Summary: Sakura unknowingly saves humanity.
Warnings: Jealous Tree-san, Kurofai indecency, swearing, and spoilers for X and Tokyo Babylon. Crack, and Syaoran being incredibly OOC due to extreme worry.
Disclaimer: I do not own TRC, X, or Tokyo Babylon. All of these works belong to CLAMP.
A/N: What...am I writing? This is so bad. (Because it's been a long time since I've written Sakura.)
The weather was nice today, Sakura thought to herself as she closed her eyes, a small smile on her face. The wind blew sweetly over her face so she tilted her head slightly back, enjoying the fragrance of flowers on the breeze. This new world was a lot like Piffle with the buildings that towered high into the sky like a colossal growth of bamboos, tall and thin. A complex web of roads ran through the city, populated with vehicles an awful lot like the Dragonfly she had flown in Piffle. The "Dragonflies" of this world, however, could not fly, and were regrettably less cute than her Wing Egg.
But here, right smack in the middle of the glass and concrete jungle, was a small smattering of green. It was a rather spacious park full of laughing children and their smiling parents, with a great abundance of cherry blossom trees—her namesake. People lay in the grass on spread out blankets, but Sakura hadn't brought one so she seated herself on a nearby park-bench and swung her legs idly, enjoying the brilliant blue of the sky. On the most beautiful of summer days, she would stare up at the sky until her eyes watered from the brightness, and she would think of Fai-san and his kind eyes. Today was one of those days... Her eyes were already beginning to water.
"Hey missy, you'll go blind if you keep staring at the sun like that," someone called from a short distance away, "Missy, hey missy, would you like some ice cream to cool you down?"
She blinked at the violent jingling of a bell and turned to the man standing behind a cart a few feet away. He grinned at her, and he was missing one of his front teeth. The crow's feet by his eyes were strangely charming.
"Would you like some ice cream? A scoop for two dollars, double scoop for three."
She blinked at him again, and almost turned to look at Syaoran out of pure habit. He wasn't here of course, but she knew that they were a lot of things she didn't understand without her memories, so she always asked him first before she did anything. Of course, she was a lot more dependent now than she had been when they'd first started traveling, but it was a precaution she felt could save him from the dangers of hypertension and cardiac arrest. Then again, she had wandered off without telling him first. She had wanted so badly to take a walk, and he'd been out buying groceries for Fai-san. Kurogane and Fai had been doing goodness-knows-what in their shared room, but whatever they had been doing, they had been making a right racket. She didn't even know that Fai-san's voice could go so high. It had been happening a lot since Yama, but she had stopped asking Syaoran what they were doing because he always choked and turned a red so alarming that she thought he might really suffer a cardiac arrest. She didn't really want to risk harming Syaoran-kun.
"Missy, didja hear me? Would you like some ice-cream?"
She blinked again and focused back on the ice-cream vendor. While she still lacked a great hunk of her memories, she wasn't so incapacitated that she couldn't understand what he was saying.
"I would," she said with a smile, "But I have no money."
The vendor frowned, looking quite confused.
"But what are you doing wandering around without a single cent on ya?"
"I got lost," Sakura told him.
"Lost?" exclaimed the man in concern, "Where do you live, missy? I can give you directions."
"I don't know," she said, smiling sheepishly.
"You don't know?"
She shook her head.
"Why don't you go to the customer service centre? I'm sure they could help you," the vendor said, leaning over worriedly.
"Okay," Sakura agreed amiably, "but I don't know where it is."
A while later she set off again—free ice-cream in hand—down the path that the vendor had pointed her down, humming quietly to herself with an absent smile.
"Tadaima," Syaoran announced as he closed the door behind him.
He frowned as he was greeted by nothing but the sounds of muffled cries and creaking furniture, and peeked out onto the verandah where Sakura had been sitting just now. She wasn't there so he began a methodical search of the house.
Five minutes later, a blood-curdling scream startled a flock of birds from their perch, and Syaoran burst through the closed—thank you very much—door of his companions' bedroom, tearing his hair out in chunks. Fai yelled and toppled off Kurogane onto the floor, taking the lamp on their nightstand with him. The ninja cursed loudly, tried to hop off the bed, hit his head on the headboard, and cursed some more.
"S-sakura," he began, ignoring the two adults as they scrambled for the bedcovers that had been swept onto the floor, tortured eyes wide and bloodshot, "Sakura is gone!"
The tree was troubled. The tree was lonely. The tree was hungry. The tree had tried reaching Master, but Master only grumpily told it that it was always hungry. Master said it was the fussiest tree in all existence. But the tree was so lonely because Master's visits had grown a lot more infrequent than before. And the loneliness led to the hunger, which led to its troubled state. Given, it was troubled about a lot more than food, but the bigger issue still linked back to food!
It was all that boy's fault, the tree knew it. That Stupid Boy with the shaggy black hair and the wide green eyes, he had stolen Master with his stupidly innocent puppy-eyes. Come to think of it, he hadn't had such puppy-eyes and shaggy hair the last time it'd seen him, but that wasn't the point. The point was that That Stupid Boy was hogging Master! The tree had been here first, the tree had been here long before That Stupid Boy had been born, so That Stupid Boy had no right to be usurping its place!
And then there was the big issue that concerned the End of the World. The tree was, of course, rooting for Master, because Master fed it and if Master lost then there'd be no more food. If Master's enemies won, it'd never have another one of those delectable child-desserts that Master brought it ever again, because Master's enemies were way too goody to feed it children. Which brought about the tree's big dilemma. If Master were to win, humanity would be wiped out, which would be rather great if the tree actually sucked water and sunlight like other trees. Even if Master were one of those to survive, there'd be a sore lack of humans to munch on. And then what? It'd starve to death, that's what!
Again, this was all That Stupid Boy's fault. It didn't know exactly why yet, but all the tree's woes stemmed from that boy, so it'd eventually find a reason why this was linked back to That Stupid Boy. It hoped one day Master would bring the boy for it to munch on; it'd 'play' with him for awhile, properly get to know him, and then make sure he never so much as touched Master ever again. Stupid boy. The tree had had a great time with the boy's sister; she'd looked a lot like him, and he'd been hogging master even then. It was too bad that Master had killed her before giving her to it. Master always killed the tree's food first, but it wanted to have That Stupid Boy alive.
A small, warm palm against its trunk had the tree starting with a sharp jerk of its branches, minuscule enough to be mistaken for a movement caused by the wind. What was this child doing? Didn't she know the tree ate little girls like her for dessert? And what a delectable-looking girl she was, with wide green eyes just like That Stupid Boy. But there was not a hint of fear in her eyes, only kindness and a strange tenderness as she gazed disconcertingly up into the branches of the tree.
Why do you feel so lonely, Tree-san?
She spoke to it! She spoke to it! Humans never spoke to the tree. Humans always treated the tree like an inanimate object, all because it couldn't speak. Humans were the worst (except Master of course), they simply assumed that just because it couldn't speak, the tree wasn't sentient. And then they chopped other trees down just so they could steal the land that animals and trees shared, because they couldn't understand animals and trees and just assumed that they had no feelings.
Don't be lonely, Tree-san. I'm here.
The girl leaned against its trunk, pressing her cheek into the bark. Maybe it wouldn't eat her; she was different from all the other humans. The tree wondered what her name was.
Sakura, said the girl with a close-eyed smile, my name is Sakura.
Sakura. They had the same name.
Yes, we do.
The tree suddenly felt a deep connection to the girl. This girl was like Master, she had the same name as him. Master was Sakurazuka, this girl was Sakura. Family. She was family. She was also a sakura.
What is troubling you, Tree-san? You can tell me.
The tree leaned over, lowering its branches slightly as if to embrace her.
"Sumimasen...Have you s-seen... Sakura-hime...?"
The ice cream vendor nearly fell over himself as he scrambled back from the Thing that slowly rose over the edge of his a cart. Its eyes were bloodshot, shining with a mad glint. Its face was cast in shadow by what seemed to be its hair, looking more like a bird-nest sitting atop its head than actual hair. Oh Kami-sama, he was too young to die an untimely death at the hands of some supernatural entity! The ice cream vendor cringed away from the Thing's rasping breaths, turning white as paper.
A lanky arm reached into his field of vision and snagged the Thing by the back of its collar, lifting it with an uncanny ease away from him. A startlingly tall man—a gaijin, judging by his wheat-colored hair and sky-colored eyes—stepped in front of him, taking the spot where the Thing had been just moments ago. The man leaned over the cart on his elbows, flashing the ice cream vendor a charming smile of dazzling white teeth.
"Please excuse Syaoran-kun, Ice Cream Vendor-san," said the blonde with an apologetic smile, "Have you seen this girl?"
The ice cream vendor managed to tear his eyes away from the truly blindingly bright smile of the newcomer to fix them on the sheet of paper that he was holding up. He squinted and leaned closer. That was no girl, that was...
...A cat.
"Have you lost your cat, Mister?" the ice cream vendor asked, "Female, I suppose?"
"Oh, no no no," the blonde laughed, waving his hand airily, "A girl, Ice Cream Vendor-san. A human girl."
The ice cream vendor frowned.
"But that's a cat."
The man blinked, blue eyes wide. He snatched the paper back and examined it for a moment with a frown on his face.
"Oh, pardon me," he cried, turning back to the ice cream vendor, "Of course she doesn't look like that at all!"
In the span of time taken for the ice cream vendor to process his statement, the man had crushed the paper in his fist, thrown it over his shoulder and slammed another sheet of paper down onto the cart. The ice cream vendor blinked and tried to figure out where the paper had come from, looking so pristine and uncrumpled as the man bent his blonde head over it with a look of utmost concentration on his face, tongue sticking slightly out at one corner of his mouth and a calligraphy brush (the ice cream vendor double-taked again. He hadn't seen him take the brush out. And where had the ink come from? There was no ink bottle!) in his pianist's fingers.
Getting over his surprise, the ice cream vendor bent over as well, so as to get a better look at the picture the man was painting, and sorely regretted it as the blonde sprang abruptly back up with a triumphant aha! smashing into his nose with all the force of a train-wreck.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Ice Cream Vendor-san!" he cried out in horror, "Are you alright?"
"Y-yes, I'm fine, Mister," the ice cream vendor groaned, clutching at his face, "About the girl?"
"Oh, but of course!" the blonde said as he absently chucked the inky calligraphy brush over his shoulder and reached for the paper, "This...This is Sakura-chan."
He whipped up the paper to reveal...
...A cat. The exact same one.
"Give me that, dumbass."
An even taller (gosh, how tall were these freaks? The gaijin was tall enough already!) man pushed the blonde away and took his place, snatching the paper from his slim fingers along with the calligraphy brush (What? But hadn't the gaijin thrown it away?) and bending a head of spiky ebony hair over the ink drawing. A moment later, the paper was thrust back in his face.
"You seen her?"
The ice cream vendor leaned back so that his eyes weren't crossing, and the man's drawing came into focus under the gaijin's cat... A smiley face set on the body of a stick figure in a dress. It had short hair.
"That doesn't look like Sakura-chan," said the gaijin, peering over the shoulder of the almost literal giant. He could have been local if not for his scary red eyes.
"Well it's better than your damn cat!"
"It looked like Sakura-chan!"
"The princess does not look like a cat!"
The Thing sidled back up to the cart, claw-like fingers scrabbling desperately for the ice cream vendor. With a yelp, the ice cream vendor flattened himself against the tree behind him.
"She has green eyes and brown hair. H-have you seen her?" it rasped, "She's about so tall. And she has a beautiful smile."
With a sudden burst of realization, the ice cream vendor remembered the sweet girl from that morning. The one who hadn't known where she lived, and who he'd given a free ice cream to. What was such a sweet girl doing with these circus freaks?
The Thing leaned over, his upper body practically draped over the ice cream cart as the two freakishly tall adults bickered in the background, gripping tightly onto the ice cream vendor's collar with both hands, demented eyes glinting rabidly.
"Have you seen her...?"
The ice cream vendor let out a small squeak of terror.
"So if this 'Holy Sword' is used, then the 'Promised Day' will come, and you don't want this 'Promised day' to come."
The sakura above her rustled, like a resigned sigh. Pretty much.
"And the 'Holy Sword' can only be used by 'Kamui'. And there are two 'Kamui's."
The branches swayed in agreement.
"Why don't you ask the 'Kamui's not to use the sword?"
The sakura tree did the tree-version of a face-palm.
"Okay, so that's out..." Sakura stopped for a moment, racking her brains for a solution to the tree's dilemma, though she wondered why the tree cared so much about this 'Promised Day', what would happen on this 'Promised Day' that would affect a tree?
The sakura rustled once more in dejected resignation.
The answer hit her like a tonne of bricks. Sakura shot up from where she had been seated in the grass at the base of the tree, nestled comfortably amongst its roots. She smiled brilliantly up at the tree and threw her arms about its trunk. Her arms couldn't really reach all the way around, and there were people looking at her strangely, but that was alright.
"But what if you hid the sword?" she cried, "Then the 'Holy Sword' can never be used, and the 'Promised Day' will never come! Oh, Tree-san, all your troubles are solved now!"
The tree was completely still for a moment, stunned, before suddenly bursting into movement, branching swaying and blossoms rustling in joy. Sakura let go of its trunk and began to dance around the tree and, had it been a person, she would probably have clasped hold of its hands and spun round in circles. She couldn't dance very well, and everyone in their general vicinity was now looking at her, but that was alright.
When Syaoran burst into the clearing that marked the center of Ueno Park, he seemed to deflate back into Dr. Jekyll. His hair flattened down back into its usual charmingly tousled state, the red capillaries in his eyes receded, and no longer could the whites of his eyes be seen around his amber pupils. He straightened out of his hunch-back, fingers uncurling from their talon-like grasp on the air around him, and his face relaxed into a calm smile.
At the other end of the clearing, Sakura was doing a strange jig around a tree that bloomed beautifully with her namesake; the other sakura trees scattered throughout the park were conspicuously bare of flowers.
"Hyuu, hyuu~!" Fai 'whistled' loudly as he cupped his hands around his mouth, "Over here, Sakura-cha~n!"
Sakura whipped about, eyes wild with a strange elation. She waved enthusiastically at them, hand a blur over her head.
"If the swords are hidden, the 'Promised Day' will not come!" she yelled across to them, and skipped in a circle on the spot, "That's the solution!"
She was still dancing around the fully-blooming sakura tree when they eventually got to her. Fai put a hand on her shoulder and smiled kindly at her.
"So this is where you'd wandered off to," he laughed, "Sakura-chan gave Syaoran-kun a real fright!"
"Oh," Sakura gasped, turning to her protector with an extraordinarily guilty look on her face, "Gomenasai, Syaoran-kun! I was so engrossed with talking with Tree-san, that I forgot that I had to get back! I'm so sorry I made you worry, Syaoran-kun."
Syaoran smiled gently at her.
"It's alright, Hime," he told her, "It was nothing at all."
Kurogane snorted. Syaoran pointedly ignored him.
"Shall we go, Hime?"
"Alright," Sakura agreed happily, and began to absently follow them. She stopped abruptly with a short oh! and turned back to the tree, "I have to go now. Bye, Tree-san, I'm so glad I was of help to you!"
As the four travelers slowly ambled away, Sakura turned back one final time, a fond smile on her face. From across the clearing, the Sakura Tree gently waved its branches in farewell.
"Yaaaah! What do you think you're doing?"
"Spit it out, you fucking tree! Spit it out!"
"SAKURAZUKA, YOUR TREE ATE THE SHINKEN."
Kamui continued to pound a fist against the trunk of the tree.
"Spit it out, fucker!" he yelled, "We need the bloody shinken!"
The tree swung a large branch at the teen.
"Seiishirou-san," Subaru said, gesturing helplessly at the tree, and the Saviour screaming and cursing at said tree, "Do something."
The Sakurazukamori stepped up to the Sakura Tree, placing a palm against its trunk, looking absolutely bewildered.
"I'll bring another child for you. Exactly your type," he said somewhat lamely, "Return the shinken."
The tree swayed, its trunk creaking a drawn-out moan.
Yuzuriha hesitantly moved forward.
"Please, Tree-san," she gently wheedled, "We really do need the shinken."
An awkward pause.
"I can only talk to machines," Satsuki uselessly offered.
"Maybe we should call for Hinoto-hime," Aoki said doubtfully.
Arashi was silent.
"Should I burn it?" Karen asked uncertainly after another awkward pause.
The Sakura Tree shook its branches angrily at her, blossoms rustling noisily in a threatening hiss.
"No, don't burn it!" Kusanagi interjected, "Trees are alive too. We should talk to it."
Subaru hesitantly touched his fingers to the tree.
"Please, Tree-san," he implored, "Won't you return the shinken?"
The tree burst into a flurry of indignant swaying, leaves ruffling disdainfully at the 13th Sumeragi head. The onmyouji quickly stepped away and sighed. He lit a cigarette and put the end in his mouth, taking a long drag in a oh-god-the-world-hates-me manner so spectacular that the Sakurazukamori sighed as well, and followed suit; Subaru leaned over to light his cigarette. At that, the Sakura Tree began to sway so violently that every single of them took a few steps back. The sakura blossoms hissed angrily at the Sumeragi.
Yuuto moved in front of the onmyouji, holding his hands up placatingly and smiling his most charming smile. He tried to ignore the sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he laughed nervously.
"Maybe it's just thirsty," he said lamely, "Would you like some water, Tree-san? I can summon some for you if you'd like."
"But doesn't Tree-san only drink blood?" Yuzuriha asked in a tiny voice.
"Maybe it ate the shinken so that it could hunt its own food," Sorata speculated, Arashi a silent figure beside him, "Have you been feeding it, Sakurazuka?"
"Yes, I have," Seishirou said, unable to hide his offence, "It's the job of the Sakurazukamori to provide for the Sakura Tree."
"Has Kakyou or Hinoto-hime Seen this?" Kamui demanded, pulling a hand across his face in exasperation, "What the fuck is going on with the universe?"
Fuuma stepped up with Kakyou in his arms.
"Kakyou..." he said in a manner almost helpless, "What now?"
Kakyou could only gape at the tree in wonderment.
"Kotori was right," he murmured, eyes wide, "The future can be changed."
No one answered for a long moment.
"So," Sorata asked awkwardly, "Is the Apocalypse still on or what?"
A/N: And thus Sakura saves humanity. Sakura the Savior. I mean seriously! All that time-traveling, world-hopping shenanigans has got to change the fabric of reality in some way. It's just against nature! I really, really ought to be getting Frailty done. People who are waiting for an update, please do not murder me. I couldn't help myself! This fic was screaming to be written! But now that it is done, I shall return to finishing Frailty. I had like all my deadlines today: 4 essays, sketchbook, and an article commentary. I still have 2 more tests this week, but I'm much freer than last week! I don't have a beta so if you spot any typos please tell me. Comments and suggestions of any sort are welcomed, so please review!