"Sakura's Peace"

A Card Captor Fanfiction

By: Bekah-chan

Rated: PG



Disclaimer: I don't own Card Captors or the characters therein.



Author's Notes: Hi there! *waves* Sorry that it took me so long to finish this chapter. I hope that it's worth the wait. Just a few things I need to mention first:

1. No, Madison's 'cousin' is *not* Eriol (or Elie, whatever). I clearly implied in the first chapter that the 'cousin' was a girl.

2. Again, it will be awhile between updates. College is a lot harder than it looks :)

And 3. Thanks, everybody, for all the lovely reviews. Keep 'em coming please!



Chapter 2, English Tea:

Sakura was thinking about Syaoran. It was becoming quite common for her to drop into contemplation of the Chinese warrior, out of the blue, no matter what she was doing. She could be in the middle of class and suddenly remember how nice his hair was; it was much softer than it looked. Or at a magic lesson with Kero remembering how dashing Syaoran looked when casting his lightning spell. Now she was sitting in one of Madison's family's parlors (they had at least 6, Sakura had never counted) where the maid who answered the door had directed her to await Madison. She had been sipping tea, the maid had also told her to help herself to the offerings on the loaded tea tray, when suddenly she was thinking of Syaoran's wonderful eyes *sigh* It sometimes amazed her how often she did this, and the frequency had only increased now that they were 'going out'. Not that they actually went 'out', like on dates or anything. Oh, they had *tried* dating, they really had. In the first few months after they had declared their feelings for each other, they had attempted to go out almost every weekend. But, it seemed that this aspect of their romance was not to be.

The sad fact was that the Card Capting pair could not go out on a date without running into trouble, usually of the supernatural kind. There had been a random daemon in the movie theater; A Soul-Stealer (of the smaller non-soul-stealing kind) at the amusement park; A hostage situation at the restaurant; And a possessed photo-booth at the mall. Sakura did not even want to think of the stuff that had happened to them at the park, or the ice-cream parlor *shudder* Sakura never wanted to see fudge ripple again!

With Syaoran's help, Sakura had managed to overcome all these obstacles. She had even been able to avoid having to kill any of the human bad-guys they had run amiss of, but they just kept coming! Ever since Sakura had become a 'Warrior For Peace', it was like she sent out evil-come-hither-and-try-to-kill-me vibes. And the evil did come. Sakura had never known that there was so much evil in the world, it seemed she couldn't turn a corner without bumping into a new monster bent on causing pain and destruction. In fact, 'evil' seemed to take malicious glee in ruining her dates with Syaoran It was starting to look like fate took a hand in throwing these things in her path so she could take care of them before they hurt or killed anyone else.

This had seriously messed up Sakura's budding social life. And she couldn't even really get mad about it. It was weird, but Sakura didn't feel resentful about her new 'job'. It was her duty, her task. And she was making a difference, saving lives. She wasn't exactly wildly happy about how her life was going, but she wouldn't change it. *sigh* Not even if it meant losing some time with Syaoran.

So Sakura and Syaoran had finally given up on dating. Instead they went out every night on evil-patrol. They did, however, manage to snatch kisses here and there in between pummeling the forces of evil. The fact that they were together was the only redeeming quality about their nightly ventures, the only thing that made it bearable. But Sakura had started to wonder if, in taking on the Warrior for Peace role, she had given up on ever having any peace herself.

She was distracted from her thoughts by a loud crunching noise, and smiled as she looked up from her tea. Kero was in his version of heaven. He was sitting in the middle of a tray filled with various cookies and little cakes. Well the tray *used to* be filled, Kero had already made a sufficient dent in it's contents.

As soon as the maid had left the room, Kero had been out of Sakura's bag and hovering over the coffee table with wide eyes- He didn't seem to know where to start. The Guardian finally just dove in and ate the first thing he got his little fuzzy paws on. He hadn't come up for air since.

Sakura was glad that Kero was having a good time, his life hadn't exactly been easy lately. The rivalry that had always existed, to some extent, between the Guardian's of the Sun and Moon, had only escalated since Yue had acquired his new personality. Yue took endless glee in taunting, teasing, and playing practical jokes on Kero- Who gave back as good as he got. It had been an all out war for the last few months, with Kero always coming out a little behind. Sakura found it hard, however, to feel sorry for the little flying fluff-ball. He was a participant in the 'battles' after all. And part of Sakura was grateful that Yue had focused on Kero. Before that they had *all* been subjected to his slightly malicious sense of humor. Sakura drew her brows together in thought. She really *should* talk to Yue about that. It was getting a little out of hand. It should be stopped. Even if the sight of Kero in drag *was* very amuse--

Sakura stiffed, her teacup frozen halfway on it's journey to her mouth. Her magical senses had just spiked. Something was Wrong. Some*thing* bad was coming! And it was......... Right behind her!

Her teacup clattered as she returned it to the saucer she held in her other hand, and placed both of the coffee table. She slowly turned around to look over the back of the antique couch she was seated on.

"K-Kero?" she gasped.

"What is it?" Kero sputtered around the cookie he was engaged in chewing.

"Really-Big-Bad-Scary...." she took a deep breath, "..Destroy-The-World-Evil approaching our six..."

"What?!" Kero floated over to her, stuffing the rest of the cookie in his mouth (so as not to waste it)

They both looked over the back of the couch, eyes glued to the figure they could see walking down the hall towards them, at Madison's side. It looked like a little girl, maybe six or seven years old. Her dress was made of a blue and white checked fabric, dotted with way too many ribbons and bows. On her feet were shinny patent leather shoes, complete with delicate silver buckles. Sakura vaguely wondered why this strange person had not left her shoes at the front door, as was the tradition, and walk around in her frilly white socks. Which had been turned down to show the tiny blue flowers embroidered at the rim. With her golden hair up in twin pigtails, curls cascading over her shoulders, the little girl resembled a young Pollyanna.

~Except for the whole 'Aura-of-Evil' thing~ Sakura thought to herself. She had never seen anything like this. She almost wished that she did not have her magical senses, for then she would only see an innocent little girl.

"Definitely Evil," Sakura commented again.

"Sakura-," She could feel Kero shudder from his vantage point beside her, "I don't think 'Evil' is a strong enough term to describe this. That thing makes the Soul-Stealer (the big soul-stealing kind) look like a cuddly puppy."

Sakura had to agree with him.

"I guess your feeling that something nefarious was going on with this 'cousin' thing, was right on the money."

Sakura sighed, "Ya, I guess so." She really had been hoping that Madison's earlier behavior had been a fluke. That was too much to hope for now. Madison was obviously being mind-controlled by an Evil Little Girl.

"Well," Kero broke into Sakura's rather gloomy thoughts, "If she gets anywhere near me, I think she'll know I'm here. My defenses against that sort of thing were never very good." Sakura turned to see his cute face sporting an expression of worry.

"So, I'd better go," the Sun Guardian continued, "I'll get everyone together and we'll meet you back at the house later."

Sakura reluctantly nodded. She knew that he had to go. They couldn't risk being recognized as a threat until they were ready to defeat this thing. Right now they knew nothing about it.

"You be careful," he gave her face a small, comforting, pat with one stuffed paw, "Use your Card Magic to hide your true self from her. Good Luck!" With that Kero swept out of the open window, swooping slightly to grab one last armful of cookies on his way.

"Ya, Bye," she said forlornly to his tail as it disappeared into the bushes.

She was on her own.

To Be Continued ^_^