Disclaimer:

All rights are reserved to CLAMP the owners of Card Captor Sakura and
the characters.

The Author of this fiction is using the CCS characters but her own idea, so this fiction is uniquely hers and not copied from anyone else. Ideas may have sprung from other Fictions that she has read but this is an original copy.

WARNING: Alternate Universe, OOC, Violence, Depression, Dark themes, Adult Themes, Horror, Supernatural, Drug use, Angst.

Romance in later chapters

By Sujakata

Inspired by: Legacy by Logan (Card Captor Sakura fiction)

Itsumademo wa Takai- Forever in Death

Chapter one: One step at a time

~~

'Sometimes the hardest thing is not to fight'

Glynn (Darksong, Second book in the Legendsong Trilogy, by Isobelle Carmody)

~~

Mei Lin stood beside the bed that held her fiancé and leader of the Li Clan, Li Xiaolang. Her now delicate hands brushed over his face lovingly, she looked to the other bed that contained the Card Mistress and her nose sniffed disdainfully. Since the Li Elders announced that Mei Lin and Xiaolang's promise to one another would remain she had been taught by Li Yelan in the way of becoming the sheath for the Leader. Her role went from fighting alongside her beloved to standing on the sidelines and acting like a proper lady, for she was the princess to the Clan and should dress and act as one.

She looked up as the family doctor walked in and placed some herbs on a trolley, his face was drawn in tight lines and his posture showed that he was not happy.

"is something wrong?" she asked, her voice much softer then it once used to be. The man looked up and bowed to Mei Lin before sighing and placing a hand on Sakura's forehead.

"she is a troubled girl, the energies used in the spell Master Li performed caused her to retreat into her mind, it will take her longer to sort out what is happening, and while she is locked inside her mind, Master Li will share her fate." Mei Lin gasped and placed her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening.

"I don't understand, why is his fate intertwined with hers?" The doctor took a seat and began to crush the herbs in a round bowl.

"The magic used to stop the Card Mistress was a binding of sorts, Since Master Li and anyone else with magic could feel the struggle between mistress and cards for domination Master Li did what he knew was the only way to control the both of them, he sealed himself to the Card Mistress and her cards, giving him power to control the cards, not to the extent of the Card Mistress mind you, but enough so they will not be able to take control like that again. It is a very dangerous spell as if the card mistress dies, so will he, and if he dies so will she." The doctor spat into the herbal mixture and continued with his stirring.

Mei Lin looked so shocked and disturbed by this news that the doctor offered her a seat which she took gratefully.

"what happens if they release the cards or we destroy them?" Mei Lin asked, her face filled with hope of giving her beloved a way out of this mess. The Doctor rubbed a hand over his face.

"Impossible, from what I gather their life forces are joined to the cards, if they were destroyed or set free then both would die. The only thing that they both can do is to learn to control the cards." Mei Lin glared at the Card Mistress for putting her Xiaolang in such a predicament and she felt her anger rise. 'why didn't Xiaolang just kill the girl and save him the trouble? Why did he do something so out of character of him and help someone who wasn't of the Clan? Why is she so special?'

Standing up from her seat Mei Lin, soon to be wife of Li Xiaolang, leader of the Li Clan walked over to the Card Mistress and stared into her white face, Mei Lin's hard terracotta eyes bore into the unconscious girls closed eye lids, willing the stupid girl to wake so that her beloved would also. She looked the girl over, they hadn't removed her clothes, apart from the two coats she had worn 'what an absolute lunatic, how could she be wearing two coats in this weather?' Her eyes trailed from the fresh piercing in her eyebrow and ear, to the dog tags the girl wore. Looking down at them she snatched them off the girls neck and looked them over. They held a few codes that she couldn't decipher, but on the back of one of the dog tags was something roughly etched into it. It was very hard to read and she narrowed her eyes, her fingers tracing over the Japanese characters.

"Goi Hikomori ha Sake Kinomoto, no Tomodachi Itsumademo" Mei Lin read out. The family doctor looked over to her

"what does that mean?" Mei Lin shrugged and pocketed the dog tags

"Its something like Guy Hikomori and Sake; I believe that it's a Japanese alcoholic beverage are to be friends forever. My Japanese isn't as fluent as Xiaolang's, but it will do. Still it doesn't make sense as to why she would be wearing that kind of thing. Dog Tags are for people with a military history, I do not believe this..child has had any of that." Both looked at the pale and very skinny card Mistress for a few moments before their attention was drawn to their leader who was groaning and began to thrash from side to side. Both the doctor and Mei Lin rushed to his side and held him down while the doctor called for backup.

~~

There were three main colours in the room she stood in. A vibrant green that pulsated with life, and was blinding to look at, a dull grey colour that shimmered slightly as if ghosts were slinking past the light. And lastly, a dark pink that seemed to be sucking in the light. The room was round and held no openings whatsoever. Sakura glared at the walls, and the colours, she had no idea what this place was but she could tell that it wasn't the place she had been before. Searching her mind she recalled fighting with that boy, the one that had been partial in killing her only friend.

Green eyes darkened in hatred, where had that boy taken her? Was this some sort of magic trick? She couldn't feel the pull of the cards against her, and she shuddered.the cards, what had happened to them? Her hands started to shake, she'd never been away from their power before, she had a craving just to feel their hard surface under her quick fingers, to feel their needs. She needed them. Clenching her hands to stop the shaking and the physical manifestation of her addiction she narrowed her eyes in the direction of the blinding green light. Something was moving just beyond her sight. Itching to find out if it might be one of her cards she moved steadily closer, she found it strange that her feet made no sound whatsoever.

She hadn't always been like this, needing the cards, wanting to be one with them, being so addicting and dependent on their presence. She shook her head and closed her eyes thinking back.

~~

There was a time in my life where I was one of them, laughing, singing, no care in the world.and then one day it just got harder to keep up with everyone and I was left behind and no matter how hard I tired it felt as if I was going no where, like I was stuck in that dream where you try harder and harder to run as fast as you can go, but your only running on the spot while the shadows continue to get closer and closer until they are right upon you, consume you until there is nothing left of what you were before. Then your one of them, in a strange haze of consciousness and you follow behind the others like sheep, chasing after the next bright spark of life until you help to destroy that life and the next and the next..and you cant scape it..there's no way out!

~~

Her ears could pick up the sound of low, harsh whispers, that faded and evaded her from hearing what was being said. She felt a shiver run down her spine, something was out of place.closing her eyes she felt about her for what was off. She snapped her eyes open as a she felt something shift right beside her, she turned quickly as a bright green figure descended upon her, flaming white sword in hand, they both collided and were sent to the ground in a heavy heap, the green figure on top of her, its knee pushing down on her chest painfully, and the flamed sword pointed at her jugular.

Sakura took a shuddering breath, her hands still shaking with the longing of her cards. Her green eyes narrowed against the glare of both eh figure and its weapon.

"who are you?" she asked hoarsely. The sword was pressed a little deeper, cutting at the skin and releasing a thin line of blood, Sakura hissed and she was surprised when her shaking hands flung up against her assailant and pushed him back with a gust of wind..'windy' she sighed in relief, the presence of one of her cards calming her down and clearing her head.

"Back to the deck Windy" the green figure whispered harshly and for a moment Sakura thought that those whispers she'd heard before were from the man, when they started again. Then she realised exactly what he'd said and she felt her card start to disentangle itself from her. Sakura held on tightly to the magical card's essence. She was not going to let go.

"BACK WINDY!" the command was so forceful that she was ripped from the card and it returned back into the green haze of colour.

"no..come back here!" Sakura whispered her eyes widened, the cards obeyed only her, no one else. "Who are you to command my cards like that! I am the card mistress, they belong to me!"

"I know who you are.and you know who I am also..you are in no fit state to control those cards as you are now, so they will obey me until I believe you can handle their power!" Sakura snorted and glared at the still shining figure.

"you? are going to hold them from me? I don't think so!" Sakura took a deep breath, her cards knew her, needed her as she needed them.they would come to her call. "Fiery" she called out in a chillingly cold voice, her eyes once again that dull green. Their was a flicker of red before it was quickly consumed by the green. Sakura narrowed her eyes at the green figure. "FIERY!" the magical being appeared before her before it was again sucked back into the overpowering green. "I.I don't understand" Sakura whispered, why weren't the cards coming to her call? She was their mistress, they had to! No one could take them away from her..

"Now that you've realised I have control over the cards you will listen to what I have to say!"

"I don't think so. Give them back to me, they're mine!" The figure chuckled and the green around his form faded until before her stood the man with the green aura.the one who'd distracted her.the one who'd help with killing Goi!. "you" she snarled

"Voice" he called and Sakura found herself unable to speak. Glaring for all she was worth she folded her arms across her chest. "Finally, now, listen!" Sakura flipped him off and turned her back to him. Rolling his eyes the young man launched into the history of his family, and their magical origins, how important the Clow Cards were thought to be. She interrupted him their, her voice now returned as the young man only had limited power of them in the first place

"if they were so important then why didn't you send someone to collect them?" The young man sighed sadly and ran a hand through his already messing hair.

"we didn't send anyone because you had been chosen by the guardian beast to be their mistress. If you had been found unworthy by the moon guardian then I would have been sent down. We watched the judging closely from China, we believed that as long as someone had the power of the cards and could control them then we should not worry about who it was.unless it was one of our enemy's." Sakura snorted again and glared openly at the young man.

"so your saying that, you could have come and taken them from me?" Sakura couldn't fool herself into believing that the cards power was wondrous, no.it was that power that had changed her, had taken away her life, and had made her dependant on it, and here was this boy telling her that she could have continued on with her normal life.that she didn't have to go through so much pain.

"yes.I-"

"no.now you listen to me!" her voice had once again gone to that monotonous cold voice "You weren't there, you were brought up to do this, to have magic, to fight it. I had to learn on my own, fail, and try again when I wanted to give up. It hurt knowing I was so different from everyone else and I couldn't even tell anyone about why I had to stay away from them, I lied to them almost every single day of my life.you were trained for this, not me. Why didn't you come and take it from me? I don't care that you all thought I could handle it, that it wasn't your problem anymore! Why didn't you at least send someone to help me? You had a family to help you, to love you and support you, I had no one, I was all alone.alone with no one to help me." her voice changed drastically into some kind of hysterical need that he couldn't quite understand.

"I hate you, I hate you I hate you, I hate you and your magic. I hate it all, I don't even care anymore.it eats at me.this so called power that is supposed to be wonderful! I cant even handle it, I need it!" she showed him her shaking hands and for a moment she wondered why she was revealing so much to someone she did not even know "this is all your fault, this was your destiny not mine, you can have it back, along with everything else that should have been yours." The young man was silent for a few moments before he shook his head

"you cant give it to me now! And you cannot ignore your magic or it will consume your entire being and destroy you!" there was a silence after that and the harsh whispers took up from where it had left off.

"I've watched you change" the girl stiffened.she knew that voice.

"Goi?" she whispered, her eyes wide with confusion.

"you were on fire" the harshness was still their and Sakura moved towards the dull grey in the room, her mind totally forgetting about the man she had been yelling at.

"I watched a change in you" the voice echoed around her mind, and she shivered.

"what change?" she asked, almost afraid to ask.did he know about her? But he wasn't supposed to find out.no one was.

"It's like you never had wings"

She could feel the presence of the young man right beside her and she realised that she didn't even know his name showing that thought from her mind her eyes went to his white, flaming sword that was held out before him. She watched as his amber eyes shifted over the shadows moving in the grey.

"now you feel so alive" the voice faded out and they both stopped, watching as one of the shadows became much more clearer.

"Give you the breath" Goi took shape, but his colour remained grey, and it filtered every so often, like he had bad reception. His voice had gotten louder, but the austerity remained

"to blow me-" Sakura shuddered as she watched her dead friend look at her in such a way, that it scared her.he wasn't alive, she knew he wasn't."AWAY" he hissed and the sound struck out at her, she stumbled and before she knew it the young man with the flaming sword had pounced on the shadow of her friend, forcing him back with wide swings of his sword. He moved back into the grey, blending in with the background.

"what is this place?" Sakura asked, eyes still focussed on the grey.

"your mind!"

"what?"

"first I should introduce myself, I should have done it before, but I forgot." Their was a strange stilt to his lips as he said this, and she realised that he was smiled.just barely, but it was there, why this mattered she didn't know, but her eyes were now focussed on it as if it was the most precious thing in the world! Shaking these thoughts from her mind, she put it down to the man holding her cards hostage. "I'm Li Xiaolang, and I bound my magic to yours to stop you killing my family, that means that because I have a stronger control over magic, and I resist its powerful pull I can control the addictive magic of the cards. You have been made weak because you were not fully trained, and the cards can sense this.they can break you.and eventually kill you, that would set them free, and that is what they desire most in the world." He stopped here and looked at the grey amassing in the room.

"that" he pointed at the dull grey "is the people you've used the cards on. They.will attack your mind from time to time, we will have to train you to make your mind stronger.." Sakura glared

"how do you know so much?" Xiaolang rolled his eyes

"were you not listening to what I was saying?" he asked. And Sakura huffed. "now, I think that you are calm enough not to try and kill my again, am I correct?" Sakura shrugged

"I'm not making any promises. But.why would Goi attack me?" The amber eyed young man shook his head

"it's strange.and I don't have the answer to that.but I will look into it. It is most strange." then closing his eyes he began to mutter under his breath and the next thing Sakura knew what that she was sitting up in some strange bed panting, and squinting into the bright white light that was shining in her face. Herbs assaulted her nose and she coughed at the pungent smell. She could hear hard breathing and voices to the side of her and she looked over. In another bed was Xiaolang, beside him was a severe looking woman with long back hair red eyes, and an old man who was asking a few questions.

Closing her eyes for a brief second she felt the fear of hospitals over take her and she hopped unsteadily off of the bed. Her hands immediately checking over her.her dog tags. Snarling she turned to the three other occupants of the room.

"where is it?" she asked, her voice low and dangerous. Xiaolang looked over her, his eyes boring into hers

"where is what?" She glared at him

"don't play dumb with me thief, my dog tags." The woman stood outraged

"how dare you call Xiaolang a thief you ungrateful wretch, he saved your life as well as the rest of ours"

"shut up." her eyes narrowed at the girls hand "give it to me now" she growled, all present looked at the woman who was holding the dog tags still in her hand.

"Mei Lin" The woman sighed and tossed the object at the girl who caught it deftly and scowled at the broken chain.

"you will fix this" she demanded and threw it back at the girl before stalking from the room.at the door she hesitated. "I dint ask to be saved" she whispered before she was gone.

~~

A part of me wants to hate her, to kill her and end it all. She suffers, I see it in her body, spirit and magical aura. She's wasting away painfully and she doesn't seem to care at all. She doesn't deserve to be card mistress, she's unworthy of the power, and like she said.it should have been mine. It is.I suppose mine now, I'm tied to her by my magic and inevitably that means I'm tied to the card. it is only my strength that is keeping her alive, but I cant hate her. I've been trained all my life in the magical and martial arts to make sure my body could handle all the power that I possess.she was just thrown into this world and that amount of power should have destroyed someone as frail as her, its strange but I feel as if she doesn't really hate me, but she is resentful that I have had the life she wanted.one surrounded by family and friends that understand.

I wouldn't wish my life upon anyone, it hasn't been all love and support as she believes it has been. I was never given love, and I have always been expected to give my best to go beyond what I could do, to surpass even my own limits. It almost killed me, and in a way I envy her for her free life.the grass is always greener. So I suppose we have both have had horrible lives, and its interesting that we should meet now, and like this! Bound by magic to each other. I feel connected to her, and that in itself is special, for I have never felt able to freely talk with anyone the way in did in her mind, I divulged a little of who I really am to her, and not the cold hearted Li Clan leader everyone expects of me. She has no expectations of who I should be, and it makes me feel so much more like a normal person then I have in my entire life. She will gain control of the cards, that is my promise to her. It will not change what has happened to her, but I hope that one day she will forgive me.

~~

Ryoko Subaru- not as long as the prologue, and not as long as it probably could have gone, but I thought it was a good place to stop, plus my arms hurting so yeah!. I hope that your liking this, and we'll I hope that I will be able to update quicker.