"Sakura, what happened here?" Fai quickly crouched next to Syaoran and rolled him on his back, looking over his body for injuries. "Did you kill all those hunters?"

"S-Some…" She tried to answer, not bothering to wonder how he knew it was her, but her voice was nothing more than a weak whisper. "S-some of them." she finally managed to get out.

"Some? Who killed the others?" he inquired, still busy looking over Syaoran. Sakura felt Syaoran's aura flare up for a moment before receding completely. Fai's eyes flicked in her direction and for a second, she thought his pupils were the color of the clear sky, but he blinked and the concerned orbs that looked at her were still gold. He helped her lean against the wall before he climbed to his feet to look for the key to unlock the cuffs around her wrists.

"It was…" she was having difficulty forming the words. Despite the falling rain, her mouth was dry, her tongue completely numb and her throat parched. "It was Syaoran."

Fai's whole body froze as he reached out for a pair of fallen keys near the corpse of a hunter. Straightening up, he turned around to face her, his features pale and his eyes wide.

"What?" he breathed, looking at her incredulously.

"I don't know what happened. One minute he was clutching that tattoo, screaming in pain and then his aura flared up and the next thing I knew he was slicing up hunters left and right and... Fai, Syaoran has magic." her tone grew hysterical as she spoke. "What the hell is going on? One of them said they need him alive for something. And… Oh God! He has a sword sealed into his body! A friggin sword! Why… Why is there a sword sealed in him?"

"Syaoran is a very good boy," Fai told her quietly as he unlocked the manacles encircling her wrists. Sometime during her hysteria, Fai had regained his composure and retrieved the keys. He was still a little pale but all she could on his face was profound sadness. "And… he has suffered a lot more than you can imagine." The handcuffs dropped in a puddle of rainwater with a soft plat and Fai moved away from her. "Please don't mention any of this to Kurogane."

Without saying anything else, he draped Syaoran's prone body across his back and stood up without staggering under the weight of the unconscious teen. Fai was a lot stronger than he looked.

Mulling over his words, Sakura forced herself to calm down before she stood up and began following a forlorn Fai. As she neared the end of the street, she spotted a fallen but undamaged link-pad. Without any hesitation, she picked it up and shoved it in the pocket of her jeans.

Jeans?

With a jolt, she realized she was back in her own clothes. The woman she had changed into had been wearing a dress, so the darts not only shut off her magic, they also nullified smaller spells. Which meant that if her clothes were back to normal, then her hair and no doubt her eyes were also back to being her own as well. Which was of course, how Fai had recognized her.

A couple of streets from the place where the encounter had occurred, they came across a panic-stricken Tomoyo. The rain had lessened to a light drizzle by now and soon enough a tense and worried Kurogane appeared at the other end of the street.

"Mage!" the captain shouted long before either of them could call out in greeting. The medic and the raven-haired man raced across the length of the street to reach him where Tomoyo immediately began bombarding the two with questions about Syaoran's well being.

"Don't worry, Tomoyo," Fai gave her a wide, reassuring grin, "Syaoran is not injured. He just passed out."

"Are you sure? I should probably check him when we get back." The lavender-eyed woman worried her lip. Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura noticed that Kurogane was watching Fai with a slight frown on his face. But he did not say anything.

"What happened to your face?" he asked as he turned his garnet-eyed gaze to observe her instead.

"Um…I ran into some hunters." She answered somewhat self-consciously.

"Oh God! Are you alright?" Tomoyo finally took in her ragged appearance.

"Yeah. I'm... fine," she looked over at Syaoran's relaxed face and felt something stir inside her. Her shoulder throbbed dully but she ignored the pain. "Totally... fine." She looked away and started walking towards where the ship was docked. Overhead, the clouds parted and a cheery sun shone on the wet city.

-0-

Sakura turned and twisted uneasily in her bunk but sleep was parsecs away from her. The events of earlier that day replayed in her head over and over again. With a grunt of frustration, she ran a hand through her hair.

A small beeping sound alerted her to an incoming message on her laptop. She jumped to her feet and padded across the cold floor towards the small table that was bolted to the wall. She pressed her index finger on a small, grey-colored semi-sphere placed on top of it, with its flat side facing downwards. In size, it could not have been much larger than her fisted hand.

As she retracted her finger, a small panel opened on its top and a 3 dimensional cubical screen was projected before her. Expertly she typed out a command across one panel on the screen before her and immediately a menu was displayed as the cube rotated ninety degrees. Again she typed more commands and the screen rotated obediently.

This time, the screen showed a control panel for the gal-net command centre. A satisfied smile spread across her lips as she bypassed various security protocols and acquired a secure connection. She muttered a simple spell to avoid detection and accepted the intra-galactic call.

The smiling face of Chi greeted her when the screen rotated another ninety degrees.

"Hey, Chi," Sakura felt a smile spread across her own lips at the sight of her genius friend. "Don't tell me you already cracked the codes."

"But I already did crack the codes," the brown-eyed blond grinned.

"Have I ever told you how amazing you are?"

"You have," Chi nodded, "but I wouldn't mind hearing you say that again."

"Chi," Sakura laughed, "You, my friend, are simply amazing."

"Thank you." the blond replied happily.

"You are welcome," the brunette nodded before her expression grew serious, "So, did you go through them?"

"Yeah," Chi grew somber as well, "and I think you might find out some of the answers this time."

"Some of the answers?" Sakura frowned in disappointment.

"Well, it's better than nothing, right?" Chi pointed out. "Although the reason I said that was because you're gonna have a lot more questions before you are through with this data."

"Why?" her brow furrowed.

"I'll send them over and you can see for yourself."

"Alright."

A barely audible 'blip' told her that the files had arrived. Sakura typed out a command and the cube opened up, splitting into four individual screens with one of them displaying Chi's angelic face, while the other three presented various codes and commands.

"Check out the file named 'Project Tsubasa'," Chi suggested helpfully.

"Project Tsubasa?" Sakura's frown deepened as her gaze wandered to the powered off Netcom link-pad that she had nicked earlier.

"What's wrong?" the blond hacker asked, noticing her friend's sudden thoughtful expression.

"Nothing… It's just that I ran into some hunters in the Bazaar today," she answered distractedly. She reached out for the link-pad, turning it on and linking it to her laptop. Normally such a thing would have been impossible to accomplish but Chi was a genius. And Sakura had learnt everything she knew from the blonde so it wasn't that much of a big deal for her.

"Whoa!" Chi exclaimed as a fifth screen popped up before Sakura and knowing that her friend was using a laptop similar to hers, she knew that a identical screen had opened up for Chi as well. "How'd you get your hands on a link-pad?"

"Nicked it from a dead hunter." She answered casually as she began searching through the databases to get to what she wanted to show her friend. "You remember how I always got frustrated when the hunters came after me even when I went out as myself?"

"Without any of your disguises, right?" Chi nodded.

"Yeah," Sakura replied, her eyes flying across the latest screen as she bypassed password after password. "I finally found out why." She informed her in a grim tone as she gave the final command and the screen blinked once before displaying a regular wanted page- the kind the government put out for criminals and magicians.

"What the…" Chi's eyes widened as she read what the page displayed.

"Exactly." Sakura answered, turning her attention to the stolen files that she had her friend crack for her.

"But this means that…" the blond spluttered.

"I know." She answered, scanning the list of documents, "Bingo." She tapped the file titled 'Project Tsubasa' and three windows popped open.

"Oh hell..." Chi mirrored the horror Sakura had felt when she had first seen that wanted page. "Sakura-"

"I'm not the only one they want for this thing, either," she interrupted the blonde, "check out the next one."

"Xiao-lang?" Chi spoke the foreign name with some difficulty.

"Look at the classification." Sakura nodded, not looking away from the three windows as her eyes scanned the list of files.

"It's the same as yours." Chi frowned.

"And the next one as well." Sakura supplied.

Chi scrolled to the next page obediently and her mouth fell open.

"Y-Yuui…"

"Yeah, he is also-" she broke off. Noticing the distress in her friend's tone, she looked up only to witness Chi's face as all color drained from it. "Chi?"

But Chi was staring straight ahead, not looking at Sakura.

"What's wrong Chi?"

"Yuui…"She breathed, staring at something behind Sakura. The brunette looked over her shoulder only to see a flash of gold vanish into the hallway. A frown made its way to her face but she hid it quickly, looking back at the stunned hacker.

"No, that's the ship's pilot," Sakura shook her head, "Fai."

A choked noise escaped from Chi's throat but the blonde quickly looked away.

"Right… Ahem… um… yeah. The files. Look at the one titled 'Seals'." Chi said even as she opened the desired file for her.

All thoughts flew out of her mind as she took in the image displayed before her.

A set of seven black pairs of wings outlined by a black circle. The overlapping white circle and its outlining black circles and the interlocking branches were absent. The longer, solitary shaft was also missing in the picture but then again, she had never expected those to be there anyways because all that had been carved on her body much, much later.

The overlapping symbol had been designed to contain the effects of the winged seal after all.

"That's…" she trailed off, wide eyes staring at her friend whose brown orbs were slightly bloodshot for some reason.

"The seal on your shoulder." The blonde completed for her.

Sakura was suddenly aware of the way her whole body was quaking, cold sweat making its way down her flesh. She gulped and realized how parched throat was. It was just like earlier that evening, like the time in the Bazaar with Syaoran.

"I have no idea who this Wolf guy is supposed to be," Chi continued, pulling up a new window for her to see, "but I would bet all my electronic gadgets on the fact that Blossom refers to you."

Sakura skimmed over the file containing a lot of technical information on God knew what but she did gather that it was some sort of experiment.

"Oh God…" she gulped again as she felt all warmth leave her body. "What the hell is all this?"

"Take a look at this seal."

"I've seen something like this before," she whispered as she stared at the black circle with two long, large mirror shaped images in the middle. They were similar to an elongated 'c' along the bottom but the top extended upwards, finishing in a point similar to the shadow of a bird's extended wing. However, the image was not completed there. Six more sets of similar 'c's, each one smaller than the previous set, were also placed inside this circle. Now that Sakura looked at the complete picture, she could easily tell that it was the same as her own winged seal, the only difference was that their colors were inverted.

"Chi," Sakura tore her eyes away from the image before her, "is it okay if I talk to you later? Maybe tomorrow? There is something I need to do."

"Alright," the blond nodded, her face strangely blank.

"But um… before I go… Can I ask you something?" she asked a little hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Did you know a Yuui?"

Her friend's face suddenly had an expression that Sakura couldn't place.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, alright Sakura?" Chi said in a voice so cheerful it had to be fake. Before she could utter another word, the window displaying Chi's face flickered out of existence as the message of 'Connection Terminated' was shown in its place.