Chapter 14
What Never Will Be
The world around them cleared into a slightly purple-tinted view of what appeared to be the front gates of a school. Students flowed in a steady stream, but two remained at the entrance chatting as though waiting for someone. Feet slapped the pavement as another figure ran, dodging through the small groups of students walking towards the school.
"Syaoran-kun! Tomoyo-chan!"
The figure with his back to them turned toward the voice, a grin spreading across his face, his amber eyes lighting up. He braced himself against the impending tackle-hug he was about to receive, and on impact, used the momentum to spin them both around, grabbing the girl about the middle and lifting her up off the ground. She squeaked out something that sounded like "Ho-eee" and turned bright pink, but started laughing as they stopped.
"Wait, hold that pose! I want to get a good picture of it," the third member of the party said, a young girl with long black hair.
"Tomoyo-chan, you don't have your camcorder today?" the first girl asked.
Tomoyo shook her head. "It was out for repairs at such an inopportune time... but I did bring a regular camera to catch this special day!"
The bell of the school began to ring, and the younger version of Syaoran set the girl in his arms down. Amber eyes met emerald, and for a moment it seemed as though the very world stood still around them for a moment as they stood, then, slowly, the younger Sakura levered herself up onto her toes and wrapped her arms around him. Her lips moved, but the words were imperceptible to the two observers, as was the boy's reply.
They turned, and walked on to the school grounds, hand in hand.
The princess turned to her companion, hand clenched over her aching chest. "What did she say...?"
The older Syaoran, leaning against a tree, head back and eyes clenched shut, replied softly, struggling to speak around the lump in his throat. "'You came back.'"
The world around them began to turn purple again, and it filled the space around them until it was opaque, and then it began to clear again, slowly until the world was back to some semblance of normal.
They stood now in a forest in the night time, a full moon hanging low in the sky above them, providing a backlighting to the scene ahead of them. It looked like the younger Syaoran and his Sakura, standing on a small wooden platform before a pond, holding together tightly. As the observer's visions began to adjust to the dark, the true scenario was revealed; his fingers lightly against her jaw, no light leaking through the space between their faces as their lips pressed together.
It was enough to make the breath catch in the princess' chest. She looked to the young man standing next to her, and found him watching the scene with that same sad and lost expression he had when realizing what world they were in.
"Syao-"
"Watch," he interrupted her, speaking through clenched teeth. "Watch and see what happens. I think this is part of what Return wants you to know."
The princess turned back to the scene in time to watch the two young people separate. The girl wavered for a moment, lightheaded, and even in the darkness the blush on her cheeks was visible; the boy had his hand on her shoulder to steady her.
Suddenly, the girl pirouetted in place, facing the pond. "Hey, hey Syaoran-kun. Shall I see if what Mizuki-sensei taught me will work?"
"About telling fortunes using the moon's reflection?" the boy asked, turning to where she seemed to be watching the reflection off the pond.
The girl nodded. "Nn. Maybe there'll be another adventure waiting for us!"
"Hopefully this time it won't involve saving the world," her companion replied, and she looked at him with a smile that caused him to pause for a moment.
"Yeah. That would be nice. Well, let's see, shall we?" She clapped her hands together, standing with her toes nearly hanging off the edge of the platform. Silence descended upon the forest, not even the water or wildlife made a sound, all waiting for the results of the young girl's reading.
The moments dragged on, but no one made a sound, unwilling to disrupt the contemplative peace... and then, the young Sakura wavered a bit, before stepping forward. The younger Syaoran stepped forward as though to catch her, but stopped when her foot alighted on the surface of the water, and didn't go in. Step by step she strode out onto the surface of the pond, until she stood over the moon's reflection. Slowly, she turned around, and her expression was a tired one, eyelids half closed, face blank.
"Syaoran-kun..." she said, and her voice was tired as well, soft, but audible in the otherwise silent forest.
The boy stepped forward, to the edge of the platform, and hesitated. "Sakura... Sakura what's wrong?"
She slumped in place, then began drifting upwards as though a string had been attached to her shoulders and pulled upon. A symbol appeared above her head, and it looked like her magic circle- a star in the center, the moon and the sun on either side, but the ring around it, the background were different, and, from the sides, a familiar set of wings appeared.
"Sakura!" The younger Syaoran cried, backing up a couple steps, then running forward, hitting the edge of the platform and leaping, only to splash noisily into the pond, skewing the moon's reflection on its surface. He came up a moment later, waist-deep in the water, and waded out to where the girl continued to float toward the symbol in the sky. He leapt at the first opportunity he could, and for a moment, a fleeting moment, their fingers touched and it looked like he might be able to catch her and pull her back down, but then gravity took over, and he fell empty-handed back into the water.
Still she continued upward.
"Sakura!" He cried, splashing through the water as quickly as he could, stopping below the center of the magic circle, below the girl slowly floating toward it. He reached his hand out, and she reached out in return, and then it seemed as though the very air around her distorted, stretching then contracting, her image flickered once, twice, like a television suffering from static, and then she was gone, and the magic circle dissolved into a snowfall of glimmering lights.
Stunned silence permeated the forest, making it as hush as it had been before... and then a scream tore through the area, echoing through the trees, startling the slumbering animals. "SAKURA!"
Still the younger Syaoran kept his arm in the air, reaching toward a hand he would never catch, and screamed her name again, his voice cracking under the strain of the volume. Finally, his arm came down, both hands clutched the side of his head, and again he cried her name, and again, until his voice started to go hoarse. Finally, he waded clumsily over to the small platform, and collapsed against it.
The world around the two observers began to go purple again.
"Why... why is the card taking us to these places...?" Sakura whispered, looking over the older Syaoran. He was bent over at the middle, arms crossed over his stomach, shoulders shaking.
"I... I don't know for sure..." he finally said, voice wavering, unsteady. "But... I know now... it needs to stop..." A sound burst from his throat with a sudden release of breath, before he drew another, sniffing through a congested nose.
Sakura reached out, hesitantly, and touched his shoulder. Syaoran shied away from her touch, backing a step and shaking his head.
"Don't... feel like it's something you need to be responsible for," he said finally, as the world around them began to clear again. "It's the past; what's done is done and it won't change."
"Why would I..." Sakura began, but stopped when her companion turned to her, the corner of his lips upturned into a sort of smile.
"Because that's who you are," his reply was simple, but it struck her all the same, and forced her gaze away from his.
The world cleared.
"Hooo-eeeeee!"
"Look out!"
Something loud crashed nearby, and past the two companions, a small creature of some sort dashed.
"It went this way!"
Syaoran looked up suddenly. "We need to move." He held his hand out to the princess and she took it, before they both set off, away from the direction the small glowing creature had dove past them. They made their way as quickly along the path as they could, past trees and benches and even the occasional streetlight. And then he felt it, it was coming up right behind them, and if itwas coming, that meant the two pursuing it couldn't be too far behind. Quickly, he grabbed the princess, eliciting a squeak from her, and pulled her suddenly into the bushes off the path, practically dragging her until he figured they were safely out of sight.
The small creature hesitated when it reached the point of the path they'd just been, and it was that pause that allowed a voice to ring out.
"Wind, become a binding chain! WINDY!"
The trees rustled in a sudden breeze, as something glowing and greenish white enveloped the creature.
A girl appeared, and it was the Sakura of the current world, though looking younger than she had in even the last moment of time Return had taken them to.
"Return to the guise that you were meant to be in!" She called, raising the staff she held above her head. "Clow Card!"
The creature writhed for a moment, before turning into a pinkish energy and splitting, only to reform at the end of the staff as a card. It solidified, and the girl grabbed it, smiling, before turning to the two who ran to catch up to her- the younger Syaoran and what appeared to be Kero in his smaller form. "Another one down."
Kero pumped his fist in the air. "Alright! Take that, kid!"
The younger Syaoran just glared at the small creature.
"What was..." the princess began, her voice soft so as not to alert the group to their presence.
"A Clow Card... it was..." Syaoran sighed and looked to her, only to realize he hadn't yet let go of her, which meant they were still, effectively, hugging. Both of the teenagers turned pink, and separated quickly- an action which resulted in the rustling of bushes.
"Who's there?!" the younger Syaoran called, looking toward them but apparently not seeing them.
"So he did sense our presence..." the older looked to his female companion. He took a deep breath, and his jaw set, determined. "I'm going to get us out of here, so please wait just a moment."
Something seemed to happen behind him, and the younger Syaoran turned for just a second. It was enough; he didn't even see someone coming until a leg connected with the side of his head and sent him flying.
"Li-kun!" the girl with the wand cried, watching as he hit the ground and slid; his assailant was right there with him though, and before he even got the chance to regain his composure from the surprise attack, a fist came down, slamming into his face and causing his head to rebound off the concrete of the walkway with a resounding crack.
That wasn't quite enough to put the younger boy down for good however, and he slowly began to regain his feet, only to be kicked in the back of the head once more, one which sent him sprawling face-first into the ground.
"S-Stop!" the young Sakura cried, clutching her wand tightly and thinking of which card she should use to stop the man from attacking her friend as she watched him receive a particularly nasty combo, one which ended with his head snapping backward, leaving an arc of blood in the wake of his nose.
The young boy hit the ground with a heavy thud, and didn't move.
"Stop! Don't hurt him!" the girl cried, readying her staff, but just as she was about to call off the name of a card, the attacker looked up, amber brown eyes meeting emerald green, and she froze. "... Li-kun?"
He looked back down to the body laying prone on the ground, stepped up to it and reached down. A card drifted from somewhere on the boy's body into the older's hand, and in a flash he was off, running for the woods.
"H-hey!" Sakura cried after him, but was interrupted as her companion moaned and moved again. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah..." the boy replied, getting to his feet too quickly and wavering for a minute as though he was going to lose his balance.
"Hey kid, take it easy!" Kero commanded, as Sakura ran over to her friend's side to help steady him.
"We have to follow him... he took Time..." Syaoran stated, and began running slowly, his female companion on his heels.
The two travelers were not expecting to see their younger doppelgangers come crashing through the trees. All four froze, surprised, green eyes met amber met amber met green and over again as they glance back and forth from each other.
The older Syaoran, holding the time card and his sword in his hand, suddenly broke the awkward silence. "You did not see this."
"Wha-"
"What happened here, right now, you seeing us, just forget about it. We don't belong in this time, we shouldn't even be in this world. Do you understand me?"
The younger Sakura looked infinitely confused, her face going blank as she tried to understand, but the younger Syaoran seemed to understand, and nodded before grabbing his companion by the shoulder, spinning her around and dragging her away. He made one parting comment, glaring back over his shoulder before they disappeared around a tree. "You didn't need to hit me, you know."
"I shouldn't have been able to in the first place... What kind of power did Return get from- nevermind," The older Syaoran gripped his sword, tossed the Time card before him, and brought down the tip as though to impale the object. "Freeze this world and disrupt the Return card's power! Time!"
The world turned not purple, but yellow, before several large cracks seemed to appear in space itself, and the whole thing twisted before going black.
They emerged a moment later in the living room of the apartment they'd just left, long after the occupants had fallen asleep, appearing from nowhere in space it seemed, and Syaoran reached down to pick up the card laying on the ground, as well as the Return card.
The Return card glowed softly, before the physical avatar of its power manifested in the air- what looked to be a young man wearing a long cloak, with long, pointed ears and holding an hourglass.
"Return," Syaoran said. "Take this card back to the past and deliver it where it belongs." The card in his hand glowed, as did the hourglass in the man's and then it was gone. Finally, he looked to the card's avatar, looked him straight in the black and yellow eyes. "What did you think would come from that whole scenario?"
The man looked away, and held out its hourglass; the feather inside glowed softly, before emerging and drifting over to Sakura, absorbing back into her chest. Syaoran caught her and set her on the couch, then turned back to the card.
"That's not an answer," he stated flatly.
The young man shook his head, slumped in place, then dissolved into light before returning to card form, then drifting over the book it had come out of and returning to its rightful place.
You will know soon enough, descendant of Clow.