Alrighty, peoples! So I got this chapter out a day after I got the last one out! That's really good for me! I've been REALLY into typing this story lately, as you may be able to tell, so you're really lucky readers, aren't you? Ok, so for this volume's dedication: Numero Uno (it doesn't really matter what number you get) is AbsoluteFayFan!!! You rock! Keep on reviewing! Number two goes to Marine is hope2, for reviewing so many times! And number three is Kurama'slilAngel. Thank you so much for the good feedback and praise!

Thanks to all of you! Remember, if you review, or even just write to me every once in a while, then I'll put you on the dedication list.

~Sakura

Disclaimer: Ok, so you know the drill by now. I do not own Tsubasa: Resivoir Chronicles, or anything of the sort! TRUST ME, I AM NOT THAT RICH! All rights belong to CLAMP and other respective rightholders.

I yawned sleepily, stretching my arms. I blinked my eyes open and wiped the sleep from my eyes groggily. I was expecting to be greeted by blinding light, but instead, I looked up to find a soft purplish atmosphere, swirled with the many colors of light. There were traces of blue, pink, yellow, and green in it. There was even black, but I had seen too much of that already, so I tried to ignore it. It was absolutely breath-taking, but strangely nauseating at the same time. I remembered being here when I transported to the dimensional witch's place, so I guessed I must have been passing though to another world.

I noticed for the first time since I woke up that I was lying in Fai's arms. I must have fallen asleep after he and Arashi left the room. Syaoran stood, his expression sorrowful, and I noticed that Sakura-chan stood next to him, fully awake now. They must have retrieved the feather without me. Kurogane sat on the floor, arms folded across his chest angrily. All three of them wore the clothing I had first seen them in, except that Fai's heavy jacket was now resting over his arm. I could understand that, too, because the temperature was abnormally high. The color danced across their faces, and in the light, each of them was suddenly more enchanting. Fai looked down, and saw that I was awake. He gently let me stand on my own, and announced to the group, "She's awake now."

Syaoran stepped forward, motioning for Sakura to follow him. "Izumi-san," He said, tenderly pushing Sakura-chan in front of me. "I'd like for you to meet her highness, Sakura-chan." She looked like a sweet girl, with bright green eyes and a pinkish shade of hair. Her features were rounded, giving her a more childish look about her.

I held my hand out for her. She looked at it with a puzzled expression on her face, but took it after a few moments. "Hi," I said, instantly feeling foolish for addressing a princess the way I did. "I mean, your highness, I am Izumi-san, at your full disposal. It is a pleasure to finally meet you." I tried to smile genuinely, but it hurt to do so, as I wasn't used to smiling regularly, the outcome of leading such a mournful life.

Her smile was so warm that it made me smile back. "The pleasure's all mine." Her voice was soft and gentle, and it was very reassuring. "Just drop the formalities, though. Call me Sakura." I nodded. I could swear I saw a pang of jealously sweep across Syaoran's face, but it was gone as soon as I saw it. I guessed she didn't let him call her Sakura.

Mokona was floating overhead, its mouth wide open, as if sucking in all of its surroundings. So that's how he transports us, huh? I thought. I pictured a bug flying into its mouth and sniggered. Sometimes my wild side got the better of me. Kurogane stood up and huffed, "How long is this thing gonna take?" He tapped Mokona with his knuckles. "Hello? Hurry up, will ya?" Fai started laughing, and I giggled knowingly.

Suddenly, we were no longer in a cozy little pool of color and happiness. We were falling. I looked down, and I could see the end of the tunnel. At the opening, there was a light. As we got closer, I could see little ants, and later discovered that these ants were people. My stomach was doing backflips, and making me dizzy. The ground was coming to meet us. Fast.

I remember very clearly the looks on the villager's faces. They were quite more than obviously shocked. I mean, we fell from the sky. I landed right on top of a little red-and-white tent, set up in a town market. It cushioned my fall, at least until I rolled off of it and dropped the last ten feet to the ground. "Oof!" I yelped, and heard a sickening snap. I rubbed my head with my left hand, and looked around. Syaoran had fallen right in a cart full of cabbages—at least that what I think they were—and leapt up immediately, with a baffled expression on his face. Kurogane and Fai stood up, rubbing their heads from the impact.

I attempted to hoist myself up on to my feet, but my arms gave way and I fell back down. An excruciating pain shot straight up my arm to the rest of my body, and I looked at it. There was blood, as I had expected, but that was not the worst of it. The bone in my arm was poking though my skin, which was torn and bloody. I almost screamed, but held it back, biting my lip to fight back tears. It hurt like hell, probably because I hadn't really felt pain until Kurogane cut my arm. It was especially painful for me. I didn't cry so much because of the pain, but more at the sight of so much blood. Fai walked over to me, and I shielded my wounded arm from his view. "We have to work on our landing." He chuckled, but noticed the tears running down my cheeks. "Izumi-san, are you alright?"

"…I'm…fine…" I grunted, trying desperately not to cry my head off. I shifted my weight over to my left arm, to ease the pain in my right. "Don't worry…" I somehow managed a weak smile, but winced in pain.

Fai noticed that I was hiding my injured arm from him. "You're not alright, are you?" He knelt by my side, and tried to move my body out of the way so he could examine my arm. "Izumi-san, please. If you're hurt, you have to tell us, otherwise there's nothing we can do about it. Besides, we're going to find out sooner or later, right?"

I nodded, and reluctantly moved out of the way so he could see. A panicked gasp escaped his mouth. "Syaoran-kun! Kuro-pin! She's hurt!" He looked around desperately. "We need to do something. Here," He helped me up, and let me lean on him.

Syaoran apparently had his own problem to deal with. A man had snagged Sakura-chan's arm and twisted it. Sakura let out a small shriek in pain, and Syaoran, hearing his love hurt, instantly lunged at the man. He jumped up with incredible flexibility, and kicked the man right in the face, making the man stumble backwards. He released his grip on Sakura's arm in the process.

I forgot about the pain for a moment. "Bam!" I exclaimed triumphantly, punching my left arm up in the air. I lowered it sheepishly when I found everyone was looking at me. The pain returned.

"Oh!" Kurogane smirked, smiling smugly.

"Ah-ha!" Fai laughed. I cringed in pain, stumbling forward. Fai's light-hearted expression disappeared as he caught me. He pointed to my arm. "We'll have to get that bandaged up as soon as possible. It's a bad wound."

The man stood up, his nose bleeding. He looked stupid and ugly, very shocked by the fact that a young boy had, in fact, kicked him in the face. "Who are you kicking in the face?" He asked, turning on Syaoran, who was taking cautious steps backward.

"Stop right there!" A girl's voice could be heard over everything. I froze, and looked up. A little girl, maybe about nine or ten, stood on the roof of a building, her arms folded angrily. She was the type of kid I could look up to, sort of like Syaoran. I always felt a connection with such kids, maybe because they seemed to have been through a lot of hardships, just like me. It made me feel less alone. "If you don't want to be kicked, stop attacking people at random! You stupid little boy!" It almost made me laugh, hearing a small girl like her call a rather large, chunky man like him a 'little boy.'

"Chunyan!" The man muttered. "Who are you calling stupid?!" The fat man asked, taking an offensive stance.

The girl began sarcastically looking around, saying, "I don't see anybody stupider than you." She put her hand up to shade her eyes from the sun. I laughed, but found that it hurt to do so, as I moved my arm in the process. Fai put his hand on my shoulder.

"You little…" The man mumbled furiously. "You insult me?! I am the only son of Ryanban-sama, ruler of the country of Koryo, including the town of Ryonfi!" The man yelled. In my mind, his words translated into blah, blah blah. This was the type of man I would like to beat up. Anyone who uses their father (or mother, for that matter) as a way to make him look powerful is cowardly.

"You may call him Ryanban," The girl retorted. "But less than a year ago, he was just a wandering Shinban magician!" She yelled. What in the world is a Shinban magician?

My arm was throbbing now. "Fai," I mumbled under my breath. "If this doesn't heal…" I was feeling sick to my stomach. The pain in my arm was so intense that it seemed to affect every part of my body. I began to felt dizzy, now, and my head hurt like crazy. Oh, god. This definitely cannot be good.

"Is it hurting?" He whispered back. I nodded weakly. He took my left arm and we snuck out of the marketplace. For someone who had never been here in his life, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. "We have to hurry before they begin to worry about us."

I snorted cynically. Yeah, right. I thought. He moved at an incredibly fast pace, his feet absolutely silent as they hit the concrete. He dragged me along, and I tried to pry his hand off with my mouth. I stopped walking, and said, "Fai, where are we going?"

"Somewhere far away, where nobody can see us." He said slowly, and for once, the smile on his face was nowhere to be found. "We'll get back to the group later, but right now, we need to do something about that arm." He motioned for me to follow him. "Come on."

I stumbled after him into the woods. "Why here?" I whined, not wanting to be so far away from people alone. With an older guy. I shook my head, as if to shake the thoughts away. Fai couldn't hurt a fly. "I mean, why in the middle of the woods?" I asked.

"Because." He stated tersely. He pushed branches out of his way, making me shove my way past them as well. "Watch your arm." He warned me. He pulled me into the middle of a clearing, and instantly, memories of the night I 'activated' my magic flooded my mind. I gasped, and turned around to run away, but Fai grabbed my good arm and said, "If you want me to heal you, you have to stay here."

I was on the brink of tears. Maybe it was because I was afraid. Or maybe it was because I didn't like the memories. Or maybe it was because my arm was hurting even more. I guessed it was a mixture of all three. "What do you mean, heal?" My voice cracked, and I tried to stop the tears from spilling over my cheeks.

Fai saw that I was crying, and gently wiped the tears away with his thumb, stroking my face lightly. "It's alright. Don't be afraid." He sighed as he said, "I vowed that I would never use my magic again, but if it is for the purpose of healing you," He looked at me forlornly. "then I will use it." I got the strange feeling he wasn't going to use his magic to heal me, anyways.

He shouldn't have to use his magic just to heal me, especially if he vowed never to use it again… I thought. Fai prepared to heal my wound, and I blurted out, "Wait! No, you don't need to use magic. Really. We can just use a splint or something." I said, pulling two twigs off of a bush, and tearing a piece of cloth from the bottom of my shirt. "Like this." I took the twigs and rubbed them together, sanding them down so that they wouldn't splinter me. I cringed, as it hurt when I moved my arm. I pressed one of the twigs on the top side of my arm, and the other on the bottom side of my arm, and wrapped the cloth around them tightly with my mouth. "There. That will do fine." I saw the worried expression in Fai's eyes, and said, "But don't worry. It's just temporary." Somehow, he looked rather relieved that he didn't need to use magic.

He sighed. "I hope that you'll be okay." He looked at me for a long, sad moment, and then turned away, looking straight in to the woods. I got the feeling that he wasn't as worried about my arm as he was about something else. I walked in front of him, and stared into his eyes. They had frosted over, and I knew he was lost in thought.

"You can't use your magic to heal people, can you?" I asked. I didn't know what had come over me; I didn't think, I just...did. "I mean, I got the feeling you weren't going to heal my arm with your magic, you were going to use mine. If I had any." I was unsure, but somewhere in my mind, I knew it was true. He wouldn't be able to heal me.

He looked at me, the distant look in his eyes was even more prominent, now. When he answered, it was as if he was in a trance. "You are absolutely right." He didn't seem to want to dwell on the subject, and looked away guiltily.

Even though I was boiling with fury, I concealed it from leaking into my voice. I changed the subject to make him more comfortable. "Fai?" I said, trying to grab his attention. He turned to me, but still had that cloudy look in his eyes. "What does it mean to have a very 'controllable' name?" I asked, remembering what he and Arashi had spoken about earlier.

Fai instantly snapped back to reality. His eyes were full of fear and something along the lines of anger, though it was barely noticeable. "You heard that?!" He asked, grabbing my shoulders with great force, knocking the wind out of me for a moment. I nodded meekly. "When?" He shook his head; he already knew when. "How?" He tried instead.

"I-I…I was awake! I heard you and Arashi talking about it!" I stammered. Oh, shoot. If I had known he was going to react like that, then I wouldn't have said it. I shook my head. "Never mind it, then! I'm sorry I ever brought it up!" I said.

Fai let go of my shoulders, and walked to the other end of the clearing. He put his head in his hands. "How?" I tilted my head in confusion. "How much did you hear?" He asked, spinning around on his heels and advancing on me again. This time, I backed away, because he had a look of complete anger in his eyes. It was no longer that innocent, frightened confusion.

"Not much! I swear! That was all I heard!" I lied. This isn't right. Why would he freak out like that? "I promise I didn't hear anything else! I fell asleep afterwards!" I tried to convince him. Apparently, my 'convincing' act wasn't so convincing. He was approaching me, his strides getting longer with every step he took. I was going to turn and run, but then I noticed that he no longer seemed furious, instead, he had that same look of sadness he always wore. Sadness, not for himself, it seemed, but for me. Because of the look of sadness, I stopped trying to run away, and stood in place, bracing myself for whatever was to come.

I feared the worst. Maybe he would hit me, or something like that. I doubted it; it just didn't seem in his nature. Fai was much to kind and sensitive to do such a thing as that. I still worried, though. It wasn't right of me to listen in on their conversation and not tell them. So I waited for the inevitable moment when he would do…something. But instead of violent nature, he hugged me, and mumbled into my shoulder, "You heard it all." He said. And then he let me go.

I stood there, dumbstruck, my mouth hanging open from brass hinges. Was that all? I expected much more. I expected him to give me a long, boring lecture about how I shouldn't eavesdrop or whatever. But he didn't. He hugged me for about two seconds, and spoke a simple sentence. That was it.

"Let's head back." He said. "Do you know where they might be?" He asked.

"Yeah…" I said in a daze. I did know where they were. The power of Sakura's feather was so distinct that I could track it down to any place in the world. I sort of pushed my way out of the woods and began walking in the direction of the feather. I didn't really care about what would happen next. All I could think about were the events in that day. When I heard Fai and Arashi's conversation, I knew my name was no joking matter. But when Fai freaked out over me hearing it, I knew there was something more to my name than just pure power. It's not just that my true name is powerful…It's something else, too. But why would Fai react like that? I wondered, racking my brain for answers. Maybe because he knows something that I don't. What does he know?

I ignored the pain in my arm as I clawed my way through the woods, slowly making my way towards the village. The two of us made our way out into the marketplace. It was already getting dark, which motivated me to pick up the pace. The townspeople were cleaning up their booths, putting away whatever produce they were trying to sell. The life-saving red-and-white tent was gone. I turned a corner, and Fai ran to catch up to me. "Where are you going?" I did not respond. I was too absorbed in my thoughts. I turned on another street, a more residential area. The feather was in one of the houses on that street; I could feel it. As we headed towards Syaoran, Kurogane, and Sakura, I found that there was only one question that came to mind.

My name… I thought. What's so powerful about my name?

Maybe I shouldn't have asked that question. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference. Was the question one that was really worth asking? All I know is that by the time the answer had come around, I had no idea of what had hit me. And that made all the difference.