Story: Tomoyo's World -Part 1- World Turned Upside Down (chapter 11)

Authors: Risa Kaijuu

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Chapter 11

Title: Chapter 10



Chapter 10

Friday July 28 7:15am Taiwan time.

After breakfast they went back to the ravaged clearing in the nature preserve, but it was full of people looking at the damage. So they found another quiet place a half a mile away which was easy as Eriol said they didn't need a clearing this time.

"So what do I practice now?" Tomoyo asked.

"Spell cracking is what I call it. In the books it's called disenchantment." Eriol started with simple spells on things, mostly trees, getting Tomoyo used to the feel of different types of spells and explaining to her the steps to removing each type. But as it turned out Tomoyo didn't need these details as she could actually see the spell and just sort of unwrap it with her Magic. This unique method worked with even quite complex spells without her having to know anything about their structure or how they were cast. He just smiled and shook his head, in amazement at the power of her Earth Magic.

Then, they used Kaho as what she called "the crash dummy" and Eriol put many different spells on her, even turning her into a wolf at one point. With just a little practice Tomoyo was able to remove each spell without even making her uncomfortable.

"Awww... I wish you had left me as a wolf a bit longer, I wanted to do some sniffing around and see if I could catch a rabbit or something." Kaho then grinned as Eriol looked at the ground and shook his head.

"This is deadly serious!"

"I know. But a little humor relieves the tension and makes it easier for Tomoyo to absorb the incredible amount of knowledge you are stuffing into her."

"This may be true, but I find it very distracting." Eriol replied in a rather stuffy manner.

"Please? Lets continue?" Tomoyo reminded them and they got back to work. After a short rest Eriol had Tomoyo try removing spells while being attacked at the same time. She practiced very hard but still didn't do well. Not well at all.

Eriol checked his watch before he spoke. "We are out of time. It's eleven o'clock and you have to be leaving very soon. What you have learned will have to be enough." he finished quietly.

"So how do I tell which way to fly?"

"You should be able to find it with your Magic. Just touch my Magic with your Magic. Now can you feel me reaching out?"

"Yes."

"Now keep touching my Magic where I am reaching out, in other words follow my Magic. Tomoyo nodded and then found her Magic stretched far further and faster than she had ever tried before. "Now do you feel that?" Tomoyo felt around with her Magic and then nodded. "Okay, that is the coast of mainland China. "Reach out in different directions, really far out... Now can you feel different things in different directions?"

"Yes, I can."

"Excellent! By checking your relationship to your surroundings from time to time, you will be able to maintain your direction. Now pay attention to where my magic is pointing, that way is Hong Kong. To be on the safe side, in case there is north wind, head to the right of that line and you will hit the coast of China east of Hong Kong. Then just follow the coast till you get there. Any questions?"

"I fly that way." Tomoyo pointed with her Magic. "I fly until I reach the coast of China, then I follow it to Hong Kong. I contact the cards, talk them out of killing me, use the Return Card, save Sakura from Li or something that looks like Li, and I'm done, right?

"Exactly right."

"I don't suppose it will be that simple to actually do it through."

"I'm sure it won't be simple at all. I fear there will be plenty of trouble along the way, but I am confident that you will be able to deal with it. You may have other abilities that I do not know of, but those you will have to learn on your own. I have done what I can. Do you feel ready to face some really angry card sprites?"

"I have to. To bring Sakura back." she replied more calmly than she felt. Then she nodded at Eriol, lowered her face shield and took off straight up. When she decided she was high enough so she would be hard to see, she hesitated as the reality of what she was getting into finally struck her and she was filled with a terrible fear.

"I'm heading into deadly danger that I know nothing about! It's powerful enough to kill Eriol who has much more Magic power than I have! I'm just a high school girl, how can I be expected to do this?! How I wish I could just go home to my room and forget all this horrible stuff."

But then she thought of the one she loved and the fear blew away like mist in a sudden wind. "Sakura." "I WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SAVE MY SAKURA-CHAN!!" She shouted at the sky, then she aimed at Hong Kong and in a second she was roaring along with a powerful wind battering her small soft body.

"The Cards will feel me coming and try to attack me as they did with all the planes that tried to fly over the destruction. All I have to do is calm them and keep them from killing me long enough to explain how I can save Sakura."

As she flew she congratulated herself at having thought of the motorcycle stuff. It was cold up where she was flying and the wind from her speed beat against her like a solid thing.

"I wish I had an air speed indicator and an altimeter." she mumbled to herself. Then she imagined Eriol's expression if she had asked him to add those features to her Fly Card and chuckled.

She remembered seeing pictures of people flying with their arms stretched out in front of them, and just for fun she tried it. It was really uncomfortable. What worked the best was flying with her hands in her jacket pockets. The air blasting at her caused her legs to wiggle back and forth in a sort of flutter which was annoying. But she found that by hooking her feet on each other she could stabilize them, and make flying a little less uncomfortable. "I really prefer flying inside an airplane!" she complained out loud to no one. After only a few minutes of flying she realized she had a problem.

"The wind blast hits my face so hard it jams the back of my helmet into the back of my neck, which is getting sore from all the pressure. I need a pad on the back edge of this helmet! But I don't have anything like that. Maybe if I faced down? After all I don't need my eyes to see where I'm going since I am using my Magic sense to guide me."

This worked for a while but it was putting a lot of strain on her neck muscles. "I feel like I am trying to balance a weight on top of my head! But I've seen pictures of women in Africa carrying huge jars of water on their heads... I guess I just have to concentrate on keeping my head pointed exactly straight into the wind blast."

After nearly three hours of constant flight she saw the coastline. "Finally" she sighed. She turned and then followed it for another hour, "I should be getting close now." And sure enough, what had looked like low clouds on the horizon was in fact smoke. The south wind blew it into a huge curved pointer with the tip on the city, where many buildings were still burning. She called on her Shield Card to protect her and began scanning the area with her Magic, looking for something that felt like her Tomoyo Cards. "They should be around here somewhere." She said to herself as she flew.

But it wasn't until another half hour of flying that she found Fiery. Or rather Fiery found her. He was approaching her from behind as she had flown past while he was down on the ground and she had been unlucky enough to have missed detecting him with her inexperienced Magic scans.

He struck without warning. To Tomoyo there was just a stabbing pain in her back and the feeling of intense heat. It was fortunate that she wasn't inhaling at that moment as the super heated air could have killed her if it had gotten into her lungs. It was also fortunate that she was wearing leather which doesn't burn easily and a helmet. Her shield hadn't worked all that well against Fiery's powerful attack. It did stop the heat magic all right, but when it tried to absorb the the Magical energy, it overloaded and let it dissipate in the air just outside the shield, which heated all that air till it glowed orange and expanded explosively. And her Shield wasn't set to stop either air or radiant heat that doesn't come directly from magic. So it was like she had been hit by a huge torch flame for a moment. Not long enough to burn her leather suit, but plenty long enough to cause her delicate wings to turn black, curl up and then break off. As she fell, the super hot air rose and she was back in cool air in little more than a second; safe from the heat but not from the ground that was coming up at her.

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