The Desease that Killed Love

Chapter 11-Yue

I found Syaoran the next day standing at a pond feeding goldfish, which were his own goldfish, or at least his family's. I had taken the stone away from him, but I greatly fear it. Eriol was currently studying it, trying to understand what it is.

Dark Magic. Black Magic. That is deadly.

Eriol had paled when I handed it to him.
" What is this?" He asked. " Where did you get it?"
" Syaoran had it when he woke up." I had answered. " He got it from the realm of the Dead. The voices and spirits told him that it could heal him."
" How come?" Eriol took the stone.
" I don't know." I answered slowly. " But I had a bad feeling when I saw it."
" You should." Eriol rose. " I'm not sure what it is, but it's definetely not anything seen in this world. I've never seen anything so black yet so bright. And the string is someone's hair." The boy grimaced. " Whose hair, I wonder."
" Don't go there." Said Spinel.
" I'm going to find out what this is." Eriol said. " And if Syaoran comes with anything like this, don't let him keep it. Good god, what does this remind me of?" He then went to another room with Yelan and shut the door, and started to tell her of what I found.



Syaoran stood at the bank of the pool against the rail, the nicely decorated rail with a wooden roof overhead. He was quiet, watching the goldfish jump on one another to claim their bits of bread. Birds chirped, some stealing the bread from the water. Syaoran tossed some more pieces.
" Syaoran?" I called.

Syaoran didn't look up. " Where's Xuyan?"
" With Sakura." I answered.
" Are they getting along very well?"
" Sakura's making it hard for him. Xuyan's trying, though." I swallowed a chuckle. " Are you alright?"
Syaoran finally moved, and his eyes focused on mine. " He's a good cello player."
" And?"
" I use to be better than him." Syaoran lowered his eyes. " I use to have something to be proud of, I mean, me and this disease, whatever it is, and still I get to be the best in something. But now, look what I did." He laughed a little, not a happy one. " I guess it was my fault. I should have stayed home. Remained the best. Xuyan went forward. I did not."
" Was that what you're worried about?" I asked.
" Sort of." The child lowered his head.
" Well you can always catch up. If you're behind at all, you're not far."
" You don't understand, otou-san." The boy sighed. " I can't really deny the truth now. I can't hide it anymore." The boy shrunk within himself a little. " I'm too tired, otou-san. I don't want to do anything anymore. I just want to sleep, to rest. I feel so tired."



" I'm not sure why this is here." Eriol looked up from his desk. " But I do know what this is now. This is a stone from the Realm of the Dead, of course. It's made of magic forces in this world that had escaped into the Dead World. It says here in this book that an ancient sorceror had managed to tap into its magic forces, but some mysterious curse was laid on him and he lost all strength and will, dying in result."

I swallowed, not liking it.

" It also says that it is mostly made of...leftover spells."
" Of what kind?"
" Mostly good kinds, like the Sakura Cards. But you know Yue, the remaining dusts are not the same as the spells themselves." Eriol took the jewel and lifted it into the light. The stone began to melt.
" This stone is called the Murkstone of Renague...it use to be in this world for some time after it was made in the Dead World. I don't know why the spirits want Syaoran to have this."
" To kill him." I whispered, barely hearing the words myself. " Has it captured him already?"
" Hai," Eriol said hesitantly. " But fortunately, all is not lost. The spell wears off..."



It gave me quite a fright, that stone of Renague. For a while, Syaoran seemed to be in a sort of dream, losing every hope to become normal. He didn't practice his cello, didn't eat much. But to my relief, the spell wore off, as Eriol had said. Unfortunately, as soon as the impact of the stone wore off, other things came up.

Such as the conflict between Syaoran and Sakura, as well as Syaoran and Xuyan.

One could easily see that the " hatred" Syaoran had felt was pure jealousy, if it even existed. Apart from that, there was a contradicting emotion, love or adoration. It wouldn't be much of a problem if Sakura wasn't so sensitive, she being one of the more " I want to be friends with you kind". Which didn't really work well for Syaoran, but very well for Xuyan. At the same time, Xuyan is jealous of Syaoran, Syaoran pretty annoyed and at the same time upset at the fact that Xuyan was fussing about with his only true friend, as he later told me. I was pretty scared, to tell the truth, because I was pretty sure that one or the other is going to kill him.

So to save him, I needed to settle both matters. There came a problem, however. Syaoran was not willing to talk to Sakura about anything anymore, Xuyan still had a grudge against Syaoran but Syaoran really didn't want to do anything about it, because he was too tired. Not because of the stone, because his health was rapidly declining. This didn't help Xuyan much, and since I didn't understand the boy too well ( he still didn't know my relationship with Syaoran and I kept it that way,) I left it at that. So I decided to treat the wounds that Syaoran gave Sakura.

It was one of those times when different things happen at once, and one would feel like he does not have any control over anything. Such was a time as this, when the Stone disappeared, Xuyan went to a cello competition leaving Syaoran depressed, who in turn, wounded Sakura's pride and self confidence in her cards and magic.

She came to me for encouragement. I had a lot, but I didn't know how to give it.
" I went to him," I remember her saying, " and he didn't even look at me. Simply watched the goldfish in the water, and so pretty they were. But his eyes were not seeing. They were completely blank. I said, " Konnichiwa, Syaoran-kun," and he said, " What do you want?""
I said nothing.
Sakura continued on, hurt and sad.
" I told him that I did not want anything except to know what's wrong. He told me, ' Nothing is wrong, yet everything is. It's the fact that everything is not wrong that's wrong.'"
" He never looked at me. I mean, in Tomoeda he smiles sometimes, however rare, and sometimes just looks at me in this strange way. But now he doesn't even look at me."
" He thought it was over." I suddenly heard myself say. " When he was in Tomoeda, he forgot he was ill. Or rather, it didn't bother him as much. He felt more human. Until he came home."

Sakura looked down. " He seems to be a different person now."
" Always has been." I replied slowly, " Always will. Wounds are still fresh, Sakura. He's realizing his weaknesses. He's too heartbroken to deny them any longer, because I am a proof."
The Card Mistress looked at me in a strange way; it seemed both sad and curious.
" Does he talk to you?" She asked me.

I decided that the wrong answer might spark off some new chain.
" He does not ignore me." I said carefully. " But he prefers to be alone." And it was very much true.

Sakura sighed. " Sometimes I feel that he's hiding something."
" Hiding what?"
" I don't know." The girl answered. " There's more to the disease, or perhaps something else."
I hesitated. " There is...something perhaps, that you should know."
" Hoe?" Sakura looked up, speaking her trademark exclaimation.
I swallowed. I wasn't sure if this is good or not. Most likely not, but I decided that the chance must be taken.
" He cares a lot for you, Sakura." I began slowly, quietly, my own voice sounding weak to my ears. " He cares for you as much as love can make him. The only problem is," I added, interrupting her look of surprise, " He hates you as much as he loves you."
" Why?" Sakura asked, thankfully not shouting " HOEEE!" outloud. I was a little surprised, because her question was asked very softly.

I did not know whether what I was doing was right. Perhaps something deep inside me understood that Syaoran can no longer make the first move. That he can no longer openly love, save to those who share his blood. Perhaps I did understand, or perhaps something drove me to speak. But whatever it was, I told her myself, perhaps the wrong thing that had turned out right.

The right kind of wrong.

" He's weak Sakura." I told the girl. " You're strong. He's sickly and feeble. You're healthy. You defeated him in everything he longed to do, simply because you have the one thing he did not have. The Clow Cards was a test for him, but not because the clan had made him take it. He poured the test onto himself. He set the power as a goal, a base, so that he can determine who he is by that. If he could gain the Clow Cards and become the Master, he has the ability to be as normal as everyone else, and then perhaps he may smile more, or become more triumphant. If he failed...well, that means...he's a failure then."
" But that's not true!" Sakura cried. " That's...that's...that's absurd! How can he determine who he is by just one, one-"
" In a way, it made sense." I looked away from her and towards the window. " Everyone in the clan, except for Meiling, had magic. Including Syaoran. But Syaoran was the only one who could not weild it to its full extent. Syaoran was the only one who will die young."

I probably knew this all along. Yet it still hurted when it happened, and even when we managed to save him, I'll never forget that day.