A/N: Aloha everyone! So how did you guys find my fake final chapter? ;) ;)

Sorry if it made you want to kill me at first but anyhow, as promised, here is the real chapter 19 which by the way, just so you know, is not the last chapter of the story. We still have some things to cover before we get an ending so you might have to endure reading this for a while longer.

And now, before I forget, this chapter is dedicated to all those who reviewed my story or added it to their alerts/ favs list since that is what kept me writing on. This is especially dedicated to Kuro-Ryu-Neko, who reviewed all 19 chapters in one go and helped me achieve my target of a 100 reviews, and to my Beta kim-onka who was kind enough to write the previous chapter for me. Thanks a lot you guys! ^_^

Now, without further ado, please go ahead and enjoy.

Hearing Sakura's scream, I rushed to the cell as fast as I could, praying for only one thing all the time. Let him be okay. Let him be okay. Please. Let him be okay.

But then I got to the door and my eyes instantly locked in on the limp figure in Sakura's arms.

"No…" all I could see was his pale, gaunt face, his closed eyes sunken in his sockets, his cracked lips parted slightly as though he had difficulty breathing through his nose. My eyes moved lower, towards his chest, but there was no rise and fall, neither steady nor unsteady.

"No!" Why wasn't his chest moving? Why were his eyes closed like that?! Why was he…

"Syaoran-kun…" I whispered numbly as my feet automatically carried me closer to him and his princess. "No…"

He was…

No!

No! It's not possible! He wasn't supposed to…

I dropped beside him, my mind repeating the word 'no' like a mantra that would make this all turn into some bad dream.

"No…" I put my head over his heart, wrongly hoping to hear a faint fluttering beat when cold lifeless body kept trying to tell me otherwise. My emotions were in wild disarray and it was very hard to keep my magic contained within my body. The grief that I felt. The hopelessness that tried to swallow me completely. The wild energy whizzing inside me, wanting to be unleashed on the world for what had just happened. It was all kept at bay by one thing and one thing alone.

Sakura.

If I lost it now, I would no doubt end up wounding her.

But Syaoran…

Oh God…

I had failed him.

But he wasn't the only one I had failed.

I had promised Sakura we would find him…

Why had I never promised her that we would save him?

Was it because deep down, somewhere, a subconscious part of me knew that this would happen?

And Kurogane…

He had believed in me. He had trusted me to look after his apprentice.

I had failed them, just like I had failed her.

Akira's deranged laughter managed to break through the waves of sadness, emptiness and guilt crashing over me. My whole body stiffened at that sound.

"What are you going to do now?" Akira chortled, "The boy is dead High Mage. What will you do now?"

I took in a slow, shaky breath as I climbed to my feet; my eyes were tightly shut as I tried to reel in all my emotions save for a select few. I was well aware of the wetness that had trailed down my cheeks as I had tried to find Syaoran's non-existent pulse but I would cry no more. I felt my slightly elongated nails as they dug into the palms of my fisted hands but I paid it no mind.

I bared my teeth as she continued to cackle.

"I suppose it's time I kept my promise," she said with a hearty sigh as I felt a grey haze appear in the doorway. "Ready to die High Mage?"

"Are you?" I was surprised by how calm my voice sounded, given the fact that I was thirsting for her blood on the inside. I wanted that bitch to pay… I wanted everything that had happened to just undo itself… Syaoran… Kurogane…Masooma… I wanted them back… I wanted their lives back…

"Not really, no." she answered back with a giggle.

I tightened my grip on the hilt of Ginryuu as my eyes snapped open. "That's too bad." I declared before rushing forward, bringing the blade along in a low arc so that I could cut through her torso. Akira seemed to have anticipated this attack since she moved out of the way with the same inhuman speed that I possessed thanks to Kamui's blood.

Akira's grin widened, if that was even possible, as she raised her hand and two swords materialized in the air before her, she grabbed the hilts of the twin black metal blades and swung them around, slashing at me faster than the speed of light. I countered her blows, with relative ease, managing to add some of my magic to strengthen my counter-attacks.

We kept at it for quite a while, neither of us succeeding in hurting the other but neither of us backing down either. We both wanted the other's blood.

"It seems like you were holding back the last time we fought Mage." She stated in a matter-of-factly way as she swished her dual swords at my chest, "So I suppose that girl wasn't important enough."

I knew what she was trying to do by rubbing me the wrong way; she was hoping to make me lose control so that I might make some mistake that might give her an upper hand. And damn her for it as she was nearly succeeding. It was very hard for me to keep a straight mind as it was and I did not need to hear her stupid voice to make it even worse.

"Just like that bastard of an apprentice wasn't important enough to you I suppose," I gave her a cold smirk as I parried the first blade and dodged the second, "You didn't put up much of a fight either back then."

I suppose I was more successful in my attempt at getting her riled up since no sooner had the words left my mouth that her face transformed into a look of pure rage and hatred.

"You bastard!" she shrieked as her tainted magic began materializing around her, "I'll kill you!"

"He was executed by the Saru poison," I continued nonchalantly as I discretely called upon my own magic to shield me and Sakura from harm. "Surely you would know what it can do to a magician, wouldn't you, Akira?" For some reason, her rage and fury pleased me. A part of me glad to be able to do to her what she had done to me.

"Shut up!" she screeched as her wild aura lashed out at me. I felt my defensive magic begin to take effect not a fraction of a second later.

She attacked with more ferocity but my shield did not relent. She gave up on an all out magical attack after a couple of minutes, swinging her swords in a complicated yet wild pattern as she came at me once again.

I dug my heels in the ground in an effort to block her twin blades from slicing me into three pieces; I gritted my teeth in an effort to force her back while she did the same with me. Akira lashed out with her leg, which hit me painfully in the side, making me gasp as my attention diverted and one of her swords nearly slice me in half.

She returned with another powerful blow and all I could do at the moment was step under it to avoid being cleaved as I felt my muscles protest. Well, that fight with her new bald apprentice had consumed quite a lot of my energy and even though that bastard had managed to vanish in a thick magical smog, he had gotten my injured arm to start bleeding again.

That and all my previous fights with her stationed bodyguards had worn me down a little. Had I been fully rested, I might have had a better chance of holding out against her but now?

"Tell me mage," she whispered as she looked at me crazed eyes, "whose magic would you like to go up against? The boy's whom I've just killed or that ninja's whose techniques you stole, or that weakling of a witch's that was your apprentice?"

"…" I remained silent as I hurled a spell in her direction.

"Perhaps you would like to go against all three of them," she cackled after a while when my spell was swatted away by the newer auras that joined her own to strengthen that dark shield of impenetrable magical energy that surrounded her. "I'll make you suffer like every single one of them," she promised softly as bolts of magic which contained the auras I was familiar with mixed with her own dark magic shot in my direction.

"Hama Ryou Jin!" I cried as I spun around, concentrating my magic into the blade before releasing it all in large burst of energy which slammed into those bolts, throwing them off their intended course. "You're dead!" I lunged at her, the wall that I had been carefully locking up all my emotions behind finally breaking down. Blue static energy buzzed in the air that surrounded me.

-0-

Fai and the witch were sparring with an inhuman speed and the power radiating off both of them was enough to make me feel dizzy. The air was alive with magic, everything was permeated by those auras, Fai's strong yet dangerous one as well as the Kurogane-san's and Syaoran's which were now tainted by Akira's pitch black one. There was a third unfamiliar aura in that tainted mix, however from the look on Fai's face, I knew he knew who it had belonged to.

I watched in silence, subconsciously tightening my grip on Syaoran as the two fought with ferocious intensity. Their thrusts and blocks held so much power that it left the ground rumbling, their spells strong enough to decimate whatever they touched. It was like watching some sort of twisted dance, their movements fluid and elegant beyond belief, even if they held a wild edge to them.

For most part, the witch had her attention focused on Fai but for a fraction of a second her gaze had flickered in my direction. Not an instant later, a barrage of offensive spells was hurtled our way.

"No!" Fai cried as he sent his own runes to protect us from the incoming volley of attacks, a glowing blue shield forming a dome around us to fend anything sent our way, but it seemed as if the witch had been anticipating such a move on Fai's part, since the next minute, Fai was on the ground, sporting a large bleeding gash that ran from the tip of his shoulder to the middle of his torso.

He ignored the cut, hopping back on his feet in a flash but the witch wasted no time, attacking him again. Her face held no remorse, as if her deranged gleeful expression was anything to go by and she did not seem to be showing any restraint towards him.

She charged at Fai in a blur of black and pale gold, her swords flashing in the light of the chandelier Fai had conjured. I could see that Fai was weakening, his injuries taking their toll on him yet my body remained frozen when he returned her strike with a loud grunt.

I knew I had to help him, but my muscles were bound in place, rendering me unable to move. I couldn't even reach out for the sword that lay not more than a foot away from me.

Fai darted forward once again, both of them having jumped away from one another previously after a rather explosive standstill. Akira however seemed to have anticipated this as well as she sidestepped at the last minute, spinning around to slam her foot into Fai's back as he passed her, sending him crashing into the stone wall.

"Would you like to hear how your beloved Syaoran died?" Her chilling voice reached my ears, "Would you like me to tell you how I killed him?"

Her words reignited the hate-filled fire burning deep within my heart. Despite all that I had been through, hatred was still such a foreign feeling for me but it felt so comforting. It shielded me from my pain and sorrow and despair and the emptiness that Syaoran's death had left in me. It eradicated my necessity to feel all those things as it filled my entire being, leaving room for nothing else.

I felt the invisible force holding me down vanish as Fai struggled to get back on his feet. My gaze traveled down to me hands that had been clutching onto the shirt of the boy I had loved with all my heart, from there it traveled to his pale, bloodied face, taking in the sight of his blue parted lips and sunken hollow cheeks with blackish veins contrasting sharply against his ghostly white skin.

The glinting sword lying next to him caught my attention after that before moving back to Akira's twisted face. She was the cause of all of this. That woman, that… that witch had been the one who had hurt so many people, had murdered Kurogane-san, hurt someone else close to Fai-san and tortured, blinded and then killed my most precious person. She had taken them all away.

She was slowly advancing towards Fai-san who was clearly having trouble standing on his feet. My jaw clenched as I reached out for the sword, taking one last fleeting look at his face as I gently rested Syaoran's head on the cold floor.

"I'm so sorry." I whispered softly as I climbed to my feet, feeling a strange numbness creep all over my body. The one person who had always made me feel safe and protected was gone. This had to end before I lost Fai-san as well.

This demented witch had to be stopped.

A cool breeze swept through the cell as my resolve strengthened.

What Akira had done was unforgivable, she would not go unpunished.

I would make sure of that.

"Syaoran…" I whispered under my breath as I stepped around his body and moved towards the witch now looming over Fai-san, "Kurogane-san…" I breathed, seeking out strength from their spirits, "Fai-san…"

Everything that I am today, it's all because of you. It's because of you that I am alive… it is because of you that I am… strong…

As my own magic rippled and awakened inside of me along with Syaoran's, there was no denying it, I was.

A/N: And there you have it. Sakura is about to go up against Akira. What do you think would happen now? Will she be able to beat the deranged witch or will she be overpowered like Fai?

And what do you think her reaction would be about Fai's involvement in Syaoran's death?

What about Kurogane? How would he react? Cuz believe it or not, the next chapter will be told by our favorite ninja/ghost. ;)

Waiting for your opinions and thoughts on the matter, most popular choices might end up getting incorporated into the story so don't hesitate to let me know.

-Nims.