Cards of Yesterday

Checkmate

Syaoran tugged onto Sakura as if he were clinging onto his dear life. It was now obvious that Ayumi wouldn't hesitate to attack Sakura, and Eriol's wounds were proof that they wouldn't be anything less than fatal.

Kero stood before them with his brazen fur spiking, but he only had a few moments before he would turn into his stuffed toy self, as Sakura's powers were starting to wax. Yue had already fallen to his knees beside them, as he couldn't keep up with the sudden drain of energy.

Sakura was down to her last card,  The Hope. It was the only card she hadn't used all this time, and the origins of the card were truly mysterious as well. Sometimes she felt, it was only because of this card that she wanted to keep going and not give up, as if it gave her heart the courage it couldn't muster.

A soft light came shooting to her palm and she realised it was The Mirror. Her final two cards, the last of the 52 were clenched between her dusty fingers.

"Now you know... That the world is so unfair..." Ayumi looked away from the two.

Sakura struggled to stand up on her knees and pushed her metal staff to the ground and whispered something into Yue's ear.

"Now that I've fulfilled my wish... I will spare your lives and... Take my leave." She spoke as she tied her unruly hair and didn't turn back to see what damage she had done.

"I wont allow that." Sakura's voice wavered.

Ayumi turned around.

"What did you say?"

"I won't let you get your wish."  Sakura's hands trembled.

Ayumi's mind snapped and she dashed towards her again,  a cloud of dust trailing behind her. Her hands grabbed Sakura's neck and poison spiralled out of her fingers.

"Then I'll have to end you here myself." Ayumi roared.

What made her loosen her grip, was a sudden sharp pain in her stomach. She looked down to see a glowing arrow plunged into her. Her vision blurred and she looked up to see a familiar face behind her.

"What?"

Yue stood with his illuminated bow pointed towards her.

Ayumi coughed and tightened her grip on Sakura's neck. Suddenly Sakura's form broke into a thousand fragments that floated to form the image of a spirit with long flowing hair and kind eyes.

"You think you're the only one who can play with illusions?" Syaoran smirked.

The spirit turned back into a card and floated back to Yue, behind whose flustered wings Sakura hid.

"The Mirror..." Ayumi sighed.

Ayumi didn't bleed, after all she wasn't a part of the living world, she just dropped to the ground with the arrow still stuck in her. Her sarcastic tone and chiding words went mute and she realized the true consequence of unhinged power, madness.

One by one, small lights rose from the ground and collected to form the cards, the tall figures of Yue and Kero turned less transparent.

Ayumi looked towards Sakura and then at Yue, as her eyes teared. She had already withered, slowly turning into dust.

"Yue! Hold her!" Syaoran panicked as Sakura fell forward without warning.

They didn't know whether it was Ayumi's powers or the horrid sight of her friend's death, but Sakura collapsed without saying a word.

-

Sakura's consciousness dissolved with exhaustion and she fell deeper and deeper into Ayumi's memories.

Ayumi as a child was shy and intimidated by the world around her. She struggled with the responsibilities of being an elder sibling to Kaguya and wasn't quick with making new friends. But the next spring brought Nadeshiko to her, and as seasons changed, they spent more and more time together, till Ayumi discovered the Clow Book and both girls were signed into a contract with the guardians.

Ayumi's inability to keep up worried her, and in the beginning every card went to Nadeshiko who with her light heart captured every spirit, until the Guardian of the Moon decided to step into the matter himself, giving Ayumi a hand in her futile quests.

"You have the sign of the moon. Instead of trying to do something that's too difficult, you should focus on harvesting your own kind of energy." Yue spoke gracefully as he caressed the teary cheeks of the defeated young girl.

In flurries of blurred images, Sakura saw the blooming friendship between Yue and Ayumi. She saw the full moon nights Ayumi and him would walk under in the empty gardens, the evenings they trained to improve her skills and the mornings they walked past the cherry blossoms in full bloom.

The times Ayumi met Yukito, there was an indefinable sparkle in her eyes, which probably Ayumi herself never noticed. Sakura was empathetic enough to pick up on signs of fondness and selfish enough to use them as a pawn for her battle.

From Ayumi's memories she could understand how important the aim of obtaining the cards were to her. She refused all friendships and dedicated all her time to perfecting the skills taught by Yue.

Nadeshiko on the other hand tread lightly, reveling in school romances and holding her friends dearly. Ayumi despised her friend for being so gifted with everything.

With her failure at the Final Judgment, Ayumi's world came crashing down. Sakura's mother was declared the new master of the clown, however, Yue refused to leave Ayumi's side.

"I do not believe in the new master." Yue affirmed as he stood beside her.

"If you cannot weild the cards, it doesnt matter. I will make you more powerful than the mistress of the cards herself." He affirmed a sobbing Ayumi.

The cold Yue had started to grow fond of the little girl; braiding her unruly long hair, helping her gather books she would like to read and patting her head in appreciation.

However, this was not meant to last as with Nadeshiko's declining health due to her first born child, she abandoned the book altogether.

With the contract broken, the two guardians were called back to guard the seal. Sakura saw the disappearing image of a panic stricken Yue as he embraced Ayumi.

The night was stormy, Kaguya was asleep and Ayumi howled with the rain. She tugged onto Yue's disappearing image and chanted as many spells possible but nothing helped reverse the breaking guardian.

With her face soaked with tears, Ayumi clenched her fist as she cried kneeling on the cold ground. And it was this very weakness of her's that Sakura chose to pierce her chest with.

"The queen is the most powerful piece in the match..." Eriol had told her before the full moon night.

"But every queen has a blind spot somewhere... Winning in a fight is to find that weakness and to use it when she least expects it."

And that was exactly what she did.

The fading figure of Ayumi stood before Sakura in black. Her eyes were closed and her lips showed no emotion. Sakura looked down to see her arms and saw dark poison spiraling.

"You can't run from it." Ayumi's voice resonated.

"I tried that already." her eyes never opened.

Bit by bit she dissolved into the dark, but before she completely disappeared, a feather escaped her fingers.

A glowing feather with strange markings and extraordinary powers. Was it this magical artifact that made Ayumi so powerful and unbeatable?

-

*Author's Note*

This took me forever to complete ╥﹏╥
Also, if you watched Tsubasa Chronicles I bet you understood whose feather I mentioned at the end of the chapter. ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°

Next Chapter is the final chapter, then I'll be moving onto some other fandoms until I return back to CCS.