The Ripple Affect
By: Xiao

` Wow. I'm suddenly all backed into typing this story It's quite amazing, actually. Anyway, a big thanks to Megami No Hikari and her story Trapped In Alone, because I have no idea why, but her story gave me this huge burst of inspiration. Go read her story, now.

Also. This is going to be probably the most angst thing I have ever written. Who knows? The idea in my head seems pretty sad. But don't hate me for it; I thought this would probably be a good climax. And this chapter will probably have some form of romance. Who knows? Yes, me. Ha Ha.

-- Chapter VII --

"Thanks, Eriol." She said as she released him from her grip. He nodded as she turned and spoke in the intercom for them to open the gates, that she was finally back. Within a minute the gates were open and two maids and her mother came running out of the mansion, meeting up with Tomoyo at the gates, embracing the girl tightly. After a moment of her mother telling her daughter how she should never of done that, Tomoyo finally pulled her off and introduced Eriol.

"Mom, this is Eriol." She said. The navy haired boy gave a slight smile and nodded. "He's one of my," she paused as she glanced toward him. A smile passed her pail lips. "Friends." Sonomi gave him a very quick thank you about how much she appreciated that fact that he took time to look for her daughter on such sort notice. The two exchanged a good-bye and she asked if he would like one of the maids to give him a ride home. He told her he would rather just walk home, and then was off.

Tomoyo's mother grabbed the girl's hand and walked her inside as she asked nearly a million questions, first one being what had happened to her. "Well, it got really dark as you know and I took this wrong turn and I didn't know where I was, exactly, so I just took shelter in this park and hoped that someone would find me because I was afraid that if I continued any farther that I would be so lost and then no one would find me."

"Silly girl." Her mother commented as the maid opened the door for the two. The mother eyed the coat that Tomoyo had on, which had been Eriol's but ignored it. She instructed for her to take a bath and to do her homework, and lead her upstairs.

"That boy didn't do anything to you, now did he?" She said as she took a side-glance at the girl's knees, which were slightly bloodied, still. Tomoyo stopped dead in her walking and looked at her mom, wondering what exactly was going through her mind.

"Of course not." She said, finally. Her mom gave an exasperated sigh and pushed her daughter up the stairs as she then went into her room a grabbed her a pair of pajamas and put it in her hands. She then lead her to the bathroom, where the bath tub was already filled to the brim with warm water and bubbles this time. She instructed for her to cleanse herself well before getting out and then left the girl to her bathing.

The girl mumbled a snobbish 'yes ma'am' once her mom left and then undressed and slipped into the water. A hiss filled the girls lips as she felt the water cover her cuts, but sighed a moment later when she was able to relax and almost dunk herself completely under the layer of frothy bubbles. "Eriol hurting me?" she mumbled into the smelly bubbles. She shook her head slightly and dipped her head completely under.

---

"Well," Syaoran said as his brother entered the house. His clothes damp from the walk as a result of having no coat. He was shivering lightly and his clothes were clinging to his skin pretty well. "Seems you caught a good one." He added. Eriol shook his head as he walked through the kitchen, wetted footprint trails trailing behind him.

"Shut up, Syaoran." He said as he lifted up a lid of one of the pots to see what they were to be making for dinner tonight. His brother grinned, obviously finding it his duty to tease Eriol about bringing home a cute girl. Maybe if he knew that Eriol was just trying to help her then he wouldn't of been giving him hard time about it, but he wasn't exactly willing to tell him that that cute girl he saw earlier was a cutter.

"Damn, though. She's a beautiful one. How'd you ever get a hold of her? I swear, if you weren't with her I'd be all over her…" Syaoran's voice trailed as Eriol walked up the stairs. Truly, he wanted to go down there and smack him and tell him to shut the hell up, that Tomoyo wasn't just eye candy and that he wasn't even with him for god's sake. Well, even if he told him that then Syaoran would be all over her, so he would have to add for him to stay the hell away from her.

'Oh geez, getting protective, aren't we?'

He shook his head as he went to the closet and grabbed a towel, ruffling it against his messy hair, which now looked like a mess of pure black ink. After that, he went to his room, stripped down and tried off before changing into some dry clothes. At the feeling over softened cloth against his skin and went back down the stairs. "I'm not going to eat tonight." He said, finally. What did Syaoran expect anyway? He had to just go through finding a girl in the rain and then walking her to his house and then hers and then home. To some normal person then they would probably be starving, but he wasn't normal. And after all, his dad's new playmate would be staying to eat anyway and he wasn't sure if he could handle that.

"What the hell? Why not?"

"I'm not hungry, dumb ass." Actually, he was empty. Completely empty, but food was the last thing he needed, well, of course, besides seeing that Mizuki lady. Syaoran grunted, probably thinking that if he didn't tease him he would have eaten something and helped him cook. Eriol waited a moment for a response, but didn't get one and then left and back up to his room. He took out his backpack and his homework, and sat down, sighing. Well, he better finish this off.

---

"Did she believe what you said about last night?" He asked as he looked up from his book. This was always what it was like; Tomoyo would be eating her lunch quietly as Eriol sat and read one of his books or finished his homework. It was usually silent unless someone just said anything. It didn't even matter how stupid it was, it always stared up a conversation.

"Yeah." She said as she took a bite out of her rice. He nodded lightly and looked back down at his book, running his gaze over the text. "I called Sakura about it and gave her that excuse and she believed it and then—"

"Who's Sakura?" He didn't want to interrupt her, but he had done it anyway.

"She's one of my friend's from England." She said, smiling. "She's my best friend. Well, anyway, then I told her that I was lying and that I ran off from those freaks who were talking about me and you and she said the first one was believable." He grinned in return to that. At least he was able to come up with a reasonable excuse to help Tomoyo out.

There was a moment of silent. "So, she knows about everything?" He asked.

"Yeah. She got really concerned and said that I should talk to my mom." She began, with a sigh as she shook her head and lifted her chopsticks to her mouth. "I had to explain that my mom expects the best of me and that she, obviously, wouldn't take it well and," she shrugged and nudged over to the table near them. "expects perfection just like everyone else in this school."

"Seems like a nice person." He said. She nodded and the two drifted back into silence for the next few minutes until the bell rang and they went to their separate classes.

---

At the end of the class, Tomoyo remembered that the drama teacher had requested to speak to her before she left. Of course, she wasn't one to forgot and instantly went to the theater classroom, while Eriol went and got his things to leave. As she did so, she took her cell phone out of her pocket and turned it on. Her was mother was always concerned that something important would happen and that they wouldn't get in touch with her, and so, as of yesterday, she had a cell phone and was to have it turned on after school and whenever she could have it on. She shook her head, finding it to be pointless, though. After all, that incident yesterday was a first in her whole time of living.

"Yes ma'am?" Tomoyo asked as she opened the door to the theater room. The teacher motioned Tomoyo inside and stood, meeting her halfway. The teacher smiled and began with how she thought Tomoyo would make a lovely director someday, and that she was doing an absolutely wonderful job in directing the show they were putting on.

"I also wanted to give you this," she added as she handed the girl another script, the main girl leads highlighted. "When I was casting I didn't put a stand in for her, and I thought that since you were wonderful at directing, maybe you'd be a lovely understudy." The teacher gave her one of her brightest smiles.

"Oh no, I couldn't do that." She said. Yes, she was a singer, and yes she was pretty good at directing, but no, she wouldn't be able to play a main lead. Sure, she did get the spot light a lot because of her constant solos, but that was singing. This was acting. She COULDN'T act, and it was that simple. "I can't act, just trust me on that."

"Oh, but that must be why you chose this class? To get rid of stage fright?"

"No ma'am, I don't have stage fright, I just can't."

"Oh, then we'll teach you! And I'm sure Eriol can help you as well!" She said as she nodded her head happily, and turned the girl around and began to push her to the door. "Yes, yes, we'll teach you, Tomoyo!" She pushed the girl out of the door and shut it.

Tomoyo waited a moment before she actually knew what had just happened, and then blinked. "Something is seriously wrong with her." She mumbled as she went to the front doors and went outside, staring at the papers scribbled with pink highlighter on her so-called understudy part. She shook her head and folded it before putting it in her backpack.

For a moment she looked around, wondering if Eriol had waited for her or just left. To her fortune, he stood against one of the cherry blossom trees some length away from her. She smiled slightly and began to walk toward him until her cell phone rang.

She shook her head as she stopped in her tracks, mumbling about how stupid it was to have a cell phone for no real reason. And look know what was going to happen, she was going to get these calls from people who dialed in the wrong cell phone numbers and have to answer them because if she didn't, the ring would go on forever and drive her to insanity.

"Eriol!" She said as waved her hand up. Eriol looked over to her and gave her a slight smile and made her way over to her as she took out her cell phone and answered it.

"Moshi moshi." She said as she continued in a steady pace toward Eriol.

"Tomoyo, dear, this is Rae-Lynn." The maids voice rang in over and flowed through and into her ears. She wasn't exactly happy that it was her mad calling, but then again it she wasn't exactly thinking that something bad had happened. "I have some news for you."

"Yes?" She asked back, as she stopped.

"I.. I'll explain it more detail when you get home, but.." Rae-Lynn's voice was soft and some how was making Tomoyo more nervous than ever, despite the tone. "There was a school shooting in England. It's all over the news right now and.. Well.. They just released a list of which students were killed."

Her heart stopped beating, or so it seemed. She knew what Rae-Lynn was going to say to her next. Why else would they have called her since this phone was only for emergencies. Sakura Kinomoto must have been shot, killed. Not injured, not okay.. It was so obvious by the wording of her sentences. She was gone. Her eyes welled up with tears, stinging her as she didn't even bother to listen to what Rae-Lynn was going to say, and didn't bother to respond either, and just hung up.

And she knew that her mother was going to go pick her up, so try and comfort her over Sakura. She had to get away. She had to get away before her mother could make act like she knew what her daughter was going through, to try and comfort her and say it was going to be all right in the end. And it wasn't going to be all right. Nothing could be all right anymore. She had just lost the person that she cared for the most in her life.

She began to pick up pace, knowing that she had to get away from this place; the place where she had found out her best friend's fate. Eriol gave her a confused look, wondering why she was crying. "Tomoyo?" He asked, quietly as Tomoyo came to him, and then walked past him without even so much as sparing him a glance. "Hey! What's wrong?"

She didn't want him to know, and yet she couldn't help whispering the truth into the air. "Sakura's dead. She was shot in a shooting." Despite the fact the fact that her voice was quiet and mixed in with her muffled sobs, Eriol caught exactly what she said. And it stung, not only because if was Tomoyo's best friend, but because he knew her preferred choice to make it all better.

He hurried in front of her and began to walk backwards in hopes to catch her attention. Nothing happened, and thus he had to stop her and at least try to calm her down. After all, he had vowed to himself to help Tomoyo through thick and thin. He stopped and since she wasn't looking where she was going, she ran right into him. "I'm sorry, Tomoyo.." He said as she sobbed, her head resting in the spot between his chin and his chest. It was kind of awkward, considering she was just like that, her arms still at her side.. A little too weird, and he felt that he couldn't talk to her like that and stood her back up, lifting her chin so their eyes met.

"I'm sorry, Tomoyo." He tried again. "I understand what it must be like.." To tell the truth, he didn't exactly know what to tell her. He had never had one of his friends or someone close to him die, but he couldn't find any betters words to fit the situation. It would have been better if he found something better to say, though, because it triggered her and she started to cry harder and pulled herself away from him.

"Don't you fucking lie!" She screamed. It was such a sensitive subject for her and she wasn't exactly sure how to determine what he meant. "You don't know what the hell I'm going through! And goddamnit, don't you try to say you do!"

He winced at her screaming. He tried to calm her down by setting a hand on her shoulder, but she whipped backward and cried harder, still not getting the real meaning of what he said previously. "AND DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME, HIIRAGIZAWA!" Slap.

Oh, it stung, and out of pure reaction he put his hand to his cheek, winced lightly at the touch. She then ran off, repeating it again and then adding to it. "DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME, AND DON'T YOU FUCKING ACT LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT THE HELL I'M GOING THROUGH!" She ran. Fast and swiftly and before he could even turn around, she was gone.

What now? A normal person would of taken it straightly and given up on the girl, and probably would of struck back. And to tell the truth, he did want to give up on the girl and he wanted to scream at her that she needed to stop assuming things, and that he is trying to help.

But she was gone.

And she was hurt.

And he just couldn't throw everything back in her face. She was hurt, and that was all there was to it.

He had to find her, because he knew her, and he knew exactly what might and probably would happen if he didn't get a hold of her and calm her down anytime soon. It was obvious that Tomoyo couldn't handle her pain very well, which was told by the previous experiences, and there was always a little experience called cutting.

And he was off in the same direction.

---

"Tomoyo!" Her mother said as she ran to the girl who had just entered the house. The truth was, if one of the maids hadn't of found her when she was running off, then she wouldn't be home. And if her mother didn't see her the instant she came home, she would of ran off the instant she knew that no one else was watching her. No luck. This damned world.

Her mother ran to her and embraced her. "Oh, Tomoyo, dear, I'm so sorry! Do you want to talk about it?" Her mother asked softly, not even bothering to realize that her daughter wasn't embracing her in return.

"No, I'm just going to go lay down.."

"Are you sure? I can get you something to drink and have one Rae-Lynn make you a bath to relax, if you want." Thoughts embedded her mind. Yes, the possibilities. Tomoyo nodded, thinking about what could happen just like last time.

And she wanted it to happen, too.