Disclaimer: I do not own CCS! That's something Clamp owns okay!
Summary: The Card Mistress, Sakura Kinomoto, has her brother, Touya, leaving for America for his studies and had no choice but to leave Sakura somewhere else with both their parents gone and Tomoyo, Sakura's best friend in England. He only had one option… the Li Mansion. But Sakura has a grudge on Lindao Li, her ex-boyfriend who had caused her nothing but pain and her sudden change. The once cheerful Sakura was now an irresponsible, and daring 17 year old. She joins gangs and bullies people to the extent that she now lost her guardians. She puts up a fight at first but was forced to have it her brother's way. Luckily, Lindao was in Taiwan for studies as well, and no one except a certain Syaoran Li is left at home. How can she put up with such an obnoxious and authority grubbing person?
CHOICE OF THE HEART
Chapter 9: The First Step to Go Through It
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"I'm sorry… I couldn't save her…" another voice answered, a modest one, as a girl in her sixteen jumps out of the thinning smoke with a glowing bow and a golden arrow. She had long, wavy, dark violet hair and tired amethyst eyes.
"T-Tomoyo?" Sakura muttered as soon as she took sight of her.
"S-Sakura… it's you!" the girl replied as she runs to her and hugs her tightly.
"It's really… YOU," Sakura whispered in relief as more tears flows through her wet eyes.
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"S-Sakura… are you alright?" Lindao asked sheepishly as he slowly walks towards her.
Sakura turned to him slowly, her eyes, no longer raging, instead was mild and clear. "I'm alright…" she answer with hesitation as she resumes her attention into putting bandages to Tomoyo's wounds.
They have already gone back to the Li Mansion as soon as the best friends' reunion ended.
Tomoyo smirked.
Sakura was a little shocked. 'Tomoyo? Smirked? Since when?' her subconsciousness asked her. She and Tomoyo have been friends since they were in grade school, and never has she seen her smirk. A grin perhaps… but never a smirk.
"Is something wrong?" Tomoyo asked as soon as she realized the sudden confusion in Sakura's face. 'Did she notice anything?' she thought racingly.
"W-what? N-no! N…nothing's wrong…" Sakura replied as if snapped from dream land. "I just can't believe that you're finally here!" she added to cover up what she just had acted.
"I can't believe it either…" Tomoyo agreed.
"How did you say you got here again?" Syaoran asked. He was clearly suspicious but was trying his best for it not to show.
"I was in England, and a freak accident caused me to… er… DIE," she started confidently. She wasn't lying. "Then… the next thing I know, I was lying back on my aparment and this bow and arrow was lying next to me," she added, as she points at the glowing bow and the pack of golden arrows. "The next few days, some kind of… DEMONS begun attacking me, and when I heard you're here in Hong Kong, I decided to come here for your help," she ended her explanation with, yet, another one of her white lies.
"I don't do those crap anymore…" Sakura answered, her face hidden under her hair, her voice cold but hurt.
"Why?" Tomoyo asked innocently as if she doesn't know anything.
Sakura remained silent.
"And where are Cerberus and Yue?" Tomoyo asked again, hoping Sakura would finally snap… which she triumphantly did.
"I screwed-up okay?" Sakura shouted, tears starting to flow from her eyes all over again. "After my father died…after you left me… and after… after… Lindao left me as well… I felt as if I was so alone! I started doing STUPID things! And soon… Cerberus and Yue were taking from me as well! They're not my guardians anymore! … Not after I screw-up! IT'S ALL MY FAULT!" she continuously blurrted out, her hands now covering her face, and her body shaking with emotional distress.
Lindao was about to comfort her when a hand beat him to it. It was non other than Syaoran's.
Lindao's face was clearly hurt and surprised all at the same time as he watched Syaoran caress Sakura in his arms. He hadn't seen that coming. 'Maybe I WAS away too long…' he thought in dismay.
Tomoyo watched the big scenery she made with a glorious and triumphaht heart. She tried her best to put on a very sad face to cover up her mischieveous plans when she turned to Lindao and saw how he looked liked. 'This is even better than I've expected…' she thought as she turns to what was causing the poor guy's pain.
"Shhhh…. It'll be alright…" Syaoran hushed her. He hadn't think before acting. He has been doing it a lot lately.
"I…I'm sorry," Tomoyo murmured as she bows down her head, pretending to feel the pain as well.
"Don't be…" Sakura replied as she sat back up from Syaoran's sweet embrace that she didn't seem to have noticed. "It's all my fault… not yours," she added as she force a smile out.
"What about… Maemi?" Syaoran asked gloomily, reminded of how they lost their new friend.
All faces went dim.
"We couldn't even… bury her properly," Sakura remarked with sadness.
"Bury?" Tomoyo asked, trying her best not to laugh hysterically. "She's not yet dead…" she correceted Sakura's comment.
All heads turned to her as eyes grew wider and mouths opened slightly.
"Then… where is she!" Syaoran asked surprised and excited.
"The shadow is a form of evil that are sent to PICK UP what their master tells them to," Tomoyo explained enthusiastically. "They CAN hurt people… but they CANNOT kill them. It's just one of the low class messengers in the underworld," she added as if it was her whole life that she beat up these…demons.
"Then that means she's somewhere down… THERE!" Sakura exclaimed nervously, waiting for a nod.
Tomoyo simply nodded and pretended to be nervous as well.
"C'mon… we'll go down there… NOW!" Sakura ordered as she stands up from her seat and starts walking towards the stairs to her room. 'It's time to get the old Sakura back…' she added in thought determingly.
"Now?" Lindao managed to repeat in shock.
"Okay then, let's go," Tomoyo cocluded as she stands up herslelf and enters the kitchen with a smirk as she turns her back to the two Chinese left on the living room.
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"Boy she's doing a LOT better than you…" Eriol insulted a periwinkle haired girl hanging with her face all bruised up.
"Forgive me… My lord…" the girl, Maemi, managed to utter under the spine shocking pain that oozed into her whole body. "Please give me another chance to prove myself… promise… I WILL kill them…" she pleaded with a promise.
Eriol turned to her with a cold glare and smirked out a smile. "Very well…" he finally replied. "Once they get here… you will be released and you should be able to kill them," he told her his deal. "If not… I will be the one killing you," he ended with a threat.
Maemi gasped.
>>>>>
"Let's go," Sakura declared as she leaps on the last two steps of the wooden stairs, wearing tight gray shirt and black lose skirt with black pedals underneath, her hair on a high ponytail. "You know how to go down there, right?" she asked as she looks at Tomoyo.
"Of course," Tomoyo simply replied. She also changed into her fighting clothes of a sleeveless, black, ninja-like outfit, her hair on pigtails.
Lindao and Syaoran simply nodded as they follow the two determine Japanese girls outside. Wearing simply t-shirts and lose pants, they sighed as they tried to hide their nervousness.
After walking quite a short distance, they stopped just before they walked out of the Li mansion's gate and turning towards the huge wall.
"Uh… Tomoyo?" Sakura wondered out as she follows Tomoyo towards the wall.
Tomoyo breathed in deep and placed both her hands on the wall and blew on it. Instantly, a portal of swirling black flame opened before them and a hot eerie sensation covered them. It was the feeling like your soul's being drawn, sucked into the burning black hole.
"Is THIS the way to the underworld?" Syaoran asked with doubt evident in his voice. He wasn't sure what to make out of what Tomoyo just did. How was she able to open the portal? 'She'd be a demon if she could open that last time I checked…' he thought to himself as he eyes Tomoyo, hoping she wouldn't notice.
The Li Clan had their background in magic. The family was a master of Eastern magic themselves and their history as descendants of Clow Reed is in no low class.
Syaoran knew some background about the so called underworld, and one thing he knew about it is that only those who are from the place could call out a portal to be able to enter it. Now he's really suspicious.
"C'mon," Sakura invited determingly. "There's no need to waste any more time," she added as she starts to enter the portal.
She clenched her star necklace and sighed before completely jumping in. 'Don't fail me now,' she thought nervously. It has been a while since she really used her staff again. There was a huge possibility that the staff wouldn't come out on her call. The same goes with the cards.
"Let's go then," Lindao finally spoke after a few minutes of silence as he process what was going on. He followed Sakura and also jumped inside the portal.
"Go ahead Li," Tomoyo gestured for him to come in first. She had the feeling he was getting suspiscious.
"You go first," Syaoran answered firmly.
Tomoyo nodded and smiled as she jumps inside.
Syaoran followed last and the portal completely closed.
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"Yue…" Cerberus called out in a low voice as he leaps beside a large winged man with silvery hair that glowed under the moon.
"I know Cerberus…" the man named Yue replied, the slightest hint of worry on his voice.
"You know and you're not planning to do anything!" Cerberus shouted hysterically, his voice still kept as low as possible.
"I'll do EVERYTHING to save her Cerberus," Yue replied shakingly. His hands are now rolled in tight fists as he struggles to keep his face straight and firm.
"You should!" a woman's voice interrupted the guardians' conversation as a girl with butterfly wings and red violet long hair and ruby eyes walks out of the darkness.
"Nakuru!" Cerberus exclaimed in a whisper as if shocked and frightened with the girl's prescence.
"Don't you worry Cerberus," another voice, a deep and manly one this time, spok as a huge panther-like animal with large dragonfly-like wings emerge right next to Nakuru. "We're here to help you," he completed his sentence.
"But… why Spinel?" Cerberus asked in confusion. "You are Master Eriol's guardians and yet you will go against him?" he asked more specifically.
"We WERE Master Eriol's guardians as passed by Master Clow Reed to him, until he was corrupted by the dark side," Nakuru explained with pain.
"Your Mistress had committed little mistakes and yet you two have been separated to her by our Master for what she'd done," Spinel Sun started. "What more fitting for us to be separated from our Master as well since he had done MORE than simply earthly errs," he finished his explanation.
Yue suddenly stood up from where he was sitted and started to walk away with a determined face.
"Where are you going?" Cerberus instantly asked as soon as Yue left his spot.
"I'm going to save my Mistress…" Yue replied as he disappears into the dark shadows.
Cerberus, Spinel, and Nakuru followed closely behind.
I know this Chapter sucked but I have to post it to get the story going. Believe it or not this chapter is very much needed for the next ones. Sorry if the SxS got a little cooled down… okay… a LOT cooled down. I have to… don't worry, much to come once they've enetered the underworld. I promise you more SxS down there… what better way to have them together under crucial circumstances. Right? Ehehe… LOL!
I'm anxious to get this story done!
Reviews people! c ",)
