CARD CAPTOR SAKURA

THE NEXT CRUSADE

NOTE:

This will eventually become a songfic in later chapters. Songs will either be used to describe a certain situation, a person's feelings or be performed by some of the characters in a nonsensical kind of way. Also, there will be some film references put in. See if you can spot 'em.

DISCLAIMER:

Card Captor Sakura and all related characters are not my mine so don't come hassling me late in the night when you corporate types can't get any action in the bedroom, prompting you to come after me in retaliation. I mean, really, if you want to impress her, why don't you pick up the bill at dinner once in a while? Maybe it's your cologne or that--oh, crap. I did it again. Sorry. On with the story...

CHAPTER ONE

PROLOGUE

It was dark in the tomb. For centuries, no man had ever step foot into it. Not since the great battle that took place there long before the Card Mistress was born. The silence that filled the air was, for a time, preceded by screams of pain and threats of violence.

Clow Reed saw to it that this menacing Dark Lord would never see the light of day again and that all the damage he had done would soon be set right. The evil one's followers were hunted down by Clow Reed's own and were persecuted for treachery. The army had suddenly vanished but Clow Reed knew its existence was tied in to the dark one who commanded it.

Clow Reed respected and cherished all forms of life. It was for this reason that Clow Reed could never bring himself to take one of those lives and carry it on his conscience. He had no choice but to seal the menacing warlord into a tomb and spellbind the area so that as the years passed, his magic would grow weaker and weaker.

Once the evil one's magic had been fully depleted, he turned into a mere shadow of himself. A shadow of stone. An expressionless still figure crouched onto the floor with its head looking down. As if it knew all along that defeat awaited him. He had paid for his crimes against not only humanity but against everything that ever represented the pure essence of good.

The Dark Lord was history. But history often has a habit of repeating itself. Intentionally or unintentionally. The sins of one man were about to return full circle and pick up where he left off. The tomb would be quiet no more.

AND NOW... ON WITH THE STORY!

One day, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer stepped out to play with his friends and was shocked to see a wasteland of dead elves. Some were bloodied, some were incinerated and some were even stitched together while they were still alive. Rudolph searched for Frosty the snowman to see if he was okay but all he saw was a dismembered head coughing up bits of shaved ice.

"Frosty!" cried Rudolph. The snowman coughed his last cough as his two coal eyes rolled off the head, indicating his departure from life. Just then, Rudolph heard a click and turned to see an angry Santa Claus pointing a rifle at him in a drunken rage.

"Santa! Why are you doing this?" asked the reindeer. The jolly man gave no response as he hacked up some phlegm, spat on the ground and pulled the trigger. Before the bullet could hit him, Rudolph--

NO! NOT THAT STORY! THE OTHER ONE!

Oh. Sorry. I thought something was wrong. I was right. Oh well. The less said the better, I suppose. Anyway...

It had been one year exactly since the Void card was put back into its card form. One year since Sakura and her friends performed on a stage in front everyone in Tomoeda. One year since she finally confessed her love to the boy she truly loved.

School was out and Sakura and Li were able to spend more time with each other now. Tomoyo was more than happy to film her two best friends everywhere they went, despite their constant pleas for what Kero jokingly referred to as some "seriously major alone time". Sure, the two former card captors were happy together but there was still something unsettling on Sakura's mind.

"You haven't had your what!?" a surprised Tomoyo asked.

"Our first kiss", Sakura answered with an almost shy look on her face. The two were sitting down on a bench somewhere in the park. Li was at home recuperating from a severe beating he took from a man dressed in a weenie costume. The injuries he sustained were more mental than they were physical. But we'll get to that story later.

Tomoyo shook her head as she tried to come up with some kind of response to her best friend's humorous dilemma. "I really don't know what to say", she started. "Maybe you two should slow down a bit."

"It's been a year. How much slower do we need to go!?" Sakura griped.

Tomoyo suddenly came to the realization and nodded with agreement. "You're right. Has he tried anything?"

Sakura thought for a moment. "I don't think so. Maybe."

Tomoyo tried jogging her friend's memory. "Has he ever leaned in close to your face? Closer than usual, maybe?"

Sakura shook her head. "No. Oh, wait! There was that one time when there was that bee buzzing around and it landed on my nose. I was too scared to move so Li slowly came closer to me and--"

"And he tried to kiss you! Am I right?" Tomoyo interrupted.

Sakura shook her head and giggled. "No. He just waved his hand around and got stung instead."

Tomoyo nodded and smiled. "Oh."

Sakura suddenly looked confused and wondered, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I just figured that if Li tried kissing you without making it seem so obvious, it would mean that he wants to do it too. Almost as much as you do" Tomoyo explained. "I mean, what good is it being boyfriend and girlfriend to each other if you're not getting to the good part?"

"It's only kissing." Sakura said. "How big of a deal can it possibly be?"

In Li's room Kero was rolling around on the bed in hysterics, laughing, whooping and hollering at Li's own expense. The former card captor laid on his back with an ice pack to his groin as the yellow stuffed animal continued to be a constant thorn in the boy's side.

"Okay, let me get this straight..." The doll started. "You and Sakura have been together for how long?"

"One year." The boy grumbled.

"And you haven't even had your first kiss!? Man, that's pathetic!" The doll continued to laugh, slamming his nearly weightless fist(?) on the bed. He then continued, "And now you're telling me some moron in a weenie costume beat you up? Oh, how the mighty have fallen!" Once again, the seemingly harmless guardian of the sun burst into another fit of laughter.

Li was in too much of a traumatic shock to deal with the annoying doll's wit. He knew deep down that the weenie man hadn't seen the last of him and that a personal grudge had now been bestowed.

Kero, having finally caught his breath, slowly climbed on Li's chest and looked at him right in the face. "Okay, so tell me why you haven't done the simplest of things anyone can do in a serious relationship" he said.

Li thought for a minute but wasn't sure if there was a way to describe it for someone like Kero to comprehend. He sighed and decided to explain to the best of his ability.

"It's like this", he started, "I love Sakura more than words can say. I love her so much that I don't want to break her trust in me by making her do something she's not comfortable with. I want her to know that I'm willing to take things slow."

Kero nodded, finally understanding Li's feelings on the matter. He then shook it off and explained it to Li again, "One year! Count it! One freaking year! If I had fingers, I'd point it out to you! You're pathetic! Your woman's gonna think you're a pansy! Is that what you want!? Huh!?"

Li thought for a minute and shook his head. "No. That's impossible. I'm sure Sakura isn't ready yet."

After a long and awkward silence Kero shouted again, "One year!"

"Oh, shut up!", Li shouted. "Why are you even here!?"

"Touya's been snooping around lately. I mean more than usual. I just don't want to get caught with my trousers down.", the doll said. "So I thought I'd crash at your place for a while." He started laughing again. "I don't know which is funnier. The fact that you and your girlfriend haven't smooched yet or that you got your butt kicked by a weenie man!"

As the doll rolled around in another fit of hysterics, Li growled under his breath, "Bastard."

In the woodland area of Tomoeda, the leaves in the trees and the grass on the fields were blowing gently with the wind. But the tranquility of the forest was soon interrupted by an unexpected earthquake, small yet powerful. The traffic on the city streets was forced to make an emergency stop as this act of nature continued its course. Sakura and Tomoyo felt a gentle rumble beneath their feet and looked around. "What was that?" the green eyed girl asked.

Moments later, Sakura rushed home and was relieved to see her father and brother sitting in the living room, watching the news on television. "Oh... you're okay..." she said, trying to catch her breath. "Good. I think I'll just... lie down or... something." And with that said she fell to the floor, exhausted.

Touya got up from the couch and looked down on his sister, nudging her with the tip of his shoe. "Hey. You dead, little girl?" he joked. Sakura motioned her brother to come closer. He shrugged and complied. "What's wrong?" he asked. In an instant, he felt her hand slap across his face. Their father just chuckled and went back to watching the news.

Hours later into the evening, work crews surrounded most of the rural areas, fixing nearby power boxes. The crews in the city were doing the exact same thing, only having to deal with more traffic and a lot of distraught people. One of the crews parked their truck in the middle of a field, near the service road, before a large pillar of rock and dirt sticking up from the ground. Five men got out of the vehicle and began examining the strange object.

"What the hell is this?" one man asked, running his hand down the smooth, rocky surface.

"Is this where the reading came from?" another asked.

The head worker shook his head as he looked around. "No, this can't be right. There's nothing out here. No power boxes, no houses, no people. It doesn't make any sense."

Creeping around the pillar was an almost invisible cloud of mist. It moved with a mind of its own and surrounded the five men, rising up to the ground and impairing their vision. They began to panic as the mist started to crackle bits of light and spoke to them in a low, raspy voice.

"Did it just say something?" asked a crew member.

More flashes of light crackled within the cloud as the voice was heard again. "Homens do dado mundial novo para seus pecados." The five men soon felt their skin burning off as more and more flashes sparked. The voice crept again, "Your lives are a necessary loss. I will make your deaths as quickly as possible."

The men screamed in pain, unable to stop their flesh burning off the bone. They fell to the floor and accepted their painful fates as a final spark of lightning finished the job. After the screams stopped, the mist vanished back into the rock pillar. The large structure then cracked down the middle and shattered into several pieces. The dark mist then shrouded itself around a crouched figure of cold stone and entered through its chest.

After a few moments, the figure began to glow a bright light, which filled the night sky. A man, looking no older than 30, stepped out of his rock prison and looked down on five black skeletons with a bit of smoke clearing away. He grinned as he detached one of the skulls from its neck and gazed deep into the emotionless face.

"Humans. So vulnerable." The man said as he crushed the entire skull with his bare hand and wiped the ash off with the long, black cape that draped down his back. The man's black suit was almost as dark as the night itself but it was obvious his heart was even darker. He walked off into the woods with an agenda now on his mind: to rebuild his army and finish what he started. Faust the Dark Lord had returned.