For Sakura, her dream was one of those in which she instinctively knew that, yes, it
was a dream and no reality could be that strange. But, then, at the same time, it was a dream
that was so realistic, so possible, and so mind-boggling that she was left to wonder if it
was a dream at all, and, if it still was really a dream, where the line between dreams and
reality lied, anyway.
It was a sunny day, and she was sitting on the ledge that surrounded the library
roof. Well, on second thought, she was not really doing anything. The brunette on the rooftop
looked exactly like her real self and, yet, she had a third person few of the entire scene,
from the black pitch top of the library to the greens and golds of the springtime quad.
Cherry blossom petals flew through on the wind and through the air, pulled from the branches
of trees that the Japanese club had planted some years earlier. Her brown hair was ruffled
as she perched on that ledge, her kimono - a simple light blue, traditional and elegant,
with silver flower petals embroidered on the sleeves and around the trimming - creasing
under the wind.
Suddenly, she sprang to her feet and into action, chanting words of incantation and
bringing into her outstretched hands the fated pink-red Staff of Sealing. Well, it was more
her lips moved and Sakura intuitively recognized the words that she was saying. Whirling
around, she pulled a card from her pocket and brought down the bird-headed staff, summoning
the dormant creature that lied within.
Darkness. Night had fallen, and the moon hung high in the sky as that same brown-
haired cardcaptor stood atop the library roof. Petals still fell around her, but soon those
petals turned the familiar burgundy-and-gold of the Clow Cards. In the distance, a black
figure against the silver-white light of the moon, hung a man's body. At first glance, he
appeared to be an angel, garbed in white with enormous white wings and bright white hair,
but something about his demeanor told her that he was anything but an angel.
A bell. It started off soft, like the low tones played in a hand bell choir. But
slowly, the soft ringing slowly built, growing louder and more raucous until, finally, even
the phantom Sakura turned around, toward the sky, and opened her mouth to say...
"TURN OF THE FREAKIN' ALARM!!!"
Sakura Kinomoto sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding as she came face-to-face
with a rather annoyed orange plushie. In one paw, said plushie held a wooden spoon that
was seeped in red liquid and, dangling from the other three, was an alarm clock. It was
ringing wildly and continued to do so even after Keroberos dropped it into his charge's
lap and fluttered off, indignant.
Sighing, the brunette reached down and flipped the switch into the "off" position,
leaning back into her pillows as she tried to recount the dream that had just ended. Cards,
kimonos, and an angel-like man? What in the world had she eaten before bed to make such
weird stuff pop into her mind?
As she rose from her bed and pulled off her pajamas in preparation for her 11 am
Myths and Legends class, she vocalized these thoughts to the Guardian Beast of the Clow.
He - who was seated cross-legged in the center of the rug stirring what appeared to be a
bucket full of not-yet-congealed Jello - shrugged off her concern, pausing in his culinary
adventures to shoot her a concerned look. "Dunno," he admitted with a frown, "but I know
dat Clow Reed used to get REAL weird dreams. Dreams 'bout his cards an' stuff." He shrugged
a second time and turned back to his snack. "Other than that, beats me."
Nodding, his charge shrugged and set her alarm clock back into its proper place on
her desk, making sure that both the alarm itself and the five-minute delay were set into "off"
before she went toward her closet and gathered her things for her shower. Maybe Kero was
right, she rationalized mentally. Maybe her dream just came from an overactive imagination
and too much thought on subjects beyond her control.
Still, it was rather disconcerting when, ten minutes later, her alarm went off again,
with the proper time of 10:00 having moved itself back to 9:50 am.
========================
"An American Cardcaptor"
A Cardcaptor Sakura Alternate Universe Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
Chapter 5: "Time After Time"
========================
After wrestling with her possessed alarm clock and a blow dryer that seemed to
enjoy blowing the bedroom fuse just a LITTLE too much, Sakura was finally ready for her 11 am
at exactly 10:25 am. Sighing, she plopped down on the edge of her bed and whipped out her
planner, ready to sit down at map out the next week of school, just like she did EVERY Monday.
It had been a rather boring week, she thought to herself as she watched Kero struggle
to drag his bucket of Jello into the tiny refrigerator in the front of the room. The
Shadow and Mist cards had both appeared to try their luck at screwing over the young
cardcaptor, but she had been too fast for both of them and their captures had been simple
enough. Her guardian had spent a lot of time praising her for her many talents, but honestly,
she didn't care that much. Things were slowing down, and - with family weekend coming in only
a few days - the spotlight in her life had shifted from schoolwork to keeping the throng
of unruly freshmen who lived on the floor to a dull roar as they prepared to party their
hearts out for the week and then be good little children on the weekend.
No sooner, however, had her pen hit paper when Chiharu, her normally braided hair
an uncombed mess and her eyes rimmed with dark circles, burst into the room, a horrified
expression on her face. "SAKURA!" she announced, nearly tripping over the open fridge and the
bucket of red Jello as she dove to kneel at her friend's bedside. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled
coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
Green eyes blinked. "Test...?" questioned Sakura, her brow furrowing as she glanced
down at her neighbor. "What test?"
"You know, the HUGE test that Terada is giving us in about half an hour?" responded
the frazzled student, fidgeting as she watched her friend glance down at her planner and
start flipping pages. "PLEASE don't tell me you forgot about the test, Sakura! He's been
reminding us constantly for the last week."
For a moment, the brunette considered this, her gaze focused on the current page of
her planner - a page that, interestingly enough, had the word "TEST!!!" circled and starred
on that very Monday - before diving toward her backpack and tearing her notebook from its
confines. "The TEST!!!" she roared, frantically flipping through her notes as she spoke.
"Oh my GOD! How could I have forgotten about the test?!"
Resisting her urge to slam her head into the nearest wall, Chiharu just sighed and
started toward the door, her head shaking in shame the whole way. "History majors," she
muttered, starting out the door. "I'll never understand them..."
"Morning, Chiharu!" called Tomoyo as she flounced in through the half-open bedroom
door, getting little more than a half-hearted wave from the crestfallen English student.
"What's with her?" asked the graphic designer as she set her bag on her desk chair and
collapsed into the warmth and softness of her bed. "You'd think she just watched the fall
of Rome."
Sakura muttered something about "biiiiiiig test, little time," not looking up from
her notes even as her roommate frowned and sat up to send her a funny look.
Sighing, Kero leaned heavily against the fridge door, pushing it shut. "Ignore 'er,"
he urged, waving a paw as if to dismiss the matter. "Forgot about a HUUUUUGE test, ain't
that right?"
"Shut up."
The orange plushie chuckled as he fluttered up to perch on the edge of the dresser,
his face pensive as he glanced down at the studying cardcaptor. "But ya hafta watch out,
Sakura," he cautioned her, his normal teasing fading away into a parental tone. "I got a
feelin' of a Clow card on its way, and I dun wanna risk more accidents, like wit' the
Jump."
As the brunette nodded her assent without ever looking away from her work, and her
roommate laughed in her normal well-mannered way, slipping out of her bed and into her
computer chair. "The only thing I sense is the need for me to finish my web design project,"
she sighed, slipping on her headphones. "If anyone needs me, hit me. HARD."
Her roommate nodded and still said nothing.
===
Footfalls pounded on pavement as Sakura jetted across campus, her usual breakfast of a
bagel hanging halfway from her mouth as she stared up at the school's clock tower, willing
the 11 am bell ringing to hold off and, for the first time in almost two hundred years, be
just a LITTLE late.
Her study method - ignoring the rest of the world no matter what was going on
around her - was usually a good thing. She had learned to ignore everything from Tomoyo's
anime club meetings to the sound of the fire alarm, which could be considered both a good
thing and a bad thing together. This time, however, it was definitely a Bad Thing, worthy of
all the capital letters money could buy. For she had totally ignored Kero as he called out
to her to tell her that she was about to be late for class. She hadn't heard a word that
came from anyone, in fact, until her cell phone started to vibrate in her pocket and she
discovered that Rika and Chiharu were both frantically waiting her arrival in class, because
Terada had SWORN to start on the strike of 11 from the bell tower, and it was now 10:52.
The first chime sounded just as the brunette threw open the door to the social
sciences building and, after muttering a few choice cusses, she started taking the steps
two-by-two in hopes of making it on time. After all, who but Terada would totally flip if
she was even the tiniest bit late? The answer was "no psychopathic teacher," and she very
well knew it. She was also almost completely certain that Rika had ratted her out to her
professor after the references to his flamer ways, but he had been nice enough not to
treat her any differently than the cruel way he had BEFORE the incident ever occurred. If, of
course, being a heartless bastard counted as being "nice enough."
Three, four, six chimes, and she found herself trying to take the stairs - steep
and entirely too narrow - by threes. This, however, ended up slowing her progress when she
dropped her armful of books to grab onto the handrail and catch her balance. She dove for
the books and gathered them up as quickly as she could, the seventh and eighth chimes echoing
in her ears.
The glass-paneled doors of the third floor burst open as the ninth and tenth chimes
rang through the building, chimes that seemed to be measured in length by the number of
footfalls that pounded through the halls. The eleventh bell rang just as Sakura peeled around
the corner and skidded to a stop in front of room 340. The soft echo of the bell tower's
final ding faded away as she turned the doorknob and strode into the room with all the
grace and dignity of a high-class maven who was just late enough for it to be considered
charming.
Fifteen other sets of eyes stared up at her, and Yoshiyuki Terada - the bastard that
he was - just smirked.
"You're late, Miss Kinomoto," he noted as she pounded across the classroom and took
up her place between Rika and Chiharu, who both sighed in unison before turning back to their
tests. "I believe the rule is that, if you're late to my timed tests, you get 5 percent off
your score as a deduction."
Green eyes glowered at him as she reached up and snatched the test away from his
grubby hands. "I'm about thirty SECONDS late," she informed him, digging into her pants for
her pen.
He leaned forward, his hands on the edges of her desk. His face lit up in a smirk,
a smirk that - somehow - Sakura KNEW was one of complete triumph. "Ah, yes, but you're STILL
late," he chided before turning away from her. "I expect the best from you, you know. Your
father WAS my professor of ancient history back at - "
"I know, I know," grumbled the brunette, cutting him off as she bent down to search
her backpack for her pens. Backpack. She frowned when she couldn't find it sitting on the
left side of her desk, and then frowned even MORE when she couldn't find it on the right
side. She could remember taking her planner and then her notes out of it that morning, and
she could remember tossing her planner back into her pack before she stashed it under her
bed and started out of the -
After her agonized howl of "I FORGOT MY BACKPACK!" had echoed through the room and
faded into a stunned, class-wide silence, Chiharu offered her a pen.
===
"OhmiGOD, Sakura!" squealed Keroberos as they passed through the rather deserted
lunch line of the campus dining room, tray loaded with pudding and pizza. The clinking of
glasses and trays and the familiar laughter of the food service workers nearly drowned out
the plushie's laughter, which relieved Sakura more than she would admit. Though Kero was
becoming increasingly sure that most people paid no mind to him - after all, there were
goths and punks and fundamentalist Christians running around, so what was the big deal about
a talking doll? - the brunette remained certain that her older brother was starting to grow
suspicious and, for that reason, she usually ignored him.
This time, however, she couldn't help but respond. "It's not like I TRIED to be
funny," she snorted, tossing her head as she flashed her ID card, one specially colored to
mark her as a room-and-board free assistant hall advisor, at the lunchroom staff and started
toward the little corner table she had piled all her junk on. "It's just one of those days."
"Yeah," he admitted, turning strangely sober. "My Jello ain't gel-ized, yet."
"JELLO?!" roared his charge, the tray shaking in her rage as she picked up step,
wanting nothing more than to get to her little table and then completely throttle her toy.
"My life is practically a living Hell, AND we BOTH sense a card, and you're running around
worried about your GODDA - "
A hand touched her shoulder right then, a tender and sweet hand that, normally,
she would have immediately recognized and responded accordingly to. But it had been anything
but a normal day, and so she shrieked and did the only thing she could.
She smashed her tray to her chest in a protective gesture and hollered "DON'T HURT
ME!"
Brown eyes blinked several times through thick glasses as Yukito glanced down at the
younger college student. "Are you alright, Sakura?" he questioned softly, watching with some
amount of amusement as she peeked her scrunched-shut eyes open, afraid that she would come
face-to-face with the Monster from the Black Lagoon rather than with her brother's best
friend. "You seem a little...stressed out."
"Oh, Tomoyo told me ALL about that one," smirked another voice, and Sakura went from
meek to enraged as her brother came up behind his roommate, tray in hand and smirk on face.
"I guess our little monster forgot about her big test this weekend," teased Touya in his
usual dark tone. "And she was SO FRAZZLED that she almost didn't make it to class!"
Glowering, Sakura pulled her tray from her chest and set it down on the nearest
table so she could more affectively shake her fist at her elder sibling. "I'll have you know
that I made it on time!" she informed him rather indignantly. "It's just that my BASTARD
teacher - "
"The one who you called gay while his fiancée was standing not three feet away?"
" - declared me late. LATE!" She moved to toss her hair, which would have been a
very dramatic and angsty move...had a piece of pizza not fallen from her chest and landed on
her sneakers at that moment.
Grimacing, Sakura glanced down at her shirt, only to find that her screaming match
had landed her entire lunch - pizza, pudding, and pink lemonade - on the front of her shirt.
By some miracle, however, she hadn't noticed until that very moment, and that made her face
turn even REDDER.
Touya just sighed and, smiling like a little boy who had just played a VERY mean
trick on someone, shook his head before starting toward a nearby table. "C'mon, Yuki," he
called after his light-haired friend. "Let's leave Amazing Grace over there to her own
devices."
For a moment, Yukito looked ready to follow his roommate, but then he stopped.
Setting his tray down on an empty table, he reached up and pulled off his big, bulky college
sweatshirt - the very one that she had given him for his birthday the year before - and
handed it to her. "Just so you don't feel like a total goof," he smiled, ruffling her hair
before he took off after his best friend. "I'll see you later, Sakura."
As soon as his back was turned, Keroberos peeled himself off the cardcaptor's left
breast and fluttered up to hang in her gaze. "Ya gone and scarred me for life, Sakura."
"Yu - ki - to...."
"Sakura?"
"Yu - ki - to...."
"Ya listenin'?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaah.... Yu - ki - to...."
"SAKURA?!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah...."
===
Bad seemed to go to worse as Sakura bumbled through her Spanish history class in
the afternoon, angering her professor to a degree that nearly got her kicked out of the
room. Of course, it wasn't HER fault that he was an undereducated moron paid only to teach
the language and not the history of Spain, but - as a classmate had reminded her after the
period had ended - sometimes it's not the best thing to point out a teacher's inadequacies
in the middle of the lecture, no matter how blaring and obvious they may be. She slunk from
the building in horrible spirits, calling up her father on her cell phone on hopes of
ranting and raving about the terrible faculty at her top-rated university. But her father
was nowhere to be found, causing her even MORE frustration.
"I don't believe you don't feel it more fully," snorted Shao-Lang Li in a rather
irritable voice, shifting the weight of his laptop case from one shoulder to the other as
he spoke. "What are you, stupid or something?"
She had been almost halfway to her dorm building when a hand had touched her shoulder,
and - after a scream of "HOE?!" that echoed across all of campus and the dropping of all her
text books - Shao-Lang had requested an audience with his arch rival. Of course, she would
rather have had kissed Terada, and she told him so to his face, but the brown-haired man
took no notice and insisted on walking beside her, step-for-step.
So much for surviving the day unscathed.
Sighing, the brunette woman stuck her hands in her pockets and gave a slight shrug
. "I'm just a little busy of late," she responded, trying her hardest not
to snap his head off at the neck. "I mean, besides catching cards, I am Naoko's assistant
and I also do have these things called CLASSES on my plate." Her scowl was met by one from
him, and she allowed it to fade away to mere frustration. "The truth is, even though I was
able to catch the Shadow and Mist cards without your help, I'm a really lousy cardcaptor.
I'm only in this because it's my own damn fault in the first place that the cards got out,
and I have to make it up somehow."
"Nobody's perfect," acquiesced the man with a half-shrug, a spark of what could have
been either sympathy or gas sparking on his face as they paused in the middle of the
sidewalk, standing face-to-face. There was a certain ruddiness to her cheeks he hadn't
expected to see and, as much as he hated to admit it, he suddenly felt guilty for all the
times he had heckled her, especially lately. The last week had been stressful, and now -
with parent's weekend coming and being directly followed by midterms - he couldn't help
but pity her. "Still, you do know that you made this into your quest. And I'm not going to
take it from you unless you prove yourself a very worthy competitor. After all -
"WATCH OUT!" called a voice, and Sakura whirled around just in time to see a frisbee
whirling in their direction. The woman, true to her form, shrieked and ducked out of the
way, covering her head with her hands. Her books went flying as she ducked for cover. Her
companion, however, caught the blue disc effortlessly and, with a simple flick of his wrist,
sent it back toward the freshman boys who had let it get so far off course.
One of them, a particularly jocky-looking and with a football jersey on over his
sweatshirt, nodded his thanks, completely ignoring Li's continued instruction on how he
should try to be more careful when he's playing in such a busy area.
With a shake of his head, the young man bent over and plucked up Sakura's dropped
history books, handing them to her. "You really need to stop spazzing out so often," he
informed her rather plainly, ignoring her scowl as she snatched away her texts. "What kind
of worthy rival has absolutely no idea how to do anything, hmm?"
Her scream of "JACKASS!" was heard across the quad and even from within some of the
nearby classrooms, earning herself school-wide fame as the loudest sophomore on campus.
===
"This day is quite possibly going to go down as the worst day of my life," muttered
Sakura irritably, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she rattled off in a quick e-mail
to her father. The doctor had sent her a message that afternoon, commenting that both he and
Touya were worrying about her.
'Your brother said you were screaming at a stuffed toy,' the e-mail had read, her
father's voice piping up in the back of her head as her eyes mulled over the familiar
eloquence. 'Somehow, that doesn't sound much like you. I want the best for you, Cherry
Blossom. If something's wrong, you should talk to your big brother, or to me. We'll take
care of you, promise.'
Leaning back in her seat, the brunette flicked the scroll button on her mouse a few
times as she double-checked her spelling and grammar. She hit the last line of the message
and frowned; somehow, saying "And rest assured that I would rather die than discuss my
personal problems with Touya" seemed a bit...inappropriate, so she reworded it to say that
she just didn't have anything wrong enough to bother her brother about, and then signed it
and clicked the send button.
"It was closer to the truth before, though," she thought aloud, yawning as she
glanced at her watch. 9 pm. Why was it she always got so much more tired on the nights that
sucked? "Why in the world did this day suck so much?"
A pair of warm arms encircled her neck from behind, and the brunette smiled as she
leaned into her best friend's embrace. "It did NOT suck," Tomoyo corrected her in her normal,
happy tone, freeing up her buddy after a moment of huggling. "I finished my project, and there
is NO way I'm going to get anything less than an A on it."
"You sound sure of yourself," chuckled her roommate, rising out of her seat. "What,
did you bribe your professor or something?"
Tossing her slippers at her friend, Tomoyo made a face. "You're so mean!" she
protested rather loudly. "It just so happens that I have been working diligently on this
project for the last month and I am totally happy with the result. That's all." She slipped
on her headphones and shot the brunette a V-for-victory sign. "Now I can return to my
mindless downloading of bootleg! Viva la warez!"
Sakura just rolled her eyes and began to change out of her jeans and into her
pajamas. Kero, having discovered that his six packages of Jello had not yet formed into one
mass, decided it would be best to go out for the evening and had left through the window,
promising to be back before midnight. She wrinkled her nose as she lobbed her pants into her
fold-up hamper and, true to her form, missed miserably. What was going on? She could feel
the Clow card, nagging at her, watching her and challenging her, but, at the very same time,
she couldn't feel anything. She slipped on her favorite pajama top - a tiny pink tank top with
little flowers around the bottom edge - and trekked across her room in only her panties,
bending over to pick up her pants.
"Sakura!" called a voice, and the brunette turned her head to glance between her legs
toward the voice. The door had opened quickly to reveal two pairs of feet. One pair wore
purple-and-white striped slippers, and she could recognize those feet to belong to her dear
friend Rika. But the other pair... Who in the WORLD wore brown loafers and gray dress slacks?
Unless...
"HOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEE!!!!" shrieked the brunette, her face turning about twelve shades
of red as she reached into her hamper to pull something - ANYTHING - from it and therefore
cover her completely bare legs, as well as her blue bikini-cut underwear. Professor Terada's
face was equally red, and, though his eyes were NOW adverted, it was clear that he had just
seen his least favorite student on an intimacy level he would have rather gone without.
Rika grimaced and blushed softly as she watched her friend, a tiny hand towel hanging
across her waist like a makeshift loincloth, inch across the room and tug on her pink PJ
pants. "Sorry," she apologized, swallowing as she felt the blush on her face increase. "I
didn't think you'd be changing."
Never looking away from the computer, Sakura's dark-haired roommate shrugged slightly.
"We've discussed it plenty of times," she commented rather nonchalantly, "and - whereas I
would like to star in an amateur lesbian gang-bang - she's a big fan of being part of a
voyeuristic porn shoot."
"TOMOYO!" As both her own face as well as her teacher's went from red to completely
white, the brunette sophomore brushed her hair from her eyes and forced a charming smile.
"So, uhm...." She glanced at Rika rather suspiciously, suddenly realizing that it wasn't
just any co-ed pair in her room, but rather her friend and her PROFESSOR. "Did you guys
want something?"
Lowering his eyes, Terada shot his student a look that DISTINCTLY questioned her
right to ask him a question in such familiar terms. His fiancée then took it upon herself
to elbow him HARD in the ribs and, after a brief coughing fit, he stood up to his full height
and straightened his polo shirt. "Rika was curious if you would care to join us for ice cream.
She thought that, perhaps, I was a bit harsh this morning and suggested that I make it up to
you by buying you the dessert of your choice."
Brown eyes darted toward the man, lowering dangerously. "A BIT harsh, Yoshi?" asked a
rather skeptical young woman. "I thought we both agreed that you were just playing the
devil's advocate because Doctor Kinomoto once marked you down on a term paper you turned in two
hours late, hmmm?"
"Dad did that?" giggled Sakura, moving to cover her mouth before she could offend her
teacher too much. But the damage was already done and, after a grunt, Terada took off down the
hall, muttering something about ingrates and "kids these days." Grimacing, the history major
frowned apologetically at her neighbor. "Sorry, Rika," she fretted. "I didn't think he'd blow
up like that."
Rolling her eyes, the auburn-haired one shrugged slightly. "Yoshiyuki's been rather
grumpy lately," she explained as she made her way toward the door, resting her hand on the
knob as she glanced back at her friend. "He's been trying to get into this doctoral program
and, when he asked your father to write him a letter of recommendation, he was told that it
probably wasn't the best of ideas." She paused, smirking slightly. "He was pretty wild as a
college student. Almost got kicked out of New York State three or four times."
"REALLY?" gaped Sakura, her eyeballs nearly falling out of their sockets. "But he's
so... So..."
"Anal-retentive?" supplied Tomoyo with a smile as she continued to type away at her
computer.
"...now..." trailed off the sophomore as she watched her friend smile and chuckle
slightly. "Maybe Dad will meet with Yosh - Professor Terada - during parent's weekend," she
suggested with a shrug. "I'll try to put in a good word for him, 'kay?"
Rika smiled. "Thanks," she nodded, ducking out of the room and letting the door shut
slowly behind her.
For a few seconds after the door shut, Sakura stared at it, expecting it to burst
gloriously open and reveal Takashi, Shao-Lang, or maybe even Yukito. But the door did not open
and she sighed, moving to collapse into her bed.
"What a day!" she sighed. "I'm so glad that it's OVER! Tomorrow just HAS to be better!"
Tomoyo smiled, nodded, and then turned back to her work, Sakura's exhausted snores
echoing behind her.
===
The fall air was cool and crisp against his body as he perched on the edge of the
dorm building's roof, glancing down at the silent, abandoned quad below. For a school of over
2000 students, it sure did quiet down quickly. Now, at about ten till midnight, not a single
wandering soul remained... Well, excepting himself, of course. He didn't quite count...did
he?
In the quiet of the night, it was a lot easier to think. About life and cards and
certain brown-haired girls that were completely clueless. Well, no, he had to take that back.
Sakura was not COMPLETELY clueless. She was actually very intelligent, and it was a trait that
he really admired in her. She could be a bumbler, sure, but she got the job done. After all,
she had managed to nab two cards with hardly any guidance. It had surprised him, and in its
own way it had been a rather pleasant surprise. Would he have liked to be part and party to the
captures? Sure. But if that wasn't the way things went, so be it.
What was Clow thinking? The wind ruffled his wings and he shivered, drawing them in
closer to his back. For the cards to be released... Clow must be trying to contact them from
the other side. But why? What was so important? Those cards had been his life's work, his one
true passion in life. Why would he have let them slip away like that? They would remain forever
loyal to his wishes. Or they would have, had Sakura not come along.
"Sakura..." His voice was a whisper at first but, as he began to hear the familiar
chiming of the college bell tower, the whisper faded, and he grimaced. "I went an' promised
to get home by midnight!" groaned Keroberos, standing and stretching, his wings unfurling to
their full, six-inch span as he tested them against the strong fall wind. "If dat chica closed
them windows, I SWEAR I'm gonna - "
He froze, feeling the power that was Clow's magic wash over him. A card! But where...
Black eyes peered into the darkness, black eyes narrowed to slits, black eyes that, like
two onyx beads, shone in the night. Nothing. The final chime sounded, announcing it to be
midnight, and he sighed. The magic was gone, falling away into nothingness. "I'm losin' my
ever-lovin' MIND," sighed the Guardian of the Clow Cards, hopping off the edge of the roof
and fluttering down toward his charge's waiting window. "After all the cards are caught, I'm
takin' a MIGHTY long vacation in the tropics."
The content smile of a plushie dreaming of the Bermudas faded, however, when the
midnight chimes started a SECOND time and he found that the window, once open, had been
firmly locked behind him.
===
"I don't know WHAT you are talking about, Kero," sighed Sakura as she pulled her
shoulder-length brown bob into two tiny pigtails, tousling them slightly. She gave herself
a once-over in the mirror. Not bad, she smiled to herself as she ran her lip gloss across her
lips and puckered them, offering her reflection a sort of half-kiss. Now, if only Yukito were
around to see how cute she looked this particular morning...
The plushie, who was seated on the edge of her mirror, shot her an EXTREMELY dirty
look. "Ya mean ya DIDN'T go and lock them windows shut after eatin' all my Jello?!" he
retorted, crossing his arms over his stuffed chest as he glowered at her. "And if it wasn't
you, than who? That Jello-eatin', window-closin' GHOST of the buildin'?"
"GHOST?!" Green eyes blossomed to the size of small planets, and Sakura's backpack fell
from her hands and onto the floor with a thump. "But, I thought the ghost was in the all-male
dorm!" she shrieked, running to grip her guardian around the neck and shake him furiously. "Why
didn't anyone else tell me that there was a ghost in our dorm? WHY!"
"I...was...just...kiddin'..." choked the plushie. "There...ain't...no...ghost..."
She frowned at him and deposited him back onto the edge of the mirror, shooting him a
rather dirty look as she went to pick up her pack and finish loading it. "You're NOT funny,"
she told him coolly, zipping up the bag and slinging it over her shoulder. "Now, I have an 11
today, too, and I don't want to be late." She wrinkled her nose. "Professor Umiko isn't NEARLY
as evil as Terada, but the last thing I want to do is - "
"SAKURA!" The door, as it had a habit of doing, burst open, and the orange toy fell
lifeless to the dresser top as Chiharu, her braids down around her chest, skidded to a halt
in front of her friend. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready
for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
For a moment, the history major was forced to just blink, the overwhelming sense of
déja vu almost overpowering. Hadn't she said almost the EXACT same thing the day before? And,
had she NOT said the same thing the day before, then why was she worrying about Terada's test
a day too late...?
Finally, in a bolt of inspiration, Sakura tossed her head and laughed, her ribs aching
by the time she was over her guffaw-fest. "Good one, Chiharu!" she giggled, patting the other
young woman on the shoulder. "For a moment, you had me going there! I almost thought that maybe
Terada's test WAS today, and that my version of Monday had been a dream!" She laughed again,
but her laughter slowly came to a halt as she realized that the other girl was just staring
at her, looking as though she was a doe in headlights.
The brunette swallowed. HARD. "Uhm... Chiharu, are you okay? I think you've kinda,
uhhh, stopped blinking..."
After a quick shake of her head, Chiharu lowered her brown eyes at her friend and
sighed. "You know, your offbeat sense of humor is really a pain in the ass sometimes," she
commented, tossing the door back open and striding out into the hall. She would have, in fact,
slammed it had Tomoyo not come in at that very moment, looking rather perplexed.
"Is everything okay with her?" she asked, blinking purple eyes after their mutual friend.
"She looked like she'd just finished watching the fall of Rome." She paused, resting her hands
on her hips, watching as Sakura just stared at her, her jaw gaping open. "What?" she squeaked,
frowning. "Was it something I said?"
Shaking her head, Sakura slipped on the other strap of her backpack. "Well, anyway,
I'm out of here," she informed her roommate, stuffing her key ring in her pocket as she spoke.
"I'll be back after lunch, 'kay?"
Tomoyo smiled and nodded. "I'll be here, finishing up my web design project." She
winked and pulled on her headphones as she started running her fingers across her keyboard.
"If anyone needs me, hit me. HARD."
After a moment of staring and an incoherent squeaking sound that only dogs could hear,
the brunette slunk out the door, muttering about how history was NOT supposed to repeat itself
THAT literally.
===
The art history classroom was a dingy, poorly-lit hole in the back wall of the music
building, or that was at least how Sakura saw it. The music building was, like the ancient and
abandoned gymnasium, a member of the national register of historic landmarks and, though the
school had gotten around law and managed to update its crumbling facade and most the heating
problems, they couldn't convince the state of New York to give them permission to add on a
much-needed art department. So the art history teachers - after whining and complaining for
years - had been granted use of what had once been an auxiliary auditorium, despite the fact
that the area was hardly large enough for a single classroom, let alone the three that had been
built in its place.
Ducking into the darkened half of a hallway that made up the art department, the
brunette sighed and shook her head. What in the world was going on around her? First, she had
had the day from Hell and, as though that wasn't enough, her windows had closed on Kero and
his Jello had disappeared. And was it her imagination, or had Chiharu and Tomoyo sprouted
rewind buttons and repeated the previous day's antics?
She managed to shrug off the odd happenings as dumb luck and turned the doorknob to the
art history classroom (once a prop closet), a glorious ten minutes early for class.
Which is why her jaw dropped when she found herself being stared at by a group of
fifteen freshmen, all of whom were busy taking a test.
Her teacher, a straggly-looking gray-haired woman who had a habit of wearing sandals
with socks, glanced dubiously at her before looking down at her watch, frowning as she did
so. "Sakura, you're about 24 hours early for class," she noted, looking back up at the brunette.
"Was this a rough weekend?"
"But it's Tuesday!" protested the young woman, her mouth gaping open as she watched
her professor just shake her head in dismay, a very common motion. "I swear it is! Yesterday,
you see, I had to take Terada's test from HELL, and then I dropped my lunch on my chest, and..."
She stopped in her explanation and frowned, realizing how absolutely idiotic she must have
sounded. In fact, a few of the freshmen had begun to snicker, smirking as they glanced up from
their tests.
Sighing, Sakura wrinkled her nose but said nothing more about the previous day's
happenings. "I'm sorry to bother you," she apologized, walking backwards as she headed toward
the door to the classroom. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She had no idea if her teacher had nodded or not, because as soon as the words were
out of her mouth she had slipped out of the door and into the dingy hallway, confusion and
embarrassment both mounting in the back of her mind. How could it still be Monday? Admittedly,
she'd had a few visions in her lifetime - a trait, her father often said, that she and her
brother had inherited from their late mother - but every time she did, her descriptions of the
event or events in her mind were refuted by the people around her. This time, Keroberos had been
the one to first start obsessing about Monday's happenings. He, in fact, remembered everything
- his Jello, particularly - as though it had happened yesterday, which made sense, because it
HAD... Hadn't it?
Her head started to hurt the more she thought about it, and she tossed open the doors
to the music building and vowed that she would never think about it again. Perhaps the day
before had been Sunday, and she had just imagined Terada's class. Or maybe it was a dream,
after all, and she just didn't realize it. But then, Kero...
"Hoooooooooooooeee," she moaned, depressing the button at the stoplight and waiting
rather impatiently for it to turn. She had just promised herself that she wasn't going to
think about it, and now look. She WAS thinking about it, all the same. It was like she was in
junior high again, and her father had told her not to go rollerblading down the biggest hill
in Buffalo. And what had she done?
But then, that time, she had broken her arm. What would happen to her this time, when
she was not going down a hill but meddling with time itself?
The answer scared her.
The light, however, did not, and she crossed the street with her hands in her back
pockets and her mind wandering aimlessly. Even without considering the issue with the magically
disappearing Monday, there was still the question of the nagging that both she and the Guardian
of the Clow felt in their stomachs. There was a card nearby - somewhere on campus - and it
WAS active. But what could it be? She had captured the Shadow card on her own, and it had been
completely harmless - it had simply been making shadow-creatures using the light from street
lamps, though Kero had been SURE that it would be meaner than that if provoked. The Mist card,
however, had descended upon the campus in a thick fog, and had eaten through half the trees
on the quad before she had come to claim it. And even then, it had been a close call -
Rainy and Windy had to be used to catch it. What about this card? Would it be something
harmless, like Shadow, or something vile, like Mist? Or perhaps something like Rain or Fly,
in between?
Chimes sounded across campus and she sighed, stalking up the sidewalk toward her
dormitory without really thinking about what time it was. If it wasn't Tuesday, she could just
go home and nap, she decided, because there certainly wasn't anything better for her to -
She paused, frowning. It wasn't Tuesday, that was right. It was still Monday. And
Monday meant -
"SHIT!"
And, though she ran as fast as she could, she was STILL just under a minute late for
Terada's history test.
===
"Whadda MEAN that this ain't Tuesday?" blinked the plushie rather loudly as Sakura
filled her glass with soda, and she waved a hand at him to try to quite him down. The cafeteria
was just as busy as it had been the day before, and once again, she was both surprised and
grateful that no one noticed the loud-mouthed toy on her tray. "Sakura, it's Tuesday," Kero
hissed through locked teeth as he glanced around at the busy cafeteria. "Don'tcha remember
yesterday?"
She grimaced at the lunchtime memories, her nose wrinkling. "I remember it," she sighed,
though she would have rather forgotten, to be honest, "but no one else does. And no one
remembers anything ELSE that happened yesterday... It's like yesterday never happened to
everyone who isn't you or me." She paused long enough to flash her card at the cafeteria
woman, just as she had the day before, and started across the cafeteria toward the table she
always sat at. "It really bothers me, Kero, and I think - "
A hand touched her shoulder just then and she turned around, her green eyes lowering
at the dark-haired man who she knew was looming BEHIND the smiling, sweet, happy Yukito
Tsukishiro who had touched her to catch her attention. "Don't start with me, Touya," she
snapped, not waiting for the coming name-calling that always accompanied her run-ins with her
older brother. "I don't want to hear it."
Yukito's brown eyes blinked as the ever-looming Touya smirked something terrible and,
having set his tray down on a nearby table, eyed his sister up and down as though she had just
told him that she was not Sakura Kinomoto but rather Brittany Spears. "What's this I hear
about our little monster not making it to class on time?" teased the taller man. "How mad was
Terada, hmmm?"
"Shut UP," snapped his sister, moving to jab him in the chest with her pointer finger.
"I thought it was Tuesday, if you MUST know, and went to art class instead. Anything else?"
Sighing, she shook her head. "Just, please, Touya, give me this ONE DAY off from your teasing.
Alright?"
The gray-haired young man smiled and moved to ruffle the girl's hair. "Don't worry,
Sakura," he assured her, her green eyes lighting up as soon as she realized that his attentions
were completely centered on her and only her. "I will make SURE that nasty ol' Touya stays
off your case for the rest of the day."
She thanked him and started for her table.
Now, Sakura usually had no problem avoiding her brother's idiotic pranks, even those
that he wasn't supposed to play. It had become a habit more than anything else; ever since the
first grade, when he had put a garden snake in her spaghetti when their father's back was
turned, she had learned when to tell he was up to something and when he was not. This trend
continued through all of elementary, junior high, and high school, and even now - in her
second year of college, no less - she was still being submitted to things popping out of her
closet or letters that were filled with confetti that spilled everywhere. She blamed part of
this on Tomoyo, who seemed to be her brother's partner in crime ninety-nine percent of the time.
Whatever the case, this particular time, she didn't really figure on her brother
trying a prank. After all, she had just given him a verbal bitch-slap! Why in the world would
he dare cross her after she had ripped his head off and succeeded on getting Yukito on her
side? The answer was a mystery, perhaps made to forever be a secret.
What was not a secret, though, was that Touya - for reasons of his own - stuck his
foot out in front of his nineteen-year-old sister that day in the cafeteria, and that very same
sister tripped over it and, with little more than an "oomph," landed flat on her face...and
her lunch tray.
"Sakura!" gasped Yukito, bending down to offer her a hand. When she didn't stir, his
voice became frantic, almost panicked. "Sakura, are you alright?"
Her voice was muffled, but still strong and full of conviction as she uttered her
three-word response.
"I hate Mondays."
===
After the incident in the cafeteria that afternoon, and the following Spanish history
lecture that had caused her to raise the same complaints she had the day before, Sakura decided
that it would be best to avoid human interaction, rather than to seek it out. Though Yukito had
relinquished his sweatshirt to cover up the stain of pizza sauce and pudding, the sophomore's
mood was still surprisingly dark, much more so than it had been the day before. So she sulked
off to the computer center and chose a far-off corner computer, nestled between the copy
machine and the large, computer-center picture window, to start on her term paper for Terada's
evil, vile class-from-Hell. After all, she didn't dare venture out in public. Not now, and
possibly never again.
But the picture window overlooked the quad, and she found herself staring out at the
freshmen who were playing frisbee, rather than paying attention to her homework. They were
laughing and knocking into one another as it seemed only males could, and somehow, it brought a
half smile to her face. Funny, she thought to herself as she forced her eyes from the window
and toward the blinking cursor on the computer screen. Yesterday - or in that previous version
of today, as it were - she had been too busy talking to Shao-Lang to notice their antics.
"LI!" she exclaimed aloud, causing a few of the other computer lab dwellers to turn and
glance at her, eyebrows raised. The brunette sunk into her seat with a blush, outwardly
embarrassed as her mind raced. She had nearly forgotten about Li, her constant antagonist and
rival for the cards! Did he remember the Monday that had already happened, too? Kero had said
that the Li family was descended from the bloodline of Clow Reed, and she had certainly seen
that power when they battled the Thunder Card. If it could even be called a power.
So, then... She drummed her fingers on the keys, just enough to make a noise, lost in
thought. How could she have been so dumb to avoid him when he could feasibly be the only
person - barring, of course, talking plush does - to support her insanity? Would he be gone
yet? Could she catch up to -
"Kinomoto." The voice was cool and calm, nothing surprising about it, and yet she still
gave a start as she was pulled from her thoughts. Turning, she glanced up to meet a pair of
brown eyes that had, of all things, shaggy brown bangs hanging into them. And then, they
glimmered, and the face she saw smirked. "You spaz," snorted Shao-Lang Li with a toss of his
head as she sighed and sunk back into her seat, relieved that it wasn't some sort of crazy come
to claim her. "Why weren't you in the quad, just now?"
Sakura scowled at him. The coolness of his voice had given way to a pompous twang, and
she wasn't particularly fond of it. "What reason do I have to be in the quad?" she returned,
playing dumb as she turned back to her computer. She began to type anything she could think of
onto the screen, hoping that it would end up making some sense. "I have a major paper due for
Professor Terada at the end of the term, so I decided to come up here and work on it."
"When you have a brand new computer in your room?" countered he coolly, and she cast her
eyes down at her textbook in hopes of hiding her blush. "Think about it, Kinomoto. You walked
through the quad with me yesterday, and we were almost nailed by a frisbee. The frisbee players
are there today, too, aren't they?" She said nothing, and he pressed on. "You were wearing the
same sweatshirt, carrying the same books, and - "
A clatter sounded, and they both turned in time to see something white slide down the
window and out of sight. One of the frisbee guys, a frown the size of a small country on his
face, trotted slowly up to the window and, after sending the duo an apologetic glance, bent
over to pick something up. As he strode away with the frisbee, Sakura felt a shiver run up her
spine, and somehow she doubted that it had been caused by the weather.
"Everything that happened yesterday has happened today, except when altered by the two
of us," continued Li, as though nothing had interrupted his speech. "You were still late to
your test, and you still spilled your lunch, STILL ticked off your teacher - "
"How did you hear about that?" she roared, once again gaining the attention of the
others in the lab.
" - and now you still were in the danger zone of a frisbee, which was blocked solely by
the windowpane." She was staring at her book, unmoving. "Tell me, Sakura - do your Mondays
normally repeat themselves, right down to what your friends SAY?" His adversary said nothing,
so he pressed on, leaning close to her, their faces nearly touching. "Today is a repeated
version of yesterday, changing only in places were YOU altered the events. Everything else has
run exactly as it did yesterday...well, except for the frisbee thing, but I think it was
meant to come our way."
She turned to face him, their noses nearly touching. His breath was soft against her
face, tickling her lips, and for a moment she was convinced that he was going to lean in and
kiss her, just like something out of a B romance movie. "You're right," she whispered, her
green eyes locking with his brown. "Kero said the exact same thing you did, and... I don't know.
It seems to weird to be coincidence, but I'm not sure I can write it off as a card. Not yet,
anyway."
Li backed away from her suddenly, scowling. Sakura was only half-certain that her
words caused his sudden discomfort. "Well, I suppose we can wait it out," he finally said,
the silence between them causing him to fidget slightly. He turned his back to her, face
solemn. "Have a good - "
"We?" The brunette had only been half-listening when the word came up, and it surprised
her. Not many things surprised her, anymore - it was hard to be surprised when you were the
woman in charge of capturing a bunch of neurotic magical cards - but somehow... Somehow,
his words surprised her. "Since when has this been a team effort?"
They must have surprised him, too, because he stopped in mid-step and stiffened. "It's
not," he responded coolly, tossing his head a bit as he spoke. "I just meant, since both of
us are aware of the repetition and no one else is, that we, as a collective of two people apart
from the rest, will be the only ones dealing with the oddities that have occurred." And then,
he was gone, rushing out of the room like the fires of Hell were on his tail, and hungry.
Sakura's expression darkened as the door to the computer lab slowly crept closed, and it
would be several weeks before she began to consider that maybe - just MAYBE - Shao-Lang Li had
been BS-ing.
===
Surprisingly, Sakura found that the third time was the charm - or at least, living a day
three times through made it much easier to survive. She studied for Terada's test after
returning home from the computer lab and - though she DID still get walked in on by her
professor while she was changing - woke up in ample time the next morning. Chiharu had
been GREATFUL for the notes, the bagels in the cafeteria tasted better when she wasn't rushing
to scarf them down, and arriving fifteen minutes early for the dreaded text put a surprised
expression Terada's usually straight face. Lunch went well, too; she had even eaten with her
brother and his roommate, a move that caused Touya to go googly-eyed while Yukito simply
smiled his sweet smile and chatted pleasantly with her for the entire meal. He had even offered
up his sweatshirt freely this time, saying that it was awfully cold outside for her to be
wearing a t-shirt. She slipped it on and waltzed off into euphoria, her happiness causing her
to also overlook the evils of her Spanish professor - though, in retrospect, she was mildly
sorry she had.
But history continued to repeat itself, and therefore she was not surprised when
Shao-Lang Li saddled up to her as she walked toward her dorm, his hands in his pockets and a
confused look on his face. "I really think it's a card," he said after they stood in silence
for a moment, side-by-side as they watched the frisbee players again. "I don't really feel
it, this time, but... It has to be. Nothing else can make time react in ways such as this."
"I think you're right," agreed the brunette, sighing slightly. Her green eyes drifted
to glance up at him. "But what do we do about it? I can't sense it well enough to locate it,
and - "
"There are ways." He turned, standing face-to-face with her, and his voice dropped as
he spoke. "Meet me here, in the quad, at eleven tonight. I'll see what I can do about finding
the card."
She smirked slightly, moving to brush a strand of hair from her eyes. "You mean you're
not going to catch it all by yourself?" she returned coolly. "You'll allow me to help you out?"
Li bristled and frowned slightly. "There are some things," he responded with a toss of
his head, "that not even I can do on my own. And this just happens to be one of them. Alright?"
For a moment, Sakura considered a smart-alec comment, something to get him back for
all his rude jibes and comments. But, then again, did he really deserve that kind of treatment?
He had been fairly integral to the capture of the Thunder card, she realized with an inward
scowl, and maybe... Maybe she would need him, just as he needed her. Maybe a joined effort
would be the only way for them to beat whatever card was causing these problems for them.
Not that it mattered, of course. Because at that very moment, out of what seemed to
be the clear blue sky, a white frisbee nailed her in the side of the head and knocked all of
her thoughts - positive, negative, and neutral - from her head.
===
"Owwwww," moaned the brunette woman loudly, her high heels clicking on the pavement
as she crossed the campus and headed toward the abandoned quad. Above them, the moon hung low
in the sky, illuminating even the parts of the sidewalk that weren't caught by the streetlamps.
Not that she was concerned about the darkness; no, she was mostly considered with the enormous
goose-egg on her left temple. Or, if not, she was concerned about the hideous outfit her
roommate - and camera woman, she noted with an inner groan - had put together for her THIS
week. "Tomoyo, can't you just - for ONCE? - put the camera down?"
The one purple eye that was not hidden behind the digital camera's viewer blinked,
though Saukra was more than certain the other had, too. "But you're my project!" she exclaimed,
as though that were the answer to everything. "If I stop filming you, what will I do my
final project on?"
"Trees," suggested her roommate, irritated as the wind tried, once again, to flip up
her tiny black skirt, as well as the white chiffon underneath, "or flowers. Maybe birds, or
dogs, or ANYONE else on campus."
"But Sakura," chuckled Tomoyo sweetly, "why would I film something so ugly when I can
film the most beautiful thing on the face of the Earth?"
Frowning, the brown-haired one did not press the matter, but that was mostly because
they had finally come upon the quad. It was empty, as it almost always was Monday nights - if
it was still Monday, and time hadn't changed and made it Friday, just to spite her - save for
one shadowed figure in the middle of the grassy field. He was dressed all in the green
ceremonial robes of a family descended from a long line of martial artists, and in his hands he
held out something that looked similar to a Chinese checker board. From the board poured light -
red and green and yellow - and the light flashed about, in many directions, as if searching for
something.
Sakura's jaw nearly hit the pavement as she watched the lights slowly merge and combine
into one steady stream of white. The white moved slowly around the board, circling the campus
until, finally, it came to point in one direction - the direction of the college's ancient
bell tower.
"You're late, Kinomoto," sighed Shao-Lang Li as he slipped the board behind his back.
She tried not to suppose that the board had disappeared entirely from existence, but yet, it
seemed as though it had. He took a few steps closer to her and then paused, his brow furrowing.
For a moment, he was silent, just staring with a confused look on his face, and then, he did
something unexpected.
He burst out laughing.
Her jaw tightening, the brunette woman took a deep breath and tried to control her
temper. After all, she WAS wearing a French maid outfit, completely with frilly black skirt
and chiffon under-skirts, and had her hair pulled back by a fluffy black-and-white headband.
Tomoyo had called it "Maid To Capture Cards" - or, at least, that's what the tag she had
printed off her computer said - but her roommate thought it was just plain UGLY. Not that she
would have said that aloud, of course.
Tossing her hair, Sakura looked away from him and toward the bell tower. "So, did your
Ouija Board to find out where the card was, or was that just a cheap pyrotechnics show?" she
questioned, smirking as he stopped laughing to glare at her. Still, she could almost FEEL the
video camera on her, and it caused her to shudder a bit.
"If you MUST know, it's called a Rashinban," he spat, stalking toward the bell tower,
his robes fluttering behind him as he pushed past the Cardcaptor. "It's a special talisman
that is passed down by the Li family from generation from generation."
She stepped quickly to keep up with him, but said nothing more. Behind her, Kero
babbled with Tomoyo about something she really didn't care to listen to. It seemed, when the
quad was dark and no other living souls were around, that she could feel cards all around her,
in the air and in the ground, surrounding her and overpowering her senses.
"A real powerful one's 'round here, Sakura," commented the orange-yellow plushie
suddenly, fluttering up to her shoulder. She turned and glanced at him, slightly surprised at
how serious his face was. "When a real powerful card shows up, the other ones start thinkin'
about showin' themselves. But, with a descendent right here, they ain't gonna dare make a move."
He shrugged slightly. "Still, I dunno what card is powerful 'nough to do all this."
"Time." It was a single word, it was brief, and Sakura honestly was impressed that it
came out of her mouth at all. Kero's eyes goggled, and Li stopped in his tracks to glance at
his rival. She could feel her cheeks start to redden. "I - I'm sorry," she stammered, pushing
past the green-robed young man and continuing toward the bell tower, and the trees that circled
the base of it. "I didn't realize what I was saying..." She trailed off into silence.
As soon as he thought she was out of earshot, Shao-Lang let out a long breath that he
had not been aware he had been holding in the first place. "To have such power, and not know..."
he commented softly, soft enough that he thought she would overlook it. Her ears burned,
however, as she heard his comment, and she stared up at the tower, silent, as she waited for
the rest of the group to catch up. The camera still rolled as she said the words of summoning
and released the Staff of Sealing, twirling it idly in her fingers as -
"SAKURA!" scolded a voice, and green eyes widened in time to see Tomoyo lower her
digital camcorder and frown. "Do your speech!"
Groaning, the brunette sighed, her shoulders slumping. "No, Tomoyo," she whined,
realizing only too late that she did sound extraordinarily childish. "I just want to get this
over with, okay? No speeches or magical girl poses or - "
Her roommate's purple eyes lowered, and she wrinkled her nose. Why was everything with
Tomoyo Daidouji always so irritating and...cutesy? Sometime, when they were alone, Sakura would
ask what was up with the camera, and the mahou shoujo anime obsession, and the costume making.
Even if the answer would be terrifying.
Tomoyo's eyes remained lowered, though, and Sakura sighed and gave in. Holding the
Staff of Sealing in front of her chest, arms outstretched, she drew on her ever-rusty memories
of high school baton squad and began to twirl it, dipping it above and under her other hand
as she spoke the words that she had helped to compose, a week before:
"I am the keeper of the Clow, the master of the cards! I am - "
She threw the staff high into the air and turned a quick circle on one foot. Tomoyo had
said it was some sort of ballet move, but she didn't remember it.
" - Cardcaptor Sakura!"
Her left hand snaked behind her back, ready to catch the staff and finish her "speech,"
as the dark-haired girl insisted on calling it. But that moment never came, for the Staff of
Sealing handed atop her head with a resounding thump before falling to the grass at her
feet.
As Li began to laugh himself sick, Sakura raised a hand to her head and rubbed it,
glowering at her roommie. "Dammit, Tomoyo, I TOLD you that it was too precise a move," she
muttered, bending down to pick up her staff. Li was STILL laughing, harder than before, and
she sighed. "ANYWAY," she cut into his guffaws, catching his attention after a brief moment
of continued giggle fits, "I think the best route would be to fly up into the tower."
"And how do you suppose we do that?" questioned the dark-haired young man as he watched
his rival toss down the Fly card and summon it, wings sprouting on the end of her staff. She
scooted all the way to the front of the long pink stick, eyebrows knotting together as she
waited on him. He took a hesitant step back. "Hell no," he told her, shaking his head. "There is
no way I'm riding that...that THING...up to the top of the bell tower!" Li tossed his robes
behind him and began to stalk in the direction of the door to the tower. "I'll walk, thanks."
Smirking, the girl fluttered up to his side, her green eyes lit in delight. "Are you
saying that you're SCARED of flying on the Staff of Sealing?" she teased, elbowing him in the
side. He shot her a stony glare, but he didn't stop walking, either. "Fine," she replied,
pulling away from him and starting toward the top of the tower. "I'll beat you up to top and
catch the card. No problem."
Something happened as she finished her sentence, though, something unexpected and rather
odd. Time seemed to slow around them, and the tower seemed to distance itself from their
separate approaches. Sakura frowned and urged the staff on, but it was no use. She couldn't
get any closer. It was as though time itself had stopped.
The hands of the tower clock began turning, then, speeding their way toward midnight.
At least, Sakura assumed it was toward midnight.
Not that it mattered, because the world suddenly went black.
===
The staff thumped down on Sakura's head and, instead of being in pain, she wrinkled her
nose. "Well, screw that attempt," she thought aloud, glancing at the frowning Li at her side.
"Now what?"
"We need some way to get up into the tower, but your little flying trick doesn't do
the trick," commented Li with a snort, tossing his robes about. Tomoyo stared at them like a
deer in headlights; once again, she didn't realize that time had turned itself back, and so the
conversation around her was confusing. Sakura had avoided explaining to her what EXACTLY the
card had been doing, but... She sighed, chewing her lip, only half-listening to the token
male of their little group rattle on. "We need some sort of cover," he pressed, hands on his
hips as he stared up at the clock tower. "If we can sneak around it, and get to the stairs, we
can probably distract the card enough to catch it."
For a moment, Sakura was out of ideas, but - as she stared at the nearly-bare trees
around the base of the tower - she realized that they had one tactical option that just might
work. "The Wood card!" she cheered, digging into her apron and pulling it out. "We can use the
Wood card to make the trees thicken, and then duck under them."
Tomoyo muttered something about already having that footage, but it was ignored as
her roommate summoned the Wood card, allowing a thick blanket of tree branches to knit together
above their heads, cutting off the view of the tower top. The brunette whirled around, skirts
bouncing, to stare the darker-haired woman in the eye. "Whatever happens, stay put," she told
her firmly, her eyes darting to glance at Kero. "You too, alright?"
The Guardian of the Clow scowled, his little plushie-face contorting uncomfortably.
"Sakura, I - "
"STAY." It was not an option, it was a command, and before either of the two could
say another word, she had turned on her heels and taken off through the thick branches of the
trees, Li at her back. For a moment, she felt guilty; it wasn't Touya she was talking to, but
her best friend and her "anime mascot," as Tomoyo often called him. Still, adrenaline pumped
her on, pushing her toward the bell tower until her friends were out of sight. She was so
distracted by her thoughts, however, that it took Shao-Lang's grasping of her shoulders to stop
her from running INTO the closed door to the tower.
"We have to be careful," he hissed, voice soft. Sakura watched as he reached behind
him and pulled out a sword. Had his sword been scabbarded behind him this whole time? She
leaned around and tried to see if it had or not, but he frowned at her just enough for her
to stop and force a smile. He rolled his eyes at her before reaching forward and opening the
door to the bell tower.
It was silent within, the only sound being the thumping of her own heartbeat, which she
was sure the entire world could hear. Her pulse pounded behind her temples as she, only a half
step behind Li, started up the long, circular staircase that led to the bells. Their footfalls
were soft, like the sound of a single raindrop hitting pavement.
But then, the silence ended. Sakura wasn't sure what made the bells start ringing - was
it when Li's sword scraped against the wall, when she sighed after nearly tripping over a
loose corner of one of the steps, or something else entirely? But the bells DID begin to ring,
and with the ringing came complete and utter panic.
"It's going to try to turn back time again!" exclaimed the brunette, fumbling in her
apron pouch to pull out the Fly card. In a flurry of feathers, the staff sprouted wings, and
Sakura hopped off the edge of the stairs and onto it. "I'll go up and distract it, and then
you can finish it off!" she exclaimed as the staff flew through the air like a bullet, zipping
past the brown-haired young man and leaving him on the steps, blinking.
Sakura didn't know what to expect as she shot into the air, ducking low as she commanded
the staff to avoid the closing spiral of stairs. Beneath her, she was vaguely aware of Li's
footfalls pounding on the stony stairs, keeping time to the ringing bells around them.
The final circle of steps ended and she skidded to a stop on the stone floor, the
wings on her staff fading away as she found herself face-to-face with the Time card. If it
could be called face-to-face; the card was shaped like a man wearing thick brown robes, his
face hidden by his cowl. For a moment, she was overtaken by fear, her feet craving a long
step backward, away from the card. The hidden face peered in her direction, as though it was
challenging her.
"Shadow!" she called out, tossing a card into the air and bringing her staff down on
it. "Hide me from the card!"
Darkness encompassed the tower, and she found herself treading lightly, careful to not
run into the walls - or, worse, fall out of one of the many arches that encircled the bells.
Silence overtook the tower, a cold silence, a silence not even broken by her own footfalls.
"Spirit of Lighting," called a voice, strong, male, from somewhere within the darkness,
"come FORTH!"
Light came just then, breaking through the darkness, yellow and brighter than anything
Sakura had seen in the long time. The shadow slowly dispersed, fading to moonlight and sight,
and when the darkness had finally cleared, Shao-Lang was standing at the other end of the bell
tower, in front of the dark-robed card. It was kneeling, chest rising and falling in a slow
cadence, and Sakura lept forward, swinging the Staff of Sealing above her head.
"Return to your true form! Clow CARD!"
When the colors cleared, and the magic stopped flowing around them, Shao-Lang reached
forward and watched as the card came slowly to is opened hand. Sakura frowned slightly, though
her first intention had been to smile; she hadn't paused to think that Li would actually become
the keeper of that particular card, even if he HAD done most the work. Sighing, she took a step
back to lean against the wall, exhausted -
And blinked as she felt nothing behind her.
"HOE!" she screamed, her fingers hardly keeping hold of the staff as she plummeted toward
the woods that she had created not ten minutes before. "Fly! GO!!!"
Brown eyes glanced down at her, brown eyes on a smirking face, as Li watched her dangle
in midair from the Staff of Sealing, her legs swinging idly as she hung on for dear life like
a small child holds on to the monkey bars at an elementary school playground. "Nice to see that
the Cardcaptor is the keeper of so much grace and beauty," he teased, eyes glinting in the
moonlight.
Sakura's face darkened, and she glared up at him. "At least I'M not afraid to ride on
the Staff of Sealing!"
"Who said I was afraid? Maybe I just didn't want to sit with YOU, huh?"
"Pffft. Right!"
"It's true!"
"Yeah, sure... BABY!"
"SPAZ!"
"JERK!"
Their fight continued on through the night, so loud that it drowned out the sound of
Tomoyo and Kero, spread out on the ground below, laughing.
===
Sakura Kinomoto woke up on Tuesday morning with a smile on her face, stretching as she
gazed up at the ceiling. Since her test for Terada's Hell-class had FINALLY been finished, she
had allowed herself to sleep in later than normal. Keroberos was out and about somewhere -
where, she did not know - and, as she scuffed across the room to find her hairbrush, she
decided that it was going to be a good day. No evil cards, no moody clocks and - better YET -
no test by Professor Yoshiyuki Terada.
She was just considering skipping art class entirely in favor of laying around in her
pajamas when the door burst in and Chiharu, hair a mess, skidded into the room. "SAKURA!" she
announced, running to grasp her friend's arm a bit TOO tightly. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled
coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
Green eyes blinked. Once, twice, four times. Hadn't Monday OFFICALLY finished the night
before, when they had defeated the Clow card?
And then, she thought about it. Kero had mentioned on the way home from the clock tower
that the tolling of the bells at midnight had been - at least, in his mind - what had been
setting back the days, making Tuesday turn into Monday again...and again...and...
She sighed, her head drooping slightly and her smile fading. "In my backpack," she
told the frantic Chiharu, defeated. "It's the blue notebook."
Her friend gaped at her. "Are you sure you don't want them?" she questioned, carefully
looking the brunette up and down. Tomoyo opened the door but didn't come in, staring at the
goings on.
"Nah," Sakura responded, waving a hand, "I - " She paused. She hadn't realized how
tempted she was to tell both her neighbor and her roommate what exactly was going on in their
world. Wouldn't that be great? To run up and down the hall in one of Tomoyo's hand-designed
outfits screaming "I AM THE KEEPER OF THE CLOW!" at the top of her lungs? But no, no, she
couldn't do that. She was still Sakura Kinomoto, still the quintessential history major, the
assistant Hall Marm and all that jazz. She was not - at least, in the minds of most - the
Cardcaptor Sakura.
She smiled slightly at her friend and winked a green eye. "Let's just say that I'm
pretty damn sure that I'm ready for the test," she replied casually, turning back to the
mirror and her hairbrush. "I've studied enough over the past four days."
As Chiharu frowned at her and then shrugged, walking out of the room with the blue
notebook in hand, the Keeper of the Clow smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
Maybe it wouldn't be too terrible of a day, after all.
===
End Chapter 5.
was a dream and no reality could be that strange. But, then, at the same time, it was a dream
that was so realistic, so possible, and so mind-boggling that she was left to wonder if it
was a dream at all, and, if it still was really a dream, where the line between dreams and
reality lied, anyway.
It was a sunny day, and she was sitting on the ledge that surrounded the library
roof. Well, on second thought, she was not really doing anything. The brunette on the rooftop
looked exactly like her real self and, yet, she had a third person few of the entire scene,
from the black pitch top of the library to the greens and golds of the springtime quad.
Cherry blossom petals flew through on the wind and through the air, pulled from the branches
of trees that the Japanese club had planted some years earlier. Her brown hair was ruffled
as she perched on that ledge, her kimono - a simple light blue, traditional and elegant,
with silver flower petals embroidered on the sleeves and around the trimming - creasing
under the wind.
Suddenly, she sprang to her feet and into action, chanting words of incantation and
bringing into her outstretched hands the fated pink-red Staff of Sealing. Well, it was more
her lips moved and Sakura intuitively recognized the words that she was saying. Whirling
around, she pulled a card from her pocket and brought down the bird-headed staff, summoning
the dormant creature that lied within.
Darkness. Night had fallen, and the moon hung high in the sky as that same brown-
haired cardcaptor stood atop the library roof. Petals still fell around her, but soon those
petals turned the familiar burgundy-and-gold of the Clow Cards. In the distance, a black
figure against the silver-white light of the moon, hung a man's body. At first glance, he
appeared to be an angel, garbed in white with enormous white wings and bright white hair,
but something about his demeanor told her that he was anything but an angel.
A bell. It started off soft, like the low tones played in a hand bell choir. But
slowly, the soft ringing slowly built, growing louder and more raucous until, finally, even
the phantom Sakura turned around, toward the sky, and opened her mouth to say...
"TURN OF THE FREAKIN' ALARM!!!"
Sakura Kinomoto sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding as she came face-to-face
with a rather annoyed orange plushie. In one paw, said plushie held a wooden spoon that
was seeped in red liquid and, dangling from the other three, was an alarm clock. It was
ringing wildly and continued to do so even after Keroberos dropped it into his charge's
lap and fluttered off, indignant.
Sighing, the brunette reached down and flipped the switch into the "off" position,
leaning back into her pillows as she tried to recount the dream that had just ended. Cards,
kimonos, and an angel-like man? What in the world had she eaten before bed to make such
weird stuff pop into her mind?
As she rose from her bed and pulled off her pajamas in preparation for her 11 am
Myths and Legends class, she vocalized these thoughts to the Guardian Beast of the Clow.
He - who was seated cross-legged in the center of the rug stirring what appeared to be a
bucket full of not-yet-congealed Jello - shrugged off her concern, pausing in his culinary
adventures to shoot her a concerned look. "Dunno," he admitted with a frown, "but I know
dat Clow Reed used to get REAL weird dreams. Dreams 'bout his cards an' stuff." He shrugged
a second time and turned back to his snack. "Other than that, beats me."
Nodding, his charge shrugged and set her alarm clock back into its proper place on
her desk, making sure that both the alarm itself and the five-minute delay were set into "off"
before she went toward her closet and gathered her things for her shower. Maybe Kero was
right, she rationalized mentally. Maybe her dream just came from an overactive imagination
and too much thought on subjects beyond her control.
Still, it was rather disconcerting when, ten minutes later, her alarm went off again,
with the proper time of 10:00 having moved itself back to 9:50 am.
========================
"An American Cardcaptor"
A Cardcaptor Sakura Alternate Universe Fanfiction
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
Chapter 5: "Time After Time"
========================
After wrestling with her possessed alarm clock and a blow dryer that seemed to
enjoy blowing the bedroom fuse just a LITTLE too much, Sakura was finally ready for her 11 am
at exactly 10:25 am. Sighing, she plopped down on the edge of her bed and whipped out her
planner, ready to sit down at map out the next week of school, just like she did EVERY Monday.
It had been a rather boring week, she thought to herself as she watched Kero struggle
to drag his bucket of Jello into the tiny refrigerator in the front of the room. The
Shadow and Mist cards had both appeared to try their luck at screwing over the young
cardcaptor, but she had been too fast for both of them and their captures had been simple
enough. Her guardian had spent a lot of time praising her for her many talents, but honestly,
she didn't care that much. Things were slowing down, and - with family weekend coming in only
a few days - the spotlight in her life had shifted from schoolwork to keeping the throng
of unruly freshmen who lived on the floor to a dull roar as they prepared to party their
hearts out for the week and then be good little children on the weekend.
No sooner, however, had her pen hit paper when Chiharu, her normally braided hair
an uncombed mess and her eyes rimmed with dark circles, burst into the room, a horrified
expression on her face. "SAKURA!" she announced, nearly tripping over the open fridge and the
bucket of red Jello as she dove to kneel at her friend's bedside. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled
coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
Green eyes blinked. "Test...?" questioned Sakura, her brow furrowing as she glanced
down at her neighbor. "What test?"
"You know, the HUGE test that Terada is giving us in about half an hour?" responded
the frazzled student, fidgeting as she watched her friend glance down at her planner and
start flipping pages. "PLEASE don't tell me you forgot about the test, Sakura! He's been
reminding us constantly for the last week."
For a moment, the brunette considered this, her gaze focused on the current page of
her planner - a page that, interestingly enough, had the word "TEST!!!" circled and starred
on that very Monday - before diving toward her backpack and tearing her notebook from its
confines. "The TEST!!!" she roared, frantically flipping through her notes as she spoke.
"Oh my GOD! How could I have forgotten about the test?!"
Resisting her urge to slam her head into the nearest wall, Chiharu just sighed and
started toward the door, her head shaking in shame the whole way. "History majors," she
muttered, starting out the door. "I'll never understand them..."
"Morning, Chiharu!" called Tomoyo as she flounced in through the half-open bedroom
door, getting little more than a half-hearted wave from the crestfallen English student.
"What's with her?" asked the graphic designer as she set her bag on her desk chair and
collapsed into the warmth and softness of her bed. "You'd think she just watched the fall
of Rome."
Sakura muttered something about "biiiiiiig test, little time," not looking up from
her notes even as her roommate frowned and sat up to send her a funny look.
Sighing, Kero leaned heavily against the fridge door, pushing it shut. "Ignore 'er,"
he urged, waving a paw as if to dismiss the matter. "Forgot about a HUUUUUGE test, ain't
that right?"
"Shut up."
The orange plushie chuckled as he fluttered up to perch on the edge of the dresser,
his face pensive as he glanced down at the studying cardcaptor. "But ya hafta watch out,
Sakura," he cautioned her, his normal teasing fading away into a parental tone. "I got a
feelin' of a Clow card on its way, and I dun wanna risk more accidents, like wit' the
Jump."
As the brunette nodded her assent without ever looking away from her work, and her
roommate laughed in her normal well-mannered way, slipping out of her bed and into her
computer chair. "The only thing I sense is the need for me to finish my web design project,"
she sighed, slipping on her headphones. "If anyone needs me, hit me. HARD."
Her roommate nodded and still said nothing.
===
Footfalls pounded on pavement as Sakura jetted across campus, her usual breakfast of a
bagel hanging halfway from her mouth as she stared up at the school's clock tower, willing
the 11 am bell ringing to hold off and, for the first time in almost two hundred years, be
just a LITTLE late.
Her study method - ignoring the rest of the world no matter what was going on
around her - was usually a good thing. She had learned to ignore everything from Tomoyo's
anime club meetings to the sound of the fire alarm, which could be considered both a good
thing and a bad thing together. This time, however, it was definitely a Bad Thing, worthy of
all the capital letters money could buy. For she had totally ignored Kero as he called out
to her to tell her that she was about to be late for class. She hadn't heard a word that
came from anyone, in fact, until her cell phone started to vibrate in her pocket and she
discovered that Rika and Chiharu were both frantically waiting her arrival in class, because
Terada had SWORN to start on the strike of 11 from the bell tower, and it was now 10:52.
The first chime sounded just as the brunette threw open the door to the social
sciences building and, after muttering a few choice cusses, she started taking the steps
two-by-two in hopes of making it on time. After all, who but Terada would totally flip if
she was even the tiniest bit late? The answer was "no psychopathic teacher," and she very
well knew it. She was also almost completely certain that Rika had ratted her out to her
professor after the references to his flamer ways, but he had been nice enough not to
treat her any differently than the cruel way he had BEFORE the incident ever occurred. If, of
course, being a heartless bastard counted as being "nice enough."
Three, four, six chimes, and she found herself trying to take the stairs - steep
and entirely too narrow - by threes. This, however, ended up slowing her progress when she
dropped her armful of books to grab onto the handrail and catch her balance. She dove for
the books and gathered them up as quickly as she could, the seventh and eighth chimes echoing
in her ears.
The glass-paneled doors of the third floor burst open as the ninth and tenth chimes
rang through the building, chimes that seemed to be measured in length by the number of
footfalls that pounded through the halls. The eleventh bell rang just as Sakura peeled around
the corner and skidded to a stop in front of room 340. The soft echo of the bell tower's
final ding faded away as she turned the doorknob and strode into the room with all the
grace and dignity of a high-class maven who was just late enough for it to be considered
charming.
Fifteen other sets of eyes stared up at her, and Yoshiyuki Terada - the bastard that
he was - just smirked.
"You're late, Miss Kinomoto," he noted as she pounded across the classroom and took
up her place between Rika and Chiharu, who both sighed in unison before turning back to their
tests. "I believe the rule is that, if you're late to my timed tests, you get 5 percent off
your score as a deduction."
Green eyes glowered at him as she reached up and snatched the test away from his
grubby hands. "I'm about thirty SECONDS late," she informed him, digging into her pants for
her pen.
He leaned forward, his hands on the edges of her desk. His face lit up in a smirk,
a smirk that - somehow - Sakura KNEW was one of complete triumph. "Ah, yes, but you're STILL
late," he chided before turning away from her. "I expect the best from you, you know. Your
father WAS my professor of ancient history back at - "
"I know, I know," grumbled the brunette, cutting him off as she bent down to search
her backpack for her pens. Backpack. She frowned when she couldn't find it sitting on the
left side of her desk, and then frowned even MORE when she couldn't find it on the right
side. She could remember taking her planner and then her notes out of it that morning, and
she could remember tossing her planner back into her pack before she stashed it under her
bed and started out of the -
After her agonized howl of "I FORGOT MY BACKPACK!" had echoed through the room and
faded into a stunned, class-wide silence, Chiharu offered her a pen.
===
"OhmiGOD, Sakura!" squealed Keroberos as they passed through the rather deserted
lunch line of the campus dining room, tray loaded with pudding and pizza. The clinking of
glasses and trays and the familiar laughter of the food service workers nearly drowned out
the plushie's laughter, which relieved Sakura more than she would admit. Though Kero was
becoming increasingly sure that most people paid no mind to him - after all, there were
goths and punks and fundamentalist Christians running around, so what was the big deal about
a talking doll? - the brunette remained certain that her older brother was starting to grow
suspicious and, for that reason, she usually ignored him.
This time, however, she couldn't help but respond. "It's not like I TRIED to be
funny," she snorted, tossing her head as she flashed her ID card, one specially colored to
mark her as a room-and-board free assistant hall advisor, at the lunchroom staff and started
toward the little corner table she had piled all her junk on. "It's just one of those days."
"Yeah," he admitted, turning strangely sober. "My Jello ain't gel-ized, yet."
"JELLO?!" roared his charge, the tray shaking in her rage as she picked up step,
wanting nothing more than to get to her little table and then completely throttle her toy.
"My life is practically a living Hell, AND we BOTH sense a card, and you're running around
worried about your GODDA - "
A hand touched her shoulder right then, a tender and sweet hand that, normally,
she would have immediately recognized and responded accordingly to. But it had been anything
but a normal day, and so she shrieked and did the only thing she could.
She smashed her tray to her chest in a protective gesture and hollered "DON'T HURT
ME!"
Brown eyes blinked several times through thick glasses as Yukito glanced down at the
younger college student. "Are you alright, Sakura?" he questioned softly, watching with some
amount of amusement as she peeked her scrunched-shut eyes open, afraid that she would come
face-to-face with the Monster from the Black Lagoon rather than with her brother's best
friend. "You seem a little...stressed out."
"Oh, Tomoyo told me ALL about that one," smirked another voice, and Sakura went from
meek to enraged as her brother came up behind his roommate, tray in hand and smirk on face.
"I guess our little monster forgot about her big test this weekend," teased Touya in his
usual dark tone. "And she was SO FRAZZLED that she almost didn't make it to class!"
Glowering, Sakura pulled her tray from her chest and set it down on the nearest
table so she could more affectively shake her fist at her elder sibling. "I'll have you know
that I made it on time!" she informed him rather indignantly. "It's just that my BASTARD
teacher - "
"The one who you called gay while his fiancée was standing not three feet away?"
" - declared me late. LATE!" She moved to toss her hair, which would have been a
very dramatic and angsty move...had a piece of pizza not fallen from her chest and landed on
her sneakers at that moment.
Grimacing, Sakura glanced down at her shirt, only to find that her screaming match
had landed her entire lunch - pizza, pudding, and pink lemonade - on the front of her shirt.
By some miracle, however, she hadn't noticed until that very moment, and that made her face
turn even REDDER.
Touya just sighed and, smiling like a little boy who had just played a VERY mean
trick on someone, shook his head before starting toward a nearby table. "C'mon, Yuki," he
called after his light-haired friend. "Let's leave Amazing Grace over there to her own
devices."
For a moment, Yukito looked ready to follow his roommate, but then he stopped.
Setting his tray down on an empty table, he reached up and pulled off his big, bulky college
sweatshirt - the very one that she had given him for his birthday the year before - and
handed it to her. "Just so you don't feel like a total goof," he smiled, ruffling her hair
before he took off after his best friend. "I'll see you later, Sakura."
As soon as his back was turned, Keroberos peeled himself off the cardcaptor's left
breast and fluttered up to hang in her gaze. "Ya gone and scarred me for life, Sakura."
"Yu - ki - to...."
"Sakura?"
"Yu - ki - to...."
"Ya listenin'?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaah.... Yu - ki - to...."
"SAKURA?!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah...."
===
Bad seemed to go to worse as Sakura bumbled through her Spanish history class in
the afternoon, angering her professor to a degree that nearly got her kicked out of the
room. Of course, it wasn't HER fault that he was an undereducated moron paid only to teach
the language and not the history of Spain, but - as a classmate had reminded her after the
period had ended - sometimes it's not the best thing to point out a teacher's inadequacies
in the middle of the lecture, no matter how blaring and obvious they may be. She slunk from
the building in horrible spirits, calling up her father on her cell phone on hopes of
ranting and raving about the terrible faculty at her top-rated university. But her father
was nowhere to be found, causing her even MORE frustration.
"I don't believe you don't feel it more fully," snorted Shao-Lang Li in a rather
irritable voice, shifting the weight of his laptop case from one shoulder to the other as
he spoke. "What are you, stupid or something?"
She had been almost halfway to her dorm building when a hand had touched her shoulder,
and - after a scream of "HOE?!" that echoed across all of campus and the dropping of all her
text books - Shao-Lang had requested an audience with his arch rival. Of course, she would
rather have had kissed Terada, and she told him so to his face, but the brown-haired man
took no notice and insisted on walking beside her, step-for-step.
So much for surviving the day unscathed.
Sighing, the brunette woman stuck her hands in her pockets and gave a slight shrug
. "I'm just a little busy of late," she responded, trying her hardest not
to snap his head off at the neck. "I mean, besides catching cards, I am Naoko's assistant
and I also do have these things called CLASSES on my plate." Her scowl was met by one from
him, and she allowed it to fade away to mere frustration. "The truth is, even though I was
able to catch the Shadow and Mist cards without your help, I'm a really lousy cardcaptor.
I'm only in this because it's my own damn fault in the first place that the cards got out,
and I have to make it up somehow."
"Nobody's perfect," acquiesced the man with a half-shrug, a spark of what could have
been either sympathy or gas sparking on his face as they paused in the middle of the
sidewalk, standing face-to-face. There was a certain ruddiness to her cheeks he hadn't
expected to see and, as much as he hated to admit it, he suddenly felt guilty for all the
times he had heckled her, especially lately. The last week had been stressful, and now -
with parent's weekend coming and being directly followed by midterms - he couldn't help
but pity her. "Still, you do know that you made this into your quest. And I'm not going to
take it from you unless you prove yourself a very worthy competitor. After all -
"WATCH OUT!" called a voice, and Sakura whirled around just in time to see a frisbee
whirling in their direction. The woman, true to her form, shrieked and ducked out of the
way, covering her head with her hands. Her books went flying as she ducked for cover. Her
companion, however, caught the blue disc effortlessly and, with a simple flick of his wrist,
sent it back toward the freshman boys who had let it get so far off course.
One of them, a particularly jocky-looking and with a football jersey on over his
sweatshirt, nodded his thanks, completely ignoring Li's continued instruction on how he
should try to be more careful when he's playing in such a busy area.
With a shake of his head, the young man bent over and plucked up Sakura's dropped
history books, handing them to her. "You really need to stop spazzing out so often," he
informed her rather plainly, ignoring her scowl as she snatched away her texts. "What kind
of worthy rival has absolutely no idea how to do anything, hmm?"
Her scream of "JACKASS!" was heard across the quad and even from within some of the
nearby classrooms, earning herself school-wide fame as the loudest sophomore on campus.
===
"This day is quite possibly going to go down as the worst day of my life," muttered
Sakura irritably, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she rattled off in a quick e-mail
to her father. The doctor had sent her a message that afternoon, commenting that both he and
Touya were worrying about her.
'Your brother said you were screaming at a stuffed toy,' the e-mail had read, her
father's voice piping up in the back of her head as her eyes mulled over the familiar
eloquence. 'Somehow, that doesn't sound much like you. I want the best for you, Cherry
Blossom. If something's wrong, you should talk to your big brother, or to me. We'll take
care of you, promise.'
Leaning back in her seat, the brunette flicked the scroll button on her mouse a few
times as she double-checked her spelling and grammar. She hit the last line of the message
and frowned; somehow, saying "And rest assured that I would rather die than discuss my
personal problems with Touya" seemed a bit...inappropriate, so she reworded it to say that
she just didn't have anything wrong enough to bother her brother about, and then signed it
and clicked the send button.
"It was closer to the truth before, though," she thought aloud, yawning as she
glanced at her watch. 9 pm. Why was it she always got so much more tired on the nights that
sucked? "Why in the world did this day suck so much?"
A pair of warm arms encircled her neck from behind, and the brunette smiled as she
leaned into her best friend's embrace. "It did NOT suck," Tomoyo corrected her in her normal,
happy tone, freeing up her buddy after a moment of huggling. "I finished my project, and there
is NO way I'm going to get anything less than an A on it."
"You sound sure of yourself," chuckled her roommate, rising out of her seat. "What,
did you bribe your professor or something?"
Tossing her slippers at her friend, Tomoyo made a face. "You're so mean!" she
protested rather loudly. "It just so happens that I have been working diligently on this
project for the last month and I am totally happy with the result. That's all." She slipped
on her headphones and shot the brunette a V-for-victory sign. "Now I can return to my
mindless downloading of bootleg! Viva la warez!"
Sakura just rolled her eyes and began to change out of her jeans and into her
pajamas. Kero, having discovered that his six packages of Jello had not yet formed into one
mass, decided it would be best to go out for the evening and had left through the window,
promising to be back before midnight. She wrinkled her nose as she lobbed her pants into her
fold-up hamper and, true to her form, missed miserably. What was going on? She could feel
the Clow card, nagging at her, watching her and challenging her, but, at the very same time,
she couldn't feel anything. She slipped on her favorite pajama top - a tiny pink tank top with
little flowers around the bottom edge - and trekked across her room in only her panties,
bending over to pick up her pants.
"Sakura!" called a voice, and the brunette turned her head to glance between her legs
toward the voice. The door had opened quickly to reveal two pairs of feet. One pair wore
purple-and-white striped slippers, and she could recognize those feet to belong to her dear
friend Rika. But the other pair... Who in the WORLD wore brown loafers and gray dress slacks?
Unless...
"HOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEE!!!!" shrieked the brunette, her face turning about twelve shades
of red as she reached into her hamper to pull something - ANYTHING - from it and therefore
cover her completely bare legs, as well as her blue bikini-cut underwear. Professor Terada's
face was equally red, and, though his eyes were NOW adverted, it was clear that he had just
seen his least favorite student on an intimacy level he would have rather gone without.
Rika grimaced and blushed softly as she watched her friend, a tiny hand towel hanging
across her waist like a makeshift loincloth, inch across the room and tug on her pink PJ
pants. "Sorry," she apologized, swallowing as she felt the blush on her face increase. "I
didn't think you'd be changing."
Never looking away from the computer, Sakura's dark-haired roommate shrugged slightly.
"We've discussed it plenty of times," she commented rather nonchalantly, "and - whereas I
would like to star in an amateur lesbian gang-bang - she's a big fan of being part of a
voyeuristic porn shoot."
"TOMOYO!" As both her own face as well as her teacher's went from red to completely
white, the brunette sophomore brushed her hair from her eyes and forced a charming smile.
"So, uhm...." She glanced at Rika rather suspiciously, suddenly realizing that it wasn't
just any co-ed pair in her room, but rather her friend and her PROFESSOR. "Did you guys
want something?"
Lowering his eyes, Terada shot his student a look that DISTINCTLY questioned her
right to ask him a question in such familiar terms. His fiancée then took it upon herself
to elbow him HARD in the ribs and, after a brief coughing fit, he stood up to his full height
and straightened his polo shirt. "Rika was curious if you would care to join us for ice cream.
She thought that, perhaps, I was a bit harsh this morning and suggested that I make it up to
you by buying you the dessert of your choice."
Brown eyes darted toward the man, lowering dangerously. "A BIT harsh, Yoshi?" asked a
rather skeptical young woman. "I thought we both agreed that you were just playing the
devil's advocate because Doctor Kinomoto once marked you down on a term paper you turned in two
hours late, hmmm?"
"Dad did that?" giggled Sakura, moving to cover her mouth before she could offend her
teacher too much. But the damage was already done and, after a grunt, Terada took off down the
hall, muttering something about ingrates and "kids these days." Grimacing, the history major
frowned apologetically at her neighbor. "Sorry, Rika," she fretted. "I didn't think he'd blow
up like that."
Rolling her eyes, the auburn-haired one shrugged slightly. "Yoshiyuki's been rather
grumpy lately," she explained as she made her way toward the door, resting her hand on the
knob as she glanced back at her friend. "He's been trying to get into this doctoral program
and, when he asked your father to write him a letter of recommendation, he was told that it
probably wasn't the best of ideas." She paused, smirking slightly. "He was pretty wild as a
college student. Almost got kicked out of New York State three or four times."
"REALLY?" gaped Sakura, her eyeballs nearly falling out of their sockets. "But he's
so... So..."
"Anal-retentive?" supplied Tomoyo with a smile as she continued to type away at her
computer.
"...now..." trailed off the sophomore as she watched her friend smile and chuckle
slightly. "Maybe Dad will meet with Yosh - Professor Terada - during parent's weekend," she
suggested with a shrug. "I'll try to put in a good word for him, 'kay?"
Rika smiled. "Thanks," she nodded, ducking out of the room and letting the door shut
slowly behind her.
For a few seconds after the door shut, Sakura stared at it, expecting it to burst
gloriously open and reveal Takashi, Shao-Lang, or maybe even Yukito. But the door did not open
and she sighed, moving to collapse into her bed.
"What a day!" she sighed. "I'm so glad that it's OVER! Tomorrow just HAS to be better!"
Tomoyo smiled, nodded, and then turned back to her work, Sakura's exhausted snores
echoing behind her.
===
The fall air was cool and crisp against his body as he perched on the edge of the
dorm building's roof, glancing down at the silent, abandoned quad below. For a school of over
2000 students, it sure did quiet down quickly. Now, at about ten till midnight, not a single
wandering soul remained... Well, excepting himself, of course. He didn't quite count...did
he?
In the quiet of the night, it was a lot easier to think. About life and cards and
certain brown-haired girls that were completely clueless. Well, no, he had to take that back.
Sakura was not COMPLETELY clueless. She was actually very intelligent, and it was a trait that
he really admired in her. She could be a bumbler, sure, but she got the job done. After all,
she had managed to nab two cards with hardly any guidance. It had surprised him, and in its
own way it had been a rather pleasant surprise. Would he have liked to be part and party to the
captures? Sure. But if that wasn't the way things went, so be it.
What was Clow thinking? The wind ruffled his wings and he shivered, drawing them in
closer to his back. For the cards to be released... Clow must be trying to contact them from
the other side. But why? What was so important? Those cards had been his life's work, his one
true passion in life. Why would he have let them slip away like that? They would remain forever
loyal to his wishes. Or they would have, had Sakura not come along.
"Sakura..." His voice was a whisper at first but, as he began to hear the familiar
chiming of the college bell tower, the whisper faded, and he grimaced. "I went an' promised
to get home by midnight!" groaned Keroberos, standing and stretching, his wings unfurling to
their full, six-inch span as he tested them against the strong fall wind. "If dat chica closed
them windows, I SWEAR I'm gonna - "
He froze, feeling the power that was Clow's magic wash over him. A card! But where...
Black eyes peered into the darkness, black eyes narrowed to slits, black eyes that, like
two onyx beads, shone in the night. Nothing. The final chime sounded, announcing it to be
midnight, and he sighed. The magic was gone, falling away into nothingness. "I'm losin' my
ever-lovin' MIND," sighed the Guardian of the Clow Cards, hopping off the edge of the roof
and fluttering down toward his charge's waiting window. "After all the cards are caught, I'm
takin' a MIGHTY long vacation in the tropics."
The content smile of a plushie dreaming of the Bermudas faded, however, when the
midnight chimes started a SECOND time and he found that the window, once open, had been
firmly locked behind him.
===
"I don't know WHAT you are talking about, Kero," sighed Sakura as she pulled her
shoulder-length brown bob into two tiny pigtails, tousling them slightly. She gave herself
a once-over in the mirror. Not bad, she smiled to herself as she ran her lip gloss across her
lips and puckered them, offering her reflection a sort of half-kiss. Now, if only Yukito were
around to see how cute she looked this particular morning...
The plushie, who was seated on the edge of her mirror, shot her an EXTREMELY dirty
look. "Ya mean ya DIDN'T go and lock them windows shut after eatin' all my Jello?!" he
retorted, crossing his arms over his stuffed chest as he glowered at her. "And if it wasn't
you, than who? That Jello-eatin', window-closin' GHOST of the buildin'?"
"GHOST?!" Green eyes blossomed to the size of small planets, and Sakura's backpack fell
from her hands and onto the floor with a thump. "But, I thought the ghost was in the all-male
dorm!" she shrieked, running to grip her guardian around the neck and shake him furiously. "Why
didn't anyone else tell me that there was a ghost in our dorm? WHY!"
"I...was...just...kiddin'..." choked the plushie. "There...ain't...no...ghost..."
She frowned at him and deposited him back onto the edge of the mirror, shooting him a
rather dirty look as she went to pick up her pack and finish loading it. "You're NOT funny,"
she told him coolly, zipping up the bag and slinging it over her shoulder. "Now, I have an 11
today, too, and I don't want to be late." She wrinkled her nose. "Professor Umiko isn't NEARLY
as evil as Terada, but the last thing I want to do is - "
"SAKURA!" The door, as it had a habit of doing, burst open, and the orange toy fell
lifeless to the dresser top as Chiharu, her braids down around her chest, skidded to a halt
in front of her friend. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready
for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
For a moment, the history major was forced to just blink, the overwhelming sense of
déja vu almost overpowering. Hadn't she said almost the EXACT same thing the day before? And,
had she NOT said the same thing the day before, then why was she worrying about Terada's test
a day too late...?
Finally, in a bolt of inspiration, Sakura tossed her head and laughed, her ribs aching
by the time she was over her guffaw-fest. "Good one, Chiharu!" she giggled, patting the other
young woman on the shoulder. "For a moment, you had me going there! I almost thought that maybe
Terada's test WAS today, and that my version of Monday had been a dream!" She laughed again,
but her laughter slowly came to a halt as she realized that the other girl was just staring
at her, looking as though she was a doe in headlights.
The brunette swallowed. HARD. "Uhm... Chiharu, are you okay? I think you've kinda,
uhhh, stopped blinking..."
After a quick shake of her head, Chiharu lowered her brown eyes at her friend and
sighed. "You know, your offbeat sense of humor is really a pain in the ass sometimes," she
commented, tossing the door back open and striding out into the hall. She would have, in fact,
slammed it had Tomoyo not come in at that very moment, looking rather perplexed.
"Is everything okay with her?" she asked, blinking purple eyes after their mutual friend.
"She looked like she'd just finished watching the fall of Rome." She paused, resting her hands
on her hips, watching as Sakura just stared at her, her jaw gaping open. "What?" she squeaked,
frowning. "Was it something I said?"
Shaking her head, Sakura slipped on the other strap of her backpack. "Well, anyway,
I'm out of here," she informed her roommate, stuffing her key ring in her pocket as she spoke.
"I'll be back after lunch, 'kay?"
Tomoyo smiled and nodded. "I'll be here, finishing up my web design project." She
winked and pulled on her headphones as she started running her fingers across her keyboard.
"If anyone needs me, hit me. HARD."
After a moment of staring and an incoherent squeaking sound that only dogs could hear,
the brunette slunk out the door, muttering about how history was NOT supposed to repeat itself
THAT literally.
===
The art history classroom was a dingy, poorly-lit hole in the back wall of the music
building, or that was at least how Sakura saw it. The music building was, like the ancient and
abandoned gymnasium, a member of the national register of historic landmarks and, though the
school had gotten around law and managed to update its crumbling facade and most the heating
problems, they couldn't convince the state of New York to give them permission to add on a
much-needed art department. So the art history teachers - after whining and complaining for
years - had been granted use of what had once been an auxiliary auditorium, despite the fact
that the area was hardly large enough for a single classroom, let alone the three that had been
built in its place.
Ducking into the darkened half of a hallway that made up the art department, the
brunette sighed and shook her head. What in the world was going on around her? First, she had
had the day from Hell and, as though that wasn't enough, her windows had closed on Kero and
his Jello had disappeared. And was it her imagination, or had Chiharu and Tomoyo sprouted
rewind buttons and repeated the previous day's antics?
She managed to shrug off the odd happenings as dumb luck and turned the doorknob to the
art history classroom (once a prop closet), a glorious ten minutes early for class.
Which is why her jaw dropped when she found herself being stared at by a group of
fifteen freshmen, all of whom were busy taking a test.
Her teacher, a straggly-looking gray-haired woman who had a habit of wearing sandals
with socks, glanced dubiously at her before looking down at her watch, frowning as she did
so. "Sakura, you're about 24 hours early for class," she noted, looking back up at the brunette.
"Was this a rough weekend?"
"But it's Tuesday!" protested the young woman, her mouth gaping open as she watched
her professor just shake her head in dismay, a very common motion. "I swear it is! Yesterday,
you see, I had to take Terada's test from HELL, and then I dropped my lunch on my chest, and..."
She stopped in her explanation and frowned, realizing how absolutely idiotic she must have
sounded. In fact, a few of the freshmen had begun to snicker, smirking as they glanced up from
their tests.
Sighing, Sakura wrinkled her nose but said nothing more about the previous day's
happenings. "I'm sorry to bother you," she apologized, walking backwards as she headed toward
the door to the classroom. "I'll see you tomorrow."
She had no idea if her teacher had nodded or not, because as soon as the words were
out of her mouth she had slipped out of the door and into the dingy hallway, confusion and
embarrassment both mounting in the back of her mind. How could it still be Monday? Admittedly,
she'd had a few visions in her lifetime - a trait, her father often said, that she and her
brother had inherited from their late mother - but every time she did, her descriptions of the
event or events in her mind were refuted by the people around her. This time, Keroberos had been
the one to first start obsessing about Monday's happenings. He, in fact, remembered everything
- his Jello, particularly - as though it had happened yesterday, which made sense, because it
HAD... Hadn't it?
Her head started to hurt the more she thought about it, and she tossed open the doors
to the music building and vowed that she would never think about it again. Perhaps the day
before had been Sunday, and she had just imagined Terada's class. Or maybe it was a dream,
after all, and she just didn't realize it. But then, Kero...
"Hoooooooooooooeee," she moaned, depressing the button at the stoplight and waiting
rather impatiently for it to turn. She had just promised herself that she wasn't going to
think about it, and now look. She WAS thinking about it, all the same. It was like she was in
junior high again, and her father had told her not to go rollerblading down the biggest hill
in Buffalo. And what had she done?
But then, that time, she had broken her arm. What would happen to her this time, when
she was not going down a hill but meddling with time itself?
The answer scared her.
The light, however, did not, and she crossed the street with her hands in her back
pockets and her mind wandering aimlessly. Even without considering the issue with the magically
disappearing Monday, there was still the question of the nagging that both she and the Guardian
of the Clow felt in their stomachs. There was a card nearby - somewhere on campus - and it
WAS active. But what could it be? She had captured the Shadow card on her own, and it had been
completely harmless - it had simply been making shadow-creatures using the light from street
lamps, though Kero had been SURE that it would be meaner than that if provoked. The Mist card,
however, had descended upon the campus in a thick fog, and had eaten through half the trees
on the quad before she had come to claim it. And even then, it had been a close call -
Rainy and Windy had to be used to catch it. What about this card? Would it be something
harmless, like Shadow, or something vile, like Mist? Or perhaps something like Rain or Fly,
in between?
Chimes sounded across campus and she sighed, stalking up the sidewalk toward her
dormitory without really thinking about what time it was. If it wasn't Tuesday, she could just
go home and nap, she decided, because there certainly wasn't anything better for her to -
She paused, frowning. It wasn't Tuesday, that was right. It was still Monday. And
Monday meant -
"SHIT!"
And, though she ran as fast as she could, she was STILL just under a minute late for
Terada's history test.
===
"Whadda MEAN that this ain't Tuesday?" blinked the plushie rather loudly as Sakura
filled her glass with soda, and she waved a hand at him to try to quite him down. The cafeteria
was just as busy as it had been the day before, and once again, she was both surprised and
grateful that no one noticed the loud-mouthed toy on her tray. "Sakura, it's Tuesday," Kero
hissed through locked teeth as he glanced around at the busy cafeteria. "Don'tcha remember
yesterday?"
She grimaced at the lunchtime memories, her nose wrinkling. "I remember it," she sighed,
though she would have rather forgotten, to be honest, "but no one else does. And no one
remembers anything ELSE that happened yesterday... It's like yesterday never happened to
everyone who isn't you or me." She paused long enough to flash her card at the cafeteria
woman, just as she had the day before, and started across the cafeteria toward the table she
always sat at. "It really bothers me, Kero, and I think - "
A hand touched her shoulder just then and she turned around, her green eyes lowering
at the dark-haired man who she knew was looming BEHIND the smiling, sweet, happy Yukito
Tsukishiro who had touched her to catch her attention. "Don't start with me, Touya," she
snapped, not waiting for the coming name-calling that always accompanied her run-ins with her
older brother. "I don't want to hear it."
Yukito's brown eyes blinked as the ever-looming Touya smirked something terrible and,
having set his tray down on a nearby table, eyed his sister up and down as though she had just
told him that she was not Sakura Kinomoto but rather Brittany Spears. "What's this I hear
about our little monster not making it to class on time?" teased the taller man. "How mad was
Terada, hmmm?"
"Shut UP," snapped his sister, moving to jab him in the chest with her pointer finger.
"I thought it was Tuesday, if you MUST know, and went to art class instead. Anything else?"
Sighing, she shook her head. "Just, please, Touya, give me this ONE DAY off from your teasing.
Alright?"
The gray-haired young man smiled and moved to ruffle the girl's hair. "Don't worry,
Sakura," he assured her, her green eyes lighting up as soon as she realized that his attentions
were completely centered on her and only her. "I will make SURE that nasty ol' Touya stays
off your case for the rest of the day."
She thanked him and started for her table.
Now, Sakura usually had no problem avoiding her brother's idiotic pranks, even those
that he wasn't supposed to play. It had become a habit more than anything else; ever since the
first grade, when he had put a garden snake in her spaghetti when their father's back was
turned, she had learned when to tell he was up to something and when he was not. This trend
continued through all of elementary, junior high, and high school, and even now - in her
second year of college, no less - she was still being submitted to things popping out of her
closet or letters that were filled with confetti that spilled everywhere. She blamed part of
this on Tomoyo, who seemed to be her brother's partner in crime ninety-nine percent of the time.
Whatever the case, this particular time, she didn't really figure on her brother
trying a prank. After all, she had just given him a verbal bitch-slap! Why in the world would
he dare cross her after she had ripped his head off and succeeded on getting Yukito on her
side? The answer was a mystery, perhaps made to forever be a secret.
What was not a secret, though, was that Touya - for reasons of his own - stuck his
foot out in front of his nineteen-year-old sister that day in the cafeteria, and that very same
sister tripped over it and, with little more than an "oomph," landed flat on her face...and
her lunch tray.
"Sakura!" gasped Yukito, bending down to offer her a hand. When she didn't stir, his
voice became frantic, almost panicked. "Sakura, are you alright?"
Her voice was muffled, but still strong and full of conviction as she uttered her
three-word response.
"I hate Mondays."
===
After the incident in the cafeteria that afternoon, and the following Spanish history
lecture that had caused her to raise the same complaints she had the day before, Sakura decided
that it would be best to avoid human interaction, rather than to seek it out. Though Yukito had
relinquished his sweatshirt to cover up the stain of pizza sauce and pudding, the sophomore's
mood was still surprisingly dark, much more so than it had been the day before. So she sulked
off to the computer center and chose a far-off corner computer, nestled between the copy
machine and the large, computer-center picture window, to start on her term paper for Terada's
evil, vile class-from-Hell. After all, she didn't dare venture out in public. Not now, and
possibly never again.
But the picture window overlooked the quad, and she found herself staring out at the
freshmen who were playing frisbee, rather than paying attention to her homework. They were
laughing and knocking into one another as it seemed only males could, and somehow, it brought a
half smile to her face. Funny, she thought to herself as she forced her eyes from the window
and toward the blinking cursor on the computer screen. Yesterday - or in that previous version
of today, as it were - she had been too busy talking to Shao-Lang to notice their antics.
"LI!" she exclaimed aloud, causing a few of the other computer lab dwellers to turn and
glance at her, eyebrows raised. The brunette sunk into her seat with a blush, outwardly
embarrassed as her mind raced. She had nearly forgotten about Li, her constant antagonist and
rival for the cards! Did he remember the Monday that had already happened, too? Kero had said
that the Li family was descended from the bloodline of Clow Reed, and she had certainly seen
that power when they battled the Thunder Card. If it could even be called a power.
So, then... She drummed her fingers on the keys, just enough to make a noise, lost in
thought. How could she have been so dumb to avoid him when he could feasibly be the only
person - barring, of course, talking plush does - to support her insanity? Would he be gone
yet? Could she catch up to -
"Kinomoto." The voice was cool and calm, nothing surprising about it, and yet she still
gave a start as she was pulled from her thoughts. Turning, she glanced up to meet a pair of
brown eyes that had, of all things, shaggy brown bangs hanging into them. And then, they
glimmered, and the face she saw smirked. "You spaz," snorted Shao-Lang Li with a toss of his
head as she sighed and sunk back into her seat, relieved that it wasn't some sort of crazy come
to claim her. "Why weren't you in the quad, just now?"
Sakura scowled at him. The coolness of his voice had given way to a pompous twang, and
she wasn't particularly fond of it. "What reason do I have to be in the quad?" she returned,
playing dumb as she turned back to her computer. She began to type anything she could think of
onto the screen, hoping that it would end up making some sense. "I have a major paper due for
Professor Terada at the end of the term, so I decided to come up here and work on it."
"When you have a brand new computer in your room?" countered he coolly, and she cast her
eyes down at her textbook in hopes of hiding her blush. "Think about it, Kinomoto. You walked
through the quad with me yesterday, and we were almost nailed by a frisbee. The frisbee players
are there today, too, aren't they?" She said nothing, and he pressed on. "You were wearing the
same sweatshirt, carrying the same books, and - "
A clatter sounded, and they both turned in time to see something white slide down the
window and out of sight. One of the frisbee guys, a frown the size of a small country on his
face, trotted slowly up to the window and, after sending the duo an apologetic glance, bent
over to pick something up. As he strode away with the frisbee, Sakura felt a shiver run up her
spine, and somehow she doubted that it had been caused by the weather.
"Everything that happened yesterday has happened today, except when altered by the two
of us," continued Li, as though nothing had interrupted his speech. "You were still late to
your test, and you still spilled your lunch, STILL ticked off your teacher - "
"How did you hear about that?" she roared, once again gaining the attention of the
others in the lab.
" - and now you still were in the danger zone of a frisbee, which was blocked solely by
the windowpane." She was staring at her book, unmoving. "Tell me, Sakura - do your Mondays
normally repeat themselves, right down to what your friends SAY?" His adversary said nothing,
so he pressed on, leaning close to her, their faces nearly touching. "Today is a repeated
version of yesterday, changing only in places were YOU altered the events. Everything else has
run exactly as it did yesterday...well, except for the frisbee thing, but I think it was
meant to come our way."
She turned to face him, their noses nearly touching. His breath was soft against her
face, tickling her lips, and for a moment she was convinced that he was going to lean in and
kiss her, just like something out of a B romance movie. "You're right," she whispered, her
green eyes locking with his brown. "Kero said the exact same thing you did, and... I don't know.
It seems to weird to be coincidence, but I'm not sure I can write it off as a card. Not yet,
anyway."
Li backed away from her suddenly, scowling. Sakura was only half-certain that her
words caused his sudden discomfort. "Well, I suppose we can wait it out," he finally said,
the silence between them causing him to fidget slightly. He turned his back to her, face
solemn. "Have a good - "
"We?" The brunette had only been half-listening when the word came up, and it surprised
her. Not many things surprised her, anymore - it was hard to be surprised when you were the
woman in charge of capturing a bunch of neurotic magical cards - but somehow... Somehow,
his words surprised her. "Since when has this been a team effort?"
They must have surprised him, too, because he stopped in mid-step and stiffened. "It's
not," he responded coolly, tossing his head a bit as he spoke. "I just meant, since both of
us are aware of the repetition and no one else is, that we, as a collective of two people apart
from the rest, will be the only ones dealing with the oddities that have occurred." And then,
he was gone, rushing out of the room like the fires of Hell were on his tail, and hungry.
Sakura's expression darkened as the door to the computer lab slowly crept closed, and it
would be several weeks before she began to consider that maybe - just MAYBE - Shao-Lang Li had
been BS-ing.
===
Surprisingly, Sakura found that the third time was the charm - or at least, living a day
three times through made it much easier to survive. She studied for Terada's test after
returning home from the computer lab and - though she DID still get walked in on by her
professor while she was changing - woke up in ample time the next morning. Chiharu had
been GREATFUL for the notes, the bagels in the cafeteria tasted better when she wasn't rushing
to scarf them down, and arriving fifteen minutes early for the dreaded text put a surprised
expression Terada's usually straight face. Lunch went well, too; she had even eaten with her
brother and his roommate, a move that caused Touya to go googly-eyed while Yukito simply
smiled his sweet smile and chatted pleasantly with her for the entire meal. He had even offered
up his sweatshirt freely this time, saying that it was awfully cold outside for her to be
wearing a t-shirt. She slipped it on and waltzed off into euphoria, her happiness causing her
to also overlook the evils of her Spanish professor - though, in retrospect, she was mildly
sorry she had.
But history continued to repeat itself, and therefore she was not surprised when
Shao-Lang Li saddled up to her as she walked toward her dorm, his hands in his pockets and a
confused look on his face. "I really think it's a card," he said after they stood in silence
for a moment, side-by-side as they watched the frisbee players again. "I don't really feel
it, this time, but... It has to be. Nothing else can make time react in ways such as this."
"I think you're right," agreed the brunette, sighing slightly. Her green eyes drifted
to glance up at him. "But what do we do about it? I can't sense it well enough to locate it,
and - "
"There are ways." He turned, standing face-to-face with her, and his voice dropped as
he spoke. "Meet me here, in the quad, at eleven tonight. I'll see what I can do about finding
the card."
She smirked slightly, moving to brush a strand of hair from her eyes. "You mean you're
not going to catch it all by yourself?" she returned coolly. "You'll allow me to help you out?"
Li bristled and frowned slightly. "There are some things," he responded with a toss of
his head, "that not even I can do on my own. And this just happens to be one of them. Alright?"
For a moment, Sakura considered a smart-alec comment, something to get him back for
all his rude jibes and comments. But, then again, did he really deserve that kind of treatment?
He had been fairly integral to the capture of the Thunder card, she realized with an inward
scowl, and maybe... Maybe she would need him, just as he needed her. Maybe a joined effort
would be the only way for them to beat whatever card was causing these problems for them.
Not that it mattered, of course. Because at that very moment, out of what seemed to
be the clear blue sky, a white frisbee nailed her in the side of the head and knocked all of
her thoughts - positive, negative, and neutral - from her head.
===
"Owwwww," moaned the brunette woman loudly, her high heels clicking on the pavement
as she crossed the campus and headed toward the abandoned quad. Above them, the moon hung low
in the sky, illuminating even the parts of the sidewalk that weren't caught by the streetlamps.
Not that she was concerned about the darkness; no, she was mostly considered with the enormous
goose-egg on her left temple. Or, if not, she was concerned about the hideous outfit her
roommate - and camera woman, she noted with an inner groan - had put together for her THIS
week. "Tomoyo, can't you just - for ONCE? - put the camera down?"
The one purple eye that was not hidden behind the digital camera's viewer blinked,
though Saukra was more than certain the other had, too. "But you're my project!" she exclaimed,
as though that were the answer to everything. "If I stop filming you, what will I do my
final project on?"
"Trees," suggested her roommate, irritated as the wind tried, once again, to flip up
her tiny black skirt, as well as the white chiffon underneath, "or flowers. Maybe birds, or
dogs, or ANYONE else on campus."
"But Sakura," chuckled Tomoyo sweetly, "why would I film something so ugly when I can
film the most beautiful thing on the face of the Earth?"
Frowning, the brown-haired one did not press the matter, but that was mostly because
they had finally come upon the quad. It was empty, as it almost always was Monday nights - if
it was still Monday, and time hadn't changed and made it Friday, just to spite her - save for
one shadowed figure in the middle of the grassy field. He was dressed all in the green
ceremonial robes of a family descended from a long line of martial artists, and in his hands he
held out something that looked similar to a Chinese checker board. From the board poured light -
red and green and yellow - and the light flashed about, in many directions, as if searching for
something.
Sakura's jaw nearly hit the pavement as she watched the lights slowly merge and combine
into one steady stream of white. The white moved slowly around the board, circling the campus
until, finally, it came to point in one direction - the direction of the college's ancient
bell tower.
"You're late, Kinomoto," sighed Shao-Lang Li as he slipped the board behind his back.
She tried not to suppose that the board had disappeared entirely from existence, but yet, it
seemed as though it had. He took a few steps closer to her and then paused, his brow furrowing.
For a moment, he was silent, just staring with a confused look on his face, and then, he did
something unexpected.
He burst out laughing.
Her jaw tightening, the brunette woman took a deep breath and tried to control her
temper. After all, she WAS wearing a French maid outfit, completely with frilly black skirt
and chiffon under-skirts, and had her hair pulled back by a fluffy black-and-white headband.
Tomoyo had called it "Maid To Capture Cards" - or, at least, that's what the tag she had
printed off her computer said - but her roommate thought it was just plain UGLY. Not that she
would have said that aloud, of course.
Tossing her hair, Sakura looked away from him and toward the bell tower. "So, did your
Ouija Board to find out where the card was, or was that just a cheap pyrotechnics show?" she
questioned, smirking as he stopped laughing to glare at her. Still, she could almost FEEL the
video camera on her, and it caused her to shudder a bit.
"If you MUST know, it's called a Rashinban," he spat, stalking toward the bell tower,
his robes fluttering behind him as he pushed past the Cardcaptor. "It's a special talisman
that is passed down by the Li family from generation from generation."
She stepped quickly to keep up with him, but said nothing more. Behind her, Kero
babbled with Tomoyo about something she really didn't care to listen to. It seemed, when the
quad was dark and no other living souls were around, that she could feel cards all around her,
in the air and in the ground, surrounding her and overpowering her senses.
"A real powerful one's 'round here, Sakura," commented the orange-yellow plushie
suddenly, fluttering up to her shoulder. She turned and glanced at him, slightly surprised at
how serious his face was. "When a real powerful card shows up, the other ones start thinkin'
about showin' themselves. But, with a descendent right here, they ain't gonna dare make a move."
He shrugged slightly. "Still, I dunno what card is powerful 'nough to do all this."
"Time." It was a single word, it was brief, and Sakura honestly was impressed that it
came out of her mouth at all. Kero's eyes goggled, and Li stopped in his tracks to glance at
his rival. She could feel her cheeks start to redden. "I - I'm sorry," she stammered, pushing
past the green-robed young man and continuing toward the bell tower, and the trees that circled
the base of it. "I didn't realize what I was saying..." She trailed off into silence.
As soon as he thought she was out of earshot, Shao-Lang let out a long breath that he
had not been aware he had been holding in the first place. "To have such power, and not know..."
he commented softly, soft enough that he thought she would overlook it. Her ears burned,
however, as she heard his comment, and she stared up at the tower, silent, as she waited for
the rest of the group to catch up. The camera still rolled as she said the words of summoning
and released the Staff of Sealing, twirling it idly in her fingers as -
"SAKURA!" scolded a voice, and green eyes widened in time to see Tomoyo lower her
digital camcorder and frown. "Do your speech!"
Groaning, the brunette sighed, her shoulders slumping. "No, Tomoyo," she whined,
realizing only too late that she did sound extraordinarily childish. "I just want to get this
over with, okay? No speeches or magical girl poses or - "
Her roommate's purple eyes lowered, and she wrinkled her nose. Why was everything with
Tomoyo Daidouji always so irritating and...cutesy? Sometime, when they were alone, Sakura would
ask what was up with the camera, and the mahou shoujo anime obsession, and the costume making.
Even if the answer would be terrifying.
Tomoyo's eyes remained lowered, though, and Sakura sighed and gave in. Holding the
Staff of Sealing in front of her chest, arms outstretched, she drew on her ever-rusty memories
of high school baton squad and began to twirl it, dipping it above and under her other hand
as she spoke the words that she had helped to compose, a week before:
"I am the keeper of the Clow, the master of the cards! I am - "
She threw the staff high into the air and turned a quick circle on one foot. Tomoyo had
said it was some sort of ballet move, but she didn't remember it.
" - Cardcaptor Sakura!"
Her left hand snaked behind her back, ready to catch the staff and finish her "speech,"
as the dark-haired girl insisted on calling it. But that moment never came, for the Staff of
Sealing handed atop her head with a resounding thump before falling to the grass at her
feet.
As Li began to laugh himself sick, Sakura raised a hand to her head and rubbed it,
glowering at her roommie. "Dammit, Tomoyo, I TOLD you that it was too precise a move," she
muttered, bending down to pick up her staff. Li was STILL laughing, harder than before, and
she sighed. "ANYWAY," she cut into his guffaws, catching his attention after a brief moment
of continued giggle fits, "I think the best route would be to fly up into the tower."
"And how do you suppose we do that?" questioned the dark-haired young man as he watched
his rival toss down the Fly card and summon it, wings sprouting on the end of her staff. She
scooted all the way to the front of the long pink stick, eyebrows knotting together as she
waited on him. He took a hesitant step back. "Hell no," he told her, shaking his head. "There is
no way I'm riding that...that THING...up to the top of the bell tower!" Li tossed his robes
behind him and began to stalk in the direction of the door to the tower. "I'll walk, thanks."
Smirking, the girl fluttered up to his side, her green eyes lit in delight. "Are you
saying that you're SCARED of flying on the Staff of Sealing?" she teased, elbowing him in the
side. He shot her a stony glare, but he didn't stop walking, either. "Fine," she replied,
pulling away from him and starting toward the top of the tower. "I'll beat you up to top and
catch the card. No problem."
Something happened as she finished her sentence, though, something unexpected and rather
odd. Time seemed to slow around them, and the tower seemed to distance itself from their
separate approaches. Sakura frowned and urged the staff on, but it was no use. She couldn't
get any closer. It was as though time itself had stopped.
The hands of the tower clock began turning, then, speeding their way toward midnight.
At least, Sakura assumed it was toward midnight.
Not that it mattered, because the world suddenly went black.
===
The staff thumped down on Sakura's head and, instead of being in pain, she wrinkled her
nose. "Well, screw that attempt," she thought aloud, glancing at the frowning Li at her side.
"Now what?"
"We need some way to get up into the tower, but your little flying trick doesn't do
the trick," commented Li with a snort, tossing his robes about. Tomoyo stared at them like a
deer in headlights; once again, she didn't realize that time had turned itself back, and so the
conversation around her was confusing. Sakura had avoided explaining to her what EXACTLY the
card had been doing, but... She sighed, chewing her lip, only half-listening to the token
male of their little group rattle on. "We need some sort of cover," he pressed, hands on his
hips as he stared up at the clock tower. "If we can sneak around it, and get to the stairs, we
can probably distract the card enough to catch it."
For a moment, Sakura was out of ideas, but - as she stared at the nearly-bare trees
around the base of the tower - she realized that they had one tactical option that just might
work. "The Wood card!" she cheered, digging into her apron and pulling it out. "We can use the
Wood card to make the trees thicken, and then duck under them."
Tomoyo muttered something about already having that footage, but it was ignored as
her roommate summoned the Wood card, allowing a thick blanket of tree branches to knit together
above their heads, cutting off the view of the tower top. The brunette whirled around, skirts
bouncing, to stare the darker-haired woman in the eye. "Whatever happens, stay put," she told
her firmly, her eyes darting to glance at Kero. "You too, alright?"
The Guardian of the Clow scowled, his little plushie-face contorting uncomfortably.
"Sakura, I - "
"STAY." It was not an option, it was a command, and before either of the two could
say another word, she had turned on her heels and taken off through the thick branches of the
trees, Li at her back. For a moment, she felt guilty; it wasn't Touya she was talking to, but
her best friend and her "anime mascot," as Tomoyo often called him. Still, adrenaline pumped
her on, pushing her toward the bell tower until her friends were out of sight. She was so
distracted by her thoughts, however, that it took Shao-Lang's grasping of her shoulders to stop
her from running INTO the closed door to the tower.
"We have to be careful," he hissed, voice soft. Sakura watched as he reached behind
him and pulled out a sword. Had his sword been scabbarded behind him this whole time? She
leaned around and tried to see if it had or not, but he frowned at her just enough for her
to stop and force a smile. He rolled his eyes at her before reaching forward and opening the
door to the bell tower.
It was silent within, the only sound being the thumping of her own heartbeat, which she
was sure the entire world could hear. Her pulse pounded behind her temples as she, only a half
step behind Li, started up the long, circular staircase that led to the bells. Their footfalls
were soft, like the sound of a single raindrop hitting pavement.
But then, the silence ended. Sakura wasn't sure what made the bells start ringing - was
it when Li's sword scraped against the wall, when she sighed after nearly tripping over a
loose corner of one of the steps, or something else entirely? But the bells DID begin to ring,
and with the ringing came complete and utter panic.
"It's going to try to turn back time again!" exclaimed the brunette, fumbling in her
apron pouch to pull out the Fly card. In a flurry of feathers, the staff sprouted wings, and
Sakura hopped off the edge of the stairs and onto it. "I'll go up and distract it, and then
you can finish it off!" she exclaimed as the staff flew through the air like a bullet, zipping
past the brown-haired young man and leaving him on the steps, blinking.
Sakura didn't know what to expect as she shot into the air, ducking low as she commanded
the staff to avoid the closing spiral of stairs. Beneath her, she was vaguely aware of Li's
footfalls pounding on the stony stairs, keeping time to the ringing bells around them.
The final circle of steps ended and she skidded to a stop on the stone floor, the
wings on her staff fading away as she found herself face-to-face with the Time card. If it
could be called face-to-face; the card was shaped like a man wearing thick brown robes, his
face hidden by his cowl. For a moment, she was overtaken by fear, her feet craving a long
step backward, away from the card. The hidden face peered in her direction, as though it was
challenging her.
"Shadow!" she called out, tossing a card into the air and bringing her staff down on
it. "Hide me from the card!"
Darkness encompassed the tower, and she found herself treading lightly, careful to not
run into the walls - or, worse, fall out of one of the many arches that encircled the bells.
Silence overtook the tower, a cold silence, a silence not even broken by her own footfalls.
"Spirit of Lighting," called a voice, strong, male, from somewhere within the darkness,
"come FORTH!"
Light came just then, breaking through the darkness, yellow and brighter than anything
Sakura had seen in the long time. The shadow slowly dispersed, fading to moonlight and sight,
and when the darkness had finally cleared, Shao-Lang was standing at the other end of the bell
tower, in front of the dark-robed card. It was kneeling, chest rising and falling in a slow
cadence, and Sakura lept forward, swinging the Staff of Sealing above her head.
"Return to your true form! Clow CARD!"
When the colors cleared, and the magic stopped flowing around them, Shao-Lang reached
forward and watched as the card came slowly to is opened hand. Sakura frowned slightly, though
her first intention had been to smile; she hadn't paused to think that Li would actually become
the keeper of that particular card, even if he HAD done most the work. Sighing, she took a step
back to lean against the wall, exhausted -
And blinked as she felt nothing behind her.
"HOE!" she screamed, her fingers hardly keeping hold of the staff as she plummeted toward
the woods that she had created not ten minutes before. "Fly! GO!!!"
Brown eyes glanced down at her, brown eyes on a smirking face, as Li watched her dangle
in midair from the Staff of Sealing, her legs swinging idly as she hung on for dear life like
a small child holds on to the monkey bars at an elementary school playground. "Nice to see that
the Cardcaptor is the keeper of so much grace and beauty," he teased, eyes glinting in the
moonlight.
Sakura's face darkened, and she glared up at him. "At least I'M not afraid to ride on
the Staff of Sealing!"
"Who said I was afraid? Maybe I just didn't want to sit with YOU, huh?"
"Pffft. Right!"
"It's true!"
"Yeah, sure... BABY!"
"SPAZ!"
"JERK!"
Their fight continued on through the night, so loud that it drowned out the sound of
Tomoyo and Kero, spread out on the ground below, laughing.
===
Sakura Kinomoto woke up on Tuesday morning with a smile on her face, stretching as she
gazed up at the ceiling. Since her test for Terada's Hell-class had FINALLY been finished, she
had allowed herself to sleep in later than normal. Keroberos was out and about somewhere -
where, she did not know - and, as she scuffed across the room to find her hairbrush, she
decided that it was going to be a good day. No evil cards, no moody clocks and - better YET -
no test by Professor Yoshiyuki Terada.
She was just considering skipping art class entirely in favor of laying around in her
pajamas when the door burst in and Chiharu, hair a mess, skidded into the room. "SAKURA!" she
announced, running to grasp her friend's arm a bit TOO tightly. "Oh my GOD! I just spilled
coffee on my notes and I was SO not ready for the test! You HAVE to let me borrow yours!"
Green eyes blinked. Once, twice, four times. Hadn't Monday OFFICALLY finished the night
before, when they had defeated the Clow card?
And then, she thought about it. Kero had mentioned on the way home from the clock tower
that the tolling of the bells at midnight had been - at least, in his mind - what had been
setting back the days, making Tuesday turn into Monday again...and again...and...
She sighed, her head drooping slightly and her smile fading. "In my backpack," she
told the frantic Chiharu, defeated. "It's the blue notebook."
Her friend gaped at her. "Are you sure you don't want them?" she questioned, carefully
looking the brunette up and down. Tomoyo opened the door but didn't come in, staring at the
goings on.
"Nah," Sakura responded, waving a hand, "I - " She paused. She hadn't realized how
tempted she was to tell both her neighbor and her roommate what exactly was going on in their
world. Wouldn't that be great? To run up and down the hall in one of Tomoyo's hand-designed
outfits screaming "I AM THE KEEPER OF THE CLOW!" at the top of her lungs? But no, no, she
couldn't do that. She was still Sakura Kinomoto, still the quintessential history major, the
assistant Hall Marm and all that jazz. She was not - at least, in the minds of most - the
Cardcaptor Sakura.
She smiled slightly at her friend and winked a green eye. "Let's just say that I'm
pretty damn sure that I'm ready for the test," she replied casually, turning back to the
mirror and her hairbrush. "I've studied enough over the past four days."
As Chiharu frowned at her and then shrugged, walking out of the room with the blue
notebook in hand, the Keeper of the Clow smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
Maybe it wouldn't be too terrible of a day, after all.
===
End Chapter 5.
