Story: Tomoyo's World -Part 2- Bitter Turns To Sweet (chapter 5)

Authors: Risa Kaijuu

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Chapter 5

Title: Chapter 4


Chapter 4


That night they again slept in the same bed with both Tomoyo's shield and the Shield card protecting them, but there were no bad feelings and only one incident. And it had nothing to do with evil cards. It seemed that Tomoyo had had rather a lot of tea before going to bed, so during the night, when nature called, she got up and headed for where she knew the private bathroom was. She was somewhat startled when she passed through the Sakura's shield Card barrier and Sakura became unreachable with her Magic. But after a moments thought, she just extended her shield all the way around Sakura's Shield.


But not too surprisingly, being far from fully awake, she had completely forgotten about Shield by the time she was heading back to bed, so when her right foot struck the impenetrable barrier it crumpled her toes painfully and caused her to lose her balance and fall forward. Her hands struck the dome shaped upper part of the barrier next, but since one of the properties of Shields barrier is that it is incredibly slippery, they could not prevent her chin from also striking rather painfully. "I'm glad that wasn't my nose." she thought as she rubbed her sore chin.


Sliding down Shield until she was on her knees on the floor, Tomoyo called out. "Shield! Let me in! I need to protect Sakura!"


"That was dumb. Sakura set Shield on guard, so of course it will only listen to Sakura. I need to wake her up. I hate to disturb her sleep, but I need to be near her to properly shield her. And besides, I want to get back in that nice warm bed."


"Sakura? Wake up. Shield won't let me in." But her soft words had no effect on Sakura at all.


"I know she is a heavy sleeper, but this is getting annoying!" So Tomoyo turned on all the lights in the room and kept calling Sakura; getting louder and louder until someone knocked on the door and asked if there was a problem. "NO! NO PROBLEM! EVERYTHING IS FINE!" She yelled back with an angry note in her usually sweet voice. Then she realized that she had been very rude, and went over and opened the door; but who ever had spoken was gone. So she went back to waking Sakura up.


"SAKURA!!"


"You don't have to yell Tomoyo-chan. What's the matter? Are we being attacked?"


"No. I just got up to use the bathroom and Shield won't let me back in bed."


It didn't help Tomoyo's mood any when the Cardmistress burst out laughing before having Shield let her in.


Thursday July 27 7:12am


Tomoyo again awakened first. And felt a thrill when she felt Sakura snuggled as close as she could get and holding her arm. "I must not enjoy this too much. I have to remember that she is not mine. Even though she seems to be acting like I am hers." she noted with a smile. But after reminding herself that she was just Sakura's friend and bodyguard, she slipped out of the Cardmistress' hold and moved a little so they didn't touch. But being so close to her Sakura soon became too painful to bear. Half of her wanted desperately to take the Cardmistress in her arms but the other half was holding her back. "This is making me crazy! I have to get further away from her."


So she decided to get up. After showering and getting dressed she waited a while for Sakura to wake up.


"I suppose this is a waste of time. She will likely sleep another hour or so. Maybe I could just go down for some breakfast. I can still keep scanning around for any threat from downstairs." Doing a quick scan of the house she found Ieran having breakfast outside in the garden and decided to join her.


xxxx


It was comforting to be able to check on Sakura with her Magic sense, even while she was talking with Ieran.


"I suggest that you and Kinomoto-sama stay here another day, so I can work with you both on your offensive and defensive Magic." Ieran was saying.


Tomoyo thought that was an excellent idea so after Sakura had gotten up and had her breakfast the three of them met outside at a table just outside the garden. Ieran started by trying to teach Sakura how to reach out with her Magic and touch things, but had very limited success. Very limited indeed. Other than Magic Cards, she could only detect large things that were fairly close to her.


Then Ieran tried to introduce her to nonphysical Magic attacks and defense and found Sakura had no idea what she was talking about. And since she couldn't feel Ieran's Magic, Ieran couldn't even show her how to do it.


"Have you ever tried moving things with your Magic?" Ieran asked in her calm voice.


"No? I never thought of it."


"Well, try moving that chair over there."


"How can I move something I can't feel with my Magic? I can move Cards..."


"Ah yes. You can't feel anything else. But you said you could feel the flower box, on the edge of the garden there."


"Yeah, but just barely." Sakura admitted.

"Well, just try moving it, like it was a Card."


Sakura looked at the massive concrete casting for a while and nothing happened. "Do your best!" Tomoyo encouraged the Cardmistress. Sakura gave her a small smile and then an expression clearly showing her concentration crossed her face before the box suddenly pulled out of the depression where it's weight had sunk it into the ground, went up six feet or so and moved sharply towards them.


"How is that?" Sakura asked as she turned and noticed that Ieran had vacated her place at the table and was retreating rapidly.


"I don't think our hostess has confidence in your ability to control that thing. Perhaps you should just put it back?" Tomoyo finished with a smile.


In a minute or so the flower box was back in it's place and Ieran was back at the table and composed again. "I'm sorry for my reaction but I wasn't prepared for something that large and heavy to start coming at me so fast." After a pause Ieran continued. "You have great power, but lack sensitivity. Now I don't suppose you have any idea how to do fire Magic?" When Sakura shook her head Ieran nodded. "I didn't expect you to. Nor can I teach it to you with your lack of sensitivity. It is something that can only be taught by example. There is no way to describe the spell in words. So you will have to wait on this until you can develop your Magic sense to the point where you can feel others Magic. You have much work to do. Having the power of the Cards at your command has spoiled you and made it unnecessary for you to properly learn Magic. I believe it would be wise of you to take the time and lean all the Magic you can as you never know when you may need it."


"Okay. I will do that." Sakura said hesitantly.


"Now we will test Daidoji-sama's abilities." Ieran had expected, Tomoyo's magic sensing ability to be good as she had found Kutong's house, but the actual extent of it astonished her. She could identify objects around her at least as well as seeing them and the range she could sense things was so great that Ieran had no way to measure it. She could also feel Ieran's Magic, as if she could see that as well. "You have a remarkable power. I expect it is due to your Earth Magic as I have never known anyone else with your ability. Your Nonphysical Magic shielding is well known so we need not test that. But now we will see what nonphysical attack magic you can do."


Tomoyo quickly figured out how Ieran formed a spear of stabbing Magic, but when she tried to do it herself, it was pitifully weak. "Well now that you know how, you can work on developing some power in your attack. You can practice on animals or even plants, if you prefer. This sort of attack can kill anything that lives. But of course you don't want to practice on people, as it is very dangerous. Particularly when you are inexperienced. Next is physical Magic."


They soon discovered that Tomoyo's ability to lift and move objects was limited to very small things. She could lift a spoon but not a plate. Not could she propel that spoon very far from her. "So there is another thing you need to work on." Ieran said in her calm way, yet Tomoyo could feel the emotions she concealed.


"It wasn't strange that she was frightened of Sakura's power, but she seemed worried when I showed I had better Magic sensing than she did. And then she was relieved when I showed that I lacked any significant power with Physical Magic. I wonder if she is really an ally, or if she is in fact a rival who wants the Cards for herself? After all she never dropped her shield once with us. Still, it could just be that I just hurt her pride a little."


"Now we will see if you can do some fire Magic." Ieran said to Tomoyo.


"Doesn't that require a great deal of Magic power?"


"Not if you do it correctly. You can make things hot by using your Magic power directly, but that is wasteful. The proper way to do it is to use a circular spell, that is one that repeats itself over over, each time it gathers a little more heat, until it runs into it's limit. Then you just project the spell at your target. When the spell strikes a physical object the circle will open and all the heat it contains will be released."


"Okay, but where does the heat really come from then?" Tomoyo, as usual, wanted to understand the theory as well as the application.


"It doesn't come from anywhere. It's just there." Ieran said and Tomoyo could feel her irritation.


"She doesn't know." Tomoyo smiled to herself.


"So now try to feel what I am doing, and I will make a simple fireball." Ieran then proceeded to make one fireball after another until Tomoyo was finally able to follow all the steps that had to be done before the heat would begin to build up in the circle. Then Tomoyo tried to do what she had felt Ieran doing. And nothing happened. In fact it took over an hour of trying and being corrected before it suddenly worked. "YAY!" Sakura cried when the large orange fireball appeared in front of Tomoyo. "You did it!"


"Yes, but I'm not really sure how I did it." Tomoyo admitted.


"Well then try it again." Ieran suggested.


The next two tries failed and then Tomoyo finally got the bit she had been missing. "Now just keep practicing that spell until you can do it reliably. Then once you can do that, I will show you how to make proper attack fireballs. They are smaller and much hotter than these. And Sakura, you work on you Magic sensing ability. Unfortunately I have things I must do now, and I must withdraw for a while. I will check back with you this afternoon." With this Ieran excused herself and left the two girls sitting at the table on the edge of the garden.


So up until Lunch, Sakura practiced her Magic sense with Tomoyo's help and guidance, and in between, Tomoyo practiced her fireballs. Taking Ieran's hint she tried making them smaller. Sure enough they grew brighter. Then remembering that each time the spell looped around it picked up heat, she tried to make spells that ran faster. This took a lot of trial and error but by the time they were notified of lunch Tomoyo could make fireballs that were very bright indeed and nearly white.


Sakura had made progress as well as she could now feel the chair that she failed to earlier. And being able to feel it meant she could lift it. She didn't try to throw it of course.


After lunch Ieran seemed pleased with Sakura's progress and then astonished when Tomoyo demonstrated one of her small super hot fireballs. "How did you learn to do that?" She wanted to know.


"I just listened to what you said and applied it. You said that attack fireballs were smaller, so I tried making mine smaller, then you said that the spell picks up heat each time it runs so I just tried making my spells run faster. Now what should I do?"


"Your talent for fire Magic is impressive. And Kinomoto-sama has made good progress with her Magic sense. I suppose you two can have the rest of the afternoon off to rest or practice as you will. I regret to say that I must leave you again, but I have responsibilities. I will see you at dinner." With a few more polite words Ieran was gone.


xxx


That night after dinner Sakura's dad called. It seemed that he was flying back to Tokyo for a one day meeting and he wanted very much to see her while he was back. So after checking with Ieran, she let her dad know that she would be home the next day before his meeting would be over.


That night Tomoyo was so exhausted she fell asleep almost as soon as she got into bed. When she awoke, Sakura was again snuggling with her. "This feels so good, and yet I can't let her keep doing it. She is much too affectionate for us being just friends. But it is SO hard to push her away!"


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