Chapter One-Hundred Fifty

In a shop cut off from time, Yuuko stood alone in front of a magic capsule. The time has come, she thought, her heart giving a painful squeeze as she shuffled over to the device. Through the window, the orange glow of the setting sun spilled into the room, casting long shadows on the wall.

She expected to die before nightfall.

It is time enough for what must be done. She took the capsule in her hands. It appeared to be a simple glass tube, capped with a pair of convex rings, bisected in the center by a thin pane of glass. It looked like any number of the thousands of things that had passed through her shop in all the time she'd been here. Some would have said that it looked unthreatening, even unimportant.

They would have been wrong.

Many people, in many places, have waited for this time, she thought. She'd kept it hidden here for years, protecting the two souls contained inside until the moment they could be released to fulfill their purpose. "You have waited for so long, unable to touch one another, unable to affect the world outside," she said to the capsule. "And in doing so, you have paid a price to me—the price called 'waiting.' You waited for this moment so you could help the ones you love the most." Yuuko closed her eyes, magic surging through her body. In another world, in another time, Fei-Wang Reed twisted the fabric of the universe, resetting the laws Yuuko herself had been bound to. She had not aged, had not progressed in any way except in the gathering of material possessions and knowledge, until today. Now my time is moving forward again.

Pain—physical as well as mental—surged through her heart. Time was moving forward, and she had precious little left. But she had enough time to knit together a magic circle, to transfer the souls within the container into the dream world even as it, like so many physical worlds, began to fray and break apart. She had enough time to change things. "There is still a threshold between life and death," she whispered to the capsule, a magic circle spreading around her feet. "It is time for you to use your power."

With those words, she threw the capsule to the floor, shattering the glass container and freeing the souls within. Those souls bound themselves to her magic, circling through the channels of energy. Yuuko held the circle in place even as her magic began to wane, even as the rules of the universe faltered. It is time, she thought.

It is time.

Fei-Wang Reed's magic tore through the air like a dark wind, wrapping around Sakura's body and yanking her from Syaoran's grip. "Sakura!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. Frantically, he jumped, trying to catch hold of her hand again, but already, Fei-Wang's magic had pulled her out of his grasp. I've failed, Syaoran thought. Something inside him broke. I couldn't save her. I couldn't protect her. I failed.

"Kid!"

He flinched, then turned his face to Kurogane, wishing he could somehow convey the depth of what had just happened, wishing that he could somehow make the ninja understand that he had just lost something essential, something defining, and that he was no longer worth anything. He had failed in every aspect, from his wish to turn back time to his inability to conquer Fei-Wang's magic to his failure to hold onto Sakura when it really mattered. There is nothing left for me, he wanted to say. There is nothing left that I can offer.

Magic tingled across the back of his neck. His body jerked, and he raised his hands in instinctive defense. But the magic merely brushed against his skin and moved on, like a lost bubble of energy slipping through the cracks between the worlds.

Then he saw the light. Not a metaphorical light, but a literal web of light, etching itself into the air around Sakura and casting off Fei-Wang's dark magic as if it had never touched this world at all. Syaoran blinked.

"That's Yuuko's magic circle!" Mokona cried from somewhere.

What?

"It can't be!" Fei-Wang said, his voice magnified by magic.

Two glowing balls of light appeared in the center of the circle, revolving around each other before expanding to form a pair of tall, thin forms with arms and legs and . . . Syaoran stared, certain that the light had made his vision go strange. Surely his eyes were lying to him. Of all the possible things that could have happened, he hadn't expected this.

"Mother? Father?" His voice trembled. It couldn't be. He hadn't seen his parents since the first time he'd left for Clow, since before he'd met Sakura. He hadn't expected to see them again, certainly not here. I'm dead, he thought. I'm dead and this is the afterlife. It was the only semi-rational explanation he could come up with in his stupor, even as his mother smiled at him.

"Everything will be all right," she said, her full lips spreading into a soft smile. Syaoran drew in a sharp breath. He'd forgotten how much his mother looked like Sakura. It had been one of the things that had initially drawn him to the princess of Clow. He'd been young then, and the differences between the younger Sakura and his own mother had been more obvious because of the wider age gap. But now there was no denying it. His mother and the princess shared an existence, like all the copies of people he'd seen across the different dimensions.

And his father, with his tan skin and dark eyes, looked precisely how Syaoran would've expected himself to look in another decade or two, assuming he lived that long. He wanted to attribute that similarity to the fact that they were related, but . . . But the resemblance was too precise, too perfect, for them to be anything but alternate versions of each other. If he was being honest with himself, it was a little disconcerting. How could something like that even be possible?

"We're here," his father said. In a voice strikingly similar to Syaoran's. This . . . may just be the strangest thing that's ever happened to me, he thought, unsettled.

"I don't . . . Why are you . . . How can . . ." How do I approach this situation?

"We're here to ensure that we can choose our future," his father said, his voice firm. Syaoran found himself standing a little taller. His father reached out, pulling him close and sheltering him as the web of magic they'd come from began to expand, to grow new extensions in the form of complex circles. The air spun around them, whipping through Syaoran's clothes until his father's support became necessary for him to avoid getting swept away by the whirlpool of energy. Yet even the wind where he stood seemed calm compared to the churning gales raging around the rest of the reservoir. It's like standing in the eye of a hurricane, he thought, then froze as the implications of that sunk in. If he was in the eye of the hurricane, then Kurogane and Fai would be at the edge, where the storm was most vicious.

Syaoran twisted, craning his neck as he searched for his companions amidst the roiling magic. Since he was looking for subtler signs of their presence—outstretched hands or muffled shouts—he nearly missed the rather obvious bubble of magic floating amidst the maelstrom. Inside, Fai maintained a complex string of runes, and Kurogane glanced around, Ginryuu in hand, unharmed. Syaoran let out a breath, then gasped when something soft collided with his chest. "Mokona!"

"What's going on?" the creature asked, looking from Syaoran to his father, then to his mother and Sakura.

"That's a question for later," Syaoran said.

"But—"

Fei-Wang's voice cut through Mokona's objection. "You meddling children! Where did you even come from?"

Great, a distant part of his mind muttered. Now nobody knows what's going on.

Syaoran's mother turned, cradling Sakura's body in her arms as she faced Fei-Wang. "You will not destroy these worlds!"

Syaoran's head snapped up. In the chaos, he'd nearly forgotten that he and his companions weren't the only ones in jeopardy. But there were dozens of other worlds, visible through cracks in space in time, being broken apart even as this battle raged on. Nihon, Infinity, Tokyo, Recourt, Piffle, Shara, Jade . . . All the worlds they'd visited had begun ripping themselves apart; he could only imagine the horrors the people living in those worlds were facing now. She's right, he thought, looking at his mother. No matter what happens here, we cannot allow those worlds to disappear.

His father rested his hands on each of his shoulders, meeting his eyes. "Think of all the places you've seen, all the places you've been. Think of everything you felt and experienced in those other worlds. Your memory of those worlds will restore them to what they're supposed to be."

My memory? A part of his brain scoffed at the notion, but the rest paused, circling around the idea. Memories mattered. His clone's quest had begun when his Sakura had lost her memories. His price for being able to move freely between the worlds had been Sakura's memories of him. Syaoran had always found it odd that the princess's feathers had contained both her memories and fragments of her soul—the latter seemed more important, with the former tacked on for no other reason than to serve as a reminder that there were always more feathers to collect, more memories and power to return. But what if souls and memories were not separate fragments, but a unified whole, unable to be separated into multiple elements without being destroyed? That would mean that memories were the single most powerful resource in the universe.

Which made the idea that the worlds could be restored with the power of his memories much more feasible.

"I remember," he whispered, calling to mind details from every world, even the ones he'd only seen through the Other's eyes. The skyscrapers of the Hanshin Republic, the subtle beauty of the night sky in Koryo, the luminous yellow fish that granted light to a tiny city in the country of fog . . . and so many other places, each with a unique plethora of sights of smells, cultures and conflicts, people and places. When he envisioned the decaying castle of Jade, he saw one of the fractured worlds piecing itself together. When he thought about the bizarre wildlife and wild parties of Shara, other pieces began to converge. One by one, the worlds stitched themselves into larger pieces, forming vast, varied tapestries as they became whole. Syaoran marveled at it all, heart swelling with an emotion he'd very nearly forgotten since arriving in Clow: hope.

"Records can be destroyed," his father told him. Syaoran cocked his head to the side at the familiar phrase, trying to place it, but before he could, his father continued. "Paper documents can be burned or shredded. Reality can be thrown off balance, or even rewritten. But there is one thing that cannot be destroyed."

"Memories," Syaoran whispered, recognition surging through him. "Fujitaka always said that to the Other. To . . . you." He turned, blinking rapidly. "You're . . . You're him. How? You . . . You died." His eyes flickered to the splotch of blood on the steps where the Other had died betraying Fei-Wang.

"I am a man-made creation. As such, I do not die. I simply vanish. It's . . . somewhat complicated."

"Complicated," someone scoffed. Syaoran whirled around, startled to see Kurogane and Fai hovering a few feet away, suspended by Fai's protective spell. The magician landed lightly, letting the spell lapse, and Kurogane went on. "None of this makes any sense at all!"

"Oh, I'm sure it makes sense," Fai said. "It just doesn't make any sense to us."

Kurogane's eyes flickered to the mage, then to Syaoran's parents, then to his face. "Are they . . ."

"They're . . . Yes, they are. My parents. And also the Syaoran and Sakura you began this journey with."

The ninja took a few seconds to absorb that, then looked at each of them in turn. "Well you two can both expect a beating like you've never seen. What the hell is wrong with you two, vanishing like that, without a single explanation? We all thought you were dead!"

Syaoran glanced back to see his parents looking simultaneously guilty and relieved. After a moment, matching smiles broke out across their faces. "It would seem that some things are precisely as they should be," his mother said, nodding toward the ninja.

"And would someone explain how it's possible for you to be the kid's clone and his father?" Kurogane grumbled.

Before either of them could answer, the walls began to shake. Syaoran spun, reflexively latching on to Kurogane's arm to steady himself. Beyond the multitude of magic circles that had appeared in the air at the moment of his parents' arrival, Fei-Wang's magic rushed forward, smashing a web of spell-work that Syaoran might have spent hours studying if he'd had the time. He braced himself, summoning his sword to his hand in preparation to block. At his side, Kurogane did the same, his eyes focusing on Syaoran's face. "Just so we're clear, you don't get to disappear, either."

"I don't intend to."

The shadowy magic churned, rearing back, then surging forth. The last of the magic circles fractured, dissolving into particles of light as Fei-Wang's sorcery broke through.