Cessation
Izzy Girl IX so take this noise into your brain and send it back again Everyone has their own personal definiton of 'foolishness' that they change from situation to situation to suit their own purposes and actions. Case and point: After Sakura's death Tomoyo Daijoubi used to think that it was foolish to hope for her best friend to come back, the nature of death being somewhat unforgiving in that area. She spent two years changing herself and her nature to live in a world without Sakura. She hid away her memories and her sewing kit and all those other pieces of her personality that in some way encorperated her beloved Card Captor. But now, she realized that it was foolish to think that having hope was foolish. Maybe sometimes miracels did happen, or perhaps their original assumption had been wrong afterall. She didn't know what to think and frankly she didn't care. All she knew was that somehow, some way Sakura was alive and watching over them. The others all looked at her funny when she said this, like they didn't believe her but Tomoyo just shrugged it off. People were more willing to accept bad news than good. Case and point: Sakura dies, leaving behind no body or evidence of her death yet everyone accepts this. Sakura's best friend discovers that she is in fact, alive offering the indisputable proof of having seen her and everyone looks at her cross eyed. Perhaps it was due to Tomoyo's inability to explain how she knew it was Sakura, her inability to explain how she knew it was a person at all. All Syaoran and the others saw was the water rise, then fall suddenly. They didn't see the figure swoop down from the shadows and seal the card and even if they had, no doubt they would have assumed it was simply Hiiragizawa playing around with them again. What they didn't realize is that the figure pulled Tomoyo from the waters. It saved her life personally and spoke to her, and when it spoke it used Sakura's voice. Tomoyo liked to think that she had kown Sakura better than anyone, even better than Touya or Syaoran. She understood all of Sakura's actions, her ambitions and emotions and soul. She understood that everyone had their own, unique aura and that aura was completely different from anyone else's who was living or had lived or would live. Tomoyo liked to think that she knew what Sakura's aura felt like and what she had trouble explaining to the others was that she had felt Sakura's aura envelop her that night with the watery card. Now she was sitting crosslegged in her bed room with her hair let loose and falling around her like the branches of a weeping willow. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her muscels so tense that she felt as if the veins in her body were about to snap under the pressure. Before her laid the Mirror card. Her experience with the Watery card had given her the extra resolve she needed to go ahead and try what she wanted to try, even without the others's support. She had communicated with the elemental card, she hoped that under less stress she would be able to converse with a card using language. She chose the Mirror card for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because it was one of the more agreeable in the deck. Aside from that it was known for reaching out and trying to open lines of communication with humans on several occasions. Tomoyo was hoping it would be easily coaxed. She felt a click in the air and relaxed. She opened her eyes and allowed her long-held breath to come out in a long, relieved sigh. The card before her rose upright as if it were looking at her, then spun, a light-violet smoke enveloping it. Before Tomoyo's eyes it morphed into a perfect copy of herself, though slight less opaque and with a luminescent quality that made it seem unearthly and mysterious. "Hello." Tomoyo said softly, smiling. The card didn't reply, just stared, "My name is Tomoyo Daijoubi. I was a friend of Master Kinomoto." The air in the room seemed to grow stiffer. Tomoyo thought it might be her imagination, but when she focused that tiny but razor sharp magical sense Syaoran had brought out in her, she realized that the card had made a reaction in relation to Sakura's name. It was not a happy one. Tomoyo frowned. "You don't like that, do you? You cards don't like it when I say Sakura's name." the air sitffened further and Tomoyo took this as an affirmative, "Why," she continued, "Why don't you like it? Wasn't she your master?" no reply, "I don't understand. I... I spoke...' was that the right word?, "I sproke with your kin, the Watery card. She- she said that you were betrayed." The Mirror card then did something quite unexpected. She narrowed her eyes angrily and leapt three feet in the air, spreading her arms in a violent manner. Her mouth moved wordless on Tomoyo's face and if one watched closely enough... "... broke her vow. The master broke her vow." Tomoyo repeated carefully, "The Master broke her vow? Are you saying that Sakura broke some sort of code set up by Clow Reed? You're trying to say that she did something she wasn't supposed to do." The Card slowly descended back to the floor and sat crosslegged, perfectly mirroring Tomoyo. It's face went blank and it shook it's head, the air returning to normal. Then, with a sound almost like a smothered sigh the sprite dissapeared, leaving in it's place the card dungeon where it resided.
"... a Code? Keroberos, whyever would I want to do that?" The tiger-like beast shrugged his massive shoulders uncomfortably, "I think that it would help in the long run. No just anyone should be able to become a Master of the Cards." Clow peered at the Gaurdian over the ridges of his reading glasses, "Kero, are you worried?" "Huh? Worried about what?" "About your next Master?" The gaurdian shuffled his feet and watched the grass rustle in the breeze beneath his paws, "Maybe. Just a little I suppose. What if it's a frivilous person? Or a moraless person? You have no idea exactly what this descendent of yours will turn out to be like, do you? What if the new Master can't keep their prorities straight?" Clow grinned thinly, returning his attention to his book, "I don't think that you will have to worry much about that, my old friend. I've plenty in restore for them, but if it makes you feel more secure I can arrange for one more final test. One to test these- 'priorities'- you seem so concerned about..."
"Oh, Dad! I didn't realize you'd be back so soon!" Touya carried on a silent dialouge of curse words with himself as his father creaked through the front door, shaking rain off his umbrella and briefcase. The older man sighed when he laid eyes on his son, for Touya was wearing an apron and had half his body stuck in the refridgerator. "I take it Yukito's over." he smiled weakly, obviously exhausted from his long trip. He kicked his shoes off eagerly and fell into his favorite reading chair without taking his jacket off. "Dad, don't sit on the furniture like that. You'll get it wet." "Doesn't the boy have parents? I don't see why you're always the one who looks after him when he's ill." Mr. Kinomoto continued, refusing to veer away from the subject. Touya nerves were weakening with every passing moment as he arranged the last of their rice cakes on a large platter. He was beginning to see that the true problem in Yue and Yukito's seperation was having to deal with both enormous appetites. After warning his father away from his room he would have to go grocery shopping again. "I don't mind, Dad. In fact I usually offer." Touya blanced the rice cake tray in one hand, in the other he grabbed the large half-empty bag of potato chips Ruby had left in her wake the last time she was over, "Anyways, I'm going out in a few minutes, could you be sure to keep the door to my room locked? Yuki's finally sleeping and I don't want him disturbed." Mr. Kinomoto nodded absently and waved his hand in dismissal, yawning widely and letting his eyes drop closed beneath his round, wire-rimmed spectacles, "I know, I know. I never go in your room anyways, Touya. Don't be so suspicious." Touya sighed in relief as he realized that his father would most likely spend the afternoon sleeping. He started up the stairs when he was stopped again by Mr. Kinomoto's groggy voice. "Touya, I was thinking the other day... are you going to be applying to college this year? You've already taken an entire year off. You'll be twenty this fall, I'd hate to see you fall behind." Touya pressed his lips together and tapped his foot against the third step impatiently. His father certainly was picking the wrong moment for this discussion. He'd taken the year off between High School and college to help Syaoran and Tomoyo deal with the Clow Card crisis. He had been intending to apply the coming autumn, but due to recent developments it seemed as if that would be almost impossible. Yukito didn't have those sorts of problems. Ever since he had become aware of Yue's prescence inside of him he'd had this way of- dissapearing. Not that his physical being actual dissapated into this air leaving only the faintest traces of his aura. That was all in the fantasy stories, real magic never worked that way. It was always more practical. Yukito was only noticed when he wanted to be, only remembered when he cared for it. Touya found it unsettling on the occasion, wondering if a time would ever come that the boy would think it beneficial to dissapear completely from his life. "Um, oddly enough I was just thinking about that myself," Touya arched his leg up the next stair catiously, anxious to escape this discussion, "I'll look into it next week, okay." "Mmm-Hmm, that's sounds good."
"I've made a decision." Yukito's eyes fluttered, unfocused and bleary due to his lack of glasses. He groped for Yue's hand and the Gaurdian gave it reluctantly. He knew what the human boy was thinking. "Everyone will be upset." "No one will know." "That's hardly true and you know it." Yukito sighed and pressed his head back into the pillow. His mouth twisted into an akward expression when he heard Touya's soft footfalls approaching the room. He gave Yue a meaningful look, "Don't tell To-ya..."
An hour and a half later Touya was hauling four heavy grocery bags down the eerily empty streets, barely able to see over the top of the percariously placed milk carton in the back package. On top of this, it was raining profously, as it had been since the night after the Watery card's defeat at the hands of Tomoyo. The papaer bags were hopelessly soggy and barely clinging to their contents and Touya cursed his lack of foresight, lamenting silently on the fact that he should have brought his bike or his father along. He had never seen the streets so empty. He wondered if perhaps it was due to the rain, or maybe because of the strange happenstance of the past week. There were no cars on the road and as far a Touya could see down the sidewalk no people. He grumbled and shifted his grip on the tipping grocery bags. When he brought his attention upwards, he saw a tall woman. It was as if she appeared out of nowheres, which was a stupid thought. She had probably just been obscured by the fog. The milk carton had finally reached it's wit's end and with very little commotion, broke free of it's wet-paper bonds and plummeted towards the ground with an intense determination. Touya stopped watching and looked on unimpressed as the carton crashed to the ground with a dull, thick 'thud' and proceeded to get rained on. With a sour expression he prepared the acrobatic performance of his life and retrieved the offending grocery, somehow placing it back into the gradually deterioating pile in his long arms. When he glanced back up at the street, the woman was gone. He blinked in confusion, as he had not heard her pass him. The entire process of milk retrieval had taken less than four seconds, he doubted she could have changed her course in such a short space. Then he remembered back to something. It wasn't something he thought about often- something, in fact, that he didn't care thinking about. It happened when he was very, very little- when his mother was still alive in fact. He had been walking down the street happily holding her hand. It was mid summer and her hair waved in the breeze ever so slightly as she smiled at the passing strangers. Touya had been working on a rapidly melting ice cream cone when his mother had stopped to talk to a street vendor. She released his hand and his wandered a bit, spotting a man stading in the corner. His eyes were downcast and it seemed that when Touya looked at him, he could see the wall on the otherside of him. He thought this was strange, so he walked a bit closer. Suddenly, the man's head shot up and he stared at the boy with hollow eyes, all crisscrossed with spiderwebs and darkness. Touya screamed, but his own frantic yell was drowned out by another. He spun to see that a girl, not much older than he was himself, had run out into the road. The car approached her almost in slow motion as everyone on the street watched. Some rushed out to help her, but in the end... Touya shook off the memory and looked around with increased awareness. He had stopped seeing spirits a long time ago, but when he did it was always a preminition of sorts. It always meant something bad was about to happen. Sure enough, the rain stopped. Not entirely, because Touya could still hear it pit-pattering against the ground and windowpanes, but at least where he was standing the rain no longer fell. He rasied his face to the sky and found that he could still see the rain but it never quite hit him. Then it got still. He flung the groceries from his arms and dived, barreling forwards until he could feel the rain against his skin again. He was still caught in the blast, though, and was flung at least seven feet until he tumbled to a stop againsta brick wall. Painfully, he pulled himself to his feet and watched as the sidewalk erupted into a pillar of inferno, reaching it's one thick arm towards the clouds. He breathed in deeply, hardly believing his luck. He should have known better than to go out alone without tracking down Syaoran or one of the Gaurdian's first. He realized that he had a strong magical sense, but it was useless on his own unless he learned how to use it properally. The flame faded and in the center, bright and burning in the gray, muggy air, was the firery card glowing like a dying ember. Touya could swear it's face fell in dissapointment when it laid it's iridescent crimson eyes on him, but a moment later's it's mouth flickered in an unmistakable smile. Touya was frozen as he watched the sprite's every movement. It spread it's arms and spun once, flashing Touya another wry smile before vanishing. He waited tensely for several seconds until he realized it wasn't coming back. It was several more seconds before he finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. 'It was just... playing with me...' he realized, dumbfounded and more than slightly insulted. The cards would never have dared to tease the Li boy in such a way. Touya was also a descendant of their creator, and more so the brother of their master and they dared mock him. Realizing that it was pretty to think in such a way, Touya stopped himself and approached the scorched circle of ground, intent on salvaging the charred food as best he could.
Yukito wasn't there. It was a further three hours later, as Touya had been forced to return to the store and buy an entirely new set of groceries. He had a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup propped in one hand, his other holding the door open haphazardly. He peeked in only to find that the room was flawless- the bed made impeccably, the books and clothing all in proper place. It was if Touya himself hadn't even lived there, and certainly showed no sign of it's newest, less-tidy resident. "Hey Dad!" he called, mounted at the top of the stairs, soup long forgotten on his desk, "Did Yukito go out? I told you not to let him leave!" There was the noise of rustling newspaper and slippes on hardwood floor before his father's face appeared at the foot of the stairwell, wearing a cocked eyebrow, "What are you talking about, Touya? Who's Yukito?" * * * Out at the edge of town a boy stumbled along in the rain, protected only by a heavy, brown coat that reached well past his knees. He stopped every few paces to rub the fog from his glasses and his brown hair was matted against his forehead. Someone who had known this boy before would have rememebered that until a week prior, his hair had held a silver luster along with that pale, dusty-brown hue. A few might have even known the reason for this change. But there was no one who knew him and in a few hours no one would remember him. He liked it better that way because if no one knew him, if no one remembered him, life would be a lot easier. He paused and leaned his slender body against a tree. Not many came out this way, towards the mountains, but this path had been taken recently. He could feel it. "Where are we going?" He looked up to see the creature beside him, pale and glowing, untouched by the rainstorm. His lavendar eyes stared off into the colorless horizen disinterestedly but the boy knew the truth- he was scared. They both were, but being entirely different people showed it in entirely different ways. That was important to him, that they were different people. The boy sighed and rubbed his glasses against his sleeve again, placing them on the tip of his nose so that he could better see his unearthly companion, "I don't know." he said softly, "Anywheres but here..."
Izzy Girl IX so take this noise into your brain and send it back again Everyone has their own personal definiton of 'foolishness' that they change from situation to situation to suit their own purposes and actions. Case and point: After Sakura's death Tomoyo Daijoubi used to think that it was foolish to hope for her best friend to come back, the nature of death being somewhat unforgiving in that area. She spent two years changing herself and her nature to live in a world without Sakura. She hid away her memories and her sewing kit and all those other pieces of her personality that in some way encorperated her beloved Card Captor. But now, she realized that it was foolish to think that having hope was foolish. Maybe sometimes miracels did happen, or perhaps their original assumption had been wrong afterall. She didn't know what to think and frankly she didn't care. All she knew was that somehow, some way Sakura was alive and watching over them. The others all looked at her funny when she said this, like they didn't believe her but Tomoyo just shrugged it off. People were more willing to accept bad news than good. Case and point: Sakura dies, leaving behind no body or evidence of her death yet everyone accepts this. Sakura's best friend discovers that she is in fact, alive offering the indisputable proof of having seen her and everyone looks at her cross eyed. Perhaps it was due to Tomoyo's inability to explain how she knew it was Sakura, her inability to explain how she knew it was a person at all. All Syaoran and the others saw was the water rise, then fall suddenly. They didn't see the figure swoop down from the shadows and seal the card and even if they had, no doubt they would have assumed it was simply Hiiragizawa playing around with them again. What they didn't realize is that the figure pulled Tomoyo from the waters. It saved her life personally and spoke to her, and when it spoke it used Sakura's voice. Tomoyo liked to think that she had kown Sakura better than anyone, even better than Touya or Syaoran. She understood all of Sakura's actions, her ambitions and emotions and soul. She understood that everyone had their own, unique aura and that aura was completely different from anyone else's who was living or had lived or would live. Tomoyo liked to think that she knew what Sakura's aura felt like and what she had trouble explaining to the others was that she had felt Sakura's aura envelop her that night with the watery card. Now she was sitting crosslegged in her bed room with her hair let loose and falling around her like the branches of a weeping willow. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her muscels so tense that she felt as if the veins in her body were about to snap under the pressure. Before her laid the Mirror card. Her experience with the Watery card had given her the extra resolve she needed to go ahead and try what she wanted to try, even without the others's support. She had communicated with the elemental card, she hoped that under less stress she would be able to converse with a card using language. She chose the Mirror card for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because it was one of the more agreeable in the deck. Aside from that it was known for reaching out and trying to open lines of communication with humans on several occasions. Tomoyo was hoping it would be easily coaxed. She felt a click in the air and relaxed. She opened her eyes and allowed her long-held breath to come out in a long, relieved sigh. The card before her rose upright as if it were looking at her, then spun, a light-violet smoke enveloping it. Before Tomoyo's eyes it morphed into a perfect copy of herself, though slight less opaque and with a luminescent quality that made it seem unearthly and mysterious. "Hello." Tomoyo said softly, smiling. The card didn't reply, just stared, "My name is Tomoyo Daijoubi. I was a friend of Master Kinomoto." The air in the room seemed to grow stiffer. Tomoyo thought it might be her imagination, but when she focused that tiny but razor sharp magical sense Syaoran had brought out in her, she realized that the card had made a reaction in relation to Sakura's name. It was not a happy one. Tomoyo frowned. "You don't like that, do you? You cards don't like it when I say Sakura's name." the air sitffened further and Tomoyo took this as an affirmative, "Why," she continued, "Why don't you like it? Wasn't she your master?" no reply, "I don't understand. I... I spoke...' was that the right word?, "I sproke with your kin, the Watery card. She- she said that you were betrayed." The Mirror card then did something quite unexpected. She narrowed her eyes angrily and leapt three feet in the air, spreading her arms in a violent manner. Her mouth moved wordless on Tomoyo's face and if one watched closely enough... "... broke her vow. The master broke her vow." Tomoyo repeated carefully, "The Master broke her vow? Are you saying that Sakura broke some sort of code set up by Clow Reed? You're trying to say that she did something she wasn't supposed to do." The Card slowly descended back to the floor and sat crosslegged, perfectly mirroring Tomoyo. It's face went blank and it shook it's head, the air returning to normal. Then, with a sound almost like a smothered sigh the sprite dissapeared, leaving in it's place the card dungeon where it resided.
"... a Code? Keroberos, whyever would I want to do that?" The tiger-like beast shrugged his massive shoulders uncomfortably, "I think that it would help in the long run. No just anyone should be able to become a Master of the Cards." Clow peered at the Gaurdian over the ridges of his reading glasses, "Kero, are you worried?" "Huh? Worried about what?" "About your next Master?" The gaurdian shuffled his feet and watched the grass rustle in the breeze beneath his paws, "Maybe. Just a little I suppose. What if it's a frivilous person? Or a moraless person? You have no idea exactly what this descendent of yours will turn out to be like, do you? What if the new Master can't keep their prorities straight?" Clow grinned thinly, returning his attention to his book, "I don't think that you will have to worry much about that, my old friend. I've plenty in restore for them, but if it makes you feel more secure I can arrange for one more final test. One to test these- 'priorities'- you seem so concerned about..."
"Oh, Dad! I didn't realize you'd be back so soon!" Touya carried on a silent dialouge of curse words with himself as his father creaked through the front door, shaking rain off his umbrella and briefcase. The older man sighed when he laid eyes on his son, for Touya was wearing an apron and had half his body stuck in the refridgerator. "I take it Yukito's over." he smiled weakly, obviously exhausted from his long trip. He kicked his shoes off eagerly and fell into his favorite reading chair without taking his jacket off. "Dad, don't sit on the furniture like that. You'll get it wet." "Doesn't the boy have parents? I don't see why you're always the one who looks after him when he's ill." Mr. Kinomoto continued, refusing to veer away from the subject. Touya nerves were weakening with every passing moment as he arranged the last of their rice cakes on a large platter. He was beginning to see that the true problem in Yue and Yukito's seperation was having to deal with both enormous appetites. After warning his father away from his room he would have to go grocery shopping again. "I don't mind, Dad. In fact I usually offer." Touya blanced the rice cake tray in one hand, in the other he grabbed the large half-empty bag of potato chips Ruby had left in her wake the last time she was over, "Anyways, I'm going out in a few minutes, could you be sure to keep the door to my room locked? Yuki's finally sleeping and I don't want him disturbed." Mr. Kinomoto nodded absently and waved his hand in dismissal, yawning widely and letting his eyes drop closed beneath his round, wire-rimmed spectacles, "I know, I know. I never go in your room anyways, Touya. Don't be so suspicious." Touya sighed in relief as he realized that his father would most likely spend the afternoon sleeping. He started up the stairs when he was stopped again by Mr. Kinomoto's groggy voice. "Touya, I was thinking the other day... are you going to be applying to college this year? You've already taken an entire year off. You'll be twenty this fall, I'd hate to see you fall behind." Touya pressed his lips together and tapped his foot against the third step impatiently. His father certainly was picking the wrong moment for this discussion. He'd taken the year off between High School and college to help Syaoran and Tomoyo deal with the Clow Card crisis. He had been intending to apply the coming autumn, but due to recent developments it seemed as if that would be almost impossible. Yukito didn't have those sorts of problems. Ever since he had become aware of Yue's prescence inside of him he'd had this way of- dissapearing. Not that his physical being actual dissapated into this air leaving only the faintest traces of his aura. That was all in the fantasy stories, real magic never worked that way. It was always more practical. Yukito was only noticed when he wanted to be, only remembered when he cared for it. Touya found it unsettling on the occasion, wondering if a time would ever come that the boy would think it beneficial to dissapear completely from his life. "Um, oddly enough I was just thinking about that myself," Touya arched his leg up the next stair catiously, anxious to escape this discussion, "I'll look into it next week, okay." "Mmm-Hmm, that's sounds good."
"I've made a decision." Yukito's eyes fluttered, unfocused and bleary due to his lack of glasses. He groped for Yue's hand and the Gaurdian gave it reluctantly. He knew what the human boy was thinking. "Everyone will be upset." "No one will know." "That's hardly true and you know it." Yukito sighed and pressed his head back into the pillow. His mouth twisted into an akward expression when he heard Touya's soft footfalls approaching the room. He gave Yue a meaningful look, "Don't tell To-ya..."
An hour and a half later Touya was hauling four heavy grocery bags down the eerily empty streets, barely able to see over the top of the percariously placed milk carton in the back package. On top of this, it was raining profously, as it had been since the night after the Watery card's defeat at the hands of Tomoyo. The papaer bags were hopelessly soggy and barely clinging to their contents and Touya cursed his lack of foresight, lamenting silently on the fact that he should have brought his bike or his father along. He had never seen the streets so empty. He wondered if perhaps it was due to the rain, or maybe because of the strange happenstance of the past week. There were no cars on the road and as far a Touya could see down the sidewalk no people. He grumbled and shifted his grip on the tipping grocery bags. When he brought his attention upwards, he saw a tall woman. It was as if she appeared out of nowheres, which was a stupid thought. She had probably just been obscured by the fog. The milk carton had finally reached it's wit's end and with very little commotion, broke free of it's wet-paper bonds and plummeted towards the ground with an intense determination. Touya stopped watching and looked on unimpressed as the carton crashed to the ground with a dull, thick 'thud' and proceeded to get rained on. With a sour expression he prepared the acrobatic performance of his life and retrieved the offending grocery, somehow placing it back into the gradually deterioating pile in his long arms. When he glanced back up at the street, the woman was gone. He blinked in confusion, as he had not heard her pass him. The entire process of milk retrieval had taken less than four seconds, he doubted she could have changed her course in such a short space. Then he remembered back to something. It wasn't something he thought about often- something, in fact, that he didn't care thinking about. It happened when he was very, very little- when his mother was still alive in fact. He had been walking down the street happily holding her hand. It was mid summer and her hair waved in the breeze ever so slightly as she smiled at the passing strangers. Touya had been working on a rapidly melting ice cream cone when his mother had stopped to talk to a street vendor. She released his hand and his wandered a bit, spotting a man stading in the corner. His eyes were downcast and it seemed that when Touya looked at him, he could see the wall on the otherside of him. He thought this was strange, so he walked a bit closer. Suddenly, the man's head shot up and he stared at the boy with hollow eyes, all crisscrossed with spiderwebs and darkness. Touya screamed, but his own frantic yell was drowned out by another. He spun to see that a girl, not much older than he was himself, had run out into the road. The car approached her almost in slow motion as everyone on the street watched. Some rushed out to help her, but in the end... Touya shook off the memory and looked around with increased awareness. He had stopped seeing spirits a long time ago, but when he did it was always a preminition of sorts. It always meant something bad was about to happen. Sure enough, the rain stopped. Not entirely, because Touya could still hear it pit-pattering against the ground and windowpanes, but at least where he was standing the rain no longer fell. He rasied his face to the sky and found that he could still see the rain but it never quite hit him. Then it got still. He flung the groceries from his arms and dived, barreling forwards until he could feel the rain against his skin again. He was still caught in the blast, though, and was flung at least seven feet until he tumbled to a stop againsta brick wall. Painfully, he pulled himself to his feet and watched as the sidewalk erupted into a pillar of inferno, reaching it's one thick arm towards the clouds. He breathed in deeply, hardly believing his luck. He should have known better than to go out alone without tracking down Syaoran or one of the Gaurdian's first. He realized that he had a strong magical sense, but it was useless on his own unless he learned how to use it properally. The flame faded and in the center, bright and burning in the gray, muggy air, was the firery card glowing like a dying ember. Touya could swear it's face fell in dissapointment when it laid it's iridescent crimson eyes on him, but a moment later's it's mouth flickered in an unmistakable smile. Touya was frozen as he watched the sprite's every movement. It spread it's arms and spun once, flashing Touya another wry smile before vanishing. He waited tensely for several seconds until he realized it wasn't coming back. It was several more seconds before he finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. 'It was just... playing with me...' he realized, dumbfounded and more than slightly insulted. The cards would never have dared to tease the Li boy in such a way. Touya was also a descendant of their creator, and more so the brother of their master and they dared mock him. Realizing that it was pretty to think in such a way, Touya stopped himself and approached the scorched circle of ground, intent on salvaging the charred food as best he could.
Yukito wasn't there. It was a further three hours later, as Touya had been forced to return to the store and buy an entirely new set of groceries. He had a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup propped in one hand, his other holding the door open haphazardly. He peeked in only to find that the room was flawless- the bed made impeccably, the books and clothing all in proper place. It was if Touya himself hadn't even lived there, and certainly showed no sign of it's newest, less-tidy resident. "Hey Dad!" he called, mounted at the top of the stairs, soup long forgotten on his desk, "Did Yukito go out? I told you not to let him leave!" There was the noise of rustling newspaper and slippes on hardwood floor before his father's face appeared at the foot of the stairwell, wearing a cocked eyebrow, "What are you talking about, Touya? Who's Yukito?" * * * Out at the edge of town a boy stumbled along in the rain, protected only by a heavy, brown coat that reached well past his knees. He stopped every few paces to rub the fog from his glasses and his brown hair was matted against his forehead. Someone who had known this boy before would have rememebered that until a week prior, his hair had held a silver luster along with that pale, dusty-brown hue. A few might have even known the reason for this change. But there was no one who knew him and in a few hours no one would remember him. He liked it better that way because if no one knew him, if no one remembered him, life would be a lot easier. He paused and leaned his slender body against a tree. Not many came out this way, towards the mountains, but this path had been taken recently. He could feel it. "Where are we going?" He looked up to see the creature beside him, pale and glowing, untouched by the rainstorm. His lavendar eyes stared off into the colorless horizen disinterestedly but the boy knew the truth- he was scared. They both were, but being entirely different people showed it in entirely different ways. That was important to him, that they were different people. The boy sighed and rubbed his glasses against his sleeve again, placing them on the tip of his nose so that he could better see his unearthly companion, "I don't know." he said softly, "Anywheres but here..."