A/N: And here's the next chapter.
Enjoy!
Sakura wandered through the streets of The Clow Bazaar. Her gaze subconsciously travelled to the beautiful castle that was visible in the distance, black flags bearing that wretched symbol of a crimson bat placed in a circle hung from every tower, gallery and balcony.
I liked them better when those flags were blue, a small voice supplied all of a sudden. And they didn't have that ugly bat on them. I think the moon and the sun looked much prettier.
"Huh?" she looked around for the voice, but everywhere people mulled about their daily businesses.
Shrugging off the strange feeling of familiarity that she got from the castle all of a sudden, she quickly turned away, hurriedly walking towards the square.
She passed the same old man who sold lobster-apples and for some reason, she found herself stopping next to his stall.
"My, my, what beautiful eyes you have," the old man smiled at her kindly, "would you like a lobster-apple, little miss?"
"Um… No. Thanks." She hastily turned and started jogging towards the square.
How many times do I have to tell you? She heard a male voice admonish her but looking around she saw no one. Don't wander off like that you little Kaijuu.
"I should have gotten some sleep last night." She muttered under her breath, focusing on bringing her racing heart back to a stop. "I'm starting to hear things."
"Where are your parents, little girl?" a woman, perhaps forty cycles of age, stopped her all of a sudden. "You shouldn't be wandering around the Bazaar on your own."
"Um… I'm meeting my Nii-san by the ridge-blocks." She answered automatically.
"Alright," the woman seemed to accept that explanation, despite Sakura having no idea what a ridge-block was. "But you should hurry. And tell your Nii-san not to let you go out alone. It's not safe for kids to wander out alone."
"I will." She nodded hurriedly before running off in a random direction.
Wow, the little Kaijuu is getting pretty good. The male voice from earlier laughed gently.
Mou… Nii-san I am not a Kaijuu.
A shiver ran down her spine as she cut through the crowds, having no idea where her feet were taking her. In less than five minutes, she had reached the other edge of the city. Here there were nothing but ruins of destroyed houses, pieces of structures that still partially stood crumbling and eroding in the harsh weather. Not knowing why, she picked her way across the decimated streets, cautious and fully alert for signs of danger but no one was there.
Sakura! She whipped around, her heart hammering against her ribs, but the owner of that panicked male voice was nowhere to be seen.
Breathing hard, she passed a building that had a glass window. The wall that housed this window was the only thing that still stood in that structure and she paused to look at her own reflection.
A girl of perhaps eight or nine cycles stared back at her with innocent jade colored eyes and short auburn hair.
Sakura-chan, that was perfectly executed. A newer male voice spoke, pride evident in his tone.
Oye, Oye, Yuki, don't praise her all the time. The first male voice admonished, the Kaijuu will get it into her head that she is too good and get lazy. And then the hunters will come and catch her. It took on a teasing tone, and then maybe finally I won't have a fat Kaijuu to look after.
Niiii-saaannn... the girl's young voice whined.
"I… I have to get out of here." Sakura breathed, the blood pounding in her ears as her breathing grew a little erratic. Who were these people she was hearing? And why? Why did this place seem so familiar? She looked above and realized she was standing outside a small house, which unlike all the other buildings in this area, was in perfectly kept condition.
Without even knowing why, she walked through the door, for some reason not fearing the fact that the owners might be inside or that they might call the hunters on her. The thought made her laugh. No one would call the hunters on a little girl, which was why she chose the disguise she was in. It looked a lot like she might have appeared around ten cycles back but it wasn't like someone would recognize her.
And so, she carelessly walked inside. She might as well have been entering her own home with all the caution she was taking.
The door led into a living room of sorts with an old, worn-out couch placed in front of an ancient TV set. The room was partially converted into a study and right next to it was the kitchen. She could tell from all the from plates and mugs resting on the small coffee table that the living room was probably the place that served as the dining room as well.
There were two bedrooms in the house, both properly lived in but the members of the household were both male. The reason for this deduction was overall messiness of the place. There was a third door, but it was locked shut and Sakura decided to leave it alone.
Nii-san?
Yeah Kaijuu?
I miss Kaa-san and Tou-san.
…I miss them too, Sakura. I miss them too.
There it was again. Those two voices. Quickly she turned and headed towards the door but froze when her gaze fell on a picture frame mounted on the wall next to the door.
In the picture were two boys, both hardly older than sixteen cycles. Hanging from the neck of one of them was a young girl, laughing at the frown on the face of the boy holding her. Despite the fact that the girl had sparkling green eyes and light caramel colored hair her attention was fixated on the two males in the picture.
The boy holding her had dark, ocean-blue eyes and messy windswept hair the color of dark chocolate. The other boy had fair silvery-blonde hair and gentle grey-colored eyes which were partially hidden behind a pair of round glasses.
"Nii-san…" she breathed, reaching out to touch the face of the dark-haired boy, but her fingers met the resistance of the glass that protected the photograph.
"…all killed with a sword." A male voice, surprisingly similar to the one she had been hearing for a while came from outside the door and Sakura felt fear grip her heart. The owners of this house were back. What was she going to tell them? Maybe she could say she got lost and ended up here?
Or perhaps…
Whatever it was that her mind was going to supply jumped out the window when the owner of that voice stepped through the door. The man who stepped through the door bore a striking resemblance to the dark-haired boy in the picture with the only difference being that while the boy might have passed off as a really good looking but ordinary teenager this guy, decked out in the hunter's uniform was anything but ordinary.
For a long time, they both stared at each other.
"Touya?" the other boy, now a man also dressed in hunter garb, stepped into view behind him but he too froze when his gaze fell on Sakura.
"S-Sakura?" The dark haired hunter called Touya breathed and she bolted.
Racing past their bodies froze in shock, she quickly made her way across the streets.
Shit! They recognized me. She mentally screamed as she ran. Behind her she could hear them running after her. Shit. Shit. Shit! She quickly dove into the hustling streets of the main Bazaar, weaving in and out of the crowds in hopes of losing them long enough to change her disguise.
"Sakura, wait!" she heard Touya call but she didn't slow down. For some reason she did not want to fight those two. She had never in life wanted something so much as she wanted to avoid fighting them. It was like she knew that if she killed them, her heart would shatter and break beyond repair. She could not hurt them.
"Sakura!"
The brunette ducked into a dark alley and jumped behind an overflowing dumper. The putrid smell of rotting garbage reached her nose but she ignored it in favor of muttering the spell she used most often. The woman that rejoined the crowd outside had short spiky red hair and a dark complexion with high cheekbones and liquid silver eyes.
"Sorry, Miss," Touya hastily apologized over his shoulder after he bumped into her but didn't stop to give her another glance.
"Sakura, wait!" he yelled, running after the decoy she had set up the minute her disguise took effect.
Taking in a deep breath to calm her racing heart, she quietly walked into a nearby Instant Money Withdrawal machine (or IMW machine for short.) Punching in the correct codes, she opened her account and withdrew a few thousand Pais. They ought to be more than enough to cover all her travel expenses till she got to Infinity. Working as a thief for hire in the underground circles of Infinity during her search for information on her own past had helped fill up her bank account quite nicely.
Spotting an ice-cream parlor, the same one that she had seen Kurogane and Syaoran go into the day before, she got a sudden craving for strawberry ice-cream. Feeling safe for the time being at having managed to lose those hunters she walked into the shop, deciding on settling at a table next to one of the glass windows that showed the street outside. Nothing eventful happened as she ate and she did not run into any more hunters on her way back to the docks.
Questions kept on running through her head on who those two men were. She knew where they lived and they seemed to have recognized a younger version of her. And if that photograph was anything to go by, she might even have known them back then. But could they be trusted? They were hunters for crying out loud. What if they turned her in when she revealed herself to them?
If they fought she would most definitely kill them. Her heart clenched painfully at that thought.
No.
She'd stay away from them.
After all, she still had all those files on her laptop. Maybe Chi had missed something out while going through them. She'd check them all and find out more about herself that way. It was a whole lot safer.
And if new questions arose, she could always get her associate to locate files for her that she could steal. For some reason, stealing things from the heart of Lord Fei's networks seemed a lot safer and easier than confronting a couple of hunters.
Sakura gave a bitter laugh as she realized that and stepped inside the cool ship.
A/N: You know the drill. I'm currently too tired to type it all out so just let me know what you guys think, k?
Till next time.
Nims