Partners By Tenshi no Kijutsu/Carrie Carlton

If you have a weak stomach or do not like to read about blood, skip the first paragraph. It's really nasty, and I don't want anyone to throw up. It's just extremely bloody and disgusting. If you're REALLY sensitive, skip the second paragraph too.

This chapter should be better because there's not as much explaining that needs to be done.

Chapter Two: Scarlet Stains

Sakura could feel and hear her pulse. Her head was throbbing, her eyes stung from sweat. Her face was stained with her own blood, and a large bruise was spreading across her stomach where the fabric of her shirt was torn away. Her hands and feet were crimson with the blood of her enemy. Her clothes were soaked in blood, sweat, and tears. Her shoes had long since been pulled off and her sword lay in two pieces, snapped neatly at the hilt before it could draw any blood. Her honey-brown hair was matted with tangles and dried blood. Her emerald eyes were darkened with fatigue, determination, hatred, and fear. Sakura finally succumbed to the inevitable. She collapsed to the ground unconscious. Her head made a sickening thud as it banged against the bloody tatami floor. Her numerous cuts continued to bleed freely, and although unconscious she could feel her life leaving her. She could feel the pool of blood soaking into her pores, saturating her skin in the dark red liquid. And she clung onto her life as her opponent fell to one knee in exhaustion, laughing silently while watching Sakura die. The person was breathing heavily and coughing up blood without realizing it. The last sound Sakura heard was the sound of her enemy's head falling to the floor a yard away from her own.

Sakura woke with a start from the nightmare. It wasn't the first time. Bloody dreams were not uncommon in her sleep. She got out of bed, and went to the bathroom. Looking into the mirror, she screamed. One side of her face was stained reddish, as well as that whole side of her body. Most of her face was spotted in red. Her hands and feet were completely stained. Her pajama top had been clawed at and the stomach was ripped off, showing a faded bruise. Her hair was tangled and pink as if from blood. As she stared at her reflection in complete horror, Syaoran rushed in drowsily in his pajamas. "What is -" he started. He stared at the stains on her skin and hair, and the bruise on her stomach. Tears began to stream down Sakura's face and Syaoran hugged her, letting her cry into his chest while he blushed slightly. He picked her up and put her on his bed, because her blankets were torn and streaked with faded bloodstains.

"Tell me what happened, Sakura. I can help you," Syaoran said. She continued to cry into his chest, mumbling words. He eventually managed to piece together her dream. By then, she had run out of tears and he convinced her to change into regular clothes that were not streaked with old blood. He also changed out of his pajamas. Syaoran took Sakura's hand and walked across the hall to Eriol and Tomoyo's room. The four friends went to the rooms that the founders stayed in. They found the door marked Kinomoto and knocked on it. A sleepy Nadeshiko opened the door, but was wide-awake as soon as she saw the state Sakura was in. She quickly gathered the other four women and they sat down to hear the story behind the stains.

The five founders shooed Syaoran and Eriol out of the room and began to try and wash off the stains. By breakfast, Tomoyo came out with Sakura looking like normal. "It washed out of my hair and they covered the skin with makeup," she said. Sakura was wearing a long-sleeve white cotton peasant shirt with smocking all the way around her stomach and at her wrists. The material fell down a bit past her waist and wrists, covering the backs and palms of her hands. Her loose pants were made of soft brown kid the color of her hair (think gloves people, I know you've heard of kid gloves), much softer than the brown or black leather pants that they all usually wore. Tomoyo was wearing an off-white blouse that stopped an inch above her waist and tied in a knot below the buttons in the front. She wore very dark gray pants made of the same material as Sakura's. Sakura wore clogs and Tomoyo wore sandals. The girls sat down across the table from Syaoran, Eriol, Yamazaki, and Josh. Also on the girls' side was Meilin.

"Why are you wearing your day-off clothes?" Josh asked. "Classes are cancelled today, didn't you hear?" Meilin told him. Her hair was up in two buns, but without any hair falling down. Sakura's short hair was left plain with just her natural blond highlights and Tomoyo's long hair was up in curled pigtails. The boys groaned. "Sakura, you want to train? We have to work on that magic stuff," Syaoran asked. Sakura nodded. They headed off to the training rooms followed by their friends. Tomoyo was still tutoring Eriol on balance and the other three just wanted to watch.

Sakura kicked off her clogs, showing that her feet were still slightly pink. Everyone in the group had been told of the incident and took little notice. Around Sakura's ankles were plain silver bands. They were solid silver, unbending and large. They would not fit over Sakura's heel, but they were big enough to move when Sakura walked, glittering brilliantly. They had been on a necklace when she was a small child, and nobody knew where they came from. When she was older, she put them on her ankles. As time went by, she found that she couldn't pull them off over her feet. So they remained there. She rolled up the bottoms of her pants to that they were above her ankles. Syaoran was already in his practice uniform - loose leather pants and a white cotton shirt, as well as thin sandals. He took off the sandals because Sakura had taken off her shoes.

They began to fight. Yamazaki and Josh put up weak magical shields around their friends, so that a magical attack would make little more than a sharp sting on the one who received the attack. However, physical movements went right through the shields. Eriol and Tomoyo worked on Eriol's balance, but did not fight. Meilin watched Sakura and Syaoran's battle closely, checking that neither was breaking the rules.

After a minute or so, Sakura let Syaoran pin her down on the floor. He knew she had let it happen on purpose. "Time!" she called, meaning that the fight was paused. Yamazaki and Josh took down the shields to take a small break. "Lesson One, Syaoran. When you are pinned down, you lose. Everyone knows that. But you can use a. like a magical punch to throw your opponent off you. That's easy, anybody can do that. The part you have to learn is how to block that. The thing is that in certain kinds of fight, the attack itself is not permitted. This is because if it's blocked, it will be reflected back to the person who sent it out. Since they are against the ground and can't move, the attack will most likely knock them unconscious for at least a couple days. If the attack is powerful enough, it can put you to sleep for about a month."

Syaoran nodded. Suddenly a bright pink light shot out of Sakura's chest and hit Syaoran's throwing him about five yards away into a wall. His back hit it and he sank to the floor. "You wouldn't be afraid of it if you didn't know how it felt," Sakura explained while walking over to help him up. "We don't need you getting careless and not bothering with a shield because you think that it won't hurt you. Now that one could have knocked me out for about two weeks. I probably could have killed you if I'd wanted to, but I didn't. And besides, I think we need that wall." She pulled him up off the floor, although he still wasn't quite recovered from the shock of the impact. "Now, let's work on blocking that so you don't have to go through that, or worse, in the future."

*~*

"Wow, Syaoran, you look horrible! What happened?" one of Eriol's 'sisters' said loudly when the group of friends went in for lunch. She was Hiiragizawa Nakuru. Nakuru was a member of the eighteen-year-old class that would be leaving in December. "He was practicing magic attacks and blocks with Sakura. She threw him into a wall from five yards away and after that she proceeded to show him what you call the Electric Shock," Eriol replied. Nakuru was right, though. Syaoran looked terrible. "Ooh Sakura, you really used the ES? Did it shock him all over like it's supposed to?" Nakuru asked excitedly. "Exactly." ES was the nickname for the difficult attack that was used to immobilize an opponent for a few seconds. When inexperienced fighters used it, it usually did all but nothing. ES was the lightning attack that Yelan had used to punish Syaoran after his first fight with Sakura. "You'd think she was trying to kill me," Syaoran said wearily. "She kept doing all the hard attacks that only advanced people can do." "Well that's because the easy attacks can all be blocked the same way. It's only the hard ones that you have to learn how to block," Sakura said. The group sat down at their usual table. "Oh brother, I hurt all over," Syaoran complained. "You're such a baby," Sakura told him. "But I'll make up for being so brutal by getting your lunch for you. What do you want?"

After lunch, Sakura took Syaoran back to their room so he could put on clean clothes. The others headed out to the gardens. Tomoeda may be a brutal and harsh place, but it wasn't dark and scary. Sakura was in the bathroom brushing her hair while Syaoran changed. "Sakura?" he called from the room. "Yeah?" "Could you help me out with my shirt? I think you almost dislocated my shoulder." "Sure." Sakura walked into the room, blushing a little to see Syaoran without a shirt on. She had to admit that the other girls were right when they said he was hot. He didn't seem to notice her blush because he wasn't looking at her. Syaoran was obviously embarrassed at needing help. He pointed at a T-shirt that was lying on his bed and she picked it up. She started to put it over his head but he couldn't move his one arm very well and he was obviously in pain. She let go of the shirt that was around his neck. "Does the baby want me to kiss it and make it all better?" she asked. Syaoran was surprised that the statement wasn't in a sarcastic tone of voice.

Sakura leaned over and kissed his shoulder and Syaoran felt her pink aura wrap around his shoulder like an invisible bandage. He blushed brightly. His shoulder didn't hurt anymore. She pulled back and smiled. "The girls were taught that. I don't know why, but I guess the founders wanted us to be able to heal without it being visually obvious,'" Sakura said.

They left the room and joined their friends outside in the summer heat. The school owned a huge expanse of land around the building and they all headed through the forest to a small, deep pond that the four boys had found as children. They sat down on the sandy shore of the pond to relax in the sun. Soon, they became a bit too warm for comfort, but didn't want to head back after only a few minutes of being here. The boys took off their shirts, but the girls didn't know what to do. "Why don't you take off your shirts too. It's not like you don't have anything on underneath. Who cares anyway? It's just us here," Eriol suggested. The three girls stared at him like he was crazy.

Meilin sighed. "You know, he's got a point and I can't stand the heat anymore," she said, pulling off her shirt. Now all she had on above her waist was a band of black cloth around her chest and some of her stomach with two straps over her shoulders. "You know, now that I think about it, our undershirts aren't really all that revealing," Meilin pointed out. Sakura nodded and pulled off her shirt too. Tomoyo sighed in forfeit and followed suit. The boys didn't seem to care that much that the girls were showing much more skin than normally.

"I'm bored," Josh said after a while. He poked a finger into the pond to find that the crystal clear water was ice cold despite the weather. "Hey, lets see how far each of us can get into the water in ten seconds without moving backwards or getting out for another ten seconds." Everyone nodded. The girls were glad that their undershirts were black and not white, because they knew what happens to white shirts when they get wet. They all stood on the edge of the pond and Josh counted down from three to zero, and then began to count to ten. Everyone raced into the water, but Tomoyo stopped when it came to her waist, and Eriol and Meilin stopped soon after. Josh went until it was up to his elbows. Sakura and Syaoran were up to their chins in the ice cold water. The other five slowly proceeded until Josh's count reached ten. He started again at one and once he was done Sakura and Syaoran cheered and hugged even though they had tied and everyone ran out of the water. Now none of them were uncomfortable in the sunshine.

As soon as their clothes had dried, they put their shirts back on and started back. Sakura yawned and it became contagious. Syaoran yawned too and closed his eyes while doing it. He, being the tallest of the group, hit his head on an overhanging branch. His nose, although not broken, began to bleed and Tomoyo ran away upon seeing the blood so suddenly. She had a weak stomach but usually she had a chance to prepare herself for the sight of blood. "Let's follow her, you two. Last time this happened she passed out. Sakura, stay here and help him clean up," Meilin ordered, hurrying off after Tomoyo with Josh and Yamazaki. Sakura and Syaoran went back the few yards to the pond. The bleeding had already slowed. Syaoran washed the blood off with water from the pond and it stopped bleeding soon. "Want me to heal it so it doesn't start bleeding again?" Sakura offered. Syaoran nodded. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his nose. Syaoran felt the same warm feeling as when she had healed his shoulder and he blushed deep red at how close she was to him. She was holding his arms to keep her balance. Sakura was blushing as well. It wasn't the person they were with that made them blush, but the fact that they had never been this close to someone of the opposite sex. It was over quickly and they hurried off to find their friends.

It turned out Tomoyo had not fainted and everything was fine. The next day, more interesting events would take place.