Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 2: Sakura and the Strange Night

CHAPTER 2: Sakura and the Strange Night

-VERTEX TWO: 15.721699-

Tomoeda

This dream again...

The edge of a building, standing there at night with the town spread out before her like a tapestry... A small, winged, golden-furred creature hovered at her side as she clutched her staff. Before them, the Tokyo Tower-

Wait.

No, this wasn't Tokyo. The tower looming in the distance was the beloved Tomoeda Elementary clock tower that kept faithful time for everyone in town. Yet so many other details were the same: her staff, her companion, her position atop the building... And two figures still waited for her at the tower, just as in that dream from so long ago...

This is wrong...

Neither of the two that waited was familiar. She could barely see them, they stood as mere shadows against the old clock tower... but she could feel them even from far away, they were strangers.

This isn't how the dream is supposed to go! What's going on?

A tremendous, rumbling crack shook Tomoeda, vibrating through her bones and nearly causing her to fall from her perch. There was a silent cry of alarm from the creature floating next to her. She looked up...

... and saw a network of cracks spreading across the night sky, as if it had been struck by the hammer of a giant. Cold sweat rolled down her brow, mingling with the tears on her cheeks, as she raised the staff... She had to do something...

Too late. Pieces of the sky began to fall, and behind the sky... there was nothing, nothing at all. Her vision went black...

And in that darkness, someone waited. Someone very small, staring at her expectantly with wide eyes...

"SAKURAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Sakura Kinomoto sat bolt upright in bed, screaming as the howling voice pulled her from the dream. Acting on pure instinct, she tossed away the covers, felt inside her pajamas for the key, grasped it tightly in her fist as she flew down the stairs three at a time... The kitchen, it came from the kitchen! What could possibly-

The soles of her bare feet burned in protest as she skidded around the corner. At her mental command, the key expanded into her staff. She brandished it, and called out to the room... "Kero-chan! Where are you? What's wrong?!"

A golden blur roughly the size and shape of a teddy bear rushed forward to meet her. "Sakura..." it moaned, choked with sorrow, "My pudding! The pudding I was savin' for breakfast today, it's gone! There's not even a spoonful left...!"

Sakura took a moment to process that... then she felt a vein bulge in her forehead. She shrunk the staff back down into its dormant state as she stomped forward, meeting the small creature's golden eyes with her own. "Kero-chan..." she growled, "... are you telling me you woke me up with that screaming... on a school day... just for pudding?!"

The legendary Guardian Beast of the Clow stuck out his bottom lip. "But it was my pudding, I was savin' it...!"

"Kero-chaaaaaaaaan...!"

In the five years since the night of the Sealed Card incident, things had changed in the Kinomoto household. Toya was gone, moved in with Yukito and living above the small natural foods store that they ran together. There was no more need for Kero to pretend to be a stuffed animal... after the Sealed Card's rampage and the subsequent fallout, Sakura's father had explained that he had always known about Kero's presence and the strange events that led up to his daughter's officially earning mastership of the Cards, so he took the revelation of the truth with his usual aplomb. He likewise took the news that his precious daughter and Shaoran Li were in love with remarkable grace when they announced it to their families that night. Toya's reaction was notably less than thrilled, but that was typical.