Notes: This story is an AU and a rewrite of one of my older fics, "Downfall," which I abandoned over five years ago. It diverges from canon in the ending of the second movie, which, if you're planning on reading this, I hope you've seen. There's also some minor and relatively unimportant crossover with Harry Potter (so it doesn't really matter that much if you haven't read that series). The very basic premise of this fic is the same as that of "Downfall," but I still haven't decided on whether to keep the original pairings. Here's hoping you guys enjoy this heavily revamped (and improved?) version.
Summary: Love after betrayal. (Syaoran returns to Japan, three years after the sealed card took his most important feeling.) AU
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00: Not Everything Will Be All Right
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It was a sunny, yet brisk autumn day. The trees were brilliant in color, all warm shades of red, orange and gold. A girl with her long, dark hair tied in two low ponytails sat on a bench amongst the foliage, enjoying an ice cream cone in the last days before the weather became too cold for such a treat. A boy with messy, slightly spiky red hair sat next to her, eating a matching ice cream cone in a different flavor. He was her best friend, and they were both ditching their first day of fall semester classes.
"Hey, Meiling? Could you hold onto my ice cream for a moment?" the boy asked, while reaching into his bag.
"Sure," Meiling replied, correctly assuming that he wanted to sketch something as he pulled out his well-worn but beloved sketchbook. She glanced around, wondering what had caught his attention, when her gaze settled on the bench across from them. A girl about their age, with artfully layered, shoulder-length hair that shone a golden auburn in the afternoon sun, had just sat down and begun texting someone on her cell phone. She was dressed casually, but in a sleek, dark-colored outfit that showed sophistication and taste. Meiling noted, with more than a tinge of envy, that this girl was far better looking than herself.
"Daisuke, your ice cream is melting," Meiling informed him as a trickle of melted ice cream made its way down the sides of the cone, while she leaned over to look at the sketch taking shape. He ignored her as he worked furiously, capturing on paper the wisps of hair, the delicately shaped face, and the slender, graceful figure, all against the natural backdrop of autumn leaves. She soon realized with a sinking feeling of dread, however, that this girl bore a striking resemblance to the last person in Tomoeda that she ever wanted to meet. Even worse, when she looked up, she saw that the girl had moved from her location on the bench and was now standing right in front of them.
"Hey, can I see what you're drawing?" she asked, with an undecipherable smile on her face that didn't quite reach her pale green eyes.
Daisuke snapped out of his oblivion and began to stammer and blush fiercely, realizing that he had been caught. "I-I-it's not done yet," he protested, but she had already leaned over and taken a look.
With a laugh, she said, "I think it's a little too flattering," and Meiling saw that the smile on her face had been a smirk.
"No, no, I think you're very pretty—" Daisuke began, before his face grew even redder and he promptly shut himself up before he embarrassed himself further.
She laughed again, and Meiling began to wish desperately that they'd gone to class like the good, obedient students that they weren't. It hadn't been particularly easy to ditch, since Meiling didn't exactly go to a normal junior high school, though she would never have agreed to return to Tomoeda if her school had just been a normal school—not after the disastrous summer of sixth grade, when her and Daidouji-san's little matchmaking scheme had gone horribly, horribly, wrong. Even now, Meiling still didn't know all the details from the incident; those were known only to Syaoran, who had turned back into the silent and largely emotionless statue he'd been before his first trip to Japan, and to Kinomoto-san, who stood before her now without a trace of the openness and cheerfulness that had broken down her barriers of prejudice and jealousy four years earlier.
The only reason Meiling attended school in Tomoeda, despite the risk of running into reminders of the unpleasant circumstances in which she had left three years ago, was the discovery of her magical abilities. Although everyone had long assumed her to be powerless, late in sixth grade, she had received an acceptance letter from Seiyou Academy, the only school in Asia for Western magic. It hadn't been a difficult decision to attend, even though she hadn't wanted to return to Japan, since her apparent lack of magic had always made her feel helpless, and she still felt guilty for not having been able to do anything that summer. She had always contemplated a number of what-ifs after receiving that acceptance letter: what if she'd known she had powers, what if she'd used her powers, what if she'd been able to prevent the whole mess…
So for the last two and a half years, Meiling had been a student at Seiyou Academy, which was located in a mansion not far from Daidouji-san's—nowhere else in the area was there a neighborhood with such large homes—that had been magically expanded, on the inside, to accommodate its several hundred students. She and Daisuke had met on their very first day there and had been friends ever since, and even though they both earned relatively good grades, they were often truant together, the latest instance of which had gotten them into their current situation.
"Sakura-chan!" Meiling heard a feminine voice call out, bringing her out of her thoughts. She turned to see a pale girl with long, slightly wavy, dark gray hair making her way towards their awkward group.
"Tomoyo-chan," Sakura addressed her as she turned towards her, her smile widening slightly. "You're late!" she added, though good-naturedly.
"I know," Tomoyo replied somewhat sheepishly. "I forgot to bring one of our textbooks when I first set out," she explained, and Meiling noticed that their bags, though stylish, were both crammed with books.
"That's okay, since I was late too. We should head over to the library to check over our summer homework, now." Sakura turned back towards them, and her expression grew cool again. "Maybe I'll see you around…Meiling-chan," she said with a wry smile, dismissing Meiling's faint, delusional hopes that she hadn't been recognized. Turning back to Tomoyo, she added, "Let's go."
Though she gave a long, questioning look at Meiling, Tomoyo didn't protest, and the two girls set off.
Daisuke now looked confused as well. "Who was she? I didn't know you knew anyone here."
"Just a childhood friend," Meiling replied shortly, not willing to go into detail. "Let's go back to school," she suggested, though it was more of a command than a suggestion. Her good mood, brought about by the pleasant weather, had been completely ruined by the unexpected encounter with her past.
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On a chilly, cloudy morning a month or so into the fall semester, Sakura was running late to school.
"How did I sleep through my alarm again?" she thought to herself, annoyed, while racing down the streets of Tomoeda. She looked anything but composed, with her shoes haphazardly thrown on and a half-eaten slice of toast still in her mouth. Her chronic near lateness was perhaps the only part of her that didn't fit the cool, collected image she had unintentionally cultivated since that start of junior high. Sakura herself hadn't noticed, but she'd grown far more introverted and withdrawn amongst others, unlike her cheerful, friendly younger self. Her popularity among her classmates now had more to do with her being the captain of the cheerleading squad, rather than with her personality, as it once had. She and Tomoyo had remained close, but there wasn't anyone else who could really be called more than an acquaintance.
Sakura was only about a block away from her school, and inwardly cheering that she wasn't going to be late, when she rounded a corner and crashed headfirst into another person.
"Ouch," she muttered, looking up from where she had fallen backwards to catch a brief, tantalizing glimpse of a good-looking boy with tousled, light brown hair. "Sorry," she apologized hurriedly, getting up and running off as quickly as she could. Luckily, she managed to slide into her seat just in time for the bell to ring and her homeroom teacher to walk in the door.
"We have a transfer student joining us today," he announced, and it was at that moment that Sakura noticed that the person standing outside of their classroom door was trying to conceal his or her aura from her.
Her relief at making it to class on time vanished, only to be replaced by irritation. Ever since all of the Cards had been sealed and converted, more than once, a "transfer student" had joined her class and attempted to steal them. This always followed a useless attempt to hide their magic and take her by surprise. It didn't matter that Sakura never used her magic if she could help it; as the Card Mistress, her powers remained strong enough that none of them had ever posed a threat. She was sure that whoever this "transfer student" was, she could simply confront him or her after class and get their inevitable defeat over with.
"Please come in and introduce yourself to the class," her homeroom teacher called out. The door slid open and in walked the boy she had knocked over just a few minutes earlier. As he glanced uninterestedly around the room, their eyes met, and Sakura felt a conflicting, overwhelming knot of emotions well up within her as she came to the sickening realization of just whom he was.
"My name is Li Syaoran," said Syaoran, a bit shakily, as the teacher wrote his name on the board. "Nice to meet you all," he added more forcefully, though it didn't sound like he meant it.
"There's an empty seat over by…ah, Kinomoto's right. Please take a seat there," the teacher told Syaoran, gesturing towards Sakura. He did as he was told, making his way towards the back of the classroom, and Sakura wished desperately that she was sitting anywhere but there as everyone around her, especially the girls, began to whisper excitedly.
He didn't look at her as he sat down—he made a point of not looking at her. Sakura couldn't concentrate throughout their classes anyway, though, even though this time, he wasn't glaring fiercely at the back of her head. It would have been simpler if he'd just been another would-be challenger for the Cards, and all she had to do was crush him in a one-sided contest of magical ability. Instead, questions about what he was doing back in Tomoeda, and how she would be able to deal with seeing him so often, kept running through her mind, causing some of her teachers to scold her for not paying attention in her classes.
Until that morning, Sakura had believed that Syaoran would stay out of Japan, and out of her life, after he rejected her three years ago during the incident with the sealed card. At the time, she'd been so scared that the Card would take her feelings before she could confess to him properly—except that it was Syaoran who had the most power when it was time to make the sacrifice, and Syaoran who had been forced to give up his most important feeling. She had known that she'd been too late by the time she'd gathered up the courage to say anything, but that didn't keep it from hurting when she'd seen his blank, expressionless face and heard him utter those three simple, dreadful words: I'm so sorry.
Sakura knew she couldn't blame him entirely for what happened, but she hadn't wanted to see him, either, and was grateful to hear that he'd left. She couldn't see any reason for him coming back now…unless it had something to do with Meiling-chan being in town as well? When Sakura had seen Meiling a month ago, on the last day of summer vacation, she had been sorely tempted to ask her what she was doing in Tomoeda, but she hadn't been able to resist taking the opportunity of escape that Tomoyo's arrival had brought. Seeing Meiling had reminded her too painfully of Meiling's cousin, and her inability to deal with thinking about Syaoran had won against her curiosity.
But now Syaoran was sitting just a foot or two away from her, and it was impossible not to think about him; she couldn't just ignore him. By the time their morning classes were about to end, Sakura had resolved to find out his intentions, and as soon as she possibly could.
After the bell rang to signal the start of lunch, she turned to her right and asked, as calmly as she could, "Could I have a word with you, Li-kun? Outside?"
He nodded, getting up and following her wordlessly, and as they left, hushed exclamations and heated whispers broke out about how damn, Kinomoto-san moves fast.