Barrier

"You can see through my disguise?"

Huo Lin was a little surprised.

She had thought this spell of hers worked quite well, since it combined magic with Professor Agasa's technology.

"That's right. Your disguise doesn't work on me." Kero planted his paws on his hips, feeling very pleased with himself.

But when she reached toward him, he immediately shrieked in fright. A magic-binding circle that powerful would definitely seal him away!

"Please don't bully Cerberus. He's my friend!" Sakura said hurriedly.

So Huo Lin stopped reaching for the "doll."

"Sorry, I was just curious. He's a magical construct, right? I've never seen such an intricate magical construct before."

Not only could he talk, he could think, too.

It was hard to say how he compared to a Device like the Book of the Night Sky, but he was certainly a type she had never seen before. Whenever Huo Lin encountered unfamiliar magic, she wanted to study it. It was a bad habit of hers.

To Cerberus, however, she seemed exactly like Clow Reed.

Clow Reed had been the same way. Whenever magical research was involved, he forgot everything else.

"I'm Sakura Kinomoto, a fifth grader at Tomoeda Elementary School." To show her goodwill, Sakura introduced herself first. "This is my friend, Kero, Cerberus."

"I know you. You have another friend named Tomoyo, right?"

"Huh? How did you know?"

"We met three months ago, in a clothing store at a shopping mall in Shinjuku."

They had called each other "Sakura" and "Tomoyo" back then. Huo Lin remembered everyone she had met-not random passersby, but anyone who had interacted with her.

"Oh! I remember now!" No wonder she had thought they looked familiar.

There had been two twins back then, both girls. One was the girl holding the Clow Card now, but as for the boy...

"Are you really in disguise?"

"Yes."

Since she had been found out, and they were involved with magic too, Huo Lin saw no need to hide it. She switched off the optical disguise spell in her hair clip, then the voice spell in her bow tie.

"Wow! That's amazing!"

Even though she already knew about the Clow Cards, Sakura still found it incredible to see someone transform right before her eyes.

"What kind of magic is that?"

"Strictly speaking, it's a Device. Those are functions of the Device I made."

A Device? Sakura thought of the wand she used to release the seal. Was it something similar?

"What should I call you two?"

Sakura had already given her name, but the other two hadn't introduced themselves yet.

"I'm Huo Lin Yagami, and this is Hayate Yagami."

Huo Lin and Hayate. Sakura committed the names to memory. They were quite easy to remember: wind, fire, mountain, forest. They really did sound like names for twins.

"Did you say these cards were yours?"

Hayate held one card, and Huo Lin drew another from the Book of the Night Sky.

Kero was about to say yes, but Sakura shook her head.

"No. These are Clow Cards. I found them in my basement, and I don't know who left them there. Then I accidentally scattered them. They seem to cause trouble, so I've been trying to seal them."

Sakura didn't consider the Clow Cards her possessions.

"I see."

Then it seemed they really were hers.

If Sakura had tried to force her to return the cards, Huo Lin's temper would have made her refuse. But since Sakura was calm and so polite, she really didn't care that much about keeping this card.

"The one I have is The Mist. I picked it up a few days ago. It's not much use to me, so I'll give it back. Hayate quite likes the Jump Card she's holding, though, so let us borrow it for a few days."

"Oh, you don't actually have to give it back to me. As long as the cards don't run wild and cause trouble, that's fine."

Sakura's original reason for collecting the Clow Cards was simply to stop them from causing trouble. At first, she had never intended to claim them for herself.

Still, when Huo Lin actually handed her The Mist, Sakura accepted it and said, "Thank you."

But the moment the Clow Card reached her hand, mist began to spill out.

"Huh? This card hasn't been subdued?" Kero exclaimed.

This card was still "wild." It had never been brought under control.

"Subdued? What do you mean?"

"You have to defeat it and write your name on it! If you don't write your name, the Clow Card will cause trouble again."

So there was a rule like that. After Huo Lin had caught this card, it had stayed motionless inside the Book of the Night Sky and never caused any trouble.

"Sakura!"

At Cerberus's warning, Sakura hurriedly took off the necklace at her chest.

"Key that hides the power of darkness, reveal your true power before me! Sakura, who has made a pact with you, commands you: release the seal!"

The key transformed directly into a magic wand. Hayate stared, transfixed. Yes, this was what a magical girl should be like-not just conjuring up a tracksuit!

Sakura swung her wand at the Clow Card, which had turned into mist and was about to escape.

"Return to your original form, Clow Card!"

The mist turned back into a Clow Card and fell into Sakura's hand.

"That does it. Write your name on it, and the Clow Card won't cause trouble anymore."

Kero was a little nervous. He worried that Huo Lin would write her own name on the Jump Card too. Then the Clow Card really would belong to her. If Sakura competed with a magician of that caliber over the Clow Cards, she was certain to lose!

But Huo Lin had no intention of doing that. As long as the Clow Cards were near her, they stayed cards. The Mist had only dared to consider escaping because she had deliberately let it go.

"I'll return the Jump Card next week. I want to see if I can reproduce the magic on it. It's pretty interesting."

Kero wanted to say, You think you can study and reproduce a Clow Card's magic in just a week? Dream on!

But then he thought of her unfathomable magical power and felt that it might not be impossible. Perhaps she was another great magician from the age of the gods?

The Clow Cards were Clow Reed's masterpiece because of the intricacy of the system as a whole, not because the magic on every individual card was especially powerful.

Although they included the four elements of water, fire, wind, and earth, as well as the four special cards of light, darkness, time, and creation, many of the others were really just everyday spells that his old master had included to bring the total to fifty-two.

The Jump Card was one of those "filler cards."

Sakura saw no problem with the arrangement.

"All right. I live in Tomoe Town, in the residential neighborhood behind the bus station." As she spoke, Sakura realized that making them go all the way to Tomoe Town just to deliver a Clow Card would be far too much trouble. That would be terribly rude, so she corrected herself.

"Or I could come to Shinjuku to meet you."

"Then let's meet next Saturday at the mall in Shinjuku where that clothing store was. We can catch a movie while we're there. King Kong has just come out."

"We're going to watch a movie together? Sure!" That meant they were friends now. Sakura felt a little happy.

Huo Lin had actually meant that she and Hayate could catch a movie while they were there. But since Sakura had put it that way, she felt too awkward to correct her.

"Can I bring a friend along?" Sakura asked.

"Of course."

Then she would book two more tickets.

That night, Huo Lin continued studying Barrier magic.

She had originally thought she would need to stay up for two nights to learn the spell, but in fact, she hadn't even needed one. She mastered it before midnight that same evening.

After all, Barrier was a basic spell every Mage learned, and one they frequently needed on missions. It looked complicated, but in reality, it had already been refined into something highly practical.

That was how magic worked. If enough people studied the same spell and analyzed it from every angle, even the most complicated thing would eventually be thoroughly understood and made simple.

Barrier

When the spell unfolded, the entire world was sealed off. Huo Lin could feel that she had created a special space.

Although the scenery here looked exactly the same as before she cast the Barrier, it was only a copy. Even if a house was destroyed, it wouldn't affect reality once the Barrier was lifted.

"Hayate, you can use all the magic you want in here!"

Only after saying that did Huo Lin realize Hayate had long since fallen asleep.