Forever Yuuko

[2]

OH YEAH OK we were definitely meant to be getting the impression that she's talking to Clow, because she is! Time to completely break my heart all over again the next time I reread all of Tsubasa :')

You know. For a change.

OH MY GOD IS THAT IT? IS THAT THE FINAL YUUKO PANEL IN TSUBASA?

RIP ME OPEN WHY DON'T YOU. IT ENDS ON A SINGLE SAKURA PETAL FALLING DOWN TO REST AND CAUSING A RIPPLE WHERE IT LANDS. JUST LIKE THE OPENING OF CARDCAPTOR SAKURA.

And it all wraps together because her final wish was to have Sakura reborn, and her final thought is that she hopes they receive many blessings in their new life, and the final image of Yuuko is the beginning of another Sakura's story. It's all so perfect and beautiful and I don't know how you top this.

And OF COURSE Yuuko smiles gently as she goes, and OF COURSE her last thought is happiness for someone else. And there's another layer in that for so much of her existence she was trapped unable to directly help the people she wanted to, because the cost would be too high. But here, in her final moment, she GETS to do something big and wonderful and meaningful for someone she cares about, and she GETS to wish for someone's happiness and not hold herself back at all.

[6]

The bargaining continues as Watanuki desperately tries to find some way to save her. 

And there is so little of Yuuko left that she still kind of looks like a butterfly (and do you think she’ll turn into one, at the end?)

It’s so brutal to hear that from Yuuko.

I’m not sure he’s ever heard that from her, that she doesn’t have the power to fulfil a wish like that. And from the Tsubasa side we already know she doesn’t have the power for that, because no-one does, but for the Watanuki desperately trying to find any way to save her this is still devastating news.

Oh I’d forgotten about that.