Chapter seven: No more secrets

Ruling Card: Erase

Class time. Yukito and Touya were studying, and I was staring out of the window, brooding. It was a habit of mine that I didn't like but could hardly help. Moon influence and all that.

I heard a whisper of magic in the air, and was surprised when Yukito stiffened as well. Then I realised that he had reacted to Touya, who had just jumped upright as if stung. The boy strode quickly to the teacher, mumbled a quick excuse and then almost ran out of the class. He called the office soon after to say that Sakura was ill and he was taking her home. Yukito sighed with relief and offered to take his bag home for him. Yukito managed to pry the details out of Touya; he'd heard that Mizuki woman's voice in class, though he maintained that he didn't hear it all the time. I knew there was something between Touya and that woman, of course, but the ability to communicate telepathically, however erratic, spoke of a powerful bond. He must have loved her. Maybe he was still in love with her.

That made me angry. Why was it that everyone I knew seemed doomed to pursue people who were inevitably going to turn around and say 'No' when they screwed up the courage to confess? Wasn't there one successful relationship in these parts?

'Yuki,' Touya said quietly as he opened the door to let his friend out. Yukito looked up at him enquiringly.

'There's something I need to talk to you about. It's rather important. Can I come over to your house tomorrow evening?'

'Sure, To-ya,' Yukito said cheerfully. He, of course, didn't know what Touya was talking about.

That night, I felt Sakura capture a Card – Cloud, probably, since it had been hanging around a while ago. I clamped firmly down on how impressed I was that she had actually managed to walk from her room to the bathroom with that kind of fever, let alone capture a Clow Card, and one of the more hot-tempered ones at that.

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The next evening, Yukito was washing up in the kitchen when the doorbell rang – one sharp, commanding tring. Quickly, before Yukito could realise who was there, I took over, sending him to sleep gently. Though it was Yukito's form that opened the door, it was I who saw Touya standing there in the pouring rain, his hair dripping over his coat.

I had already decided that I was going to find out how much I knew before he –

Touya squinted at me suspiciously. 'You're not Yuki,' he said. 'Are you?'

Sayonara, plan.

'Why don't you come in,' I said expressionlessly.

His eyes never left me as we went into the living room. Moving automatically, Touya relaxed on his usual spot on the sofa. Unlike Yukito, who would usually sit quite close, I perched uncomfortably on the other end; wishing that I had my wings now. The feel of them on my back was conspicuously missing.

'What do you know?' I said flatly. 'And how long have you known of my existence?'

Touya shrugged. 'Pretty much everything.' His fingers ran restlessly through his hair, flicking drops of water off them. 'The Cards, that ridiculous stuffed animal that starts sweating whenever I look at him……I've been watching her all this while, and what little I didn't know I got from Mirror. I'd have to be pretty stupid to miss all those cues. In answer to your second question……' he thought for a while. 'The day we met, I suppose. I could always sense you, even if your power was dormant until a few days before Sakura began to collect the Cards.'

This was worse than I'd expected. Touya had known all along.

He was irritatingly self-possessed, his posture relaxed, his voice easy. I was the one who was supposed to be in control of this situation!

'And what don't you know?'

'Who you are.' Touya didn't shift a muscle, but he was clearly on the defense. 'And what you want with Yuki.'

I knew what I had to do. Nobody could know who I was. If Touya somehow guessed my role in the capture of the Cards – and it was entirely likely he would, at this rate – then he would definitely tell Sakura.

I was going to have to erase his memory of me. I'd known it all along. Months, in fact.

And if I had……

Why hadn't I done it before?

'Wait a minute. Mirror? How do you know her name?'

'We've met. Sakura used her to fill in for her when she was out capturing a Card.' Touya's eyes softened slightly. I knew that look. It was the same one he gave Sakura. 'She's something special.'

'She is,' I agreed quietly.

'Even if she tried to drop me off a cliff. God knows, Sakura's threatened to do that often enough.' A flicker of amusement that was gone in the next second as he leaned forward, his eyes suddenly sharper and darker. I could feel his aura strengthening. 'You haven't answered my question.'

Finally, something I was clear on. 'If you're worried about what I might do to Yukito, you can rest your worries. I have no desire to harm him.'

Touya's eyes narrowed. A whole minute passed before he blinked and lay back against the sofa. So he had accepted my answer.

I found it rather charming, really. I was one of the most dangerous beings alive. Even Clow had been hard-pressed to defeat me in battle as time went by. And now this boy was threatening me? Over Yukito, at that? I nearly laughed at the idea.

'All right.' Touya's head tilted back slightly. 'Whatever it is you're going to do now, you'd better get it over with.'

'What?' I said intelligently.

'I'm not stupid. There's no way you're letting me just walk away after I've told you all of this.'

Once again, Touya had succeeded in surprising me. 'Then why–'

'Oh, I don't think you're going to kill me.'

Time to regain control. I let just a little threat bleed into my aura. 'You seem very sure for someone with no evidence.'

'That won't work against me. I'm a psychic, remember? I can read auras, and yours doesn't carry any evil. Pain, yes, sorrow, yes–' Something unreadable flashed through his own just then. 'I felt you very clearly the night after the Tomoeda quiz. But not darkness. If I had to guess, I'd say you were going to erase my memories.'

'And if you're so sure, why didn't you tell me before this?'

'It was fun making you wonder,' he said with a straight face. 'Watching you twitch – let's just say it's a small payback for all the teasing I've had to tolerate for the last two years.' He smiled. It was bright, and unexpected. Touya never smiled quite like that. 'I wasn't too worried. You'd never hurt me, Yuki.'

I zeroed in on the last statement. 'I'm not Yukito.' In fact, I hadn't told him my name at all.

'Aren't you?' Touya leaned forward challengingly.

'Of course not. He's just…' how did that sentence end again? 'I made him so I could walk among humans without their knowing.'

'You created him; he's bound to be something like you. It's like reading a book – if you know how, you can see the author behind the words. It's really quite simple once you think about it. I mean, if you create something out of nothing, what can you create it from except yourself? Don't you see that?' He leaned even closer. 'Or……don't you want to accept it?'

Too much, too fast, too close. I stood, wishing I could wrap my wings around myself. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'If you say so,' Touya agreed tiredly, closing his eyes. The intensity, the confidence seemed to drain out of him, until he was just a high-school boy again. It wasn't until his eyes closed that I realised just how powerful they were. 'All right, do it then.'

'Mm.' I reached out a hand, the spell already ready at my fingertips. As the Moon Guardian, I had control over all the cards' powers. This would take Erase – for obvious reasons – and Change, to replace his original memories with new ones.

My hand was a bare inch from his forehead before Touya's face contorted, his eyes opening. 'Wait,' he said softly, depthless dark eyes fixed on mine. I paused, expecting him to ask whether it would hurt. I was wrong. 'Before I forget. Show me what you look like?'

I froze. I don't know for how long I just stood there in a trance, because it was a warning twinge of cramp in my human form's muscles that snapped me out of it.

No human except Clow had ever seen me in my true form. Not ever. Keroberos and the Cards was one thing, but even Clow's friends and family had made me uncomfortable enough to change into my false form before they saw me. Most often I simply avoided them, curling up with a book in my favourite corner of Clow's private study or practicing magic in his lands while the Cards stood watch.

And now Touya was asking to see me.

I sighed. I owed him that much.

My hand dropped back to my side and my wings formed around me, curling me into a cocoon of magic. Clow's circle blazed under my feet, and as my wings fell away to my sides Touya lowered his hand from where it was shielding his eyes.

For a full minute, he just looked at me, attentive eyes taking in my every detail. I was slightly unnerved by the renewed intensity in his gaze, and resisted the urge to fidget. Neither of us spoke.

Then Touya breathed out. He'd been holding his breath all this time?

Hm. Maybe he wasn't all that immune to the moon power, after all.

'……okay,' he whispered. Cleared his throat. 'Okay. Thanks. You can finish now.'

For an absurd moment, I was annoyed that aside from that minuscule revelation he had managed to keep his response to my moon power completely hidden. I would have disliked it if he'd been affected by the power, but was annoyed that he hadn't been.

My mind is a deeply confusing thing at times. Or confused. Either works.

It took only a few seconds before Touya was slumped on the back of the sofa, sleeping deeply.

I had already taken the precaution of flipping through the movie guide, and now I convinced both him and Yukito that they had eaten a dinner and then fallen asleep.

It was a very thoughtful me that went to sleep that night.

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In the morning, when they woke up, Yukito was snuggled up next to Touya, who was curled up on the sofa. I was taken aback to notice that he slept exactly as I did when I was next to Mirror – body angled diagonally, arm slung over the other, head under his neck. I woke up with a faceful of hair in my mouth, and quickly retreated. No sense in being found out right after I'd erased his memory of meeting me.

……wait.

Was that all I'd erased? I know I had intended to erase all his memories of me, so why had I……

Yeah, I remembered. He'd just have found out again, it was too much work, right?

I really had to stop lying to myself.

I had completely selfish motives for not erasing all of Touya's memories.

It was why I'd shown him my true form last night. He'd been keeping my secret for over two years – not least, from Yukito himself. He'd discouraged others from prying too deeply into Yukito's phantom past, and Touya had kept him from realising that his life up to Tomoeda had been a huge lie. And in his own subtle, reserved way, he had ensured that when Yukito found out, he would have enough good memories, real ones, to hold up to that realisation.

Touya was, I realised, every bit as protective of Yukito as he was of Sakura.

Protective of Yukito………or protective of me?

It was me he was keeping hidden from the world, after all. My cause that he was supporting. Even before he knew who I was, or why I was there.

At a time when it seemed that everything I could think of relying on was turning around and stabbing me in the back, I found some comfort in the idea that there was one person at least who hadn't betrayed me in one way or the other; who had helped me so much with no real reason to. I needed him to know that I was there, even if he didn't know who I was.

Touya was awake by this time, and that familiar dark gaze was fixed on the top of Yukito's head. I knew that look, didn't have to see it to remember it perfectly. It was the Look, the one he sent through Yukito to me, questioning, worried, amused and knowing all at once.

Touya saw me, even if he didn't know what he was seeing.

That was worth something.

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Since the rule of the universe is that I can't have twenty-four peaceful hours, I had a huge fight with Watery the very next night.

She barged into my room, already moving as she appeared, and stabbed an accusing finger at me. I had to sit up on the bed or get it in the eye. 'You have some talking to do, mister,' she announced.

I raised a cold eyebrow. 'Really? What about?'

'Windy. She's depressed.'

Mentally, I groaned. I was really not interested in having this conversation. 'So?'

'So? What do you mean, so? Stop being a pig and apologise. I'm tired of all the boo-hooing inside the deck.'

'I have nothing to apologise for. I didn't ask her to play a martyr – didn't ask any of you, for that matter, and I don't need it.'

'Yue, please. Just talk to her!' Watery never said please. 'She misses you. We all do. Even some of Keroberos' cards are worried now.' She hesitated. 'Yue, about the Judgment. Don't judge Sakura so harshly. She doesn't deserve it.'

'Oh, so now you want me to cheat as well? Everybody seems to be asking me that these days.' Except for Touya, a dispassionate part of me noticed. He must have known something, but he hadn't said a word about it.

'I don't want you to be a cheat, I want you to be fair!' she yelled. That finger was back in my face again. I resisted the urge to slap it away. I'd never raised a hand to any of the Cards and I wasn't going to start now. 'She hasn't used the Cards for evil purposes once. In fact, she only uses them in emergencies, she's not half as quick to use them as Clow was. She's collected several special cards, including Mirror, who says hi, by the way, and she won't come because she's trying to cheer Windy up right now. She even captured Glow, and that one doesn't have any magic worth sensing, so she must care about us. You're the Judgment Maker. Can you honestly say that Sakura's failed any of the tests that she's been set before this?' My silence must have answered her question, because she continued. 'Yet you're determined to make her fail. What's the justice in that?'

'Wasn't any in what Clow did either,' I growled.

Watery let out a sharp curse. 'So. You're trying to use the Judgment for your own purposes, so you can forget what you felt for Clow. That's beyond contemptible! You're not even trying to be honest, let alone impartial!'

'I can't afford to be!' I screamed. I was breathing heavily. Watery moved away.

'And now out comes the true reason.' One last time, she tried. 'Windy–'

'I have no interest in talking to anyone. She's on one side, I'm on the other.' I shut my eyes. conversation over.

Not according to Watery. 'Weak,' she hissed.

'What?' I said, opening my eyes.

'Weak. That's what you are You're so afraid to actually go up against Clow's will, you'll do anything to convince yourself that you resisted without actually doing anything. If you were really strong, you'd be fair in the Final Judgment and see what happened next. You're scared your willpower won't be enough to resist Clow's conditioning. You're scared you won't be strong enough to know your own heart. You're scared, so you're going to cheat.'

'And how do you know that what you decided when you gave your loyalty to her wasn't influenced by Clow, too?'

'I don't. And we do have free will. I may not be as sophisticated or intelligent as you, Yue, but I've held my own tests for that child and she's passed with flying colours.'

'Tests that Clow suggested to you,' I said coldly.

'No, tests I came up with all by my lonesome. You see, unlike you, Yue, I happen to have a very precious bit of information at my disposal.' Watery leaned very close to me and spoke in my ear. 'Clow Reed isn't omnipotent.'

I moved away. 'I know that.'

'Do you? Truly?' she paused, then roared in my face. 'Then ACT LIKE IT, damn it! Don't just react to what Clow says, come up with your own choices for once!'

'I am acting independently.'

'No, you're not. Remember what Clow told us once, when we were in the library, and he was reading that old Sanskrit text? "There are three options to any given situation: you may act, you may not act, or you may act something different." The trouble with you is that you see everything in black and white, Yue. You're so stuck on two possibilities, you can't even imagine that there could be others.' She shook her head furiously. 'Even I know better than that! You're such a fool, Yue!'

Ever the one for the dramatic exit, she vanished.

I sat up the whole night, pondering her words.

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There were so few cards left to capture now. Dream, Dark, Twin, and the three sun-ruled, Sand, Light and Earthy. I had my own suspicions as to why the latter had hidden so long – without Earthy's presence, Keroberos couldn't transform into his true form. The sun-ruled had definitely inherited Clow's twisted sense of humour. Or maybe Earthy was just mad at Keroberos, and this was a refined form of payback.

The evening of Touya and Yukito's football match, Sakura captured Dream. The Card, which had been one of the first to contact me, appeared in my dreams that night to tell me wryly that she had been caught under Sakura's foot by mistake, and consequently sealed by the Li boy. The other Cards the Li held had apparently found it very funny, and had had some gentle fun at her expense. Dream was looking rather harassed when she appeared.

Sand was sealed a few days later – by both Sakura and Li. Even the Card didn't know who had defeated it, but Sakura solved the problem before it could come up by giving it to Li. Honestly, these children were very strange.

Ten days to the full moon.

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Touya and Yukito were at the school play. Yukito was smiling, as always.

'They're doing Sleeping Beauty this year. Just like our class did Cinderella last year, right?'

I didn't have to look to know that Touya was slouching in his seat, mortified beyond all belief. Neither did Yukito. The smile grew wider, and if possible, even more cherubic.

'I didn't need to remember that.'

Yukito was positively glowing with innocence.

'Why not? You looked good in that dress.' Touya buried his face in his hand. 'The president of the photography club said that your pictures sold the most.'

'He said that?' I tried to think. Had that boy done something to Yukito lately? Or was he just dishing it out on random people now?

'Yep.' With consummate timing, Yukito turned to the stage a millisecond before Touya would have exploded in apoplectic rage. 'I wonder what role Sakura's playing today.'

Touya Glared at him for a few seconds. Yukito simply stared ahead, pretending he didn't notice.

Sometimes I wondered about that boy. Where he got his playfulness from. I certainly wasn't like that. Hadn't been for a long time, since I was a child. But I had never reached the level of artistry that Yukito had. Then again, he focused his teasing entirely on Touya, who was after all deliciously easy to embarrass; in two years, he knew exactly which buttons to push. Even with Sakura, he was the perfect polite high-school boy. He rarely allowed anyone else to see his true self, but Touya could see past that.

On so many levels. Even those Yukito didn't know existed.

I knew just before she did it that Dark was going to act. The stage was plunged into darkness. I wasn't very alarmed. 'Just a power cut, I guess,' Yukito's voice said.

'A……power cut……' Touya echoed, and I could hear the yeah right in his voice. He was worried about Sakura. Sure enough, in a few seconds he said, 'I'm going to check on Sakura,' and he stood up.

'Sit down, Touya,' Yukito said mildly. 'It's not like you can find her in the dark. She'll be just fine.'

He grunted, but obeyed.

I felt it when she sealed Dark. It was a surprise to me later when I heard that she had sealed Light as well, and that the sun-ruled Card had been within her heart since the escape of the cards. So that was why Yukito and I had been able to sense her presence – she'd had a Clow Card inside her all along.

Two Cards to go. Four days to the full moon.

A/N: NO reviews for the last chapter! My few and faithful, why have you deserted me?

Yukito being sneaky, Touya being sneaky……hmm, I do seem to like the manipulative ones, don't I? Two chapters to go!