Chapter
One:
How long had it been now? So long.
Unbearably long. Seconds had turned into minutes. Minutes into hours. Daidouji
Tomoyo had found him that day, Li Meilin close by. Eriol had told them where to
find him and they had found him, hours later, curled into a little ball exactly
where he had last stood.
"Xiao Lang."
The sky was a beautiful shade
tonight. Light blue with purple-pink clouds. So many of her favorite colors,
there before him. The moon shone brilliantly, clear. Majestic. Surrounded by
stars which were slowly appearing.
"Xiao Lang…"
If he called out to the moon, would
she answer? Would she tell him where Sakura had gone? No, he knew where she
was. She sang down to him from her place there in the stars. She had left him
behind. Eriol had told him, so long ago. Sakura's presence was no longer felt.
It had cut off around the same time they had fought that man. Which was how
Eriol had known to send Tomoyo and Meilin.
Sakura had died.
"Xiao Lang…" came a small voice from
behind, sniffling. "Please don't do this again…"
He blinked, brought out of his
reverie and he looked over his shoulder at Li Meilin, who had tears shining in
her eyes. He straightened, off and away from the balcony and stared at her for
a small eternity, feeling completely lost.
"What's wrong, Meilin?" he asked her
quietly.
Meilin gazed at him, long hair
hanging loose. "Everything." She whispered, hesitating. And then she bowed her
head and went into the circle of his arms, embracing him. He wordlessly wrapped
his arms around her, chin coming to rest on the top of her head.
And for a small lifetime all there
was were her sobs, her breathing. And then she shifted a bit, not wanting to
let go, and said quietly against his chest, "You were there again."
Syaoran remained wordless as she
sniffled.
I'm always there. I'll always be
where she is.
"I knew from the beginning…" she was
whispering, "that marriage to you would only make me your wife. Not your love."
He softened, smiling gently down at
the crown of her head. "Meilin…"
"And if she lived today she would be
your wife as intended." Her fingers dug into his shirt at his collar and he
knew she played with the slender silver band hanging off the chain around his
neck. He swallowed against her scent, realizing only once more that hers wasn't
the scent he needed.
"But I'm your wife, Xiao Lang." She
said. "Please don't leave me here like this…"
Syaoran stood silently, fingers
smoothing her long, silky hair and he felt detached, strangely light. As if he
weren't standing in his own body. Non-existent, almost.
How can I promise that I won't
leave you when I'm already gone?
He lifted his gaze, looking up at
the moon overhead. And he prayed, even as he held Meilin that wherever she was,
Sakura was embracing him comfortingly.
Hiiragizawa Eriol stared into the
fire, gaze blank. All around him the world breathed. Lived. Moved on. He didn't
know what time it was, only that it was night. Was it even the same day? The
fire seemed to burn for hours, eating away at the wood in the fireplace.
Akizuki Nakuru lay on the couch to the side, eyes closed. She didn't need to
rest, didn't need to sleep. And yet she hadn't given up on old habits. On the
back of the couch Spinel Sun also lay in his false form, but his eyes glittered
in the firelight.
The flames enchanted him. Always
had. When he had made the Cards, as Clow Reed in his past life, it had been
because of the roaring fire. The water drops which dripped from the small rain
shower that had just passed. The wind that shook the shutters of the house. All
those things. And the power one would have, harnessing those elements. He had
been greedy for that power.
But he had never wanted Sakura to
pay for it.
"She told me I would never see
her again! That the cards had been returned to their rightful owner."
Xiao Lang had been frantic when they
had spoken that last time. And after Eriol had told him what he had felt his
descendant had died before his eyes. Just as she had. But Xiao Lang still
walked the earth even if his soul had gone on to join his love.
Wherever she was.
The fires would always burn, and
love and death would always walk hand in hand into the flames.
"Has it been five years already?"
Spinel Sun asked faintly and his gaze was now on Eriol.
Eriol smiled at him slowly, black
hair hanging into his boyishly innocent face. "It has, my friend. Five long
years." He answered softly, dark eyes shining in the light of the flames.
Nakuru's eyes came open, as if she
had been awake the entire time. "It moves differently now." She murmured. "When
the Card Mistress lived it seemed as if life moved quickly." She broke off,
blinking into nothing as if trying to search for what she missed. "Time was
ours."
He knew what she meant. Time had
flown since he had first encountered Kinomoto Sakura. He had been ten. They had
all been ten. Sakura and Xiao Lang had fallen in love. Had parted. Had
reunited. And their love had seemed eternal.
"We parted once! I'll find her
again!"
Their engagement had been expected.
For the Li Clan it had been necessary to reclaim the power that was now known
as the Sakura Cards. But for Sakura and Xiao Lang, marriage was another step
towards a life together. They had both wanted it.
They had both fallen short.
Time had flown fast then, always out
of reach. It had felt as if no matter how hard he ran he couldn't catch it. The
day Sakura had died he had finally caught up and now? Now time lay all around
him and he didn't know what to do with any of it.
"Sometimes, when I become
thoughtful," Nakuru whispered, tone distant, "I find myself missing Yue."
Eriol looked at her in surprise. "Do
you?"
She didn't answer, instead closing
her eyes and shifting into a more comfortable position. "And Spinel Sun misses
Keroberos." She added.
"I do not." Spinel Sun stated,
opening his jaws wide to yawn.
Eriol's face saddened once more.
After the death of Sakura Tomoyo had gone to her house, to her room, for
keepsakes and she had discovered the Clow Book gone, along with the Guardian.
As if they had never existed.
Kinomoto Touya had been in the room
when she had arrived. And he said that he had felt it, in his heart, the exact
moment Sakura had gone. He had said that he would never see her again. And it
had been enough to make Tomoyo cry.
He had also been the one to alert
her to the fact that Tsukishiro Yukito was gone. Which meant Yue had gone as
well.
Kinomoto Fujitaka and Touya had
moved away not long afterwards.
"What evil to plague their family. To
take the mother and the daughter. What sorrow." Eriol murmured, remembering
Kinomoto Nadeshiko's face from pictures Sakura had shown him.
"She was a model. But to me, she
was my mom."
"Eriol." Nakuru called him softly.
He looked up, only understanding then
that Nakuru had called him once already. Her face was sad as she gazed at him.
He smiled at her, feigning a cheerfulness he just couldn't feel in his heart.
"There's no need to pretend." She
said quietly, the cheerfulness only making her all the more sorrowful. "Even
when you try to hide it, it becomes all the more palpable." She broke off, eyes
shimmering. "Daidouji-san hasn't forgotten you."
Eriol felt surprise once more at the
fact that she could see passed his expressions into what he felt. He was
getting forgetful in his young age. Of course they would see through him,
passed whatever barriers he had erected. They had been made to understand him,
to feel what he felt.
And what he felt at the moment he
wouldn't have wished on anyone.
"You'll be with Tomoyo again."
Nakuru said in a comforting tone. And she closed her eyes once more, leaning
her head down on her arms.
He gazed at her wordlessly,
realization slowly washing over him.
It ripped us apart. All of us.
Xiao Lang had married Meilin and
gone back to China. Eriol himself had moved back to England after the Kinomotos
had gone away. And Tomoyo. Tomoyo had stayed in Japan all by herself. The
strongest of all of them to stay where it had all occurred. He wondered again
what she felt to live in the same area knowing that when she had been a little
girl she had had a best friend named Sakura. A best friend who had been
Mistress to the Cards, who had had a heart big enough for everyone to crawl
into. A friend who had left the earth before her time.
We're alone now.
And he suddenly felt something,
something he hadn't felt in a long time. A small spark. Of life. And he lifted
his head slowly, looking at the fire in confusion.
Sakura…
He basked in the sensation for a
moment, in the warmth her presence brought. And then, as it began to fade he
tried to reach for it. He reached with his mind and his heart but it slipped
away, vanished into the night, and he was left feeling empty.
He was losing it, imagining things
that weren't there. He would gladly have accepted the spark as an indication of
Sakura's rebirth into the world but the feeling was gone now. Sakura had not
returned. She was still dead.
And he needed air.