Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ CCS Arcana ❯ Dreams and Portents ( Prologue )

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Disclaimer: Card Captor Sakura belongs to CLAMP. Original characters are mine. Please don't use them without consulting me first.

Spoiler, Timeline and Ect. Warning: This story takes place after the Clow Cards are collected and, er, Yue's fun and games. That's it. No Eriol, no Suppi-chan, no Ruby Moon and yeah, Yukito's secret is a bit important to the plot. Sakura is sixteen in this story. This story is a bit dark compared to canon CCS, you are warned. People are going to get hurt and/or possibly dead. Please use discretion if you find that sort of thing offensive.

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The warm, afternoon sun dwindled into the horizon as night inched its way across the Tokyo skyline. The full moon grew brighter as the inky shadows of night claimed the city.

The children of Tokyo slipped into their beds one by one with lingering resignation. Tomorrow morning would bring the first day of the new school year. Most were not looking forward to it.

Within the home of a family just recently moved to Tokyo, a young teenage girl was preparing for bed. She stood before the large bathroom mirror, dressed in a lilac-colored pajama top with matching shorts. Her long, straight raven-black hair cascaded down her back as she methodically drew a small comb through its length. A slight creasing of the skin between her sapphire eyes was the only indication that something was bothering her.

Several minutes passed in the silence as she continued to comb her hair. Then with a quiet sigh of irritation, she scowled at her reflection, "Ugh, a new school, a new uniform, a new house, a new city, a new everything. And I don't even know anyone. Eh, somewhere someone must really hate you." Her scowl deepened as she whirled around, stalked out of the bathroom and a short distance down the hallway to her bedroom.

She slammed the bedroom door and winced slightly at the loud sound, then shrugged carelessly, "Not like anyone's going to hear it." Her cousin was at work, as usual, and wouldn't be back until much later if at all.

She sighed, much louder this time, and walked over to her desk. She laid her brush off to the side as she pulled the chair out from its place beneath the desk. A stray lock of hair fell across her face as she sat down and crossed her arm in thought. "Let's see," she murmured as she blew at her rebellious hair. "I've got my books, my uniform's over on the dresser," she grimaced at the aforementioned set of clothes, then frowned as she noticed the small, black book sitting next to them.

"Hello, what are you doing out?" she murmured as she walked over to her dresser. It was a small, black leather-bound book sealed with an intricate silver lock. She'd had it for as long as she could remember, and had never been able to open it. Not that she had ever been interested in opening it. For some strange reason, whenever she was around it, whatever curiosity she might have had about it seemed to vanish as if it had never existed. And surely it was an odd little book, with silver filigree over the cover and strange, silver, foreign lettering emblazoned across the top.

"Oh well," she shrugged nonchalantly as she put the book back up on the desk's bookshelf where it belonged. It didn't really matter, she had better, more pressing things to worry about... like a new day of school in the morning. With that cheerful thought in mind, she yawned, shuffled over to turn the lights out and climbed into bed.

Pale moonlight stretched across the room as the night drew on. The girl sighed in her sleep and burrowed deeper into her pillow. When the moonlight touched the dresser bearing her school uniform, silver writing flashed as the black book was once more laying beside her uniform, only now the silver lock was open.

~*~

"Oi Sakura, are you going to bed anytime tonight?" Touya called up from the bottom of the stairs. He frowned slightly at the pounding of feet coming from the upstairs hallway and crossed his arms over the apron he wore.

Sakura barely slowed down in her mad dash from her bedroom to the bathroom, from the bathroom to her bedroom and so on, "Shut up!"

Touya tilted his head to the side, "You'll look like a monster if you don't get any sleep. No one will ever want to look at you again."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Sakura yelled as she slammed her bedroom door closed.

Touya smiled cheerfully as peaceful silence finally descended upon the household. Sakura had been really excited about the first day of the school year, to the point where she had nearly driven him and their father insane throughout the week. Hopefully, after tomorrow she'd settle down some. He wouldn't mind a little peace for little while.

"Hmm, maybe I should ask Yuki over for dinner tomorrow night," he mused as he went back to finish cleaning up the kitchen.

~*~

"Niichan no baka," Sakura grumbled hotly as she leaned against her bedroom door. She closed her eyes and sighed quietly, then walked over and plopped down on her bed.

"Sakura-chan?" Kero-chan blinked up at her from the floor. After a moment spent turning off both the TV and his video game, he flew up to perch upon her shoulder.

"Ready to go to sleep, Kero-chan?" A smile creeped across her face as she looked up at him questioningly.

"Yep! You've got a big day ahead of you, Sakura-chan. But don't forget to get me some cake, please?" He looked at her intently, waiting for confirmation.

Sakura giggled at him as she got up to turn the lights out. "Of course, I'll bring some cake home for you."

"Wai wai!" Kero-chan trumpeted in abject joy as he slowly flew circles above her head.

Sakura chuckled as she pulled down the covers and lay down to sleep. "Glutton," she whispered fondly.

"Of course, it's cake!" Kero-chan answered matter-of-a-factly as he curled up next to the pillow. "Goodnight, Sakura-chan."

"Goodnight, Kero-chan."

Pale moonlight stretched across the room as the night drew on. As the moonlight neared the foot of the bed, Sakura began to dream of things, strange things, odd things.

It was so very dark...

and cold...

and silent...

In her dream. This dream.

Sakura closed her eyes for a moment in confusion. When she opened them again blood began to pool at her feet. A sickening drip-drip of something slowly filled the air, growing louder and louder each second. And then, an inhuman scream screeched across the sky and shattered the darkness, bringing a blinding white flash of light. Sakura covered her ears and squinted against the glare, as a new, unknown feeling of pure terror chilled her from the inside. 'What is it?' she thought, 'Who is it?'

An instant later the light was simply gone and the silence grew once more. Minutes of black nothing and overpowering silence passed. Then, laughter came, a woman's laugh, cold and cruel.

"So this is the one," a man's voice, deep and filled with certainty, followed the laughter.

"The one who draws us," a woman's voice, cold and hard, answered.

"The one who wakes us," more voices now, women and men alike, too many to identify.

Seconds passed with nothing else said. And then, a kind voice, a woman's voice, whispered softly, "We shall see."

Sakura awoke in a sweat from the dream, still filled with an unnamed terror. The moonlight fell across the bed, painting her hands in white light and black shadows. She blinked, her previous terror already fading away as if it had never existed. Yet, the odd feel of the dream still lingered. Such a strange dream... She looked to the right to find Kero-chan still asleep by the pillow. At least she hadn't woken him up with her antics. But what brought upon that dream? And why? And why did she feel like this was only the beginning?

~*~

Only the beginning...

The black book flashed faintly with a strange power in the pale moonlight. Across the room on the bed, the girl slept on, unaware as the leather-bound cover flipped over to reveal a set of thick, silver and gold bordered cards within its depths. Each card glowed with a crimson light a moment before a seemingly nonexistent wind caught them up within its grasp and blew them out into the night sky of Tokyo. The girl sighed in her sleep and rolled over, a slight frown wrinkling the skin inbetween her delicate eyebrows. She dreamed uneasy dreams of mysterious magic cards and inky, black feathered wings the covered the night sky.

~*~

Several blocks across the city, Tsukishiro Yukito awoke to an eerie sense of being watched. He blinked owlishly in confusion at the pale moonlight falling across the bedroom floor. He wasn't sure why, but something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Elsewhere, Li Syaoran stood deep within the shadows, keeping his distance from the all-seeing moonlight and sternly gazing out of his apartment window. He scowled at the growing sensation of ancient, powerful magic that seemed to blanket the city in ever-increasing waves. Something big was going on, and he had a really bad feeling that it was going to turn out to be something involving both him and Sakura.

~*~

Outside, within the local park and beneath one of the flowering cherry tree, two endless pools of glittering pink cheerfully opened up to their new surroundings. A soft, female chuckle instantly followed and magic flared to life, altering whatever it touched with a whim.

The land turned slowly beneath the ever-present moon as the night wore on in bated silence. Every now and then, strange sounds of unknown origin would drift up into the clear sky and disturb the odd quiet. Towards morning, just as the eastern sky brightened in welcome expectation of the sun, cruel laughter echoed out over the city far below and a red sheen blanketed the moon's surface with a sickly pallor.

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Next: The Magician Attacks! The Arcana Are Revealed!