Generations of Card Captors - Chapter 26 - Improvisation

[tamchronin]

One chapter left, and my oldest CCS fanfic will finally be at an end. For good, or for bad, I'll be done with it and have it behind me.

I'm not much in the mood to ramble, so here. Have a fic.


Generations of Card Captors

Improvisation

Eriol flipped the cards, one after the other after the other. Some matched Sakura's cards, nearly exactly, while others were completely unique to his deck. He wasn't Clow. He had his own life, his own dreams, his own hopes...

...and they were all sublimated by the magic power he'd inherited. Even halved it was too much to contain, and the cards were a good use to pour the energy into, but he grew more powerful at the same time. He knew it would happen, but he didn't see how he had much of a choice.

Would it ever end?

He heard laughter in the hall and felt magic burst in upon him, but it wasn't hostile at all. "Grandfather doesn't like to be interrupted," little Akane's high-pitched voice carried and echoed. "But if you crack open the door just a bit--"

Eriol stood and walked to the door, swinging it open and interrupting. "Akane-chan, you're supposed to be taking a nap now," he admonished gently.

His granddaughter jumped and ran down the hall to her bedroom, but there would be no sleeping this afternoon. Akane was looking at the stranger with strange clothes and even stranger flaming red hair who stood at the door, waiting expectantly. "I'm sorry," the young lady said, and then repeated herself in halting Japanese.

"English is fine," he said, opening the door to let her in. "Hello, Rayne."

Everything was repeating, and he knew that somewhere else, at this very moment, Sakura was having a similar encounter of her own. He felt trapped by a giant wheel of fate, and he'd trapped Sakura with him. Had he trapped these other two, as well? How much did he have to atone for, that Clow had started so long ago?

"This house-" she murmured, looking around in wonder.

He smiled and he gestured toward a chair. "Sit," he invited. "Return takes a great deal of energy. You should rest."

"It's important-" she tried again, as she sat down.

"It would have to be," he murmured, helping her sleep. He didn't have the Return slip her ahead in time, though. Things were different. He just needed to think, while he let her sleep and regain her strength so she would not get lost on her way back to the future.

He just had to think.

There shouldn't have been a reason for either Rayne or Will to use these cards to come back to this point in time. Eriol knew that there should have been other obstacles, other problems, that didn't include himself and Sakura. His visions had been vague, but he'd felt pretty certain that--

"Something changed," he murmured to himself, just as the telephone rang.

He answered on the first ring. "Sakura," he said. "Something's gone wrong."

Strangely enough, she was the one who calmed him down this time. Of course things didn't always go according to visions and elaborate schemes. There was an unknown variable, according to Will, and he was being stubborn about telling her what that was.

Finally, Eriol sighed and looked at the young lady asleep in his chair. She looked so much like Kaho, and for a moment it hurt his heart to be reminded of what had been. But, he also took heart that she would have this future ahead of her, to find happiness.

He stooped to gather Rayne in his arms as he hung up the phone, and a moment later he was at Sakura's home, in the basement that he called her inner sanctum and she just called the room where she tried new things.

Will started forward protectively as the two appeared, and Eriol raised a hand to warn him off. "She hasn't been harmed, she is just sleeping."

"How?" Will hovered close while Eriol set Rayne down carefully and comfortably on Sakura's couch. The couch was overstuffed, a bit battered with age and covered in golden fur from all the time Keroberus spent napping upon it. He didn't think Rayne would mind, though, considering how she was fast asleep.

"I helped her," Eriol said, touching her softly on the shoulder. "It will help her when this is over, since I'm sure you'll both need as much strength as you can gather once you return to your time."

"Oh!" Sakura cried, sounding child-like in her distress. "I should have--"

"No way," Will said firmly. He did look a bit on the haggard side, but Eriol had no doubt that Will would triumph through sheer stubbornness, if he had to. "I can handle this."

"You have changed more cards than Rayne has," Eriol said calmly, sitting down on one arm of the couch. "Am I right?"

"There were circumstances," Will said defensively.

Sakura smiled at him charmingly. "It's okay. I'm proud of you."

"You...are?" He looked at her a little strangely, but he relaxed.

"Of course!" Sakura insisted. "I've gone through what you, and what Rayne-chan, are going through right now. And, if Yue, and Kero, and Suppi, and Ruby Moon all approve, than I'm happy for you, and for them. Right, Eriol?"

Eriol looked at her in surprise for a moment, at how easily and enthusiastically her words had come out. "Yes," he agreed, smiling at her infectious happiness and enthusiasm. "I should have woken Rayne to hear that, too. You've said it better than I could have." As he spoke, he released Rayne from her magic sleep, trusting that it had been enough.

"That's because you haven't gone through it," Sakura teased him. "Not the same, at least."

Rayne sat up slowly, blinking sleep from her eyes and looking around in slight confusion.

"It hasn't been the same for either of us," Will said. "Everything went wrong."

At that, Rayne sat up straighter, leaning forward and looking worried. "We came, because we had to ask you! Where did you two go?"

Will sat down next to Rayne solemnly, nodding.

"Go?" Eriol and Sakura exchanged worried looks.

"The two of you," Will started, and then shook his head. "No. Michael and Michelle were there, for my Judgment, and you said you would be back. But they--you--never came back."

Sakura covered her hand with her mouth, looking more worried by the moment.

Even Eriol didn't know what it meant. None of that sounded right. It wasn't what was supposed to have happened. He looked at the two visitors from the future gravely, wondering what it meant.

"They are where they need to be," Eriol said slowly, feeling the words come to him from some other place. "The two of you, together, are doing what needs to be done, as well. But if we, if they, said that they would return, then they will return."

"You'll know, when you need to know," Sakura said, and she looked at Eriol with both surprise and understanding. The magic was speaking through them, telling them what needed to be said. And when Will and Rayne both looked like they were going to protest, Sakura placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Don't worry. It will all work out okay."

And then they were gone.

Sakura slumped, sitting down in the space just vacated. "Did we even help them at all? We don't have all of the answers. I feel like all we did is state the obvious and send them off with riddles."

"That is all we did," Eriol said, settling beside her. "But I have confidence that we helped them as well. We couldn't answer the question they did have, but I think we may have answered some questions they didn't know that they needed answers to."

"I wanted to be more helpful than Clow was," she teased him, laughing slightly.

"Instead, you've become just as bad," he agreed, trying not to look smug.

"He wasn't bad," Sakura said, somewhat sternly. "He was wonderful. Just like you are."

"So are you," Eriol said gently. They hugged, and then Eriol went home. He had an overwhelming urge to spend as much time with Tomoyo as he could, in the last few years he would have with her.

~~~~~@~~~~~

Brian waited impatiently for Rayne and Will to regain their strength, pacing to burn off excess energy while the two of them consulted with their guardians over their dilemma. Sure, he'd felt left out since everything had begun, but this had brought it to new heights as the two of them were working together, and there was nothing Brian could do except wait.

He shook his head violently, trying to shake off the feeling. It wouldn't do him any good to give in to his envy. There's nothing those two could do that he couldn't have, if he'd been in their shoes.

Nothing they could do that he couldn't.

If.

His eyes went wide as realization rushed through him almost like an electrical shock. What if he didn't have the cards because he'd "lost"? What if it wasn't a competition he'd lost this time, and possibly last time as well? He knew--he'd known all along--that he was the reincarnation of the head of the Li clan the last time the cards were in play. There were no coincidences in this world.

But, if there were no coincidences...

Before he could second-guess himself, he was accessing old files from home. His fingers moved with lightning speed; searching, pausing occasionally to put in his password or thumbprint as he delved into archives he hadn't thought to research before. He knew they were there, but Brian hadn't given many of them more than a cursory thought, because he thought the cards were the key.

The cards were a crutch.

Clow's research was the key.

Well, maybe crutch was the wrong word. They were certainly useful tools, and they weren't exactly easy to master. But, Brian knew that for him they'd have been a crutch, and he didn't need a crutch.

Maybe what he needed, after all this time, was to prove himself. Not to everyone else, but to himself.

And here before him was all of the information he would need.

The notes were incomplete, and encrypted heavily. There was no direct way to go by literally what Brian found and create your own cards and guardians. No one was that stupid, and Clow had guarded his secrets well. What was there was enough, though, that with other knowledge he had gained and sudden flashes of intuition, he knew exactly what he'd have to do. He knew how to do it. He wondered if this was how Clow had felt when the idea itself had first come to him. He was both giddy and scared at the same time from the flood of knowledge that suddenly inundated his mind. It was too much to contain at once.

But, he knew with certainty that he could do for himself what Clow once did.

He didn't even think about it. Rayne and Will weren't even paying attention to him anymore as they spoke with their guardians more in depth about their visits to the past. Rayne was upset about something, but she had also been the first to recover so she might simply have been more energetic about whatever they'd found out.

He'd find out later, whatever it was. This distraction was the perfect opportunity to slip out and walk to the nearest park, where he would have peace and privacy, as well as something resembling a connection to nature. Well, at least things there were green and growing. That was better than the average back yard.

Brian found a small stand of trees, sighing at the shortcomings of this spot as a magical staging ground for something so big, but it would do. He would make it do. He did not want to be dissuaded or distracted. He sat down to begin preparing himself mentally--

"You're making a big mistake."

Brian cracked open an eye, looking into the darkness. He couldn't quite see anything, but he knew who it was regardless.

"Probably," he answered with measured patience, "but when I said the same to you, lifetimes ago, that didn't stop you from making the same mistakes."

Michael hopped down from the trees, landing gracefully in front of Brian. "You remember it all, don't you?"

Brian shook his head slightly. "Some. Enough. But not all."

"Enough," Michael agreed, moving to sit beside Brian. "Li Chang. Li Syaoran. Li--"

Brian cut him off with a glare. "I know who I was, and I know who I am now, thank you."

"Why are you doing this?" Michael put a hand on Brian's shoulder, shattering the remains of Brian's concentration.

"Why did Clow Reed to this?" Brian countered, rising to his feet defensively, shrugging off Michael's hand in the process. "Arrogance. Confidence. Burning with the knowledge that such a thing can be done. And bending under the weight of knowing that it must be done."

"Destiny?" Michael said softly. He stood slowly, as if the weight Brian had spoken of had a physical weight that bore down on him at that moment. "You're changing everything, by trying to do this. Do you understand just what you'll be attempting?"

Brian stood his ground. "Did you?"

Michael looked at Brian in silence for an uncomfortably long time, but Brian wouldn't back down or retract the question. He waited, finding patience he didn't know before that he really possessed.

"I thought I did," Michael finally said. "But, I really didn't."

Brian nodded. "That's one advantage I have over Clow Reed. I know that I don't, but I'm going to do it anyway. But, I have other advantages." He held up two fingers. "The knowledge of what went wrong before. Someone who will guide me away from those mistakes," he counted them off.

Michael looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"You're not here to stop me," Brian said. "You're here to help me."

Michael laughed, staring at Brian in wonder and surprise. "You're not the same person you used to be."

"I'd hope not," Brian said, relaxing at last. "If I hadn't learned a thing in all these lifetimes, wouldn't it be a waste?"

Michael nodded, eyes still twinkling. "Next month, there will be a solar eclipse. I've wondered what sort of guardians would come of that sort of energy."

"I don't know if I can wait that long," Brian slouched. "There's this feeling of urgency. I think they'll--I think Rayne and Will are going to try to stop me, if I don't get it done while they're preoccupied. They'll know if I don't do it today. Right now."

Michael nodded, the wisdom of his previous lives shining through his eyes. "I'm counting on it."

~~~~~@~~~~~

Yue finally stood, glancing out of one of the windows and shaking his head. "We've been going over this most of the night, and we don't have any more answers than what we started with. Perhaps, with some sleep..." He trailed off, giving Will a significant look.

Will nodded, stretching and rubbing his eyes. "I should be at home, anyway. Mom will get worried if Brian and I--" he broke off, looking around. "Where's Brian?"

They all looked around, using more senses than just sight to look for the missing member of their group, but there wasn't a trace of him.

"He might have gone home," Spinel Sun was quick to offer a simple explanation.

"That Li brat isn't there," Cerberus countered immediately. "I'd know that much at least."

"Brian isn't the sort who would just take off without saying something, unless it was urgent," Will said slowly, walking toward the door. "But, we'd have noticed something like that. Wouldn't we? I mean, we're not that weak...not anymore."

All four guardians exchanged silent and inconclusive glances, and the silence built up in the room. Whatever had happened, it was unknown. For now.

"We'll deal with it in the morning," Rayne finally broke the silence. "It's not as if we've had any dreams of dire and dreadful warning, right?"

"Right," Will said, with more confidence than he felt.

But, that night, the dreams began.

Everything had changed.