The Moon-Ruled

Notes: detailed spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 and hints of spoilers for season 3 as well. TYY, implied CY. Lines that are quoted are either from my memory or from a translation of the Japanese that I got off the net. I believe that both are accurate, but criticism on this count will be well-received. Please note that I do NOT know Japanese, and be kind.

The following pages have been transcribed and edited from conversations with Yue, the Moon Guardian of the Clow Cards and the Judgment Maker.

No rights have been infringed in the publishing of this work and it has been undertaken with the full permission of all individuals involved.

(A/N: snicker snicker)

Chapter one: Wake up, Yue……

Ruling Card: Time

Wake up, Yue.

That voice. Clow's voice. I didn't know how it could be. He had sealed me away in the book along with Kerberos and the Cards.

Wake up, Yue.

He was dead. Surely he was dead by now. So how could I hear his voice?

It's time.

My eyes opened.

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The first thing I saw was a ceiling. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a ceiling, because my eyesight was strangely blurry. My last memory before the void was of crying, of being sealed as Clow smiled that smile of his, but sadder, and told me someday, you will understand why I must do this.

But it wasn't tears that blurred my vision, and it wasn't sleep-fatigue that was piercing my forehead. I put my hand up to my brow, and found……..glasses?

I slipped them on, hesitating. Apparently, they were what I needed, because the ceiling suddenly came into sharp focus.

But that was ridiculous. I had always had perfect eyesight. And even if I hadn't, I could have fixed it, or Clow would ha–

Clow.

I forced the tears back. I was not going to cry.

There was a mirror on the wall. I sat up – I was on a bed – and looked in it from across the room. The face I saw was not my own.

I scrambled off the bed and ran to the mirror, my hands running feverishly over my face. It felt like my face always did, and the actual features were still the same – cheeks, jaw, nose, the shape of the face, but I looked different.

My hair was gone, a familiar weight lost. My long white tresses had been replaced by silvery-gray hair that barely brushed my neck. My eyes had turned warm amber, and the cat-slit pupils I was used to seeing were missing. Human eyes. I looked completely human. My wings were gone, and I could not summon them back. For the first time I could remember, their comforting presence did not enclose me.

I screamed then, loudly and for longer than I had imagined I could without passing out from loss of air. This had to be some weird nightmare, some prank Clow was playing on me, or maybe Dream was in a bad mood again.

But there was no waking up, not from this.

Yue.

It was his voice again. I debated whether to listen and decided to.

This is your false form. The one you used sometimes when you wanted to leave the manor. We designed him together, remember? And I did. I had almost forgotten that. The shock of being unsealed, I supposed, although I wondered if perhaps…he had wanted me to forget?

Sleep again, Yue. Sleep and remember.

I struggled madly against my suddenly drooping eyelids, though I welcomed not seeing that alien amber in the mirror. I would not be sealed again. Even if it meant my death, I was not going back into that thrice-damned book.

You're not going to be sealed again, Yue. A hint of impatience. I want to tell you some things, and it's harder when you're awake.

I stifled a teary grimace at that. How hard must it be to speak when you're dead? And this time, when the sleep came over me, I did not resist.

A torrent of information flooded into me. The first was a name. Tsukishiro Yukito. Snow bunny. Well, dying hadn't affected Clow's sense of humour much. Tomoeda. High school, and what was that for? A Moon Guardian didn't need to go to high school. Friends. Many acquaintances, one close friend. Kinomoto Touya. Yukito had known him for two years. Grandparents – they didn't really exist, but Clow had implanted memories in Yukito's mind, and the minds of any visitors. He hadn't tried to do that to this Kinomoto, though. I wondered why. Interests: history club, drama club, soccer, archery. So, at least I'd get to use my skills somewhere. Kinomoto Sakura. An image of a small girl, very pretty, with large green eyes and short brown hair. Kinomoto Fujitaka, archaeologist. He seemed strangely familiar. How to create new memories. Landmarks, routines, survival skills for the time and place, etiquette, everything that Tsukishiro Yukito knew filtered quickly through my mind. I simply absorbed the data. It could be analysed later.

Clow being Clow, he waited until the end to drop the bomb in my lap – Kinomoto Sakura would open the Book of Clow a few days from now, and the Cards would escape. I snorted at that. Putting an idiot like Kero in charge of the Book's seal was bound to have consequences. So that was why I had been awakened. She would be appointed Cardcaptor, and I was to observe and conduct the Final Judgment.

Well, well. An eleven-year-old girl trying to capture and seal fifty-two powerful magical creations. This wasn't going to take very long, was it?

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The next time I opened my eyes, my body was cycling down a street – one I recognised from the images I had been shown as being the way to school. I wasn't controlling it. It was an eerie feeling to feel and watch myself move and not be in control at all. Regaining some control, I pushed myself back, into a shell of magic, until I no longer felt what Yukito was doing. Instead, I was just an observer in the back of his mind.

My false form lifted his arm and waved cheerily at a tall dark figure dressed in an identical uniform. The other boy was waiting, one leg already slung over the bar of his bicycle, the other on the ground. I recognised him from Yukito's memories as his friend, Kinomoto something………

He turned and waved back, though there was no possible way he could know Yukito was behind him. When I saw his eyes, I understood why Clow had not attempted to feed memories into this boy. He radiated a powerful aura of magic. The way it turned inwards on itself made me suspect that his talent lay in clairvoyance or foretelling rather than traditional magic. His aura was as physical as it was psychic, lending him a natural magnetism. He knew it, too. There was an innate confidence and grace in the way he stood, the poise of an athlete. His dark hair fell untidily into midnight eyes that were unsettling and wise and deep and too many other things to grasp or describe easily. Yet another mark of those with the Sight.

Those piercing dark eyes were fixed on m-Yukito now, and his brow creased briefly as he looked right through the mask of his friend. Could he see me?

'Yuki?' he said, looking slightly puzzled. And suspicious.

'What's the matter, To-ya?' a light voice said cheerfully. It took me a moment to realise that it was Yukito's. It didn't sound much like me. 'You look like you've seen a ghost!'

Or a Moon Guardian? I huddled away from that gaze, willing him not to see me. He looked into Yukito's eyes for another second before he relaxed ever so slightly and shook his head, his expression clearing.

'Did you see something?' Yukito asked. There was a certain emphasis on the word 'see' that implied that my false form knew about this Touya's magic. But he had no sensitivity of his own. How could he……… 'Am I being haunted or something?'

'Oh, no, nothing like that,' the other boy replied, a brief grin flickering across his mouth, though he cast my false form another sharp look. 'I knew telling you about all this would have this effect.'

Oh, so that was why. Wait, he was a medium too? That took powerful magic.

'So what are you waiting for?' he called over his shoulder, and Yukito started before he rode after him, catching up quickly.

'Touuyaaa!' a younger voice said pleadingly, and though Touya didn't reply, he slowed fractionally. My false form glanced down, and I saw that Kinomoto Sakura had joined us.

She was a little thing, what most would call cute, all big green eyes and chirpiness. She was on roller blades (Yukito's words) and the sheeplike adoring glance she cast towards my false form was enough to make me groan.

Great. One sibling's a seer, the other's got a crush on me. I tried to find out what Yukito thought of her, but only met a blank wall. Apparently, I was only privy to his memories, not his feelings. That was certainly strange, but I didn't ponder on it too long.

I spent the day simply watching through Yukito's eyes, trying to understand this time I had woken to. I paid attention to his classes. Yukito was intelligent, judging by the grades his homework had been given, but his attention wandered, and he flipped through his books idly. I took the opportunity to control him subtly and scanned through the material, gathering essential information. I could feel Touya's eyes on me, burning a hole in my false form's back. It wasn't very comfortable.

After school, Yukito went to a drama club. Apparently his class was scheduled to perform a play that term. Touya was there as well, though he seemed to have dismissed his suspicions. After that, they went to Touya's house, and I watched with dignified disdain as my false form polished off a pile of food half the size of Reed Manor with no apparent effort before saying goodnight and returning to his own house.

The next few days followed an identical pattern. School, one club or another, then to the Kinomotos' house. Yukito practically lived there, from what I could tell. Short of bathing and sleeping, he seemed to regard their house as his, and the easy way he moved around their kitchen, cooking and washing with Touya, told me this was not a recent development. Sakura would hang around, sighing with pleasure every time my false form paid any attention to her. It was dreadfully embarrassing; I had no idea how Yukito put up with it.

The relationship between Yukito and Touya puzzled me, and after a week I was no closer to understanding them. Touya was a loner, the top of his class and highly involved in social activities – but he rarely talked to anyone, and his fellow students seemed to sense that he wanted to be left alone. Yukito was far more approachable, in fact, he was very popular, but he managed to say nothing very cleverly and leave them all feeling as if they were special to him. The only one he ever really talked to was Touya, and the other boy knew it.

The only exception Yukito made was Sakura. He cared for her deeply, that was obvious. I could see why. The little girl was a real charmer. He usually tossed her a candy or two every morning, and when I was close enough to the surface I could feel the smile that he always gave her.

Once, when Touya opened the library door to pick up a book, I caught the magical signature of the Book. A surge of emotion went through me, and it was too strong to repress entirely. Some of it must have translated to my false form, because Sakura asked him blushingly if something was wrong.

He shook his head and made some quiet remark that I didn't catch.

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Two days after that, Yukito was at archery practice. He was quite skilled at archery, and I couldn't help but wonder if he drew it from me subconsciously. Touya was sitting on a bench nearby, writing some homework.

I felt it clearly when Sakura opened the Book. The sudden feel of expanding exploding magic jolted me, and by extension, Yukito. The arrow he was prepared to release went wild, nearly stabbing the teacher. He shouted something angrily and I could hear my false form responding, apologising, but I didn't care. Every thread of magic in me was straining towards that glowing beacon of magic that had erupted a few streets away. Touya was standing, eyes closed. He had dropped the book, and I could feel him doing the same thing I was as he zeroed in on Sakura's location.

The irony did not escape me. I was tracking the Cards, he was tracking his sister, and though the two were directly related, he didn't know that all the answers he was looking for were within the mask of his best friend.

The magic was dissipating already as the Cards shot off to parts unknown. I knew they wouldn't go too far. They were, after all, bound to the key. Apparently Sakura's distress was abating as well, because Touya relaxed and sat down again, dusting his book off. Yukito must have noticed his hands were shaking slightly, because he finished soon after. Touya didn't complain when my false form made some excuse about going home early; he just nodded and rode off home, setting a punishing pace that was quite unlike him. Yukito watched him for a second before he turned away as well.

My eyes were fixed in that direction – towards the house, towards the Book – for much longer than that.

When Yukito reached his house, he went to the kitchen, made himself some snacks – read that to mean a gigantic quantity of food – and worked for a while before he fell asleep. I waited patiently for night to fall before sending out my silent call to those I knew were waiting.

They arrived soon after, a psychic presence that I knew as well as my own. My eyes opened when I felt them, and I knew without looking in the mirror that they were icy blue and slit. I also knew who was standing before me.

'Windy. Mirror.'

'Yue.'