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The Labyrinth	By : Capitalist Category: +. to F > Card Captor Sakura Views: 10491 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, nor any of the characters from it, nor do I own Labyrinth. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Chapter 12
‘the cause’

Consciousness filtered into him, gradually, nudging him to open his eyes. The light was warm, but not too bright, and he blinked once or twice before his vision adjusted. The familiar yellow walls of his bedroom seemed oddly out of place, for a moment. Why?
His mind stirred as it tried to recall, but the effort only woke him further and scattered the lingering fragments of his dream like blossoms in a stiff breeze.
Was that it, then? A dream? Touya couldn’t remember, didn’t even remember falling asleep. Yet asleep he had clearly been, he was sprawled across the covers of his bed and still dressed in his jeans and navy shirt. He moved to sit up and winced at the ache that rippled through his muscles. He was awfully sore, for some reason.
falling, tumbling down through the dark tunnel
He blinked and tried to focus on the memory but it was gone already, like a firefly’s flash in the corner of his eye. He told himself it didn’t matter, it was just a strange dream, but his unease persisted. It was so quiet in here. It wasn’t normally this quiet. Something wasn’t right.
Gingerly Touya stood up and crossed from his bed to the door. He vaguely felt the need to check on something –
He put his hand on the knob and the door burst open. He caught a glimpse of piles of trash and the night sky outside before a walking, talking bundle of junk invited itself into his room.
“Whoa now, dearie, you don’t want to be goin’ out there, no no no, not a place for you!” The animated bundle was actually just a burden on a tiny old woman’s back, short and squat with wrinkled green skin. Like an ugly hermit crab with its oversized shell she trundled into his room and backed him up to his desk. He sat down heavily in his chair with a thump. “That’s right, have a seat, make yourself nice and comfortable. You shouldn’t have to get up, now should you?”
Touya fumbled to catch up with this incongruous arrival, opening and closing his mouth a bit stupidly.
“I…” he tried, “I was trying to do something…” She nodded wisely and pushed a notebook into his hands; automatically he clutched at it.
“It was this, wasn’t it, dearie? You were trying to finish this.” Touya’s eyes ran down the familiar equations of his chemistry lab report, and he nodded.
“Yes. I have to get this done.”
“That’s more like it, got to keep the grades up you know, can’t be falling behind, mm-mm-mm.” She pressed a pencil into his hand and he tapped it against the edge of the sheet absently. This was easy, balancing equations, but when he tried to concentrate the answer only slipped away.
This wasn’t what he was trying to do.
He returned his homework to his desk and tried to get up, but sat back down again when she dropped a load of CD cases in his lap.
“And how about your pretty music, hmm? Such a wonderful collection, such good music should be listened to don’t you think? Play it nice and loud.”
He did have a great collection of music. Uncertainly he fingered the case for his Metallica: Master of Puppets album and then opened it. The shiny surface of the disc reflected his puzzled black eyes. Something about that phrase reminded him of something.
dropped to his knees, like-
Metallica and all his other CDs disappeared when the scraggly woman thumped his football on top of the pile, knocking several of them to the floor.
“And what about this? Can’t forget to practice, have to be the best out on the field don’t we? Everybody expects you to win!”
win what? well, nothing. win the game.
Memories taunted him, slipping through his mind faster than he could catch them and inciting a fresh burst of anxiety with every quicksilver sensation. This football wasn’t what he wanted, his music wasn’t what he wanted. It was something more important than that.
“Oooh, and look at this!” The old dwarf seemed so determined to keep pushing things in his hands and onto his lap, and this time it was his cherished airplane model. “What a work of art, must be proud of that one, I bet. Clever with your hands, are you?”
Yes, he always had been. Models and construction were easy for him.
solved the puzzle on the door, c’mon let’s go
He was eleven when he’d done this one, assembling it independently without bothering to look at the directions. It took several days and it had come out near-perfect, at least until… He turned it over in his hands, so he could see the ugly mutilation on the tail. He’d never been able to repair it completely, after it hit the floor with a sharp crack. And he’d been so furious at her for clumsily bumping into the table as it dried.
“Her…” Touya whispered, running his fingers over the distorted plastic.
can I have a story?
His mind strained so hard to remember that it hurt, but the pack rat woman squeaked and plucked it out his hands before he could pin down the flickering mental image.
“Oh! Uh, I know!” She cast about a bit desperately before grabbing a book from the shelf and practically throwing it at him. “You always did like a nice quiet read, why don’t you relax and have a go at this one?”
It just so happened that she’d selected To Kill a Mockingbird. Required reading for his class two years back, but he’d kept the book anyway because he found it so interesting. The cover picture showed Radley’s pocketwatch – he opened the watch – dangling from the knot hole in the tree for Jem.
“Time,” he murmured, tracing a finger across its face. “It had something to do with time.”
something he was supposed to be looking for
“Er, maybe not a book, then,” she babbled. “How about, um -”
She was running out of things to throw at him, and Touya wasn’t paying attention to her anyway. Eyes still locked on his book, he stood up and his football and CD cases cascaded to the floor with a clatter. He paid them no attention either.
“This book is about a boy. His mother is dead and his father works all the time. He’s the one that has to…” His fingers teased the pages, trying to recall.
and right now
Anxiety ballooned inside him, straining against an invisible net that threatened to snap. The old woman had fallen silent, watching him apprehensively.
“He has to take care of his sister.”
onii-chan, please don’t leave me!
Her terrified green eyes pierced the mist and everything came back in a rush: the mistaken wish, the labyrinth, the deadline.
“I have to find Sakura!”
Panic crashed down over him and he bolted for the door, almost slamming right into it in his haste. How much time had he lost, was it too late already? What if- what if…
Ignoring the old woman’s squawks of protest, he fumbled with the knob and yanked the door open. He could see nothing but a solid wall of junk: piles and piles of rotting wood, cracked pottery, dirty and shredded scraps of cloth. Touya’s heart pounded with the adrenaline of a near-forgotten duty, he couldn’t believe he’d let himself be delayed so long and now he didn’t even know where he was.
Without thinking he threw himself on the pile and started to climb, scrabbling over the small mountain with debris tumbling to the ground behind him.
“My collection!” she shrieked somewhere behind him but he didn’t stop, not even to catch his breath. It burned into his lungs, hot and painful gulps of air that he couldn’t take the time to smooth out. He had to get out of this place, he had to find his sister!
“Hey Touya?” a familiar voice called out somewhere above him. “You down there?”
“Yes!” he shouted desperately. “Yes, I’m here, I’m coming up!” The sound of Kero’s friendly voice reached out to him like a beacon and he scrambled toward it, swearing when his foot slipped and grazed something sharp.
“Where- oh, there you are!” Practically glowing against the rest of the dark and gritty junkyard, Kero peered over the edge of the pile and spotted him. “I was startin’ to get worried!”
Finally Touya pulled himself onto what was more or less the top of the heap and his panic subsided a little. The sky above was still a dusky velvet purple, it couldn’t be too late. It was okay to stop and breathe. He inhaled a lungful of clear air and then exhaled slowly, noticing that his hands still trembled a little.
“What happened?” Kero was complaining in his ear. “I just flew on a little ways and when I came back I couldn’t find anyone! I looked and looked and then I finally heard your voice here. How’d you ever wind up in this dump, anyway? It’s practically on the city limits.”
“I don’t know.”
Kero creased his brow in puzzlement, then decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. “Well, in any case, we’re almost there now! Are we going or what, where’s that kid?”
“He… won’t be coming, anymore.” Touya had to look away. “He left.”
“Oh.” Kero seemed a trifle disappointed. “And I was just gettin’ used to him, too. Ah well, ready to go?”
Touya nodded and tried to stand, balancing precariously on the ramshackle mountain. But when he took a step something shifted and he nearly toppled face first into the mound.
“Hang on,” Kero offered, and before Touya knew what was happening he’d snagged the back of his collar with his teeth and lifted him bodily into the air. A startled exlamation escaped his lips, and he fought the fleeting urge to struggle. He wasn’t used to being carried, but the tiny beast was at least relieving him from a walk over this treacherous heap.
“Um, thanks. I didn’t think you were this strong.”
“Rrr-rr-r-r-rrrr,” Kero replied, sounding a bit strained. Touya didn’t speak anymore after that, and finally Kero dropped him at the edge of the yard with an exhausted groan.
“You okay?” His normally golden complexion looked a bit bluish, but he took several gasping breaths and nodded rapidly.
“I am Cerberus, guardian beast, after all! There isn’t anything I can’t do! Except maybe win an argument with my brother,” he added as an afterthought. Vaguely Touya wondered just who Kero’s brother was, but most of his attention was already on the grim stone wall running across his path. Just overhead he could glimpse the tips and peaks of a few rooftops, and beyond them the astonishingly close castle reaching up into the sky.
After so many setbacks and detours, he’d finally made it. He’d reached the city in the center of the labyrinth.

Li ran, blindly, the familiar walls of the labyrinth streaking past him in a blur, desperate to flee and neither knowing nor caring where his panicked sprint took him. If he kept moving it would be all right, if he could just stay one step ahead of his actions then he wouldn’t have to remember them, wouldn’t have to see that pitying look of understanding in Touya’s black eyes anymore. Just keep running, leave it all behind.
Something snagged his boot and he tripped, falling hard against the unforgiving stone floor. The impact knocked all the wind right out of him and he didn’t move to get up again, wheezing, his raspy breath echoing in the quiet corridor. No one else to hear, he was all alone. He was so tired of being alone.
The tempting trickle of cool water filtered through his loud panting, eventually, and wearily he raised his head. He was lying just a few steps from another fountain, crystal clear water sparkling in the moonlight as it poured from a stone bird’s beak. His injured arm aching with the movement, Li pushed himself off the ground and stumbled forward, cupping his hands to catch the flow and splashing his face. It was a relief, but then he caught sight of his reflection in the rippling surface and his stomach twisted with nausea. His face wasn’t something he wanted to see right now.
“Why shouldn’t I, though?” he muttered. “It’s not as if I had a choice. I had to do it. He’s the king.”
And he, the Little Wolf, his loyal subject?
“Never!” Memories of his public humiliation flashed through his mind; the old scars on his back burned with pain. “I hate him! But he would have killed me.”
So was he afraid then?
“I’m not a coward! I’m a fighter and with my sword I can take on anyone!” Subconsciously he clutched at the little lump under his shirt, the most precious object he’d ever owned. Now he could carry it freely.
And fight who with it?
“That’s not the point,” he snarled at his reflection. “It’s more than just the sword.” His troubled face blurred and again he saw the little sister dancing in her white dress, sweet and kind and pure. He could never be those things but he would cherish them in her, protect her always.
“I don’t want to be alone anymore. She would be with me, she’d look up to me.”
After selling out her older brother?
“But it’s his fault she’s here in the first place! She’s prisoner because of what he said.” His own words took him by surprise and he hesitated. She belonged to Yue now, she was his prisoner. When he gave her to Li, would that make her Li’s prisoner?
Was he just like Yue?
“I’m not anything like him!” Li shouted furiously, forgetting that there was no one to shout at. “Yue is cruel and vicious, he looks down on us, plays with us.”
Played with him, dangling promises of weapons and girls in exchange for betrayal of the one person who actually had the courage to stand up to Yue.
That person certainly wasn’t Li.
The horrible truth hit him like a blow to his stomach and he sank to his knees, hand over his mouth. He didn’t like Touya but somehow that made it so much worse, watching him fight so hard to beat the labyrinth even when it was obvious he didn’t stand a chance, earning a reluctant admiration from Li even if he wouldn’t admit it. He’d never given up.
“He trusted me,” Li choked, his stomach roiling. Touya had trusted Li in spite of their mutual dislike and Li had turned against him, effectively offering him up to the one person Li hated more than anything.
He’d become just another servant of Yue’s, for the price of a sword that he would no longer need. Unable to bear it any longer, Li tipped forward and threw up.
He was a coward after all.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Sorry, Scorp, I just couldn’t think of any suitable canon character to take her place, though I would have dearly liked to. In the end I felt it safer to just stick with the role as the movie played it. It’s hard to decide whether to dislike her or feel sorry for her.
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The Labyrinth