"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: This one is a little longer. Hope you like. Thanks for the Reviews!! ;-)
Oh, and Birda-chan? Work on your spelling, please? *giggle* ^_~
Chapter 7, House Restrictions:
For a few hours, between the time darkness fell and Sakura's arrival with Syaoran, the big house was quiet. All the servants had left the mansion around sunset, even though some of them had no idea why they were leaving. Madison's father had died years before, and her mother was away on business. So, the only 'people' there were Madison and Alise.
Alise, for one, had never been in a house this big. And it *was* huge. She had counted 46 rooms before she gave up, and went to raid the enormous kitchen. This kitchen just happened to be on the opposite side of the house, and two floors down, from Madison's bedroom.
Alise was left in silence to eat pastries (eclairs were her particular favorite) and watch prime-time television on the set in the kitchen, for about two and a half hours. This was about the time that Sakura and Syaoran made it to the bottom of the trellis, although this was not what alerted her. What caught her notice was a fluctuation in the power from the little Earth-link.
Ever since her spells on the girl had been properly set and held in place, the flow of power had been a constant. Now there was a hiccup that caused Alise to dash out of the kitchen. She made it a few steps up the servants' stairs, toward the third floor and Madison's room before stopping to think. She decided that this change in the flow of power was just Madison becoming aware of the spells and trying to fight them. Since this did not seem to have worked, she turned her attention back to her eclairs.
Scant moments later Alise was surprised again by the sudden halt of any thoughts, which the control spell let her hear as a faint mumble, coming from her victim. She again walked a few steps before deciding that Madison had just lost consciousness, and turned back to her food. Part of the reason for this, and the former, dismissal was the fact that Madison's room was just so *far* away, and in this form Alise could not fly, she would have to walk the whole way.
Frankly the demon would rather eat eclairs.
Still, the two incidents had put the demon on alert, otherwise she may not have sensed the foreign magic. Alise could not tell what kind of spell it was, just that it wasn't hers, and that it was in the house, near Madison. She took off, running. While she ran she activated the barrier spell she had put in place earlier that day. It went all the way around the house, and the grounds, using the hedges as a marker. It was a relatively weak barrier, considering how large of an area it covered, and wouldn't stop anything for very long. But it would still give her some warning if anything *else* showed up, and it might catch what-ever-it-was by surprise, like a trip-wire. It also might stop this other spell-caster, if they left before she got there. The barrier was stronger from the inside than the outside, since that's where Alise was.
She was on the landing of the second floor when she felt someone, a *different* someone than the holder of the first foreign magic, interfering with the binding spell she had placed on the Earth-link. Her barrier was still up, so the two must have come in together, earlier. When had they come? And how had she not noticed?
Alise looked up at the remaining steps to the third floor. There were so many!! She began to curse the builders of the house while she increased her speed up the stairs. Whose idea had it been to build the kitchen so far from the family living quarters?! And, who had decided that this many stairs were needed !?! If she knew who it was she would gladly kill the person. As it was, she just ran faster.
Alise wasn't even half-way across the third floor when she felt another burst of magic, and the cutting off of her control spell completely. Giving a cry of frustrated rage, Alise gave up trying to run around the many doors and hallways, and just went through all the restrictions in her path. Throwing fire-balls and demon-strength punches in equal measure to destroy anything that was in her way to exacting her revenge on whoever had thought to take the Earth-link from her. She had found Madison first, and none but she would have that power!!
Her one consolation was that, even if they had somehow managed to cut off her control spell, it would not be so easy for them to get rid of her Spirit-hooks. At this point the hooks would be solid, (storing the energy instead of transferring it through the now severed cords) and could only be removed by an immortal (like a demon such as herself). And even an immortal, who was not the spell-caster, would have a hard time of it. As the subject of the spell Madison only had her energy drained slowly, but the two with her now had no such advantage, the magics Alise had sensed in Madison's room had a 'mortal' feel. The hooks would just kill the mortals outright, if they touched them.
An evil smile spread across Alise's face as she contemplated one (or both) of those mortal fools touching her Spirit-hooks. Since it would kill them faster than Madison, and because they weren't Earth-links, the hooks would not get as much energy from the other two. But they would still collect some. And once Madison was dead Alise could take their life-energy from the Spirit-hooks as well. Nice thought.......... Or she could just kill them. That was a nice thought too.
Catching Air:
Sakura was leaning over Madison's balcony, carefully directing the Float/Shield bubble that held her best friend. The bubble gently landed on the grass near Syaoran, who had jumped down seconds before. Neither of them were bothering to not use magic anymore. From the angry yells and noises of approaching destruction, they could tell that Alise already *knew* they were there.
"Is she down?" Sakura called, from up here she couldn't see the bottom of the bubble.
"Ya, get down here yourself." was the worried answer.
Sakura nervously looked over her shoulder. She could feel Alise getting closer and closer. Hurrying, Sakura vaulted up on the balcony railing, shouting "Fly!" as she did so. She hardly waited for the feeling of wings sprouting out of her back, before she jumped off, quickly gliding down to where Syaoran waited for her. But she didn't get that far.....
Right as Sakura was jumping off the railing she heard the door (and, it sounded like, part of the wall as well) crash open, and a voice screaming curses in different languages, right behind her. The malevolence of the voice sent warning prickles to the back of Sakura's neck as the hair that grew there stood on end. And she didn't need to look over her shoulder to know that something bad was coming. But, when Syaoran yelled a warning to her, she did anyway. What she saw was a fireball, about the size of a beach-ball, headed straight toward her.
Sakura frantically tried to spill air from her wings to descend faster, but she didn't have time, and the fireball hit when she was still a good four feet from the ground. The fireball slammed into the middle of her back, angled slightly toward her right shoulder. Causing her to tilt slightly in the air. She still had a shield spell on herself so Sakura's wings took most of the damage form the magical fire. With one wing completely burned off, and the other mangled, she landed awkwardly on her left foot and felt it bend in an odd way before she feel to her knees.
"Sakura!!" Syaoran quickly came to her side. Sakura brought her head up just in time to see Alise throw another fireball-- straight at Syaoran.
"Syaoran, watch out!" using her right foot Sakura pushed herself forward and knocked Syaoran out of the way. Her injured left ankle, still trailing behind her, took the fireball, causing her to cry-out in pain. She felt the shield around herself die out (she hadn't put a lot of power in it, and it wasn't meant to deflect direct hits) and quickly channeled more power to Madison's bubble, and then put a hasty shield up around them all.
"Sakura! Are you alright?" Syaoran asked, a little frantically. He looked down at her face, she was still kind of draped over him from pushing him out of harms way. Her eyes had gone unfocused for a moment in a way that worried him. But then the shield had gone up and he realized she had just been concentrating.
"I'm alright," she finally answered him, with a strained little smile, "I don't think I can walk though." she admitted, and they both looked down at her, slightly singed, ankle.
"Ouch!" Syaoran sympathized. It looked very painful, it was already swollen and one could easily see the beginnings of a nasty bruise, both from the sprain (at least Sakura didn't *think* it was broken, even if it hurt like it was) and from the added concussion of the fireball strike. Sakura could feel a similar bruise forming on her back.
Another scream of rage turned their attention back to Alise, who jumped off the balcony to land before them. She started throwing fireballs again. They could both feel the power of her shield flicker with each hit.
"How much longer will your shield last?" Syaoran asked her. And she thought about it, wincing as a particularly large fireball made the ground sake and jolted her ankle, making her poor sandal (with most of the straps burned through) fall completely off her foot.
"Maybe another ten minutes," she admitted, and winced again as the ground shook a second time, "Maybe."
Syaoran carefully got up, leaving Sakura sitting on the ground. And stood in front of her drawing his sword, "Where's Kero when you need him!"
Hedged:
After convincing Kent and Touya to stay with the car (started and ready for a swift get-away) Yue and Kero changed into their battle forms and leapt into the air. Kero was going a little faster than Yue, and thus made it to the bushes surrounding the property first, only to come to a sudden halt about 7 feet in the air, over the bush-line.
Whatever he hit was solid enough to leave him stunned for a moment, and when the ringing in his ears died away Kero found himself in a precarious position. The first thing he noticed was that he was looking *up* at the sky, which was ringed by leafy green. As his vision came into better focus he saw that it was, in fact, the green of leaves- as in bushes.
"Kero! Quit goofing off! We have to help Sakura!" Kero directed his eyes to the right and saw Yue hovering in the air above the hedge his comrade was trapped in, looking at Kero disapprovingly.
"It's not like I did it on purpose!" Kero rebutted, then added, "I hit a barrier of some kind." as he realized what must have happened.
"Well," Yue flew back and forth across the hedges above the other Guardian, "It looks like it's gone now. Must have been weak," he mused, then his face brightened a little, "You *do* know you look ridiculous, right?"
Kero glared at him. Yes he knew he must look quite funny, especially seen from above. All four of his legs were sticking straight up in the air, tangled in branches and vines. One wing was bent uncomfortably beneath him, and the other one was poking out from the bush to his left, fully extended and flapping uselessly at the air. And the more he wriggled to get free, the more firmly lodged he became. This could take awhile.
"Just go!" Kero yelled up at a snickering Yue, "Help Sakura, and try to get the Spirit-hooks out of Madison. I'll follow."
"'Spirit-hooks'?" Yue looked confused.
"Yes!" Kero returned, impatiently. "Sakura said they were already black! We have to get them out now!"
"Huh?"
Kero suddenly paused in his struggle for freedom from the foliage, to look at Yue in disbelief, "You mean Master Clow never told you about Spirit-hooks?"
"Um.... No?" Yue guessed.
Kero sighed. He had been suspecting for awhile that Clow had been a lot more thorough in Kero's education than in Yue's. He had taught many spells and imparted a vast number of his visions to the Sun Guardian, most of which he did not remember until it was needed. Like the hooks. The moment Sakura had described them he knew what they were, what it meant that they were black, and how to remove them. But, evidently, Yue did not.
"Never mind. Just go! Help Sakura fight off Alise until I get there." And Yue did what he was told, his fire-bow already forming in his hands as he flew away. He too was becoming aware of the differences between their educations. In situations such as this, when Kero talked- he listened.
After struggling for a few more moments, Kero decided that he would have to change forms to get out of this. He didn't want to because he didn't think he could change back very soon, Sakura needed her energy for the battle, and might not have enough spare power to allow him his larger form again.
~Ah, well~ he thought as he shimmered and shrunk back into his stuffed animal form, ~I need to be in this form anyway, to get the Spirit-hooks out. And I can fly faster this way.~ With that he zipped out of the, now very mangled bush, and toward his Mistress, and Madison.
Meanwhile, Back at the Front-line:
Sakura had managed to stand up, barely, and was standing on one foot (with it's lone shoe) behind Syaoran, using him for balance. She rested her chin on one of his shoulders, beside the hand she already had there, and looked through the gold of her shield at the enemy, "Do you think she'll give up?" she asked him, without much hope. Her shield had lasted 10 minutes already, and was still up, but it was draining her reserves.
"No. She's not giving up anytime soon." Syaoran answered, redundantly. He tried not to shiver as Sakura's warm breath caressed his ear when she talked, "Kero and Yue better get here soon."
Sakura glanced behind their group at the empty sky, then at her friend slumping, bonelessly, in the protective bubble beside them, and buried her face in her boyfriend's back. She had felt Kero use her power to transform about five minutes before. But they had yet to see either of her Guardians. She didn't know how much longer she could keep the shield up under Alise's powerful attacks, defense took a lot more energy than offense. Which left them only one choice.
She took a deep breath for courage, taking comfort in Syaoran's unique, pleasant, and familiar, scent as she inhaled it, and made her decision, "If they're not here in another 2 minutes, I'm dropping the shield." she lifted her head back up as she talked, and tried to sound confidant. She checked her watch.
Syaoran nodded in agreement. He knew they needed to fight while she still had the energy to do so, "I'm right here, with you," he reminded her, turning half-way and putting one arm around her in a hug. His other hand held his sword in front of them both.
"I know," she returned the hug, using him for support as she kicked off her other sandal, and added a kiss in gratitude, before stepping away. She forced herself to take half her weight on her injured ankle, wincing as she checked her watch again. Almost time. Sakura and Syaoran moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of Madison, and Sakura prepared to drop the shield.
To Be Continued ^_^
