On the west side of the city, opposite of the forest, was a building. It was unimpressive, easily missed among the similar grey buildings around it. This was the poor district where no one lived anymore. It was scheduled for a complete renovation to make the buildings livable again, but the city had yet to get to it. One building stood out just a little bit among the others. This building only had two floors while the other's had three. This building was the only one with a basement.
It was cleverly hidden underneath the floor boards. The only way inside was through a door at the rear o the building that simply looked like a back door. The door led to a stair case going down into the dark. If one went far enough, they would come to an open doorway illuminated by one huge computer screen that was over thirty inches across. In front of the screen was a huge, bulky set of wires that made up a computer as well as a metal table. On this table is where Nakietra was strapped down and her head fixed with a helmet with wires running from it to the computer. Along with the cages along the right wall, there was barely enough room to move around.
On the table, Nakietra is strapped down with metal cuffs around her wrists, ankles, and waist. On her head is a hat entirely made of wires pressing down around her chin, leaving angry red marks from it being too tight.
A man in a white lab coat is typing at the computer now. His face and hair are covered with a black shroud, but he is obviously older than the kidnappers that stand to the left side of the room. His hands are wrinkled and fragile, but still he looks powerful with the impressive amount of guards standing around the room with their swords and weapons easily within reach.
Sakura shakes herself awake and peers out of her bottom row cage. Even though the room is dark, she can see the guards all around the room, especially the two on either side of her age. She sees the computer as well as the old man at its head. Then she sees Nakietra and she breaths in sharply. She can see her friend bound and also unconscious. She hears her friend moan and then notices the TV screen change colors.
"Mama! Papa! Hiro!" An ear splitting child's voice explodes into the room. There's the sound of the girl crying and panicking before she screams their names again with clear and defined fear. Sakura watches the screen and covers her mouth. It's Nakietra as a child. She's still wearing her black dress but it's too big for her. Sakura scans the rooms frantically and rests her eyes on the screen. There are booming noises on the screen and Nakietra pauses.
"The monster's coming! Help me! Hiro! Mama! Papa!" She screams and starts running. There's no one responding to her cries as she runs into never ending darkness. She stumbles over dress but keeps on moving. The image shrinks down to a square and is put in the left hand corner of the screen. A new scene comes alive.
"Show us where it is," The man at the computer says slowly as he turns a dial and then types a few codes into the computer. He touches the dial again and turns it only slightly as a scrapbook of images explode across the screen. Sakura can barely understand any of them. He stops and types again.
It's Emika's, but she looks a little older than now and is wearing a heavy black dress that much more sorrowful looking than Nakietra's. It's raining, but she looks very strong from the camera's position looking up at her. Her hands are visible from this position and she's singing in a foreign language that has an accent just like Nakietra's.
"On the other side of time, there is a city of wind
Come on, Take me with you
Make the white flower's dream come true
Take my hand with your sweet fingers
Come on, I want to be guided down the long road to your side
An unending song in the early afternoon
The two awaken and become one
Knowing the meaning of happiness for the first time"
She pauses and looks to the sky. She looks like she's very far away now, almost like she's seeing something in those grey clouds that no one else can see. The screen goes foggy and blurs until she's just a dark figure surrounded by black. It goes black then for a few moments until she starts singing again. The camera shows a wooden platform that is stained dark with rain and rot.
"Take me with you
An unending say in the early afternoon
The two awaken and become one
Knowing the meaning of happiness for the first time
Take me with you
The other side of unseen dreams
Come. On the two of us can take that long road
To the city of wind"
Her voice never cracks even though she obviously breaking. She continues on with her fingernails digging into one of her hands. Her voice is blocked out those as the camera goes black and the sounds of a child crying grow louder. The child is struggling not to cry at all.
"Nakia, it's alright to cry," A man says with a strong accent. It sounds like the person is talking to Nakietra, but it's hard for Sakura because she doesn't understand the pronunciation of (Na-e-ya). The camera looks up as a young black boy. He's crying, but he's also strong by the way he's holding it inside and having his eyes completely focused on Emika. The camera turns to her again and watches as she lights a torch and tosses it into the pit in front of her. The camera is pushed away then and is moving quickly through the people behind it.
"Too early or too late? I can't tell. I will go forward for now," The scientist said and twisted the dial some more.
No one looks to Nakietra's real body as blood drips down the right side of her cheek as she cries blood. Slowly it forms a small pile on the metal table that no one notices at all. A new scene blossoms on the screen. The Nakietra in the corner is still running into the darkness without a destination.
"Nakia, watch out!" A man yells in a rich voice happy voice right before a huge splash erupts. The TV goes black from its jumble of images and there are swishes of rushing water blocking out every other sound. There's the sound of someone breaking the surface as the camera swims into focus on a person.
"Toya!" Nakietra shouts in a very annoyed voice that Sakura has heard many times before. Sakura drew herself close to the bars. Nakietra had said Toya…her brother's name and the person in front of the camera is defiantly her brother. It was almost like this was a memory, Nakietra's memory. Every time the camera went black it was like she was blinking.
Another blink went now and Nakietra was looking down at her soaked brown skirt and thin grey shirt. "Now my clothes are wet," She complains but her tone turns lighter as she looks back to Toya. He's on the beach laughing like crazy on the ground with a huge black man laughing alongside him. Nakietra narrowed her eyes at them and shook her head.
"Back more maybe?" The scientist mused as he played with the dial. The scene changed again.
It was raining again in this, but much more heavily. Nakietra is look out at a crowd of people from some sort of high place. She's resting her gaze on every face before she starts to sing. Sakura closes her eyes as she recognizes the song that Emika was singing. Her voice keeps cracking, but the song is defiantly the same.
She pauses in the same place and looks over the people again. Her gaze stops on a tall black man toward the back, riding a top a panting horse. His skin is darker than Nakietra's and his hair is dripping wet with rain as he stares at her with a face so sad it made Sakura start crying. Sakura recognized his face as the black boy's from the first scene, and also from the man who was laughing at her in the one before. Who is he?
Nakietra tears run red with blood from both eyes now. The computer is torturing her just as much as her knife does. It's poking through her memories and picking which ones to make her experience fully. She feels each of those memories that they just pass through though, even if it's only one images brought completely to life.
"No, it must be hidden underneath these…false memories. There must be a door somewhere. Somewhere more recent maybe?" The man questioned to himself as he mulled over the decision. He turned the dial forward.
There's smoke everywhere in this scene. A huge house is burning and is far beyond saving. The screen jostles and turns black as Nakietra tugs and pulls at a man with his back to her. He has black hair and tanned skin. He's pulling her forward and reaching for the fire. Nakietra huffs and manages to pull him back a step before burying her face into his back.
"Toya, stop!" She half yells half cries.
"Father! Sakura!" He yells with a tormented voice. Sakura freezes at the sound of her own name being called. What is going on? Did Nakietra…know her, or a copy of her?
"They're gone, we can't do anything!" She yells at him as tears clouded her vision whenever her eyes opened.
"No!" He refuses and pushes her off him. She stumbles to the ground, just glancing at her now broken bracelet. She shrugs it off and rushes forward to her friend. Sakura sees the bracelet glint gold in the light. Could it be the one Dawn gave her?
"Toya!" She yells and stumbles over a stretch of uneven ground. She looks down and watches her foot catch in a hole and she follows forward. She looks up as the black man jumps over the stone fence nearby and tackles Toya to the ground before he can reach the fire. The fire explodes out as the front wall collapses. The black man pulls Toya to his feet and drags him away to safety. Always that same man…what is his relation to Nakietra? Is this…is this maybe Hiro her brother that Syaoran told her and Fai about?
"More recent maybe," The man said and twisted the dial forward.
A familiar place swims into view. It's a top Tomoyo's skyscraper. Even Tomoyo is there, standing in front of Nakietra with tears glistening in her eyes. Nakietra looks to her right where the black man stands. He looks at her and then they both look to Tomoyo.
"Do you really have to go?" Tomoyo asks softly.
"Yes," The man responds in a gentle voice. It's the voice as before though, that's or certain. She holds out a clothed package with both hands. Nakietra takes it and unwraps it. In her hands is the golden knife.
"I think…you should have it. I have a feeling it will you somehow in your journey…maybe it'll remind you to come back one day," Tomoyo says sadly. Nakietra grips the knife and looks up.
"It's never certain where we go…we'll try though. I promise," Nakietra says her voice soft but her accent is so much stronger than now.
"I know, but I can always hope," Tomoyo says with a tear rolling down her cheek as she smiles.
"Hope is better than nothing," The man recites.
"Goodbye Hiro, Goodbye Nakietra," Tomoyo says as more tears fall. Nakietra looks to Hiro and the screen goes black.
"Thank you Tomoyo. Goodbye," Nakietra says. The mystery man is Hiro just like she thought. Sakura cried for her friend. It was no wonder why she wouldn't talk about him. Everywhere in her memories, Hiro's is there through the best and the worst time. Now he's dead, gone from her life and she's traveling alone. Her friend must feel so alone most of the time when she sees them interact with each other like a family would.
"Where is it?" The man shouts in frustration. Blood is pouring from Nakietra's ears now. A million questions form in Sakura's head, but she couldn't even try to figure any of them out on her own with her own sadness clouding her mind. There was no doubt that most of these memories were painful for Nakietra, and it made her cry worse knowing that she couldn't remember one bad memory about herself. Everything she remembered from the feathers was always good, even though it made her seem lonely. She's never lost anyone as far she knows…
The scene changes again. Sakura looks up and is amazed at the clarity and beauty. Light is flitting through the trees, making patterns on Nakietra's arms stretched out beside her. She's tracing the knots on the gigantic roots below her.
"Nakia, I won't force you to drink it. Promise me that you won't throw it away though?" Hiro says to her. His voice is shaking with emotion, but it still sounds strong. Nakietra looks up at him, her eyes focusing more on the knots of the giant tree at his back than him.
"I promise I won't waste it," She tells him and wraps her arms around his neck. He's wearing a jacket of soft leather, not like the one Dawn gave her. The scene fades away and directly into a new one without a break.
Nakietra is staring down at the ground, glancing to her side every few seconds. Hiro is kneeling with her. The dirt below them is hard packed and beyond Hiro's shoulders is an endless expanse of trees far below them. Sakura guesses they are on a hill or mountain right now.
"Witch Marina, will you please grant out request to save our homeland?" The man asks in a strong but respectful voice. Nakietra fixes on the ground again.
"You dare come to this world, yell my name across half the country, challenge me to a sword fight, reject my offered of apprenticeship, and still you think I will grant your request?" The woman asks laughingly. Nakietra looks to her brother. He's looking up, determinedly, at what must be Marina. From Nakietra's vision, all that could be seen were the bottoms of long green robes that glint in the sunlight. Could this be the same woman Nakietra is looking for now, Sakura wondered.
"Yes," He answers confidently.
"I still don't understand what I will get from doing this," Marina says, leaning over. Her chest was visible now as well as hazel curls dripping down to hide her face. The top half of her was dressed in sparkling gold fabric with green swirled around the edges of her sleeves.
"The weapon tormenting our land, and this," He says, pushing forward a clothed bundle. It was longer that Hiro's shoulders and probably as wide as Nakietra's small hands side by side. A perfectly white hand reaches down and grasps the bundle by the side. Her nails are painted gold. She rises up and the cloth quickly falls to the ground.
"You know what I like. It's a deal…but won't you consider one more time my offer of apprenticeship?" She asks seductively, "I could teach you so much more than you could ever learn in those slave wars you fight in."
"No," The man answers sharply and rises along with Nakietra beside him. The screen fades and drifts back to the screen of just Nakietra running through the dark. She looks her current age now, but when she looks over her shoulder at the camera, fear is clearly visible in her eyes as well as her body as she shakes.
"Hiro! Hiro! Help me!" She screams in terror. Sakura scarcely breathes. She's never heard Nakietra sound scared, let alone terrified. She wasn't endlessly running forward anymore, but now fixed to the spot she was currently in as she looks around into the darkness.
"Hiro! Where are you? Hiro!" She keeps yelling. Tears are streaming down her face. "Hiro! I need you! Please, help me…I can't do this on my own!" She screams and falls to her knees. She clutches her shoulders as she shakes and cries at the ground. Sakura forces herself to look away at her friend on the screen as her crying becomes worse. She looks over to her friend on the table then.
"Nakietra," She breaths and presses herself against the bars. Blood glistens on the table and also marks her face. Sakura represses the urge to scream by pressing a hand to her mouth.
"I hear you little mousy. Why don't you stop running? You're the last one alive here," A creepy voice sounds over through the darkness. Nakietra screams in the computer and clutches her head. She screams out in real life too, but her voice is garbled as blood forces its way up her throat. The blackness disappears and a scene comes on the screen. Sakura looks at the screen.
It's a mix of regal and ancient looking surroundings. It's like there are two memories over one. Sakura watches it and she hears two voices over lapping each other. Both are men but they're saying different things at the same time. Sakura can't understand any of it.
"Almost there," The scientist breathes and types.
Suddenly, a door is heard being forced open. Sakura turns to the black archway and watches light illuminate the stairs there. People are heading down the stairs and the guards head to the stairs. The sounds of metal on metal fill the air as the memory on the screen disorientates as Nakietra's mind tears apart. She's screaming and arching up from her table while the screen disorientates and brings forward an ancient corridor. It's blue and cold looking. Nakietra can see her breath as she runs and kills all manner of frozen warriors as they rush at her in net like armor. The black guards are killed, falling into blobs of black onto the ground.
"Syaoran!" Sakura yells, reaching her hand out to him as she sees him through the guards. She sees Kurogane a moment later as he knocks a guard to the ground. He looks absolutely out of it with anger.
"Sakura!" Syaoran yells also and runs to the cage when he finds a free moment. He pulls on the bars and then finds out that the cage is locked electronically.
"Damn it. We were so close!" The man shouts at the computer and then looks back at his dwindling amount of guards. On the screen Nakietra comes to a room carved out of dark stones and carved in dozens of symbols. She focuses on the image in front of her. It's a carving that looks exactly like her with her arms outstretched and her face frozen into one of shock as fire swirls around her. The scientist presses a button the computer and a canister pops out next to him. As he takes it, the computer and everything else electronic plunges into darkness. Fai turns on a flashlight and shines it at the man. He sees that inside the canister are two of Sakura's feathers.
With a loud snap, Sakura's cage unlocks and she rushes out to Nakietra Syaoran is busy fighting to notice. Sakura sees the man with the feathers and wonders what she should do. She rushes at him. The computer man turns to a blank wall as Sakura slams into him. He retains his balance as one of his two remaining guards pulls her away and throws her to the ground.
"You aren't very useful at this moment child. You need more memories before I can do anything with you," He said and faces the walls. Kurogane sees the man and rushes to him. This fight is personal for him, this is about what happened to his mother and finding out who killed her.
A black portal opened in front of the man. Both guards dodged Kurogane's sword and then pushed him back against the table Nakietra was on. They were stronger than the already dead guards. The three disappeared through the portal before he recovered and the portal closed before he could reach it. Kurogane clenched his teeth and pounded on the solid wall.
"Nakietra?" Fai questioned softly as he unbuckled the wire hat and threw it to the ground. It smashed into pieces but no one seemed to care. Nakietra's head slumped sideways but there was no conscious response as blood poured out of every hole in her head. Sakura stared at her friend, frozen by the amount of blood visible through the help of Fai's flashlight.
Anger filled Kurogane suddenly. Not only did he miss his chance to get information about what happened to his mother, but he also missed his chance to ask about why the girls were taken and get the two feathers the man in the white lab coat had. He pounded against the metal wall again and it dented slightly. His hand pulsed with pain but he didn't care.
Nero cried loudly from his position at the top of the stairs. He barely made it to the building because of the massive amount of pain he was receiving from Nakietra. Near the end, Kurogane had to carry the wolf because he was moving too slow.
"Nakietra can you hear me?" Fai shouted. He clenched his teeth when she didn't respond again. He checked her breathing and heart rate right away then. The shout snapped Kurogane out of his trace and he reacted immediately. He turned around to face the group.
"She's alive, but she needs help," Fai stated right away as he picked her up. In the light of the flashlight Sakura now had, Kurogane could see that Nakietra's black dress was glistening with blood.