To get this out of the way, no, it doesn't involve flux capacitors, 80's cars, or 1.21 Gigawatts of electricity. Well, there's sort of the latter, actually.
It's that dream again, this time featuring Ms. Mckenzie's shadowy figure amidst cherry blossom petals. Why am I thinking she looks like Carmen Sandiego in this pose? Sakura wakes up from fixating on her ominous eye to realize...she's actually up early for once! She even lets Kero sleep in as she heads off to enjoy some scenery. Still pondering the significance of her dream, she arrives at the shrine, mumbling about how fond she is of Ms. Mckenzie despite Li's distrust. As usual, she appears out of nowhere eavesdropping. Her excuse for showing up so coincidentally was that she's helping out at her father's shrine, and who else shows to help but (gasp) Julian! While sweeping the grounds, Sakura gets a flashback moment of the last episode's ending where Li tells her to be wary of Ms. Mckenzie. Wait, what? Why can't the dubbers ever keep these flashbacks consistent?
For helping out, Sakura and Julian get shrine garden chestnuts. Julian tells her that they'll walk together to school, but before she can go, Ms. Mckenzie has something to tell her: Nothing! After all, she can tell her later. I've got a bad feeling about this.
Sakura is ready to show Madison her new gift, but Li seems pretty angry about helping Ms. Mckenzie out. But in comes Meilin to save the day by snapping at Li for leaving her sight! Of course, she thinks the chestnuts are for her, but Sakura rolls with it and Meilin even demonstrates how to peel them. You know, Li, she's acting nice for once, so you don't need that grumpy face. But he's too fixated on Ms. Mckenzie's seemingly friendly smile.
That night, Sakura's dad gets the memo that Ms. Mckenzie is her new math teacher. She's surprised that he seems to know her, and he tells her that Ms. Mckenzie happened to be Tori's math teacher before she went off to England, and yet they seemed to not know each other last episode.
Meanwhile, at the shrine, it's a full moon tonight, and Ms. Mckenzie is standing there with a grin as a swirling shadowy mass gathers in the sky. Something wicked this way comes. Kero senses the presence of a Clow Card here, with Li coming along later. Meilin had to stay home to finish her book report, knowledge which Kero revels in, but Sakura points out it's because she's new to the school. Madison didn't come either since it was too late at night for Sakura to call her, so it's just the two of them then. And Kero.
After an hour of searching, they couldn't find anything. Kero decides to go get drinks for all of them, even Li, as he grumbles about getting one for "The Kid". Both Sakura and Li resent that remark. So now they have some alone time to discuss matters. Li thinks the card might just be hiding, and Sakura points out that they found the Maze card here too. This shifts the discussion to Ms. Mckenzie, which leaves Li increasingly frustrated at Sakura's lack of caution around her. As he finally begins to leave, the card strikes. Kero's back with drinks a little too late as Sakura gets sucked into the dimensional rift within the tree. Looking at the full moon, Kero realizes that it's The Return
◊ card!
Sakura awakens to a purple-tinted world where the tree is in full blossom. She sees a shadowy figure in the distance and goes to hide within the tree branches with the Jump card's help. Um...wouldn't anyone notice something strange about someone in the distance suddenly having inhuman jumping ability? Anyways, Tori shows up to investigate the tree's strange aura, in his junior high school outfit but still looking the same as ever. Ms. Mckenzie meets up with him, knowing about his ability to see magical things others cannot. He tells her that Sakura just turned six, which means this is a vision from the past!
Kero tells Li that the Return card requires a lot of energy, but a combination of the sacred tree's magical power and the full moon was sufficient. Wonder if all that adds up to 1.21 Gigawatts. Back in the past, Tori's next meeting has started. Ms. Mckenzie reveals that she too has special powers, and that is how she could sense his little sister. She says they are connected by someone special, someone she cannot reveal now, someone he can't know about until about 40 episodes later. Yep, that trope rears its ugly head.
The next vision shows Tori and Ms. Mckenzie at the "Chinese" festival, where she reveals she's going away! No! She asks Tori not to tell Sakura about any of this as she gazes at the full moon. "When...a disaster...befalls the world." Suddenly, she turns to Sakura. It's not just a vision! "It is...our destiny."
After a fade to white, Sakura shows up perfectly normal at the tree, ready to seal up the black maelstrom that is the Time Card's Distaff Counterpart. Li had to give up a lot of his energy to use The Time card and bring Sakura back to the future. As Sakura thanks the exhausted Li, Kero merely mentions one word to the full moon: "Yue". At the episode's conclusion, Ms. Mckenzie smiles at the events, her eyes in a sinister narrowing.
