That Spirit with His Red Suit and Black Cat

"You can't pay the price."

Watanuki feels himself tense as Yuuko speaks those words, slowly, with a torturously arrogant smirk on her face. He's not the requester. He's just a mere bystander—the unfortunate servant to a mistress who apparently can't see the volatile situation in the making.

Because that man in the blinding red suit is a head taller than Yuuko, with an electric presence as bright as his caution-yellow hair and hands that are definitely fisting now.

Watanuki gulps. Considers offering refills with the sake in his hands. But the man had not drank any yet, and Watanuki has no interest in offering up his life quite yet.

"Omae…" Watanuki pales. That was definitely not the polite speech the man had been using earlier. With a growl, the man challengingly leans forward, staring into Yuuko's eyes. "Will you not grant my wish because of who I am? If someone else was asking…would you reconsider?" There's a dangerous tilt to his words now, and Watanuki feels a chill run up his spine. He can't see the man's eyes beneath his spiky sunglasses, but he distinctly feels eyes on him.

Then Yuuko puffs a breath of smoke in front of her and the feeling is instantly obscured.

Calm, but with frigidity, Yuuko intones, "Your threats are not welcome here, spirit."

Watanuki only has time to widen his eyes before he feels something locking up, something creeping on the edge of his eyes—his senses—his mind—and the world was dark— - - - - - - - - —and suddenly Yomiel feels a stinging pain in his left eye. Pale hand immediately rising up to cover it, a grimace covers his face. For a moment, it's almost natural.

But then it's covered with a cold smirk, and Watanuki has never been cold. Watanuki is bright—warm—energy—soul.

"You will find it hard to control Watanuki, spirit." Yuuko's eyes are narrowed but she doesn't sit up from her languorous slouch. Yomiel feels an intense wave of irritation at being brushed aside—at having his wish ignored—and lets a cruel sneer settle on his strange face.

"I will make him die slowly and painfully in front of your eyes." With that declaration, he promptly drops the sake container, careless of the shards that dig into his vessel's legs and the one that flies into his original body's face. He is immortal.

Yuuko frowns softly. "That was my favorite dish."

Yomiel is tempted to throw the shard he is now clutching in her face, but he doesn't want to see the Dimensional Witch arrogantly bring herself back to life—he wants her to watch as the people she loves is ripped from her grasp, bloody and tearful—dead, dead, dead and not coming back.

The shard is digging into his hand and Yomiel calmly brings it up and drags it along his arm, uncaring of the uniform that is ripped along it. Blood wells up and he considers flinging that into her face, maybe to ruin that elaborate costume she's wearing. But then he sees her face, that arrogant smile.

Wrath colors his eyes and suddenly he is in front of her, glaring at that damnable smile and—Bring Sissel BACK—

Then a large-set man with raging emotions on his face runs in and Yomiel's hand flings back up to his eye—but everything hurts now—when has anything hurt—I can feel…!— - - - - - - - - —Then Watanuki gasps and hits the floor, the bloody shard that had been inches away from Yuuko's neck falls harmlessly to the ground.

The flash of red in the corner of his eyes makes him watch as the man—no, spirit—stumbles away from Doumeki who is so magnificently enraged that Watanuki can practically see his exorcist aura reaching out and pushing the spirit away.

"Spirit-san," Yuuko pronounces. Watanuki is a bit confused by her sudden politeness. "I never discriminate among my clients. But the price for bringing the dead back to life is not merely any other death—it is the death of another close loved one. And you do not have any more, correct?"

The spirit hisses in pain, then Watanuki is startled when he realizes that no, it is a cat hissing. Leaping out from where it hid in the spirit's jacket, it pauses Doumeki's advance.

"…Or perhaps you do have one more loved one. Or at least in the making." Yuuko almost sounds impressed, but then the spirit's head snaps back up, lips pulled back, teeth bared, and Watanuki has never seen someone so angry—but Watanuki feels oddly reassured now. Suddenly, the spirit is—-

"What is your name?" The spirit's head snaps towards him, sneer falling away in a moment of confusion before being replaced by suspicion. But Watanuki suddenly needs to know because he realized that cat…

(won't die alone)

But the spirit doesn't answer. Instead he looks away and suddenly coldly calm now, he mutters, "…Sissel, let's go."

The pair retreats, and somehow Watanuki feels like something more needed to be done. That spirit was deadly, (there's a gap in his memory and something warm running down his arm) but he wasn't horrible, was he? Wanting to bring his fiancé back to life…

He only takes one step forward before Doumeki appears in front of him, like a guard that wouldn't let you pass. He's ready to release a rant, to argue and scream his way through, but then something smacks him in the back of the head and he's collapsing before he knows it. Doumeki catches him before he hits the floor, but he's cringing because suddenly there's a well of pain in his stomach and it's threatening to go out of control. A quiet, keening sound of pain escapes him and past the cloud of pain, he hears Yuuko warning with a touch of amusement, "Watanuki. Worry about yourself before you go off saving some malignant spirit."

Then he's out.

It's another week before he's out and about, looking for that spirit with his red suit and black cat. Yuuko had already explained the details that he had missed—that that body was merely an unusual corpse—somehow incapable of decaying. The spirit was something that had mutated and changed—and was still changing. That well of hatred it was carrying was twisting it into something more and more dangerous—-so Watanuki was going to try and change it.

Yuuko had stared at him with that contemplative face before flat out telling him it was impossible.

And as much as he doesn't want to believe her, he has been out searching for that distinctive coat now for two weeks and there had been no sign. The spirit was gone. Perhaps never truly in their city.

So instead, Watanuki begins searching with that name he did get—Sissel. The black cat.

He doesn't find a black cat though. He finds an unfortunate suicide victim—a poor woman who couldn't stand being a widow.

Things go further as he continues researching over the months. Temsik. Yomiel. Strange actions. Strange deaths. Yuuko asks why he doesn't go change it if that's what he was researching for. Watanuki doesn't really know, but he tells her that it wasn't the right time.

Then years pass.

Things change.

The spirit in the red suit walks in again, not a day older, but as Watanuki looks on with new wisdom, not a spirit anymore either. Casually, he asks the date and before he knows it, Watanuki is ten years back and considering walking out to see Doumeki again, a teenager—but he's locked in the shop and he had long ago accepted the terms of his contract. Or so he thought.

"I'm not really here for a wish." There's an apology in his words, and Watanuki smiles.

"What are you here for then?"

"A favor. As a shopkeeper, you must know the price for my crimes…"

"It doesn't really work that way. Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I won't forget, but I need something to…to really feel human again. I have to pay for it."

"Ten years in prison. One for the girl's fear. Two for the officer's guilt. Three for the Inspector's sacrifice. Four for the mother's death. Five for minister's pain. Six for the dog's efforts. Seven for the child's kidnapping. Eight for the country's invasion. Nine for my assault. Ten for yourself."

"…" There's tired, relief on his face.

"Thank you…I never got your name."

Watanuki smiled. "Yomiel." Yomiel jerks, bemused but Watanuki explains. "I really wanted to know your name back then. I think I wanted to spare you this pain, but as I got to know your story more, I saw something else. Another way to save your spirit from the twisting pain of grief and corruption. I'm glad to see I wasn't wrong."

He admires the newfound strength and care Yomiel exudes from his real body, and continues, "My name is Kimihiro Watanuki."

Yomiel muses it over and smiles too. It's the first smile Watanuki has witnessed from the man. "Thank you Watanuki-san. If it's no trouble, I would like to visit you again some time. Maybe tell you my story with my own words."

"You're always welcome."

A/N: Something I woke up and suddenly felt like writing. Hopefully, this bit from xxxHolic will motivate me to continued A Crossroads! Don't worry, it's not abandoned and neither is Vice and Versa—I'm just a really slow writer xD. I'm having trouble with one of Yuuko's customers, but I will definitely focus on it this NaNoWriMo. Hope you enjoy the Yomiel and Watanuki interaction—it's not very edited and I definitely feel like its not one of my best works—its kind of rushed. But I enjoyed writing it and I might come back with a fine-toothed comb someday to flesh it out.

In the process of writing this, I considered cutting it off right after Yomiel leaves the first time, but I wanted to see what Watanuki would do…and then I considered having Sissel come in to wish for Yomiel's freedom, but that dragged on and I decided I liked a clean ending more.

Omae: A rude way to say 'You' in Japanese. Like teme.