A/N: Hey everyone! The response to my last chapter was quite shocking and kind of unexpected. I was seriously thinking some threats were bound to come my way but all I got was you people telling me how awesome I am. ^_^ Actually no, not all of you said that but I know you were all thinking it so don't deny it.
Anyhow, for this final chapter- in which you can expect the unexpected, I would like to thank kim-onka who was kind enough to actually write it down for me since my life at present wasn't permitting me to do so myself.
Now, without further ado, please, go ahead and enjoy.
Don't forget to review (still need some of those to reach my goal of 100 reviews. ;) )
Fai's POV:
I stared ahead, into that loathsome, pale face with those soulless charcoal eyes, and I could feel the silent yet ruthlessly powerful rage intensify inside me. Even the bitter sadness which had previously overwhelmed me, the result of Syaoran's death, evolved into pure hatred feeding itself on the images of his mangled body.
"Akira." I mouthed, almost soundlessly.
The crazy witch who was responsible for the deaths of countless people, amongst whom there were some I had personally known and cherished.
Masooma, my carefree yet hardworking apprentice; the memory of her twinkling eyes or tinkling laughter would never leave me.
Kurogane, my dear friend with whom I had traveled to many worlds and shared so many experiences; the one who had helped me see the value of my own life.
And now, Syaoran, the kind and warmhearted boy who had suffered and persisted through so much and would never have given up, was lying there, nothing more than an empty lifeless shell of the person I had known. Next to him, Sakura was on her knees, shaken by violent sobs at the shock of his death.
That damned witch had chased away light from far too many eyes.
"You were too late, High Mage," she repeated, grinning wildly, "always too late!" As if I needed reminding. "Don't you ever learn? Look at that poor little girl, she's lost her precious boyfriend; does she know who's fault that is?"
I cast a quick glance in Sakura's direction but she was oblivious to everything that was going on around her; her body still, the girl kept rocking back and forth over Syaoran's tormented body.
I could easily see what Akira was aiming at; turn the princess against me so that we would be defeated hands down. I could never deny the fact that I had failed all those I held dear but now wasn't exactly the best time to take the entire blame for this tragedy.
I would explain everything to her and apologize for my role in her loved one's demise but that would have to wait until after we had our revenge on Akira for everything she had put us through.
Our enemy was still Akira.
"I think we all know just whose fault it all is," I hissed at her, itching to unleash my vampire claws and shred that stupid nonchalantly amused face of hers to pieces. If anything, her smile only widened at this, as her gaze darted in Sakura's direction. I sensed the magic ripple through the air, heading in her direction but thankfully I managed to conjure a protective barrier around her just in time.
Sakura was brought out of her dazed state on hearing the resulting explosion.
Attacking my princess was the last straw, "You BITCH!!" I shouted, letting my rage and fury get the better of me. I threw myself in Akira's direction, summoning blue ribbons of spells from the tips of my now razor-sharp fingers.
All but impressed, the witch dodged the blow with a childish giggle and sent a kick, aimed for my stomach. Luckily I managed to avoid getting hit at the last moment, by dodging to the left. I swiped my hand, wanting to tear out her throat but she blocked my attack with a gleeful laugh.
Again and again I attacked, but she managed to evade my swipes with far more ease than I could dodge hers. She was much faster than I had anticipated. So fast that even my vampire senses and agility couldn't always catch up to her, and soon enough I was bleeding from several cuts dealt by her knife.
Still, I was sure I would be able to defeat her… was it not for the magic.
We kept exchanging blows and punches, while our magic swirled in the air around us, mine dancing in the form of blue Celesian runes and hers hanging as a cloud of heavy smoke. Each was aiming to overwhelm and suppress the other, and to my increasing panic mine was slowly and steadily yielding to Akira's power.
Along with the magic's strain, my ability to concentrate and the speed of my reactions were also gradually fading. Despite the rage boiling inside, I was beginning to worry for the outcome.
Seriously worry.
"Is anything wrong, Mage?" I heard that bitch's mock-concerned voice. "Relax, it's not like you need to watch over that girl, do you?"
Against my better judgement, that did catch my attention. Sakura? What else could happen to her now, if Akira was locked in a battle with me and all the minions were gone? Mighty as she was, the damned witch couldn't possibly fight me and harass the princess at the same time… right?
The woman chuckled idiotically in the process of ducking another one of my blows. Even I could see how chaotic and desperate they had become.
"Worry not, worry not" she derided, "you're not very good of taking care of people anyways, are you. So my apprentice will watch over her in your stead, isn't that lovely?"
Her high-pitched voice stabbed me more acutely than a knife ever could, knocking me out of the remnants of balance. The apprentice? Haven't I killed him?! How come..? Sakura!!
Was I dealing with my enemy only to lose another important person – the last important person, I might add – in the meantime?
At that moment it didn't occur to me that the bitch could be bluffing; and anyhow I soon found for myself that she wasn't after I had turned abruptly to locate Sakura.
It must've been due to my own battle's noises that her struggles hadn't made it through to my ears earlier, but now I was faced with her figure tussling in the bald man's firm grasp.
There was precious little time I was given to comprehend the picture before a swishing sound from behind told me that lowering my guard was not so good an idea, whatever the reason.
Kurogane's POV:
"WATCH OUT YOU IDIOT!!" I yelled, seeing the frickin' bitch lift some shackles which had been lying about on the floor and swing them into that stupid mage's head's direction.
Of course, he didn't hear me. And even if he had, as he most likely had heard the shackles themselves, he was too drained by the fight to react in time.
"FAI!!" The princess shrieked hoarsely when he collapsed on the dirty ground, apparently unconscious. The last lone ribbons of his azure magic disappeared eventually, incapable of further resistance without persistent will to control them.
Cackling maniacally, the witch stroked Fai's ribcage with her shoe's pointed tip, then turned him on his back by means of repeatedly kicking his side, which caused him to breathe in irregular, deep gasps.
"You thought you had him, didn't you? Whaaa, someone's being naïve!" The bitch's ridiculing, patronizing laughter filled the room. "That's not enough… to kill our bodies isn't enough to stop us, High Mage!"
What the hell?!
So far, I hadn't as much as taken the possibility of failure into consideration, but what I was seeing now made me rethink that.
Was the mage going to give in too? Was he going to let Akira kill him… and the princess?
…Wasn't it actually happening right at the moment…?
"Wake up, moron! Wake up and FIGHT!!" Shouting hadn't achieved much so far, but I was so mad at my helplessness that I simply had to do that, at the very least. He had heard me a few times, so maybe…
But the mage did not stir.
Resigned, I looked at the princess, whose exhausted figure was now loose against that bald bastard's grasp. She was staring dejectedly at the ground and I could see she was beginning to shake again.
Suddenly, I heard a sound of some sort coming from somewhere on the left. Preparing myself to face a new danger (though what could I do?), I allowed my gaze to venture cautiously in that direction, my body (if a ghost can have a body) tensing up.
Yet all I saw was a large metal box. For an inexplicable reason, I found it rather suspicious. But perhaps I was merely having paranoia after all of this.
A ghost with paranoia. Not what I wanted to achieve in life… or after it.
I gave the box one last glance before turning back to Fai, who was snapping out of confusion only to find himself with the grinning bitch's foot on his chest.
The feeling didn't seem to meet his tastes.
"You… you #*&%x!!!" The magician burst out with an impressive litany of invectives, evoking that insane giggle from the witch's throat.
Slight clanging came from the box's bearing. Nothing was there, though. Auditory hallucinations?
As if I didn't have enough problems.
Sakura was now weeping openly. The situation must've broken her to the very core; no hope, no help, everything in vain, everything gone.
Everything.
"Why -" the princess gasped for air and continued through her sobs, "why are doing this?! What have we done to you?! Kurogane-san, S-syaoran, Fai-san, me… w-what did we ever do to you?!" She wailed in desperation.
The bitch cut her laughter instantly to look at the girl.
"What have you done?" She repeated in that vexingly high-pitched tone of hers and cackled again. "Why, I'll tell you-"
"My, my," a voice came from the left side of room, "if that doesn't sound just like that white dimension-hopping bunny of theirs! What do you say, Emily?"
The voice was greeted by a sudden silence as all heads turned unanimously to where that suspicious metal box of mine stood.
It was wide open, and inside there was a person crouching with a lazy, disinterested look on his face which was half-concealed by grey-white bangs, to the point where the very existence of that guy's left eye was questionable.
Raising the eyebrow over his right red eye, "But the box's lid is a heavy one here!" he added in mock complaint, casting a glance at a little creepy doll he carried on his shoulder.
I wondered if this guy was another of Akira's companions. They would suit each other.
Then, several things happened at the same time.
"Who are you and what on earth are you doing here?!" The bald bastard yelled, proving my supposition wrong.
"Wha-what are you saying?!" Sakura stuttered as she fell onto her knees, thrown away by her captor when he'd stepped forward. "Moko-chan?!"
Moko-chan?… right, Mokona… come to think of it, where was it all the time? I hadn't seen it with the others, I realised.
No sooner than I had thought that, the damn bitch's vibrating scream overshadowed any other sound.
"I am NOT a white dimension-hopping bunny!! I am a white dimension-hopping bunny WITH A RED JEWEL STUCK ON ITS HEAD!!!"
Sakura's POV:
I watched in horror as the witch's stomach rapidly opened in two neat doors, while her entire body froze instantly in an unnatural pose.
In the middle of our enemy's body, in a cosy and apparently comfortable cabin, there sat Mokona with its long ears trembling at their ends as a sign of uncontrollable fury.
The stranger in the metal box didn't seem particularly affected by the passionate hatred focused on him at the moment, however. Not even by the revelation he had just witnessed.
"My apologies," he said politely, touching the edge of his decorated top hat in a mark of a little bow. "Anyhow, the one I'm looking for is a black rabbit without any jewels, so I guess I'll be leaving now, goodbye everyone!"
Having bid his cheerful goodbye, he grabbed the lid of the box and closed himself inside.
My oppressor, the supposed witch's apprentice, jumped to the chest and opened it again, but found nothing.
"What was that?!" He demanded, looking at Fai, who was trying to liberate himself from under the unmoving woman's shoe; at me, still in the place where he'd let me go, my body too numb to move; and finally at Mokona popping out of the witch's abdomen.
No one seemed able to provide him with any answer, so he decided to pass over it to more pressing matters.
"Don't move, you!" He shouted at Fai, next he walked past me – probably deciding such a warning would be pointless as I couldn't move either way – and approached Mokona.
Mokona… how could I not notice it was missing? Communicating freely was so natural that I didn't pay attention to the bunny's role, but even so – was it a spell of some sort?
After a while of such and similar thoughts it dawned on me that there were issues of greater relevance just now. Well, perhaps one could be somewhat slow on the uptake after having witnessed death of one's beloved, being in a poor psychophysical condition oneself AND having seen a guy come out of an empty box.
Perhaps.
Still...It appeared that Mokona had killed Kurogane-san and Syaoran, and now was threatening to kill me and Fai.
Mokona. Moko-chan. Our Mokona!
I blinked, realising that something must be fundamentally wrong with the structure of the Time-Space. Maybe we hadn't fixed it properly?
"Sakura." I heard my name spoken in that all too familiar childish voice. "You asked why Mokona was doing it all you."
"Uhm, yes I did" I replied, feeling utterly stupid all of sudden, and at the same time progressively more afraid.
"Well, look at how you treated Mokona, all of you!!" The white creature moaned, raising its eyes, wide open as if in a *Mekyo! *, which motion indicated it was calling the dark ceiling to testify its accusations. "You NEVER treated Mokona seriously, not like Mokona deserved to be treated!"
While speaking, the bunny kept approaching Fai, who stared at it in disbelief from his place under the figure's – robot's? – foot and began letting out quiet though distinctly hysteric laughter.
"HE was the same!" The apprentice proclaimed, lifting his hands in that – seemingly – omniscient ceiling's direction. "Mokona just could stand it no more!" Upon which declaration the man's stomach opened too, revealing the black equivalent of our main tormenter.
I thought that from that moment on nothing would surprise me again. Normally, it'd be a reckless assumption, but my life didn't show many hopes for lasting longer that about an hour, so I decided I could allow it.
"He…" Fai murmured, "…Watanuki-kun?"
"You've no idea how awful he was to Mokona!" The black bunny assured us indignantly. If it hoped we would show more sympathy than the ceiling, it was disappointed.
"They're all the same!" The white one followed, finally jumping onto Fai's chest. "Now, I shall have your magic."
Fai tried to protest, but choked on his own words as Mokona started to drain his magic powers from his body and absorbing into its tiny form.
"That'll teach you not to treat Mokona as a dimension-hopping bunny, while Mokona is a dimension-hopping bunny with a red jewel stuck on its head!"
"Yeah!!" The black Mokona cheered, "That'll teach them!! The reality will be ours soon enough!!"
"No…" I forced a weak word out of my dry mouth as Fai's magic essence was leaking out of him and flowing into Mokona's shining red jewel.
On the corners of my blurring vision I could see small, fluffy creatures with long ears, their fur all the colours of the rainbow, pouring into the room like an apocalyptic avalanche.
In fact, it might have been just it. An apocalyptic avalanche of bunnies.
In a mixture of gaudy paints, the world trembled, whirled and finally shattered…
…and then, there wasn't anything.
Some random dude's POV:
I walked through the park in a leisure pace, happy to have chosen a longer and definitely more enjoyable path home. The birds were singing cheerfully, the sun was warm, the hour was still early and I was pretty happy in general.
In such positive conditions I encountered a bunny. It was sitting quietly under a bush and watching me with cautious eyes.
"Hey, bunny!" I greeted it. Things like that do happen when I'm in a good mood.
The creature blinked slowly. Suddenly I felt uneasy. Also, I noticed that there was something wrong with its head, as if something was stuck on it or whatever.
"Hey? Bunny?"
"Whaaaaaaaa!!" The animal screamed, making me back off a few steps. Oh crap, what- wait, I was in a good mood – had there been anything in my coffee..?
"I am NOT a bunny!!" The fluffy fur ball demanded, exposing its pointy teeth. (Hadn't I overworked myself lately??) "I am a PLOT BUNNY WITH A JEWEL STUCK ON ITS HEAD!!"
Aha. Very well.
"You'll see, you miserable human, we'll show you how to treat us seriously!" So far, so good. "There are mighty among us! Mighty who can travel between worlds!!"
"Like… a dimension-hopping bunny?" I asked skeptically.
The creature hissed. I'd never known bunnies can hiss.
Over my head, I heard a long, high-pitched, wailing call.
"I-AM-A-WHITE-DIMENSION-HOPPING-BUNNY-WITH-A-RED-JEWEL-STUCK-ON-ITS-HEEAAAAAAAD!!!"
But before I could look up to identify the source of that sound, I felt a hard blow on the back of my head and passed out.
When I woke up… the world was not the one I remembered.
And it had been such a nice day.
Motto~!
Treat bunnies seriously… or else…
A/N: And there you have it. It's finally ended.
So what do you think? Awesome, right?
Kurogane: What the f**kin hell was all that crap?
Me: *looks affronted* Excuse me?!
Kurogane: Yeah you heard me.
Fai: I think I'm gonna have to agree with Kuro on this one.
Sakura: *nods*
Syaoran's ghost: I thought this was supposed to have a semi-happy ending.
Me: Yeah.
Fai: I don't really see how this can be seen as a happy ending.
Me: And you point is?
Kuro-ghost: *grabs author by the shoulders and starts shaking her very violently* The point is you idiot, that what the hell happened to happy in the happy ending?!
Me: Um… It got squashed by Mokona?
Fai: That's another thing. Mokona? How in the world did you end up with… with Akira turning out to be Mokona in a robot disguise?
Me: Well… see the thing is… Me and kim were having a discussion a couple of weeks back and the question of Mokona's whereabouts in this fic was raised. This just happens to be the answer that I gave her. After a little more discussion a plot bunny was born.
Plot bunny: Plot bunny with a jewel on its head!
Me: Yes. Yes. Plot bunny with a jewel stuck on its head was born and it was just too good to not write down, thus this final chapter.
Sakura: So is this really the end of this story?
Me: I could say yes but then all my awesome readers out there would truly want to kill me so I suppose I'm gonna have to tell the truth. Fai, could you please tell me what date it is today?
Fai: It's the first of April.
Sakura and Syaoran: Hey! That's my birthday!
Me: Happy birthday you two, but that's not why I asked him. Today also happens to be April's Fools day… Do you see where I am going with this?
Everyone: *glares*
Me: *slowly backs away* Erm, yeah… Sorry if I offended you guys but it was just meant to be a small joke. I mean you gotta admit, it was funny, no? And besides, nobody ever truly did wonder where our favorite white dimension hopping bunny vanished after the first chapter.
Well, here is your answer. Sort of.
Now for the more pressing question that Sakura raised, is this really the end of the story?
You tell me? Do you really think that after all those endless hours that I toiled over this story, building up all the tension and angst and tragedy level, I would end it on a note like this? Of course not.
This can be considered an omake of sorts if you will. The real chapter nineteen still needs a few finishing touches b4 I can send it to my beta for checking for my stupid grammatical mistakes. Hopefully, it will be up by Monday. And before you ask, no, that is not the last chapter either. There are still a lot of loose ends that need tying up, plus there's the question of my semi-happy ending. I can't pull it off in one chapter so worry not my friends, there's more to come. ;)
Hope you still enjoyed this chapter and rolled on the floor while laughing just as much as I did when I read it. Please review and tell me what you thought.
-Nims.
PS. Flames will be used to roast the evil Mokona.
PSS. Wow, this is one loooong author's note.
Quiz!
Who's the guy in the box in Kuro's POV and who is he looking for?? Cookies for anyone who can guess.
