"Sakura's Peace"

A Card Captor Fanfiction

By: Bekah-chan

Rated: PG-13



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



Author's Notes: Hi *waves* Thanks for the reviews :) They helped me write this part a lot faster. Also, beginning with this chapter, I've upped the rating of this fic to PG-13. I'm doing this because Alise is a nasty piece of work, and this story is starting to get creepy. Poor Madison!



Chapter 6, Madison Rescuing:



"Syaoran, what's wrong?" Sakura stopped shaking Madison for fear that she was doing more harm than good, "Why won't she answer me?"

Syaoran was looking past her at Madison, still sitting on the bed. Should he tell her? Tell her what? That Madison's soul wasn't there? And he didn't know where it was?

"Um, I'm not sure what's wrong Sakura," completely true, "Let me try a Seeing spell, it might tell us something."

"But, Syaoran..... magic? I thought we weren't--"

"It's a passive spell," he explained, "It shouldn't alert Alise."

"Shouldn't?"

"Well, we don't know what we're dealing with."

Sakura thought for a moment. They had come here to get info on a new threat, and Madison, the only person who might know something, wasn't responding.

"Do it," she told him. He nodded and said a few words in an ancient language under his breath. With a blink his view of the world changed. Ordinary things, like dressers and tables faded into the background, while un-ordinary magical things, were brought into sharper focus.

Syaoran got a mild shock when he looked at Sakura with this new sight. For, even though she had disguised her power with Shield and Illusion Card-Magic, she still glowed with a fierce inner-light. Also a little startling were the thousands of tiny, silver, strands that seemed to connect him to his Cheery Blossom. This last bit nudged a memory in his mind, something from his magic lessons years ago, but he couldn't remember what it was. And he didn't have time to ponder, for at the moment he caught a glimpse of Madison.

Syaoran gasped as he looked beyond Sakura to her friend. He had never before looked at Madison with Mage-Sight, but he was shocked all the same at the change that must have occurred. Next to Sakura's warm glow, Madison was a swirling blackness, like a bad photo-negative, as if her body was dissolving and breaking away, even as he watched. And that wasn't even the most disturbing part.

"Sakura, give me your hand," he stated. And she complied, knowing his intentions. They had recently discovered that they could share the effect of such a spell if they were in physical contact. So she entwined her fingers with his, looked toward Madison, and shared in Syaoran's dawning horror.

"S-Syaoran what *are* those th-things?" she asked him in a shaky voice, not even sure she wanted to know.

Syaoran did not need to ask what she meant. What Sakura was referring to were five or six plate-sized hooks. At least they looked like hooks to Syaoran. Big, and made out of black-energy they were attached in Madison at her shoulders, arms, legs, and back. Connected to thick black cords, that trailed into a bundle and disappeared through a wall to an unknown destination.

"Syaoran," Sakura gasped again, "Look at her throat!" Syaoran directed his attention to Madison's neck and saw that one of the black energy-cords wasn't attached to a hook. Instead it wrapped round and round her throat before trailing off with it's comrades.

"What are they?" she asked again.

"I'm not sure," Syaoran finally admitted, "but I think they're mostly symbolic."

"What?"

"They are a visual manifestation of the control spells someone has cast over Madison. And I would bet that those cords lead straight to Alise."

The original plan was to get information and get Madison out of there, if they could do it without alerting the enemy. Suddenly Sakura was angry, she didn't care about alerting Alise anymore, "Syaoran we can't leave her here!"

"I know," he agreed. He realized that there was no way they could move Mad now without Alise knowing about it. But they could *not* leave her there.

"Good." Sakura took a deep breath and tried to think, "How, exactly, are we going to do this?"

"Good question."



Surveillance:

Across the street from the back of Madison's property, a car was parked near the sidewalk. If wasn't running, but had been driven recently, for one could still hear the ping of cooling metal under the hood.

"Can you see anything?" Kero asked Yue (currently in his Yukito form) as they both looked out the back-left window of the car.

"Yes."

"You can!? What?"

"Bushes."

Kero glared at his fellow Guardian out of the corner of his eye, "That's not what I meant, and you know it!"

Yukito smirked, "Maybe you should get closer," he taunted, "Then you could see what *kind* of bushes they are."

"Oh!!" Kero huffed angrily, "You know I can't get any closer! Neither can you, Alise would sense us!"

"Well, maybe we should anyway! It's better than waiting here!" No one had ever accused Yue of patience, at least, not recently.

"Stop it, Yukito," Kent ordered from the front seat, glaring at him in the rear-view mirror, "We've only been here ten minutes! And we are strictly back-up. I'm sure Sakura will call us----"

*ring, ring*

"----- if she needs us." Kent finished in the silence as Kero answered his little pink phone.

"Sakura?" Kero questioned, and the rest of them strained to hear the answer, but could only make out murmurs. And had to be content with Kero's side of the conversation:

"She has WHAT?........ What color?...... Black!! Are you sure?....... Unresponsive?....... Yes, definitely, this is very bad. We have to get her out of there NOW!!........ We followed you, we're right across the street....... Behind the house....... Okay, we're coming. Get a Shield on her now! And get out of there!...... Ya, good-luck, Bye" Kero pushed the off button and turned to the rest of the 'back-up team' with a grave look on his face, "It's worse than we thought. They need help." was all he told them, but they didn't argue. They were too busy getting out of the car.



Shield n' Run:

Sakura pushed the off button on her phone and handed it back to Syaoran. Neither of them had bothered to change out of their school uniforms, and Sakura's skirt didn't have pockets. Syaoran, who *had* taken the time to strap his sword sheath on his back, along with the pouch he kept his spell-scrolls in, dropped the phone in said pouch and turned his attention back to Sakura.

"What did he say?"

"They followed us," Sakura reported, without much surprise in her voice, "They're right across the street in the back."

Syaoran sighed, "Typical."

"Ya," she agreed, "But lucky." She took a deep breath and turned back to Madison, "Kero seemed really freaked when I described the hook things. He said to put a shield on her and get out of here." She walked over to stand beside her friend.

"Can we move her? Even with a shield?"

Sakura thought for a moment. When Eli had cast that spell to keep Yue and Kero from changing out of their battle forms, her shield had stopped the spell. At least inside the area her magic was effecting. "Yes, I think the shield spell will cut the cords. Then we can move her. That's probably what Kero intended."

Made sense. "How can I help?"

Sakura looked back at him, over her shoulder, "I'll need to see where the energy-cords are, and how they react when I cut them off."

Syaoran walked over and put a supporting hand on her back, "This okay?"he asked.

"Ya, Thanks." This way she could share the Seeing spell but still have her hands free. She reached out one hand and placed it about a foot above Mad's head, "Here we go."

Sakura had never done anything like this before. She already had a shield on herself, would she be able to maintain another one? One way to find out.

"Shield," she called softly, keeping in her mind what she wanted the magic to do. A golden glow left the fingers of her outreached hand and formed a bubble around Madison. Sakura tried to watch the black energy-cords, without actually *looking* at them. When the golden energy hit the bundle of cords it slowed down and stopped with a screeching sound.

"Syaoran! What do I do?"

"Try more power."

She put more power in the spell, concentrating on how much she wanted to save her friend. This had to work! Slowly, at first, her golden energy started to move again. Then it abruptly cut through the gathered cords with a *snap*. And the shield was formed. Inside it Madison's body jerked and then slumped over, like a puppet with the strings cut.

The remaining cords, that led off through the wall, dissolved, and they both heard an inhuman cry of rage from the other end of the mansion.

"I think Alise is mad," Syaoran commented, and Sakura had to agree with him.

"We need to get out of here, fast!" Syaoran stepped back from Sakura and walked over to the balcony, opening both glass doors wide, "Hurry!"

But Sakura hadn't heard him, for the moment his hand left her back, and her access to the Seeing spell faded, her gaze had returned to Madison, and she was shocked at what she saw there.

With only her 'normal' magic-enhanced sight the glow from the shield had died down a little, and Sakura could see through it quite clearly. The shield might have cut Madison off from the control spell, but the hooks were still there, and they were now visible in real-sight.



To Be Continued ^_^