A/N: Hi all, I'm rewriting this story from the ground up. Some of the content will be the same as before but I'm changing some things up, hence why I deleted all the other chapters and starting over from the beginning. Chapter 1 has also been altered a bit.
Chapter 2: First Meeting
"Blimey, I can't believe we're in Japan," Ron said breathlessly as he glanced around at the unreadable characters displayed on all the sides and heard a Japanese voice on the intercom announcing flight departures, delays, or the names of passengers who had yet to get on a flight. The fact that a majority of the people in the airport had dark hair and dark eyes didn't escape his attention either.
"Goodness, Ron, it's rude to gawk at strangers," Hermione chastised with a click of her tongue. "Now come on."
"Where will we spend the night?" Luna asked.
Hermione nodded. "Don't worry, I've got that covered. I found us relatively cheap hotel rooms in—" But her voice was cut off when an angry and annoyed yelp of pain was heard, followed by a loud "SAKURA WA KAIJUU JANAI!"
She, along with Ron, Neville, and Luna, all turned their attention towards the source of the noise. Ron's eyes widened when he saw who it had come from. Standing a couple of feet away from them was a honey brown-haired girl with bright green eyes, her eyes livid for a brief moment as she glared up at a taller man with dark hair.
"That girl!" Ron said, drawing in a sharp breath.
"You say you're not a monster, and yet you kick like one," he muttered.
"Why you…" Sakura snarled, but another man with brown hair and glasses stepped forward, smiling at the two of them.
"Don't tease your sister like that, Touya, she just returned. How was England, Sakura?" Fujitaka asked.
Sakura beamed up at him. "It was a lot of fun! Eriol-kun showed us a lot of places and we even watched this game called Quidditch!"
Fujitaka smiled. "I'm glad you and your friends had fun. I should remember to thank my other self."
Ever since Fujitaka had found out the truth about how he was half of Clow Reed's reincarnation and that Eriol was the other half, he had been keeping in touch more with Eriol, eager to find out more about the man who was his past self.
"Well as long as she wasn't doing anything funny with the Brat," Touya said offhandedly while glaring at Syaoran at the same time. Syaoran scowled back. Their interaction was always like this, and neither bothered to cover up their distaste for each other. However, Syaoran held back from saying anything for Sakura's sake—he didn't want to cause a scene in the airport.
"Oniichan!" Sakura scolded. She then frowned. "Don't you have work today?" Her brother, who was currently in medical school, was doing his residency at Tomoeda Hospital along with Yukito, who was also there, but as a resident nurse, not a doctor.
"Nope, it's my day off today. Yukito is working today though so he couldn't come with me, but he says he's sorry he couldn't come see you arrive back in Japan," Touya said with a wave of his hand.
"Is that so?" Sakura asked thoughtfully.
"Okay, let's go get your luggage and head home. Do you all have rides home?" Fujitaka asked her friends.
Tomoyo nodded. "Yes, Kinomoto-san. My mother's arranged for my bodyguards to pick me up."
"Wei-san is picking Syaoran and I up," Meiling said proudly. "Don't worry about us!"
Fujitaka nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. Well, shall we get going?" He asked his family. "By the way, Sakura, what do you want to eat for dinner?"
Sakura's eyes glistened happily. "Crab croquette!" she said immediately without missing a beat. Her cheeks flushed pink as she thought of consuming her favorite food upon returning home.
"A food fit for taming the monster," Touya laughed again as they began walking.
"How many times do I have to say it, I am not a monster!" Sakura yelled. "Mou, stop being so mean to me! Don't make me use the Big on you!"
Touya knew she was bluffing, because she wouldn't dare expose herself in public like that. However, he decided to play along anyway and held up both hands. "Okay, okay." Then he whispered, "kaijuu."
Unfortunately for him, Sakura heard him. She kicked him yet again, then ran ahead laughing. "Bye Tomoyo-chan, Syaoran, Meiling-chan!"
"OI, SAKURA! GET BACK HERE!" Touya shouted as he gave chase after her while Sakura's friends looked on in confusion.
"I'm glad those two are getting along," Fujitaka said to himself, smiling as he continued walking in the same direction as his children.
"Look, I see Wei! Let's go, too," Meiling said as she dragged her cousin in the direction of their butler.
"That's her, that's her!" Ron said in excitement as he watched the Kinomoto family leave.
"Ron, are you sure?" Hermione asked. She didn't want to get her hopes up.
"I'm positive!" Ron nodded.
"Well how do you suppose we approach her? We can't just walk up to her and say 'oh your life is in danger'," Hermione scoffed.
Ron had to admit that Hermione was right. They couldn't approach her that way, not when they were complete strangers.
"For now, let's go to our hotel," Hermione said.
"What's a hotel?" Ron whispered to Neville and Luna as they followed Hermione. Luna and Neville shrugged.
"I'm home!" Sakura announced happily as she flung the door to her room open. Not surprisingly, Kero was too engrossed in his video games to cast her a glance.
"Oh, how was England?" Kero asked as he mashed buttons on the controller.
"It was really fun, Eriol-kun showed us a lot of places," Sakura replied. "Oh, we also saw a Quidditch match!"
"Quidditch? The wizarding sport?" Kero asked.
Sakura nodded. "Mm. Wait, how'd you know?"
"Clow Reed used to play a little when he was younger, before he created me and Yue," Kero said. "He said he wasn't very good at it, so that's why he only played it a little." Suddenly, he gasped as the words "FAILED" flashed across the screen. His distraction had cost him a chance at beating his previous high score. "NOOOOOOO!"
"Is that so?" Sakura asked wonderingly. "Oh, at the end of the Quidditch match, something bad happened."
"What happened?" Kero asked, his attention fully on her now that he was no longer playing his game.
"There was this image made of smoke or something in the sky," Sakura said as she thought back to the night of the event. "It...it looked like a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. And there was an explosion at the stadium where the Quidditch match was being held. It was chaotic and scary, Kero-chan!"
"You weren't hurt, were you?" Kero asked.
Sakura shook her head. "I secretly used my magic to help put out the fire from the explosion."
"You should be careful, Sakura," Kero said warningly. "Clow Reed had many enemies in his time because of the Clow Cards, and I don't want you getting hurt because of them."
Sakura nodded. "Okay, I will."
After taking a shower and changing into a fresh pair of clothes, she went downstairs to help make dinner. She stood in front of the stove, cooking chopsticks in hand as she stood watch over a sizzling pan of crab croquettes, her favorite food. She carefully flipped them over so that the crispy golden brown sides were facing up. A few minutes later, she turned off the burner and removed the pan from the stove, setting it down on a kitchen towel to cool down as she transferred the croquettes to a plate.
"Dinner's ready!" she announced as she set the plate of croquettes in the middle of the table, along with all the other food that her father had prepared.
"Looks delicious, Sakura," Fujitaka beamed as they all took their seat. "Well then, itadakimasu!"
"Itadakimasu!" Sakura said cheerfully as she helped herself to two croquettes, adding them to her plate. With the other end of her chopstick, she seared off a chunk of fish and added them to her bowl of rice. Her face lit up as she took a bite. "Delicious!"
"How's school coming along?" Fujitaka asked.
"Tomorrow, the cheer team and I are going to be practicing for an upcoming game," Sakura replied cheerfully.
"That's great to hear," Fujitaka replied.
After dinner, Touya bid farewell to his family before heading back to Tomoeda Hospital to stay the night. After waving goodbye to her brother, Sakura made her way up to her room with a pudding cup in one hand. Opening the door to her room, she found Kero in front of the TV, playing video games as usual. What had once been a traditional TV set had been replaced with a flat screen TV because Kero had wanted "to play the games with high definition pixels". That took some convincing for him to convince her father to replace the TV. Fortunately, her dad was kind and understanding.
"Kero-chan, I brought you pudding," she said as she set the pudding on her table and sat down on the chair next to the desk.
"Hang on, I'm almost at the end of this level!" Kero said, determination written all over his face. When the words LEVEL CLEARED appeared on the screen, he flew up into the air and kicked his tiny legs together. "Yeah, wahoo!" He then flew over to the desk where Sakura had set down the pudding and peeled it open.
"Waaah, pudding with chocolate swirls!" Kero exclaimed as he picked up the spoon next to the pudding and scooped a large amount into his mouth.
Sakura giggled as she changed into her pajamas. "I'm glad you like it, Kero-chan."
Kero scooped a few more spoonfuls into his mouth before looking intently at Sakura. "Say, Sakura…"
"What?"
"Did you finish your summer vacation homework?"
"Wha—?" Sakura murmured, tilting her head to one side. Kero simply pointed at a math book that was flipped open and a piece of paper that only had one math problem worked out. Sakura's face paled.
"HOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
She didn't know where she was. All she knew was that she was standing in the center of a large circular platform surrounded by 8 tall white pillars. The platform, sleek and polished like ice, was highly reflective, allowing Sakura to somewhat see her own reflection when she looked down at her feet. However, that wasn't the strangest part. What was even more strange was that it seemed like the platform she was standing on was floating and surrounded by the cosmos.
"Where…am I?" she wondered out loud. Suddenly sensing a presence behind her, she spun around to see a shadowed figure wearing a cloak standing between two pillars. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Was it Clow Reed again? After all, her meetings with him had always involved being surrounded by the cosmos.
"…Clow…san?" she asked cautiously.
The figure shook his head. Instead, a voice rang out, "Please…do what I couldn't do. Stop him."
"Wait, who are you? What do you mean?" Sakura asked as she took a step forward. Her hand instinctively went out in front of her, as if making a motion to grab something.
"The prophecy…stop him…" The figure then floated off the platform. Sakura broke into a run forward.
"No, wait, please! I don't understand what you're saying? What prophecy? Who should I stop? Please! Come back!" she cried desperately. "Come back!"
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Sakura was still fast asleep as the knockings continued to pound at the door. Kero frowned as he pushed his drawer open and peeked out, seeing Sakura still fast asleep and unbothered by the knockings. Worry crossed his features—she had stayed up late until 1am to finish her math homework, and if she hadn't called Syaoran for help, she would've stayed up longer.
"Sakura? Sakura!" came a voice from outside the door. Kero recognized the voice as her father's, as her brother had already left the night before. He could hear worry and concern in her father's voice, worried that his daughter might be sick.
Like a tired zombie, Sakura shot straight up, but her eyes were still closed. The remnants of her dream seemingly faded to the back of her mind the moment she heard the knocks on the door. "Huh? Yeah. Yeah?" she murmured out loud.
"Sorry to wake you."
"No, no, no, no," Sakura yawned as she stretched. "You didn't. I've been up for…hours." Her head then drooped again for a brief second before she forced her head back up. "W-what is it, otou-san?"
"Time to get ready!"
"O-of course," Sakura mumbled. "…ready for what?"
"For school, of course. Isn't it your week to do classroom duties?"
"C-classroom…duties…"
Outside the door, Fujitaka frowned as Sakura didn't respond after that. She wasn't sick, was she? He wondered why she sounded so exhausted. He soon found that he didn't need to worry when he heard a loud "HOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" from the other side of the door. Chuckling, he went back downstairs, knowing that Sakura was now fully awake.
Inside her room, clothes were thrown about as Sakura quickly changed out of her pajamas into her Tomoeda High uniform as quickly as humanly possible, then stuffed her summer homework into her black school satchel.
"Geez, Sakura, you still have a bad habit of running late," Kero commented.
"Not now, Kero-chan!" Sakura groaned, swinging her satchel over one shoulder and rushing out the door. She took the stairs two at a time and briefly glanced at her dad when she got to the bottom.
"Good morning dad!"
She turned her attention towards the photo of her mom next to the dining table. "Good morning, mom!"
"You're not going to eat breakfast?" Fujitaka asked.
Sakura shook her head. "I can't, I'm super late."
"In that case, take this boxed lunch with you," Fujitaka said, handing her her bento wrapped in a checkered cloth.
Sakura smiled gratefully up at him and took the bento from him as she stood up. "Thank you!" She pushed the door open and quickly skated out. "I'm leaving!" Her free hand went up as she waved over her shoulder.
"See you later!" Fujitaka called out after her as she ran out the door.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins as Sakura ran as fast as she could to the nearest bus stop down the street, wishing she could go back to her younger days when she had skates to help her get to school faster. She didn't have her license yet so she definitely couldn't drive-though that would be moot since students weren't allowed to have a school parking permit anyway-and she was not as tall as her brother was at 17 to go around riding his bike or borrow Yukito's bike. She also cursed herself for choosing to go to Tomoeda High, a school on the other side of Tomoeda and further away from home than Seijou High where Touya had attended. The fact that Tomoeda High was on the other side of town was also the reason why she had to get to the bus stop, as getting there by foot would be near impossible, even for someone as athletic as her.
Rounding the corner, she suddenly found herself crashing into someone and let out a shriek as she and whatever she hit went tumbling down, her arms flailing for balance but to no avail.
"Oww…" she mumbled in pain as she glanced at her scraped palms. "It hurts…" Remembering that she had crashed into something, she looked up and gasped in surprise when she saw a dark haired man, probably in his late 20s, groaning and letting out a string of expletives in a foreign language that Sakura quickly recognized as English.
"Ah, I'm so sorry!" Sakura cried as she got up and skated over to the man, holding her hand out helpfully.
"Bloody Muggles, I should—" the man swore before glancing up. His eyes widened as they came into contact with concerned green ones. Never did he imagine he would run into her like this. The day before, he had gone to the Japanese Ministry of Magic, hoping to get information on her but was peeved to learn that she was not in any of their records and wondered how someone with magic could even be unregistered.
Sakura stared back at him, confusion written in her eyes. She had never heard of "Bloody Muggles" before, and wondered if it was an English slang that she didn't learn about yet.
"I-I am so sorry," Sakura said, switching to heavily accented English, hoping he could understand her.
"It's fine," he said pleasantly as he got up and dusted himself off.
Sakura's shoulders sagged as she let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."
"Are you in a hurry?" the man asked.
"Huh? Oh...yes..." Sakura said, struggling to remember how to put together a coherent English sentence. "School...late..." In her mind, she berated herself for not paying more attention in English class.
"Well then, I shan't be keeping you, shall I?" the man said. "What is your name?"
Sakura looked surprised at his question. "Kinomoto Sakura," she said hesitantly. Then remembering that English people said their given name first and their family name last, she corrected, "I mean, Sakura Kinomoto." Noticing the bus pulling up to the bus stop at the curb ahead and other people beginning to board, she quickly bowed to the man as another form of apology before hurrying to catch the bus before it could pull away from the curb and leave her behind. The man watched as the bus she got on drove off. Once it was out of sight, the man disapparated. He reappeared in front of the door to the drawing room in Voldemort's newly acclaimed home and headquarters, just like the day before. Taking a deep breath, he knocked.
"Enter," a high, cold voice spoke from within.
With a twist of the knob, the man entered. After allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he could make out six other figures sitting at the long table in the center of the drawing room, two on either side of the table. As usual, Voldemort sat at the head of the table in his ridiculously large armchair. The man quickly walked over, bowed respectfully to Voldemort, and took his seat.
"Well? What have you found out about the girl, Dimitri?" he asked.
"The Japanese Ministry of Magic has no records on the girl named Sakura Kinomoto," Dimitri responded. "It is possible that she is a Mudblood, my Lord, since she attends a Muggle school and is involved in Muggle activities. She appears to be a simple-minded and naïve girl."
Voldemort frowned as he processed Dimitri's words. All around him, whispers broke out.
"How is it possible that a Mudblood would be our Dark Lord's undoing?" Theodore Nott asked. He was one of the newest recruit of Death Eaters after the Second Wizarding War.
"It's not possible," spoke Amycus Carrow. "Not possible at all." Next to him, his sister, Alecto, nodded in agreement.
"Dimitri, are you sure you have the right girl?" Draco asked. He stole a nervous glance at Voldemort. While he hadn't had his memory altered because Voldemort still believed that that the Malfoys, though incompetent, were on his side, Draco still erred on the side of caution. Next to him, his newlywed wife, Astoria, squeezed his shaking hand and gave him a small smile of support. Though she wasn't a Death Eater herself, she stayed by Draco's side to offer him support. She knew from the depths of his eyes that he didn't want to do this, not when he had an 8 year old son to think about.
"Of course I do!" Dimitri snapped. "Who else in Japan has green eyes?!"
As his Death Eaters talked amongst themselves, Voldemort was deep in thought. So the prophecy was saying that a Mudblood would be his next cause of downfall? It was ridiculous, and even more ridiculous was the thought that a Mudblood, especially a girl at that, could be more powerful than him, the greatest Dark Lord in wizard history. He even doubted that this young teenage girl could be more powerful than Dumbledore, the only man Voldemort truly feared. However, he had learned before from past experience with the Potter boy, now dead, not to underestimate anyone. He held up a hand, indicating for his Death Eaters to stop speaking.
"Keep a close eye on her, and report back to me with any news you have about her."
"Yes, my lord!"
