I Captured The Nothing!

Before he could find the magic of The Love, Adam first had to find his Love Card.

Adam remembered that he had been holding the Love Card at the time, along with the Wand of Darkness. Yet after arriving here, both had vanished. Clearly, this was The Nothing’s first question.

This did not stump Adam.

"The Love wasn’t something I got from somewhere… it was a Clow Card condensed by me."

Adam recalled the several moments when he had sensed an opportunity to condense the Love Card.

The first had been on the night he formed a contract with the Book of Sealing. Relying on his memories of the love between himself and his family, he had sensed the first opportunity to condense the Love Card.

When he had played with Suppi and Kero, he had relied on the love between master and pet? The love between friends? His love for fluffy things? In any case, that was when he sensed the second opportunity to condense the Love Card.

During one occasion when he had studied magical plants with Professor Sprout, Professor Sprout had smilingly introduced him to a group of Bowtruckles living on a guardian tree. The love between teacher and student had let him sense the third opportunity to condense the Love Card.

After they returned from the Forbidden Forest that day, during their long conversation that evening, he had sensed the fourth opportunity to condense the Love Card through the love between classmates? Or perhaps the love between friends?

All of those had been passive moments when he sensed that he could condense the Love Card. In those moments, love had surged so fiercely within his heart.

But could he only condense the Love Card when he sensed such an opportunity?

Love would not disappear just because you failed to notice it. Those who possessed love had always been surrounded by it. Once you had felt it even once, you would never overlook that feeling again…

Adam reached out. Though he could not see it, he knew he had grasped the Love Card he had condensed himself.

At the same time, he understood why his Love Card looked like a kaleidoscope. It was probably because the love he had thought of while condensing it had been too complicated.

When Sakura condensed the Love Card, she had probably only been thinking of her love for Syaoran. That was why it was a pink maiden’s heart with wings.

Having found the Love Card, The Nothing’s first question had been answered. But what came next was the key—how could he face nothingness with love?

Adam sank into thought. Without the Wand of Darkness, he could not directly use the method of unsealing Clow Cards to learn the Love Card’s magic. He had to discover its magic himself.

Random guessing was probably useless. Something as broad as magical effects had no range to exhaustively enumerate.

Holding the Love Card, Adam fell silent in thought.

Time passed second by second…

How many minutes had passed? How many seconds?

He did not know.

At first, Adam’s mind still wandered and guessed uncontrollably, such as Hancock’s Love-Love Fruit, or the Letter L from Bleach…

Those, of course, could not possibly be the Love Card’s magic.

Gradually, Adam could no longer keep letting his thoughts run wild. He could feel nothingness eroding his heart.

At this time, in this moment, in this place, neither light nor darkness existed. Earth, Water, Wind, Fire did not exist. There was not even any concept of time or space. All form, image, and substance were absent. This was nothingness, opposed to everything that existed.

Under the erosion of endless nothingness, Adam had no power to resist. Nothingness had not actively attacked him; all his strength and energy had simply been exhausted, so nothingness naturally filled those gaps.

Or rather, nothingness had always been the name of those gaps.

This was The Nothing’s true trial, and it bore a remarkable similarity to Sakura’s trial—any words were far too pale and powerless. Whether one could resist nothingness could only be proven through action.

His vision had long since vanished. His sense of smell could not judge anything. Without the strength to make a sound, he could not verify his hearing either. His sense of taste… was it still there? Probably not.

Adam did not even know whether he was still holding that Love Card.

The erosion of nothingness reached its final point, yet it could no longer advance even an inch.

At the very last point in his heart, there was something nothingness could not erode… it was love. Those kaleidoscopic, brilliantly colorful memories and emotions were so unnatural and glaring in the gray world, and they in turn began to affect that gray expanse.

As if it were an illusion, Adam, who no longer had any senses at all, seemed to see a sorrowful young girl smile at him.

The tangible sense of everything in the world suddenly returned. Adam opened his eyes. One hand held the Wand of Darkness, while the other held two Clow Cards.

One was the Love Card he had been holding before, and the other was The Nothing.

I captured The Nothing!

Wait, these two Clow Cards seemed to look a little…

"Adam! You’re back!!!"

Before he had time to inspect them closely, Adam was tackled to the ground by two large felines. He had just opened his mouth to say something when two wet tongues licked him. Left with no choice, Adam shut his mouth.

Fortunately, Kero and Suppi were not exactly like lions and leopards in the wild. At the very least, their tongues did not have barbs…

"How long was I in the trial?"

After finally waiting for Kero and Suppi to calm down, Adam got up and rubbed his cheeks. He had unconsciously kept his face tense while being licked just now, and it was nearly stiff…

"Um…"

Kero and Suppi exchanged a look:

"We don’t know… There isn’t anything here to keep time."

Suppi glanced at the Clow Cards that had been lying on the ground all this time without being put away, then stretched out a paw and pulled out the Time Card:

"It has been… huh? Only fifteen minutes?"

"Really?"

Adam did not know either, but he felt as though he had spent more than fifteen minutes over in The Nothing.

"Nothingness… now that I think back on it, it was such a terrifying power."

Adam sighed and carefully examined the Love Card and The Nothing.

"Hm? They really are different now!"

Although they still generally looked like Clow Cards, unlike the original cards, which had plain colors with only the most crucial areas colored, the Love Card in Adam’s hand had been dyed in dazzling hues.

As for The Nothing, he could see that she wore a gray dress, with silver-white hair and wings behind her head. A serene smile rested on her face.

As Adam stared in surprise, The Nothing on the card suddenly opened her eyes, startling him so badly he nearly threw her away.

"Th-this is…?"

As if her prank had succeeded, The Nothing playfully winked one eye.

"Hello, Adam."

"Ahhh—"

Kero jumped straight up on the spot and retreated a long way.

"The Nothing can talk!"

"You didn’t know?"

Adam looked at Kero curiously, and Kero immediately replied:

"The Nothing isn’t under my care, so how could I know? Before today, I hadn’t even seen The Nothing!"

"So you’re the Sealed Beast? How rude! Of course I can talk!"

The Nothing said indignantly, crossing her arms over her chest on the card. Then she sighed.

"Though I never spoke to any being before either… Any being who touched me would be devoured in an instant… except for the magician who created me… and you."

The Nothing looked at Adam.

"You two… are very different."

"You remember Clow Reed?"

Adam was astonished. He had previously asked Kero, Suppi, and the Clow Cards about Clow Reed.

Yet although Kero and Suppi remembered that Clow Reed existed, they could not even remember what he looked like, much less anything about him.

The Clow Cards were in even worse shape. They only remembered that their creator was called Clow Reed.

"I can’t remember much about my creator either. There is only a deeply etched impression in my mind…"

The Nothing looked as if she had fallen into recollection.

"He was a very complicated person, more colorful than everything, and more empty than I was."