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This month's Tsubasa: Chapters 210, 211, and 212
So like, I was just watching the American Dad episode "Oedipal Panties," and it made me realize that I haven't recapped Tsubasa in, oh, three weeks.
RECAP: In chapter 209, Cloney bravely sacrificed himself to save Syaoran by jumping in front of FWR's sword.
Chapter 210: Get Your La Traviata On
FWR, realizing that Cloney has both a) prevented him from shishkabobbing Syaoran and b) cast some sort of mega-Apocalyptic spell at the last minute, finally loses his cool.
Like, really loses his cool.
"YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!!" FWR screams as he pulls the sword out of Cloney's back.
The FWR starts shooting lightning from his hands. Natch.
Syaoran, seeing that FWR is about to go all Palpatine on Cloney, jumps into the fray, shielding Cloney, and countering FWR's lightning with fire magic.
There's a big lightning-versus-fire explosion. It looks like Syaoran is going to get electrocuted... But then Cloney jumps up and shields him again.
Syaoran stares at Cloney in shock. "Why... are you...?"
"Because," Cloney says, as blood drips from his mouth (nice touch there, CLAMP), "I wanted to hear the rest of it. What she said, that time."
Flashback: Sakura's dream-soul dying in Cloney's arms, dissolving into Sakura petals as she whispers her last words into Cloney's ears.
"I couldn't hear it," Cloney goes on. "Her very last word..."
He pitches forward, vomiting blood. Oh yeah, and the sword is still sticking out of him.
Syaoran catches Cloney as he falls, and pulls the sword out of Cloney's body. He gently lays Cloney down on the ground, cradling his body in his arms. Cloney looks up at Syaoran, and some pretty swirly magic pours out of his stolen eye, forming a crystal that hovers in the air above them both.
"The feathers," Cloney gasps. "Return them... To Sakura..."
His eyes roll back. He lifts his arm toward the sky. "Kurogane-san... Fay-san... Mokona..."
He drops his arm. "Sakura... Syaoran..."
He lifts his head one last time, and looks straight up at Syaoran. He touches Syaoran's arm. "I'm... sorry."
Then Cloney dissolves away as he speaks his final words. "Thank you."
Syaoran sobs and clutches at the empty air where Cloney just was.
Chapter 211: Another One Bites the Dust
Fay and Kurogane approach Syaoran, who is still kneeling on the ground, all sad because Cloney just died in his arms.
They stare up at the floating crystal that Cloney has left behind, and hear Cloney's final words repeated: "I'm sorry. Thank you."
Fay reaches out, and takes the crystal in his hand. "Syaoran-kun..."
Kurogane bends over, and picks up Cloney's sword from the ground. At least, I think it's Cloney's sword? Is it Syaoran's sword? I totally forgot which one of them ended up with the firey-looking sword.
Kurogane clutches the sword in his hand. "If you had the strength to apologize," he says, "why couldn't you have stuck around and lived?"
Fay takes the crystal, and clutches it in his hands, touching it to his forehead.
This is a very pretty scene. It looks like he's praying.
Of course, on the next page, it becomes clear that what actually just happened was that Fay just stuck the crystal back into his empty eye socket. So, maybe not so pretty. But hey, now Fay has two eyes again!
"You..." Fay is very, very sad. "You left behind this magic, just for me. To return me to my former self..." He removes his eye patch, revealing his restored eye. "You used and used and continued using this magic, just so that there could be some left for me. But... It would have been so much better, if only you could have come back to us."
So I guess Fay isn't a vampire anymore...?
Anyway! Next page. The three of them are still stuck in the middle of Cloney's magical vortex, remember? Fay looks up at the spell that Cloney cast, and explains, "This magic is connecting that bastard's dimension to this one."
Kurogane hands (Cloney's? Syaoran's?) the sword to Syaoran. Then he glares at the center of the spell's storm, and snarls, "Time to drag him out of his hiding place."
Syaoran draws the sword and looks stoic.
Fay looks downright homicidal. "Indeed," he says, agreeing with Kurogane.
The spell opens. And then right in front of them is FWR's dimension. FWR himself is kneeling in front of his throne, bleeding and badly injured. He looks up, and his eyes widen as he sees Syaoran charging right at him.
Oh crap.
FWR has his sword in his hand, but apparently is too weak to lift it in time. Instead he lashes out with some badass fire magic to defend himself. Syaoran blocks the magic... and then Kurogane comes leaping in behind him.
Kurogane swings down.
FWR is cut cleanly in half.
But as FWR splits in half, his body suddenly breaks apart into thousands of mirror fragments... and suddenly we see Kyle, shocked and bloody as his body is split clean down the middle.
Holy crap you guys, remember KYLE?!
Anyway, Kyle looks pretty damn surprised to have been suddenly cut in half. As he dies, he has a realization. "This was why... you kept me... by your side..."
As Kyle falls over and dies (gorily), FWR is revealed to be standing behind him, looking completely uninjured... and rather smug.
Oh, and he's holding Sakura's corpse in his arms. (The corpse that got stolen from Nihon Country, for those of you who need help keeping track of all of the various dead Sakura in this manga.)
FWR gloats. "Indeed, Kyle. This is the only reason for which I tolerated your presence near me. In the end, you were only good for dying in my stead."
Syaoran sees FWR, standing there, holding Sakura's body, gloating over Kyle's death... and he just loses it.
"Fei-Wan," Syaoran snarls, through gritted teeth. "Fei-Wan." He's screaming now. "Fffffeeeeiiii WAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!"
And the chapter ends.
Chapter 212: Your Loli Momma's Gonna Die
Kyle's corpse dissolves into black goo. FWR looks down at him, with a creepy little smile, and says, "In the end, this is all that artificial beings are good for." He cradles Sakura's head in his hand, tenderly. "But the real thing... Now that's a different story..."
Syaoran goes ballistic.
He charges toward FWR, sword raised. But suddenly Sakura's body floats out of FWR's arms, and begins hovering over them. This, at least, causes Syaoran to immediately halt his charge. He stares up at Sakura's body and cries out dramatically, "SAKURA!!"
FWR grins. "It has begun."
The air around Sakura's body goes all psychedelic. Back in Clow Country, the frozen water suddenly starts to splash around. And the black goo surrounding seven-year-old Sakura's body begins to wriggle.
Then it starts to swallow her again.
"Time is moving again!" Fay exclaims.
Kurogane turns to Syaoran. "Go to the princess. NOW."
Fay yells at Syaoran, too. "All this time, you've been waiting for this one moment! Go, Syaoran! Grab her hand, before it's too late!"
Loli!Sakura's face is now completely swallowed by the writhing black goo, but her outstretched hand remains, reaching for Syaoran.
Kurogane and Fay run toward FWR and corpse!Sakura. "GO!" Kurogane yells at Syaoran again.
Syaoran grits his teeth, and runs away from them, toward loli!Sakura.
As Kurogane and Fay charge FWR, Syaoran leaps back through the dimensional rift, back into the no-longer-frozen Clow Country. He runs across the ruins, leaps toward Sakura's tiny outstretched hand, and...
Oh, SHIT.
He doesn't get there in time.
The black goo swallows up Sakura completely. Again.
FWR laughs maniacally. "The moment that I've been waiting for, has finally arrived!"
Suddenly Mokona is in the ruins, bouncing around with eyes wide open. "Syaoran!! I can feel it - one of Sakura's feathers is here!"
Syaoran is still pretty shellshocked by having failed at his life's mission, but he still manages to yell dramatically, "That's impossible! There can't be any feathers in this time period!"
(Um, hasn't it already been established that Sakura's feathers can travel not only across dimensions, but backwards in time? Like... A whole bunch of story arcs have already demonstrated that fact, notably the Shura and Tokyo arcs... But whatever. Poor Syaoran. Like I said, he's a bit shellshocked. He can be forgiven for completely forgetting about previously established continuity.)
Oh, okay. On the next page, FWR explains exactly that point. "Um, haven't you idiots noticed that Sakura's feathers can affect both the past and the present of each world that you visit?" Okay, imagine that FWR said that somewhat more menacingly. I'm too lazy to accurately translate his olde timey villiany inflection right now.
FWR goes on. "A country of sand. The sound of the names. A protected reservoir of sacred water. And two towers standing like guardian pillars above it all."
We see images of the fountain, the ruins, and the two wing-shaped towers in Clow Country. So this must be what FWR is talking about, right?
Turn the page and HOLY SHIT
IT'S TOKYO
IT'S THE METROPOLITAN BUILDING IN TOKYO
DUDE WTF WHY IS THAT SUDDENLY IN THE MIDDLE OF CLOW COUNTRY?!
And Syaoran is all like, "DUDE WTF WHY IS THAT SUDDENLY IN THE MIDDLE OF CLOW COUNTRY?!"
And then the chapter ends.
RECAP: In chapter 209, Cloney bravely sacrificed himself to save Syaoran by jumping in front of FWR's sword.
Chapter 210: Get Your La Traviata On
FWR, realizing that Cloney has both a) prevented him from shishkabobbing Syaoran and b) cast some sort of mega-Apocalyptic spell at the last minute, finally loses his cool.
Like, really loses his cool.
"YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!!" FWR screams as he pulls the sword out of Cloney's back.
The FWR starts shooting lightning from his hands. Natch.
Syaoran, seeing that FWR is about to go all Palpatine on Cloney, jumps into the fray, shielding Cloney, and countering FWR's lightning with fire magic.
There's a big lightning-versus-fire explosion. It looks like Syaoran is going to get electrocuted... But then Cloney jumps up and shields him again.
Syaoran stares at Cloney in shock. "Why... are you...?"
"Because," Cloney says, as blood drips from his mouth (nice touch there, CLAMP), "I wanted to hear the rest of it. What she said, that time."
Flashback: Sakura's dream-soul dying in Cloney's arms, dissolving into Sakura petals as she whispers her last words into Cloney's ears.
"I couldn't hear it," Cloney goes on. "Her very last word..."
He pitches forward, vomiting blood. Oh yeah, and the sword is still sticking out of him.
Syaoran catches Cloney as he falls, and pulls the sword out of Cloney's body. He gently lays Cloney down on the ground, cradling his body in his arms. Cloney looks up at Syaoran, and some pretty swirly magic pours out of his stolen eye, forming a crystal that hovers in the air above them both.
"The feathers," Cloney gasps. "Return them... To Sakura..."
His eyes roll back. He lifts his arm toward the sky. "Kurogane-san... Fay-san... Mokona..."
He drops his arm. "Sakura... Syaoran..."
He lifts his head one last time, and looks straight up at Syaoran. He touches Syaoran's arm. "I'm... sorry."
Then Cloney dissolves away as he speaks his final words. "Thank you."
Syaoran sobs and clutches at the empty air where Cloney just was.
Chapter 211: Another One Bites the Dust
Fay and Kurogane approach Syaoran, who is still kneeling on the ground, all sad because Cloney just died in his arms.
They stare up at the floating crystal that Cloney has left behind, and hear Cloney's final words repeated: "I'm sorry. Thank you."
Fay reaches out, and takes the crystal in his hand. "Syaoran-kun..."
Kurogane bends over, and picks up Cloney's sword from the ground. At least, I think it's Cloney's sword? Is it Syaoran's sword? I totally forgot which one of them ended up with the firey-looking sword.
Kurogane clutches the sword in his hand. "If you had the strength to apologize," he says, "why couldn't you have stuck around and lived?"
Fay takes the crystal, and clutches it in his hands, touching it to his forehead.
This is a very pretty scene. It looks like he's praying.
Of course, on the next page, it becomes clear that what actually just happened was that Fay just stuck the crystal back into his empty eye socket. So, maybe not so pretty. But hey, now Fay has two eyes again!
"You..." Fay is very, very sad. "You left behind this magic, just for me. To return me to my former self..." He removes his eye patch, revealing his restored eye. "You used and used and continued using this magic, just so that there could be some left for me. But... It would have been so much better, if only you could have come back to us."
So I guess Fay isn't a vampire anymore...?
Anyway! Next page. The three of them are still stuck in the middle of Cloney's magical vortex, remember? Fay looks up at the spell that Cloney cast, and explains, "This magic is connecting that bastard's dimension to this one."
Kurogane hands (Cloney's? Syaoran's?) the sword to Syaoran. Then he glares at the center of the spell's storm, and snarls, "Time to drag him out of his hiding place."
Syaoran draws the sword and looks stoic.
Fay looks downright homicidal. "Indeed," he says, agreeing with Kurogane.
The spell opens. And then right in front of them is FWR's dimension. FWR himself is kneeling in front of his throne, bleeding and badly injured. He looks up, and his eyes widen as he sees Syaoran charging right at him.
Oh crap.
FWR has his sword in his hand, but apparently is too weak to lift it in time. Instead he lashes out with some badass fire magic to defend himself. Syaoran blocks the magic... and then Kurogane comes leaping in behind him.
Kurogane swings down.
FWR is cut cleanly in half.
But as FWR splits in half, his body suddenly breaks apart into thousands of mirror fragments... and suddenly we see Kyle, shocked and bloody as his body is split clean down the middle.
Holy crap you guys, remember KYLE?!
Anyway, Kyle looks pretty damn surprised to have been suddenly cut in half. As he dies, he has a realization. "This was why... you kept me... by your side..."
As Kyle falls over and dies (gorily), FWR is revealed to be standing behind him, looking completely uninjured... and rather smug.
Oh, and he's holding Sakura's corpse in his arms. (The corpse that got stolen from Nihon Country, for those of you who need help keeping track of all of the various dead Sakura in this manga.)
FWR gloats. "Indeed, Kyle. This is the only reason for which I tolerated your presence near me. In the end, you were only good for dying in my stead."
Syaoran sees FWR, standing there, holding Sakura's body, gloating over Kyle's death... and he just loses it.
"Fei-Wan," Syaoran snarls, through gritted teeth. "Fei-Wan." He's screaming now. "Fffffeeeeiiii WAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!"
And the chapter ends.
Chapter 212: Your Loli Momma's Gonna Die
Kyle's corpse dissolves into black goo. FWR looks down at him, with a creepy little smile, and says, "In the end, this is all that artificial beings are good for." He cradles Sakura's head in his hand, tenderly. "But the real thing... Now that's a different story..."
Syaoran goes ballistic.
He charges toward FWR, sword raised. But suddenly Sakura's body floats out of FWR's arms, and begins hovering over them. This, at least, causes Syaoran to immediately halt his charge. He stares up at Sakura's body and cries out dramatically, "SAKURA!!"
FWR grins. "It has begun."
The air around Sakura's body goes all psychedelic. Back in Clow Country, the frozen water suddenly starts to splash around. And the black goo surrounding seven-year-old Sakura's body begins to wriggle.
Then it starts to swallow her again.
"Time is moving again!" Fay exclaims.
Kurogane turns to Syaoran. "Go to the princess. NOW."
Fay yells at Syaoran, too. "All this time, you've been waiting for this one moment! Go, Syaoran! Grab her hand, before it's too late!"
Loli!Sakura's face is now completely swallowed by the writhing black goo, but her outstretched hand remains, reaching for Syaoran.
Kurogane and Fay run toward FWR and corpse!Sakura. "GO!" Kurogane yells at Syaoran again.
Syaoran grits his teeth, and runs away from them, toward loli!Sakura.
As Kurogane and Fay charge FWR, Syaoran leaps back through the dimensional rift, back into the no-longer-frozen Clow Country. He runs across the ruins, leaps toward Sakura's tiny outstretched hand, and...
Oh, SHIT.
He doesn't get there in time.
The black goo swallows up Sakura completely. Again.
FWR laughs maniacally. "The moment that I've been waiting for, has finally arrived!"
Suddenly Mokona is in the ruins, bouncing around with eyes wide open. "Syaoran!! I can feel it - one of Sakura's feathers is here!"
Syaoran is still pretty shellshocked by having failed at his life's mission, but he still manages to yell dramatically, "That's impossible! There can't be any feathers in this time period!"
(Um, hasn't it already been established that Sakura's feathers can travel not only across dimensions, but backwards in time? Like... A whole bunch of story arcs have already demonstrated that fact, notably the Shura and Tokyo arcs... But whatever. Poor Syaoran. Like I said, he's a bit shellshocked. He can be forgiven for completely forgetting about previously established continuity.)
Oh, okay. On the next page, FWR explains exactly that point. "Um, haven't you idiots noticed that Sakura's feathers can affect both the past and the present of each world that you visit?" Okay, imagine that FWR said that somewhat more menacingly. I'm too lazy to accurately translate his olde timey villiany inflection right now.
FWR goes on. "A country of sand. The sound of the names. A protected reservoir of sacred water. And two towers standing like guardian pillars above it all."
We see images of the fountain, the ruins, and the two wing-shaped towers in Clow Country. So this must be what FWR is talking about, right?
Turn the page and HOLY SHIT
IT'S TOKYO
IT'S THE METROPOLITAN BUILDING IN TOKYO
DUDE WTF WHY IS THAT SUDDENLY IN THE MIDDLE OF CLOW COUNTRY?!
And Syaoran is all like, "DUDE WTF WHY IS THAT SUDDENLY IN THE MIDDLE OF CLOW COUNTRY?!"
And then the chapter ends.