It's been approximately 192837 years but I am back with the finale to this monster of a story. Enjoy.

Mei-Lin, in typical fashion, was the first to break the stunned silence. "What the hell?" When silence persisted for a few beats too many after her exclamation, she persisted. "I mean, what the hell, Sakura? What the hell is that? Your staff? What the hell happened? I was in China, like, five seconds ago, and now I'm here, but while I was there I… I…" She stopped, blinked, then passed her eyes over the group around her. "I didn't remember any of you. Well, except for Syaoran, but that's because I knew him before…" She trailed off again. The crease between her brow furrowed farther.

"I don't think that you were actually in China, Mei-Lin. Just as I don't think that I was actually at… where I previously seemed to be situated," Tomoyo said. I noticed her hesitation to name her illusory world, but I didn't press the subject.

"The last card, I presume?" Eriol nodded slightly towards the staff I proudly held.

"Illusion." I answered both questions. "The last of the Clow Cards."

"And with that, you have surpassed me." Eriol bowed his head to me.

"You've come a long way, kid." Kero gave me as much of a smile as he could manage in his true form. Even Yue had ceased frowning for a few seconds, gracing me with a neutral expression that I was sure was his equivalent to a smile. Mei-Lin was giving me a double thumbs-up, while Tomoyo had moved to lightly hold the hand that wasn't grasping the staff. She knew, somehow, the illusory world I had left. She knew I had dreamt up my mother. I sent a soft smile her way before being pulled back by another voice.

"Once again, you've lead us out of the dark. Congratulations, Sakura, and thank you." Syaoran was staring at me, warm, steady. There was a depth to his words that frightened me in the way that one is frightened of fireworks, because they are bright and loud and lurch your heart in a way that is unfamiliar and exhilarating. Our eyes held for a few moments longer than customary. Tomoyo squeezed my hand once, her silent encouragement, and dropped her hand from mine. I took a step forward towards Syaoran. He stood, waiting. Then, another voice filled the graveyard, and the moment was shattered.

"Oh, how sweet." The voice dripped sickly sugar. It was instantly recognizable, and we reacted almost as soon as the first syllable had fallen. My staff was up, as was Eriol's; Syaoran had drawn his sword and Mei-Lin had prepped her fists; Tomoyo was glaring towards the tombstones as if that alone could set them ablaze; Yue and Kero had moved to flank the group, eyes darting out into the graveyard before us.

"Oh my! What a pretty posse you all make. So strong, so elegant." The Puppetmaster's voice was still floating up over the tombstones that lay before us. I continued scanning what lay ahead, hoping to spot the telltale purple strings before they got to us.

"Show yourself." Syaoran's voice was rough, commanding.

"Little Wolf! So forceful." A laugh sounded out, high pitched and haunting. "But I'm afraid I'm going to have to refuse your request, just this once. I can't go playing my trump card right out of the gate, now can I?"

"Then stop with the chatter and let's finish this. Tonight, we will defeat you!" I cried out. My sentiment was echoed by the others, and I felt a surge of pride and power swell within me.

"Cherry Blossom! You're also fierce, huh? It seems Little Wolf has been rubbing off on you, in more ways than one, perhaps."

I was moving to speak, to blush, to do something, when the Puppetmaster spoke again. "While I am anxious to put our little feud to rest once and all, I think perhaps you should worry about your own tensions first. Group dynamics can be so complicated, especially where the heart is involved. Why don't you two sort yourselves out first, okay?"

I couldn't move. While the Puppetmaster had been speaking, purple strings had, unnoticed, wormed their way up around my legs, my torso, my arms. The rest of my group was similarly bound, with only their eyes left to frantically swivel around the area. How had I let this happen? I had been so ready, so vigilant, and yet here I was. Stuck.

As I watched, two more slips of string fell out of the air and started slinking their way towards Syaoran and I. These strings were so purple as to appear nearly black, and I knew nothing good would come of them reaching me. I struggled, pushing against my current bindings with my own streams of pink energy. I could sense Syaoran doing the same beside me, his green magic swirling and beating back the purple. I was nearly free, the strings fraying and beginning to fall away, when the darkest strand reached me. It ignored the rest of my body and instead ran straight for my forehead, diving into my head with only the lightest sensation of touch on my skin. My vision was dark for a second, but when it returned I found I could move. More than that, I saw clearer than I had in weeks.

I saw Syaoran. And I knew how I felt about him.

I raised my staff, and levelled it towards his throat.

You despise him, a voice whispered, curling around the edges of my ears in dark purple tendrils. He's vile, disgusting. He makes you sick.

I could see Syaoran's eyes starting to harden as he stared at me. They really were disgusting eyes; such a brutish shade of some knockoff brown. They were hard to look at, for some reason, and so I focused instead on the wicked edge of his sword, held out against me. It was a sword I knew well, and I loathed it just as much as I loathed its owner. My own wand was raised against his blade. My staff was strong. I knew that I would be able to strike down this pathetic mess of a man before me. Something shifted in his stance, and we were both lunging forward in tandem, a harsh crack bouncing out between the tombstones as our weapons met.

I could barely make out the rest of our former group from the corner of my eye. They were standing, frozen in place, but their eyes were restless and large with fear. My mouth curved into a grotesque smile. They were all so pathetic, weren't they?

A sudden pressure against my staff brought my attention back to Syaoran. His face was also twisted into an ugly grin. None were more pathetic than him.

How had I ever found him handsome? The thought was startling, unbidden. It broke some little piece free in my mind, and my staff hesitated in the air before my opponent. He, too, had stilled for some reason. But then the words were twisting around my head again – vile, foul, despicable – and I lunged forward to meet his renewed challenge.

Our weapons met again, the resulting crash reverberating through the tombstones. I think I might have spotted Tomoyo trembling behind me and Mei-Lin shaking in anger. Maybe Kero looked like he wanted to howl, and Yue like he might raise his voice for once, but they were frozen in place. Even Eriol, who had claimed to be a descendent of Clow himself, was motionless. Such weaklings, all of them. I would finish them off once I had dealt with the pest in front of me.

Syaoran was leering at me, his lips twisted into a sneer that I couldn't help but mimic, driving the head of my staff towards his heart with a fury. He bounced the blow off his sword before sweeping towards my neck. I parried, and we continued to trade blows. I still found it hard to meet his eyes. That was irrelevant, though. I didn't need to stare into his eyes to kill him. I just needed to land one of my blows.

I tried a different tactic, feinting at his neck before sweeping my staff down at his feet. The move worked. Syaoran found himself knocked to his back, his sword loose and useless a good half foot away from his hand. I stood beside his head. The spikes of my star were hovering millimeters from Syaoran's throat. His eyes were blown wide, but his mouth was set in a solemn line.

Do it! The words swirled around my head. Just a little bit more. Do it! You can't stand him. He makes you furious. You can't even look at him. Yet I was looking. I was standing there, hands trembling, staring into his stoic face. My eyes found his. They were so clear, and such a striking shade of amber.

I remembered how fond I had grown of that particular shade. I remembered how fond I had become of this particular boy.

I couldn't move. My mind was torn between two warring actions: lunge forward, or draw back. The voice slithered around my ears, screaming at me to take that last step and spill red over the grass. But my heart was telling me to release my weapon and collapse to my knees, because, because, because…

"I love him," I whispered, my wand falling as the syllables slipped softly from my tongue. The purple-stained words curling around my ears broke, and my mind was clear again. My body could move again, and I found myself dropping down. My knees hit the damp earth and I stayed there, blinking into Syaoran's amber eyes. I could sense rather than see my friends hovering in a loose semi-circle around Syaoran and I. They were free to move forward, but chose to remain a few steps away, allowing us this moment.

"I love him," I said again, slightly louder, as if to convince myself that this was the reality and not some continuation of a twisted game the Puppetmaster had concocted.

"I love her." The voice was as familiar as the eyes. I froze, daring neither to breathe nor blink.

Then our words spilled out together, racing across the graveyard air to meet in the middle, where we had always found ourselves most comfortable: "I love you."

The words shrieked and twisted and balled up into the warped marionette figure that I had first encountered in my dreams all those weeks ago. His grin was eerie, and his wooden joints creaked with every movement he took. I stretched a hand out to him, the other finding Syaoran's own. The marionette hesitantly stretched out a wooden hand of his own. When our hands met, a wash of rose energy swept over his crooked body, straightening his joints and his smile and leaving him warm and kind. He clapped his hands at me, joyful, before swirling into a pink card. It came to rest in my still-outstretched hand: "The Control."

When I looked up, Syaoran was smiling at me, soft and warm.

"Hi." My word was low, muted. But not embarrassed.

"Hi." He reached a hand out to me and swept a few loose strands of hair out of my face.

"Oh my god, you two are too cute, please stop." Mei-Lin had apparently used up the last dregs of her reserve. She kneeled beside us, exasperatedly rolling her eyes, before taking us both into a hug.

"It did take you two long enough." Tomoyo, laughing, joined us on the ground.

"My cute little descendant and my cute little heiress." Eriol sighed down at us, beaming.

Kero nudged the back of my neck with his nose. "I guess I approve of this kid." His breath was warm on my neck, and I reached my free hand back to scratch behind his ears. He purred, and I laughed. Even Yue let out a chuckle. The moment was beautiful.

"Are we alright?" I whispered the words out into the spaces around our group. They floated, light and hopeful. The Control rested in my hand, pink and secure. I added it to my deck, a set of fifty-five. That was a good number.

"I think we are." Syaoran's voice was a rumble that echoed throughout my heart, finding a home in that most delicate organ.

I smiled. Then, the rope looped its way around my neck.

"Oh, Sakura. You really thought we were done with this little dance of ours?" The rope tightened with every word. I found that all I could think about was that day in a sterile white hospital eons ago. This is what it feels like. Tomoyo, I'm so sorry.

The girl herself was resolutely digging her fingers in-between my neck and the course fibers. Our roles had switched since that day at the hospital. Mei-Lin was still there, though, helping to keep the rope from constricting around my neck. Syaoran was there, too, carefully angling his sword in order to cut the fibers without cutting me.

"Sakura, the Sword. You know this." Kero's voice brought me back to every encounter I'd had with this rope, from the day I'd first met Mei-Lin and onwards. This time, with everyone I trusted around me, I knew what to do.

The Sword came easily to my grasp. Just as Mei-Lin and Tomoyo backed away, Syaoran and I cut. Our swords sliced through the rope cleanly, and before it could move away, I was stretching my staff out to it.

"Be free!" I cried. A pink glow surrounded the rope. Its fibers shuddered and twitched. Slowly, the last lingering strands of purple thread unwound themselves from its core. I washed it in energy, clearing those remaining malignancies and turning it into my fifty-sixth Sakura Card: The Rope. I put it to rest with my other cards. I knew that it wasn't at fault for any of the illnesses that had befallen us previously, but I could still feel the scratch of the fibers on my neck and see the purpling of Tomoyo's face.. I would forgive it later, when the Puppetmaster was well and truly finished.

"A fitting encore for our dear friend Rope, no?" Speak of the devil. This time, the Puppetmaster's voice came from one specific spot. "I was hoping you two would finish each other off earlier, but no. You had to go profess your feelings instead. How tedious."

The air from which the Puppetmaster's voice was emanating from had begun to shimmer.

"I knew you would make short work of Rope, being so familiar with its methods and all, but it did buy me enough time to gather myself. Come, Cherry Blossom. Let us end this."

The shimmer solidified into a black stain. Its edges were undefined, its depth unknown. It was vaguely shaped like some huge, hulking humanoid figure. Somehow, I knew it was sneering at us. This was the Puppetmaster's true form.

The shape reached out, and I could feel my blood boiling. I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw at my skin, my eyes, my clothes. I wanted to claw at Syaoran's skin, too. I wanted to claw out his eyes, raise red streaks on his flesh. I wanted to inflict the same tears on Tomoyo, on Mei-Lin, on Eriol. I wanted to rip the wings from Yue's back, from Kero's. I wanted to see them rip the wings out from each other.

"What's… happening?" Tomoyo's voice was a far cry from her normal tone. It was scratchy, stuttering, unsure. She was curling in on herself, desperately tucking her hands into the core of her being. I wanted to hear her scream. I wanted to scream myself.

"The Puppetmaster." Kero ground out, turning his body from us forcefully. As his head swiveled past me, I could see his teeth were bared, and wicked sharp.

"It's… like earlier, but… more." Syaoran was addressing me. I could barely interpret his words. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to kick him. Instead, I pressed a fist into my mouth, struggling to keep myself under control.

"Is it too much already? Oh dear, but I haven't even begun to push!" The Puppetmaster's voice edged us forward into the madness he was seeding through the air. From beside me, I heard Mei-Lin choke back a scream.

He's still toying with us, even now, I realized. It was probably the only thing keeping us sane at this point; the fact that the Puppetmaster was as sadistic as to draw this out for as long as possible. Perhaps, with this extra time, I could do something…?

"Name him." Voice's words were soft and faint in the back of my purple-haze mind, but they were still present, pulsing with the warmth of fifty-six pink spirits.

I had named him, though. He was The Puppetmaster, he always had been. But that's not true. 'Puppetmaster' was my moniker for the entity before me, but it wasn't his true name. If I could find that name, I might be able to maneuver some kind of power over him.

"We…" I tried calling out to my friends, struggling through the waves of purple crashing over me. "We… need… a name."

"The hell?" Mei-Lin, despite everything, still managed her usual foul-mouthed reply. I wanted to smile. I wanted to scream.

"He pitted us… against each other." Eriol spoke up for the first time in a while. There was a thin layer of sweat on his forehead, and he was holding himself unnaturally still.

Tomoyo, brilliant, beautiful Tomoyo, had somehow kept her wits. "He's… always… pitted us… against each other."

"What are you saying?" The Puppetmaster snarled, the weight of its words pushing me onto my hands and knees. I found myself leaning against Syaoran, caught between wanting to wrap my fingers around his back and wanting to wrap my fingers around his neck. I chose neither option, desperately keeping myself from keeling over through the press of my shoulder to his.

Tomoyo's words looped through my head. The Puppetmaster was getting impatient, or else catching on to the fact that leaving us the least bit vocal was not the right thing to do. In another moment, I was spread eagle on the ground, a weight bearing down on me. I heard the muffled moans from the others in my party, all similarly prone on the ground. I needed a name, and I needed one now.

Always against each other… The scenes played in my head unbidden. Syaoran's sword had been used against me, making me instantly wary of him upon our meeting. Mei-Lin had been turned against me, however momentarily, following Rope's first attack. Syaoran and I had again been turned against each other in that land of darkness. Kero and I had pulled that terrible prank on the others. Eriol had been cast in the light of an enemy. Touya had been used to isolate me from the rest of the group. All of these tactics had worked towards one goal: fostering hate among our group.

Hate. The word stuck in my throat. I couldn't move. I couldn't talk, and with horror I found it was becoming harder and harder to force air into and out of my lungs. Shallow gasps from around me told me that the others were similarly affected. I could see Tomoyo and Mei-Lin ahead of me, starting at one another resolutely, their eyes filled with nothing but support. The tip of Kero's tail barely brushed the bottom of my foot. I knew that Yue and Eriol were both throwing their support forward from behind me. To my side, Syaoran was looking at me as if I hung the moon, even as his lips started to lose their color. There was something here that the Puppetmaster could never break, even as we lay suffocating.

The pieces fell into place as a soft golden glow begin to spread out from underneath my chest.

"I am love," I said, except it wasn't my voice that was speaking. Instead, my mother's voice filled the clearing.

"I am love," I said again, in the voice of my father.

"I am love," as Touya. As Eriol and Yue. As Mei-Lin and Kero. As Tomoyo.

"I am love," as Syaoran. As all of my cards. As myself.

Then a separate voice picked up the call, professing "I am Love" in a voice as powerful as its subject. The Golden One came to rest beside me, smiling openly down at me with the love of my mother, my family, my friends. A small, familiar girl with wings on her head reached down to help me to my feet.

"And Love conquers Hate." As I spoke, I raised my staff towards the shaking figure of that being once known as the Puppetmaster. My friends rose to stand beside me. Kero's head was underneath my free hand, with Tomoyo's hand resting on top. Syaoran's hand engulfed my other, raising the staff along with me. Mei-Lin had a hand on my shoulder, the other curled into a fist at her side. Yue stood silent, his gaze sharp enough to pierce and his figure a comforting presence at my back. Eriol's normally placid grin was sharp and his own staff was levelled beside mine in solidarity. My cards, my spirits, were radiating pink light.

The Puppetmaster shrieked an unholy cry and rushed forward. I opened my arms to meet him. The Golden One, who had been beside me previously, was suddenly in front of me. And then I was her, and I was taking Hate into my arms, cradling him, tucking him back into that long-empty cavity just above my heart. Then I was turning to face myself – a green-eyed girl, a warrior, one capable of so much love – and I was back in my own body, facing the Golden One. She had a new, black-purple spot lying just below her collarbone. The small, winged girl beside me reached to take one of her hands.

"Sakura," the Golden One sighed, smiling at me so fully that I found it hard to breathe.

"You're complete now." They were the only words I could find. Syaoran lowered his hand and my own, my staff returning to its necklace form. He gently took it from my fingers and delicately looped it around my neck before finding my hand again and holding it tight in his own.

"You did it, Sakura." Kero's voice was no longer low and rough. I was surprised to find him back to his doll-sized form and nuzzled snug against my neck. Tomoyo's hand was now fully grasping mine, her fingers tracing patterns on the back of my hand. "I always knew that you would."

"You're seriously the most badass person I have ever met in my entire life, god damn." Mei-Lin's voice was thick as she wrapped the arm formerly resting on my shoulder around my waist, leaning her forehead into my back.

Syaoran was smiling at me. "I love you." And I loved him, too. I loved him so much.

"Oh Sakura, I am so proud of you." The Golden One reached down to brush my bangs away from my eyes. The girl beside her – Hope, a faint voice told me, Her name is Hope – smiled brilliantly at me. "And I am so sorry for having put you through all of this." The dark spot above her heart danced and swayed, but stayed firmly put. The Puppetmaster was gone for good.

"It's alright."

Kero let out a small bark of laughter at my words. "Of course that's her response. Of course. That's why you're my Cardmistress."

"I am sorry, though. You were targeted by my… lesser half, we shall say, because of your immense capacity for love. It is something that small part of me cannot stand. But that love of yours is also the reason why you were able to defeat that part. You have such a heart, Sakura. It is incredible." Syaoran and Tomoyo were both squeezing my hand, while Mei-Lin nuzzled further into my back and Kero further into my neck.

"Nothing less from my successor," Eriol murmured. My heart swelled. I was sure that I was only able to love in such a way because I had been shown such love myself. Everyone in my life – those who had already passed on, and those who were still here – had given me so much of themselves, had stood by me through so much. Unbiddenly, I found tears starting to prick my eyes.

"Shh, child. Shh. I am here. We are here." The Golden One slid her hand through my hair once more. "It is long past time for you to rest, child. But know I am always with you, in every moment you breath with love in your being." My tears fell freely, and I turned into Syaoran's shoulder as Tomoyo took over the Golden One's combing as that brilliant, towering figure faded with one less kiss pressed to my temple.

"You have me as well, always!" The winged child pressed her own kiss to my temple, floating a good foot off the ground to do so. My heart felt lighter as she vanished. I recognized the feeling after a moment as hope, and with that recognition, my tears dried. I turned my face to my friends.

"Are you ready to head home?" Syaoran read me easily. He had been able to for some time now, I think. And as scary as that might have been, those feelings were swept under the all-encompassing love I felt for him, so different from the love I felt for those others around me, but so familiar as well.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am." I smiled at him, at those around me, as the sun started its ascent through the sky.

Everything will surely be alright!

Y'all. We made it. Perhaps one day I'll write an epilogue, or go back and edit the body of this Goliath, but for now I'm laying it to rest.

Thank you to all of you who stuck with me through all those mega-hiatuses (all unannounced, because I am a Trash Queen). Thank you to those of you who've stuck with me through the first couple of chapters consisting of shitty middle-school writing. Thank you to those who've just joined. Thank you so much, and I hope you have an incredible day.