Chapter Two -- Full Moon
Touya waited for many long minutes after the man had picked the strange boy up and left the room. He hadn't been too surprised that the man left without climbing the stair or opening the door. He could sense the highly magical power still swirling around the room. Never before had he ever felt such power, not even those times when his mother manifested before him.
There was a faint touch of that same power in one of the books. Touya wondered that he'd never sensed it before. Perhaps the power had been dormant until the man had wakened it. Touya pulled the book out, but didn't open it. His magical sense told him that it would be futile for him to try. This book was destined to open only for his little sister. He looked at the picture on the front, that of a winged lion and sensed a presence sleeping within the image, somehow.
As he gazed at the book, he caught a sense, almost like a sideways glimpse into the future, of destiny and events swirling around his younger sister. He bristled, there seemed to be danger in some of the events but... He thought he sensed great happiness for her, in the end.
Touya reflected on all he'd seen this past hour. He'd been asleep when a sense of power touched him, and woke him. He was used to that, as he still saw his mother upon occasion, when she came to make certain that he and Sakura were all right. It was the same sort of sense, that of someone reaching back from beyond life to make certain the living were doing well, but Touya didn't recognize the touch. And, unlike when his mother appeared, the manifestation was not before him, but in his father's room.
Touya had pulled back all his magical sense to make certain he was unnoticeable against the background of mystic energy that seemed to permeate the house, and crept to his door. A crack allowed him to watch as his father soundlessly walked through the hall and down the stairs. Touya had followed his father to the basement library, where his father had pulled down the same book Touya now held.
Touya recognized that his father was not himself, and he wasn't merely sleepwalking. It was as if his father had been possessed by a spirit that had passed on. He knew his mother would never do any such thing to his father, so Touya watched, thinking to interrupt if this possessing spirit did anything that might harm his dad.
He didn't have to worry about hiding his magic against the mystic background any longer as his 'father' somehow summoned a beautiful winged being from the book. As a nearly overwhelming magic flooded the house, Touya noticed the large, feathered white wings; long, flowing white hair; and tragically abandoned sorrow in the crystalline blue eyes of the winged man -- that his 'father' addressed as 'Yue'.
Yue called his father, 'Clow Reed'. The being possessing his father reacted to that name, acting as if it were indeed his name. Clow said something to Yue about sleep and dreams, and then...
Suddenly, his father was gone, and a different man stood in his place. Dark hair, a different sort of eyeglasses that what his father wore, and magic so potent it made Touya reel, were the impressions of the man who had taken his father's place. Touya wondered what purpose this Clow Reed had with his father, but he found he also hoped he wouldn't harm Yue, who drew his attention and solicitude in a way Touya didn't understand.
He could barely comprehend it when Clow embraced Yue and turned him into moonlight. Touya could sense Yue changing under Clow's power, until the moonlight finally solidified and only a slight, very ordinary-seeming boy remained. Touya had only a single glimpse of extraordinary, caring, warm, brown eyes before Clow cast the boy into sleep, and placed him in his dad's chair.
If not for the very human nervous action of toying with his spectacles before making a pair of eyeglasses to slip on the sleeping boy's face, Touya would have confronted Clow Reed right then and there about what he was doing, to his father; and to Yue, confining him within this false persona. But...
He sensed sorrow, and loss, in Clow Reed, both of them tinged with a personal concern. He sensed a firmness of purpose, that Clow would do all he had to no matter the cost to himself to make certain that others wouldn't be harmed -- that only he would suffer. And, what scared Touya into inaction the most, one of those 'others' so uppermost in Clow's mind, seemed to be Touya's sister.
A sort of deviousness crept into the intentions that Touya was inadvertently eavesdropping upon. He wondered that he seemed to be so in tune with the Clow Reed that he was sensing these intentions, and that somehow he had escaped Clow's magical notice. Still, 'know your enemy'...
Yue had some role to play in judging Sakura for something, but until that time, Clow wanted Yue to be near her, to guard her from danger as the other one who was supposed to guard her would be unable? That was the gist of what he was sensing. Touya was all for that, resolving to do all he could to watch out for his sister even more closely than he already did. Ah. Clow was going to place Yue in that abandoned house and give him a plausible history as a cover-story. Hmm? Clow wanted Yue to become Touya's friend so he could stay even closer to Sakura? Well, Yue would only manage that if he passes Touya's scrutiny. He didn't care how powerful this Clow Reed was, or what his plans were, no one was going to get near enough to his little sister to ever hurt her!
All of Touya's truculence disappeared with Clow's next words. Much of his worry did, too. He manfully suppressed his laughter until Clow had picked up the sleeping boy, and, in the correct and proper way of all mysterious magicians, disappeared.
"Moon castle?!" Touya laughed again, remembering the name Clow Reed had decided to give Yue under the altered persona of his elaborate magical disguise. Since 'Yue' meant 'moon' in Chinese, and one of the words for 'moon' in Japanese is 'tsuki', 'Tsukishiro' could mean 'moon castle' in Japanese. A play on words, a pun. He wasn't certain why, but that flash of humor somehow made Touya feel as though this Clow Reed didn't intend, ultimately, to harm his sister.
Touya pushed aside his ponderings about the weird occurrences of the night as he shoved the book back into its place with its fellows on the shelf. He climbed the basement stairs, switched off the light, returned to his bedroom and took a place sitting on the floor in his room. He resolved to wait up until Clow Reed returned his father, left off possessing him, and finally left the house. He'd gotten the sense downstairs, that once Clow had installed 'Yukito Tsukishiro' into his new house, he'd return Fujitaka and leave. Touya doubted his father would even know what had happened. His father seemed to be completely blind to mystical things, never even sensing it when his wife would place an angelic kiss upon his lips. Even Sakura, scared as she was of ghosts, could faintly sense when her mother tried to comfort her. And, of course, Touya could still see her, and speak with her.
Ah. That sense of bottomless power, held in check by a single will. Clow Reed had returned. Touya didn't dare move and break the light meditation he hoped would prevent the powerful magician from sensing he was awake, so he waited until he heard a soft footfall in the hallway behind his door and presently, the ebbing of that incredible power.
While he waited for the last of Clow Reed's power to seep slowly away, he found his attention wandering to his memory of the anguished blue eyes of the winged Yue; and the incredibly warm and gentle brown eyes of Yukito, the persona Clow had forced Yue to assume. He thought he understood why the magician would do this. It seemed as if Yue had loved Clow very much, and not come to easy terms with Clow's passing. Yue wanted only to sleep and forget all about his love for Clow; Clow needed Yue to protect Sakura until the time he, Yue, was destined to judge her worthiness for something, and so Clow had created Yukito, an entirely separate persona to both hide Yue, and, according to Yue's own wishes, keep him asleep.
Touya found he approved of it. Devious, sneaky, and ultimately willful of Clow, but...
"So, Yukito is who Yue becomes whenever he's asleep -- his purpose is to hide Yue, keep him asleep, but also to stay near and protect Sakura," Touya realized softly. Touya pondered that for a moment. "So, Yukito's entire life is Yue's dream," he whispered with a sort of wonder.
Touya was incredibly fond of his little sister; though, in the proper way of big brothers, he wasn't about to let her realize that. He knew her strengths, and did his best to push her into developing them, and knew her weaknesses too, doing his best to help her work around them. His methods were often not to his sister's liking, but...
Despite losing her mother so young, Sakura was a happy and balanced girl. Even though she lived in a house dominated by 'the male influence' of her father and brother, she hadn't become a frightened, withdrawn thing; a helpless, simpering coward; or a calloused, incorrigible tomboy. Touya called her a monster all the time, but he knew she wasn't. She was sunny, she was cheerful, she was a bit dim sometimes, and easily frightened, but...
"Yue is going to have fun, frustrating, but ultimately pleasant dreams, if my sister is to be part of them."
Touya thought that might be the best possible thing. The tragic, frightened, sorrowful expression on Yue's face had touched him. He wondered what expression Yue would wear once Sakura's love, for that was her greatest gift, the ability to love anyone, touched him. A sorrowing heart broken by love, in the weirdest paradox of all, could be healed by love.
Touya realized this fact as he finally unfolded his long limbs from his place sitting on the floor, stretched to ease a kink out of his back, and climbed into bed.
"Why am I thinking so much about the power of love, all of a sudden?" Touya wondered. Maybe it was the eyes. Blue or brown he wasn't certain which ones he liked better. Clow Reed wanted 'Yukito' to get to know him and become his friend, so as to make certain Yue stay close to Sakura. Hmmm. Touya resolved to seek out Yukito when school started so he make sure Yue wouldn't harm his sister.
And, to see if he could figure out which color of eyes he liked better.
Although, he wondered if ultimately that mattered at all.
Next chapter teaser --
From the troubling existence beyond death that Clow finds himself in, he looks again into the future of those destined to be touched by his Cards. Has he done enough, by creating Yukito, to salvage his plan?