He ran.

Of course, he rationalized to himself as he did it. It was his nature to rationalize, he had

discovered only after his high school psychology course had finished up and left him pondering the motives

and meanings of his own behaviors. Rationalization was his way of coping with stress...or, more appropriately,

his way of coping with the things he tended to say and do while stressed. Once, when she had been VERY

upset with something he'd inadvertently blurted out while annoyed, his cousin had informed him that he could

be a very nice person when he wanted to be, but that he hid it underneath a patch of briar. That, coupled

with the Freudian psychologies he had learned in class, allowed him to realize and grow. Yes, he snapped

at people when stressed. And then, he told himself that it was justified, therefore alleviating the pressure

of said stress.

But all that was immaterial to the situation at hand.

The leaves that still remained on the campus sidewalks - most had been cleaned up by the campus

landscaping crew - crunched under his running shoes as he jogged through the quad. The morning sun had just

crested the tall hill just beyond campus, shining brightly across the still-green grass and the dried,

dead brown leaves of autumn. A crisp wind shook the bare branches above his head and he picked up the pace,

not wanting to listen to the branches knocking together. They reminded him of bones, dancing late at night

as they always did in the ghost stories his older sisters told him when they were younger.

He was not in the mood for ghost stories.

Since his mother had called with her "news," life had managed to drag on at its normal, relentlessly

dull pace. At least, for most people. For him, every day consisted of the ticking of a time bomb sent from

Hong Kong. Even as he rushed about with Kinomoto and her obnoxious, camera-toting roommate, the fact remained

that - cards or no cards - life as he knew it was about to end, and with that came -

"Hey, Li! Hi!" Rudely tugged from his thoughts, Shao-Lang Li glanced up from the pavement to see

a familiar brunette jogging towards him via another sidewalk, waving merrily. She was wearing wind pants

and a white tank-top, and her headphones dangled, useless, around her neck as she rushed to meet him. "I

tried to call your room to see if you wanted company this morning, but I didn't get an answer."

He honestly did try to smile at Sakura, but the smile failed and he slowed his almost uncomfortable

pace until they were in step together, joining at the fork in the sidewalk to run side by side. "Happens

sometimes when you have a single," he shrugged nonchalantly, shifting a bit as her green eyes peered at him

carefully, as though giving him a once-over. "I just wanted to come out here and think, and I figured getting

exercise at the same time wouldn't be a bad idea."

"You've been thinking a lot lately, haven't you?" His head snapped around to glower in her direction

and she laughed, tossing her bob of brown hair. "I didn't mean it like THAT!" she protested, making a

face at him as they crossed in front of the silent cafeteria and towards the old gym building and the

ravine beyond. "I just mean... Well, up until this week, we'd been running into each other while jogging,

and now, we just... Don't." She looked away, and he frowned, a bit confused by her sudden change in demeanor.

"I happen to like running with someone else, sometimes, and... Well..."

"I know what you mean," he shrugged, smirking as she shifted just enough to peer towards him out of

the corner of her eye. "It is sometimes more fun to run with someone else, even you." He paused a beat,

considering, their gazes locking. "But don't think that means I LIKE you or anything, because you're still

a spaz."

She squealed and made a swipe for the back of his head, but it was too late. Shao-Lang had already

taken off ahead of her, pounding down the sidewalk and leaving her reeling to catch up, both breathless with

laughter as they started down the steep path and into the ravine.

But, despite Sakura's screaming and his own chuckles, he could still hear the ticking of the time

bomb in the back of his mind, a regular beat, counting down the seconds until his demise.

========================

"An American Cardcaptor"

A Cardcaptor Sakura Alternate Universe Fanfiction

Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler

Chapter 7: "Singularity"

========================

"I don't see why Naoko can't do her OWN damned paperwork," muttered Sakura bitterly, drumming her

pen on the floor impatiently. The form that laid before her was damp with White-Out, and no matter how hard

she glared at it, it just plain refused to dry any faster! "She knew that the new girl was moving in this

week, but does she do any of the work? NOOOOOOOOO. And now, she has tests all week and I have to do it!"

Groaning in frustration, she went back to filling in all the blanks, keeping her handwriting light in case

the White-Out wasn't totally dry. "When I get my hands on her..."

Giggling slightly in her pristine, very "Tomoyo" way, Tomoyo glanced up from her sketchbook and

smiled sweetly at her roommate. Not that it mattered, because Sakura didn't notice the sympathetic expression;

no, she was once again dragging the White-Out brush across her writing, muttering under her breath about one

thing or another. "Yeah, but the deal was that Naoko's helping our fine end-of-the-hall dweller move in

on Saturday, so in a way, it's somewhat even." Green eyes snapped up at her, glaring, and she grit her

teeth and forced a rather hopeful smile. "Or, uhm, it's totally NOT even and Naoko needs to die a slow and

painful death. Whichever." Shrugging, she returned to her sketching, charcoal pencil scratching loud enough

to be heard through the room. "Who is this new girl, anyway? Someone moving in from one of the other

buildings?"

"Is she gonna have snacks?" Kero paused his video game long enough to direct black puppy-dog eyes

towards his infuriated ward. "I LIKE snacks, ya know."

He barely managed to duck the bottle of White-Out that was aimed at his head.

Sakura groaned and slammed her pen down on the stack of paperwork before clambering onto her bed

and letting out a frustrated - and overly dramatic - sigh. "I don't know her personally," she informed her

duo of companions. "Some transfer student from abroad. 'May Lynn Lee,' I think her name is." Picking up the

brown teddy bear she kept nestled between the wall and her pillows, she burrowed her head in his belly.

"I have to do all the stupid room inventory sheets, which takes FOREVER. Why Barbara moved out of the single

in the FIRST place..."

"If I recall correctly," put in Tomoyo helpfully, not looking up from her sketching, "Barbara was a

marijuana addict who was paying for college by selling the stuff out of her dorm room."

"Shoulda sold SNACKS," the orange Guardian of the Clow suggested with a sage nod. "I woulda been

her biggest customer if she'd a sold SNACKS."

He nearly was beamed upside the head with Sakura's keychain, this time.

"I just wish things were less HECTIC!" professed the brunette, sitting up in her bed and allowing her

bear to tumble to the ground. A cool breeze rustled the draperies that her roommate had sewn only a few

days before, and she threw up her hands in frustration as she realized that neither of her friends were even

looking at her - they were both too engrossed in their pastimes to pay any REAL attention. "Here it is,

a little after three on a Tuesday afternoon, and I have hall forms to fill out, a paper to write, TWO quizzes

to study for by Friday, and that's withOUT worrying about my whole cardcaptor gig! Meanwhile, Tomoyo, you're

drawing God-knows-what in that sketchbook that you found in the stationary store that you were shopping at

while I caught Sword yesterday, and KERO, you're playing Final Fantasy X through for the THIRD time since

you've gotten here!"

Kero paused his game and turned around, glancing first at the brunette, then back at the screen, and

then towards her again. "I guess it ain't a good idea to point out dat this here game is Final Fantasy 9?"

He yelped and dove to the ground just in time to avoid one of Sakura's lit books.

Tomoyo, on the other hand, just smiled sweetly and closed her sketchbook, setting it down upon her

desk. "Why don't I help you with your paperwork?" she suggested, her purple eyes glimmering. "That way,

you can start your paper without having to worry about hall stuff."

"Or, ya know," thought Kero aloud, his game still paused as he smirked up at the long-haired

sophomore, "Sakura COULD stop whinin' and start WORKIN', which would ALSO get stuff done faster."

Unfortunately for Kero, Sakura's favorite stuffed bear was right on the mark, and his reward for

stating the obvious was a mouth full of faux fur.

===

Paper written, one quiz studied for, and hall work finished and turned into Naoko, Sakura stared

idly at the ceiling in her darkened dorm room, listening idly to the tick-tock of her analog alarm clock on

her dresser, the sound both annoying and comforting in her tired ears.

Most nights, the brunette found sleep to be a welcome change of pace from her day-to-day activities,

the night embracing her like a lover would and taking her away from the daily doldrums of her strange and

hectic life. But there were nights in which sleep was a stranger, leaving her alone and staring at the

textured white ceiling, helpless and alone.

This was slowly becoming one of those nights.

How many Clow cards laid, dormant, in the book of Clow that she'd stashed in the bottom drawer of

her dresser, beneath her blue jeans and sweat pants? A quick mental count revealed that, with Sword and

Shield - two cards she'd captured in the week and a half since the fiasco with the Return card - she was

the proud owner of 15 of the, what was it, 50-odd cards that had scattered themselves around campus? That

left two-thirds of the cards still somewhere in the world, able to cause as much trouble as they cared to

until SHE captured them. SHE, a young woman who had once been just a normal college sophomore. SHE, the

cardcaptor. Sakura.

As Kero - or had it been Li? Her sleep-deprived mind failed to sort out who had said what - had

promised early on, her skills were improving. Often, she found herself turning quickly on her heel in response

to a surprise tingling on the air, a tingling that could only be caused by a card passing by. In fact, she

had only discovered Sword when poking through the old supply closet in the rec center; it had hidden itself

amongst a pile of fencing foils. Of course, the clever discovery alone failed to be enough, and only after

being chased by the sharp implement AND dueling against it (using the Staff of Sealing as her weapon) had

she finally been able to restore it to its proper card form.

Li, both fortunately and unfortunately, had been miraculously absent during her blunder-filled battle

with Sword. Come to think of it, he'd been absent during her fairly flawless capture of Shield, too. They

passed each other only rarely on the quad or in the cafeteria, and when they did, neither said anything. They

moved on with their lives, like circles passing over circles, intersecting enough times that they were almost

entwined.

...wasn't there a song like that? "Like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel"? She

frowned and mentally swore to never listen to Tomoyo's stupid jazz CDs ever again.

Could it be that their lives were meant to intertwine in such a way? Sakura rolled onto her side,

curling into her comforter, eyelids uncomfortably heavy. Perhaps she had been meant to open that book,

long before, and perhaps she'd also been destined to meet and work with Li. But then again, it could always

have been one cosmic fluke for which no one was responsible.

A cosmic fluke... Somehow, she trusted those odds a lot more than she trusted the whole destiny

thing.

Not that it mattered. Sleep snuck up on her, stealthily and silently, snuggling into her bed and

wrapping its long arms around her, embracing her, pulling her into the familiar world where there were no

cards, no paperwork, and no worries. A sweet, happy world which she could enjoy and live contentedly in...

if only for a little while.

So exhausted was the captor of the Clow cards that she slept straight through until morning without

any interruption, even when the door opened briefly and then shut, securely locking behind the shadowed

figure creeping out of the room.

===

"Ya know, Sakura," thought Kero aloud as he fluttered just above the brunette's shoulder, munching

cheerily on the last few sticks of pocky from a box he'd found in Tomoyo's closet, "for a gal who dun like

her brother too much, ya sure are goin' outta your way to go see him."

Wednesdays in the life of Sakura Kinomoto tended to be the only truly "slow" days in her usually

busy school week. Of her four classes, only biology and its corresponding lab met on Wednesdays, which

sometimes was a blessing and sometimes, a sin. Biology was, for lack of a better way of putting it, Sakura's

absolutely worst subject on the face of the planet, and she usually dreaded the course more than she

dreaded anything else...including seeing her brother. But the one thing she had to say about the biology

labs she participated in was that they were HARD. Not HARD in a mild way, but hard in the "Holy Hell, I don't

even know what the question is ASKING and now you expect me to ANSWER it based on all the data I collected but

didn't understand?"

For most of the students in Biology 200, then, the laboratory portion of the class instilled dread,

frustration, and confusing in their poor little minds. But for Sakura, the brightest part of the week was

when she found a question she didn't understand. Because, when that inevitable moment of cluelessness

arrived, and the cold hand of confusion gripped at her neck, she was able to pack up everything for her lab

and do the only thing she knew how to do.

Go ask medical school student Yukito Tsukishiro for help!

Making a face at her floating orange plushie, Sakura used the metallic gray mailboxes in the foyer of

her brother's apartment building to check her hair and makeup, just in case the five minute walk from her

dorm had somehow caused her mascara to run. "I don't really care for Touya, but YUKI is a biological god," she

argued, finger-combing her pigtails before starting up the stairs in pairs. "He always helps me with my

homework, and is sweet and supportive and - "

"Flamin'." Keroberos ducked underneath the hand that was aimed towards him, and laughed as Sakura

tossed her hair and continued up the stairs, her expression more dour now than it had been the day before when

he had been target practice for her rather poor attempts at throwing. "Sakura, ya gotta realize that this

guy ain't acceptin' positively charged ions." He grinned at his own joke, a toothy smile that was marred a

bit by bits of chocolate icing from the pocky. "Dat was a good one. A chem joke ta go with your bio thing."

The brunette summarily ignored the plushie, knocking loudly on the door to apartment 4F. She frowned

when she realized that "Coming!" had been hollered by her brother and NOT Yukito, but she didn't allow that

to bother her. Instead, she smiled charmingly and waited.

Kero wrinkled his nose and crossed his little arms over his chest, giving up on flying circles around

her head as he perched on her shoulder. "I should call ya 'Cleopatra,'" he snorted, receiving an annoyed glare

from green eyes. "Ya are, after all, da queen of DENIAL."

Amazingly annoyed, Sakura was just about to give up on ignoring the guardian beast's existence when

the door opened to reveal her brother, wearing nothing more than a towel around his waist. His dark eyes

lowered in her direction as she took a baby step back, surprised at his state of undress. "What are you doing

back here already?" he questioned, voice not gruff so much as it was surprised. "Left something over here

when you committed that drive-by rape of my roommate?"

"HOE?!" If Sakura had been simply annoyed at Kero, her brother's question - whatever the Hell

it meant in the first place - drove her right over the barrier of annoyed and into the territory of angry,

and the sudden change in her expression from charming to satanic proved this. "Drive-by WHAT? And where the

Hell do you get off thinking that I've already been here today?"

"It could be because you were already here." Touya leaned heavily against the doorjamb, his dark

hair damp enough to drip onto his nose, leaving him to wipe away the moisture with a hasty hand. "You came

in and, when Yuki answered, grabbed him and tried to kiss him. Or so he told me, anyway." He shrugged slightly,

conveniently not noticing that his sister's face had turned BRIGHT PINK at this revelation. "What you were

thinking, I don't know, but you ran off when he pushed you away. Typical spazzy behavior from the monster,

if you ask me."

Sakura tried to say something - anything - in response, but her first two attempts left her simply

squawking, her voice helplessly stuck in the back of her throat as she gaped up at her sibling. Then, pausing

to take a deep breath, she tried again, and, as luck would have it, the third time was the charm. "I did

WHAT?!" she blurted, her voice cracking. Touya blinked at her, his brow furrowing, as she threw up her hands

in defeat. "Well, great. That's just GREAT! Some look-alike of mine not only shows up HERE, of ALL places,

but then SHE gets closer to kissing MY Yukito than I have EVER gotten!" The words poured too quickly from her

lips for her to stop them, and it was only after her sentence finished up that she came to the shocking - and

completely EMBARRASSING - realization of what exactly she had said. Her cheeks warmed, and she didn't need

the mirror-shiny mailboxes in the building's foyer to tell her that she was blushing. "Uhm... I mean...

Well..... Gotta go, bye!"

She didn't doubt that Touya was still staring at her even as she careened down the stairs at a

breakneck pace, her death grip on the banister the only thing keeping her from tumbling face-first down them.

Kero hardly waited until they were past the third floor landing to question his charge. "What da HELL was

THAT?!" he demanded impatiently, flapping his wings madly in order to simply keep up with her. "Sakura, what

was your brother talkin' 'bout? I thought ya had class and lab all day!"

"I DID," she responded breathlessly, allowing herself only to slow from her red-cheeked run when she'd

reached the sidewalk outside the building. Collapsing onto a park bench just beyond the building's main

door, she sighed and shook her head. "I don't get it. Why would Touya think that I'd already been there

today? I mean, he's stooped to some pretty INCREDIBLE lows, but he wouldn't make something like that up."

She chewed pensively on a fingernail, staring at her hovering plush toy with careful green eyes. "Something

funny is going on here, and - "

"Kinomoto." It was not a question or a greeting more than a statement of fact, and she was surprised -

and also somehow not surprised - to see Shao-Lang Li walking up to the bench, backpack in tow. "You feel it?"

"If this is about a card, I don't want to hear it, Li," she spat, hopping to her feet and staring

down the sidewalk, Hell-bent on pushing past him and moving on with her life. "I've had enough weird

happenings today, so I do NOT want to deal with your Clow card deja vu. Yes, I feel something, but - "

He grasped her arm - hard, too - as she tried to press by him, and she snapped her head around to look

up at him. "Are you aware of the fact that, even as we speak, you are also in the Union, eating French fries

and reading one of your text books?" Her glower faded, and he nodded slightly, his brown eyes neither angry

or annoyed, but simply even. Apathetic. Alert. "You are also out jogging, and I have a strange feeling that

you're in your dorm room right now, too."

For a moment, her shocked look overwhelmed all the other expressions in her repertoire, and then Sakura

huffed and tugged her arm from his grip. "For someone who thinks he's SO smart, you sure are a unique new

brand of RETARD," she shot, scowling up at him. "There is only ONE Sakura Kinomoto, and she is RIGHT HERE.

If the ONLY one is right here, then there can't be two or three OTHER Sakura Kinomotos, now CAN there?"

"Uh, actually, 'Kura," began Kero helpfully, holding up a paw, "with the Clow cards bein' as they - "

"You stay out of this!" the duo of brown-haired cardcaptors shouted, and the guardian of the Clow

slunk backwards as they yelled, ears and wings tucked down in the defensive position.

The arguing resumed, loudly echoing through the rather tepid fall day, and Kero sighed and shook his

head. "Ya know," he commented to himself pensively, glancing towards the sky as he spoke, "they would really

be the perfect couple if they didn't hate each other so darn much."

===

All things considered, Sakura had never expected Li to be RIGHT.

His news that there was more than one copy of her running around campus had, at least initially,

come as a shock. It remained a shock even after she pushed past him and skulked down the sidewalk with

Kero - pouting after being shouted at - following docilely behind. She wrote off the Sakura at her brother's

apartment (if it had really been a Sakura at all) as a fluke, a folly, something random and unaccounted for.

THAT could be ignored, and, if necessary, dealt with.

Running into herself four times en route to her dormitory, however, could NOT.

The first Sakura she saw sat sweetly under a tree. She didn't read, or write, or nap, no; she just

sat there in a long, flowing blue kimono, staring out into the quad with a cute little smile on her face.

That was it. Didn't say or do ANYTHING, and Sakura could not be sure if she thought that that fact alone

was good or bad.

Her second clone, if the other Sakuras could really be called that, was dressed in a bikini and

sunbathing on the sidewalk that lead up to the library. Now this, the original Sakura had to admit, was a

bit weird. And by a "bit" weird, she meant EXTREMELY weird. Especially considering the fact that - while

she (the original) could not get a date to save her LIFE - males kept walking up to the sunbathing Sakura

and engaging her in conversation. Or at least trying to; as far as the cardcaptor could tell, her soon-to-be-

sun burnt twin refused to respond.

Of course, a sunbather and a traditional-looking Japanese rendition of herself were just not enough

for the world to toss her way, nooooooo. Sitting in the TV lounge was Sakura Number 3, wearing a New York

Yankees jersey with spandex shorts and watching the season recap special on ESPN. The real Sakura scowled

at her sports-viewing counterpart, slightly disturbed that her CLONE got to watch the season special in real

time while she herself was forced to tape it in order to get work done.

And then, she realized that the fact she was jealous at ALL of some sort of strange supernatural

echo of herself was far more disturbing than missing the program in the first place.

A trip to her floor's community-style bathroom revealed the fourth and final Sakura, who was soaking

in a bathtub full of bubbles, her hair twisted in a towel and eyes lulled closed as she relaxed. Frowning,

the REAL Sakura - though she was beginning to have her doubts about whether or not she was all that real

in the first place - tiptoed out of the bathroom, down the hall, and then snaked into her room, hardly noticed

by Tomoyo even as she closed and locked the door behind her.

What DID get her roommate's attention, however, was her grabbing the still-sulking Keroberos by

the neck and shaking him roughly while screaming "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!?!"

"Lemme...go...an'...I'll...tell...ya..." choked the plushie, and - after a roar of abject disgust -

Sakura threw him to the floor in frustration, making quite the show of throwing herself, face-down, onto

her bed. Kero groaned as he clambered to his little feet and sighed, fists resting on what would have been

his hips, had he had hips at all. "It's a Clow Card," he informed his charge sternly.

"No SHIT, Sherlock!" snapped the brunette, irritated. She rolled onto her side for what appeared to be

the express purpose of glowering down at him. "Tell me, do you have any OTHER amazing revelations for me,

or is that it? Because that was just a beacon of light to my darkness, Kero! It REALLY was!"

As her roommate returned to hollering curse words into her pillow, Tomoyo cocked her head to the side

and glanced towards the orange creature in the center of their floor. "Uhm, either I missed a memo, or

something WEIRD is going on here. What happened?"

"Eh, a card's doin' some weird shit," Kero informed her with a half-shrug, fluttering up to perch on

the edge of her computer monitor. "Somethin' is mass-producin' Sakuras all over the place, and the REAL

Sakura's gettin' all fritzed...out...'bout..." He blinked his black beads of eyes, glancing down not at the

keyboard or mouse but at Tomoyo's sketchbook, which laid open atop a stack of books. "Tomoyo, were you drawin'

Sakura in a tub full of bubbles right now?"

The dark-haired girl nodded slightly, picking up the sketchbook to show the guardian beast. "I've

been working on sketches of her to incorporate into my video journalism project," she informed him, flicking

through the pages as she spoke. "I've got Sakura sunbathing, Sakura jogging, Sakura watching the Yankees,

Sakura in the Union..." She was so engrossed in showing off her drawings that she didn't notice her roommate

rising from her bed and leaning over her shoulder to see the sketches. "Here's my favorite - Sakura and

Yukito in a PASSIONATE embrace. I was just Photoshopping it today when - " She paused as she glanced up

towards her best friend, frowning. "Sakura, why is your face all white?"

"Goddamn, Li was RIGHT!" In a flash, the brunette was up and halfway across the room, digging through

her dresser drawer for the Book of Clow. "It IS a card! The Create card!"

"VERY good, Sakura. Ya got me impressed!" Kero's praise fell on deaf ears as his ward shoved the

already-captured cards into her backmost jeans pocket and stuffed the book back into her drawer. "Now, for

this one, you gotta capture the creature created at the beginnin' of the book."

There was the fluttering of paper as the video journalist paused from collecting her camera supplies

to flip to the first page in her book. "I drew the jogging Sakura, first," she informed them, turning the

tome around so the duo could get a good look at the fairly bare-bones drawing of her best friend running

along what appeared to be a little stream. "So I guess that's the one you need to go after, right?"

"Right!" announced Sakura, slipping on her running shoes - it seemed that her look-alikes, like

Barbies, came complete with their necessary accessories - and tying them rather hastily. "Let's move!"

"GAH! No! WAIT!" called Tomoyo, struggling to snap her vid disc into its appropriate place, her fingers

fumbling as she watched the cardcaptor and her guardian beast head towards the door. "I'm almost ready!

Wait for - "

There was a slam as the door shut behind them, and her frantic expression turned sad as she stared

at the closed panel of wood between herself and the hallway.

" - me..."

===

The chase was on.

Three pairs of footfalls stumbled through the ravine, crashing through underbrush and dead leaves

loudly enough to wake the dead. Beside the tiny path that had been lovingly beaten out by a long-time runner,

a creek babbled and gurgled, a strange soundtrack to the huffing and puffing of three college students

crashing through a ravine.

Well, two college students...and one Clow card.

"She's sure as Hell faster than I am," gasped Sakura as she hopped over an exposed root, nearly

losing her balance as she raced through the slowly-darkening forest, the sky above them the tell-tale orangey-

pink of early evening. Her faltering footsteps allowed her a peak out of the corner of her eye at Li, who -

despite being weighted down by his backpack - managed to keep pace rather well, his longer legs an advantage

as they pressed onward.

The Create card's version of Sakura hung a quick left at the large oak tree that split the creek

in two, starting up the hill as fast as her legs could carry her. The brush off the homemade path was thicker

and the leaves that had fallen from the autumn trees were still loose, slowing their ascent up the steep

hill. "Once she gets up there, we're SCREWED!" shouted Kero, wings frantically fluttering in a pathetic

attempt to keep up with the others; he panted between words and struggled to keep pace with the duo of

college students. "We can't be seen on the main campus! Do SOMETHIN', Sakura!"

Glancing back towards the Clow guardian, the brunette nodded quickly and reached back into her

pocket, tugging out the first card she could gain any sort of purchase on - the Jump. "Jump!" she announced,

pausing just long enough to throw the card out in front of her. "Let me hop up the slope!"

Wings sprouted from her tennis shoes as soon as the bird head of the Staff of Sealing came down on

the face of the card, and before she really knew what was happening, she was leaping up the side of the

ravine, covering three times the distance that one normal stride would have taken her. Her artificial

likeness pressed onward, showing no sign of fatigue, and didn't even bother looking back even as her pursuer

leapt in her direction. Behind her, Shao-Lang slowed to a walk, doubling over to catch his breath as Kero

flapped weakly to a stop beside him. Sakura watched them idly for a moment and then set herself resolutely

towards her goal; if she couldn't catch the card, now, no one could.

The jogging Sakura-clone was now only ten feet ahead, and her real counterpart summoned all her

strength to launch herself high into the air, pulling the staff behind her head, ready to bring it down on

the card. "Return to thy true form!" she commanded, and - for the first time - the card turned around to look

at her, wide-eyed, appearing more frightened than anything else. "Clow CARD!"

Sakura found herself suspended in midair above where the card had been standing, the familiar

magical energy that came with capturing a Clow card swirling and twisting around her body as she kept her

white-knuckled grip on the Staff of Sealing, knowing that, all too soon, it would end and she would fall the

final ten-odd feet to the ground. The first time the magic of the Clow card had released and allowed

gravity to take its course, she'd been wholly unprepared and nearly plummeted off the roof of the old

gymnasium building. But she knew better, now. She was prepared for the impact that occurred when the magic

released her, and adjusted accordingly.

What she was NOT prepared for was her ankle making a blood-curdling CRACK-ing noise when she did

hit the ground.

"OW!" Tears burned her eyes as she stumbled backwards in pain, her rear end slamming hard against the

uneven ground. She clutched her right ankle as a reflex, but grabbing it just made the pain grow worse,

and her bleary eyes managed to catch a surprising sight as the number of tears increased: her ankle was

already swollen to twice its size. "Li! Kero! ANYONE!"

"What's wrong?" Kero appeared more a bolt of orange than a discernable shape as he zipped towards

her, his wings fluttering so quickly that they were cream-colored blurs above his back. Sakura weakly

let go of her ankle, showing it to him, and he only needed one glance before his eyes bugged out of their

sockets...or, more appropriately, OFF of their threads. "Holy crap! Lookat the SIZE of that thing! I've only

ever seen GRAPEFRUIT dat size!"

The brunette tried to glower at him, but found that the pain was too much and all she could produce

remained to be a helpless, teary-eyed frown. "I think it's broken," she moaned, so engrossed in her injury

that she didn't notice Li's gradual approach up the hill. "I heard it crack when I landed on it, and - "

"Hold still." Li's voice was even and she had not been expecting to hear it, watching in surprise as

he bent down and carefully began to untie her shoe. Unfortunately, the knot was stubborn and, when he tugged

too hard in an attempt to undo it, the motion jarred her ankle and sent her into a shrieking fit. "Stop

that!" he commanded. His fingers nimbly finished undoing the laces and removed her shoe, a certain foreign

gentleness to his touch. She did stop shrieking, at least after a moment, and stared at him, wide-eyed, as

he prodded the swollen skin softly through her sock. "If it's not broken, then it's very badly sprained,"

he informed her, brown eyes meeting teary green ones. Sakura flushed and glanced away, raking her hands across

her face to dry her tears. "Plushie, go tell Daidouji that I took her roommate to the campus doctor, alright?"

Kero's black eyes lowered to slits. "PLUSHIE? Ya callin' ME a plushie, kiddo?! Why, I oughta - "

"GO." The young man's glower was so intense that the winged creature immediately stopped in mid-rant,

swallowing hard enough for his little stuffed Adam's Apple to be visible. For a few seconds, he looked ready

to protest, but then he frowned and nodded docilely. As he fluttered off, Li crouched down and looked

Sakura in the eye. "Do you think you can hobble at all?" he questioned, offering her a helping hand.

Nodding weakly, the brunette grasped his wrist and, putting all her weight on her left ankle, pulled

herself up...or at least attempted to. Her footing on the uneven ground faltered and it was only a strong

arm from her companion snaking around her waist that kept her from falling back onto her posterior. "I'm

sorry," she apologized meekly, more-or-less laying on his arm as he stared down at her. There was concern in

his expression, something she wasn't used to seeing, and Naoko's comment, weeks ago, echoed once again in

her mind: he really WAS an attractive young man. But he was a VIPER, she reminded herself stubbornly as

neither of them moved, the forest seeming to grow darker by the moment as they stood, motionless, on the

steep slope of the ravine. Maybe he ACTED concerned, but under it all, he still was -

A "Hoe!" of surprise echoed through the ravine as Shao-Lang reached down and swept her into his

arms, one arm supporting her by her middle back while the other held under her knees. "This is just until

we get to more even ground," he informed her gruffly, staring straight ahead as he slowly began his ascent

up the side of the ravine and towards the main campus. Her cheeks warmed and she glanced away, embarrassed;

of all the possible scenarios that she could have come up with, being carried up the ravine like a bride

through the doorway and into her new home had not been one of them. "If you walk on it, it could get worse."

She nodded and pursed her lips, still staring out at all the trees and brush throughout the ravine.

"I know that," she informed him weakly, peering at him from the corner of her eye. As always, he was

facing forward, jaw set and expression serious, never shifting. She sighed and wrinkled her nose,

resigning herself to staring dully into space. After all, what more could she say?

They were almost all the way at the top of the ravine when what she COULD - and should - say

finally came to her mind, and she managed to smile while saying it.

"Hey, Li?"

"Hn."

"Thank you."

===

Sakura Kinomoto struggled to hobble across the dorm room, hopping clumsily on her left foot as she

tried to reach her desk from her bed without her crutches. "Hoe..." she groaned, nearly falling over before

she was even halfway across the tiled floor, her sock slipping with every movement. "Figures that I break my

GOOD ankle."

"Figures that you break your GOOD ankle while living on the THIRD floor in the dorm furthest from

all the main campus buildings," put in Tomoyo, her voice helpful until she realized that her best friend was

not amused by her statement of the obvious. "Uhm, I mean, damn your luck." She forced a charming smile and

turned back to her computer, fingers flying across the keyboard. "Damn it to all Hell!"

"I think it's kinda funny," volunteered Keroberos with a grin, not looking up from his video game

as he spoke. "Da cardcaptor's a klutz, how's about that?"

The brunette sighed as she collapsed into her desk chair, propping her ankle and its corresponding

pink cast up on their garbage can, which had been overturned to serve as a stool for her injury. The campus

doctor had scolded her for running in the ravine, reminding her that it was a dangerous place with many

exposed roots and divots to trip in. She'd taken his scolding with as much grace and dignity as she could,

but taking the news that she would have to stay off her ankle for four weeks was another story entirely.

It was a hairline fracture, he'd pointed out, and that meant that any pressure she put on the broken bone

would make it WORSE instead of better. She was tempted to argue that the captor of the Clow cards really

couldn't AFFORD to be laid up for four weeks, but Tomoyo and Shao-Lang had restrained her from throttling

the older man before thanking him for his time and dragging her off to the hospital to get her ankle set.

Shao-Lang. As her computer beeped and buzzed, informing her that it planned to take its sweet time

booting up, she rested her chin on a fist and allowed herself to ponder the mysterious Shao-Lang Li. Despite

the fact that he'd been an absolute prince when she'd broken her ankle, she still was forced to wonder if

he wasn't a victim of multiple personality disorder; since Wednesday, he'd been gruff and short with her,

and that was only when she initiated communication. Otherwise, he never even stopped to remind her that she

was a pathetic cardcaptor, and that worried her. What was going on with him?

The air tingled with the power of a Clow card every day. The overcast skies loomed heavily above

campus, threatening the students with rain and wind but never following through. And with those overcast

skies came the threat of another Clow card, possibly one that would strike while she was still out of

commission. What then?

She was just about to type in her password to sign onto the network when a knock sounded at the

door, and she frowned. Hadn't Chiharu and the others just left ten or fifteen minutes earlier to take the

new student, May Lynn, out for coffee? And if they were out, then who -

"Come in!" called Tomoyo, and Sakura whirled around to see her roommate laying on the floor, flipping

through an Ultimate X-Men comic book. Noticing the green eyes glowered in her direction, she shrugged

nonchalantly, even as a tall, dark-haired young man strode into the room and closed the door hastily behind

him. "What?" she asked innocently, and her friend sighed, turning back towards her computer...and noticing

for the first time who their visitor was.

Shao-Lang Li didn't smile, but then again, he didn't really frown, either. Instead, he strode

across the room and seated himself on the edge of Sakura's bed. "Can I talk to you?" he questioned dryly in

his normal, matter-of-fact manner.

Resisting her urge to throw something blunt at the uninvited guest, Sakura tossed her head and focused

on her computer. "If you want," she replied, finding herself growing more and more interested in reading her

school-sponsored spam e-mails than actually speaking to Li. "After all, you're here and making yourself

comfortable, so why shouldn't you talk to me?"

His brown eyes narrowed as she opened a blank e-mail document and started typing something or another;

from his position, he couldn't read that she was typing "MAKE LI GO AWAY" over and over again. "Are you

alright?" he questioned, and she could hear caution in his voice, caution that happened to lack any and all

actual CONCERN. "You seem upset."

"Oh, REALLY?" She spun around as much as she could on her chair, somehow very irate with him. How

could he not even CALL to check up on her after being sweet enough to carry her up the ravine, take her to

the campus doctor, and THEN drive her all the way to the hospital to get her ankle set? "WhatEVER gave you

that idea?"

Li frowned slightly and fidgeted, uncomfortable. "Whatever the case," he pressed on, the unconcerned

expression returning after only a brief moment, "I wanted to tell you that I have a feeling something big

is - "

"Big like your ego?" The question escaped from her lips before she could stop it, and somehow,

she felt that her wrath was well-placed and pressed on, not even noticing that Kero and Tomoyo were both

GAPING at her with wide eyes. "Or big like you seem to think your little pencil d - "

"Hey now, kids!" Tomoyo clambered from her laying position to kneel, her arms crossed over her

"1 15 73|-| |337357" sweatshirt. "Let's keep this little hissy-fit Nelvana-dub approved, shall we?"

Surprisingly, both Li and Sakura turned to glare at her. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" they snapped in a

surprising unison.

The bickering resumed as Shao-Lang began to demand that the young brunette woman take her Midol and

allow him to actually finish a sentence, and the dark-haired girl in the middle of the floor sighed and

shook her head. "They would be the perfect couple if they didn't hate each other," she lamented, reopening

her comic book. "Wouldn't you say so, Kero?"

"I'ma BIG fan of weddin' cake," he shrugged, returning to his game. "I wanna be invited to the weddin',

just for da cake."

Tomoyo was fairly certain that Kero had said something else after his wedding cake comment, but she

was unable to hear it due to the fact that her roommate was now screaming "GET OUT!" at the top of her lungs.

Purple eyes looked away from her comic to see a sight that rode the fine line between amusing and pathetic;

Sakura had taken one of her crutches from beside her desk and was using it to prod and poke at her adversary

towards the door. "OUT, OUT, OUT!" she demanded, following him on her one good foot as she attempted to

force him towards the door with the rubber end of her crutch. "OUT!"

Of course, Sakura Kinomoto was not the type of person to have amazingly good luck in life. In fact,

if her becoming the cardcaptor and then breaking her ankle in the process of capturing a card was any

indication - and she definitely counted it as an indication - then she had just about the worst luck in the

universe. And, as it would happen, her luck did not get BETTER as she tried to force Li from the room, not

at all.

It got WORSE.

Now, the door beginning to open on its own accord was not, in and of itself, bad luck. What WAS bad

luck was that Li had been reaching towards the doorknob just as the door began to open. Surprised, he took a

long step back and, in the process, managed to smack into Sakura, who shrieked and then, true to her clumsy

form, managed to utterly lose her balance. Shao-Lang wiped around on his heel in a sorry attempt to catch

her, but it was too late; he and Sakura stumbled backwards to land on the floor just as the door finished

opening.

"Touya and Yukito! What a SURPRISE!" grinned Tomoyo merrily, hopping to her feet and "accidentally"

kicking Kero underneath her own bed as she greeted the two young men in the doorway. Both were frozen like

deer in headlights, and not even the charming smile of the dark-haired nineteen-year-old could snap them out

of it. "Can I offer you a can of diet lemonade? Or perhaps a Vanilla Coke?"

Neither of their visitors responded, and - after a moment of just kind of glancing, concerned, in

their direction - Tomoyo realized that their eyes were not focused anywhere near her but rather on the floor.

So, she did the only thing she could really coherently think of and followed their gazes...and had to bite

her lower lip HARD to keep from falling over, laughing.

Sakura and Shao-Lang laid together on the floor. His knee was between her legs, one of his arms

trapped under her waist as the other propped him up, keeping him from completely laying on her. Sakura's

arms were on his chest, as though they were about to push him away, yet instead of actually MOVING, the two

were simply staring at each other, wide-eyed and somewhat flushed.

But then, as though a spark had been ignited, Sakura's mental processes caught up with the rest of

the goings-on, and she, for the first time, realized what her roommate had just said. "TOUYA?" she shrieked,

immediately pushing out her arms until Li took the hint and crawled slowly off of her. "Touya, Touya, don't

say it, I can - "

"A boy, eh?" The dark-haired man's eyes lowered to a glare as he entered the room, a blinking Yukito

following dully behind him, as though he wasn't exactly sure what to say to the entire situation at hand.

"I THOUGHT the rule was that you had to tell Dad if and when you found a boyfriend. Tell me, were you planning

on telling anyone?"

He plopped himself down on the edge of the bed, watching with bright eyes as his younger sister

struggled to her feet with a bit of help from her earlier "weapon" of a crutch. "I... He... THAT is not

my boyfriend!" she stammered, pointing a trembling finger at Li, who was still sitting on the floor. "THAT

is a PEST!"

As he moved to sit next to his long-time roommate, Yukito smiled sweetly and winked a brown eye in

the teen's direction. "He sure looks like your boyfriend, Sakura," he pointed out, leaning back on his

elbows as he spoke. "Not that it's any of my business, but I thought I would point that out."

Any OTHER time, Sakura would have been DELIGHTED to see the dusty-haired man flirting with her as

he was right then, but currently, her only thoughts focused on convincing them that she was not involved

with stupid, arrogant Shao-Lang Li. "I'm SERIOUS!" she insisted, leaning heavily on her crutch. "He's

nothing more than a STUPID - "

"What's your name, boy?" Touya's tone was suddenly serious, and his younger sister smacked herself,

HARD, in the forehead as she realized what the change in tone MEANT. It was the tone that had, since the

ninth grade, been exclusively reserved for the boys she brought home to meet the family, and it was the

tone that was always lovingly accompanied by Touya's Glare of Death. "Where are you from?"

Still seated on the floor, the brown-haired boy did exactly what Sakura expected him to do; he

shrugged and glanced away. "What's it to you?" he demanded. "Do you REALLY think that I'm fooling around with

your sister?"

Stomping her bad foot on the carpeting - and then regretting the move as soon as she did so -

Sakura glowered down at her brother, who was in turn glowering at Li. "TOUYA, STOP IT!" she insisted,

her fists clenching in anger. "He is NOT my boyfriend, okay?! CUT IT OUT!"

"His name is Li," Tomoyo informed them nonchalantly, sipping a Vanilla Coke as she spoke. Yukito

politely requested a diet lemonade as everyone - including the previously-glaring Kinomoto siblings - turned

to gape at her, and she strode over to the fridge to fill his order. "Shao-Lang Li, actually. He comes

from Hong Kong and is new to the college."

Her best friend whimpered weakly. "Tomoyo..." she pleaded. "PLEASE..."

"And they're not REALLY dating," the long-haired one pressed on, handing Yukito his beverage. "In

fact, they're hardly friends. But I would have to say that they would be VERY good together if they would

just stop fighting all the time."

Tossing his dark hair, Touya turned back towards Li, watching as the young man shifted uncomfortably

and crossed his arms over his chest. "Tell me, Shao-Lang - if given the chance - would you make lo - "

"NO!" Sakura's eyes pressed shut in gross annoyance as she cupped her hands over her ears, not at

ALL caring to hear the rest of her brother's question. "I am NOT doing this! It's just NOT happening!"

Dropping her crutch with a clatter, she took one hand away from her ears long enough to point a firm finger

towards the door. "OUT!" she commanded, voice cracking. "OUT, OUT, OUT!"

Sighing, her brother rolled his dark eyes. "Sakura, I'm just making sure that - "

"You are NOT!" she shot back, the annoyance in her voice obviously. "You are just very simply NOT!

You are getting OUT, and NOW!" Hopping over to the bed, she grabbed him by his polo shirt and began to tug,

HARD, at it. "OUT! OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!!!"

Touya climbed slowly to his feet only to have his sister move to behind him and push him, HARD,

towards the doorway. "Sakura, I didn't mean to cause - "

Her chorus of "out out out!" echoed through the room as Yukito glanced down at Tomoyo and gave her a

small nod. "Thank you for the lemonade," he smiled, patting her on the shoulder. "Next time, we'll stay

longer, alright?"

If Sakura hadn't been so busy forcing her brother out of her dorm room (and, miraculously, on only

one foot!), she would have noticed Chiharu, Naoko, Rika, and a fourth girl heading towards her room armed

with two carry-out coffees. And she would have noticed the surprise on their faces, as well. But she noticed

nothing except the back of her brother's navy blue shirt as she continued to push him, stumbling as he stepped

out of her way and left her to skid into the hall. "LEAVE!" she shouted, almost as though she was not aware

that he was actually outside her room at this point. "Get OUT, and get out N - "

"Sakura! Perfect!" grinned Naoko, and the brunette girl blinked as she, for the very first time,

noticed her friends from the hallway standing outside her door. "Sakura, I would like to introduce you to

May Lynn Li, who just moved into the single down the hall. May Lynn, this is Sakura Kinomoto, and - oh! Her

brother Touya and his roommate, Yukito Tsukishiro. They're both graduate students and live just off campus."

May Lynn was, for all intents and purposes (and to Sakura's surprise), a very attractive young woman.

Her long, dark hair was pulled up and back into two long ponytails fastened by big red ribbons. Her dark

brown eyes twinkled as she bowed politely towards the befuddled brunette. "I am pleased to meet you," she

greeted, and Sakura frowned slightly. Why was the new girl's accent so very familiar-sounding?

"Uhm, well, it's nice to meet you, too," she bowed back, searching for something - anything - else

to say. Then, she remembered that her brother was looming behind her and made a face, glancing back at him

with sharp eyes. "But don't bother being glad to meet Touya. He was JUST LEAVING."

Snorting, her brother pressed past her to offer a hand to the blinking May Lynn, who shook it limply.

"Nonsense," he replied pleasantly enough. "You shouldn't listen to my little monster. It's always a pleasure

to meet someone else who must be perpetually tortured by her continued existence on this planet."

As the foursome of girls giggled at Touya's faux-charming behavior, Yukito sighed and shook his

head. "Touya..." he groaned. "You should really - "

"Hi, May Lynn!" chimed up another voice, and Tomoyo bounced out of the open doorway, grinning. "I'm

Tomoyo!"

"Sakura's roommate," clarified Chiharu as she handed Tomoyo one of the cups of carry-out coffee she

was holding. "She's one of the two we bought coffee for."

May Lynn bowed again, and Sakura frowned. Bowing... Who else bowed? "Hello."

Rika looked ready to say something or another when Shao-Lang appeared in the doorway, his dark

eyes sharp as he glowered towards the cardcaptor in the hallway. "Well, since I am no more welcome here

than your brother," he addressed her gruffly, "I think I will...be... Oh shit."

"SHAO-LANG!" Suddenly, May Lynn's polite tone disappeared and she out-and-out launched herself at

the dark-haired young man, sending him staggering backwards as she hugged him hard around the neck. He

choked and barely managed to keep his balance, coughing. "Your mother told me you were studying here, and

that's why I came! Now we can have a big AMERICAN wedding, just like I've always DREAMED of! Isn't that

WONDERFUL?!"

Seven pairs of eyes blinked at the somewhat unlikely couple, and somehow, Sakura managed to squeak

out the exact sentiment that everyone in the hallway was thinking: "W-w-w-w-wedding?!"

Sighing, Yukito took a swig of his beverage and glanced down at the brunette's roommate. "This really

is surprising," he put in, voice soft as it always was. "I really thought that Touya was right about him

being Sakura's beau."

Purple eyes glanced carefully up at him as Tomoyo's expression turned quite dubious. "You've

never been in the same room as the two of them for very long, have you?"

Li struggled with his supposed fiancée's death grip, trying desperately to free himself and failing

rather miserably. "We're not really engaged!" he protested stubbornly, shaking his arm in a failing attempt

to free himself. "She's my COUSIN!"

Frowning, Touya ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "They allow that in Hong Kong?"

Chiharu took a long swig from the other cup of coffee she was holding despite the fact that she'd

originally bought it for her invalid neighbor. "And here, I thought that kind of thing was only legal in

Tennessee..."

"It is!" Shao-Lang frowned at his answer, especially since Rika was now shooting him the mother of

all evil looks. "I mean, no! It's just that she THINKS that - "

"And we'll be together forever and ever and EVER!" No one had noticed that May Lynn was still

babbling until her voice rose in a crescendo that overwhelmed Li's protests. "We'll buy an American house

with a white picket fence and everything will be WONDERFUL!"

Sighing, the young man admitted defeat and hung his head helplessly.

Sakura, who had been chewing on her fingernails ever since she'd blurted out the helpless exclamation

of "wedding?!", frowned slightly and withdrew her fingers from her mouth. "But wait," she considered aloud,

glancing towards her hall advisor carefully. "If she's this Li's cousin, her last name has to be L-I, and

not L-E-E like on all the paperwork."

"It is," pointed out the male Li helpfully, frowning slightly. "Her name is Mei-Lin Li." Everyone

glanced towards him, and he sighed. "M-E-I hyphen L-I-N," he clarified, spelling out every letter carefully.

"What, were you all spelling it in some sort of crazy American way?"

Sighing, Naoko shook her head. "Sakura, you'll have to redo all the paperwork tomorrow," she informed

her neighbor. "There will be major trouble if all the documentation has the wrong name on it."

"ME?!" Sakura's voice was nothing more than a squeak as she gaped at the glassed sophomore. "ME?!

It's YOUR friggin' clerical error! YOU deal with it!"

Sighing, Tomoyo shook her head as she listened to the assistant hall advisor break into bickering

with her boss, smiling slightly. "It's going to be a loooong night," she thought aloud before taking her

coffee and pressing past Shao-Lang and his affectionate cousin, closing and locking the door behind her.

===

"I just don't believe it, is all!" complained Sakura - and loudly, too, realized her roommate with

a soft sigh - as she hobbled down the wet campus sidewalk, her good foot sloshing through puddles while her

bad one, complete with a Wal-Mart bag for a cast cover, hung limply behind her. "That VIPER of a guy has a

fiancée? What is the world coming to, Tomoyo?"

As if the annoyances of Saturday night had been an omen for things going from bad to worse, the skies

had practically burst late that night, the walls of their dorm room shuddering with every clap of thunder and

the thick draperies serving as no protection from the bright flashes of lightning that lit up the night sky.

Unfortunately, the rain had not let up as all the weathermen on all the television channels had suggested it

would, the dark, thick clouds continually hanging over campus and leaving it rain-soaked. Worse - and despite

the fact that she would never ADMIT to it even if asked - Sakura could feel that the air tingled with the magic

of the Clow, and she knew intuitively that it was only a matter of time before another card would appear. Oh,

what fun THAT would be, running through campus on CRUTCHES to catch a goddamned -

"If I didn't know better," quipped her roommate, lowering her video camera for a moment, "I would have

to say that you were jealous." Green eyes lowered in her direction, and she chuckled oh-so-innocently, returning

to her task of gathering "super-cute Sakura-on-crutches footage". "But as I said, I know better."

"You'd better," muttered the brunette sophomore, glancing up at the thick cloud cover, every step

splashing through the puddles as she sulked her way back towards her dorm building. Life, she decided with an

irritated sigh, just wasn't in the mood to cut her ANY slack, and -

There was a stirring in her jacket pocket, and she was surprised to see Kero pop out of it. He carefully

surveyed the area for nearby strangers and, upon seeing no one stranger than Tomoyo, sighed in relief. "Hey,"

he called up to the cardcaptor, who had turned away and returned to resolutely attempting to make it from the

main campus and to her dorm room without incident, "do ya sense it?"

The natural response was simple enough, though the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was not.

"Sense what, exactly?"

Rolling his eyes, the guardian beast of the Clow fluttered from her pocket, moving to perch on her

shoulder. "A CARD," he stressed. "There's gotta be a CARD 'round these parts. Can't ya FEEL it?"

She stopped dead in her tracks, sighing. What was the point? Even were she not on crutches, she was now

obviously a one-person team of card-catching; Shao-Lang had left in such a huff Saturday night, Mei-Lin following

him like an obedient puppy, that she had thoroughly convinced herself that she would never see him again. And

as much as she'd convinced herself that never seeing him again was a GOOD thing, well -

"Well, can you?" Sakura's eyes widened as she realized that there were a pair of sneakers standing on

the particular patch of sidewalk she was staring blankly at, a pair of sneakers that were attached to legs and

arms. Li shifted the weight of the umbrella from one hand to another, smiling slightly. "Because if you can't,

you're even more pathetic a cardcaptor than I figured you to be."

Sakura glowered at him, though it was mostly a playful change in expression, and was about to protest

when a shout of "SHAO-LANG" echoed through the quad and all attention was drawn towards a rain-soaked oriental

girl who was running across the grassy knoll while waving frantically. "Shao-Lang, you are SO MEAN!" Mei-Lin

protested, her hands on her hips as she struggled for breath, panting from her little cross-quad run. "I tell

you I'm going to the bathroom and you just LEAVE? How rude is - oh, Kinomoto! And Daidouji, as well!" She bowed

slightly, and the brunette struggled with her crutches to bow back, not completely sure why she was bowing in

the first place. "It's nice to see you again. I hope everything was sorted out by the time you went to bed

Saturday night."

Tomoyo smiled charmingly, her digital camera still humming merrily along as she nodded at the new

student. "They split the paperwork, actually. It all worked out in the end."

Shaking his arm in an attempt to unattach his cousin - or was it really fiancée? Sakura wasn't sure

whose word to believe, anymore - Li sighed and rolled his eyes. "So, do you feel it or not?" he questioned

sternly. "Because, if my hunch is right, it's - "

"The Storm card." They finished in unison, a surprise, and green eyes blinked as Sakura realized exactly

what she had just said. "That's funny," she thought aloud, frowning slightly. "The feeling had been extremely

faint, before..."

Something poked her, HARD, on the shoulder, and she turned to see Kero pointing upwards, a somewhat

concerned look on his face. "Uhm, it coulda been 'cause THE CARD IS RIGHT FREAKIN' UP THERE!"

All faces glanced up to see one cloud apart from the rest, floating merrily around of its own accord

and hovering - as luck would have it - right around the library roof. Gritting her teeth, Sakura scowled. "Just

GREAT," she muttered, groping in her pockets for the Key of Clow and realizing that she'd left it on her

dresser. "I don't even have the flippin' key with me!"

"Good!" cheered Tomoyo, flipping off her camera. "If we run back and get it, then, you can put on one

of my new uber-cute outfits!" Her purple eyes sparkled with the light of a thousand stars as she sighed

contently. "My Sakura, all dressed up in another of her magical girl outfits, catching that nasty Storm card...

It brings tears to my eyes."

And suddenly, it all came together and Mei-Lin, who'd been listening to the conversation with wide,

confused eyes, realized EXACTLY what was going on.

"Waaaaait," the dark-haired girl protested, letting go of her better - or possibly worse, depending

on who you asked - half and stepping forward to stand face-to-face with the brunette. "You mean to tell me

that you are the new cardcaptor?"

Somehow, Sakura didn't like where the conversation was headed at ALL. "Yeah... Why?"

"So you're Shao-Lang's great rival, are you?"

Groaning audibly, Li reached forward, grasping his cousin by the upper arm and tugging at her. "Mei-Lin,

let's talk about this LATER," he pleaded, but she slithered from his grasp and turned to glower at him. "Right

NOW, there's a card and - "

"If she is your great rival, Shao-Lang, we must duel!" Wiping back around, she poked said "great rival"

in the chest, and hard, too, nearly hard enough to send Sakura stumbling backwards. "I challenge you, Kinomoto

Sakura, to a duel until the death!"

If green eyes had been wide before, they were now the size of dinner plates. "H-HOE?" she squawked,

hopping backwards simply to put a LITTLE more space between herself and the girl who she was now thoroughly

convinced was a raving lunatic. "A duel to the DEATH? No way!"

Li sighed and shook his head. "Mei-Lin..."

"We must duel! It's the only honorable thing to do!"

"Mei-Lin!"

"I must protect the honor of my precious Shao-Lang!"

"MEI-LIN!"

===

"No one really respects the institution of the honorable duel to the death, anymore," muttered Mei-Lin

as they trudged slowly up the steps to the library roof, her red-and-gold ceremonial robes dragging against the

stairs. "Everyone CLAIMS they do, of course, but then do they follow through? Of course not. It's too 'messy'

these days." Brown eyes flicked towards her neighbor, who was dutifully recording every movement of the toga-

clad cardcaptor on film. "Don't you agree, Daidouji?"

Blinking, Tomoyo forced a little smile and nodded, never really taking her attention away from the

camera. "I'm sure they'll come back into style, Mei-Lin," she assured the female Li ancestor, zooming in on

the laurel leaves that were bobby-pinned in her roommate's shoulder-length bob of hair. "After all, look at

bellbottoms. They were out for twenty-odd years, but now everyone's wearing them again! I give it a year before

duels to the death are all the rage once again."

As Mei-Lin gleefully thanked the other student for her input, Kero fluttered up the stairs backwards,

his dark eyes focused on the two cardcaptors who made their way towards the roof, Li occasionally having to

pause to keep Sakura from tumbling backwards down the stairs. "Now, I dun really remember Storm all dat well,"

he admitted, his little plush-toy brow furrowed in thought as they rounded the sixth-floor landing. "Windy

ain't gonna do much, and ya can't really use Fly with your broken ankle, so I'm thinkin' some Watery with

maybe a l'il bit of - "

"Yeah, yeah, Kero," sighed Sakura as they finally came up on the door to the roof. The Staff of Sealing

hung limply in her hand as Li manned the door, forcing it open with a well-placed shoulder shove. It was common

knowledge that the lock to the roof door of the library didn't work as well as it probably should, and many

students of the upstate college used the roof as a study nook. Rain drizzled down on the roof as she hobbled

out onto the tarred surface, her toga nearly tripping her up as it had so many times before. Silently, she

cursed Tomoyo's ridiculous costume designs, watching idly as Li followed her out onto the roof, Mei-Lin and

Tomoyo only a few steps behind him. Mei-Lin's ceremonial robes, as "Iron Monkey"-esque as her cousin's were,

sloshed through a puddle, and the brunette sighed. What next? A third-cousin on their uncle's side?

Thunder crackled and lightning flashed, and for the first time, Sakura noticed that the Storm card

was perched on the edge of library roof, its little legs swinging idly as it peered down below. From the ground,

she had not realized that Storm looked as similar to Rain as it did, and she frowned slightly. Somehow, she

was now sorely convinced that the little elven-looking Rain would be as equally useless against Storm as, well,

any of the others would be, and she sighed, muttering "Dammit."

Unfortunately for her and the others on the roof, that "dammit" echoed, and the Storm card hopped off

the ledge around the roof and onto a little puff of cloud, its previously innocent-looking eyes narrowing as he

discovered that he was being watched. "Smooth!" shot Li as a gust of wind flew their direction, causing the

foursome of college students to scatter, less they be knocked down. "Let's just TELL the card we're going to

capture it while we're at it, eh?"

"Oh, shut UP!" The Staff of Sealing twirled nimbly through her fingers as Sakura mentally ran through her

list of cards, somewhat distracted by her rival's quip. "I'm calling the shots here, so you can just can it!"

Another gust of wind whirled past, just brushing Sakura's shoulder and sending Kero tumbling through

the air. "Less bickerin' and more, ya know, CARDCAPTORIN'!" he commanded as he was thrown against the now-

closed door to the library steps. "An' hurry..." His black eyes turned into little swirls as he passed out as

only a plushie could.

"Let me help!" Mei-Lin announced, hopping forward. Li groaned as soon as she said this, rolling his eyes.

"I can beat it into submission."

"When it's floating seven stories above the ground? Good luck!" His admonishment caused brown eyes to

turn teary, and he frowned as soon as he noticed that his cousin was now sniffling helplessly. "Mei-Lin, you

know that I didn't mean it like that..."

Sakura sighed and dug through the pockets that Tomoyo had built into her stupid toga, searching for her

Clow cards. With Kero passed out and Li backpedaling to keep his stupid girlfriend or whatever the Hell she

was from crying, it appeared to truly be a one-woman fight...starring a one-legged woman, no less! Pulling

Watery from her pocket, she tossed it into the air, bringing the staff down upon it almost immediately. "Watery!"

she commanded, nearly thrown off balance from swinging the staff. "Use your watery power to, well, do SOMETHING

to Storm!"

"Something" obviously was not a very good choice of words, because, as the mist from Watery's escape

from the card rose up around her, she realized too late that Watery and Storm actually got ALONG, and the

drizzle became all-out pouring rain, soaking everyone on the roof. Throwing down her crutches in annoyance,

the brunette brushed her now-sodden bangs from her eyes and dug through her personal effects, searching for ANY

other card that would work. Windy was too docile... Fly, Jump, and Float really weren't appropriate for the

situation at hand... Flower, Woody, Sword, Shield, and Create ABSOLUTELY weren't appropriate for the situation...

Thunder would probably end up going the route of Watery... Then what -

An idea occurred to her, and her fingers grasped the card that came to mind, somehow managing to find

it in the deck that she had hidden away. The Staff of Sealing danced on her finger as she twirled it, ready

to bring it down and -

"SAKURA!" Li's scream came too late, and suddenly Sakura was caught up in a whirlwind, her feet lifting

off the ground. Storm grinned evilly as she was tossed and turned in the air, kicking and squirming as the

windstorm carried her closer and closer towards the edge of the roof - and towards the seven-story fall beyond.

Somehow, though, her mind cleared and she was able to control the fear that was welling up in the pit

of her stomach. "RAIN!" she cried out, her voice cracking as she tossed the card down beside her in the

center of the whirlwind. "You and Storm are friends, right? Distract him!"

The Rain card emerged merrily from its magical confines, grinning happily as it floated up towards

Storm. Storm glanced warily at the other card, but just that simple glance was enough to give Sakura one last

advantage, and she grabbed at the opportunity with white knuckles, unwilling to let go. "JUMP!" Her sandal

sprouted wings as soon as the card was called to her services and suddenly she was above both cloud-riding

cards, free-falling with the Staff of Sealing aimed right at Storm's head. "Return to thy true form! Clow CARD!"

Her voice echoed through the air as, once again, the magic of the Clow allowed her to levitate, keeping

her high above the ground. But as always, she knew that it would inevitably give out and leave her free-falling...

And with a seven-story drop below, she was fairly certain that she would break a lot more than her ankle. Still,

it was a risk she was willing to take, and perhaps -

The magic gave out, and she pressed shut her eyes, ready to make a frantic grab for the Fly card in

hopes of catching herself with it - a frantic grab that ended up being wholly unneeded.

"You're heavier than you look," grunted an accented voice, and Sakura's eyes flew open to see Mei-Lin

leaning over the ledge around the library, her sodden pigtails hanging in her face as she struggled to keep

her grip on the dangling cardcaptor.

"Mei-Lin?" Even as the other student dragged her over the ledge and back onto the relative safety of

the roof, she couldn't believe what had just happened. "I thought you wanted to duel me to the death."

"Well, I do." Mei-Lin smiled charmingly, her face lighting up as she spoke. "Which is why I saved you.

I can't very well duel you to the death if you're dead, now can I?"

They both chuckled, and Sakura accepted her crutches from a nearby Li, glad to have them back. "Well,

then, thanks... I think," she replied, not totally sure if she was kidding or not; which was worse, a duel

to the death, or falling to her death? "Despite the fact that your rude cousin never even bothered to mention

you, I appreciate your saving my life and all."

"Oh, so all this is MY fault?" If Sakura was only half-kidding, the glaring Shao-Lang was not even

one-quarter kidding. "Maybe if you had taken the time to actually double-check the name on your paperwork,

you wouldn't have been so shocked."

Mei-Lin watched, wide-eyed, as the cardcaptor out-and-out turned on the young man, scowling at him.

"Me? ME?! You COULD have just MAYBE thought to mention that you have a cousin who you're, you know,

BETROTHED to!"

"And I should tell you about my personal life...why?" Li tossed his head and turned away, rolling

his eyes. "Seriously."

"Seriously? SERIOUSLY, an engagement is a VERY BIG THING!"

"Oh, so now you reserve the right to decide what in my life qualifies as a 'big thing'? I see..."

As the arguing continued on, Mei-Lin glanced towards Tomoyo, watching as the long-haired woman shut

off her camera and returned it to her camera bag. "Uhm, Daidouji, should I be flattered that they're

arguing about me, or no?"

The question was pensive and nervous, and the camerawoman chuckled at it. "Mei-Lin, you must realize

something about these two," she confided in the new student, moving to rest a hand on her sopping-wet

shoulder. "If they were not fighting about you, they would be fighting about me. Or about Kero. Or about

the weather, or the nature of politics, or the color of the grass."

"Wow." It was neither a question or a statement, but rather some sort of strange hybrid that was

both completely appropriate and yet wholly inappropriate as a response. "They would be the perfect couple

were it not for Shao-Lang being engaged to me, wouldn't they?"

Cocking an eyebrow, Tomoyo sighed and shook her head, turning her face to the now-cloudless sky.

"Something like that," she agreed, smiling as the warm sun - something she had sorely missed since the storms

had begun more than twenty-four hours before - beat down on her face. "Definitely, just...something like

that."

===

Touya could not concentrate.

It was usually a rare day when he - studious, or at least so he considered himself - had trouble

concentrating. He was the type of person who could write a paper while music blared and glasses clanked

together, and freshman year, he'd often had to do just that; his frat-boy roommate never did quite find a

good grip on the concept of "silent study," and, consequently, had been asked to attend a different school for

his sophomore year. Since then, Touya's opportunities for peace and quiet had increased in number, and he'd

thrived because of it.

Until now.

Sakura had always been a pain, he reminded himself as he stared blankly at the screen, idly trying

to come up with material to write on. Since childhood, she'd been the little priss in the family, pampered

and coddled by both himself and their father. As she had blossomed and matured, she'd grown into a respectable

teen and then young woman, and so it should have come as no surprise that she would attract admirers of the

opposite sex. None of her high school boyfriends sans one - one who had dumped her halfway through her

junior high of high school - had been even remotely serious, and that was why seeing her on the floor with

that strange boy had surprised him. He'd struggled to keep his cool demeanor, and, as he'd told Yukito

Saturday night before they turned in, the only reason he hadn't blown his top had been out of respect for

his sister.

Shao-Lang Li. The name rang in his head. Despite being the playboy type - Touya was sorely convinced

that he'd looked something like young master Li when he was a college sophomore - he was rude and self-

possessed. What kind of boyfriend responded to a question from his girl's older brother with "What's it

to you?" Then again, what kind of boyfriend seduced his girl in her dorm room while her roommate was present?

No, this was not a matter of blowing his top, this was a matter of keeping his sister's reputation clean.

A matter of avoiding bad press. A matter of keeping things from getting too out of hand.

His fingers began to fly across the keyboard, inspiration overtaking his writer's block as he

furiously began to type out his paper. Fire, he decided as he composed the opening paragraph, could easily

be fought with fire, and it certainly would be, this time.

That brat, that Shao-Lang Li, was going DOWN.

===

End Chapter 7.

Author's Notes: Yes, I finally updated after six months. ^^;; Be excited!

The "Circle in a circle" song that Sakura thinks of is by Dusty Springfield. It's called "Windmills of Your

Mind" and is, in fact, a jazz song. Just so you know.