Sorry, sorry people! Sorry it’s so late! It’s just that I’ve been working on the digimon fics lately! And other than that, I had a really big writer’s block with this. But…I’m finally back! That’s a good thing! Cheer!
*Crickets chirping…cri-kee…cri-kee…* *frown* Well somebody’s not happy today…

I Know The Meaning Of Pain…Chapter 5…Innocence

"Ishiro! What are you doing here? It’s good that you’re not hurt or anything! Where’s your sister and Shotoku? Do you know what happened?" Sakura asked, leaning against Syaoran. The other Cardcaptor wasn’t as
clueless as the other was. He knew the voice that Ishiro had used to startle them. The same voice that had told him what to do in the dream, the same voice that had threatened Sakura. And he knew that Ishiro
wasn’t the one who could be said was the victim. Slowly, Syaoran pushed Sakura away from him, and advanced towards the younger boy.

"Where’s Shotoku?" was all he said. Ishiro smiled smugly and turned away, his back facing Syaoran. He shrugged. Syaoran’s temper flared, and he grabbed Ishiro’s shoulders and shook him, repeating his
question. "Where’s Shotoku?!" The smile didn’t fade off the boy’s face.

"How would I know?"

"Don’t play dumb with me!" Syaoran warned, pushing him against a tree as hard as he could manage. What Syaoran didn’t see was that there was an extremely sharp piece of bark sticking up from the trunk, right
in the center of the area Ishiro’s back landed on. Ishiro winced as he felt it cut through his clothes and into his back. He felt the warm dark liquid drip from his back. Sakura gasped as she saw a line of blood
leading from Ishiro to the ground. She pointed.

"Syaoran! You’re hurting him!" she said. Syaoran stared at the line, before turning back to Ishiro and shaking his head.

"I can’t let him go. He has Shotoku somewhere and we don’t know what he’s done to him." He turned back to Ishiro, whose eyes were slightly narrowed. "The faster you tell me where Shotoku is, the faster you’ll
get whatever that is out of your back." Ishiro breathed out through his mouth and looked at Syaoran from under his bangs, the gray-blue eyes having a slightly redder hue in them than usual. This was only
physical pain…nothing compared to what he had been through. If this Cardcaptor was foolish enough to think that he would give in this easily, he thought, it was safe to believe that the fight was already won.
Syaoran became impatient. The smirk on Ishiro’s face told him that he knew as well. "Tell me Ishiro! What are you?!"

Ishiro opened his mouth to talk, but before he could manage any words, he coughed up a jet of blood. Syaoran and Sakura both got out of the way in time, the red liquid didn’t stain anything. Syaoran’s grasp on
his shoulders loosened, but he didn’t fall out of place. He still stood there, as if whatever was injuring him was propping him up like a nail props up a picture. His eyes were closed. "Is he…" Sakura started as she
walked closer to Syaoran and stared at Ishiro, "dead?"

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Black is an interesting color. It isn’t even a color. It’s a shade. The darkest shade there ever existed. But if you close your eyes, it’s black. Yet the longer you close them, the more colors appear in the black, until
finally, it turns into white. Have you ever seen black ink? If you dilute it in water, you’ll find out that it’s actually made up of many different colors. Red, blue, yellow, almost every color of the rainbow. It isn’t
really black anyway. Our eyes train us to see very dark things as black. Sometimes I wonder if anything black is actually that, or just a very dark shade of blue. The sky is black at night, or maybe it’s just midnight
blue.

Black is the color of evil. But if there wasn’t any black, there would be no significance of white. It’s like evil. Without an evil side, there is no right side. Do you understand? Without the other, no one would
know what the difference was between right or wrong, because there would be no wrong to compare to. There has to be evil in life. For without evil, there is no good.

It would be a funny thing to say that evil people are doing you a favor by being what they are. But if they weren’t evil, someone, maybe even you would be evil. Evil reminds you how satisfying it is to be good. It
proves how meaningless it is to be evil.

I have always believed that. And if you look at it long enough, it is true. No one is born evil. It has to be taught. Everyone starts out as an innocent baby, untouched by all the wrongs in the world. It’s the other
people that surround the baby that turns the child into evil. Every baby is white, the black around it stains it into gray. Darker and darker the gray becomes, until it’s black itself. Like a drop of black paint, fed by
the bucket.

How do we know that someone is evil, and someone is right? How can we determine the difference? In reference to the qualities man should have? But what if whoever decided that had been wrong? Isn’t it
possible that everything would be switched around? And that in reality, the evil people are right and the right is wrong?

No one dare asks these questions, because humans are afraid of change.

So I figure that Clow’s reason for doing what he did was this then. To bring up this idea in the minds of those he could reach. Unfortunately, it came with a consequence. The consequence of eternal life, unless
another guardian kills me or I kill her, Tomine and I will always exists.

We weren’t evil when we were merely children that happened to stumble upon his little project. We were taught to be evil, because that was our purpose. We have to be. It’s not our choice. I can still picture the
little boy standing with a ball in his hands, a childish grin smeared across his face, the gray-blue eyes twinkling with playful apprehension.

That is innocence. The little girl that stood across from him with the flower tucked in her ear waiting for him to kick the ball was innocence. That simple game was innocence. The mischievous thoughts in their
minds as they crept into Clow’s lair and stared amazingly at the transformation in front of their eyes was innocence. Sweet, childish and playful innocence that comes with your first few years.

Adults long for innocence, the youth that had left their faces many years ago. They long for the playful laughter and the sparkling eyes, the high-pitched giggles and the tickling fingers. They long for that,
without knowing what it really was capable of. Such innocence was deadly.

It was that innocence like theirs that killed me.

But needless to say…I want the innocence. I want to wind back the hands of the clock and I would know better than to look into the door that day. And I wish I wouldn’t’ remember anything. It would all start from
the game of soccer with the ball that had been given to us by the people who adopted us. The innocence we knew before we came to that town, where these sympathetic people "took us in out of the kindness
of their hearts" whom deserved sympathy themselves.

How much has happened since three years later when we remembered who we are? When we healed from the amnesia that we had when the village people beat us as being outcasts? I remember…a
woman…crying and holding me in her arms, telling me to be careful and how sorry she was that she couldn’t go with me. I remember the old man holding her back as Tomine and I were pushed out of the
boundaries. The woman…I dared to call "mother".

Oka-san! How long I have waited to come back! But sorry to say…I will never get to heaven. Your dear little son is gone forever, in the depths of hell. Living hell…horrible, torturous living hell!

I cannot cry…and I can’t die. I can’t laugh or smile freely anymore. I can’t see you…I am practically blind to all that is around me except what I have to do. These Cardcaptors…I envy them.

If I were human…I would be able to feel all the emotions I was supposed to. If I were human…I would be with you. If I were human, I wouldn’t even know the meaning of true hell!

You hate me now…and I am sorry. God will never forgive me, will he? No…not anymore. But Clow…I bet he went to heaven. If he is the one who did this to me and Tomine, how come he didn’t go to hell?
Scornful malice is what I see if I were to look into your eyes. Hateful resentment in my brother’s and my younger sister’s, and even fathers. But for father, I would return the glare.

Oka-san…father left us a long time ago…you were the only one left…my dear Oka-san…

Is dead now. She’s dead. Like all the others. Dead and gone, cold and pale, deep inside the earth…your bones are probably not even there anymore. Nothing to remember you by. But I remember your voice, and
the song you used to sing.

"Far away, ocean and sea…

I will be waiting for you…

And while you are looking for me…

I’ll be looking too…

My dear child of my own kin…

The bond we share is never ending…

And together we will always win…

And each other’s hearts we’ll be mending…"

Hearts don’t mend. They just scar. No blood flows…but it’s still there. But what happens…when the wound is still bleeding? I have a question to ask you.

Oka-san, are you with father in heaven now? And you are frowning down at me, shameful for what I have become. Let me tell you, Oka-san, it wasn’t my fault. I was forced to do this, you know! I remember the
little boy…picked up in your arms…the little boy named Ishiro Riyami, who had a best friend named Tomine Cokurana. "Ishiro! My little Ishiro…come to dinner now! Your family is waiting for you!"

How long have you waited, Oka-san, for me to come to the table?

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Ishiro woke with an aching pain in his back and the feeling of the bandages that wrapped around his chest and back. He felt the cool summer breeze as it brushed against his skin. Someone had taken his shirt off
and bandaged him. Stupid humans…they were helping their enemy. He heard whispering behind him and he knew from the echoing that came shortly after that he was in some kind of cave. They were probably
too far away from the house to waste time and return. Stupid humans, they should have left me there. He could open his eyes, but he decided against it and continued to act unconscious. "Do you think he’ll be
all right?" Sakura asked.

"I think so. That injury was pretty deep, but I think we got it bandaged up in time. It won’t be serious. One big scar will be on his back by the time it’s healed, but nothing other than that." Silence. "Sakura…why
did you bother to save him?" So it had been the Card Mistress’s idea. The other Card Captor was smarter than he thought. She didn’t answer for a while.

"I couldn’t leave him there. That would be just plain cruel. It would make us no better than our enemy. He’s younger than us…I couldn’t let him die." Ishiro heard the shuffling of clothes as Syaoran nodded. "And
we still need him to find information." She added curtly. Syaoran chucked. Ishiro suppressed his urge to laugh. Cruel? Cruel? They didn’t know how to even spell the word in his terms. They didn’t know what cruel
was…they never really knew cruelty. How pathetic.

His thoughts wandered. Tomine would wake up soon, to find herself in command of the Clow Card Loyalty. Such a pitiful thing, loyalty was, he wondered why Clow even bothered to make one. It wasn’t even real.
There was no such thing as true loyalty. For even when you’re loyal, you’re only really striving for what’s best for yourself, and nothing more. The rest is an act, with you as the star, in a thick mask fooling the world.
Loyalty…it was nothing but a lie. The world consisted of lies. A world of true lies.

What shock will play on the Cardcaptor’s faces as they find that they will have to face their own companion? The best part of it was watching their expressions change at the thought of betrayal. Sweet, satisfying
betrayal. The feeling was unique…he enjoyed the tears and the anger and the yells of frustration. Music to his ears. Their cries were so pitiful…he would almost feel sympathetic. Almost, he thought, as he faded
into sleep again, but not before hearing something that brought a smile to his lips.

"I wonder where Shotoku really is…Kirin must be worried…" Sakura said. He had answered truthfully. He didn’t know where Shotoku was. He knew where The Loyalty was. The Loyalty…not Shotoku.

Syaoran looked at the form in the corner lying on his back. A shining stream trailed down his cheek. "Are those…" he whispered, "tears?"

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I am sorry to say, Oka-san…I’m going to be late for dinner. Very late…