Kha the Cleric's

Cardcaptor Sakura: Sacred Destiny

Prologue The Legend of the Clow Cards

Once upon a time, darkness blanketed the land, its grasp holding the hearts of men hostage, as it pit king against king, wizard against wizard, knight against knight. The skies were eternally downcast with soot and dust, crisscrossed with lashes of blue, white and roars. The seas were black and rancid, choked with the bodies of the fallen. And the ground thundered of hooves and feet, of swords clashing and ringing, of crackles of burning wood, of hoarse cries of desperate rank and file. Once lush meadows were burnt black by the countless times pike men and paladins traded fireballs and lightning. Ah, the folly of Man! Science had successfully blended the mystic of sorcery with metallurgy and artifice, giving rise to a breed of weapons bestowing non-magic folk with the power to weld magic as though they were sorcerers themselves. Wars for territory were frequent during that time, and those weapons raised the bloodiness and devastation of those battles to extreme heights. One day, the skies were lit by throngs of descending stone, unleashing an unknown horde upon the fractured lands of the mortals. They were known as the Callers of the Grave, worshippers of the demon-god Sentsuto. They laid waste to city after city, with total destruction the preoccupation of their dead minds. Houses and Clans fought to secure their lands only to be overwhelmed and slaughtered. Those who were arrogant perished. Those who had courage were too eliminated. Only the ignorant and the cornered stood in between the coming storm and its goal.

Amid the chaos, a boy was born to a family of wizards. He was to be named Clow Reed, and the stars foretold that he would be the one to end the suffering. But they didn't reveal the tribulations he had to endure. Orphaned at 9 when jealous forces sought to affect their fury on his family, Clow wandered the streets for 4 years, mastering whatever he knew of his powers and plotting the downfall of those stained with his parents' blood. But years under the tutelage of Merlin quelled the fury and brought the boy back onto his true quest. Starting from his 18th birth date, Clow forged the Clow Cards, one for each passing week. At 19, he was to leave Camelot with the accompaniment of 2 familiars Cerberos and Yue on a journey that would see Clow cross the European-Chinese-Russian supercontinent, gather a ragtag coalition of survivors and gain the friendship of dwarf Kai Sean the Tall and night elf Illiana Sunseeker. His efforts were met with scorn at first, but each victory brought more and more warriors to his banner. By the time he came face to face with the origin of the Horde, he had accomplished an impossibility: forming a global alliance with Clans Dragon Pheonix, Bae Long and Katsumoto, and Houses Joseph, Murem and Schneider. Using Hong Kong and its various ki points, Clow was to teleport his forces deep into Edo Harbour and lead a massive assault up Mount Fuji to destroy the possessed portal built into her thermal vents. Tales speak of odds horrendously lopsided; Clow's men and women had only their blades and arrows, and the support of the Clow cards; the Callers bore the full kit of magically infused weapons and armour. Many of Clow's friends were to die in that long skirmish, including Kai and Illiana. When the final blow fell and the mountain erupted in joy as its vein was cleared, Clow wept in sorrow. Their sacrifice saved the world, but they never had to if those weapons had never been made…

Months later, Clow and his supporters returned to Hong Kong, where the worn sorcerer proposed what was now known as the Kowloon Agreement. It banned the use, development and manufacture of Weaponized Magic Devices (WMD), along with vows of all present to ensure that the public display of magic as well had to be curbed. All WMD had to be surrendered and destroyed. And in exchange, Clow created another Earth on a far corner of the astral plane and named it Terra Intra. That world was to be the home of all Magicusers from then on. The other Houses and Clans, hoping to retain their arts, readily agreed to the terms. But they preferred to have their own wording on the subject. They incorporated the principles into their Codes of Honor, but refused to sign the agreement, while demanding a place on Terra Intra. Clow, hoping to avoid another crisis, compromised. And so every single sorcerer and unhuman sentient creature on Earth gathered upon thousands of skyships, and set flight for the promised land, leaving their mortal counterparts to wake up from an eternal nightmare and begin to rebuild their homes with only faint memories of the times we now call the Dark Ages.

Knowing that peace was never eternal, Clow formed the secret society of Enforcers of the Kowloon Agreement from the survivors of his army and appointed his staunchest ally the reborn Clan Wolf to assist the Enforcers in their efforts to prevent another great war.

With that settled, Clow himself soon passed on, and his familiars and cards vanished, with every last temptation of magic from this world. Legend says that they all still exist till this day, waiting for a new master of the purest of hearts to take them in.