Links in a Chain
Chapter 7
Meeting new friends, Seeing old friends
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my cute little descendant. You look like your enjoying yourself..." Someone's taunting voice floated down from somewhere above them.
"Hiiragisawa," Syaoran hissed, met with a wry chuckle not far away.
"Eriol!" Sakura exclaimed, backing away from Syaoran with an inspired blush darkening her cheeks. "How in the world did you sneak up on us?"
"A magician never reveals his secrets." Eriol jumped down from his perch on the high rock wall, landing with the grace of a cat. He brushed nonexistent dirt from his clothes, shaking out his head of midnight hair. Sunlight glinted off the lenses of his glasses, hiding his dark azure eyes for all but a second.
"Eriol what are you doing here?" Sakura asked politely.
Eriol's smile widened. "I should be asking you two the same question...?" He trailed off at the sight of Sakura's state of dress, Syaoran's clothes hanging off of her slight frame, her hair mussed, her cheeks flushed. His dark brows arched up in disbelieving amusement. "Well now, maybe I needn't ask what you've been up to."
"It's not like that Hiiragisawa," Syaoran warned with a black look.
"It's not like what?" Eriol teased, eyes glittering.
Syaoran's attempt at a nasty glare missed its mark, or otherwise the other sorcerer was immune. "We were attacked last night, in our dreams. I'm surprised you didn't sense the new magic in the area – it's potent, and powerful."
Eriol's expression clouded darkly, storm clouds gathering in his eyes. His lips parted, though his words were cut off by a lilting voice calling out for him.
"Eriol? Eriol, where did you go?" A feminine huff echoed in the air. "You were here just a second ago."
"My dear, I'm over the rock wall," Eriol called, his expression switching from dark to bemused as quickly as he might have put on a mask. "Come see who I've found."
Not far along the wall, a gate opened up and a young woman of considerable charm popped her head out, mouth forming a pouting mou. She quickly switched expressions upon discovering their new company, amethyst eyes lighting up as they settled upon Sakura. With a flick of her long fall of dark hair, she rushed out to welcome her best friend with an eager embrace.
"Sakura, look at you in that outfit!" she laughed, putting the girl at arms length to get a better look. "These clothes, where did you get them?" Her sharp eye followed the seams, the patterns, and quickly realized why the outfit screamed familiar. Her gaze swung to Syaoran, one dark brow arching up much like Eriol's had.
Syaoran rolled his eyes. "It's not like that."
"It never is," Tomoyo drawled, pressing her cheek to Sakura's reddened cheek. "I'll be sure to get all the juicy details from Sakura later."
The redness of Sakura's cheeks only deepened. "There's nothing to tell – well, nothing of the sort of thing you're thinking about."
Tomoyo's eyes danced. "Sure there isn't."
Eriol became an unexpected rescuer, laying a gentle hand to Tomoyo's arm. "You can pester her later. For now, I am sure there are some explanations that wre dearly needed."
"Oh, you're right of course." Hooking her arm around Sakura's arm Tomoyo dragged her through the gate without a backwards glance.
Watching the giggling girls disappear behind the blackened iron gate, Syaoran turned to the midnight haired teen. "What are you doing here Hiiragisawa?"
Eriol considered the question for a second before shrugging. "Some friends of mine are moving in to this house. It's only right that I offered to help them move in." He cast a narrowed eye on the house, its appearance out of sorts with the neighbourhood it had been dropped into. Its black siding and white trim gave it a forboding feeling, a house that should have been haunted rather than lived in.
"So helpful," Syaoran scoffed, eyeing his surroundings with more than a little skepticism. "And where, exactly, is this place?"
"On Earth," Eriol replied cheekily.
Syaoran's mood darkened. "Where on Earth are we?"
Seeing his brand of humour would get him nowhere, Eriol relented. "We're standing on Tsukama Drive, in the Ookami Estates - one of the oldest estates around here, I think. It's just on the outskirts of Tomoeda. You must have heard of it before, you've lived here long enough."
Surprise winged through Syaoran, eyes darting around anew. "The park doesn't stretch out this far."
"No?" Eriol laid a hand to Syaoran's shoulder. "Come, you can leave this business to the list of things you will tell me later. Right now I must insist that we follow our lovely ladies, as I fear it is not good to leave them unguarded around my old friends."
"What sort of friends do you have, Hiiragisawa?" Syaoran dared to ask.
"You'll see," replied the sorcerer, his smile sharp as a diamond edge.
They followed the girls through the gate, though Syaoran was forced to draw up short as if hitting a wall. The force of magic that overwhelmed him for a split second was enough to choke, leaving his breathless, his ears ringing. Sakura was likewise visibly affected, a hand clutching the front of her shirt where her heart pounded a discordant beat.
Tomoyo remained unaffected, her bewildered expression a testament to that.
Eriol, on the other hand, should have felt something but remained staunchly unreadable.
"What was that?" Sakura murmured, untangling her arm from Tomoyo's to come to stand by Syaoran. But instinct, she tugged her friend with her, making sure the only non-magical being among them was protected by their small trio of magic-users.
"Sakura, be on guard," Syaoran warned, a flash of gold flying out of the corner of his eye. Death's chains haunting in the shadows, and he would bet that Life was not far behind.
"What are they doing here?" Sakura whispered, watching with a hawk's eye from the silver she caught snaking its way through the underbrush. '
Tomoyo gathered her camera from her bag, ever ready to record some event of magical exhibition. Though she searched through the viewfinder, she seemed blind to the chains that appeared to be circling closer. "What are you looking at? Who's here, is it something bad?"
The answer lingering on Sakura's lips fell short of the crash that boomed from within the nearby house. A loud bellow followed, and a screech to match. Another crash, this one smaller and less painful sounding.
"Ah," said Eriol, having the decency to look sheepish. "Those would be the friends I mentioned." He moved to the back door, sliding it open. "Sorry, Dren, I seem to have left you hanging."
A low grunt echoed from upstairs. "Hanging is not the word I would use, but I could use a hand right about now."
"Oh no," Tomoyo exclaimed, tucking her camera away. "You left poor Dren to handle that armoire all by himself. I told you he wasn't strong enough to handle it on his own."
Eriol heaved a sigh, slipping into the house. He called an invitation over his shoulder, inviting the others in while he rode to the resuce of his ostensibly stuck friend. Syaoran followed on his heels, his skin still crawling from his earlier experience and not wishing to let the sorcerer out of his sight.
Tomoyo threaded her fingers through Sakura's. "Come on, we should go up too just in case we miss something exciting."
They trapezed up the stairs in time to watch a sturdy armoire of dark aged wood be hauled off the front of a young man trapped beneath. Though his cheeks were flushed from effort and his arms reddened from the harsh weight of the piece of furniture, he was a handsome figure of tanned skin and dark hair. His beetle black eyes briefly flicked to the girls before staidly moving back to the armoire, directing into the room it had been intended for with his newly enlisted help.
Syaoran cast an evaluating look upon the boy, wondering of any possible potential. He wasn't backward in his ideas regarding the use of magic; having an armoire dropped on you seemed like the perfect reason to use a little power. He felt no potential in the boy, and wondered if this so-called friend of Eriol's was magical at all.
A ghost bristled her way out of the opposite doorframe, bustling across the hall and into the room with the armoire.
Syaoran required a doubletake of the girl before he believed she was real. All long limbs and pale skin, she was swathed in a curtain of her own white hair, clad rather revealingly in a slip of a dress that was far too light from the cool temperatures of April.
"Dren!" the ghost exclaimed, slapping her palm to Dren's chest. "You shouldn't have tried to move that on your own! I told you it was too heavy!"
"It might have been easier if you had helped," Dren replied, taking her palm away from him.
She huffed and raised her other hand for an attack, only to have that wrist snagged as well. She tugged futilely, and then turned her nose up. "I was supervising."
"You would have supervised me into an early grave if Eriol and his friend hadn't shown up," Dren admonished, turning her around to face the company that watched with intrigued gazes.
The girl blinked up at the crowd with eyes bluer than the sky. "Oh. Hello there." She switched to Syaoran, cocking her head. "I suppose I should thank you for helping Dren."
"It was the least I could do."
The girl's gaze wandered around, falling on the pair of bright emerald eyes watching her from the doorway. A blush worked its way up her cheeks and she immediately twisted away from Dren's hold to skitter across the room.
"Hello," she breathed, taking up Sakura's hands in a rush. "You must be one of the friends Eriol mentioned."
Sakura laughed lightly, trying to be polite while wishing she had her hands back. "I'm Kinimoto Sakura."
"Inori Miaka," said the girl, leaning in too close.
Sakura stepped back once more, extracting her hand, only to knock into one of the many boxes lining the room. Odds and ends rattled loudly from within the cardboard, a top box dislodged from the pile. She startled in surprise, raising her arms to guard against the fall.
Helpless, Sakura's eye was drawn to the sudden jerk of Miaka's wrist. A nervous twitch.
From above her, she heard a muffled thump. The falling box, its course once set straight, now fell to the side harmlessly. Its contents spilled across the floor, paper-wrapped bobbles and figurines who looked no worse for wear.
"Well then!" Miaka exclaimed, a tad too brightly as she reached for Sakura's hands and drew her into the hall. "That was an awful close one! I'm terribly sorry about the box – we haven't had time to sort them all out, so they're just thrown wherever we could find room."
"It's no trouble," Sakura replied, finding herself towed back through the house by the ghost of a girl.
Miaka's eyes danced full of blue fire and mischief. "It honestly wouldn't have been a good impression if you'd been crushed in our house on the first meeting." They swung into the kitchen. "And to squash you in front of your boyfriend? Oh no, that would have been embarrassing."
"Boyfriend?" Sakura sputtered, finding strength to finally tug herself free.
Tomoyo looped around her with a laugh. "Now you've done it, Miaka."
"Did I say something wrong?" wondered the girl, and then quickly clapped her hands. "Oh! That boy up there wasn't your boyfriend?"
Sakura felt her cheeks flush a new shade of hot. "No, not at all! Syaoran and I are... well, we're..."
"One of those relationships, huh?" Miaka wondered, sending a knowing glance in Tomoyo's direction.
Tomoyo covered her laugh with a polite hand to her lips. "It's so obvious that a stranger can see it with a single glance."
Sakura was saved the trouble of defending herself by the heavy thumps of footsteps down the stairs. Dark heads appeared in the entrance of the kitchen, Eriol and Dren bemused, and Syaoran rather disgruntled. He was quick to seize on Sakura's wrist and draw her to him.
Tomoyo, though familiar with Miaka for only the last hour, sent her a wink. "One of those relationships."
Miaka nodded sagely.
Syaoran, not knowing what to say, simply glared.
Dren slid passed the group in order to snag his female companion. "I hope she wasn't bothering you," he bid to Sakura. "Miaka has a way of forgetting herself."
"As if you are so perfect, Owari Dren," Miaka huffed.
Eriol shook his head, deciding that he might as well pair himself off with the only other lovely lady in the room. It wouldn't do to let her stand by herself.
Tomoyo welcome him with a soft smile.
"And here I thought I could have introduced my respectable friends," he sighed with a shake of his head. "I suppose it wasn't meant to be."
"Respectable?" Dren wondered bemusedly.
"Us?" Miaka laughed.
Eriol laughed as well. "Whatever was I thinking?"
Miaka cast a smiling gaze outdoors. "How about we get to know each other outside on the patio? It's the only thing that's not a mess right now. I don't know what Eriol was thinking to bring friends over while we're still moving in." She brushed a friendly hand against Sakura's arm. "Don't think less of us now that's you've seen our mess of a house."
Syaoran's hand clenched around Sakura's wrist.
"No, it's fine," Sakura assured, ushered once more by the girl. As a group, they migrated out the sliding door to the haphazard patio set barely put together.
"Are you two living here alone?" Sakura wondered, taking a seat in one of the offered chairs. Syaoran hooked his foot around a leg and dragged her chair closer to his, his eyes remained distrustful.
"The house is..." Dren glanced back at it with a shrug. "An inheritance, if you will. Miaka and I are old family friends."
Miaka elbowed him with a false laugh. "Old, old friends, really. I'll get some tea and see if I can round up some snacks." She disappeared with a swing of her white hair, Dren following suit with warnings to mind some better manners around Eriol's friends.
Eriol pushed his glasses up his nose, eyeing the sliding door speculatively. "Now that Miaka and Dren are in the house, I would like a brief explanation of what has been happening with you two." His gaze switched to Sakura and Syaoran expectantly.
"Clow Cards." Syaoran's face fell into a drastically grave mask. "New, powerful, dangerous, and possibly insane Clow cards that are out for our blood."
Eriol stiffened and his eyes blazed with... could that be a slight touch of fear? "Somehow this sounds like a longer story then I thought it would be."
"Longer than what we have time for here," Syaoran confirmed.
Tomoyo laid a worried hand to Skaura's arm. "Are you sure you're alright."
"I'm sure," Sakura assured, patting her friend's hand. "It's just been a very long and... eventful night and day so far." She rubbed at her eyes tiredly. "Is this bad Eriol? Do you know anything about these new Cards?"
"I'm not sure," Eriol hedged, pondering the glass patterns of the patio table. "I need time to think on it. Clow Reed's memories are faint, I'll need time to sort through it all."
"In the meantime," Tomoyo pressed, clasping Sakura's hands, "how about we get you a change or clothes?"
"Do you have a change of clothes?" Sakura asked nervously, afraid Tomoyo had brought one of her homemade costume creations.
"Not on me, no," Tomoyo sighed with a sheepish shrug. "But you look around Miaka's size. With so many of her boxes around, I'm sure she can lend you something to wear to get you out of Syaoran's rumpled clothes."
"There's nothing wrong with my clothes," Syaoran groused. He rather liked the look of them on Sakura. The look fairly screamed possession.
Tomoyo rolled her eyes. "You have no sense of fashion."
Unseen from within the house, two figured listened attentively at the kitchen window.
Mikaela patted her blushing cheeks as she watched Sakura approach the house behind Tomoyo. "She's rather pretty, isn't she?"
"This is a serious time for us, Miaka. No time for any wayward crushes," Dren admonished. "Eriol's memories are faded and faint but even that greatly increases their odds of doing this."
Miaka rubbed her wrist as if something was chafing them. "It's funny his memories of us are fine but his memories of the Others have become faded." She sighed. "No matter what, they have to do this. It's a shame we can't help them more."
