Sakura...
The soft, deep voice whispering to her seemed to pull at her very existence, tugging at her soul, demanding her to listen to it.
Sakura... Sakura...
"Who are you? What do you want?" Sakura whirled around, trying to find the owner of the voice, but all she could see was dense, blue-gray smoke, smelling strongly of vanilla and incense. The voice echoed around her, seeming to come from everywhere, but she could feel someone's breath, warm and soft against her ear.
I'm coming back, Sakura.
"Coming back?" Sakura called into the heavily-scented smoke.
I'm coming back to you, Sakura. I'm coming back...
"No, wait!" Sakura ran to where she thought the voice was coming from, but found nothing but more blue-gray smoke. "Wait! Don't go, please!"
The voice began to fade away. I'm coming back, Sakura... I'm coming back... coming back... coming... back...
"No, don't leave! Please, don't go! I need to know who you are!"
Just as Sakura thought she was fully alone, someone suddenly grasped her hand, freezing her in her tracks before she could turn around and see who it was. The voice was back again, but not echoing around her; it was right next to her, whispering softly, almost lovingly into her ear.
"I'm coming back to protect you, Sakura."
Sakura opened her eyes and bolted upright. It was the dead of night, Kero was still fast asleep beside her. The curtains fluttered in the breeze, and the wind cooled the beads of sweat forming on Sakura's forehead. Sakura took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She pulled the covers away, put on her slippers, turned on the little table lamp, and gasped.
Lying in the place of the little pencil box that Oto-san had given her for her tenth birthday was a clear crystal vase filled with a dozen flawless white roses. The vase had a blue satin ribbon tied around it. Sakura lightly fingered the silky petals and felt Kero stir beside her.
"Sakura? It's three in the morning, what are you doing up so - whoa," Kero muttered softly as he flew up to rest on Sakura's shoulder and saw the bouquet of roses. "You got a present? From who? And when?"
"I... I don't know," Sakura said, sincerely puzzled.
Kero flew up to the bouquet, inhaled deeply, and was suddenly wide awake. "Is it...?" he asked, seeming to talk to himself. Kero took another whiff of the beautiful flowers, then touched the petals. "Yes - yes, it has to be. It's got to be."
"What? What is it?"
"Clow Reed," Kero answered, in a hushed, reverent voice.
"Clow Reed?" Sakura repeated incredulously.
"Yes. Don't ask how I know, I just do."
"But that's impossible!" Sakura began, but then she stopped. "Clow Reed... that's impossible... unless... unless you mean..." Sakura bolted out of bed and ran downstairs with Kero at her heels.
"What are you doing? Are you going to use the phone? It's three in the morning!!"
Sakura grinned. "Not in England," she replied, and picked up the phone.
"I can't believe you talked me into this," Syaoran said sullenly, shuffling his feet uncomfortably as he, Tomoyo, and Sakura waited at the airport.
"Oh, don't be such a downer," Tomoyo said cheerfully, arming herself with her video camera. "I, for one, am very happy to be seeing Eriol-san again."
"Besides, he or Mizuki-sensei might know something about what's going on with the Lost Cards and everything," Sakura added. "After all, Eriol-san was the one who fought the Lost Cards in the first place. Half of him, anyway."
Tomoyo kept her camera perpetually aimed at the arrival gate. All of a sudden she started jumping up and down like mad. "They're here!! All three of them! Eriol, Mizuki-sensei, and Nakuru-san!! They're all here!!"
"Nakuru-san's here?" Sakura felt her stomach tie up in a knot. If Nakuru ever found out that Touya and Maeko were going out...
"Wow, Eriol-san looks so different!" Tomoyo cried, continuing her play-by-play. "His hair!! And his glasses!! Sakura, he looks great!"
"Great," Syaoran muttered. "Can I go now?"
Eriol looked around for a little while, his dark eyes searching the crowd for Sakura. Sakura remembered the lure those eyes had, how gently they had always looked upon her... she caught herself almost falling for him and waved. "Eriol-san! Over here!"
Their eyes met, and Eriol's face lit up with a smile. He, Kaho, and Nakuru made their way over to them. "Sakura!" he yelled, and wrapped her in a friendly embrace. "So good to see you again," he said. "You haven't changed a bit, I see."
"And you look so different," Sakura said, noting his thick black hair pulled into a loose ponytail, a few stray locks of hair trailing onto his shoulders. His glasses were different now, small square-shaped lenses with thin wire frames. She looked behind him at Kaho, who had cut her russet hair so that it just brushed her shoulders. Nakuru didn't change at all, but then again it was something Sakura almost expected of her. She could hear Syaoran grumbling behind her, complaining about the amount of time Sakura had spent in Eriol's embrace. "Okay. Back to business. Why did you come here?"
"Eriol could sense that something terribly wrong was going on here," Kaho answered. "Naturally he was concerned for everyone's safety."
"Yours in particular," Nakuru teased. "I swear, all he'd ever go on about was Sakura, Sakura, Sakura. I was this close to bopping him over the head."
Eriol gave Sakura an innocent smile, and Sakura couldn't help but blush. Syaoran began grumbling audibly about something that set Nakuru off. "You shut up," she snapped. "Excuse me, you didn't even say hi to me today. No 'Hey there Nakuru, it's nice to see you again Nakuru, let me get your bags Nakuru'."
"No wonder Touya-san hates you," Syaoran muttered.
Nakuru grinned. "Glad to be of some use around here."
"You don't know what you're up against, do you?" Eriol said softly, taking Sakura's hand.
It was all Sakura could do not to wrestle it out of Eriol's grasp. "I have an idea. Three cards. Evil ones. All out to get me because they hate you - I mean, they hate Clow Reed."
"That's the gist of it, yes."
"So how can I track them down?"
"That's the thing. I could probably help you there, but it's been so long since I last saw the Lost Cards that I couldn't pinpoint them out even if I tried. But there is something I could give you to help you." Eriol dug through his backpack. "It was of tremendous aid to me."
"Aw, you got her a present?" Tomoyo cooed. "Why didn't I get a present?"
Eriol smiled. "Don't worry, Tomoyo-san, you're special too. Ah, there it is." Eriol pulled a necklace out from the depths of his bag, a thin silver chain with with a star-shaped pendant of pink opal. He fastened it about Sakura's neck. "This is something of a magic tracker; it won't track down exactly who has a Lost Card on them, but it tracks down who's under their power and to what degree. As I said before, this was incredibly useful to me when I first encountered the Cards - of course, it wasn't a pink star at first, I had that redone to suit your purposes..."
"Thank you," Sakura said, lost for words.
Syaoran stood off at a distance grumbling. "First he goes and stalks her in her dreams, now he's giving her expensive magical presents. I can't believe this guy."
Tomoyo playfully punched Syaoran in the arm. "You're so jealous."
On the way home from the airport, Syaoran tapped Sakura on the shoulder while Eriol and the others were engaged in conversation with Tomoyo. "I don't want you wearing that necklace," Syaoran muttered.
"Hoee?! Why not? This could help us, you know."
"Look, just don't wear it, okay? I have a really bad feeling about that thing."
"Why, because Eriol-san gave it to me?"
"I don't trust Eriol," Syaoran said sharply. "You know it and I know it. He tried to destroy you the last time we saw him, remember?"
"He wasn't trying to destroy me, he was trying to help me out with the Sakura Cards," Sakura retorted.
"That's what he says. Look, I don't care if he's an incarnation of Clow Reed or not. I don't trust him and I don't think you should either. He could just be out for your powers too, just like the Lost Cards are."
"You're just jealous," Sakura yelled, catching the attention on everyone on the bus.
"Jealous?! Are you crazy? Why would I be jealous?"
"Oh, gee, I don't know, maybe because Eriol is sweet and kind and understanding, because Eriol actually realizes I exist, because Eriol cares about me very much and you do nothing of the sort?!"
"See, that pendant's already gone to your head! Get it off now!" Syaoran's hand wrapped around the star-shaped pendant, and he shrank back in pain as the pendant burned itself into his skin. "Ow, that burns!"
Sakura gasped, surprised that Syaoran had been hurt, and hastily unfastened the chain. She wrapped it around her keychain. "There, it's gone. Are you happy now?" And then, "Are you alright? I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," Syaoran said, shooting an angry look at Eriol as he sat laughing and talking with Tomoyo and Nakuru. Kaho was several seats ahead staring out the window, deep in thought. Eriol's dark eyes locked with Syaoran's amber ones, and for a moment the two shared a furious glare, a glare between rivals. "Is there a problem, Syaoran-san?" Eriol asked, kindly but with a frosty edge to his voice.
"Everything's just peachy," Syaoran answered, with a heavy overtone of resentment in his voice.
Sakura looked back and forth between Eriol and Syaoran, and burst into tears. "You two are such blockheads!!!" she shrieked, and ran from the seat beside Syaoran to the empty seat next to Kaho.
Sakura spent the next week completely alone.
Touya was constantly out of the house with Maeko, and the only time she'd seen him at home was when he introduced Maeko to Oto-san. The next day, Oto-san left for work at five in the morning and didn't come back until three the next morning, then left again at five. Chiharu and Naoko were never at school anymore, although Chiharu had been seen out in the fields scrounging for rocks and Naoko was usually at the grocery with her arms full of marmalade jars and sliced bread. Rika and Terada-sensei were always together, hanging off each other like a couple of lovesick puppies.
"Crazy," Tomoyo had muttered. "All crazy."
But it seemed that Tomoyo had soon fallen into the craze. After talking to Maeko in the library, Tomoyo was suddenly unable to go out at all during weekends.
"You can't be serious!" Sakura exclaimed. "We always go out on weekends. You said so yourself that you never have anything to do."
"Well... I'm working on something incredibly important."
"What can be more important than catching a movie?"
"Plenty of things, for your information." Tomoyo walked away in a huff, and didn't speak to Sakura for the rest of the week.
Eriol had enrolled for a few weeks at Seijo because he couldn't afford to miss his schooling, and the animosity between him and Syaoran continued. They couldn't pass each other in the hall without glaring at each other or throwing some sort of insult. Sakura was sick and tired of it. She talked to both of them outside during lunch.
"Look, if you guys have some kind of beef with each other then that's okay," Sakura said. "But I'm sick and tired of you fighting, especially when I'm around. If you can't settle your differences then I don't see why I have to get involved. Talk to me after you stop acting like a couple of two year olds." With that, she walked away.
Sakura spent pretty much the rest of the week alone, staring sadly off at her friends as they went on with their little obsessions. Even Kero disappeared eventually, spending most of his time at Eriol's apartment talking with Suppy and Kaho. Sakura woke up Saturday morning to find herself completely alone. She walked down to the kitchen and found three notes on the table, one from Oto-san saying that he'd be at work for the entire weekend (No surprise there, Sakura thought angrily), one from Touya saying that he was spending the weekend up at Maeko's cottage with Yukito and some other people, and one from Kero saying that he and Suppy had hit on something about the Lost Cards and he'd be over at Mizuki-sensei's house discussing about it. "Finally, some good news," Sakura said to herself.
"What's the matter, having a bad day?"
Sakura whipped around and gasped. Maeko was sitting atop the counter behind her, smiling smugly. "How did you get in here?" Sakura demanded.
"To-ya gave me a spare key," Maeko replied, her voice sweet with a deliberate scornful edge. "I'd have thought you would have been suspicious, seeing as he never does that."
Sakura was startled but tried not to show it. "Get out of here. I thought you were up at the cottage. That's what Oniichan's note said."
Maeko smiled another smug smile and lifted her hand. A blazing fireball sat in it. "I thought I'd pay you a visit," she said darkly.
Sakura backed up against the wall as Maeko approached her. A loud, high-pitched whistling sound was going off in her head; she wondered why Maeko didn't seem to hear it. Then she felt something around her wrist becoming warm... it was Eriol's charm, picking up something from Maeko. And somehow, Sakura knew it was something definitely bad.