Hello there! This is the fourth chapter of the Fateful Meeting! Sorry for not updating sooner, but I had many projects and FCAT is coming, so the teachers are using this as a chance to give us more homework! I hope you enjoy this chapter, because I personally believe it's one of my favorites! Oh, yeah, almost forgot.
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, only the plot of the story!
"Shield!" Sakura protected the group from the blast of water with her Sakura Card. The jet of water didn't give up, though, and soon pierced through the magical shield, making an aim to her best friend, Tomoyo. Sakura, however, was too far away from her so that she could protect her. "Tomoyo!" she yelled.
Instantly, Kurogane stood in front of her. "Hama Ryuuou-jin!" His special attack cut through the jet of water, stopping it abruptly. He grunted. "You'll have to do better than that to get us, woman," he said, directing his words to the woman.
"Thank you, Kurogane-san," Tomoyo said. Kurogane chuckled. "Whatever," he dismissed. But right there, at that moment, if felt like if he was protecting his princess. It didn't matter if this Tomoyo wasn't his Tomoyo; their soul was the same.
The pack of wolves began attacking the travelers. Kurogane, Syaoran and Shaoran got out their swords and started defending themselves from the clawed animals. When they had a chance, they sliced the animals, to which they disintegrated into thin air, leaving no traces of existence behind. But when they destroyed one wolf, three more came in its place. Fai was in charge of Tomoyo, Mokona and Sakura-hime, protecting them from harm, meanwhile skillfully dodging the attacks of the animals. The guardians fought alongside their master and friend, Keroberos throwing his powerful flame balls, meanwhile Yue hurled the shards and would get his bow and fire energy arrows. Sakura still didn't want to kill the animals in a savage way, although she knew that they were probably powerful illusions.
They won't stop! Sakura thought. They keep coming, and soon Fai-san won't be able to protect himself and Tomoyo and Sakura-chan! I know! Let's hope this works! Sakura got out The Erase card and summoned it. The card appeared and sucked every wolf into nothing, leaving the penguin park quiet for the first time. Sakura sighed and lowered her guard. She didn't see the wolf sneaking up to her.
"Sakura!" Shaoran yelled, noticing the sneaky attacker. Sakura turned and saw the wolf jumped to her, but before making contact it stopped in midair. She watched with fear and confusion as the wolf just stood there, not doing anything, not even breathing. It then disappeared.
"Interesting," the woman said out loud. "I guess I can't attack you. Could it be that...?"
Just at the exact same time, a wolf slipped past Fai's guard and sneaked up to Sakura-hime. The wolf, however, stopped before ever biting the princess. The wolf stopped like its previous partner and disappeared.
"What the hell?" Kurogane voiced.
"Apparently I can't attack neither of the Sakuras," the woman said.
"Why's that?" Yue asked. "The only owner of the feather is the desert princess."
"You and your brother should know more than anyone why, right?" The woman said, turning her attention to the pair of guardians. Said guardians' eyes widened.
"What does she mean, Yue-san?" Sakura asked.
"Nothing," he muttered.
Everyone once again returned to their fighting stances, knowing that the woman might attack again. "Do not worry; I won't attack again. I have found out what I wanted to. You see, I don't have the feather you search for-"
"You don't?" Syaoran asked, losing his faith.
"I am the feather," she finished. "I came here what is two months ago for this world. Since I'm much more powerful than any other feather, I created a consciousness and body. This body is what I believe my master will have in ten years."
"So I'm going to look like you in ten years?" Sakura-hime asked.
The Feather shrugged. "Perhaps, it depends on the decisions you take. However, when I first came into this world, I thought that my master was here. She had a big amount of magical energy and the soul was the same, so I began my search for my master... But rather explaining, why not show you?"
Everyone cautiously looked at each other, unknowing whether to trust the Feather or not. Both Sakuras nodded, however, so everyone followed.
"Yue," Kero whispered to his brother, "do you think it's time?"
Yue slowly nodded. "But we'll fight till the end..."
The Feather shone in a white light and swallowed everyone in the park to the Feather's own memory.
Hm... This world is surely different. For once it's a good thing that no one can see me. Let's see, where could my master be... She must be looking for me, of course, so maybe I should wait for her? No, with her current strength she won't be able to search too long. Then again, there's that boy who's always with her, the boy I love with all my heart. Syaoran must be helping me, in a way, find me. Because I am my master after all.
Speak of the devil! There she is; Sakura! I don't remember ever learning to rollerblade, however. And where did she get that uniform? Maybe she's blending in with her surroundings as a school girl... Hm... She looks distant. Something is bothering her quite a lot. She better watch out, however... Maybe she's looking for me!
"SAKURA!" someone shouted. It sounded a deep voice with an accent. I wonder who that-
MASTER!
I ran to my master. She had not seen the thing called car speed on the driveway and the car had injured her badly. So badly... So much blood... My master's blood! My blood! She's dying! Am I going to die?
"SAKURA!" the deep voice shouted again, and from the air appeared a lion flying carelessly around the town, meanwhile everyone looked in horror at the magic creature. I went for the pulse of the girl. It was so slow and shallow. She was going to die so soon, and I couldn't do anything to help her. The man who had ran over her disappeared, unfortunately. The coward...
"Mistress!" another voice said, the source of the voice quickly coming next to the unconscious voice. It was that of a beautiful young man, with silver hair.
"She's dying!" the lion sobbed. "She's dying!"
I finally reached my master. The lion and the winged man noticed me, but they were too absorbed watching my master and hoping for help. I touched my master's forehead to see the memories she had gotten so far, but instead was received with foreign memories, memories which were also complete, nothing missing.
One thing I was sure: this girl was not my master.
"Who are you?" the winged man finally asked.
"I'm a memory," I answered. "Sakura's memory."
"How?" the lion nearly shouted, going to hysterical.
"This is not the only Sakura. There is another Sakura in another dimension who lost all of her memories. I'm a manifestation of that memory."
"Can you do anything to save her?" the winged man asked, ignoring all the faults my story had. I thought about it for a while. The girl clearly was about to die, if not already dead, and she is Sakura. Besides, what harm would it be to keep her alive? Her wounds were too terminal to be healed, so I would merely keep her alive. I have more than enough to power and I can even continue existing without harming the memory I carry from my true master.
"I can keep her alive," I said, "however, I have three conditions."
"What are those?" the lion asked, a bit calmed, with one paw on the girls stomach.
"The girl and everyone in Tomoeda won't remember this happening, all except you two. This will be to protect my identity. The second one is that you can't tell anyone about this, it would be too problematic. And the last one is once my master reclaims me, I will take away all the power that is supporting your mistress."
"So when your owner comes..." the man repeated.
"When I merge once again with my master, the girl dies."
The man and the lion looked at each other, and then to Sakura. Then they slowly nodded, accepting the conditions I had given them. "But will she be the same Sakura?" the lion asked.
"Yes, I'm merely keeping her alive. This day existed, but no one will remember it. Nothing out of the normal happened here. We shall skip today and go to tomorrow."
"Won't anybody notice that a day passed?"
"They'll have an artificial memory of today, thinking that today was a normal day."
"Sakura had a dream today about someone looking exactly like her, and another brat... Are those the people we're supposed to expect?"
I was surprised that this Sakura dreamed the arrival of my master. They must be really the same, because my master also has the dreemseeing ability. I nodded. "She won't remember the dream either."
Sakura's breaths were becoming slower and shallower. "Please! Please hurry up!" the lion pleaded. Without hesitating, I placed a hand on the girl and my power and strength filled her. A day passed without anyone knowing.
Everyone stared at the Feather in surprise and disbelief, everyone except Yue and Keroberos. They didn't notice that they were no longer in the penguin park, but in the nothing. They could see perfectly, but there was simply nothing. They were standing in nothing.
"So," Sakura said, breaking the silence, "I technically died?"
The Feather sighed. "You didn't die. No one can be revived from the dead no matter how hard you try. I'm merely keeping you alive. However, once I go back to my master, the inevitable will happen. Your wounds will resurface and indeed, you will die."
"That's horrible!" Sakura-hime said. "I can never-" She fainted, being caught by Sakura before she fell to the floor, although there really was no floor.
"My master is very weak, however. She needs me," the Feather said.
"Please! Stop!" Shaoran yelled. "I can't let Sakura die! She can't die! Please, keep her alive!"
"What about Sakura-hime!" Syaoran countered, anger boiling in his head. "She's the true owner of that feather! Besides, she's very weak! She might die as well! And the guardians agreed on this!"
"We still don't want our Sakura to die!" Yue countered. "We'll fight for my mistress's survival."
"That feather is the princess's property, not yours," Kurogane growled, getting mad at the other group.
"And we're on a mission to restore Sakura-chan's memories," Fai added, his voice serious.
"We can't let you have that feather," Syaoran added. "I will do anything to save Sakura's life!"
"So shall we!" Shaoran retorted.
Syaoran turned to the Feather. "Feather," he started, "what do we do?"
The Feather looked at the two Sakuras. "My master seemed against merging with me," she began, "however I belong with her. But in the end I concluded that both are Sakura, the same person and at the same time different entities, and both can get my power. You will have to fight for it."
"I will fight," Shaoran said, determination evident in his amber eyes.
"We will fight too," Kero said for both Yue and himself.
"We will fight you, then," Kurogane said as he looked at the three opponents. He already knew that the kid would fight no matter what, and the stance the mage had taken the last minute was more of a proof that he would do anything for that feather. However, his opponents were strong. He had also observed them as they battled together, but he was sure they weren't weak either. They had a good chance of winning.
Tomoyo, Sakura, and Mokona watched in horror at what was happening. Sakura still delicately held Sakura-hime, not caring that the person she was holding could take her life away. Tomoyo was clinging to Mokona, hoping for comfort from the white creature. They were now looking at the line of warriors, which were facing each other.
"I would recommend if you didn't kill each other," the Feather said and Sakura gasped, "but it's only a recommendation. Now," she said, turning her attention to the girls, "you'll be with me. You're part of this argument, but not part of the fight."
A transparent bubble surrounded the three girls and Mokona, protecting them from harm. The Feather snapped her fingers, and the fighters were evenly distributed, having enough space to fight. Fai was going against Kero, Kurogane against Yue, and Shaoran against Syaoran.
Tomoyo chuckled nervously. "Leave it to a Sakura to completely turn this around."
Sakura sighed. "I just wish no one gets hurt. This shouldn't turn out like this. We could gone to an agreement... Why is the Feather forcing them to this?"
"Because," the Feather said, beside Sakura, "only the strongest can survive in this world. A person can be weak, but have strong allies and you're invincible to your enemies. The strongest group will get my power. Besides, there's no claim over me, so I make the rules, and this will be very entertaining."
"But can't you divide yourself? Give the power to Sakura-chan and the memory to our Sakura-chan?" Mokona asked.
"No; if I do, then I'll disappear altogether. Now observe the true power of a feather: turning allies into enemies for the power of life..."
Hehehe, so yeah, that was it! I personally believe that it was a twist, but I'm not sure about that. You see, I like CardCaptors and Tsubasa fighting together, but I would also like them fighting against each other! And what a better way than to battle for the feather? Also, here for the explanations to questions you probably might be having that won't be answered later in the story(I guess) and if they are then this saves me unnecessary dialogue :) These questions are also useful if you missed something:
?: If the Feather met Sakura before, then why didn't she recognize her?
A: She did. In fact, in the last chapter, she was sorry that Sakura couldn't remember. She just found it interesting that she couldn't attack any Sakura because she recognized both as her master now.
?: So why did Sakura almost die?
A: She was too absorbed with her dream that she didn't notice her surroundings.
?: What happened in the day?
A: Like Feather explained, no one remembers that day. They know that it happened, but they just don't remember anything out of the normal on that day, except Yue and Kero.
?: Why won't the Tsubasa gang just give up the feather like they did in Tokyo?
A: They just came from Outo, so they don't know they can do that. Besides, they don't have the complete consent from the princess and she's too weak, almost dying by now.
I guess those are the important, irrelevant questions you might be asking yourself. Also, I'm sorry for any OOCness that might've been in this story. Also, who do you believe is right: CardCaptors or Tsubasa? They both have good arguments, but that's just me. And who's gonna win (well, I already know that, but still)? Also, next chapters are going to be somewhat hard because they'll be detailed fights, each fight with it's own chapter.
Please Review and Comment your opinions!
~Andy