Chapter 23
As Tomoyo started to strip the spell off of Sakura upstairs, she felt the full power of the young man's slime needle attack. It went right through her Shield Card but was stopped by the natural shield that had impressed Eriol so much.
"Ick! What a horrible disgusting feeling! And it's -way- stronger than Eriol's strongest attacks were. It feels like I'm being attacked by a demon monster instead of just a man." As she had this thought she put all of her concentration into just holding the attack off and trying not to retch.
When his attack stopped on Ieran's group she had the shields give power to the attackers for a merged nonphysical Magic attack. As the invisible Magic spear hit him, Ieran felt his shield soften to the point where some of the stabbing Magic may have leaked in through a tiny break. The man screamed, though from pain or rage Ieran couldn't tell. Ieran then took an instant to check upstairs and found Tomoyo still alive. "She survived the full power of his attack all by herself?! How is that possible?!... Perhaps it's... Earth Magic..."
Upstairs, the attack on Tomoyo stopped suddenly. "I have to get Sakura away from that guy or I"ll never be able to strip this spell off." she thought as she took advantage of the break by putting her arms around Sakura, and dragging her off the bed. She was surprised at how light the girl seemed. "Must be my Magic" she thought to herself. She found she was able to pick up Sakura in her arms like a baby but the pain in her ankle was excruciating when she put any weight on it. And she didn't think she could hop while carrying Sakura. "Well if I can't walk, maybe I can fly." So she put out her wings and found that she did indeed have just enough room between the floor and ceiling to fly. She felt her wings slapping against the ceiling as she flew but it didn't hurt much and didn't seem to be damaging them. So in just a few seconds she was out the huge hole she had chopped in the wall with her beloved Sakura in her arms.
Downstairs, the attack was back on Ieran's group, but not quite as strong as it had been before. Ieran tried advancing closer to the man but his combination physical and nonphysical attacks became stronger the closer they got. "No one can keep up this level of power for too long, so if we just keep at him he should tire before we do." But as if to make a lie out of Ieran's thoughts, his attacks suddenly grew strong enough to begin penetrating the teams combined shields. Syaoran felt a terrible stabbing pain in his head, which killed his ability to attack, but it only lasted a moment. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the jacket of the attacker next to him had a hole burned in it. "Well at least I wasn't the one getting burned this time." He thought as he put all his power into his lighting attack.
Ieran had felt the combined shield leaking and ordered the team to retreat as far as they could without backing around the corner. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a lot of flames through the holes that had been torn in the walls behind them. "This will have to be over soon or we will all be cooked in here." The extra distance reduced the level of the attack to one they could handle but it also decreased the power of their own attacks. "This will have to be decided by endurance. As long as we keep attacking him as hard as we can, he is bound to tire first." Sure enough, his attacks began to weaken and Ieran had her team approach him again.
Then he stopped his attacks yet again, Ieran quickly checked upstairs as she was preparing an attack and found Tomoyo leaving with Sakura, she smiled as they hit him with another concentrated nonphysical attack and this time she was sure she felt it penetrate. "That had to hurt a lot but it doesn't seem to have weakened him at all. But he has -got- to be getting tired!"
Just as Tomoyo got out of the house the Slime Needle attack was back stronger than ever and on top of it a volley of fireballs came shooting out right through the roof of the house and coming straight at her. Her natural shield was was now protecting both herself and Sakura from the nonphysical attack but Tomoyo realized she didn't have time to use her indirect defense to divert all the fireballs that were coming at her so fast and close together, so she used the power of her dragonfly wings to dodge out of the way. Unfortunately when she did, the sudden acceleration was so powerful it pulled Sakura right out of her arms. "NO!!" She screamed as it looked to her like the fireballs were going to hit her beloved Sakura. But before she had lost her grip she had given Sakura enough speed that they passed behind her harmlessly.
Catching the falling girl should have been easy considering the skill she had demonstrated back in Taiwan, but she was too excited and was trying -too- hard. This resulted in more of a collision than a catch, with Sakura's forehead hitting Tomoyo's face hard enough to break her nose. Even though she was blinded by the pain for a moment, she not only hung on to Sakura with her arms, she also wrapped her legs around the girl. "She is -not- getting away from me again!" she assured herself through clenched teeth.
Meanwhile back in the house, the mystery man's face was distorted with a scream as he blasted out a volley of fire balls, and at almost the same instant his slime needle attack seemed to smother and crush them while still stabbing at them. As it started overwhelming all their combined shields they were forced to fall back again. But this time they had retreated fast enough and their combined shield wasn't penetrated.
When the attack stopped again, Tomoyo was able to unwrap the spell from Sakura and as she started waking up, Tomoyo turned her head so she could hear the Card Mistress over the roar of her dragonfly wings.
"Uh... Tomoyo-chan?!"
"Yes, Sakura-chan? Tomoyo replied with a huge smile.
"Uh... You're flying?"
"Yes, we are." Sakura was quiet for a moment.
"Are we dead?"
"No, we are very much alive!" Tomoyo said with enthusiasm.
"Oh... Yes. I remember now. Something killed me and then I saw my mom and then you. And you had Magic and you were going to use the Return card. So I guess it worked. So where are my cards? I can't feel them."
"I would guess that they are down there in that house magically bound as you were until I freed you." This reminded Tomoyo that if Ieran and her Mages couldn't defeat who ever it was that had kidnapped Sakura then they would need the Sakura Cards. So she went back part way and reached into the house with her Magic sense. She could feel a terrible battle going on downstairs, but she couldn't tell who was winning, if anyone. She felt The Sakura Cards in the basement wrapped in Magic as she expected. There was something else there too, but she didn't worry about that. As she concentrated on peeling the spell off from a distance she wasn't surprised to be again attacked.
But this time she was far enough away from the house that she could dodge the stream of fireballs that shot towards her without losing her grip on her Sakura. But she couldn't finish releasing the Cards while being attacked.
Meanwhile downstairs in the house Ieran was relieved when the young man stopped his attack again. So again Ieran's group hit him with the same attack they had used before but this time she was sure he screamed in pain as his shield had leaked even more. She was only pleased for a second, before he was back hitting them with another massive combination attack. "Why isn't he getting weaker?! That should have hurt him a lot! If he doesn't weaken soon we just might lose this battle... NO! WE WILL WIN!" she yelled in her mind to help her sagging confidence.
A few seconds after the Sakura cards left the house, the young man turned his back, blasted a large hole in the outside wall and jumped through it, spreading dark colored bird wings.
One of Ieran's attackers read this move as running away due to weakness. In his excitement he rushed forward, and got ahead of the slower moving group. As soon as Ieran saw what he was doing she risked her life and that of her whole group by thrusting the combined shield out faster and further than was safe to keep him protected. And it may well have worked except in his excitement he wasn't watching where he was stepping. And it just happened that part of the destroyed wall had fallen into the room right in front of him. When his toe caught, he was moving way too fast to stop, so he went out the hole head first. The sound of his scream was like a knife through Ieran's heart.