Chapter 1-New Rivalry
" You know Kero, this may sound awkward, but I want a new enemy to appear." The little lion almost choked on his homemade chocolate pudding. " What did you say?"
" I said 'I want a new enemy to appear.'" The poor stuffed lion spit the pudding right out of his mouth this time.
" Are you crazy Sakura? You want evil people running around after you and that Li kid trying to murder you and then creating chaos in the world!" He waved his hands franticly in the air indicating his fear in Sakura's sudden twisted thoughts.
" Calm down Kero. I didn't mean that. I just wanted to capture new cards or do something. I know this peaceful life is nice and normal but I want to capture."
" Well, you're not going to be bored for long. I've been feeling the usual signs lately. There's something out there waiting to attack and I think this time the enemy is much more powerful."
The two stared out the window at the lights of Tomoedo. A dark shadow moved over the roof in the distance or was it just a trick of the light?
~*~*~*~*~
" Sakura! Sakura wake up! It's seven forty five already!"
" What!" The sleepy Sakura sat up in her bed lazily as the thought processed slowly in her mind. Then, just as the simple phrase which held so much meaning hit the corner of her consciousness the girl tossed her blankets and bolted out of bed. Quickly brushing her mahogany brown hair and doing them into the usual hairstyle with the two usual hair ties, she yelled at the guardian beast of the Clow. " Kero! Why didn't you wake me up earlier!"
" Well I'd think the alarm clock would have waken you up in time if you hadn't thrown it into your closet last night!" The yellow cotton stuffed animal replied, each word increasing in volume, more so than the last. The girl pouted in irritated response and disappeared down the stairs.
" Good morning Touya!"
" Morning monster." Her brother replied casually. The boy glanced up and asked, " How can you put on your roller blades and eat at the same time?"
" Because, I eat a bite, tie my laces, eat a bite, sorry, can't do this while I'm talking." She ceased her mouth and ate a bite. " Done!"
Touya Kinomoto didn't ride with Sakura to school anymore. After all, he was in college while Sakura was in seventh grade. The girl flew out of the house and straight for the road to school.
Panting, Sakura made it to class just in time. " Good." She let out a breath and sat there resting her tired legs as her pace slowed down before turning around to look at the boy who sat behind her. " Li."
" Yes?" came the reply to show his attention.
" Kero told me that a new enemy is coming, more powerful than our last." The messy, dark-brown hair on the boy's head shook as he nodded. " I've been sensing something too. I'm still lost at the source of it but I'm sure it'll show its true face soon enough." The boy looked straight at Sakura. " So be ready." His old rival nodded and turned around.
" Students." came the familiar voice of their teacher. "We have two new students today, meet Hai Sheng and Yuyue Tian." The class murmured. " Sheng and Tian both came here from Hong Kong." The teacher smiled and turned around to write their names on the board as he did when Li first transferred to Tomoedo. The brown haired boy opened his mouth in surprise but made no sound. The girl with the green eyes smiled at the new students as they searched for vacant seats. Li stared up at the girl as she passed by his desk. She had jet-black hair tied up at the back of her head in a bun shyly smiling a little to do something for the small disturbance she caused because of her presence. He scowled. Why did he feel attracted to her? She was slightly pretty. Li scowled again.
~*~*~*~*~
Sakura ran up to the new students. They were whispering to each, well at least one was. The girl sat facing him, listening intently. Obviously the topic was very serious and absorbing the couple's attention so completely that they didn't even notice the smiling girl coming their way. " Good morning!" Sakura greeted in her usual energetic voice. The pair looked up eyes surveying her intensely. And as usual, Sakura didn't notice a thing. " My name's Sakura. I was wondering if you would join me for lunch after our final morning class." One pair of medium brown eyes looked up at her thoughtfully. The other pair of dark brown ones stared at her and replied. " Yes. We would be glad to." Sakura nodded respectfully and continued on to find her next class.
She opened the door. Amazingly she was early. As she mused at her timing, beautiful piano notes flowed through the room. Sakura peeked inside to find Yuyue sitting there with her graceful fingers pressing and gliding along the keys. " Yuyue?" She whispered. The girl stared. She'd never known the ear could see such beauty. Yes, beauty seen by the ear. As she listened her thoughts became organized and everything was sorted out. Nothing remained tatters in her mind, only peacefulness and serenity. Sakura walked into the room and suddenly the music stopped. Yuyue looked at her. Sakura stared back. The girl with the green eyes was thinking how the other had gotten to class before her. Yuyue blushed and looked down at the keys. " Sorry, I didn't mean to walk in one you like this. Your piano playing was wonderful." The other girl blushed and flustered with the words. " I-only- I was only- practicing." Sakura smiled.
Yuyue stood up and snagged her book bag finding a seat in the empty classroom. Sakura sat down next to her about to ask how did she arrive here so early. Just as Tomoyo ran in and searched the room, deep violet eyes earnest and intent on finding the item or person that she needed to find so urgently. " There you are!" The girls fluffed hair bounced as she leapt into the seat beside Sakura. " You just disappeared."
" Sorry. I was worried of being late." Tomoyo chuckled lightly in her usual polite manner. " We're still three minutes early." The girl with dark gray hair smiled at Yuyue. The other blushed. Back home, she never was social able and wasn't used to so much attention from others.
The three girls were seated in silence as fellow classmates started filing in creating laughter and voices amongst them. The two most familiar voices floated in as Shaolan and Meilin walked in. " Meilin! Stop fretting over my lunch! I have enough!"
" It doesn't seem nearly enough to me." protested Meilin. The boy noticed that Yuyue was staring at them since they were making such noise. He blushed lightly and scowled. The pair found two seats in back of Sakura and Tomoyo. " Sakura, I need you to meet me on the roof during lunch period. I have something important to tell you."
" Sorry Li, I invited Yuyue and Hai to sit with me. What is it?"
" Something. I'll have to tell you sometime later then." The music teacher tapped her composition baton on the music stand. " We all know that we'll be having a winter concert soon as possible. This year the staff has decided that the students should choose the title. Something related with winter and appropriate for school. Any suggestions?" The class browsed through their heads and discussed their ideas amongst each other. A girl raised her hand. " How about ' drifting memories'?" A boy shouted ethustiaticly. " Falling stars!"
" Wondering flakes!"
" Foggy beginning!"
The teacher listened carefully and nodded at each student. " Any other suggestions?" She called after the yelling had ceased. Sheepishly, Yuyue raised her hand. " Rising beginnings." The teacher stared at her thoughtfully. " Interesting name Yuyue. And explain its meaning." The girls brown eyes deepened as she took a deep breath. " I-I chose the name because I love the morning and snow. To me, since winter has just started, it is like a new beginning. And I suppose you have had the feeling when you wake up in the morning and step out the door, you feel the cold morning breeze and you know that today is a new start to everything you ever wanted to mend." The teacher looked questioningly at her. The girl's thoughts are deeper than your average teenager; she seemed to know much more than even the adult in the room. Taking her eyes off the girl, she stared back up at the class. " So shall we take a vote?" The class sat silently for a moment and then started shouting out their opinions.
The exhausted music teacher finished the final vertical line on the chalkboard and started counting. After finishing, she smiled at the class. " I guess this year's title for our winter concert will be Rising Beginnings." The class cheered and Yuyue blushed. Then as if on cue, the bell rang and the class was dismissed for their lunch period.
"Sakura." Li called as he nodded his head at her indicating "now". She nodded back in understandment that he wanted to discuss the "something important" with her. Sakura hurried off with Li to an isolated spot of the playground so no one would over hear their conversation. " Did you feel the magic aura from Yuyue?" Sakura thought for a moment. As a matter of fact, she had been feeling magic from the new student. " And Hai has it too."
" Yes, I have a feeling they're Card Captors just like us." He looked thoughtful. " Maybe they're our enemies." Sakura stared at her former rival.
" They don't seem like it."
" Never judge a person by their looks."
" But they act friendly enough." The boy was silent. " I may be wrong but we should watch out for them. One never knows." The two young heroes marched off back to the table where their allies gathered in cheerful chatter. Over all, Li lifted his head to lead his eyes onto the person that attracted his attention the most, Yuyue. Her brown eyes stared intently at the untouched food in front of her showing signs of deep thought. Li was quite interested in her but he dismissed his interest for her merely as of her transferring here from Hong Kong, his origin, rather than liking her as in personality traits. Instead, he started off towards the empty seat next to Hai hoping to find out about his family by eavesdropping on his conversations. To his horror Meilin grabbed his arm and hurried him off to a table about three yards away from the others. " Meilin!"
" Li Shaolan, I told you I would share my lunch with you!"
" I have my own Meilin!" The pair sat down next to each other and unpacked their lunches. A shadow cast over them and two sets of eyes shot up to find the source. " Good afternoon. May I join you for lunch?" Li scowled and Meilin glanced up suspiciously. " Why?" The girl stared at the outsider with an intensifying glare. " I-I.... I don't… know…exactly. I'll just leave." Yuyue carefully picked up her lunch bag and headed off towards an empty table. " I'm sorry if I offended you." muttered the lonely girl under her breath. " I just wanted to make friends with people from my origin." She signed and untied her lunch. Hai was nice enough to bring her along as company on the flight to Japan but he wasn't the sort of person that would match her. How can he be so social able? She thought as her longing eyes stared at the people that had gathered around him. Laughter floated through as her closest friend told an amusing story of how a friend had tried to follow a rabbit through a forest and became lost. She signed. Taking out a pair of chopsticks, the deserted girl picked up a small piece of eggplant. She smiled. Even though Hai wasn't the greatest match, he was the greatest cook. She chewed happily on the delicious piece of cooking. Then looked up at the sky thoughtfully. A Clow Card. I sense it. She put down her chopsticks with an inappropriate force and stood up. " Power god!" She shouted as she threw out a catenation paper. " Find the source of power!" She knew this route of action wasn't very wise but she didn't sense any eyes on her.
Little did she know that the boy within three feet watched her movements closely. Li stared in disbelief. " So she is a card captor." he whispered to himself. He focused his power on her and the unknown aura all of them had been sensing. The boy opened his mouth in surprise. She was more powerful than he had expected. Maybe enough to become his rival in search of more cards. He had thought that there were no more cards left in the world but somehow there was. He stood up abruptly. But was she an ally or an enemy? He thought to himself. But he'd have to find out later. If he didn't stop her from further actions, others would become suspicious.
"There!" Yuyue said to herself. She had just located the power source. " Wah!" She exclaimed to herself for her success. " Now all I have to do is find the place after school." The vertical strip of paper fell into her hands with Chinese writing written on it in black ink, the text that told the location at which the source was. She folded the paper neatly and slid it into her pocket.
The girl suddenly leaped to her feet in attacking position right after she sat down. Li jumped in surprise, taken aback by the way her fighting position was. One glance and he knew that she was in a very high level of martial arts. The girl blushed at her erect action. She had been so caught up in her thinking that she thought she was fighting a Clow Card. " Sorry." she apologized and grabbed her lunch in a messy bundle running off to her next class.
Sakura stared at the outline of Yuyue's figure running off into the school buildings. " Tomoyo." Sakura whispered to her close friend. Also one of the few people in the world who knew that Clow Cards existed. " I think that Hai and Yuyue are card captors also." The girl sitting with the deep violet eyes stared at the girl with green ones. " Are you sure?" The other girl nodded. Tomoyo smiled. " If there's new enemies, it must mean there's new cards out there. Doesn't it?"
" I guess." A dreamy grin spread across the face of the girl with the shining green eyes. Her wish had come true. A dark thought suddenly seeped through her sunshine ones wiping the grin right off her face. What if Shaolan was right? What if Hai and Yuyue really were our enemies? We'll see what'll happen was her last unhappy thought. She brought the Clow key out of her shirt and stared at it. It was time to put it back to work.
" Li!" Meilin shouted from behind him. " Li!" Li turned around and a sweat drop formed over his head. Meilin had just shoved a spoonful of rice into his mouth. " Meilin." he mumbled through his mouthful of homemade rice. " Li Shaolan. You haven't touched one piece of food since the bell rang." Li signed and stared back at the building Yuyue had ran into. Her aura was powerful, very powerful, and almost as powerful as his own. Almost. He thought contentedly to himself. Almost. Just then, the bell rang in indication to start their afternoon classes. Math next. Thought Li. There was a good side and a bad side to this. Since they usually worked in pairs, Li sat behind Sakura, which allowed them to discuss their private materials but then he'd have to give Sakura all the answers to the problems. Li signed and said out loud " They aren't even hard!" Meilin stared at him. Li blushed and scowled. " Come on. Let's go." He slung the heavy bag over his shoulders and walked off with Meilin tugging at his arm.
" Pair up!" commanded the teacher from the head of the room. " I have problems on the board in need of answers. Start!" Whispers swished through the room as equations leaked into the students' minds. " Sakura." The girl looked up into the boy's brown eyes. " You've been acquainting with Hai. Did you find out anything?" The girl stared at the math problems without noticing the seriousness of his voice. " I don't get it!" she cried. Li signed as he watched the black chalkboard almost entirely filled with equations and word problems. " This is what she has been teaching us for the past two days."
" What's pi supposed to mean?"
" 3.14 of course."
" What has that got to do with it?" Li stared in disbelief.
" Never mind Sakura." He studied the first problem and quickly wrote the equation and solved it. " I've done the first one. Just follow my example." He pushed his paper over to Sakura's side. The girl looked over the neat handwriting and efficient work of multiplication and division. Probably only makes sense to him. She looked at him. " I hate math." Li signed. At least her characteristic in being social able comes in handy for finding out information of Clow Cards and enemies. If I ever told mother that the Clow Card Mistress doesn't even know what -3 divided by pi is she would laugh till her heart's content and still that couldn't express the time she would laugh. Li glared at the girl staring at him in plead that he would solve all the problems. " You're going to fail your math test next week."
" I always do."
" You're hopeless." He picked up his pencil and hesitated in a moment of thought. Quickly he scribbled down the next equation. " Here, I have done the first step, you do the rest." Sakura picked up her own pencil and started to scribble all over Li's math paper. And with a wide confident grin she handed the piece of text back to him. Li took it and stared at it, a sweat drop forming over his head. A drop fell onto Yuyue's head too since she has listened to the conversation, since the very beginning of course. " Here Kinomoto. You know negatives right? It should be easy enough to do in your head. But don't worry!" Yuyue made up for her wording as she saw a hurt look flicker in the girl's bright, gay eyes. " Take problem number 7 for example. -7x + (56\x) - 4 \ 1/2 =. So all you have to do then is find out x so you could solve the whole equation. Pretty easy right?" Yu's brown eyes comforted as she asked the question. Sakura stared at the eyes. " I hate math." Yuyue fell over in her chair as Sakura's lips quivered in exasperation. " It's okay. You just need more practice. I bet you could be a great math student if you practice." Sakura smiled. No one had ever complimented her for her limited knowledge and insufficient calculations, along with dull brainwork, in math before. Yuyue smiled back. Shaolan stared at the couple. One sentence could bring such happiness to someone who claimed they hated math. " So if you just find out x, then you could start solving." Yuyue continued and handed Sakura her own pencil. " Try it." The brown haired girl looked over the problem carefully and started to squeak away with the pencil as fast as her hand could write. The girl handed back the paper carefully but with some confidence. Yuyue's brown eyes lit up and closed as she smiled at Sakura with joy for her." I told you, you were great." Sakura grinned, her face showing brightness and pride. Shaolan took a peek at her paper. " Tian ya! You really did it right!" Yuyue shot Shaolan a puzzled look. " Yes?" The boy looked down and blushed. " Sorry, I forgot it was your name." Yuyue laughed a bright laugh while Sakura stared confusedly at Li. The boy signed. And so the day continues.
Author's Notes:
I'm sorry if I spent so much room writing about Yuyue. I really wanted to give her a good introduction and in the next chapter I shall give an introduction on Hai, I'll try not to spend too much on it. But if I hear enough complaints, I promise I won't even give an introduction on him. I would really like to hear comments and please e-mail me a lot, I'll be glad to hear from you.
" You know Kero, this may sound awkward, but I want a new enemy to appear." The little lion almost choked on his homemade chocolate pudding. " What did you say?"
" I said 'I want a new enemy to appear.'" The poor stuffed lion spit the pudding right out of his mouth this time.
" Are you crazy Sakura? You want evil people running around after you and that Li kid trying to murder you and then creating chaos in the world!" He waved his hands franticly in the air indicating his fear in Sakura's sudden twisted thoughts.
" Calm down Kero. I didn't mean that. I just wanted to capture new cards or do something. I know this peaceful life is nice and normal but I want to capture."
" Well, you're not going to be bored for long. I've been feeling the usual signs lately. There's something out there waiting to attack and I think this time the enemy is much more powerful."
The two stared out the window at the lights of Tomoedo. A dark shadow moved over the roof in the distance or was it just a trick of the light?
~*~*~*~*~
" Sakura! Sakura wake up! It's seven forty five already!"
" What!" The sleepy Sakura sat up in her bed lazily as the thought processed slowly in her mind. Then, just as the simple phrase which held so much meaning hit the corner of her consciousness the girl tossed her blankets and bolted out of bed. Quickly brushing her mahogany brown hair and doing them into the usual hairstyle with the two usual hair ties, she yelled at the guardian beast of the Clow. " Kero! Why didn't you wake me up earlier!"
" Well I'd think the alarm clock would have waken you up in time if you hadn't thrown it into your closet last night!" The yellow cotton stuffed animal replied, each word increasing in volume, more so than the last. The girl pouted in irritated response and disappeared down the stairs.
" Good morning Touya!"
" Morning monster." Her brother replied casually. The boy glanced up and asked, " How can you put on your roller blades and eat at the same time?"
" Because, I eat a bite, tie my laces, eat a bite, sorry, can't do this while I'm talking." She ceased her mouth and ate a bite. " Done!"
Touya Kinomoto didn't ride with Sakura to school anymore. After all, he was in college while Sakura was in seventh grade. The girl flew out of the house and straight for the road to school.
Panting, Sakura made it to class just in time. " Good." She let out a breath and sat there resting her tired legs as her pace slowed down before turning around to look at the boy who sat behind her. " Li."
" Yes?" came the reply to show his attention.
" Kero told me that a new enemy is coming, more powerful than our last." The messy, dark-brown hair on the boy's head shook as he nodded. " I've been sensing something too. I'm still lost at the source of it but I'm sure it'll show its true face soon enough." The boy looked straight at Sakura. " So be ready." His old rival nodded and turned around.
" Students." came the familiar voice of their teacher. "We have two new students today, meet Hai Sheng and Yuyue Tian." The class murmured. " Sheng and Tian both came here from Hong Kong." The teacher smiled and turned around to write their names on the board as he did when Li first transferred to Tomoedo. The brown haired boy opened his mouth in surprise but made no sound. The girl with the green eyes smiled at the new students as they searched for vacant seats. Li stared up at the girl as she passed by his desk. She had jet-black hair tied up at the back of her head in a bun shyly smiling a little to do something for the small disturbance she caused because of her presence. He scowled. Why did he feel attracted to her? She was slightly pretty. Li scowled again.
~*~*~*~*~
Sakura ran up to the new students. They were whispering to each, well at least one was. The girl sat facing him, listening intently. Obviously the topic was very serious and absorbing the couple's attention so completely that they didn't even notice the smiling girl coming their way. " Good morning!" Sakura greeted in her usual energetic voice. The pair looked up eyes surveying her intensely. And as usual, Sakura didn't notice a thing. " My name's Sakura. I was wondering if you would join me for lunch after our final morning class." One pair of medium brown eyes looked up at her thoughtfully. The other pair of dark brown ones stared at her and replied. " Yes. We would be glad to." Sakura nodded respectfully and continued on to find her next class.
She opened the door. Amazingly she was early. As she mused at her timing, beautiful piano notes flowed through the room. Sakura peeked inside to find Yuyue sitting there with her graceful fingers pressing and gliding along the keys. " Yuyue?" She whispered. The girl stared. She'd never known the ear could see such beauty. Yes, beauty seen by the ear. As she listened her thoughts became organized and everything was sorted out. Nothing remained tatters in her mind, only peacefulness and serenity. Sakura walked into the room and suddenly the music stopped. Yuyue looked at her. Sakura stared back. The girl with the green eyes was thinking how the other had gotten to class before her. Yuyue blushed and looked down at the keys. " Sorry, I didn't mean to walk in one you like this. Your piano playing was wonderful." The other girl blushed and flustered with the words. " I-only- I was only- practicing." Sakura smiled.
Yuyue stood up and snagged her book bag finding a seat in the empty classroom. Sakura sat down next to her about to ask how did she arrive here so early. Just as Tomoyo ran in and searched the room, deep violet eyes earnest and intent on finding the item or person that she needed to find so urgently. " There you are!" The girls fluffed hair bounced as she leapt into the seat beside Sakura. " You just disappeared."
" Sorry. I was worried of being late." Tomoyo chuckled lightly in her usual polite manner. " We're still three minutes early." The girl with dark gray hair smiled at Yuyue. The other blushed. Back home, she never was social able and wasn't used to so much attention from others.
The three girls were seated in silence as fellow classmates started filing in creating laughter and voices amongst them. The two most familiar voices floated in as Shaolan and Meilin walked in. " Meilin! Stop fretting over my lunch! I have enough!"
" It doesn't seem nearly enough to me." protested Meilin. The boy noticed that Yuyue was staring at them since they were making such noise. He blushed lightly and scowled. The pair found two seats in back of Sakura and Tomoyo. " Sakura, I need you to meet me on the roof during lunch period. I have something important to tell you."
" Sorry Li, I invited Yuyue and Hai to sit with me. What is it?"
" Something. I'll have to tell you sometime later then." The music teacher tapped her composition baton on the music stand. " We all know that we'll be having a winter concert soon as possible. This year the staff has decided that the students should choose the title. Something related with winter and appropriate for school. Any suggestions?" The class browsed through their heads and discussed their ideas amongst each other. A girl raised her hand. " How about ' drifting memories'?" A boy shouted ethustiaticly. " Falling stars!"
" Wondering flakes!"
" Foggy beginning!"
The teacher listened carefully and nodded at each student. " Any other suggestions?" She called after the yelling had ceased. Sheepishly, Yuyue raised her hand. " Rising beginnings." The teacher stared at her thoughtfully. " Interesting name Yuyue. And explain its meaning." The girls brown eyes deepened as she took a deep breath. " I-I chose the name because I love the morning and snow. To me, since winter has just started, it is like a new beginning. And I suppose you have had the feeling when you wake up in the morning and step out the door, you feel the cold morning breeze and you know that today is a new start to everything you ever wanted to mend." The teacher looked questioningly at her. The girl's thoughts are deeper than your average teenager; she seemed to know much more than even the adult in the room. Taking her eyes off the girl, she stared back up at the class. " So shall we take a vote?" The class sat silently for a moment and then started shouting out their opinions.
The exhausted music teacher finished the final vertical line on the chalkboard and started counting. After finishing, she smiled at the class. " I guess this year's title for our winter concert will be Rising Beginnings." The class cheered and Yuyue blushed. Then as if on cue, the bell rang and the class was dismissed for their lunch period.
"Sakura." Li called as he nodded his head at her indicating "now". She nodded back in understandment that he wanted to discuss the "something important" with her. Sakura hurried off with Li to an isolated spot of the playground so no one would over hear their conversation. " Did you feel the magic aura from Yuyue?" Sakura thought for a moment. As a matter of fact, she had been feeling magic from the new student. " And Hai has it too."
" Yes, I have a feeling they're Card Captors just like us." He looked thoughtful. " Maybe they're our enemies." Sakura stared at her former rival.
" They don't seem like it."
" Never judge a person by their looks."
" But they act friendly enough." The boy was silent. " I may be wrong but we should watch out for them. One never knows." The two young heroes marched off back to the table where their allies gathered in cheerful chatter. Over all, Li lifted his head to lead his eyes onto the person that attracted his attention the most, Yuyue. Her brown eyes stared intently at the untouched food in front of her showing signs of deep thought. Li was quite interested in her but he dismissed his interest for her merely as of her transferring here from Hong Kong, his origin, rather than liking her as in personality traits. Instead, he started off towards the empty seat next to Hai hoping to find out about his family by eavesdropping on his conversations. To his horror Meilin grabbed his arm and hurried him off to a table about three yards away from the others. " Meilin!"
" Li Shaolan, I told you I would share my lunch with you!"
" I have my own Meilin!" The pair sat down next to each other and unpacked their lunches. A shadow cast over them and two sets of eyes shot up to find the source. " Good afternoon. May I join you for lunch?" Li scowled and Meilin glanced up suspiciously. " Why?" The girl stared at the outsider with an intensifying glare. " I-I.... I don't… know…exactly. I'll just leave." Yuyue carefully picked up her lunch bag and headed off towards an empty table. " I'm sorry if I offended you." muttered the lonely girl under her breath. " I just wanted to make friends with people from my origin." She signed and untied her lunch. Hai was nice enough to bring her along as company on the flight to Japan but he wasn't the sort of person that would match her. How can he be so social able? She thought as her longing eyes stared at the people that had gathered around him. Laughter floated through as her closest friend told an amusing story of how a friend had tried to follow a rabbit through a forest and became lost. She signed. Taking out a pair of chopsticks, the deserted girl picked up a small piece of eggplant. She smiled. Even though Hai wasn't the greatest match, he was the greatest cook. She chewed happily on the delicious piece of cooking. Then looked up at the sky thoughtfully. A Clow Card. I sense it. She put down her chopsticks with an inappropriate force and stood up. " Power god!" She shouted as she threw out a catenation paper. " Find the source of power!" She knew this route of action wasn't very wise but she didn't sense any eyes on her.
Little did she know that the boy within three feet watched her movements closely. Li stared in disbelief. " So she is a card captor." he whispered to himself. He focused his power on her and the unknown aura all of them had been sensing. The boy opened his mouth in surprise. She was more powerful than he had expected. Maybe enough to become his rival in search of more cards. He had thought that there were no more cards left in the world but somehow there was. He stood up abruptly. But was she an ally or an enemy? He thought to himself. But he'd have to find out later. If he didn't stop her from further actions, others would become suspicious.
"There!" Yuyue said to herself. She had just located the power source. " Wah!" She exclaimed to herself for her success. " Now all I have to do is find the place after school." The vertical strip of paper fell into her hands with Chinese writing written on it in black ink, the text that told the location at which the source was. She folded the paper neatly and slid it into her pocket.
The girl suddenly leaped to her feet in attacking position right after she sat down. Li jumped in surprise, taken aback by the way her fighting position was. One glance and he knew that she was in a very high level of martial arts. The girl blushed at her erect action. She had been so caught up in her thinking that she thought she was fighting a Clow Card. " Sorry." she apologized and grabbed her lunch in a messy bundle running off to her next class.
Sakura stared at the outline of Yuyue's figure running off into the school buildings. " Tomoyo." Sakura whispered to her close friend. Also one of the few people in the world who knew that Clow Cards existed. " I think that Hai and Yuyue are card captors also." The girl sitting with the deep violet eyes stared at the girl with green ones. " Are you sure?" The other girl nodded. Tomoyo smiled. " If there's new enemies, it must mean there's new cards out there. Doesn't it?"
" I guess." A dreamy grin spread across the face of the girl with the shining green eyes. Her wish had come true. A dark thought suddenly seeped through her sunshine ones wiping the grin right off her face. What if Shaolan was right? What if Hai and Yuyue really were our enemies? We'll see what'll happen was her last unhappy thought. She brought the Clow key out of her shirt and stared at it. It was time to put it back to work.
" Li!" Meilin shouted from behind him. " Li!" Li turned around and a sweat drop formed over his head. Meilin had just shoved a spoonful of rice into his mouth. " Meilin." he mumbled through his mouthful of homemade rice. " Li Shaolan. You haven't touched one piece of food since the bell rang." Li signed and stared back at the building Yuyue had ran into. Her aura was powerful, very powerful, and almost as powerful as his own. Almost. He thought contentedly to himself. Almost. Just then, the bell rang in indication to start their afternoon classes. Math next. Thought Li. There was a good side and a bad side to this. Since they usually worked in pairs, Li sat behind Sakura, which allowed them to discuss their private materials but then he'd have to give Sakura all the answers to the problems. Li signed and said out loud " They aren't even hard!" Meilin stared at him. Li blushed and scowled. " Come on. Let's go." He slung the heavy bag over his shoulders and walked off with Meilin tugging at his arm.
" Pair up!" commanded the teacher from the head of the room. " I have problems on the board in need of answers. Start!" Whispers swished through the room as equations leaked into the students' minds. " Sakura." The girl looked up into the boy's brown eyes. " You've been acquainting with Hai. Did you find out anything?" The girl stared at the math problems without noticing the seriousness of his voice. " I don't get it!" she cried. Li signed as he watched the black chalkboard almost entirely filled with equations and word problems. " This is what she has been teaching us for the past two days."
" What's pi supposed to mean?"
" 3.14 of course."
" What has that got to do with it?" Li stared in disbelief.
" Never mind Sakura." He studied the first problem and quickly wrote the equation and solved it. " I've done the first one. Just follow my example." He pushed his paper over to Sakura's side. The girl looked over the neat handwriting and efficient work of multiplication and division. Probably only makes sense to him. She looked at him. " I hate math." Li signed. At least her characteristic in being social able comes in handy for finding out information of Clow Cards and enemies. If I ever told mother that the Clow Card Mistress doesn't even know what -3 divided by pi is she would laugh till her heart's content and still that couldn't express the time she would laugh. Li glared at the girl staring at him in plead that he would solve all the problems. " You're going to fail your math test next week."
" I always do."
" You're hopeless." He picked up his pencil and hesitated in a moment of thought. Quickly he scribbled down the next equation. " Here, I have done the first step, you do the rest." Sakura picked up her own pencil and started to scribble all over Li's math paper. And with a wide confident grin she handed the piece of text back to him. Li took it and stared at it, a sweat drop forming over his head. A drop fell onto Yuyue's head too since she has listened to the conversation, since the very beginning of course. " Here Kinomoto. You know negatives right? It should be easy enough to do in your head. But don't worry!" Yuyue made up for her wording as she saw a hurt look flicker in the girl's bright, gay eyes. " Take problem number 7 for example. -7x + (56\x) - 4 \ 1/2 =. So all you have to do then is find out x so you could solve the whole equation. Pretty easy right?" Yu's brown eyes comforted as she asked the question. Sakura stared at the eyes. " I hate math." Yuyue fell over in her chair as Sakura's lips quivered in exasperation. " It's okay. You just need more practice. I bet you could be a great math student if you practice." Sakura smiled. No one had ever complimented her for her limited knowledge and insufficient calculations, along with dull brainwork, in math before. Yuyue smiled back. Shaolan stared at the couple. One sentence could bring such happiness to someone who claimed they hated math. " So if you just find out x, then you could start solving." Yuyue continued and handed Sakura her own pencil. " Try it." The brown haired girl looked over the problem carefully and started to squeak away with the pencil as fast as her hand could write. The girl handed back the paper carefully but with some confidence. Yuyue's brown eyes lit up and closed as she smiled at Sakura with joy for her." I told you, you were great." Sakura grinned, her face showing brightness and pride. Shaolan took a peek at her paper. " Tian ya! You really did it right!" Yuyue shot Shaolan a puzzled look. " Yes?" The boy looked down and blushed. " Sorry, I forgot it was your name." Yuyue laughed a bright laugh while Sakura stared confusedly at Li. The boy signed. And so the day continues.
Author's Notes:
I'm sorry if I spent so much room writing about Yuyue. I really wanted to give her a good introduction and in the next chapter I shall give an introduction on Hai, I'll try not to spend too much on it. But if I hear enough complaints, I promise I won't even give an introduction on him. I would really like to hear comments and please e-mail me a lot, I'll be glad to hear from you.