CCS-3: Ch. 7

CCS-3: Illusions of Love

Ch. 7: The First Move

Chin Cong watched from afar as the couple on the pathway, across the lawn, parted ways.  He was in the classroom on the 3rd floor of one of the school buildings watching and waiting, while being careful to suppress his aura so as not to alert Li Xiao Lang of a magical presence.  Kinomoto Sakura was now walking towards the library, alone.  Li Xiao Lang was walking across the lawn towards the same building that he was in.  Being that they were both the heirs to their clans, it wasn't surprising that they were in the same faculty, Business Administration.  A strong foundation in business and economics was a common requirement for all clan heads.  

Cong planned to wait until class began before making his first move.  It would become a problem, after all, if Li Xiao Lang came to the rescue too quickly.  Cong looked down at a copy of Xiao Lang's schedule, which he received by hacking into the student accounts while he was working in the administration office earlier that morning.  His position there, as a student intern, was proving to be useful.  Xiao Lang's class would be starting in 5 minutes.  

Cong stood to leave the classroom, which he had chosen to wait in because there weren't any classes that were held there today.  "Time to go see if you really are the Card Mistress," he stated to himself.

Meanwhile, Sakura had just arrived at the library.  To her surprise she found that there weren't many people there.  She shrugged it off, though, figuring that they were all in class.  Yesterday when she had been here, it was during lunch, and everyone was eating at the café.  It was now going on 1:00 in the afternoon and lunch was over.  

Sakura found a table towards the back of the room, partly hidden by bookshelves. She laid her bag on the table and took a seat.  Opening her book bag, she pulled out the book that she had been trying to read earlier, in her class.  She only had a couple of more chapters to read, and she would be finished.

However, it never failed that as soon as she was engrossed in the book again, something happened to draw her attention away from reading.  She was beginning to think that the Gods were against her finishing this book.  From behind her the loud sound of something dropping to the floor caused her to jump in surprise.  It wasn't just the sound of one thing falling, but the crashing sound of many objects at once, like a bookshelf had been dumped of its contents.  Sakura looked over her shoulder, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  

Shrugging it off with the assumption that one of the librarians had caused the ruckus, Sakura returned to her book.  Just as she found the spot where she had left off, a book flew past her head and hit the wall in front of her.  She stared, stunned, at the book as it fell onto the table.  She wondered who would be so rude as to treat books like this.  

Sakura spun around in her chair to look behind her, ready to scold whoever had thrown the book while wondering at the same time where the librarian's were that they missed witnessing such a disgraceful act.  "Oi!" she hissed as quietly as she could while keeping a voice of authority.  

To her surprise, she didn't see anyone.  Standing from her chair, she began to walk past the bookshelves, searching for signs of anyone being around.  The library was empty.  Sakura looked around in astonishment.  There had been a couple of students and a couple of librarians there when she had first arrived.  

The sound of pages being ruffled caused her to spin back around.  Yet, again, she didn't see anything.  Her heart was starting to race with fear as the possibility of the library being haunted crossed her mind.

Sakura suddenly found herself being pummeled from above with a shower of books.  She screamed, covered her arms over her head protectively, and made a mad dash back to her table, which she dove under for cover.  

As she peeked out from her hiding spot she started to wonder if she wasn't going insane.  Again, there was nothing there.  There wasn't even a pile of books on the floor where she had just been standing.  

Sakura looked cautiously in both directions from her spot under the table.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  Daring to crawl back out from under the table, Sakura grabbed her things and started towards the nearest exit.  When she rounded a corner around some bookshelves, though, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared in disbelief at the sight before her.

Both of the bookshelves on either side of her were empty.  The books weren't lying in a pile on the floor, though.  They were hovering in the air, blocking her escape route.  Sakura took a step back and turned on her heels to run back in the other direction.  She didn't make it far before she had to stop and watch in horror as the books from the shelves all around slid from their places to hover all around her.  

It was all that Sakura could do not to panic.  Was this the cause of spirits?  She hadn't ever gotten over her fear of supernatural things.   Her mind was screaming that she should run, but run where?  Hovering books surrounded her.   

The thought then occurred to her that she could use WINDY to clear a path for her escape.  Reaching up for the star key charm on her necklace Sakura released her star wand with a single word command.  "Release!"

The pink long handled wand, on top of which was an encircled star and from either side of the circle there grew a white feathered wing, magically grew into a staff that towered above Sakura's head.  Throughout the years, as her magic had grown, so too had the star wand.   "WINDY!" Sakura called out the name of one of her beloved cards.  Thanks to the SUMMON card that she had managed to create on her own, the WINDY appeared magically above the staff.  As the star in the center of the circle at the top of her staff began to spin and the wings on either side of the circle began to expand, Sakura's magic circle cast beneath her feet and a surge of power generated up through the staff to awaken the spirit of the card.  The humanoid, feminine figure made up of the wind appeared and charged through the books, sending them flying in every direction and creating a path through which Sakura could run.

Elsewhere on campus, at the exact same moment that Sakura had released her wand, Syaoran's head jolted up from the syllabus that he had been reading in his class.  With wide eyes of recognition he jumped up from his seat, ignoring the looks of shock that he received from his classmates and the professor.  Without a moment to lose he leapt over his desk and flipped effortlessly over the desk beside him before bolting out of the door, leaving everyone to stare after him in shock and awe.  

"Kuso!" Syaoran repeated over and over in his mind as he skillfully tumbled down 3 flights of stairs, making it to the bottom in record time.  Dashing through the lobby he made it out the door before anyone who may have been in the lobby could register in their mind that they had seen him.  Knowing that Sakura planned to be in the library, and feeling her magic the strongest, coming from that direction, Syaoran raced across the lawn to the path and in her direction.  He had been feeling strange about something all day, but he couldn't put a finger on what it was.  

Sakura nearly tripped out of the library doors but somehow managed to stay on her feet.  Perhaps it had actually been WINDY who quickly lifted her under the arms to keep her from falling, she couldn't be sure.  She continued to run forward without looking back until she found herself in Syaoran's protective arms.  

"What happened!?" he nearly growled, watching the library doors, expecting that the attacker would be following her.  

Sakura clung to him with a huge sense of relief that he was there.  "T…the b…b…books," she stammered.   "T…they were at…tacking me."

At that same moment, the other magic that Syaoran had felt suddenly dissipated.  Cautiously, Syaoran walked towards the library doors.  Sakura followed closely behind him, clinging onto the back of his shirt.  When Syaoran opened the doors to enter, he was left momentarily speechless.  "Um…didn't you say that the books were attacking you?" he looked over his shoulder at Sakura to ask.  

Sakura took a peek under his arm into the center room of the library.  Everything was as it should be.  All of the books were on the shelves and there were a couple of students and a couple of librarians spread out through the room.  Sakura then stared up at him with wide, confused eyes.  "They were! I swear!" she said defensively.  

Syaoran turned to wrap an arm around her waist and led her back through the doors and out onto the path.  "I believe you," he said, keeping a secure hold on her.  He didn't yet know who the source was, but he knew that he had felt another magical presence other then hers.

"Where are we going?"  Sakura asked as she was led away.

"Home," Syaoran answered.

"What about your class?" Sakura exclaimed.  "You can't skip it!"

"We have more pressing issues to think about," he answered and continued to lead her down the path towards the parking garage.

From one of the library windows, Cong watched with slight annoyance as the woman that he swore would be his was being led away by another man.  Now, he was certain that she was the Card Mistress and her power excited him.  He was convinced that the Chin clan would benefit greatly at having her, but first, he would have to figure out a way to get rid of Li Xiao Lang.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Syaoran asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.  They were now at his car and he had opened the passenger side door for her to slide into the seat.  

"I'm fine," Sakura replied, for the hundredth time, as she started to put on her seat belt.  

Syaoran closed her door and walked around to the driver's side and got into the car.  He thought for a moment before turning the ignition on.  "You said that you were attacked by the books," he repeated what she had told him earlier.  Sakura nodded.  "Yet, you didn't feel anything?" he inquired, focusing intensely on her face.

Sakura blinked and thought back to the attack.  She looked down at her arms, which she expected to be bruising from how she had covered her head to protect herself when the books plummeted down over her, but there wasn't anything there.  Had she not felt any pain at all during the attack?  She really couldn't remember.