Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction ❯ Legacy ❯ Of Smoke and Shadow ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer. I don't own em. Well chapter 2 is officially done. I apologize for all the delays with them. college professors have no respect for fan fics. Sigh. This chapter is basically pure S&S goodness. I don't have enough secondary characters to have the story move like I like it. So it gets a little linear jumping from scene with Syaoran and Sakura to scene with Syaoran and Sakura. The next chapters are dealing with the legacy and the origins of the Clow cards. You could probably surmise the origins by now, but I am looking forward to doing a little flashback. ^_^

please review, it's my first ccs fic and I would like to know if it is turning out decent or not.

Thanks ^_^

mail me at logan91235@aol.com

Legacy

By Logan

Of Smoke and Shadow.

The apartment was furnished for comfort over style. Soft hazy rays of light filtered through the picture window and made the wooden floor shine with a golden ocher. The furniture was of a modern style, but made for comfort as opposed to style. The decorum was sparse, but it radiated with a pleasant aura. Syaoran had spent a full day in the creation of the interior, summoning up his furniture and other temporary things which he would return to nothingness after his time in japan was over. He hoped it would be a very long time before that eventuality.

The air smelled of rose incense and herbs from the kitchen. Some of them were for cooking, the rest for brewing concoctions that ranged from healing ointments to sacramental timber to be burned in cleansing spells that may or may not be deemed necessary, depending on the situation. Sedum dragon's blood grew in a pot in the back of the apartment. It was a pretty flower, grown by many for it's beautiful red foliage, but grown by Syaoran for its part in a mystical ritual that would regrettably become necessary soon. When mixed with a collaboration of other herbs and the drippings from the user's blood, then burned, created a mystical smoke which would be used to endo a blade with a specific magic.

He had made this apartment so livable for her benefit... teaching Sakura would be impossible in a house filled with two skeptics who loathed him enough to make his time there as close to hell as they were able to make it. The majority of their sessions were spent with her studying texts and him acting only when she was stumped on a detail. She was a good student, the beginning was hardest, but Syaoran sensed she would soon be absorbing the principles in no time.

Syaoran sighed as he leaned back in his chair and thumbed to the next page of the book he had borrowed from Sakura. He found it amusing in a satirical sense due to the fact that it was about wizards and matters of magic. Though entertaining, it couldn't get any harder to believe unless there was a sudden invasion in the form of an alien armada. Unfortunately the way the book was going that would probably be next to come about. He raised and eyebrow and cast a glance to Sakura.

She was sitting at the other end of the sofa struggling with the spell book he had given her as a study guide. He was enjoying watching her like this, she had an adorable look of bewilderment as she tried to make sense out of some of the more challenging aspects of this particular spell.

"This book is a joke, I cannot believe it's yours." she glanced up at him and smiled sheepishly.

"It's not, I borrowed it from Madison. It's one of her favorites."

"Ah, say no more. This is definitely Madison's style. Strange and overboard." he smirked.

"Now Syaoran, a healthy dramatic flair is a good thing" she quoted in her best Madison impression. Syaoran smirked and then turned his attention to the brown spell book in her lap.

"Having trouble?" she slumped in irritation.

"It doesn't make sense. It tells you only a few words, but a full page of what you are supposed to feel and concentrate on when saying the words." he nodded and rose from his chair and moved to her side. He sat close to her and neither of the two minded the proximity.

"Magic isn't like it seems in the movies, it's never just rhyming lyrics, magic phrases, or Latin incantations. Magic is felt more then it is said. You control it inside you, not with words but with your feelings and thoughts. Ironically, the magic words are the least important part of casting a spell. if you continue developing the capacity to make magic without talismans or spells, it gets to the point you don't need words for it." he accentuated his word with a small gesture of his hand which began wafting with white smoke. Sakura watched in awe as the spiraling plumes of white smoke formed into the image of a cherry blossom tree which blew softly in the nonexistent winds. He maintained the image for a moment until finally, with a grin, waved his hand and dispersed the smoke.

"That's amazing..." she awed as he grinned to her. he had a smile that could warm her whole body in a way that possessed more magic then anything she had ever felt from the cards, she wished he would show it more. He made no effort to move away from her and instead took her hand in his. She was blushing as he used his other hand to manipulate her palm open. He spooned her hand with his own beneath it and withdrew his other hand.

"Be calm and focus on my hand underneath yours. Let me handle the concentration on the spell, you just focus on an image. Don't think of anything else except the image you want the smoke to take." his voice was low and almost sultry as he whispered against her ear. She felt a soft blush warm on her cheeks as she let her mind come to an image. With a hesitant voice she whispered the incantation from the book.

Tiny tendrils of nebulous rosy smoke ascended from the crevice between each of her fingers. The misty apparition pooled in the palm of her hand and then slowly rose upward in a gentle spiral of ethereal mist. Sakura's eyes gleamed with surprise as she watched the smoke take form. from the amorphous cloud a form emerged. Appendages of mist took form and soon cast a familiar figure. She marveled at the tiny effigy of herself with so much awe that she didn't feel Syaoran's hand leaving her own. the tiny Sakura of smoke was dressed in a flowing gown that rippled in the hazy fog which obscured the figures end.

"You're doing it Sakura." Syaoran smiled as Sakura looked over to him with a childlike grin of glee.

"You did it though?"

"No, I just helped you relax enough to be able to do it on your own. half of magic is just being open to it, embracing as opposed to writing it off as impossible or beyond you. Make her move." he replied as she turned back to the tiny effigy.

The smoky girl stretched out her arms fluidly and made timid little gestures as if she were a child under the scrutiny of an authoritative figure. she then seemed to look over at her creators with a tiny smile and a wave of her hand.

"Very impressive, she doesn't loose her form when you have her move." Sakura grinned.

"Now lets see how quick a study you are...." he smirked at her as he tipped his hand to hers. As if it were a liquid, the misty smoke ran down his fingers and fell to her palm where it immediately formed itself into an effigy of himself. the tiny Syaoran was dressed in almost regal attire with a formal outfit complete with tasseled trimming and tails. He looked to be dressed in the same costume Syaoran had worn during the festival, just before the void card attacked. Sakura giggled with jubilance as the handsome little figure bowed dramatically to the effigy of herself.

The tiny version of Sakura curtsied to him and took his offered hand. As they touched Sakura's figure began to ripple.

"Concentrate Sakura, focus on the parts where they touch, if you don't they'll act like smoke and merge together." Sakura bit her lip in concentration and the figure solidified. The two touched again and began dancing in slow circles.

Sakura marveled at how easy it became controlling the figure. It was as if her imagination were suddenly made completely visible and tangible. She glanced up from the show to Syaoran only to find he hadn't been watching the figures, and instead had been watching her. she smiled at him and the soft grin he had been wearing turned into a full smile. The dance went on but neither really watched it, they just continued controlling it.

"You're a fast study..."

"I have a wonderful teacher." he laughed softly and rubbed the back of his head with a faint blush.

"You think you're ready for a real trick?"

"I can try..." she replied hesitantly as Syaoran's figure dematerialized into a cloud of mist which flew to his hand as if drawn forward by vacuum. He closed his hand over it and stood up taking a few steps back. Sakura's eyes widened as he tossed the smoky figure into the air. It exploded in size and reformed itself back into Syaoran's likeness, but this time life-sized. The smoky wraith looked at Sakura's miniature figure, and then to Sakura. He smiled at her in an almost beseeching manner.

She stretched out her open hand and the girl dematerialized to a fog which swept off her fingertips and down to the floor. Sakura didn't consciously know how she did it, but picturing it alone was enough to make it real. As the smoke left her fingertips it formed itself into the same figure, but this time life-sized. She joined hands with the apparition of Syaoran. And once again the two phantoms of mist danced in utter silence. They danced as if in a trance, no smoky foot touched the ground as both specters glided on the gentle haze which swirled around them. Sakura watched with a child's awe at the magic she herself was working.

"You like this?" he asked.

"It's amazing... it's so beautiful. Can we make anything?"

"Well within reason, you are limited only by your own mind. If you stretch yourself too far you loose your grip on them and they fade. It's a simple manipulation, almost a glamor." he replied, but cut his lecture short when he noticed a touch of sadness on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"I was hoping I could make a specific person appear, but I can't remember her well enough. I was just a baby when she died..." Syaoran's eyes lowered as he realized who she was talking about. He could sense the faint tremors of sadness in her, and winced in sympathetic pain with her.

"You wanted to see your mother again didn't you?" she looked over at him and nodded. The dancers had stopped and now waited for either of their puppeteers to will their movements. They were as still as if they were painted on a massive mural.

"My father died before I was born, I never knew him... but... the people of my family don't focus on such things. he died in the most honorable way, so I am proud of him. Remembering him never was that important. But you weren't raised like I was. It must hurt you a lot to not remember her." the way he was talking about his father made Sakura aware of just how different they were. She was raised by normal people, he was raised by the Li clan. His people accepted death differently then hers did. She was broken from her thoughts as he pressed two fingers against the side of her head. She didn't know what he was doing, but did note a strange warmth that pierced her from where his fingers made contact, then through her head as if he were touching her mind.

She blinked as he took back his hand and smiled softly.

"What did you do?"

"You can read auras right?" he replied without offering her an answer.

"Yes, I'm not the greatest at it, but I can see into them."

"You know then that auras mingle with each other. any two that touch, leave a piece of themselves on the other. though sometimes it is too faint to be felt in great detail."

"Yeah, I know that." she replied as he stretched his hand out to the smoky figures which immediately lost all form and turned to a swirling mass.

"You are too new to be able to se them in the depth I can. I just sampled an aura which lingers with your own. you will someday be able to do this, but for the time being, let me to give this to you." Sakura's eyes widened as he returned his control to the formless mass of smoke. His eyes closed and he made a strange gesture with his hands that almost looked to be preying. Then with a flip of his wrists the cloud became something she had never dreamed possible.

The smoky figure was radiant and more beautiful then any picture had ever done justice. She was in her thirties, dressed in a shrouded garb of frolicsome shrouds of mist. Her hair glided and whipped in slow undulation as she looked at Sakura through her placid eyes. Her lips were full and her facial structure as perfect as Sakura had ever seen. She was smiling and Sakura felt butterflies in her stomach.

"It's my mom..." she replied softly.

"She's beautiful." Syaoran commented as he studied her.

"Yeah she is."

"You know that you look a lot like her. you both smile the same." his voice was reverently silent as he looked upon the phantom's soft grin. Sakura reached out and touched the woman on her cheek. She was as intangible as the mist which made her, despite the illusion of solidity.

"It's like she's really here..." Syaoran gently lay his hand on her shoulder. Instead of drawing away from it, she leaned into it as if seeking the warmth and the comfort his body radiated.

"She's not really gone Sakura. Her aura is part of yours, so in a way she is always with you. Just like I've always been..." he trailed off as he rested his head against hers in a silent act of comfort. She slipped her arm around him and then he her. they were silent as they sat there and watched the phantasmal woman who shared both her daughter's smile and her daughter's love.

They sat like that for a while and when Syaoran looked back at her he saw tears in her emerald eyes. He turned to her quickly with remorse in his eyes. As leader of his people he should know not to act on impulse, but to debate and weigh each action. if ever he had proof of both the appeal and the danger Sakura posed to him, it was in her capacity to make him act too fast and too rashly.

"Sakura I'm sorry. I didn't think that this would be painful for you." he was about to will the image away, but more on impulse then on conscious thought Sakura stopped him with a gesture of her own hand. He blinked. The force she expelled was minimal, it would never be able to hold him back if he truly was set on making the image fade, but the fact that she was even capable of the effort startled him.

" no Syaoran, don't make her go away yet."

"I... I guess it wasn't the great gift I had thought it would be. Seeing her like this must hurt. You know it's just an image, like a picture..." she silenced his nervous ramblings as she met his eyes with a warm smile.

"No... this is something no one else could have ever given me. Seeing her again makes me miss her, but it means more to me then I could ever say. This is the greatest present anyone has ever given me..." her words were as soft as the cooing of doves, but she was not helpless like the bird. Sakura could crush him with a word, even without words he was at her mercy. Just the thought that he had hurt her sent him into a panic he didn't think himself capable of dealing with. She was beyond all his training, beyond all his resolve and defensive walls. This tiny flower of a girl could topple his empire and shake his world from its axis, and in a way he treasured that most about her. the vulnerability it imposed upon him. Love is pain, often more so then pleasure. Syaoran had the incite that no romance was real without the possibility of destruction, and in that premise Syaoran felt his life richer for this weakness to her.

"Thank you Syaoran.... thank you so much." she had tears in her eyes, and the translucent pearls of saltwater reflected his image. They shined with crystalline light that moved him as if they were a tsunami of emotion in themselves, a tide not of muddy brown water, but liquid light.

"You're welcome Sakura..." he replied gently, lost in the moment and drunk in her touch and her tears.

She reached up and brought her fingers to her lips, then touched them to the phantasmal angel who smiled back with placidity that bordered on tranquility and spiritual nirvana. The angelic form didn't respond for the only way she could respond is if Syaoran willed her to do so. That would be a blasphemous act in this circumstances, this was between mother and daughter, not daughter and puppet. Sakura turned to look at him and her eyes seemed to shine with pristine radiance.

"That's all I need..." he nodded, at a loss for words he reached over and gestured the angel back to the smoke which spawned her. Sakura watched as she faded away into the obscurity of the world which surrounds our own, but is beyond even the eyes of the greatest sorcerers, in a place that she could only name as heaven.

"Syaoran... we're almost out of time." she motioned to his wrist watch that revealed that their hour long session was three minutes from conclusion. He nodded and she slipped the brown leather book away into the safety of her purse. He rose with her as she stretched in an almost feline manner.

"Time flies eh?" he commented as he handed Sakura the book he had been musing over back. She accepted it and her hand lingered as she bit her lip a little in thought. Syaoran was about to ask about what was bothering her, but then was answered before he asked.

"I have the day to myself today... Touya is with dad at the museum and Kero is breaking in the new Final Fantasy game I bought him. I was wondering if you wanted to do something with me." Syaoran blinked at what could be inferred in that statement, he knew Sakura well enough to know that it wasn't anything scandalous... but then again he placed any activity with Sakura up there with the most impassioned sex acts he could think up. The mere idea of Sakura was enough to make his cheeks go warm and his heart step up a beat.

"You want do something together?" she giggled at his blush. Normally he would be defensive about being laughed at, but the tone of her laugh could hit chords that lulled sailors into kamikaze trances ending in pointed rocks. He had no delusion about how much he was wrapped around her finger.

"Well Madison has started filming for the movie I told you about."

"The one about us?"

"That's the one. You want to go see how they are doing?" she grinned and laughed nervously. He nodded and slipped into his shoes. They left his apartment together in a kind of unreal haze. Syaoran was fighting the urge to smile and be happy, he knew what was waiting for them in the not-too-distant future. But it made sense to be happy while that was possible, soon he would no longer be capable of being with Sakura. Years had passed, and now there was awkward footing underneath them. they had loved each other once, but after so long, and with so much on the verge of happening, they were unsure of exactly what their relationship was. Though years had passed he was still drawn to her as he had never been to another. Still unsure of where they were, friends or lovers, they pressed onward with it, seeking both revelation and salvation within the hope the other presented.

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The air was warm and smelled inherently sweet, as if the world were in bloom with small white flowers and lush tropical foliage. Sakura and Syaoran walked down the street to where Madison was working. They took their time and enjoyed basking in the celestial radiance which bathed their hair with golden fringe and lacquered their skin with faint amber luminosity. They spoke as they walked, the conversation had gone from how everyone has been in Syaoran's absence.

He learned that their old math teacher had married, leaving behind a heartbroken Rita. He was not surprised to find out that Chelsea and the human dictionary of nonsensical information (Zachary) had progressed in their relationship during Syaoran's absence from abstinence. It was quite the scandal amongst the cheerleading club, though now they had disbanded and long ago retired their pom poms. He found it amusing hearing Sakura recount the interrogations on the part of the squad. They seemed so young to him, typical schoolgirls both frightened and excited by the mysterious world of sex that they had yet no experience in. Syaoran had always felt a tremor of envy over the fanciful boy, he had the privilege to grow up with the girl he loved no more then three doors down.

Sakura was happily chattering away while Syaoran listened with enjoyment. The girl had a carefree tone to her babbling that was sweet and innocent and endearing. Syaoran listened and laughed with her as she brought him up to date on the goings on since last they had corresponded. Sakura had grown up in many respects besides the obvious, she had developed a singular wit that Syaoran had come to enjoy.

The conversation came to a lull as they passed the park which radiated with the playful shrieks and reeling laughter of children engaged in a game. He looked over in the direction of their laughter and confirmed his belief to find a vast tributary of benign energy radiating upward like the branches of some great golden tree. Sakura too looked over and smiled at the mystic impression she felt radiating outward from those grounds which were saturated in mirth.

She had a whimsically sad look as she returned her gaze to the path ahead.

"I'm never going to be a part of that world. All I've done is so minimal.. I made things appear with smoke. I sense auras to an extent. I have visions that I can't make sense of.." he cut her off as he took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Kero never told you?"

"About my visions?"

"Yes. They aren't related to the Clow cards... they are all yours. Your own natural magical talent." she looked at him in disbelief.

" you're sure? I thought they came from being the card mistress... just like being able to call the key and do readings with the cards." he nodded in the negative.

" you are card mistress Sakura, but that's not all you are. You have power all your own, that's part of why you are so compatible with the cards. You have powers that they gave you, but that is not close to the limit of your potential. The visions are just one way your natural capacity for magic manifested." she smiled at the thought. Her visions were a curse in many ways, but they were also a blessed proof that she was meant to be what she aspired to become. They continued walking and as they did the world of magic seemed that much closer.

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The set was abustle with commotion as actors and actresses milled over lines and had their makeup and costumes adjusted by two seventeen year old girls and the director herself periodically. The setting was alive with activity as the cast arranged the set. Large black cameras stood on mobile bases flanked with other electronic equipment that was unidentifiable as it sat on overloaded. The setting was that of nature, but Madison's team had thoroughly transformed some of the nature into a functional base.

The grass underfoot posed a challenging terrain for the porters who positioned the filming equipment, but the challenge of the sylvan terrain only seemed to invigorate Madison who was bouncing between actors and cameras with the exuberance and speed of a rubber ball fired from a high yield cannon. She screeched to a stop as she spotted Sakura and the long absent Syaoran. Her eyes widened as she bolted at them with a speed that could make her lethal if she possessed the killer intent of collision. She screeched to a halt and began bombarding them both with questions and high pitched cheers.

Syaoran sensed that she wanted to embrace him but hesitated on account of his stoical nature, though he liked her, he made no effort to initiate the contact. He wasn't sure why, but he felt strangely against interacting with them too much. A small group of old friends surrounded Syaoran as he tried his best to be polite and hide the apprehension he felt at being so enclosed in a sea of words and extended hands. They asked dozens of questions, he gave each of them the appropriate lie with no guilt thanks to considerable prep on the part of his family.

He was feeling claustrophobic and was thankful when Madison rescued him as only she could. The raven haired girl, who Syaoran noted, had grown quite pretty, turned to the cast with a look of fire in her violet eyes.

"Come on people! This movie has a schedule and it doesn't include mobbing li. Also this equipment isn't cheap. Lets not just let it sit here and get damaged by UV!" Syaoran comprehended a fraction of what she said in such a hectic pace that words jumbled together into a single long and boisterous noise that had all effect of a siren or a fog horn. The conviction in which she said it was as commanding as he could ever hope to be as leader. They fell into motion like domino tiles falling in a long phalanx of clacking disorder.

"We're going to talk later Li. But when I'm not in such a rush ok?"

"Sure Madison. How's it going?"

"Getting into the hang of a new project is always hard for the actors, but they are doing alright. We've just finished the scene where our male lead tried to steal the cards from our heroine." Syaoran's face was quiescent, but Sakura noted a slight wince that she suspected no one other then herself could ever see.

"It's a challenge, I've never had to sum up so many big events so quickly and still make it seem natural. Going from hating her to loving her. I wish my main actor could grasp the....." Syaoran cowered as her eyes focused on him with the suddenness and intent of the gaze of a tiger. He fidgeted nervously under her eyes that seemed less the color of heather and purple orchids, and more the burning sting of a amethyst laser. Her gaze flickered to Sakura who too was nervously watching the eccentric girl. Syaoran wasn't even sure he was able to follow the darting of her eyes.

"I have a job for the two of you..." Sakura blinked in bewilderment as Syaoran took a step back in contemplation of escape.

"My main actors have the look, but they don't quite have the motivation." she turned from the two with a flash of raven hair and called out.

"Alex! jess! Get over here for a moment! Everyone else take five!" from the crowd two teens ran forward to Madison. The girl bore a vague resemblance to Sakura that was subtle, but noteworthy. He studied her as she ran, her hair bobbed up and down with each stride, she was pretty, but sadly her eyes were cinnamon instead of emerald. The young man was a better casting job Syaoran felt. He was handsome in a seemingly flawless sense. His skin as pristine as that of his co-star, hair tousled in an oxymoronic display of great effort being put forth to yield a look of naturalness. The two came to a stop at Madison's side and looked quizicly to the two new faces.

"Sakura, Li, this is Alex and Jessica." Madison motioned to them.

"Call me jess..." she replied somewhat timidly as she reached out and joined hands with Sakura in a tentative greeting. Syaoran nodded to the boy who smiled a little and rubbed that back of his hair as if not comfortable in the style.

"Alex, jess, these two are the models for the love interest in the movie. These are the people your characters were designed after. I want you to talk to them a while and get a feel for the character. You can ask them whatever you want about the script, scenes, and the character. They each know the plot to the story so I doubt there will be anything you can stump them on.

"It's really important to me that you get a feel for the personality of your character. You two are good, but there's something lacking in the interaction... that's what I want you to fix now. Good luck!" Madison smiled and started walking over to the cameras as Sakura looked over to Syaoran.

"Did we just volunteer?"

"How terrifying that she still is like that..." he replied as he turned to Alex and was lead to one of the tables that had been placed there for the cast's lunch. He offered Syaoran a bottled water which Syaoran politely refused.

The young actor sat down facing him and smiled tentatively. He seemed to be a nervous young man, the kind that covers insecurity with a well practiced smile. Syaoran cast a glance to Sakura who had went for a small walk with her doppleganger. His gaze cut back to the boy and he tried to smile as best he could. He settled for a smirk.

"So what do you think of the story?"

"It's cool. Madison has some great ideas, she's just a little....."

"Extremely enthusiastic about them?"

"Exactly!" the boy laughed. He then looked over to Syaoran with some scrutiny in his sandy brown eyes.

"I've never been a lead before... I want to do good in this."

"Confidence is important. Know that you will..." his tone was strange, Alex blinked at the wisdom and depth behind it that rippled through his placidity alongside the emanation of strength.

"You really are the guy... can you help me get the personality right?" Syaoran shrugged and had him go through a few lines. The boy was indeed a good actor. Though he did need considerable refinement in acting like a future leader of his clan. Syaoran stopped him after he finished an eerily familiar dialogue in which he insulted Sakura's card capturing skills.

"How was I?" the youth questioned with a tone that seemed as if it came from a child seeking the approval of a parent or teacher. Syaoran didn't quite know why, but he was hesitant to be overly asocial to this boy.

"It was alright, but you don't have the attitude..." the young actor looked at Syaoran as the boy spoke with a seriousness that seemed to be foretelling impending doom on a global scale.

"The character has lived his whole life being raised to be the best. All he's ever known is the discipline of his people. He has a great weight on his shoulders and he bears it better then anyone else ever could. He has been denied unconditional love from his family, friends, anything normal... all he has is his pride.

And then he comes to japan and sees this girl. She's playing with magic like a toy. She's never been trained in it, never known the discipline that he has all his life. She doesn't understand or deserve the right to be card captor... all it is to her is a game with adventure and fancy dresses... to her the cards are just fun little parlor tricks, while to him they are his life.

He resents her, here she is.... never has she known the discipline he has.... she has lived a normal life, comfortable in her little circle of friends... to her life was just a picnic, and the cards are just a game to pass the time between sleep overs and family dinners. She's never had to sacrifice what he has, and he finds that infuriating." he looked over and saw that Alex was hanging off his words with a look Syaoran couldn't quite place.

"You hated her a lot?" Syaoran looked down.

"I did... she had everything so easy. My family is a world conglomerate, they expect me to fill the role they have set out for me. I never had a chance to just be a normal kid... Madison did a good job turning that concept into a fantasy, but I think the idea of magic tarot cards is a bit much." he was grateful Sakura and Madison had concocted such a decent deception for the true aspects of his family.

"Must be a hard life... knowing that you have to conform to what your family wants like that." Syaoran looked off in the direction Sakura had gone.

"There are ups and downs to it..."

"So how did things change?"

"They were competing as card captors, and she was everything he expected. She didn't have a particular knack for it. No incredible talent either.... she made stupid mistakes. But as he was competing with her he noticed something about her. she legitimately cared. He had never known anyone who could care about people and things like she did.

They were enemies, but she even cared about him... she wasn't a great card captor, but she was trying so hard to be good at it. He watched as she struggled through everything and he started hating her less and less. Eventually the competition stopped and he became her partner. He began respecting her for how much determination she had. She hadn't been trained like him, but the determination and perseverence were there as if she had been.

And by the end he was in love with her." Syaoran had a whimsical tone as the actor regarded him quietly, his eyes taking in the older boy as though he were actually the future leader of the clan of sorcerers. He had listened to the tone li spoke with and was moved by the subtle timbre which resonated through his voice and his gaze. He wasn't able to fully place this strangeness, but he decided that if this Li Syaoran were to declare himself as the character Madison claimed to have created, he would have believed him.

"You want to try the lines again?" he offered after a moment more of the stifling silence. Alex nodded and began reading from the script, but this time with a deeper understanding of how deep the relationship between them was.

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Along the path near the filming site Sakura walked with Jessica. They talked pleasantly as only two with such light and amicable natures could. They had just met, but under the nature of Sakura their dialogue was almost that of sisters. There was no pretension between them as they spoke.

"So what was your first impression of him?" she questioned with an studious tone that she tended to embrace when questioning Sakura about the plot of Madison's brainchild. Sakura laughed softly as she replied.

"He scared the crap out of me." The girl blinked and then laughed along with her.

"He does seem a little scary..." she replied still with a smile.

"That's him in a lot of ways.. But once you get past that he is a really sweet guy." she glanced over tword where the movie was being made, the set was plain and could easily be from a dozen scenes in her life: where Touya almost died when the cards discovered Sakura was the captor who hunted them, where she began the battle for the jump card, or where Syaoran held her and comforted her after her childhood infatuation with Julian was ended in such finality that it had jarred her bones.

"He's not like other guys... he's harder and stronger because of how he was raised. He never makes it easy on you... but that's part of what I like about him. He never assumes you can't do something, in fact he assumes the opposite. A lot of guys are content to play the dashing knight and rescue the damsel from whatever problem she's facing. Syaoran will expect the damsel to help save herself too. I don't like having people assume I can't handle things, so it's nice having someone who considers us equal." jess was unconsciously nodding as Sakura spoke, as though that was yet another thing that was shared between them.

"He seemed so... mean at first. He couldn't stand me, and I couldn't stand him. But after a while he started to come around and be civil, then he became almost nice. For some reason he warmed up to me, or at least as much as he can warm up to someone. We kinda became partners in things... I started to trust him more and more. I don't know when I fell in love with him, I know that I didn't recognize it when it happened, but now...." she turned to jess and locked eyes.

"Have you ever felt for someone so deeply that it's like they are a part of you? Almost the best part?" she smiled a little on the sad side and said that she hadn't.

"It's that way with me. Syaoran is a part of me, when I feel alone or weak I can feel him, his strength, it makes me feel safe." her words carried over into a gasp as she looked ahead of them to a nightmare.

strewn along the path lay throngs of dead women. Sakura's eyes went wide as she realized that they were surrounded by them. the ground underfoot was shaded in crimsons as time seemed to slow down around her making each second draw out to an eternity filled with grim details that burned into her eyes. The sun was now smoldered to a grey twilight as all color around them turned dull and anaesthetized.

A blond woman lay propped against one of the trees, her chest was hollowed out in a massive gash that had stopped bleeding, and now appeared brown. Her face was stiff and lifeless as glassy eyes stared out at Sakura. Her clothing was ripped down the middle, leaving her naked. The purpose of this was evident without the closer inspection Sakura refused to consider making. In life she had been beautiful, in death she was a pale representation of the woman she was. Her eternal stare was one of terror, as though she glimpsed the boney lips of the grim reaper as he bent to kiss her brow.

Her gaze shifted to the next figure who's throat was cut, and then to a little girl who was partially held aloft by the very blade which pierced her. Sakura felt nauseous as she looked from face to face, all of which wore the chilling stare of terrified death. They all seemed to be looking at her through their contorted faces with a pleading expression. She realized that some of their faces were familiar, eerily so.... she had counted fifteen before she lost track of them in a massive heap of gore composed of bodies being thrown atop each other.

"Are you ok Sakura, you just went pale as a sheet?" Sakura turned to jess with a little vertigo. She smiled as best she could manage and made an excuse about getting a little dizzy all of the sudden. She glanced back to the bodies only to find them gone as if they never were there at all. She had been getting these flashes of visions more and more frequently, but the origin still remained to be seen.

"Are you sure you're ok?"

"Umm... yeah I'm fine, but lets head back."

The visions of the dead women were becoming more and more frequent. The details were becoming more vivid, but they still offered no more clues to what was coming or what the black creature was... just that since they were becoming more clear, the thing from her nightmare was growing closer.

****************************

Sakura and Syaoran stayed for a few more hours and watched their dopplegangers act out a scene that the two found eerily familiar. They stood side by side at a distance from the crew and watched as jess cried while Alex took her into his arms. The acting was impressive as each of the two portrayed a depth to their relationship that had been lacking in previous takes.

Sakura looked over at Syaoran who stood at her side. He was watching the scene with a almost sad look on his handsome face. she was studying the slight curve of his lips and the nostalgic expression which shined in his amber eyes. Feeling her gaze on him, he looked down to her and smiles a little.

Motivated by an unknown momentum she reached out and closed her hand over his. He looked at her and blinked in surprise, then tightened his hand over hers.

"It's strange watching a scene from your own life..." he remarked as the performers pinky swore in accordance with the scene.

"That day was one of my hardest and best days..." Sakura said as she looked over at them before returning her gaze to him.

"That day Julian broke my heart... but it's also the day I realized something important." he looked at her quizzically.

"What?"

"That I could depend on you no matter what..." he looked at her for a moment without a readable expression, and then like a bolt from the blue he closed her in his arms and held her. she was dumbfounded by his suddenness with an emotion he was very reserved with, but soon she melted into his embrace and returned it.

Their auras rippled with motion as Syaoran felt the smooth warmth of her skin and smelled the sweet fragrance of her hair. He remembered these things from before when she hugged him, passed out into his arms, or was just close enough to grant him the faintest whiff of her sweet scented hair. His hand slid up her back to her hair which he stroked gently as though a dam had broken within him, leaving him desperately in need of touching her, smelling her, and tasting her...

He leaned over and kissed her. both were shocked by this above all other acts. Neither had been sure of their roles with each other, but the kiss clarified many things. Sakura kissed back and things were better then they had been as children. Adolescent dreams took full spectrum as their lips locked and their auras flared like twin flames in an updraft. Innocence and passion merged to one great wave of chaotic rapture as the kiss was both sweet and hungry all at one.

He kissed her as though he were born of the great works of romantic literature blended to the limitless imagination of a hopelessly romantic teenage girl. He was every bit as dashing as a young prince or gallant knight, but he was soft and emanated a warmth that pierced Sakura to her core.

Her hand slid up his chest and came to a rest on his jaw, where she gently stroked his cheek with her fingertips. They parted with a gasp of expelled breath as Sakura and Syaoran wore a cherry blush across their cheeks. They stared at each other as if mesmerized by the other's gaze and the shocking realization that they had really done it, after years of wanting to, they finally kissed.

Syaoran could still taste her as he opened his mouth to speak, yet was beat to it as a loud voice thundered through the stillness.

"AWESOME!!!!" Madison cried out as the two turned to find themselves under the gaze of the entire cast, not to mention the unblinking eye of a camera which Madison had wrenched from its tripod and fixed on them for god knows how long.

Eyes wide with shock, Syaoran staggered backwards, tripped, and fell on his butt. Sakura was turning every shade from rosy pink to cranberry red as she fidgeted under the all-seeing camera and the frantic girl who was jumping from angle to angle while ranting in words that were too high-pitched to be detected under the normal ranges of sound a human can perceive. In the distance jess and Alex laughed.

****************************

The day waned away to noon and still the two were together. Sakura had called her home and requested to stay later, she would return to them a few hours after the golden stratosphere which surrounded the afternoon sun like a halo had given way to the soft violets and indigos of night. They sat now in silence on two chairs on Syaoran's apartment balcony watching the world around them turn and move as though it were the inner gears of some vast machine without knowable function but possessing utter synchroneity.

They were not giving words to the feelings that washed over them and then withdrew only to give way to new variations of emotion like the lapping waves as they wash over your toes when you stand on the beach. They each could sense the other, and that unique perspective yielded more depth then a novel written in the words of the greatest literary master.

Syaoran looked out over Sakura's world and marveled at it as veins of rich green foliage were slashed with concrete and brick buildings that looked to be cool blue iron and fiery copper under the unique lighting that was changing as each second elapsed into the next. Japan had once been a land of shrines and temples. In his mind's eyes Syaoran could look back over an alien landscape of far more abundant verdure pierced only by the simplistic and yet elegant shrines devoted to the worship of sun, moon, stars, and everything that existed both above and below them. tiny villages composed of small rustic building once stood where now offices and streets loomed like shrines of a different nature. He marveled at this world that was so different from the past, but still embracing the subtle grandeur that had once been.

He looked over to Sakura and found her daydreaming in the warm pool of his own presence. She seemed to take pleasure in immersing herself within his aura. He studied her profile and saw an empress of ancient China adorned with trappings of a surreal beauty. She seemed timeless to him then as he saw the shadows fall over her in places like veils of nightly shade. She was like her home town, she was a child of the same era as the office buildings and condominiums, but beneath that exterior beauty there flowed a subterranean river of all that was ancient. Within her soul he gazed upon virgin springs aflow with spirits of the water and other mystic creatures that once had been and now existed only in the mist of twilight that both was and wasn't all at once in a splendid symphony of legend and lore blending with reality. It was as though she herself were a creature of impossibility, too wondrous to be real and too tangible too be dream. She was the bridge that connected the land of his people to the lands that lay beyond the shrouds of illusion, to the world of mankind. If he hadn't known it before, he knew it now.. He would love her until the end of time, and then perhaps, beyond them.

"I'm in love with you Syaoran..." she voiced softly in a hymn that almost could be born from the lips of angels confined in words that sent Syaoran amongst them.

"I love you as well, Sakura..." if he was blushing again it was shrouded by the golds of the setting sun which grew ever closer to vanishing away tword the western mountains.

"I don't know if I should... it hurt me so much when you left last time..." he felt a twang in his heart as though had been struck by an arrow that didn't pierce, mearly jarred with impact. He didn't know how to respond at first but instead decided to opt for a half truth. She couldn't know about the legacy yet, it would hurt her needlessly and cheapen the time they had together.

"I swear to you Sakura... I'm never leaving your side again. My home is with you, as it always has been." she looked at him and saw the honesty in what he said. It was not a lie, for he would be with her forever. She smiled and as she did her eyes suddenly let loose streams of shimmering tears. She tried to speak but found that like he, words had failed her under the weight of the moment.

With a squeak she threw her arms around him and cried while laughing into his shoulder. He returned the hug and soon found himself laughing for no other reason then the fact that she was. At a glance the couple appeared to be as drunk on love as some are on wine. Each touch and tiny kiss Sakura planted on the nape of his neck was one great swallow from a chalice with no bottom.

Their laughter and jovial kisses turned more needful as in some great lapse of time Sakura was pressing him against the headboard of his bed. Sex seemed far away from their minds as they played like children placing sporadic kisses amidst bouts of tickling and just general touching. There was no sexuality to the moment as the cold and restrained Syaoran found himself lost in a world he had never known that had no shadow of discontentment due to a radiance of contentment that dispelled all that was not Sakura and himself.

"Syaoran, do you feel that?" he was broken from his bliss by her cutely mystified expression and tone.

"What is it?" he stammered lightly as he tried to regain control over his rampant breathing and galloping pulse.

"Your aura... it felt strange. It was like it touched mine, but differently." he nodded somewhat in understanding.

"Was it uncomfortable?" she looked at her hands.

"No, it felt nice."

"Ready for another lesson?" she smiled and nodded. He positioned himself so that he was sitting on his knees. He reached out and closed his hands over her shoulders.

"Auras can be controlled. Suppressed or manipulated. We do this a lot on instinct, but we can do it by will too." he took his hand and gently closed her eyelids, she smiled at his touch.

Sakura gasped as she felt his aura shift and swell around her, engulfing her own like a glove and hand. It felt warm and pleasant as it just barely made contact with her own, then as though it were water, it rippled. She gasped as the movement tickled her own aura almost as though it were a massage. She wasn't asking any questions or attempting to return the gestures at first, she simply basked in this new and pleasurable way of feeling his touch.

Syaoran watched her as her head tilted back in a sweet cooing moan of bliss. Her neck was beautiful and sexy as he felt himself almost drawing his lips to it for a few impassioned kisses and maybe a few playful nips. Instead, he continued his treatment of her, he touched her aura in a dozen variations that couldn't be adequately described, only felt. Some caresses were playful while others held an almost sexual nature that he was hesitant to initiate and pleasantly surprised at how readily she accepted them. the motions were soon returned and found the two of them wrapped in each other's arms panting as the pleasure they shared soon melded to a contentment that left both nearly asleep with the warmth of the other's body and the radiance of the other's aura. As a final act to this lesson that seemed far less academic and closer to something spiritual he let his aura meld into hers as two became one.

Sakura smiled at him dreamily as she lay her head against him and began to sleep. He would wake her soon, and take her home. But for the time being he was enjoying holding her as she slept. He let his aura mingle with her own and marveled at how complete he felt when he was with her like this. It made him hesitant to pull back his essence from hers when the shared aura felt so right that he could almost justify never relinquishing this union.

"I will love you forever Sakura." he spoke softly into her sweet smelling hair as she snored gently against him.

****************************

"Sakura! You are not making this easy!" Syaoran barked in his most foreboding voice. It had been weeks since they kissed and the atmosphere between them had not lessened in the least. They were doing normal couple things which Syaoran was enjoying beyond his capacity to word, but it steadily grew more difficult to stay on subject with her. especially since she knew all his tricks. Sakura giggled at just how little he could intimidate her now. He knew it too. He was the junkyard dog who had been found out to be as gentle as a pup. He couldn't fight back the grin as he tried as best he could to push her off with no success. She was draped over him and taking effort to get in his way and prevent him from focusing on the texts contained in the brown leather spell book. She growled playfully back at him in imitation of his own snarl as she nipped at his jawline.

"Please stop Sakura..." he pleaded with all attempts at duress abandoned due to the futility of it.

"You really want me to stop?" she smirked as she kissed his Adam's apple with the softness of a butterfly's wing .he closed his eyes and whimpered in reply, feeling so helpless against her.

"No, but we need to get to work. You're behind in your lessons." she pouted dramatically then with a sudden shift in position was laying her head in his lap. She smiled up at him upside-down as he looked down on her.

"You know you are adorable... but you are a nightmare pupil." he scolded with a smirk.

"I've never had a teacher like you.... so cute..." he was feeling light headed under her ministrations. His hand lowered to her brow and began softly playing with her auburn locks.

"How about a compromise? You get through the lesson then we take an extended recess."

"Sounds fun... mr. Syaoran" she giggled like a school girl in the emphasis on his name.

"Ready to start working on controlling elements?" she groaned and sat up with a bored expression.

"You go too slow... I've had this down for a few days." she backed up her boast with a gesture of her hand which sparked with flame and took the form of a perfect sphere of fire. He raised an eyebrow as she smirked in triumph.

"Show off..."

"You take it too easy on me.. I need more of a challenge, manipulating elements isn't hard. All you do is keep your mind on what you want it to do and not let it get distracted." he didn't voice it, but she was getting so talented so fast that it was startling. She was incredible. Every challenge he set was overcome within a matter of days.

"Very well.... we'll start something more advanced. What do you know about summoning?"

"Not much... isn't it like what I do with the cards?"

"To an extent.... but the cards are nothing to some of the stuff true evocation can do. Summoning is where you call spirits, demons, or gods to do your bidding. The more powerful you are, the more control you have. If you overestimate your ability, you may loose control over the summon and then deal with whatever you tried calling. In the case of demons or gods it can be very dangerous. Both tend to resent being summoned, especially by an armature." Sakura laughed nervously as images of demons danced in her head.

"I'm not sure I should..." he cut her off with a diabolical sneer.

"Come on Avalon. Don't be pathetic." her eyes narrowed at the terminology of years gone by. Syaoran smirked at her little scowl.

"Sakura... you think I would suggest you doing something that would hurt you? Respecting the magic is crucial, but if you become afraid of it then I have no reason to keep acting as your instructor."

"How do I do it?" Syaoran grinned as he tossed the book atop her lap. She looked down and raised an eyebrow at the description of the beast he had chosen for her to summon.

"Willow of wisp?"

"A Scottish spirit. Demons are primarily summoned for fighting, gods for major spells like resurrecting the dead or other unconventional and powerful magics, spirits are the more easily controlled of the three, and also the most useful since they have decent abilities without a major threat of them eating you." he grinned as she chuckled nervously.

"What does this spirit do?"

"It's the size of a firefly. You call it when you need a guide." she nodded as her eyes fell upon the texts of the old book. Slowly her lips began to move as she spoke in a whisper the chanting incantations of evoking the tiny spirit. Syaoran watched as her hair fluttered in soft wind that he could not feel. The shadows and slashes of light in the room began to flicker as if by candlelight and soon grew taller as each shadow climbed the walls and then the ceiling. Soon they were surrounded in walls of moving darkness.

"You're doing it..." Syaoran gaped as he watched the changes in his environment. He hadn't expected her to get this. Summoning was a higher level magic, in offering her the chance to do it, he had skipped several steps up the magical ladder. She was concentrating heavily on it as her words came out in puffs of air that she could barely distinguish as word and not gibberish chanting. She wasn't really conscious of saying them anymore... the momentum had overtaken her and she allowed herself to flow with it.

From still air a fire grew. From the seed of a glowing ember a blue flame plumed upward. Its texture and form were that of a union between smoke and flame, both locked in a pale blue. Magics danced across the room, and Sakura seemed bathed in them as if they were ivory moonlight, which she looked particularly breathtaking when standing therein.

Her eyes opened and the emerald green seemed so radiant that it was almost the same caliber as animal eyeshine on a dark road. Her mouth opened in awe as she looked at the tiny flame which flickered in the open air. Looking to Syaoran and receiving a smile of assurance, she reached out to the flame with her finger. The tiny spirit withdrew with the speed of a dragonfly and then hovered there a few inches away from her extended digit.

"It did that on its own!"

"Of corse... this isn't like an element. Summoning calls actual beings to you. It has a mind of its own." Sakura nodded quickly and turned to it. She gave it a small smile and bowed her head to it quickly.

"Hi, I'm Sakura." Syaoran raised an eyebrow.

"You're talking to it?"

"Well of corse! It's alive." Syaoran rubbed the back of his head as she returned her attention to small talk with the tiny flame which, shocking to Syaoran, was flickering and making little gestures that almost could be seen as reply.

"Do you want to actually test it out? Or just have a nice chat with the little fireball?" Sakura glowered at him and then addressed the little spirit.

"You're the first spirit I have summoned. Did I do a good job?" the little spark flickered and made a tiny circle. Syaoran wasn't sure how to respond to this dialogue.

"You do realize that you can talk to it with your mind. It doesn't have ears so it can't actually hear you... it's reacting to your thoughts." Sakura blushed and quickly began communing silently.

With a flash the tiny little firefly was down the hall and out of site.

"Aren't you going to follow it after whatever you sent it to get?"

"No it'll bring it back itself."

"What? The wisp can't do that... it's just a guide. It leads you to things." he cut short as the tiny firefly returned. It was flying in dazzling circles that blurred to a bluish haze around the object Sakura had apparently sent it to retrieve. His eyes were wide as the wisp flew over his head and then dropped its cargo atop his head.

The firefly flew back to Sakura and began making darting and playful circles around her. as Syaoran stared at her dumbly while wearing the boxers that it had retrieved from his drawer and then dropped on his head.

"You look so cute Syaoran, but I'm a little disappointed.... no tiny red hearts.

"How did you?" he trailed off as he reached up and pulled his underwear from his head.

"Asked."

"And it just did it!?"

"Yeah, but it can't move big things. so I would have to have called a few others to help. But your undies are light enough for this one by himself." she laughed as Syaoran blushed, still with the dumbstruck expression.

Sakura opened her hand and let the tiny flame land on her skin. It didn't burn her since it wasn't actually made of fire. She lowered her head so that she was eye-level with it. Her smile was adorable as she grinned at it.

"Thank you... you did such a good job." she leaned over and kisses the tiny little spirit and then it vanished, seemingly embarrassed.

"So I did good?" she replied to Syaoran.

"You are amazing, Sakura" he said earnestly as he moved next to her and took her hands in his own.

"I'm glad you think so..."

"Completely amazing...." he leaned over and kissed her.

"What would they think... Sakura and her teacher kissing..." he was about to reply but instead just shook it off and cuddled her in a somewhat playful manner. She grinned as she slumped into his arms like a rag doll.

"Tired?" he questioned

"Warm." she answered as she burrowed in deeper.

He slipped his arms around her and felt her stiffen with a faintly perceived tremor. His brow furrowed as he lay his hand on the back of her head. He closed his eyes as his fingertips glowed on contact with her skin. He looked around the room and was almost startled by the image he had expected, and regretfully found. He continued to hold Sakura to him as he stared into the eyes of the dead woman who stared down at him.

He had suspected that her jumpiness as of late was due to visions. Her mood would periodically jump from serenity to a rigid sense of alertness. Syaoran was expecting to see something bad when he tapped in on her vision, the woman was just that. Sakura must have sensed her presence and in a touching act, sought comfort nestled against his chest.

She was in her twenties, and would have been beautiful were it not for the gaping crater of flesh that stared out through half her face. it was nauseating as he looked upon shards of bone, impaled on sickly flesh. Her one visible eye was looking at him beseechingly, while the cranial cavity seemed menacing beyond words. She was a ghost of corse... but not a recent one. Her face had been smashed in hundreds of years ago.

Sakura shifted against him as he continued to syphon the vision from her, she was unaware that he was doing it, but the act lessened the strain which had once been just hers to bear. He almost wished he could truly take her visions. She would be so much happier if she didn't have to see these things.

The ghost reached out to him with a mangled hand terminating in broken fingernails. He wasn't afraid of this apparition, he had been raised as leader of his people, ghosts can be gruesome, but rarely were they vengeful or capable of being more then merely invisible travelers in the world of the living. This woman was not a ghost, just a vision of the past that was relevant to the coming of the legacy. He studied her face and almost could recognize her in the familiar distant gaze she kept in her one whole eye.

She faded away as if never there within a moment's time. Syaoran stared off at the empty space she had occupied as he felt the vision fade away from both his, and Sakura's minds. She softened in his arms now that the demons had retreated. He stroked her hair and whispered loving words to her as he slowly let his aura meld into hers. It had become their special thing since that one night... a metaphysical expression of their shared love. It washed over her and washed away all lingering traces of the apparition. She began to sleep in his arms. He was happy she fell asleep, it would give him much needed time to think. The visions were coming faster, and no longer in dreams, but now in the waking hours.

Time was running out... he would have to tell her soon... but how could he? This is something beyond him alone, a wise leader of the Li clan would seek council among his wisest advisors. And in this place and time he had only two who would be able to guide him now. They both loved Sakura, and knew of the great sacrifice which awaited her. he made up his mind.

He could do nothing to stop the legacy, but to some extent, he could prepare for it.

Tonight when he returned Sakura to her family he would make arrangements with Kero and Yue..

****************************

The great winged lion stalked around the shadowy landscape with small curses lingering in each discharging of breath. His wings were held tightly to him in a rigid posture as he continued to pace through the nightly landscape, waiting for the brat sorcerer to arrive.

Yue stood as still as if he were crafted from stone atop the railing. He stood atop it to his full height, perched with a seemingly immaculate balance. His ashen hair glided faintly on the breeze and seemed aglow under the ivory light of his sovereign, the moon.

"He drops Sakura off twenty minutes late! Arranges to meet with us in the middle of the night! And won't even give me a hint about what he wants! The kid has no manners, no tact, and he smells!" the lion ranted as Yue turned to him with his silvery feline eyes that glowed with the same light as the moon overhead.

"You are too noisy Kero... I understand you feel jealous over the boy's bond to our mistress, but must you be so vocal about it?"

"Jealous!? Of that pup!?" the lion all but roared as Yue turned his attention back to the moon, drawing his wings closer to him as if they were a shroud.

"He cares for her. and she for him... you had best accept that." he replied with a clandestine tone that had always infuriated the sun guardian.

The landscape was bathed in the mantle of the night as lush green trees became nothing more then rustling silhouettes underneath the full moon's light. The bridge crossed over a small pond where the elderly sat and fed the squirrels who now nested in the dark boughs of the trees.

In day this place was not unusual, but in the night it seemed a world apart, every landmark distorted and masked under spectrums of shadow and moonlight.

A figure manifested from the very substance of the night, almost as if he had appeared from thin air. It was possible either due to the magic he wielded or the training he had endured, but he was conveyed as if he were of the same fabric as the night around him. He walked to them with sweeping steps almost as if he were floating.

"Sorry I was late... I had to pick up something" Syaoran commented as he motioned to his hip where a thin stiletto waited in a black ebony sheath. Its luster gleamed in the moonlight and as he moved, flashed with mystic incantations emblazoned on the weapon's sheath just as they were on the blade. He wore a black silk shirt with pale buttons and dark pants. His dressing would imply a darkness about him, but he wore the silver ivory of the glowing moon just as Yue did, leaving him ethereal and reeking of a supernatural power which he had embraced.

"You created a ketsueki-saiken, ?"

"A blood pact, it will give Sakura more time." he replies as he looked over to Kero as the great lion addressed the blade with a feline stare. The magics used to enough this weapon were great, and he suspected Kero was unnerved by the fact that he made such a tool. Yue, ever the stoical, stated the fact without the faintest glimmer of emotion.

"You are not the same boy we once knew. Your magic has startlingly increased. Unlike Kero, I am not the sentimentalist, you and Sakura are growing powerful. I am not sure two such as yourselves should possess this power so quickly." he was the same Yue Syaoran had once known, he was quick to the point as he voiced the belief that they were not ready to possess such magic in his own tact-less style.

"Believe what you want, but it is beyond your place to judge either Sakura or myself. She is your mistress and in this matter I don't seek your council moon guardian." he spoke in the words of his family, summoning up all the ironclad force he had cultivated in the years past. Kero padded closer and addressed him.

"Why have you called us brat? And why do you carry the knife now?"

"You two lack all capacity to see into the near future... but I had at least thought you could sense auras a little better. Especially this aura." Yue stared down on him as Kero growled softly.

"I have summoned the two of you to discuss the coming of legacy. It grows near, dangerously near." Kero's eyes focused on the boy's and the growl went softer.

"It's too soon, it always waited years longer before..."

"You know as well as I that legacy makes its own time. The oracles of my clan have sensed it... and Sakura is having visions."

"I know about the visions. She told me about them. I didn't tell her about the truth because... well... it would only hurt her." his voice softened in the same manner that Syaoran's did when he had spoken of legacy's arrival. They were all her guardians, him just as much as the lion or the angel, perhaps more so then either of them. they loved Sakura, but not in the same way he loved her.

"Has her visions offered any new incite to the legacy? Something that we didn't know?"

"No.. They just center around a black presence, and the cards. But we have known that the legacy and the Clow are related somehow."

"And the dead women..."

"Sakura shouldn't have too see those..." Syaoran nodded subconsciously in agreement.

"The massacre of that village was just as bad as the texts claimed. With origins like those, no wonder the Clow cards are cursed."

"You'd call it a curse?" Yue questioned.

" I can't think of a better name for it."

"Curses have purpose... the legacy is random evil."

"It will surface shortly... we are going to have to tell her soon. I... don't know how to tell her this. It'll change her... she won't be the same Sakura anymore." Syaoran spoke softly as he stared at the moist grass underfoot.

"Sakura is a strong mistress." Yue commented.

"But she won't be the same anymore. Sakura has never lost before. The cards and Eriol... they were both unlike legacy... this isn't a test, it's life or death. And she's never known death. Her light will be gone." Kero said as he sat on his haunches, his coat seemed a dull grey in the shadows of the night.

"Sakura will endure, just as the others did." Yue's words were cold, but also hollow. He felt, wether or not he chose to express that or not, it was clear by the desolation which echoed through his words.

"Does it get easier for the two of you? Afterwards?" Syaoran questioned.

"Losing a master? Knowing that our time with Sakura is almost gone? It does not." Kero replied.

"It must be hard being her guardians, and being so helpless when she faces this."

"You would know just as well as we, Li Syaoran. You are as much her guardian as Kero or I. In fact I would assume that you feel it even more so then we, she is our mistress and we love her as we would any of our masters... you, however, have invested your heart in Sakura, your mortal heart. Kero and I are eternal, you are not. Thus your love is measured in time, and with so little of it, it is precious. I know mortals, and I know that you love her. what she faces, you face along side her." Yue spoke with an agelessness that Syaoran had heard before, but never with the emotion he put forth now. Even Kero was silent as his golden eyes fixed on Syaoran.

"I know the price legacy will warrant. If she lets me, I will pay it. I want to pay it. It proves that what I feel for her is more then just infatuation, or simple attraction. It would mean that we are destined to be one." he spoke gently as the nightly wind sent shivers across his exposed flesh.

"You shouldn't wish for such things. I've read Shakespearean tragedy, love at that cost is noble, but none the less tragic." Kero chastised.

"If not me, she would have to choose another. That choice would destroy the Sakura we all love. There is nothing more we can do about this... if I am destined to pay, then I will, if not, then so be it. But either way I will not leave her." his words were darker then the night, and far colder. Sakura's image was all he had to warm him.

"There was one aspect of her first vision you should know..." Kero suddenly chimed in.

"What is it?"

"You were in it..." Syaoran's eyes closed and he nodded softly. he turned away from them, back to the night.

"Time is growing short... we will wait until it's here before we tell her. nothing can be gained by telling her sooner. But understand, it's a heartbeat away. Then we will have no choice but to tell her.... everything." his words heralded his disappearance into the heart of the night once more. He was gone before either of the two could react, but still his presence lingered.

****************************

three days had passed since Syaoran had met with the two guardians, he continued her lessons, and their romance at a much more fevered pace, as though he were taking deep swallows from a spring, knowing that thirst was on the verge of being an inevitability. Sakura didn't seem to realize just how much this time had come to mean to him, how each second was savored when spent with her. he was grateful for that, he didn't want her to face this until it was necessary.

They walked over to meet Madison at her site. She was not filming today, so the set was vacant of all cast-members. The sun was warm, but no more then mere speckles of light which pierced the shadow like leopard spots. They walked arm in arm through the symphonious medley of golden light, and silken shadow. Syaoran felt almost light as her warm touch distinguished itself over the warmth of the distant son.

"Are you happy Sakura?"

"What?"

"With me, do I make you happy?" he paused and looked at her.

"Of corse. Syaoran I am in love with you. What's wrong?" she looked at him with perplexity and he smiled at her.

"I love you too Sakura. I..." he found he had no way of finishing that sentence, too much was left to say and too much could never be said. He reached out and touched her face. she looked at him with perplexity, but dropped it since she never would be able to force Syaoran into disclosing something he chose not to. He was way too stubborn for that.

"Am I interrupting something?" Madison giggled as they both turned to look at her.

"Yes." Syaoran scowled

"That's rough... but oh well."

"Hi Madison." Sakura smiled

"I was wondering, do you guys want to go get some ice-cream? It's way too hot to just bake here." Syaoran hadn't really noticed the heat, but it was a little warm. Sakura replied that she would like some, and thus it was decided. Syaoran followed quietly as the two spoke. He watched them, yet felt distant. His mind drifted to the hour glass that was running out of sand.

Sakura looked beautiful as she laughed with Madison over some joke that Syaoran had not been paying attention to. He found himself studying her smile, though he already knew it by heart. The soft texture of her lips, the slight curvature of her nostrils as she breathed, the whiteness of her teeth, and the greenness of her eyes. All dazed him as he found himself lost in her aspect.

It was only in this observation of her that he noticed the change. Her pupils constricted to tiny pinheads of black as the sheen vanished. Madison noticed too as her color left and she collapsed.

Syaoran caught her before her head met concrete. Madison was almost as fast, but pushed off as Syaoran waved his hand over her eyes. No response. Her breathing was shallow and slightly irregular as her aura flared and rippled with strange magics relating to her visions. He felt the force behind this one and knew that he could not even begin to try siphoning it without potentially harming Sakura.

Her visions normally came in her sleep, almost as dreams. Others were superimposed onto her daily life, just like the images of the dead women... this vision had pulled her from her life and sank her into a trance. This vision was a dark herald to the fact that legacy was at hand.

"What happened to her!?"" Madison cried out.

"A vision..."

"She looks dead!" the girl cried as her violet eyes exploded into tears. Syaoran didn't or couldn't reply to that, and so he simply picked Sakura up and carried her off the track, where others were likely to see her. he tried to remain calm, but the things he was sensing were terrible.. And they were close.

****************************

"Syaoran!?" Sakura walked down a street that seemed frozen in suspended animation. The people who walked were as still as stone, almost as if the great machine of time had slipped a gear and grinded to a halt. She walked onward as cars remained locked in perpetual motion and perpetual stillness.

The only sound was a cold wind that smelled of coppery blood. The world was a cemetery around her as she walked through the metropolis like a ghost wandering a tomb. The sun was red, and the sky black; making the city's illumination impossible.

She looked upward and saw a black vortex of swirling darkness. It was massive and moving with sinuous motion that was unlike any cloud or haze and more reminiscent of a nest of slithering serpents atop water, each gliding against the others in a sea of coils. The sky was speckled by the Clow cards which flew through the air like flocks of carrion birds. They looked evil in this vision, totally unlike the cards she knew.

From the black maelstrom a form descended. It was a shadow of writing tendrils and strange appendages that slumped to the ground and twisted itself in strange and terrifying motions as the black thing mended itself into some greater apparition. It exploded upward into the heavens, complete and terrible in it's true form that still was an undistinguishable shadow of wicked orientations. Bladed protrusions shot outward in lethal detail as it dropped it's gaze to the frozen city. Sakura cried out as its back exploded into monolithic wings which stretched high into the sky. It snarled out into the red twilight and the world trembled.

She could swear that she heard her name in the low howl of the wind as the demonic thing stared down at her like some hell god on a throne of mangled corpses. Such dark imagery was terrifying, but she could not move. Her movements were choreographed to whatever thing was looming in the distance. With a flash of sheer speed the creature was atop her, looming before her like a building which hazed behind clouds.

She could almost see it now. Black flesh twisted around malformed extrusions of bone. It's musculature rippled in strange manners as if thousand of millions of things slithered beneath its skin. It had scales, but only in sporadic places, it was not a reptile, or any other thing Sakura had ever witnessed. In the pale lighting which shone off its flesh she could see twisted scales mingling with black flesh and chitinous insect shell. It was almost pieced together from various nightmares. She stared up at it and saw pulsating boney ribs which undulated around a gaping cavity in its chest. They moved like the masticating fangs of a spider. It slowly craned its head down and came to stare at Sakura through it's oily black and glassy eyes. It was almost a dragon, but more mutated and evil looking. It wore a crown of horns which extruded outward from his skull and spine. It snarled at her in a wicked grin that pulled back its lips to massive rows of wicked bladed fangs. It was the embodyment of hell.

"Sakuuuuuurrrrrrraaaaaaaa..." it snarled through a voice of awkward syllables and strange tonalities. Sakura watched as it opened its jaws to a gaping blackness that went on forever. Turning its attention skyward it keened at the red heavens and the cards which flew amidst them. Sakura turned back to the thing's chest which had split open and now seemed to howl into the heavens like a second set of jaws.

She turned to the people on the street with horror as she watched their souls being ripped from their bodies. The spectral emanations were pulled away from their bodies, leaving them dead and terrifyingly pale. The face of a small child caught her attention and she looked away quickly.

She followed the souls with her horrified gaze as they vanished away into the gaping chasm of the thing's sternum. It swallowed their light away into an oily blackness. And then snapped shut like the jaws of a shark in dark water.

The people who were locked in stillness by both time, and now death continued to stare out as masks of what they once were. Faces appeared pale and pasty, eyes clouded in shades grey.

The demon sneered over the city of the dead and turned his attention back to Sakura as his soulless eyes shone with dark glee. It opened its jaws.

A dark flame burned inside the gaping confines of its maw, a sinewy black tongue wriggled amidst the dark radiance which spilled out from it's mouth and hung over its head like a black wreath of ethereal smoke.

She turned to run, but could not. The black beam exploded from its jaws and wiped over the city around her. she was terrified as buildings crumbled away to dust in a great gale wind, which burned and ripped. Cars were sent flying into the air and then crushed to splinters along with their operators. Sakura screamed as she watched the poor pedestrians being reduced to ash and bone fragments on the dark winds of its attack. The ground beneath her feet began to splinter away as the landscape was wiped clean, and then destroyed amidst a whirlwind of ash and debris. Reality was transformed from a still street to a swirling maelstrom of dust and ash as the demonic creature laughed into the vortex in which Sakura stood. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she listened to the screaming voices which came from all directions of the cyclone. The card flew in a great ascending spiral within the storm of ash that rained down upon her like a ashen snowstorm in the darkest pit of hell.

The creature was in all directions as reality warped in vertigo. The swirling dervish of ash seemed to go in all directions now Sakura's screamed in anguish as the demon's laughter rose up to the heavens like a black pillar of flame. And then there was silence.

Her eyes opened as the creature loomed before her. it was changed. Where once it had almost been a dragon, now it was a twisting slithering tree of twisting coils without leaves, just skeletal claws that pierced the heavens as it grew upward like a column. The spire was terrifying in such perportune that words, no matter how horrible, could only paint a brighter picture. It towered over Sakura as she stared at it in all it's horrific majesty as it formed pustules which exploded into form. From its writing roots fifty-four separate faces formed. They were waxen and grey, staring out amidst a nest of bladed protrusions that pierced them, and yet grew from them. they were the faces of women, some children, and some elderly, all demonic and melancholy as they looked out from the cancerous obelisk at the young sorceress. They spoke to her in many voices joined as one.

"Sakura.... mistress... Release us from our tombs... end the pain" all chorused out in a less then human symphony of words. They continued with more vague pleadings as Sakura looked upon them. they were the dead women who had been haunting her.

"What do you want from me!?"

"Death...." Sakura withdrew in horror.

"DEATH!!!" they screamed through shrill and almost reptilian screeching calls. Her terror was augmented as their throats exploded into further black veins of dead, yet living tissue. Eyes rolled over black as the whole twisting spire exploded into life as it clawed out with exploding blades of twisted black bone. It wriggled and tore loose from whatever it had been tethered to, and then began to slither upward into the endless red sky which seemed to tear to ribbons under it's probing undulations. It moved like a phantom squid in the depths of a bloodied ocean, gradually vanishing away into the fabric of the red sky.

The black Clow cards suddenly dove for her and she screamed as she was enveloped in them, feeling only hate, rage, and need.

****************************

"SAKURA! SAKURA!" Madison shrieked as she shook her. Syaoran was now battling Madison just as much as he was trying to protect Sakura. He was on the verge of just knocking the girl out, lest she do real damage to Sakura before she was able to come through. He didn't have to as he heard a faint murmur from the girl.

Her skin was pale and she was drenched in a cold sweat, but the second her eyes opened she flung herself atop Syaoran and cried against him. This vision had hurt her on a spiritual level, touching the legacy must have been something like touching the still-beating heart of hell.

He and Madison held her as she sobbed out words he could not define.

"It's alright Sakura, I'm with you."

"Syaoran.... it was so evil... not evil like a murder, or a criminal. Evil like... I don't know!" she said between wails. She was shaking but gradually growing warmer. Syaoran closed his eyes as Madison suddenly screamed in sheer terror. Sakura looked up to the blue sky that was split with red. She too screamed.

From a rip in the fabric of the sky a black creature struggled. It's massive jaws gashing out in snarls and snaps as it's impossibly long talons struggled with the tiny doorway from hell to earth. Sakura's eyes were wide with terror as she locked eyes with it. It smiled.

"The Legacy is here..." Syaoran whispered.

Evil is without form. it glides on the winds of fear and suckles on the milk of malice.

Superstition and hatred are the flames it kindles and we are no more then the tender.

We gave birth to evil, and now it grows with ambition all its own.

The sad truths are that simply if there is a hell, we built it, we furnished it, and we sustain it.

Creation is an act of will, it is also a legacy we must bear.

Not the end...