DISCLAIMER: Honestly. I don't own ccs...meaning I don't own the characters...I do however, own the plot, so don't copy!
a/n: with the beginnning of the second part of this story, I'd like to say some thank yous again. To the many people from Clowsage I sent this chapter to, sorry, it was so long ago I can't remember names. To lil'washu/spida/Yue98 and Miro for saying you loved this story and repeatedly assuring me that this chapter and the ones before and after it made perfect sense because as much as I love and understand this story, I really want everyone else's opinion too. Joanni again because like I said in chapter 1, if I'd never talked to you, I'd never had gotten this story out. I'll stop quacking at you now. Go and read. Don't forget to review after you're done.
Is flat dispair."
--1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost--
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bum........bum.....bum...bum..bumbumBumBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUM
Her eyes snapped open. "Yoshiyuki!" she cried out mournfully. There was a pounding in her head that was comforting yet painful to listen to; it was comforting to know that she was alive, but the pain that it caused was beyond belief. When she slowly started to remember what had happened, the beating in her head had grown faster and louder, startling her out of her semi-comatose state.
She looked around. What had she remembered? Oh yes, that she wasn't home. But besides that, something was missing. Something was wrong. What though? Rika sat up and sharply drew in her breath, the sudden unblance of the blood in her body made her head hurt even worse. A little more alert, she looked around again, scrutinizing everything, why couldn't she remember where she was?
What's the last thing you can remember clearly, Rika? she asked herself. Her mind settled on a worried image of Yoshiyuki Tereda, the man she intended on spending the rest of her life with. Why was he so worried? Oh, that's right, because she was getting dizzy. Then what happened? There were glowing figures in the distance. Sakura, Syaoran, Eriol...who were the other four? Yue...Kero...Nakuru...and Suppi? Yes, that was it. Then what happened?
Rika tilted her head a little, thinking. She couldn't understand why she couldn't remember anything. Sifting through a jumble of faces in her memory, she tried to find one she could put a name too. Rowan! There was a name she was able to match to a face. She had told them something....something....why was everything so dark? She had told them something about why everything was so dark.
Unbidden, symbols and colors flashed through her mind: pink, green, blue, a flower, a star, a scroll, a serpent, tan, red, fire, yellow, a shield, and a scroll. Then words started matching up with the colors. The pink flower meant love, the green serpent meant power, the blue shield was justice, the tan scroll was knowledge, the red fire was hate, and the yellow star. The yellow star was hope!
In her room, Rika's eyes settled on a little box with the very symbols she had been thinking of. Her hand flew to her neck, feeling for a chain. She pulled out the chain and pendant from underneather her shirt. In her head, she could hear a voice reciting prose: "When reality is shattered what can you do? When truths become lies can you still hang on? When you are desparately searching the answers evade you. But your world is gone. Reality is an illusion."
She knew what the voice was going to say next and in a ragged voice, finished what was to be said, "Life is a journey...searching...for...the ...k-keys." The images and thoughts placed themselved more rapidly now. Everything was clear, what had happened, what was going to happen. Then she knew why she couldn't remember and let out a scream that wanted to stop time, to turn back the clock and change what had happened. The scream died into sobs and hysteria, and Rika climbed out of bed and landed on shaking legs. She held on to a bed post, unable to move forward, but unwilling to fall back.
Eriol and Nakuru and a haggard looking Syaoran rushed in. "Oh God, oh God, oh God. It's my fault. It's all my fault," they heard Rika mutter almost incoherently. With one arm around her waist, Nakuru gently pried Rika's fingers away from the bed post. Rika tried to push her away, but she had neither the strength nor sufficient control over her limbs to do so. All the while, the words tumbled out of her mouth and tangled her tongue, "It's my fault. Oh God, it's my fault."
Eriol put his hand over her mouth to silence her after seeing that verbal coersion didn't work. With his other hand, he wiped away the tears and cleared away the hair that had stuck to her wet cheeks. "It's nobody's fault," he whispered to her, shaking his head in emphasis.
Syaoran sat down at the foot of the bed and took one of her hands, placing it on top of a card. "Look, Rika, the Sakura Cards. They're still warm. She's still alive. We'll get her back yet."
After hearing that, Rika seemed to calm down. Eriol removed his hand. "They're still warm, she's still...alive?" she repeated.
Syaoran nodded slowly and almost hesitantly, and handed the two cards in his hand to her. Rika held them with her trembling hands. "Love and Illusion," she read. "How did love get left behind?" she queried innocently.
"How did illusion get left behind?" Nakuru countered.
But Rika wasn't listening. She drifted off to sleep, whispering to herself, "how did love get left behind?"
Listening to her breathing, Nakuru sighed, "She's asleep."
"Syaoran, you little liar. You don't know that for sure," Eriol accused.
"No. I don't know that for sure, but when I was like that," he nodded his head towards Rika. "I remembered something Sakura said when she was in the middle of transforming the cards. They were cold when they were Clow cards, but after they turned into Sakura cards, they grew warm again. They were alive. These cards. They're telling me that Sakura's still alive."
"Is this something you came up with on the spot?" Eriol asked, scrutinizing Syaoran carefully.
"No, I believe it starting when I could think in coherent sentences again. It's like grabbing at straws, but I have to hope don't I?" As he said the last part, his voice cracked with emotion.
"You'd better tell Yue to change into Yue again. Rika's going to get better soon," Nakuru reminded Syaoran, who nodded.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A few minutes after Sobek had disappeared in his green fire with Sakura, two Sakura cards appeared in a flash of light. The Illusion and Love cards. Syaoran had rushed over to the two, grabbed them before they even reached the ground; they were all he had of Sakura now. He had been standing right next to Rika, so he checked for a pulse. "She's still alive. Rika's still alive," he remembered calling out, and then his memory stopped.
Eriol told him that he had collapsed and for the next two weeks had alternated between conciousness and unconciousness. Whenever he was away, he would be trying to leave or sitting up, talking to himself or to the Sakura Cards. Syaoran remembered none of this, but Eriol and Nakuru assured him that it was all true. Yue had helped tend to Syaoran as well. Kero had reportedly locked himself in Sakura's room. Spinel Sun was sent to keep an eye on Keroberos, but Kero had not let the dark little guardian in, so Suppi had blown out the door to Sakura's room, all to make sure his yellow friend didn't do anything stupid to himself.
So where were Yue, Suppi, and Kero during Rika's out burst? After Syaoran started to get better, Yue's grief incapacitated him, so he changed into Yukito again in order to have something else to think about. Kero, after much coaxing, had finally come out of "seclusion" and had been sleeping on and off for the last two days. Eriol had told Suppi, that if for some reason, he or Nakuru wasn't around Kero and Yue/Yukito, he was to stay behind.
Of course, no one knew anything about Sakura. She had been kidnapped by the vengeful Sobek. Syaoran and Nakuru speculated that he had really wanted Rika. Eriol kept his opinion to himself.
Over the next two weeks, Rika slowly became more and more concious. Nakuru was constantly at her side and forbade the topic of Sakura or anything surrounding Sakura or Sobek. So their conversations always were about home and particularly Yoshiyuki Tereda.
When Rika was finally allowed to be by herself again, she was changed. She still had the same sunny exterior, the same warm personality, the same soft smile, and the same gentle movements, but at the same time, she was different, inside and outside. There was a hint of steel in her gaze. If she was cross or irritated with anyone, it would show: she would purse her lips and her brown eyes became hard and jaded. She walked with more self-determination.
She wanted everything to be over. She desperately wanted her life back: Yoshiyuki, Sakura, Tomoyo, Chiharu...everyone. But to get that, she needed to get the remaining four keys, so the determination in her step and the steeliness in her eyes were for a good reason. As Nakuru whispered to Suppi though, "the new Rika Sasaki takes a little getting used to, neh Suppi?"
"So, the Illusion and Love cards were what were left?" Rika asked Syaoran when they were all at the dinner table, except for Yue, who was Yue again, and off to the side, watching the conversation.
Syaoran nodded. "I kind of understand why Love was left behind, but Illusion?"
"Illusion..." Rika swallowed, and picked at her food. "That was the card Sakura was using...that was the reason Sobek has Sakura...and it's-"
Eriol cleared his throat loudly and looked pointedly at Rika. They had agreed that no one was to blame for Sakura's kidnapping, but every once in a while, some one would forget.
"Illusion was the card that Sakura was using to try and get Sobek to leave," Rika said again.
"Then the illusion must have worked on Sobek..." Syaoran trailed off.
They fell into silence again. Nakuru started to say something, but Rika cut her off. "I want to get this done and over with as quickly as possible."
"The keys you mean, Rika?" Nakuru asked.
"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner everything goes back to normal," Kero agreed.
"I notice we're still parked on this God forsaken planet of snow, so let's get this place done and over with. How long have we been here anyway?" Rika asked.
"Four weeks, almost five," Eriol answered a little too quickly. He was tired too, but in a differnt way than everyone else.
Rika's eyes flashed, not with anger, but with a firm resolve. "We've been here far too long. Tomorrow. I'll go get the key and we'll leave to where ever we're supposed to go next."
"You are not going alone," Suppi interjected, "I'm coming too."
"Me three," Nakuru chimed in.
Syaoran fiddled with his napkin. "I'm coming too," he said with resolve.
"If the kid goes, Yue and I are going too," Kero spoke up. To Syaoran, he said, "If anything happens to you, Sakura will soooo snatch out the beautiful fuzz at the end of my tail."
"Indeed, Sakura will be most displeased if anything were to happen to you before she returned," Yue added.
"Well, since everyone's going, I can't not go, now can I?" Eriol asked with a little smile that was more reminicent of his old self. "I guess we're all going then,"
Rika smiled a genuine smile. Eriol had said to her once in the beginning that this journey was going to change them all. He was right. This odd assortment of people, was her family now. They were her people, and it was up to her to bring them home. If she wasn't able to, then...then...she didn't want to think about a "then", so pushing the thought out of her mind, she joined in the genuinely lively conversation on snow Nakuru had started without her.
a/n: Well? What did you think? I'm rather pleased with the way this turned out. Did you like the quote at the beginning? You don't understand how the quote fits in with the rest of the story do you...well, it does...you just have to keep reading to find out ^^ Really, it does. I'm surprised I even found a quote that fit....ANYWHO!! see that blue bar down there? It wants pushing. Please review.
