A/N: so here's the long overdue beta-read version of the chapter. Enjoy ;)
Their fight was a deadly dance of magic and raging elements and singing blades that lit up sky in brilliant sparks. The cold bit at her exposed skin, raindrops pelting her face and arms and legs like hundreds and hundreds of tiny pebbles being thrown at her from the heavens above. Yet the adrenalin rushing through her veins kept her from feeling the pain she normally would have felt, the shallow bleeding cut on her left calf felt nothing more than an irritating graze. A bolt of lightning shot towards her, forcing Sakura to spin out of the way. Charging the blades of her throwing knives with her magic to erect a protective bubble around her. Feeling a little bit exhausted, she panted, scouring the skies for her opponent as she tried to catch her breath. They had to have been at this for nearly two hours now. Had she been fighting an ordinary opponent or even a hoard of hunters, she would have finished the fight long ago. But seeing as both she and Syaoran were evenly matched, the fight was drawing out without either of them managing to keep the upper hand for more than a minute.
Her mind raced a thousand thoughts a seconds but she couldn't figure out a quick way to end the fight. For a fraction of a second, she spied a spark of blue magic- Fai's magic!- near the grounds before it was gone. Keeping one eye out for Syaoran, she took a closer look towards the place where she thought she had seen the magic originate from. Thunder rattled the clouds before an arc of natural lightning shot through the sky somewhere above her, lighting up everything around her long enough to see a series of hills in the distance. Right at the foot of those mountains was a network high rising metallic towers, interconnected by walkways and sagging wires. A power-grid station. As the light cast from the lightning faded away, she saw one of the central towers beginning to charge up. Brilliant blue pulses arced up the metal's length, spreading outwards along the wires that connected the grid work. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized the magic belonged to Fai.
Encased in the bubble of protective magic, Sakura grew a little careless as she turned all her attention towards what she now knew was one of Hong Kong's biggest power grids. Unlike the grids installed in the sectors of Capital City however, this one did not power the city. Oh no, this was the power grid that was controlled by the mainframe she had seen the blond pilot attach himself to back in the palace. But how was the man amplifying his magic to such a great extent? Unless…. Hadn't Masooma said that the magic in her seal felt similar to Fai's? So then… could this be the pilot's twin's magic? Before she could ponder any more on that however, a blast of magical lightning was shattering her shield, drawing her attention back to the fight even as she tried to incorporate this new information into a workable plan to subdue Syaoran.
"Why do you fight for him?" she yelled over the sound of the thundering rain, trying to buy some time for herself, "have you forgotten what he did to you? To your family?" seeing him stiffen she decided to push one final time, "Your mother?"
"My… mother?" he repeated hesitantly, so reminiscent of the Syaoran she had known aboard Little Wolf that Sakura had to wonder for a moment if the boy had somehow managed to regain his old personality even without the soul.
"Yes," she nodded, hoping against hope that this might just be the miracle she needed, "remember her? She gave up her life for you."
His answering attack was enough to shatter her hopes though. He was still a puppet, even if old Syaoran had somehow managed to take control of the boy's body. She had to do something fast. Making a split second decision, the auburn haired girl shot through the sky like a bullet, heading straight for the power grid. Maybe if she got close enough, she could ask Fai for help. After all, the blond knew how to handle the boy quite well, heck, he was the reason Syaoran was like this in the first place. He must know of something that could be done.
-0-
Touya growled in annoyance as he was forced to dodge out of the way of another attack, sucking in a sharp breath when his opponent still managed to slice a through the top layer of the skin on his torso. As blood began to well up from the wound to paint his dark uniform an even darker shade of crimson, the ex-prince decided he had to find a way to get this fight finished fast. This was all getting a little too close for comfort.
It was by some fluke that the corridor they all fought in was too narrow to allow more than three hunters to attack at any given time, forcing the rest of the tiny army to wait for an opening near the gaping hole in the wall. A little ways away, Kurogane was busy exchanging blows with the bastard Touya personally wanted to cut open. Unfortunately for the prince however, Kyle Rondart was currently parrying the red-eyed man's attacks, wearing a smug grin as he did so, throwing taunts at the captain every chance he got. Touya had known the man to be a bit of a hothead from what little time he had spent in the other's company aboard Little Wolf and in Infinity but surprisingly enough, the red-eyed man was able to not only maintain his calm but even succeed in pushing the hunter back a few paces, leading the attacker away from where Meilin lay with Tomoyo.
Touya did not have much time to observe those two fight but he could gather that the red-eyed man was on nearly equal footing with Kyle despite not having any inherent magic to aid him. A little ways behind them, Yukito was busy doing all he could to protect their backs while at the same time trying to provide cover for the incapacitated girls. Together, Yukito and Touya managed to form a good enough barrier though for every hunter the ex-prince managed to fell, a new one popped up to take his place. Knowing the hunter only had to wait long enough for their small party to tire out before launching their final strike, Touya knew he had to find some way to get rid of the hunters in waiting as soon as possible.
A risky plan began forming in his mind as his gaze darted towards the hole in the wall where all the other hunters were waiting. Going completely on the offensive, Touya began to push his opponent back to his comrades. All the prince had to do was get close enough to the hole. If it worked, he'd be able to take out a considerable chunk of the bastards, evening out the odds a little bit more in their favor.
Keeping up an unrelenting flurry of sword attacks, Touya managed to snag a second blade from one of his felled opponents, spinning in mid air to bring both blades around him as he dropped low, feinting at the last possible moment. Knowing the other hunter would be on the defensive long enough for him to cast the spell, the ex-prince pushed off of the ground, charging to the right side of the wall even as he raced towards the hunter that had retreated in the wake of his attacks. Weaving n invisible spell as he went, Touya bounced off the wall, quite close to the hole in the wall, grinning to himself when he felt the spell embed itself in the ancient stone. Letting the other hunter go on the offensive, Touya began his unseen retreat. Two new hunters dared to venture out of their hidey hole, coming to the aid of their comrade as the ex-prince went.
Touya's gaze flickered to Kurogane and Kyle as he passed them by, grateful for Yukito watching his back when he failed to see an attack heading his way in his moment of distraction. Yelling out his gratitude to his friend, Touya backed up to what he deemed to be a safe distance from the enchanted wall. It was at times like these he was glad that Fei Wang's most elite were all non-magic hunters for a mage would have managed to discover his plan long before the prince would have had a chance to execute it. As it was however, all of their opponents save Kyle- who was locked in a fight with Kurogane- were non-magical as was evident from their long range fighting techniques.
After all, wizards and witches with magic not controlled by Fei Wang's seals could prove to be rather deadly in a close-quarters fight which was why non-magical hunters were always instructed to incapacitate their opponents as swiftly as possible from a safe distance away. Unfortunately for this lot, that safe distance would prove to be their downfall as the spell Touya had woven grew in strength, gathering the stray magic right from the air to become one powerful ticking time bomb.
The magic only became visible a three seconds before Touya's impromptu time bomb exploded in a near blinding explosion, wiping out pretty much all the hunters except for the three that were in the hallway fighting against Touya. And then there was Kyle against Kurogane.
Grinning at the suddenly more manageable number of opponents, Touya was surprised to see Tomoyo join the fight.
"Meilin is stable but there isn't anything I can do for her now." She yelled, taking one of the hunter's away from Touya, leaving the raven-head only to have to worry about dealing with the two left. "Better help you then watch from the sidelines."
-0-
Flipping around on her board, much in the same way as Syaoran had done on the planet devastated by acid rain, Sakura launched the reverse thrusters. Making sure she was heading in the right direction, Sakura searched around for the brunette. Spotting him just a little ways behind her, she flung one of her precious knives at the boy, watching only long enough to see the magic laced through the blade create hundreds and hundreds of needles made out of pure concentrated magic, shooting towards her pursuer. She summoned the knife back to her hand, turning back in the right direction and pushed on to full throttle, shooting for the ground like a speeding bullet.
She knew full well that her attack would only be able to buy her a few precious seconds, she wasted no time in trying to establish a psychic contact with the blond pilot as soon as she was within the range of his magic. Since she had been so intent on reaching the main tower as quickly as possible, the hoverboard proved impossible to slow down as she neared her destination. Making a split second decision, the auburn haired girl flipped off the board in mid-air, her rubber boots skidding over the metal catwalk as she tried and failed to regain her balance, tumbling off of the edge as soon as Fai accepted her contact. She was not prepared for the sudden onslaught of pain, like hundred and thousands of needles piercing through every inch of her body, nearly making her miss the metal rung of a ladder that rose from the ground to connect to the catwalk. The throwing knives slipped from her grasp as she struggled to hold on to the slippery surface, struggling to pull her body back up on the platform, trying not to cry out from the pain she felt.
She knew what she was feeling as merely an echo from the pilot's end of the connection but… it was still enough to drive her near insane. Gritting her teeth as she literally held on for her life above a four hundred feet drop, she mentally sent a quick message to the mage.
F-Fai… I need your help.
I know Sakura. Came the reply in a barely audible whisper. I have been re-routing all available magic to the control towers. Can you get Syaoran there?
He will be here soon but… I-I… I'm not going to kill him. She replied, feeling her fingers slip just a little more, Why are you gathering all that magic?
To bind his soul to his body, The magician replied in that whisper, sending a chill down Sakura's spine as she tried to pull her body up, unable to find a stable footing on the lower rungs of the ladder. It must have broken sometime in the past. The ladder did not exist beneath her feet and no matter how hard she tried, she could not pull herself up. I know the spell that can be cast but you must have him range. And… you have to let me use your body to cast it.
She nearly let go at those words. Fai expected her to surrender herself completely to him for however long it took him to cast the magic? Before she could ponder anymore on that however, she was distracted once again by a gaze boring holes into her head somewhere up above her. Looking up, she saw Syaoran standing at the edge of the catwalk, impassively watching her as her grip slipped just a little more on the metal ladder.
Don't break the contact, Fai warned her just as her fingers slid off the ladder, plunging her to the ground, an unintentional scream escaping her lips as she fell. There was no saving her now. All of her life seemed to flash before her eyes as the wind attacked her falling body, rain pelting her from up above as the ground grew closer and closer until arcs of lightning blue magic shot at her from the tower and wires and even the air itself, latching on to her body to slow her descent, a formless spell pulling her to a complete halt before the wind began to lift her, depositing her on top of the metal catwalk, ten feet away from Syaoran. The brunette merely watched it all with an impassive look on his face as Sakura struggled to regain her breath. She had nearly died and… Fai had saved her.
I need time to get the spell set up. Keep Syaoran distracted.
She knew then that no matter what happened, before the night was over, Sakura would be letting the blond use her body to perform the magic to bind the brunette's soul. She owed it to both of them. Wordlessly, the princess summoned back her daggers, assuming a stance despite her shaky legs as she beckoned Syaoran to attack her. As she ducked under the first attacked and flipped out of the way of a fireball, she wondered if they really needed all that magic to bind one soul, as goosebumps raised the hair on her arms from the raw amount of blue-tinted magic charging up in the towers. If that were the case, why in the world had Fei Wang gone through all that trouble of transporting Syaoran's soul halfway across the galaxy? It could have remained on the same planet without ever causing any problems for the Batlord.
Unless… that had never been the intention behind moving it in the first place. What if… what if he had only done that so that his people could study the unbound soul? Shaking her head to get rid of such unimportant thoughts, Sakura tightened her grip on the hilts of her throwing knives. She could feel the metal resonate with the magic in the air, humming inside the slightly sweaty palms of her hands as she adjusted her grip on the hilts, bringing them up to block a sword swipe. Breathing hard, she locked gazes with Syaoran, searching for any sign of the boy who he used to be despite knowing otherwise.
"Why do you oppose him?" his sudden question took her off guard though she managed not to let him push her back with a second strike.
"Because he is a monster." Sakura spat back, dropping low to kick as his legs. The brunette jumped out of the way as she followed the attack with another barrage of needles made out of concentrated magic. "He destroyed our lives. He took away our families. He laid waste to everything I ever cared about!"
"What makes him so different?" the heartless teen asked in that innocent way of his, erecting a shield to block out her spell, "we destroy lives too." he added from behind the barrier.
"We never had a choice!" she yelled, physically trying to hack away at his protective spell with her knives, "he turned us into these monsters."
"Why does it matter?" Syaoran cocked his head to one side, impassively watching her try to break through his barrier. Sakura could feel Fai's magic weaving through the air all around her but judging from Syaoran's lack of reaction to it, the boy must not be able to sense it. It must have something to do with the connection she had established with the blond earlier.
"This is not who we are." she replied, charging the blades of her knives with magic to help eat away the cocoon surrounding Syaoran a little faster.
"Will denying what we have done change anything?"
Sakura, I'm ready. Fai whispered in the back of her mind.
"It won't," she admitted, mentally prompting the pilot to go ahead, "but we can always try to change what we do next." A series of bolts struck the auburn-haired girl where she stood the moment she had managed to break down Syaoran's shield, fire racing through her veins as foreign magic invaded her body. She could hear someone screaming somewhere far away, not realizing that she herself was resonating those horrible screams atop the metal catwalk as Fai's spell ripped the Syaoran's heart from her body. The magic charged inside her, pouring inwards and inwards and inwards and inwards till she felt like she was drowning and sinking and losing herself to the enormity of the power that was suddenly inside her, screaming all the while. She was vaguely aware of throwing her knives at something, the metal charged with so much magic it was white hot and twisted out of shape but she won't find out until much later.
Forest green suddenly warred against the lightning blue, the blue nearly overwhelming the green but the green refusing the fade to nothingness as it fought back, pushing and pushing and pushing and she was only aware of the screaming and the burning and power of the spell weaving inside her blood, making it boil, turning to fire as the green began to shrink.
I'm so sorry about this, Sakura… she heard a distant whisper but she no longer knew who it belonged to. The spell began to near its completion as the thread of magic connecting the blue to the green began to waver and sway. She did not know why or how but she knew that letting that thread break would be the worst possible thing imaginable so she dug around inside of her, finding a reservoir of pink, tiny in comparison to the shades of blue which were no longer just lightning but ice too. Twins… magical cores of twins… pushing it away, she pulled out the pink and added it to the blues, watching as the wavering thread stabilized, pushing at the green, forcing the taint back, pushing and pushing and pushing as the fire moved from her to the thread and then into the forest green, the taint trying to engulf the fire but the blues and the pink protected the fire as it cleansed out the green, slowly becoming a part of it as the pink and the blues began to retreat and then the blue retreated further and further away, leaving behind only the pink.
Rain drizzled on her frozen skin as Sakura sluggishly struggled to sit up. Her body was too numb to feel anything but as the clouds began to part in the sky, she noticed another fallen figure on the platform. Brain speeding up the process of catching up on things, Sakura clambered over to the fallen brunette, turning him over to his back, heart catching in her throat when she realized that Syaoran wasn't breathing. Tears stung at her eyes as she shook the boy, managing a hoarse croak of his name. Still nothing.
Gritting her teeth against the pain in her heart at the thought of him being dead, she pressed her lips against his, pleading for the boy to wake up. She had done all this to save him. He couldn't have just given up now when the end was so near. They had to both survive it. They had to. Shaking him for a second time and not getting a different result, she struggled to keep her tears at bay as she hugged his body to hers.
"You can't die now…" she wept miserably, pulling away long enough to look at his closed eyes and slightly parted lips before pressing another kiss to them. "Wake up Syaoran. Please wake up." She pleaded. "You can't give up now. We worked so hard to get your soul back. Don't you want to thank Kurogane and Tomoyo for that?"
The body in her arms trembled, making the princess freeze when the boy gasped, thrashing senselessly for a fraction of a moment before his eyes snapped open.
"S-Sakura?"
A/N: so I noticed that not a lot of people reviewed this chapter. are you guys annoyed by the grammatical errors or the long delays between the updates or do only a few people read this story anymore?