Hello! Welcome to the first chapter of the first installment of our sprawling Noragami AU, or as we've called it Holitsugami (get it, Holic, Tsubasa, Noragami... eh? eh?) It has been a year long project, following semi-canon events, telling the tale of the main characters of the CLAMP universe as gods, spirits, and humans, protecting the human world from all things otherworldly.

We have been plotting this since last January, and we have much written in both sides of the story. This is the xxxHolic side, which was conceptualized and mostly written by names are hard guys here on ff (username_goes_here on Ao3) I (Arisprite) will be lightly editing up to the point it is written, and then finishing it, with consultation from names are hard guys. It is a sister story to kate_7h's Tsubasa story Our Whispered Beginning. The stories will be posted here, and also on Ao3 in a series called Humanity of Souls | Morality of Gods. We'll also be reblogging on our individual tumblrs.

We encourage you to read both sides of the story, as, like xxxHolic and Tsubasa themselves, the two stories will be sisters, with intertwining parts, and plots.

This is the first story of three. Probably.

Please let us know if there are any warnings we need to use. Characters are spirits, and so, are dead, but we're not tagging character death... unless they actually disappear from the story. But, things may get dark, and I'd hate to upset anyone. However, be aware this series is rated T for reasons.

The first thought that occurred to him - well, he assumed it was his first thought, he couldn't remember any other thoughts before it - was something along the lines of, "huh." It was an odd sensation he felt - again, he assumed it was odd, it didn't feel quite right but he didn't know why. Why did he have this concept of normality if he didn't have any memories, and why the hell didn't he have any memories?

Less concerning, but more easily answered, was the question of where he was. Looking around, he saw he was in a garden or a park of some sort. It was night and it was raining and he was wet and he was cold and everything was blurry - was that normal?

Despite the blurriness, he could see a few things. Across from him was a round path, and across from that, a bench, maybe. Behind him was a rather large hydrangea bush - not in bloom but impressive nonetheless.

"Hello there!"

A woman's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Um, hi?" he responded, still very confused and very annoyed and very much wondering where the voice was coming from.

Further down the path, he saw a shape coming closer. It came more and more into focus as it approached, and he could see that it was a woman. She was tall and impressive and wore what the boy could tell was the most ornate outfit he'd ever seen (well, anything would have been the most ornate outfit he'd ever seen, now wouldn't it?), despite the blurriness. Her long, dark hair flowed all around her, nearly melding with the deep hue of the dress she wore. Any more details than that were impossible to determine, considering the dark and the bad vision. Maybe he needed glasses or something.

The woman laughed, continuing forward.

"Oh dear, you look as lost as a child! Though you practically are - you're not terribly old."

The boy frowned. "Hell if I know! Who are you? What's going on? Is this some sort of sick joke?" He couldn't help the anger that was coming out at this woman. For all he knew - which was nothing - she could be completely innocent. Then again… She was the only one there.

"This is no joke. I hate to break it to you, but you're dead," she said as nonchalantly as if she was telling him that his shoes were untied. Actually, he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. Huh.

"Dead?" he asked, more than mildly concerned, and considering arguing the point, but deciding against it because it didn't seem wrong and he was curious where exactly this was heading. "Then this is the afterlife."

"No," the woman said.

He considered this. "Then you're insinuating that I'm a ghost," he half-asked, half-stated.

She hummed. "No, not quite."

Yeah, because that made sense.

"This is ridiculous," he decided, despite feeling that she was telling the truth. "Dead people don't just wander around gardens in the middle of the night barefoot - do they?" As if he knew - he didn't even know his own name. Who was he?

"Not generally, no. In fact, uncorrupted spirits are quite rare these days. To happen upon you like this…" She paused as she finally reached him, and when she spoke again, her tone was absolute. "It was hitsuzen."

The boy blinked and looked up at the woman.

"Hitsuzen?" He racked his brain to see if he recognized the odd word. "As in… inevitability? Fate?" He paused, backtracking a moment. "Dead."

The woman sighed and was that a frown? He really couldn't tell through the blurry vision - glasses were certainly a priority.

"Listen, child-"

"I am not a child! I'm…" He didn't know. "Well, I'm not a child!"

"You must accept this," the woman continued, paying him no mind. Her tone was serious, so the boy listened. "You are dead. You're a spirit now. I am in need of a regalia - a spirit assistant of sorts. Our meeting was inevitable, yes. Fated. Hitsuzen, as I said." She paused, probably for theatrical effect. "Will you become my regalia?"

The boy considered this. Nothing else really made sense right now - who's to say he wasn't dead? Instinct told him he'd seen weirder, and there were few arguments to be had against it. Especially not right now in the cold, wet night.

"Why do you need a spirit assistant?" he decided to ask. He didn't want to agree to something he would eventually regret.

"I'm a god - you can never have too many regalia!" she said excitedly, though he felt like there was something more than just flippancy in her tone. "Besides, I could use the help. I have a rather large temple, and too few workers now. You'd have a place to live, a name, people who can see you - everything a regalia could possibly want!"

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait - a god? You're a god? And what do you mean people who can see me?"

The woman huffed. "Yes. I am Yuuko, god of equivalency and inevitability." Well didn't that just explain her attitude, wait a second did she say-

"Yuuko…gami? The Yuuko-gami?" There was knowledge somewhere within Watanuki - though he didn't know where it was from - that told him that he knew who Yuuko was. She was the god. The one you took your dire requests to. The one people told stories about… not that he could remember the stories, now that he thought about it.

He wanted to call this woman a liar. Turn away, figure it all out alone… Although… He couldn't quite explain to himself why, but he knew that this woman was Yuuko, and that she was telling the truth, and that this was the best course of action. She could give him a home, a purpose, a self.

A thousand thoughts passed through him in a second, not all of them comprehensible. How terribly wrong could this all go? How horrible would it be to refuse? What the hell does a dead person do, anyways? Do dead people need glasses?

"Do you agree to be my regalia, or not, child?" Yuuko - Yuuko - asked. Or rather, demanded, based on that tone of voice.

"Fine, fine, I'll do it," he conceded. "But when you say assistant, you better mean assistant, because I'll tell you right now that if regalia is a fancy god-term for slave, I am gone!"

Yuuko waved her hand casually. "Yes, yes." It wasn't really much assurance, if he were to be honest.

Suddenly, her entire demeanor changed. Her posture straightened, her head rose, and she lifted out a hand, extending two fingers.

"You, who have nowhere to go, I grant you a place to belong. My name is Yuuko. Bearing a posthumous name, you shall remain here. With this name I make thee my servant. With this name and its alternate, I use my life to make thee a regalia. Thou art Ki. As regalia, Noboru. Come, Noboru!"

A blinding flash of light, and suddenly he was… different. Not himself. His body had changed into something completely different. No longer was he human, but rather… an object? Or perhaps a consciousness attached to one?

He felt contracted, bent and folded together, with wooden spokes and iron edges all folded against one another. Something warm held him - a hand? The hand moved quickly then, and it felt like he was flicked apart, the spokes separated, but held together. He could feel the rain again, but on paper this time, instead of skin.

It was… not pleasant.

What the hell? he said? thought? He didn't really know. He could barely process anything at the moment.

The hand - Yuuko's hand - spun him once, and suddenly he was back on his feet. In the mud. And the inside his right wrist burned where a red kanji was now imprinted. Ki.

He looked back up at Yuuko. "What did you just do to me? You said, you said I'd be an assistant! What sort of assistance were you expecting?"

She shrugged, and possibly frowned - he really couldn't see well. "Cooling me off in the summer months, apparently. Your regalia form is a fan."

The boy was at a loss for words. Which, for some reason, seemed surprising to him.

"You really don't remember much, do you?"

"Much about what?"

"Just the world, Watanuki."

He considered being offended, but… she wasn't wrong, it seemed.

"I thought you said my name was Ki or Noboru or something like that." This night - his first night - was getting more and more confusing for him. Hopefully it didn't get any more confusing than this.

"Ki is short for Watanuki, of course," she explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world

"Oh, of course," he repeated, hoping his tone sounded as sarcastic as it felt. This whole thing felt like walking into some sort of trap.

Yuuko held an object out to him and sighed. "Your tone isn't appreciated. You're in the presence of a god, you know."

"Hn," he grunted, with a hint of disdain, though when he took the object from her, he was less angry. "Hey, how did you know I would need glasses?"

"Hitsuzen."

He put the glasses on - who knew you could see this much detail even in the dark? - and took in the full, clear image of the god in front of him. She was beautiful, if severe and intimidating. Black hair framed her face and looped and curled around her head and down her back. Her eyes were a piercing and disconcerting red. His guess on the blue dress was correct, but he couldn't have guessed how intricate the patterns on it were. Large, purple butterflies were embroidered into the fabric throughout the dress, and the dye had a gradient, making it darker nearer to the ground.

He then looked down and saw his muddy feet. And robe-thing?

"Can we go to that temple now?" he asked. "I'm cold and muddy and standing here in the rain is not helping."

"Of course!" Yuuko yelled (more loudly than perhaps warranted in the middle of the night) as she turned away down the path. "I'm starving. I could certainly go for some salted mackerel!" She turned to him then, her expression very serious. "You'll be cooking it of course."

He ran off after her, fuming again. "Me?! I don't even know if I can cook! Maybe I don't even like cooking, you ever think of that?"

"I'm sure you'll love it! Give it a shot!"

She certainly was an eccentric. But, he - Watanuki - had agreed to be her regalia or whatever, so here he was.

He just hoped he wouldn't regret it.

username_goes_here: Alright, so concerning the naming of regalia...

In Noragami, regalia are given a kanji. Their name is that kanji, but they have a suffix added to the end of it, usually just one syllable. A god will generally use the same suffix on all their regalia, almost like a family name, and that'll be their full name.

Then, in their regalia form, they have another name, but it's really just an alternate reading of their kanji, with 'ki' added as a suffix.

As an example for those who haven't seen or read Noragami, one of the main characters has the kanji 'Kazu' on him. The suffix his god uses is '-ma', so his name as a human is 'Kazuma.' The alternate Chinese reading is 'Chou,' so his name as a regalia is 'Chouki.'

It's hard to work with this when we have pre-named characters, especially with someone with a name like Watanuki. I can't really stay true to the Noragami version of naming regalia, sadly, and it works even less well for Watanuki. And as far as his alternate name goes, I just picked something unrelated because I can.

I wish I could make it work better, as it feels weird to do because there's no rhyme or reason behind it, but, like I said, the characters are pre-named, and the only way I can make it work is by renaming anyone who's a regalia, and I don't want to do that.