Composed by deko
Translated by Yuki Neco
Strange voice came out among the rocks drifing in the outer space, “Listen! You blew it many times in the last battle!”
“It wasn’t my fault, it was...” a monster stuttered.
“Shut up! No matter how hard you insist you gave your best shot, you have a poor record because of your fault,” the queen of mosters said.
“But your majesty, I was not the only one who blew it...”
“Shut up! Stop whining or I’ll throw you into the core of a star via meta-space-time,” the queen barked. Her shout made the monster shiver down on his knees. At this time, his invisible body was visualized into the body with rows of suckers like an octopus. The queen revealed her true form like a gigantic squid. “Your honor is at stake of conquering the planet! Listen. You must exterminate the mammal ruling the planet within its orbital period to prepare land for our immigration.”
“That’s impossible...” the perplexed monster whined.
At this time, other monsters protested around him, “Hey, conquering a planet is not a picnic. Shape up or get out.”
“Shut up! It’s easy for you to...” The monster turned and shouted back to the crowd, when the queen caught him with her tentacle and swang round and round. Finally, she hurl him into the space; his journey began with a series of scream.
“The soldier took on his mission,” the announcement sounded.
Seeing him off, the creatures gathered the corner of the crag, where they resumed listening to the anime that sounded from the wreckage a communication satellite.
In Tomoeda, junior high school students were walking to school, talking with their students happily. Sakura too was cheerfully going to school dressed in her winter uniform.
“Sakura,” Tomoyo called out to her when she stepped out of her car with bodyguard ladies.
“Good morning, Tomoyo,” Sakura smiled back.
Unlike usual, the bodyguards drove their car away back to Daidouji mansion leaving their teenaged lady. Tomoyo smiled at Sakura who looked puzzled. “I’m glad you are fine. Well, how about Kero?”
“Wound up with bandages like a mummy,” Sakura replied, “I inisted I have the Life Card cure him, but he didn’t like it.”
“OK, I think I gotta see him today. By the way, what is it that I can see at your collar?” Tomoyo asked.
“Hey, look at that girl. She’s got hell of dark hair, jet black like ours.”
Tomoyo widened her eyes to hear someone talking about her hair. Nothing bad though she felt about the compliment on her hair, she kind of pouted at the rude manner of speech.
“N-no, it wasn’t me...” Sakura shook her head and pointed upward; some crows were on the wire.
“Crows?” Tomoyo blinked her eyes.
“I didn’t know, but Syaoran’s mother told me that this Card translates any kind of voices.”
“That slowpoke woke up early today. It’s quite unusual and it could rain today,” the Translate Card spoke. Sakura, who pouted, found a big cat on a fence.
“That’s what the cat said, huh?” Tomoyo giggled, “Then it’s that you’ve created a Card like an automatic translator.”
“According to Syaoran, the wish of the master at moment of its creation decides the character and the function of the new card,” Sakura explained, “That night, I deeply wanted to talk to Syaoran’s mother in Chinese—because I thought she would admit how deeply I’m in love so she would not take him back to Hong Kong. Besides, I would also like to say something to the cats that attacked Kero the night before... or what?”
Tomoyo smiled as if blessing her best friend as she took out a sheet of paper out of her bag, “Plenty of good news today. Here, the e-mail from Ms. Mizuki in England.”
At this time, Syaoran caught up to the girls; he seemed to have gotten over the breakdown he had suffered from for weeks. “What’s the good news?”
“You’ll see in this paper. See you,” Tomoyo walked away. Sakura and Syaoran saw her speeding up, then they looked at each other as they took each other’s hands and clasped. They read the news wriiten on the paper.
An airplane of a Japanese airline was flying over the Arctic. In the cockpit, the pilot with a long nose was sitting at the control; who was in such a bad mood that the copilot and the flight engineer felt difficulties of talking to him.
“Umm... captain, now we’re in the auto pilot, so... you don’t have to...” the copilot talked to the pilot.
“Shut up! Some pilot of a glorious international airline I am... but why do I have to deserve like this?!” the pilot complained. At his side was a tray holding a dish of sandwiches and instant coffee with a stick of sugar and milk—clearly worse treatment than usual.
“It can’t be helped. The flight attendants are busy with care of that little girl,” the flight engineer replied.
“Yes, luckily we don’t have complaint from the passengers,” the copilot agreed.
“Offending me... means you don’t want promotion to be a chief pilot, do you?” the pilot said in a low voice. The copilot and the flight engineer gasped in the unfavorable mood. At this time, a good scent of coffee came to their sense.
“Here you are.”
A girl dressed in a lovely dress brought a cup of cofee, who also wore an apron, and a cap covering her brown hair. It was the Hope Card, like a little human girl three feet tall, unlike her past figure as a plush doll.
“Uh, thank you. I’ll bring it to the pilot,” the copilot said. The Hope Card as a little girl shook her head and stepped to the demon-like pilot to serve him the cup of coffee. Choosy as he was, he had no choice but let his guard down. The change of his face was worth a look; instead of getting furious, he curled up his mouth into a happy smile, “Merci, Mademoiselle. This smells great.”
“It’s nothing. Achoo!”
“What? You have a cold?” the copilot asked.
“No, somebody must be talking about me,” the Hope Card smiled and replied.
When she walked out of the cockpit with the tray, the copilot had an eye contact with the flight engineer as he said. “Impressive. She spoke perfect English.”
“Yeah,” the flight engineer agreed, “Although the pilot is an English man he hardly talks, but he talked to that little lady.”
Meanwhile, the pilot looked very happy.
On the rooftop of the science museum, boys and girls were watching the night sky in circle, among them were Takashi and Chiharu. “Time, 7:46 p.m...” the radio beside them read out the time.
“I found it! On the right of the Plow!” a boy exclaimed.
“Wow! Tonight is a fantastic night. There were 102 during the last hour,” a girl talked to Takashi excitedly, “just like you said before!”
“Yes, I bet Dr. F too is enjoying the sky back home in Finland,” Takashi smiled and replied. Chiharu looked at him peacefully, as she thought, “I really like him cause he isn’t arrogant because of his great deal of knowledge.”
“Hey, Chiharu, there was a flash in your watch area,” Takashi said.
“Sorry, I missed it,” she gasped.
“Hmmm, it might have been the one,” he groaned.
The girl wrinting records on the pad asked him gently, “There’s something wrong, Professor?”
“That flash of light was maginitude minus 7,” he replied, “Then I guess, it was three feet in diameter. That might some kind of cupsule holding creatures from outer space.”
“What?”
People including Chiharu who knows him could do nothing but sighed. Meanwhile, some meteors flashed tiny light subsequently... until a bright flash of light appeared instantly.
“Mr. Yoshida, the rotation camera is working?” Takashi asked.
“It is. Now the data is being transferred to the computer. You can see in a minute,” the teacher answered.
Takashi widened his eyes unlike usual at the moment the meteor was displayed on the screen. “I have a bad feeling about this.” Meanwhile, the others continued their observation, soon afterwards, the meteor shower began like the prediction.
On the airplain, flight attendants were busy with care of a little lady. “Oh, not that way, young lady. Curl up the spaghetti around the fork gently,” one flight attendant said to the girl.
“Oh, no. Ketchup’s on your cheek,” another attendant wipes the ketchup off her cheek.
“Do you want another drink, young lady?” another attendants asked.
All the flight attendants, who were supposed to take care of passengers, gathered around the little lady. Poor passengers who had been seated next to her were pushed away. The Hope Card who was not acustomed in the human form was struggling to use the knife and fork.
“Split and go take care of the other passengers!” the chief attendat stalked to the crowd—however, she actually wanted to take care of the little lady. It was a piece of cake for her to drive the other young flight attendants away in the aisle. She took a napkin to wipe the little lady’s mouth.
“Thank you. But, am I bothering other passengers?” the Hope Card aked.
“No, it’s nothing. Kaho is my best pal since junior high,” the chief attendant replied.
“Pal?”
“I mean friend. Well, are you full? And take a little sleep. You are on your way home, right?”
“Yes, I’m going home to Sakura,” the little girl said.
When the dinner plates were taken away, a warm blanket was covered over her chest. The chief attendants could see various kind of feelings on the little girl’s innocent face who was falling asleep. “Have a good sleep.”
When she stood up she found that she had been watched by most of the passengers with gentle smiles, and disguted smirks.
“How about this design? I think this one-piece dress will look good on Hope,” Tomoyo said with starry eyes.
Sakura and Syaoran were exhausted in listening to their bast friend, since she had come to Sakura’s room in the evening with three cloths boxes, showing and explaining every children’s dress in those boxes for three hours without break.
“Hey, Tomoyo...” Sakura modestly tried to interrupt.
“No, no. There’s no need to worry about the size. I had our retained 30 designers calculate the fittest size based on the data given by Ms. Mizuki, and each designer designed 6 dresses.”
“180 in all...” Syaoran nearly passed out.
“Tomoyo is so enthusiastic... everything in this room could be buried under her dresses,” Kero said sarcastically.
“How can you be so optimistic?” Syaoran shouted to Kero.
Kero was almost recovered from the injury, but some bandages were still on some parts of him. No matter what a video mania she was, Tomoyo couldn’t record the painful state of Kero on the video. On the other hand, Syaoran breathed a sigh of disgust to see how optimistic Kero was. Although he knew how the Hepe Card had been created and how she had joined them, Syaoran never understood how pitiful she had been feeling about being a fairy residing inside a plush doll. He kind of felt a uneasy feeling against the return of the fairy in a human form. In contrast, Tomoyo understood the Hope Card was a warmhearted little girl because of the stories about the little fairly talken by Sakura. She also understood what she wanted and what she dreamed of, as a girl.
“Once she comes back, this place won’t be quiet any more,” Tomoyo smiled.
“It’s no quiet since a long time ago,” Syaoran said in half annoyed manner.
The Power Card and the Little Card attributed to little girls were floating around the room.
“By the way, that Ms. M told us that the little girl spoke English at the airport, huh?” Kero said.
“Just because Sakura created the Translate Card,” Syaoran plainly replied.
“Just because of me...?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tomoyo asked.
“OK, I’ll explain, girl,” Kero started to explain, “Sakura has created two Cards on her own. First one is the Love Card, which combined with the Void Card to form the Hope Card. And the second is the Translate Card created a few days ago.”
“Those two Cards are not Clow Reed’s creation,” Syaoran continued, “Clow Cards are attributed to obey Kerberus or Yue. Even though they are transformed into Sakura Cards, the same. Conversely, the Cards created by Sakura on her own are not ruled or influenced by the guardians. The Tranlate Card can work for Sakura and the Hope. That’s why the Hope used the help of the Translate Card.”
“So that’s why you don’t like it, brat,” Kero smirked.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Those new Cards are not in Clow Reed’s manuscipts. Poor boy, your knowledge is useless,” Kero replied.
“Stop it, Kero, or you’ll bet burnt!” Sakura said angrily.
The gurdian floated into the desk drawer with sigh of fury.
“It’s not like him to say such a thing,” Tomoyo said worriedly.
“He’s scared. He was once defeated by her in the amusement park,” Sakura calmly replied, “How about you, Cards?”
Every Card jumped into the room, floating around the three teenagers. “I can’t wait to see the Hope Card,” Mirror Card answered.
“Hope Card, come back quick,” the Power Card said.
“I want to play with her,” the Little Card giggled.
“She must be an innocent little lady,” the Dark Card smiled.
“She deserve to be happy,” the Time Card nodded.
“You think of her as your real sister, don’t you, master? So do we,” the Transport Card said.
“Allow me to mention, Tomoyo. I guess she likes white,” the Light Card suggested.
From the olden times, men don’t like to let his emotion show. Syaoran didn’t know that emotion sometimes could be a strongest thing.
A meteorite was falling into the atmosphere at a fierce speed. Intensive friction against the atmosphere heated the surface of the rock up to thousands of degrees, breaking some debris apart. The temperature was so high that the living body inside could not bare with it. At the moment, a crack appeared on the surface, the creature popped out of the meteorite. Despite the freezing atmosphere outside, it was rather comfortable for a monster customed to drift in the universe.
“Exterminate the mammal... Piece of cake,” the monster chuckled.
Any kind of creatures try to understand their circumstance before doing anything; however, this stupid creature wasn’t aware of the intensive inertial force acting on him. For example, you wouldn’t be able to stop at once even though you jumped off a runaway train.
“Grrrrrr... H-heeeeelp!” He braced himself with his leg with suckers to the oppsite direction to brake, but it was too late.
The Hope Card was talking with the chief attendant at her seat by the rear hatch of the plane. The little girl stood up to open the hatch.
“Hold it, young lady,” the chief attendant was upset.
“I can’t wait to see Sakura,” the Hope insisted, “Don’t worry. I can fly.”
“What can I say to Kaho. I promised her to make sure to take you back home.”
“Please let me go.”
Outside the window she could see the night view of Tokyo, while the plane was proceeding to the standard terminal arrival route to the national airport, waiting for a direction from the control. The chief attendant could understand by looking her eyes that she was longing to see someone she liked. She was an ordinary little girl. “All right. Luckily, this plane is equiped with an airlock(*).
AN: This can’t be! There’s no passanger planes equiped with airlocks.
She cuddle the Hope Card and took her the in a glass chamber with a handle as she said, “Young lady, make sure the light in front turns red before opening the hatch.”
“Can you let me go? Thank you so much,” the Hope Card said thankfully, “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Ayaka Hoshi,” she replied, “There’s an enormous relative velocity out there, but you’ll be OK. Be careful about the wake turbulence around the tail assambly.”
“I owe you one, Ayaka.”
The Hope Card saw the light in front of her turned red as she jumped out the hatch. Even though she has a human form, flying was no difficulty for the girl who had magical powers. She enjoyed the scenery below full of the metroplitan illumination represented by high-rise buildings, while the airflow gently held her body. “Yay! I’m back!” she cheered. She waved her hand to the cockpit of the plane she had been on a few seconds before, where she could see the pilot with a long nose. The people in the cockpit were astonished, on the other hand.
“C-c-captain, look at that! A girl is flying!” the copilot shouted.
“A girl can’t fly, you idiot!”
“M’aidez! M’aidez! Control, a girl is flying just in front of us. Hey, we can see inside her skirt...” the flight engineer reported his finding into the transceiver, when the pilot hit him on the head, “You idiot! It’s just an illusion... but she should be ashamed.”
“Great Japan Air 123, the meteor shower was over by now, Control. By the way... don’t fool us anymore! Don’t be rediculous forever or I’ll reject your request for landing!”
At this time, boys and girls were still observing the meteor shower on the rooftop of Tomoeda science museum.
“There it is! In the south 45, it flashed!” Chiharu reported.
“It’s a great burst! It’s gone!” Takashi said in amaze.
They took a great deal of records of their findings, so many that little did they think that the final meteorite would give a big influence on their town.
The Hope Card was flying happily over Minato Ward, viewing the good old scenery she once saw when she had departed for England; for example, Tokyo Tower and tall builings in the central Tokyo.
“Hey, that’s an amusement park,” she clapped her hands. Suddenly, she sensed something warm rushing toward her, as she stopped in the air. Next moment, her vision was covered with uncountable stars synchronized with a bumping sound. The people on the rooftops of nearby buildings looked around for some seconds to see what just happened, but they all thought it was just their imagination. The Hope Card lost consciousness and fell her head down. She fell down to the beautiful brick pavement of Takeshiba Quay Park, fluttering the sails on the monument all simultaneously. She fell through the manhole that was left open for some reason in front of the police officer from the Harbor Police Station, vanishing into the underground pipe with rushing sound echoing in the pipe. It was a monster that had bumped into her in the air; who lost consciousness as well, flying and falling into Tomoeda.
Sakura was sleeping in her bed peacefully and innocently, as if in harmony with the silent night, when the Translate Card slipped out of the book of Sakura Cards, glowing. Its face blinked strongly indicating how actively it was working.
The Hope Card was senseless in a humid bad-smelling place underground of Minato Ward, where the sunlight streamed in. She was covered with dirt and muddy water, while her dress made by Kaho from England was torn. A little rat came to her, smelling the little girl curiously. When its whisker stimulated her nose, the Hope Card woke up with a sneeze. Frightened Hope Card heard the fuss, “Human! Human!”
That was what the Translate Card did; she shivered at the sight of the rats, bursting into cry, “Rats! I hate ’em, I hate ’em! Help me, Sakura!” It was that the Hope Card stumbled in the rats’ world.
Kaho was reading a children’s story in the living room of Hiiragizawa residence, England, when Eriol came up and read the title of the book, “Manxmouse, Paul Gallico.”
“I hid this book cause Hope didn’t like it. She went back to Japan before she could cure her fear of rats,” Kaho said with a worrying sigh.
“I saw her get into a panic when she woke up,” Eriol said slowly but slightly smiling.
“I’m afraid she should be surrounded by rats by now, shouldn’t she?”
“The more she struggles the more she gets tangled with something she doesn’t like,” Eriol chuckled.
“Poor little girl...” she sighed.