Hey yo! I'm so happy I got to finish this chappie.memorial day wkend rox
man! N now u see out what happens next! Any questions, concerns, or
anything else, dial 732-000-0000-00000-000001 (not really) OR just push
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Disclaimer: I own my brain! And this plot! And that's it.
-flashbacks
'lalala'-thinking
~~~ - Dreaming
"lalala"-out loud
Chapter 8 (part II): Sakura, Syaoran, and the Iris Spirit
She took a deep breath, and the demon brought its hand back to strike.
Sakura looked deep into its eyes. She saw only the fire-flecked irises and the deep black pupil, but somewhere in there was that elegant spirit that had been taken over not so long ago. 'I can't kill it.' she thought, 'but somehow I've got to heal it of whatever is wrong with it.'
Suddenly the hand came bearing down on her neck, and a second later she would have been too late for remorse. In a flash of a second Sakura wriggled her hand holding the key so the top was facing up.
"RELEASE!" she shouted desperately. With a bright flash of light that momentarily stunned the demon, the staff grew long-and up-and hit its chin. The demon stumbled backwards. A few steps only, but enough for Sakura to run away and hastily put together some kind of plan. Or more like some serious impromptu thinking.
"FLY!"
The magnificent wings spread out from her back and Sakura felt herself lifted up. She was tempted to just hover there and rest (because man, was she sweaty and tired!), but the Fly was only supposed to give her time and stay out of reach of the demon to think.
Sakura spotted Syaoran lying amidst broken boxes. She flew over, picked him up, and quickly deposited him on a ledge out of harm's way.
By now the demon was furious. It was banging on the wood and scratching anything within reach.
"SWORD!" Sakura held up the staff and watched it turn into the nifty blade. 'There,' she thought, 'wings and a sword. All I have to do is corner it, not kill it or anything. What could go wrong?'
She dove down, brandishing the blade. Sakura grunted as she fought, sword against nail, with the demon. "Ergh!" she muttered as a result from flying too close. The thing had scratched her. Sakura winced and tried to ignore the oozing blood down her arm. More fighting ensued amongst 'mmph''s and 'ahrg''s, mostly on Sakura's part.
She flew back up, panting. Sakura needed a break. ('Just for a sec', she consented). After a moment, Sakura flew down. As she approached the demon, she flew over the tub. Her wing beats caused a stir in the pool, and a small wave of water flew forward with her. It hit the demon.
It started thrashing about.as if in pain! The demon shrieked as it tried to wipe of the water, but to no avail. The water hissed and left white scorches on its gray skin.
'The compost!' she thought triumphantly, 'it's the compost! The water must make it burn, and the compost could counteract the evil thing inside! That's why the skin turned white when the water touched it.or something to that effect.'
Now, how to get it inside.
"WINDY!" Sakura cried. The elfin figure of the Windy hurtled towards the demon, arms outstretched. 'Come on, come on.' she thought anxiously.
Windy's ghostly form wrapped around the demon's, and she tried to pull on it towards the tub. The demon roared with anger, but it was more like annoyance, since Windy didn't seem to be having any affect on the monster. Sakura felt a déjà vu from the time when Windy hadn't worked on the Mirror Card. That was so long ago.
"Shit!" Sakura rarely swore, but there was a first time for everything. She thought hard. Sakura needed a card that could fight this demon. Well, if the demon had originally been the Iris Spirit, then maybe.Flower? But no, Flower was weak. Then what would work? Something of the same kind of element.of course!
"WOOD!" she yelled. It was so obvious. Sakura just hoped that Wood could take care of this demon. As Wood appeared, she noticed a big similarity between the once-was-Iris Spirit and Wood. How odd.
The two locked arms, and Sakura thought the demon looked surprised to not be meeting air. Sakura shouted at it, "HAHA! We've got you now!"
Although the Wood looked frail, the Wood card held her grip on the demon, forcing it backwards. She wrapped tendrils of vines on the demon, to which it reacted with astonishment. It tried lashing out, and successfully cut some of the vines with its nails. But the Wood kept the vines coming, and there were too many to get rid of alone.
Sakura watched in anticipation as Wood drove the demon closer to the tub. It wailed agitatedly as it caught sight of the water. With a final heave, the Wood let the demon in with a loud splash. Torrents of water flowed over the tub. Sakura had to cover her nose as a strong acidic smell came from the water. Shrieking and splashing could be heard, and hot clouds of steam rose.
Cautiously, Sakura descended towards the tub. It was still too foggy to see anything, but the noise had subsided, except for the almost silent ripples of water. She noticed that Wood was still there. Sakura went and knelt beside it, right next to the tub.
For once in what had been a long time, the card actually looked at her. Not just glanced, but stared, and Sakura saw a medley of emotions in Wood's eyes. The card then reached out with its soft pallid hands and put its slender fingers under Sakura's chin, tilting her face up towards its own. And for the first time since the Dark and Light cards, it spoke to her.
"We are ready. This will not be the first test."
Sakura asked hesitantly, "Test?"
"There is much to come." And that was it. The Wood went back into its card, which Sakura picked up, mystified. It was still the same pink Sakura Card, but the only difference was that the Wood's eyes were open. They had the same clash of emotions in them, too.
Still shaking her head in disbelief, Sakura looked at the tub with an air of surprise. The fog had cleared, and so had the water. There was nothing in it except for a single white Iris.
- - -
Syaoran felt the pain of knocking into the boxes. He felt dizzy, disoriented as he sank into unconsciousness. His last conscious thought was of Sakura.how he had to help her. But his arms and legs wouldn't move. And Syaoran's mind slipped sideways into darkness.
After what seemed like ages of darkness, he felt his body being moved away from the rubble of boxes and splinters.almost like he was flying. Wearily, Syaoran tried to open his eyes, and stared up groggily. For a moment he saw angel wings and thought, 'I must be dead.it sure feels like it.' Then he fell back into unconsciousness.
~ ~ ~
"Syaoran. wake up." The voice was comforting, soft, almost like his mother's. "Open your eyes," it told him.
Syaoran groggily obliged. He felt sore and disoriented, and all he could see with his half-open eyes was white. Recalling his last thoughts, he muttered, "I am most definitely dead, then." Of course, he was in some state of disconnection from reality that resulted in his unfeeling conclusion of death. In anyone else's case, they would have most likely broken down and started crying, but in Syaoran's situation, he was already broken down.
His blurry eyes tried to focus, and then he saw a gentle, pale, luminescent face. He vaguely recalled the Iris Spirit, and wondered faintly how it had gotten better.
"Syaoran.thank Sakura for me. Tell her.tell her."
But the voice was growing fainter. He couldn't hear much, and all he heard was: "innocence...needs...take it..tell her, Syaoran."
"I'll tell her," he mumbled, mind being taken out of the dream and returning back to his body in the Spirit World.
"Syaoran! Syaoran!" he heard, growing louder.
"I'll tell her, don't worry," he murmured again.
~ ~ ~
"Syaoran!" Sakura shouted, shaking his shoulders. She heard him vaguely mumble something like, "Take it.I'll tell her." It was a good sign that he was alive, although delusions weren't so good. Sakura shook him harder.
"Mmmph." Syaoran made a muffled noise as Sakura stared concerned at him. He dazedly opened his eyes. "Sakura?" he said, sounding far off and faint. He shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs from it. "Sakura." It was a statement, and he sounded much more sure of himself.
"Ah.thank goodness you're all right!" Sakura shouted happily. He was okay! A little on the slow side, but okay. She wrapped him up in a hug, unaware of the blood and sweat on them both.
Suddenly Syaoran realized that Sakura was hugging him. Although he was weak, Syaoran managed to jump up in surprise, and then noticed that she had wings and that he was on a high ledge. He also noted a faint tangy coppery smell floating around in the air.
Sakura laughed. "Don't push yourself. I think that crashing into boxes might have injured any regular person." She started to softly push on his legs and arms to check for broken bones, which Syaoran embarrassedly submitted to. He winced when she prodded his back, which was the sorest part.
"Ngah! That hurts."
"Sorry.I wonder what we'll tell Chihiyaku and Aniyaku when they see this." Sakura gestured around, and Syaoran saw the scratch marks, the water everywhere and the cuts and blood on Sakura. He saw she was holding the staff, which explained the wings.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Fine, just tired. I think I'll be feeling this tonight." She pointed to some bruises on her arms.
Syaoran nodded absentmindedly. He looked at the tub, and saw the Iris blossom floating around in it.
Sakura asked, "What was it that you were saying? When you woke up?"
Syaoran said nothing for a moment, and then told her about the dream-thing. Sakura smiled when he told her that the spirit had said thank you, and glanced at the Iris in the tub when he told her the obscure parting phrase.
"I think she meant this," Sakura called as she flew down to the tub and fished out the flower, "but what for, I have no idea."
He nodded. "I think that's it. But I'm still confused about the innocence, and she said something about needing." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence. For a few moments, they stayed like that, Syaoran thinking on the ledge, and Sakura floating by the tub, staring at the Iris. After a moment Syaoran used his wind to float down from the ledge, and Sakura returned the Fly card and re-shrank the staff.
In an unspoken agreement, both of them walked towards the door to figure out what they should tell Aniyaku. Sakura pocketed the Iris.
With surprising alacrity, the door flew open to reveal a panting Yuna. "Yubaba would like to see you," she told a bruised, bleeding, sweaty, and stunned pair.
- - -
Aiden waited, to some extent patient, in his library. It was a huge maze of shelves, paths, rooms, and books. Many spirits or humans could get lost inside it. The former he was most worried about. It had been quite a bit since he had dispatched the Iris Spirit, and he definitely hoped that it hadn't completely hurt Sakura or Syaoran.
A servant-spirit offered the slouching man a drink. He waved it away impatiently. Aiden was used to being alone, except for the company of the servant-spirits. But soon he was expecting company. Four special someones, as long as Ananda was able to do her thing quickly.
Of course, there were many things that could go wrong. If Chihiro didn't recover in time, it might already start to happen to Ananda. She was already losing her humor. There was also the possibility of Chihiro never regaining her memory, which would definitely screw everything up completely. Either way, she had to get better soon.
Then, the Iris Spirit could have infected some of the other spirits, or destroyed those two humans. And there was the whole deal with Kaonashi. He was an unknown. Aiden didn't know what Kaonashi's goal was.
The handsome young man sighed and rubbed his temples. Lately, after his not so long ago discovery, he had been getting more headaches. It was hard to hide things from Ananda, especially when they were about her. Especially when they depended on four humans that Ananda had affinity for. 'Prophecies,' he thought with a roll of his eyes, 'what can you say?'
Suddenly another servant-spirit appeared. "It has arrived, sir, but not in a good form. It may be hard to communicate with."
Aiden sighed with relief. As long as it was here, things were okay. "Well bring in man!"
The servant-spirit disappeared. A few moments later it came in with the Iris Spirit. It looked paler, translucent.
"How did it go, my dear?"
The spirit bent to one knee and kissed Aiden's hand. "Thank you.thank you," it cried. Aiden couldn't help but grinning. He loved doing good.and getting attention.
"Yes, well I was happy to help. I knew that they would cure you. But tell me, how did they do? How did it go?"
"I do not remember much; I think it was the girl that cured me. I might have injured the boy. As you know, I was not in control of my actions."
"All right, that's fine." He thought for a moment. The workers at Aburaya should probably be able to heal any wounds. "Did you tell them? What the Iris was for?"
"Yes.I told the boy, although he might not have heard right. But they did take it, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Good! Good!" Aiden smiled. He had nice, even teeth. "Very good. You can go now, you're cured." He smiled again as the spirit left, bowing slightly before exiting.
Aiden fell back into a train of thought. So things were going according to plan. If the humans didn't exactly know what the Iris was needed for, then they should be able to figure it out once they arrived.
Which reminded him that he had to inform Ananda that they were ready. Any time now, she should do that dream-thing and get them over here. But again, there was the deal with Chihiro. And making sure that Ananda didn't know what he was up to. Of course, she did know partially about it, but Aiden had taken care that she wouldn't know fully.
He sighed again, rubbing his temples. Aiden stood up and started walking to find the exit from the library. A visit to Gnimaerd was in order.
~ - ~ - ~
hey y'all, thank you very much for all of the reviews! I wish I could thank u all but I gotta go n study 4 a big test (XP)! When I win a big shiny trophy (lol yea rite) you'll b the first pplz I thank!
silent H
Disclaimer: I own my brain! And this plot! And that's it.
-flashbacks
'lalala'-thinking
~~~ - Dreaming
"lalala"-out loud
Chapter 8 (part II): Sakura, Syaoran, and the Iris Spirit
She took a deep breath, and the demon brought its hand back to strike.
Sakura looked deep into its eyes. She saw only the fire-flecked irises and the deep black pupil, but somewhere in there was that elegant spirit that had been taken over not so long ago. 'I can't kill it.' she thought, 'but somehow I've got to heal it of whatever is wrong with it.'
Suddenly the hand came bearing down on her neck, and a second later she would have been too late for remorse. In a flash of a second Sakura wriggled her hand holding the key so the top was facing up.
"RELEASE!" she shouted desperately. With a bright flash of light that momentarily stunned the demon, the staff grew long-and up-and hit its chin. The demon stumbled backwards. A few steps only, but enough for Sakura to run away and hastily put together some kind of plan. Or more like some serious impromptu thinking.
"FLY!"
The magnificent wings spread out from her back and Sakura felt herself lifted up. She was tempted to just hover there and rest (because man, was she sweaty and tired!), but the Fly was only supposed to give her time and stay out of reach of the demon to think.
Sakura spotted Syaoran lying amidst broken boxes. She flew over, picked him up, and quickly deposited him on a ledge out of harm's way.
By now the demon was furious. It was banging on the wood and scratching anything within reach.
"SWORD!" Sakura held up the staff and watched it turn into the nifty blade. 'There,' she thought, 'wings and a sword. All I have to do is corner it, not kill it or anything. What could go wrong?'
She dove down, brandishing the blade. Sakura grunted as she fought, sword against nail, with the demon. "Ergh!" she muttered as a result from flying too close. The thing had scratched her. Sakura winced and tried to ignore the oozing blood down her arm. More fighting ensued amongst 'mmph''s and 'ahrg''s, mostly on Sakura's part.
She flew back up, panting. Sakura needed a break. ('Just for a sec', she consented). After a moment, Sakura flew down. As she approached the demon, she flew over the tub. Her wing beats caused a stir in the pool, and a small wave of water flew forward with her. It hit the demon.
It started thrashing about.as if in pain! The demon shrieked as it tried to wipe of the water, but to no avail. The water hissed and left white scorches on its gray skin.
'The compost!' she thought triumphantly, 'it's the compost! The water must make it burn, and the compost could counteract the evil thing inside! That's why the skin turned white when the water touched it.or something to that effect.'
Now, how to get it inside.
"WINDY!" Sakura cried. The elfin figure of the Windy hurtled towards the demon, arms outstretched. 'Come on, come on.' she thought anxiously.
Windy's ghostly form wrapped around the demon's, and she tried to pull on it towards the tub. The demon roared with anger, but it was more like annoyance, since Windy didn't seem to be having any affect on the monster. Sakura felt a déjà vu from the time when Windy hadn't worked on the Mirror Card. That was so long ago.
"Shit!" Sakura rarely swore, but there was a first time for everything. She thought hard. Sakura needed a card that could fight this demon. Well, if the demon had originally been the Iris Spirit, then maybe.Flower? But no, Flower was weak. Then what would work? Something of the same kind of element.of course!
"WOOD!" she yelled. It was so obvious. Sakura just hoped that Wood could take care of this demon. As Wood appeared, she noticed a big similarity between the once-was-Iris Spirit and Wood. How odd.
The two locked arms, and Sakura thought the demon looked surprised to not be meeting air. Sakura shouted at it, "HAHA! We've got you now!"
Although the Wood looked frail, the Wood card held her grip on the demon, forcing it backwards. She wrapped tendrils of vines on the demon, to which it reacted with astonishment. It tried lashing out, and successfully cut some of the vines with its nails. But the Wood kept the vines coming, and there were too many to get rid of alone.
Sakura watched in anticipation as Wood drove the demon closer to the tub. It wailed agitatedly as it caught sight of the water. With a final heave, the Wood let the demon in with a loud splash. Torrents of water flowed over the tub. Sakura had to cover her nose as a strong acidic smell came from the water. Shrieking and splashing could be heard, and hot clouds of steam rose.
Cautiously, Sakura descended towards the tub. It was still too foggy to see anything, but the noise had subsided, except for the almost silent ripples of water. She noticed that Wood was still there. Sakura went and knelt beside it, right next to the tub.
For once in what had been a long time, the card actually looked at her. Not just glanced, but stared, and Sakura saw a medley of emotions in Wood's eyes. The card then reached out with its soft pallid hands and put its slender fingers under Sakura's chin, tilting her face up towards its own. And for the first time since the Dark and Light cards, it spoke to her.
"We are ready. This will not be the first test."
Sakura asked hesitantly, "Test?"
"There is much to come." And that was it. The Wood went back into its card, which Sakura picked up, mystified. It was still the same pink Sakura Card, but the only difference was that the Wood's eyes were open. They had the same clash of emotions in them, too.
Still shaking her head in disbelief, Sakura looked at the tub with an air of surprise. The fog had cleared, and so had the water. There was nothing in it except for a single white Iris.
- - -
Syaoran felt the pain of knocking into the boxes. He felt dizzy, disoriented as he sank into unconsciousness. His last conscious thought was of Sakura.how he had to help her. But his arms and legs wouldn't move. And Syaoran's mind slipped sideways into darkness.
After what seemed like ages of darkness, he felt his body being moved away from the rubble of boxes and splinters.almost like he was flying. Wearily, Syaoran tried to open his eyes, and stared up groggily. For a moment he saw angel wings and thought, 'I must be dead.it sure feels like it.' Then he fell back into unconsciousness.
~ ~ ~
"Syaoran. wake up." The voice was comforting, soft, almost like his mother's. "Open your eyes," it told him.
Syaoran groggily obliged. He felt sore and disoriented, and all he could see with his half-open eyes was white. Recalling his last thoughts, he muttered, "I am most definitely dead, then." Of course, he was in some state of disconnection from reality that resulted in his unfeeling conclusion of death. In anyone else's case, they would have most likely broken down and started crying, but in Syaoran's situation, he was already broken down.
His blurry eyes tried to focus, and then he saw a gentle, pale, luminescent face. He vaguely recalled the Iris Spirit, and wondered faintly how it had gotten better.
"Syaoran.thank Sakura for me. Tell her.tell her."
But the voice was growing fainter. He couldn't hear much, and all he heard was: "innocence...needs...take it..tell her, Syaoran."
"I'll tell her," he mumbled, mind being taken out of the dream and returning back to his body in the Spirit World.
"Syaoran! Syaoran!" he heard, growing louder.
"I'll tell her, don't worry," he murmured again.
~ ~ ~
"Syaoran!" Sakura shouted, shaking his shoulders. She heard him vaguely mumble something like, "Take it.I'll tell her." It was a good sign that he was alive, although delusions weren't so good. Sakura shook him harder.
"Mmmph." Syaoran made a muffled noise as Sakura stared concerned at him. He dazedly opened his eyes. "Sakura?" he said, sounding far off and faint. He shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs from it. "Sakura." It was a statement, and he sounded much more sure of himself.
"Ah.thank goodness you're all right!" Sakura shouted happily. He was okay! A little on the slow side, but okay. She wrapped him up in a hug, unaware of the blood and sweat on them both.
Suddenly Syaoran realized that Sakura was hugging him. Although he was weak, Syaoran managed to jump up in surprise, and then noticed that she had wings and that he was on a high ledge. He also noted a faint tangy coppery smell floating around in the air.
Sakura laughed. "Don't push yourself. I think that crashing into boxes might have injured any regular person." She started to softly push on his legs and arms to check for broken bones, which Syaoran embarrassedly submitted to. He winced when she prodded his back, which was the sorest part.
"Ngah! That hurts."
"Sorry.I wonder what we'll tell Chihiyaku and Aniyaku when they see this." Sakura gestured around, and Syaoran saw the scratch marks, the water everywhere and the cuts and blood on Sakura. He saw she was holding the staff, which explained the wings.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Fine, just tired. I think I'll be feeling this tonight." She pointed to some bruises on her arms.
Syaoran nodded absentmindedly. He looked at the tub, and saw the Iris blossom floating around in it.
Sakura asked, "What was it that you were saying? When you woke up?"
Syaoran said nothing for a moment, and then told her about the dream-thing. Sakura smiled when he told her that the spirit had said thank you, and glanced at the Iris in the tub when he told her the obscure parting phrase.
"I think she meant this," Sakura called as she flew down to the tub and fished out the flower, "but what for, I have no idea."
He nodded. "I think that's it. But I'm still confused about the innocence, and she said something about needing." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence. For a few moments, they stayed like that, Syaoran thinking on the ledge, and Sakura floating by the tub, staring at the Iris. After a moment Syaoran used his wind to float down from the ledge, and Sakura returned the Fly card and re-shrank the staff.
In an unspoken agreement, both of them walked towards the door to figure out what they should tell Aniyaku. Sakura pocketed the Iris.
With surprising alacrity, the door flew open to reveal a panting Yuna. "Yubaba would like to see you," she told a bruised, bleeding, sweaty, and stunned pair.
- - -
Aiden waited, to some extent patient, in his library. It was a huge maze of shelves, paths, rooms, and books. Many spirits or humans could get lost inside it. The former he was most worried about. It had been quite a bit since he had dispatched the Iris Spirit, and he definitely hoped that it hadn't completely hurt Sakura or Syaoran.
A servant-spirit offered the slouching man a drink. He waved it away impatiently. Aiden was used to being alone, except for the company of the servant-spirits. But soon he was expecting company. Four special someones, as long as Ananda was able to do her thing quickly.
Of course, there were many things that could go wrong. If Chihiro didn't recover in time, it might already start to happen to Ananda. She was already losing her humor. There was also the possibility of Chihiro never regaining her memory, which would definitely screw everything up completely. Either way, she had to get better soon.
Then, the Iris Spirit could have infected some of the other spirits, or destroyed those two humans. And there was the whole deal with Kaonashi. He was an unknown. Aiden didn't know what Kaonashi's goal was.
The handsome young man sighed and rubbed his temples. Lately, after his not so long ago discovery, he had been getting more headaches. It was hard to hide things from Ananda, especially when they were about her. Especially when they depended on four humans that Ananda had affinity for. 'Prophecies,' he thought with a roll of his eyes, 'what can you say?'
Suddenly another servant-spirit appeared. "It has arrived, sir, but not in a good form. It may be hard to communicate with."
Aiden sighed with relief. As long as it was here, things were okay. "Well bring in man!"
The servant-spirit disappeared. A few moments later it came in with the Iris Spirit. It looked paler, translucent.
"How did it go, my dear?"
The spirit bent to one knee and kissed Aiden's hand. "Thank you.thank you," it cried. Aiden couldn't help but grinning. He loved doing good.and getting attention.
"Yes, well I was happy to help. I knew that they would cure you. But tell me, how did they do? How did it go?"
"I do not remember much; I think it was the girl that cured me. I might have injured the boy. As you know, I was not in control of my actions."
"All right, that's fine." He thought for a moment. The workers at Aburaya should probably be able to heal any wounds. "Did you tell them? What the Iris was for?"
"Yes.I told the boy, although he might not have heard right. But they did take it, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Good! Good!" Aiden smiled. He had nice, even teeth. "Very good. You can go now, you're cured." He smiled again as the spirit left, bowing slightly before exiting.
Aiden fell back into a train of thought. So things were going according to plan. If the humans didn't exactly know what the Iris was needed for, then they should be able to figure it out once they arrived.
Which reminded him that he had to inform Ananda that they were ready. Any time now, she should do that dream-thing and get them over here. But again, there was the deal with Chihiro. And making sure that Ananda didn't know what he was up to. Of course, she did know partially about it, but Aiden had taken care that she wouldn't know fully.
He sighed again, rubbing his temples. Aiden stood up and started walking to find the exit from the library. A visit to Gnimaerd was in order.
~ - ~ - ~
hey y'all, thank you very much for all of the reviews! I wish I could thank u all but I gotta go n study 4 a big test (XP)! When I win a big shiny trophy (lol yea rite) you'll b the first pplz I thank!
silent H