Author's Note: Okiday, time for some more writing. My office is all picked up and orderly (took me all day yesterday) and I love my reviewers! Thank-you starkitty, Nakoruru, Ss Jk, Thorn, and Staci.
Neko knew it wasn't enough. This guy was just taunting her. She was barely able to repel his attacks, and hers seemed to do nothing. Her sword had shattered on the first hit, and everything else she tried just didn't work! Neko could feel her anger growing. Narwa then threw a particularly large fire blast at her and she used her shield ability to direct the blast at the ceiling. It went right through it and up to create a hole to the sky. Hiei and Kennichi immediately made use of this new space and started jumping up. Neko pushed herself to jump after Narwa as he calmly floated up the three floors.
As she came to the roof, Neko realized she was going to lose. There was no other option. She didn't have the strength, experience, or wits to win this fight. In her past, had she been able to do it? Had she known more as a child? Narwa leapt into the air and threw out his arms. A glowing ribbon appeared between them. "Well? Give up! Bring back the old Neko! I want to fight Cardcaptor Neko!" As he said it, his ribbon coursed out and headed for Neko. She tried to dodge, but it followed her and wrapped soundly around, pinning her arms so she couldn't move them. It lifted her from the roof and held her over the edge. She stopped squirming and gulped. She hated heights.
Narwa laughed. "Well? What about the Cards?"
Neko felt sick with worry. She looked at him and shouted, "I have no idea! What are you talking about? I have no cards! I did have two Guardians until you trapped them!" Poor Kiri had snuck around the fight inside and found Sapphire behind the throne, but once she touched him she'd been caught by the same spell that bound him. She'd lasted long enough to shout a warning before collapsing.
Narwa gripped the ribbon in both hands and said, "Very well, then I guess I'll just take them using a spell I've been working on for years for this moment. Neko Cards! I wish to have a contract with you! Come forth!" Neko screamed as fire coursed through her veins and the power of the Cards was wrenched from her spirit by the ribbon. One by one they traveled down to her captor like a golden stream as he called out their many names. Finally he stopped, and she sagged in the air, feeling weak and sick and beaten. Narwa held up the cards in his hand. "One more, and it will hurt the most because it's the one your own mother made! HOPE!" Neko's body strained and writhed, but The Hope card appeared in front of her and coursed down the ribbon to its new holder.
"NEKO!" shouted a voice far below. Her eyes cracked open to see several bleary forms standing on the ground. A few were her friends, but the others… She felt the ribbon loosen and someone closer shouted, "No!" but there was no denying gravity. Neko slipped out of the bindings and began to fall.
Suddenly, she came to a stop and opened her eyes. The woman with the long, brown hair and sad, green eyes was holding her. Neko rested her exhausted head on the woman's shoulder and let herself be held. "Neko, you aren't powerless. You've wielded the card you were born with your whole life, and still do. It can be used to call back the others no matter what spell the Kurai uses. Remember my gift to you, you could say it's in memory of your mother…who was my daughter, Sakura."
Neko's eyes opened fully and she looked up at the woman's face. It was fading away. "Grandmother?" she whispered. The lady smiled and was gone. Neko blinked, coming fully awake, and looked down. She was not dead, just floating twenty feet above the ground. Below her were the stunned faces of her friends and…her family. She smiled at them and said, "I'm not beat, not yet." She looked up at the edge of the roof and floated over it. Up top, the fight was at a standstill. Hiei and Kennichi were staring at Narwa, who was playing with a deck of purple cards, Neko's. When her feet rested on the roof, they looked up and gaped. Hiei's expression of relief was almost painful. In that moment, his eyes met hers and there was a kind of melding of minds. For an instant they had been through everything the other had faced. Then they were two people again. Hiei nodded and backed up to the edge of the roof closest to him. He knew what she was planning to do, and it would be best if he weren't around.
"Narwa!" Neko shouted. Narwa blinked. She smiled. "You may have 53 Cards, but there is one more."
The Kurai leader frowned. "How? The Hope is the last."
Neko reached up and yanked her locket off her neck. She unhooked her cherry blossom pin and set it in the groove on top of the locket. There was a flash, and the locket sprung open. Neko felt herself get bathed in power as a golden light glowered fiercely from her forehead and the symbol that was there. When it faded, she wielded her golden staff, and wore the battle costume Eriol had hidden when he sent her to this other world.
She held up her staff with one hand and shouted, "Void!" A dark spot appeared above her staff, and it grew to the size of a basketball. The Cards leapt from Narwa's hands and flew into the void, into Neko. When the last was gone, the black emptiness dissolved and Neko aimed her staff at Narwa. "Now, let's see how you handle Cardcaptor Neko!"
In a show of skill, she swung her staff around and slammed the end of it into the roof. Kennichi and Narwa bounced around a bit as they tried to keep their balance. Hiei took this as the sign to leave, and leapt off the roof to land neatly beside Yelan and Kurama on the ground. Kurama turned to Hiei and asked, "What's going on up there? Is Kennichi dead?"
Hiei said nothing and just watched the flashing lights play in the dark sky above the mansion. Night had come at Neko's call, and the powers were uniting behind her as a part of her. Yes, Hiei thought, humans aren't so weak.
Up on the roof, Neko's powers were building. She sealed the roof with the loop card so Narwa and Kennichi couldn't leave, then built up her storm of power to wipe them out for good. When it was ready in her mind's eye, she let go of her staff and left it pulsing on the roof as she sprouted wings and flew up and away. Once she was a hundred or so feet from the edifice, the staff unleashed the power of the elements in a storm reaching from sky to basement. The pillar of power lit Spirit World up like day and then began to slowly fade.
As the pillar vanished, it became obvious the mansion hadn't survived. There was nothing where it had once stood, just a hole. Neko flew down and plucked her staff from the air where the roof had once been, before landing in the crater she had made. The others rushed to the edge to see what she was doing. Neko knelt in the black dirt and seemed to be drawing something. "Creation and life are not the same, but Clow Reed was the first to create something so closely resembling life we could mistake it for such," she said. She stepped back and waved her staff over the drawings she'd done. There was a golden glow, and then two forms appeared. Hiei recognized one as Kiri, with her grey body and golden wings, so he assumed the strange man with blue wings was Sapphire.
Both Guardians looked asleep. Neko knelt in the dirt in front of them and they began to stir. Kiri lifted her massive head and licked Neko's face. "Thank-you, Master Neko," she said. Neko smiled. Sapphire opened his eyes and sat up. Unlike Kiri, he did not lick Neko, instead he stood and thanked her formally. She accepted his thanks and the three of them left the foundation and joined their companions.
Author's Note: Oh no! The next chapter is the last! Be sure to read it and tell me what ficcie I should try next.