Disclaimer: *whines* Do I have to keep doing this every chapter?
K.Hikari: Afraid so. Lawyers are cunning creatures and I'd hate to be sued.
Hiei: The first thing we do once were done here is to kill all the lawyers.
K.H.: *glomps Hiei* You just quoted Shakespeare!
Hiei: Baka! Get off me! *tries to push off authoress who had glued herself to him*
Kurama: *sighs* You can't kill all the lawyers. Their kind multiplies at an exponential rate.
Disclaimer: Fine. Hikari is not doing this for money.
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KH: Ohayo minna-san! I'm glad to see that you're back for more. I've read my fic repeatedly and it's a miracle that a lot of you read it. Why? Coz I write like a kid! That's why. Well, it's not that bad...but uhm...it's not that great either. I've been randomly reading fics in fan fiction these past few days while I was recuperating and boy all I can say is that most of these authors are good. Really good. Their words just flowed. Me? I'm struggling. That's my problem. I can recognize talent in other people but I don't seem to have it in me. *sighs* Jack-Of-All-Trades, master of none. *sighs again*
Kuwabara: Uhmm, can I have some of these candies?
KH: *shudders* Woah. That wasn't like me. OH-KAY! Now where we? Ay yes, my dear and ever loyal reviewers ^_^ I can see some of you gagging already...tee hee...but anyway I really appreciate it when you people say this is good or that is bad but would PLEASE somebody TELL ME WHY it was good or bad? Please?
Sammy - Hmm, let's see, my personal Neil Gaiman fave work are the Sandman Chronicles and Books of Magic. YnM is Yami no Matsuei- a cool anime and even cooler manga but I haven't read it just seen it in AXN and I fell in love with it. As for other characters, they're in Chapter 5! ^_~ Hiei won't say it but he loves the truckload of sweet snow that you gave to him. I don't have a teacher like that but I did have a chemistry teacher once who thought she was so funny she turned our class into a stand-up comedy skit. She wasn't, believe me. @_@ ZZZZzzzz....
Hiei: Hn.
Kuwabara: Ano...can I have some of these candies?
Hiei: *shoving a lot of candies to Kuwabara's face before kicking him out of the room* Here take it and get out!
KH: ^_^ Ah well...Kaeru Soyokaze! Please don't mention the word airplane or plane to Hiei. He's still traumatized.
Hiei: One more crack at my expense and I...
Kurama: *gives Hiei one of those annoying smiles of his* Or you'll what, Hiei-kun?
Hiei: Baka. *glowers and stomps off in the corner*
KH: Dragon Lady-baka ningens! Oh wait; I'm a ningen to...trust me not all of us are like that. How could they delete that funny story of yours!
Yusuke: Huh? That was a killing spree on Kuwabara's expense. In addition, the sake was spiked with blood.
KH: You have no sense of humor. Anyway, Dragon Lady, I followed the recipe and the cookies worked wonders! Arigatou! ^_^
Cute Anime Kitty - Yay! A new face...er nick I mean. Welcome! Welcome!
Orphan - Another new reader! ^o^ I'm adding your suggestions to my list. ^_~
Bloodfang - Nice to see you again!
Yayo - ^o^
Namidanotaiyo@aol.com - Uhmmm...you didn't leave a nick but thanks for the info. I've re-uploaded Chapter 4 to reflect your comment. Thanks! Can you leave a nick next time so I'll know who you are? Your suggestions are going also to my list...chotto matte...your nick doesn't happen to be Inknamida, is it? Just checking. ^_^
Apologize for the delayed update. Inspiration's kinda hard to come by these days. I had to struggle when I wrote this. I just hope I hadn't mess this chapter up.
Kurama: Even though I'm here? *makes a cute face*
K.H.: *throws pillow at Kurama who ducks* And so here we are folks, Chapter 5. PLEASE tell me what you think, ok? If you hadn't finish watching/ reading CCS or YYH, I'm warning you that there are major spoilers here. However, if you're like me who doesn't mind spoilers then go ahead!
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Word Watch:
Epiphany = insight (sumimasen, I only have a thesaurus)
Sumimasen / gomen = excuse me/ sorry
Genki = lively / full of life
Itai/ Itei = ouch! / That hurt
Hentai = pervert
-san = added to a name to denote respect
Hai = affirmative reply
Chigau = you're wrong/ mistaken
Shi-ne = die
Yare yare = oh boy / oh well
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Chapter 5: Epiphany
England, Hiirigazawa Manor
No Man should ever know his Fate. If he did, he would probably lose his will to live. After all, what is the point of waking up to each day if you know what was going to happen to everyone? More importantly, why even bother when you can see that things WILL happen whether you want to or not.
Destiny, it seemed to Eriol, had not only allowed him to glimpse the Book of Fate but had practically allowed him to read it from beginning to end. Death too had been lenient with him. She had ignored him and so trapped him in the body of an eleven-year-old boy while his soul and spirit aged with each passing year.
Yes, to be a Man and to have so much power is a...curse.
Ah, but the keyword here is Man, is it not? With Women, it was an entirely different story. Strange and fascinating creatures, these women are. Dangerous too, if he might add but still fascinating. Old, young, ugly, beautiful-it didn't matter. All were born with the power of Life and Death. The power to decide Life and Death. Most of them just don't get it though. A mother-to-be can decide whether her child lives or dies. A mother can make or break a child. God knows how history had changed all because of a single woman. There was Queen Elizabeth. Margaret Thatcher. Evita Peron. Madonna. A smile appeared in his face at this. A woman can withhold her touch to a lover and drive him insane. A woman can smile and drive all other thoughts away from your head. A woman can bring a large country to their knees. A woman had divided the Worlds.
Amazingly enough, they seemed frail and helpless creature that you long to either protect them or destroy them. Moreover, despite the turbulent and harsh history of how the world had treated women, they had remained resilient. They were stronger than they look. Some far stronger than anyone else.
A woman had been his salvation. Well, she was a girl when he first met her. Eleven in fact. Her name? Sakura. One of Clow Reed's descendant, or rather his since he was one of Clow Reed's reincarnations. She had fulfilled his most ardent wish and that was to be not the most powerful sorcerer in the world. In doing so, she had gained more power than Clow Reed had ever wielded. Gaining one ability that had eluded the sorcerer-and that was the ability to control her magical powers. Lifted from his curse, he was now able to live normally. Well as normal as any 16-year old with the soul of someone decades older could. But more importantly, he could not read 'ol Destiny's book anymore...well, maybe a peek here and there...
Beneath his feet, where a magical circle glowed, a planet lazily turned in its orbit. He was in his study. When he wasn't lost in his thoughts, it looked like any other study. Books would usually line the walls. Usually. Anyone stepping into the room now by accident would get a real shocker. Assuming they survived the initial reaction of course for beyond the door there was nothing. No walls or floors. Just the endless black of outer space broken by the light of a few stars and a few meandering planets. Time did not exist here.
The symbols near his feet changed positions occasionally. He was looking at them, lost in thought. A planet passed over his head and two galaxies collided.
I wonder, did Clow Reed foresee this too? Yes, of course he had. Did he find it funny that two of his descendants were more powerful than he was and were both women? Perhaps he found it ironic.
The ghostly image of a genki girl appeared to his right. Sakura. Guardian of the Sakura Cards. Formerly Clow's cards until she transformed them all thereby freeing him. A perpetual smile on her face. Her short light-brown hair held in place by a ribbon. She was more beautiful than ever now that she was 16. Eriol smiled. Li Shaolan was a very lucky boy indeed.
In front of him, a shadowy figure coalesce slowly becoming more distinct but never quite achieving form.
Eriol frowned. The Shadow was approaching. It was slowly gaining power. Soon it would be awake. He turned to Sakura's ghostly image. He will not worry about this one. She had enough magic to protect herself. And there was Li. He too had great magic being he was another of Clow Reed's descendant. He will keep Sakura safe.
No. What he was worried about was the other descendant. To his left another ghostly image of a girl appeared. She too was smiling but unlike Sakura, her smile did not reach her eyes.
Miriya. Raven-haired and eyes that alternate between the deepest black to a beautiful amethyst shade depending on the way light fell on them. The girl with a troubled past and a long ancient heritage. She had great magic. Nevertheless, her full power was sealed from the moment of conception with a form of magick much older than time itself. She was the wild card in the deck.
Seven stars flared in his magic circle. The warriors. Five cards blazed around him enclosing him and the other images in a pentagram. The Prince. The Twins. The Page of Swords. The Innocent. And the last card hovering behind the ghostly image of Miriya- the Lovers.
Behind him another image formed. He turned around and found himself looking at a boy wearing glasses and a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. A knowing smile appeared on the Eriol's face. Ah yes, the Boy-Who-Lived. He too had his demons like Miriya. He too had a role.
"I wonder," Eriol said aloud to the solemn faced image of the boy. "Will you survive this year, Harry? Will you win against the Shadow that holds your nemesis or be consumed by it?"
He turned back to Miriya's image, "My dear cousin, what will you choose?" The image continued to smile into nothingness while the card behind it turned slowly. The Lovers. To draw that card means that one must eventually make choices. It could also mean that someone close will be making choices or had already made a choice.
"Ah, but what will everyone's choice be?" he said to no one in particular. The room turned back to normal. Books once again lined the shelves and he was standing in the middle of a large rug.
Now that he could no longer see that far in the future or see the different realities that will happen depending on one's choices; things now look very interesting indeed. He was sure of one thing though- where each living creature had several possible destinies-, Miriya only had two...
Light or Darkness? Life or Death?
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was a bad, bad idea. It seemed a good idea at that time but that was before Suppi began tearing Eriol's house apart in search for more sweets. All Akizuki wanted in giving her sibling a piece of candy was for him to loosen up. It was his darn fault anyway. If he could just NOT be so damn snooty. He was almost as bad as their older brother Yue was. She shuddered as he remembered him. That guy was hopeless. Clow Reed had neglected to give Yue a heart. She stopped. Oh wait, no, he had a heart; he just had trouble expressing it. She giggled. But not to Touya. She giggled again. Well at least Yukito was better.
There was a resounding crash somewhere up in the second floor. She frowned. Master Eriol was going to be mad when he finds out that Suppi had wrecked the ancient chandelier that had hung there for ages. She ran out to catch the mad feline and crashed into another girl. Both ended up on the floor.
"Itai..."
"Mistress!"
"Drop the Mistress, Nakuru."
Nakuru gave a big wide innocent smile to the dark-eyed girl that she called Mistress. She found her just as adorable as Eriol and just as confusing at times. Eriol had found Miriya when she was a baby inside the wreckage of her parent's house. She wasn't bawling her eyes out like any normal baby would but instead stared directly at Eriol and held out her chubby little hands. Nakuru remembered Eriol saying something to the baby like, "Ah, so you're the one calling to me." And Miriya had given him a toothless smile.
"What are you grinning at?" Miriya asked suspiciously. When Akizuki grinned like that, she was usually up to no good.
Nakuru looked at her innocently. Well, she wasn't up to something. Just remembering how Eriol had looked when he first carried the baby Miriya. I mean here was this 11-year-old kid carrying a small baby. It was soooo adorable. Eleven wasn't technically his age but hey at that time, he wasn't aging. Of course, now that he was aging, he was even yummier in a sixteen-year-old body. She started to giggle.
"Eh, Akizuki?" Miriya groaned. "Can you not like broadcast your thoughts?" God, first it was Yue, now Akizuki? She could hear the guardian's mind voice. Hell, she could see what Akizuki was imagining.
Akizuki laughed, "Oh sorry. Can't I have a crush on him, ne?"
"NO! BECAUSE YOU ARE A PERVERTED GUARDIAN! YOU'RE NOT EVEN A GIRL BUT YOU DRESS AND ACT LIKE ONE! YOU PRETEND TO BE 17 EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE DECADES OLDER THAN THAT! HENTAI! HENTAI!"
In one swift movement, Nakuru was up and chasing the mad Suppi who had somehow wandered near the kitchen, overheard the conversation and was now shouting to the whole world what he thought exactly of his sister.
"YOU'RE THE ONE TO TALK! YOU'RE NOT EVEN A CAT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! I MEAN, WHO'VE HEARD OF A CAT WITH BUTTERFLY WINGS! AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION I CAN ACT LIKE I'M 17 BECAUSE I STILL LOOK LIKE ONE YOU JEALOUS SUGAR ADDICT!" Miriya heard Akizuki shout back as she chased the winged-cat.
"I AM NOT! I'LL TELL ERIOL YOU SAID THAT!" came Suppi's indignant reply. The sugar he ingested was still not obviously out of his system.
There was another crash. Miriya winced. There goes the Ming vase. She got up. I suppose someone has to catch them before they demolished the house.
"She never learns does she?"
Miriya looked up to see Kaho Mizuki's smiling face. Mizuki had just come home from the university were she was pursuing her doctorate degree in Mathematics. She smiled at the older woman. She liked having Ms. Kaho around. She was just like a mother to everyone in the house and Miriya always looked forward to weekends. Ms. Kaho would always spend her weekends with them.
"According to Akizuki's warped logic, if you feed Suppi enough sugar, he'll soon develop a tolerance for it," Miriya said wryly.
"I see," Mizuki said amused. "Do you need help in stopping those two?"
Miriya shook her head, "No I can handle it." She took a few steps forward then stopped, "Eriol's in his study. He hasn't come out of it ever since we talked inside about this Hogwarts School."
Mizuki smiled at the girl, "What about you?"
Miriya shrugged, "I don't really want to go. It's not like I don't know how to use magic." She bit her lips and Mizuki saw a shadow cross her face. Mizuki met the young girl's steady gaze as Miriya continued.
"Eriol says I'll find the answers to my questions there."
"Questions?"
Miriya nodded, "Hai. Like, why I'm like this for starters."
"What do you mean?" Mizuki probed gently. She knew that the face that Miriya presented to the world was a facade to hide something that was bothering her.
"Like something's holding me back. Like there's something I should remember or know but I can't no matter how I try...Like feeling I could do more but I can't...but I should." Miriya sighed in frustration, "Am I making sense, Mizuki-san?"
"Every teenager feels like that at some point in their young life."
Miriya shook her head vehemently. A distant look came across her face.
"I have a recurring dream, Mizuki-san. In my dream, I reached out to the sun and I knew that if I wanted to I could extinguish its light. It scared me because..."
"Because you think you could do it?"
Dark eyes met hazel brown ones.
"Chigau. In my heart, I know I could."
If Mizuki was surprised by what Miriya said, she did not show it. The young girl had spoken with such calm conviction. In that moment, as she looked into the girl's eyes, she caught a glimpse of something ancient stir behind its dark depths.
The moment was broken as something went flying through the second story window. From one of the kitchen windows, both could see a coffee table stuck to the lawn with colorful glass shards around it.
"SHI-NE!"
"HENTAI!"
Apparently, the two guardians were still at each other's throats.
"Yare, yare. I'd better go get those two before they do more damage than a spell could fix."
Mizuki watched the young girl walked away.
"He will not let the Darkness take you," she said softly when Miriya was gone.
TBC
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K.H.: Sometimes, when I write a chapter I knew exactly what's going to happen. Sometimes I have no idea. Oh well. Gomen, not much action. Just a lot of introspection. Just tell me what you think of this chapter, k? If you have any questions, just ask. Suggestions and comments are more than welcome. Please tell me WHY you like this fic or not. Use that 'lil button at the bottom of this page. ^_^ Arigatou and R and R!
Kuwabara: My tooth hurts…
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