Wow.

(Might want to add spoiler warning to disclaimer section.)

      "Good evening, Touya-san," her soft musical voice,
like everything about her, was  perfectly suited to her delicate
doll-like features. Even the heavy braid of dark hair that hung
almost to her waist was like a work of art, and perfectly
contrasted her pale, petal soft skin.

Nice description of Tomoyo.

Her every movement soft and graceful, Tomoyo turned the
mere act of walking up the stairs into an otherworldly dance as
she mounted the stairs to the second floor. Walking a short way
down the hall she stopped, tapping gently on the door, before
entering a room, dark except for a soft glow coming through the
curtained windows.

and here.

      "Kero-chan?" She clicked on the light. "Why are you
sitting in the dark?"

      "T . . .Tomoyo-chan?" Looking like a small stuffed toy,
the guardian beast Kerberos struggled awake, blinking his dark
beady eyes in the sudden light, the white tuft on his tail
twitching slightly. "What are you doing here?" His normally
energetic Osaka-ben dialect sounded tired and rusty.

<clip> 

as Tomoyo settled her ever-present video-camera in place and
touched a button on the small remote control.

      "Hoeeeh!" Sakura complained from beside her dresser.
"Do we _have_ to do math?." Tomoyo smiled fondly at her
friend's cute "pouty face".

Mysterious exactly what's going on, which I take it was your
intention.  On second reading, it's clear that Sakura is
speaking from a recording on the video-camera, but it wasn't
on first.  And, given what we learn later, Kero's state is
quite intelligible (but mysterious, while a nice foreshadowing
that _something_ is wrong, on first reading).

and were just trying to decide which one to play first."

"we're" or "we were"

chuckle with Yukito, even as he brushed clumsily at Kero-
chan's back with a hand that was too weak to even ruffle the
fur.

Not quite sure how to interpret Fujitaka's weakness here.  It
might be from further in the series than I've seen, but if it
is from the events described below, it doesn't quite work for
me.

           "Things change," Kerobus whispered, seeming
to collapse in on himself. "time passes."

And this reads quite differently first time through vs.
second.  The first time, I took it to indicate hope.

an airplane. And the chest-plate is lined with kevlar, while the
gloves and boots are reinforced with titanium, so Sakura-chan
will be well protected." She indicated a small lump on the

Not to mention heavy (well, heavier than cloth).

shattered leg, then looked away quickly. The strain of
maintaining four Cards, on top of her injury, was beginning to
tell as her strength drained away like water through a broken
dike.

Nice description of a desperate situation.

      It turned----- by accident, by design, some random
hiccough of the Universal Devine-----and rebounded toward

think you want "Divine" here.

Tomoyo with a sound like cannon-fire, as hundred-year old
oak-trees turned inside out and vanished. Granite melted and
flowed like water, while concrete and steel fountained into the
air and turned to star-light. Kerebos's fire and Yue's arrows of
frozen Moonlight splashed against it's roiling darkness and
were absorbed, then the two Guardians were tossed aside like
rag-dolls as the thing roared down on Tomoyo, who kept
filming, calmly assured that the Card Captor would protect her.

Interesting.  Does Tomoyo's subsequent feelings include any
guilt, that if she'd moved here, Sakura wouldn't have needed
to be so reckless in protecting her?

Also, nice alarming description of how powerful this foe is.

      With the burning thunder of a thousand train wrecks the
jaws of darkness charged for Tomoyo, growing larger and
larger in the viewfinder. She could feel the frozen heat stinging
her flesh when an avenging angel pierced the heart of the dark
storm.

Good as this paragraph is, I think its central position warrants
additional effort on the phrasing.  On second reading, the
"thousand train wrecks" seems somehow dissonant to me; the
"frozen heat" seems good on first reading, but doesn't mean
anything to me on the second.  Might want to add "bright"
before "avenging".

      Mizuki Kaho sat on the couch, next to Fujitaka, her
long red hair unbound and flowing down her back like a banner
of blood.  She reached for a sandwich and coffee, without

Just out of curiousity, where does Mizuki Kaho enter the
story?  I've not encountered her yet twelve episodes in (but
I've not encountered Meiling either).

      "It's not your fault." Fujitaka said wearily. A clouded
expression crossed his face as he wrestled with a thought.
"Could . . . could you tell me what happened? That time when
. . . I never really knew what happened. I never even knew
about the cards until after . . .so I didn't really understand . . ."

That's a sad statement.  But, of course, it applies to pretty
much every magical girl; their parents are the last to know
of their duties.

      "A really _powerful_ magician," she continued like

above line needs a comma and open quote:  continued, "like

"Why did you want my baby to fight these awful things. Why
did she have to . . ." A shudder wracked his body and he put his
face in his hands.

Mild plausibility problem, in having this discussion now.
Then again, maybe Fujitaka couldn't have it earlier.  Suggest
brief observation, probably by Kaho, to that effect.

      "A Wild Card is a . . .a potential," Kaho said slowly,
struggling to explain. "an  unformed pool of magic. It can

Extra space in above line.  Or maybe you want an ellipsis?

top of everything that's happened." If she closed her eyes, she
could see the young boy looking small and lost in the middle of
the stark white hospital bed,  thick bandages wrapped tightly
around his chest, IV tubes pumping fluid into a body bled
almost dry. If the shard of glass hadn't broken against a rib
above his heart, if he hadn't passed out before he could try
again, if Meiling hadn't had a 'feeling' and gone looking-----

Ugh.  Couldn't quite interpret this first time through,
though it's clear enough the second.  Overlooked the "try
again", I guess.  Not sure how Chinese culture looks at
suicide, but don't think it's the same way Japanese does.

She would never make a mistake like that. The secret was
to make calm, methodical plans.

That is indeed how Tomoyo would go about it.  And now, of
course, we readers are alarmed that that is her intent.

hour, then settled herself to wait.  They kept telling her that
Sakura-chan was . . .that Sakura-chan had gone away. That
cherry blossoms were fleeting, and were all the more beautiful
because they left this world so quickly.

Nice encapsulation of Japanese aesthetics here.

      That was stupid. Sakura-chan couldn't be . . .she
wouldn't go away. Not without Tomoyo.  Tomoyo had been
born for Sakura-chan, she'd known that from the moment she
first saw Sakura-chan. Tomoyo's name meant 'friend and
trusted attendant'.  Sakura-chan's friend. Sakura-chan's
attendant. Tomoyo without Sakura-chan was like night without
day, or up without down. It just wasn't possible. And Tomoyo
didn't believe in impossible things.

This paragraph has several resonances for me.  While the
contemporary Western reaction might be "get a life", the
classic Japanese response is to agree:  of course the
retainer should not outlive her master.

Also, the "Tomoyo didn't believe in impossible things" implies,
given that we know Tomoyo believes in magic, that separation
from Sakura is more impossible than magic.

      The Key remained dark, the Star Wand didn't appear.

Sadly, this is what we expect, as Tomoyo is not a magic user.

knees beside the crater, "please Release. Please. Please." She
bowed her head to the ground, praying to whatever Kami might
be listening.

          "Release!

         "Release."

         "Please . . ."

Sad.  We know it's hopeless, but Tomoyo is going to keep
trying.

the key.  But the Key remained a key, and there was no magic
in her hands.

Life sucks sometimes.

      An electric tingle ran up her spine and she felt the wind
blowing stronger and stronger around her.

                 *Let all see and sing.*

      But she couldn't see. The air around her with thick with
light, so dark it deafened her. The blinding scent was rough
against her skin as she became the song.

           *Saita, sakura,
              hanamite modoro.*

      *Cherry blossoms, Cherry blossoms,
      All the world their beauty sees*

      She welcomed their sharp edged beauty as it cut her like
a knife, and her blood fell like rain to the ground.

Imagery here doesn't quite work for me, somehow.  The gradual
increase of the cherry blossom storm to the point of pain should
be objective rather than subjective, or maybe both, but Tomoyo
should be feeling hopeful here, I would think.  And how do
falling cherry blossoms become thick enough to block out
light, hurt her with their scent, and cut her skin?   

      And Tomoyo? Where was her place, without Sakura-
chan?  The song solidified around her, clogging her lungs with
beauty, breaking her bones with love and silence screamed her
name.

Again, here:  second sentence works first time through, but
doesn't survive extended scrutiny.  Suggest "freezing her spine
with beauty" rather than "clogging her lungs"; I think I like
ending with "silence screamed her name", but the "breaking
her bones with love" really doesn't work for me.

      Like a puppet whose strings are cut, Tomoyo fell to the
ground, her blood soaking into the thirsty earth.

This, to me, underlines the objectivity of the cherry blossoms
cutting her skin.  (Nice "thirsty earth", btw.)  But what,
objectively, happened here?

This imagery can benefit, I think, from a bit more work on
precise word selection.  I'm not clear on how I'm supposed
to interpret this scene.  That may, of course, be deliberate,
but I think this scene could be improved if you work over
the imagery some more.  If you _want_ to imply that, objectively,
the fall of cherry blossoms became that intense, suggest you
mention high wind, and build a bit more slowly.  If you want
to suggest that it's all subjective, suggest a refocus on
affecting Tomoyo in non-"permanent" ways:  her stomach seizes,
an icicle pierces her back, etc, versus blood from cuts.

      Crying and laughing at the same time she wrote her
name, with a shaking hand in her own blood, across the bottom
of the card, capturing it for all time; the only Tomoyo card that
ever was or ever would be:

                         Beloved

                             Sakura

Nice ending to a wonderful story.  Good work.


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