Disclaimer: I own nothing, so if you sue you won't get anything.

Summary: Watanuki is forced to go on a mission for Yuko with Domeki. A suspenseful battle ensues and when Watanuki is missing.

Spoilers: none.

Authors notes: almost six pages all from an idea I got from taking off my shoes. How sad. And it's always night time. Note reference to my other story is in here. don't need to read that story for this one though.

Black shoes

It was a warm summer night. The sky was clear and the stars shone brightly through the moonless sky. And the empty streets were lit with the soft glow of the street lamps. Well the streets were almost empty except for the skinny pale teen wandering through the streets once again for a late night mission for his strange, usually drunk boss. 'Thought sometimes, ok most times she can be a pain in the but she seem to care about me.' Watanuki though as he reached the edge of the town he realizes this is not one of those time.

"What In The World Are You Doing Here Domeki!" Watanuki yelled in a not as loud tone as normal of out fear that he would wake up the town voice, at none other then the calm faced taller teen leaning on a tree.

"Yuko asked me to meet you here so be quite will ya." Domeki said in a neutral tone as he has his index fingers in both of his ears trying to block the noise coming out of his shorter friends as he failed and complained about him being there. "So lets go." He said as Watanuki finally settled down, and he took his fingers out of his ears, picked up his long bow and started to walk in to the woods.

"Don't You Tell Me What to Do!" Watanuki failed around again as he chased after the ever so calm Domeki whom just kept walking.

It was a short walk to where they had to go and Watanuki knew this but with each step he took he became more and more nervous. He could feel there eyes locking on to him and watching his every move. He could here their threats and their comments. He heard things like, "He looks tasty" and "Oh I want to drain the life from him and watch the light disappear from his eyes." With each of these threats he stepped closer to Domeki. Domeki of course couldn't see or hear them, but judging from Watanuki's jumpy actions he figured there had to be a lot as he kept a firm grip on his bow.

As the two of them entered a field the spirits taunts and eyes left Watanuki's back as he and Domeki started at the abandoned old two story farm house. There was boards over the windows and the door. The two boys walked up the steps and on to the creaky rotting deck. The taller of the to teens leaned his bow against the side of the deck close to the door, so if he need to protect his friend he could, and started pulling at one of the three boards covering the door.

He tugged at the first of the nailed in boards and found it was not going very well. The nails were rusted into the frame of the door which made it much more difficult to get the boards off. As he continued to tug at the board he suddenly flew back and landed on the deck hard. He looked but to see a confused yet concerned Watanuki looking down at him. Then his face twisted into a smirk as he started to laugh. Domeki looked down at his hand as saw that he pulled about one third of the board out while the other two thirds stayed nailed to the frame.

After about fifteen more minutes of the boards just breaking in the middle the two teens finally were able to get the door witched proved difficult to open. The two teens stood side by side and rammed the door down. Watanuki stepped in side with Domeki following close behind with his bow in hand.

The rooms was cover in dust, and fairly empty except for the couch the table. There was a stair case to the right of the door. And to the left it looked like it was a kitchen, with no stove or anything.

"So what are we looking for in here?" Domeki asked in a neutral voice as he turned towards Watanuki who was oddly quite.

"All she said was a pair of shoes." He answered in a quite voice as his eyes scanned the room cautiously.

"Is there something here?" Domeki asked as he silently vowed to protect his friend no matter what.

"I don't see or smell anything but I can't shake the feeling that there's something here and it's watching us." He said as he started to enter the room and heads towards the staircase with Domeki right behind them.

'Don't worry Watanuki, I'll protected you no mater what. It won't be like last time' Domeki though as the last mission came into his thoughts. He remembered see Watanuki hanging there lifelessly, and remember how he stopped breathing and almost lost his best friend. He vowed not to let that happen again.

As Domeki and Watanuki walked up the staircase, it creaked with every step they took. The place was dark but they could see due to there eyes adjusting to the light. There was about fifteen steps and about half way up Watanuki suddenly stops. He is thrown back off of the staircase. He flies into the living area and lands, luckily on the couch, bounces off the couch and lands with a small thud onto the dusty floor.

Domeki watches in terror as Watanuki flies back by an unseen force. "WATNUKI!" He yells as he reaches to catch him but Watanuki is to far out for him to reach. He watches Watanuki land on the dusty couch with a small groan as he jumps off the side of the stairs and runs towards the couch. He skids to a stop just as Watanuki falls to the floor.

"WATANUKI! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" He asks with concern in his voice as he help him up, checking to see if he has any injures. "WHAT HAPPENED?" He continues as he notes who shaken up Watanuki appears as he scans the room franticly.

"He was thrown by me." A sinister voice says and a figure appears at the top of the staircase. Both of the boys look up to see a human like figure appear only the skin was a dark grey color, their was a pair of black wings on it's back, and a light grey horn on it's head. He had three glowing eyes, one blue one and two green ones, their was a pair of pointed ears and two mouths. "HaHaHaHaHaHa! He looks so good, I just had to wait until he came into this house and then it was just a matter of time!" He said as he stared right through Domeki who was standing protectively in front of the worried Watanuki.

The spirit flew off the stairs and towards where Watanuki and Domeki. In mid-flight Domeki released and arrow not giving it a half of a chance of getting near Watanuki. The arrow hit the spirits wing and it tumbled to the ground. It got up and sprinted towards them. The spirit was so fast that Domeki couldn't get a shot at it. He took a hold of Watanuki's arm and started to pull him away from the spirit, towards the end of the living area.

"You will not get away so easily!" The spirit yelled as he chased the two boys. As they ran towards the staircase the spirit tackled there legs sending both of the boys fling. Domeki hit the where the staircase and the wall meet giving him an laceration on him arm and Watanuki hit the corner of a step giving him a gash on his forehead.

As the two boys recovered the spirit loomed over Watanuki. Domeki was the first to recover. He grasped his bow and shot an arrow at the spirit. The spirit hissed in pain as he raised his hand and slashed at Watanuki with it claws Watanuki went to move and Domeki went to cover him. In the midst of all that both boys got slashed at once. Domeki's left shoulder and Watanuki's right arm. The two boys raced up the stair case and the spirit followed closely.

They made it to the top floor which was only one very large room with three window and a skylight. There was a table in the middle of the room and everything was covered in dust. On the table was a pair of black dancer shoes. They where worn and old looking also covered in dust.

The two teens go tearing into the room. "Look those must be the shoes we need to get!" Watanuki says to Domeki out of breath as they ran towards the center of the room. As the two neared the center of the room the spirit once again sent them flying.

The two flew in opposite directions. Watanuki flew left and Domeki flew right. The spirit when after Watanuki. Before he could even land Watanuki felt the spirits claws slash his back. He grimaced in pain. He fell to the ground he felt one more slash on the side of his right leg. He looked up at the spirit with a scared look on his face and the over to where Domeki had landed, only to find that he was up and running towards them with an arrow already forming on his aimed bow. Domeki released the bow string with a small twang, and sent the arrow flying towards the spirit.

As Soon as Domeki hit the ground he got up and started running toward Watanuki and the spirit. The grabbed his bow from the floor and aimed at the spirit. His heart broke as he saw Watanuki's face twist in pain as he got slashed and the blood started to form a tiny puddle. He ran faster as he saw the spirit slash at him yet again. When he saw the frightened look on his friends face and how close the spirit was he became terrified that this mission would turn out like the last time just with a more terrifying outcome, as he picked up his pace.

Watanuki got up and ran towards Domeki who was only a few meters away. As he put pressure on his leg he felt a wave of pain hit him as his leg buckled from under him as he fell back down towards the floor, only to have a worried yet pissed Domeki catch him. The spirit turned and slashed both of them, but Domeki turned and took most of the damage on his back and Watanuki got a little on his left arm.

Domeki gently put Watanuki down and stepped in front of him and began to fight the spirit. He closed in on the spirit, putting distance between it and Watanuki. He wasn't going to let him get hurt anymore. He fired at the spirit. It hissed in pain and went to slash at Domeki, but it was getting slow and he dodged and hit it with the back of the bow. It became enraged and blindly kept slashing, the only thing was that Domeki wasn't anywhere near it, mater of fact nothing was near it. Domeki took this chance and fired at it. It hissed in pain and started to smoke at bit. Domeki continued his barrage of arrows, until it burst in to flames and slowly disappeared.

As Watanuki watched the battle he realized the black shoes were only a meter away. He slowly got up on his hands and knees and started to crawl over to the shoes. As soon and Domeki was done fighting he wanted to leave right away, even though he dreaded going back through the forest with all the other spirits. Sure something will happen with the state both Domeki and himself were in. He hope Domeki would be alright. He figured he would owe his secret friend a really big and tasty lunch.

He finally reached the shoes leaving a smeared trail of blood. He picked up the black shoes and suddenly a bright flash of light filled the room(to Watanuki it did). When he opened his eyes he saw the room was lit and clean. The table in the middle of the room had a clear vase with beautiful red roses in it. The room also had a tea table and six chairs sitting around it, with two cups of tea and a plate of sweet cakes and cookies on it.

He heard a small sigh and saw a beautiful girl dancing around the room wearing the shoes that he was once holding only the shoes where turning from black to a white. She had medium length blond hair, her eyes where shut and she hummed and danced around in a white dress with a light blue ribbon on the back, and edging of the dress. She opened her blue eyes and smiled.

"Thank you. I'm sorry you got hurt because of me. I wanted to tell you that that other spirit was here but he kept me trapped here." She said in a soft voice with gratitude filling her voice. "He trapped me by putting a spell on my shoes and turning them an awful black." she said as she gestured to her shoes. "Still thank you very much for setting me free and I'm sorry you and you friend had to get hurt. Please tell you friend I said thank you." She finished.

"Don't worry about Domeki, he's pretty tuff when you thing about it." as that statement left his mouth he realized what he had just said, and tired to cover with, " But I wouldn't know. The spirit was going easy on him, and it doesn't matter anyway because he not my friend."

Watanuki tried to cover up his mistake but the spirit could see right through his defense as smiled. "Well then I guess you really weren't worried as he fought and got hurt for you then right?" she said looking at Watanuki.

"Of course I was worried he'd just blame me! But then he really has a good reason to do so. I always cause trouble for him." Watanuki said as he looked at the floor.

"He cares, that why and I don't thing he minds one bit." she said with a soft smile. "And I thing you care about him more than you let on to."

"Yeah I do, I can't stand to let him keeping getting hurt because of me." He said a tears started to form in his eyes.

"Oh dear I kept you to long, now I made him worry. Oh well. Sorry and once again thank you." She said and waved good bye and she faded away the room began to spin and Watanuki shut his eyes willing it to stop.

The battle was final over but when the smoked cleared he couldn't find Watanuki. He ran to where he was put last, thinking 'he couldn't get far with that leg of his.' When he got to the spot his heart froze in terror and he saw the small puddle of blood and then a smeared trail then nothing. 'Was there another one? Did It get him? Was he taken away from me?" Domeki was starting to panic. He started to run through the house looking for his friend, desperate shouting for him, hoping he would answer.

He started to make his way down stair when he saw a light form over the couch and Watanuki appear and laid carefully on the couch.

"WATNUKI!" Domeki shouted as he ran down the stairs and to his friend. He came up to the couch and saw him there with his eyes closed. "WATANUKI!" he yelled and gripped his shoulders and began to shake him.

Watanuki slowly opened his eyes and saw the look of relief and joy come over Domeki's face. Watanuki though that Domeki looked so happy that he going to cry.

"I'm sorry for worrying you Domeki and putting you through all this trouble." Watanuki said as he looked at his injured friend and noted that the shoes where back in his hands and were now white not black.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you again." Domeki said as he hugged Watanuki.

"It's alright I end up putting you through so much." Watanuki answered and hugged Domeki back.

Watanuki was put on Domeki's back and started there trip back to Yuko's shop. And surprisingly no spirits bothered them on they way.

The End.

Look for the Journey Home. coming out soon.