Card Captors Again ...the card captors are back at it.

Episode 72: Sakura and the Strange Colors

I already have tons of cards planned out, but I can always use more! In your reviews, if you have any ideas for cards, let me know!

Syaoran stood up, starring at his light purple hands. "Fucking hell, what is this?"

Kero attempted to shake it off. "I have no idea. But, it's defiantly—"

"—a Clow Card," Sakura finished.

Yue leaned against a tree, his eyes closed. "It can't be a Clow Card. They were all captured three years ago."

Syaoran changed his sword into a pendant and crossed his arms. "But, it feels like a Clow Card, I'm certain of that much. And, by the kind of aura it has, it's a pretty damn powerful one at that."

"Alright, we're going to calm down everyone," Tomoyo announced, lowering her camera. Tears were in her eyes as she looked at the colors of her shirt and jeans. "I know we're all horrible shades of purple, but—owww," Tomoyo groaned as a splash of dark purple hit her, creating a dark purple stain on her light purple shirt. "That really hurt."

The others whipped their heads over to where the the splash of purple seemed to come from. It wasn't hard to find the thing that must of thrown it; a small girl with a purple blob in one hand and a rainbow dress stood clearly out against the all purple world. She stuck her tongue at Tomoyo before she summoned a rainbow, minus the color purple, narrowed her eyes once more in Tomoyo's direction, and walked along into it, disappearing all together.

Tomoyo titled her head to one side and placed a finger on her chin. "Now, what do you suppose I did to her?"

Syaoran slapped his purple hand on his purple forehead; like that was the least of their problems.

"What are we going to do," Kero moaned, returning to his borrowed form; unfortunately, he was still purple. "If this is a Clow Card, I have no idea which one it is! And if we don't know which one it is, how are we supposed to reverse it?"

Yue opened his eyes. "It feels like a Clow Card; but, it can't be. You are I have been there since the beginning, and there we're only fifty-two Clow Cards made—"

"Fifty-three," Sakura added in. "Fifty-four, if you count the former Hope Card I created. Either way, it still goes to show us that, by now, anything is possible. Expect the unexpected."

Yue shook his head. "That one extra card made sense. It balanced out the other fifty-two cards. This doesn't fit, Mistress."

Syaoran grunted, punching his fist into his open hand. "I say we go hunt down Hirragazawa and make him reverse this."

"But, it feels like a Clow Card," Sakura reminded him gently.

"Obviously he made it this way. Does everyone here honestly believe there's more cards to capture?"

Everyone was silent. Even Tomoyo lowered her camera to ponder Li's words.

Tomoyo broke in. "Is everything purple? Maybe, it's just us?"

Sakura became more cheerful at this. "Yeah! Maybe it's just us...or maybe just us and everything we can see."

Kero nodded. "We ought to check if everyone else is like this."

Syaoran snorted. "What, looking like this you mean?"

"He has a point," Sakura mumbled. She scanned her friends carefully, one by one.

Yue sat down crossed legged on the purple grass. "I could fly over—"

"Too risky," Kero put in. "Maybe, I—"

"I have it," declared Sakura. "We can use Tomoyo's camera."

Tomoyo clutched her camera a bit tighter.

The others waited for an explanation.

Sakura whipped out a card. "I can use Move to send Tomoyo's camera into the city, and we can see if everyone else is purple, too."

Syaoran grinned at his girlfriend, hugging her from behind. "Best idea I've heard all night."

Sakura, turning around in his arms, smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss before pulling him to where Tomoyo was kneeling with her camera.

"I have it set up...just don't place it in the ocean or anything."

Sakura rolled her eyes, raising her right hand. "Alright, I promise. She took a a few steps back, holding two pink cards between two fingers before throwing them in front of her. "Move the video camera over the town of Tomoeda. Move! Fly!"

Sakura shut her eyes, picturing where she wanted the camera to go in her minds' eye. Small wings moved the camera vertical and then it disappeared into thin air.

Tomoyo, still kneeling on the ground beside Sakura and Syaoran, gritted her teeth nervously. Syaoran wrapped an arm around a very concentrated Sakura and gave Tomoyo a half smile. "You worried?"

Tomoyo nodded. Syaoran shrugged. "Don't worry; Sakura won't break it."

Tomoyo shook her purple head impatiently. "I don't care if she breaks it physically; I have like twenty more at home."

Syaoran hung his head.

Tomoyo bit her lip. "What if the footage gets damaged? How will I recapture Sakura's Clow Card adventure again? I can't!"

Kero fell over, Yue shook his head, Syaoran reached out to pat the starry eyed girl on the back.

The camera reappeared in front of a squealing Tomoyo. "It looks alright from here. And—oh, Sakura you took beautiful footage! Is that—a pyramid?"

The others, who had crowed around Tomoyo to get a better look at the camera, now stared at Sakura, who, in turn, shrugged. "Hey, Tomoeda's one city! I wanted to get a good look at the whole world!"

Yue watched fascinated as Tomoeda, and Egypt turned into Canada. "How many places did you film," he inquired.

"Um, Tomoeda, Egypt, Canada, Mexico, Australia and France."

Tomoyo clapped her hands. "The Efflie Tower!"

Sakura nodded. "They're all purple. But I have a few ideas; see how everything's the same shade of purple in each place? I think that only Tomoeda is covered for the time being; or the camera can only record purple." Tomoyo fell over.

"I can try a few cards to maybe change this for a day, until we can do something more permanent." The others nodded their approval. "Stand back everyone." Everyone obliged and let the Cardmistress use her magic.

Sakura pulled out another card. "Remove the purple blanket that covers Tomoeda! Erase!" Sakura hit the Erase Card and the little card went to work, trying to remove the purple stains.

It didn't work.

Sakura sighed, and pulled out another card. "Protect Tomoeda; shield us from the purple! Shield!" A large transparent shield appeared above Tomoeda.

It didn't work.

Sakura pulled out her final card; and threw it in front of her. "Reverse the purple in Tomoeda! Change!" A sweeping light appeared, blinding all five members of the card captor group.

It didn't work.

Sakura fell to her knees. "Those were my only ideas—"

But, before she could say anything, a gust of red wind blew, changing everything shades of red.

Syaoran sighed as he went over to comfort his girlfriend. "It's better than purple!"

And a splash of red hit his back. He flinched from the pain.

"I'm going to kill Hirragazawa."

Sakura broke the silence. "Well, we can't just stay like this! I mean, what's everyone going to say tomorrow when they wake up and see that they're completely red!"

Yue shook his head, pointing to the clock tower on top of the the elementary school beside Senjiu High School. "It's almost three in morning."

"Tomorrow's Sunday. There's no school tomorrow," Tomoyo put in.

Kero shook his head when he see Sakura's eyes begin to close. "We're all tired; especially Sakura. Using Move and Fly to that extent, having Yue out for so long, and using the other cards really wore you out."

Sakura looked down guilty. "It shouldn't though; I ought to use the Cards more." She whipped her head up and idea popping into her head. "I could use Sleep—"

Yue placed a hand on her shoulder. "On the whole world until we figure this out?"

Sakura sighed. She was too weak to even attempt it over Tomoeda.

Tomoyo cut into Sakura's thoughts. "We should all get to bed, Sakura. You can always use Erase to make people forget this afterwards, when you're well rested."

Syaoran grunted his approval. "We'll meet here at noon tomorrow, and then we'll find Hirragazawa and make him explain."

So, without further ado, Tomoyo and Syaoran left in one direction and Sakura, Kero and Yue went in the other.

Sakura opened her eyes, reaching above her to check the time on her alarm clock. 11:10. She shook off sleep before throwing back the yellow—

Yellow?

Sakura glanced around the room. No longer were her walls red, but were all different shades of yellow. She glanced towards her fuming guardian beast.

"Kero, what's—"

Kero zipped over to her bed. "I'll tell you what's wrong! What color am I really?"

"Um, yellow?"

"Yes, I'm yellow! Now, the whole world's yellow—but you know what?"

Sakura glanced from him head to toe, starting to realize why he was so upset; she let out a little giggle. "Oh, I see!"

Kero, even though he was in his borrowed form, growled. "I'm the wrong yellow! Since when is my tail a mustard color and by body so light you need sunglasses to look at it?"

Sakura smiled. "It's not that bad." She quickly changed her outfit from dark yellow to a medium yellow and brushed her hair, closing an ear to Kero's complaints. Then it hit her.

Why weren't her Dad and brother screaming at her for an explanation?

Running down the stairs, she noticed both of them at the table, both reading newspapers.

"Uh, good morning?"

Toyua glanced at her, raising a blond eyebrow. "Good morning."

Sakura's Dad smiled. "Good morning Sakura."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. "Uh, so I guess you guys must want an explanation, huh?"

"To what," Mr. Kinomoto asked with a smile. "You know it's Sunday; you don't have to wake up early on Sunday's. You can sleep for the whole day even. Pancakes?"

Sakura nodded, sitting at a yellow chair, with a gold plate in front of her, covered in yellow syrup and almost brown pancakes. "Thanks."

Touya drank from his cup; was it juice or milk, Sakura really didn't want to know. "What's eating you," he finally asked as Kero came down the stairs and their father served him pancakes.

Sakura stood up. "Alright, I know you two are acting like there's nothing going on, but it's not my fault everything has been turned yellow, alright?"

Touya laughed along with their father.

Sakura took a step back. "What's so funny?"

Touya gave her an I'm-not-stupid-look. "Come on, Sakura. Eat your pancakes. If this is some practice audition for a school play—change the script. You make no sense."

Sakura exchanged glances with Kero. "Just stop it, you two! I think it's a Clow card. Last night, everything was red and purple! And now it's yellow!"

Sakura's Dad looked into Sakura's dark yellow eyes. "Are you alright, Sakura? Everything is fine this morning; the world has always been yellow. Did you hit your head this morning?"

Touya nodded his agreement. "And what's this 'red' and 'purple'. Are they like some new generation slang?"

Sakura grabbed her yellow coat from her chair. "You guys aren't kidding, are you? You don't know any of the other colors?"

Touya put down his yellow fork. "Look, Sakura everything has always been—"

Touya was cut off by a green gust of wind.

"—green Sakura. I don't even know what you're talking about. Is 'colors' a new slang word too?"

Sakura walked backwards to the door, a stunned Kero following.

"I...have to go guys. Meeting people at noon."

Sakura's father set down a pan. "Have a fun time, today."

Sakura stuffed Kero into her pocket and dashed off to meet the others in the park.

Syaoran jogged up to meet Sakura as Kero flew ahead to catch up with Yue and Tomoyo. "Hey babe," he said, kissing her deeply. "You still in shock?"

Sakura smiled as she pulled away, her eyes glowing a darker green than usual. "I suppose you found out that everyone on this whole planet forgot what colors are, too?"

Syaoran stroked the side of her face. "It's better than having to erase their memories after this is over."

Kero, Yue, Tomoyo and Tomoyo's camera met up with the couple.

Tomoyo herself had at least five splotches all over her clothes.

Sakura smiled. "Did you insult the colors, again?"

Tomoyo rolled her eyes. "Can you tell? Anyways, I think whoever is doing this defiantly thinks too highly of themselves," she hit the ground just as a splash of green flew her way. "Ah ha! They—"

A splash hit her squarely in the back.

"—didn't miss."

Syaoran grabbed Sakura's wrist and dragged her towards the entrance of the park. "Let's go pay Hirragazawaa nice visit, shall we?"

Sakura and the others found themselves having to walk faster than usual before Tomoyo posed a very important question:

If Clow Reed's manor was torn down, just where was Eriol?

"We've looked everywhere," Syaoran proclaimed. "Eriol has disappeared! Just like him, too!"

Sakura placed a hand on her boyfriends arm. They were currently sitting in a small restaurant, drinking smoothies. Unfortunately, they were all green, so they were testing each of them and passing them around until they got theirs.

Sakura tasted the one in front of her. "Ummmm, I think it's peach—"

"Mine," Tomoyo chanted, strangely over pleased that Sakura had tasted her smoothie.

"Strawberry," Syaoran said, passing it to Sakura.

Yue—now a caught up Yukito—tasted the one in front of him. "Apple."

Nobody answered.

Tomoyo leaned across the table. "Yukito."

"Yeah."

"It's yours."

Yukito looked confused. "I thought Syaoran ordered apple, too."

Tomoyo nodded. "Yukito, you're the only one who ordered a large."

The others looked at their tiny smalls' compared to his huge large. "I guess I did."

Syaoran rubbed his forehead. "Alright, where else haven't we checked?"

Tomoyo sipped her drink. "We've checked the empty school, the park, all major apartment buildings—"

Sakura slapped the table. "Back up a moment, Tomoyo. I think I have an idea."

"I can't believe we didn't think of this place before," Tomoyo declared, walking though the gates.

"The Tsukimine Shrine," Syaoran repeated, hugging Sakura a bit closer. "I should have—"

A gust of blue wind stopped Syaoran in mid-sentence.

Sakura sighed. Well, it was better than green; but she didn't dare say so. Those splashes of color looked pretty painful.

"What a lovely day it is," a passing by women said a very young girl. Sakura, with her bright blue hair, turned her head towards them.

"Mom, am I more of a light blue, or a dark blue? Cause boys only like dark blues'."

The Mom smiled. "You're the perfect blue."

Sakura had to let out a small laugh. When the world was colorful, we fought about skin color, eye color and hair color; when the world was completely blue, we fought about who was the bluest.

She sighed; even if it was for the worst, at least this color change didn't affect human nature.

"...Sakura, look out—" Tomoyo hardly had time to yell before a a big gust of orange wind hit Sakura.

A now very orange Sakura stood brightly against the blue background while a giggling young girl hovered above in a cloud of endless color; in her hands was a blob of all different shads of orange.

"Orange," the girl said. "Orange, orange!" She put the blob back into the rainbow cloud and eyed Syaoran, who, in turn, took a few steps back.

"Violet," she cried. "Vio—"

"Release," Sakura cried out, a windless storm surrounding her. "Time!"

Tomoyo and the colorful girl froze. Sakura narrowed her dark orange eyes. "This is a Clow Card, guys."

Kero and Yukito transformed into their true forms, eying the frozen girl.

Sakura could feel the Time Card's powers weakening. Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed the remaining Sakura Cards. "Freeze, Arrow, Loop, Wood, Create, Bubble...I don't know which card to use!" She fell helplessly to her knees.

Syaoran, feeling very violet at the moment, rushed over and kneeled beside his girlfriend. "How about...oh, I don't know—"

Kero looked nervously at the trees beginning to sway in the light wind. Sakura didn't have much time. "How about Erase?"

Sakura looked up from the pile of Sakura Cards laying on the ground. "Erasing the whole world isn't a possibility, Kero"

Yue opened his eyes. "Try—"

The Time Card's effect wore off before he had the chance to voice his idea.

Tomoyo, confused as to how Sakura and Syaoran moved to quickly over to the opposite corner, and how Kero and Yue had changed so fast, looked up nervously as the little girl grabbed a blob of red from the cloud and prepared to throw it at her.

"Shield," Sakura yelled, setting up a shield around the whole card captor gang. "Tomoyo, we'll fill you in later," she screamed, because of the loud, black, gusty wind surrounding the protected area. Splashes of color began hitting the shield.

Tomoyo simply nodded, covering her ears to shield them from the noise.

"Sakura," Syaoran yelled, "soon we're not going to be able to see out of the shield; the splashes are coming fast."

Sakura nodded. "Watery," she called out, sending the water from the near by pond hurling against the shield. The water slowly made its way down the shield and onto the blue grass.

And, to Sakura's astonishment, the blue grass that was hit by water turned white.

And that's when inspiration struck.

"Jump!" She jumped out of the shield into the windy air, shielding herself with her arms. She jumped along rooftops, the wind just a few minutes behind her, not stopping to realize people were staring at her the entire time.

But she did, however, appreciate how close her blue house was to the Tsukimine Shrine was to her house. Jumping though her second story window, she ran to her desk and grabbed her pencil case.

"Non-toxic, non-toxic...," she muttered as the wind started coming in though her window. She grabbed the first non-toxic marker she found and read the label. "This non-toxic formula comes off with water!"

She whipped out a permanent marker. "This toxic formula fades with a combination of bleach and water. May turn stain whiter due to bleach."

Just as she had expected. Everything in this world fades—or comes out—with water, the universal solvent. Grass stains, markers, mud—

This girl didn't re-color everything with some magic color formula; she simply sucked all the color out of the world and re-colored it differently; which explained the white:

How can there be green grass under blue grass when the green was taken away first? Without color, everything has no color.

Sakura began to make her way back to the Shrine; only to be stopped at the entrance by the girl and her black wind.

But, this time, she was ready.

"Watery, form a cage and bind the wind! Watery!" Water came from all angles and submerged the girl and her black wind.

Sakura twirled her wand around once and it changed back to the sealing wand for a moment. "Return to your previous form as a card!"

The card burst from the water cage and the black wind stopped. All that remained was a young girl with as many colors as any human could imagine woven into her hair. Her dress was black as night and her dress as white as day.

Sakura smiled a bit; despite all the trouble caused, this card was truly beautiful, just as color should be.

"Card created by Clow abandon your form and reincarnate under the name of your new master Sakura!"

Colors flung out from the Card and a bright light came from the Star Wand, blinding everyone for miles. All that was left was a pink, shining card floating down to Sakura. She caught the card and waited for the pink light to wear off.

The Color.

And, as Sakura gazed upon the perfectly colored world, she couldn't help smile a bit when she realized that the name really did suit the card.

"It was The Color, and it was simply a card that sucked all the color out of the world, and then re-colored it any way she wanted.

"Everything in the world can be lessoned, or completely removed by water; that was the final clue that lead to to believe that the girl simply had taken the color from the world; and by the looks of it, she really thought highly of the way she decorated, too.

"I knew that water would fix the situation because when I cleared off the shield, the water that hit the blue grass turned it white. Why was it turned white? Think about it: if you have green grass, then remove the green and make it blue, when you remove the blue will it be green? No; it won't. It'll be white because there is no color. The storm around her was a fusion of all the colors, so it was black. Just think of a color wheel, guys."

Sakura finished her speech, quite proud of the fact that she was able to solve the mystery behind this Clow Card.

"I missed the whole capture because of that stupid black wind," Tomoyo cried.

Kero sighed. "Didn't you get the end, though?"

"Then it was that stupid bright light!" Tomoyo, currently pouting as turned on her camera; the part she did get, though, was Sakura smiling at the card then looking at the perfectly colored world. And, like a picture, a shot like that said a thousand words.

Syaoran, still scarred over the whole experience, checked to make sure he was the proper color; he cringed as he realized that, during the yellow streak, he had put on green pants, purple shirt and a blue over shirt. Tomoyo simply giggled. "Anyways," Syaoran said glaring at her, "this is a Clow Card and we should focus on that."

Sakura fingered the pink card in her hand. "That's right. A Clow Card that was never mentioned by Clow Reed."

"Or created by Clow," Yue put in.

Sakura shook her head. "He must of created it; I sealed it with the sealing wand! It was a Clow Card!"

Tomoyo shook her head. "Why would Clow create cards that nobody—not even Kero and Yue—knew about?"

"Maybe I can answer that one."

Everyone turned their heads to stare at Eriol Hirragcazawa.