Disclaimer: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles does not belong to me. That means, c!Syaoran, r!Syaoran, c!Sakura, r!Sakura, Yuui, Fye, Kurogane and Mokona don't belong to me!

But if they did.. Chapter 210 of TRC never would have happened.. and all those who spokem of it would be buried alive. ^^

When A Seal Didn't Break

Prologue

It was a dream.

Not a nightmare, because she didn't see anything too scary yet.

But.. nonetheless, she knew (hoped) that it was only a dream.. because her Syaoran had twin chocolate eyes, one useless but the other fully functional - her Syaoran did not have black fabric over his left eye, a neutral look about his face, a dead stare in his remaining eye..

No, her Syaoran did not meet her in silence while she floated in liquidy nothingness. Her Syaoran smiled whenever he saw her - this Syaoran did nothing.

"Who are you..?" She called out to him. Maybe he was one of those people Fye-san and Syaoran-kun talked about, and like that girl that Kurogane-san kept meeting - you know, the ones with the same soul but a different life..?

maybe this other Syaoran needed her help, and that was the only reason he was really, really... well, creeping her out!

"Sakura,"

Huh. All she could think of at that moment was the fact that she really liked hearing her name without the -hime at the end, siad with his voice.. even if.. his voice held no emotion.

In the span of just a few seconds, Sakura fantasized about a fake future, when her Syaoran called her just 'Sakura' for the first time. He wouldn't realize that the '-Hime' buiness bugged her until she told him - commanded him - to pronounce her only name and keep it that way. He would smile at her because she was smile at him, and slowly, with a bit of a struggle, he would say it, her name, without the sickening honorific-

"Sa-ku-ra."

But this guy was saying it now. How would he know her name? If he was someone with the same soul and a different life.. than surely he woukdn't know her! Now, this was becoming a nightmare. A bewildering one. She didn't like nightmares, so whenever she had them she'd tell Syaoran-kun and he'd comforet her and tell her that everything was alright until she had good dreams again-

No, Sakura! Concentrate on the problem!

Quickly, she shook her head and stared at this strange.. non-Syaoran-kun. He appeared to pay much attention to this look, because he reached forward and roughly grabbed her arm with a tight, non-Syaoran hand -

"Before you get pulled in by the water," he told her, his grip tightening and almost making her want to scream in fear. It seemed as if he didn'yt want to be this way, by the tone of his voice - he wanted to be gentle and calm, like her Syaoran-kun, but there was a wall between what he was now and what he was meant to be.

She didn't like this thought, and she didn't even want to think of what he meant.

"Wake up so I don't have to,"

The grip tightened again. He was going to break her arm, Syaoran was going to break her arm, her hero was going to -

"NO! LET GO OF ME!"

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To be continued. Obviously. I'm gonna make you wait. =)