DISCLAIMER: I don't own any CCS characters, they belong to CLAMP.



a/n: Sorry for the long wait. I just got back from a vacation. I have a few more chapters written...I just have to find time to post them. this is probably the only story I'm going to be updating today. If you're following my other story in progess, look for a chapter sometime this weekend, assuming I can get out of bed...^^;; Things are finally going to get interesting! don't forget to review. That long blue button at the end of the page is screaming to be pushed. ;p

LightBlossom - Syaoran was really there for 50 earth years. Just to be simple, time passes the same way it does on earth...or else, I'd have a royal headach and I would have given up on this a long time ago ^^




Finally



From my trip to the mortal realms, I learned an invaluable lesson all mortal-Gods learn at one point or another: forming connections with mortals is a dangerous thing. When they go, it's like getting your heart torn out.

My sisters and my mother had all gone. Before my trip, I never felt really lonely, because my thoughts could drift to them and remember them, but after, when I saw that they were old and dying, I felt more alone than ever.

I could not, however, linger on self pity, so busied myself with building a house for myself. I only sort of chose the location. I went from place to place, looking for a local that would suit my taste. For the longest time, thought, I neglected to look close to home. My house ended up being built right next to Kaho and Eriol's. I can't explain the feeling when I knew I had found the right spot. It just felt right.

My own house was a replica of the house I lived in in my prior life. However, all my attempts at a garden failed and soon I simply left the grass lot in front of my house as a grass lot over grown with monstrous weeds.

Kaiba too, moved away, but he choose a place farther away. The years passed in a stately march. The four of us would get together often, but mostly, we just minded ourselves.

My dream came back too. I don't know how many years after I moved into my own house, but it didn't feel like very long. The dream this time, was in a different setting than all those other times before. It was more vivid and I could hear her voice. Her voice was so sweet and simple. I loved how her expression grew happy just at the sight of me...

"Syaoran, Syaoran..."

I sighed. Still absorbed in recounting every single moment of every dream about the green-eyed girl in the past month. In the distance, I could hear a masculine voice shouting out my name, but I shooed the sound out of my head.

"Syaoran. Syaoran!!!"

I jumped in my seat, and looked up at Eriol. "What?" I demanded, slightly irritated that he had inturrupted my daydreaming.

"Lost in your own little world again?" he asked, amused.

"Huh?"

"Oh, come on, for the last month, everytime I try to talk to you, you're off in la-la land, dreaming of goodness knows what."

"Huh?" I couldn't believe I had been so obvious.

"Never mind, never mind. There's a new goddess. You should meet her. We think you could help, after all, you did grow up with four sisters," he said urgently.

"You want me to go help her?" I repeated.

"Yes, will you?"

I shrugged, "Sure."

For the past week, there had been a slight tension in the air. I sensed a pink aura briefly one night, but I dismissed it as a dream. The week before and the week after, when ever I saw Kaho or Eriol, they both seemed to be rather preoccupied, with what, though, I could not tell. When I agreed, a huge weight seemed to be lifted on Eriol's shoulders and put on mine; the tension around Eriol was gone.

In their living room, sitting in front of a small fire was a girl. She was sitting in a huge arm chair that seemed to swallow her. She had golden-brown hair that was reddish with the light of the fire and her head was bent over her chest, as if she were sleeping. I walked over to her chair and knelt down. "Hello, who's this?" I asked politely.

"Her name's Sakura, Syaoran," Kaho called out from the next room.

"Why didn't any body tell me earlier?" I yelled back. I knelt in front of her seat, so I would be eye level with her if she raised her head.

"What do you want? Syaoran," she asked hesitantly.

"I just wanted to meet you. I hoped we could be friends?"

"Suit yourself," she shrugged.

I wracked my brains looking for ways to get her to open up. "Where do you come from?" I asked.

"The mortal realms."

"So did I."

"You did?" She looked up slowly and I saw that her eyes were the most brilliant green I had ever seen; I nearly swallowed my tongue.

"Yes I did. I had four sisters," I said. "And you're exactally-"

"Did you say something?" she asked. I had thought out loud. There was a habit I needed to get rid of.

"No, no, I didn't say anything."
"I was an only child." Yes, and her voice was the same too! I was having a hard time containing my excitement.

"You'll like it here." I wanted her to talk more. I wanted her to smile. She looked so sad sitting there, looking into the fire.

"Will I? How can I be what I'm supposed to be?"

"What? A Goddess?"

She looked straight at me and said with a forced steadiness. "I'm the Goddess of Love," she said proudly and sarcastically at the same time.

"How fitting," I murmured.

"Did you say something?" she asked again.

I had thought out loud again. Stupid. "No, I didn't say anything. Well, if you need anyone to talk to, you can come to me. I live in that other house outside. It's the only other house you can see." I got up and turned around to see Eriol and Kaho staring at us.

I could feel my face burn up as I briskly walked over to where they were. "WHAT?" I demanded.

"Nothing," Eriol snickered.

"Nothing at all," Kaho added.

"What ever. TELL ME!"

The couple was consumed by another outbreak of giggles. "It's just...it's just you looked...so...funny...talking to Sakura...." Kaho gasped.

"O-k. I'm never talking to you again."

"No, really, Syaoran," Eriol started. "You looked as if you had died and gone to heavan, or something like that." He finished his sentence sounding rather strangled perhaps it was because of the death glare I was steadily sending in his direction.

As I turned to walk home, Kaho asked, "Aren't you staying for dinner?" She didn't give me any time to answer before she started talking again. "You have to, because you're my best friend," she declared, dragging me away from the door.

"Hey, I thought I was your best friend," Eriol pretended to pout.

"You are, but I can have more than one best friend can't I?" and she gave him one of her dazzling smiles she reserved just for her husband.

Eriol laughed and left while Kaho, certain that I was far away from the front door, started cooking dinner. Even though she had servants who could probably have done everything for her, she still likes to do the little domestic chores herself. Many of the Gods I know do that. The servants just do what the Gods don't want to do. Kaho doesn't like doing the dishes, so a servant does them. I don't like doing laundery, so a servant does it. The whole system is pretty convenient actually.

My life was...different after that. I couldn't eat much, I didn't sleep much, I didn't really pay attention to anything except for Sakura. I couldn't believe that I had meet the girl I had been searching for for so many years. My dreams stopped coming so often, because I would see her almost every day. She never came to find me. I would go over to Kaho and Eriol's place at least once a week for dinner, which was quite a bit more often than in the old days, but they said nothing about it.




If they did, I probably would have tried in vain to ignore them.




It was during that time though, that I discovered something about Sakura's personality that made me want to protect her, watch over her, even more: Sakura was incredibly dense. I'm very sorry for saying so, but it's true. According to Eriol and Kaho, my behavior changed and I practrically radiated love for her, at least, that's what they told me. There were dozens of times when I would blush in front of her. I never did that when I was talking to Kaho, but either she didn't notice, or she didn't connect my expressions with what she was the goddess of. Her dense-ness made her more cute though.

For the first few months, Sakura always seemed sad and preoccupied. She had the same expression on her face as she did when we first met - a unique expression of sad and proud mixed together. Sometimes when she didn't notice, I would watch her. It hurt me to see her so unhappy, but what ever she was unhappy about was a mystery to me. Even after we became better friends, the cause of her sadness was a forbidden topic, but after the first few months, she pushed the sadness away from herself and started showing us her happier side.

Sakura was always thinking of ways to cheer up everyone around her, even if she wasn't always happy. She seemed to get her strength from the three of us being happy.

It was around this time, after Sakura had started cheering up, that I decided to tour the Mortal Realms. I got the feeling from Sakura that she didn't want to be loved the way I wanted to love her. Her magic was also beginning to manifest itself and I needed some time to learn how to control my feelings and thoughts around her; being the Goddess of Love, Sakura naturally would be more sensitive to these things. I didn't want to hurt her in any way, so it was best that I leave for a while.

Besides, the mortals were developing new fighting techniques that I wanted to learn.

Even then, if you had asked, I would not have been able to name all the places I went. I never was very good with geography. Most of what they were doing turned out to be variations and elaborations of older techniques I already new. There were, however, a few genuinely new styles. One involved fans, the other involved daggers.

Although daggers had been around for centuries, for some reason, no one really developed any fighting techniques with them until then, so I took the opportunity to learn all I could. The method involving fans was pure, 100 percent genius. The type of fan used was built differently than normal fans. It was heavier and was more metal than wood. It also was bladed on the open end and was sharper than my sharpest sword.

This "fan-fighting" was developed by one of the warrior tribes on some planet or other. Like I said, I never had a head for geography. The original intent was so that their women could protect themselves, but it had evolved. For women, there were more decoative fans and there were more masculine designs for men too. I brought a variety of these fans home with me.

During the time I spent in the Mortal Realm, I worked hard to control my own thoughts. I had to bury myself in my work to suppress my feelings. I taught myself how to shield my surface thoughts - the thoughts that you are currently thinking are surface thoughts; any God can pick them up - and to control my emotions to a certain degree. All that remained, was the test of going home and seeing Sakura again.

I was gone for almost twenty years, a short period of time for a god, traveling from world to world, country to country, picking up fighting arts and leaving signs that the God of Martial Arts had visited. Actually, twenty years was surprisingly fast. Most mortals needed to apprentice themselves to a martial arts master from early in their childhood to when they were about twenty five or so. Motivated by my desire to see Sakura again, I learned fast. In those twenty years, home hadn't really changed; my house was still the same, my "garden" was still a jumble of weeds, I still lived next to Kaho and Eriol. Yep, my world hadn't changed much.

It felt good to be home. I had 'ported my sparse luggage into my rooms and was about to go inside when the urge came over me to go visit Kaho and Eriol, to see what had happened since I had left.

They never left their door locked so I simply waltzed in like the vagabond I'd practiced being for the last twenty years. "I'm back! What's been going one here?"

Eriol's head poked out from his study off the main hall. "So you are back! Did you learn anything worth sharing?" he queried. Eriol had always been interested in my area of governance.

"Yeah. I think. Where're Kaho and Sakura?"

"Oh, Sakura moved out a few years back. Kaho went to visit today. But I'm sure she'd be absolutely insulted if you didn't stay for dinner at least," he grinned slyly, "why don't I ask her to bring Sakura over too?" Before I could stop him, he already contacted Kaho and Sakura. I took a deep breath. As much as I dreaded seeing Sakura again, I still wanted to see her. Besides, this was my chance to see if anything I had forced myself to learn worked. Hopefully, it would.

"Hello? Syaoran. Are you in there?" I snapped back to reality, realizing that Eriol was trying to get my attention.

"Huh? Sorry, I guess my mind was wandering for a while."

"I noticed," he said wryly, "Kaiba's coming too."

"Fine, fine." I should have noted the look on his face when he said that; had I noticed Eriol's expression, I could have averted what was to come.





a/n: Well? What did you think? rather a turning point chapter don't you think? If you read my other story and you think you know what's going to happen next, you're right and you're wrong...remember, this is from Syaoran's pov so it'll be different! ^-^ So you'd better review! or else....mwahahahahahahahaha! j/k

p.s. Go read my other story....keys of light and dark...I really want to know what people think of that one (even if you think it's crap)....speaking of which, I should probably get the next chapter up soon.