Chapter nine: Nor bends with the remover

Ruling Card: Change.

To-ya was waiting for me when I came down to breakfast.

I smile cheerfully at him. That one-second grin flickered over his face, but there was warmth in his eyes that belied his stern features.

'Hey, Yue,' he said, ruffling my hair affectionately. I shivered.

Why did that name ring so untrue? Yue was my name, the only one I'd ever had. So why did it sound so unnatural, as if I'd expected some other name there?

Or expected him to react very differently to my presence?

I shook it off.

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I could see him now. The man in front of me. The other man. The man from the dreams, the one with glasses.

'What's your name?' I asked with a sort of mild curiosity.

'My name is Clow Reed. I created Yue. And you, too. I was the one who sent you to Tomoeda, who gave you a life, who implanted false memories in you until you could make some of your own.'

'Created? You mean I'm……' I couldn't make myself say it. Not human. He must have read my thoughts, because he looked troubled.

'Yukito, you may be created, and you certainly do not suffer from many of the disadvantages that we humans have to face. Still, I believe that in your heart and your mind, you are human, and that is what matters, is it not?'

With the strange wisdom that comes in dreams, I nodded. I would deal with this later.

'The spell cast at the end of the Final Judgment had an unexpected effect,' he told me seriously. 'It is meant to make everyone under its influence live in a world where they have no emotion towards those they love most. You are a part of Yue, but you developed a separate personality. Also, your most important person is not Yue's. So he's seeing a world where he forgot everything he loved and loves.'

And I? What am I seeing? I wondered. I didn't feel any different. Nothing was happening to me that I could notice.

'Where is he?' I said.

'Yue……is in a different world,' Clow answered evasively.

A shimmering panel opened in the dark space between the stars where we stood. I could see someone there, someone who looked exactly like me, except for his pale blue eyes and long white hair.

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All day, I couldn't get rid of a feeling of nagging unreality. My classes went past me in a blur, and I was inattentive, my thoughts wandering erratically. By evening, I was dizzy and disoriented.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. For a while, I thought it might be Sakura, but the feeling wasn't coming from my bond with her. To-ya suspected that I might be as strong a psychic as he was or even stronger, although he insisted that my…talents…lay in different directions than his; still, I always knew when Sakura was going to knock on the door, just as I always knew which corner of the school To-ya was brooding in. After she had met that Li brat from Hong Kong, Sakura's feelings towards me had become more platonic as she grew out of her child's crush. It had altered my connection with her…

What?

'Yue? Are you all right?' To-ya looked worried. I tried to look happy for his sake, but I couldn't help feeling strange. That name……how did he……

'How do you know my name?'

I didn't realise that I'd spoken out loud until I heard To-ya's incredulous snort. 'Are you ill?'

'I guess I am,' I said, frowning. 'I didn't even know I was saying that out loud.'

'Hm. Get some rest. You sound like you need it.'

'I haven't seen Sakura around,' I said, trying to change the subject.

'Don't worry, your charge is fine.' One of our little in-jokes. To-ya insisted that I was more of a brother to her than he was, and he had once suggested that I was her guardian angel. She'd taken to the idea with the enthusiasm of a child, and it had become a favourite subject for him to tease me about, even three years later. 'She's got a school holiday today, remember? She's on a hike with Tomoyo and that brat of a boyfriend of hers, as you would have discovered if you ever woke up a minute before you absolutely have to.' I grimaced. 'She's fourteen, she can handle herself; besides, she's got Kero with her. Of course, I can't vouch for what might happen because of him, but anything else should be well within their ability to handle. That dog's a monster, after all. I don't know why she even picked him up at the pound. And if he weren't so loyal to her I'd have thrown him out with the trash the day she brought him home.'

I grinned lopsidedly. 'I guess I'll go lie down, then. See you later.'

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'Kero?' I said. 'Who's Kero?' Not a dog. He was a……he was……not a dog. But…?

Clow shot me a sharp look. It reminded me of ……someone's. 'The dreams you've had for the last year should have shown you more by now.'

'No, I can't remember……' could I? I thought deeply, but the images, the ideas, the knowledge slipped through my fingers like water. I shrugged and said 'No.'

Clow looked slightly disappointed. From his reactions, it sounded as if I should know the name, but I simply couldn't summon up those memories. I couldn't create the energy to think, or the determination. Keroberos.

'You really don't remember?' Clow pressed.

'I don't know,' I sighed, my hand reaching out to the screen where I could see Yue.

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The night was no better. There was a full moon, and I went up to the roof to bask in its light, an old habit I was fond of. After a while, as always, I began to wonder where I had come from. To-ya and Sakura had found me on the riverbank after a flood, with no memories and nothing on my person to give any clue as to my origins. After a year and a half, the police had given up. As far as anyone knew, I really was the angel To-ya called me. To-ya and Sakura's father had taken guardianship of me initially, and that had worked out well enough that nobody had really wanted to change it. Besides, although I had no memory of attending high school, the police had estimated my age as seventeen when I was found, which made me old enough to choose where I lived. And if I'd decided anything else, I was quite sure Sakura and To-ya would have been hurt, and that was unthinkable.

I hated not knowing where I came from. Sometimes, late at night, in restless dreams, I saw flashes of events that I could swear were memories, though what they showed was imaginative at best. A tall man with long silky black hair and blue eyes filled with laughter and sorrow; a golden lion wearing jeweled armour, of all things; a woman with long green hair and deep eyes; firelight, warmth, laughter and play-fights; deep, heartbreaking grief; an ancient house filled with secrets; most disturbingly, at the periphery of my vision, I had always felt the presence of two giant wings. I had told To-ya about these dreams, half-expecting him to laugh in my face and call me mad; instead, he had nodded solemnly and said that sometimes, he could see things from other worlds too. His calm explanations about his own abilities had helped far more than my hysterical thoughts about these dreams.

But I simply couldn't piece them together. The memories were fractured, broken, and nothing, not even hypnotherapy, had allowed me to retrieve them. The therapist stopped abruptly after a few sessions, declaring that he would be unable to help me unless I truly wanted him to; apparently I had told him, while deep in a trance, that I was unwilling and incapable of retrieving those memories. The unnerved look on his face when he said goodbye made me suspect that I had done more than that, but there was no sound on the tape of the session other than an eerie crackling and my own voice speaking those same words in a tone I could barely recognise. And there had been a feather on the floor of the room……though the therapist hadn't had a bird in there. Wings?

And as much as I laughed and teased and was the perfectly-adjusted boy to the rest of the world, those blanks in my memory were slowly eating away at what I did know. At some dangerous moments, I almost found myself wishing that I could delude myself into believing I had a past instead of being born full-grown, so to speak. I had no memory of learning, or playing……or being loved in any way at all, before Sakura and To-ya had fished me out of the river.

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'What is it you want me to recall?' I asked Clow. 'I know you have something very specific you want me to remember. What is it? Why does it matter to you?'

'It's not what I want you to remember, it's what remembering will make you realise.'

'You're being cryptic,' I accused.

'You're correct,' he smiled. It was a dazzling smile. Silence fell for a while. I watched Yue think. He didn't look very happy.

'Yue loved you,' I said thoughtfully. 'Didn't he?'

Clow drew in a sharp breath. 'How did you guess that?'

'It's only logical. If Yue's with someone you think I should remember, then I must be with the one who matters to him.'

'Correct,' he said with some respect.

'Who am I, Clow?' I asked point-blank.

'I'm sorry, I can't tell you that.'

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I was just about to go back into the house when I heard someone coming up the stairs and through my bedroom. I smiled and turned to see To-ya coming out to meet me.

'Are you all right?' he said gruffly.

'Of course I am,' I said.

'Liar. I could feel you getting cranky all the way across town. I left my job early to come see you, so you better be grateful to the tone of a couple of hundred yen.'

My shoulders slumped. 'I can't fool you, can I?'

'You never could. You can't even play bluff to save your life.'

I smiled weakly. 'All right, I'm not okay.'

'Thinking about the past.' I didn't have to reply. He knew. 'Damn it, Yue–'

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'Yuki,' I said, the word falling from my mouth as unconsciously as one spoken while dreaming. Clow turned from the screen to look at me.

'What did you say?'

'Yuki,' I said, puzzled. 'I can't think why I said that. It doesn't mean anything.'

'It's your name.'

'Not exactly. My name's Yukito. Nobody calls me Yuki.' But that wasn't right……

'Really?' Clow said. What did he know that I didn't? I would have asked him if I thought it would do me any good. 'Don't you see what's happening, Yukito?'

'No,' I said, frowning, trying to think. None of this made any sense.

'Yue, he's a magical being. For him to forget his feelings of love, affection, caring, I had to change his past entirely. I had to remove the Cards, his fellow Guardian, myself……even you, Yukito, could not have followed him into this spell. I am only allowed one exemption, you see; as for Yue, well, he has others looking after him. I am sorry that you have to do this, be stranded here with me. But you know, as much as he may deny it, Yue cares for you too.'

'I know,' I said. The voice that had spoken to me so briefly, the being that had lent me his strength – there had been caring there, friendship, even love of a sort.

But Yue wasn't the one bothering me right now.

'This other boy.' I reached out to the screen, my hand almost touching his face. Those eyes. That voice. 'I know him.'

Yuki……

Are you sure you don't want a super-sized one?

You! What the hell are you doing to my sister!

Before I forget. Show me what you look like?

There are no coincidences in this world.

That voice. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the cotton wool that seemed to fill it. I didn't know his name, but

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'-why does it bother you so much? Isn't what you have now enough?'

I bowed my head, feeling the moonlight on the sensitive back of my neck. 'It couldn't be worse than this,' I said softly.

To-ya froze. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Not the way you think,' I said hastily. 'Not you, and not Sakura. You mean the world to me. But the rest of it. Why don't I want to remember? Did something horrible happen to me? Was it something I did? I don't know, and I keep filling the blanks; and some of the answers I imagine are so bad I can't face them. There's so much affection and – and love in those memories. I know in my bones how much it would take to destroy that, to forget that. If I did, it must be……'

'Shhh,' To-ya said, holding me tight. 'Don't be stupid, Yue. You wouldn't hurt a fly, much less people you care for, and from your dreams you must have cared for them all a lot. The only thing this kind of thought will bring you is a nervous breakdown.'

'It hurts,' I said into his chest.

'Yeah, I know.' I was suddenly reminded that he could feel others' feelings as if they were his own and tried to pull back, tried to insulate him from my emotions, but he wouldn't let me.

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I watched Clow watch the screen as the boy, whose name Yue still hadn't spoken, drew him into a kiss. The pain in deep blue eyes spelled it out clearer than moonlight. Yue's love hadn't been unrequited. So what had happened?

'I died,' Clow said. I started. Had he read my mind?

'No, just your expression,' he said, turning to face me. 'I died. Strictly speaking, I could have lingered on for centuries more, but I was tired, and there is only so much man should resist time and natural law; only so long one can live before being alive becomes bitterness and cynicism rather than joy and wisdom. If I had lived much longer, the power I held would have overwhelmed me and I would have lost the purity of purpose with which I made the Cards and their Guardians. Yue never understood why I chose so. The moon is eternal, after all – or at least the force it embodies is.'

'The moon,' I said in wonder. There had been a full moon once, and a small crumpled form in a dark rose trench coat lying on the hard ground and pain shooting through my leg, and a strong, tanned, sympathetic arm that had kept me upright all the way home, never allowing any weight to fall on my injured leg, while his familiar deep voice grumbled about how idiotic Sakura and I were and that we needed a keeper –

'To-ya,' I whispered. 'Sakura.'

Clow's eyes were fixed on mine, intent, waiting.

The spell broke.

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I broke the kiss after a while, pulling away from To-ya. His depthless eyes held mine, and somewhere in them I found the answer.

'It doesn't matter,' I said quietly.

'Hmm?'

'It doesn't matter what there is to find,' I said quietly. 'If this life I had mattered so much to me, I want to know it. In those dreams, it wasn't all pain, there was joy and comfort and mischief as well. I don't want to forget all that. I loved that life, To-ya. I can't just leave it behind because something in it hurt me. If I ever knew something so deep that I would take such extreme measures to forget it…' I was talking almost to myself now, my arms folded over my knees and my head laid sideways on them. 'Then I don't want to lose it. Because if I ignore everything……I won't have anything left to mark things up against, to compare, to create new dimensions in myself. I want it all, the pleasure and the pain together – I don't want to be – to be split like this, it's a half-life and I'm sick of it. I want to remember.'

Forget.

'Happy or sad, I need to know what it is I've lost.'

Everyone will forget the people they love.

I looked up at the cold moon. 'The past shapes us. The past creates us. Without it I am incomplete.'

Forget.

'More than anything, I want to know. Then I can face the pain and savour the pleasure and let go or hold on as I please. Don't mistake what I'm saying – I love this life of mine. But I can't run away any more. I won't.'

To-ya pulled away from me and gave me a warm smile. 'Well done, Yue.'

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I trembled as memories shot through me, real memories, important ones. The archery contest. The literary fest that To-ya and I attended; the Tomoeda quiz rally; the carnival; the summer festival. The school play; vacation with the Kinomotos; the accident at the aquarium.

Faster now, they flew.

Junior year. Meeting Sakura; meeting To-ya.

There were no memories of the time before I came to Tomoeda. I flinched slightly. I would have to deal with my false memories, but not now. Now, I had to pay attention, carefully, because I was only going to see this once.

There was a wrenching sense of dislocation, and then I felt other memories, memories of – myself? – with long hair and strange clothing. Clow was in those. A flash of insight. I was seeing memories of Yue's life. The dreams with the gaps filled in.

They faded, and I dropped weakly to the not-ground, shaking with the overload of information. My life flashed before me, I thought and chuckled even if it wasn't remotely funny.

But why was I shown Yue's memories?

Unless –

'You remember,' Clow said, sounding satisfied. 'Do you know now?'

Slowly, I looked up at him. It seemed to take forever before my amber locked with his blue.

I nodded. 'Send me home, Clow.'

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'What?' I said.

'You've figured it out,' he said. 'Wake up, Yue. It's time.'

'What are you–'

And suddenly Mirror was there, as if she had been there all along, though that was ridiculous, because I would have sensed her, since she was a Card after all –

Card? Mirror? What was this? Who was this woman? Why was – why wasn't I panicking?

In her hands, she held a large mirror, and she raised it to my face.

I gazed in it, and saw……myself?

But my eyes weren't blue, they were amber, and my hair, my unique hair, was darker and shorter than the length that streamed down my back.

My reflection smiled and reached a hand out to me. 'Wake up, Yue,' my reflection echoed To-ya.

Locked in indecision, I simply stared at it.

A bell rang, and the world shivered around me. Again and again it rang, and the house, the moon, Mirror and To-ya began to disintegrate. Only the reflection remained steady.

'Come on, you can do it,' the other encouraged me.

'Yu…ki…to?' I said hesitantly.

He smiled. 'That's right.'

Janus. The god of time……with two faces. Clow had relied on my classical education to tell me what I needed to know, and I had very nearly forgotten the most important detail.

So Yukito……was……

I reached out and took his hand, and the world dissolved around me.

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The vines burst apart, and Sakura was revealed.

I started, disoriented from the shock of too many revelations. I had almost forgotten what had happened before the spell took over.

The Mizuki woman was there, holding the bell Clow had designed. As I watched, it shimmered and faded. Its purpose was over, after all.

She hadn't lied. The bell wasn't just meant to wake Sakura.

The girl was facing me again, now. Her eyes glinted with determination. 'It's too sad to see a world where your feelings for the person you care about most are gone! I'll do my best right now! I know it will be all right.'

It was almost anticlimactic when her staff transformed into its new shape. The one that would best symbolise Sakura herself. Flashes of light lit the sky like a meteor shower. The sheer power she had expended in the transformation left me stunned.

'What is this?' I said wonderingly.

'A new power,' Mizuki replied.

I hadn't expected that, but I didn't know why. Sakura was – is – nothing like Clow. Of course their powers wouldn't be rooted in the same elements. The light of the stars. Quite appropriate for her. Sakura pulled Windy from her deck. 'Wind, trap the one before me. Windy!'

Hadn't she learned yet? None of the moon-ruled can ever touch me without my permission.

'Useless,' I scoffed. 'Windy serves under me–'

The Card raced to trap me before I could retaliate. I heard her whisper 'Sorry, Yue,' before she bound me securely in her magic. I may have cried out in shock as she wrapped her power around my limbs and dropped me to the deck, helpless against her.

I had lost.

Well, good.

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I knelt before Sakura. My new mistress. All I had to do was formally acknowledge her as such. It was a humiliating pose, one I had never been reduced to in all my life, but right now I was too relieved to care.

'You must have loved Clow very much,' were her first words. My eyes widened. How had she guessed that? It was impossible. I had never – there was no – 'Then, you should understand that forgetting about the person you care about the most would be a very sad thing. I'm still a child, and I'm not as powerful as Clow was, but I'll do my best. And I would rather be your friend than your mistress.' She reached out a hand to me, but I didn't take it. I had been defeated, not destroyed. I stood up by myself.

'Close your eyes,' I commanded. There was one last thing to do. Clow had left a message for the next master of the cards, and I had to deliver it. She stared at me blankly. I resisted the urge to tap my feet or snap at her. 'Close them,' I said impatiently, and she obeyed.

'The Judgment is complete. I, Yue, acknowledge Sakura as our new Master.' Gently, so gently that she probably didn't even feel it, I touched her with my magic, transferring the message to her. Her eyes closed as she drifted down to her friends under my delicate guidance.

I knew she was talking to Clow, and I felt a moment of jealousy before I sighed and let go of it. Clow was dead, there was no coming back, and that was all there was to say on that subject between that moment and eternity.

Oh, how I would regret thinking that.

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I watched her celebrate with her friends, Keroberos beside me in his true form.

'So Sakura's our mistress now,' he said. He sounded happy.

Then again, it didn't take much to make the brat happy.

'She doesn't have enough power to maintain all of the Cards and the guardians.' There, that was a nice job of pouring cold water on him. And on myself.

'True,' Keroberos admitted. 'Well, it looks like we should stay in our guardian forms a while longer.' I nodded.

Clow had said that I would die. Well, to quote a certain someone, all I could do at this point was hope that everything would be all right.

I changed back into Yukito.

It was different this time. I could still feel my connection to Yukito even when I wasn't physically there and he wasn't drawing power from me.

What happened? He said, sounding slightly dazed. I saw you in the mirror and then –

Don't worry about it, I said. Everything turned out just fine. And it had. It really had.

I could feel the moon user nearby, standing with Touya. There was a situation I was going to deal with again, but not now.

I retreated from Yukito's mind, and he saw Sakura and waved happily.

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It was night, and Yukito and I had returned home soon after the Final Judgment.

Touya had turned up well after the Judgment, pretending to have been under Sleep's influence although I knew quite well that he had been awake. Still, if he wanted to keep his involvement a secret from Sakura it was none of my business. Tomoyo's bodyguards had arrived after that and taken us all home.

Yue, Yukito said softly. I had retreated quite deep into him, and I surfaced slowly until I could feel him and see through his eyes. He was sitting on top of his bed, arms folded around his knees, which were tucked up to his chest. Yue, are you there?

Yes, I said simply.

I didn't know what to say to him. I had lived inside his mind for over a year, and he didn't know anything about me. In fact, I didn't know him at all except for the handful of times I had been able to access his emotions and his conversations with others.

I……during the Final Judgment, what you saw……I froze. I really didn't want to discuss that. I saw something too.

Now that was unexpected. What was it?

Yukito sighed. Clow.

You saw……I stopped. There were too many appropriate endings to that sentence for me to choose one.

I saw, he agreed quietly. Maybe he understood some of those endings without my having to tell him. I saw him, and you.

I felt a stab of suspicion. What do you know that I don't? I demanded.

How ironic. If anything, he should have been the one asking that.

Yukito smiled now, the same smile that put Touya on red alert. That depends on what you know, doesn't it?

He showed you everything, didn't he? I said, finally understanding. All of it. My life, and yours.

Yes, Yukito said, echoing me.

I hesitated for a long time before saying what had been troubling me since I had been awakened by Mizuki Kaho's bell. Yukito, about Touya –

Don't worry, he said. I know what you dreamt when the spell had a hold of you.

I stiffened. That wasn't me, I said vehemently.

If you say so. I felt Yukito shrug. It doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter? I was shocked. I thought you –

Love him? Yukito laughed. Yes. Yes, I do.

Silenced. I wondered what to say to that.

Don't worry, I'm not……jealous or anything. And I wouldn't even be angry if he……it's not like he loves me, you know.

You're wrong, I wanted to scream. You're foolish and you're blind, I've seen him around you, felt his aura. But it wasn't the time for that confrontation, and I backed away from it.

Thank you, I breathed instead.

Why? Yukito said, sounding genuinely surprised.

The attraction spell. I was able to get around it because of your love for Touya; and today, when I was caught in the spell, it was you who brought me out of it.

The bell–

The bell was just a catalyst, I interrupted. You did it. You and me.

Yeah, we did it. Yukito laid his head on his arms, pensive. Yue, what's going to happen when Sakura starts to transform the Cards?

Not tonight, I said firmly. You let me worry about that. Now go to sleep, Yukito. We can talk later. I'm tired. I was, I really was, but I needed time to think as well. Time to sort out the mess of contradictory emotions, thoughts and goals that I had suddenly landed myself into with one simple decision. And I was in no mood to begin at that moment.

Trustingly, he nodded. All right. Good night, Yue.

Good night, Yukito, I said formally, and retreated.

Strangely, the connection between us stayed open. Always before, when Yukito stopped concentrating, it had faded; but now I could feel him, faint, like moonlight on closed eyelids – tangible in some way that couldn't be described, light and clear, distant but comforting. It wasn't unpleasant, and I fell asleep feeling more at peace than I had in months.

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Later that night, much later, I was asleep and so was Yukito.

I felt a small, tentative tug at my magic and woke up slightly. I recognised it immediately and shot wide awake, smiling slightly after so long.

The Cards stood before me. All of the moon-ruled were there, all twenty-six of them. They hummed and glowed with magic and life – but it was not the same as before. This was our mistress' power they were filled with. Though I could not sense my own energy, I knew that the same power was sustaining me. I took a moment to breathe it in.

Dream stepped forward first. 'Yue?' she said slowly.

I knew what to say. They more than deserved to hear it, after all. 'I'm sorry. For everything I said, and did. Welcome back. All of you.' My eyes lingered on Windy and Watery as I said this. Watery smirked and nodded, but Windy's eyes filled with tears. I went over to her and brushed them away. 'Don't cry……water isn't really your element.' My eyes were burning a little, too. She sniffed and smiled.

'With time, he will grow a brain,' Watery said snidely. I rolled my eyes and then staggered as Mirror tackled me in a tight hug.

'Was that you in the spell?' I asked her. She didn't meet my eyes as she nodded.

'But if you – how did you find me?'

'Sakura's not the only non-Card person I love,' she said softly.

'Stupid,' Watery added. 'Strange as it may seem, we don't quite want to forget you.'

My eyes were really burning now.

Nothing had turned out the way I had expected, but that didn't matter anymore. I'd found my loophole; Yukito's emotions had prevented the spell Clow had cast from working, and I had a sneaking feeling that my own had been involved as well. After all, the other me, the one in the dream, he had loved Touya, hadn't he? It must be quite easy to do that, and I had a feeling I was closer than I had suspected. I didn't have to worry about caring about my mistress anymore.

As for the dying part of it, well. I would have to see about that. Right now, I looked at the Cards, returned to me after so long, and I could feel it. That hope that our mistress always spoke of. Maybe everything would be all right, even for me.

There was only one thing I had left to do.

I reached within my mind and awakened another sleeping consciousness.

Wake up, Yukito, I said, echoing his own words to me.

What's the matter, Yue? he said, sleep-blurry.

There's someone I want you to meet. A lot of someones, actually. I slipped slightly into the background, allowing him to come forward and see the others waiting for him.

Welcome to the family, Yukito.

He opened his eyes.

The End

A/N: so, final notes.

As to how I got the idea for this story – I happened to read TamChronin's Shades of Discovery and Not Human, and the idea of writing the series from the pov of two important characters who are nonetheless peripheral to the action appealed to me. I also noticed that nobody ever wrote Yue stories set before season 3; in fact, 99 of Yue stories are set post-series or at least after episode 65; or pre-series, if they focus on Clow.

With all the emphasis on strength of will and good intentions triumphing over power and power lust that CCS has, I realised that for Yue to judge Sakura based only on her actions in the FJ (a test of strength) was a little OOC for the series. So if he was awake all that time, the whole year she was capturing the Cards……what was he thinking? So it started. Making the Cards alive, making Kaho and Touya know about Yue and my take on the Yue-kito bond – kind of developed on its own and hit me on the head with a hammer in chapter 2, 5, 7 and 3 respectively, as did the Final Judgment chapter. The real challenge was writing from the point of view of a character that has no effective role to play but still making it worth the effort.

A special thanks to Peacewish's novelisations of the CCS series; they have proved to be the most necessary fact providers. Also to my reviewers. You've been great, all of you.

And on a different note, as of today, I have 1100 hits! Amazing – this makes this my most read story so far! Wooeee!

And because I can't resist: if you noticed, when Yukito heard Touya's voice in his memories, he also heard one sentence that Touya spoke to Yue. Also, in the FJ dream, Yue was acting exactly like Yukito would in that situation, and Yukito was acting like Yue would. Heh. And points to anyone who got the reference in the chapter title - it's not too tough. Sequel? Hmmm. I might take a while to get back on that, although I have had requests.

Aahhh, enough rambling.

Thank you all for reading this (especially this too-long note)

Niru