#akiho

CLAMP never ceases to draw stunning color pages each month, and this one is no exception! I’m not surprised to see Akiho here, but I gotta say, she looks quite nice in green! I love the lily flowers in her design and it seems to be a really nice connection made to her mother, Lillie. Other than that, it seems to be a rather basic portrait of Akiho in elegant clothes.

The chapter starts with the group at Yukito’s house. The video feed from the cameras Tomoyo left them with has unsurprisingly cut out with Sakura and Syaoran entering the space where Kaito is trapped. Tomoyo asks if they just lost reception in there (I honestly find this question pretty funny), but Eriol chimes in and states that this is not the case. He lets everyone know that before the feed cut out, he did manage to see the inside of the space for a brief moment, and based on the sight of those broken clocks, he suspects this place isn’t just one with halted time, but broken time. Now, you might be wondering what this means exactly. My theory is that it means time doesn’t function normally in this space. I imagine events in time are probably twisted together or nonexistent. After all, Kaito essentially had to break time to change it, so this doesn’t really surprise me. It seems to be, from what I can tell, at least isolated to this space, but it’s unclear what kind of damage it could do if it weren’t.

Syaoran looks around at the space and tells Sakura that there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the watch itself and that it only looks to be broken in appearance due to the pressure placed upon it. Sakura clutches at her head and seems to wince in pain. Syaoran asks her if she is all right, and she seems to have discomfort in head. He explains to her that the spell around them is strong enough to make an influence on her physically, and when asked, he admits that even he is feeling it (Syaoran I imagine has a much higher pain tolerance and hides it well). However, it seems that without the watch to guide them, they most certainly would have gotten lost. Sakura smiles and claims that this is as if Akiho herself is guiding them.

Sakura takes the watch back now that it has seemingly served its purpose and looks the trapped dragon Kaito. She says to him that she doesn’t know how to address him since she does not know his name, but that she feels the watch in her hand has a connection to him. She tries to ask him if the watch feels connected to him purely because of having the same magic power or if he is the owner of the watch. Dragon Kaito obviously doesn’t respond, but Sakura takes the moment to ask Syaoran, who has impeccable magical senses particularly for moon magic, if the magic that made the false moon is the same magic coming from the watch. Syaoran focuses in on this and advises her that they are not of the same magic and that something is different. I’m honestly really happy to see Sakura utilizing Syaoran’s skills and knowledge here. She herself is very intuitive and able to figure out things naturally, but that can’t entirely replace the level of training and experience Syaoran has, so I’m glad CLAMP has really made use of that here. Sakura deduces that the cage itself around dragon Kaito also feels different from the magic in the watch, so she comes to the correct conclusion that he is not here willingly and is locked up in here by someone else (-cough- Squid Clan -cough-).

Looking into dragon Kaito’s eyes, Sakura senses a familiarity that she recognizes it not simply because she saw him in a dream. Moreover, she recognizes that these eyes once watched over Akiho. Sakura reaches her hand out and tells him that he can’t stay here and to come with her, but before she can proceed further, the warped clocks around them appear to react, and Syaoran is quick to move and protect her with his thunder attack.

Meanwhile, in the Tsukishiro home, everyone is waiting patiently for some sort of update. Akiho seems to be the most focused and determined of the bunch, making sure she’s ready to go in case Sakura calls for them. Everyone smiles and Yukito says that he is happy they have each other.

Back in the fake moon space, Syaoran is fending off the attacks and tells Sakura that he doesn’t think his spells will be able to break the cage around the dragon, but he will protect her while she figures out how to break through. Sakura remembers Momo’s message to her through the RECORD card that there are other cards left behind and waiting for her to call their names. As she looks down at Kaito’s watch, she thinks about her mother’s watch and remembers seeing a card that looked just like it, though she doesn’t remember making it. She calls out for TIME and smiles seeing it, as this was a card she feels she and her mother, Nadeshiko, made together (that’s a sweet way to look at it!).

Sakura calls for the card to break the ‘cage frozen in time’, and this seems to do the trick in breaking it. It makes sense that this cage was built from time considering where they are and the very type of spell that triggered this trap in the first place. So it seems logical that time would be the thing to break it. I think even Kaito himself once said that spells could be broken more easily when you used time magic.

The cage breaks and Kaito spreads his wings in freedom! Sakura and Syaoran quickly look for an exit and starts towards it, but when they look back, they notice that dragon Kaito isn’t following them.

However, before they get much opportunity to think about why, there seems to be an attack coming from above. And OH BOY does this attack look familiar. It actually looks to be exactly the same as chapter 33 when Kaito fended off that attack from the Clan and Association! It would make complete sense to me that this was an attack from them considering how dangerous Kaito is to them. Certainly they don’t want him escaping his punishment.

I think things are really going to ramp up action wise in the next chapter, and I do think as well that Akiho’s part is very near. I have a feeling Kaito wasn’t just staying where he was to avoid attacks from the Association and Clan but also because he doesn’t feel he deserves to. And who of all people but Akiho could convince him of his worth and to come out? I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes and what sort of repercussions will arise from dragon Kaito entering Tomoeda!