"The One Thing You Can't See"

A Cardcaptor Sakura fan fiction by Artemesia

Author's Note: After dealing with much frustration on adapting "I'll Never Tell" to the CCS universe (too much rhyming, I tell you – and cheerful stories are far more difficult to write), I decided to write this in the interim. It's a good deal more serious, and very dark. Also, while it obviously follows the anime concerning the first chapter, it follows the manga in regards to Clow Reed's reincarnation. This story spins off from "Sakura and Yukito's Disappearing Power" and takes our characters into a darker place than they ever imagined. And there *is* charchter death. Reviews are welcome, especially since this is my first serious writing endeavour!

Standard disclaimer: Alas, I don't own the wonderful characters of CCS, but I thank the goddesses at CLAMP for doing so. I do promise to return the characters mostly intact. Perhaps.

Chapter One: Fade to Black

"I know all about it. You-"

Gods, just this last scene to endure. These last scenes were taking longer than Akizuki had optimistically predicted – his sister's wooden acting notwithstanding – and the strain was beginning to wear on them all. Touya had last seen the prop assistants leaning against the wall, eyes half- closed in exhaustion, and the camera crew was growing testier with every take. Akizuki, however, had lost none of her manic, obsessive drive, if anything, her energy increased as everyone around her was slowly winding down. A strange, sick feeling settled in his gut as he looked up to Yukito's turned back. Whatever emotion the script called for he didn't remember – anxious worry and fear would have to do. Yukito bowed his head and with his sixth sense, Touya saw his friend's already pale aura flicker.

'Just one more scene, Yuki, and I'll take you home. Just one more.'

"You-"

******

"Phew!"

Sakura couldn't be more relieved. She had managed to stammer out her few lines, the task made all the more difficult by her proximity to Yukito, but Nakuru seemed pleased with her small part. Tomoyo, of course, had assured her she had done wonderfully and that she should do more movies and let Tomoyo design all of her costumes. With over half of the Clow Cards converted into Sakura Cards – 'how did I let her convince me to keep that name,' she wondered – her best friend was clearly thinking of more opportunities to keep Sakura in costume. Waiting for the occasional school play simply wouldn't be enough.

"Are you finished?" Tomoyo asked, finally turning off her video camera and lowering it to the side. She was looking forward to getting home and compiling her hours of footage into a useable tape – perhaps Akizuki would be willing to let her borrow the film of Sakura's scenes as well.

"I am, and everyone else only has the veranda scene left," Sakura said, looking up towards the balcony. She couldn't see her brother, or more importantly, Yukito, yet, but knew they would be filming in just a few moments. She could easily hear Nakuru's booming voice, even down on the lawn.

Another set of eyes looked intently at the still-vacant balcony, then turned to his companions. "I'm going to make some tea,' Eriol Hiragizawa said in his soft, cultured voice. Tomoyo offered to help, kind and thoughtful as ever, but he assured her he was up to the task of making tea and preparing sweets on his own. As he began walking towards the house, movement on the balcony caught his ever-watchful eyes. The amber-eyed false form of his – no, Clow Reed's – moon guardian, looking out with a wistful, almost pained expression across the grounds, and the Card Mistress' brother just behind him. One faltering in power, one shining bright with a power so similar to his own. And somewhere beyond them, smug in her director's chair, no doubt, the bright, cold aura of his own moon guardian.

'One more piece in the puzzle. Everything is falling into place.'

Eriol allowed himself a sly, Cheshire-cat like smile as he walked on.

******

"You-"

Touya took a hesitant step forward, as the script called for. Yukito bowed his head further, either doing a commendable job acting or simply allowing himself to rest while he was turned away from the camera.

'Just one more scene.'

"You-"

That sick, leaden feeling gave way to hot, stabbing panic as he saw Yuki's aura flicker into non-existence and his friend topple headfirst over the balcony. He didn't know how he managed it, but he felt his stomach slam into the wooden rail and his hand grab onto Yuki's.

"Yuki! Open your eyes! Yuki!"

But Yuki's eyes refused to open, and his friend swung in midair, the breeze catching his brown robes. Touya tried to pull him up, but he could barely hold on. If only Yuki would wake up, would lift up his other hand.

"Yuki! Please, open your eyes! Yuki!" Touya tightened his grip as best as he could, but he could only pull Yukito up a few inches. He could vaguely hear the shrieks and gasps of his classmates behind him – why couldn't one of them come help him? And Akizuki, no matter hr penchant for interrupting at the worst times, she couldn't just let Yuki fall. Could she?

The breeze picked up again, fluttering Yukito's silver hair. A breeze. Wind. Touya looked at her sister, Tomoyo, and the gaki, who stood horrified on the ground so far below. Gods, they had saved him and Youko from plummeting into the hard concrete of the school auditorium. Even if the gaki had to do it, Touya pleaded silently for one of them to act, even as he pleaded out loud to his unconscious friend to wake up.

The breeze picked up again and Touya felt it blowing against his open palm – the breeze was blowing right through Yuki's hand. It was like holding onto a ghost, or trying to hold on. With a painful cry Touya watched Yuki fall, twisting, to the unforgiving ground.

******

Sakura's eyes were green orbs of adoration as she watched Yukito on the balcony. She knew Tomoyo was filming her 'hanyaan' mode as soon as she heard the camera power up, but with the number of videos that existed with her looking at Yukito with love-struck eyes, one more didn't matter. She couldn't hear what her brother or Yukito were saying, but she didn't need to hear them. So long as she could watch her Yukito-san-

"Yuki!"

Sakura barely registered her brother's scream as she saw Yukito slump over the balcony, only to be caught by Touya's swift hand. The momentary relief, however, was squelched by the worry constricting her heart. Tomoyo gasped, and Sakura heard Syaoran's sharp "kuso" from behind her.

'Pull him up, Touya. I know you're strong enough, pull him up.'

But even her brother's strength couldn't pull Yukito's up to safety, and the sudden breeze only made Yukito waver even more in his grasp. Sakura had known Yukito had been tired for the past few months – Touya had never mentioned what happened at New Year's, but she had assumed the worst of Yukito's illness had passed – but she hadn't expected something so dramatic. The breeze stirred again, and Sakura remembered the night she gave Yukito the teddy bear she had made – remembered Yue's wings fluttering out of existence and plummeting to the ground in his arms, saved by Kero- chan's quick rescue.

"Yuki! Please open your eyes! Yuki!"

But Kero-chan was at home, playing his racing game, and so amid all the Seijuu students, who had to be as terrified as her, it was up to Touya to save Yukito now. She knew her brother would save his best friend – there, Touya pulled him up a few inches –

"Yuki!!!!"

The world went silent and strangely still as Touya's hold on Yukito's hand failed and the snow bunny fell to the ground. Sakura couldn't feel, couldn't hear, could only watch Yukito as he fell, fell, fell –

"Sakura-chan!"

'I never got to tell him-'

"Sakura-chan!"

'I never got to tell him-'

"Sakura-chan!! The key!"

Tomoyo's voice finally broke through her shock, and Sakura grabbed at the small star key that hung around her neck. As Sakura went into rescue mode, Tomoyo let out a sigh of relief and raised the video camera, determined to capture Sakura rescuing her number one person.

"Release!"

******

It took an eternity for him to fall, Touya thought, his throat raw from screaming Yuki's name. His hand was solid again, he absently noted, as he watched his friend's body plummet downward. He could feel the surge in Sakura's aura – what took her so long?! – but didn't dare to look anywhere but Yukito and the ground beneath him, which didn't seem far away at all.

******

Nakuru watched Yukito fall with a momentary look of triumph before she adopted the guise of a shocked, concerned fellow student. With so many of her classmates around, it wouldn't be wise to triumph too much – and such gloating would be worthless, anyway. If Touya didn't save the one most precious to him, his adorable sister or Clow Reed's "cute little descendent," as Eriol called him, would. So even as Touya lost his grip, and the students around her shrieked and gasped, knowing Tsukishiro-san had fallen, she sat in her chair, cool and collected, waiting for the day to be saved.

******

Eriol didn't need to hear Kinomoto-kun's pleading, terrified shouts to turn around. Reincarnation or not, he still felt the moon guardian's aura flicker to a dangerously low level. He wouldn't actually fade out of existence for a few weeks yet, but in a few days he would no longer have enough power to return to his true form – vital for the power transfer that was to occur.

Sharp eyes fixed on the tenuous link between Kinomoto and Tsukishiro, namely the latter's still-flickering aura. The pale glimmer of light surrounding his outstretched arm and hand was beginning to dim down to near- nonexistence. Despite his gift of foresight, Eriol still felt a surge of fear as Tsukishiro fell to the ground.

A long second later the reincarnation of Clow Reed felt another aura surge in power. The Card Mistress had grown much stronger during her trials, he could feel her magic all around him.

'You can do it, Sakura. Everything will be all right.'

******

It was so soft a sound, but to Touya it was deafening. Yukito hit the ground with a muted thud, his limbs splayed about him, his head bent at an angle that was slightly wrong. With a speed he didn't know he had, Touya leaped down the tree next to the balcony, barely hearing his worried classmates behind him. He landed in a crouch, meeting his sister's terrified, tear-filled eyes as he stood up. A pink wand with a gold star was in one of her hands, a similar-colored card in the other. His urge to run over and comfort her was drowned, however, by the sight of Yukito's body lying between them.

"Yu-, Yu-ki? Yuki, open your eyes," Touya pleaded, disbelief and grief battling fiercely inside him, as he knelt down besides his too-still friend, whose aura he could no longer feel. Tears he could not fight splashed into Yukito's face, splashed onto the hard, unyielding earth as he bent double and rested his head against his friend's chest, hearing and feeling the strange silence that signified that Yukito was dead.

******

Tomoyo heard the sound an instant before she saw Sakura's face crumple in the video camera's eyepiece. Green eyes widened in horror and grief, and Tomoyo didn't know what was worse: the sound of Yukito's body hitting the ground with a heavy thud and a softer, sickening crunch, or Sakura's half- sobbing cry of his name.

She heard Touya as he scaled down the tree, heard Syaoran as he gasped, a strangled noise coming from deep in his throat. But she couldn't turn the camera away from Sakura, who stood there, wand and Windy in her hand, grief and guilt filling her eyes. As Touya's sorrowful pleas turned into sobs, and Sakura began to waver where she stood, Tomoyo found she could finally move her limbs. Nearly throwing her camera to the ground, she ran to Sakura and held her tightly, rubbing her back as the young Card Mistress cried, her entire body trembling. Tomoyo looked up for an instant at Syaoran, who stood there, crying silently, and was thankful for that moment she couldn't see what the Chinese boy saw.

******

The brightness of Sakura's aura couldn't hide the sudden rush of cold Nakuru felt as Yukito hit the ground. The young woman bolted upright from her chair, a flash of darkness sweeping across her vision. A candle flickering and dying in the wind, a firefly fading into oblivion, the moon swallowed by darkness never to return, leaving an angry black circle in its wake. As the other students rushed to the balcony, the girls starting to weep, Nakuru stood fixed where she was, rigid, wanting nothing more than to fly as far away from this grief and from herself as she could.

******

Eriol almost fell to his knees as he felt Yue's aura vanish into darkness. The sounds of heart wrenching despair and sorrow around him – Gods, would those girls stop screaming?! – dimmed in comparison to the torrent of memories and emotions that filled him. His joy at Yue's creation, his amusement at teaching the young angel the simplest things, his pride at seeing Yue encouraging and caring for his half of the Cards, his love for the angel as they kissed beneath a jealous moon, his grief at sealing Yue within the book.

'This is Clow Reed's grief, this is his mourning! Why am I still crying?'

Eriol pressed his hands to his wet eyes, sank down to the earth, and wept for another's loss.

******

"And as you can see, excavations from the Etruscan period sh-"

Kinomoto Fujitaka swayed slightly, his lecture forgotten as an unknown yet powerful emotion swept over him. But there was an air of familiarity to it, like remembering the scent of cherry blossoms before the sakura bloomed.

"Kinomoto-sensei? Are you all right?" One of his students in the front row stood up and looked at their teacher with great concern.

"I'm all right, Ogama-san," Fujitaka said, opening his eyes and trying to reassure his worried student. "It's just-"

The wave struck again, this time overwhelming him, and as the emotions broke over him Fujitaka recognized one of the feelings. It had never left him, really, but not since the day Nadeshiko died had he ever felt such overwhelming grief. As he bit back the sob that welled up within, the chalk slipped out of his hands, and shattered into a thousand pieces of white dust against the floor.