by Sapphire Moon 91
Twenty-four year old Sakura Kinomoto walked down the busy street of Hong Kong to her small apartment, after a busy evening rating a rather boring love story movie, that had no plot and the female protagonist was not likeable. And the director complained about their methods about how they graded his movie.
She walked into her building, but as she walked to the elevator, the power flicked off. Sakura frown, this isn’t normal, black out are pretty rare around here. As she thought this the lights and power flicked back on again.
“Sorry about that, Miss Kinomoto, it’s been happening ever since midnight.” The doorman called to her, Sakura shot him an absent smile and walked into the elevator, pressing button 10 as she went, leaning heavily against the elevator wall, Sakura closed her eyes, all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and sleep, late nights were not her thing, and made getting up in the morning even harder. Elevator suddenly jumped, making a screeching sound and stopped. Sakura groaned, what now, she punched her finger at the button 10, as she did this she felt a strange flicker of power, not the power you find working your television and computer, magic power and felt just like his. Sakura shook her head, he’s dead, you watched him die, you held his hand as he died, you were at his funeral, the power you're sensing isn’t his, it probably some Li visiting a friend or something. Even as she thought the last bit, she wasn’t convinced. Beep. Sakura looked at the elevator button to see 10 glowing, with a unheard of creak the door slowly slid open. Sakura's eyebrows shot to her hair line when she saw that the elevator had stopped at her floor, but the floor was up past her knees. Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. She thought, taking a big step out of the elevator. The last time something weird happen to me in an elevator was when I was eleven and I fell down the elevator shaft. Come to think of it Eriol never told me why, exactly, he did that. Though I suppose some good things came out of it, he did scream out my name and hug me when I floated back to the elevator. I was so happy when he called me by my name. Sakura shook her head vigorously, trying to get rid of the precise memory.
Sakura stalked to her apartment door, shoving her key into the lock and walked into her neat little apartment. “Yay, Sakura’s home, Food, PUDDING.” Screamed a flying little, yellow teddy bear with white wings on his back. Sakura couldn’t help but smile as she watched him zoom towards her.
“Kero, be quiet or the neighbours will hear.” Sakura hissed, amused as Kero stopped zoom, almost crashing into a pot plant, before floating off towards the kitchen in a sulking manner. Sakura giggled weakly, this was a normal routine for the two of them, but it was still amusing to watch.
“Your boyfriend’s been making weird noises upstairs.” Kero said unexpectedly, dragging Sakura forcefully from her thought to cruel reality.
“Ex-boyfriend, don’t you mean?” Her voice was quiet but her eyes glinted dangerously, for those who didn’t know Sakura did have powers, with that look that would have known that all was not normal about the slender, shoulder length gold brown hair, woman with vivid green eyes; that seem to piece flesh to see one’s very soul.
Kero, however, had known Sakura Kinomoto for over fourteen years, so was not all that startled to see Sakura go from a tired, young woman, to a blazing force of power.
“We really need to work on your anger, it’s almost as bad as your brother or the Brat’s for that matter.” Kero muttered under his breath waiting for Sakura to calm down. It was rare to see Sakura to show her true powers, even when she was truly angry, so he was pretty sure Sakura had been thinking of the Brat, which always seem to trigger her powers to their fullest.
“What kind of noises?” Sakura asked once she had calmed down a bit.
“Oh, you know the noises you make when you’re in a hurry, those sorts of noises.” Kero shrugged.
“So?”
There was a loud thud and the sound of a dog from the apartment above and someone yelling “Tiberius, SHUT UP.”
“Do ya think we should take a look?” Kero asked, though he already knew the answer.
“No.” Sakura said disinterested, looking longingly towards her bedroom, Kero however had different ideas. He flew to the men size windows that opened onto a landing with stairs leading up and down from it, he unlocked it, gave it a push and flew out into the night heading up the stairs to floor eleven.
“Kero!” Sakura hissed furiously, following him out the window, up the stairs and peered into the window of the apartment above her own. A young man, her own age, with thick black hair was fussing around his apartment, frantically looking for something. Suddenly he turned around and walked towards the window, Sakura and Kero, stuck back flattening themselves against the brick wall behind them. After a couple of seconds with no sign that the window was going to be open, Sakura and Kero peered cautiously back through the window. What they saw made them gag.
The young man was holding onto a pair of booted feet, pulling them (and supposing the body they were attached to) on to the couch.
Sakura got up from her crouch and patted lightly but quickly back down the metal stairs to her apartment, picked up her cordless phone and dialled it.
She heard the ring sound of the phone in the apartment above and the stomping sounds of the young man’s feet on the wooden floor.
“Hello,” came the reply on the other end of the phone, the voice sounded distant and anxious.
“Takashi, do you still have my palm pilot?” Sakura demanded, she heard a groan from the other end of the phone.
“Sakura, I’m really busy right now, see ya.” She heard a click on the phone as Takashi hung up.
“He hung up on me.” Sakura fumed, stalking over to the bookshelf, grapping a cherry blossom pink book, from the top far corner, blocked from sight by a big encyclopaedia. Fling the book open, revealing a stack of pink cards, with their backs showing, a star in the centre with a crescent moon on one side of it and a sun on the other. As if knowing what she want, the cards rose and shuffling themselves and two cards slipped out from the pile.
“Thank you,” Sakura grinned, blowing a kiss to the rest of her cards and the book, as the book respectively took it place back on the shelf once more hidden by the encyclopaedia. Sakura touched her finger to the right card, The Sound card, and a high pitch noise came from, so high only dogs could hear it. And sure enough, the sound of Tiberius barking and the crashing sound of him breaking his barrier down met their ears, as the sound of Takashi running feet slowed, and him wrestling his dog back behind the barrier. Sakura had taken the second card, flopping on to the couch, held it above her head, following the sounds of the footsteps above, as the feet moved away form the barrier, Sakura tapped her thumb against the card once and a shot of electricity shot out of it through the ceiling into the apartment above, from which came a loud yelp, followed by the young man yelling out her name. Sakura thrust her arms into the air in victory, before jumping up from the couch and grappled her cordless phone and dialled once more.
“What?” The voice on the other end of the phone demanded.
“My palm pilot! You still have it.” Sakura yelled into the phone and was satisfied when she heard a jump threw the ceiling.
“Sakura, it’s one in the morning.” Takashi complained.
“More like two, and clearly you’re awake, so what’s the infraction?”
“Sakura, what are you on about?” Takashi asked sounding rather pitiful.
“What I’m on about is that I saw you harassing some girl in your apartment.” Sakura snapped.
“For your information, it’s a guy and he’s a friend of mine, staying with me for the week, and it’s his first night here so we got drunk, and now he’s asleep on my couch.” Sakura knew for once Takashi was lying, and this was saying something, cause ever since elementary school, Sakura had been one of Takashi story victims, since she was so gullible back then, she surprised herself, she believed almost everything she was told.
“OK, Takashi, for once I know you’re lying about this or some of this so what’s going on and don’t bother making up stories because I can now tell when you’re lying.”
“Ok, you want to know what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sitting down?” Takashi questioned.
“Yes.” Sakura said still standing.
“No, you’re not,” Takashi stated snappily.
“Yes, I am,” Sakura said not moving from her standing position.
“No, you’re not,” snapped the reply.
“Ye-” Sakura started, but gave up, if they kept this up it would be lunch time, she sighed and flopped onto her couch with Kero pressing his ear beside hers to hear what was going on.
“Ok,” Sakura growled
“I found it,” Takashi stated simply, Sakura raised an eyebrow and sighed.
“What did you find?”
“The portal. A crack in the fabric of time. It was over the East River, Sakura, just where I said it would be.”
Takashi said excitedly.
“You found the Portal?” Sakura groaned, no magic, he’s just having you on, there is no magic involved.
“A portal into April 28th, 1876. I jumped off Hong Kong Island and took a walk in 1876 today. I followed the young soon to be the new Li Clan Leader. Are you listening?” Sakura and Kero both looked up at the ceiling as dust started to fall, by Takashi excited jumping.
“Avidly,” Sakura said, picking at her nails. Deep down she wished she could just hang up the damn phone, but she had to make sure Takashi was lying about this, that it was only one of his stories, she hoped it was because if it wasn’t she’d have to go and find and close the damn thing before something bad happen, or had it already happen, a voice whispered at the back of her mind, Sakura groaned inwardly.
“And Sakura, here’s the twist, the really kicker of the whole thing.”
“What’s the Kicker?” Sakura sighed, though she was getting the I’m-getting-sucked-in feeling.
Takashi took a deep breath, and lowed his voice to a whisper, “He followed me home.”
“He WHAT!?” Takashi jumped, holding the phone an arm length from his ear.
“The soon to be Li Clan Leader followed you home,” Sakura yelled, “How could you be so stupid to let that happen?”
“So, you believe me?” Takashi asked, slightly startled.
“I believe you’re stupid.” Sakura snapped, cursing herself for let her temper out and actually believing that what Takashi was saying was really true.
“So, you don’t believe me.” Takashi said, sounding hurt.
“No I don’t and you know what Takashi, I’m not your girlfriend anymore, I haven’t been for a whole month now. You can tell me the truth.” Sakura stated, beginning to pace up and down her apartment, with Kero sitting on her shoulder trying to listen in.
“I am telling you the truth, Sakura,” Takashi sighed in exasperation.
“You can tell me you went and picked up a Transvestite from Hong Kong Island. I don’t care.” Her voice grew higher on the last bit.
“You know what, Sakura, this is it, right here. This is it, in a nutshell. Our downfall. You never... not once... believed in me.” Takashi said, beginning to pace also. Sakura’s mouth dropped in disbelief. “Oh, I did, Takashi, I did. For six years. And I got burnt.”
Takashi took a deep inward breath and sighed, loudly into the phone. “Ok, you want to know who he is? I’ll tell you who he is. He’s a hacker. High end. Chinese. I know him from Tokyo. He’s in town for a high up Computer Expo. We went out, got a little sloppy, got into a fight and he passed out on my couch.”
Sakura sat down on her bed heavily, feeling torn between relief and misgiving. “And that’s the truth?” She asked suspiciously.
“Mm-hmm. That’s the truth. Ok? Are you happy now? Is that plausible enough, for you and your little focus group.” Sakura glared at the phone to the ceiling above, she hated it when he went all guard and sarcastic, it made it so much harder to tell if he was lying or not.
“You know what, Takashi? I blew my best years on you.” Sakura sighed, thinking back to University and how she had actually started to enjoy life again being Takashi’s girlfriend, how he used to do everything in his power to make her smile or laugh, but something happen once they enter the real world and reality hit them again. Sakura groaned, she almost hated reality, nowadays.
“Those were your best? Cause, I kind of think you blew them on someone else.” Sakura stared at the phone speechless and hurt.
“Ah, damn. Look, I’m sorry. I have to go. You can get your pilot in the morning.” Sakura once more heard a click and the phone went dead. Sakura set it on the table, flicked her finger at the light switches and the apartment went dark. Sakura closed her eyes, trying to fight back the misery and grief and pain that was bundled up deep inside waiting to come. It was true, she had wasted a lot of her teenaged years being miserable and bad tempered, the last time she remember being truly was when he was still alive.
As she drifted off to sleep she felt another wave of power, this time
coming from Takashi’s apartment, but she pushed the power away.