Disclaimer: I do not own anything having to do with Tsubasa Chronicles and most likely never will! Well except the plotline of this fic and Emiri.

Tainted Memories

Chapter 11:

"Emiri, what are you doing?" Sakura asked as she sat up, looking towards Emiri who had just finished dowsing the camp fire. Syaoran and Kurogane were still sleeping while Fai, Sakura, Emiri and Mokona had gotten up ten minutes earlier. With all four of them working, the camp grounds were cleared easily since there was very little to actually clear. Emiri was holding two flat metal objects, one in each hand. They were attached to small knobs at the centre and slightly caved inwards. Emiri said they were called cymbals.

"That's odd, Kuro-pin is usually up before everyone," Fai said kneeling down beside the sleeping samurai while Mokona poked his arm.

"Syaoran too," Sakura stated moving towards him.

"You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you Emiri?" Fai asked slyly, coming up beside her and kneeling down slightly so they were eye level. Emiri involuntarily stepped back at the close proximity.

"Well, ummm," she stuttered and smiled sheepishly. "I may have had something to do with Kurogane still sleeping, but I swear I did not put anything in Syaoran's dinner that would make him oversleep," Emiri said putting her hand behind her head.

"So how do we wake him up?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, I can think of a way," Emiri said, lifting up the cymbals that were still clasped in her hands. They gleamed in the sunlight as she walked towards Kurogane. She turned her head to the other two and put her finger to her lips to tell them to be quite and then pulled Mokona off of Kurogane. She slowly raised the cymbals to his ear and loudly clamped them together, creating a ringing sound that echoed off the mountains.

Kurogane jumped up and immediately got into a fighting position, his sword out of its sheath and its holder in an attack position. Emiri had already moved back towards Fai and Sakura, pulling Mokona along with her. Syaoran had awoken by the noise and quickly looked around to see what the commotion was. When he saw that there was no threat, he relaxed and made his way towards the others.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!" Kurogane yelled, turning his head this way and that trying to find the culprit. He turned on Fai and Emiri who were both standing a little ways off to the side, Emiri trying to hold in her laughter. "IT WAS YOU!" he yelled, his gaze showing his anger as he moved in strides over to them.

Emiri slowly moved so that Fai was in the middle of her and Kurogane, shielding her from his smouldering stare. Fai looked back at her and she looked at him with pleading and apologetic eyes. He only smiled back. When he turned his face towards Kurogane again, he found his nose centimetres away from the tip of Kurogane's sharp blade.

"Out of the way mage," he said in a deathly whisper. "I know it was that little girl who did it, now move so I can kill her." Fai held his arms up in front of him and leaned back.

"Now, now Kuro-woofy, you don't know Emiri did it, I didn't see her do anything," Fai said, still smiling. "Ask Sakura too, she never saw anything, right Sakura?" Fai said, his and Kurogane's head both turning to look at her.

Sakura's eyes widened as she looked back and forth trying to figure out whether they were really talking to her. She didn't say anything.

"There, you see Kuro-woofy? Sakura didn't see anything either," he said. "Now let's put down the sword and play nicely with each other," Fai said as he used his finger to move Kurogane's sword out of his face.

"Fine, but I know it was you," Kurogane said as he stormed off. Emiri quietly sighed as Fai turned to face her.

"Thanks," she said shyly, not looking him in the eyes as he knelt down and whispered into her ear.

"Let's give our little guard dog a break. We can't have him too stressed," Fai said and then went off to talk with Syaoran. Emiri gave Kurogane a cooling break before leading the group towards the snow capped mountains. Mokona took up residence on Emiri's head, chatting about his latest dream of dumplings, Emiri nodding every once and a while pretending to listen.

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"Ouch! Get off me stupid mage!"

"Oh dear," Emiri spoke softly.

"I can't see a thing!" Syaoran said.

"It's too dark," Mokona stated.

"Syaoran?"

"Over here princess."

"Where are we?" Fai asked.

"Looks like some kind of tunnel," Emiri said, a light coming into appearance from the end of her staff.

"Now look where we've landed! It's your entire fault. I knew we shouldn't have followed you," Kurogane accused.

"Now, now, calm down. How was I supposed to know an angry mortagle would knock us into a ditch." Emiri sighed looking around. "It looks like there's a tunnel underneath the ground. When we came down we probably rolled into it and then the roof caved in."

"Mortagle? Is that what that thing was? What was is exactly?" Syaoran asked.

"Oh don't ask. It's kind of a long story and I don't even know if it's true, something about glubulars and anmorates." Emiri answered, if that could be considered an answer.

"Fat lot of help that is, thanks," Kurogane sneered.

"Oh, your welcome," Emiri said brightly.

"So how are we supposed to get out? Do you know where we are?" Syaoran asked now standing, Sakura close behind him.

"I've never heard of this tunnel existing. It's either very new or very old. Hopefully it's old," Emiri said.

"Why is that?" Sakura asked.

"Well, if it is new, someone is probably here. If it's old, we can assume that nobody's been here for thousands of years, and that means no trouble. At least with living things," Emiri explained.

"Well then we might as well follow the path. It looks like the only way out of here," Fai put in. The group decided to ignore the last of Emiri's sentence.

The group slowly made there way through the dark tunnel. Mokona or Sakura would jump slightly from the loud dripping sound that reverberated throughout the tunnel. Soon they came to three breaks in the tunnel, one leading to the right, one going straight and the other turning left.

"Let's split up. We can meet back here in thirty minutes so that we can see which tunnel leads where," Kurogane said with an air of authority. Everyone nodded there head in approval and split up into three groups of two.

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"Wow, it's so beautiful," Sakura stated in wonder. Along the path her and Syaoran were taking (the left one), softly illuminated crystals jutted out of the walls of the cave. Each one of them seemed to glow as if a small fire were at the center of each crystal. Syaoran just smiled and kept walking. So far, they had not seen anything, dead or alive. It seemed as though the tunnels were uninhabited.

Despite their beauty and lovely appearance, the crystals were soon starting to become a hazard. At the beginning, the crystals only appeared on the side walls of the tunnel. Soon they started to see them on the roof of the tunnel and then further on, on the floor.

"Syaoran!" Sakura cried. Syaoran quickly leapt out of the way of a large, pointed gemstone that had fallen from the ceiling. The gemstone's point landed almost silently in the ground, vibrating before becoming completely still.

"Are you alright?" Sakura's concerned voice came from a little way off. She was running towards him but before she could help him up, her foot caught on one of the crystals jutting out from the ground and she tumbled over. Syaoran tried to catch her but ended up falling back to the ground himself, Sakura landing on top of him.

"Princess, are you alright?" Syaoran's concerned voice spoke into her ear, which was very close to his mouth.

"Yes," came her meek reply, but Sakura didn't make a move to get off him, still a bit shaken from the fall.

"Uh, princess?" Syaoran spoke, now noticing just how close they were.

"Hmm?" Sakura's oblivious voice answered. She soon realized what he was talking about and jerked up moving to his side, a blush gracing her face. Both their eyes met for a few seconds, but neither of them could take the embarrassment and looked away simultaneously.

"I … think we should go back now," Syaoran stated, uncomfortable after the occurrence. Sakura merely nodded her head in the affirmative and let Syaoran lead the way back to where the paths came together.

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"I'm telling you, we should go this way," came Emiri's strained voice.

"And I'm telling you we should go this way," Kurogane's voice answered with just as much strain. Both of them were trying to keep their voices down. They encountered multiple near cave-ins as they walked down the path, neither of them wanting to state that they should go back. Doing so would damage both their pride. That, and the other would gain bragging rights on how the other "chickened out." Of course none of this was spoken; it didn't have to be. Their path (the center one) divided into another two paths after ten minutes of walking.

"Fine, how about you go that way, and I'll go thisway," Emiri said more as a command than question. Without an answer, Kurogane walked along the path to the left while Emiri took the path to the right.

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"Stupid idiot," Emiri mumbled to herself. "Why does he never listen to me?" She kept walking forward not really paying attention to her surroundings illuminated by her staff. Her mind too focused on her anger towards the half-witted samurai that was strutting along the other trail. She started feeling kind of bad for the samurai. He didn't know what was in this world, and what if something happened to him. She was glad she had made him a small light source before their argument. But she quickly banished the thought, their recent argument playing around in her head again. Soon though, she started hearing a low voice up ahead.

She quickly grabbed her staff, her hands holding it in a tight grip in front of her. Whoever was there didn't hold any energy signature that she could feel. They must be very strong to hide it from me, she thought. She bent her knees slightly in an attack position as she approached the area where the sound originated.

She was almost there, the voice was getting louder. Her foot caught against something and she almost fell over but managed to catch herself. She berated herself for making that mistake, she had made a slight scuffling sound and the voice had stopped. She felt a strong tension in the air and knelt down closer to the ground.

She cursed herself for getting into this situation, if she had been more observant, instead of being angry, she could have caught this a lot sooner and saved herself the trouble of getting into a fight. Crud.

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Kurogane, on the other hand, was very calm. Well at least, that was how he looked. On the inside however, he was raging. Who the hell does that little twerp think she is! As if my intuition could be wrong!

Soon though, the turmoil in his head got too much for his mind to carry and he had to let out his frustration in some way. Soon his thoughts turned into speech as he let all of his frustration out in mumbles.

His mumbling was stopped though from a sound to his right. He quickly pressed his back to the wall, listening for any other sign that may help him identify the culprit. He slowly made his way forward, keeping his ears open for any sound that may reach them.

His hand grasped his sword and his gripped tightened, ready to attack whoever was there.

Metal clashed with wood as Kurogane jumped out only to strike at Emiri who had her staff up in a defensive position against his sword.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Kurogane yelled, Emiri's grayish silver hair was slightly blown back by the force of the attack and her blue highlights seemed to glow eerily in the dim light.

"I SHOULD BE ASKING YOU THAT!" Emiri yelled back.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU KNOW THE PATHS CROSSED AGAIN! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE OUR GUIDE AND YET YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU'RE WAY AROUND YOUR OWN WORLD!?"

"WELL EXCUSE ME! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE PATHS INTERSECTED AGAIN! IF YOU'RE SO SMART WHY DIDN'T YOU FIGURE IT OUT?"

"SHUT UP TWERPY MAGE!"

"WHY DON'T YOU SHUT YOUR OWN TRAP, DAMN MONGREL!"

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"Dumplings, dumplings, lots and lots of dumplings!" Mokona was singing from atop Fai's shoulder. Fai was smiling lightly as they went through the tunnel. Mokona's head stone provided a small light source that helped guide them through the otherwise dark path.

"Well, it doesn't seem like this path offers any way of escape, does it Mokona?" Fai asked the cute manju, now humming his song, on his shoulder.

"Mokona senses something up ahead!"

"Hmmm? Maybe we should go see what it is then," Fai said, and continued walking. Mokona stayed silent as they crept closer to a reddish light ahead of them. As they came closer, they could here drums echoing in a steady rhythm and so decided to move slower and with more caution.

"What are they saying?" Mokona asked.

"It sounds like some kind of chant, maybe for a spell," Fai said.

"Fai, Mokona doesn't like the sound of what they're doing. Let's go back and tell everyone what we found. Maybe they found another way to get out of here."

"Alight let's go then," Fai said, giving in quickly. He, too, wasn't too eager to see what they were doing.

As he and Mokona came back to where each of the tunnels broke off, they found Sakura and Syaoran already there waiting for them.

"Where are Kurogane and Emiri?" Fai asked.

"They're not back yet. We've been here for about five minutes," Syaoran said.

"I hope nothing bad happ-" Sakura almost said when a loud rumbled filled their ears. It was coming from the center tunnel.

"What the …" Syaoran trailed off as both Kurogane and Emiri tumbled out right before the entire roof of the tunnel caved in. The group started coughing from all of the dust and debris in the air.

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Emiri said pointing to the, now, blocked entrance of the tunnel.

"ME!" Kurogane yelled in disbelief. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO STARTED EVERYTHING!"

"I WAS NOT!" Emiri yelled back in abashment.

They were about to attack each other but both Syaoran and Fai held them back.

"Kurogane, calm down," Syaoran said, holding back Kurogane with all his strength.

"You too," Fai told Emiri who was slightly calmer after a few moments of trying to escape from Fai's hold. Both of them were breathing hard. Once they seemed to be calmer, Fai and Syaoran let them go. They both started to walk towards each other. Sakura had her hands on her mouth, eyes wide with Mokona imitating her.

They were both standing inches away from each other, Kurogane towering over Emiri, though it didn't seem to bother her. They looked each other in the eyes for a minute and then both simultaneously looked away in different direction. The rest of the group let out a large sigh and Syaoran and Fai sweat-dropped.

"Okay then, seeing as Kurogane and Emiri's tunnel is caved in did you and Sakura find anything?" Fai asked.

"We didn't really get a chance to find anything. If there is a way out, it's too dangerous to get there. The ceiling is full of sharp crystals and they're unstable. If we go that way we'll probably be skewered," Syaoran replied.

"It looks like we'll have to go through that place then," Mokona said.

"What place?" Emiri asked, her interest spiked.

"We didn't really see it with our eyes, but there was a light farther down the tunnel and someone was chanting some sort of spell," Fai said.

Emiri stood frozen for barely a second before speaking.

"Show me."

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A/N

Alright I know, don't kill me! I am still alive, believe it or not, well I gues you have to since I'm FINALLY updating. I hope nobody has gotten bored with the story from lack of updates, If you did I can't blame you cause it was a REALLY long wait and I know that. So I'm EXTREMELY SORRY for the long wait but here it is so enjoy if you can and please review because I appreciate every single one of them! And thank you to those who reviewed last chapter and thank you very much for those who have stuck with this fic throughout all of the chapters!