All warnings were given first chapter… please refer to it!
Ugh.. This has gone completly out of my original script... Clow does what he wants, lol!
The Crow
(Second Arc: The witch from the Eastern lands)
(Part 16)
XxxxxXxxxxX
(continued from part 15)
As if a curtain opened, he was able to see it.
What her eyes saw, what her ears heard and what her heart felt…
…
They were inside a cavern. Sutras covered every possible inch of the walls – so that no one would be the wiser for her actions, and a faint flickering lamp sat by her feet – she's never been good at fire or light spells, such a waste, Su Yung thought before – now she knew better.
"Are you sure this will work?" The young voice asked. She smiled congenially down at the boy.
"Of course it will! As soon as you soak in these waters, your magic will grow stronger" She told the child, urging him forward until bare little toes were bordering the margins of a sparkling lake.
"Enough that father will acknowledge me?" The boy – Chao, no family name since he was a little bastard – poor child wanted so desperately to be recognized by his father so he and his mother could escape from poverty that Su Yung couldn't resist helping.
"Of course. You will become all your father ever wanted in a son, much better than your half-brothers… maybe if you try enough, even your father's wife will accept you" Honeyed words to disguise the poison left her plum painted lips. "Your sisters will admire you, your mother will be proud of you… don't you want to make her proud and take her out that place?"
"I-I do!" Chao cried to Su Yung "I just have to enter the lake?" He asked tremulously. The madoushi nodded, smiling kindly.
"Just step in, until your head is under water. Count to ten then you can step out"
The boy obeyed her, eagerly to obtain what Su Yung couldn't give. A small step at a time, until his shaved head disappeared under…
The lake bubbled around the submerged child. A flowering brown stain starting to bloom from the center of the waters, right where the boy was. Ten seconds later, he was coming out, dragging his feet and looking utterly drained.
"I don't feel very well…" He said before collapsing on her lap. Su Yung smirked, caressing the foolish child's head.
She's just taken his magical potential.
Earth Element, how common.
…
…
Rage curled in his belly like the cold fires of a void dragon, licking up his insides and leaving burning icy trails up to his throat. Of all the abominable things she could have done…
"Madoushi, what have you done?" Clow's voice was controlled, even and leveled. It betrayed nothing of what he felt.
A tumultuous wind carried dark promises, particles of power filled with anger settled in every shadowy crevice they could reach. Darkness stirred, moving through the ether slowly and then picking up speed as it almost broke free of restraints. No… it wouldn't do to let his temper get the best of him. He owned his old students the courtesy to at least hear her sides of things.
"It is none of your business!" The woman he thought he knew snapped, rising from her cushion so there wouldn't be so much difference between their heights. She was tall enough that the top of her hair brushed against his chin. "You left me… All alone! I had to do what I could to survive!"
'…Of all the absurd things!' His thoughts were still following logic, but his powers were now tearing at his control as his feelings fell deeper into anger. The shadows in the tent trembled slightly; the very air thickened and became stale.
"You had to steal children's potential to survive…?" He asked redundantly, both of them knew it was a lie. 'It wasn't just one child. Chao was only one at the end of a long list of victims' It was… ugly. A perversion… you don't steal from children, you nurture them, teach and protect them.
'This is not news' Clow reflected inwardly. Su Yung was not the first, nor would be the last to deprave on the sanctity of children. It still shocked him enough that one he considered a friend would do something like that. He had a bad feeling before coming here, now he just felt tired.
"Well? Aren't we mighty atop our perfect, high towers?" Su Yung sneered "You want to ask why I did what I did, go ahead and ask" And Clow could still feel the hurt radiating from somewhere inside the witch, buried beneath years of bitterness.
'I don't even have to ask… I should have kept a better look on her' He didn't. Didn't want to hover over his old student like a shadow, distracting her or even stunting her growth… So the sorcerer refrained himself from looking, but even then things slid through the cracks of his control, and his powers let him know the sheer mistake he was committing. 'Would a sterner hand have been enough?'
'No' Disappointment and sadness, along with a great dose of regret, made the brunt of his own anger recede. Suddenly, the tent was lighter. His old student's back relaxed, her steely eyes meeting his with an unfathomable depth.
The tendrils of darkness spearing out his churning soul coiled back, he started to prepare a spell; just in case.
He had to ask, as she suggested. If only to draw some amusement from what promised to be a disaster. "Why?"
"For you!" Su Yung, now calmer without the threat of his anger, told him with a strained smile. He could see them. Her plans… unfurling like the wings of a recently emerged butterfly, just out of its cocoon. The little insect fluttered its wings in a strain to fly. "We are meant to be together, that's why you left me, so that I could grow, amass power, and now that I have enough you came back!"
Metaphorical hands encased that butterfly.
In his mind's eye, destiny played, possibilities came and went like gushes of wind – an infinite circling in the coils of a never ending snake biting its own tail – the route he'd take was obvious. 'But first, the chance of redemption has to be offered… I shall not take that away from Su Yung'
"You did something wrong… you perverted on the innocence of children, predated on their magic and corrupted a bond of trust that should have been sacred" Clow stated gently, standing there in front of her and would be smiling as if nothing was wrong in the world – if not for the edge of danger glinting in his eyes, which were more silver than blue. "Do you at least regret what you did?"
"No" Her voice shook. Panic settling in her face. He could taste her desperation, the fear and the faint hope she could still convince him. Su Yung approached the sorcerer in a fast gait, throwing her arms around him and bringing him down to meet his lips with her own – there's where he stopped her – mouth inches away from his. "Clow… let us be together once more… I deserve you now, I do, let me prove to you" she begged uselessly, only making the memory of the sweetness of her kisses becoming increasingly sour.
"I don't know what I said that made you think I'd condone to your actions" The sorcerer started, maneuvering Su Yung until he had her face grasped between his hands, forcing their eyes to keep connected. "But I do not. I abhor what you did. You've erred. Regret what you did, now!"
This was the only chance he'd give.
"Never" The madoushi hissed. "I'm not that naïve little girl you took in once, I'm not weak anymore, I…"
"…Never left the past behind" Clow interrupted her rant and sighed sadly. "I let you go, so you could find yourself beyond my shadow. Our relationship was smothering you, Su Yung… as a sorceress and as a woman. Letting you go was the kindest thing I could have done" Magic started to coalesce under his skin, spilling out the pores of his arms and hands, illuminating the madoushi's suddenly terrified face.
"No! don't do this! Clow, please! You did this to me!" Her begging hurt, her accusations troubled him, everything she went through chaffed.
He might be a kind man, even forgiving. But the truth of the matter is that right now, he had to be jury and executioner. Once upon a time, he'd have wondered about the rightness of his actions… the truth of the matter is… 'I do not take kindly to being manipulated'
'It was all because of me' – or that's what someone foolish would think.
'You are responsible for your own actions' Clow thought to himself coldly. 'My choices might have influenced hers, but it was not I who fell' because the world would weep in dark sorrow the moment Clow chose to fall, so he didn't.
Su Yung's pleas fell in deaf ears. But not an antipathetic heart…
Clow had his own purpose of doing things. And even if what he wanted – Violet - never came to pass, what he envisioned before, his foretold heiress Sakura still would.
Plans within plans, within plans.
"Do not worry… for all the blame you put on me, I shall show you pity" And he did. Avoiding the tears dripping down Su Yung's cheeks and the smudges of her make-up, the sorcerer dove into her mind with a relentless purpose, erasing everything from the point where he left her to the point where they met again. "Hate me… despise me… it should give you greater purpose than love ever did"
The spell he's been silently summoning for the past minutes exploded forward.
One moment there was a woman in his arms, next moment there was a flailing book.
"Good bye, Su Yung"
He left, after picking up the book and putting it amongst the witch's things… when her people noticed she's disappeared, they'd take care of her baggage.
He stepped outside the tent, away from Su Yung's territory… when something else tingled at his senses. A familiar presence was close by.
'Oh… It seems someone has become curious' He thought, trying to suppress his anger a second time that day.
XxxxxXxxxxX
Wang was doing an excellent job pretending to be a fortune-teller.
The middle aged man looked absolutely ridiculous in that costume, which drew a veritable crowd of tittering children and their amused parents to come and giggle by their stand.
The silly crystal ball was mounted on a table, hanging lamps and colorful draperies completed the settings, and Violet could be found drifting behind Wang, doing her best to pick up on the language everyone was speaking.
Every couple of minutes, someone would sit in front of Wang Hyu-an and he'd talk briefly to them – then he'd stare intently at the crystal ball, and speak some more – reactions varied. Some laughed, others cringed, but most only looked indulging.
'Clow has been gone for a while now' Violet moped completely bored of observing people.
"…your arrival tore through the fabrics of this world and sent waves that were felt by a lot of people, not all of them have good intentions"
The sorcerer's words played in her head in tandem with the wish to go against his advice and go out to explore.
'I'm used to being in danger' the witch thought sullenly, but had she said anything to Clow, he'd have asked about things she wasn't ready to share yet. 'Weren't you the one complaining about being treated like a child?' She admonished herself for being silly. The least she could do was keep her word and stay put, if not for herself than for Clow who seemed to worry needlessly about her.
Something in her chest settled.
A strange feeling taking over the witch the more she kept that train of thought. Once, the green eyed woman believed breaking the rules and acting on her own – mostly because no one believed in her – was the norm. No adult ever listened to her concerns and troubles, and the Dursleys erased any deeper trust she had in authority figures.
Then, when she came to Hogwarts, the trend continued. Not until the very end, when she had to fight tooth and nails for the secrets Dumbledore kept from them all – did she realize what the Greater Good meant.
'I'm not a pawn, nor a mindless tool' the witch winced as her stomach twisted, wrapping her arms around herself and leaning against the now empty travel boxes, carefully not to topple them with her added weight.
Being told the reasons why she's asked to do things, being listened to, given credit and liability. It felt empowering and good.
"I'm in love with that… that git!" That's the truth of the matter. "Bollocks…"
…
She lost the feel for it.
So close… 'Yet so far away…'
It felt like a whirlpool in the fabrics of reality, a point where all possible outcomes converged, perhaps a node. Unexplainable and dangerous…
Shivers broke out down her back. Yuuko blinked. A large amount of magic has just been used, and she knew by whom. 'Oh dear, he is in a terrible mood' And obviously she was a masochist, because not a second later she was uncloaking herself, making it easier for Clow to find her – otherwise it would have taken him a little more time, though he'd have noticed her eventually.
"You know, it is rude to use a lady's roads without noticing first" She teased, hoping to distract her old friend from the foul mood he's in. It was beyond dangerous to play with Clow like this, his very presence sent shivers through her body and made her nerves shake.
Her own powers surged, trying to connect to him and read his future without the barriers of mirrors' glass between them. All she saw was a large black hole.
"You followed me here" Was all he said. Clow's eyes were still silvery from whatever stunt he pulled. Yuuko didn't want to know. She was still faintly terrified by that pulsing darkness clouding his fate.
"I admit I might have followed you a little bit" Yuuko kept on the light tone of voice. "But I do have a couple of questions… starting with; What the hell are you thinking?"
His lips pulled into a parody of a smile. "I'm thinking that it does not concern you" Clow told her with a measure of coldness, a warning she'd take to heart.
"But you do" The wandering witch told him frankly, making one of his eyebrows rise in wonder. "You're virtually invisible. I never felt or saw you coming here until you used my crossroads"
"Oh… it is not actually a bad thing, is it?" All animosity bled out of Clow for a second, Yuuko was able to see genuine affection infest his distant, polite visage. Her heart clenched. It could only mean one thing… "Never mind this now, since you're already here, why don't we go see Gui Feng? He has what we need for that project" Clow initiated the change of subjects, Yuuko went along with him.
Despite her burning curiosity, she still had caution. Clow just used a large spell, a couple of minutes before meeting her. 'Not in a good mood is an understatement' So Yuuko won't be the one to push him over the edge.
"That sounds fine" She agreed pleasantly, pushing all her feelings aside to walk beside Clow. "How are the calculations into moving to other dimensions going along?"
"Almost done" His smile never reached his eyes. For some reason Yuuko felt sorrow.
…
TBC~
Extra note: Originally I thought to have Violet against Su Yung, but Clow is a secretive little sod, and never went around telling Violet what was going on... but don't worry, Violet will see her share of action soon. :)