Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Return to the Labyrinth	By : Capitalist Category: +. to F > Card Captor Sakura Views: 8619 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter 8

‘hero’

Luck, Touya thought wistfully. He could use a little more of it lately, preferably the good kind. Just once, could he go a few hours without running afoul of these hideous gargoyles? It wasn’t even really his fault, this time. The two of them must have been resting or something, down on the ground, which is why he never heard the telltale flapping of wings. When they launched themselves into the air, it was right on the other side of the wall and he didn’t have so much as a second’s worth of warning to hide himself. Not that he would have been able to, they were that close.

Excitedly they screeched at one another and began to circle him, like vultures.

“Human!”

“Not princess.”

“Little Wolf?”

“No, not he.” One of them must have been in the castle yesterday, because he smiled a nasty smile of recognition. “He is the king’s prisoner. The king wants him back.”

“The king,” Touya echoed, “isn’t going to get him back. And the ‘king’ will just have to learn to live with it. Bye.”

They weren’t expecting him to move so fast. But Touya was a football player, and he had long years of experience in darting away from the opponent, hard sprinting, and evasion. They bellowed for him to halt and then swooped to attack, but this time he was better prepared. Using the noise of their wings as a guide, he slipped away to the right and left, neatly avoiding every frantic reach of the claws when they tried to grab. No opposing team could have stood against him. He ran like he’d never run before, but he couldn’t keep this up forever. He would have to find some way to lose them; if he could just get far enough ahead he could disappear back into the labyrinth and they’d never find him again.

But for that, he would need luck. Come on, luck.

One of them tried to drop down in front of him, blocking his way, and like the expert forward he was he feinted to the left and then broke to the right. From the sound of things, the two of them wound up crashing into each other and granting him a few more precious seconds of time. Touya pounded down the passage he’d chosen, frantically looking for his way out and seeing nothing but a blur of stone walls. They were coming up on him again. He broke his stride and turned again, down a new passage, but he hadn’t lost them. Over a pile of rubble he leapt, wincing slightly when he landed in his socks, but he didn’t let himself even pause.

The passage ended abruptly against a high stone wall, crowns of trees spilling over from the other side. Touya hesitated only a second before choosing left and running alongside it. A flicker of recognition passed through his mind, almost subconsciously, but if he was right then Touya wasn’t quite sure if it was the luck he’d been hoping for. He could hear them closing in again. Well, good or bad luck, he really couldn’t afford to be choosy. When he saw the jagged crack that had split the wall nearly to the ground, he gave himself no time to think about it, and wriggled his way through. He tore his sleeve on a sharp edge, and quite possibly his skin too, but he couldn’t afford to stop and check. The gargoyles flew quite easily over the top of the wall when they saw where he’d gone, but in the forest they had to drop lower to keep him in sight. Touya was starting to feel the burn of all that running, could hear his breath wheezing and rattling in and out of his lungs, but he pushed himself to keep going.

Until that moment when, be it good or bad, his luck arrived.

“Well would you look at that, Suppi,” Ruby purred, casually leaning against a tree and examining her nails. “Some of those nasty gargoyles have come into our pretty woods!”

“So they have, Ruby,” rumbled the winged panther, draped on a branch over her head and tail twitching with anticipation. “And don’t call me that.”

“We don’t like nasty gargoyles in our woods, do we?”

“No, we do not.”

Looking rather blank, the gargoyles stalled in their headlong pursuit and looked back and forth between Touya and these new arrivals, not sure what to do. A chilling smile spread across Ruby’s face.

“Do you know what we do, to nasty little gargoyles like you that come into our woods?”

“We make sure,” Suppi supplied the answer for them, “that they don’t leave.”

Close to collapsing, Touya hid himself behind one of the trees and leaned against its trunk. Over his ragged breathing, he could hear the sounds of battle and screams of the unwary gargoyles. He considered feeling sorry for them, but not very seriously. He should probably get going while they were still alive.

He took a step forward, swore colorfully when he managed to put his foot right down on another of those frustrating shards of crystal, and snatched it up with a growl. Quick, before the racket of battle died down, he had to get out of here. Stuffing the fragment in his pocket with the others, Touya moved towards the edge of the forest, checking this part of the wall for easy access. It was in better condition and not so climbable, but a nearby tree looked like it had potential. He hadn’t climbed a tree in years and was somewhat out of practice, but this was an old and thick tree with lots of branches, and not too difficult. Grunting with the effort of it, he picked his way upwards and then slithered over a branch until he could reach the top of the border wall. Carefully he clambered onto it, then swung his legs over the edge and found a toehold. Just when he was about to lower himself down, Ruby’s hand clapped over his wrist and held it there.

“Leaving so soon?”

Touya tried not to flinch, and nerved himself to look her directly in the eyes. They were the only ones he’d ever seen that could sparkle merrily and still look so sinister at the same time. Pink butterfly wings spread wide, she floated casually in midair and smiled.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to stick around, after the way things ended between us last time.”

“As if bygones can’t be bygones! Silly. Do you really think I’d hold a grudge after all these years?”

Yes. But he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, and just watched her carefully as she let out a dramatic sigh. “In any case, I guess it was a good thing that you left as soon as you did. I was so disappointed, but almost as soon as you were gone Yue appeared… and boy was he ever cross with me. How was I supposed to know that you were his? It’s not like he’d marked you, not like you are now, and what am I? Psychic? If I really had kissed you, he probably would have killed me. Instead he just scolded me until I wished he had. So, more’s the pity, but it seems you’re off-limits now.” She traced a regretful finger down his jawline and he jerked his head out of reach.

“I am not ‘his’. I won the bet, that night. He let me go, he had to.”

She giggled, in a mirthless sort of way, and leaned in a little closer. “Oh, Touya. Do you really think he lets anything go, if he doesn’t want to?”

He couldn’t help it, he swallowed. “I won. And anyway, he’s vanished.”

“Do you want to know where he is?”

“You know?” Touya nearly lost his footing, leaning in so eagerly. “Where, tell me!”

This time she laughed out loud. “As if I would know something like that! I just wanted to see how much you wanted to find him.” Her smile turned wistful. “You really do belong to him.”

“I do not.” Furious and embarrassed that he’d been tricked so easily, Touya tried unsuccessfully to thwart the blush rising on his cheeks. “I’m here looking for my sister. That’s all.”

“Whatever you say, my lovely.” She tapped him on the nose and he glowered. “Guess you’d best be on your way, then.”

“Happy to.” Therein followed a pause, until he spoke again. “Ruby.”

“Yes?”

“Let go of my hand.”

“Oopsie, my bad!”

She released her iron grip and Touya nearly fell backwards in his haste to get away. Good luck or bad luck, he still wasn’t sure. But when he’d managed to creep back down to ground level, he turned, ran, and never looked back.

- - - - - - -

“What did you see?” Li asked softly, when he could bring himself to ask. He would rather not have, but both of them knew and there could be no pretending that it didn’t happen. Kero glanced up at him and then away again.

“Well, I think that’s your question to answer. I’m not sure what I saw, but you were the one doing it.”

“What did it look like?” he pressed, careful to keep his voice low. Sakura, refreshed and rested, was several steps ahead of them and humming gaily. Now that she’d discovered her surprising ability, she was making sure to touch every bush, vine, and tree that she could find.

“It looked like you were ready to start making babies,” Kero remarked cuttingly, “but I don’t know. Maybe I just read that look all wrong?”

Li couldn’t exactly bring himself to deny it. “I was… going to kiss her. I couldn’t stop myself. I can’t believe what I almost did.”

“You were dancing, there was music, it was romantic. Could have happened to anyone.”

“Tell that to Yue,” he muttered, and looked again at their princess. “Do you think she saw?”

“Doesn’t look like it to me, kid. Beats me how she couldn’t, but if her brother really has been keeping the boys at bay, maybe she just doesn’t know how to recognize a look like that. Lucky – or unlucky – for you.” He snickered.

Li could not be bothered to hit him, not with his insides still churning with conflict. Kero was more right than he knew. Li nearly shook to think of his close call back there by the pond, and was relieved beyond measure that Sakura had not guessed his real intentions. But there was a part of him, the part that still burned with fire, that was disappointed she did not see and respond. A very dangerous and stupid part, obviously, but it didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Yue had warned him to keep his hands off Sakura. So had Touya. Trouble was, Li had never liked either of those people. It was hard to make himself remember their threats when he was so in love with the princess he could hardly see straight, as his still-tender nose attested.

“Just go for it, I say. You’re obviously going to kill yourself trying to hold back, and that’s worse than any punishment Yue could come up with.”

“I can’t.” He practically bit the words out. “She wouldn’t want me.”

“Hey, we all know she’s gonna have to get over Yue sometime -”

“No, Kero. She wouldn’t want me.” His dark, miserable gaze went from Sakura back to Kero again, his fists tight. “And she’d be right not to.”

He knew what he meant, this time, and heaved a little sigh. “This again? Kid, when are you -”

A bellow of laughter cut him off mid-question, and all three of them instinctively froze. Li reached for his sword. The laughter repeated itself, somewhere off to the southeast, and multiplied by several voices. Without needing to be told, Sakura was quick to scurry back to their side.

“Is it gargoyles?” she whispered nervously, not that there was any real danger of being heard from here. Li and Kero shook their heads.

“No,” they answered simultaneously. “Trolls.”

“How can you tell?”

“Deeper voices. And their laugh. They always laugh like that when they’ve found something to abuse.” Li turned his head toward the sound, so she wouldn’t see the scowl that twisted his face.

“Abuse? You mean, they’re hurting someone?”

“Probably.”

“We have to do something, we have to go help!”

At that moment, Li would have liked nothing better than to leap over the walls and pound the bastards into the ground, just to work off his frustration. But he had a responsibility to consider.

“I don’t know, your- Sakura. I have to keep you safe, and we’ve managed to go all day without getting spotted. If something goes wrong -”

“Nothing will go wrong! You’re strong enough to win, right? And you have Kero-chan here too.”

Kero puffed up his chest. “She’s right, kid, it won’t be a problem. Let’s go wallop ‘em, you know you want to.”

He was right about that, at least. Li shrugged. “Fine, we’ll do it. Where are they?”

“I’ll be right back!”

Kero sprouted his vast wings and took flight, disappearing over the nearest wall, but in under a minute he was back again. “They’re just over in the almond grove. Try and beat me there!”

“Hey!” Li took off down the right passage, conscious of Sakura following a few steps behind. It would be fine, he reassured himself, he and Kero did this all the time. She would be perfectly safe. Around the bend and to the left he sprinted, trying to catch up before Kero could get there first, though he almost always lost these races. Those wings were such an unfair advantage. And sure enough, by the time he’d burst out into the clearing, Kero had already tackled the first of the unfortunate trolls to the earth. He opened his cavernous mouth, and uttered a leonine roar that could make glass shatter.

Sakura clapped her hands over her ears and stayed back, safely behind the edge of the wall, and Li launched himself into a flying side kick that nailed the closest troll right in his ugly face. He hit the dirt and Li landed lightly on his feet.

“Little Wolf!” The lead troll snapped his whip, turning away from the victim upon which he’d no doubt been using it, snarling. “Found you!”

“We found you,” Li corrected exasperatedly, and jumped out of the way when the long whip nearly cracked against his head. A growl welled up in his throat. “I’m going to strangle you with that thing.”

But that would have to wait, because another troll tried to smash his skull with his fist. He ducked and whirled, striking him hard in the neck and then jumping clear with a kick to his side. He bounded off the earth before the whip could find him again, kicking straight up into another troll’s chin. He stumbled back and Li dropped back to the ground in a crouch, under the horizontal sweep of the whip. Instinctively he threw himself over onto his back to avoid the heavy club that nearly crushed him, and shot his leg straight out and into the knee of the troll. He grunted and nearly buckled, but Li had no time to finish him off, not with the troll behind him trying to stamp his great big foot down on Li’s head. He rolled the other way, back onto his hands and feet, and neatly pivoted on his hands to kick the troll right where he’d left himself open with that big lunge forward. He howled and clapped his hands over the injured area, dropping to his knees.

Li flipped over backward, narrowly avoiding another lash of the whip, then crouched just in time underneath the broad swing of that troll’s club. It was a heavy, brutal weapon, too heavy for the troll to reverse his swing quickly, which meant he’d left himself wide open for Li to punch him hard in the throat. He gagged and collapsed to the earth, wheezing hard, and Li was nearly beheaded from behind. He heard the swish of the blade and ducked with one heartbeat to spare, kicking back straight and hard and nailing the troll right in the solar plexus. Li sensed movement from the lead troll again and jumped clear, but it wasn’t necessary. For some reason, he lashed at his underling’s sword arm, which provoked a yelp of pain and forced him to drop the weapon.

He was opening his mouth to protest when the leader stomped closer and whacked him hard in the back of the head.

“No killing the Wolf!” he barked. “Only kill the girl. King wants the Wolf alive.”

Li’s breath caught in his throat and he stumbled back a couple steps, eyes flicking involuntarily to the others to see if they heard. And they did, alright, Kero was standing over his fallen victims, ears pricked upright and staring right at him. Hovering back by the wall, Sakura’s hand had clapped over her mouth. That strange uneasiness he’d experienced that morning when Rai looked at him returned in full force, distracting him from his surroundings. That the king was out there thinking about him, looking for him, wanted him alive, scared Li. It scared him in a way that left his stomach twisting with dread and he didn’t understand that at all.

A furious pain exploded on his left arm and yanked his attention back to the present; the troll had taken advantage of his distraction and got his whip snaked around Li’s arm. He tugged hard, the powerful muscles contracting and pulling Li nearly right off his feet. Something blazed up furiously in that moment, the urge to lash out and make others hurt so he wouldn’t have to think about this scary strange feeling in his stomach. Using the momentum that the troll gave him Li hurtled forward with a vicious kick to the underling troll’s head. It knocked him right over onto his back, and when the lead troll tried to grab him Li caught his arm and pulled with all his strength. The massive troll went up and over his shoulder, landing hard on his friend, and both of them grunted. The whip had fallen off Li’s arm but left a stinging red burn, which only made Li angrier when he saw it. He snatched the long coil of leather and looped it around both their necks, pulling it tight, and braced his boot against the leader’s chin. They gagged, they struggled, but Li never let up on the pressure, just pulled ever tighter until they were dead.

“I told you,” he growled, and let go. When he stepped back, he saw Kero and Sakura were both staring at him. “What? I hate the whip.”

Kero collected himself first, and nodded to Sakura. “That’s true. He really does hate the whip.”

He didn’t like the way she was looking at him, so nervously, so he turned away and concentrated on the trolls’ chosen amusement for the day. The little pink creature was hysterical, even though the fight was over, frantically trying to escape though the tether caught around one of its legs yanked it back to earth every time it tried to leap.

“So cute!” Sakura cooed, just like he knew she would. “It looks like a pink bunny rabbit. What is it?”

“It’s Jump,” he answered shortly, trying to get close enough without getting a furry missile to the chest. Jump was never the calmest creature in the labyrinth, and getting trapped and tormented had driven away what little sense it had in the first place. Over and over again he tried to get to the knot holding it back, but the stupid thing kept bouncing away before he could grab it. “Damn it, would you just- it’s okay now so let me- just hold still!”

“Here, let me try to help.” Sakura knelt on the grass beside him and held out her hand, shushing softly and making little wheedling noises. Every time it got close enough, she brushed it lightly instead of trying to grab it. “Shh, there there. Everything’s going to be okay now. We’re friends. We’re going to help you.”

Li rolled his eyes and settled in to wait, but he wasn’t going to do it in peace. Without taking her eyes off Jump, or raising her voice above a soft murmur, Sakura broached it first. “Li-kun, about what that troll said -”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But I think it upset you.”

“Not really,” he muttered, pointedly keeping his eyes off the corpses behind them. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“You know you really shouldn’t be so shocked,” Kero advised. “When you think about it, it’s only natural that he wants you alive; he is your -”

“Don’t say it,” Li growled. “It doesn’t matter. He’s still the enemy.”

“I think it matters to him.”

“Yeah, well, he can worry about it all he likes, it’s none of my concern. I’m not going to be taken to that castle – dead or alive.”

“Maybe he just wants to talk to you,” Sakura suggested timidly.

“Does he look like the kind of man that settles for talking?” Li could hear the edge in his own voice and clamped his own mouth shut, determined not to give away just how rattled he really was. Sakura and Kero exchanged a quick look and apparently decided to end the conversation. Which was a good thing because he wasn’t going to say another word about it. At last Sakura coaxed Jump into her arms, soothing and petting it, and Li crouched in front of her to pull apart the knot cinched around Jump’s paw. It was designed to close around unwary prey and pull tighter the harder it tried to escape. Not a very clever trap, but then, Jump was not a very clever animal. Finally he got it undone, and Jump sprang away when Sakura opened her arms.

“Wow, look at how high it can jump!” Awed, she watched it bounce right over the wall, and then briefly reappear when it jumped over the wall after that. “You wouldn’t expect it for such a tiny little thing. I hope the trolls didn’t hurt him too badly.”

“He’ll be fine. It’s not his first time either.”

“Either?”

Two seconds too late, Li bit his tongue and looked away. Idiot! How could he let that slip? When it became obvious he wasn’t going to speak, Kero cleared his throat.

“The kid, uh, used to get knocked around a bit by these guys when he was little, Sakura. It wasn’t until he got big enough to put up a good fight that he could tangle with them and get away without a sound lashing for it.”

“You mean… they used to hurt you, Li-kun? Just like this? With the whip?”

He grunted an affirmative and nodded, hating the way her eyes filled with pity.

“Even when Yue was still here?”

“Only when Yue was still here.”

“I don’t understand, how could he let them do that? When you were just a little boy?”

“Let them?” Li echoed, his fragile temper stretched to the breaking point. “Let them? Sakura, he ordered them! He is the king and it was by his orders that they hounded and beat me every chance they could in the labyrinth, by his orders that they dragged me to the castle so I could be whipped in front of the entire city. No one else’s! He is a vicious, cruel tyrant and I don’t know why you can’t seem to get your head around that. Your own brother is the one that knows it more than anyone.”

She didn’t move, shocked into stillness by his outburst. Her lips were stiff when she tried to speak. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, that the night your brother came here to rescue you, Yue never had any intentions of letting him win.”

“Kid, you don’t want to do this -” Kero tried, and Li silenced him with one hard glare.

“He is not good. He is not honorable. He cheats and plays dirty. He wanted Touya to lose, and that’s why he came to me. I betrayed him, Sakura. I betrayed your brother that night.” It was like now that he’d started some kind of dam had burst inside him, and he just couldn’t stop no matter how stupid he knew it was. “I was already guiding him through the labyrinth; I’d agreed to take him at least as far as the city gates. I knew Yue wouldn’t like it, but then, I hate Yue. I wanted to defy him. Of course, that was easier said than done when he showed up in person. He gave me a poisoned peach, to give to your brother, promised me a reward if I would. We were maybe fifteen minutes from the city when I did it; I gave it to him and then when he fell over unconscious I ran away and left him there. That’s why your brother doesn’t trust me. That’s why you shouldn’t trust me. And that’s just one of the many reasons why everyone but you knows what Yue is really like.”

The grove went dead quiet. He noticed that her hands were trembling a little, and he promptly hated himself.

“It’s not true,” she whispered. “It wasn’t like that. Onii-chan told me, he said you fought the goblins and trolls and helped him all the way to the castle.”

“I did. I came back to help him, because I couldn’t even face my own reflection without vomiting. But that doesn’t change what happened, and I think your brother would agree. He knocked me to the ground for what I did. I don’t know why he never told you any of this, maybe he thought it didn’t matter anymore, but this is why he was so nervous about me taking you to the labyrinth. This is why he insisted on coming.” He took a breath, suddenly aware it had been a while since he’d done so. “Now you know.”

Again the grove went very quiet. Kero kept darting nervous looks between him and Sakura, clearly uncomfortable.

“What was the reward?”

“Huh?” He’d been expecting angry screaming and tears, not a softly spoken question, and it took a second to register what she’d asked. “The what?”

“The reward,” she repeated, “that Yue promised you. What was it?”

“Uh…” He shot a panicky look at Kero and then quickly looked away again. No, he couldn’t tell her this, it was too much. “It was just… something. Something really pretty, actually. I’d gone my whole life without it, never thought about it, but when Yue showed it to me and said he’d give it to me, I realized I wanted it more than anything. Yue probably knew that in advance, the bastard. It’s how he works.”

“And when you decided to return and help Onii-chan, you knew Yue probably wouldn’t give it to you anymore.”

“Yeah, I knew that.”

“But you did it. You came back.”

Li nodded. “I had to. I couldn’t live with myself after what I did.”

“Oh, Li-kun.” She stepped forward, not a trace of anger anywhere on her features. “Don’t you see? How brave you were to turn your back on a reward that was already yours, and risk everything to help Onii-chan fight all those goblins? And all because you knew it was the right thing to do. That makes you more of a hero than anything, because you gave up something. It’s simple enough to fight when you’ve got nothing left to lose. You sacrificed everything for Onii-chan. Thank you for helping him rescue me.”

And then she was there, right in front of him, putting her arms around him in a gentle embrace. He froze up, scared and unsure, but not about to push her away.

“You’re not angry at me?”

“Why should I be? It seems you’re angry enough at yourself for the both of us. Maybe you should stop that. After all, you’ve worked so hard to protect me. You’ve paid me and my brother back more than enough.”

He couldn’t quite help it, he could feel his body relaxing, warming to her closeness. Hesitantly, he put his arms around her waist.

“What about Yue?”

“I don’t know.” She nestled her head under his chin, and Li’s heart started to beat faster again. “It’s not as if I think you’d tell me lies. And it was silly of me to think I knew all about him, after just one night in his castle. Maybe he really is that cold and cruel, but I can’t make myself forget how kind he was to me. It’s not as if I can just stop loving him.”

The rapidly beating heart wrenched, abruptly, as if a hand had just shot out and squeezed it hard. He actually winced, and saw Kero wince in sympathy for him.

“Hey, I know.” She stepped away from him, but took both of his hands and squeezed them. “Now that you’re calling me Sakura, why don’t you let me call you Syaoran? I know that you don’t like it,” she was quick to say, when he opened his mouth, “but that’s only because you don’t like Yue. If you let me call you that, perhaps it won’t be so bad, and you could get used to it. Maybe if you can let go of some of that hatred for him, you might not hate yourself so much either.”

Call him Syaoran, call him anything, call him whatever name she liked, as if he would say no. Didn’t she understand there was nothing he would refuse her? Didn’t she know that he would give her anything in the world if she would just see him the same way she saw Yue?

“Okay,” was all he said. “Call me Syaoran.”

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

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

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Bup-bup-bum… the truth is out! Some of it, anyway. Oh, the tension. Li’s already snapped and blurted out one secret… how much longer can he last?
- 7
- 8
- 9
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Return to the Labyrinth