2-3b: Books and Keys

Breaker of the seal, guide the Light onto the path towards the dawn....

The first voice that had sounded out, the one with the light and melodic tone, trailed along after them even as all awareness began to fade away.

And as abruptly as their conscious minds had been snatched away from them, they just as easily regained their senses to find themselves once again within Tomoyo's room. The two of them blinked several times each, adjusting themselves to the sudden change in environments. Sakura made to step forward, only to find herself still sitting upon the sofa by the window where she had originally been.

"What happened?" Tomoyo asked quietly, with more than just a hint of worry within her voice. When she received only a pair of puzzled looks, she continued, "When you took the pendant from him, it was as if the both of you were suddenly hypnotized. Your eyes went blank, and you wouldn't respond to me at all. I was almost ready to call a doctor."

Tomoyo's worrisome state started to edge in on Sakura, which was evident in her voice when she asked, "How long... have I been...?"

Tomoyo took a quick glance at the watch on her wrist, "I think, almost six minutes now?"

"Well, that puts a name to the person, at least," Reios muttered quietly to himself.

Feelings of curiosity abound, it came as no surprise that both of the girls then looked to him with equally confused expressions. So he clarified his words, "That Clow person that you mentioned... the voice that you recognized? It was the same one that this guy was using in the dream that I had experienced just last night, after getting this book. He was telling me about this ancient adversary of the stars, or some such. I almost made mention of it after you started asking all of those questions, but at the time it just seemed so silly. Now, though, I'm not so sure..."

Sakura almost went slack-jawed after hearing that. That Reios had potentially experienced the same dream as herself only made it even more apparent to her that something important was going on, and that the both of them were somehow involved in it. But then, there had been three books from her dream, hadn't there? So who did the third one belong to?

"So, any idea of what just happened?" Reios asked, looking between the two girls and watching to see if they knew something that he didn't, "What was with the light show?"

That question drew Sakura away from her current thoughts, and she shook her head to indicate that she was as clueless as he, though he didn't really seem to buy it. She shifted her posture to gaze around the room in a vain attempt for answers, which made her realize that she was still holding his silver pendant tightly in her fist.

Once again, she held out the pendant to return it to its rightful owner, "Oh, here. You probably want this back."

The pendant fell away from her hand, hanging by the looped length of snake chain that she held between her fingers, and a collective silence gathered in the room. The changes were instantly noticeable. The orb-set dragon's claw had gained a small, extended stretch of a silver shaft about the length of her fingernail. It jutted out from the "wrist" of the dragon's claw, the chain piercing its way through the tip of the shaft instead of holding it from a wireframe loop that had originally been set into that very same wrist. What was more, two small protrusions, one slightly larger and longer than the other, extended out from the end of the shaft like a pair of teeth on a key, except that these teeth looked like something out of a dragon's mouth.

There was no mistaking what she had done, however she had done it. Sakura had somehow turned Reios's pendant into a magical key, and it was all too similar to her own in both size and shape. It was now also completely identical to the one from her dream, for that matter.

Despite all of the impossibilities that he had seen and experienced in just the last few minutes, Reios still attempted to take all of this in stride. Accepting the pendant back from Sakura, he examined it for himself, finding differences in that pendant which told his mind that this was surely not his property. For one thing, it was now almost half again as big as it had been previously, to say nothing of the protruding teeth and extra length of silver. To him, it almost looked like a kind of key, the type that mythical wizards would have carried around with them for one reason or another. Surely, this was a completely different object than what he had given over to Sakura.

And yet, at the same time, there was this strange familiarity that was lingering within and around it that told his heart that it was definitely his. The conflict of knowledge was driving him nuts.

"Alright, I'm completely lost now," he remarked, glancing back and forth again between Sakura and Tomoyo to check for any further reactions. Sakura looked to Tomoyo for any potential suggestions, and saw something akin to resignation within her friend's expression. Sakura pretty much knew what Tomoyo thought needed to happen, and she knew that Tomoyo was right. Nodding to herself, she rose up and stepped away wordlessly, ducking her way in through the blue curtains at the far end of the room to make her way up the stairs and to her stashed belongings.

While they waited, Reios looked over at Tomoyo to try and see if he could detect something out of her. Perhaps the two were hiding something from him, though he couldn't bring himself to believe that it would be for a malicious purpose. Tomoyo noticed him watching her and turned to look back at him with a somewhat hesitant expression. He raised an eyebrow at her suspiciously, but otherwise said nothing of it.

"Sorry for the wait," Sakura's voice called softly from beyond the curtains, through which she appeared moments later. In her arms was a pink-colored book, similar in size to Reios's white one, with similar golden circles and emblems engraved onto it. He noted the resemblance almost immediately.

"Okay, this stopped being a coincidence a long time ago, but now it's just getting ridiculous," he said, crossing his arms over his chest in disbelief.

"That was his favorite saying, from what I'm told," Sakura told him, closing the gap and stopping about a meter away from the couch that he was sitting on, "that there is no coincidence in this world. There is only necessity; inevitability."

"His?" he muttered, still as yet trying to sort out all of the pieces that had so far failed to fall into place, "You mean this Clow person that you mentioned?"

Sakura nodded slowly, her eyes closing as she took in yet another deep, calming breath. It was time to reveal everything she knew, and everything she was.

"His full name... is Clow Reed. He lived a very long time ago, though I'm not exactly sure of when. In his time, he was considered one of the greatest sorcerers in the world, and those that knew him say that he was and still is the greatest to this day. He was the one who created the Clow Cards, magical, creature-like spell forms that exist as simple tarot cards when they're not being used, and they are kept sealed away within this book during that time. Except that, because I inherited their power from him, I was required to change them all into new "Sakura Cards" so that they would draw from my magic instead of the diminishing energies that Clow had left behind. It's why this book now has my name on it, instead of his. Originally, the book had been red in color, and had Clow Reed's name and magic circle inscribed upon it."

Purposefully ignoring the fact that Reios now looked even more hopelessly lost than before, for fear that he would question her sanity if given the chance and subsequently cause her to lose her nerves, Sakura snapped open the latch on her book and placed it onto the table with the cover open so that Reios could see the contents within its hollowed-out pages more easily, "In short, I can use magic by utilizing the power of these cards. All of the cards, fifty-three in total, each have their own personality and abilities. Each one is unique in its own way. Their powers range from manipulating basic elements to turning your afternoon meal into a super-sweet desert."

She lifted out the first few cards of the deck and examined them, smiling to herself as she silently greeted her friends. Even though she had seen them just a few days ago, it felt like it had been an eternity since she had last opened the book. Flipping through the few cards that she had pulled out (that is to say, the Windy, Jump, Wood, Fly, Firey, and Mirror cards), she reveled in the warmth of their magic for just a moment more before handing them over to Reios for his own examination.

While he eyed each one thoroughly, she continued, "Out of all the cards, if I had to play favorites, I would say that these six are the closest to me. Though that's not exactly the real truth, because really, I love all of the cards as equally as I would my family. They're... kind of like children to me."

Reios shuffled through the six cards that he held, then asked, "And these cards... if they have their own personalities, can I assume that they have some sort of physical form, like a summoned entity? Or do you only utilize the powers that they grant?"

Sakura cupped her hands behind her back as she continued her lecture, at the same time feeling partially relieved that Reios seemingly didn't think of her as crazy, "They do all have a physical form, yes, but they can also act as just a presence of a sort, depending on how they're used. Typically, how they are pictured on the card itself is the representation of their true physical forms. It's also possible to invoke just their powers only, but I usually let the cards do things their own way. I like to believe that they were given their own free will for a reason."

"Alright... so, how do you use them?"

She had known from the start that such a question would eventually be forthcoming, but she still hadn't been mentally prepared for it. Answering it meant revealing all of her deepest secrets to someone she had only known for a little under two days, friend or not. Still, she had gone this far, and it was fairly obvious by now that he was involved in something that was related to her and Clow Reed. There was no sense in holding anything back.

"Well..." she said, hesitating for a moment more before gathering her resolve, "that's the interesting part." Reaching to her neck, she grabbed the two sides of the leather string that held her key in place and pulled it out from underneath her shirt, slipping it over her head to hold it out on display.

"Another pendant?" he asked incredulously, examining the pink, winged, star-set key and noting the similarities to his own pendant, "And I suppose you use that to control these cards?"

Sakura shook her head, "No, not exactly... well, just watch and see," she said, moving away from the grouped furniture set and into a more open area of the room.

"Oh, wait just a moment!" Tomoyo exclaimed, dashing up and around her chair and through the curtains at the back of the room before either of her two guests could even react. They could both hear the soft thumping of her steps as she swiftly ascended a staircase, and again moments later as she made her way back down. Sakura started to wonder whether Tomoyo had gone to retrieve– and then the dark-haired girl shot back through the curtains that she had disappeared behind just seconds before, holding a small video camera in her hands.

"Let me guess... can't miss a single shot?" she asked Tomoyo, trying to force a genuine smile but failing horribly at it.

"I could never forgive myself if I let even a single chance to record your greatness slip by!" her friend replied, and already she was in the process of recording Sakura's every action, "It makes me wish I could have recorded that lesson you just gave us!"

"H-hoe..." Sakura stuttered, though she realized that she should have known this would happen. Even Reios didn't seem very surprised, though his facial expression was still a questioning one. Some things just never changed.

Might as well make this look good, then, Sakura thought to herself, setting her mind and body into the familiar thoughts and stance that she would require for the spell.

"Key that hides the power of the Stars..."

The key floated itself away from her as she began her incantation, her hands dropping below the key in supplication as it began to glow in a soft light, which Reios realized was exactly what his pendant had done back in that strange space-world. The only difference was that this other pendant was radiating with a stronger aura than his had.

"Show your true form before me!"

He shot up from the couch in reaction to the glowing circle that had instantaneously appeared on the floor beneath her, the same circle that had appeared in that space-world from before. It was then that the realization finally hit him that he was witnessing the use of real magical power.

"I, Sakura, command you under our contract..."

Her hands raised up, focusing together the energy that was starting to surround and infuse her.

"Release!"

An immense aura of energy began to form all around her, its residual energies whirling their way around and through the room, responding to the power that Sakura had invoked as she shot her arms down then wide to summon the magic. The strange part of it all was that Reios was actually able to sense, even almost see that aura spiraling throughout the room. The waves and wisps of magic eventually focused in on Sakura's key, which was now enveloped within a sphere of impenetrable light. It was spinning itself around and around within that sphere, turning about wildly in all sorts of random directions. Reios risked his fears, all to have a better look, and took a few steps closer. He soon retraced those steps quickly as the key suddenly stopped spinning, growing longer and longer until it had transformed into a wing-tipped, star-set wand that was just under a meter in length.

With a face set in determination to control the magic that was weaving itself all around her, Sakura raised up her hand and snatched the wand out of the air forcefully, spinning it around her in a circle as though it were a baton before coming to a stop in her final pose, her hands resting one atop the other. Relaxing herself from the built-up tension, Sakura smiled for the camera, then turned to fully display the transformed wand, "This is what I use to control the cards."

Reios took up and stared at his own pendant – key? – and wondered if everything that he had been shown thus far was meant to teach him how to do the same thing. After all, those voices that they had heard had asked Sakura to do just that. Yet he knew that he was no magician, considering he had had trouble enough mastering even simple parlor tricks. Of course, everything he had just witnessed had blown such parlor tricks completely out of the water, which made it all the more difficult to believe that he now possessed such an ability as well.

Eventually finding his way back to the couch, he meanwhile muttered to himself, "Through all of my studies... this is easily the complete opposite of what I would have expected."

"Your studies?" Tomoyo asked, somewhat surprised that he was taking all of this in so easily. Then again, she had to remember that she had learned about the existence of magic starting with what looked like a toy animal flying out at her from a schoolbag, and she hadn't even flinched.

"What did you study?" she continued, completing her question.

"Generally speaking," he started, gesturing to the two books on the table, "all of this. Ever since I was little, I was enthralled by the thought of magic, of powers beyond normal human ability and comprehension. Thoughts generated by the then-recent passing of my grandmother, mind you. At the time, I had thought that if I could somehow learn how to use a power that no one else could, then maybe I could find a way to meet with her again? The delusional world of a child who could not possibly know better, perhaps, but in that world... it seemed so possible.

"However, my grandfather, who was all that was left to take care of me afterwards, was an inveterate worshipper of the Christian faith. He ended up wanting to have nothing to do with anything about me because of it, and for a time, we grew distant, never speaking. And when we did speak, it was often a lion's contest of roars and shouting. In the end, we both saw fit to maintain just enough of a relationship to keep our lives in one piece, just enough to barely tolerate each other's presence. Heh, actually, the one of a few times I can remember us being truly civil with one another was when he gave me my pendant, a few months before my eleventh birthday. Said it was a family heirloom that my father had entrusted to me through his will."

Reios noted the distressed, almost horrified look that had grown onto Sakura's face, and intervened before she could comment, "And before you go and say that you're sorry to hear of it, don't be. I'm not, and I'm quite certain that my grandfather never was." The resulting expression on Sakura's face clearly said that she didn't believe him, so he eased off the topic.

"Anyway, the only thing that had kept me going was the thought of my studies of magic, with the chance to see my grandmother again at stake. On continuous trips to the school and town libraries, I was always reading into books on tarot cards and fortune telling, prophecy, spirit and energy manipulation, the powers of the human mind. Anything with a connection to supernatural ability, really. It went on for so long that, at some point, it all became simply for the sake of learning, and my grandmother had been completely forgotten. My grandfather was happy, as he saw this as me finally accepting her death, though he still couldn't get over the fact that I had continued in my personal studies regardless.

"Eventually, I came upon a scientific study on the uses and benefits of meditation. One thing lead to another, and before long I had found myself enlisted under the private tutelage of a martial arts Iaido instructor. That, in turn, lead me to look into the land and culture of Japan. At first, my grandfather was practically ecstatic that I was taking up a more 'worthwhile' pursuit, but when he learned that it was still all about me wanting to know more about the supernatural, that was when we had our final... err, 'falling out'. But whatever, I don't want to go too far off-topic.

With an added thought, he glanced over to Tomoyo, "On the side, at least you know my background story now, so I hope that answers anything you probably wanted to ask. But at any rate, it suffices to say that most of my childhood, when I was not dealing with school or public engagements, was aimed towards the study of these so-called supernatural powers. But even so, to have everything I had ever learned and read about come together in one single day to prove everything right... completely different, but right."

He reached forward and picked up his white book to look it over again, trying to sort the pieces together, though it was more so to ignore the pitying glances that he was still receiving from his audience. One by one, all of the pieces were slowly starting to fall into place, but it still left him completely confused, and mostly for the one single question: why him? Why not someone who would have known what they were doing?

As he passed his hands over the cover, idly feeling the engravings and leather bindings, he noticed that the nameplate was no longer blank. It now had his name carved upon it in Roman lettering, just like Sakura's.

"Well at least my name's on the book now, so that verifies something," he noted, surprising himself with how collected he had sounded it. It felt like he was going to snap at any second, and having had to have remembered his past – despite that he had done so willingly – wasn't helping, "But what's inside if it though? More cards like yours, maybe?"

Sakura merely shrugged, shaking her head slightly to show a lack of understanding, "I don't know what would be in there. It's possible that there are more cards, or maybe just instructions on how to make your own. Maybe not even cards at all, but some kind of new power that has never been seen before. I can sense... something, in there... but I can't fully tell what it is. We won't really know until we get it open."

As she was talking, he started unconsciously playing with the latch on the book again, seeing if it had in some way loosened during their talks. Yet it came as no surprise that it was still fastened securely to the front cover. A surge of rage shot through him as he suddenly tried to rip it right off, without any concern of risking damage to the book, yet the thick leather ribbon easily held its place, and the lock within the latch did not even shift, let alone loosen or release.

"It would be nice if we could actually open it in the first place," he muttered testily, lifting his new key up as an idea came to him, but he tossed the thought away after a moment of consideration. He had thought that perhaps, since his pendant was now like a key, that it was the way to unlock the latch, but he had soon noticed that the key was a fair size too big for the keyhole on the book. He shook his head in disbelief and reached around behind his neck to string his new key back into place. What good are these things if I can't even use them?

"Well," Sakura started, a hand rubbing at her chin as she thought things out, "the first thing we should do is find out what kind of power you draw from. Before I first started using the power of the Stars, I was originally using a spell that invoked the powers of Darkness from my key. But after I became the mistress of the cards, I realized that I wasn't using the powers of Darkness anymore, so I changed up the spell to say 'Stars', instead of 'Dark', and it worked again. So, if we find out what kind of power you draw from, we can figure out what kind of spell you need to use, and then maybe you can transform your key. Maybe your book will open if you fully release the key's power?"

Tomoyo clapped her hands together, "Oh, how about we call Kero in? He would be able to tell instantly, I think!"

Sakura turned to her best friend with a wide grin, "That's a great idea! I'll call him right away!" she exclaimed, pulling a small, pink cell phone out of a pocket on her left side. A few dialed numbers later saw her standing in silence as the phone rang away on the other end, "Ah, hey, Kero! I have a problem that I need you to help me with. ...Yeah, so could you fly over to Tomoyo's house right away? ...Yes, of course there's cake..."

She continued on with her phone call, attempting to inform the listener of what she had learned in between near-constant interruptions that supposedly had something to do with food. She sighed with a light touch of frustration when she eventually ended the call, finding herself wishing that some things actually would change.

"Kero? Another friend of yours? And he can use magic, too, I'm guessing?" Reios asked, leaning back into the sofa with his arms crossed as he watched Sakura put her phone away.

"Well, kind of," she replied, "He can use magic, in a way, but he's, well... not human. His real name is Kerberos."

Reios hummed inquisitively to himself, recalling that Kerberos – or Cerberus, as he would normally have pronounced it – was actually a gigantic, three-headed beast out of Greek mythology, the supposed giant hound guardian for the gates of the underworld. But then, he had more than enough to think about for the moment, and so left it alone.

"Well then, it sounds like we had better find some more cake for our next guest," Tomoyo suggested, guessing as to how the conversation went, "I'll go down and fetch another piece."

"Oh, I'll go too," Sakura put in, "He's going to want fresh tea, and you know how he is if it isn't heated right. Reios, sorry to leave you here again. We'll be back soon."

He smiled to the two of them, "I'm not one for formalities. Go, greet your friend. I'm not needed anywhere else for a while. At least, I won't be until we can figure this out, anyway."

The two soon departed with their respective trays, the carved oak door snapping quietly shut behind them. Reios immediately lurched forward upon being left alone, catching himself on his knees with his elbows as the exhaustion of the night finally attempted to catch up with him. If it were anyone else, he was sure they would've freaked out or called the whole thing a hoax by now. As it was, he was having a hard time believing it himself. The only thing that had kept him around was that he had actually been shown that everything he was being told was true. If nothing else, the transforming wand had convinced him more than anything. Staring at his own, newly-created key, he let his mind slip away into nothing more than a blank state...