The Silver Radiance

Prologue: Yue

It was shortly after Hiiragizawa left that this story takes place. To be honest, I was not paying much attention to the entire ordeal at first. I had been irritated that, not only was my part as judge of the Final Judgment ultimately a show Clow Reed put on at my expense, he had to remind me of that, twice, once with Mizuki Kaho, and once as his reincarnated self. Kerberus, of course, was his regular, careless self; but even he, I would presume, felt a little irked by the situation our creator put us through.

Most of the time I had struggled to keep my own irritation hidden from Sakura. This resentment was not to be borne in a guardian, and it was certainly not her affair to console. For someone so young, she is incredibly mature, but there are some things I would rather not burden her with. I ended up being too engrossed in my own feelings to really notice what was happening around me, in particular, Li Syaoran, whom this story concerns. However, as the chosen one to narrate the beginning of our tale, I will endeavor to explain as much as I can, how it all started.

To my knowledge, towards the end of the school year, nearing graduation, the children were in the mall when they ran into a stranger who took particular interest in Li. From both magical and economic standpoints, Li had reason to worry. Among the magical world, the Li clan was known to be a very formidable circle of sorcerers, some descended from Clow Reed himself, others married into the line with equally reputable ancestors. Among the non-magical world, the Li clan was an extremely wealthy family, with large investments in the Hong Kong economy and one of the families on which the economy was based. Among the Japanese civilians, this means relatively little, but then normal Japanese civilians should not take much interest in a young, rather typical boy like Li. He dodged some questions and lied for some others until the rest of the group rescued him and they left the stranger to his own devices, believing, perhaps reasonably, that the ordeal was over.

The following night, Li noticed the same stranger walking up and down the block. He was not staring at Li's particular window, as Li had turned off the lights before looking out, but he did know that the stranger was scrutinizing the apartment building. Li headed up to the roof for more mobility, but by the time he reached the top, the stranger was gone.

Unwisely, instead of informing us, Li chose to keep this to himself. He did not see the stranger for several days, and it seemed the subject was closed.

Perhaps I should describe the said stranger. He was, at the time, around sixteen years of age, or at least seemed so. His features were not native to Japan, they looked, to be honest, very Manchurian Chinese. He had grey eyes, which were not Asian, but China has, actually, its share of people with western attributes. He was slightly taller than Yukito, and thinner, with a stern expression on his face that Sakura said, reminded her of a prince. There was nothing, however, about him outwardly to suggest anything suspicious about him. According to the children, when they met him, he had been dressed in a normal, inconspicuous polo-shirt and khakis. Tomoeda was large enough that it is possible to meet individuals one has never seen before, and difficult to find someone in hiding. They told me he was handsome, but uncomfortable to look at, like beneath that façade there hid some darkness, some intent, which one must be wary.

Armed with this knowledge, as Yukito, I, myself, came across this individual. I cannot say exactly, but he knew who I was, and I, though I knew not his identity, knew that he was no ordinary person. Before I could make a decision as to whether to ignore his presence or accost him, he took the choice out of my hands.

All of the sudden the world went still, and it was just me and him. I transformed, sensing threat.

" Who are you?" I demanded.

" I smell the breath of Clow Reed on you." Said he, his figure suddenly cloaked in a confusing mist of auras. " You are not the one I seek."

Then all of the sudden the world snapped back to normal, and I was left alone. He had gone.

All I could confirm, to Sakura and Kero, was that this being was not after Clow's magical legacy. We decided that perhaps, he was in Tomoeda searching for something, but not anything that concerned us.

And so passed one entire month.