[FFML] [CCS] Shadow of the Dragon chapter 6

[David Barry]

"Hey, Yanagisawa!" Asaba cried out.

The bespectacled girl turned toward him. "Is there something you want?"

"I was wondering if you could introduce me to Konagi-sama?" Asaba admitted.

"Oh, so you believe I know Konagi now?" Naoko asked in a haughty tone.

Asaba waved his arms wildly. "Are you kidding? Not only did she use the 
tavern brawl idea I gave you, she used my role-playing character to start 
it! She even went as far as ripping to shreds why he'd never be Black Wolf! 
I've got to meet her!"

"Konagi is a very private woman." Naoko smirked at him, giving the boy the 
impression she knew more than she said.

"I won't annoy her! I promise I'll be good!" Asaba pledged.

Naoko looked at him evenly. "Some how I seriously- MRPH!!!" The girl's eyes 
went wide in shock as she was violently grabbed from behind.

"What the hell are you doing, Satome?" Asaba demanded.

"Just going to 'talk' with her. Nothing that concerns you," Satome spat.

"Go on and run along," one of Satome's buddies ordered in an evil tone.

"I ned to consu meself," another one added, with the bandages wrapped around 
his face obviously hampering his speech.

Asaba didn't budge. He knew all-to-well the reputation these boys had, 
particularly Satome's. No girl would willingly go out with Satome after he 
'dated' a girl from the grade below them. She had been a lively girl before 
but she never talked about what happened with the thug, or anything else 
since then. There was another girl who got into an argument with Satome, and 
she didn't come to class the next day and was soon transferred from the 
school. Whatever these boys planned for Naoko, they likely didn't have her 
continued health in mind.

The boy's indecision was ended in pain as he was slammed up against a fence 
wall.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll run away now," the thug snarled.

"I won't let you hurt her," Asaba weakly vowed. He was answered with 
laughter and a punch to the stomach. "You can't get away with hurting her."

Satome chuckled coldly. "And how will I get in trouble? Will the school slap 
my hand again? We can't be expelled for any wrongdoing. Only one at risk of 
that is her, if she ends up pregnant."

Naoko's struggles intensified, but the restraining arms didn't budge.

"And it's not like his mother will prosecute her own son," the thug that was 
now painfully holding Asaba added.

Satome nodded with a strange look on his face. "Mom would smack me around 
before sending me to jail."

Asaba wondered if that was fear on Satome's face, but dismissed that as the 
bastard seemed to fear nothing, even teachers and police. "I won't let you 
get away with it."

"We can always remove witnesses," the thug holding Asaba insinuated before 
kneeing his captive in the groin.

Asaba let out a high pitch squeal of pain, though only his attacker laughed.

"Here I thought I heard a girl screaming."

Asaba turned to look at the Chinese girl that transferred into his class. He 
wanted to warn her, but he was still gripped with pain. He crumpled to the 
ground as the boy holding him let go. He soon found Naoko's hands touching 
him. "Run," he managed to moan out.

Naoko smirked sadly. "There's no need to. Meiling-chan has it taken care of, 
and Li-kun can't be far behind her."

As if to prove her point, there was the sound of air being knocked from a 
person's body next to him. Asaba looked up to see the bandaged-faced thug 
had been slammed up against the wall. He noticed while there was fresh blood 
on the white wrappings. The splash line suggested it was not from him.

"You still feel like getting some 'Chinese?'" Meiling questioned in a tone 
that seemed to be more evil than what the thugs had used before.

The bandaged thug shook his head furiously.

Meiling's, Asaba's, and Naoko's attention was drawn to the boy's pants as it 
changed color from becoming suddenly wet.

"Wuss," Meiling spat, letting go of the boy, who immediately collapsed to 
the ground.

Asaba finally had enough strength to look around and was surprised to see 
that both Satome and the thug that kneed him were lying on the ground, 
moaning in pain.

"What happened?" the Chinese girl's cousin asked as he arrived.

"Apparently shit-for-brains decided to hurt Yanagisawa to get back at us." 
Meiling indicated just who she meant by kicking Satome's prone form in the 
gut so hard that he vomited.

Syaoran shook his head before walking up to Satome. He grabbed the thug by 
the hair and hissed out, "New threat. If I find out you hurt Sakura or any 
of her friends, you will die slowly and they still won't find your body." He 
then slammed Satome's face into the vomit.

"He needs help. One of them kneed him where it hurts," Naoko told them.

Syaoran frowned. "Can you move?"

"Don't want to," Asaba groaned out.

"This is going to look wrong," Syaoran muttered, before he picked the boy up 
in a fireman's cradle.

"Can't I at least do this piggy back?" Asaba whined.

"If you don't care to have kids later," Syaoran returned.

Asaba said nothing more as he was carried all the way to school. There were 
murmurs of surprise of the already arrived students as they passed the 
courtyard and went into the school and headed straight for the nurse's 
station.

"What happened here?" the nurse questioned with concern.

Naoko had followed behind them. "He was attacked by Satome and two of his 
thugs for trying to protect me. One of them... well, kneed him... HARD."

The nurse frowned at the girl's statement, not just for the reported 
misbehavior. She lead Syaoran to place Asaba onto one of the beds and then 
ushered the Chinese boy and the others out of the way before drawing the 
privacy curtain closed.

Asaba didn't really mind having the attractive nurse check his injury, even 
when the attention was hurting him.

It wasn't long before a teacher arrived and demanded to hear what happened.

"Satome and two of his thugs grabbed and threatened to hurt me. Asaba went 
to defend me..." Naoko began. "And he put up a good fight even after they 
hit him first. He knocked down the last one at the same time the thug kicked 
him where it hurts."

Asaba smirked at the account. He could hardly be held responsible for 
fighting in such a situation, and he was 'guilty' up to that point anyway. 
And he didn't want it to get out that while he was pathetically defenseless 
against just one of Satome's goons, a lone girl kicked all of their asses.

"And how did you get involved in this, Li-kun?" the teacher demanded.

"I only got there after they had been beaten up. When I found out he was 
injured, I took him here," Syaoran replied.

"And you?" the teacher pressed.

"I was walking to school with Syaoran," Meiling answered flippantly.

"Where are Satome and his friends?" the teacher almost barked.

"We left them two blocks away on Nadeshiko lane," Naoko explained.

The teacher's head poked into the privacy curtain and scowled. "Who did this 
to you?"

"One of Satome's buddies. The one without the bandages." Asaba really hated 
the position he was in, and the view the male teacher was seeing.

"That doesn't exactly narrow it down," the teacher growled.

"There was only two with him this time," Asaba returned. He now wished he 
had at least learned the names of Satome's gang. He had been thankful to 
stay in a different class than them and meant to keep his distance for as 
long as possible.

-----------------------

Card Captors Sakura: Shadow of the Dragon

Chapter 6: Outside of Sakura's World

By: Lord Archive

Author's Warnings:

In accordance to movie rating system this series would be rated PG-13, and 
as for television would rate TV M for mature audience, but would be viewable 
with no edits save for some incidents of vulgar language. Due to subjective 
nature of the ratings, for FFnet this series has been labeled for mature 
readers for those who have poor views of some of the subject matter 
contained within.

This series contains:
Adult situations.
Sexual situations withOUT detailed description of sex nor the naked human 
body.
Brief moments of violence, some cases involving people getting severely 
injured and possibly death.
Occasional use of vulgar language.
Japanese humor: which include bathroom jokes, panty fetish and shocking 
situations.
Depictions of criminal activity committed by fictional characters.
References of homosexuality.

-----------------------

Reiko sighed as the school came to an end and the cliques immediately 
formed. The geek squad immediately set up some stupid game, the jocks 
compared egos, and the most popular students chatted about mindless 
nothingness. If Li Syaoran and Yamazaki Takashi weren't included in said 
group because of their relationship with two of the girls, that group of 
most popular students would then be the most popular girls that all the boys 
wanted to date.

Reiko had heard claims that cliques don't exist, but they were either 
deluded or blind. She had so wanted to be one of the popular girls and had 
done just about everything to get boys to pay attention to her.

Even with Sakura's small chest, all the girl had to do was her happy bounce 
walk and gain the attention of every boy. And Sakura didn't give boys any 
attention beyond Li Syaoran. Tomoyo was the picture of elegance and had more 
money than the gods, yet she had shown no interest in boys. Rika had some 
mysterious older boyfriend, and rejected any advances. 'Yamazaki-chan' 
Chiharu was more than taken, which somehow garnered her more interest. If 
Naoko didn't help the others with their schoolwork, Reiko doubted she would 
be part of the click. Li Meiling was becoming popular with the boys, but had 
yet to have anyone approach her as the boys seemed a bit frightened of her. 
Yet, with the exception of Naoko and Meiling, somehow turning away boys made 
them more desirable, while she had been ignored until she had given some of 
the jocks 'attention.'

As the Li cousins and Naoko left the classroom, Sakura suddenly bounced 
towards her. "Hi, Reiko-chan. Are you ready to work on that new cheer for 
the festival?"

Reiko wanted to groan at the empty-headed girl, but shrugged instead. "I'm 
ready. But isn't Meiling-san supposed to work with us?"

Sakura frowned. "Meiling-chan will meet up with us after she talks to the 
school disciplinarian."

Reiko blinked. "Why does she have to talk with him?"

Sakura looked away. "Something to do with Satome-san."

There was really nothing more that needed to be said. Satome headed another 
clique, one she was quite happy to have nothing to do with. She wondered 
what the gang had to do with Meiling, but really didn't want to know. 
Instead of inquiring more about that, Reiko asked, "Can she find my house?"

"Meiling-chan has the student directory and your house is just a bit further 
down the road from her apartment," Sakura assured her.

Reiko shrugged, kind of hoping Meiling would get lost and wouldn't be 
surprised if the foreign girl couldn't find her way through the city.

-----------------------

Batsu Teikei did not relish his role as being school disciplinarian. He had 
gone to this school with the intent of being a teacher first and foremost. 
The so-called promotion had come from his attention to student behavior and 
making sure they acted accordingly while in school. While he did not have Li 
Syaoran or his cousin in any of his classes, he certainly knew who they 
were.

Li and, to a lesser extent, his cousin were present at Tomoeda Elementary 
during the worst of the string of vandalization. While a few of the 
incidents predated Syaoran's arrival, most notably the stacked desks event, 
he was around when the elementary school's piano was roughly dragged through 
the school and tossed off the roof, during the mass escape of animals at the 
zoo, and other damaging events both on and off school grounds.

No one could find proof at who was responsible, but among the other leading 
suspects were Daidouji Tomoyo and Kinomoto Sakura, the latter of the two was 
reportedly dating Li Syaoran then and now. It seemed to be no coincidence 
that when monetary damage was involved, the Daidouji family quickly donated 
more money than the damage incurred to the school. Daidouji seemed like a 
saint during school hours, but he had to wonder how much of that was a false 
face to cover a spoiled and bored rich girl. That she was either the one 
leading the vandalism at the time or merely helped to encourage Kinomoto and 
later Li and his cousin to commit such acts.

Thankfully the middle school had yet to experience any vandalism, but he was 
not sure how much longer that would last. He had caught Li Syaoran fighting 
in the hallway already, and the boy had not been at the school for a month 
at that time. It was disturbing to see a kid so young skilled in martial 
arts to the point that a fight against Satome was completely one-sided 
against the school bully. He could not get any information from Satome and 
his goons about how they ended up so hurt a few weeks ago, but suspected 
that Li Syaoran was involved.

Teikei did not feel sorry for Satome or his goons. He had wanted to put 
those boys in their place long before questions of extreme misbehavior 
against a couple girls were rumored. He had some thoughts at what happened 
but, with the girls remaining silent and the boys not boasting about hurting 
those girls, there was no direct evidence anything happened. Without proof, 
his hands were functionally tied.

Now he had two different stories to contend with: one from Li Syaoran's 
friends and another from Satome and one of his thugs. He would be more 
inclined to believe what Yanagisawa said concerning the incident if not for 
painting an unlikely person as her hero. If he was going to get to the 
bottom of this, he had to try to find holes in the stories.

Teikei looked away from his window and towards the door when he heard 
someone knocking. "Come in."

"You wanted to see me, sir?" The Chinese girl stood at the door poised and 
firm.

"Yes, it's about the incident this morning." Teikei pointed at the chair 
across from his desk.

Meiling seemed to check herself before she strode with purpose to the 
offered chair and sat down. "What more is there to say?"

"Satome had a different story to tell than the one I heard from you and your 
friends," Teikei began.

Meiling rolled her eyes. "And are you honestly going to believe HIM?"

Teikei held up a thick folder. "Li Meiling, you do not have a clean history. 
I can go on a fairly long list of known school infractions both here in 
Tomoeda and in Hong Kong. That doesn't take into account the suspected 
activities of even worse behavior."

Meiling raised an eyebrow. "Suspected activities?"

"There's a report of seeing four children, two of which appeared to be 
Chinese, running from Penguin Park after numerous penguin statues were 
destroyed or damaged," Teikei accused.

"I wouldn't know anything about that." Meiling's eyes failed to look at his.

Teikei smirked, suspecting he had hit on something. Though with the Daidouji 
family, again, having paid for the damages and repairs, the issue had 
largely been dropped by the police long ago. "You can see my point that 
you're not the most reliable witness."

"And what of Yanagisawa and her boyfriend?" Meiling returned.

Interesting choice of words, Teikei thought. "While Yanagisawa does 
certainly have no history of causing trouble, she is friends with you, Li 
Syaoran, Kinomoto Sakura and Daidouji Tomoyo. It would not surprise me that 
she might lie to protect her friends."

Meiling squirmed like a fish on his hook and said nothing.

"Now I'd rather not dredge up the past and instead look at the present and 
future. The fact of the matter is that there has been fighting going on at 
this school and I want it stopped," Teikei stated firmly.

"You going to expel Satome and his thugs?" Meiling asked with a hopeful edge 
to her voice.

"We can't expel anyone," Teikei retorted. "What I can do is make sure the 
guilty individuals are appropriately punished."

"What does this have to do with us? Satome attacked Yanagisawa, and he was 
beaten up to protect her. Is that wrong?" Meiling demanded.

"According to Satome and his... friend, they never touched her," Teikei 
explained.

"They most certainly were touching her. Satome held her arms to her body 
with one arm while his other hand covered her mouth," Meiling retorted.

Teikei looked at her evenly. "If you weren't there until after they were 
beaten up, how do you know how Yanagisawa was held?"

"She told me," Meiling quickly replied.

"Right," Teikei replied disbelievingly. "And she told you this while Asaba 
was laying on the ground in pain?"

"No, while Syaoran carried him to the school," Meiling corrected.

"You know that is the weak point of both your stories. Asaba is no fighter, 
yet in your story he's the hero. In Satome's, he's the victim trying to help 
them. Neither of which rings true to me. Asaba could not have hurt them so 
badly, nor would a berserk attack lead to him being hit twice and then 
defend the story told of how he was injured," Teikei pointed out.

"Truth can be stranger than fiction." Meiling shrugged. "You can be 
surprised at what you can do when you need to do it."

"Indeed. Though I'm more apt to believe that there is some truth in both 
stories. That Yanagisawa was attacked, Asaba tried to defend her but was 
hurt in the process, then Li Syaoran attacked them in rage," Teikei told her 
evenly.

Meiling shot to her feet and slammed her hands down on the desk. "WHAT?! Is 
THAT what they told you?! That HE beat them up?!"

"Of course they pointed at him as the one who attacked them. Who else could 
cause such injuries on a person?" Teikei retorted.

Meiling didn't seem to entirely hear him. "Those freaking wusses won't admit 
that they got their ass kicked by a girl twice."

Teikei blinked in confusion. He almost wanted to laugh at the notion that a 
girl thrashed Satome and his thugs. He then stared at where her hands had 
been on his wooden desk. There were now two dented handprints on the 
softwood with cracks spreading from the impact. He leveled his gaze at the 
girl. "So you're saying that not only did you hurt those boys today, but 
also caused the injuries they suffered before?"

Meiling froze. She then folded her arms and flopped into the chair. "Yes, I 
did. AFTER they threatened to rape me, Kinomoto, Yanagisawa, Daidouji and 
Sasaki. The guy with his face bandaged specifically wanted me AND even after 
getting his nose broken, he intentionally looked up my dress. I don't know 
why Satome has such a beef with us, but he seems intent on getting back at 
us by raping Kinomoto or her friends. Yanagisawa was just an easier target."

Teikei frowned at her admission. "Did Satome really say he was going to 
'rape' you?"

"Oh, he said he wanted to 'train us' and bullshit like that,'" Meiling spat. 
"He was 'nice' enough to let Yamazaki-chan go. However, they made it clear 
with their actions that they wanted to screw us, even though we didn't want 
to be touched by any of them."

Teikei tapped his fingers in thought. That seemed more in line with the 
events, however the so-called victims didn't support it. It certainly 
explained why one was more injured than the others. And the 'unmanliness' of 
being beaten by a girl would keep their mouths shut as to how it happened. 
Though he doubted someone Satome's age was really going to rape a girl, 
rather he suspected the boy would've 'put the girls in their place' by 
beating them up. Still it left questions in his mind. "So, you've learned 
martial arts as well as your cousin, have you?"

Meiling laughed. "I was being taught how to fight as soon as I could walk. 
We have a family art that is taught to every generation. And I'm a rank 
higher than Syaoran now."

"Why would you be taught martial arts at such an age?" Teikei wondered.

"The Li clan is old, powerful and rich. People wanting that would turn to 
kidnapping children from the clan, and they would learn the hard way a Li at 
any age is not a foe to be taken lightly," Meiling explained proudly. She 
then glanced down at the desk. "I'll have that replaced."

"Don't think that will get you completely off the hook." Teikei hated 
dealing with children that had access to more money than he would likely 
have his entire life. "I don't want you to take matters into your own hands. 
I can't expel Satome even if I wanted to, but I can negate your Student 
VISA. Am I understood?"

"I will defend myself and my friends," Meiling vowed, before stomping out of 
the room.

Teikei got up and looked out the window of his office. He did not like what 
he was seeing. Bullies craved power, and Satome just ran into two students 
that surpassed him. The thug will be lashing out, trying to reestablish 
himself at the top of school. The fact that Satome had less followers today 
than what he had a few weeks ago showed the loss of power and respect. Even 
if the rumors concerning Satome weren't true, his violence would likely 
increase. He had to do something to keep this from escalating.

-----------------------

Reiko followed behind Sakura, wondering what boys saw in the airhead. The 
girl's auburn hair and green eyes screamed that she wasn't pure Japanese, 
yet that didn't seem to deter any interest and possibly added to it. Reiko's 
own pure Japanese beauty seemed to get swallowed up being in a crowd of 
girls with black hair and brown eyes. And despite Sakura's way of prancing 
around, Reiko suspected more guys had seen her own panties than that girl's.

Even as Reiko walked quietly through the streets of Tomoeda, Sakura swayed 
back and forth as if trying to rattle some sort of thought in her empty 
head. The girl's distraction continued even as they reached one of the 
busier intersections of the town.

Reiko's eyes widened as Sakura began to step into the street without 
looking. A large truck was driving down the road, and if the girl took 
another step she'd be hit by it. No word of warning came from her, yet 
Sakura turned and clumsily backed away from the street just as the truck 
roared past her. Losing her balance, Sakura awkwardly walked backwards a few 
steps before falling on her ass right in a mud puddle.

While Sakura whined pitifully, Reiko wanted to laugh.

Sakura stood up and tried to brush off the mud. "This is no good!"

"I guess you'll need to go home and get changed," Reiko commented, not sorry 
in the least that her time with the girl would be reduced.

Sakura looked around and smiled slightly at the apartment complex across the 
street. "Syaoran-kun's place is much closer. I can get changed there."

Reiko blinked in surprise. "You've got clothes at your boyfriend's place?"

Sakura blushed and laughed nervously as she looked both ways before crossing 
the street. "I was helping take care of Syaoran-kun when I caught the flu. 
Dad couldn't afford to get sick so I stayed here. I just... didn't take my 
clothes back home."

"Ah." Reiko nodded, not entirely believing the girl.

Silence once again followed them as they took the elevator up and then 
walked to Li's apartment. Reiko raised an eyebrow when Sakura fished out a 
key and opened the door.

Sakura rushed into the apartment. "Go ahead and have a seat. I'll be right 
back."

Reiko nervously entered the apartment, looking around expecting someone else 
to be here. "Where's Li-kun's parents? At work?"

"Hong Kong," Sakura replied from the room she had dashed into.

Reiko blinked. "Hong Kong? Then who's watching after him?"

Sakura didn't immediately reply. "No one."

"You mean that Li-kun and Meiling-san live here alone?" Reiko asked, 
suspecting that Sakura functionally lived here as well.

"Yes. Syaoran-kun said it had something to do with proving himself. That he 
would be able to take clan leadership in a few years," Sakura explained.

And probably have an heir thanks to the empty-headed girl. Though Reiko had 
to admit, for being in Tomoeda for over a month now, the apartment was 
surprisingly clean for two, well three, teenagers on their own.

Reiko mused over what she had just been told. The girl sure knew how to pick 
her boy. Rich enough family to send their son to another country and set him 
up in an expensive apartment like this one. She had to wonder why Li even 
came to Tomoeda originally, though there was little question as to why he 
was here this time-- to woo Sakura and bring her to Hong Kong as his wife. 
Though Reiko wouldn't be surprised that the boy was using the airhead to get 
closer to Daidouji.

Reiko jumped when the door to the apartment opened. She fidgeted seeing Li 
Syaoran and Meiling enter. She bowed to them. "Excuse my intrusion, but 
Kinomoto fell into some mud and insisted we come here so she could get fresh 
clothes."

Meiling laughed. "Figures. Give me a moment and I'll get changed as well."

Reiko said nothing as both of them moved towards the hallway. Li stopped 
before entering the one of them. "Sakura is in my room, isn't she?"

"Syaoran-kun!" Sakura chirped. "I'll be right out. I was trying to clean the 
mud off your carpet."

Li sighed and shook his head. "You know, you could practice here."

"I appreciate the offer, Li-kun, but I'm already running late getting home," 
Reiko quickly turned down the offer, not wanting the other two girls to have 
a chance to agree with him. "Besides, I would also like to get out of this 
uniform." She pinched at her short skirt for emphasis.

Li shrugged.

Meiling exited her bedroom. "We'll be rotating where we'll practice. First 
one is at Reiko-chan's as her mother wants to meet us."

"Ah." Li nodded.

Sakura finally exited the room now, wearing tan shorts and a green shirt 
with a blue stripe down the side that seemed a tad big on her and holding 
her school uniform carefully folded in her hands. She squeaked as Li snatch 
the school dress from her.

"I'll take care of washing these. You can pick them up later," Li told her.

Sakura blushed. "Thank you, Syaoran-kun." She fidgeted, seemingly debating 
to give him a kiss or something despite the audience.

"You always have to pick the shirts I bought for him, don't you?" Meiling 
smirked at the girl. "And Syaoran, you can wash my uniforms too."

Li rolled his eyes. "Sure."

"How did things go with the school disciplinarian?" Sakura wondered.

Meiling folded her arms irritably. "I got to buy him a new desk and I still 
might get punished for trashing Satome and his thugs. Fucking jerks got what 
they deserve. I shouldn't get in trouble for protecting Yanagisawa."

"At least he knows I really had nothing to do with this morning's fight," Li 
added.

Reiko stared at Meiling in disbelief. "YOU beat up SATOME?!"

Meiling smirked. "I'm of a martial arts rank where I can start to take on 
students." She then glanced at her cousin. "And when are you going to start 
training your student again?"

Li didn't answer, rather he merely looked at his girlfriend.

Sakura fidgeted. "I don't like martial arts. I know too much as it is."

Meiling poked the girl's forehead. "You can never know too much. You may 
come to regret not learning how to protect yourself that way."

Sakura pouted. "Some of the moves are just wrong."

Reiko wondered what Sakura meant, but was getting rather annoyed at this 
delay. "Can we get going? I need to get home soon."

"Yes!" Sakura chirped, eager to get out of the conversation.

"Sakura," Li called out before the girl could leave. "Be careful and mind 
yourself. Batsu-sensei believes you might have been involved in the piano 
and the park incidents a few years ago. Best to avoid trouble and not make 
him think you really were involved."

Reiko blinked. "Did you help toss the piano off our elementary school's 
roof?"

"That wasn't me!" Sakura denied, shaking her head feverishly.

-----------------------

"Yanagisawa!" Asaba cried out, chasing the girl after leaving the school and 
being interrogated last by the school disciplinarian.

Naoko turned with her eyes rolled. "Yes, Asaba-kun?"

"Um, why did you make me the hero of your story?" Asaba wondered.

Naoko blinked in confusion, but then smirked. "Li-kun already got in trouble 
once for fighting Satome-san, and I didn't want Meiling-chan or him to get 
in trouble. You weren't likely to be punished as you suffered enough 
already."

Asaba shifted. "Don't remind me. It still stings. I'm just thankful nothing, 
well, broke."

Naoko nodded, yet seemed to be trying to stifle some giggles.

Asaba sighed. "Can I ask you something?"

"I'm not going to introduce you to Konagi," Naoko firmly stated. "It's a 
matter of trust that can't be broken."

Asaba held up his hands defensively. "I wasn't going to ask you about that. 
And I guess I understand that it's not that you won't tell me but that you 
can't do it." He then looked away. "I know this is a bit early and the 
school festival is a few months away, but... would you go with me to the 
festival?"

Naoko stared at the boy for a long moment, but then her features hardened. 
"You're not trying to use me to get to Konagi, are you? I've had enough of 
boys asking me out just to get closer to Rika-chan, Sakura-chan or 
Tomoyo-chan."

Asaba shook his head. "That's not it! I mean, sure I'd like to meet 
Konagi-sama, but she's waaaaay older than me, right?" He swallowed hard as 
the girl's features didn't change. "Look, you're the only girl I've ever 
been able to talk with that I can relate to. If I was to start talking about 
werewolves fighting vampires, other girls would walk away while you'd 
correct me if I got something wrong."

Naoko folded her arms. "So you're saying that you're a geek, and I'm geek 
enough to understand you."

Asaba scratched the back of his head. "Er... well..."

Naoko walked up to him and placed her finger on his lips. "You better stop 
there before you dig yourself a hole, Shinji-kun. It's a date for now, so 
long as you behave yourself."

Asaba Shinji stared as the girl skipped away from him. He then smiled 
dumbly. "She called me 'Shinji-kun.' I've got a girlfriend!"

-----------------------

Reiko wanted to scream. As if spending her entire afternoon with an 
empty-headed klutz and a girl with the ego the size of Hong Kong wasn't bad 
enough, now she was once again walking with Sakura, this time to the market 
store to get a few items needed for dinner. At least once she was done at 
the market, she could leave the brain-dead girl and go home by herself.

Sakura happily chatted away about some idea she had for the cheerleading 
team that involved a display of gymnastics that only Meiling and her could 
do, which Reiko would be vetoing later. It sounded neat, but the team 
captain shouldn't be upstaged by her 'helpers.'

The roar of an engine and squealing tires caught the attention of the girls 
a half-block shy of making it to the convenience store. Reiko barely caught 
a glimpse of the driverless car barreling towards them before she felt 
Sakura roughly shove her out of the way.

Reiko moaned from where she now laid on the ground, rubbing her injured 
head. She didn't remember hitting anything, but she must have been knocked 
out. Confusion as to her injury gave way to shock seeing Sakura literally 
playing matador to a beat-up and driverless car. The blue economy car bared 
the damage caused by it ripping up the street in its attempt to run down the 
girl. More surprising than the murderous car was that Sakura was performing 
super-human leaps while holding a wand with a star on top to avoid being run 
over.

"How do I stop the car without making the damage obviously magical?" Sakura 
asked herself. She then smirked as she landed from a jump a fair distance 
away from the car. Once again the engine roared and barreled towards the 
girl who said but a simple word, "Earthy." A wall shot up out of the street 
right in front of the car. With a thunderous crash, the economy car 
compacted itself.

Sakura checked over the car and saw the engine was now in the driver's seat. 
She nodded to herself and the road began to shake like it was having a 
private earthquake. The wall disappeared and the ground moved like water, 
pushing the car into the wall next to where Reiko still laid where it had 
first tried to kill Sakura.

Reiko closed her eyes hoping to wake from this strange dream of Sakura being 
a magical girl. She then felt a small hand shake her.

"Reiko-chan, are you all right?" Sakura asked.

Opening her eyes and looking at the damaged car and other signs that the 
battle did happen left the girl speechless.

"Are you okay?" Sakura pressed.

Reiko sat up unsteadily and rubbed her head. "What happened?"

Sakura suddenly started to fidget, trying to rattle some story out of her 
empty head.

Reiko pointed at the car. "Were some guys joyriding in that stupid thing?"

"Right! That's it, boys were joyriding in it! Nearly hitting us!" Sakura 
blatantly lied. Her nervousness didn't wane. "Did you see... anything?"

"Nothing. All I felt was you pushing me headfirst into a wall," Reiko 
muttered.

"Sorry!" Sakura chirped in anguish. "I was trying to knock you out of the 
way."

"A headache is preferable to what that would've done to me," Reiko 
countered, pointing at the demolished car. She then forced herself to say, 
"Thanks." She didn't mean it in the least, considering she wouldn't have 
been in any danger if she wasn't with Sakura in the first place.

-----------------------

Asaba Shinji looked up as his mother arrived home from work. "Hi, Mom."

Mrs. Asaba appraised how her son was sitting awkwardly on the couch, yet had 
a goofy smile on his face. "Are you okay? I got a call from your school 
saying you had been beaten up."

Shinji nodded sheepishly. "Satome and two of his thugs were going to hurt 
Naoko-chan and I tried to protect her."

Mrs. Asaba nodded as to why her son got hurt, but then blinked. 
"'Naoko-chan?' Who's she?"

"My girlfriend!" Shinji chirped. "She's a girl in my class who reads a lot 
of books and is really smart."

Mrs. Asaba folded her arms and let out a short laugh. "She's a geek like 
you, huh?"

Shinji smirked weakly. "Yeah. But she's cool. Sure, she's not the best 
looking girl in class, but I can talk to her and stuff."

Mrs. Asaba sighed. She had hoped her son would wait until at least senior 
high before he started dating girls, but with how her son was turning out-- 
she had started to suspect she might have to arrange a wife for him. At 
least her son was on the right track in picking a girlfriend. A girl who was 
as much a friend as someone that he was attracted to. "So... when are you 
taking her out?"

"The school festival," Shinji replied.

Mrs. Asaba blinked. "That's months away. You need to do something with her 
much sooner, like this weekend. You have to pay attention to her, otherwise 
she can lose interest in you."

-----------------------

The sun had set while Satome Ryujin sat in the kitchen of his house. Food 
simmered in pots, yet despite his hunger he waited.

Finally his mother arrived home, muttering curses about stupid judges who 
don't have any commonsense and defense attorneys painting the victim as the 
criminal.

Without a word, Ryujin set the food onto the table.

"Can you believe these stupid men? Like a woman would honestly fucking ask 
to have her head smashed into a window. Just because she dresses in a short 
skirt doesn't mean she's inviting ugly and stupid men to have their way with 
her. Oh, no. Dressing provocatively is 'invitation enough' to assume she 
wants sex, and girls can't just say 'no' because that's rude," his mother 
ranted. "All men are stupid pieces of shit."

Ryujin swallowed nervously as his mother began helping herself to the meal 
he made.

His mother took a few bites of the food. "What is wrong with this rice? It's 
horrible!"

'That it was ready two hours ago and that you didn't bother to call and tell 
me that you would be late,' ran through his mind, but knew all to well what 
would happen if he did.

"This shit isn't fit for a dog! You can eat this slop like it should be, 
from the floor!" His mother dropped her plate onto the floor, which caused 
the porcelain to shatter.

Ryujin took a step back.

"Look at what you did to my good dishes," his mother hissed. She got up from 
the table and stalked towards her son. "I see I need to teach you another 
lesson why men aren't better than women."

Ryujin began to scream in pain.

-----------------------

Author's Notes:

Coming Soon: Chapter 7 - Sakura's Longest Day
While Sakura knows that two people expect to die soon, a sudden death 
catches everyone off guard.

I thought I would try something a little different this chapter and do it 
entirely in the perspective of non-canon characters. Getting a look at the 
CCS crew from the perspective of 'normal people.'

In regards to Satome, I am not condoning his behavior, merely showing why he 
acts the way he does. Nor am I suggesting that child abuse will lead the 
child to commit criminal acts. The two guys that are closest to being 
Satome's friends do not have such an 'excuse.' I just wanted to show Satome 
doesn't attack girls without 'reason.' He attacks them out of misplaced 
anger against his mother for hurting him. People deal with abuse and trauma 
in different ways, Satome took an unhealthy and criminal way to deal with 
his.

For this omake, a reminder: Shadow of the Dragon is primarily anime based. 
As such Fujitaka is not the reincarnation of Clow and the method of being 
reborn could have been different (though not necessarily as the way I 
present it here).

-----------------------

There was one aspect of reincarnation that Clow had kind of overlooked. That 
in being reborn meant having new parents and a new childhood. At least 
Eriol's parents were both magic-users, though this time his father was 
Japanese while his mother was British.

Being in a magical home, being the reincarnation of an ancient sorcerer did 
not come as a huge shock. They knew enough of Eriol's situation to allow him 
to do as he needed to make his heir ready. With his task completed in Japan, 
he had to return to home to England.

Now Eriol was trying to get used to being a normal teenager, well as normal 
a magic-wielding teenager might be. And not much can be so common place as 
to taking out the trash.

Though there were some things that were not common about Eriol. He smiled 
seeing Kaho walking towards him. "Good evening, Kaho."

"Hello, Eriol. How has your day been?" Kaho asked politely.

"Fine. Though Nakuru seems to insist on getting into trouble," Eriol replied 
with a smirk.

"And how much trouble have you caused?" Kaho pressed accusingly.

Eriol shrugged. "None that can be proved. Shall we go for a walk?"

Kaho nodded. "I'd like that, yet I know you have nothing but mischief on 
your mind."

"I must be me!" Eriol vowed.

Mr. Hiiragizawa watched the exchange from the window of his home and shook 
his head. "I still don't know who's robbing the cradle there. The teacher in 
her twenties or the fifteen-year-old student with centuries of knowledge."

"Love comes in all forms, even if we don't like it," Mrs. Hiiragizawa 
groused.

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