TSUBASA RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE

The Novelization

Prologue

~The World of Beginnings~

Two young people, a man and woman, sit facing one another, silent and solemn. The young man looks into her eyes and sees sadness, unlike the usual happiness that shines inside them. They both raise their hands up to each other's and find a barrier between them. Both are sealed inside a large capsule with a glass wall separating them. It seems as though the entire fabric of time and space are ripping open outside the container. The young man beats the glass trying to reach the young woman, but to no avail. Tears start to well up in her eyes seeing him try so hard to reach her. Suddenly, magical wings burst forth from her back and she slowly floats up into the oblivion above. He cannot do anything to stop the inevitable. "Sakura!"

"Sakura!" He jolts up from his sleeping bag in a cold sweat, trying to gain his focus on reality, "I-It was just a dream... It felt so real..." He crawls out of the bag and looks outside his tent to see the yellow sun breaking through the horizon. The light shines over the sand dunes and causes the sand to almost sparkle from the beams. "Clow Country always looks most beautiful when the sun rises and sets..." The young man thinks to himself. He steps outside and stretches out, cracking his back. He reaches for his pack inside the tent and looks inside it. "Hm... I'm running low on supplies..." Regardless, he sets himself up a small breakfast anyway. He soon finishes eating when he's called upon by one of his supervisors, "Hey Syaoran, we are heading out to report to the castle our findings, you ready to go?" His name was Syoaran, a young man with brown hair and matching eyes. He was wearing a black sleeveless shirt, white pants, black boots and gloves. The garb was traditional to his fellow archeologists, as that was Syaoran's occupation.

Syaoran replies back, "Of course, But I could I make a stop in town to get some supplies?"

"Go ahead! We'll see you later tonight!"

"Thank you!" Syaoran puts on a green hooded robe to protect him from the desert winds, grabs his pack and heads out for the city. "I'm on my way, Princess Sakura!"

After Syaoran's long trek through the sand dunes leading away from the ruins his team was excavating, they were mysterious ruins that held many secrets inside. Alas, that was all behind him for now and the desert city of Clow lay ahead. It was quite a majestic city; a giant naturally formed arc of sandstone cast itself over the city, almost as if it were an ocean wave. The city itself was raised up from the ground for protection against the desert winds and the castle was the highest, towering over the rest of the city in its center. Living there was hard, but you would never meet anyone nicer than the townsfolk who lived here.

Syaoran made his way into the town, eventually making his way to his house. It was a small round house, like the other houses in town. Only really made for 1or 2 people to live in, but it met Syaoran's needs and that's what mattered.

"Hello Father… I'm home." Syaoran picks up a picture frame up from his desk; it's a picture of himself as a young boy with his late father, Fujitaka.

"You were right. In this Country the ruins you see are only the tip of much larger structures buried in the sand. Just like you theorized, Father." He sets the frame down and starts to take out his supplies from his pack.

"The excavation is well underway…" He continues his thoughts until he hears very excited knocking at the door. He goes over and answers the door and before he can say or do anything he is suddenly tackled to the ground by a big ball of energy.

"Syaoran!" Princess Sakura exclaims as she tackles Syaoran to the floor, excited to see her best friend after such a long time.

"Welcome home! How was the dig at the ruins? Did you discover anything interesting? Did anyone get hurt? You didn't get a fever, did you? Have you been eating properly?" She let off a flurry of questions that easily flustered Syaoran.

"Y-Yes… Everything went quite fine, Your Highness."

"I told you not to call me that!" Sakura replies irritated.

"But… Princess…"

"I told you to call me Sakura! None of that fancy talk between us…"

"Yes, Your Hi- No! I-I mean… O-Okay…"

"C'mon, Syaoran… 'Sakura'…"

"Right… S-S-Sakura…" Syaoran starts to blush heavily from addressing the princess in such a manner.

"There, was that so hard?" Sakura gives Syaoran a warm smile and a giggle. She looks down and realizes that she was still sitting on top of his legs.

"I'm-I'm sorry! I'm cutting off the blood to your legs!" She clambers off of him quickly feeling embarrassed.

"Um… I'm really happy that you're home Syao."

"It's nice to be back but, Your Highness you knew- Sakura you knew when I would be coming back… The rest of the excavation team came to the castle today to report the situation at the dig. Don't you have to be at the castle right now?"

"Nope! Since my big Brother is the king, he's the one who has to listen to the reports! And, if the excavation team is at the castle, I was sure that you would be coming home!"

Syaoran gets a worried look in his face, "You didn't- You didn't come here by yourself did you?"

Sakura stands up and gives off an excited, "Yup!"

Syaoran can't help but sigh and rub his hand on his face from the fact that Sakura takes every chance she can get to sneak out of the castle.

"So… How long are you going to be staying?" Sakura asks, tentatively.

"Well… I'm going to be heading back tonight, I only came back to get a change of clothes." Syaoran left out the fact that he wanted to see Sakura more than anything else.

Sakura sighs, "I figured as much… Those ruins won't dig up themselves…"

Syaoran gives her a smile, "I do need to get some supplies for the dig tomorrow though, do you want to come with me?"

Sakura can't help but smile, "I would love to!"

Syaoran and Sakura visit shops and merchants set up around town. Syaoran purchased a number of various things such as some oil for his lamp and some parchment to make more notes. All the while Sakura had her hood up of her cloak to try and hide herself from anyone who might recognize her.

"You know, you wouldn't have to sneak around like this if you would just tell your brother that you're stepping out…" Syaoran can't help but mention.

"Whenever I tell him that I want to see you, my brother gets all grumpy, like always! Besides, it's more fun to sneak out anyways!" Sakura gives Syaoran a mischievous smile.

Just ahead of them an apple stand was set up, apple season has just started. Sakura's eyes shine with excitement as she runs over to the stand. Her hood also comes down in the process revealing to the townsfolk who she was and that got everyone excitingly talking amongst themselves.

"Wow so many apples! I've been waiting for apple season, we should buy some!"

The lady running the stand speaks up, "Take what you like, no charge."

Sakura gives her a surprised look, "Really? Are you sure?"

"Of course! It's not every day I get to meet the princess, let alone have her try one of my apples!"

"The people here really do care about her… Not that I can blame them, it would be hard not to care about Sakura…" Syaoran thinks to himself.

Just then they both hear some shouts from the distance.

"Hey there's Sakura! Isn't she supposed to be at the castle? C'mon She's straight ahead!"

Sakura gets a worried look, "Oh no it's the castle guards, and they'll make me go back to the castle… I don't want to leave you yet…"

Just then Syaoran grabs her arm and says, "Let's go!"

He runs with Sakura as fast as she can keep up with him, even though the guards had no intentions of harming her, Syaoran thought he would make it a bit more fun and give Sakura the time she wanted. They kept running until they were on the outskirts of town. They eventually stopped on an outcropping of a rock that overlooked the ruins.

They both fall down to the ground from exhaustion.

"It's been a long time since we ran like that..." Sakura breathes out.

"Yeah, too long." Syaoran adds. He notices that he's still holding Sakura's hand so he tries to get up. But she increases her grip on his hand before he gets very far.

"No, don't get up, let's stay like this for a while…" Syaoran gasps and looks to her, she gives a small smile back. They both sit up on the edge of the cliff and look into the distance. The setting sun in between the two large wings of the ruins, once again, recreating the effect that Syaoran had previously seen this morning. The sand glittered with the sunlight and it was quite a beautiful sight.

"You know, whenever I look at those ruins I can't help but think of my dad… I can't believe it's been 7 years since then…" Syaoran reminisces back to the day when He and his father first came to Clow country.

"Has it really been that long? Since your father explained to the previous king, my father, that he was interested in investigating Clow's ruins… and when I first met you…" Sakura adds.

"Yeah, he explained that we all could understand more about the country's history if he was allowed to excavate. The desert is always dangerous, so the excavation took careful planning. When the preparations were finally complete, the digging began. Unfortunately, no matter how careful we were, he still lost his life during the dig… But his life was still a happy one. He was smiling until the very end."

Sakura looks at Syaoran, even though he is smiling, he still has a sad look in his eyes.

She gives him a distressed look, "We invited you to come live with us when he passed away! Why didn't you?"

Syaoran shakes his head and says, "I would have felt weird living in a castle."

"It's not weird at all! We've been friends since we were kids!"

"You're royalty! I'm a commoner! Commoners can't live in the castle! Besides I can afford to live on my own with the money from the dig."

"It's not about that!" Syaoran gives her a surprised look as she looks down in embarrassment.

"It's just… that… you're always at work all the time… We never see each other anymore… It's lonely… Isn't it lonely for you?"

Syaoran looks down as well, "Yes… it is lonely… but excavating those ruins was for both me and my dad's-"

"Your greatest dream… I understand that, but still… I miss you when you're gone. When I'm in the castle at night… When it's time for bed… I wonder what you're doing at that very moment. I wonder if you ever find time to think of me… even just a little…" Sakura sadness continues to grow on her face; Syaoran grabs onto her shoulders and looks into her eyes.

"I do think of you! And I wonder, 'What's Sakura doing right now? There's never a moment when you aren't on my mind."

Sakura starts to blush from Syaoran being this close to her and she can feel her heart beating faster.

"Syaoran there's something I think I should tell you…"

"What is it?"

Sakura's cheeks keep getting redder and redder and isn't able to look Syaoran in the eye.

"Um… you know I… I mean… Well… Syaoran… I think I… I lo-"

Just then a loud Gong could be heard all around and it startled the two right onto the ground.

"T-That's the evening chimes! …It's a lot later than I thought." Syaoran says still blushing, he looks down at Sakura. Her face is completely red and is taking deep breaths.

"A-Are you okay?" He asks concerned.

"J-Just a little startled is all! I think I should head home, my brother is probably flipping out right now…" She says with a relieved smile.

"Can I walk you home?" Syaoran asks.

"No! I mean… no that's okay, you must be tired from running and working and uh… I mean its okay, I can get home alone!"

"Are you sure? I feel fine."

Sakura is far too embarrassed now that she doesn't know how she could handle being around Syaoran now.

"I'll be fine! Besides, all of the citizens are so nice to me!"

"That is true. My father and I have travelled to all sorts of different countries. This is the most peaceful country we've ever been to."

Sakura turns around and starts to walk away but speaks up again.

"About what I mentioned a minute ago… that thing I need to say to you? I'll tell you next time okay?"

"Ok, Sakura."

She continues to walk away back to town and whispers under her breath,

"This is when everything changes… isn't it?"

Syaoran sighs as she walks away and thinks to himself.

"I shouldn't be having these feelings… Sure, we have been friends since we were kids… but she's the princess of this country and I'm not part of that world… It isn't right… regardless of what my feelings tell me otherwise…"

Syaoran sighs once again and waits there until the princess is out of sight. He silently walks back home, gathers his supplies and sets out for the ruins. It's already night, and he takes one look back at the castle as he walks towards the ruins.

Sakura tip toes through the throne room looking this way and that to make sure that her brother isn't around. Even though Sakura is always sneaking around in and out of the castle, she has never been that good at it and is eventually caught by her brother.

"You've been spotted Sakura!" Sakura feels as though her stealth shield has been completely destroyed by her brother's gaze.

"That was some nice tip toeing, were you practicing ballet?" He teases.

Sakura gives him a guilty smile and walks forward to him.

"I… I'm home, Toya!"

King Toya sits upon his throne giving an irritated look to his sister, "Wasting the day with that hole-digging twerp again?"

Sakura's face grew red and gave her brother a wicked glare, Toya knew he was setting off a fuse.

"I didn't waste a minute and his name is Syaoran!"

"Hey for a brat like him, I think 'twerp' suits him just fine!"

"He's not a brat! Syaoran's living on his own, and doing good work! You should respect him!"

"I will not respect him! A brat's a brat!"

"He is not!"

The two siblings continue yapping away at each other and before things can get any more heated a voice speaks up.

"Is that any way for royal siblings to behave? Your majesty? Your highness?"

It was Yukito, the Royal High Priest. He comes in with a large piece of rolled up parchment. As he walks in, he's sporting a gentle smile, as always.

Sakura looks away from her brother and runs to greet him.

"Hey Yukito! Have you finished your priestly duties?

"Yes. We knew of the arrival of the Excavation team and their report. His majesty and I awaited them here today."

"Then Toya got bored and skipped out, right?

Toya snickers, "No, I'm not like you!"

Sakura glares back, "What was that?!"

"Anyways," Yukito continues, "He listened to their entire report, right there on his throne."

Yukito opens the report for Sakura to take a look.

"They've come a long way on the dig. Soon, they'll finish digging the whole thing up, right?"

"Not likely," Toya states, "It looks like there is more to these ruins than what is above ground. They discovered a new underground path. I don't know how far it's going to take them, but I've given permission to continue digging."

"What?!" Sakura looks surprised, but then crestfallen, soon realizing what that means.

Toya continues, "And so… The excavation will go on. And the Brat will be busy for a long, long, long, long time to come." As he finishes his teasing he snickers at his sister's expression, gradually getting angrier and angrier for every 'long' that comes out of his mouth.

Sakura snaps at him when he finishes,"Th-That's just fine with me! Syaoran's just like his father! He loves ruins and history and stuff like that! If there's some new ruin, I'm sure that'll make him the happiest man alive! So it's fine with me!" and with all that said, Sakura runs off to her room, flustered and angry.

Yukito sighs as she dashes off and looks at Toya with a frown, "You shouldn't… provoke her so, Your Majesty."

"Yukito, I told you that when we're alone, you can drop the formalities."

"Well you are the King, Sir."

Toya smiles at his friend, "To the public we may be King and High Priest, but when the job is over, we're just old friends."

Yukito smiles back at him, "True."

"That kid… He just gets on my nerves…"

Yukito teases his friend, "But your sister is just so cute, you can't help but tease her, can you?"

"Ugh… Well it's not like I have anyone else to mess with like that… It's just, normally; one wouldn't even be allowed to think of a commoner associating with royalty. But… he's destined for her… Isn't that what you predicted?" Toya gets a grave look on his face.

"Yes… Syaoran is… the one Princess Sakura is destined for…" Yukito matches his look.

Toya sighs, "Your predictions of the future are never wrong. And that's why… it really gets on my nerves!"

Yukito looks off into the ruins and his face grows serious, "However… The two of them have adversity waiting ahead. Adversities like you've never seen. The Princess has an unusual power. I can't say I understand it myself. But I can say… that it can change the world. It's that much power and that same power will bring on adversity…"

"Either way, it will come out all right if we're there to help her."

"Yes… and even if we aren't there, the two of them will combine their strengths to fight it."

Toya huffs, "Yeah but it's the 'two of them' part that I don't like."

Yukito gets some sense of relieve from Toya's persistence, "You never give up… do you, Toya?

Sakura continues stomping off to her room.

"Toya never stops teasing me! I can't stand it!"

The first thing she does when she gets in her room is flop onto the bed from frustration. She lays there and glances outside to her balcony. From here she can see the ruins far away in the hills of the sands. She gets up and pushes open the balcony doors. She walks out onto to it to get a better view of the ruins.

"It's beautiful… and below it, there's something more… Syaoran will be so happy to hear it! I've got an idea! I'll bring lunch to him tomorrow! At lunch-time we can at least spend a little time together! …That's when I'll tell him… That I… love him…"

Just then, a sound could be heard. It runs through the princess's ears and her mind. It sounded like a bell being struck, but it didn't sound like any bell the Princess has heard before. It almost sounded other worldly.

"It sounds like it's coming from the ruins… Almost like it's… calling to me…"

Sakura didn't realize that she was not on the ground but floating, due to some magical power. Her consciousness was fading in and out. She couldn't tell if she was dreaming or seeing reality, she saw strange places she's never been to, a symbol of what looked like wings and then symbol of a bat… and then what looked like…

"Syao?" Was he banging on glass? What was he doing? He starts to fade further away

She gasped, "Syaoran!" Her link to reality was cut and she lost consciousness.

In another dimension and in a separate time, a voice with malevolent intentions is heard, "The mirror reflects the image of an isolated man… living in a misbegotten time… The moment has come… The convergence we awaited begins…"

Syaoran can't stop thinking about the news, a brand new area underground to be explored... Maybe some questions will finally be answered about the ruins. It was already late and a fair number of the workers have already gone to bed.

"I'm sure no one would mind if I checked it out." Syaoran said to himself.

He grabbed his cloak, his lamp and all of his notes and walked out of his tent.

He politely informed one of the supervisors that he was going to inspect the new area. He was told that it was fine, but to be careful as it was just discovered, no one had fully explored it yet. He gave Syaoran a map with directions on how to get to the tunnels. Syaoran thanked him and set off inside the ruins, following the map.

The ruins were always dark but it was always cool inside. Syaoran realized it must be due to how deep the tunnels go underground. It's hard to tell what purpose that this structure was for, as there were no signs of past life, besides the unique looking symbols and inscriptions. Syaoran hypothesized that it could have been a gathering place for an ancient culture to take refuge from the desert storms, but now he wasn't so sure, what with the tunnels being discovered. No shelter would be this expansive. After about an hour of walking through the tunnels, heading down a curving staircase, he discovered a large empty circular room with a mysterious symbol on the floor. It almost covered the entire floor. It looked like a pair of wings.

"What is this? This symbol… I've never seen anything like it in the ruins or in the country… It's not in any of my notes… Maybe this room is the key to unlocking the ruins secrets…"

He set his notes down and started to sketch the symbol down, all while flipping through the Clow history book, trying to see if this symbol was marked down on any of the pages. In his vigorous note-taking, he almost didn't hear the approaching footsteps. Once he heard them, the noise was right behind him. He was taken by surprise when who he saw was in fact Sakura, approaching him from the stairs he had taken previously.

"Oh Princess it's you! What are you doing down here?" Syaoran exclaimed. Sakura walks right by him, without saying a word. Her walking was strange; it had no life in it. She walked toward the center of the room in the middle of the symbol.

"Princess?" Syaoran was concerned at this point, her eyes were glazed over and she wasn't responding. Normally, she would burst with happiness every time she would see him, but… not now. He was about to walk forward, trying to console her and see what was wrong, until she spoke.

"I've seen this symbol before… it's… my wings…" She reaches down and places her hands on the symbol.

Before Syaoran can get a word in, the whole building starts to shake and a bright light erupts from the symbol. The floor the symbol is on opens up and the light seems to be coming from this hole. Syaoran can't believe what he's seeing when Sakura floats down into this chamber. At first, he's too bewildered to say or do anything, but he quickly regains his sense and jumps into the hole after her.

He lands into another chamber and the first thing he notices is Sakura, floating in front of a large relief. It matches with the symbol in the previous chamber. The shaking gets stronger and Syaoran's ears are ringing from whatever this power is. Just then, two pairs of wings burst from the princess and they match with the relief. The wings aren't like wings on a bird, they look as though they are made from glass, but they moved with flexibility of real ones.

"I…I've seen those wings before! In my dream! …This can't be good… I won't that dream become reality!"

"Hold on Sakura! I'm coming!" Syaoran dashes to Sakura, determined to stop whatever is happening. He jumps onto the relief and starts to climb it.

Far away, a group is watching Syaoran. They watch him through the mirror, its powers unknown along with the man who uses it, unknown, but someone who seems to have planned this from the very beginning.

"The power to pass through space and time… and that which points the way are the wings… now… that power is reborn!"

When Syaoran thinks things couldn't get worse, they do. Sakura slowly gets absorbed into the relief. It's like it's trying to grab her and pull her in. He has to act now.

"Sakura!" He gets good footing and launches himself towards Sakura. He is able to grab her and pull her away from whatever power was trying to absorb her. Syaoran lands on the ground absorbing the impact with Sakura in his arms. When they land, those giant wings shatter into feathers. They all scatter and fly away, seemingly lost forever. Syaoran doesn't take much notice to this and focuses on Sakura. Her skin is like ice to his fingers.

"Sakura… Talk to me! Wake up!" As he tries to wake her, the entire ruins starts to crumble and fall around him he needs to get out of there and fast. He needs to find Yukito; he'll know what to do. But he needs to get out of here now. He gets a better grip on Sakura and makes a mad dash for the exit of the ruins.

Back in that far away time, another voice could be heard,

"He interrupted the process… The awakening has failed…" The voice was cold and had no emotion to it, but by that tone it was definitely a female's voice. But the booming voice responded,

"Not so… events have been set into motion that cannot be unchanged… and when they are finished, the power to cross time and space… will be mine…"

Syaoran finally is able to make it out, but is horrified by the sight of blood everywhere and his fellow members lay dead on the ground, along with mysterious soldiers in strange armor, with a dark red symbol of a bat emblazed upon it.

"W-What happened?!" Syaoran looks to see King Toya fighting off one of the dark soldiers; he barely is able to defeat him. Toya nearly falls over from his wounds. Syaoran runs over to him trying to get some information. But Toya is the first to speak.

"You're late kid…" He coughs sputtering blood, "You better not have let Sakura get hurt!"

Toya falls over in great pain, Yukito appears and tends to him, and fortunately he was still breathing.

Syaoran looks to Yukito with fear and worry, "Will he be alright?"

Yukito lifts Toya up and lays him against a piece of rubble.

"He will be fine… I will never allow him to die!" Yukito notices the Princess in her state and rushes over.

Syaoran tries to explain, "There was a strange relief below in the ruins… and…"

Yukito simply places his hand upon Syaoran's forehead; it felt as though something was transferred…

"I've read your memory… The princess's wings have taken flight…"

Syaoran looks confused and asks Yukito to explain.

"The wings and the Princess's soul are one… All of the Princess's memories from the moment of her birth to present have vanished… That means… her soul is nowhere to be found in this world!"

Syaoran felt as though his heart sank, "How is that possible? What does it mean?"

Yukito continues, "Without her soul, her body is nothing more than an empty shell. She can't stay this way… or she'll… die…"

"Isn't there something I can do?! Anything!?" There's no way Sakura can die, Syaoran will do anything to help save her.

Yukito glances back at Toya, and shakes his head. He has no other choice. He raises his staff in front of him and a magical aura starts to surround Syaoran and Sakura.

"There isn't a moment to lose! I'll take responsibility for whatever repercussions this will make! I'm going to send you both to another world. You will meet someone there, someone who, like me, carries the power of the moon."

Syaoran shouts to him, "Who is this person? What should I do when we meet?" All while this is happening, a circle with various different symbols appears beneath him and the aura continues to surround him until he can barely see Yukito.

Yukito responds, "She is known as the Dimensional Witch! Tell her everything and she will guide you from there! Brace yourselves!"

Syaoran holds onto Sakura tight. It seems as though he just fallen into water and he keeps sinking down and down deeper. It's like a vortex and as he keeps falling through the space until he finally hits solid ground. He shuts his eyes as the vortex dissipates around him and when he opens them, he sees a woman dressed in very regal clothes with some strangers behind her. He has no time for observations now, he needs to act.

"Are you the Dimensional Witch?" He asks.

"I have been called that, yes." She responds in a calm voice.

Syaoran takes a look at Sakura's face. Her skin is like ice to his fingers. She can't die… Not like this.

He looks back to the Witch, "Would you please help me?! I need you to save Sakura!"


AN: So if you haven't already guessed, this is a novelization of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. But it isn't a direct lift from either the manga or anime, its like a mixture of both, with my own ideas in there as well. I don't have a set schedule for when new chapters will be uploaded but I am working on them! Give me any critiques, and review please! I want to improve in any way that I can! Thanks for reading! :D