Sincerity to the Cherry Blossom 6
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Characters used don't belong to me.
****
The rest of Tuesday did have a last minute improvement for Makoto when she confronted the rest of her peers who applied for the one-week training course in catering. It was too difficult to ask anyone personally at school for fear she might further the gossip about herself around the Tomoeda High school grounds. It was easier when they were in the back kitchen of Chez Nori where nobody would pay attention to what was going on because of busy serving to the customers.
Makoto didn't use any aggressive force on them at all. It was just a simple chat, asking for honesty from her peers. True she did pull in one or two threats that involved a punch or a torture in the kitchen and it seemed to intimidate most of the Juuban High school boys quite a bit. They definitely took her seriously from then on hence they all admitted that they spread the rumours about her past. Every single one of the boys confessed in straight sentences, which surprised Makoto big time.
It was hard to believe all these guys didn't like her up till now and waited for an opportunity to ruin her life in future. Now seemed to be their perfect moment since they were away from Juuban High and in a new environment where nobody knew who they were. It would have been a good thing if not for the rumors. People would have treated Makoto equally. The only two who had been doing that were Touya and Yukito. Two people who immediately took a liking to her from tasting her cooking and through talking to her normally.
As the doors to Chez Nori locked, Makoto, Touya and Yukito waved to the rest of the colleagues working tonight, including the boys who admitted their dirty tricks to the Karate Maniac. Makoto had a big smirk on her lips as she walked down the same road as her male friends.
"She's cheered up already," Touya whispered in Yukito's ear, "Maybe she worked out her problems after all." His voice died down when Makoto started to hum a happy tune and skipped across the road in front. Touya really did think she was going to beat those boys till they collapsed and wet their trousers fearfully. He could always see the burning temper form in her eyes when she saw the staring faces back at school today. She was raring to go at it in a fight.
The temptation was there. She could have unleashed her power anytime she wanted. Though somehow she did something non-violent. She asked the others in a polite fashion rather than used her fists to get answers, which was more likely how she dealt problems normally. It was funny how Makoto's day turned out to be. At first she was nervous and had no one to talk to then the rest of the day seemed to turn out okay. Even at work.
"Oh gosh, I almost forgot," Makoto said, "we're staying at a hostel and I went straight past it. My happy mood made me forget my sense of direction."
"Well, guess we'll see you tomorrow then," Yukito stated.
"Hey I'll meet you by the school gate tomorrow. Later guys!" She waved broadly as she skidded back in the other way to take the second left turning. Why do I keep having small suspicions of her? Touya thought while walking on with his best friend. Underneath the friendly face he saw she was a tough girl. He could picture her punch him if he dared get on her bad side. There seemed to more than just the physical aggression and great cooking though.
Touya didn't know what that was unfortunately. He couldn't stop the curiosity bugging him whenever she wasn't around. There must have been so much she was hiding from him and everyone else in school. He realized he was walking by himself due to fierce concentration in thinking and switched his glance to the left, spotting a quick transformation in Yukito. Wings uncovered his new appearance and standing gently on bare feet was Yue.
Touya didn't move away or jump like his sister Sakura sometimes did whenever Yue came into his true form. Yue's clear gray eyes darted ahead and his soft white hair trailed on his back as his head scanned every direction. Something was wrong. He could sense it. And so could Touya. Luckily Makoto wasn't here to see the strange occurrence with his best friend. She's definitely faint.
"It's my sister, isn't it?" Touya confirmed solemnly. Yue was silent and merely nodded, flapping his wings promptly to gain momentum off the ground. Touya ran with him in the same speed level.
****
"Sakura-chan!!!!" Syaoran screamed. Sakura blinked momentarily till her reflexes pumped into last minute action and activated the Fly card. The magical wings ascended her tiny body to the air to dodge the blue monster's lunging attack towards her. Syaoran joined the Cherry Blossom's side speedily.
"What happened to you just then? Why didn't you…?" He asked as she held her Star Staff out then silenced softly after seeing her face frown sadly. She shook her head disappointingly as they stood a few feet from the strange demon, far enough to talk to each other on strategies. In faint whispers she explained that she hadn't been prepared to confront anything strange since Eriol gave her a final test to defeat his magic. She actually thought Tomoeda would be safer from now on after the all the Clow cards became Star cards.
However as Eriol mentioned before leaving to England, he informed Sakura that he was only trying to help and teach her how to be patient with the cards. That was just helping. This on the other hand was real life. It reminded her of the earlier days of sealing the Clow cards to their original forms when they caused plenty of mayhem in her town as they went on the run.
Whatever this monster was, it certainly wasn't another Clow card. If it was a rare Clow card, neither Syaoran nor Sakura would even have the slightest idea what it was. As far as Sakura knew she was the Mistress of the Clow cards and had turned every single one of them into Star cards.
"I'm supposed to be the new Master of the Clow cards. I should have prepared myself in case something unusual came along," Sakura complained, "I would have been hurt if you didn't call me, Syaoran. I'm sorry if I didn't react faster before. I've not touched my cards in a while."
"It's all right, Sakura-chan," Syaoran said encouragingly, "It shows that you need to keep your magic alert at all times no matter what you're doing. I don't have time to explain further because of this monster here." The blue monster roared impatiently and rubbed its feet on the ground as though a buffalo was seeing red.
"Yeah okay then." She nodded to Syaoran shyly then turned to the monster, "I guess I do need your help still."
He smiled, "You know I'll always help you, Sakura. Oh whoa here it comes!" They both jumped in opposite directions to miss another lunge from the blue monster. The female victim ran to the bushes to steer away from the battle against the two unknown kids, her head facing the other way to avert her terrified eyes from seeing the monster. She couldn't understand how these two were capable of tackling this beast when it was close to eating her up. They were the same age as her yet showed they were fearless of this creature.
"Windy! Curl this monster with your strength!" Sakura called. The Windy card came to life and circled the monster continuously to confuse it. Its circular bind shrunk to a smaller width to create a bond and restrain movement. Sakura and Syaoran looked on, hoping that Windy could hold it till it vanished. However the binding idea didn't succeed and the monster broke free from Windy. Syaoran cursed and used his Fire magic to push the monster far back. The fire element seemed to take effect and Sakura used Fiery to back Syaoran up in his attack.
The burn was settling into the monster, which flinched from the heat of the combined strike between the card captors.
"It's damaging him!" Sakura spoke excitedly, "We need more fire power! This isn't enough!"
"I'll help you out!" Kero-chan cried and flew from the Kinomoto's residence and transformed into his true form, Cerberus. Cerberus had a fireball attack ready from his mouth and roared as it came into place and joined with Syaoran and Sakura's attack. This time the fire strike was three times its strength and burned the monster even more. It was on one knee and had one arm defending its face from the fire charging towards it.
"It's still here. Why?" Sakura exclaimed, watching Fiery continue to throw fireballs that fused with Syaoran and Cerberus' strikes. Even though the burning strike was powerful the monster refused to let itself be defeated and kept himself in defense. Its fallen knee suddenly rose back so it was standing normally and the defending arms began to slowly push away the fire attack. Dammit it was actually starting to recover. Everyone thought they had him there.
Though it didn't seem that way. This monster must have hidden its true strength from the beginning of its first encounter against its enemies just to fool them.
"The monster is too strong," Cerberus was running out of breath as he delivered more fire from his mouth. Syaoran started to sweat from using his magic to call upon the fire element and leaned on the back of his sword tiredly. No! It shouldn't be this way! I have to destroy this thing Sakura thought determinedly. The blue monster broke away the attack, pushing Fiery back and breaking off the rest of Syaoran and Cerberus' magic.
"Damn! I really thought we beat him there," Syaoran moaned, preparing his magic in action. In actual fact he was too exhausted from doing any more attacks after using his magic in one shot. A faraway voice approached them and was calling Sakura's name. Everybody looked everywhere to see who it was calling the Cherry Blossom. Running near to the Kinomoto house, Touya panted as he ran towards them, along with a flying figure everybody recognized so well.
"Touya! Yue!" Sakura cried.
"Sakura, are you all right? What's going on?" Touya asked, running closer. Yue stopped him when he saw the blue monster ready to strike. This was the strange presence he sensed on the way here.
"Stay back," He ordered Sakura's older brother.
"Yue, be careful," Cerberus warned to his friend. Yue nodded understandably and suggested they both attack the blue monster themselves. Their wings flapped swiftly to gain stronger ascending range and they surrounded the monster from back to front.
"What is it?" Yue asked while he flew back and forth to examine the creature.
"Something that doesn't belong here that's for sure," Cerberus replied suspiciously, charging on all four feet to grab the monster by the neck to push it down to the ground. Yue threw eight tiny crystals at the creature to strike it in the stomach as soon as the guardian beast pounced off the opponent. Sure the crystals gave it pain but the monster was immediately back on its feet as if nothing happened at all.
Yue and Cerberus gasped, as did Syaoran and Sakura. The monster seemed to have grinned in a disgusting way and rapidly slammed Cerberus into a tree trunk. Yue flew to the creature to take his turn in attacking though received a punch for himself and dropped to the ground. Who sent this monster? It's…it's got strength not even I can counter He thought weakly. The monster was upon Yue's crouched figure. A tiny gust of wind came from his mouth and shot straight to the guardian.
"Leave him alone!" Sakura used the Shield card to block off the monster's deadly breath. She ran to help Yue to his feet while Syaoran went to check on Cerberus. Touya heard muffles behind him, turned to the bushes and saw the present victim of the monster, crying her eyes out. He saw she had covered her ears up to avoid hearing the noise, which was a good thing because she wouldn't know what Sakura and Syaoran were really doing and see other weird sightings.
She'd be more freaked out than he was right now. Touya was no longer suspicious of Kero-chan or Yue. He knew everything about what his sister did from becoming the Clow card Mistress by Yue's word to turning the Clow cards into Star cards that made her suffer exhaustion each night. Everything became clear to him and his younger sister didn't have to hide anything from him or Yukito. This made him more protective of Sakura than ever before.
At the moment he knew he couldn't do anything to help. This girl was too frightened and needed comforting. This was all magical stuff. It was best to leave the magical and supernatural to his sister, Yue, Cerberus and that annoying kid, Syaoran. Since when did he return to Tomoeda? Touya wasn't interested in this right now. He was more concerned about Sakura. He did his best to keep the other girl's eyes and ears away from the fight.
Yue fought the weakness in his body as he kept Sakura behind him to expect the monster to strike again. He wasn't sure whether he was able to attack again and this monster sure had physical strength that outmatched him and Cerberus put together. If fire won't affect it then what will? Sakura thought.
"We have to stop that monster from hurting again," Cerberus said. Syaoran silently agreed, unsure on what else to add. What the…? His brown eyes caught a fast shadow passing their heads and past the monster. Even Sakura, Touya, Yue and Cerberus saw the same thing as well. Everyone was asking, "What or who was that?"
A huge coconut shape struck the blue monster's back and forced him down to his knees. Yue could see that the strike was made out of electricity. Who could do this? As the monster crouched down, the attacker came into the sunset atmosphere. Sakura let out a shocking exhalation when she saw the silhouette become clearer. It was the girl she saw in her painful vision. It had to be her. The tall slim figure. The short skirt. The lightning! It was all there.
This was the female warrior Sakura had seen and told Kero-chan about. The female warrior had her hands on her hips in an impatient gesture and her eyebrows arced in sharp curls, emitting anger at the monster standing in front of her. Her golden tiara twinkled its shininess. The monster growled and pivoted its body to stare at her angrily. She merely smiled at him then simply dodged an incoming punch to the face.
An attempted bear hug grab wasn't successful and the female warrior somersaulted to the other side of the monster's back. She realized she had observers thus told them to stay back while she took this disgusting thing on herself. The monster may have been huge but when it came to agility it was very poor. It wasn't able to follow the girl's quick jumps and get a hit on her whilst she had no trouble at all giving it jump kicks to the abdomen. Syaoran saw she almost fought as efficiently as he and Meilin did. Wow she is so fast. How does she do that? Sakura wondered.
Then it became clear that the monster had grown tired from the earlier battling against its current opponents and stamina must have gone away already while dealing with this new foe.
"Playtime is over for you, Youma!" The warrior stated. Electricity curled in her hands and a lightning rod popped out of her tiara. Sakura and the others enlarged their eyes at the brightness the lightning emitted. "Supreme Thunder!!!!" Huge bolts of electricity left the warrior's arms and channeled into the monster's body, surrounding it in shocking attacks till it exploded smoothly into smithereens.
The thunder faded among the female's hands when she saw she had achieved a reasonable victory against the unknown Youma. She slowly diverted her glance to the four now five (along with Touya's additional presence) faces who watched her in action.
"Are you all okay?" She asked gently. Her jade eyes specifically directed to Sakura. "Are you Kinomoto Sakura, a user of magical cards?" The Cherry Blossom nodded surprisingly at the easy identity guess. Yes. This is definitely the one I've seen before the warrior thought.
"Who are YOU?" Syaoran asked. The female raised her thin eyebrows at the boy with the sword. Who was this boy? Maybe he was Sakura's girlfriend. He had the boyish appearance and had boyfriend material.
The female flicked her ponytail off her shoulders before introducing herself finally, "I am Sailor Jupiter, Senshi of Thunder." Everyone looked at her as though they thought, 'What are you talking about?' Of course she expected that and simply smiled at them. "It's okay. Not everyone knows who we are. But you will know who I am from now on. I have been sent to protect you from evil when it comes to you. Fear not, young Sakura. We will meet again." Sailor Jupiter bowed and walked away.
"How do we call you? Why don't you give us a phone number? Wait, Sailor Jupiter!" Sakura beckoned desperately. Jupiter had walked away in less than a minute and had vanished from everyone's eyes. She must be a real warrior to be able to fight powerfully just then. Everyone around Sakura was thinking the same thing, asking who Sailor Jupiter was and why she came to help. Was it all right to trust her? What if she was the new evil?
Cerberus saw Yue in a deep ponder and wondered what was wrong with him. Yue had this look when he could sense Clow Reed nearby though they had already agreed that Clow Reed wasn't here otherwise they would have sensed him easily. I have heard of the Sailor Senshi somewhere in the past. I recognize this Sailor Jupiter but can't be sure she is the same one I remember back then. It could be a reincarnation of her Yue thought. When he was in Yukito's form he did sense something strong around him in school and even now he had the same premonition after meeting this Sailor Senshi. She did have a powerful aura.
Touya was looking curious as Yue was. There was something oddly familiar about this Sailor Jupiter. It wasn't likely that Makoto had a twin sister, did she? Touya thought that was too outrageous to say.
TBC.