Chapter 9
"Light Saber? Like in Star Wars?" Tomoyo said with a hint of a smile.
"Yes, well...I made it years ago after I watched one of those movies. I was just a kid then and I wanted a light saber and so I made one. Since I had it and you needed a weapon of some sort, I just converted it to a Tomoyo Card for you."
"Sakura's Sword comes out of her Magic Staff..." Tomoyo noted.
"You don't need a Magic Staff for Light Saber. You just call it by name while you are holding a hand out with your fingers curved like you were holding a flashlight, and it will appear in your hand. The default is an 80 centimeter (31.5 in.) blade, but you can make it any length you want. However the longer it is, the weaker it is so it's not useful as a long range weapon... Go ahead and try it."
Tomoyo held her right hand out and called, "Light Saber!" and instantly there was indeed a light saber in her hand. It was smaller than the ones in Star Wars and didn't make any sound but otherwise seemed the same, including the blue white light coming from the 'blade'.
"I included a safety block in the Magic so you can't accidentally cut yourself with it." Eriol announced proudly. "However you can of course accidentally cut anything else with it, including your friends. Remember if you are cutting through a wall, to not make the blade any longer than it needs to be. And I couldn't figure out just how Clow made his Sword give the user sword fighting skills, but in this day and age, you aren't likely to be dueling anyone with a similar Magic sword so you shouldn't need that."
Tomoyo had no problem at all with her two new Cards individually but she found that trying to use them both at the same time was hard. It took much time and practice before she could do it reliably. But when she had two cards out and called the third, one of the first two would nearly always go back to Card form. "It is difficult to control three Cards even for one as talented as you are. I don't think we have time right now to use on a skill you probability won't need, so I will just give you your final exam for card use; listen carefully. See the large dead tree there?" When Tomoyo nodded he continued. "When I say, GO, I want you to put your wings out, fly up to the top as fast as you can, use your Saber Card to cut off a good size piece of the top, then fly under the falling tree top and divert it with your shield card, and finally put your shield away, call your Saber and cut it again before it hits the ground.
"Are you serious?" A stunned looking Tomoyo asked.
"Very serious." "What if I can't call out "Fly, Light Saber, Shield, Light Saber" fast enough?"
"You don't need to call their names out loud anymore. Just call them with your mind and you should be able to do it. You can fly fast enough and use your Cards fast enough, but up till now you haven't stretched yourself to your full potential. So just visualize the whole thing in your mind as clearly as you can while at the same time feeling the Magic Power inside yourself. You have to really believe you can do it, or you can't. Confidence is critical. Finally you might imagine that you are saving Sakura's life with this action and just do it."
Kaho was as surprised as Tomoyo at Eriol's words but she just kept quiet and watched. Tomoyo nodded to Eriol, then stared at the tree top for perhaps five seconds before Eriol yelled "go". Instantly she shot into the air with such a sudden roar that it sounded rather like an explosion. She moved so fast, Kaho could hardly follow the flying girl with her eyes as she went up to the tree top, there was a flash of the Saber, then she shot down half way, and stopped for just an instant before there was another flash of light and then she was down to the ground again. Did she do it? Kaho wondered before noticing that pieces of tree were raining down on the ground next to where Tomoyo was standing. And the top two meters of the tree were gone.
"Excellent job!" See how fast you can be when you need to? Eriol congratulated Tomoyo. "And my dragonfly wings worked even better than I had hoped! See that?" He pointed out proudly to Kaho who did look impressed.
After a short rest, they started working with nonphysical Magic attacks. Eriol had been impressed with Tomoyo's shielding ability when she had pushed his probe out of her mind back in her bedroom, but the truth was far stranger. No matter how hard he attacked her he couldn't detect the slightest softening of her shield. Clow had heard that Earth Magic adepts had good nonphysical shields but he had never had the opportunity to test one. "Well, it's obvious that you have inherited a really good shield against nonphysical magic from your ancestor, so you don't need any practice with that. So now lets try a whole different field; physical Magic. Physical attacks are things like fireballs, magic arrows, and even ordinary things like furniture which can be thrown by Magic power. There are basically two ways of protecting yourself from such attacks, the first I call the 'brick wall' style of defense. Brick wall is easy to do, but you have to be significantly stronger than your opponent at Physical Magic. And since we have no idea who you may have to deal with, we will concentrate on a more subtle form of defense. This is where you slip inside the attack and fool the spell into diverting the attack into a safe direction. This is much harder to learn, as you have to do delicate work while something scary is coming at you very fast, so we may need to spend considerable time on it." Privately Eriol was very worried that a girl as young as Tomoyo wouldn't have the self discipline to handle this sort of technique, but it was worth seeing what she could do. He was aware of the weakness of his Shield Card against both kinds of Magic attacks. She picked up slipping into spells fairly quickly, thanks to her ancestors help, but she still needed to hone her reflexes to respond fast enough. And this took practice. Lots of practice. But as for self discipline, she impressed Eriol more than he was willing to admit.
During a rest break, Tomoyo brought up something she had thought of. "Once I save Sakura, could you teach her this kind of Magical defense?"
"I doubt it. Indirect defensive techniques wouldn't suit her. I do plan to teach her as much defense magic as I can, but for physical attacks I would just show her the "brick wall" style. It's more suited to her. You should know that she isn't the subtle type. And she can direct more raw power than anyone I, or Clow has ever known, so for her, "Brick Wall" should work fine. The problem would be her knowing the attack was coming. She would still be vulnerable to an attack she didn't see coming. And remember a Mage isn't limited to just using Magic to fight. And no matter what your power is, if you don't have your Shield Card protecting you, you can be killed by an ordinary, non Magical, bullet just like anyone else."
Thursday July 27 8:12pm Taiwan time
Yet another physical Magic attack was diverted by Tomoyo and badly shattered a beautiful tree before Eriol could stop it. "That poor tree!" Tomoyo sighed. "Remember Hong Kong and Sakura." was all Eriol had to say to make Tomoyo forget about trees. Which was a good thing, because by ten o'clock that night, there were smashed and charred trees and scorched earth all around. Several people had come to investigate the noise and fire, but Kaho made them lose interest and go to their homes. When Eriol was satisfied that Tomoyo could protect herself from any magical attack he could deal out, they started on combinations. First defensive Magic and any one of the cards. Tomoyo had no problem at all with this, so then they went to keeping her natural shield up while using two cards. She found this a lot harder and it took some practice to get her to the point where she could do it reliably. He was pleased to note that whenever Tomoyo lost something, it was always one of the cards. She never lost her shield even when she first started with two cards.
When Eriol noticed that it was after midnight he decided to quit for the night. "Very good Tomoyo-san. Very good indeed." He felt much better now, and was beginning to understand just how the young and totally inexperienced girl was going to pull off something he could not do himself. She was an amazing person.
A half hour later they were all at a late night restaurant where Eriol and Kaho had to smile at each other to see the usually very proper Tomoyo eating furiously. The late dinner completed they moved to a hotel room and after getting Tomoyo's permission, Eriol put a sleep spell on her so she could get as much rest as possible.