Author's Notes: Okay, so this is pretty much the last of the real story, but there will be an epilogue for the happy ending. And sorry for taking so long; it's been such a long month and with ff.net censoring things, it's making me feel so crappy as a writer. What's the point of writing if people are just going to deny you the chance to share it with others? Anyway, review please? It'd ever be so cheering me up-py.
Thanks to Silly*Niecy, Rhea (you conniving little…grr), Riley S, aleris.
Disclaimer: I swear on ff.net's unfairness that I do not own CCS.
Slipping AwayChapter 11: End Game
The trees flew by, a whir of green and reds as Syaoran pelted down the park path. Sakura was in front of him, matching his speed, taking lefts and rights, weaving through skaters and couples. He had no inkling of where he was, lost in the jumble of images and rapid direction changes. Everyone around them had that leisurely look about them, the mindless indulgence of knowing there will be a tomorrow, the span of their years laying ahead of them like a golden road. He pressed himself faster, lungs burning with strain.
'Left,' Nakuru's voice commanded as Sakura measured the fork in the path ahead. She took the left path, pounding over the cobblestone road, accelerating down the slight slope. Her breath was loud and harsh in her ears, grating in synchronicity with the churning in her stomach. With a breathless sigh, she stopped, hearing Syaoran's steps take him to her side. The park opened up to the sky and the harbor, the bay a giant half circle of ships, people and warehouses. 'Left, another mile. It's the locked up storehouse' came the voice in her head. She looked up to the rooftops, barely catching a figure leaping between warehouses. Reaching back, she snatched Syaoran's hand and pulled them both in Nakuru's direction.
Sakura felt the beads of sweat rolling off her head and stream down her face in a mixture of being overheated and anxious. They'd been running straight for twenty minutes, in which time Yana could've gotten a battalion or two over already. Even with Nakuru's skills, the chances of success were slim. Guilt overrode her as she caught sight of Syaoran, the person who was going to risk his life blindly to stop some insane world domination scheme. But as much as she wanted to send him back, she knew she needed his help. He was very much like her Syaoran; he wouldn't give up once he'd made a promise, and she wasn't going to waste precious time on trying to convince him otherwise.
The target warehouse was in view, standing innocuously by the bay, chains locking the large double doors, stacks of crates lining the alley by its side. A faint glimmer of light flickered beyond the darkish windows, the low sound of something like voices from within the cavernous space. Sakura cursed under her breath, creeping closer to the side entrance. It was locked as expected, probably secured with a card.
Nakuru's disembodied voice came from the earpiece. "I'm on the roof; the portal's open; there's already a battalion out. No signs of big weapons yet. Can you get through the door?"
"No; it's probably sealed with a card."
"We can't waste any time getting you up here. Use Fire and blast your way in; I'll distract them with a few mist cubes. Head straight for the tunnel. Got it?"
Syaoran nodded to Sakura as he extracted the fire card, the red forked lines gleaming innocently back at him.
"Got it. On three." Sakura took up Syaoran's card, sticking it to the metal wall. "One…two…three." She pulled Syaoran to the side, pressing them flush against the wall. "Ignite." There was a small explosion, a bright flash and pull of the displaced wind. A thick layer of smoky mist crept out of the hole, the voices inside loud and muffled. "Come on."
Syaoran stood amidst turmoil, the dangerously close running footsteps and military orders drifting through the haze. Shadows darted around, getting steadily closer to him. The gun weighed heavy in his hand, the trigger moist and slick with his nervous sweat. Sakura was right in front of him, her form bleared and indistinguishable in the encompassing soupy fog. She pulled at him insistently, their matched footsteps taking them closer to a faint glowing blue.
Shadows stood by the portal, dark, a mass of black. Sakura paused momentarily, spinning to face Syaoran. She kept her voice low, barely discernable through the shouting and sounds of fighting around them. A loud crash sounded behind them where one of the Corpsmen fell. "We're going to rush them, take them by surprise."
Syaoran nodded and squared his shoulder, hoping his momentum could overpower the thick, muscular build of the defending soldiers. Sakura nodded once hard, and they both took off toward the portal, slamming hard into two unsuspecting Corpsmen and breaking across the threshold. It was a strange feeling; Syaoran expected the feel of water, just like how it looked. Instead it was dry, like a bed sheet passing over his body, the blueness transparent and insubstantial. All four landed heavily on the smooth ground, sliding a ways off before hitting the tunnel wall. Syaoran got up slowly, spying Sakura sprawled a few feet off; the Corpsmen were out cold. "Are you okay, Sakura?"
Sakura groaned and forced herself up against the tunnel wall. She yelped at the wetness of the wall, the light blue liquid soaking into the back of her shirt. She'd never taken the time to really look at what she passed through. The tunnel was partly what she had expected; the walls a round burrowing cave-like length. And yet, there was the sound of dripping water over the slick blue walls, echoes bouncing along for eternity. The tunneling generator's energy throbbed along the tunnel, underfoot and above with pulses, bright and dark flowing back and forth, taking light and darkness from the other until they seemed predominantly gray blue. "Let's go." The echoes of the approaching army ricocheted heavily from the walls. Sakura unstrapped the converter from her back, laying the machine gently on the ground. "Give me the fuel."
Syaoran reached into his pocket, extracting the black cube and handing it over to her. He could see the silhouettes far off, the approaching battalion. "Hurry."
Sakura quickly shoved the fuel into its compartment, flicking on the machine. It whined low as it warmed up, its sounds suddenly drowned out by the pounding loudness of boots. "Shit, they're too close. Syaoran, use Shield."
"Here." Syaoran held out the card to Sakura, the pale blue circle strangely appropriate in the tunnel.
"Thanks." Sakura smiled up at Syaoran, tenderly. There was something in his face that she recognized, that made her insides warm up in a way that wasn't painful. It was the hardness and gravity of his face with that undertone of softness just for her, just like her Syaoran used to look at her… And she'd be damned if he shared his fate.
____________________________________________
Nakuru held out her last three mist cubes and watched the battalion from the roof window. There were twenty soldiers, standing around guarding the portal, picking up and moving crates of weapons, inspecting other devices. 'One' came Sakura's voice in her head. She blew against the cubes letting the instant haze to descend chokingly into the warehouse. Sakura's explosion shook the building with a sickening judder, throwing the whole battalion into disarray. Nakuru pried open the window and poised on the edge for the right moment. With a flip she landed on a tower of packing crates, the mist swirling at her feet as she looked into the grayness.
It had to be done the old fashioned way, the messy way. She gripped her knife and dropped into the fog. Shadows flew by in the mist, shouts and commands distorted by the altered dimensions of the storehouse's space. She tried to be as noiseless as possible, creeping up to gray silhouettes and striking quietly, precision deadly.
Sporadic weapons fire breezed by her head, getting closer and closer as the fog started to leak out of the hole in the wall and dissipate. She activated a shield and hastily climbed up a ladder to the second level, ducking behind a pile of boxes and gathering up the rest of her cards. The commander downstairs was gathering his troops, back into formation and defensive positioning. Usually, she'd have just collapsed the whole building, but she couldn't afford to this time with Sakura and Syaoran still inside the tunnel. Instead she would have to take a hugely dangerous plan of action.
Poised against the metal wall, she activated shield, that familiar presence of electricity and energy surrounding her. She grabbed another card, the diamond glyph in the center pale pink. "Illusion," she called as she threw it out in a wide arc above the Corp. The card twisted and mutated in the air, landing onto the open ground as a replica of herself. The corps fired at the clone, distracted by the deceptive likeness, their weapons fire pounding against her eardrums. She crouched low in a shadowed corner and carefully unraveled a bracelet, letting the pearly drops roll in her palm. It all depended if they had gotten the counter shot. She carefully rolled them off the landing, dropping neatly onto the concrete floor. The effusive green gas started to expand as the Illusion card began to flicker and run out of energy.
The corpsmen turned their attention from the false assassin, scanning the building for signs of Nakuru. A creeping green gas suddenly overwhelmed them just as they sighted her. Gunfire erupted in Nakuru's direction, striking hard against the wall near her. She ran, circling around the railing to another vantage point, and flipped quickly onto a forklift. When the gas had cleared, there were a few corpsmen laying on the ground unconscious; the others had apparently taken the counter and alert on guard. They spun and circled for any sign of Nakuru.
Nakuru cursed silently under her breath, wasting no time to pull out some throwing knives from her back pocket and taking aim. Energy discharges slammed against her shield, head on, with vicious yellow flares as they dissipated before her. She threw a few knives into the blinding light, knowing by instinct when they found their target or went wide. Another wave of gunfire crashed into her shield before it failed with a whoosing sound. She managed to throw one more knife, before a discharge burning across her arm forced her to roll off the forklift and take refuge behind the metal machine. Raising another shield, she flung herself out from behind the machine and rolled behind a solitary crate, wincing at the burning pain that shot up her arm. The corpsmen followed with their gunfire, pressing closer and circling in for the final trap.
Nakuru looked desperately at the flickering blue portal, muttering through clenched teeth as she fired back with her own gun. "Damn it, come on…what the hell's going on Sakura?"
_____________________________________________
Sakura clutched the converter hard against her chest as she spun away from the weapons fire. The Corps had spotted them and came rushing upon them with energy discharges. They were still far off, but close enough to send gunshots at the both of them, with deadly precision. She quickly started to flick the buttons on the converter, watching Syaoran out of the corner of her eye. He was standing in front of her, firing off randomly at the approaching mass of soldiers. They evidently had their shields raised, Syaoran's shots doing little to slow their approach. The tunnel around them screamed with the sounding of gunfire and shouts and marching footsteps.
Syaoran felt the sweat drip down the side of his nose, rapidly clicking the gun and wincing at the soreness that began to overtake his arm. "Sakura, this isn't working. They're still coming."
Sakura pressed the final button, the timer blinking at two minutes and counting down. She turned around to stand up behind Syaoran, overwhelmed by the military battalion a few yards off. By the sound she knew Syoaran's shield was getting low. She searched around for options, flinging her gaze around the tunnel and landing on a dark oval spot to her right. It might be what she thought it was, but if it wasn't… She scoured the tunnel some more, stopping her eyes abruptly on one of the Corpsmen. It was Yana, decked out in a military outfit, grinning and thoroughly amused. Beyond him was another battalion, hauling a large missile. There was no other option… "Syaoran, keep them busy."
Syaoran turned his head to Sakura, looking puzzled. He searched for an answer to his unspoken question, but found nothing readable. Sakura shifted the device's weight to her hip and pulled out her gun and a cartridge. She quickly flung the cartridge at the Corps, firing at it until there was the distinct sound of contact and a huge breathing flame. Projections of fire flew outward, extinguishing with contact with the walls, generating a stifling black smoke cloud. Syaoran felt Sakura's hand pull him hard, rushing them both into the wall. His mind flickered the sudden fear of slamming into something hard, sliding his eyes shut. Instead, he felt the barest sensation of static electricity and then the smooth wet floor against his front. He opened his eyes to find himself in a tunnel, eerily quiet with the same watery walls and blue speckled light. "Where'd they go?"
Sakura groaned and pointed behind her. There was a thin blue translucent kind of glassy veil separating them and the Corps. The soldiers on the other side had their guns pointed, surveying the area and searching for them. "Remember I said the tunnels were all forked? I pulled us into another one." She propped the converter against the tunnel wall and cast a quick look at the timer, the large red numbers counting to a bare forty-five seconds. "Shit, we've got to go. Now."
Syaoran nodded. "So what do we do? They're blocking our way."
Sakura breathed a deep breath, shaking her head, a pained expression on her face. "We're going to have to chance it. Rush them and run like hell for the portal entrance. If we're lucky, our shields will hold."
Syaoran steeled himself, looking at the rigidity on Sakura's face. "Alright. On three then." He held out his hand, and Sakura took it, sparing a small smile at him. "One, two…three."
They ran forward, rushing through the blue veil and crashing into several soldiers. With desperate attempts at scrambling back to their feet, they bolted toward the pulsing threshold, ignoring the gunfire that pressed so close to their backs that theirs head slicked their skin with sweat. The seemingly liquid door came up on them like a cold refreshing mirage. They dived at the iridescent hole and fell through hard back into the warehouse.
It was madness around them, the endless gunfire, the groans of bleeding and battered soldiers, commands on top of commands. Yellow blasts flew past them and returned from the opposite direction. Syaoran rolled away from the battle, pulling Sakura along until they were underneath a forklift. "This is insane."
Sakura nodded in agreement, her eyes fixed on the portal. It just stood open and innocuous as she counted down the seconds. If it didn't work… But suddenly, the calm waves of blue began to change erratically, uncontrolled, tossing and changing colours to a bright green. It had everyone's attention, fluxing with a crackling sound, throwing irregular flashes of light. Sakura quickly rolled both she and Syaoran over, facing away from the portal as it burst, collapsing with a horrible roar like that of a jet engine. A white glare burst into the room, hot and blinding. The gunfire stopped, only the sounds of boots clanging against metal disturbing the silence. Sakura looked up at the sound, spying a corpsman climbing the metal ladder to the roof. She crawled urgently from out under her hiding spot, ignoring Syaoran's low protests. The soldier was Yana; she couldn't be mistaken from the brown ponytail. She looked around her in confusion, soldiers staring blindly around. They felt with their hands, holding them in front of their eyes, moving them close and then far. But they didn't see anything; they were blinded, for now or permanently, Sakura couldn't care and instead ran towards the base of the ladder.
Syaoran ran after Sakura, trailing her up the ladder, wondering what she was doing. "Sakura, what are you doing?"
She stopped briefly and looked down at Syaoran's face, hastily scrubbing away a stray tear. "Fulfilling a promise."
____________________________________________
The roof was a wide, flat expanse of tin sheets and small upright cylindrical chimneys. The ladder led up onto the northwest corner of the warehouse, overlooking the busy harbor street. Sakura jumped off onto the ground with a clunk. Syaoran came up behind her. "What are you looking for?"
Sakura swept her gaze over the roof, the vast emptiness. They were at the edge of the warehouse, the drop down to the main harbour road over three stories down. "Yana…"
"Someone call for me?" Yana stepped out from an air vent chamber, standing tall in the wind. The midmorning sun glared down hotly on the metal roof, waving the air with its strange distortion.
Sakura turned around slowly, pinching off her lips as she stared at Yana's figure. There was amusement on his face that only made her even more angry. "I've come to settle this once and for all."
Yana lifted his head up in the air. "Oh? Then by all means."
Syaoran watched the exchange with mixed emotions, incredulous that all those evils could be attributed to this man with the stupid grin. He looked harmless enough, maybe a little more aggravating than any other normal stranger. And yet the way he looked at Sakura with that mindless contempt and smug superiority, Syaoran knew he could do all those things without repentance, without even a shred of guilt. Syaoran stepped out in front of Sakura. "We're stopping you."
Yana was disinterested, raising an eyebrow. "You two?" He looked back at Sakura. "What makes you think he'll fare any better than the other?"
Sakura thinned her lips, taking a small step closer. "I have faith in him." She turned to Syaoran and pulled him down for a firm kiss, pressing her lips against his frantically, almost distractingly. And then with one fluid motion, she pressed a card against the back of his shirt and pushed him hard off the roof. "Float." She watched his body sail away from her, the surprised wonderment on his face. "Find me…" she called after him, before turning back to face Yana. "Now we do this."
___________________________________________
Syaoran had never liked rollercoasters, the way that the car lurched up and down at speeds that dropped his stomach and rose the strange tingling sensation of nervousness through his whole body. But he was flying down fast toward the ground, Sakura's feathery hair spread out by the wind getting smaller and smaller as he sped away.
There was wind, different from the one that rushed up his shirt and puffed out his sleeves. This one had lights, a swirl of small dots and they wrapped around him and pressed against his back, slowing his descent, drifting him down to the ground like a leaf caught in the dying breeze. Slowly, the world stopped speeding around him, the sheets of aluminum now distinguishable one by one, the heads of the bolts passing across his vision in slow motion.
He felt the ground meet his back softly, as the dots deposited him onto the asphalt road. It took him a few moments to get himself together before jumping to his feet and staring up at the roof of the warehouse. "Sakura!" Only a slight shuddering sound answered him. His stomach dropped and he knew something was going to go horribly wrong.
_____________________________________________
Sakura felt the wind blow across her fingers, a cool caress against her skin. She walked closer to Yana, fighting her quivering knees to get nearer, shaking away the anticipation and the fear that swam over her. "I promised Syaoran I'd stop you. I'm not letting him down."
Yana only smiled back, extracting a card. "Unsheathe." The metal molded into a sword, point polished and sharp. "You're no match for me."
"Unsheathe." Sakura stared down at her own sword, grinning faintly at her gray reflection off the burnished steel. "And what makes you think I'm not." She viciously flung the sword away, clanging heavily and raucously against the hot roof, sliding to a stop a couple of feet from the edge. "You poisoned me, remember? I'm already dead. What makes you think I give a damn about your games?"
Yana's smile disappeared, holding the sword out in front of him. "Then let me end your suffering." He jumped at her, striking out at her chest.
Sakura dodged, rolling away, palms burning on the metal ground. She pulled her last card, the one she had crept out in the middle of the night and stole from Tomoyo. The last card she'd ever need. She flung it against the roof, only the yellow zigzag distinguishable among the background of metal. "Shield or not, your coming with me. Collapse." The card rumbled to life, vibrating and dissolving, the area around it already looking watery and distorted.
Yana stared at the activated card incredulously and quickly reached into his pocket. But Sakura took advantage of his slight distraction and bowled into him, knocking the Float card out of his hand. With every buried scrap of energy she held his hands together over his chest, weighing down his struggling legs with her body. Given enough time he'd overpower her, but all she needed was a few seconds more. Collapse was still expanding, the metal underneath them shaking and rattling. Sakura shot a last look at the sky, smiling softly at the sparse cloud cover. "It's finally over…" The last thing she saw was the intense blue of the sky and her Syaoran's smile in her head.
________________________________________________
Syaoran swallowed with difficulty, surrounded by passing workers and other passersby. The warehouse was rattling with a huge noise, alerting everyone of the impending disaster. The metal sheets of the walls were buckling, crumpling, nuts and bolts littered the ground as they dropped out of their sockets. "Sakura," he whispered under his breath. Any other sound disappeared when the building lurched heavily, groaning as it came down in a mess of support beams and tin plating.
Everyone around him sucked in a collective breath, awed and horrified by the sudden collapse. He only closed his eyes and turned away, pushing through the developing crowd, drowning out the ambulance and police sirens. His kept his mind deliberately blank as he made his way back to his apartment. Turning the keys in the lock and slumping onto his couch, he was painfully aware of the emptiness and silence around him. But he refused to think of it, instead letting his head rest on a cushion and closed his eyes, sinking into the oblivion of sleep. Maybe it was all just a horrible dream…
_______________________________________________
Author's Note: Hmm…that's pretty much it. Probably a nice short epilogue to tie everything up. I hope the ending's not too awful, but it really seemed the only way this could end, you know? And on a sentimental note, I want to say thanks to everyone again. I guess what with everything getting banned and all, readers that don't flame you and complain to the central administrators about you are the nicest people in the world. Thanks a million.