning look.
He could feel her smile, and he unconsciously braced himself. "Eriol-kun."
Syaoran flinched out of reflex and too many years of conditioning, and Sakura almost laughed.
Hiiragizawa Eriol had become one of Syaoran's best friends, if not his best guy friend, in high school, and Eriol had even stood as Syaoran's best man at the wedding. But before they were ever on good terms, the damage had already been done to Syaoran's nervous system. It had been too late; now, he just automatically winced whenever he heard Eriol's name.
"If anyone would know how to solve this problem," Sakura was practically beaming, "it would have to be Eriol-kun."
Syaoran flinched again.
But he had to admit, as Sakura reached for the phone, that the idea had merit.
When she was younger, Tomoyo mastered several forms of martial arts because her mother had insisted on Tomoyo's possessing the ability to defend herself. Tomoyo had been reluctant at first, being a prim and proper lady, but she eventually found martial arts to be a fun exercise. As with everything else she ever tried, she excelled at the different styles of fighting she had learned.
So even though Tomoyo was scared stiff about whatever lay behind her apartment door, she was confident that although she would inevitably lose against a magician, she could at least go down fighting and leave a lasting, painful mark on her would-be executioner. Tomoyo saw no point in sitting in the living room, cowering in fear while waiting for the enemy to quietly enter her apartment and surprise her, so she immediately took action.
Armed with a short staff that she practiced with regularly, she approached the door, caution apparent in her light footsteps and the loose, but determined set of her shoulders. All rational thoughts were nearly gone from her mind, replaced instead with instinct, finely honed senses, and the overwhelming fear that she might meet her end within the next five minutes.
At last, she stood in front of the door and looked through the peephole, only to find that the hall was too dark--unnaturally so--for her to see anything. Troubled, and well aware that this could be an illusion, Tomoyo raised the staff in her right hand and reached for the doorknob with her left.
"Here we go," she muttered under her breath, her heart racing as shivers ran down her spine.
The moment of truth.
She flung the door open, poised to attack, only to find what she least expected: Hiiragizawa Eriol.
Bloody. Battered. Soaked in sweat and blood and rain. In tattered clothes. Without his glasses.
But the greatest shock of all was the horribly dazed and pained expression on his face and the tears in his unseeing eyes. His dark blue eyes seemed to be gazing blankly into her own, but his sight was truly fixed on a point beyond her, a point infinitely distant from this time and place, and she knew it.
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." she murmured hesitantly, all the fear and panic she had felt replaced by horror and sympathy and concern.
He was silent, and his gaze remained blank and blind even as she frantically tried to figure out what she should do next. Then, a genuinely confused look crossed his features as his eyes came into focus and he registered who she was.
A silent moment passed, and then he sobbed. Brokenly.
She had never heard a sound as heartwrenching and sorrowful in her entire life, and she hoped that she never would hear anything like it again. No one deserved that kind of suffering. Instinctively, she reached her arms out towards him, wishing that she could somehow ease his pain.
He fell forward, but she caught him, his cold, drenched, haggard, bone-thin frame landing in the warm circle of her arms, before he fell any further.
She caught him before he could sob again.
She caught him before he shattered.
She caught him.
And her soul wept with his.
-= End Part One =-
Chapter Started: November 21, 2002
Chapter Finished: November 26, 2002
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003
Please send all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!
Copyright (C) 2002 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved.