Chapter six: Breaking point

Ruling Card: Windy

A/N: 600 hits. Yay me!

For the first time in two centuries, I could feel my wings.

The familiar weight, the minuscule muscular adjustments I had to make to maintain my centre of gravity that I didn't have to as a human; the weight of my silky long hair, even longer than my wings; the warmth and comfort of my robes; the increased sharpness of the ice-blue cat-slit eyes that could see so much more clearly than Yukito, who needed glasses all the time.

And most of all, the moon. Oh, the moon. I could feel its cool radiance fill me, energising me, remaking me. I opened my wings and arms to it, arching my back, just feeling it flow through me. The pain in my leg was forgotten as I stood there, under the silver moon, its magic healing me, calming me, opening me up to the flow and weave of the magic in this place.

I stood like that for almost half an hour.

Then I heard a voice.

Yue.

Clow? No, of c–

Yue.

Clow? Is that you?

Who else would it be? –there's something I have to tell you.

What is it? I asked curiously. With the feeling of tranquil well-being that the moon was giving me, I couldn't even feel too much pain at the sound of his voice.

You're not going to like it, but believe me when I say it's the best for you. Clow sounded………hesitant. You may have guessed by now that I want Sakura to win the Final Judgment.

So? I frowned.

I have a plan for you all, Yue. You, Keroberos, the Cards, everyone. You will lose to Sakura at the Final Judgment; I have Seen this. The Cards will become Sakura's responsibility. Keroberos will be her Sun Guardian, and you………you will be her protector, her guide; her love.

What are you implying, Clow? I don't like the sound of this.

In my plan, you and Sakura will fall in love. It is inevitable, Yue. I have taken steps to ensure that this is so.

Steps? And with that one word, everything became clear.

When I had designed a personality for my false form, Clow had been very precise about the qualities and physical form it would bear. And now I knew why he had wanted it. He had made me design Yukito to Sakura's tastes. Other things fell into place. How Yukito knew when Sakura was outside the door. Why he was unconsciously drawn to wherever she was. Clow had made him to fall in love with Sakura.

I thought back again to the day he'd caught Sakura when she was falling. It had seemed so natural; he hadn't been concerned by it. It was the simplest thing in the world to be there at the right time, to follow her, protect her, watch over her……love her?

But Yukito wasn't capable of doing all that, he didn't have the necessary power to protect a girl with magic. He was nowhere near equipped to do that. But I was…….!

You……tailored Yukito to be irresistible to Sakura. Did you do the same to me?

Silence. It said more than everything he'd spoken so far.

You programmed me to fall in love with Sakura?

Yue, please listen –

No! How could you do this, Clow? How could you ignore my feelings and just……do whatever you felt like with me? You say you gave me free will, but this……! I don't love Sakura. Neither does Yukito. Not that way. But even as I spoke, I wondered. Yukito's feelings for her were deep, and well-hidden. I hadn't felt much from him, so I didn't know for sure. And as for Sakura……

Didn't she love him already?

You tried to play games with people as pawns, as usual! Or was it something else? "I created Yue, so now I can pass him around to whoever I feel." Is that it? I thrashed within our mental bond, trying to free myself. He held me tighter.

Yue, I had no choice. I have seen futures where you did not love Sakura, Yue. Inevitably, you died. Even before Sakura finished transforming the cards into hers. The amount of power you draw from your master depends directly on how much you care for him or her. You know this. If the Cards care for her more than you do, they will draw all her power and you will disappear before they do, since her power will maintain them if you're not drawing fully from her. She can either support you and some of the Cards, or all the Cards without you. There was no way I could do anything else! You can't possibly think that I would do this for fun!

No, you had a choice. One you didn't make, even when I begged you to. You didn't have to die, and we both know it. You were selfish and you were cruel, and now you expect me to pay the price for it? No. Never. I'd rather die than fall in love with someone because I was forced to by magic.

Then what about the Cards? Are you going to deprive them of their Guardian?

I hadn't expected Clow to play the duty card, for some reason, and it stopped my thought along with my breathing.

Then I was angry. Angrier than I had ever been, struggling to feel an emotion I had rarely felt towards a person I had never imagined would deserve it.

How dare you say that, I hissed. I wasn't struggling to free myself; I had gone completely still in the bond, though I strongly suspected that my physical body was trembling violently. You have no right to do that to me. Deprive the Cards of their Guardian? If you hadn't died, the Cards wouldn't have been deprived of a master in the first place! Besides, I added bitterly, if Sakura's such a great mistress and all, it's quite unlikely they'll miss me, isn't it?

Yue, no –

You're dead, Clow. A part of me screamed silently at how I had said it so coldly, so easily. I ignored it. So leave me. You denied me your presence, don't torment me with your voice! With one last desperate struggle that he hadn't been expecting, I freed myself from his influence.

Panting, shaking, I fell to my knees in the soft earth, next to Sakura, who was still sleeping. I shuddered as I saw her face, and retreated into Yukito, burying myself deep.

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I don't remember much of the rest of the night. I clearly remember that some of the Cards sensed me and came, breaking the unwritten rule that they would not gather in large numbers. Dream, Dash (who had escaped from the Li's clutches somehow), Fly, Return, Erase, and my 'girls', Windy, Watery and Mirror. They gathered around me as I sat on the bed, and I looked back at them. Did they expect tears? Anger? I didn't know. Then Mirror, who was the shyest of them all but also the one who was closest, hugged me. Then Windy, and Watery, and soon all the Cards were shielding me from the rest of the world. I went limp in their collective suffocating embrace, like a baby, like I never had in my entire life, and then, after hours of iron control I began to cry, silently, because I was too afraid that I might start screaming to make any sound at all. They pressed closer, until every part of me was touching one Card or another.

After a while, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, the Cards were gone, it was almost daylight and time for Yukito to wake up. I was in no mood to face the rest of the world, so I simply convinced him that he had a slight fever and that he'd be better off staying home. Touya called, concerned, after school – so did Sakura. I let Yukito take the calls, but didn't bother to listen in.

Last night's grief had receded, and had been replaced by a deep icy fury. I was worried by it, simply because it didn't seem to require any sustenance. I actually felt quite normal, except that there was a hard cold feeling in my chest and my throat hurt continuously. The throat ache went away by the afternoon, but the ice didn't.

Clow had laid a very simple choice before me. If I gave in to his wishes and fell in love with Sakura, I would live. If I did, I would never know the difference between my true and my created feelings. If I went against Clow's choice – did I even have the strength required to do that, to disobey my master, or the willpower to resist the impulse he had created within me? – but if I successfully resisted, I would die.

Well, then, dying it was. I would win the Final Judgment and seal myself back in the book for good, and to damnation with my responsibilities; Keroberos could take care of the Cards. In the void, death would come easy, barely noticed.

I was deadly serious in what I had said to Clow. If there was one thing I valued above all others, it was my right to choose for myself. My actions were bound by my duties, but my feelings were mine and mine alone. Nobody had the right to toy with them.

After searching my own magical structure for a few hours, I found the spell, a simple one, but too tightly wound in me to remove. The nature of the spell was designed to amplify any feelings I might have for Sakura. There were two potential loopholes. The first accounted for my being in love with someone else. I snorted at that one. Yeah, right. I was still getting over Clow (which he had just made more difficult), and I had an indefinite amount of months – four, maybe five at the most – to fall in love with someone else. That option was definitely out. The other loophole was if I managed not to care for Sakura at all. That was easier, and I seized on it as my answer. As long as I didn't care for Sakura, I was fine.

I hoped.

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I wasn't given much time to get over it, unfortunately. Yukito was down in the kitchen, making himself some soup for dinner when the doorbell rang. I stiffened. I could feel a strong aura of moon magic outside the door.

That Mizuki woman.

Gently, I sent Yukito to sleep and then went out to meet her, still in my human form.

She had chosen the worst possible day to come visit me.

I opened the door. She stood on the doorstep, silhouetted in the fading sunlight. She opened her mouth to speak, but I held up a hand, forestalling her.

'I know you know who I am,' I said coldly. 'So let's skip the pointless dramatics and introductions. I have no desire to hear anything that you might have to say to me. I'm letting you go for now because I'm convinced that you aren't any danger to what I'm doing.' Her eyes widened slightly, and I resisted the urge to smirk. I was in control for once. 'You're his pawn in this as far as I can tell, so you won't tell Sakura; Clow wouldn't break his own rules. There can't possibly be anything else you need to tell me, so you can just turn around and leave right now.'

I had already begun closing the door when her voice stopped me dead. 'Has Clow already spoken to you, then?'

And just like that, she'd turned me inside out. I froze. 'What if he has?'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'It?'

'The Final Judgment,' she clarified.

'What's to say?' I said calmly. 'I intend to win at all cost. And I do mean all.'

'You'd rather die than accept Clow's plan?'

'Yes,' I said unequivocally. 'What are you going to do about it?'

She was surprised by that, but hid it well. 'So you've made your verdict even before the Judgment? That doesn't sound too fair to me.'

That angered me. 'Fair? What's fair about anything that's happened so far in this game? Clow clearly wants this girl to succeed. He's bound the Cards' powers, given her an easy way to capture them. He's even given her a second chance in the Final Judgment. Don't look so surprised. I know what that bell of yours is, and I can make an educated guess why Clow gave it to you. Anyone who needs so much help in capturing the Cards is obviously unworthy of being their master.'

'Or you could look at the rest of the evidence. Clow had to restrain the Cards' power; if they were at full potential, not only could they cause immense havoc before they could be sealed, they would finish the reservoir of power Clow left you all in a matter of weeks. And as for needing help – she's a child, Yue! Even Clow, at the same age, would have floundered every bit as much – maybe even more. She has the potential to be more powerful than Clow, and you know it. You're being unfair. Even the Cards know this. Most of them have given over their allegiance to her already, even the ones who haven't been captured. Why can't you just be fair and admit that she wouldn't be half bad as a master!'

The other Cards had been getting reports? Only Windy would know where they all were. Then she was the one who had told them? I reeled in shock.

'You're a cheat, Yue. You were created to be fair. It is your duty to be. And you've decided the entire Judgment based on something that the candidate doesn't even know about? That doesn't sound very objective to me.'

I was shaking with anger. At her. At Windy. At the moon-ruled Cards – my Cards – which had consciously and deliberately betrayed me. 'Get out,' I said in a low venomous voice that Yukito could never have summoned. 'Leave now, or I swear I'll kill you.' I was deadly serious.

She nodded and walked away, her skirts swishing around her legs, but then she turned around before she reached the road. 'You're wrong,' she said softly, but my sharper ears caught the words. 'It's not only Sakura the bell is meant to awaken.'

She left, and I leaned against the doorway, all strength lost.

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That night, Windy came to visit me as usual. 'Yue,' she greeted me.

'Good evening,' I said coldly, not moving from the bed.

The moon-ruled are far more perceptive than other magic users. The Card's long hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened at the look in my eyes. 'You know,' she gasped.

'I wasn't sure. Not until your reaction just now. Thanks for clearing it up. You're the highlight of what has been a truly rotten week.'

'Yue, I–'

'Save it. You'd better go now, or you and I will have words that we're both going to regret.' I closed my eyes. She didn't leave. 'What are you waiting for?'

'I was only doing my duty, Yue,' she said quietly, though her voice shook. 'You know this as well as I do. I'm sorry if I hurt you.'

'Would you do it again?'

'Wh-what?'

I opened my eyes. 'Would. You. Do. It. Again. It's a simple question. Which word didn't you understand?'

She set her shoulders defiantly. 'Yes I would.'

'Then you're not sorry, I see. Don't lie, you're pathetic at it.' I eyed her stonily.

'I knew,' she said quietly. 'About Clow. What he did.'

This was not happening. It couldn't be. 'You knew about the attraction spell?'

She nodded, not meeting my eyes. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

'You knew?' I asked again. I couldn't help it. 'But why?'

Why did you do it. Why didn't you tell me. Why did Clow think of this. Why did he tell you. I let her fill in the blanks were her own question. It was a trick I had often used. Given enough ambiguity, anyone assumes the worst and reacts accordingly.

Playing mind games on my own Cards.

Funny how a day can change so much.

'I was the one Clow assigned to keep you away while he was designing the spell. He told me.'

'You knew. All this time, you knew. And you never told me?'

I was numb now, as numb as I had been when facing Clow in my mind. I cursed my nature, cursed my own inability to feel anything but ice and apathy, cursed the fact that I couldn't bring myself to retaliate against this assault, cursed the wretched moon magic that called and sang and filled me with tranquility that my inner turmoil transformed into an abyss of unfeeling.

At that moment, I was very close to unmaking myself.

She was obviously picking up on my emotions, because a tear slipped down her cheek. I couldn't care either way. Then she gathered herself visibly, pushed her emotions away. I gazed at her emptily.

'I knew this is how you would react, Yue. Clow thought you'd take it better, he thought Yukito would already be in love with Sakura by the time she opened the Book and that that would…' she trailed off, stricken at the sight of my face. I half reached a hand up to discover what my expression was and why it frightened her so, because to my knowledge I hadn't moved a muscle.

'Yue?' she whispered, flinching.

'I've changed my mind. I think you had better explain this,' I said flatly.

And so the whole story came spilling out.

When Clow made Keroberos and me and later the Cards, he had not understood that we drew our powers from him because of our……feelings for him, and that the amount we drew depended on how deeply we cared for him. This was far from normal for magical creations; if anything, the power transfer usually worked the other way; favoured creations drew more than less desirable ones. This hadn't worried Clow much in the beginning, not even when he Saw Sakura. He had, Windy said, called her easily loved once.

The problem began when he realised that I was in love with him.

Clow knew me better than anyone – he had created me, after all. He could order me not to follow after him once he died, but he knew that I would react to his death………as I had in fact reacted to it. There was no way I could care more about Sakura than the cards did, not if I loved him so much. That was when he had hit upon the idea of making my false form unusually susceptible to falling in love with Sakura, and implanted the same suggestion in me as well.

I listened in silence as she spoke, paying attention, burning every word into my memory. It was strange that she was distraught and I was calm; given the circumstances I would have expected the opposite.

When she finished, the Card waited. I don't know how long it was we stood there like that, each waiting for the other to snap and say……something, anything. I wasn't going to talk, and it didn't look like she could.

Then I drew in a deep, slow breath and asked her why again. 'The real reason, Windy.'

'It's terribly simple, Yue,' she said, very quietly. 'In case you haven't noticed, you are the best friend I have. I have no desire to see you die.'

'And this is the alternative you found?'

'There weren't too many other options, Yue. Clow's power won't support you forever, and the mistress……'

'But if you……' I trailed off, just realising something. 'Don't you realise that if I…if Sakura's power doesn't sustain all of us, then you…I…' the enormity of what she had done was just crashing down on me. 'How dare you!' I raged. I was quite capable of accepting my death, but the Cards' dissolution was something I was nowhere near accepting. 'You have no right to make that choice! Do the others even–'

'They know.' A whisper, almost an exhalation, but it sounded as deafening as a church bell from three paces. 'I told them. Before the spell. We're Cards, Yue, we can be reconstructed. Not like you. If you die, you die, and there is no coming back – not to the way you were.'

In mute pain, I shook my head. Windy stepped closer. 'Everything that I am can be calculated, written down, replicated. Once the mistress has enough power, she can rebuild any of us. You have the spells, so does Keroberos. You can show her how. As the mistress says, one way or another, everything will be all right.'

'It won't be the same,' I insisted. 'Whether you're replicable or not makes no difference, you……I can't allow you to do this. Even if you have all your memories and your powers, you won't be…you won't be you. You'll be someone else!'

Those words would haunt me for years to come, though I didn't know it at the time.

'It doesn't matter,' she insisted.

If there was one thing I held to, always, it was my duty. I had been born to protect Clow, yes, but I had become the Cards' Guardian and it was now my life's purpose. The Cards were my responsibility. No, they were more, they were my family.

I resisted the urge to scream. I was the Guardian, they were the Cards. I protected them, I took care of them, I was the one who died for them if necessary. Not the other way around. Never that.

'I can't allow that,' I said coldly. 'I am going to win the Final Judgment, and I am not going to allow myself to fall under the spell. Your efforts are appreciated but unwelcome. None of you are going to die for me, is that clear. Now get out of here before…' I stopped. There was no threat I could make that I was prepared to carry out.

'Yue, don't do this,' she pleaded.

'And don't come back,' I added ruthlessly.

I had no more energy to talk, or think, or do anything. I simply lay back down on the bed and closed my eyes, trying hard not to cry. I felt Windy leave, but it didn't help at all. I sank back into Yukito's mind, and that helped a little.

If I couldn't have any peace of my own, I could feel his vicariously. I was too tired to be proud.

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The moon is bound to the earth as the earth is to the sun. This is scientific fact, but also philosophical principle – metaphorically, some elements, some forces are independent, while others are always bound to one thing or another. The stars are free; the planets are not; darkness is free, light is not, and the satellites are doubly bound to what attracts them. People are like that too; some need no external influence to define them, while others choose something to define themselves by, and trade freedom for certainty of purpose. As a moon-ruled being, I suppose I didn't have much choice in the structure of my character. From my birth, I had defined myself using Clow. First I was a creation, then his student, then a Guardian, then, lastly, his…lover, if not his beloved; I had never aspired to be that much, asking only for what he was willing to give me. Then, once the Cards were born, I defined myself using them as well; Guardian of the Cards, Windy's friend, Dream's favourite debate partner, Mirror's pillow, Fight's punching bag. Friend, brother, colleague, lover, student, teacher. Definitions, all.

And one by one, the assumptions upon which I had based those definitions – trust, acceptance, freedom, free will, affection, honesty – had been ripped away.

And like any satellite which has lost its planet, I was lost in the void.

It sounded terribly melodramatic when I thought of it, but on a certain level that was exactly what had happened.

The worst part of it was that I couldn't blame any of them. They had acted on my behalf, all of them. The Cards' decision was so unexpected, so staggeringly selfless that I couldn't even imagine it; couldn't make myself like them for forcing such a privilege on me.

But what I couldn't understand was: why Sakura? Even if Sakura was Judged unworthy, the Cards had enough power to sustain themselves for centuries. They could just wait until someone with enough power to sustain the Cards came along. But that Mizuki woman had said that Sakura could be even more powerful than Clow once her powers attained maturity, and she had no reason to lie about that.

The one I could be angry with, I decided, was Clow himself. Nobody told him he had to die; he could have lived centuries more, we both knew it.

It was also deeply ironic, I mused, that I was on the receiving end of an implanted magical attraction. I, who had taken others' reaction to my moon power for granted, been contemptuous and mocking of their lack of willpower, was now in precisely the same spot. It would have been funny, an insight into the law of karma, an idle anecdote to pass around over dinner, if it wasn't………well, me.

I suddenly had a newfound sympathy for the Li boy. I knew exactly how he felt; and even to some extent how Sakura felt around me and that Mizuki woman. To be attracted to someone, to fall in love despite oneself was an invasion and a defilement of the most secret, most sacred emotion of all. And what about Touya? I had ample evidence that he was no stranger to that attraction himself; Mizuki Kaho, while not ugly, was hardly an appropriate catch for a fourteen-year-old. And he was a student of hers at the time, at that. Maybe that was why he was not attracted to Yukito; he had simply clamped down on the part of himself that responded to that draw. He certainly had enough power to do that, and at fifteen he would know enough about himself and his hormones to keep the magic from throwing them off-balance.

There was only one difference between them and me. In their case, there were no consequences for rejecting the attraction.

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I now had one overriding concern; I needed to know what Yukito thought of Sakura.

He was the weak point in my plan. I already knew that what Yukito felt, I could feel when that strange bond between us was opened. It had happened twice already. If Yukito loved Sakura, then the feeling might be enough to trigger the attraction spell imbedded in me by mistake.

I tried several times to open the connection between us again, but was unable to succeed. Apparently it could only be opened from the other side; Yukito could access my power, and I could access his emotions at the same time.

So I waited for him to open the bond again, patiently, but with that cursed luck that I had, he didn't access my power around Sakura once after the Tomoeda quiz; even when he did, he wasn't thinking about Sakura, so I couldn't tell.

My opportunity came much later, the week before Christmas.

Yukito was lying in bed, munching some fries while rereading an essay for his English class. I was reading it with him, absently noting the difference between his writing style and mine and checking his grammar, feeding him the corrections and watching, marveling at his obliviousness, as he 'noticed' the errors and corrected them. His grades were definitely improving these days after I had begun helping him out.

With that eerie sixth sense he sometimes possessed, Yukito's hand twitched towards the phone a second before it began to ring. 'Tsukishiro residence,' he said.

A nervous silence on the other end of the phone. Then my field of vision increased as Yukito's eyes widened slightly. 'Is that you, Sakura?'

Instant relief, and then she began talking. I listened with half an ear, wondering whether this was just a sign of his connection to me or if it had to do with his connection to Sakura.

At the carnival, I finally had my chance to find out. It was, to all purposes, the perfect evening for Sakura. She had her date with Yukito, and even her omniscient brother's presence couldn't detract from it; she even managed to capture Fiery. And as they sat together in a booth of the Ferris wheel, she shyly removed a present from her handbag and gave it to him. Yukito unwrapped it to reveal a small replica of himself, obviously handmade and very carefully crafted. Sakura must have spent hours on it.

'You made this?' Yukito asked, but he already knew.

I felt a burst of affection from him, mixed with a slight bewilderment as two conflicting thoughts clashed in his mind –

What a lovely first present

And

Why did I think that?

It was true, though. Nobody had ever given Yukito a present before. I had received many, but he didn't know about those, and aside from love offerings from moonstruck schoolgirls he had never been given anything. Not by someone who really cared for him, someone he cared for in return. The only other who could have was Touya, who wasn't the type for presents.

I was somewhat taken aback that he had seen through that much of the illusion of his life.

Even before these thoughts flashed through my mind, I felt the emotions coming from him become deeper and stronger, growing until my own presence was dwarfed, engulfed.

The next thing I felt was the purest, sweetest relief I had ever known.

Because I knew. After two weeks of exhausting anxiety, I had my answer.

Yukito loved Sakura. But he wasn't in love with her.

Bright glowing sparks began to fall, and I recognised the distinctive signature of Keroberos' magic. He really was pleased by Fiery's capture.

I felt like laughing. I felt like dancing, and I was already smiling. I could feel Yukito's emotions bouncing off mine, refracting and enhancing each other. I was very close to the surface, and I could clearly feel his smile.

For the first time, I realised that it was very like my own.

But mixed with it was a certain sorrow. I was free, but I now had to face a prophecy that said that I would die before Sakura transformed all the Cards.

Well, she would have to win the Judgment first, and I had no intention of allowing that to happen.

'Sakura,' Yukito said, holding the doll up. She turned to see him. 'Let's do this again next year.'

She smiled.

A/N: so now out come the secrets. What did you think? Review! Sneak peek of next chapter: do you really believe Touya never got through to Yue until episode 65?