Author's note: Before I begin, I must thank all my reviewers (12 whole reviews as I write this! I am still in shock.) Your encouragement helped me to rethink Crash and turn it into a story. This is an idea I've had bouncing around in my head since Crash began, so it is not written on a whim like my other TRC stories. With luck, that will mean it is better than the ones written on a whim. For those who like my writing, please enjoy and continue to write your suggestions and comments. To all newcomers, I welcome you.
Basic Summery : Syaoran's group finds themselves in a totalitarian world which is ruled by magicians, the head of which is run by a brutal dictator and his genius brother. When the dicator learns of the princess, everyone is thrown in a wirlwind of politics, hate, revolutions, and love.
"What the hell is going on!"
"Sir Ka-Ka-Kazou, what can I-?"
"Get out of my way, boy! Where's that lazy ass of a magician that runs this pig circus?"
"Here, General."
"I had to interrupt a meeting with the Emperor! THE EMPORER! Does that mean anything to you, oh no, of course not, for you are a snibbling Trick to be damned to the deepest depths of hell! How dare you think you deserve my time, let alone ask for it!"
"W-well, Sir Kazou, I thought this required the utmost-"
"What is that god damn noise!"
"The alarm, Sir."
"The alarm! What alarm? We don't have an alarm!"
" Afraid not, General. The alarm has been going off for the past two days. See that blob on the screen?"
"I am not a child, Trick! Get on with it before I curse you!"
"Y-yes, Sir. The blob on the screen is a new source of energy and magic in Sector 197."
"A new source of magic?Impossible! The alarm must be malfunctioning."
"That's what we thought, General. Until we switched to the visual. All the bright dots are sources of magic. The alarm may not be working, but the visual is in perfect condition."
"Impossible! No such large amount of magic could have just appeared, damnit! Such a thing can't exsist without hundreds of years in the making, and by then we would have discovered it!"
"Sir, I am only reporting strange activities, and this is not by far the end of it."
"There's more?"
"Yes Sir. We have been able to discover that the blob is really made up of three different magical sources. The strangest thing is, one of the magical sources has been recongized by the computer."
"What?"
"One of the magical sources has a connection with...ah, one moment..., here it is. Classified Object in FB220153."
"What did you say!"
"Classified Object in FB220153. We've been trying to find out what the connection between the source and the object is, but for some reason, the computer won't take any of our passwords."
"Give me all the information you have gathered on this."
"Yes, Sir! Here it is."
"Good. Now shut down this building and memory swipe anyone who heard or has seen any of this infomation-"
"WHAT! SIR, this are MY men! You can't just-"
"I can do whatever I damn well please! And in case you're wondering what you've done to desever this, it is the simple fact of being too stupid and too curious for your own good. No one, I repeat, NO ONE is supposed to know of the existence of the object in FB220153. Now you WILL shut down the building, perform the memory swipe on your men, destroy all evidence, and then report for punishment."
"Punishment? You Bastard! I have not done anything wrong!"
"On the contrary, Trick. You have disobeyed a higher ranking officer. I believe the punishment for that is...torture. Have a good day, solider."
Sakura pulled the gray curtain back with her fingers, glancing out the window behind it.
"Princess, you may not want to be doing that," A soft voice called from behind her back, "Remember what the nice man downstairs told us."
Placing the curtain back to its original position, Sakura glanced back to Fai, her face neutral, yet her eyes flashing a mixture of anger and confusion. She studied Fai for a moment. He was sitting on the floor, playing cards with Mokona, grinning.
Nice man? She thought. Nice? She shuddered inwardly.
Though she knew Fai was joking, she still did not like the adjective he used to describe the man who rented them the room they were currently using.
The man went by the name of Jiro. He was a large man, almost as tall as Kurogane, and twice as wide. The little hair he had was slicked back with some oily substance. Jiro's face was gruesome; a thin, old-looking scar stretched down from his forehead, past his eye, midway to his fat cheek. A large, square shaped nose jutted out from his face, with a tiny mustache growing under it, and two black, beady eyes.
When Jiro saw the group of four walk in the building one week ago, his face cracked into a lopsided grin, showing caramel-stained teeth. His black eyes were locked onto Sakura, making her stomach feel queasy. She did not like the way his eyes slowly scanned her, as if she was a prize of some sort. When they came close enough, his large ugly hands darted out towards her, attempting to grab her. Her reflexes automatically reacted, and she jumped back, frightened. Jiro's hands would have never reached her anyways, for her three companions had, in the milliseconds the actions took place, placed themselves in front of her, protecting her.
Syaoran's movements were noticeably faster than the others, Sakura thought, but shook her head. It must have been her imagination.
Jiro's face was one of disappointment. He glared up at Kurogane, his lip curling. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked accusingly.
"She is not for sale," Kurogane sneered, understanding the situation. "All we want is a room. Do you have one or not?"
Sakura saw Syaoran's shoulders tense and he took a step back, taking her with him.
Jiro's face broke into a grin again, his chapped lips bleeding. "Ah, you want a room." He puffed out his chest at Kurogane. "Depends on what you're willing to sell." His eyes darted to Sakura once more, making her shrink behind Syaoran.
Kurogane eyes shot daggers at the man. "Did you not hear me, old man?" Kurogane's hand moved across his body and slid under his cloak, where Sakura knew he kept a sword. He drew himself to his full height and let a part of the cloak fall, revealing the hilt of the sword.
Jiro's left eye, the one unscarred, widened. "Ay, I hear you." His eyes still glanced at Sakura, than back to the man in black. "It'll still cost you."
At this point, Fai, who had remained surprisingly silent, took a strong step forward, producing a small bag from seemingly nowhere. He opened the strings at the top of the bag, than poured out its contents for Jiro to see. Gold and silver coins fell into Jiro's palm, who stared, dumbfounded, into his hand. When the bag was empty, Jiro fingers snapped closed and he rushed away for a moment, than came back, empty-handed.
Jiro led them up a winding staircase, Sakura a safe distance away from him in between Syaoran and Fai, to a large door. He stood proudly in front of it, took three keys out of his shirt pocket, gave two of them to Fai and Kurogane, than put the third key back into his pocket.
"Give me the third key." Kurogane growled his hand still on the hilt of his sword.
However, Jiro was not as moved as he was before. Jiro's hand reached behind his back and pulled out a small wooden stick.
A wand, Sakura thought, remembering the other worlds where such a thing existed.
Jiro waved the wand in front of Kurogane, who merely smiled, not at all worried. This man obviously underestimated their group, and Kurogane smiled at the thought of the man finding out about their combined power in less than pleasant ways.
"Safety rules, sir." Jiro said, "The owner must always have access to all rooms at all times." He glanced at Sakura again, his lip curling into his wicked grin. "In case of emergencies."
Sakura looked away, feeling sick.
Fai opened up the door, and stepped aside for Sakura and Syaoran to move in first. "Thank you." Fai said, "I do hope we can keep our arrival here secret. You see, we are working under special conditions and would hate to be discovered by anyone," his voice was light and merry, yet Sakura knew he was just acting. "-or," he added, "-by anything."
Jiro laughed. "You think I care?" he shook his head. "I got meh money, and-" he nodded towards Sakura, "if you're dead, she belongs to my business." He left them, waddling down the steps. "She's a pretty thing, too. Worth lots of money."
Sakura had wanted to throw up.
Since then she had not taken one step out of their apartment.
Not that she hadn't wanted to. The apartment was only two small rooms with one dirty bathroom. The walls were concrete, and there was only one window which showed the outside world (the outside world was not a big improvement. All the window showed was the street below them, and the gray buildings which surrounded them.) The floors were burnt and rotten, and creaked whenever they moved.
The only furniture consisted of two large beds, one in each room. The beds were in far better condition than the entire building was, for reasons Sakura already guessed. They were found to be clean after Fai did a little experiment with some liquids, however, and when compared to the floor, almost anything would do. So Sakura and Mokona took one room, while Syaoran, Kurogane, and Fai took the other. Sakura was a bit concerned.
"Won't you be sleeping on the floor?" she asked Syaoran when he started taking things out of their bag.
"Yes." he answered, not worried in the least.
"Isn't that going to be uncomfortable?" She knew it was a stupid question, for one look downwards at the floor confirmed the obvious. Yet that wasn't really the purpose of the question, anyways. She just wanted to ask to show him she cared about him.
Syaoran seemed to have caught on. "No need to worry, your Highness. My work requires much worst sleeping conditions than this."
Sakura's ears perked up. Syaoran rarely talked about his home (or himself, for that matter,) so whenever he mentioned anything, Sakura was tried to get him to spill more about himself. After a while, she noticed how he avoided her questions, which only encouraged her to work harder at cracking him.
"Where do you work?"
"In Clow." Simple, blunt, and vague. Gosh, he could be annoying.
She tried again. "Where in Clow? Maybe I know it-, I mean, maybe I remember it."
"I worked in the desert, your Highness. Hardly anything to sleep on out there, other than rock and sand. But I was with my father, so I really didn't care."
She tried to picture little Syaoran with a man who looked like him. For some odd reason, the image of little Syaoran could not come. Slightly curious at why she could not picture him when he was little, she pushed aside the thought for later. "That must be a nice memory." she said, noticing how his lips curved upwards as he thought. She liked his smile.It was warm and friendly, and took her mind off the room aroundthem."Did you have any friends with you out there in the desert?"
"Yes, I did."He paused for a moment, than added, "And do."
He avoided her eyes, just long enough to make her wonder what he was thinking. It was the last thing she remembered, sadly, for at that precise time, she felt herself being closed in upon by darkness, which than engulfed her eyes. She woke up a few hours later, in bed, with the covers pulled up all the way to her chin. She was still wearing her clothes, and sunlight was coming through the gray curtains.
It had been two days since then, and her she was, with Fai and Mokona. Syaoran and Kurogane had gone out to see what they could gather by observing the people and seeing if they could sell the clothes from the previous world. Her stomach growled, and she hoped they would bring back food.
"They won't be back for another hour or so." Fai said, puting down a red card (Mokona gave a "Whee!" when it saw this, than countered with a higher card.) "Why don't you sit down and play with us?"
Sakura sighed defeat. She hated being stuck in here, feeling restless, yet the outside world did not seem to have many perks, either. 'Oh, well,' she thought, 'might as well make the best of it'. "Sure, I'll play."
They did not know that hundreds of city blocks away, in one of the seven government towers, a man known to all simply as General Kazou had just finished his report on the strange activities going on in the city and was walking down a red carpeted hallway to the Emperor's apartments. And no one knew that this simple report would catapult a man hunt in the hours to come.
Please keep in mind I will not be updating much until my other story is finished. Think of this as a taste of what is to come.
