Chapter five: Secrets and transformations

Ruling Card: Change

The day after Maze was captured, Yukito was out on an early morning walk. I was feeling restless and was closer to the surface than I had intended, floating gently up as we were both lost in thought. An unfamiliar magical signature flared in the distance, and I looked up, jarred. Yukito was heading close to the Tsukimine shrine. That mysterious woman. I tried to make him turn around, but it was no use, because he'd already seen Sakura there.

'Shall I help too?'

The girl looked up and smiled. My eyes, however, were drawn to another face. The woman who had captured Maze. The one Dream had warned me about. I sank in deep, disturbed. She didn't seem to notice me; if she did, she gave no sign of it.

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'Yue,' Dream called softly. This Card, I didn't have to be awake to notice.

'What is it,' I mumbled sleepily.

'Wakey wakey,' the Card said, snapping her fingers. 'I have news for you.'

'What is it?' I repeated. 'And stop hanging around Watery.'

'Return's been captured.'

My eyes shot open. I had sensed Return at the summer festival; did that mean……

Dream saw the realisation on my face and nodded. 'She showed Sakura that woman's past. And I know you won't guess what else Return showed her.'

As it turned out, I would have lost badly.

'Her name is Mizuki Kaho, and her family owns the Tsukimine shrine.'

Kaho, hmm. And that name, Mizuki, it was vaguely familiar to me. Maybe her family had some magic in it. 'She's lived here all her life until three years ago, when she left to study abroad. Return says she showed Sakura this…she also showed her that Kaho had a relationship with Touya.'

'A wha?' I said. If I had had anything in my mouth I would have spat it out then. 'With To-ya?'

'Yes,' Dream said. 'For at least a year and a half, maybe more. She broke it off when she left.'

'Tell me everything,' I demanded immediately.

So she did.

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The next few weeks were a little slow for me personally, but there was plenty going on in everyone else's life.

One thing that managed to surprise me was the Li boy and Shot. I heard that the capture had been difficult, and that the Li boy had been injured in the process. I had expected no less. Shot had a shorter fuse than a terrorist's bomb, and she tended to dislike certain people intensely and immediately; the Lis had come down on her wrong side and stayed there.

None of the Cards quite understood the despairing affection Clow had for his family. Actually, I didn't either. Shot was one of the sun-ruled Cards, and she was annoyingly like Keroberos, which meant that she and I didn't get along very well; on this occasion, I made an exception.

What interested me most about the capture was that the Li boy had assisted in it of his own free will, but had not made even a token attempt to take the card for himself. His entire focus had been on getting the Card – for Sakura.

Hmm. Maybe the boy was getting over his attraction to my moon power after all.

The attraction is an unconscious thing – it can be overcome by willpower or deep emotion for someone else, but how the boy had summoned enough strength to manage to fall for someone else despite Yukito's presence was beyond me. It was easy to note, of course. The Cards were attuned to those around Sakura, and they knew what those people were feeling. The reports the Cards gave me weren't just facts; they included detailed character assessments. I supposed the fact that Clow had literally ingrained honesty in all of us (even if we could lie fluently when the situation demanded it) was a boon here.

I kept a close watch on the reactions of the Li boy and Sakura after that. The Sweet Card went to Sakura; again, the Li had helped. The Li boy took Dash, but that was only because Sakura hesitated too long.

I had the feeling that it was more duty than desire that made him go after the Cards now.

The Cards the Li boy held gave me interesting information about him. His judicious use of Dash at the track meet was startlingly mature and not quite what I would have expected of the hostile, antisocial boy. I made a note to myself to revise my opinion of him sometime in the future.

The second thing, which bothered me more than interested me, was Touya.

He was obviously extremely upset by that Mizuki woman's arrival. Maze had told me that she treated him like a stranger – in fact, until Return's capture, it hadn't occurred to me that they had had much to do with each other; You've grown taller, Touya is hardly a way to greet your ex-boyfriend you dumped with no warning after a year and a half. Touya was even quieter than usual, and he was brooding more, although nobody really noticed except Yukito – and me. His aura had turned even more muted and dark than it usually was.

I scanned through Yukito's memories, hoping to find some hint of what Touya had felt for her. I felt a little guilty about doing that; now that I had accepted him as being a different person, it seemed an inexcusable invasion of privacy – something both I and Yukito appreciated. Still, I had my duties and this was part of them.

Or so I insisted to myself so I could justify it.

Yukito had no memories of Touya saying anything about that woman. He had been moody and aloof when they met – even more than he was now, which was saying something; still, Touya didn't strike me as a very cheerful and open person at the best of times. The fact that he had been that way when he and Yukito were just becoming friends didn't mean much. He could have been lonely or he could have been recovering from heartbreak. With Sakura, he was protective and teasing, keeping her safe while letting her think he was an infuriating bully; he was her second parent, since their father was not much of a presence in their lives. It was only around Yukito that he let the barriers fade and allowed himself to act human; ironic, considering that Yukito wasn't. Even around his father, he was That Kinomoto Boy whom everybody knew about and nobody knew.

Actually, I had never considered that Touya might have had a significant relationship of any kind, much less a romantic one. He seemed to move through, not with, society. Maybe it was just his power that made him stand out, but I had never reckoned that he would actually allow anyone close to him. Then again, she did have strong magic, and like him, she was a psychic. Maybe that bond, of knowing things they shouldn't and seeing things others never knew of, was what had drawn them together.

Once again, I was stumped by Touya's annoying ambiguity.

There was another thing to consider, and I wasn't quite sure what I felt about it. If Touya's relationship had been based on a magical attraction……then that meant that he wasn't immune to the moon attraction. Then why had I never sensed him being attracted to m-Yukito? Even when I had been in close contact with his aura, I had felt no magical attraction there.

The third thing was that woman herself. There, I wasn't sure what I felt.

That bell she had with her, the one she had used to capture Maze – it was one of Clow's inanimate creations. Clow, worried about the chaos the cards might cause if they were let loose, had created a counter-effect for each of the cards in case there were no magic users strong enough to capture them when they escaped. Keroberos had been given the counterspells for the sun-ruled, and I held the counterspells for the moon-ruled. Before giving us those powers he had created them in objects. That bell was the counter for Dream and Erase – a spell to wake, and to remember.

It was clearly another aid for Sakura in the Final Judgment. Was that part of Clow's plan too?

After much searching, I remembered why I was familiar with the name Mizuki. It was the name of another old magic clan, younger than the Lis and not so powerful. Clow had taken a liking to one of their younger practitioners and had spent some weeks teaching her magic. I had met that girl briefly but never spoken to her. I hadn't thought it important enough. Now I wished I had.

Ahh, the eagle eye of hindsight.

And I wondered about Sakura herself. I was frankly amused by the way in which Sakura captured Create and Big. Two cards in one night were quite good; Windy's description of their reaction to the giant goldfish was one of the funniest things I had heard since waking. It was the first time I had laughed out loud since…being unsealed.

She didn't seem affected in the slightest by the power that she held, or want to use it for any purpose other than what it was meant for. She remained as she always was, sweet and cheerful, a bit clumsy and graceless, but with strength beneath it that warned people to take her seriously if they had the intelligence to see it.

Most of all, she had a strange presence about her that made everyone……love her. I hesitated to use the word, but once I did it seemed appropriate. If there was one thing Kinomoto Sakura did not lack, it was love.

I didn't understand why. I tried my best, but that one perfect word that would have summed up why she was what she was simply wouldn't come to me.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about Keroberos. We couldn't be around each other for extended periods of time (anything more than fifteen minutes counted) without fighting, but now that he wasn't there at all I had begun to miss him rather badly.

I was beginning to realise why he was acting the way he was. Keroberos was trapped between two conflicting demands – the rules Clow had laid on him and the loyalty he felt to Sakura. It would take me some time to adjust to the fact that he had shifted allegiance so easily, but then Keroberos had always been that way, quick and impulsive where I was cautious and suspicious; of course it would be that way for him.

It was a delicate line he chose to walk, and I marveled that his unsubtle mind had come up with such a plan, let alone executed it. Keroberos was helping Sakura by giving her information and support during the captures; he was also sticking to the letter of Clow's instructions by pretending to forget and be silly so that she would not make him reveal more than was absolutely required. Of course, he was naturally quite silly and forgetful, but not this much. Clow had his faults, but creating unintelligent beings was something he could never be accused of. The Li boy certainly helped in getting Sakura the knowledge she required, since he had a trove of information about the Cards and enjoyed gloating over the fact that he knew more than the Guardian Beast of the Seal.

Pretending to know less than the Li had to be galling. I didn't envy Keroberos.

I envied him even less when Yukito found his false form lying in the garden one evening.

I knew that Keroberos hadn't bothered to change his false form since Clow had created him, and had remained in it after being unsealed. I had spent twenty years around him, and the stuffed toy false form was terribly obvious. I mean, what plushie has food stains around its mouth all the time?

Still, when Yukito picked him up from where he was lying, I knew immediately that something was different. Keroberos' aura was sun-bright, warm and gold in colour to my eyes – not green, not cool, and certainly not human. In fact, I knew this aura.

The Li boy.

So Sakura had run into the Change, had she?

Yukito being Yukito, he picked it up and held it safely to his chest as he walked in to give it to Sakura. I was having some difficulty restraining myself from an unGuardianlike fit of giggles at the thought of what the Li must be going through, being hugged by his crush, who incidentally thought he was a plushie.

Was his face actually growing warm in Yukito's hands?

He handed the Li boy to Sakura, and I saw to my satisfaction that his face was an incredible shade of pink-red. That boy really was unfortunately prone to blushing.

'Sakura, that plush toy has rather red cheeks,' Yukito observed curiously.

I confess that I completely lost it at that point.

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A few days later, Yukito's teacher passed some fliers out in class promoting the Tomoeda Quiz Rally. He was extremely excited about it, judging by the way he chattered on and on about it to anyone who would listen – meaning Touya, who hmmed at appropriate intervals and tuned him out the rest of the time. The quiz was a team effort, and Yukito had partnered up with Sakura (obviously), because Touya was out working on another part-time job (even more obviously).

The day of the Tomoeda quiz, I was awake within Yukito, and watching interestedly.

Riddling and games of logic were a favourite pastime of mine. During my years with Clow, I had spent an enormous amount of time creating or solving them; even he couldn't play as well as I did, although Keroberos was better than either of us at games of chance.

If Yukito really was drawing skills from me, this quiz rally would prove it.

The Li boy and his Chinese girlfriend were there too. The boy stared at Yukito and blushed. Then he saw Sakura smile and he blushed some more. As I thought. His affections were definitely shifting. Well, the sooner he stopped mooning over my magic the better.

The rules were quite simple, and so was the first riddle. Touya was at the booth. I was always amazed at the unerring instinct he had for where Sakura was going to be. It had to be magic. Either that, or it was a refined talent for teasing her.

I waited to see what Yukito would do. He solved the puzzle in about six seconds – turning ten matchsticks into a star – that one was old when I was young. Touya was annoyed; he'd obviously spent some time coming up with that one. Oh, well. Bow to a superior intellect and all that. He solved the next few with equal speed. I was quite impressed.

As the day wore on, Yukito began to tire slightly. Keeping up with Sakura's excitement meant that he couldn't stop to eat, and he was really getting hungry. (Why was he so fixated on food, anyway?) So he began to reach into my power. Accustomed now to his sharing my life-force, I allowed him to take what he needed. It was the full moon, and I had much more power than I needed; he barely made a dent in my resources.

The seventh puzzle stopped them both dead. It was a complex message that had to be decoded; the location of the relief was concealed within it (though they still needed three stamps, so it wasn't all that useful). Yukito adjusted his glasses, peering at it. It was quite difficult. I ran several combinations through my mind, thrilled to have a real challenge. Finally, I was able to decode the message. Was I actually competing with Yukito? That was dreadfully immature. Fun, though.

At that moment, I felt Yukito's mind reach out to my own again. It was consciously seeking, this touch, and it sent insistent tendrils into my mind. Shocked, I tightened my grip on my mind, pushing it out. Yukito frowned, touching his forehead as if it hurt him.

Realising what he wanted, I sent him the answer. The touch receded immediately, satisfied now that it had what it wanted.

I was slightly disturbed by that. This had been different from the other times, when Yukito had needed more energy. This time, it was a specific knowledge he was looking for, and he hadn't retreated until he found it. I knew Yukito didn't know I was there, much less who I was; but what if he decided to look for answers to questions about his own life? Answers that would compromise my identity?

I was still thinking about it as Yukito and Sakura approached the last booth, but a powerful signature tore me away from my thoughts. That Mizuki woman. She was standing at the last booth, smug as ever, clad in yet another skirt and shirt, long red hair falling unbound.

Yukito and Sakura played to answer the last question, and Sakura won. As she struggled to solve the riddle, the woman came over to Yukito, and they introduced themselves. After some small talk, she hesitated, and said,

'Yukito, you……'

'Yes?'

I tensed. She was clearly going to tell him something about me, and I couldn't let her. Not yet I flashed to her, and she stiffened, inhaling sharply, before she nodded fractionally.

This was a problem. I was going to have to deal with this. Soon.

The nadeshiko relief was in Penguin Park, and both contestants were quite happy that they were the second group to finish. I couldn't be less interested in the quiz now.

What did she know? She was clearly a powerful magic user, but I hadn't sensed her doing anything since she'd arrived. Her family had been associated with Clow. What were his plans for her?

Caught in these thoughts, I didn't notice that the place where Sakura and Yukito were searching was perilously close to a short cliff. Didn't notice the dreamy stupor that crept slowly into Sakura's aura; didn't sense her falling slowly into a trance; didn't hear the soft scuffling of earth under her feet as she fell forward.

Yukito did.

His sharp inhalation and alarm preceded her falling by just a second, alerting me to the fact that something was wrong. She fell off the cliff as he turned around. He didn't bother to cry out, reach for her; it was too late. Instead, he jumped off the cliff after her.

Numbed by the suddenness of the whole thing, I could only stare, shocked, as he wrapped his arms around her with a sort of fierce protectiveness, turning them over in midair, shielding her from the worst of the fall. I clearly heard his leg scrunch as it folded the wrong way under them both. Sakura was unconscious even before she hit the ground, cushioned by Yukito's body. Still, he didn't collapse, checking her for injuries. Once he was sure she was all right, he covered her with his trench coat before he, too, lost consciousness. The pain immediately transferred itself to me, and I buried myself deep to escape it.

When I woke up, it was twilight, and I was in my own form.

A/N: the one To-ya in there? NOT a slip.

This was something of a filler chapter; the plot takes off again in the next one. There will be nine chapters in total. A sneak peek into chapter 6: in season 3, why was Yue the first to start disappearing and not the Cards? My thanks to Ethereal Night for pointing out my mistake in chapter 4 - fixed, by the way.