A/N: Exam week is here again but me being the procrastinator that I am wrote this little piece here for your enjoyment so you guys better be grateful. :P
"Touya, please, calm down."
"Calm down? Calm down, Yuki?" Touya whirled around angrily, "You saw the fucking files! How the heck can I calm down after…" heaving a sigh, he slumped on the chair next to him, "after knowing what she's been through."
"I'm the one who hacked into the databases, Touya," Yukito answered soothingly, "of course I know what happened to her. But you have to remember, it happened years ago. She's merely confused now."
"Confused and lost," Touya gave a bitter laugh as he stared out the viewing pane of the small spaceship they were in, "searching for her past."
"Well, when we find her, we can help her remember, can't we now?" Yukito smiled encouragingly at his friend. "And look, the tracker you left onboard says Little Dragon is only a few parsecs away."
"How would she react to seeing me again?" Touya wondered quietly, staring down at his hands. "Last time she threatened to kill me." Yukito wisely kept his mouth shut, understanding the state of mind his friend was in. "And she kept choosing that… that gaki over me." Touya spat, running a hand through his hair in frustration as he glared outside. Yukito couldn't help but smile slightly. Trust Touya to be angry over something like that. "And that red-eyed basta- what in the world?" the blue-eyed man growled, narrowing his eyes as he squinted at something in the distance before his face grew pale. "Yukito, are we in viewing distance of Little Dragon?" He asked quickly, shooting a look at the bespectacled hunter who consulted one of the many panels lighting up the right side of the ship's cockpit.
"Yes, it should be visible by now." He nodded, looking outside in the direction Touya had been staring in previously, "Did you spot it?"
The hunter chose not to respond as he took control of the ship and shot off in that direction. In the distance, the wreckage of a half destroyed ship was visible.
-0-
Touya's heart was pounding wildly inside his chest as he boarded the ship with his best friend, sword drawn, ready to fend off any ambushers. What had happened after he left? The ship's engines were clearly destroyed, and so was half the cargo bay. The boarding hatch thankfully seemed to be functioning properly but the access point to the rest of the ship seemed to have been sealed via airlock. Nothing could get in or out of there.
Unless they happened to have a genius hacker for a friend.
"And… We're good to go." Yukito announced in slightly grim tone as he stepped away from the lock control mounted on the wall next to the sealing hatch. "This will hold up for about fifteen minutes so we have to get Sakura and get out of here in that time, as fast as we can. My palmtop picked up on the bugs in the ship's mainframe, and trust me when I say this: we don't want to be anywhere near this thing when it blows up."
Touya had already raced down the narrow corridor. He had gotten a general idea of the layout of the ship when he had been escaping during the small rebellion they had planned against that bastard, Ryanban, so he decided to check out the cabin area first, his senses on high alert for anything unusual. The fact that the ship his sister had been travelling on was half destroyed and practically stranded in the middle of nowhere like an open target for pirates and space rogues did not sit well with the hunter. When he found the piece of shit that dared do this to his sister, he would make that bastard regret the day he was born. Oh yeah, there would be hell to pay.
"Kurogane!" the alarmed cry made him freeze, causing Yukito to almost crash into him.
"Get out of the way, I'm going to kill this bastard!" He heard the red-eyed man roar from somewhere up ahead and he took off in that direction, not even giving Yukito a chance to ask whatever it was that the bespectacled man had opened his mouth to question him about.
The sight that greeted his eyes as soon as he reached the entrance to the ship's galley was something he had not expected to see, even in his wildest of dreams. The blond pilot, Fei? Fai? was on the ground in a pale, blood-drenched heap, the beautiful, lavender eyed medic, Tomoyo, standing in front of him with her arms outstretched as she looked up at the ship's captain pleadingly. Said captain was glaring at the pilot on the floor with such ferocity that if looks could have killed, that man would have been burnt and eradicated a thousand times over. In his hand was a katana, poised, ready to strike the blond, but only staying in its place because of the female protecting him from the captain's wrath.
Tearing his eyes away from those three, he quickly scanned the rest of the galley. They had not yet noticed his arrival, so he still had a chance to spot Sakura and get her out of here without them knowing. He could sense remnants of what appeared to have been a rather powerful teleportation spell, mixed in with something he couldn't quite identify. He looked around one more time to make sure he wasn't overlooking something, but his beloved baby sister was not there. Come to think of it, neither was that annoying gaki, but he didn't care about the brat. He just needed to find Sakura.
"Kurogane, please." Tomoyo's pleading brought his attention back to the trio in the middle of the galley.
"Tomoyo, step aside," the red-eyed captain growled fiercely.
"But-"
"Where the heck is she?" Touya cut in on the medic's protests. They could continue with this soap opera once he had found his sister.
"T-Touya?"
"You." Kurogane's fierce glare redirected itself towards him.
"Where is she?" Touya growled back, not caring if he had to fight the red-eyed bastard to find her. He was getting Sakura away from here. He wasn't going to lose her again. "Where is my Sakura?"
"Touya, five minutes." Yukito warned quietly, from behind him.
"She's not here." Tomoyo whispered regretfully as she stared at him.
"What? Where is she then? Where the heck did you send her?" Touya inquired roughly.
"We don't know." The lavender-eyed beauty replied as the captain regarded him in a hostile manner.
"Why the fuck do you care where the girl went?"
"I care because she's my little sister, damn it! Now where the fucking hell did that blond bastard send her to?" He had finally connected the magic to the blonde's aura. True, he had sensed a couple of other auras as well, but the one that had performed that teleportation spell in the galley had been that pilot.
"Touya, three minutes. We need to get out of here." Yukito spoke urgently, looking over his shoulder at the three people inside the room.
"Fuck it." Touya growled, hurrying into the small kitchen. "Get your brat and let's go!" He barked, grabbing hold of the unmoving pilot's arm as he looked at the other two. "This place is going to blow up in less than two minutes."
"Syaoran's not here either." Tomoyo told him, grabbing Fai's other arm, which she slung across her shoulder so that the blond was half raised off the floor. Following her example, Touya did the same and motioned for Yukito to lead them back to the hatch with only a minute left to go.
"Leave that bastard to die here!" Kurogane spat venomously as he followed after them nonetheless.
"You might not care about his life much, but I need him alive to find out where he sent my little Kaijuu to. I am not losing her again. Not like this." Just as they reached the entrance hatch, they found it sealed shut.
"Shit!" Yukito cursed as he attached his palmpilot to the hatch lock, his fingers dancing across the hollow-screen flashing before him. "I can't get it to reopen."
"Get out of the way!" Kurogane growled as he took a couple of steps back. Raising his sword, he spun around, whirling the gleaming blade along as he let out a loud cry, Hama Ryou Jin! Touya felt magic pulsate in the air, raising the hair at the back of his neck as two visible streams of yellow concentric semi-circles crashed into the hatch, tearing it apart like it was made of nothing but paper.
"Move!" He yelled, motioning for Yukito to take up the lead, waiting for Tomoyo and Touya to drag Fai along as he brought up the rear.
As soon as the five were on the other side of the sealing hatch and onboard Mokona, Touya dropped Fai, racing towards the cockpit. "Yuki, seal the hatch and bring up the primary shields." Knowing his friend would do so without any delay, he took up the controls once more, hastily feeding instructions to Mokona's processor to activate the warp drive and the secondary shields. It wasn't a smart move to do so in such close proximity of what was no doubt going to be a noticeable explosion, but they didn't have much time to do anything else. Just as Mokona's tail end vanished inside the warp, the remnants of Little Dragon blew up in a brilliant flash of gold, crimson and indigo.
-0-
"You alright?" Yukito asked softly, walking up to the dark haired hunter staring broodily through the window in the viewing bay.
"Is he stable?" Touya chose to ignore the inquiry about his own condition for now. He'd be fine when he found Sakura.
He heard Yukito sigh beside him but he knew that the grey-eyed man would drop the topic for now. He was proven correct when the hacker launched into a detailed explanation of his observations. "His magical reserves are almost non-existent, what little remains is currently battling the effects of the seal placed on him. From the looks of it, the seal is at least five to six cycles old, and from what I have learnt from Tomoyo-san, he's been travelling with them for at least four and a half cycles now."
"So that seal was the reason why I was unable to tell how strong his magic was," Touya nodded in understanding, still finding it difficult to believe that someone had survived for that long after defecting from Fei Wang Reed's army. That seal should have turned his insides into a complete mess cycles ago. He had seen magicians succumb to that very seal in as little time as a few hours and here was this blond who had survived for cycles! Just how strong was that bastard? And for him to still be alive when his reserves are almost non-existent?
"It's hurting him a lot," Yukito said sadly, "that's a given, but he'll pull through if we manage to keep Kurogane-san away from him until he wakes up."
"Did you find out why he's so intent on killing his own pilot?" Touya inquired.
"Tomoyo-san didn't say anything on that topic."
"I see." The blue-eyed hunter nodded, pushing away from the glass pane as he started walking towards the small cabin where the medic was attending to the unconscious pilot. Kurogane had inflicted some serious wounds on the blond before the medic had stepped in, stopping him from dealing the finishing blow.
"Tomoyo," he greeted the lavender-eyed woman politely as he stepped through the sliding door, knowing full well that the fuming captain of the now destroyed Little Dragon was confined to Mokona's cargo hold.
"Oh, hello, Touya." She responded politely, reaching out for the gauze as she set aside the sewing needle and began unrolling the white material. "What brings you here?" she questioned with that same air of indifferent civility as she started wrapping Fai's stitched wounds.
"I need to know what happened after I left." He decided to get straight to the point. No use beating about the proverbial bush.
"What happened to Sakura?" she questioned softly, taping the end of the gauze with a bit of surgical tape. "If you're her brother, why didn't you say so when you were with us last time?"
Touya suppressed the urge to snort in disdain, "Would any of you have believed me if I had told you that? I can already imagine the 'what the fuck' reactions on all of your faces if I just walked up to her and said, 'Oh hey, Sakura. It's me, Touya, your older brother.' She didn't even remember me when she saw me." A soft, bittersweet smile made its way to his lips as he closed his eyes. "As much as it hurt, I could see the hatred in her eyes… You know, she looks just like our mother now."
"What makes you so sure she'll believe you now?" she asked cautiously.
"I have proof this time but…"
"You still need to find her." Tomoyo finished for him, nodding her head in understanding before looking back at him. "We went to Piffle for a little break after you escaped. We met your cousin there, Kyle Rondart. Sakura was excited to have found a connection to her past, and so she decided to invite him back to our ship. Only… things didn't go as well as planned. Kyle turned out to be working for the Bat Lord and he took us both hostage. None of us had known Fai had previous ties with them, but… that he… Syaoran always trusted him so much. How could we have known that… that…" she broke down into sobs at this point, and as much as Touya didn't like to make people, especially such kindhearted women, cry, he knew he would have to coax her into telling him the whole thing. Sakura was much more important.
"Tomoyo, please, pull yourself together." He said softly, awkwardly patting her on the back. "What did he do?"
"He… he was responsible for Syaoran's condition… Fai… he… helped those bastards."
"Where is he now?" he prodded gently, wondering about the location of the strange, amber-eyed brunette.
"Kyle did something to him… I've never seen Syaoran look like that before… Ever since Sakura joined us onboard Little Dragon, Syaoran's condition was steadily improving… he was beginning to return to his former self. His fits became non-existent, he grew more relaxed around us and he began to smile so much… the minute he saw Kyle, it was like three cycles back all over again. He was so scared of him. And I was helpless to do anything to protect him…" Touya decided to let her cry a bit more. Maybe she needed to get out of her system?
"I'm not sure why, but Kyle said something about wanting to take both of them back somewhere."
"Fai-san and Syaoran-kun?" Yukito asked, and it was only then that Touya realized his friend had been listening to the tale as well.
"No," she shook her head, "Syaoran and Sakura."
Touya felt his jaw harden upon hearing that. "Did that bastard take her away?"
"Fai interfered." She shook her head again, "He cast some spell on her and she was gone before Kyle could get to her. He said something about being strong enough to undo a memory seal or something. But whatever magic he used, it certainly cost Fai a lot. His shoulder began to bleed and he just collapsed in a heap. I guess… he wasn't strong enough to help Syaoran, too."
"What happened to him?" Touya was grateful to Yukito for taking over. His mind was reeling with what he had just learnt. A memory seal. So those files had been genuine. But if the seal was undone, Sakura would remember. She would remember him! Despite the gravity of the situation, Touya wanted to leap for joy. His Kaijuu would know it was him when she saw him.
"Kyle put some sort of paper on Syaoran and he collapsed as this green power surrounded him."
"For his aura to have manifested visibly, Syaoran-kun must be a very powerful mage." Yukito commented
"Kurogane and I didn't even know he had magic."
"You mean to tell me you never noticed the seal on his arm?" Touya couldn't help but ask in wonder. How could they not have noticed such an obvious thing when even he had picked up on it the first time he had encountered the boy.
"It was never visible before." The medic responded quietly as she looked away.
"Did he manage to get the brat?" The hunter asked, ignoring the annoyed look Tomoyo shot at him.
"Kurogane and I were paralyzed and Fai had collapsed after the spell he used to send Sakura away." She relented after a while. "They blew up the engines to make it impossible for us to follow them. Kyle even sabotaged our communications controls, leaving us completely stranded there."
"So you have no idea where he could have taken Syaoran-kun?"
"No." Tomoyo replied, and she looked on the verge of tears once more.
"Sakura will be able to find him." A voice tinged with weakness and exhaustion had the three of them reeling towards the previously unconscious pilot.
A/N: I know I promised to reveal what happened to Syaoran in greater detail but this chapter is already almost 3000 words long and since I did not want to cut that story in the middle, I decided to make it a separate chapter. I still revealed a lot though. ;) ;) feel free to rant at me for not keeping my promises if you want but words of encouragement and praises about how awesome an author I am make me write faster.
Kurogane: You're just trying to fish for complements.
Me: Who? Me?
Kurogane: *rolls his eyes* No, I meant the meat bun.
Mokona: But Mokona is already awesome!
Kurogane: *snorts* I find that hard to believe.
Me: I think, you're just jealous Kurgz, everyone knows Mokona is much awesomer than you, right Mokona?
Mokona: Right! And you guys can all help Mokona prove that to Kuro-meanie by saying so in your reviews.
Me: Hurry up guys can't let Kurga-lurga win. If we lose, Fai loses his right to call Kurgy-burger weird made up names and Mokona loses its popularity. Oh and I kinda lose motivation to write as well ^_^;
Kurogane: Don't you dare review! I can finally get rid of those stupid nicknames once and for all.
Me: *locks Kuro in closet* There, I even locked up the big meanie so that you can all review in peace.
PS. In case if anything doesn't really make sense or if you found the above conversation completely unamusing and a complete waste of words, just know that I have been operating on about three hours of sleep in the last 36 hours. I am about to drop dead right now but I'm forcing myself to stay awake till I can put this chapter up. Hope you guys all liked it.
-Nims