Oh. I beg every Sailor Moon fans' pardon, but I can barely control my upchuck reflexes when I see Darien turn into this...this...pathetic gay masked...person. Or even worse, when those guys make their appearance in one of the last seasons...the guys that turn into women...that's just disgusting. Add an oversexed teenager who leads the most boring life ever and transforms into an insipid heroin, and...get ready to grab your barf bags.
But I like writing about what I like better. You can't really say anime is clever, except for a few exceptions, even some of them I don't like, like Blue Seed, but I gotta admit it's clever. Exceptions like Evangelion or Escaflowne (that's the good stuff) or Bubblegum Crisis, or the ever so wonderful Soul Hunter (you can tell I adore it, right?) but we can tolerate a certain level of silliness. Like in Cardcaptor Sakura. It's about a bunch of 10 year olds, for crying out loud. Although you can't help but wonder...is there anyone over seventeen years old in anime?? That's a question for you. Anyway, there are only a few anime series that I don't like. Even in CCS there are characters I can't stand the sight of, like Yue, for example. I can't understand what the fascination about estrogen saturated, winged girlish looking guys is all about (have you checked out the earring? God Bless!! I DON'T want to see a guy like that in real life) but I love the rest of the characters and the plotline and I'm a CCS fanfiction author so, I plan on giving poor old Yue a rest (though you know who will NEVER be in one of my fanfics :) ). Well. Animefreak Chronicles over, we can step into chapter 11. Oh, yeah, the characters are not mine. Enjoy!!
^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
Sakura woke up in the middle of the night. She had this undeniable feeling, a feeling she knew so well. Something was up. But everything seemed so normal! Kero was asleep in his drawer, so was Tomoyo on the sleeping bag on the floor. Everything was extremely quiet, peaceful, but still that feeling tugged at the corner of her mind. Had she been about to have another vision when she'd woken up? It was like a faint presence around her.
And she was sure she'd heard someone say something to her just as she was waking up. Sakura, forgive me. She couldn't quite place the voice, though it seemed familiar, warm. Had it been a dream? The voice still echoed in her mind, as if demanding to be recognized. What was this? Such awkwardness, such tension...though everything was in place. She looked around her one more time. Kero in his drawer, Tomoyo in her sleeping bag, Syaoran in Touya's...
A wave of horror washed over her. Sakura, forgive me. How could she not know it had been him? She bolted upright so violently she startled her temporary roommates. Tomoyo sat up, rubbing her eyes and Kero opened the drawer. Sakura was caught in the tangled mess her sheets had become throughout the night, struggling against it to get up. She fell down as she did it, worrying Kero and Tomoyo. She crawled out of the room and dashed to Touya's, repeating a prayer in her mind over and over again. Let him be okay, let him be okay, let him be okay. Kero flew over to the other room as if he was powered by a rocket engine when he heard the horrified cry from his Mistress.
A horrible image laid before their eyes. A desperate Sakura thrown on the floor by the bed, painfully clutching to the still warm sheets Syaoran had been lying on minutes ago, screaming at the top of her lungs. Tomoyo ran to her, kneeling beside her devastated friend squeezing her shoulders reassuringly. His pendant lay on the nightstand, as if confirming their worst fear of all. They had indeed taken him away. Kero signaled to Tomoyo to help her up and get her out of this room as soon as possible. She was mumbling unintelligible words through her tears. Tomoyo had to literally drag her limp body out of the room and onto the bed. She went downstairs to get her some tea to calm her nerves, while Kero stayed back to watch over her. Kami forbid they had accomplished their objective: drive Sakura insane. This was very low, indeed and he understood perfectly that Sakura was acting like that. But she also had to be strong to try and get him back, unharmed. He didn't want to know what would happen if they got to him too late.
It was three in the afternoon and Sakura hadn't pronounced a single word ever since she discovered Syaoran gone. Taken away, kidnapped, whatever this was called. She only sat on the bed, swinging back and forth, eyes wide open fixed on a spot on the wall. Damn monster, Kero thought. She was a sorry image to witness, and only for that this man deserved the most horrible of deaths.
Sakura reeled, sitting on her bed. She really was in the verge of insanity this time. It wasn't only the fact that he'd been kidnapped, but her vision...if she didn't go after him soon, it would come true. But she had to recover from the shock if she ever wanted to rescue him. How was she supposed to do that? How could she live with herself knowing that the enemy had taken Syaoran away from under her very nose, without her noticing it? Where had they taken him? Where was she going to begin looking for him? The spell he had put on the two of them had been broken, for she tried time and time again to find him without success.
"Kero" she called weakly.
"Yes? Sakura, yes?" he said worriedly, darting to where she was in a flash.
"Where do we start looking for him?"
*****
The door to Syaoran's apartment was open, but Kero stopped her from going in.
"Remember this place is sealed" he told her.
"And what am I supposed to do?"
"You have his pendant on you, right? Use it"
Right. She remembered she'd asked him once about the way this strange pendant of his worked, and he said that it would only obey him, as to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Jokingly, she had asked him if she could ever call it forth, and he had strangely laughed, and told her that if she was ever planning on killing him with it then no. And that was all she knew about it. She clenched the black pendant in her fist, her eyes closed to concentrate on a desperate prayer. Please help me. You're my only hope. Please help me.
It started getting warmer, and for a fraction of a fraction of a second she could almost feel like he was there by her side. It's working. Grateful tears streamed down her cheeks...thank you...Syaoran.
Sword in hand she entered the apartment. Everything seemed exactly like the last time she'd been there, only...quieter. The kind of false peace there always is before disaster strikes. Sakura grinned bitterly at the irony. Nothing could be worse than what had already happened, for she would rather die than witness her vision come true. Even Tomoyo, who was following Sakura and Kero closely and taping everything could feel something was wrong. This was not a good place for them to be at.
"Do you know where the brat keeps it?"
"I have no idea, Kero"
"I thought that after all these years of friendship you'd know where he keeps his stuff!"
"Give me a break! I'm just a friend, not his wife!" Sakura's brain had just caught up with her words. His wife. She didn't even have the chance to tell him how she felt about him. She felt tears sting her eyes, but she fought them back. Bad timing to cry, Sakura. She would get him back unharmed, and when she did, she would tell him that she loved him. And that was it.
"Sakura, watch out!" Kero screamed from the terrace door. A shadow, very much like the one she and Syaoran had beaten up at the park lunged at her from behind. Treacherous monster, she thought. She wasn't quite in the mood for games. She just turned around and cut it in half, faster than Kero could even approach to help her.
"That was...amazing!" he said.
The first time she'd met one of these shadows she was really scared, and surprised. This time she was very angry. Her friend had been taken away, she had been tormented for endless weeks with all sorts of horrible dreams, a constant presence stalking her, threats...and she couldn't find what she was looking for. She had had it, and was determined to find and liquidate this monster that had taken Syaoran away. And then be a normal seventeen years old, like she deserved. Like Tomoyo, Syaoran and she deserved.
"The bastards know we're unprotected here. Don't leave my side, Tomoyo" she said, anger rising in her voice. Kero was surprised, but this was way better than seeing her so sad. At least now she was determined to solve this problem. That's why she was the Card Captor after all!
Sakura easily destroyed two more shadows on her way to the study room, which was at the end of the corridor. She knew that what she was looking for was bound to be in there. She went in, careful to look at both her sides before she freely started to search. Tomoyo helped her, emptying the cupboard by the window.
"Li's going to kill us when he returns and sees we've made this mess" Tomoyo laughed. Sakura turned to her and smiled genuinely for the first time in hours. She appreciated a lot that her friends were so confident that she would return everything to normal. She could feel that confidence rub off on her. She continued looking through his drawers, looking for that one thing she hoped could help her find him. She smiled to herself at what she found in those drawers. School exams, sketches, books, what you'd expect to find in a normal boy's study room. A normal boy who owned a study room, that was, she chuckled. She always made fun of the fact that he was rich and spoiled and told him that might be the reason why Kero called him a brat, and he always answered that an insult from a stuffed toy could never have any effect on a guy like him. Tomoyo had found something inside the cupboard that had perked her attention, and had taken it in her hands to check it out.
Sakura found nothing in those drawers, nothing she could use at least, and moved to a closet to her left handside. She opened it slowly, afraid there might be something unfriendly inside. Bingo! There were a thousand neatly arranged (oh, surprise, she thought at the sight) magical objects, amongst whose she found exactly what she was looking for. His rashinban. She didn't even know if it would obey her commands, but she had to try. She turned to Tomoyo, who held a pack of envelopes tied together with a green ribbon.
"What's that?" she asked her. Sakura had noticed that Tomoyo had stopped looking a while ago, but she had quickly dismissed to set her attention onto more important things.
"Look for yourself" Tomoyo smiled, holding them out to her.
Sakura gave her a funny look and untied the knot. She unnoticingly counted them. Sixteen. These were letters, letters without a mailing address. Could they have been sent to him? She suddenly felt like she was intruding on his privacy, and began tying them up together again.
"This is his mail. We can't go through it"
"It's not mail. Please, give it a look. I'm sure he would have wanted you to see it"
"Did you already open these?"
"No need to. I think I've seen this before. Go on"
Truth be told, her curiosity was starting to arise. Kero flew over to Tomoyo, readying himself to see the look on Sakura's face when she found out what was in those envelopes. Sakura slowly picked one and opened it. Dear Sakura? she red in shock. Those letters were for her? She kept on reading, her lovely eyes going wider and wider as she read on and on. No way this could be true. She looked up at Tomoyo, who had a pleasant smile plastered to her face. She opened another one.
"Tomoyo..."
"That's right, Sakura, I knew about it. This is how I found out, actually. I had suspicions but, one afternoon I ran into him at the park and knocked all his stuff down. When I got home I realized I had something that wasn't mine" she said, pointing to the letters on Sakura's trembling hands "They had no identification or anything so I opened them...next day I gave them back, and he took them...but didn't admit to anything. He thought maybe I hadn't seen them, so he wouldn't worry. Until a few days ago"
"A few days ago..."
"He admitted to what's written in those letters"
She looked down at his perfect handwriting on those letters. All those letters were for her. Everything she'd ever thought about him was perfectly mirrored there...he loved her all along and she never knew about it!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awwwwww! Has this never happened to you? As in, you find something out
when it's too late to take action, like...you receive a letter from a really
hard crush where it says he loves you back, but you know now he's on a
plane to Hong Kong? (guess who THAT happened to) And he's not coming back?
Well, at least our adorable heroine has the chance to get her love back.
Do you think this new information will give her confidence a boost? Maybe
make her try harder on finding the evil what's his face and beating him?
Will she arrive on time? Ohh, I love suspense!
Please continue on reading...I'm working on making this as interesting
as possible. Oh, and for that one person who asked me...I started writing
chapter 10 on sunday morning, and I was going to post it on monday afternoon,
but remember I re wrote the whole chapter? That was done at about 11pm
here and that is tuesday in some places, so it looks like I published it
on tuesday when it was actually on monday...A little complicated, I know...thanks
for reading everyone!!