I'm really surprised by how much my story is liked now '^^ It made me feel a little proud about this chapter.
Anyway:
Disclaimer:I still don't own Tsubasa, CLAMP, or its characters.
I opened my eyes to find myself laying in a wooden chair, amidst plenty of music and laughter. I pulled my arms up and my hands over to cover my ears. Noticing the bandages on my right arm, I couldn't help but wince. I'd almost forgotten about the little incident back then and I wish I had. I wondered how the rest of me looked. I could already make out some sore spots, probably bruises, on my face.
"Um...Aya, are you alright?", I glanced over, it was the princess.
"Y-you're awake...um, yes I'm fine," I replied groggily.
She smiled softly," Syaoran returned the feather to me from the last world. I can't remember much still, but it feels nice to not be sleeping all the time."
"Ah....that's good...WAIT! LAST WORLD!? I thought we were still in Hanshin!", I shot straight up, a finger poked my head down again.
"Who did that!?," I rubbed my scalp and turned around in my chair," Oh, its you." Fai was now leaning on my chair. Grinning, as usual.
"Surprised? You've been asleep for at least 3-4 days. We collected the feather in Hanshin during that time."
"3-4 days!?" I felt a little peeved that I never got to thank Inazuma for saving me back then.
"Hey Sakura, you wanna play?~ You can win moolah!~", Mokona jumped onto Sakura's head.
"W-what's 'moolah'?," the princess said puzzled.
"Its slang for 'money' in Aya and Masumi's world! C'mon! There's some game over there! Its fun!~" Mokona....I think the word you're looking for is 'gambling' not 'some game'.
"Um, Alright," Sakura nodded and walked out of her seat.
I fixed my eyes on the rest of the room. We were in some sort of restaurant, it was sorta dimly lit. Everyone seemed to be wearing European style clothing from the late 1700's or early 1800's. Kurogane was chomping down a steak next to Masumi who seemed to be cutting out paper people. I had no idea where she got the scissors and the paper...Syaoran, Sakura, and Mokona were off by the 'game' table. I saw a couple keep giving me strange looks from their table. I knew it, my face probably looked like a battered up prune.
"We all stick out like a sore thumb," I sighed.
"When we get some new clothes we won't."
"I guess...."
I felt his hand grab my shoulder, he whispered by my ear," Never mind it. You still have yet to tell me who did that to you." He pointed at my arm.
I shrugged his hand off," Nothing happened. I uh, just ran into a guy a bicycle back then, that's all."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm...I'm not lying."
"You are. You're stuttering. Tell me."
"I don't want to."
"You're only making matters worse for yourself not speaking about it. Tell me."
I crossed my arms, "Arrgh, alright already, just zip it for once and stop that! Sheesh, so persistent...When I split up from you guys, I guess I accidentally took a shortcut and ended up on this small side street."
"Accidentally?"
"What? I just wasn't paying attention to where I was going that's all." I felt to embarrassed to say it was because of some strange voices in my mind, he'd think I was crazy. Not that we all weren't
"You should be a bit more careful....anyway, what else happened?"
"Well this guy in a cloak attacked me and his buddy was telling me strange things. That I was supposed to be dead and that I should know who they were...but I don't know who the heck they were. Anyway, I used my kudan to get away."
"That's it?"
"Yep. I don't know what their motive was.....oh yeah! The one dude, yeah, he was yelling to the buff guy, Revulz, to use magic when I was escaping! Weird huh? I didn't know Hanshin had people with magic...
He shook his head,"There isn't magic there. That means they are from another world. Strange....I would have sensed the magic, they must have been suppressing it. You believe they are coming back?"
"Maybe. If they are, its definitely gonna be more forceful. I just don't know what they want..."
Everything sort of paused for a moment, but he went right to talking again.
"And then Aya-chan came to me!~With open arms!"
" No! I bumped into you! Wait...ewwww, you didn't carry me back, did you?"
"Naturally."
"Aw man...I've gotta wash this shirt again."
Princess Sakura had ended up winning all the money at the gambling table. Angry gamblers had mobbed our group out of the restaurant, unable to grasp the fact that they had all lost to a girl who didn't even know how to play.
The money had been enough to buy us new, warm clothes at a small shop, so we wouldn't stick out as much. Plus, Masumi and I would catch hypothermia in our outfits from home. It seemed it was winter in this country. Snow covered a lot of the buildings and trees. I was not very fond of cold weather, but I had always enjoyed a nice snowfall. I had checked in the mirror, my face was still the same old pigment, no bruises to my relief. I tugged at my blue dress. Masumi had suggested it since it went well with my brown hair. Simple, but nice. I liked it. I hated flashy clothes.
We had trudged, by foot, to the next town over. The bartender from the restaurant had told Syaoran about a legend of this Princess who took children from that town. Syaoran believed it could be a lead to the feather in this world. Everyone settled with this idea. I didn't buy the legend though. I had a hunch that the thing with the princess was a simple misunderstanding. Legends were always told and passed on from person to person. They could always be changed or told differently.
I could read the sign. It said 'Welcome to the village of Spirit!' I didn't feel very welcomed.
The main street, which you'd expect, even in the winter, to be filled with some people, was desolate and empty. The windows looked boarded up and I even noticed some doors on houses had double locks.
"Its like a ghost town...", I commented
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. Suddenly a little girl popped up in front of us. She stared at us curiously.
"Huh? Aww, hello there. Do you live in this village? Could you help us?", I smiled and knelt down by the girl. She looked at her shoes timidly.
"Mary, get away from there! Get back here!", I heard a woman's voice shriek. The girl ran into a crowd of people that quickly surrounded us.
"Who are you people? Why are you in our town? You should leave!," one man yelled.
"Yeah, you guys seem pretty suspicious," a lady grumbled.
"I am writing a book on myths and legends. I heard there is a legend for this town, I wanted to write and research it."
"Oh yeah? Then why d'ya got people with you when you're the one writin' the book?",an old man interrogated.
Fai cut in," Ahaha~! My little brother hates traveling alone, so he asked us to come along. This one here," he pointed at Kurogane," is my older brother", he pointed at Masumi," my cousin", he patted Sakura's head,"my cousin's friend!~"I stood behind him while he said this. Maybe if I stayed hidden...
"An' what about the one in the back o' ya? Yar wife?" Hahaha...wife, he's funny....haha.....WHAT!?
"What?! Haha~No, but we might. I haven't proposed yet. She's my girlfriend," he pulled me over into a tight and totally fake hug. I wanted to push Fai away, choke the guy with the accent, and then come back and choke Fai, but if I blew the act, it was all over. I pretended to look very happy.
"What's wrong with you people?! They just arrive, these travelers, and this is how you treat them?" A man with black hair tied in a ponytail and glasses pushed through the crowd.
"Ya know the story, Dr. Kyle. The children keep disappearin'. We have every right to be suspicious."
"That does not give you the right to pick on people who have know idea what you're talking about. Please, follow me, I'm sorry about the welcome party." He motioned for us to follow him to a house on the corner.
"I see, so you're very aware of what has been going on in this town," he remarked.
"Yes, I was interested in adding these occurrences to my book," Syaoran said.
"Very well then, you are allowed to stay at my place as long as you like."
"R-really?", I stuttered.
"Of course. Take it as a token of apology for the rudeness earlier. Plus, I don't get much visitors as it is. It feels nice to have company."
"But..."
He smiled,"Don't worry, I feel very responsible of the people here, even though I am not mayor....anyway, I hope you find what you've been meaning to write about. Before I head in, I'll show you to your rooms.
Kurogane and Syaoran ended up together in a room.
He looked at Fai and I," I suppose you two want a room together." I shot dagger glares in Fai's direction.
"Oh no, my cousin and her friend really wanted Aya to stay with them. You won't miss me, right my sweet?" His shoulder nuzzled mine playfully. He was clearly teasing me with this act.
"Oh no~ Fai, I'll miss you, but I will be fine." I struggled to spit the words out in a sweet tone. It was so....so....wrong and evil.
He gave me another burning hug from hell and left to go with Syaoran and Kurogane.
"So~having fun, Aya?" A finger poked at my side as I walked into the dark room.
"M-Masumi! D-don't do that!," I gasped for air.
"Having fun with your boy~friend?"
" H-he is not my boyfriend! He is doing that to piss me off!"
"Then why are you blushing? And shhh~the princess is sleeping." She pointed over at the sleeping figure on the bed opposite of mine.
"Oh, sorry....and I am not blushing! I would never blush for an idiot like that! Never!"
"Haha, okay, okay, calm down. What were you talking about earlier though?"
"What do you mean?"
"In the restaurant, you looked nervous when you were talking to him. What was it?"
"Have you ever heard the name Revulz?"
Her face get a little pale and sweaty,"Hm, that's a strange name. Nope, never. Why?"
"Oh, I dunno. You see, I walked down this alleyway as a shortcut in Hanshin and these two guys attacked me. They were both wearing robes. That's how I got injured" I held up my beat up arm.
Okay, I could tell her face had just lost all its life," What color were the robes?"
"I think they were maroon....."
"What else?"she asked nervously.
I continued to tell her about what they said, the little glimpses I got of their faces, my escape. She listened intently to all of it. In truth, I hadn't wanted to tell anyone about what happened. In the case they were to come back, I didn't want my friends involved...but I couldn't keep something like this from Masumi and...the damn mage was so annoying that I spit it out!
"Soooo...yeah, that's it. Hey Masumi, is something wrong? You've been looking kinda pale and sick."
"Its nothing. We'd better keep some level of caution during the rest of the journey...Aya, I'm...going to go to bed."
"Alright, G'night.....Oh Masumi, I had a question!"
"Yes?," she turned around.
"I know this really isn't my buisness, but...you're wish?"
She smiled," I would tell you if I could, Aya. But you wouldn't remember anyway."
NOTICE: I won't be doing every single world they land in, but I'll be doing practically all of them. This chapter started out in Jade Country, I decided to skip Koryo Country and make it that they never landed there, sorry to those people who loved that world in the manga, I wanted to use it so bad, but I decided that its one or the other. The lake country I might possibly do as a little fuzz chap. Anyway, I put this little note here for people that might have gotten a bit confused, cause I'm a real master at confusion -__-