A Wish Granted, A Price Paid
Summary: Anakin Skywalker desperately searches for a way to prevent Padmé's death. On his way to the Jedi Temple, he stumbles across a shop, a mysterious shop that grants wishes, but all wishes come with a price, what will his be?
Author's Note: Crash course for Star Wars fans on xxxHolic, a young teen named Kimihiro Watanuki is perused by spirits and stumbles upon a wish granting shop run by the Dimensional Witch, Yuuko Ichihara, who grants wishes for a price. She grants his wish to not see spirits if he works for her. She also grants the wishes of other people who come to the shop.
And yes, Yuuko and Obi-Wan are going to become…drinking buddies!
The Inevitable
Anakin Skywalker ended the communication with Padmé as he urged his speeder toward the Jedi Temple, he knew he should try to sleep, but he wouldn't, how could he sleep when all he saw was her screaming in pain and agony for him to help her?
Anakin wiped his eyes with his flesh hand; he should go back to the Temple and try to think of some way to save Padmé. Surely the Force will give him an answer.
He prepared to turn down a space lane when he stopped. There was a spot that had always been surprisingly empty, they were supposed to put in a new building but it had been empty for some time.
Now there was something there, something so different from the durasteel buildings that he was shocked he hadn't seen it before now.
It was a wooden building; there were no wooden buildings on Coruscant. It had a unique architecture and had a wooden fence, a yard and strange trees with pink blossoms that drifted onto something similar to permacrete.
He glanced around at the building and decided he'd wasted enough time, he should go.
Anakin tried to stop himself, but something wouldn't let him move backwards, his feet were stuck to the ground like he was embedded there. He had no choice but to move forward.
He saw the doors open and a pair of young teenagers, he couldn't really tell, greeted him. What stuck out to him was that they had blue and pink hair. That was different.
Maru and Moro gazed at him. "Would you like to come in now?"
"I…I don't know," he admitted.
"It's a customer for the Mistress!" Maru chorused.
"A customer for the Mistress!" Moro joined her.
They pulled him inside or rather, his legs moved on their own into the building. They helped him walk right out of his boots, through the door and down the hallway.
"What is this?!" he demanded, panic rising inside him, he had no control over his actions. He didn't like it one bit.
"This is the inevitable," a woman's voice echoed throughout the room and in his head. He continued walking until he came to a stop in front of a door made out of what could be paper or cloth, he couldn't tell.
"You came here to inquire about something," she told him. Anakin wondered who she was.
The two girls opened the door and Anakin looked upon a sight he'd never seen before.
There was a beautiful woman lying on a couch, smoking a pipe. She had long black hair and brown eyes, she wore beautiful, elaborate robes that reminded him of Padmé's although these looked completely different There was a great deal of smoke in the room, but the patterns it left in the air made it look beautiful and mysterious, just like the woman in front of him.
"This isn't inevitable, I just came here by accident, I didn't mean to disturb you."
"Your name?" Yûko asked him.
Anakin was a bit surprised, he was so famous throughout the galaxy, but this woman didn't know who he was?
"Anakin Skywalker," he replied.
"And your birthday?" she prodded.
He told her.
"What a foolish boy, I can't believe you gave a complete stranger your real name and birthday!" Yûko laughed.
He was puzzled, why was that so funny?
"By telling an enemy your name, you give them an opportunity to capture your soul, and if they then learn the date of your birth, they can find a way to own the paths of your past and your future."
"Are you an enemy?" Anakin demanded, moving towards his lightsaber.
"Do you want to know my name?" she asked.
"I really should go," Anakin began moving backward, towards the door.
"Yûko Ichihara," she introduced herself.
"Yet you've told me anyway," he sighed.
"Naturally it's an alias," the Dimensional Witch added quickly.
Anakin rolled his eyes, she was aggravating, just like Obi-Wan, but she had a sense of humor that reminded him of his Master.
"Please sit," Yûko offered him a place to sit, so he did.
"Watanuki, get him some tea," Yûko called to a young man in another room.
A young man walked into the room, he had black hair and glasses. He handed Anakin the tea and gawked a little.
"Yûko that's—" Watanuki started.
"Yes, I know who he is," she smiled knowingly. Anakin was even more irritated, she'd been messing with him for some reason.
Watanuki handed him the tea, Anakin drank it, it tasted surprisingly good and it made him feel better.
"What is this place?" he asked, glancing around.
"It's my shop," she kept her gaze on him. It made him feel uncomfortable, he felt like he was nine years old, standing in front of Master Yoda for the first time.
See through you we can.
Yûko could see though him, it was like she knew him better than he knew himself. This was the last thing he expected.
"What do you sell?" Anakin didn't see any merchandise of any kind.
"The merchandise here is wishes."
The idea floored Anakin, the very notion that such a thing existed, it seemed impossible.
"You grant wishes?" he asked eagerly, she was his answer; Yûko could save his wife from his visions.
Maru and Moro spoke as one, "This shop can grant almost any wish, if our Mistress approves!"
"Can you…bring people back to life?" he was hopeful, if she could grant any wish then maybe he could see his mother again…
"That's beyond my power, it's too heavy a thing, you could never pay the price for something like that."
Anakin was crestfallen.
"All things die, Anakin Skywalker. Even stars burn out." Yûko Ichihara told him. Anakin stilled, horrified.
He heard that in his mind, every night the cold dead star dragon of his fear crawled up into his brain and whispered that he would lose Obi-Wan and Padmé or that they would lose him.
"I was told by…someone that he had the power to stop people from dying," Anakin admitted.
"Saving people from death is possible, but there's a price, there always is. Did you think this person would just give you this knowledge for nothing?"
Anakin knew she was right, he hadn't even thought about how the Chancellor knew about Darth Plageius. It hadn't even dawned on him why Palpatine had told him that story.
"The Jedi would say that the power over life and death are forbidden."
"People are always more likely to do something once it's been forbidden. And after they've crossed that line there's no telling what else they're capable of doing to get what it is they want. The things for which a person washes often reveal more about them than they'd like. Sometimes that's the price you have to pay."
"What are you exactly?" Anakin pressed her. She was unlike anyone he'd ever met and yet, he could sense she had power, power unlike anything he'd ever encountered.
"I'm the Dimensional Witch, the Space-Time Witch, granting wishes is my job, and no one can find my shop unless they have a wish that they want granted."
Anakin saw himself wrestling with the dragon, he was losing, but now Yûko was here to help him, maybe someone who had power over dimensions could help him keep the dragon down.
"I have a wish, it's my only wish, I wish to save Padmé from death! You said you were the Dimensional Witch, you can do that won't you?"
"And how do you know she's going to die?" Yûko inhaled the smoke from her kiseru pipe.
"I've had dreams about her death, visions."
"Dreams and visions are tricky things, you only interpret them the way you wish to see them, not as they are, never assume anything about dreams, they are only part of the whole picture."
She was so wise, Yûko reminded Anakin of Palpatine, but she reminded him of his mother, and that made him feel happy. Happier than he had felt in a long time.
Yûko smiled, she knew who he was and why he'd come, not because she was the Dimensional Witch, a powerful sorceress, no it was because she had like so many people, watched all six Star Wars movies, yes, it was amusing to think that there was a dimension where they existed too, wouldn't George Lucas be thrilled to learn that? If that ever happened, that wasn't inevitable, since Lucas was in the United States and she was in Japan, when in Earth's dimension anyway.
"Now I know your true wish, so shall I grant it?" Yûko asked.
"Yes, please, it's all I wish for!" Anakin pleaded with her.
"There's a price for your wish, are you willing to pay it?" she glanced at him. "Think hard before you answer, and don't say, "You'll do anything", such words shouldn't be spoken lightly."
"When a service is rendered a compensation is necessary to complete the transaction," Yûko explained simply. "And the payment must be of equal value to the service. It can be neither too much nor too little. There can be no deficiency or excess, only perfect balance, and equivalence."
She reached up to touch his face, cupping it in her hand. "Or harm will be done."
"Harm?" Anakin queried curiously.
"Harm throughout the universe, and harm to the soul. They both require a balance."
"I understand; what price I will pay?" he asked.
"Your price is…your life," she smiled at him.
"Are you going to kill me?" Anakin hissed, wary once again.
"No, no, death is a heavy thing, it weighs on the universe, so those who know don't kill," Yûko puffed on her pipe, blowing smoke into the room.
"Your iightsaber, isn't that weapon your life?" She gazed at the weapon on his belt.
"Y-yes it is," Anakin stammered, she'd quoted Obi-Wan perfectly, but she'd never met any of them before!
"Fine, I'll give it to you," he handed her his lightsaber; surely this would tip off Obi-Wan that something was wrong, but what was his lightsaber when compared to his wife's life?
Yûko took the lightsaber from him, "An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age," she smiled knowingly at him. She ignited it and stared at the blue blade. She deactivated it, and handed it back to him.
"I give you back your life, in exchange, between your Jedi missions, you'll work for me here at my shop, and when you've worked off your debt to me, I'll grant your wish."
"I'll do it, just help me save her, I can't live without her!" Anakin sobbed in relief.
"When one sacrifices oneself to help another, it could actually be painful to the person being helped, especially when that person is of importance to them."
Anakin stared down at his hands, "I promised myself I wouldn't let her die, not like how I couldn't save my mother!"
"Sincerity with respect to yourself! No matter what your objective… no matter who you are… if you are going to do something or not do something, that is a promise to yourself. And the one who keeps the promise, or breaks the promise, is you. No one else can be burdened with holding you to a promise that's made to yourself."
Yûko glanced over at him, "And one more thing," she added. "The price for saving your wife, one of them is that you end your relationship with Chancellor Papatine."
Anakin balked, she knew about that too?! But the Chancellor was his lifelong friend and mentor! But…who was more important to him, Sheev Palpatine or Padmé?
He'd do it; he always thought he'd do anything to save his wife, but this…
"Why? Why's this so important?" he asked.
"You'll have to discover that for yourself," she was cryptic as ever, she was even more cryptic than Master Yoda, and Anakin didn't think that was possible.
Still, she said she could save Padmé and he sensed the power she had, it was beyond anything he'd encountered, even the Force, granting wishes was impossible, but she'd given him her word that she would grant his wish, and he knew that she would, he knew it deep down in his heart.
He felt he could breathe again, he could sleep, his dreams wouldn't haunt him anymore.
"Thank you, thank you so much, I won't let you down, I promise," Anakin smiled as he got to his feet, he left the shop with a bounce in his step and a smile on his face.
Yûko watched him leave, she smiled, this was going to be an interesting experience, she was going up against the most iconic villain in the galaxy, the Emperor Palpatine, this would be fun, it would be interesting to see whether Anakin would heed her admonitions or not, his fate was decided by his choices.
"Nothing in this world is a coincidence. Everything is Hitsuzen." Hitsuzen, the inevitable, fate, destiny, it was all those things, and to be here at this time, It was fated to happen.
"There are many unusual things in this world. Everyday events occur that cannot be explained. Bizarre phenomena that often go unnoticed because people close their eyes to what they don't understand. But the truth of the matter is, there are many unusual things in this world. And people... People are the most mysterious of them all."
Anakin Skywalker could change his fate if he wished for it, but he'd have to make that wish himself, and understand that all his actions had consequences.
"Watanuki, get me some sake!" she called to her assistant, "It's time I had another drink!"