Nothing At All
"So… That thing you lost… Where was it?"
I watched him, my appearance passive, my face giving away nothing.
"You're looking for something… You asked for my help… I'll stay with you… Until you find it…"
I watched further as his ankle gave out from under him and he slid back down onto the grass.
"Sorry… I don't think I can stand.
"I'll do my best to help you find what you lost, so could you quit using… Sakura-chan's form? It makes me feel like she's been turned into a ghost… It's giving me the creeps."
I was surprised. Even the Cardcaptor had not seen through my guise at first glance, and yet this boy… Iie, this young man… He knows…
"You know I'm not your sister?" I asked softly, hesitantly.
He smiled ruefully and my human form almost blushed. I don't understand, this feeling he gives me…
"You look so much like her that I was almost fooled at first… but… I could sense that you weren't a living person.."
My heart jumped into my throat. This was not a normal teenager, that was for sure. He has some sort of power, a second sight…
"There are a lot like you, in this park," he went on. "I guess they have unfinished business in this world…" I knew this. The lonely ghosts in the forest had helped mask my trail from the Cardcaptor and the Guardian Beast.
I jumped when he reached out to me and patted my head.
"I'll help you find what you're looking for… So when you find it, you move on…"
My eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"To where?" I questioned.
He pointed towards the heavens, and I understood. He thought I was a lonely ghost, just like all the other poor souls in the park. But I was no ghost. I had a physical body, emotions, a mind, a soul…
"My mom's up there too… So say 'hi' to her for me." He patted my head again, and I stared sadly at the ground. After a moment, I chanced a glance at him, and much to my surprise, he was smiling at me. My heart twisted inside this new body. The feeling scared me. I Felt his hand slip down my cheek, then trail limply down my arm, and finally came to rest on the ground beside him.
I reached out and felt for the pulse at the base of his neck. He was unconscious, that was all. The pain of his ankle, no, his leg… It must've been broken…
A sudden rustling in the bushes above me caught my attention. A familiar presence filled my second sight. Clow magic, a descendant, the Guardian… The Cardcaptor…
As I looked back at the boy… My heart felt heavy with guilt and remorse.
Right then, I knew what to do. It was crystal clear. I would surrender myself to the Cardcaptor. Allow my body to be sucked into that ever-confining rectangle of cardboard where I had been sealed for over a hundred years…
I heard the mad flapping of large wings above my head. Without having to look with my eyes, I knew it was Fly. So he had been captured too.
"Touya!" I heard the Cardcaptor shout. So now I knew his name. Touya. Peach Arrow. A beautiful name to match his outward appearance.
"It's okay, he's still alive!" I heard the guardian beast yell.
"He's just out cold!" I looked at the speaker. It was a boy, about the same age as the Cardcaptor. I sensed Clow's magic within him, so I knew he was Clow's descendant.
My attention was turned back to the girl as she stepped forwards and, with tears in her eyes, shouted "You hurt my brother!"
True, I did.
The Cardcaptor called upon a card, Windy. The card fell upon the Key's point with a loud crack, and the Wind goddess emerged and flew towards me. I was not harmed, of course. But as she passed through me, I heard her whisper to me, "I know you'll do the right thing Mirror. Trust in your feelings."
The Cardcaptor recalled Windy as the Guardian Beast yelled at her to call upon another card.
This time she called for Watery.
The Water goddess emerged from the card, surrounded by splashes of water, her mermaid's tail curving gracefully beneath her lithe form.
She too, did me no harm, and like Windy, whispered to me, "Kimi o shinjiteru, Kagami-san."
The Cardcaptor also recalled Watery, and she and the Guardian Beast pondered what to do. Of course, they would eventually figure it out. I was a double helix. She had to call my name. And I would be the one to tell her what it was.
My ears and heart were numb. I didn't want to hear. I didn't want to _be_ anymore. So when the Cardcaptor stood in front of me, I knew what to do.
"You're his sister," I said to her "Aren't you?"
"That's right!" she yelled back at me "How could you do this to him?!"
How indeed.
She raised the Key and took another step towards me.
Sighing in resignation, I lifted my hands to about the same place hers rested on the Key.
She stepped back in surprised, and I too stepped back.
As I watched her, I knew she was putting all the pieces together. It wouldn't be long now… Touya…
"Clow Card!" I only vaguely heard her shout. "Your name is MIRROR!"
There was a slightly painful tingling sensation as my outer shell was shattered and my true form emerged.
With the precious seconds before my resealing, I floated over to him - -Touya - - and lightly kissed his forehead.
"Gomen Nasai…" I whispered, hoping that, even in his unconscious state, that he could hear me. And forgive me.
One, two, then three tears slid down my pale cheeks before I heard the Cardcaptor yell:
"Return to the guise you were destined to be! CLOW CARD!" * The guise I was destined to be,* I thought sadly *Destiny has played a cruel trick on me. On all of us. So this is how it ends…*
My physically body was breaking down, being sucked into the card's confines.
The last thing I saw was Touya's face, and then…
Nothing at all.
AN: Hey, cut me some slack ppls, I've been on vacation! In Oregon, on the frikin West Coast! I'm not dissing the West Coast, I lived in California for 10 years before my mom and dad dragged my a$$ back to nowhere's rear end, also known as the Green Moutain State. For all you people who don't stay awake in Social Studies, that translates into Vermont. I swear to God( the God I'm talking about would be Alanis Morisette, I just saw Mallrats, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. My best friends mother won't let me watch 'Chasing Amy' or 'Clerks'. Why? Don't ask…) If Loki and Bartleby thought frikin Wisconsin was worse than hell, think again, coz, in my book, HELL is BENNINGTON, VERMONT. Bennington will bore anyone to death! And for the record, the Battle of Bennington didn't even take PLACE in BENNINGTON! (wheeze, wheeze)
ANYWAY, did you like the fic? Please say you liked it, it's my first attempt at something quasi-serious! Go easy on me, onegai… I'm only a poor fic writer who can't keep a buck in her pocket and can't get a job, cause she's to damn young( was13 this June)…
Review, onegai! ^.^v