Dear Readers: I apologize profusely for my inaccuracies in terms of the Japanese school system. School in Japan starts in April, not September—their summer is in March, not July/August as with the North American school system. However, since a greater part of my story has been planned according to a school system that starts in September, winters in Dec/Jan etc. we will be following that template. Once again, apologies.

Chapter Three: And evil cackling ensues

Somewhere along the streets of Hong Kong...

"Phase One?" asked Meiling.

"Check," replied Tomoyo.

"You notice how girls can run up to each other in the street after not seeing each other in six months, and start off right in the middle of a conversation," observed Ryu.

The two girls turned on him viciously.

"For your information, that only happens..."

"...when we're trying to plot evilly!"

Eriol rolled his eyes.

"So what about Phase Two?" asked Meiling.

"On schedule as far as we can tell." Tomoyo looked to Eriol, and he nodded. "There's just one little unforeseen technicality. His name is Sayau."

HKU Campus...

Sakura and Syaoran watched (gleefully, no doubt) as Sayau disappeared into the university. Moments after introducing himself to Syaoran (as 'a very close and trusted friend' of Sakura's), Sayau had discovered that he was late to check into the university dormitory where he'd be staying. Conveniently enough (and not because Tomoyo and Eriol had timed it that way, of course) he had to leave then.

Syaoran faced Sakura. They could talk inhibited now that no one was around.

"Welcome to Hong Kong...again," he said.

"You didn't actually say 'welcome to Hong Kong' last time. I think it was more along the lines of, 'you incompetent Cardcaptor, how do you expect to beat the evil spirit that way?'."

"Hey, I rescued you out of a well!"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "It was a fountain, and it was about a foot deep, and actually you made me fall in."

Syaoran had the grace to blush, though it was probably not for the reason Sakura thought. He had just now managed to get an eyeful of her, and, well, he liked what he saw.

"Is it my fault you're clumsy?"

"I dunno, you're giving me an awfully good opportunity to blame it on you."

Syaoran gave her a perfectly innocent look, and she swatted him upside the head.

Kinomoto Residence, Tomoeda...

"Yuki, start packing. We're going to China."

Yukito rolled his eyes. "Firstly, Sakura explicitly doesn't want you there. Secondly, you've gotta work. And thirdly, we don't have any money."

"Yue can fly us."

"Across the ocean? And drain Sakura's powers so much so that she, Kero and I die?"

"We can borrow the Daidouji jet," said Touya, stubbornly.

Yukito just looked at him.

"We can borrow money from Dad," he tried again

Yukito just kept on looking. .

"We can... have a bake sale!"

Sweatdrop.

Touya grinned sheepishly. "Okay, okay, we can... ah ha! We can work till we drop and then work some more! Eventually we'll save up enough money!!" Touya struck a superhero pose. "We will save the kaijuu!" He disappeared into the other room, mumbling something about cookies and lemonade and the supply-demand ratio with regards to the current economy.

Isanko Dormitory...

Sayau looked around the front hall of his dorm, extremely bored. This was not a good start to his university career. Two of his best friends had disappeared, his girlfriend was hanging around with a martial arts star that she just happened to know from elementary school. And to top it off, the registration queue in front of him seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Yes, thought Sayau, cynically, lovely start to university. A far cry, at least, from the balloons and streamers and --cough--chicks--cough-- that he'd been expecting it to be overflowing with. Lovely, just lovely.

HKU Campus...

Tomoyo, Eriol, Meiling, and Ryu were ducked low in Eriol's new pre-paid-for Firebird, furtively watching the brown-haired couple a few meters away. They all sported sunglasses and looked very smugly sneaky. At least, they thought so. The grubby-minded university students passing the car, and casting strange looks in their direction, were of the opinion that they were being rather voyeuristic, but to that our spies stayed blissfully ignorant.

Sakura and Syaoran sat in the shade of a tree and talked... and talked... and talked... (and Tomoyo pouted because at this distance she couldn't pick up on audio, and who knew how many cute things they were saying now!)

"It's good to be back in Hong Kong," sighed Sakura, stretching to lay on the grass lazily. Syaoran lay beside her.

"Shall I take a shot in the dark and guess why you're here?"

"Oh, yes,do guess why I'm registering for university courses in another country."

Syaoran grinned, and then scratched his head with an expression of deep concentration. "Wait, wait, don't tell me, I know this one...."

"It has something to do with university..." prompted Sakura.

"Oh, oh, I know! You're a professor now!"

"That's exactly right," said Sakura, clapping delightedly. They smiled at each other. There was a happy comfortable silence.

"Do you realize we've never joked like this before?" said Syaoran meditatively.

Sakura nodded. "We were young, innocent, took life too seriously, and you were a jerk."

"Fair enough. But you were an airhead."

"Too true. But the Clow Cards and lives in mortal danger made us grow up fast."

"Harsh training and an authoritarian childhood helps with that too," murmured Syaoran. Sakura gave him a sad smile and hugged him. Sometimes words were an artificial comfort.

There was a delighted squeal from nearby.

---

They'd all had doubts, of course. Fervent love felt at eleven did not necessitate even the slightest feelings of amity at eighteen. There were so many things that could have gone so horribly, painfully wrong.

Both of them had built up impossible expectations of what the other person was going to be like. They had grown, changed, led different lives. Either could have found happiness with someone else, or decided that they didn't hold the same love that they had previously. Instead, it was just as likely that they might have found resentment, hostility and disillusionment.

When the four conspirators had contrived to play matchmaker they had been working with the dim memory of some halfhearted emotion. And the big question had been

...is it fate?

There are some times when optimism can lead to bitter disappointment. We wonder if this will be one.

---

Isanko Dormitory...

Sayau cleared his throat, twiddled his thumbs, shuffled his feet, yawned very obviously, folded his arms, checked his watch, sighed loudly, cracked his knuckles, rolled his eyes, stretched, bribed a passing student to buy him a coffee and a jam roll, consumed them, counted to three hundred, lost count, started again, got to seven hundred, lost count again, gave up, played poker with the student behind him, lost horribly to the student behind him, wrote an I.O.U. for sixty bucks to the student behind him, learnt a rollicking Irish drinking song from a bored foreign student, exchanged familial histories, life lessons, and anecdotes with the pretty brown-haired girl in front of him, realized she too was from Tomoeda, swapped gossip with her about mutual acquaintances, laughed at her jokes, admired the lilt in her voice, the curves of her face, and the way the sunlight reflected off her beautiful white dress and illuminated the red-gold highlights in her hair, and fell in love.

A lot can happen while you're waiting in line.

On a side-note, the guy three places behind Sayau discovered that a superior (but very small) civilization had sprouted from the sandwich he had brought for lunch. He didn't even bother to register that day, but simply dropped out of university, and marketed members of the civilization as children's toys. He made seventeen billion dollars in the space of three weeks, and now owns an archipelago somewhere in the Pacific

But that it neither here nor there.

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