Author's blabbering: Chapter 2! Finally, I updated it. To be honest, I didn't want to update it yet, as I haven't finished The Testament yet. Now, as you have noticed, I deleted TLC as it wasn't getting any responses from the people. I'd just probably be updating it in my writing journal (see my homepage). The 19th chapter for The Testament (I'm sad to say…), I haven't even started it yet since I'm too swamped with school work, as well as the 7th chapter of Mistaken Identity. I'd also be posting a one-shot some time in the future, a sequel to Magic At Its Finest.This time, I'd be portraying Tomoyo's thoughts. Now that would be fun!

Anyway, that's it for now. If you'd like to see my responses to your reviews, just click on my homepage. It's there. Just look for it. Leave a comment or something, if you wish, but don't forget to review also!

Disclaimer: Queenie points at the word. If you don't know what that word means, I suggest you look for it in a dictionary. And because I'm still at awe with Angel Sanctuary, I decided to use the Angelic Hierarchy. Don't worry though, Tomoyo would explain all you need to know about it. Oh, yeah, and I don't own the Angelic Hierarchy either. If you think this fic is going against your religion, your beliefs or your traditions, then please don't read it anymore. I surely don't want to be sued by anyone. I'm not doing this to propagate a new religion nor do I get any money from this.

With that said, let's get on with the story!

Chapter 2: "That was way too long!"

Eriol leaned back on one of the posts of his bed, arms folded across his chest, surveying the so-called angel seated in the middle of his room. Well, she did look like an angel, with her white robes, wings and the ethereal air surrounding her. She definitely looked out of this world, with her midnight locks that seemed like flowing water and her lavender eyes, twinkling and almost iridescent. She'd definitely pass the typical standards of what an angel looks like.

Yeah, if she'd only shut her mouth.

He'd always imagined that angels, if ever they do exist, are good-natured creatures: kind, patient, caring and sensitive. They're not sarcastic blackmailers. Still though, Tomoyo—he had finally remembered her name, after a few minutes of brainstorming—did look like a kind, patient, caring and sensitive angel. Actually, she's everything he imagined. The only thing that ruins her image is her endless fount of sarcasm a.k.a. her mouth.

Much to his disdain, she suddenly looked up at him from her seat on the carpeted floor, her eyes narrowed. He quickly looked away. She had caught him gawking at her.

"If you wish to gawk at something or someone, I suggest you go to the zoo," she told him flatly, critically inspecting her wings again. "I'm sure the animals there wouldn't mind being stared at."

Eriol gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. She actually had the guts to retort at him like that, even though he had saved her from imminent danger awhile ago and she was currently seated on his couch, in his room, in his house. But, having been raised a gentleman by his uncle, he decided to pass up her remark without hostilities.

"Would you like some tea?" he offered, walking over to the bedside table to get the silver tray of tea and a tin can of Danish cookies. Why his cousin slash guardian had left tea and cookies in his room before bedtime was something of a mystery to him. Shouldn't she be leaving water instead?

The girl eyed him. "Tea in the middle of the night?" she asked lightly with a slight chuckle. "Isn't this weird?"

"Believe me, after everything that has happened tonight, this isn't weird at all," he rebuked, setting the tray on the cherry wood coffee table and poured her a cup of tea. "Would you like honey with that?"

Tomoyo glanced at him then pasted a smile. "That would be nice, thank you." She had reverted once more to her polite, more angel-like self, he noticed, as he retrieved the small jar of honey back at the table.

"So… You're a Dominion," Eriol began and she nodded wordlessly, uncapping the jar of sweet syrup. "So if you're a Dominion, whatever that is, what are you doing here on Earth?"

Much to his surprise this time, the dark-haired angel was using the honey, not to sweeten her tea, but to use it as something like a dipping sauce for the cookies. It was as if the sweetness of the cookie was not enough to satisfy her taste buds.

"I'm here to check out the time," she replied nonchalantly, biting on the honey-covered portion of her butter cookie. "Touya told me there was a disturbance in the time here so I was sent by my department to check it out. You see, Dominions like me are in charge of regulating the functioning of the universe and the Earth."

Eriol blinked twice at her explanation then stared at her blankly, obviously lost. "Okay… Let's start from the beginning. What do you mean by 'your department sent you to check a time disturbance'?"

Tomoyo let out a sigh and smiled forcedly at him. "Imagine that Azreal, heaven in your terms, is one very big office," she started, taking another cookie and dipping it in honey. "Now, Azreal, as one big office, is divided into nine groups called Choirs, each of it is divided into different departments, depending on the responsibility of that group. And every department is headed by either a junior archangel or seraph. Like for example, the Dominions Choir has several departments, one of them is the Time Department where I belong. We're tasked to monitor the time here on Earth, to see if it flows normally or not."

He nodded slightly, understanding her explanation. "And that time disturbance thingy?"

Tomoyo paused, gazing at him meaningfully over the rim of her teacup. "Eriol, do you believe in reincarnations?" she asked him, using a grave tone, and he consequently choked on his tea, staring at her in disbelief. She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. That stupid boy had just ruined her image of being serious! "What is your religious philosophy? First, you don't believe in angels. Now, you don't believe in past lives!"

"Well, I'd like to know what yours is as well!" he started rather tartly, composing himself. "Firstly, from what I remember, the belief in reincarnation is from the Hindu religion, not Christianity. And secondly, it's not that I don't believe in angels. You were just not the type I was expecting."

"Well, Mister I-know-everything, human beings were the ones who gave birth to the notion of different religions! Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism… They're all the same!" She rolled her eyes at him, rubbing her temples. She was already acquiring a headache. "And what angel were you expecting, someone kind and good-natured?"

"Obviously," he admitted, rolling his eyes in frustration. He still could not believe he was actually talking to an angel, more specifically, arguing with one. "You're an angel. Angels are supposed to be good and nice and sweet."

"We'll see if you can still say that after you've met Touya and Syaoran," she commented flatly, sipping her tea then pursing her lips. "Your educators sure have an optimistic view on angels. What do you think Azreal is, one big utopia?"

"Isn't it?" he countered and she glared at him darkly. "Well?"

She sighed heavily, tapping her chin. Humans, as many angels had told her, can be really dense and slow. "Everything's not always the way you imagined it," she told him, biting her honey-covered cookie again. "Azreal isn't some utopia created by a divine being. It's just like here, on Earth. We eat, sleep, play, go to work. Azreal isn't all singing praises and fighting evil and those sorts."

"You sure ruined my image of an angel," he replied thoughtfully.

Tomoyo waved an impatient hand in the air, a sign that that topic is already closed. Eriol assumed she got insulted by his words. "Enough," she said, clearing her throat. "Now, back to my explanation, everyone in this world was the reincarnation of a specific person from the past." He raised his eyebrow once again in disbelief. "Yes, you had a past life, Eriol. Stop doubting me!"

"Really?" he inquired testily. "And who was I in the past?"

"You're Eriol," she answered, her voice awfully too cheerful.

The young man gave her a flat look, an I-don't-really-buy-that-one look. "No, what was I?"

"You were a human being!" she replied yet again in her awfully-too-cheerful voice.

"I'm being serious here," Eriol told her dully. "Why don't you give me a serious answer?"

Tomoyo paused to think, biting her lower lip in deep thought. "I'm not sure who you were before," she said slowly, tapping her chin. "I don't think I had come upon your time. At least, I've never seen you before from any of the ages I've monitored. Physical appearances never change so whoever your past life was should have the same characteristics as you. Ah, whatever!"

She waved her hand again and continued. "Now, the Fate department makes sure that people who knew each other in the past would never meet again in the future as their reincarnations."

"Why not?"

"For starters, it would cause a lot of commotion," she told him. "Memories would be reopened and remembered which would then result to people's stupidity and curiosity of the past. They would then build time machines to travel back in the past, just to find out what had happened and that's a big no-no.

"Usually, the meeting of two reincarnated people has a reason behind it," she continued, pausing to drink her tea. She tapped her chin again with a slender finger. "Perhaps an incident in the past had not occurred because of, let's say, the sudden death of one of them. Even though this is the best way to solve this problem, the meeting of those two is still a disturbance in the time. It would cause a shift in the time, just to accommodate whatever incident they forgot to do, affecting the people and events. And so, it's our job to accommodate that incident and still keep the time and events flowing smoothly."

He refilled his cup of tea, pausing for a moment to drink. "And how come you fell from the skies?"

"That I don't know." She chewed her overly-sweet cookie thoughtfully, swallowing after a while. "I was flying over Tokyo when a strong gust of wind suddenly blew me off course and into your balcony. My wings must've protected me out of instinct when I fell and so here I am, alive and well but with damaged wings."

Eriol then refilled her cup, glancing at her pensive expression. "A coincidence probably?"

She shook her head, her contemplative expression replaced by a slight frown. "There's no such thing as coincidence," she said slowly. "Only the inevitable."

"There's a new line," he remarked dryly, earning a contemptuous look from the ebony-haired girl. He rolled his eyes. "So you think your falling in my balcony was planned by someone up there?"

Tomoyo shrugged. "That's the only explanation I could think of right now."

"Are you sure they're not just trying to find a way to kick you out of Paradise?" he joked, earning another sharp glare. Even though she had a smart-alecky mouth, she's still a girl and he couldn't help seeing one looking so desperate or extremely annoyed. "That was just a thought, you know. No need to lose you head over it."

Then, much to his astonishment, the young girl suddenly let out a sigh and held her head in her hands, gazing intently at her lap. "Yeah… That's possible," she mumbled, sounding depressed. "After all, that's what most of them said, that I'm more human than angel. Maybe that's why they sent me here, so they could find a way to keep me on Earth forever."

Eriol frowned at her. "You're probably the most pessimistic angel in this Azreal place," he commented, shaking his head. "Look, I was just kidding—"

"And I'm not," she replied flatly. "It's possible that they sent me here just so they could get rid of me."

"And why would they do that?"

She raised her gaze to him, fiddling with the golden border of her sleeve. After a moment of silence, she shook her head, forcing a smile, a smile he noticed that didn't reach her eyes. "Never mind, I was just being stupid," she said, reverting to her friendly voice again. He still looked unconvinced though. "So… can I stay here?"

Eriol gaped at her like she had grown another head. "Stay?" he echoed, sounding shocked, incredulous and suspicious all at once. Where did that come from all of a sudden? "Are you serious?"

Tomoyo shrugged her shoulders, looking impassive. "Of course," she answered cheerfully. "You seemed to be an all-around good guy. I'm sure you wouldn't leave a cute angel like me, walking around Tokyo, would you? I mean, it would cause a commotion, a catastrophe even!"

He stared at her blankly, searching her expression for signs of joking. When she merely smiled at him innocently, he sighed in defeat. Maybe it really was a bad idea to save her awhile ago. She seemed capable of handling falls from tall places. "And you'll stay until when?"

"Until my wings heal, of course," she replied casually. "I can't return to Azreal if my wings are ruined. I'm not able to fly without them."

The blue-eyed boy stared at her wings, taking in the damage. If it was compared to an injury, it's probably comparable to a broken limb. "And how long will it take for them to heal?" he asked dully, forcing himself not to think that he had just adopted an orphan.

"It's not that long really," she said, glancing at her wings. "Probably a month or two."

He let out another sigh. This was slowly getting out of his hands without him knowing it. But then, maybe he could handle here even for just a month or two. "Well, fine. You can stay." Her smile widened gratefully at him. "But only for a month or two!"

Tomoyo nodded brightly. "Thanks a lot! You're an angel!" she cried happily, dipping her teaspoon into the small jar of honey and scooping out a rather large dollop of the sweetener. She then swallowed it without even flinching from the excessively sweetness of the syrup before taking another spoonful.

It took Eriol a full minute to grasp what she had just done and was still doing. "What are you doing? You'd get diabetes if you keep on eating that!"

She rolled her lilac eyes at him, the spoon still inside her mouth. After a moment, she pulled it out and frowned at him. "There's no such thing as diabetes in Azreal," she told him, plunking the spoon inside the jar. "And besides, manna is part of our daily diet. And since there's no manna here, I'd just stick to the basics: white bread and honey."

The boy waved a hand at her dismissively. "Fine, fine," he shot back flatly. "Eat whatever you want. Just don't get sick or anything. I don't want to be responsible to God because you got sick."

"You don't have to be responsible for everything I do," she retorted irately, nearly cracking the teacup in her small hands. "I can take care of myself!"

"Sure, whatever!" He waved again his hand then went back to his bed, not even bothering to stifle his yawn. "Just go to bed. I still have classes tomorrow morning and I really don't want to be late."

"Go to bed? Where am I supposed to sleep?" she argued, placing her hands on her waist.

"Sleep anywhere. You can even sleep in the bathtub if you want to."

As he slid under his comforters, Eriol wondered if this was all just a stupid dream after watching too many late-night movies with Nakuru. He'd probably wake up the next day with no trace of any angel inside his room, just Nakuru shouting at him loudly for not waking up early again.

But just as slumber had caught up with him, cold air suddenly blew over him, freezing every inch of exposed skin. He shot up from his bed, only to find Tomoyo clutching his comforter and several pillows, marching towards the sofa and neatly arranging the fluffy pillows on the velvet. He scowled at her.

"You could've at least asked me if you wanted the comforter!"

"Well, that's too bad! I thought you were already asleep." She stuck out a tongue at him then smiled sweetly. He merely glared at her in annoyance. "Sleep with the angels tonight, Eriol."


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