Ancient Girl

Composed by deko
Translated bt Yuki Neco

Chapter 3: Summer Vacation

Students walked out the gate of Tomoeda Junior High School, who all looked happy in their faces, since it was the final day of the semester just facing their summer break from the next day.

“Hurrah, the summer break at last!” Sakura sang her joy.
“Are you helping your dad with the excavation?” Tomoyo asked.
“Yep, but I’ve got something to help Syaoran with before that exavation,” replied Sakura.

Rika, Takashi, Chiharu, and Naoko walked up to them.

Chiharu said to Sakura, “Hey, are you staying at the excavation quarter all along?”
“Yeah,” Sakura replied, “There’re tons of instruments, so we got approval to use their old quarters.”
“Syoran is in, too?” Takashi asked followingly.
“Yes, he is. My dad said he was happy that you all would help him. He really needs hands,” Sakura said.
“Then the night will be so exciting, because...” Takashi was hit by Chiharu before he could continue his words.
“Hoe? Not that easy. You’ll have to organize the articrafts you’ve found, and...” Sakura stressed in disagreement.

Chiharu felt so embarrassed that she never wanted Takashi to spin a story. With the help of Naoko and Tomoyo, she dragged Takashi out of the spot as fast as she could. Sakura just stood in a puzzled look, then Tomoyo gently warned her, “It’s not the time yet you knew what.”
“Hoe?”


Syaoran was sitting in his private room of his apartment, where on the carpet was drawn a lasin board pattern that can find a Clow Card. He was meditating at the center with a glowing magic circle around him. There comes a ring of doorbell, which wasn’t so much as to distract his concentration.

“Anybody home, Syaoran, there?”

No sooner had Sakura’s voice been heard than he lost concentration and blushed, then the glowing magic circle disappeared.


Syaoran and Sakura are talking over a cup of tea.

“So that’s why you came back from Hong Kong,” Sakura exclaimed.
“Yes. Cause I couldn’t find him despite my sisters’ assitance,” Syaoran slowly explained.”
“Got any clue of his whereabouts?” Sakura asked a question, when she heard a bell. Sakura steps out to the door to answer, then Syaoran blushed again recalling the night Yelang whispering, “When you marry her and have your baby, then you can come show it to us.”

Syoran shook his head frantically as if he was shaking off the lustiness that had popped in his mind.


At the center of Beijing, beginning of the 20th century, the dignified Forbidden City, containg the Imperial Palace, stood there overwhelming the government office buildings and residencial houses around it.

Guards were standing still in front the treasure house, some of who were stifling a yawn from drawsiness, besides a young man sneaked near the house carefully to keep his footstep from being heard.

When the man said “Fuse,” lines of sparks came out of the incantation card he held, and then the curtain and the window frames caught on fire.

“Fire! Fire!” the guards shouted and ran.

The gong went off as a fire alarm, and the Imperial Palces got lit on from near to far. People came run to the treadure house, and when they open the door, someone jumped over them.

“Burglar! The fire-raising burglar,” shouted one of the guards.

The burglar jumps onto the fence, with a gold nugget in his hand.

“No, I’m not! I am Wizard Geso Li.” Stupid enough of him, and too late he stifled himself by covering his mouth after uttering his own name. At this time, a staff thrown by a guard hit Geso, who, getting unballanced, fell off the fence and collapsed on the ground. A bunch of guards were rushing to him to capture him.

“Teleport!”

A magic circle emerged from the center of the crowd, and Geso disappered at the moment.

The captain of the guards was completely confused, shouting, “Which way’d he go?! That way!”

A glowing magic circle was moving in the air slowly enough that guards could follow it. All of a sudden a fire truck came in the way of Geso’s escape; he couldn’t dodge but crashed into it. When he was groaning in pain, the guards attacked the burglar with their clubs and spears.

“Catch him in the net!” the captain commanded. A big net caught him together with the magic circle. A bunch of guards jumped at him to arrest him, but the magic circle disappeared in the next minute.

“Got him in here? Captain, we got’em in this well... eh?”


Back in Syaoran’s apartment, Wei was looking up tons of books for some clue to Geso’s whereabouts.

“So he disappered in the well, didn’t he?” Sakura empasized.
“Maybe he lost control of his Teleport Card,” Syaoran said, “and accidentally jumped in past.”
Sakura rolled her eyes, “In the case of the Return Card, you could get back to your time with the help of the Time Card, but the Teleport Card was all different?”
“Quite different,” Wei nodded, “I heard the Qing dynasty named him a wanted criminal, it was so severe that he could never come back.”
“The Li clan gave him another name, Geso—Chinese word meaning non-relative. Li clan was truly humiliated of him,” added Syaoran
“Yeah, I guess so,” Sakura giggled at the pun she made.

Wei pointed some history books to show Syaoran. Syoran spoke in response, “That’s one of the manuscripts in Sui dynasty that was recently discovered, but do you know Prince Shotoku?”
“Yeah, he started the envoy to Sui dynasty,” Sakura commented.
“The history said that there was a weird missionary among the members, who caused trouble in the captital. Later in the history, in the time of Tang dynasty, it was when the bureaucrat named Abe no Nakamaro was in the capital; it was recorded that a bureaucrat with the name of Li caused an infamous corruption case.”
“What?” Sakura uttered in surprise, “Your ancestor was such a bad bureaucrat?!”
“Just an accident... of an alterred history,” Syoran wouldn’t admit it.

The two teenagers were groaning the unexplicable accident—history alteration. Wei, who had been out of the room for a while, came back to them with a FAX to Syoran. Syaoran took on a nervous look, while Sakura acted a little modest, when Wei offered Sakura another cup of tea.

“This is from my mother,” he spoke in a deepened voice, “looking up manuscripts stored in Li family revealed a surprising fact. That many non-original members were found in Li family, who were never supposed to be in the history.”
“What do you mean by non-original?” Sakura widened her eyes.
“The original family,” Wei explained, “means the people who actually existed before Geso Li jumped into past.”
“Then now you have much more sisters in Hong Kong?” Sakura questioned.

Both Wei and Syaoran frowned.

“Because Geso Li’s lineage has existed from the ancient times, the beginning of the history,” Syaoran tried to explain, “that means the original Li family and our future depend on his deadly lineage.”
“Li family was well aware that history alteration would be risky,” Wei continued Syoran’s words, “but unfortunately, they never succeeded in getting his whereabouts.”
“Then if the history has been more changed and Clow Reed was born in quite a different way, then the Clow Cards, Kero, and Yue, and the Hope would never have been born. That is no way!” Sakura frantically shouted.

She soon realize one thing very crucial, and cried out, “And then you or Clow Reed never came to Japan, that means we would never have met. Not only that but Touya and my dad would never... ever, never!”

Totally confused, Sakura leaped into Syaoran’s arms, with a painful look.


In the university, the students in Professor Kinomoto’s lab are organizing the survey they had made the day before. Inputed in a computer, the entered data is displayed on the screen, and then Touya gazing at it talked to Yukito, “Hey, Yuki. Do you find it strange?”
“I like monster films, but in the ancient times...” Yukito said in a amazed look.
“But it looks like a human footprint,” Youko addingly spoke.

Touya slightly blush at the side aspect of Youko, who has grown to be a pretty woman.

“I admit she’s so pretty, and I wonder if Sakura will grow to be as pretty as her,” Touya thought to himself. In his mind, he flashbacked the scene of breakfast that he couldn’t clearly remember when.

“What? You don’t fight back, do you?” Touya had half provoked his sister, and Sakura talked back, “Now I can have my revenge any time.”

Back to the reality, Touya said to himself, “Can’t be. She can’t do this, even with all those fishy cards. Besides, it’s remains from 1,700 years before.”


Two teenages were holding each other tughtly, letting tears out from their eyes. Syaoran wiped tears from Sakura’s eyes as if he strongly supported her with a steady love.

“Stop crying. We are here in present time, originated from the same point in past,” he encouraged her.

She nodded and tried to smile.

“I need your help,” Syaoran said, “You and I can help each other and send our feeling as far as we can into the past, hoping Geso wouldn’t ever leave his offsprings.”

They leaned each other on the back—when Wei steped off, an intense glow of magic circle appeared, and further, another circle merges together, letting blinding light out. Sakura shouted casting a spell, “Return and Time, come to our aide and send us in the past.”

“OK, let’s go!”

A bright beam of light flew in the dark tunnel of time. Voices and figures of many historical people came across by with the chronological reverse. Not only the aspect of people but the scenery changed rapidly, like a wasteland changed into a wheat field in the blink of an eye, which turned into a forest in the next minute.


On the other hand, in the ancient province Yakoku, Iyo stepping in the tumulus construction site saw a scaffold leaning toward her, when the banking soil was collapsing down to her.

“It’s you!” Iyo shouted with hatred to Sakura visualized in her mind.

Besides, Kukoku held great population with a village doezens times larger than Yakoku. The rampart enclosed a courtyard, in which Geso was standing. A big man dressed in a gorgeous outfit like a bear walked up to him.”

“Yo, Mr. Wizard, when the hell can we attack Yakoku?” the giant named Kuna asked.
“Your magesty, it’s not the time yet when the Gods blessed us,” answered Geso.

Geso’s interest was seemingly caught on the ball held by Kuna.

“Hmm? You want it? Want it back, don’t you? Then what do you say?”

Geso’s mind completely caught on the ball.

“Now’s the time to attack,” Geso changed his words.

Disgusted by Geso’s change, Kuna kicked him down. When he was grabbed Geso by the collar to stand, Geso begged him not to walk away from him. Feeling something creepy about Geso’s change, Kuna walked away leaving him in the yard, when thick layers of clouds piled up in the west summer sky of the ancient times.


The magic circle faded out, and then Syaoran and Sakura collapsed down on their knees in Syoran’s room.

“Did you see the hill? It must be...” Sakura started to talk.
“Yeah,” Syaoran replied, “That was the excavation site we’re going to attend. It was just the same as the picture your dad showed us.”
Sakura recalled, “I wonder if our voice could reach Geso.”

Shrugging Syoran found out there was a change on the manuscript he showed Sakura. He read some sentences aloud, “The missionaries to Sui dynasty were finally approved to meet the emperor of Sui, when they... Good, it’s different—I mean it’s back to normal.”

Wei stepped into the room with a new FAX in his hand, saying, “Master Syaoran, Lady Sakura, Madame Li said she made sure that non-original members completely disappered from Li family in the manuscript.”
“So the history changed in just a few minutes,” Sakura sighed in a surprise.
“Yes, true. But it’s sure gonna to changed at Geso Li’s hand. At the worst, members of Li family could be significantly changed, and then...” Syaoran faltered.
“Then whay?”
“The major magician’s family Li could come to an end in the way of history,” Wei muttered.
“What?”


In olden time in Yakoku, Iyo, buried under the soil in the tumulus construction site, was nearing the end of her life. People were digging for rescue just around where she was buried.

Queen Reko, doing a spiritual activity at the shrine at the center of the village, was casting a spell concentrating all her spirit. Then evils spirits gathered around her, screaming.

In a dwelling at the corner of the village, on the other hand, Day laid on the ground was almost dead getting less energetic.


Preview: Excavation Site

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