Disclaimer: I don't own CCS. I never have and I never will. However, I do own this plot, so please! No taking!

Summary: Doomed to spending life with two faces, Kinomoto Sakura doesn't experience happiness very often. By day, she spends life as a human. By night, she becomes a phoenix. All seems dim, but there's always hope... right?

Notes: Nothing much to say, so I'll leave you with: Enjoy!

Rising of the Phoenix: Melody

"She's gone, dammit!" Amber yelled at her brother when she arrived back at the tower to see him lying on the bed, doing nothing. "Why aren't you helping me?! You've always been the lazy one, and you always will be. You're not helping me at all and if this phoenix dies, we'll die too! Remember, our family's blood is linked to that phoenix, and it's going to be sun-up soon, and she'll be changing into her human form, and ARGH! This is giving me a headache! I wish you'd help me more. We can't go searching for her now, because if we find her, take her away in the middle of a crowd, they'd all know what her human form looks like, and we can't have that! What are we going to do?! Geez, help me out here!"

Satu rolled over and gazed at his sister. He was still in his guardian form, though he disliked it a lot, but he thought it best, because he didn't like having his sister's rage all over him. It looked like she was going to yell a lot now, so maybe he should just tell her what he had heard some people in the town saying. It wasn't like she was going to find out anytime soon. Besides, maybe she would calm down a little bit more if she knew what was going on. Yeah right. She would be yelling and yelling and yelling until she couldn't yell anymore. That was just the way she was. Geez... this was going to be a real nightmare until they found Sakura.

"Why don't you just give it up for now?" Satu asked. "There's plenty now that we can do, and even if you didn't sense her aura at all, she won't be able to hold it in for long. Considering how crazy you went last time when she disappeared, it's not surprising that she's hiding. I don't know why she left, but she probably had a reason for it. She usually does. Give her time and she will come back. It's no use going out there and getting seen all the time, because you'll just end up having more people looking for her, and we'll all be in trouble. Especially if they figure out that her human form is weaker that her phoenix form. She's immortal in her phoenix, not so immortal in her human form. She has feelings too, and I bet that she got some funny feelings and felt that she had to let them out somewhere that wasn't here. We never know what's going on in her mind, Amber, and we never will. It's part of who she is, and who we are."

Amber listened to what Satu said, not intruding, giving him the same respect that he had given her when she had been talking, but now that she listened to his mini speech, what he was saying made some sense. They shouldn't go out looking for her now; it was way too risky. But when the sun went down again, she would be out searching. By god, she would definitely be out searching.

When she got a hold of Sakura again, there were going to be lectures like never before, and Amber was going to include Satu in on these as well, as she never disciplined him much. She just got so sick of constantly harassing the boy to do even the most simple things. Doing some cleaning of dishes that were used, or even a little bit of cooking on the odd occasion would be appreciated, but it seemed that Satu wouldn't do it. He just wouldn't. It infuriated her so much sometimes...

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Amber said with a wave of her hand, indicating that she didn't really care about what he had said. "I've heard it all before, and I'm going to go out looking for her again later and you won't be able to stop me."

Satu shook his head sadly. His sister really could be so impatient sometimes... It was probably going to be her downfall when she faced some even half-decent opponents in any magical battles. She could never wait for the right time to strike. She liked to get right into the middle of things and mix everything up so that no one knew what was coming next. It either made her the strongest in the game of tactics... or the weakest. It all depended on whom she was fighting. Satu knew her moves inside and out though, so she wouldn't be much of a challenge to him.

"Your arrogance will be your downfall, Amber," he murmured as she stormed out of the room.

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Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. Her guardians had gone back to the tower, obviously because of the coming morning. Soon she would be back in her human form... and stranded. She had banked herself on an island in the middle of a lake that had a big overhang. It was large enough to conceal her phoenix form for a few moments, but it was getting uncomfortable and she yearned to stretch her wings.

Peeking her head outside the safety of the overhang, Sakura could see that both sides of the horizon were clear, and other from a few birds and animals creeping around, going to bed, and quietly waking up, there were no other humans or guardians nearby. She breathed a sigh of relief and took to the sky again, grateful to the guardians that she had.

It wasn't often at all that she had this freedom in her phoenix form at all. Noting the rising sun, Sakura soared towards the edge of the lake, landing on the sand. The sky was streaked with red, orange, purple, and the remnants of the dark sky that had been littered with stars in the cold brisk night. It had been clear, not a cloud in the sky, and Sakura had been enjoying the cool breeze that had blown all throughout the night. It had made it easier for her to glide on the wind, as it had been coming from behind her, making it that much simpler for her to manoeuvre around and change direction.

Soon the sun would be fully risen, and Sakura would change into her human form. She quickly landed with the couple of minutes that she had. Breathing a sigh of relief, she was finally able to relax and take in the scenery. Then began the painful process of turning back into a human. She hated this transformation.

Within moments, she was human again. She recalled what she looked like. Green eyes and brown hair... quite plain. She had seen lots of people with her colouring. Then again, she guessed that Clow had made her look like that to fit in so she wouldn't be suspected.

She guessed that it had been a good idea. On his part anyway.

She just wished that she were able to do more and not be such a burden to her protectors. But that hardly looked like it was going to be true, so she just did what she could and began running towards the town.

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Syaoran saw little pinpricks of light starting to gather in the sky again and he gritted his teeth. Someone was casting a spell again. It had been on and off like that for the past two hours now and he was getting sick of it. Constant day and night, day and night. It was enough to drive him crazy.

Nevertheless, he had to keep his cool.

Meiling was depending on him to find Kaze. Heck, even he wanted to see his little cousin again. Though he wasn't directly related to her, everyone knew Kaze. She was the kind of little girl who everyone wanted, and Syaoran had always been rather fond of her. Now she had gone missing.

What would someone want with her? She was only little, and she couldn't do much anyway. Unless there was some ulterior motive that they weren't aware of yet... No, that wasn't possible. Meiling had never told anyone else, and they didn't know who Kaze's father was. Meiling just said that he had died a long time ago. He had left her before Kaze had been born and he was now dead to her.

Syaoran could see why.

Meiling had held a grudge for many years now, and it wasn't likely that even if the father turned up at all, she wouldn't let him see Kaze.

From what Meiling had told his sisters, Kaze had come in while Meiling had been looking up the phoenix, and had wanted to play. Naturally, because she was busy, Meiling had told Kaze to go up to her room and promised that she would play later. Then, only minutes later, Meiling had heard Kaze's scream, dropped everything that she had been doing and rushed upstairs, only to find that her daughter was gone.

It was all a bit strange.

However, he had to keep on moving, otherwise he wouldn't be able to find anything.

To be continued...

Short. I seem to have short updates today. God, this is horrible... Oh well, I guess I'll have to deal with it, and make sure that I give everyone a nice long chapter for all my stories next time. Thank you for your reviews! See ya!

Review if you want to.

--Kari