Of Stars and Cherry Blossoms

by Dreaming Snow

Sakura Kinomoto thought she was an ordinary thirteen year old girl, until strange people arrived at her house to tell her that she had been specially selected to attend a school for magical people, called Mahoutokoro. At the school, she finds out more about her dormant magical powers, the history of the school, and the history of who she is and how she came to possess magic.

1. Prologue

Prologue

Several centuries ago, four of the greatest magicians came together with the idea of building a school that would allow young people with magical prowess to study and be trained in the magical arts so that they could become skilled, fully-trained magicians. These four magicians consisted of Li Xifeng from China, Oh Hyorin from Korea, Tanaka Ryuu from Japan, and Henry Reed, a mixed Chinese-Englishman who was also Li Xifeng's husband. After selecting an uncharted island south of Japan, they decided on naming the school Mahoutokoro. After founding the school, these four great magicians created four different Houses for the school and selected four animals that would represent their house: Li Xifeng decided that her house would be represented by the Phoenix and prize wisdom and intelligence, Tanaka Ryuu decided that the House of Tanaka would be represented by the dragon and prize cunning and ambition, Henry Reed chose a lion to represent the House of Reed and valued traits such as friendship and loyalty, and Oh Hyorin chose a crane as a representation of her house, valuing traits such as kindness and virtue. At the time, Li Xifeng was pregnant with her and Henry Reed's child, a son they named Clow. When he was born, they enrolled him into the school when he was thirteen years of age, as the founders decided that thirteen would be a good age for children to start their magical education, as they weren't too young then, and that they would end their magical education at twenty. This was different from schooling in other countries like Britain, where magical children entered school at eleven years of age and ended at age seventeen or eighteen, depending on how old they were when they finished their seventh year of school. Though the school accepted children from all over Asia, they also accepted a few students from non-Asian countries, though this was very rare.

When Clow was seventeen and in his fifth year at Mahoutokoro, there was a clash among the founders. Oh Hyorin wanted children with magical powers, but came from non-magical families to have a place to hone their skills. Tanaka Ryuu argued that such children had no place at the school and believed that they shouldn't be accepted at Mahoutokoro. When the other three founders disagreed with his views, he angrily left the school, never to be seen again, though the House of Tanaka still lived on. Li Xifeng and Henry Reed's son, Clow, would later grow up to be the school's first headmaster. Combining the teachings he had learned from his schooling at Mahoutokoro and from the knowledge of eastern and western magic, he created a legendary set of cards known as the Clow Cards and encased them in what looked like a book, but didn't have pages and instead had a deep rectangular hole into which the cards would be put into. To protect these cards, Clow created two guardians—a large, winged lion that he called Kerberos, and a winged, white-haired man with white silky robes named Yue. When he died, the Guardians and the Clow Book housing the Clow Cards disappeared, never to be seen again. Dark and light magicians journeyed far and wide to try and locate the infamous Clow Cards, but could not find it, and eventually, they decided that it must be a thing of the past and that Clow Reed must have put a strong magical spell to prevent anyone from finding it. The Clow Cards were then forgotten about for hundreds of years…that is, until now. Deep underneath the school, hidden behind a loose stone wall, a red book glowed, sensing that it would be awakened once again.