#not!sakura

[22]

OH DID I ACCIDENTALLY CALL IT? YES PLEASE YES PLEASE!

It’s VERY Sakura/Syaoran coded to wait until the last possible second to deliver an important piece of information they presumably had days/weeks/months to discuss beforehand, but I’ll allow it! It’s their last chance to create Drama in the moment and they deserve a bit of last minute excitement.

… 

BOTH OF THEM?!

Ok there was no possible way I would ever have guessed that

Me: Once I know their real names we’ll finally stop having multiple characters being called the same thing!

[23]

One last time before they get separated they can internally do the CCS “Hoe???” in the knowledge that even though they have both lived decades through multiple versions of the same lives, they NEVER said their names to each other. 

Which is possibly the funniest thing they’ve ever done.

For completionist’s sake I’ll also point out this is them completing the conversation they began in the Reservoir back when they were like SEVEN, and there is no possible way to track how much time has passed for either of them since them. BUT HERE WE ARE THEY FINALLY SAID IT. BOTH THINGS. BOTH THEIR NAMES AND THEIR LOVE CONFESSION. 

The dads look so proud of their little idiots. 

And… that’s it!

There they go! And Not!Sakura happily knows that they’ll be reunited again in the future. 

WE MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE END OF THE SERIES?

[17]

Thank you Kurogane. 

That is hilarious. Fai literally using magic so they can sneak up without interrupting the moment and then, once the love confessions happen Kurogane panics and instantly starts loudly talking about nothing in particular so they’d be forced to stop and he wouldn’t have to see it. 

HE IS SO EMBARASSED. HE DID NOT WANT TO BE HERE FOR THIS MOMENT. 

This poor dad has walked in on his kid finally confessing to his crush and he’s just like AH, HERE I AM, WALKING UP THESE STAIRS OVER HERE. AND I AM JUST DESCRIBING THIS OUT LOUD FOR NO REASON, AS PER USUAL. HERE WE GO, UP THE STAIRS. GOSH I SURE HOPE NO-ONE ELSE IS AT THE TOP RIGHT NOW.

This is the part where Fai and Kurogane say they’re coming too but goodness they phrased it a certain way. 

Fai happily going, “Well I have no place to go back to! You know, when my entire world was destroyed. When we killed my dad, who tried to kill you all. After we confronted the desecrated corpse of my brother, who my dad was using to get me to kill him. After he killed most of the country, so no-one at all lives there now. OH and every one died in my original country too, just completely zero survivors after my uncle went mad and killed them all after throwing my twin and me in the torture pit. So, no home worlds here! Also I can cook.”

AND HE’S NOT EVEN WRONG. 

Look at that growth though, he can mention it happily in passing and not fall apart over fear at the idea of where he came from. I love this for him! Genuinely happy Fai is the best Fai. 

Kurogane’s answer gets closer to the truth in that he wants to see Sakura and Syaoran again too, though he couches it in the joking promise he made to them before they vanished. Either way the dads are both on board to bring back their kids and I’m so happy for them. 

[18]

I WAS WONDERING WHEN THAT WAS GOING TO COME BACK UP. This has Kohane’s feather inside it, from xxxHolic, and I believe Yuuko said it has both a memory from Sakura AND from Watanuki in it.

I was expecting that to come up again at a much more dramatic moment than this but sure I’ll take what I can get! Maybe the earring will be the new memory container that we can trade to help make bodies for Sakura and Syaoran in the end. 

Also I know it’s a fun little moment but I refuse to believe Fai couldn’t easily teleport them from one world to another. He did it at the start of Tsubasa no problem and that was WHILE his magic was sealed by the tattoo, AND before he had rapid magic growth from Syaoran building up his magic off screen before the final confrontation. Fai should be MASSIVELY more powerful than he’s ever been, and he was already scarily strong to begin with!

But I know this is just him having a fun little moment to let Mokona have the spotlight so I’ll give him a free pass to pretend it’s difficult. 

OHHH now that’s interesting! So the earring is now like a “Memories of Syaoran” compass, that will let them actually navigate the worlds instead of visiting them randomly. Or maybe it still is random, but only to worlds where people remember Syaoran? Either way that’s fun! I like that a lot. 

I guess that means the sequel will be Revisiting worlds this time instead of necessarily seeing any new ones? I like that too! Give me timeskip visits to all out previous worlds, that sounds wonderful! OUTO? CAN WE SEE OUTO? AND PIFFLE? Oh gosh so many options. Oh, and this also means they can just dip in and out of Nihon when they want to as well right? This kind of solves all their problems very easily actually, that sounds great. 

[2]

I am emotional over the fact that this is the LAST image in my folder for the Splash Pages. We've seen them all! But here we go, final one:

Chapitre 232 - The World of Beginnings

If I’m reading the splash text the right way around it says:

From now on we’ll always be together.

Everyone’s support gave us courage.

IN WHICH ;_; THANKS CLAMP. 

Lovely to see the whole family alive and sitting happily together - just like they never got to do! I am very normal about this.

What a wonderful way to break my heart all over again. 

But I adore that they’re all here - including Mokona! They’ll all happy and smiling at the camera in their co-ordinated outfits. It’s nice that the Sakuras are on one side with Fai while Kurogane is on the other with the Syaorans (ie, cats on one page, dogs on the other). (And Mokona is Mokona so she goes wherever she wants)

It’s also nice that Fai and Kurogane are looking more to the side than straight ahead - because that makes them echo each other, even if they’re not side by side, and gives the slight impression that they're looking toward their family instead of the specific future, since that's their more direct priority.

Also if I had to guess I would say the tree is a callback to the dead withered tree we had a few chapters ago. Let's see - uh, Chapitre 43, which is more than a few chapters I suppose, but also Chapire 192 as well. If the tree was dead before because the future was broken, now the future is bright and beautiful and thriving - and full of sakura blossoms! This little family has saved the universe. 

[3]

OH SHIT ARE WE GETTING OUT THE TSUBASA?

ARE WE GETTING DOUBLE TSUBASA TIME?

File this under Incredible Visuals That Were Worth The Wait

It’s the Double Sakura Team Up that dreams are made of!

[16]

Aw. That’s nice.

Ok.

Sure! Good for them. 

… gosh is it time to be controversial on tumblr dot com? I was kind of hoping this wasn’t going to be their relationship. 

Like don’t get me wrong, I am ALL for Sakura and Syaoran (ie, OUR Sakura and Syaoran, the clones) being in love. I celebrate that endlessly and they DESERVED their happy reincarnation ending. 

I just never really had the chance to see the relationship between Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura as romantic, seeing as they were, you know, like 7 years old. And had only known each other a little while (was it a week?) when Lava Lamp gave up his life to try save her. WHICH, is very touching, and then he spent the next seven years trying to save her, during which time we never saw anything particularly romantic. I was really sold on them just being REALLY close friends. 

Then I suppose they both had to nope out of reality for a while and watch as their clones fell in love in real time, which is fine, the clones deserved to, but the clones are fully different people and I don’t think Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura would fall for each other by watching other people act as proxies. 

AND THEN we have the whole mind fuck that is Not!Sakura ALSO experiencing Sakura’s ENTIRE life as Lava Lamp’s mother. That’s an entire second lifetime she just backseated in Sakura’s brain and lived out the romance between her and Syaoran, and then gave birth to Lava Lamp and raised him until he was seven years old - at which point he goes to Clow and meets her in the past. 

So like, I guess we are saying that they fell in love off screen from the ages of 7 to 14 in the original Clow Kingdom timeline. And they are all just fine with being identical to Lava Lamp’s parents. 

Which, fine! I didn’t see it happen but good for them I suppose! A bit complicated with all the things that happened since then but if they’re happy then go for it!

BUT

All that aside the NARRATIVE loop of this is super satisfying. The story going back to the failed confessions of Chapter 1 and having it enthusiastically and incredibly play out on screen in the epilogue? THAT is wonderful. 

Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura being able to live out the confessions that their clones never got to do during their initial clone lives? Also beautiful! The arc of these events is really nice to see and pays off very wonderfully.