Is Nine of Wands a yes or a no?

This card does not answer cleanly either way. It points to something unresolved, unseen or still in motion, which in practice usually means "not yet" rather than "no".

The Nine is the last stretch, guarded and tired.

You have been through it, you are bruised, and you are still standing. The card's hard sympathy is that being nearly finished is not the same as being finished.

The wound is visible and old, and he is waiting rather than attacking. Golden Dawn titled the card Strength to distinguish it from the trump: stamina that has been tested rather than composure that has not.

Yes/no readings are the most popular use of tarot and the one it is worst suited to. A seventy-eight card deck built to describe nuance is being asked for one bit of information, and most of what it knows is discarded in the process.

A more useful version of the same draw: read Nine of Wands as what shape this takes, not whether it happens. Resilience. One more push. Wariness earned by experience.

You are closer than you feel, and your defences are appropriate rather than paranoid. That second clause is the card's real contribution, because somebody in this position is usually being told they are being difficult.

In an advice position it asks for one more effort and acknowledges the cost of it, which is a combination almost no other card manages.

Reversed, the lean weakens or inverts. Depleted past the point of usefulness. Paranoia, or refusing help you badly need.

The refusal is the characteristic version. Somebody who has held a position alone for a long time develops a real difficulty accepting assistance, partly because accepting it would mean admitting how bad it has been.

Sometimes, and this is the good reading, putting the guard down at last, safely. The card allows for the possibility that the thing being braced against is over.