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Ad Finem 
('til the end) 
A work of Card Captor Sakura fanfiction 
by Michelle
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This story contains SPOILERS for the entire manga series as well
as shonen ai (homosexual themes) and VAST quantities of what my
onee-sama calls 'WAFF' and I call 'Undiluted sap.' You have been
warned.

None of these characters belong to me. Really. Not one.

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On the white throat of the useless passion 
That scorched my soul with its burning breath 
I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion, 
And gathered them close in a grip of death; 
For why should I fan, or feed with fuel, 
A love that showed me but blank despair? 
So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel- 
I meant to strangle it then and there! 
I thought it was dead. But with no warning, 
It rose from its grave last night, and came 
And stood by my bed till the early morning, 
And over and over it spoke your name. 

 from "Ad Finem" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

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 Sakura woke to the sound of birds and the cold morning
light. Somehow this particular morning the compulsion to rise
and greet the day seemed greatly muted, however, and she wondered
vaguely if it had anything to do with the quickly fading whole
body dream memory of being tightly wrapped in something soft and
warm and infinitely comforting. She sighed a little trying to
hold on to the sensation both sensual and spiritual. A good omen
for the day to come, perhaps. But there had been more to it than
that. Her waking mind struggled hard to remember why her
emotional reaction to this dream setting had been so strong, but
all she came up with was a sense of almost childlike joy and a
light warm tickle across her skin. Almost like ... feathers ... 
White ones.

 And then it was gone, and she shivered as her feet found
their way out of the blankets and into the chill morning air.

 It was only September and already she was feeling the coming
of winter deep within herself. She loved the anonymity that
living this far north brought her, but she could easily have done
without the severe winters. 

 Anonymity. She'd lived in the middle of Tokyo for over a
hundred and twenty years and no one had ever noticed that there
was anything different about her. It had been foolish of her not
to consider the possible consequences years earlier, though. It
had been easier to think about such things after her father's
death. Easier to leave the city where memories hung so thick in
the air that their incense occasionally made her throat close
tightly and her eyes water a little.

 Not that memories were so easily left behind.

 And so she'd packed and locked up and had moved her whole
life into this ancient mansion in the Northern hills where she
could continue her magical studies in peace with no more than the
occasional rumor about her being started by the sparse and poorly
educated locals. She had come to the part of her life where she
valued solitude more than gold.

 She had much to do.

***

 Yue studied the diagram his master had begun to lay out on
the floor. So very ... traditional. Not like her usual approach
at all! 

 "You seem troubled," said his fellow guardian Keroberus
walking silently up behind him. Yue scowled once more at the
diagram, then turned to point accusingly at the markings.

 "Look at this," he said with calm disapproval. "Where did
we go wrong?"

 The great lion beast knelt before the offending project. He
began to study it with a knowledgeable eye. "Looks like she's
going to try a light spell."

 "That's what it looks like to you, is it?" Yue glared
darkly at his companion. They hadn't always agreed on every
matter before, but this was the only recent time he'd suspected
him of total idiocy. "It doesn't strike you as a little odd that
Sakura-sama ... That OUR master, Kinomoto Sakura ... would be
spending hours and hours pouring over books on European magic and
elementalism just so that she can produce two candle powers worth
of illumination by means of the most basic of beginner's spells
in the most traditional way possible?"

 Keroberus shrugged. "Maybe it's just for fun. Maybe it's
another meditation. And who's to say that it's not part of some
larger working. Sakura can take care of herself."

 "I know that," he said slowly. "But she's been able to
produce simple magical light in at least four different ways
since she was twelve years old. These days she doesn't even have
to consciously think about it. She just smiles and entire towns
begin squinting. What possible reason could she have for setting
up a spell like this in the first place, let alone taking such
painfully simple baby steps to do so? Have you ever known her to
use *any* form of traditional magic?"

 Keroberus blinked. "You're really worried about this,
aren't you?"

 "No," Yue growled. "But I don't like it. Not one bit. Is
she or isn't she the only heir of Clow Reed? Of *our* creator! 
Why is she wasting time doing work that's considered far beneath
any second year novice in every school of magic that he ever put
to shame? Didn't he show that his way was far superior to
theirs? Didn't he prove that magic becomes most powerful when it
is not only focused, but intuitive? Why this romp through the
age of superstition and anal retention? She's the most powerful
magician in the world! Why regress to the middle ages? Why turn
her back on everything he did? Doesn't she have faith in his
work?"

 "She's coming," said Keroberus unnecessarily. They could
both feel her magical aura approaching like a wave of heat in the
air. Strong. She was so incredibly strong. More and more every
year her magic flowed through them and empowered them both. To
Yue, though, this only served as a reminder of the outrage at
hand.

 "Good morning!" she chirped in her typically cheerful Sakura
way. While Keroberus trotted over to have his head scratched, Yue
tried hard to maintain his irritable silence. How dare she be in
such an infectiously cheerful mood when she was in the middle of
flaunting the very principles that had created him and that
traitor Keroberus. He wouldn't smile. He wouldn't say good
morning. He wouldn't be won over by the genuine love and joy
that surged through their powerful magical connection. He stood
silently and waited for her attention.

 "Good morning Yue-san," and she looked at him and smiled so
openly; so winningly; and his soul hung suspended between his
body and those perfectly guileless eyes. And moments passed.

 "Good morning master," he whispered meekly, then kept silent
trying to gather his thoughts. Quite a fix he was in. Not only
was it terribly difficult to judge her harshly when her presence
warmed him so, it was also truly not his place to judge her at
all. Not anymore. And so he stood, torn in loyalty between the
master who had created him and the one who sustained him and gave
him such contentment. 

 He was so proud of everything that she'd accomplished. 

 Keroberus looked from one of them to the other, then cleared
his throat. "What is it you're working on here, Sakura-chan?"

 She pointed to a pile of books stacked chaotically on her
desk. "You remember those books I found at the house in Hong
Kong last month? They *are* the ones I've been looking for. 
Basic Western magic stuff. I've been trying to get a feel for
their system. I made some inquiries a few years ago, but
couldn't find a single practitioner who was willing to consider
any kind of an exchange or even taking someone like me on as a
student. That's why I started looking for books, but they're
rare to begin with and jealously guarded. Luckily, Li-san had
the set that Clow-san's father left him, and she said I could-"

 "But why?" Yue asked, some of his earlier pique returning. 
"You don't need those!"

 She blinked at him. "What ... do you mean, Yue?"

 He exhaled sharply. Could it be that she really had no idea
why it was a bad idea to mire herself down in the limited
mechanical tripe that passed for magic in the barbarian lands? 
Not that Chinese or Japanese traditions were any better, but
hadn't she learned *anything* in the last two centuries?

 But her eyes were on him again, and when he spoke the tones
were gentle.

 "Sakura-sama," he closed his eyes and searched for the
proper phrase. "These books have little to do with *real* magic. 
Perhaps your time could be better spent elsewhere. With your
abilities there is much that could be accomplished."

 She sighed, a slightly tired look in her eyes. "The world
unfolds as it should. It doesn't need my help. It doesn't want
my help. Right now my only goals are to learn as much as I can
and try not to cause too much harm."

 "But master! You-"

 "Don't talk like that, Sakura-chan," Keroberus interrupted
expertly. "What you need is another trip. A chance to get away
from all this for a while."

 She wasn't so easily distracted, though. As Keroberus
looked up hopefully, Sakura and Yue regarded each other. She
knew, then, that his concerns were not minor ones. He relaxed
internally knowing that she'd never ignore or dismiss them no
matter what distractions that great winged house cat tried to
throw at them. He inclined his head slightly, a silent
acknowledgment that he would listen, and waited.

 For a moment she looked almost guilty as she glanced at the
diagram on the floor, but the resolve returned to her features
quickly. "I find that I am ill prepared for the tasks that I
sense are coming," she admitted seriously. "I've searched Clow-
san's notes and my own experience and intuition and come up
short. There is much work to be done. I know that. The truth
is that I'm just not powerful enough to finish it. I just don't
have the skills."

 "How can you say that?" he protested. "How can you hope to
find your answers in those poor limited moldy tomes? There is
more magic in any one of Master Clow's cards than there is in
that entire stack of books. More power in one Sakura card than
there is in all the written magical lore of the entire European
continent. What possible benefit could be gained by making
yourself attend to the mundane details of a nothing spell like
this?"

 Sakura was quiet. She looked deeply into his eyes obviously
puzzled. "I'm sorry, Yue-san," she said at last. "I didn't
realize you felt so strongly about this." She walked slowly
towards him and took hold of his shoulder gently. "Please
believe me, though, that this line of study *is* necessary. 
There are many important things I *haven't* learned how to do
myself, and if there's even a chance that the answers might be
found in all the lore that I bypassed, I can't just dismiss it
all as worthless."

 Yue shook his head slowly. "I don't understand. What could
possibly be so important that you'd turn your back on the path
Clow Reed laid out?"

 "I'm not turning my back on Clow-san's path." Her voice
remained quiet and steady, but her hurt was obvious. "I haven't
forgotten all the things I learned from him, or from you two. 
But even Clow was not able to accomplish everything he wanted to
in his lifetime."

 Irritation returned. Yue looked down upon his master, his
mind filled with a contempt that he had rarely felt since finding
her worthy. How had he failed so badly? Why did she not
understand her purpose? "No one does everything they want in one
life time, Sakura-sama. It is enough that one does all they can
to contribute in the way they are best suited." 

 His gaze was colder than he intended, and she, magically
sensitive to him, trembled a little, but continued to meet his
eyes with purpose and determination. "I know that, Yue. But
where he failed, I *will* succeed. I have to."

 Yue blinked. Was it possible- "You're doing all of this
just to be greater than he was? I never thought-"

 "I'm not interested in being greater than Clow-san!" she
protested. "But I also don't want to repeat his mistakes! I'm
not going to live forever, you know, and-" She stopped abruptly
and her hand fell away from her moon guardian. Hher eyes
desperately searched his for some sign of understanding. All she
found in them was confusion and disapproval. Flustered, she took
a step backwards.

 The two guardians waited in silence for a few moments, then
Keroberus asked the obvious question. "Are you thinking of
leaving us, master?"

 She shook her head. "Of course not. I've still got a
couple of good centuries in me, I think. But Syaoran thought he
would live many years too, and ... you just never know. I won't
be able to rest easily until I'm sure."

 Yue wrinkled his brow. "Sure of what, master?" He was
beginning to worry. She was determined, it seemed, to follow
this course, but at the same time she seemed so ... lost. It was
very unlike his Sakura-sama.

 "Sure that when... I just don't know what else to do. I
... I can't ..."

 Feeling her way to the chair by her desk, she shook her head
again visibly struggling to find words. Never had she seemed so
fragile to Yue. So tired and confused. For a moment he had an
impulse to go to her; to say he was sorry; to offer comfort in
whatever way he possibly could, but she pulled herself together. 
She reasserted her powerful will. She looked up at him with an
attitude of command that she seldom (oh, so seldom) used. "I'm
sorry." she said quietly, "but could you leave me alone for a
while?"

 She looked back down. Her eyes fixed vaguely on the
markings on the floor and her hands met in her lap.

 "Of course, master," Keroberus immediately replied. He
looked meaningfully at the Moon Guardian.

 Yue was silent for a moment, but then went out into the
hall, and closed the door behind himself and Keroberus. "What
was that all about?" he asked in puzzlement once they were a safe
distance away, but his companion was keeping his own counsel, and
as they each thought of something else they ought to be doing,
the uncomfortable silence stretched on.



***


 _That went well,_ Sakura observed ironically. It hadn't
even occurred to her that one of her guardians might object in
any way to her study of any traditional magics. Clow Reed had
studied them once too. Yes, he had developed his own system, but
it was based heavily on other lores. Just because the
practitioners of those lores had objected to his "tampering"
didn't mean that Clow's work had not drawn heavily from the work
of others. Millennia of it. So why was Yue so opposed to her
studying even the most basic of traditional spells? Didn't he
realize that she was doing it for...

 That was what had hurt most of all that he had questioned
her motives. Even her very loyalty. When all she wanted was...

 When all she wanted was...

 When all she wanted was to protect him. At any cost she
wanted to keep him safe and well. He'd nearly perished once
before because he hadn't had a master whose magic was strong
enough to sustain him, and she knew that someday he would no
longer be able to rely on her power.

 And she didn't know what to do about it.

 Clow's magic had been rejected by the magicians of his day
for many reasons. One could argue about the eternal struggle of
established order against progress, the merit of centuries of
testing and method, and the inability of any institution to
accept new ideals without feeling threatened, but the bottom line
was that Clow's system, while powerful, still had a few problems. 
The worst of these was, how was his moon guardian to be sustained
without drawing power directly from a strong human master? 
Sakura knew from experience that such a master might not be easy
to find after her own death, and Yue would be in danger again. 
And since Clow had never found a solution to this problem in his
own lifetime, she had turned to the disciplines which he had
drawn from to see what their secrets of sustaining master works
were.

 So far, though, the results were not encouraging. Whether by
design, or because of inability, all of their works seemed to be
uniformly transitory. No spell or magical creation ever lasted
after the attention of the caster was removed.

 She wondered once again how Clow had made the jump from
their teachings to his revolutionary and wildly successful
approach. She hoped that studying their basics would give her
ideas for her own innovations. Clow's theories hadn't sprung
from nowhere. It was unfair of Yue to expect her to be able to
formulate *everything* from intuition. She'd been lucky so far,
but this particular wall was one that she'd been beating her head
against for far too many years. 

 She knew that she should probably speak to him about it, but
she hadn't been able to voice these concerns in the past. 
Especially not to him. It wasn't something she felt she should
alarm him with until it became absolutely necessary. Besides, it
would bring up old pain. Old pain for both of them. She knew
that she would someday die and she wasn't afraid, but she
couldn't bear to think of Yue suffering like that again. Not if
there was anything she could do to help him. Watching him grow
slowly weaker once had nearly torn her apart. But would she find
the answer in time?

 She sighed. And she'd been so sure that it was going to be
a *good* day.


***


 Keroberus was the first to approach his master again, their
relationship being more openly supportive than the one she shared
with Yue. He scratched quietly at her door frame until she asked
him to come in.

 The last hour had been an uncomfortable one for him, and he
suspected it had been the same for Yue. Long ago the pattern had
been laid out by Clow. A guardian was responsible for his
master. To fulfill his duties, he needed to be closely connected
to that master with bonds both magical and emotional. This
served as a warning system which made it very obvious to the
guardians when the master they loved was alarmed, hurt, or
unconscious. It had been a very practical system back in the
days when her abilities had been challenged regularly by other
magicians or by strange spiritual forces of various natures. 

 For the last century or so, however, the main effect of this
bond had been that as her power had grown stronger and stronger,
Keroberus and Yue had become more and more aware of her every
sensibility. She seemed mostly unaware of this fact, and neither
guardian was anxious to reveal it to her, but there were rare
days when depression hung in the air like a stifling mist.

 When Sakura was unhappy, they were all unhappy.

 Sakura was unhappy.

 As he often did when he knew that she was weary or
distressed, he came close and pushed his great head into her lap,
closed his eyes, and began to purr loudly. He sensed her smile
and the lightening of her mood. It was unlike her to brood for
long. Something was troubling her deeply, though, and after her
outburst this morning, he suspected that he knew what it was.

 "No one lives forever, Sakura-chan."

 She stroked his ear gently. "I know that. I feel it
creeping up on me sometimes. Sometimes it feels like a friend. 
An end to all this loss and loneliness. A chance to be with
Tomoyo and my family again. She sighed and laid her hand on the
crown of his head. "And other times, it feels like a harsh
taskmaster that will see the work of my incredibly long lifetime
and say 'That's nice, dear, but it's not enough, is it? I'm
afraid you've run out of time, and so has...'"

 Her eyes closed and the hand on his head grew heavy. As her
silence stretched on, he became more certain than ever that he
knew the cause of her concern. Nearly two hundred years ago he
had seen her helpless before the approaching fading away as final
as death disappearance of someone very dear to her. She had
agonized for weeks over what to do to help him, but at ten years
old, she was still years away from her full magical strength and
in the end, a temporary solution had been found elsewhere, but at
great cost to all concerned. He felt a pang of sympathy as he
realized how many times she must have relived that pain to have
reached this current state of desperation and depression. _Oh,
Sakura,_ he thought gently. _Don't take every hurt on your own
shoulders,_ but in the end all he could say was "I'm sure the
answer will come to you. Give it time."

 She looked at him then with eyes that reflected a weariness
beyond anything he'd ever have believed *his* Sakura capable of
feeling. "I hope so, Kero-chan. I hope you're right, because I
can't bear to fail this time. I can't stand to think about what
might happen this time."


***


 Yue sulked lost in a squall of emotion that ebbed and flowed
and battered at his soul. Sometimes his master's innocent nature
was endearing, but other times it was just so ... childish. He'd
never been afraid to disagree with his *first* master! Never had
to worry about the great Clow Reed bursting into tears at the
first sign of disapproval from one of his supposed advisors. It
was bad enough that she was studying *their* magic. Did she have
to be so very sensitive about it too? What could possibly be so
important in those blasted old volumes anyway? Important enough
to warrant her hysterics? And worst of all, why had he let her
reactions affect him so? Reduced to feeling guilty for
expressing an opinion by the unhappiness in her big bright eyes! 

 And she *had* been unhappy.

 And he *did* feel guilty about it. He felt shame whenever
he hurt Sakura, because Sakura had a pure and beautiful soul. 
One that had been strong enough to keep her character
consistently innocent even after centuries of a life filled with
challenges and loss.

 So much like his beloved first master.

 He sighed. Perhaps he ought to speak to her; try to keep
his feelings about her current path separate for now while he
made sure that she was alright and aware of his continued
support. 

 And that she wasn't unhappy. He'd rather die than make her
unhappy.

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Well, esteemed colleagues? What did you think?

I suppose now would be an appropriate time to say that I'm not 
done torturing Yue yet. Not by a long shot. Or would that spoil 
the surprise?

Thankses go out to my cool pre-readers Rachael Whitman, Krista Perry, 
and Donny Cheng. Chapters should be coming out very regularly. A 
couple of times a week, probably.

'till then!

-Michelle Thatcher
http://www.akane.org/michelle