Disclaimer:

I have no affiliation with Cardcaptor Sakura or any other of CLAMP's works. Also any similarities to real life events or people are unintentional unless explicitly stated.


Miss Daidouji's bodyguards suddenly appeared while Miss Kinomoto was sweeping and Meiling talking while holding a broom (there was no way that she would want to spend her day off doing more work). Most of the bodyguards were assembled around the sacred tree but a small group approached the two teenagers.

"Miss Kinomoto," one of them greeted, ignoring Meiling, "you must be tired. Why don't we take you back to the Li mansion so that you can take a rest?"

"Hoe? Why? There is so much to do? And what's happening over there?"

"Don't worry about them. Just come with us."

She pursed her lips. "Mei?"

She shrugged. Clearly it didn't concern her. "I don't know."

"Please, our Lady instructed us to-,"

The girl sighed loudly. "Where is she? I'd like to talk to her, please."

The bodyguards were clearly not comfortable with disobeying their lady's orders; however they did take them to the main hall where Miss Daidouji was discussing matters with her aunt. Meiling kept quiet, not wanting to get caught in this Amamiya Clan discussion.

"Niece, what are you still doing here?"

"I want to know what is going on," Miss Kinomoto said, pointing outside.

"Never mind that." Her aunt put her arm around her and stirred her away from the entrance. She then clapped her hands together. "I know, why don't you go visit Koe? You can take Honey with you too."

Miss Kinomoto turned to Miss Daidouji. "Lady?"

Miss Daidouji sighed and then admitted, "Akizuki has been found. Please let my bodyguards take you somewhere safe."

"What about everyone else? Are they also coming?"

She didn't reply quickly enough and Miss Kinomoto's expression dropped. It began to rain heavily.

"So it's just for my protection?"

"It's just for a short time," promised her aunt, "only until the geong-si is gone and barriers are reset."

"I shall accompany you to visit Koe," said Miss Daidouji.

She avoided looking at her cousin. "It's all right. I'll go by myself. You're needed here."

"However,-"

"I'll come," Meiling said, surprising even herself. She shrugged. "I'm not doing anything useful here anyways."

Honey held onto Miss Daidouji's hand. "I want to see Second Sister too."

Miss Kinomoto sighed. "All right."

"I'll arrange for the rickshaw to be brought here."

"Umm…"

"What is it?"

"Nevermind."

Meiling, sensing that Miss Kinomoto didn't want to cause more of an inconvenience by speaking, spoke up for her instead. "Is it all right if we walked there?"

"It's raining," said the Aunt.

"That should be all right," said Miss Daidouji. "However, I would feel less worried if you some bodyguards escorted you there and back at least. I implore you to do so for my peace of mind."

They were given oil-paper umbrellas and they soon set off followed by some bodyguards. Honey and Meiling tried to cheer Miss Kinomoto up but she was being uncharacteristically pessimistic.

"I can't even go walk by myself," she lamented.

"Of course their worried," said Meiling. "Your brother was attacked by a geong-si a couple weeks ago, and they're family, it's what they do."

"I guess…"

They walked in the sound of rain fall.

"Do you think that they're going to cancel the Double Seventh festival?" wondered Meiling out loud.

"I hope not. Otherwise everything would be for nothing…"

"It's not night yet," said Honey, "there's still time."

The young girl had suddenly stopped walking and twirling her oil-paper umbrella.

"What are you looking at Honey?" asked Meiling.

"That looks like Big Brother."

Meiling looked at the direction was pointing to. "Ah that is Wan-Wan. What is he doing here? Is he looking for something?"

"What is he doing in the rain without an umbrella? He'll catch a cold."

Miss Kinomoto walked towards him. Honey was about to follow, but Meiling held on and indicated to her to be quiet and watch.


Since the phone call from Kurogane a couple days ago and some convincing, he, Doumeki and Flowright with some other volunteers had been trying to find the rain spirit that was causing the extra rain primarily in Heung Gong. It was supposed to be a small, low risk task, but it was proving more difficult than intended. There wasn't much time left before the festival so they decided to split up to try to find the spirit more quickly.

He was searching the park when he sensed an extremely strong presence. Then it started to pour rain, and he mentally hit himself for not thinking to bring an umbrella.

The air was laced with so much energy that the ranshinban didn't work properly, but he was sure that the spirit had to be somewhere close by.

Suddenly, something bumped him on the head, the rain stopped falling and his clothes instantly dried. Confused he looked up and saw the underside of a red-oil paper umbrella held up by Sakura Kinomoto.

Why was she here?!

And why were they were both standing under the same umbrella?!

He stepped back and instantly got soaked.

"Wait!" she said, stretching her arm to cover them both with the umbrella. "You'll catch a cold."

"I-I" his brain moved faster than his mouth. She probably didn't know the romantic symbolism of the umbrella because she came from Lecourt.

He couldn't say anything.

All he could hear was the pounding of his heart and rain on the umbrella.

"What are you doing here?" he managed to say.

"I'm here with Mei and Ho-eh?"


There wasn't anyone else in the park.

Sakura knew exactly what Meiling was doing. This was like last year all over again. She shut her eyes. This was so embarrassing.

She felt him tug the oil paper umbrella from her grip. She looked up and met his eyes and jumped at the loud, splintering, crack of thunder.

She avoided his eyes and took a step back from him. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

She tried to take back the umbrella but he wouldn't let her.

"I'll hold this."

"But-"

"It was hitting me on the head."

She pulled on the handle. "I'm still growing!"

"I didn't mean- Sor -thank you."

He looked so worried about nothing and she was surprised that he remembered what she had suggested a couple weeks ago that she had to laugh. "It's all right."

She decided to let him hold the umbrella. "Have you found the rain spirit yet?"

A couple days ago when she arrived back to the Li Mansion his sisters were complaining that even though Kurogane specifically asked him to help find the spirit he didn't want to. But the next day he changed his mind and left the household for the first time since the school year finished, not including the times he went grocery shopping.

"Not yet, but I think the spirit is close by."

It suddenly stopped raining. She stepped out from under the umbrella and held out her hand. There wasn't a single drop.

"I can't feel the presence anymore," he said, lowering the umbrella. "The spirit must have crossed dimensions."

"Well, it stopped raining. I guess that star crossed lovers will be able to meet."

Sakura was instantly soaked by the downpour. A heartbeat later she was dry with the umbrella in her hand and Syaoran Li was off running into the rain before she could say anything.

The rain soon cut off, except for a spinning column of water reaching up to the sky.

Sakura approached the base of the column where he was channelling energy into paper seals stuck on the nearby trees from the one in his hand.

To no surprise of Sakura's, Meiling and the bodyguards that were following her appeared and helped Li contain the spirit. Honey stood next to Sakura.

"Call Flowright," he yelled at her with difficulty. "We can only keep the spirit here for so long."

"Okay." She reached in the sleeves of the shrine robe and took out her chronophone and found Flowright's trace. "Hello?"

His face appeared quickly. "Hello, Star, how are you?"

"I'm with Li and-"

"Ooh-"

"No it's not what you think," she quickly dismissed, "Anyways where are you? We found the rain spirit in Heung Gong Park."

"You mean that giant water spout?"

"Yeah."

"Understood. I'll contact the others and come soon."

During the conversation with Fye, the water column gradually thinned to a drizzle. She was expecting some terrifying monster but instead saw a girl only a little bit older than herself. She had curly hair tied up in two pigtails and wore a cute short sleeved dress with intricate lace.

"Why, it's just a girl," commented Sakura.

The girl hit the barrier with her parasol.

"How rude! I'm a rain spirit!"

"Ah sorry…"The spirit must have been an extremely powerful one to be visible to Sakura.

"Don't talk to her," warned Li.

"Yeah, listen to your boyfriend, little girl."

"He's not my-!" Sakura cut herself off and huffed. She was tired of people saying or implying anything to do with the two of them. Then she noticed something. "Are you all right? It looks like you've been crying."

The spirit rolled her eyes. "As I said before, I'm a rain spirit and rain is water."

She dropped the topic but Honey then said, "But your hair and clothes aren't wet."

"Oh, this little girl thinks she's so smart."

"Hey-!" yelled Li.

She put herself in between Honey and the spirit.

"O, great spirit," Sakura said, "can you tell us why you're causing so much rain. You're going to disappoint a lot of people who are looking forward to the festival."

She had spent enough time in the shrine to learn that the first step in exorcisms was to establish a connection with the spirit through conversation, similar to meeting someone new.

"Good."

"Hoe? But it's a festival celebrating love. Don't you love love?"

"Love?" the rain spirit scoffed. "That's the stupidest things I've heard."

"But love is the strongest force of them all."

"If we didn't have love than we wouldn't have hate. All it does is cause heartbreak."

"Oh," realized Sakura. "What happened? Who-"

"None of your business!"

The spirit swung her parasol and a torrent of water hit the inside of the barrier. Li and the others strained to contain the rain, but Sakura still felt some splashes.

"Sorry…" said Sakura. She thought she understood why the spirit was acting this way, and it looked as if she wasn't ready to talk about it, but at the very least Sakura wanted to know why the spirit hated love so much. "But you can't get rid of love to get rid of hate. It's like… trying to get rid of light because you don't want shadows. If you do, you might as well be blind. If you got rid of love to try and get rid of hate, you wouldn't be able to feel anything. And there wouldn't be any point to living in world where you wouldn't be able to feel anything. It would be too sad. Why would you think it would be a good thing to get rid of love?"

"To protect others from being hurt."

"If you didn't have love then you wouldn't have that feeling of wanting to protect them in the first place. Don't you see?"

The rain spirit was quiet. "Is that why you disrupted a festival that celebrates love? Are you also going to rain on every wedding, date and every single happy occasion? Where do you draw the line? Are you going to keep raining until the whole world is under water?"

Sakura turned at the sound of slow claps.

"Very well said," said Fye Flowright.

Kurogane stepped forward with Doumeki by his side. "Rain spirit, you've disrupted the peace in this world. Are you going to cooperate? You're vastly outnumbered."

The rain spirit lifted her chin up high and glared at them all in the eye. "I'll stop. It was getting too tired anyways."


Soon after Nakuru Akizuki was granted asylum and escorted to Shing Wong Temple to the east of Heung Gong Island, the rain subsided to reveal a magnificent rainbow to the east and glorious sunset in the west. Sakura returned with the others wearing a forced smile.

They brought with them a rain spirit who with minor commentary about Sakura being "just like the Zashiki Warashi," ceased her endless rainfall in exchange for an oil paper gilded with gold. And thus, the star crossed lovers were able proceed with their yearly pilgrimage across the magpie bridge across the Heavenly River and to their lover's embrace.

The shrine was bustling with festival patrons but during a lull in customers Tomoyo took the opportunity to write out a wish for Kobato's swift recovery and then attach it on bamboo.

Tomoyo passed by the Four Heavenly Kings and overheard Flowright attempt to make Li jealous.

She wished that Sakura and Li wouldn't be so shy with one another. In some respects, having the previous knowledge that they were once the other's most important person has made it more difficult and awkward for them to get to know each other. However, it was evident to anyone who met them that they were tied together with the Red String of Fate.

Tomoyo was observing the heavens when she noticed a star appear that was brighter than the weaver and cowherd stars. She heard a collective gasp. Two more bright lights appeared in the sky, lightening the night sky. People pointed at the three pulsating lights now streaking across the sky. The lights converged and collided with a bright flash. In that moment Tomoyo saw in her mind's eye three great beings. Then the image faded into dark spots obscuring her vision.


Author's Notes:

What? An early chapter? I'm going on a weekend trip, but didn't want to submit another thing late. It will be back to Saturday/Sunday updates with the next chapter. I hope that you're finding this story entertaining. There's about five or six chapters left (or 3 episodes-ish)! Eep!

Also, sorry for all these cliff hangers.

I've based the Seventh Night/Qixi/Tanabata festival off the Japanese version because I hear more about it from anime and was more comfortable working with something I was familiar with.