I didn't know I had used the card until I had enough time to find myself on the ground and process what had just happened. I didn't know I had been tackled to the ground until I found myself being crushed underneath the weight of a certain amber-eyed boy. And I didn't know said amber-eyed boy had been anywhere near me until he had jumped out of nowhere just before the truck would have slammed into my front. The truck that I hadn't sensed nor heard beforehand.

At first, I had thought being deaf would be wonderful, especially with all of the sounds the world had been throwing at me lately in high-volume. And it was wonderful, at least at first. But the sweetness soured pretty fast after I was almost run-over.

When I had reached the middle of the road, some instinct told me to turn my head to my right. What followed after I obliged were the longest three seconds of my life:

That truck is headed straight at me. That truck is headed straight at me, I can't move my feet and get out of the way.

I was stuck, immobile, with a semi barreling towards me and my own ears unable to hear the scream building in my throat. I felt a warmth building in my center, stemming from my Clow Cards and the pocket of magic located deep inside me. It was a warmth I was sure would protect me from the truck and the noise, thought I knew not what Card would spring forth from it. Yet the warmth wasn't spreading fast enough, some part of my brain whispered. It wouldn't make it to the surface in time to protect me from the truck. By the time my magic could be released, it would be too late. I was always late, in everything from school to magic. I was always too late.

I remember feeling some semblance, in that split-second, of irony. Isn't this funny? I would've thought, had I been graced with more time, This whole time I thought the Puppetmaster would be my downfall, if I were to have one, but in reality it's my own tendency towards tardiness! If I'd had more time, maybe I would have laughed. Lately I had found myself becoming more and more jaded with the world; it was becoming increasingly harder to stay an optimist. Harder, but not impossible. Despite everything happening to me and those I cared about, that little voice kept telling me, 'Keep going. Everything will surely be alright!'

And so after that split-second of irony, I felt another split-second of peace. I was accepting. Either that or some naïve little part of me thought that I would still walk out of this alive. Thankfully, the others were not accepting. Instead, they were agreeing with that naïve little part. If I could not survive on my own, by god they would make me survive.

He barreled into me in the last second before the truck would have, knocking my breath out in a gasp as he flung my body down onto the sidewalk at the other side of the road. The truck passed through the spot recently abandoned by my body; I barely could see it over his body and through the bright impact-sparks lighting up behind my eyes. After that would-be final second, the glow inside me finally capped off. It expanded until everything was stopped but him and me, lying there on the hard sidewalk away from the stand-still truck.

As I blinked my eyes the impact-stars cleared, and I could see the image of an old, fine-featured man. He stood, blending into the glowing golden world around us. He was standing near the stilled truck, glancing between it and me with a look of relief upon his wrinkled face. He wore a robe of worn sand and his thin, spindly ears stretched far behind his long-haired head. In his hands he held an oversized hourglass, the top of which was tickled by his white-blonde beard. The orange-red grains of sand within it were stopped, with one single grain caught in the narrow neck between the top and the bottom.

As I gazed at the single grain, my mind bent back into focus and I realized the precise position I was in, beneath Syaoran's heavy body. A split second later (though specific times were irrelevant now, weren't they?), Syaoran, too, realized it.

Later they would explain to me that, at first, they had thought I would see the truck headed towards me. It soon became apparent to them that I had not as I wasn't stopping. It was then that Syaoran's instincts had taken over and he had taken off. His quick reflexes, speed, and strength had saved my life, and I was and would be glad of it. However, his momentum had rushed me towards the ground, with him falling with me. For the moment I was being crushed, but I found to a mixture of my surprise, disgust, and some other, unidentified emotion that I didn't altogether mind the feeling.

Before the two of us gathered enough sense to move, Time opened his mouth. 'You are very lucky, Cardmistress, to have such good… friends.' The way he paused at the word 'friends' was not unnoticed by me, but that may have been partially due to my temporary heightened sense of anything having to do with the status of the relationship between Syaoran and yours truly. I just prayed that it had gone unnoticed by said boy.

'If he had been half a second later, both of you would have been crushed and I would have been unable to do anything. As it is, you will not be able to continue to harness my magic for much longer. My magic is a taxing one, and it would do you well to stop using me as soon as you are able. You have already been brought to safety by this young man, and I sense that you will need your magic in a few short minutes. With your permission, I will retreat.'

"Um, sure? I guess?" I blame my ineloquence on the previous near-death experience and not the fact that I was breathing into Syaoran's neck and the smell was intoxicating.

I watched as the suspended grain of sand fell through the hourglass and the rest of its brethren began to trickle through the top section into the bottom. The world began again and Time disappeared with a small, thankful smile and four quiet words directed at Syaoran. 'Thank you, Little Wolf.' I was left with the tiniest ounce of extra weight in my pocket, and in my mind's eye I could picture the now-pink Time Card. Despite that tiny extra weight, my whole body felt weighed down far more than usual, and I was too sluggish and weak to even attempt to push Syaoran off of me. He was far too concerned with making sure the danger was gone to respect my right of privacy.

After the truck had passed (its driver had honked at me, though out of anger or relief I couldn't tell), Tomoyo and Mei-Lin rushed over to where Syaoran and I continued to lie, having been given no chanceto move with Time's arrival, departure, and side-affects.

"Are you alright?" Tomoyo was hovering, as she always did when she was worried. Mei-Lin, on the other hand, was trying to cover up her shaking hands and quivering voice with jokes.

"I see you two are getting comfortable down there, eh?"

"Not the right time, Mei-Lin." Syaoran growled, his voice deeper than normal as he picked himself up and off of me. I noticed he was breathing deeply, and was surprised to find that he must have sprinted with all his might to reach me in time. The girls must have run as well, but they would not have been fast enough to reach me in time. They had probably reached the beginning of the road when the truck passed where I had been.

"I'm sorry, I just, you know…" Mei-Lin rubbed her hands together nervously, trying to convey a sense of worry she wasn't entirely sure what to do with. I had a feeling Mei-Lin didn't get nervous very often. I smiled up at her, and gestured her down to my level. Tomoyo joined her on the ground and together they proceeded to give me my second near-death experience of that day via their suffocating hugs. Syaoran remained the only one standing.

"What she means to say is we're glad you're all right." Kero popped his head up and out of Tomoyo's bag, his normally tough manner replaced with a gently fierce protectiveness.

"Hey guys, it's alright. I'm just a bit shaky, that's all. Thanks, Syaoran." I put all the meaning I could into my last two words, and I could swear that, to my ears, they sounded different. They sounded different…

"How can I hear you?" I bolted upright, leaping out of the Sakura-sandwich and popping up face-to-chest with Syaoran. "How can I hear any of you? And why isn't the volume super-charged anymore?" My eyes were wide as I rounded off to each of them in turn, pointing fingers and opening and closing my mouth.

"How can you…? Oh! You were in silent mode, weren't you!" Tomoyo got up, positioning her hands on her hips and frowning slightly at me. I shifted guiltily. "I'm still mad about that, I'll have you know, but now is not really the time for a lecture. And if Silent isn't with you anymore, then where'd she go?" Her question spurred all of us into action, dragging Mei-Lin up off the ground and getting all of us to swing our heads this way and that. Our eyes roved the now-empty streets for any sign of the purple-clothed lady.

Kero found her first, having used the advantage of his flight due to the fact that there was, oddly enough, practically no-one around. "She's over there!"

Following the direction of his finger, we saw Silent stoically facing… an orange jester?

The jester was cackling loudly, louder than any human being should have been able to. As we watched, she twisted something in her hand and the sound of her laughing intensified to the point of painful. I stumbled, hands covering my ears, as I moaned at the return of the super-sounded world. Beside me, I could see the others had finally been let into my hearing experience. Even Kero had fluttered down to rest on my shoulder, his sensitive ears quivering under his shaking paws.

As I was trying to retreat within myself to drown out the sound Sound SOUND, it suddenly lessened in volume. I opened my eyes to see Silent standing up straight as a rod, staring at the jester with such intensity that I wouldn't be surprised if two holes were to appear in the diagonally-striped orange and yellow she wore. The jester looked stunned for a moment, before she reclaimed her mischievous smile and her painted-orange cheeks again rose up in mirth. The two prongs of her hat shivered a bit with her laughter as they flowed down her back, getting tangled up in her mass of candy-orange hair. I was still unable to see what the jester held, but when her white-gloved hands turned whatever it was, the volume again went up. When Silent flinched, I felt my stomach drop and I fell to my knees. The cost was too much to hold myself up. I was running low, especially after having used such a taxing Card as Time. The pain in my stomach could hardly compare to my aching ears and pounding head.

I was curling in on myself when Silent retreated to come kneel beside me. With a touch feather-light, she conveyed to me all I needed to know.

"New plan guys." I ground out between clenched teeth as I transferred Silent's card to my pocket. "We're going for force." I pulled out my necklace, transforming it into my trusty staff and standing up on wobbly legs. The jester looked up at my words, surprised, before giving me another one of her smiles and turning coattails to jump up onto the nearest rooftop.

"That was Sound." Kero struggled to his feet, coming to rest on my shoulder. "She's mischievous, sure, but not mean! She's just a prankster!"

"And now she's just getting away!" I ground out, shaking the last remnants of super-charged sound from my ears. "We can't let her go; there's no telling what she'll do if she hits a large city! We'll figure something out along the way, c'mon!"

The pink glow could barely be called a light source, and changing the little pink bunny-creature Jump into a Sakura Card took nearly all my strength. Yet the sight of Sound bouncing farer and farer away from me helped me grit and bear the toll. Making it through the magic-loss wasn't enough, it seemed, for when I tried to get airborne my feet could barely leave the ground.

Desperate, I turned to Syaoran. "Please?"

"Of course." He answered, always the gentleman, as he grasped my hand in his. I tried to drown out the 'aw's from the peanut gallery as I gratefully received his green magic.

"Wait a second!" Tomoyo cried, and her urgency stopped me in the middle of preparation for a leap. "I have to get all of this on film!"

I nearly groaned when she dragged out her video camera, but I managed to keep it in as I leapt up onto the nearest roof, dragging Syaoran and Kero with me.

"I wanna come too!" Mei-Lin called from the ground, crossing her arms and pouting.

"Not the right time, Mei-Lin." Syaoran repeated his words of earlier, but I could see the tiniest of smiles working its way onto his face. My brain chose that precise moment to wonder what Syaoran would look like with a full-blown smile on his face, and what I could do to cause it. I could've slapped myself for thinking such things at such a time, but still…

"Sakura, go!" Kero whipped me back into action, tugging on my short locks as a jockey would tug on the reins of a horse. I leapt into action, so to speak, hopping from building to building. I kept my orange-clothed target in sight.

"We need a boost." Syaoran, without me knowing, had pulled out his sword and a light-yellow slip of paper with the hand not holding my own. I had to fight the urge to draw away from the sword, my left arm throbbing a deep, painful reminder. I was torn between wanting to pull my hand from his or grip it even tighter.

Shaking the feeling off, I asked the first question I thought of to distract myself from the sword. "You're left-handed?"

"Yes- What? Um, sort of? I'm ambidextrous." Syaoran was looking at me in surprise and confusion, I was sure, and Kero was probably shaking his head, but right now I was focused on the orange jester and not blushing. Not necessarily in that order.

Create a distraction from your stupidity! My brain was shouting at me and shaking its head at my idiocy. "So, the boost?" I mumbled, almost tripping in mid-air. Luckily Syaoran, in response to my question, had pressed his sword to the slip, and a strong wind picked up and launched all three of us over to the next building. The next time I jumped, the wind blew us a couple buildings forward instead of just one. We were gaining on the jester.

How is he able to keep this up? I mean, he's supporting me, using his own magic, and exerting energy with all our jumping!

Well, you've done very similar things before.

Yeah, but I'm the Cardmistress! I'm supposed to be strong and tough and stuff!

He's had training. He can control his magic better than you can.

…I really need to get some training.

Yes you do.

I also need to thank him again. 'Cause he rescued me. Again.

You owe that young man on several accounts now. Some of those accounts being your life.

Yeah, I'm really glad to have Syaoran.

I decided to pause my conversation with myself right there. It was not the place, it was certainly not the time, and I didn't like where my mind was leading me.

We will continue this conversation later young lady, whether you like it or not.

I really needed to keep a tighter leash on my brain.

When I returned to reality, I realized that my body hadn't taken a vacation and had steered us right behind Sound. The roof of an old, abandoned hotel was coming up and we were nearing the edge of Tomoeda. It was the perfect spot.

Syaoran read what I was planning to do without me even opening my mouth and raised an eyebrow in question of my forming plan. For a split seconded, I marveled at our sync. Then my brain took the controls back from my heart and I gave a terse nod.

As I let go of his hand, I vaulted off of Syaoran's balanced knee and over Sound's head and came to a stop directly in front of her. Syaoran, forced down by the weight of my jump, had taken her back, and Kero had flown from my shoulder to hover above her. We had her trapped. Sound was flailing in-between us, looking for a way out as we shifted our positions to keep her boxed in. I was flailing internally, trying to figure out what to do if she opened her mouth again. A bird flying overhead stole my attention, and as it opened its beak to cry it gave me an idea.

Sound's hands were nearing her little white twisty-object when I called out to her. "Hey Sound! How about a game?"

Her hands froze above her device, and she grinned, nodding. Then she tilted her head to the side, silently (oh, the irony) asking me to explain.

"It's a fun game. It's called 'The Best Voice.' Don't you want to play?" I saw Syaoran's eyes widen as I gave the name of the game, and Kero frantically waved his little arms up and down in warning. I smiled at them, trying to give them a sense of the confidence I was having trouble mustering.

"Now, the rules are as follows. First, each side chooses a contestant to play for them, and each side can help their contestant out. My friend and I are one side, and you're the other side. Okay?" Sound nodded eagerly, and gestured for me to go on. "Next, each side takes turns voicing a scale. Last, the winner is whoever can voice the widest range in their scale. Who do you choose as your contestant?"

Sound pointed to herself and smiled wildly, smugly.

"Alright, you choose yourself as your contestant. I choose… Song."

She appeared from a pink glow, one stronger than had appeared from Jump's transformation. From the pink glow came a beautiful, gentle, fragile-looking woman. As I stared at her, I began to wonder if I had really made the right voice. Maybe I should've chosen Voice, she'd probably be able to reach all sorts of notes…

Yet Song looked at me steadily, and I found myself believing in her. She was petite, sure, but so was I, and look what I was capable of! She was younger than some of the other cards, yet she didn't seem any less powerful. Bringing a hand up to her treble-cleft-adorned earpiece, she fiddled with it before moving her hand a few inches back to smooth her deep purple hair away from her pale face. After she had wiped both her hands on her white dress (although it seemed a nervous gesture, the way her dress was designed with music bars led me to the possibility of that wipe being a tune-up for her), she turned to me and gave me a smooth, firm nod. I nodded back at her, and turned to face the orange-lipped Sound.

"Are you ready?" I asked her, keeping my face blank of any nervousness or fear. She didn't say anything in response; she just kept bouncing on her toes.

"Sakura, are you sure about this?" Syaoran asked softly, "Can you really keep yourself up?" He was referring to my current low amount of magical energy and was subtly saying that there was a chance of my failure. Yet I didn't focus on anything but his concern for me. His gently, worrying tone. I think that might be when I first started to realize that I was screwed.

"I'm fine. What I'm more worried about is if the noise we make will attract the cops, or any other people passing by here. I don't want a commotion, and I want this whole mess found out even less." I glanced around the run-down building we were perched on top of. The neighboring area was empty, but what about the areas beyond that? How many people would hear our battle of decibels? And how many of them would come investigate?

"We should be fine. This won't take long. It'll be painless." Kero's mouth was a grim line. He stared at that two Spirits facing off in front of him, his paws crossed. I could see how one paw picked at the arm it lay on, and I knew. Kero was nervous.

In a way, a wound-less battle would be worse than an all-out brawl. In this situation, you never knew what could come after the winner was declared. Would the loser retaliate, and turn it into an actual fight? Would there be subtle cheating, undetectable with the outlet of the battle? Would I collapse first?

I guess it all came down to that, didn't it? It was a battle of wills, and right now I wasn't sure mine was up to par with Sound's. Especially if she had her will under the control of who I think she had…

As if he could read my mind, I felt Syaoran funneling another channel of green energy through the air. It diffused into my skin, and I felt a smile grace my lips. Syaoran didn't just give me magic, he gave me confidence. Sometimes the latter was the more important of the two.

"You're first." I spoke directly to Sound, with a confidence that, for once, I truly felt. I could win this. No – I would win this. The orange shoulders rose and fell in a gesture of indifference. Sound took the white object in her hand and held it out in front of her, concentrating on twisting her hand about it. At this distance I could finally tell what it was.

The white object was actually a knob, very much resembling an over timer. Except, instead of measuring and counting time, it measured and counted sound. I knew the higher she cranked that knob, the stronger Sound's voice would come out. Right now she was cranking it to the max. A prickle of worry wriggled its way through my armor of confidence and found its way to the traitorous section of my brain.

Are you sure you can do this? Are you sure she won't cause you to end up deaf with the power of her voice? Are you sure you can win?

I shut that part up quickly, before its pessimistic thinking could affect the rest of my body. There were no cracks allowed in my armor.

"Go ahead, Sound. Show me what you've got." But Sound wouldn't open her mouth. She shook her head, making a up and down motion with a loosely closed fist and curling one finger around a lock of her hair, making it hang down to the side of her face. Most of her face was serious, but her eyebrows were raised, waiting for me to guess what she was doing. Charades, oh boy. I wasn't very good at charades. She was Sound; couldn't she just tell me what the matter was? Or was she only able to laugh, make other basic noises, and distort the sounds of others?

"She means for there to be a judge." Kero stated, somehow able to understand the gestures of the Spirit. Maybe they were on the same wavelength, both being creatures of magic. Or maybe Kero was exceptionally good at charades.

"A judge? But, which one of us would be a fair judge? Wouldn't we all be biased towards ourselves or our team…?"

As I was struggling to think of a judge that Sound would approve of, Syaoran spoke up. "Sakura, do you still have all the Cards that Clow was rumored to have befriended? You haven't lost any?"

"Of course not!" I retorted, offended at the idea that he thought I might have let my Cards be blown away from me, or something just as absurd. I mean, they almost had in the beginning, but that was before I knew how wonderful they all were! Now I would never let my them part from me, unless it was their wish.

"Calm down. I just wanted to make sure you had all the Cards that we knew of. I don't know yet how capable you are as a Cardmistress. I have to keep monitoring you." Just when I was thinking he was the sweetest, kindest, most considerate boy I knew, he went and threw a curveball like this at me. Was he really just 'monitoring' me? Was it all part of his job, his reason for coming to Tomoeda? To 'monitor' me, to find out if I was 'capable?'

"…Can use Libra, since that card's all about balance. Libra would never be able to judge unfairly, it goes against what it- Sakura? Sakura, are you even listening to me?" When I turned my eyes back to Syaoran's, for a moment I could see a flash of annoyance in his eyes. I felt my own eyes narrow in anger before I processed the words he'd said.

When I was younger, I had gone through a pretty intense astrology period, studying all I could about the stars and, more importantly, the Zodiac. I knew that Libra's symbol was the scales, and that she represented equality and justice. She would make the perfect judge.

I guess Syaoran saw my eyes alight with the idea, so he asked another question. "Do you have enough power to transform her and assist Song?" Although he used the same tone of his earlier questions, again all I could hear was patronizing instead of care.

"Of course." I snapped, turning to face Song instead of him. From up above, I could see Kero raise an eyebrow, a frown forming on his golden face.

I pulled out the card with one hand, my staff coming down to tap it with my other. Almost instantly the card was turned cheery pink and from the card sprung a large, bronze scale. Libra.

"Excuse me, but are you just a scale or do you have a more human form?" This was a question I had been wondering about for a while in regard to some of my cards, and my curiosity overtook my growing anger.

In answer, the giant scale flickered out of sight and appeared again in a smaller form, clutched in two pale hands. The hands were attached to a black-haired woman. She wore her hair short and straight, and it fell in choppy streaks to the bottom of her chin. It was held out of her face with plain black pins that matched her plain black bodysuit. The bodysuit hid nothing, but I guess that was a factor of her 'nothing to hide' outlook. Her only extravagance were the two bronze seals on her plain black slippers, into which was emblazoned the symbol of Libras everywhere; a double-handed sickle over a straight line.

"Alright, well. Can you act as a judge for this competition?" A nod. "Do you know the rules and regulations already?" Another nod. "Are you ready to begin judging?" A final nod, the scale lying balanced in her hands.

I turned to Sound now. "Does Libra meet your standards as a fair judge?" Sound, following in Libra's silent style, gave me a nod. She was all seriousness now that the game was finally beginning. "Alright then. You go first."

Sound clutched her knob in both hands, took a deep breath, and began her scale at a Middle C. And then she proceeded to drop all the way down to the lowest D I've ever heard. (I was able to identify the note, I think, thanks to Song and her musical prowess. She was transmitting the notes as Sound sung them into my head.) The sound was like the thunder rumbling in the night sky when a storm's coming over the horizon, ominous and deep and bone-shaking. She stopped when she reached the D, her voice giving out on her. Apparently that was the farthest her range could go. Until she opened her mouth again, giving me a wicked smile, and proceeded up the scale.

Her voice climbed higher and higher, never wavering, never breaking, until its tone was so far up the scale that my ears began to hurt. Still she went on. Kero, with the most sensitive hearing of us all, was on the ground, squirming under the pressure of the sound. Syaoran (my traitorous eyes had flicked over to him after I had seen Kero's state) had his hands over his ears, pressing into his skull, but he had his eyes open to meet mine. I looked away first.

Sound was continuing to go up, until she stopped abruptly at a high, high B. Her voice cracked when she tried to go higher than that, and she frowned at herself. Though she was Sound and embodied her name, her skill wasn't scales. Thankfully, she hadn't realized this until she attempted to do a scale. I didn't know how much longer she'd stay in the dark about the fact. I hastily gestured Song forward as a shadow of realization began to pass across Sound's face.

Song was brilliant. Her voice was brilliant. She copied Sound, note for note, on the down scale but, like Sound, was forced to stop at the lowest D. She frowned at herself, and then at me, and I realized my mistake. Song, though she had a beautiful voice, had to get her material from somewhere. She couldn't pull notes out of thin air. She had copied Sound's scale because she was literally copying the notes Sound had sung and was pouring them back out in her own voice. Without someone to sing a note higher than a B, we would never beat Sound. A stalemate would occur, and who knew what Sound would do to get out of it.

Sound's eyes alighted – it seems her brain had been on-par with mine in evaluating the situation – and gave me a smug smirk. She thought there was no way she could lose, and I was beginning to fear she was right. Still, Song pressed on, smoothing her dress with more hesitation than she had done at first. She was nervous. Could spirits even feel nervousness?

Yes, they can. They are more than just weapons. They are sentient, living, and my friends. Why would I even think such a thing?

Song started out slowly on the next scale, going from a Middle C up to a middle D, E, F…

Each note was hesitant, as if she knew there were only so many she could sing until she ran out of material. Each note was strong despite the odds, and I wore a proud smile. If we ended up at a stalemate, fine. I would figure something out. Everything will surely be all right.

Song was beginning to reach her upper limit, her beautiful voice slowing down even more as she struggled to drag each note out. I was afraid that she would give up before the end, but no, she kept singing. As she drew closer to that final high B, another voice joined in, going above that B to a C, D, E! Song eagerly copied the melody as I turned my head to see Tomoyo climbing up the side of the building, her voice cracking as she reached her limit. Mei-Lin followed her. Tomoyo's face was flushed from running. To my amazement she had a thin band of sweat running down the side of her face from under her thick bangs. Tomoyo never sweat. Mei-Lin was out of breath as well, but she was in better fitness than Tomoyo and had not just hit a high E so her breathing was more even.

"Tomoyo…" I trailed off, wanting to thank her tremendously for her help yet at the same time scold her for coming into such a dangerous situation. I had a feeling she'd scold me right back, but I didn't need to continue my sentence. She understood me well enough to figure out what I was trying to say, and she waved it away with one delicate hand. It was then that I noticed the video camera in her other hand, its little red light blinking, and I shook my head in bemused amazement. She gave me a huge grin, and then turned to Song and smiled widely at her as well. Song smiled back, a smile of wonder and thanks. I knew at that point Song had fallen in love with Tomoyo's voice, and it probably wouldn't be the first time they would sing together.

The only warning I had as to the impact was the slight widening of both Mei-Lin's and Tomoyo's eyes and the opening of their mouths as if to scream a caution towards me.

Sound barreled into me from behind, knocking me to almost the edge of the roof as she screamed in my ear. What hurt more than being slammed into the concrete roof of the hotel was the blast of noise hitting my right ear. Having only one ear working messed up my balance and when I tried to fight Sound off I found myself throwing punches to her far right and stumbling as I tried to get up. Soon, however, Mei-Lin was throwing Sound off of me and Tomoyo was standing in front of me, half-guarding me and half-guiding me up. I leaned heavily on her; I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk on my own.

Still, I was coherent enough to spit out a confusing collection of crucial words. "Kero… The sword in the forest. That sword-" I gestured at the sword Syaoran was guiding towards Sound. "And strings above. Cut them, not her! Don't hurt her!" I tried to scream the last words, but they came out disoriented and awkward. They got the message across, however odd they sounded. Mei-Lin refrained from punching Sound and Syaoran drew back his sword. Both stared at me as I slumped over, the anger and confusion in their eyes soon replaced by worry for me.

Why was everyone always worrying about me?

"Kero!" I croaked, feeling myself fading, fast. Tomoyo gently placed her camera on the edge of the roof so she could support my limp body with both hands.

"Syaoran!" Kero shouted, for once using his real name instead of 'kid,' "Cut above Sound's head! Cut above her! NOW!" For a little creature, Kero could have a very big voice when he needed to. Now was one of those occasions, and the power of his voice led Syaoran to follow, not question, his order. The swing was tight, precise, and calculated. It was a far cry from my own swing, ages ago in a cold winter forest, which had stopped my attacker through luck, not skill.

The swing had worked back then and it worked now, despite the differing circumstances. A collection of dimming purple strings fluttered down from seemingly nowhere, resting on the ground around a confused Sound.

"Don't touch them!" Kero ordered again, and Syaoran and Mei-Lin stepped back from the strings. With a quiet whisper that sounded like 'sorry,' I saw Sound disappear and felt a new Sakura Card make itself at home with my other Cards.

"He's repeating himself!" I slurred, smiling with dry lips. "Sloppy of him!" Tomoyo, unable to carry my weight any longer, gently led us both to the ground, my head in her lap. I blinked up at her, peaceful and relaxed, and she smiled down at me, always there, always steady. There was always Tomoyo, no matter what. As the strings disintegrated to harmless ashes, the edges of my world began to shrink and Kero, Syaoran, and Mei-Lin rushed over to me. There was always Tomoyo, and I heard a gentle voice whispering in my ear as the world vanished,

And there always will be.