It's a wonderful life in cardcapturing.
Disclaimre Junkie: Don't sue! Don't sue! I dun own!
"Li-kun?" She asked worriedly, tugging insistently at her friend's sleeve.
He woke from his dazed reverie, bewildered and utterly confused. "Eh? Nani?"
"We're here," she promptly reminded him, pointing to the elementary school, where already crowds of other children surrounded the courtyard.
Of course, he said to himself, how stupid of me. I asked her to walk to school with me today, and instead I gape at her. Smart move. Sometimes, he wished he wasn't a cardcaptor, wondering how it would be to lead a normal life with his school crushes and just a case of bad pimples; too bad wishes don't come true.
"We should go in, sensei will get mad." Sakura waited for him, her eyes staring inquisitively at his unmoving stature.
"Ne? Oh, right. Sure, go ahead first. I just need to...think a bit." He stuttered a bit, waving a hand casually at her. She glanced at him, a dubious look on her face, but shrugged it off and ran up to the school doors, her short pigtails fluttering in the winter breeze. He stared dazedly up at her, pink petals dancing significantly in her wake.
She's surrounded in warmth, he thought with a small smile. And me... he resumed looking dejectedly at the ground, sinking deeper and deeper in his hole of self-pity. 'I'm a wolf. I'm not even the cardmaster. Stupid clan. Stupid me.' The sky opened suddenly, in a loud torrent of rain and wind. Syaoran stood there, blinking and wondering at his bad luck. "Oh, so now you want to punish me too?!" He yelled out, furious with the sky and the clouds. "Shimatta! I never wanted to be a CardCaptor anyway!"
Silent footsteps approached him carefully, making him turn, peeved at this new interruption. "What the hell d'you want, Eriol?" Li demanded.
"I was wondering the same thing." Hiiragizawa asked quietly.
Li snorted, crossing his arms over his chest pointedly. "What does it look like? I'm professing my sorrow to the sun." He replied sarcastically.
"Be careful, Syaoran. The sun has ears." He peered closely at him, a warning glance in his eyes.
"Right. And their names start with Keroberos." Li grunted, turning away from him. The bell echoed in the dim halls of the school, making him look up at the clock. "You're late, Hiiragizawa."
"You and me both." He replied simply.
"Why did you do this, Hiiragizawa? Why did you make the clow cards, and damn the whole universe by letting them go?" Li asked him after a heavy silence.
"It was magic." Eriol shrugged. "Cardcaptors, ancient sorcery. What makes magic become magic is our interest in it." He fixated his rival with his penetrating deep brown eyes for a while before stating, "Have you ever heard of the phrase, 'Indifference deadens the spirit'?"
"Does it matter?" Syaoran asked, letting the rain hit him with its gentle pitter patter.
"No," Eriol decided, "I guess not. You say you don't want to become a cardcaptor, Syaoran of the Li-clan? You don't have to be."
"Yeah, like how?" He grunted, waving his hand dismissively.
Reaching back within in backpack, Eriol produced a card, in which a single image of a sun and moon crossed each other to produce a star. "I had this ready, in case Sakura could not prove herself the rightful Cardmistress."
"You would erase her memory?" Li asked incrediously, recognizing the words written on the card.
"Of course. Danger lurks in memories, Syaoran. I would have erased Sakura's memories if she did not prove herself to me and Yue. I will erase your memory if you do not prove yourself to your own being."
"How...how do I know if I have proved myself?" He asked slowly, hesitantly.
"Simple. Use the Time card. Travel back, into the past, and see what you would have become if you were not there." Eriol paused, then added, "I can lend you something--a talisman to make sure that what happens in the additional past does not happen in the future. But if you choose not to remain a Cardcaptor, then the past is what you're stuck with."
"....alright. I'll go." Li said, hoping he was braver than he sounded. 'Sakura can survive without me for a few minutes...' Eriol nodded, then tossed him a talisman shaped just like the image in the card.
"Good luck, Syaoran."
He glanced at him before replying, "thanks...Eriol." Holding out his traditional Chinese sword engraved with the Li character on the hilt, he flipped the Time card over and pierced it with the tip. Immediately, the glow of the star reacted and sent him hurtling foward towards his blind destiny.
Author's last notes:
Aiyeeee!! My first Cardcaptor fic! I hope you liked this part, I worked hard on it. Anyway, I'm planning to make this a two part fic, but of course the second part would be much longer. I just wanted to put this out first, so that I could know if you readers enjoy the overall plot line. I'm sorry, s+s fans, I know I promised that there would be romance, but that'll have to wait for the next part, where Li finds out what would happen to Sakura if he had not been there (and saved her a countless number of times, to add). As always....Read...and...Review!