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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
- 6
- 7
- 8
riparian (from the Latin ‘riparius’): relating to or located on the bank of a natural watercourse, most generally a river

Chapter 7
‘ripariat’

Touya wasn’t sure how long they fell, through the seemingly endless darkness. It seemed to go on forever and yet almost immediately they were bumping down a near-level chute before it ejected them – rather painfully – in a heap on the stony ground. Touya rolled over onto his back with a slight groan, cautiously checking his body for any broken bones or massive hemoerrhage before he decided that he was still alive and capable of motion.
Gingerly he pushed himself to his feet and stood, legs a little shaky but holding up okay, and he took a deep breath.
And then Li slammed into him, knocking him back against the wall so hard that he yelped in pain.
“Ouch!”
“You idiot!” Li snarled, stamping his boot against the ground and gesticulating. “What the hell did you do? Look where you’ve put us! You threw us into the Ripariat! Are you insane? Do you want to kill us?”
Touya managed a wheezing breath and straightened to glower at the noisy runt. “Kill us? Kid, I saved your life back there. You were out for the count!”
“Saved my life?” Li repeated incredulously. “I wouldn’t have been in that mess in the first place if it weren’t for you! You’re the only reason any of this is happening to me!”
“You made the choice to come along, nobody put a gun to your head!”
“What the hell’s a ‘gun’?”
A headache was forming. Touya groaned in exasperation and pushed himself away from the canyon wall, ignoring the fuming Li to get a better look at their new surroundings. From the tantrum Li was throwing, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but he really couldn’t see what the fuss was about. A little ways down the bank a quiet stream trickled by, crystal clear and obviously shallow, breaking into little rivulets around flat rocks and stepping stones. He couldn’t see its source or where it went, and canyon walls penned them in on either side, soaring straight up and absolutely unscalable. But it was still in the open, he could see the night sky high above. It didn’t seem nearly as bad as that Underground place that Li seemed so at home in.
Dusty and disheveled, not to mention thirsty, he knelt by the stream to scoop a handful of water. Just in time Li snatched his wrist and pushed him away, back from the water’s edge.
“Don’t.”
“What the -” Li tore a shred of cloth from the edge of his sleeve and dipped it in the stream. Immediately it sizzled and melted away, and he threw a grim smirk at Touya’s shocked expression.
“That is why you don’t ever want to end up in the Ripariat. Nothing but rock can touch the water.”
“Oh,” Touya exhaled, sitting more upright and factoring in this new information. “Oh. Okay, so how do we get out of here?”
Li shrugged. “I don’t know.”
This time it was Touya’s turn to tackle Li, and he slammed him up against a boulder with his hand clamped over his throat.
“You said you knew this place! You said no one knew it better than you!”
“Well I didn’t mean the Ripariat, you moron!” Li gasped, trying to pry Touya’s hand off his neck. “Nobody comes here, get it? Nobody in their right minds would ever come down here on purpose! You’re the one that threw us down here!”
“I didn’t have much choice at the time!”
“That’s not my fault!” Finally he managed to uncurl Touya’s grip and pushed himself away from the rock, sending them both tumbling clumsily down the bank with each endeavoring to get a good grip on the other’s neck. It was only sheer chance that Touya happened to glimpse the stream and dug his heels and palms into the ground, stopping their momentum before they rolled right in.
“Stop,” he panted. “Just, stop. Much as I’d love to, this isn’t the place to throttle you to death. We’ll use our heads, we’ll find a way out, and then we can kill each other as much as we like. Agreed?”
“Fine by me.” Li pushed himself to his feet with a dirty scowl, scuffing his boots into the ground.
“Any ideas?”
“Let me think.” Li blew his bangs off his forehead, surveying the environment. “The Ripariat runs all through the labyrinth, just well below it. There are little holes and tunnels all over the place that lead into it, but supposedly just one way out. I don’t know where though.”
“If the water runs throughout the maze,” Touya continued, trying to think it out logically, “then its source must be near the middle. Maybe even close to the castle. That’s probably where the exit is. Right?”
Li shrugged, a reluctant agreement in his eyes. “Sounds good, actually. We go upstream, then.” He took a step, but then Touya snagged his shirt with a weary sigh.
“Wait.”
“Now what?”
“Your arm, we should look at it.” With his whole body aching from the rough fall and the distraction of his surroundings, Li had forgotten about his injury. Now he could see that all the activity had made the bleeding worse, and his sleeve was soaked through in dull red.
“It’s fine,” he lied, and tried to pull away but Touya’s grip was firm.
“No, it’s not. That’s a deep cut and we’re about to do a lot of walking. Hold still.” Li’s thin cotton shirt had suffered a few tears from the fight with the trolls and then their long tumble. It was easy to tear a long strip away from the bottom edge, and he set about wrapping it firmly over Li’s injury, ignoring his wriggles and protests.
“Leave it, it’s not a problem.”
“Don’t argue with me, kid, I used to lifeguard and I know first aid.”
“What’s first aid?”
“Never mind.” He pulled a tight knot that would allow for some circulation while still restricting blood flow, and Li gritted his teeth.
“I don’t have to be babied!”
“Jesus, you are so the opposite of my sister. It’s no crime to let someone take care of you for once, you know?” Touya finished and swatted him lightly on the side of the head. “Shut up and appreciate it already. Now let’s move.” He stood up from the small boulder and took a few steps, then paused and turned around. “And oh, you dropped this back in the forest.”
He tossed Li’s sword amulet in his direction and Li snatched it automatically, surprised and grateful. Touya didn’t wait for him to say anything, already walking again along the banks of the stream. Li clutched his treasured amulet to his chest for a moment before slipping it on over his neck and moving to follow Touya. The weight of the peach still hung from his shoulder, but he couldn’t hand it over in a place like the Ripariat. It was best put off until later.

Both boys soon discovered the Ripariat was nothing if not treacherous. Sometimes there was an easy bank with a level surface; usually there was not. Ages of a most lethal erosion had carved the canyon walls into a fantastic landscape. Rock had been warped into bizarre shapes, dipping and bucking under their feet and sometimes vanishing out from under them altogether, with nothing but a sheer vertical wall to edge across. The placid but deadly water didn’t always care to flow in one solid stream; frequently the river broke up into several rivulets and meandered well under the overhanging rocks before it trickled back down into the main body. Scaling the walls was often out of the question, and they were forced to hop carefully from one stepping stone to another. Any misstep would result in an instant and painful death.
Could have just kept my mouth shut, Touya thought grimly. Could have just let her go to sleep on my bed while I did my homework, kissed her goodnight, and gone to sleep. But no, had to make a stupid wish. I’ll never wish for anything again.
“What?”
“Hmm?” He looked up to see Li perched on a jutting rock ahead of him, looking at him irritably.
“You were muttering something. What?”
“Was I?” Touya stretched his arms above his head and rolled a groan down his throat, willing away the soreness. “Sorry. Been kind of a long night.”
“Gonna make it?” They were not words of concern, but barely concealed disdain, and impatience. Touya glared haughtily at the brat and lifted his chin.
“I’ll be fine, thanks. If I can survive football then I can handle a little walking. Just try to keep up.” He took an especially long-legged leap onto a rock ahead of Li’s, and the shorter boy cocked an eyebrow.
“Show off. What’s ‘football’?”
“Umm…” Carefully Touya calculated the distance to the next rock and jumped. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Li hopping along his own selected route. “It’s a game. One team of boys tries to kick a ball across a field, and into a net. The other team tries to stop them, and kick the ball into their own net. The team that kicks the ball into their net the most wins.”
“Wins what?”
“Well, nothing. They win the game.”
“Are the losers put in the stocks?”
“Sheesh no.”
“Do you fight with weapons for this ball?”
“No!”
“Oh.” Li lapsed into silence as he digested this curious description. “And you do this for pleasure?”
“I guess. It’s not really fun so much as it just feels good to fight past the opposition and beat them. It’s why I play.”
“So it is a fight.”
“Sort of. Just with some rules.”
“Rules?”
“Mm. The trick is to not get caught when you break them. I do it often enough.”
Li grunted, studying his next move across the water. “That’s not so different from here, I guess,” he ventured after some consideration. “But it’s hard. He is not merciful when you get caught.”
“But you keep breaking the rules anyway,” Touya pointed out, remembering those fading red scars across Li’s back. A troubled look crossed his face at Touya’s comment, but then he looked away quickly, bangs swishing with the motion to conceal his eyes again.
“Can’t help myself, mostly. Just the stupid Little Wolf acting up.”
“The what?” There were no more stepping stones in reach, but the bank looked walkable enough here. Li crouched and leapt nimbly to the water’s edge.
“Syaoran, my name. That’s what it means.” A scowl twisted his face, but he wasn’t glaring at Touya. “A few seasons ago they caught me throwing fruit at a patrol unit, just outside the city. I almost got away but there were too many, and they dragged me to the steps of the castle for a public whipping. They said I deserved fifteen lashes for such a crime.”
His eyes were clouding over with the memory, and unconsciously he clenched his fists. “It would be my first and I was scared, so when they tried to chain me to the post I fought them. It was the last thing a couple of trolls were expecting from someone my size, and I actually broke free. I could have made it to the streets and hidden, if Yue hadn’t been there. He froze me in my tracks so they could grab me and tie me up good, so amused that I kept struggling the whole time. He said I had the temper – and the ‘wisdom’ – of a little wolf. Then he told them to make it eighteen.”
Those impassive silver eyes had watched unblinkingly throughout the entire session, not even reacting when the whip finally broke him and he screamed.
“It’s been my name ever since.”
For a long moment only the whispering water made any sound, still flowing past their feet on its inevitable course.
“Ouch,” Touya finally offered, not sure what else to say. That was probably the most humiliating moment of Li’s life. “I can see why you hate him.”
Li only pressed his lips together in reply, one hand unconsciously patting something under his shirt. “Does… he name everyone in the labyrinth?”
“No.” His tone was curt and clipped. Looking as if he’d rather not continue this conversation, Li started walking the bank again. The slope was steepening, and he held a hand against the wall for support.
“Then wh -”
“Just the ones he finds interesting. He picks and chooses.”
The bitter words triggered one of Touya’s own uncomfortable memories, and he swallowed. Dark room, his baby sister sleeping peacefully next to him with their parents gone to the hospital again. A sensation of being watched finally pestered him awake, and he’d opened his eyes drowsily to the semi-dark room. Light spilled in from the moonlight outside; it was early spring and still too cool to sleep with the window open, but open it was and he shivered slightly under his covers. The other one in the room turned slightly at the noiseless motion, beautiful and frightening in the half shadows of the room. His eyes glittered like the stars in the window, and even though Touya was sure his face wasn’t visible in the darkness, he froze and squeezed his eyes shut.
He refused to open them again for the rest of the night. Even when he felt the tickle of a feather across his face.
“I used to see him sometimes,” Touya said slowly. “When I was a kid. At nights I woke up and saw him in my room. What does it mean?”
Li paused in his search for a good foothold, not looking back.
“It means he’s been waiting for you.”

They stopped talking after that and contented themselves with struggling over the lethal terrain in silence. The ground became even more uneven and they would spend several minutes scrambling up a steep slope only to have to waste more time picking their way down the other side. Touya tried not to think about how much time this was consuming, but it wasn’t easy. Always in the back of his mind he could hear that clock ticking.
The channel narrowed at every turn, water flowing faster and deeper until they finally rounded a crop of boulders and found themselves looking at a series of small waterfalls. Deadly but crystal clear water tumbled and splashed from one rock to the next, pouring into the river with a haze of sparkling droplets. It was oddly beautiful in spite of the danger, like most things in the labyrinth, but they couldn’t afford to waste time staring.
After a short rest, they began the hazardous climb up the steep but pitted canyon walls, edging their way up and then over the rushing water. Simply walking was a long-forgotten luxury, and it had been a long time since Touya climbed much of anything, let alone a cliff like this.
They picked their way up still further, the sound of the water falling away beneath them, until Li put his hand on a narrow ledge.
“Good news,” he reported. “We can walk again.”
“Are you sure?” The thin lip of rock wound its way along the cliff for some time, as far as he could see, a little crumbly on the surface but probably safe enough.
“I think so. Come on.” Carefully he hauled himself up and onto the level surface; it was just wide enough to put one foot in front of the other. Behind him, Touya grunted and pulled himself over, wobbling precariously for a moment before he grabbed a bump of rock to hold steady. Long arms were a plus when climbing, but being so tall did make it harder to keep his balance.
Li was already edging his way forward. When Touya moved to follow, he put his foot down on a sharp shard of rock and winced. The surface was littered with dust and crumbled rock, and he made sure to sweep it with his foot – his socks were worn almost through – before he put his weight down again.
“Come on already,” Li prodded impatiently when he glanced over his shoulder. “You were the one in some big hurry, what’s taking so long?”
“Shut it, short stuff, I’m doing this in bare feet. Just give me a minute.”
“Who are you calling short?”
“Do you see any other kids around here?”
“I told you, I’m not a kid!”
“Sure you aren’t, kid.”
“I’m telling you, one more time -”
“And you’ll what? Glare up at me from way down there?” Li snarled and Touya snickered. “Actually, in some ways you’re a lot like my sister. She and I go through this every morning. She’s even shorter than you, and makes a perfect rest for my teamug. She really hates it when I do that.” He smiled fondly at the memory.
Li creased his brow, annoyance forgotten. “That’s how you speak with your sister? You tease her?”
“All the time. Don’t worry, she gets her own back. My foot is essentially all she can reach, and she kicks it hard whenever she gets the chance.”
“And you enjoy this?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like it’s fighting, not really…” Touya’s voice dropped in volume, musing out loud. “I call her names because it’s fun to get her worked up, and I think deep down she likes the attention. Dad’s gone most of the time, so the house would be pretty quiet if we didn’t communicate somehow. It’d be lonely without her.”
He experienced another pang in his chest when he said that, realizing again just how stupid he’d been. Dad practically lived at work and they never spoke anyway, each haunted in their own way by the painful loss. The house would be frigidly silent if it weren’t for Sakura and her relentless energy. Since their mother died, she was all Touya had.
Li’s thoughts were wandering along a slightly different path. Just another ragged orphan feeding off the edges of society, he’d raised himself, fed himself, lived and slept by himself. He survived all right, living on his own in the wilds of the labyrinth, but even the precious find of his sword didn’t quite compensate for human company. He wondered what it would be like, to have a girl of his own that was kind and friendly. Would she like him?
His mind was faraway in the future, and for once the fierce little fighter wasn’t concentrating on his surroundings. Carelessly he put his weight on a broken chunk of rock and it gave way. Taken by surprise, Li dropped with a yell, nothing to save him from hurtling down into the toxic river far below.
Nothing but Touya, who reacted instinctively and threw himself forward, snatching Li’s wrist just in time. Unfortunately, this resulted in him tumbling off the ledge as well, and with one hand he clung desperately to the rim.
His hand burned with pain and he gritted his teeth, dangling helplessly with Li’s dead weight swinging from his other arm. His muscles screamed in protest.
“Li, you all right?”
“Yeah,” the younger boy panted below him, sounding stunned. “Thanks.”
“There’s no way I can pull us up and I can’t hold on much longer. Can you let go?”
Li tried to turn his head and examine the steep slope next to him, moving as little as possible. The wall was not as sheer here, and he thought he could just balance on a bump of rock near his feet. “I think I can reach a foothold. Just a second.”
“Hurry!” His grip wasn’t a very secure one and there was no way he could readjust it; both of them would drop like stones. Touya closed his eyes and tried to ignore the painful chips digging into his palm, hoping that his hand wasn’t sweating too much. “We’re going to fall, Li.”
“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying!” Anxiously Li stretched his arm out and tried to curl his fingers around something to hold onto, one boot inching onto the tiny outcrop. “Just a little farther…” His hand found a good grip and he tightened his hold. “Okay, let go -”
The rock under Touya’s hand crumbled and his body plummeted downward. A startled cry escaped his lips and he scrabbled for another handhold, his hand momentarily slipping past Li’s as they both flailed to catch each other. Dimly he heard Li yell his name and then he was falling, bumping and tumbling down a near vertical slope and right toward the waiting river.
He hit a scree of loose pebbles and dug his bare feet in frantically, but his momentum was too great and he only felt the scraping sting across his skin, before a particularly painful crop of rock ejected him into the open air. Gravity reached to claim him, and then his freefall was cut short by a strong grip around his wrist.
Startled, Touya’s face flipped up and he found himself looking into a pair of friendly brown eyes and a cheerful smile.
“Hi,” the newcomer said. “Looks like you could use a hand.”
It was quite possibly the biggest understatement of his life and Touya nodded numbly, exhaling with a shudder. “Y-yeah. Thanks.”
“No problem. I saw you up above and got here as soon as I could; this place can be a little tricky. Hold on now.” Smoothly he straightened his legs and pulled Touya up and onto the uneven ledge, giving Touya room to collapse against the canyon wall and take several deep breaths.
“Touya! TOUYA!!!”
“I’m okay,” he called out, turning up his head. He couldn’t quite see Li but knew he must be somewhere directly above him. “It’s all right, I caught another ledge.”
“Where are you?”
“Right below you. Don’t try to climb down, you’ll just get yourself killed. Keep going, and we’ll find each other when the cliffs level out. Okay?”
“Fine,” Li acceded. “See you there.” After a few moments he could hear the scuffing sound of Li’s boots on the rocks, and a smattering of grit fell past him into the river. The river that would have vaporized him just a few minutes ago.
“Thank you,” he said again to his savior. “I really owe you one.”
“It was nothing. The Ripariat can be a little dangerous if you don’t know the right path, though. I’ll show you the way.” He grinned and nodded his head upstream.
“Oh, thanks,” Touya said automatically, then wrinkled his brow quizzically. “But how do you know it? I thought no one comes down here.”
“Well, in the labyrinth ‘no one’ almost always means someone. I come here sometimes for the peace and quiet.” He took a few light, hopping steps along the ledge and then looked back, waiting for Touya to follow. “Coming?”
“Uh, yeah.” Touya realized he’d been staring, and shook his head slightly to clear it. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Yukito.” He flashed another broad grin, his honey brown eyes sparkling with friendliness. For some reason, Touya was irresistably reminded of his sister.
“Just call me Yuki.”
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

I think, if Ruby had gotten about one inch farther than she did, Yue would have shown up to intercede. He was probably clenching his fists and grinding his teeth through most of last chapter. I like to imagine that he’ll be giving her a stern ‘talking to’ sometime later in the night. :) Wouldn’t it be fun to watch her squirm?
- 6
- 7
- 8
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The Labyrinth