Composed by deko
Translated by Yuki Neco
At the quarters of Amamiya Cooperation on edge of Tomoeda hill, Kero was looking out the window in a room. He looked around and saw the Hope Card pouting, when she urged, “Haven’t you done yet?”
The Hope floated in the middle of the room in its card form, besides Tomoyo is doing a needle work.
“Now I’m done. Here you are.”
It was that Tomoyo attached wings on the back of Sakura plush doll. The delighted card dove into the doll to take it over, who cheered joyfully, “Hurrah!” Getting wings to fly around, she took off into the air with a cry of joy, but she nearly crashed into Kero who was floating before she could even know. Two of them fell onto the floor, and then Tomoyo caught them up gently.
“I gotta go to the excavation site, see you,” said Tomoyo, when the remaing two are busy glaring at each other.
“Don’t be dumb floating like that!”
“That was your fault, klutz!”
“Let’s fight! Come...”
The Hope sensed some power before she could finish her sentence, and so did Kero. They assured themselves Tomoyo was alredy out, then Hope starts, “What a powerful force I’m sensing.”
“You’re right. I don’t belive it comes from a human if it ever did.”
A lot of people took part in the excavation on the hill. The dominant are junior high school students, most of whom are Sakura’s classmate in fact. Fujitaka and Touya walked into the site guiding old Masaki Amamiya.
“What a load of work,” Masaki said looking all around, “I can’t
wait to see the artifacts that’ll be excavated, anyway.”
“This ruin is really big so we need a lot of people to help us.
I’m impressed that the students are working hard.”
Suddenly, loud voices came aross the old that gave hims a happy smile.
“No, Syaoran, I said 3 feet ahead!” Sakura shouted.
“I’m sure you said one foot!” Syaoran spoke back.
Sakura was annoyed by the calculator she was operating beside the transit placed on the hill.
“Sorry, Syaoran,” she shouted, “I made a mistake, I meant six feet.”
He knelt down on his knees losing most of his energy.
“They are driving in stakes for a ground plan,” explained Fujitaka.
“Seems like good partners,” Masaki commented in a smile.
“Not so good,” Touya added, “They are just playing like kittens.”
There was another couple of partners who are playing like kittens.
“Takashi, will you do that?” Youko holding a pole asked
Takashi for some work, and he drew lines on the map placed on a
plane table. Chiharu was impressed to see him work, “Good job.
How can you draw lines neatly so that they connect each other?”
“Not a big deal. All I’ve got to do is to draw as the way it is.”
When Youko walks back to the two, the three of them looked at the map in an identical facial expression. “Footprint. Monster Movie. Keep Off. Giants Legend. What does it mean?!” they exclaimed.
All the stakes were driven in beautifully on the straight line that ran
across the site before the sunset. Sakura and Syaoran were still working,
so Fujitaka called them, “Let’s call it a day, Sakura.”
“Yes, dad.” The daughter replied stretching her back backward.
Syaoran, too, heaves a heavy sigh of fulfillment, when Syaoran and Sakura sensed unfamiliar eyes watching them steadily.
“Whoever is it? Stop looking at us so fiercely!” Sakura thought in her mind.
“Sakura, watch out!” The moment Sakura tripped and almost fall off the slope, Syaoran dashed to catch her. Seeing the two teenager almost in caress, Touya jealously yelled at them, “What the heck are you waiting for?! Don’t forget we gotta prepare the table!”
The boy and the girl collapsed down on their knees, when many of the hungry workers are waiting for their dinner to be ready.
The volunteer workers were having barbecue for dinner at the cafeteria at the dormitory of Amamiya Cooperation (used for xcabation quarters), where the terrain map of the site was hang on the wall, and the students are enjoying talking.
“So the holes are arranged in a line from the first place,”
Chiharu said in an impressed look.
“Yeah, I didn’t believe it first, but the line we drew can convince
us,” Youko agreed.
“Allow me to state my hypothesis,” Takashi started his attitude.
“Say what you like, go ahead,” Chiharu said cynically.
All of the people crowded around Takashi, surprisingly to say, even Sakura and Syaoran still in aprons are among the crowd to hear Dr. Liar’s hypothesis.
Takashi cleared his throat and pronounced his hypothesis, “That hill used to be the rendezvous spot of the ancient giants—I mean the giants in love with each other.”
Syaoran and Sakura blushed at his explanation, and seeing their reaction gave Tomoyo a smile on her face.
“But the giants are merely legendary beings,” Naoko interrupted,
“There’s no way we can see ones today.”
“They sure exsited. Many of prehistoric ruins are too huge,
that means they were constructed by giants not by humans,” Takashi
continued his statement.
“I don’t buy it,” Yukito showed his diagreement with a cross-question,
“Could they carry rocks that weighted a thousand pounds without the
aid of machinery?”
“No, they used a gigantic dirigible to carry those,” Takashi
answered the question, “With the advanced technologies in the ancient
times, and the help of bunch of giants, the construction could be completed
in an amazing speed; even the humans who ordered the construction were
astounded at the rapid progress. Unfortunately, so fast their construction
was done that eventually some giants lost their jobs.”
“Then what happened?” asked Naoko.
“No jobs at all, boredom got the best of them, they took part in
the battle among humans, destroying structures they once had built,”
Takashi span a story proudly.
Chiharu heaves a heavy sigh, not surprised or impressed by her boyfriend’s tall tales. Takashi, on the other hand, was on the roll.
“Then what made those giants extinct?” Syaoran asked enthusiastically.
“Their destructive activities damaged not only human civilization
but their own residence. Losing their house to keep themselves warm, they
were frozen during the winter.”
The students had walked off the spot before anyone in the place could ever notice, besides, Chiharu was still there half ignoring his speech.
“Only to flee from the freezing winter atmosphere, they all dove
into the sea. None of them ever returned,” he still continued talking.
“None of them?” Syaoran tried to ensure.
“That’s a good hypothesis,” Fujitaka commented, “However, without
valid evidences, they’d call it a lie. Nevertheless, denying from the
first place as nonesense can be more likely to be nonesense, I tell
you guys.”
In the ancient times, in Yakoku, a funeral procession was proceeding toward the tumulus that was completed lately. Mouring voices were heard from men and women of different ages. The funeral procession carrying terra-cotta figures are led by a young woman dress like a shrine maiden.
“I don’t like this! I don’t believe this is my life!” the girl cried in her mind. Small tombs were scattered around the tumulus.
“Dai, why are you gone? Leaving me alone for these 6 years.”
The summer sun shone upon Tomoeda Hills, where Sakura and Syaoran were working in the grid assigned to them. They gradually removed and conveyed soil out.
“Drawing lots was a good idea. Thanks to my luck, I’m working with you here,” Sakura beamed at Syaoran, who blushed stuttering, “Uh... yeah...”
In a grid far apart, Touya’s fury was heard, “Shucks! That brat,
what a lucky guy!”
“What a responsible big brother you are, keeping watching your sister?”
said Yukito in a sarcastic way.
Youko brought them cold barley tea for break, with Tomoyo helping her.
“With all this thought,” Youko mumbled rolling her eyes, “having
such an adorable sister is a kind of distress.”
“I know what you mean. Sakura is getting even prettier and prettier
since the age of 12,” Tomoyo smiled.
Looking up the sky, Tomoyo could see two UFOs above her; it was Kero and the Hope floating for fun.
“I’m glad that Sakura looks happy. It was a good thing we did a job
on the raffles last night, Kero,” the Hope Card joyfully said.
“Trick is not my policy, but...” Kero’s sentence was interrupted by
some aura he could sense, “This aura...”
“Yeah, powerful. I wonder if Sakura is ever sensing this?” the Hope
followed her friend.
The severe sun light was shone on the excavation site, and the shrill sound of cicadas was loudly heard and echoed. Sakura was shoveling the ground in her small grid with sweat coming out all of her head.
“Cicadas are really noisy... hoe? Some of them are heard from
somewhere else,” she said to herself.
“Wha- Sakura, are you all right?” Syaoran tried to call her attention.
She couldn’t hear him as uncountable cicadas were sounding and echoing in her head too loudly.
“Battle... I can see people killing, houses on fire.”
She could see flames before her eyes, and hear poeple shouting, while she was unconciouly shoveling the ground as if she was possessed.
“Wake up, Sakura! Wake up!” Syaoran shook Sakura’s shoulders.
The poeple around them found out something was going wrong with those two junior high school students. When Touya and Yukito ran up to them, there was a click on the shovel she shoved on the ground. At this time, she came back to her conciousness.
“There’s something, Syaoran!” Sakura gasped.
“I hear Sakura’s been making love to Syaoran ever since he
got back to Tomoeda.” Kaho said smirkingly.
“Making out with him, to be exact,” Suppi corrected her words.
“Right. That sounds like you and me, Eriol,” Kaho turned to Eriol in an attractive way.
“Strange. I saw two of Sakura’s biorithmic waves,” Eriol mumbled.
“You mean there are two Sakuras?!” Kaho exclaimed at Eriol’s comment.
“Only one of them is the Sakura we well know, but the other...
is a tragic girl in dispair.”
“Now, I gotcha! Here!” Fujitaka smiled pointing the jar poking out the soil he was digging; the people watching them work could see its beautiful pattern when dirt was wiped off.
“Dad,” Sakura was deeply touched by the scene, so her father held her tightly. Syaoran leaned his head to her closer as if he was attracted by some force.
“Look, Sakura. This is a coffine of a nobility in ancient time,” Fujitaka explained to his daughter, when the people all around them heave a heavy sigh of impression.
“Now, everybody,” Fujitaka called their attension to start a sacred bahavior, “let’s pray to this deceased to apologize for disturbing his eternal sleep, and to welcome to our academic field.”
Nodding, the people prayed solemnly with their respective sense of creed, under the clear night sky over which thousands of stars were twinkling like colorful jewels.
| transit | Surveying instrucment. It measures the distance and angle of the object from the basis point assumed at a specific location. |
| plane table | Survaying tool. Convenient tool for quick drawing of map in a specific reduction scale. |
| pole | Used for surveying. Painted red and white in stripes, easy to recognize. |
| stake | Prop to draw the ground plan, the map indispensable for any excavation work. Stakes are driven in at reference points for the map. Sakura and Syaoran did this job in this fic. |