AN: PART THREE OF THREE. Ms. Sakura's story is about to split into the present. Now, These chapters have been crazy long and have been a pain to edit, so I apologize for the wait. Have a Crona. Lots of Crona.


"That's a tall order, Ms. Sakura," said the new shopowner.

"I know," she answered, "There's a price."

Kimihiro Watanuki took a smoke of his pipe, the one that used to be Yuuko's, before speaking again.

"How do you plan to pay?"

"My soul shall remain at your shop until the destined time that my younger self finds me. Before then, I will find everyone's being from my world and they will be reborn in the world I find for them."

"Seems fair, but I must ask for more. The memory of you."

Sakura looked confused.

"You care for everyone around you. When you leave, their memories of you will be erased."

"Everyone?"

"Yes."

Sakura looked sad, but she composed herself and nodded.


She found an alternate universe that was exactly like her own. Tomoeda was the same, but the events were somewhat different. There were more cards. She didn't see her father awake or not during her battle with Eriol. And there was another person with her and her friends.

Her name was Meiling Li, Syaoran's cousin. She never remembered Syaoran mentioning any cousins named Meiling in her world. It seemed curious, and it gave her an idea.

She jotted more notes and added pages to the Book of Clow and set off through other universes.


It felt like an eternity, and then…she met a person in the same space as her. They were tall and skinny with light pink hair, light purple in a different like. They were dressed in white and jumped in fright at the sight of Ms. Sakura.

"Ah…haha…interesting," they said, "Even after so long, I still don't know how to deal with other people."

This person had a third eye on their forehead, but it's corners sat vertically, and it looked more like a crude drawing. Nevertheless, it blinked and moved like an actual eye. The person's face was smooth but pale. Their eyes were light blue with dark circles under them. She didn't know exactly whether they were a boy or a girl, because their features were a mix of both genders.

"My name is Sakura Kinomoto," she said, "What's your name, sir or ma'am?"

"I was known as Demon Swordsman Crona on Earth," they said, "Now, I am the Second God of Madness, and I imprison the First One in this."

They held out a box that seemed to look like a broken up rubix cube, constantly shifting smaller cubes around but still maintaining a cubical shape.

"And what is this interesting device?" Sakura asked. She honestly didn't know. There were only so many universes she could remember, and she hadn't really seen the world that this person belonged to.

"It's called BREW," they answered with a smile, "It holds the wisdom and power of the Old One called Eibon."

"And you guard it?"

"Yes."

"You're basically like a god here, aren't you?"

Crona immediately blushed and hid their face.

"I sense that you're incredibly powerful," Sakura continued as she patted Crona's back, "You're holding an older god in captivity using the wisdom of another older god. Do…gods die in this world?"

"They do. The new God of Death resides down there."

They pointed forward and Sakura looked out. Below her, there was a city built in the desert, a large and strange building in the center.

"The God of Death runs a school to train demon humans. They call them demon weapons. Because they can transform into weapons, they're trained to reap evil souls and protect pure souls."

"They're like young grim reapers, almost," Sakura told herself.

At this, Crona seemed to giggle.

"Ha…funny, I haven't laughed like that since…since her…"

"Her?"

"Her name is Maka Albarn."

Crona pointed again. A young teen girl with ash blonde pigtails and green eyes appeared. She seemed to be in company with a young man with white hair, tan skin, and sharp teeth.

"You remind me of her," Crona said to Sakura.

"In what way?" she asked.

Crona looked down at her chest, and it started to glow. Sakura saw a blue orb-like flame within her own chest.

"Your souls are the same," Crona smiled.


She told them about her wish and her past, and Crona listened intently.

"I see," Crona spoke, "You're life was like mine. Someone decided a path for you. You thought you decided on it yourself, but you were only lead along."

Sakura grimaced.

"You had a family member that was barely involved in your life, and you went along with what they said, because it seemed like the right thing to do."

"Well, it wasn't exactly that, but…we led lives where we were given a set path to follow," Sakura nodded.

Crona nodded with her.

"I can help. Bring your new reality to this world. I know the people there right now can give you the guidance you need."


Soon, it was set in motion. Sakura gave Crona the Book of Clow and the Star Cards soon turned back into Clow Cards to release to the surface. A future began to form for Sakura to see. All of her friends and family were there, except…

Soon, she was sealed into the cherry blossom tree in front of the shop. In that time, she slept, and she dreamed. Her dreams let her travel where she could, and she spoke to Tomoyo after everyone else in her life had passed on. What surprised her was that Tomoyo instantly remembered her, where others barely remembered.

"Why…why are you here?" older Tomoyo asked, horror evident on her face.

"To find everyone," the older Sakura replied, "To fix everything that Clow Reed broke."

"But if you're here, that means you're…NO! NO NO NO NO NO! SAKURA-CHAN!"

The older Tomoyo ran up and wrapped her arms around Sakura's waist, falling to her knees in sobs.

"It's okay, Tomoyo-chan, really," she cooed, "Don't cry."

"BUT YOU CAN'T BE DEAD! YOU CAN'T BE!"

"No one lives forever."

"BUT…but look at you. You're still so young and beautiful! You should be with Syaoran-kun, and…"

Sakura's face fell.

"Everyone is dead, Tomoyo. Everyone I love…everyone in my life is gone. He did this. Clow Reed, he… He's torn apart everything."

"But…but how?"

"In another universe, a wish was granted. It became distorted and somehow affected our universe as well. And all of it, I discovered, was linked to Clow Reed, the Clow Cards, and the wish he had and thrust onto me. Now, he's become a distortion in a different universe. I…I have to stop him."

"And now you're dead…"

"Not completely. My body is completely gone, but my soul still remains. I can go to different universes only so often through dreams now. I was…surprised to see you here. I thought you'd be with VOID…"

"The VOID card?"

"Yes! I've got it all figured out! I'm going to send the Clow Cards to a reincarnation of myself that I found in this universe! She has the power to stop Clow Reed once and for all! Everything will be fixed!"

"Am I there?"

"I'm afraid not. I didn't see you there. I did see Syaoran-kun, and dad, and…Tomoyo-chan?"

The older Tomoyo was looking on the ground now and chuckling in defeat.

"Hah…even in other universes, we're not meant to be, are we?"

"Huh?"

"You never knew Sakura, but…sometimes, I always thought that…in some other universe, we'd be together."

"You're still my best friend, Tomoyo-chan! That hasn't cha—"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN!"

Sakura was taken aback now as Tomoyo sobbed.

"Sakura-chan, you're a smart girl, but BY GOD you are dense as can be sometimes. It was so frustrating, especially when I…"

When she saw the hurt in her friend's eyes, she stopped.

"I'm sorry, I…"

"No…you're right. I was…can be a bit dense. I'm sorry."

Tomoyo looked at her friend straight in the eye.

"I love you."

Sakura had sadness in her eyes.

"Even as you walked down the aisle with that wonderful boy, even as you looked at Yukito-san with longing when you were ten, from the moment I saw you Sakura-chan I loved you with every once of my being."

Sakura began crying.

"And I know you love Syaoran-kun the most. I wanted to see you happy. And even now, if you're happy, then so am I! But these feelings…never went away! Even now, I curse the fact that I have them! I thought I'd find someone like you did! I tried dating men, and I just…I CAN'T! I ONLY HAD EYES FOR YOU! EVERY GIRL THAT I SAW WHILE I WAS ALIVE LOOKED LIKE YOU! I'M NOT ATTRACTED TO BOYS! I CAN'T EVEN FORCE MYSELF TO LIKE BOYS THAT WAY WHEN I TRY! I'M ALL ALONE! I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU, AND YOU'RE NOT IN LOVE WITH ME, AND THERE'S NO SPECIAL PERSON OUT THERE FOR ME, NO MATTER HOW HARD I PRAY!"

The older Tomoyo was a sobbing mess as older Sakura let hers roll down her cheeks. Tomoyo and DARK merely watched, but Tomoyo started to cry as well.

Sakura held her friend tightly.

"I'm sorry, Tomoyo-chan," she choked, "I'm sorry I can't feel the same way, and I'm sorry that I never…that I never saw how you felt."

She lifted Tomoyo's face to meet her gaze.

"Don't worry," she told her friend, "I've got an idea. I'm going to make sure you find someone just for you. I'm sure there's someone. No, I know it! Come with me."

She sealed Tomoyo's soul with The DARK Card, and she kept LIGHT with her own soul.

She took her soul and split parts of it into new beings. One of them was her new self. The her that would appear in Crona's universe. The other was the girl she saw in her own alternate universe: Meiling Li. Sakura Kinomoto would have the heart and soul of the original Sakura. She would have no ties to Clow Reed as a descendant. Meiling Li would be her own personality and soul, and she would have Sakura's original blood in her veins. The blood itself became part of the price for Sakura's other wish: for Tomoyo to be in the same world her new self was and to find love.

The new beings were sent away, waiting for their time to come. Soon, Clow Reed would arrive there, and Sakura knew Yuuko would show herself as well. And that was the last time she followed her intuition before falling into a deep sleep. She had no dreams, and it was the best sleep she ever had.

She didn't awaken until the new Sakura Kinomoto was born.


"You know the details from there," Ms. Sakura finished.

Sakura was aware of her surroundings again. She had seen every single memory of Ms. Sakura's. She felt her face. It was wet with tears. She wiped them away with her sleeves.

"I know that was emotionally draining for you," Ms. Sakura admitted, "Take your time. Tell me what you're thinking."

"Well…I…I mean, I find it hard to take. All of these memories from all these different places are overwhelming."

Ms. Sakura nodded.

"I wish I could change what had happened to you…and everyone else."

"The past cannot be changed," Ms. Sakura said, "All we can do is take what we've learned from the past to make decisions in the present and shape our own futures. I'm sorry that your life is built by my own desires, young Sakura. In essence, I'm no different from Clow."

"Well…I suppose that's true, but…I don't think you're like Clow."

Ms. Sakura seemed surprised.

"He's trying to recover the past, but you're trying to make your own life. I know I'm not really you, but…we're alike. I mean…I suppose I wouldn't exist without you, and I wouldn't have met such nice people like Kero, or Yue, or Yuuko, if it weren't for you. So…thank you."

She really was like Ms. Sakura as a young girl.

"I know what I need to do," Sakura told her, as she got up from her spot under the cherry blossom tree.

"I have a feeling I need to wake up now, so…I suppose I should say goodbye for now," Sakura said, and Ms. Sakura smiled up at her. Before she waved goodbye, Sakura embraced her original self tightly, and Ms. Sakura returned the hug. As they hugged, Ms. Sakura shrunk a little, and when Sakura looked at her again, her original self now looked like her ten-year-old self in her Tomoeda school uniform, her eyes teary but her smile wide and hopeful.

"Goodbye, and good luck, Sakura," Ms. Sakura said, in her currently younger appearance.

With that, Sakura opened her eyes. She was in a hospital bed. She looked to the side to see Tomoyo running out of the room.

"SHE'S AWAKE!"


She had basically been in a coma. It had been several months since Sakura had passed out. In that time, Syaoran had disappeared, and no one could find him. Last time anyone found anything, it was during October, where a small village in Cambodia went up in flames. A student hunting a kishin there saw him for a brief moment before he vanished again.

"There were several casualties that day," Kid said, "We tried to find the souls of the ones that were killed, but we had no luck."

"Do you think he…ate them? The souls?" Liz asked.

"If he did, he'll become a kishin," the new Lord Death frowned, "And we'll have to put him on Death's List."

Black«Star and Tsubaki came into Sakura's hospital room to tell her all this. They would have to go find him and contain him. If push came to shove, Sakura would probably have to partner with someone else or simply have Kero and Yue. The plan was for Sakura to watch Angel, as Maka and Soul would go with Black«Star and Tsubaki to find Syaoran.

And Sakura sat there as the adults made these decisions. She looked at Meiling and Tomoyo, who were as confused and somber as everyone else.

"Wait!" Sakura cried out. The adults looked over at her.

"It's okay, Sakura," Maka assured her, "We'll handle it. You still need to recuperate."

"What I need is to go find my partner and fix this!"

"We'll go and take care of Syaoran. You kids need to stay here."

"Well, what if he comes back here?"

"Well, then, you can stop him here."

"That's not the point! Who will be here to guard Meiling, Tomoyo, and myself, if you guys are off trying to find someone that you don't have any idea where he is?!"

"If he becomes to dangerous for you kids to handle, we need to take care of him before he finds you."

"He doesn't want to kill me, right? He tried to kill Meiling!"

"Don't worry. We're trying to figure out why he-"

"I KNOW WHY HE'S DOING IT."

She finally had a chance to tell everyone what Ms. Sakura told her. Meiling and Sakura were two parts of Sakura's soul. Syaoran was trying to unite the two into one piece, or rather, Clow was trying to do that through Syaoran in some way.

"So that's why the makeup of Meiling's soul and her appearance have been changing," Tsubaki thought out loud, "But why would Clow try to 'reunite' the two parts, as it were?"

"I'm not sure," Sakura admitted, "It may have to do with Ms. Sakura's wish colliding with Clow's."

Her glance turned over to her friends.

"Meiling, are you okay?"

Meiling looked like she was in shock. She was taking it all in, or at least trying to figure out how to take it.

"Meiling?" Tomoyo cooed, "It's okay. I know this is a lot to take in…"

"Who…who the hell am I supposed to be?" Meiling choked, her hair now more auburn with streaks of black in it. One of her eyes was starting to turn green, Sakura noticed.

"MEILING!" Tomoyo shouted as her meister bolted out of the room.

It grew silent for a while.

"That explains the changes in her appearance," Tsubaki muttered, "I wonder if it's Clow's magic doing that though. You said that Ms. Sakura told you that Meiling has her own soul, but it only has bits and pieces of Ms. Sakura, right?"

"Something like that," Sakura nodded, "I think Meiling is a reincarnation of another version of herself, and in order to bring her here, Ms. Sakura needed to give a part of her soul and her own blood to Meiling."

"Why her blood?" Soul interjected.

"It's a blood of a Clow descendant," Sakura explained, "Any part of her that's genetically connected to Clow was from Ms. Sakura."


As Sakura looked up at the black orb in the sky that was the moon, everyone was trying to come up with a new plan: how to protect Meiling and Sakura, how to find Syaoran. It all felt like chaos.

All Sakura knew was that she wanted to find Syaoran herself. She didn't want the adults to have to resort to anything drastic. If it meant that Syaoran would have to be killed…

Her chest got tight and she felt like crying. Somehow, she didn't want to think about that. She wasn't sure why he going out and supposedly killing innocent people, but she had to find him and stop him somehow.

She felt something. The blood in her veins began to…vibrate? She looked down at her leg. Her calf, where Clow and those black things had stabbed her a year or so back, was starting to pulse, like a heart. The veins were black and looked like a star burst on her leg.

She looked up again.

The moon's black encasement now had a white, glowing dot on it. It looked like some sort of eyeball floating above her. It stared for a moment, and Sakura disappeared in a burst of light.


Sakura was now surrounded in a white light. She squinted for a while until her eyes adjusted. Looking around, she recognized this place somehow, and then she recognized a rubix cube like object.

It was BREW. As she reached out to touch it, a hand appeared suddenly below BREW, making Sakura jump.

"Please, don't touch it," a familiar voice told her, "I wouldn't know how to deal with the situation if something happened to this."

The hand that was levitating BREW soon joined with an androgynous, pink-haired person that Sakura recognized. Their form-fitting robes were white, and a vertical third eye could be seen on their forehead. The person smiled at her warmly.

"Crona?" Sakura asked.

"It's nice to see you in person, young Sakura," Crona smiled brightly.


"Where is she?!" Maka cried hysterically.

"She's right here, Bookworm," Soul replied, holding up a very happy Angel. Maka took the small child into her arms before talking again, this time more calmly.

"Seriously, where did Sakura go?" she said.

"I may be able to answer that," a velvety voice echoed into the room. The adults turned to see Yuuko Ichihara in a traditional Japanese kimono, the back of the obi shaped as butterfly wings. She had her usual pipe in her hand.

"She didn't go far, did she?" Tsubaki asked in a worried tone.

"She's looking for Syaoran," she answered, and all of the adults groaned.

"Great, we don't even have a plan together," Kid grumbled, "And Ms. Kinomoto is missing. This is just dandy."

"She probably wouldn't be missing if you lousy teachers didn't spend so long planning," Yuuko muttered to a now angry Death God. She had her ears blocked as Kid railed into her and Liz and Patti tried to calm him down.

"It will be fine," Yuuko assured, "She's in good hands. Maka's good friend is helping her."

"Maka's good friend?" Black«Star said, raising an eyebrow.

Yuuko pointed her pipe at the moon above, and everyone understood.

"Crona's alive…" Maka thought out loud.

She held Angel close to her as she cried. Everyone was by her side in an instant.