"Who are you?"
"Don't you recognize me?" said the young girl's voice. Sakura looked around, she did not know where she was, but the owner of the voice slowly became visible.
Sakura gasped. "You!"
The little girl nodded. She smiled a very sweet smile. "You helped me so much so long ago, I haven't forgotten. You let me return to all my friends, and so now I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you get all of our friends back!"
Sakura smiled and opened her eyes.
She was laying on the ground, with Syaoran, Tomoyo, and Toya standing around her. The voices were all blurred, it seemed Syaoran was shouting at Yue. Sakura gasped. That meant that Darian was fighting Yue now! Or even… had already finished. Was she too late? Did Darian win?
Sakura placed a hand on Syaoran's arm and stood up slowly. When Yue displayed the nineteen Star Cards, Sakura only smiled and pulled out one last card.
"Hope!" she cried, tossing the card in the air. "Come to my aid!" Sakura summoned her last Card with her wand. Yue's eyes widened.
"What?" he asked, the icy blue eyes narrowing now as he tried to take control of this strange card.
"I Captured and Sealed this Card long after the original nineteen, Yue," Sakura said. "As such, There was no Guardian assigned it; it is not underneath any of the Elements, or the Light or Dark. It is my card, my power!"
Slowly the Hope materialized into the small girl. She laughed a bit, then flew towards Yue. He summoned Windy and Watery, who swirled around him, but the Hope only smiled. She touched each one and they faded away almost instantly.
"What is this!" Yue demanded, flying far above Tokyo Tower. Sakura's card followed him. She did not have much raw power; but she had equal power to all nineteen other cards. Hope giggled, and drew herself up to Yue's eye level. She tilted her head, and reached out to touch him lightly on the forehead.
When she did so, the seventeen remaining Star Cards appeared, surrounding them, then, one by one, drifted down to where Sakura was standing, her Wand raised high above her head, and the Book of the Star open and waiting. One by one, each card returned to her.
"I'm taking my Cards back, Yue!" Sakura shouted, her face defiant. However, it quickly softened again. "You come back too, Yue."
The Hope was still touching Yue when his eyes slowly closed, and without a word, his wings covered his entire body, then disappeared, leaving Yukito floating, unconscious, in mid air. The Hope smiled and faded away, her Card drifting to the ground.
"Yukito!" Toya shouted even as Sakura sank to her knees with a sigh of relief.
"Element, come to my aid! Wind!" Syaoran summoned the element, causing it to break Yukito's fall. Unconscious, and without the ability to fly, he was falling fast. As he neared the ground, Toya leaped up and caught him, landing on the roof.
"Yukito…" he said softly.
"Sakura, you did it!" Tomoyo said, jumping up and down. "I just knew you could!"
Smiling softly, Sakura replied, "Thanks, Tomoyo." She looked down at the Hope card she held in her hand. "And thank you," she added softly.
"Sakura!" suddenly Keroberos shouted, running up to her.
"Keroberos!" Sakura threw her arms around the lion's neck. "I'm so happy you're back!"
"Well done, Sakura," came a familiar, and quite relieved, voice. "I never thought that Card would be of any use. It was created only to balance out the others."
Sakura and Syaoran turned to see Eriol walking towards them, a smile on his face. Ruby Moon and Spinnel Sun were behind him, looking thoroughly confused. Sakura smiled. "Oh! Where's Darian?" she gasped, looking around. She saw him laying several feet away. Nearby were his Nova Staff and the Book of the Nova. Timidly, Sakura walked over to him.
Darian seemed to wake suddenly as if from a nightmare. He screamed and sat up, looking around. "The Test… what happened? Where's Yue- my cards!"
"They are not your cards," Sakura said gently, but firmly. "They never were, and they never will be." In that moment, Darian actually seemed afraid of Sakura. She seemed to radiate power; so greatly that Darian for a moment wondered how he had ever been able to fight on even grounds with her.
As if reading his thoughts, Sakura said, "I harbored doubts in my heart and in my mind for many years. Even after I transformed all the Cards and brought Yue and Keroberos as my Guardians. You came at the right moment, the moment when I wanted nothing more than to be someone ordinary, someone who was not special."
Darian sneered. "You're no one special! You think you have enough magic to rival someone of Clow Reed's own family! As long as I have my magic, you're nothing!" But as he reached for his staff, it crumbled into dust at his touch. "What? The Book!" he reached around for the Book, but it too crumbled.
"You have no magic anymore, Darian Reed. It was taken from you the moment you lost your cards to Yue." Sakura glared down at Darian, who stood up to his full height. He was much taller than she was, but as he looked around, and saw all the faces glaring at him, his enemies, he looked very much like a little lost child.
Without saying anything, he ran for the door that would lead down into Tokyo Tower. Syaoran and Keroberos started to cut him off, but Sakura shook her head. "Let him go. He can do no more harm. The Reed family has been diluted and thinned in the centuries since Clow's life. Unlike the Li family, of course," she said with a chuckle.
Sakura turned to Eriol, and slowly approached him. He was incredibly tall; much taller than Toya or Syaoran. "Eriol…"
Eriol smiled. "Nice work, Sakura." There was nothing more they could say to one another. Eriol had never lost faith in Sakura's abilities, even if Sakura had.
The moment was interrupted, however, by the forgotten Toya and Yukito. "Yukito!" Toya shouted. He was crouching there, staring as Yukito transformed into Yue. He stared coolly down at Sakura.
"What happened?" he demanded of Keroberos, who looked thoroughly confused.
"You don't…remember?" The Guardian Beast asked, walking up to Yue, who merely shook his head.
"I knew what was happening up until a certain point, then everything went blank. There seems to be a large part of mine and Yukito's memory missing."
Sakura's eyes were wide, then she smiled. "We won," was all she said. However, even though she smiled, and her words should have summoned enthusiasm and relief, her smile was a sad one, and the words were softly spoken. Yukito was gone again. She could see that Toya was thinking the same thing, as he stood up and dusted himself off, then turned his back on Yue and walked away.
Both Yue and Sakura watched him go. Eriol, Syaoran, Tomoyo and the others stood apart, watching Sakura and the Guardians reunite. Out of the corner of his eye, Eriol saw Toya standing near the edge of Tokyo Tower roof, his hands in his pockets.
Briefly, he glanced to Ruby Moon and Spinel Sun, both of who nodded. Silently, the three departed, without anyone noticing.
"Are you sure it's wise to leave them, Master?" Spinnel Sun asked.
Eriol smiled. "I have nothing more to say to Sakura. She's finally grown up," he added with a chuckle.
Ruby Moon looked at Eriol. "What are we going to do now?"
"We're going to visit an old friend of mine. A very old friend."
Sakura walked up to Toya, and placed a hand on his arm. Toya turned to look at her, and for the first time Sakura could ever remember, she saw a melancholic, almost sadness, in her brother's eyes.
"Toya.."
"I'm glad," he said, turning back to look ahead. "You've gotten your powers back. You've grown up, squirt. I'm proud."
Sakura sighed. "I miss Yukito too. But with Yue in control of his body… it's impossible." Then, a thought came to her, and her eyes filled with a determination that Toya knew only too well. "I'm going to get Yukito back! I promise!"
A/N: It seems a couple of you had guessed already what the last card was! I imagined that the Hope would have to have some sort of power as well; since the Nothing caused things to be erased, I figured the kind of power the Hope had would be similar to the power the Nothing had. Since this card is under Sakura's control, it would gain back the other Star Cards for Sakura instead of from Sakura. That's always what I imagined that card to do!
I'm excited to finally end this story, I hope you'll enjoy the remaining chapters!