I know you all won't forgive me for not updating in so long. But here's the chappie, if anyone's still reading.
Just something I need to make something clear, as Sakura seals a card the spell she uses turns it into a Sakura card at the same time. I couldn't be bothered to make her say two spells each time so I made it simpler. Sorry if I confused anyone. xD
Chapter 11: Jade Vase of Purity
~~*~~
After a long period of awkward silence, Sakura finally spoke up.
"Well, I'll go tell them you've woken up. We'll bring some food soon. And Li Shan wanted to wait until you were awake before telling us about our quest."
"Saku..Kinomoto…"
"You should go back and lie down."
She left, closing the creaking, painted doors behind her.
~~*~~
Sakura, Meiling, YiDao, Kero and Li Shan clustered around Syaoran's bed, where Syaoran sat, leaning against the head board, spooning some steaming congee into his mouth slowly.
"Should I start from the story of The Great Dragon and Tian Long, or have you heard of that already?"
Li Shan glanced at each of the teenagers. Even though he was only in his mid thirties, Li Shan had a downy beard he often stoked, making him look old for his age. His eyes were deep black pools, and it seemed like if you looked into them, you would be lost in all the wisdom stored in his mind, years of experience and knowledge.
"We have heard that already. Please explain more about the artefact containing Tian Long, and where we could possibly find it?" Meiling replied for everyone.
Syaoran stared at YiDao, he seemed to understand what was going on instead of looking lost, as Syaoran had expected.
Maybe they told him while I was unconscious.
"Ahh, the artefact. That special ornament, if the rumours are true, is almost impossible to obtain."
"Impossible? Why? How else are we going to finish this quest and get back to our time?" Meiling looked taken aback.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sorry, please continue." Sakura hastily interrupted, hoping her wouldn't question further.
"As you have yet to explain your quest, it is quite hard to help you. All I can do is tell you everything I know. But I have the feeling you won't be explaining your motive any time soon."
They all shook their heads.
He sighed. "I just hope it is for a good cause."
They all nodded, after a bit if hesitation. It was a good cause…it was helping themselves…right? And capturing a Card to save the world from destruction. Yeah. It was for a good cause.
Li Shan sighed,
realising they wouldn't be saying much more.
"Very well then.
The artefact, legend has it, is a small, fragile vase made of pure
jade. A very delicate piece of fine art, with intricate carvings that
crafters nowadays can't replicate. It is said that the vase was
made by The Great Dragon himself, crafted out of the Jade Pool in the
heavens. Anyone with an evil mind or motive, will burn if they touch
it. The Great Dragon sent it to Earth to rid evil doers. But then
dark magic was found, and that is exactly why Tian Long is in there.
As if to mock the Great Dragon, if he is still alive, by sealing his
trusted companion in his very own Jade Vase of Purity, as it was
called."
They listened expectantly.
"The vase was found by someone holding great power, and is now in that person's house, sitting in the grand Hall of Fine Arts, amongst the other valuable ornaments."
"So we can just go to that person's house, find the hall, and then…borrow the vase. That's pretty easy, right?" Meiling summed it up.
"Ah. Yes. But the only problem is that the person's house will most likely take you days to walk from one end to the other."
"Holy shhhhhh. Uh…who's that person?"
"You can't be talking about…?"
"Oh god no…"
"His majesty, the Emperor of China."Li Shan confirmed.
"WE NEED TO GO TO THE PALACE?!?!"
"FML."
"I'm afraid so."
"But what if we get caught by the gazillions of guards they have in there? What if we get lost? What if it's NOT EVEN THERE! IN THAT FREAKING HALL OF DIVINE TARTS OR WHAT EVER IT WAS!!!"
"Meilling, I'm sure he said Hall of Fine Arts…"
"SHUT UP YIDAO! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M HYPERVENTILATING!!?!?"
"Ah, but you won't get lost. A mysterious traveller sought refuge here a while ago. To repay my hospitality, he left me a map, which I later worked out, was a map of the Imperial Palace. You'll have no trouble finding your way to the Hall. As for the guards, and whether the rumours are true, that is your problem."
Sakura sighed. "But we have to give it a try, or we'll never get out of here."
Syaoran was deep in thought, and Yi Dao was busy calming down Meiling. No one replied, so Li Shan continued.
"One last thing, the ornament does need a sort of 'key' to activate it. Without the key, Tian Long will stay trapped, and it will just be an ordinary, but costly, jade vase."
"You mean there's more crap we have to find?!!" Meiling cried.
"That is all I can help you with. It is up to you whether you use my information or not."
He reached inside his sleeve and pulled out a folded piece of crinkled, yellow paper.
"I will leave the map with you. Young adventurers, I wish you luck."
With a sweep of his robes Li Shan left the room, they listened until his footsteps faded.
"…Well…?"
Meiling was finally breathing normally again. Sort of.
"This is ridiculous! It's like one of those MMORPGs I play online all the time!
YiDao decided not to ask what a MMORPG was and where was 'online'.
"Well, when do we set out?"
"Sakura are you crazy?"Meiling turned to her with a look of disbelief.
"She's right. When are we going?"
"Syaoran!"She turned to Syaoran with the same look.
"Well what do you want? Stay here till you start decaying? Well no thanks, I'm more used to the 21st century."
"But…"
"Meiling, didn't you always want some adventure, something exciting?"
"But the freaking Imperial Palace?"
YiDao nodded at Meiling's words.
"We might get beheaded…"
"Stop encouraging Meiling. There's always the Fly Card!"
"…But it will be fun. Life has been too boring recently."YiDao concluded.
"That's right, YiDao."
"But…ok. I guess…it'll be…interesting. And cool. And awesomely exciting…and and…like the MMORPG I'm currently playing…and…"
Syaoran cut her off. "Right so when-"
"But that doesn't mean you're coming Syaoran."
"What are you talking about, of course I'm going!"
"Syaoran, you can barely walk."
"I'm fine. And I can't trust you guys with him." He glared at YiDao.
"If we meet up with guards, I can fight."
"Syaoran, no."
"I said I'm-"
"NO."
"She's right."
"Sa…Kinomoto?" The word felt so…strange. He hadn't used it in so many years.
"You shouldn't come along. Not that I care about your health or anything. You might…um… slow us down."
"Well in that case as long as I don't slow you down, you wouldn't care if I died or not, so I'm going."
Sakura opened her mouth to argue, but couldn't think of anything to say back.
"Tonight. We'll go tonight."
"Syaoran! You can't even walk properly!"
"I said I'm fine! We can't waste any time. To get from here to Jin Cheng, it'll probably take us at least a day. And that's by magic."
Meiling looked at him quizzically.
"Jin Chen…?"
"That's Beijing. Capital of China. In ancient times they called it Jin Chen."
"Oh right."
"Beijing?"
"Just never mind, YiDao."
"So by the time we get there, I'll be back to normal. And we can follow the map, get the vase, find the key, capture the Card, and get the hell outa here."
"But…"
"No buts."
"How do we get there?"
"Good question YiDao."
"I can take some of you." They all looked at who had talked and realised it was Kero. They had almost forgotten about him.
"Well this bath sponge here can take what, two people? If he carries more we won't get there fast enough."
"Hey! Who's the bath sponge you brat!"
Syaoran looked at him uninterestedly.
"You are."
"Why you…!"
Kero humphed and crossed his little arms. "I won't pick on someone who's unable to fight. We'll continue this later."
"Hey! I can still smash you into an irregularly shaped bath sponge in this condition!"
"All right, bring it on!"
"Shut up, both of you! We have more important things to discuss right now. I have the Fly Card…so how's the fourth person going to get there?"
"See Syaoran, you shouldn't come! Just stay here and rest!"
"Bath sponge can take you and YiDao, since you both don't have magic. Kinomoto can use her Fly Card. I have my ways."
"Syaoran! You're not going use your sword are you?!"
"Sword?" Yi Dao scratched his head. The his eyes widened and he looked horrified.
"He's going to kill himself?!"
"No, you douche bag."
"Douche?"
Meiling face palmed. "Nevermind. Anyway, Syaoran has this thing where he can enlarge his sword until it becomes almost like this hover board thing. He can control its direction when standing on it. But it's going to drain him even more! Syaoran, you're already energy deprived, now you're going to use all your magic too?"
"Meiling, you should know by now that my magic isn't that crappy. I'll be fine. I know what I'm doing. And plus, I know when to stop before I harm myself because we might need a quick escape later on. Or in case we're caught by the guards…"
"If you knew then you wouldn't be like this now."
"That was different. I was saving a life."
"Let's not…bring this up anymore." Sakura interrupted.
"Since Li is so determined, I don't think any of us can stop him. Let's just let him use his sword. Pack everyone, we're leaving tonight."
~~*~~
"I can NOT believe I'm taking this out again!" Sakura groaned. She was holding a very disturbing Card in her hand. Namely, the Colour.
Meiling giggled.
"Wow, I'm sorry to hear about that Sakura. Must have been a funny day. But we're gonna need it."
Sakura sighed.
"I'll just quickly do this and get it over with."
She transformed her key.
"Make all our clothes black, Colour!"
A swirling light hit their clothes, and seconds later, they became pitch black.
"Hey it worked! But I thought you said Colour hated shades." Just as the last word left Meiling's mouth, their clothes shimmered and glowed and suddenly became rainbow.
"MY EYES!" Sakura screamed.
"I really really REALLY don't like this Card!"
Meiling couldn't help it and burst out laughing. Even Syaoran cracked a smile.
"What an epic fail. Guess we're going to have to ask Li Shan again. Hopefully he won't ask why we're asking for the clothes that assassins usually wear…"
Kero laughed so hard he rolled off the bed. Sakura bonked him on the head. YiDao gazed at the shimmering clothes, his eyes shining in awe.
~~*~~
The wind whipped past their ears, a mysterious animal howled lonelily, sending chills down Sakura's spine. The trees trembled, rustling the leaves, whispering eerily.
Lucky I'm in the air…
"I'm hungry."
"Meiling we ate before we left."
"I know, but I'm still hungry."
"Don not worry, we will be there by tomorrow night."
"Oh that helped so much Yi Dao."
Sakura sighed and lagged behind purposefully, leaving the conversation.
They were heading towards Beijing at high speed, making good progress. But Sakura couldn't help but notice Syaoran, who for the last ten minutes, had been dropping lower and lower until he was hovering just above the ground.
A few times he even skidded against some bump rocks or logs, making his sword/board tilt dangerously.
Don't even look at him. Don't look. Don't think. Just fly. Just fly…
A small shout interrupted her thoughts and she looked down, to see Syaoran had crashed in the forest, his sword shrunken back to its usual size.
Sakura sighed again and swooped down to him.
"I don't know if this will work but…"
She twirled her wand in her hands.
"Create a pair of wings for Syaoran, Create!"
Shimmering pink light flew to Syaoran's back. He felt a mild sting before feathery, silky wings spouted from his back.
"Kinomoto…I…"
"You were slowing us down. Now hurry up, I don't know how long I can make them last." Her tone was emotionless, but Syaoran was still happy.
"Thanks."
"Just hurry up and fly. I'm allowed to help…a friend."
She flew off and Syaoran did a few experimental flaps and sped after her.
"I'm glad."
"About what?"
"You're still able to consider me a friend…after all that."
"I'm not that bitchy." She gave a small, amused smile.
"I'm glad."
"You're repeating yourself."
"I know."
"Shut up and fly."
~~*~~
"Wow."
"Imperial Palace much?"
"Wow." Meiling repeated.
"Seriously, this place is freaking the size of Tomoeda!"
"Wow."
"Can you say something else?" Syaoran huffed annoyed.
"Wo-hey. Owwww. Didn't have to abuse me." She mocked a hurt face and pretended to rub her 'abused' arm that Syaoran just hit.
"I warned you."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not."
"Did…this is stupid."
"You're stupid."
"You're face is stupid."
"Yours is worse."
"Is not."
"Yes it is."
"No it's not."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes.
"No.
"No."
"Yes."
"Ha, yes it is worse. Fail."
"Sh-"
"GUYS!" Sakura screamed.
"SHUT THE EFF UP AND THINK OF A WAY TO GET INTO THE HALL WITHOUT BEING NOTICED!"
Sakura jumped of the roof they were on and looked around cautiously. According to the map they had entered from the side and were now in one of the many courtyards of the entire palace. Sakura marvelled the unique structure of the palace courtyard, the outdoor hallways with delicate patterns carved in the wooden railing and poles, painted a deep red or green, the little huts with stone benches and chairs, crystal clear ponds with giant goldfish and soft pink lilies poking out of the water sparkled under the moonlight.
It was silent except for the occasional croak of a frog, hidden amongst the lily leaves.
The rest of them, all wearing black clothes and with black scarves covering half their faces, jumped down from the roof and joined Sakura.
"Now according to the map, the hall should be just there, along the hallway thingie, past the second entertainment room, past the weaponry display. We just have to cut across there and around the corner, we should be able to see it."
She told them, instructing the directions while pointing to the map.
"Right so, let's go."
YiDao looked around happily as the quietly crept, careful not the break the serene atmosphere.
"I'm surprised they did not hear all the noise before when the two of you were arguing. We must be lucky. Maybe there are not many guards patrolling tonight."
Suddenly, Meiling's eye widened to the size of saucers. Syaoran warily put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Sakura quickly stuffed the map into a pocket and grasped her key.
"Uhh Yi Dao? You might wanna rethink that."
They walked without noise, like cats creeping steadily on a rooftop. Each of them held a deadly weapon, made to kill quickly and efficiently. They were dressed in almost the same type of clothing like Sakura, Syaoran, Meiling, Yi Dao and Kero, except with a tiny blue pattern sewn on the sides of their boots. The only difference was there were about 20 of them. And they were real assassins, trained to take the life of others. They started moving towards them, at an agonisingly slow pace, as if showing them that they wouldn't be able to escape in any way. Their weapons gleamed under the moonlight, thirsting to spill blood.
Syaoran realised what they were here for.
"Shit."
~~*~~
Hmm more dialogue in this one. Sozzies if the last part was a bit weird.
Hehe this doesn't
count as a cliffie right? I got a few death threats, kinda scared to
put a cliffie now. Hehehehehhe. SOZ FOR THE LONG UPDATE!
YOU CAN
SCREAM AT ME FOR IT IN A REVIEW!
PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! I really love reviews, they inspire me to write more and just make my day. Seriously. PLEASSSEEE don't read this and not be bothered to review! Even if your review is just a :]
Even if you don't put your name! As long as i know one more person reads my story! And that's enough! Or even if you put this! :[
Then at least I know there's something to change! (though i know perfectly well I have too much to improve on)
But PLEASEEEEE REVIEWWWW!
