CHAPTER 3: Sakura and the Deep Chill

-VERTEX TWO: 15.721699-

Tomoeda Park

"I'll kill Li-kun, and then we'll be together. It's all going to be fine."

Sakura stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak, barely able to think. The world spun around her at dizzying speed, as if she were on a merry-go-round gone berserk. Those words... it sounded like it was Tomoyo saying them, but it couldn't be Tomoyo, had to be a trick or an illusion. It had to be...

"Sakura!" Shaoran was at her side, his hand gripping her shoulder. His shape loomed over her, far taller than usual. How did that happen? "Sakura, you've got to stand up! We have to-"

"Li-kun," said Tomoyo's voice with eerie calm, "if you don't mind, could you please finish saying goodbye to Sakura-chan? I need to hurry and kill you so I can get home, or Mother might be cross with me. It's very late, you know."

Belatedly, Sakura felt cool pavement on her skin; her legs had given way beneath her. That explained why Shaoran appeared so huge... She reached for the hand on her shoulder and clasped it, taking strength from his presence. Her lips began to move, numb though they were. "T... Tomoyo-chan..." She swallowed, squeezing Shaoran's hand as she made an attempt to stand. "Tomoyo-chan, it's gonna be okay... We'll f-fix this, w-we'll get you b-back to normal, I swear..."

"'Atta girl, that's our Sakura!" said Kero, close to her ear. "Come on, on your feet, we'll figure somethin' out!"

Steady, steady. Little by little she rose with Shaoran's help. A few more deep breaths and she felt well enough to speak again. "Th-thank you, Shaoran-kun. Kero-chan, I-I'm not sensing anything, are you?"

"Still nothin', but I'll keep tryin'. In the meantime- agh!"

Metal met metal with a ringing clang. Tomoyo had darted forward in a lunging slash, and Shaoran had moved to intercept with his jian. The two pushed back and forth... it was clear that Shaoran could easily gain the advantage, but not without the risk of hurting her.

"Shaoran-kun!" The shriek tore itself from somewhere deep inside Sakura as she reached for them, unsure of who she should try to help first. "Tomoyo-chan, you have to stop!"

"Li-kun, why are you resisting?" Tomoyo sounded disappointed. "This is for the best. It's the only way I can be with my Sakura-chan."

"Daidouji," hissed Shaoran from between clenched teeth, "please, don't move, just stay right there... Sakura, the Cards!"

"Right!" New resolve filled Sakura's heart. The Cards would have a way, altered or not, she just had to have faith in them. Clutching the key around her neck, she began the incantation: "O key that hides the powers of the sta-" She stopped, mentally kicking herself. It wasn't the Star Key anymore, obviously it wouldn't respond to that one. Until whatever mess there was with the Cards was fixed, she would need to remind herself to go back to the old incantation. "O key that hides the powers of the dark..." Clow's magic circle flared to life in glowing lines of light at her feet as she spread her hands, releasing the key to spin wildly in midair. "Reveal your true form to me! I, Sakura, command you under our contract! RELEASE!" To her relief, the familiar Clow Staff appeared before her, and its warmth and power surged through her body as she took hold of it.

Tomoyo briefly looked up from her struggle with Shaoran, and her face fell. "Oh dear, Sakura-chan, don't start using magic yet! I can't hold my knife and my camera at the same time! Kya!"

That distraction was all Shaoran needed. An expert flick of his blade sent the knife spinning into the night. "I'm sorry, Daidouji," he said softly as Tomoyo shrank back, cradling her wrist.

The first Card was already there at Sakura's fingertips... one of the unaltered ones, thank heaven. "Wind, please, keep Tomoyo-chan from hurting anyone! WINDY!" The tip of the Clow Staff struck the Card, and WINDY's pale elfin figure erupted from it, trailing currents of herself as she spread her cloak wide and soared forth to envelop Tomoyo. The girl had no chance to escape; in seconds, curls of solidified air had her tightly bound and suspended in place.

"Tomoyo-chan!" Sakura couldn't keep the pained moan from her voice as she rushed forward. "Tomoyo-chan, please don't move, just tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it somehow!"

"Careful, Sakura," Kero cautioned, hanging back just in case.

"My camera," murmured Tomoyo, straining against the curls. There was an odd, dreamlike tone to her voice, as if she were talking in her sleep. "I have to get my camera, you were so cool just now..."

"Talk to me, Tomoyo-chan! Why are you trying to hurt Shaoran-kun? He's your friend!"

"Camera", moaned Tomoyo with more urgency, squirming in the direction of the slide, where her camera lay unattended. Her eyes slid out of focus. "Have to get... my camera..."

"Maybe that's it," said Shaoran, edging closer to it with jian at the ready, as if the camcorder might suddenly leap up and attack. With magic, you never knew... "Hey, nuigurumi, can you sense anything from it?"

Ignoring the name for the moment, Kero hovered closer and peered at it. "Wait a second... there's somethin' there, but I'm not quite sure what. I've never-"

Tomoyo gave a mighty lurch, as if some invisible hook had seized her body and pulled hard.

At the same moment, Kero flew straight back as if the camcorder had burned him. "Whoa! What the hell is that?!"

"WINDY, keep her still!" Sakura glanced in their direction. "What, what's happening?"

"Dunno, but all of a sudden it's givin' off some kinda dark energy..." His small eyes traveled from the camcorder to Tomoyo's writhing form. "Sakura, I'd-"

The rest of his sentence was drowned out. An ear-splitting scream split the night as something black and winged erupted from Tomoyo's chest. At the same time, a shadowy aura enveloped the camcorder like a cloud, swallowing it up before rushing to meet the black winged thing. They collided together, they merged... Now Sakura felt the energy too, sizzling sensations on her skin like rays of powerful sunlight, but far more intense, burning... Pulsing with that energy, the merged object released a shockwave that scattered Sakura, Shaoran, and Kero like leaves in a gale, disrupted WINDY's form, and sent Tomoyo to the ground in a heap. "Tomo-" That was all Sakura was able to speak of her friend's name before the back of her head hit the pavement, and the world turned black.

The steady thrumming of her pulse pounding in her ears gave way moments later to a strange sound, a soft whirring noise. Wincing, Sakura turned her bleary eyes upward...

The thing standing over her wasn't human. Nor was it the spirit of one of her Cards. It was feminine, nude but smooth and featureless like the body of a doll. The only decoration it wore was an emblem of a bat-winged, pitch black heart nestled between its breasts. Lank, stringy black hair framed its angular face in loose strands, and small, dark, leathery wings extended from its temples. Its arms were grotesquely elongated, with thin, skeletal hands that ended in segmented metal fingers resembling the legs of a tripod. It tilted its head, and the whirring grew louder.

"Wha-" Sakura muttered, blinking. Then her stomach lurched... her throat tightened, stealing the scream that was building up inside her.

It had no eyes. The thing looked at Sakura with a pair of camera lenses protruding several inches from the pale, dead flesh of each eye socket. Mechanical components within each lens shifted erratically, and shutter apertures dilated open and closed independent of each other in horrible mockeries of pupils. Its metal fingers clicked together and slowly reached for her...

"Noooooo!" Her scream bubbled up and forced itself past the tightness of her throat as she scrambled backward. Pure, icy terror coursed through her veins, her stomach shrank down to a pinprick, her skin erupted in gooseflesh. She had no plan, no thought of defending herself or fighting back... she just wanted to get as far away from this horrible thing as possible...

"Nnnngh..." Kero gingerly picked himself up at the sound. His vision was oddly blurred; he couldn't tell what the dark shape was that stood in front of Sakura. When he heard her scream, though... very few things in the world could make Sakura scream like that. "Sakura!" He grimaced, pouring all his effort into another attempt to take on his true form... Sakura was more than his master and Clow's chosen successor, she was his dearest friend. Whatever it was that threatened her, it needed to be stopped, now. But his form refused to change... He tightened his focus and strained until beads of sweat broke across his brow, but still nothing happened. The more he strained, the weaker he seemed to become... now he could hardly even move, let alone speak. "S-SAKURA...!" Damn it all, what was wrong with him? Why was he so weak...?

A flash of green streaked by at the edge of his vision. Shaoran was on his feet, his handsome features contorted with rage. "Get away from her!" It didn't sound like Shaoran's voice at all... Jian in hand, he charged for the monster, raising the blade high for a deadly blow...

Clang.

From the ground, Sakura gaped, refusing to believe her eyes. The monster's arm now bent backward at an impossible angle, one that would have torn it from the socket of a normal human. Without even looking back, its fingers had caught the blade, and it held the edge mere inches from its skull. The mechanical whirring of its lenses quickened, and its vertebrae creaked as its head turned... and turned, and turned, and turned, swiveling a full 180 degrees to stare back at Shaoran. Whirr, click went the lenses, the shutters inside opening wide. There was a slick, wet, tearing sound. A long metal blade emerged from the palm of its free hand, identical to the blade of Shaoran's jian, and- "Shaoran-kun, watch out!"

Only that warning and blind instinct saved Shaoran from being cleaved in two. He rolled backward, out of the way, missed death by a fraction of an inch. The creature's blade descended in a savage downward stroke, a perfect pǐ, gouging a furrow in the cement. Abandoning Sakura for the moment, it readjusted its contorted body, raised its sword from the furrow... and to Shaoran's astonishment, it assumed a Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg stance, pointing the tip of its weapon at him as it balanced. "How...?"

"Shaoran!"

A lunging stab aimed at his midsection. Shaoran's years of Taijiquan training kicked in; he recognized the technique (Ci) and which one he should use to block (Dai). He raised the flat of his blade to the creature to deflect it. Sparks flew as the weapons clashed against each other, the blow rattling him to his bones. The monster moved like water, like a snake, flowing seamlessly into an overhand counter-blow (Ya), then from there to a warding strike (Peng) designed to knock him off his guard. Its form was flawless, just like the master swordsmen that had trained him as a child. Shaoran's insides went cold with sudden realization: No, it's not copying my masters' techniques. It's copying mine... it's learned all my moves! "Sakura!" he shouted, fighting to keep his voice level. Couldn't let her see him panic. "Sakura, I don't think-" Crash. Again the blades met, but this time the creature put all its weight down on him, trying to force him to break his defensive stance, just as he would have done to gain the upper hand... "-I can hold it off much longer!"

"Hold on, Shaoran-kun! I'll-" Sakura pawed frantically through the Cards. SWORD and SHIELD are both changed, so is SLEEP... FREEZE, POWER, SHOT, and FIGHT are transparent, barely there... what should I do?! Please, someone, what should I-

Perhaps it was the remaining unaltered Cards' guidance. Perhaps it was the spirit of Clow Reed moving through her. She didn't know what it was for sure, but something made her look up and look past the battle between Shaoran and the monster. Something made her eyes fall on the figure lying motionless at the foot of the King Penguin slide, staring up at the night sky.

Tomoyo's skin was unnaturally pale... even from this distance, Sakura could tell she was white as a sheet. Her lovely, kind eyes were open and empty... expressionless, so unlike her... reflecting starlight that she could not see. Visible in her chest, just a little left of center, there was a mark... no, a hole... in the shape of a black heart. Sakura watched, paralyzed, her breath frozen in her lungs, waiting for Tomoyo's chest to rise or fall, or for her to stir, or for some indication, any indication that her best friend was still alive.

Tomoyo didn't move. She wasn't breathing.

It stole her heart. The truth of what it had done penetrated the numbness that had descended over Sakura like a blanket. She didn't know how she knew that, she just knew. That thing... it stole her heart...

It was as if Sakura's vision expanded to encompass the entire park. Without looking away from Tomoyo's body, she saw the creature gradually driving Shaoran back, moving in for the kill. She saw Kero on the ground, beating his small wings in a feeble attempt to get back up. She saw the black heart in the center of the monster's chest... the heart that belonged to Tomoyo...

A great raging flame burst to life in Sakura's soul, dispelling the cold, the numbness, the fear... She spun on one heel, Clow's magic circle shining at her feet, and she glared at the monster that hurt Kero and Shaoran, that twisted Tomoyo's feelings, stole her heart, and left her lying there lifeless... "You...!"

Startled by the sudden flaring of Sakura's aura, the monster ceded its advance on Shaoran, turned to face the Cardcaptor, opened the apertures in its lenses wide... and froze. The closest thing it could feel to mortal terror raced through its being.

Not for nothing was Sakura Kinomoto the chosen successor of Clow Reed. Not for nothing was she known as the most powerful magic-user alive, probably the most powerful to ever live. And now, every iota of her immense power was focused on the thing that dared hurt her friends and loved ones...

"CLOUD!"

The creature found itself unable to see. Its shutters clicked frantically, trying to compensate for the sudden bank of thick, cool fog that rose up around it and swallowed it whole. The information it was receiving from its senses baffled it... Where just a second ago there had been an intense aura of magical energy, now there was nothing, not so much as a spark. Its head swiveled around, sweeping over the few inches of unobstructed pavement around it. The rest of the park had melted into that fog... but how was that possible? It wasn't, the creature concluded. Obviously, its brain told it, the rest of the park simply wasn't there anymore. It was alone, isolated in some sort of-

"JUMP!"

That sound proved otherwise. Confused, it made another sweeping search of the area, finding nothing. In desperation, it flicked through the various filters of its lenses: infrared, nothing. Night vision, nothing. The sound registered as the Cardcaptor's voice, its primary target, but there was no Cardcaptor. The illogic of it paralyzed the creature. Without targets, and without any way of seeking out more targets, how could it fulfill its function?

"ARROW!"

The voice rang out again, this time from above it. Following the sound, the creature looked up. The fog above its head was clearing, revealing a figure silhouetted by a waning crescent moon, wings sprouting from its heels. There was the Cardcaptor; now it could resume following its mission directive. Its apertures opened wide to scan and duplicate whichever spell she was using. It registered two spells in active use: one a simple physical enhancement granting a vastly increased range of vertical motion, and the other seemed to be focused in the twin lines of brilliant light she held back with one hand, pointing down at the creature with the other. Whirr, click went its apertures as the Cardcaptor loosed them both...

An awful electronic screech swept through the fading remnants of CLOUD's fog bank as two arrows of light plunged straight through both lenses. Sakura touched down behind it in a perfect three-point landing, and looked back over her shoulder to watch with grim satisfaction as glowing cracks spread through the thing's body. The arrows' light tore it apart from within... soon, nothing remained of its body but dust, swiftly scattered by the evening breeze. Where it once stood, there was now only the black heart, Tomoyo's heart, hovering in silence. Pinkness blossomed from its center, its leathery bat wings burst into fluffy white feathers...

The mask of rage and grief slid from Sakura's face. Sweet, blessed relief flooded her... somehow, she knew it was going to be all right now. She had done it, she had saved Tomoyo's heart... Clutching her own heart, she stumbled after it as it fluttered back to Tomoyo and sank into her body, filling the hole in her chest. No sooner was it filled than her color returned to normal... Tomoyo blinked slowly and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Sa-"

She was cut off by Sakura throwing her arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. "Tomoyo-chan! Tomoyo-chan, thank God you're all right, you're back! I was so scared, I thought I'd lost you..."

"It's... it's going to be all right, Sakura-chan," said Tomoyo softly, patting her back with a delicate hand. "Whatever happened, it's going to be all right."

That only made Sakura cry harder.

"Oi, Sakura!" A small yellow shape rather like a plush toy cut through the wisps of fog. Kero intended to go straight for his usual spot on Sakura's shoulder... but he stopped, floating in place as Tomoyo's gaze caught his own. She and Sakura had been best friends long before either he or Shaoran entered her life. Tomoyo understood Sakura in ways that neither of them could, probably better than Sakura understood herself. Coming this close to losing her best friend... Tomoyo's gaze told Kero that Sakura needed just a few moments more.

Plodding footsteps fell behind him. "Hey, kozou," said Kero without turning around. "You okay?"

"Barely." Shaoran's breathing was heavy, and one arm clutched the other, hanging awkwardly at his side. "It hurts. A lot..."

"I'll bet."

His brows knit together. "All that thing did was look at me, and it knew my Taijiquan. How did it do that? What was it, anyway?"

Kero hated what he had to say next, but lying wasn't going to help anyone. "I don't know," he admitted, crossing his arms. "I've honestly got no idea."

A chill passed through Shaoran at those words. "You... you said you felt dark energy. Was it the Sorceress, maybe?" He was grasping at straws, but still...

"Couldn't be." Kero shook his head. "She passed on, we all saw it. We all felt it. This was different. It wasn't created by Eastern or Western magic, or by Clow, or by Sakura..."

The chill intensified. Shaoran rubbed his arm. "So who does that leave?"

"Nobody," said Kero, his voice low and ominous, devoid of his usual cheer. "Near as I can tell, nobody could have created it... and nobody has enough power to pull off whatever was done to the Sakura Cards, either. What's happening should be flat out impossible."

Tomoyo looked up at them both. "I don't understand," she said quietly, so as not to upset Sakura further. "What is happening?"

"You tried to kill me with a knife," said Shaoran, showing remarkable composure under the circumstances. "You said I stole Sakura from you... you don't remember?"

"Oh no..." Tomoyo covered her mouth with her free hand, horrified. "Li-kun, I'm so sorry, please forgive me! That isn't how I feel at all! Whatever was I thinking?! I... I don't remember anything... the last thing I recall was talking to that man who came to see me at home, and then..." She paused. "And then I was here."

The fur on the back of Kero's neck stood up. "Man? What man?"

"I'm not certain exactly. I wasn't expecting company, he was simply there at the gate when I returned home, and said he had to speak with me." Her brow furrowed. "I can't recall what he looked like, it's all... faint... but he seemed to take an interest in me and Sakura-chan."

"Daidouji, think hard," said Shaoran, kneeling down to her. "Do you remember anything about this man?"

A long moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Sakura's grateful tears. "He asked to examine my camera," said Tomoyo after a long time. "He only touched it for a moment, then handed it back to me... and then-"

"That's gotta be it!" Kero nodded. "Whoever that guy was musta done somethin' weird to your camera! That's what made ya flip out like that!"

"Who was it?" Everyone started; Sakura had suddenly lifted herself from her friend's shoulder, and now wore an expression of grave seriousness. "Who was this person? We've got to find him and-"

"Oh, something tells me that won't be too difficult." A new voice, mocking and sardonic, outwardly cheerful but merciless underneath... Its source was unclear; there was no one else in the park apart from the four of them. "I do apologize, apparently I made that far too easy for you. I'll do better next time, c'est bien?"

In a heartbeat, Shaoran was on his feet, jian drawn. "Who are you?!"

The voice continued, drawling. Its every word seemed to drain more warmth from the summer night. "I suppose it's my fault, really. Making a hybrid of a Youma and a Jikochuu was a novel idea, but the result was lacking. Not to mention stupid, non? I expected it to kill at least one of you, two at the most... but it failed to do even that much. Pity, after all the effort it took to corrupt that girl's Psyche, you'd think it would make a better monster."

"You..." Hardly able to believe her ears, Sakura rose, clutching her key with one hand and Tomoyo with the other. That terrible anger began to burn inside her again... "You're the one who made Tomoyo-chan do those awful things...! Who are you?! Show yourself!"

"Sakura-chan..." Tomoyo grasped her arm and squeezed, her eyes haunted. "That's him! That's his voice!"

A pulse crested over them like an ocean wave, a pulse that was darker than pitch, icier than the bitterest midwinter night. There was no sound or flash of light to mark his appearance; he was simply there between one instant and the next, perched atop a nearby street lamp. His presence made the bulb beneath him dim and flicker unsteadily. The stranger was flamboyantly dressed in mostly purples and whites, an entertainer's clothes, topped with a multicolored swirl of hair that resembled a jester's bell cap. A simple white mask covered his eyes and forehead, but the eyes of the mask were so dark that they seemed to draw light in from around them, like a pair of black holes... That mask should have been impossible to see out of, but when its eyes traveled over them, they could feel the stranger's gaze as a prickling on their skin, the same way you could feel someone staring at you from behind without turning around to be sure of it. His lips spread wide, revealing a mouthful of sharpened teeth... it was a deranged smile, a bone-chilling smile, mirthless... evil. "Mademoiselles et messieurs," he called down to them as he sank forward in a deep, sweeping bow. "I belatedly welcome you to the next act of this great comedy. No applause, please... save it for the finale."

Cold, was Sakura's first, inexplicable thought. Why is he so cold...? The fire within her withered, and she began to tremble despite herself. Clasping her key tightly, she swallowed and tried hard to sound brave... "Wh-who are you?" she asked again. Her voice came out strained and small. "Why are you doing this?"

The stranger rose from his bow. His awful grin stretched wider, wider still, as if his face was about to split. "I? Just a jaunting, jovial jester, japing and jeering with joy and jollity on a jocular journey of jubilant jackanapery..."

"Stop fooling around!" barked Shaoran, edging closer to the others. "The lady asked you a question, so answer it!"

The harlequin let out a high-pitched, trilling giggle. "Stop? But fooling around is one of life's great joys, Monsieur Li! Why, if I couldn't fool around..." He trailed off and put a clawed finger to his chin. "I would just die. Again."

"I don't like this," Kero muttered. "I don't like this at all... be careful, you two!"

Tomoyo whimpered and moved behind Sakura. "Sakura-chan, I'm scared..."

"D-don't worry, Tomoyo-chan." In a show of confidence that she in no way felt in herself, Sakura flashed her friend a smile and squeezed her hand. "We'll keep you safe, I promise." Turning back to face the harlequin, she set her lips in a frown. "Tell us why you hurt Tomoyo-chan...! She never did anything to you!"

"It's not that she did anything," said the harlequin with a shrug. "It's more like she exists, really. She exists, and she gives you strength... and that annoys me." On the last few words of that sentence, all the frivolity in his voice fell away at once. It felt like the temperature of the park dropped another ten degrees... "That, and she's such a sickeningly noble little twit... I had to dig down deep into her Psyche just to find traces of real envy for Monsieur Li there. But once I uncovered it..."

"Th-that's not true...!" Tomoyo clutched at her chest. "I... I'm happy for Li-kun and Sakura-chan, I've always been happy for them!"

"Stop it," whispered Sakura. Then, much louder: "Stop telling lies about her! Leave her alone!"

"Lies? I'm only speaking the truth." That high-pitched giggle again... "If your precious Tomoyo-chan was truly that unselfish in her feelings, I would never have been able to corrupt her at all..."

Kero gritted his teeth and balled his tiny fists. "Don't listen to him, don't believe a word of what he's sayin'! I know this type, he's just tryin' to get a rise out of ya!"

"It's working..." There was a snarl in Shaoran's voice. Both of his hands gripped the hilt of his sword so hard that his knuckles turned white. "I say we shut that big mouth of his! Sakura!"

"I know just the card... RELEASE!" Once more, the key expanded into the Clow Staff. In an eyeblink, a Sakura Card was in her hand. "Stop him from telling more lies! LIBRA!" With more force than usual, she slammed the staff's head against the LIBRA, unleashing its power. A set of sun-and-moon scales emerged from within and rose up to Joker's level, unleashing ripples of energy...

Above, the harlequin placed a hand to his brow in mock distress. "Oh no, oh dear! Whatever shall I do?" Then that mad grin as he answered his own question: "Fight fire with fire, I suppose!" He snapped his fingers and spoke a word that send a thunderbolt of fear through the four watching from below: "SHIELD."

LIBRA's ripples crashed against a sphere of solidified air. The harlequin floated within it, unharmed... and in front of him hovered the SHIELD's winged emblem, darkened and twisted. More chains than ever wrapped around it, and its surface was dyed black...

The four below gaped, astonished. Shaoran nearly lost his grip on his jian. Tomoyo's hands flew over her lips, her eyes wide with terror. Kero shook his head almost dazedly, mouthing the same word over and over: Impossible. Impossible...

And Sakura merely stared at the emblem of the SHIELD, one of her most trusted Cards, one of her friends, with her mind a total blank.

As the LIBRA returned to its Card form and settled back into Sakura's hand, the SHIELD did the same for its new master. It was hard to make out, but it appeared that the back of the Card was now solid black. The harlequin laughed a cold, cruel laugh and palmed the SHIELD, making it vanish. "Quite a trick, non? Don't make that face, Mademoiselle Sakura, I know you're as fond of cards as I am. Surely we can't share a few? In fact..." He snapped his fingers again. Another card appeared between his fingers. "... to make up for it, I'll let you see my card. Catch." Casually he tossed it down to them. The new card curved as it fell, and came to rest hovering before Sakura's face.

By all appearances, it was a simple, non-magical playing card, the kind found in any standard deck. It was emblazoned with a hooded Grim Reaper, skull-faced and bearing a scythe, and below that was a single word, spelled out in thick black letters: JOKER.

"Jo-" The sight of the word... no, the name... froze Sakura's blood in her veins. Terror that she could in no way explain or justify seized her heart in an iron grip, and squeezed, and squeezed... Looking at the name on the card was like looking at the scene of a horrible accident: it was impossible to look away, no matter how desperately she wanted to. There was something deep inside her, deeper than herself, that beheld that name and was as terrified as she was... no, moreso... This is wrong, it seemed to howl. This is all wrong... Danger. Disaster. Calamity. It's all gone wrong...

And the words stirred a faint memory in Sakura from the night before: thinking those same words as something awful happened around her and she was helpless to stop it...

It's all gone wrong... Heaven help us, it's all gone wrong...

"SAKURA!" A sharp crack accompanied a stinging pain on her cheek. Kero floated in front of her, teeth gritted, his tiny paw raised. "Sakura, ya gotta snap out of it! You're the only one that can stop that clown and get SHIELD back!"

Sakura raised a trembling hand to her cheek. She slapped herself lightly, winced, set her bottom lip, and nodded. "You're right. Thanks, Kero-chan. Shaoran, with me! Tomoyo-chan, you and Kero-chan take cover!"

"Got it!"

"Be careful, Sakura-chan, Li-kun..."

Once more they sprung into action, just like in the old days... Sakura and Shaoran working as a pair, the invincible duo. Tomoyo watched from behind a nearby park bench as the Cardcaptor took flight, FLY's feathery wings sprouting from her back and launching her upward to Joker's level. Below her, Shaoran circled around the lamp post, taking position behind the harlequin. From his sleeve he drew a jufu, one of the enchanted paper talismans that his magic favored.

"Raitei Shourai!"

"WINDY!"

At the Cardcaptor's command, WINDY'S curls encircled Joker, wrapping around him and pulling tight. Forks of lightning cascaded upward from Shaoran's jufu, coursing through the harlequin's body. His high-pitched scream split the night...

... and then he was gone, his shape fading into an eye-crossing kaleidoscope pattern...

"That bastard..." Kero snarled, his eyes narrowing. "He hasn't just got SHIELD, he's usin' ILLUSION! Sakura's still got that Card... it's changed, but how the hell did he- Sakura!"

An eyeblink, and the real Joker was behind Sakura, wielding a long, thin rapier with a wicked point. He charged with a cackle of glee, bearing down on her like an incoming missile.

"SWORD!"

The Card activated with less than a second to spare, and Joker's blade crashed against that of Sakura's transformed staff. They danced through the air, a tornado of razor edges, their movements a blur, perfect mirrors for each other.

Reduced to watching helplessly from below, Shaoran tried to follow the frantic back-and-forth of the ringing swords. There was no way to support Sakura with another jufu without the risk of hitting her as well as Joker, they were too close to one another. Damn it, come on...

"Th... that's SWORD's power, isn't it?" Tomoyo whispered to Kero, the flying sparks from the blades reflecting in her eyes. "How is it possible that he and Sakura-chan can use the same Card at the same time?"

Kero's paws clenched and unclenched. "I don't know." He was growing awfully tired of using those words.

"Sakura-chan captured all the Cards, didn't she? They're all her friends!"

"She did, and they are. That's how it's supposed to be. But this Joker guy, whoever he is... he's somehow messed with the way things are supposed to be... and if he's got the power it takes to do that..."

Each crash of the blades reverberated up Sakura's arm, jangling her nerves. SWORD's unique magic still guided her, feeding her a technique or counter for each blow, but she was gradually wearing down, expending too much magic, and nothing SWORD could do could help with that... Have to stop him, she thought, wincing as Joker's rapier came down with the weight of a sledgehammer on the raised flat of her sword. Have to stop him...

Both weapons locked in an X-shape, and Joker grinned, drawing in close, close enough that his breath washed over her. "This is fun, Mademoiselle! You've far exceeded my expectations! I honestly didn't think you'd last this long... You're Clow Reed's successor, to be sure, but you're no fighter... not without the proper motivation, anyway..."

Sakura recoiled in disgust. "How did you know- Who are you? Why are you doing this?!" she asked again. A twinge went through her back muscles in protest, she was straining too hard to break the stalemate.

"I told you: I'm Joker. As for 'why': I want to bring it all to an end." His ghastly smile spread so wide that his cheeks should have torn open. "And as for 'how'... well, let's just say I can see everything, be anywhere... and take anything that I want. Including your Cards... the ones I'm interested in, anyway. If you noticed, I let you keep a few that are, shall we say, less than useful to me. Honestly, bubbles? Sweets? Singing? I'm not sure what Monsieur Clow was thinking with those..."

"You're going-" she panted as she finally broke away, then made a series of advancing slices. "- to give back-" Joker's rapier parried each one. "- all of my friends!"

The harlequin pulled back a few feet and wagged a finger at her, as if chastising a naughty child. "Tsk tsk, now you're just being obstinate. That's unattractive in a young lady, you know?" He giggled madly. "Now then, as I said, this is fun... but it's growing late, and all the players haven't assembled yet. I already have all I need from you and your world, little Cardcaptor, so I think it's time to drop the curtain on this scene, non?"

"What are you-"

Three playing cards appeared between his fingers, all jokers. With a casual flick of his wrist, he sent them plunging downward, Sakura heard the hiss as they passed her... they were slicing through the air like knives...

Three cards. Three people down below. No...!

Sakura dove, pulling her wings in tight. The wind roared in her ears, her heart was a thundering drumbeat against her ribs, her veins were flooded with ice... I'm not going to make it. Not going to make it in time. Time... the phantom, transparent Cards raced through her mind. TIME, SHOT, FREEZE, and ERASE are all transparent... can't use them... did he steal them, too? SHIELD might work, but I don't have enough magic left to cover all three at once... She could barely think, needed more time, needed to be just a bit faster... Faster. That Card could work, couldn't it? It was still a normal Sakura Card, so it had to work. It had to... It materialized in her hand, and she called its name... "DASH!"

DASH's power flowed through her, and yet more of her magic drained away, leaving dark spots on the edges of her vision. Now the roar of the wind became a deafening scream as the speed of her fall increased drastically. The first of Joker's cards grew closer. She could almost reach it... not enough time to catch the two cards heading for the others, but time enough to warn them... Her fingers grasped its edge, but it slipped away. On her second try she snatched it out of the air, held it to her chest, then screamed down at the three below with all the breath she could spare... "EVERYONE, WATCH OUT!" Her hand closed around the card, crushing it in her fist. But the card wasn't solid anymore, it oozed from between her fingers as streams of black liquid, coiling around her- "Wha-?!" They squeezed tight, drove the air from her lungs...

"Sakura!" Panic seized Shaoran's heart. She was falling much too fast, there would be no way for her to spread her wings and pull up before she hit... Not enough time to use a jufu and dodge the card aiming for him... Had to think fast, only one course of action... Sakura, forgive me! "Fuuka Shourai!" Green winds blew forth from the paper, surrounded Sakura and slowed her fall. He could hear the whistling above him now as the card fell like a bolt from the heavens. Sakura, he thought, closing his eyes and willing his final thought to her before it carved him in two...

The sound he had been dreading, the sound of Sakura hitting cement at deadly velocity... never came. Instead, he heard and felt his spell dissipate, gently lowering Sakura to the ground unharmed.

And bizarrely, he was still alive... Shaoran risked a glance upward. The card hovered over him, changing shape, bursting into a flurry of black snakes... no, not snakes, ropes... Cantonese curses spewed forth from him as they constricted, pinning his arms. He lost his balance, the pavement rushed up at him...

*****

"Shaoran! SAKURA!"

That was Kero's voice. Sakura shook herself, registering shock that she wasn't hurt by the fall... she supposed she must have blacked out, but she dimly recalled a bubble of green energy surrounding her before everything went dark...

"Sakura-chan!"

And that was Tomoyo. Thank God, the cards must have missed them both. The furious swearing from farther away had to be Shaoran. So they were all alive... she wanted to weep with relief.

But if the cards weren't meant to kill them, then why...?

Tomoyo's voice again. "Sakura-cha-"

Then a sound, the sound of a thin edge slicing the air. An impact with something soft and yielding, followed by silence.

Sakura's eyes flew open.

Tomoyo stood motionless behind Kero, her eyes wide with shock. A breathless little "Oh!" escaped her lips. As if in slow motion, Sakura saw Kero turn around to look behind him... it seemed to take a thousand years for him to turn... and even longer for the first red spots to well up from around the card half-embedded in Tomoyo's chest.

She fell as if underwater, gracefully sinking to the pavement. Her hands made feeble grasping motions at the card as her dress grew redder and redder, a sluggish, spreading, deep crimson stain...

The silence was broken.

"TOMOYO-CHAN!"

"TOMOYO!"

"Daidouji!"

Tomoyo's fingers found a grip on the card. It let off a fat spark of dark magic that sank into her fingertips... She gazed at them with a puzzled expression as they dissolved into tiny particles of violet light, particles that were drawn into the card's surface as if by a vacuum.

"TOMOYO-CHAN, NO! TOMOYO-CHAN!"

"Tomoyo, hang on!" Kero was before her now, pulling at the card with every ounce of his tiny body's limited strength. It refused to budge... its edges pulsed with energy, the process accelerated, and more of Tomoyo's body disintegrated. Caught in the pulse, Kero was tossed away from her like a rag doll.

"TOMOYO-CHAN!" Sakura wriggled frantically, inching across the pavement. The card she held had transformed into thick black ropes that held her arms to sides and tied her wrists together. It didn't matter, it didn't matter if she couldn't use her arms; as long as she reached Tomoyo in time- Losing her balance, she stumbled, felt the cool cement scrape her cheek. "TOMOYO-CHAN!" Shaoran and Kero were shouting too, but she could barely hear them. She could barely hear herself over the howling of her thoughts: Not Tomoyo-chan! Not Tomoyo-chan, please! I have to save her, I -

Most of Tomoyo was broken down now, turned into specks of light and pulled into the card's surface. Only her head and upper body were left. Somehow, she turned to Sakura and met her eyes. Against all sense, she smiled, that same beautiful Tomoyo smile that she always wore. Her lips moved... her words were clear and unafraid, even as her shape faded.

"Everything will be all right, Sakura-chan. Everything wi-"

Then Tomoyo was gone. The card fell to the ground, now bearing a picture of her face, its edges smoking.

Sakura screamed... an inarticulate wail of loss that echoed through the stillness of the park for a long time before finally petering out.

Tomoyo's card flipped itself upright and sailed into Joker's hand. Floating down from above, he sat atop the King Penguin slide, his smile somehow even more horrible as he held the card up to the moonlight, examining it. "Quelle surprise, I've caught the Tomoyo-chan Card! I suppose this makes me a Cardcaptor too, non?"

There was no answer. Sakura stared at the pavement, paralyzed by grief. Little wet spots appeared on the ground beneath her, one after another. Some part of her recognized that she was crying, though she couldn't feel the tears at all. She couldn't feel anything, she was... hollow... as empty as one of her lost Cards...

"You..." Through sheer force of will, Shaoran climbed to his feet. No other words seemed to be vile enough to complete that sentence, so he merely glared at Joker, glared at him with all the loathing that he could muster. "You...!"

Again with that damned smile, the devil's smile. Joker tilted his head. "Moi?"

"Why..." The word was hoarse, barely audible. Sakura turned to the harlequin, her tormentor, in stunned disbelief. No one could be this cruel without a reason, no one... it just didn't make sense... "You... you k-k-killed Tomoyo-chan... why...?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Mademoiselle," said Joker, lazily waving a hand. "She's not dead, it was just a trick. A jest, if you will. The blood effect wasn't quite as realistic as I'd hoped, but c'est la vie. Your precious Tomoyo-chan is still here..." Whatever was behind the black eyes of the mask he wore began to glow a blazing red and orange, like the fires of Hell. The glow plunged the rest of his face into shadow, until all that could be seen were those nightmarish eyes and his grotesque smile. "Alive, in the same state she was when she was sealed. So, in considerable pain... but alive. Ask your Card friends about it, I'm sure they'll be able to relate."

It was as if a spear of ice pierced through Sakura's belly. The numbness of her grief was replaced by bitter cold... The Cards... I hurt them? No, that can't be... it's not true... and Tomoyo... Tomoyo is alive, but he's hurting her...

He's hurting her, she thought, with sudden, awful clarity, because of me...

"I'll kill you!" The roar sprung from Shaoran like some wild beast escaping from a cage. His chest swelled, and the ropes binding him snapped. Retrieve his jian and gripping it with a shaking hand, he drew another jufu, laid it against the flat of the blade, and bellowed: "KASEI SHOURAI!"

Joker was swallowed by flame. There was no other way to describe it... it was not a stream but a wall of scarlet fire that erupted from the jufu and devoured the harlequin in an inferno the size of a house. Visible inside it only as a faint, writhing shadow, Joker howled in agony...

Shaoran didn't hear him, didn't watch. In an instant, he was by Sakura's side, holding her close. "Sakura..." She quivered in his arms... she felt too small to him, helpless, like a lost baby bird. He had never seen her so... so broken. Even during the shock of the Final Judgment, she had never been like this. "Sakura, we'll get her back."

"Shao-" His name caught in her throat.

"We'll get her back," he repeated. "I promise we'll get her back, and we'll make him pay. Please, don't cry..."

"Shaoran," she breathed, taking strength from his presence, as she always did. She sniffled, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, then raised her head and smiled at him. "Thank you..."

Behind them, the flames burned on, casting embers to the sky. Sakura and Shaoran rose hand in hand, then turned to face the fire...

"Well, isn't this a sickening display." Out he came, striding easily from out of the inferno as if it were air, casually flicking away the tongues of smoldering fire that clung to his clothes. "A fine attack that was, Monsieur Li. Quite unexpected. I was almost concerned for, oh, a few seconds." Joker stared at them both, at their clasped hands, the eyes of his mask black and empty once more. "Of course, I'll be in far more danger if you continue spouting your drivel to each other. I've a delicate composition, you see... pointless human affection just makes me ill."

"It's not pointless!" Sakura aimed her staff at him. However he had stolen or copied SHIELD and the other Cards, it didn't much matter. SHIELD's presence alone made nearly all methods of attack pointless, save for SWORD. But if I follow SWORD up with another Card... "You're going to give my friend back, or-"

"Or what?" All the levity and mockery vanished from Joker's voice, and the inexplicable frigid sensation that he triggered inside Sakura worsened, like spiders with feet of ice crawling up and down her spine... "You're not a fighter, Mademoiselle. You're not a killer. You don't rely on your power, you rely on your love and hope and friendship." He spat the words out as a curse. "You're one of the worst of them all. At least the others have some fire to them."

A few feet away, Kero stirred, rubbing the growing bruise on the back of his head. Only part of that last sentence registered with him, but it gave him pause. Others? What is he talking about?

The hellish flames behind the eyes of Joker's mask lit up again as he advanced. "It doesn't matter. In the end, even your power doesn't matter. The only constant in all the worlds is that there's no meaning to be found in any of them." The flames danced, and the awful smile slid off his face, his lips tightening into a grim, hard line that was somehow worse... far, far worse. "I've seen what it all amounts to. I've seen the end, Mademoiselle Sakura, and the end is nothing. Whatever kind of pathetic life you hope to lead, it will all end in nothing."

Cold... He's too cold... Even the warmth of Shaoran's hand was fading. Sakura couldn't move, couldn't speak. Never before had she heard a worldview so heartless... How was it possible? How could anyone or anything exist, thinking that way? Again, she had the bizarre feeling that it wasn't just her being horrified by Joker's words... but that was impossible, wasn't it?

"And while we're on the subject..." As if a switch had been flipped, Joker's smile returned, wider than ever. Another corrupted Card materialized between his thin fingers. "There's an old friend of yours who wants to get reacquainted with you, Mademoiselle Sakura. She's been waiting quite a long time for a rematch, you see..."

Next to him appeared-

"Oh no," whispered Shaoran.

Sakura's hand gripped his like an iron vise as tendrils of pure, icy fear constricted her body, freezing her to her very soul.

Next to Joker was an inky sphere of swirling darkness, and inside it, the figure of a young girl. A young girl with impossibly long tresses of silvery hair, wearing a white dress and an expression of sorrow. Her eyes opened, deep and peaceful blue, and as she gazed at Shaoran and Sakura... her face twisted into an ugly, violent snarl, and her irises shifted to blood red. The NOTHING Card spoke a single word that seethed with hatred, and the dark sphere around her whipped into a frenzy...

"You...!"

END OF CHAPTER 3