Chronicles and Trials: Day 1

*Note* This contains material from the published works of Barbara Kingsolver’s: The Bean Trees, and CLAMP's: Tsubasa Reservior Chronicles. I disclaim any ownership of these segment and give full credit to Ms. Kingsolver and CLAMP sama. This piece also contains spoilers for both Cardcaptor Chronicles, as well as Wishluv’s: The New Trials of Cardcaptor Sakura, and I disclaim any ownership to any and all referances to Wish chan's fan fic and it's characters.

As the bell echoed through the courtyard, the students of Seijo High packed their leftover lunches and shuffled into their classrooms. As class 2-C took their seats, the Classic Literature sensei began the afternoon’s lesson plan. She pulled out a small golden yellow book and began reading as her students followed along.

One student raised her hand in question. “Terada-Sensei, what page are we on again?” Terada-Sensei directed the student to the correct page, and then glanced at another student before continuing.

The student that had attracted her eye was a boy in the far back of the room with chestnut brown hair and emerald green eyes. The boy was staring blankly at his book; there was no point in listening since he had already finished the book several days beforehand, and so he instead allowed his mind to wander around other things. Sometimes the boy would glance over at the girl sitting next to him. She had only recently allowed her silky dark blue hair to grow past her shoulders, and her velvet blue eyes had a tendency to sparkle under her evenly parted bangs. The girl didn’t dare return the boy’s gaze however, for she knew that she could not allow herself to fall to fantasy.

Terada-Sensei took another pause to call upon a random student to read. “Hiiragizawa-San, will you please read the next paragraph?”

The girl with the dark blue hair stood up and began reading the selected paragraph. “Turtle shook her head. ‘Bean trees,’ she said, as plainly as if she had been thinking about it all day. We looked where she was pointing. Some of the wisteria flowers had gone to seed, and all these wonderful long green pods hung down from the branches. They looked as much like beans as anything you’d ever care to eat. ‘Will you look at that,’ I said. It was another miracle. The flower trees were turning into bean trees.”

It was only as the girl read that the boy with the brown hair actually paid any attention to what was happening in class. He sat there and allowed her velvet voice fill his ears, as it was one of the rare times he actually got to hear it these days.

When the Hiiragizawa girl finished, she sat down and Terada-Sensei called on another student. “Li-San, continue please.” Upon hearing his name being called, the brown haired boy snapped back to reality and rose from his seat. Now he had a different problem… he had no idea where they were.


*****

Elsewhere, two identical teenage boys and two identical teenage girls sat in a clear magical cylinder. The boys were separated from the girls by a clear wall dividing the cylinder evenly. The boys had brown chestnut hair and warm auburn eyes, and their cloths were torn and bloody from battle. The girls had short light brown hair and sparkly emerald green eyes and wore un-tainted white dresses with gold tarnishes.

One of the girls held the other’s hand gently. “No. That you guys were captured and made to separate again, it’s just like the future I saw in the dream.”

The other girl looked back at her confused. “How is that…”

“Since I was seeing, always, even when you were within stopped time... through you... what you saw…”

Then on the other side, one of the boys began scolding the second girl. “Why did you take her hand, knowing that you’d be caught up?”

The other boy stood up for her. “Because she knew.”

“So I understand just how much you care for us. But-”

The second boy placed his hand on the first boy’s shoulder. "I told you didn’t I? That your existence was important to me.” Then, in unison, the second boy and girl exclaimed “The same goes for me!”

The second girl turned towards the first girl and tried to explain her reasoning to her. “Certainly, it is difficult to change the things we saw in dreams, but…”

Outside the cylinder, a man with a bat emblem on his robes held the cylinder with the four teens, which seemed much smaller in comparison, and began shouting in anger at his crumbling plans. “You damned clones!"

A big man in black and a skinny man in white did their best to stop the first man from destroying their friends. "I'm going to break that thing!" the big guy called out. "You grab them!" The skinny man tried to use magic to free his friends, but stopped in his tracks. Instead, the magic was reflected and sent back to them.

Behind them, a small white creature that resembled a steam pork bun noticed something strange about the cylinder that held the teens hostage. “That’s the same as was at Yuko’s… as what Clow made!”

The man holding the cylinder mocked the big man in black and the skinny man in white. “Without the permission of those dragged into this, you can’t break it! You damned clones. From this world- no, I’ll erase you from every dimension!”

The skinny man in white reacted with another blast of power, but the magic was once again reflected.

“Fai! Kurogane!”

The four teens had seen enough and announced their victory in unison. “Changing what we saw in dreams is difficult, but if we are with those people who journeyed with us, we can change the future.”

“We refuse…”

“… to choose that future….”

“… we choose a world…”

“… in which we can all exist together….”

“… and that is why…”

“… without sacrificing a single one of us four...”

“We will escape from here!!”

The teens unleashed a fury of power in an attempt to escape from their magical prison. The man tried to convince the teens from doing otherwise, but they refused to listen. “Fools! If you posses magical power, you should understand that you cannot escape!”

Suddenly, wings flew from the backs of the two girls, one wing a piece, and the two girls spoke in unison. “This power that lies within us, is the power to surpass time and space.”

The man now had something to fear. “You mean to use that power to escape your prison?!”

“It is a power that only we can use.”

“Stop! I did not place that power within you for a purpose like this! Even if you leave there now, the laws of the worlds are already crumbling! By destroying your prison, you will only cause the worlds laws to be twisted still further! It cannot be reversed! In fact you’ll cause time space itself to collapse!! Your own existence’s will be reduced into nothing!!”

This time it was the boys to respond to their captor’s pleas. “We will move onward none-the-less.”

“Our choice is to move onward, never to stop!”

“Because we believe…”

“… in everyone!”

Now, as they prepared for their escape, the two girls called out to the worlds. “Feathers of mine, if you still remember me, along with all that has been carved into you, return to me!”

*****

The actions of the teenage girls were affecting other worlds as well. A great tremor was felt around the city of which Seijo Senior High stood, and the students and teacher hid under their desks. All except for the Li boy and Hiiragizawa girl. The girl stood up and used her desk to brace herself. “Seiru…”

The Li boy met her gaze. “I know, this is no ordinary earthquake. I feel a massive wave of magical energy.” Seiru turned to address the rest of his class as he pressed his left fist to his right palm. The girl also pulled out a key with a sun and wings at the base from her necklace. “Everyone stay calm, we’re going to go check this out!” Seiru pulled his hands apart, seemingly pulling a sword out of his open hand.

With that, Seiru and the girl raced out of the room toward the courtyard, and along the way the girl chanted to her key. “Oh key of the sun. Please, I beg of you, grant me your power. RELEASE!” in a reaction to the girl's spell, the key transformed into a short, golden staff with the same winged sun ornament at it’s tip. Seiru and the girl raced to the middle of the courtyard and turned to each other.

When they reached the courtyard, they were greeted by a girl with short brown hair and brown eyes. She wore the same uniform as them, but unlike the other girl, she wore pants instead of a skirt, and large light blue wings protruded from her back. "Seiru! Renae-Chan!”

"Onee-San!" Seiru responded, "what's going on?!"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. You two stay here and protect the school."

"Wait!" Seiru called out to his sister, but she had already left.

"Let's leave this to Hanna-Chan, she knows what she's doing."

"Sometimes I wonder about that." Another surge of power caused the earth to tremble more. "Alright, let's form a protective barrier around the school." Renae nodded and she and Seiru held their sword and staff to the sky and used all their power to form a barrier around the school. They spread the barrier as far as they could and managed to cover the Elementary school next door.

“Now what? The barrier won’t last forever, and I can already feel my magic fading.”

Seiru tried to come up with a solution. They needed to find the source of the quakes, but how? It could be coming from anywhere, and time was limited. Seiru could feel the quakes breaking through the barrier, and the ground began to crumble beneath their feet. As the plates shifted beneath the earth’s crust, Renae could feel the ground beneath her rising. Renae jumped down to join Seiru once more, but the ground was already crumbling away.

Then, a white light shone through the cracks in the earth’s surface, and the last pieces of ground faded beneath them. Seiru dropped his sword and grabbed hold of the edge with one hand, and Renae’s wrist with the other. Renae used the wings of her staff to hook the looped tassels of Seiru’s sword to keep from loosing it. “Seiru!”

“Hold on, I’m gonna pull us up!” Half blinded by the glowing white abyss, Seiru tried to pull himself out. If he could only use one of his hands, he could use his magic to create a wind to lift them out, but he couldn’t let go of Renae, and there was no telling what would happen if he let go the edge. Then, with another surge of power, the spot where Seiru had grabbed a hold of gave way.

*****

Despite having fallen through a hole in the earth, Seiru and Renae emerged in the sky over a forest. Renae gave Seiru back his sword, and then the two of them huddled together as Renae held out her staff. "Wings!" Similar to Hanna, wings grew out of their backs and the two of them floated in the air. Seiru and Renae looked out at their surroundings to try and gather their bearings. “Where are we?”

“Hard to say but, it looks like the forest outside of Penguin Park.”

“But how did we wind up in the sky over the forest if we fell through a hole in the ground at school?”

“I don’t know, I can’t feel that presence anymore either.”

Elsewhere in this new town, in a building identical to Seijo Senior High, a class of freshmen sat unfazed by the recent burst of magical energy. The only ones who seamed to notice anything at all were a handful of students in class 1-2. The first was a girl identical to the two girls trapped in the magical cylinder, except this girl appeared two years older. Second was the boy sitting next to her with jet black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and eyes that flashed golden yellow. Third was a boy with short, dark blue hair parted neatly down the middle, and his blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of glasses. Another girl, almost identical to the first boy, seemed to notice as well, but shook it off without much concern.

The first girl looked from her neighbor, to the other boy, who returned her gaze and nodded in the acknowledgment that they sensed the same things she did. The three waited until the end of school and met in a secluded part of the school. Joining them were two of their other classmates. Both were girls, one with dark black hair that shone a dark velvet in the sunlight, and complimented her velvet blue eyes stunningly; and the other had red eyes and wore her jet black hair in two bunned pigtails on the sides. Also joining them was an upperclassman with spiked brown hair and dark sunglasses, and a 3rd year Junior High student with short light brown hair and hazel eyes. The freshmen girl spoke first. “Everyone felt that presence before, right?”

The boy with the ponytail looked over to the boy with glasses as he responded. “Yeah, but it’s weird. It felt similar to Eriol-Kun’s power.”

The Junior High girl protested this thought. “But that’s impossible, Eriol’s right here, and the power I sensed came from the forest area just outside Penguin Park.”

The freshmen girl spoke again. “And it can’t be a Clow Card, I sealed them all. And the Dark Forces don’t feel anything like this. It might not be anything, but we should still go and check it out.”

Concern crossed over the blue eyed girls face. “But Sakura-Chan, you promised Chiharu-Chan you would help out with cheerleading practice today. You were going to teach them that move with the baton.”

Before Sakura could protest that it would be fine, the boy with the ponytail interrupted her. “I’ve got an important soccer meeting today too, so how about this. Sakura-Chan and I will stay here and hold down the fort, while you guys go check things out in the forest.”

Eriol nodded in agreement. "Then that’s what we’ll do. Sakura-San and Eron-Kun will go to their club meetings, and the rest of us will check on the presence in the forest. We’ll be sure to contact you if anything comes up.”

Hesitantly, Sakura agreed. “Alright, but I want to know everything that happens afterwards.” And with that, Eriol’s group headed for the forest while Sakura and Eron went to their respective club meetings.

****

Seiru and Renae went the rest of the way on foot, trying to preserve what remained of their magic. Renae shuttered as the cool breeze swept through her hair. “This place really dose feel like the forest outside of Penguin Park.”

“Yeah, the presence of spirits is as strong as ever, but something about it feels different two.”

Renae looked around and spotted a familiar looking clearing in the trees. “I know this area, this is the area where…” but she stopped before she could say anything else, and began to silently scold herself for bringing it up.

“Where Onee-San was being controlled by Dominion.” Renae looked back at Seiru with an apologetic glance. He tried to hide it, but she could still see the pain in his eyes. “Come on, the park should be this way.” Just as he had said this, there was a rustling in the bushes from the direction he had been pointing at. Seiru drew his sword and jumped in front of Renae in a protective stance. “Who’s there?! Show yourself!”

Out from the bushes emerged Eriol’s group, whom had followed the presence to that spot. Seiru and Renae were shocked by the sight of Eriol and the two black haired girls, and the looks on their faces were matched by Eriol’s group, who looked more at Seiru than Renae.

It was the young Junior High girl who spoke first. “Whoa, he looks exactly like Syaoran-Senpai! Well… except for the eyes that is.”

Seiru just about fell over, while Renae seamed slightly more amused. Typical.

“I think I know what’s going on here, but we should introduce ourselves first. My name is Hii-” Seiru panicked and quickly put his hand over Renae’s mouth before she could finish.

“What are you doing? If you know what’s going on, then you can’t just tell them who you are. After all, those people over there are-”

“I know what it seams like at first glance, but it’s not. Look over there.” Renae directed Seiru’s attention over to the two brunettes. “Do you recognize them, because I sure don’t? They’re not in any of Okaa-San’s pictures or videos. Besides, they look like they’re still freshmen, and Odou-san and Meilin-chan didn’t move back to Tomoeda until their senior year. We didn’t go back in time, we went to another world.”

“Okay, but I still don’t think we should tell them who we are.”

“But don’t you remember when that princess who was like Sakura-Chan and her friend who was like Syaoran-Kun came to our world? It was okay for them to know who you and Hanna-Chan were.

“Well yeah, but-”

“So don’t worry so much.” Renae turned around to face Eriol’s group once again. “Sorry to keep you waiting, my friend here is a bit of a worry wart. Anyways, as I was saying before…” Renae twirled her staff up and held it in both hands for everyone to see clearly. “My name is, Hiiragizawa Daidouji Renae, and this is my friend, Li Kinomoto Seiru.”

Everyone in Eriol’s group was stunned. Then, after a few minutes, they all broke the silence in unison. “EEEEHHHH!!!”

*****

Eriol lead everyone to his house before they started explanations. Seiru and Renae looked up at Eriol’s house in awe. It was a beautiful European style mansion with three floors and a balcony overlooking the garden out front. The Junior High girl looked at them curiously. “What’s wrong? You said you’re Eriol’s daughter, but you look like you’ve never even been here before.”

“That’s because we haven’t. Odou-San’s old house in Tomoeda was torn down a long time ago in our world. There’s an amusement park there now. In fact, that’s where Seiru’s Okaa-san told his Odou-san that she liked him.” Something about Renae’s statement made the Junior High girl’s expression turn solemn. “Is something wrong… Miss…”

“Miho, Tanaka Miho, and no, I’m fine… Wait, you don’t know who I am?”

“I'm sorry, no. I’ve never met anyone like you in our world.”

Eriol lead everyone into the dinning room where they all took a seat at the long table. Miho turned to the girl with violet eyes who had taken a seat next to her. “Tomoyo-Senpai! Why wouldn’t you tell you daughter about me?!”

Tomoyo looked over at Miho, then at Renae. The fact that this girl, who happened to be her age, could be her's and Eriol's daughter was mind boggling. Tomoyo caught a glance of Eriol looking in her direction, but she turned her head back to Renae before he could see her blushing.

Trying to spare Tomoyo from the spotlight, Seiru decided to step in and explain. “Being from different worlds doesn’t mean you would know the same people. We once met people from another world who were the same as my parents, but their friends back home, and even their families were different. That version of Odou-San was an orphan adopted by Okaa-San’s father, and that version of Okaa-San was a princess and Clow Reed’s daughter. They didn’t even know who Meilin-Chan was until they came to our world. Another person traveling with them named Kurogane-San, came from a world where Tomoyo-Chan was a princess, but he’d never met anyone else from Tomoeda there. He also said she had an older sister. As Fai-San explained it, in every world there are the same people who share the same souls, but they live completely different lives.”

Eriol pondered on this for a moment, but something didn’t add up. “So basically, each world is different, but the very root of the people themselves is the same. Something doesn’t add up though. The way you talk about your world sounds similar to ours, but how is that possible if each world is different?”

“Your uniforms are the same as ours as well.” Tomoyo pointed out.

“It might not be the exact same. Have you ever heard of the Clow Cards?”

The room went silent for a moment. Then, Miho spoke up with artificial cheerfulness. “Yeah, they're the magic cards that Clow Reed made. Sakura-senpai turned them into the Sakura Cards.”

“Okay then, my father, Li Syaoran, he’s from a large family known as the Li Clan, have you heard of anything like that?”

Once more the room fell silent. This time it was Tomoyo to break the awkward silence. “Yes we- we know of the Li Clan as well.”

Seiru and Renae took note of the small periods of silence, but both decided best not to ask for the time being. Renae thought for a moment about mentioning something else, and despite her better judgment, decided to go ahead. “Um… well… what about Gin Reed? Have you heard of anyone like him?” Renae could see the surprise in Seiru’s eyes out of the corner of her eye, but turned her head away to keep him from seeing her shame. He saw it anyway.

This time it was Renae and Seiru’s silence that was taken note of, but Eriol was now curious of other things. “No, we haven’t heard of him. Is he somehow related to Clow Reed?”

Renae nodded her head. She didn’t dare say anymore.

The boy in sunglasses decided to break the silence. “Now I’ve got a question. You mentioned the Li Clan before. What’s their hierarchy like?”

“Hierarchy?”

The girl in pigtails shot the older boy a warning look, but he brushed her off. “You know, who’s at top, who’s at bottom, ect.”

The question confused Seiru, but he answered it all the same. “Grandmother is the Head of the family. From the main branch, once the eldest son turns 21 they take over as Head, but since Grandfather died when Odou-San was still little, Grandmother took over for the time being. Of course, a son can’t take over as head if he doesn’t have magic, so since Odou-San and Okaa-San had to give up their magic before Odou-San was old enough to take over, it was decided that Grandmother would continue as Head until Odou-San or one of his sisters had a son that met the requirements. That’s me now, I’ll be taking over for Grandmother in about five years.”

The boy in glasses grinned at Seiru coyly. “I see, so it’s a branch system. Well isn’t that nice.”

“Is it something different here? Why-”

“Nah nah, just curious. So if you don’t mind me asking one more quest- Ow!” The boy in sun glasses was interrupted when the girl in pigtails kicked him under the table. She glared at him viciously, warning him to stop talking. “I was just gonna ask what they’re gonna do till they get back home. No need to be so mean Mei-Chan.”

Seiru and Renae looked at the boy in sunglasses questioningly. “‘Mei-Chan’”

Tomoyo giggled at them, now assuming that the boy in sunglasses wasn’t in their world either. “‘Mei-Chan’ is Kai-kun’s nickname for Meilin-chan.”

“Kai-Kun?”

Kai motioned as if he was taking of a hat and bowed. “Mizuki Kai, at your service. Now, I’m sure Eriol-Kun won’t mind if you stay here, after all you are practically blood, but as for school…” Kai pulled a slim black laptop out of his bag and opened it up on the table. “Now, as for your class… aw what the heck, how about class 1-2…”

Meilin glared at Kai again and started scolding him. “Now hold on a second Kai! How about asking Eriol-kun before you go offering stuff like that! And we don’t even know if they’ll be staying long enough to even go to school! Think about how suspicious that would be if they transferred into our school just to leave a few days lat-”

“Done. From now on you are Amamiya Seiru-Kun and Amamiya Renae-Chan, Tomoyo-Chan’s cousins visiting from out of town, and you’ll be attending Seijo High until you return home to… lets say Kyoto.”

“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!?!”

Miho slammed her hands on the table and stood up, startling everyone in the room. “Meilin-Senpai’s right, you can’t just go around deciding stuff like that for yourself! What if we don’t have room, or what if Li-San and Hiiragizawa-San don’t want to attract any unwanted attention?!”

Renae put her hands up and tried to calm Miho down. “Tanaka-San, it’s really alright, we don’t mind, and it’s not like Seiru and I don’t already have the uniforms.”

Eriol decided to intervene as well. “Besides, we do have plenty of room, and if we say they are only visiting then no one will be suspicious when they leave.” Miho didn’t say anything in response, but instead shot Kai a murderous glare before storming out of the room.

Renae and Seiru were baffled by Miho’s sudden outburst. They knew Meilin from back home, so her reaction was nothing new, but Miho came across as a very cheerful girl, so this seamed a bit unusual. “Is she alright?”

Tomoyo turned to them and smiled. “She has a few things to work out. Anyway, there is one thing we should discus if you two are going to be attending our school. I don’t think we should tell Sakura-Chan who you two really are.”

“But why not? You and Odou-San are fine knowing.”

“Renae, some people are uncomfortable meeting their children, being they from the future or another world.”

“Well, if you guys. I still don’t see the harm though.”