Author's Note: Strangely, I have nothing important to say…

Summary: 2 years after the second movie of Card Captor Sakura: The Sealed Card, life seems pretty normal, not including the training Keroberos forces Sakura to do over the summers and the fact that most of her allowance is spent on sending mail to Syaoran who is living all the way back in Hong Kong. However, when magical entities are stirring up inside and around Tomoeda, what will the crew do? Will they take an aggressive stance, run straight into trouble, or somehow figure out a way keep away from disaster?

A Riot of Surprise

Chapter 5: The Music of the Heart

The days passed by quickly as Sakura and Tomoyo got ready for the party. Even though Summer was getting gradually closer, the temperature started dropping, degree by degree. By lunch on Friday, most students at Tomoeda Junior High had swapped cloaks for dark blue sweaters with the school emblem on the front and the letters "TJH" on the back, the initials of the school. But even if others were shivering from the cold, Sakura didn't notice the sudden drop in temperature, be it for her cheerful and energetic manner or the building excitement she felt whenever she thought of her upcoming birthday that Sunday.

Now, Sakura sat with her hand propped up to support her head as the English teacher droned on and on, reading a novel called the Outsiders aloud to the class in English (1). Even though she wasn't really paying attention to the book, she felt lucky that her life wasn't as horrible as the one described in the story. Her life seemed to be all happy endings; except for the fact that her mother was dead and that she had the responsibility of being the only card mistress in the world.

"Miss Kinomoto, please continue where we left off," the teacher said in English.

"Hai," she replied and started exactly where the teacher had stopped. It seemed she had been paying attention after all… at least partially.

At lunch, Tomoyo and Sakura passed out the invitations to the party. While they asked Tomoyo questions about the party, Sakura snuck away to find Reizan. After a few minutes walking, she heard music drifting from the music room. Who would be practicing music at lunch? Sakura thought as she listened to the beautiful notes of a piano. Concentrating on the music, she slowly walked towards the source. Peaceful and calming music drifted to her ears, but underneath the soothing exterior lay something that Sakura couldn't quite place. It was as if something empty yearned to be filled, as if someone trapped in darkness was trying to find light… any light at all. Even the dim light that comes from a smoking, recently extinguished candle or dimly glowing embers would have been cause for cheers and great joy in the depths of their desperation.

She spotted an open window and peered in, but the open back of the grand piano was blocking her view of the musician's face. From the window, she could just see the black hair of someone sitting at the piano bench, but many people at her school had black hair. So did Eriol-kun, she thought to herself. For a moment, the thought of the possibility of her friend being the one playing the piano filled her mind, but she shook it off, convincing herself that Eriol couldn't have come so quickly in response to her letter.

"Sakura-san?" a voice asked and Sakura realized that she had been too caught up in her thoughts to notice that the music had stopped. She looked up and met depthless jet black eyes. A shiver went up her back at the sight of the empty, soulless eyes before she blinked, and there stood Reizan with a questioning smile on his face. Confused, she was about to reply when she realized that she had never seen the natural color of Reizan's eyes before, and that the eyes that she had seen seemed strangely inhuman. But Reizan's eyes were now filled with energy and seemed to be a dark green, so she brushed it off completely, thinking that her mind was playing tricks on her. And quite suddenly, she realized another thing; Reizan was still waiting for her reply.

She blushed in embarrassment and stammered, saying, "S-Sumimasen! Sumimasen! I-I didn't mean to interrupt you. It was j-just that the music sounded so beautiful and heartfelt…" she trailed off, looking down, still embarrassed from her reaction, or lack thereof, to Reizan.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Reizan chuckled. "In fact, I'm glad you think that what I played was beautiful, but I don't think I am satisfied with it myself. It feels like it's missing something."

"Not satisfied?" Sakura asked.

"That's right," Reizan replied, "I wrote this piece after all."

"Hoe!" Sakura exclaimed. She then frowned when Reizan suddenly burst into laughter. "What's so funny?" she asked.

Reizan finished laughing quickly and maintained a straight face, saying, "I don't think I'll get used that expression of yours. Trademark expression indeed; I've never heard that anywhere before, not even once!"

Sakura blushed with embarrassment, and secretly swore to kill her brother when she got home. She put on a fake smile and said, "Why didn't you come to lunch today?" She put a finger to her lips and then said, "Speaking of which, I don't think you ate lunch yesterday, or the day before that either."

Reizan hesitated for a second before answering, "I guess I'm still not used to the time here in Japan. Since America is halfway across the world, the times are different, which means that I the time we eat here in Japan and back in America are also different. That's why I'm not hungry, but I do seem to have developed a new routine of waking up in the middle of the night feeling extremely hungry. So now you know, but was there something you wanted, Sakura-san?"

Sakura interpreted the pause as embarrassment and nodded to his explanation. A sudden grumble of her stomach reminded her of lunch, and then of what she had decided to do to have her leave her lunch unfinished. Taking out the copy of the invitation she had for Reizan, she handed it to him and explained that her birthday was that Sunday and asked him if he would like to come.

"Of course," he replied with another grin. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

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"Sakura-chan, where have you been?" Tomoyo asked as Sakura ran back to her food and continued eating as if nothing had happened.

Sakura swallowed down some rice before answering, "I gave Reizan-kun the invitation, and he said he would come." After replying, she continued eating as if she had never tasted food before in her entire life. "Where is everyone else?"

"They said something about a permission slip for a school camping trip."

"The one that's coming up in May?"

"I think that's the one," Tomoyo replied. A moment of comfortable silence followed as the two continued to eat, but it was broken when Tomoyo asked, "And…?"

"And what, Tomoyo-chan?"

"Did something happen?" Tomoyo asked intuitively.

"Why would anything have happened?" Sakura asked in confusion.

Checking her digital watch, issued by Daidouji Co., Tomoyo replied, "Well, there is only five more minutes till lunch ends, so that means you were with Saitakou-kun for a long while."

Sakura's eyes widened in shock as she checked her own watch; she had received it as a present for her birthday a year ago from her father and her brother as a combined gift. She crammed some more food into her mouth before talking around her food, "I guess something did happen then." Sakura paused to gulp down her food before she continued, an attentive Tomoyo listening, "I overheard Reizan-kun playing the piano in the music room. He's quite good; as good as Eriol-kun. In fact, I don't think I could tell you who played better. But, there was something strange about the music."

"Strange?" Tomoyo questioned.

Sakura hesitated to think how to word her words before she answered, "The song he played was composed by himself. Though I don't know much about music, I think that the songs that you compose have to do with an emotion that you want to express or are feeling yourself. Otherwise, it would be like lying to yourself."

"I think I understand what you mean, Sakura-chan. But… what does this have to do with why you were there for such a long time?" Tomoyo asked.

"I was getting to that," Sakura replied with a hint of annoyance in her tone. "I stood there, outside the window, listening to his song and I… kind of got caught up in it. But what was strange was the song itself; it sounded empty, or incomplete, as if there could only be darkness and that there was no hope in it ever being complete."

"That sounds like the feeling of being lost, doesn't it?" Tomoyo commented with a pondering look on her face.

"I think it is more than that, but 'lost' is the closest word I can think of for that feeling. Maybe despair could be another, but I'm not sure."

"However you look at it, there seems to be an air of mystery surrounding Saitakou-kun, ne?" A moment of silence followed her words as the two finished up their lunch.

Tomoyo glanced at her watch again and said, "Sakura-chan, lunch is almost over. We should get going to class."

"Yeah, let's go then."

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Notes

1 The Outsiders – According to Ponyboy (Main Character), there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser. This classic, written by S. E. Hinton when she was 16 years old, is as profound today as it was when it was first published in 1967. (Summary from Amazon)

Japanese Translations

Sumimasen - Sorry

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Ending Note: I'm quite satisfied with how my revision is coming along. Stay tuned for what comes next. Next Chapter: Blizzard Magic