=-. Introduction .-=

* Please note: This is the teaser chapter. It may seem like the ACTUAL events, but towards the end, things will turn quiiiite different.*

=-. Flashback, 3 days ago, the Nadesico Festival .-=

With no second thoughts, Sakura Kinomoto - Mistress of the Clow Cards - lifted up her staff and uttered the words that will unlock the Clow Card's true from and then change it into her own... a Sakura Card. This was probably the most difficult [and painful] Capture, as this was the last Clow Card... kept sealed for a long time to keep the CLow Cards' power in equilibrium with positive-negative matter. This was a capture like any other... except that it comes at a great price. Most of the people associated with Sakura - her friends, her brother, her father, her Guardians - had all been assimilated into the Sealed Card's nether void. Only Li Shaoran had been able to fight until the end. This end. The price she has to pay may forever change her life, for she must give up her most important, most cherished feeling in order to capture the Sealed Card and bring everyone back.


I wasn't able to tell him how I felt after all, Sakura muttered silently.


As the Clow Card is transformed into a Sakura Card, a swirling mass engulfed Li. The Card has chosen the price Sakura has to pay. It will wipe out Li's association with Sakura. Li's love.


"Li-kun!!!" Sakura screamed, tears starting to well up in her sweet eyes.


"Sakura... even if I lose this feeling, I'll just... fall in love with you again."


FLASH.


The Sealed Card is now a Sakura Card, merged with the blank Card Sakura has kept, a new Card altogether. "The Hope."


Sakura looked closely at the new Card, but her gaze shifts to Li. She looks at him, and he's just like a statue, a blank expression in his face. Tears start to fall again.


She gathers up all her courage, and starts to speak.


"Li-kun... even if you don't have any feelings towards me anymore, I just want to say... I LOVE YOU!!!"


No response. Sakura's tears drop like rain.


Li smiles, and Sakura stops crying. She deeply hopes that, through some twist of fate, that Li would not really forget all the love he had for her. All she wants to hear now is that Li loves her, too.


"Sakura."


"L-Li... Li-kun..." Her heart pounds deeply. It seems this lost moment seems to stretch out in slow-motion, tormenting her with the suspense... and the fear.


"Sakura... I'm sorry."


With those words, Sakura felt as if a poison-tipped dagger had been punched through her soul. Wide-eyed in shock, all the fatigue and the hardship of the past few days came rushing back at her. She was only able to fight all the stress because Li was there always lending her a hand. Now... now... he's as distant as the other end of the world.


That moment where Li appeared as if he no longer had anything, no longer felt anything for Sakura, she felt surely that she had died. With those words from the person she loves most, the pitch black of unconsciousness engulfed Sakura... Li's final words resonating through her whole soul.


"I'm sorry."