Title: Beneath the Cold Layer

Disclaimer: Not mine boohoo TT.TT

A/N: Yes! I'm back from the dead! Haha... anyhoo I just like to thank the people that reviewed my story!!! I just hope that they'll review again for the second chapter ; This is from the past, so that no one will get confused on how the characters were lead to the particular scene I made in the beginning. So, enjoy!

"....." – talking

'.....' thoughts

Chapter 1

::Past::

"Hey Tomoyo-chan!" Riding on her roller skates, Sakura waved enthusiastically to her best friend.

Standing near the school gate, Tomoyo Daidouji switched off her video camera, and waved back with the same amount of joy, maybe more. "Hi Sakura- chan! Did you have fun on your trip to China?"

Stopping next to her, she nodded feverishly, "Syaoran and I went to a lot of places. Ate a lot of good food too. Too bad you couldn't come though," Sakura pouted, "it would've been more fun if you did."

Tomoyo giggled, "But you're kind of glad I didn't, huh Sakura-chan." Switching to a mischievous smile, she said, "More time alone with Syaoran- kun is always an extra plus."

Sakura's cheek immediately turned a tiny shade of pink. Ever since Syaoran Li had returned back from China, Sakura and he became closer than before, and started to spend more time with each other. She started to stutter something incoherently.

"Just teasing Sakura-chan. Just teasing." Tomoyo giggled once more.

"Teasing about what?"

Both the girls turned, and saw the man of the hour walking towards them with an odd expression on his face.

"Nothing Syaoran-kun, just talking about how Sakura-" Sakura cut Tomoyo off by hastily covering her mouth with her hand.

Sakura laughed hastily and tried to finish off her friends' sentence, "how I taught myself how..to...juggle. Yes! Juggle!"

Syaoran raised his eyebrow, and Tomoyo did too.

"Juggle?"

Shifting her eyes to Tomoyo's amused face, Sakura turned her gaze back to Syaoran again, "Yes. I...learned how to juggle when we got home from our trip to China."

Tomoyo brought her fingers to her mouth to remove Sakura's hand away.

"Do you think you can show us a little show on juggling?" Syaoran asked calmly, but if one can see close enough, his eyes held a bit of amusement.

"Uhh... Now?" Sakura asked timidly.

"Now's good" Tomoyo piped in with a smile on her face. Sakura glared at her with an expression of 'you're-not-helping' look.

Looking around feebly, Sakura tried to think about how she's going to get out of this one. Finally, she exclaimed with a triumphant grin, "But there's nothing that I can juggle with!"

Both of the Sakura's friends turned their heads to see if there was anything. Spotting something, Syaoran pointed at the tree behind Sakura, "You can juggle with apples."

Sakura's grin faded away. Slowly turning around, Sakura had faced her new biggest fear: the apples.

When she started to reply back with a hasty remark, the bell rang to signal kids that it was time for school.

"School! School!! We have to go to school!!" Almost jumping for joy, Sakura ran away from her two friends.

Tomoyo shook her head bemusedly and pulled on Syaoran's arm gently to the school. She advised happily, "We'll ask her again after school."

"Hey, did you hear? Dead bodies were found in dark alleys near Kyoto..."

This was the talk throughout the whole school. Multiples of pale bodies were discovered in old dark parts of Kyoto and no one knew the cause of these sudden deaths. An old man, a little girl and her mom, none of them were related whatsoever, so detectives were stumped on who the killer was. All of the victims were in perfect health, so the doctors and scientists had nothing to blame for its deaths.

"It's pretty sad that they have to lose their life like that." Tomoyo said with a shudder. Sakura, Syaoran and she were sitting near the window in their small classroom. It was lunchtime, so students started to talk rapidly about the fresh news that was going around in their town.

"It's like a winner from a lottery ticket. No one knows who's going to be next." Sakura said with a worried frown.

"It is to be said that vampires are the cause for these incidents." Takashi and Chiharu walked up to them. Chiharu then smacked him in the arm. "Enough with your nonsense. We all know vampires does not exists, just like ghosts and hideous beasts."

"No, its very true. I got this from a very reliable source."

Rolling her eyes, Chiharu said, "And where did you get this 'very reliable source'?"

Takashi stared at her for a couple of seconds with his very small eyes and said quickly, "From my grandpa. Anyways," he turned to his other friends, and continued, "The way to kill vampires," he heard a sigh from Chiharu, "is to run something, preferably a stake, into their heart. Or you can see them burn in the sun. Or-"

"Okay, that's enough," Chiharu grabbed his arm, and started to pull him away from the group.

Sakura and the rest could hear Takashi trying to reason with Chiharu, "I'm telling you it's true, if..."

"Well, that was interesting." Syaoran commented quietly. Shaking his head, "I'm not surprised – Sakura? Are you ok?" He saw that Sakura had her eyebrows scrunched up together, as if she was thinking heavily on something.

With a small touch of her shoulder from Tomoyo, Sakura met the gaze of two pairs of worried eyes. "Hmm? Yeah. I'm ok. But...what if Takashi said was actually real?" She asked hesitantly.

"It would be the first time he did." Syaoran inaudibly mumbled to himself.

"Don't worry Sakura-chan. Vampires aren't real. Just like ghosts." Tomoyo said with an encouraged smile, hoping to help relieve her friend from worry. "And if they are real, you have Syaoran to protect you."

From that statement, Sakura and Syaoran both blushed red.

"Tadaima! I'm home!" Sakura shouted when she stepped into her house. It was around 8:00 when Tomoyo's mother had dropped her off at her home. Sakura and Tomoyo had hanged out at Tomoyo's house to try on the new outfits that Tomoyo made for her. "Anyone home?"

"They're all out." Kero came into view, and flew to Sakura in a rush. He grabbed her hand and hurriedly led her upstairs to her room.

"Wait, where are they?" Sakura regained her balance after she almost tripped from the stairs. "Hold on Kero, don't go so fast! I'm only human!"

Slowing down his speed, he finally opened her door. After then got in, he said, "Touya's out with Yukito and your dad went on a business meeting he had to attend to this evening." He shut the door, and immediately turned on the television that was set up on the cabinet next to her bed.

"It has come to me that vampires might be residing here near our city." Kero said, staring at the T.V. screen that had just came into view. It was stationed at a news channel.

Sakura widened her eyes. "Vampires?"

"Yeah," still staring at the screen, Kero stated, "I've been hearing news from Yue that a nest of vampires had settled near a town called Okashida, but I haven't paid enough attention on this particular issue."

"B-but, vampires aren't real though, right?" Sakura stuttered. "I mean, they're just myths, aren't they?"

Shaking his head, "They're very much real as you and me, but you haven't heard much from them because they live in another realm." Frowning with incredulity, he tapped his chin carefully, "but I haven't figured out how they broke from the barrier and came here on earth."

Sakura stared at Kero with disbelief. She was about to say something, but Kero interrupted, "Wait, here it is." He turned up the volume television, and Sakura had nothing to do but watch.

"A body was discovered dead near a dumpster that was located behind an old restaurant. The unusual sightings, however, was that no harm was found on the body, but rather an extreme lack of amount of blood was to be a questionable symptom. The doctors also had discovered that two little holes were seen on the side of the neck, near the shoulder blade..."

"Well, there you go." Kero turned off the television. He heard Sakura whisper to herself, "So he was telling the truth."

Looking at her quizzically, he asked, "Who was telling the truth?"

"Huh?" Sakura snapped out of her gaze. "Oh, it's nothing."

Shrugging it off, Kero sat next to her on the bed and patted her knee gently, "Even though vampires are not common in this realm, there is a fair amount of percentage that do live in a different world beside here. Most of them are scattered around all over the realm, but there are some that travel in groups."

Sakura looked at the ground, and stared at a little lint she found sticking out of her rug. Quietly, she said, "And what do you want me to do?"

Kero turned his head upward to gaze at her face. "I know this is not your usual thing, but if no one is doing anything about it, then more people will die."

Sakura finally turned to Kero, her eyes were filled with worry and a tint of fear. "But you're asking me to kill them, aren't you?" Sakura saw him shift uncomfortably on her bed.

"Well.."

Sakura cut him off, "Kero! You know I can't kill anyone! No, I won't kill anyone, even if they are called monsters!" She now stood up and looked down on him. "Everyone deserves a chance to live!"

"Look," he flew up to her, so that he can directly see her eye to eye, "they already had a chance to live, and as vampires, they're having a second chance that are not meant for them to have. Most of them were good before, but after they lost their life, their heart went away with it." Not wanting to hear anymore, Sakura moved away from him.

Flying to Sakura so that he can see her face once again, he spoke, "Vampires are evil, and none of them has a soul to care about anything. And- "

Feeling helpless, Sakura retorted back, "But what if some of them are not evil as you say they are. If some of them has a soul, and I kill them, I'm going to kill an innocent being?"

Restraining from rolling his eyes, exasperation started to build up in his tiny body. "Sakura, you can't wait around and try to see if they have a soul or not. If your calculations were incorrect, and they don't have a heart, they'll kill you in an instant. You can't spare their life just by your hopes."

Sakura felt discouraged. Trying to think of anything to help her situation, she started to walk around the room with quick, rapid steps. Suddenly, an idea popped in her head, "What if-"

"You can't use your clow cards to fight them." Kero glowered at her. Folding his arms against his chest, he announced, "Those powers are useless. There are certain ways to destroy them, but I'll tell you all about that tomorrow."

Shoulders slumped and defeated, Sakura plopped down on her bed, and laid her head down on her comfy pillow. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them; just like a fetal position. "Just give me time to think about it." She softly stated to Kero.

Resting his feet near her head on the pillow, he patted her head gently with his yellow paw. "I know this is sudden news to you, but try to think about." Sakura slipped her eyes shut and stayed quiet.

Glancing out of the window, Kero thought, 'If you don't help Sakura, who knows what would happen to this town.'

Kero flew up to the light switch, and turned it off.

Click.

yay!! Finally finished with this chapter!! hope that someone reviews my story! Even one would be fine!! And sorry if there are any grammar mistakes, Just hope that you won't cringe too badly when you read the story Okay then..

Toodles!!