Author's Notes: Hey everybody! I'm back with another chapter. ^_^

This one's with Petshop of Horrors, and although it takes place at the end of the series, there shouldn't be too many spoilers. It makes a brief reference to the sequel, but you don't have to have read it to understand.

As for the previous chapter, I got a couple of questions in the reviews. To Psycho Chinchilla, yes, the wolf is from the game Okami. As for yuMeNami... I'm not entirely sure what Ammy wished for. My basic idea was that she wished for a way for her world to recover from the damage done by Yami and his demons, but I didn't work out exactly what she wished for, or the object that Yuuko gave her at the end. This chapter is quite a bit more specific than that, so hopefully you'll enjoy it.

Okay, enough from me. On with the fic!

It was a bright, sunny day at Yuuko's shop, perfect for just sitting on the porch, drinking tea, and having a light snack. Yuuko was doing just that, relaxing in the shade, and watching the leaves flutter out of the trees, trapped by the light wind. It was remarkably peaceful, surrounded by the sights of nature, and the mood was nicely complimented by the taste of freshly baked cookies and the distant sound of vacuuming from within the house.

With such a peaceful atmosphere, it was easy to drift off into one's own thoughts. Yuuko stared off into space, gently following the threads of hitsuzen with her mind. She caught an interesting tangent, and peered off into the distance.

"Watanuki," she called softly, lost in thought. When the boy didn't reply, she broke out of her thoughts and shouted into the house, "WATANUKI!"

The sounds of the vacuum stopped, and the boy stepped outside, his hair tied back with a white handkerchief and his front covered by a matching apron. "What is it?" the seer asked irritably. "Did you run out of cookies again?"

"No," she said, returning her gaze to the front, a faraway look in her eyes. "I need chocolate."

"Chocolate?" he repeated. "I think there are some milk chocolate bars in the kitchen… I'll go get them for you."

"No," she said sternly, stopping him. "I need you to make chocolate."

"MAKE chocolate?!" he exclaimed in dismay. Although making chocolate was a rather enjoyable activity, he had virtually no ingredients for it. It took a rather long time, and despite his best efforts, it always managed to make a huge mess that he would have to clean up afterwards. There was a reason he only made chocolate by himself for Valentine's Day and other special occasions.

"Yuuko-san," Watanuki said in a vain attempt to make her see reason, "I'm sure store-bought chocolates will satisfy your craving, I don't have any time to make any right now! I still have to finish vacuuming and dusting and sweeping the yard-"

"It needs to be home made," she interjected firmly. "And it needs to be sweet."

"Sweet?"

"Painfully sweet. And unbelievably rich. I need you to make sweet, intense, over-the-top chocolate that's so rich it's just short of inedible."

Watanuki scowled. "I thought you liked bitter chocolate."

"I do! The darker the better!"

"Then WHY-?"

"This isn't for me."

Watanuki said nothing. Yuuko patiently sipped her tea as she waited for his conflicting emotions to settle down. He obviously didn't want to make chocolate today, but he was such a good boy, always ready and willing to help a customer. And if a customer's wish somehow involved chocolate, who was he to refuse?

On the other hand, he thought, Yuuko hadn't specifically said that the chocolate was for a customer. It could easily be for Mokona. Or Doumeki (the bastard). Or even Syaoran, he thought, remembering Valentine's Day…

"Fine," he snapped angrily. "I'll make your stupid chocolate."

"Rich," she reminded him.

"Yeah yeah," he called behind him as he wandered off into the kitchen to check what ingredients he needed to go buy. "Rich."

It was many hours later before anyone of notice walked down the street past Yuuko's shop. Meandering down the road was a tall, well built, middle-aged blond man. Foreigners weren't all that uncommon in Japan, but this one didn't quite match their usual appearance. He looked neither excited nor apprehensive about being in a foreign country. He carried neither a camera nor a Japanese-English dictionary, or even any luggage. He walked very slowly, his head bent down as if exhausted, staring at his own feet. His footsteps were irregular, an old injury to his leg flaring up and making him limp. He carried the air of a tired, broken man.

At one point, he had been full of energy and even enthusiasm for his seemingly impossible quest. He still held onto that original determination, but hunting for so many years had left him feeling virtually hopeless. The plane ticket to Japan had cost him most of his money, the concurrent bus ride and meager dinner depleting the little that was left. He had exactly 517 yen in the pocket of his old, dusty jacket. That was all. He didn't even know why he was in Japan at all… some old rumors about a flock of birds and his own meager instincts were his only leads.

He stopped, tired, and leaned against the fence for a quick rest. He tried to gather his thoughts, to think of what he was going to do next, but all that he could think of was the burning desire, the undying need to find what he was looking for…

He pushed off the fence with a sigh, and when he looked up, he was confronted with a lovely little house, old-fashioned, with a beautiful garden in front and a little black fence surrounding it… He wondered how he had never noticed it before.

Not really knowing why, the foreigner stepped through the gate. The smell of incense wafted through the air from inside the house, and with it came a strong sense of deja vu…and for the first time in a long time, hope. This house could help him, he was suddenly sure.

He stepped further into the garden with confidence. The house and its surroundings were even more beautiful on the inside. It had an ethereal beauty that made him shiver with familiar wonder. This place seemed so similar to what he was looking for, it was eerie.

"Anou…" a quiet voice stuttered from somewhere nearby. Startled, the man looked around, and met the gaze of a teenaged boy standing by a tree, a broomstick clutched in his hands.

A boy with mismatched eyes.

For a brief moment, those eyes took his breath away. There was no way… his search surely couldn't be over just like that, so suddenly? But no… The boy's eyes were blue and gold, yes, but they weren't the right ones. They weren't in the head of the person he was looking for.

Still, he took it as a good omen. There was no way the boy was just a coincidence. This place had too many things in common with what he was looking for. Too many things that were almost right…almost, but not quite.

"Irrasshaimase," the boy said with a polite bow.

"Er," said the man. He didn't know any Japanese. "Konnichiwa?"

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other. Not for the first time, the man wished he were able to speak the languages of the countries he went to. This wasn't the first time he'd had trouble communicating, not by a long shot. He wanted to apologize for barging in on the boy's house, but had no way to say anything. He fiddled with his jacket. The boy fiddled with his broom, also wondering what to say.

Their silence was interrupted when the boy let out a very odd squawking noise and burst into a bizarre dance, shouting and reaching his arms over his head wildly. The man stared at him in utter astonishment. He'd been all over the world, and was pretty sure this action wasn't considered normal in any culture.

"Mugetsu!" the boy shouted, "Ya…me…TE!"

At the last syllable, he managed to grab hold of something down the back of his shirt, and tugged it out in front of him angrily. Was that…a snake? No, it was furry! The boy chided it with angry Japanese for a moment.

The foreigner couldn't help but laugh at the strange situation. It felt good. He hadn't had much reason to laugh in a very long time. He bent over with his chuckles, getting a cramp in his side from the exertion of laughter, but it was worth it.

The boy just stood there awkwardly, holding the furry creature away from his body so that it couldn't climb down his shirt again. A slight blush covered his face, embarrassed from his little dancing fit, but he was also slightly relieved that the tension between himself and the strange man had been broken. He and the creature watched as the man slowly regained control of his breath.

When he had recovered from his long-needed laughter, the man held out his calloused hand for the little animal to sniff. It leaned forwards off the boy's arms to get better access, and after a cursory examination, it wrapped around his wrist instead.

"Hey there," he laughed as it wrapped itself around his arm. Now that he had a closer look, it didn't seem much like a snake at all. It seemed more canine, like a fox, maybe. It crawled happily over his shoulders and curled up like a scarf around his collar, though to his relief, it made no attempt to go down his clothes like it had with the boy.

The boy in question seemed fairly surprised by his pet's reaction to the stranger, but also felt his apprehension dissolving. It made sense, the foreigner thought. Pets are good judges of character. In a place like this, he wouldn't have been surprised that if the little foxworm had taken a dislike to him, it would have somehow turned ugly and dangerous, and he'd've had to make a quick getaway.

"Welcome," said a low voice from the direction of the house. Both the boy and the man jumped at the sound. Standing in the doorway was a beautiful woman – or, as the man's brain put it, one ridiculously hot chick. Back when he had a place to stay, this was the kind of woman he would have on posters, the kind of poster that he had always complained about when he visited. She was dressed in some sort of traditional Asian robes, all ribbons and huge sleeves and charms in the hair and a split down the center that showed just short of an indecent amount of cleavage. Fancy silk, mysterious beauties, and that ever-present smell of incense…

Oh yeah. He was definitely on the right track.

The woman stepped out of the house and gestured to the boy. They had a brief conversation in Japanese that the man didn't understand at all, and the boy headed back into the house with one last glance over his shoulder at the foreigner.

The woman turned to the newcomer. "Welcome to my shop," she said in flawless English.

"Uh, hi," he said, and looked around. "This is a shop?"

"It is."

"Do you…sell pets here?"

She chuckled slightly. "Sometimes," she said, "if that's what my customer wishes for. But it's not my specialty."

"Oh." Of course not, that would be too easy. "What do you sell?"

"Wishes," she replied. "This shop will grant almost any wish, as long as the customer can pay a price of equal value." She looked hard into his eyes. "If you found your way to my shop, you must have a wish."

A wish. Boy did he have a wish. The idea of that wish had consumed him for years, caused him to leave his home in the US for strange countries, all in search of a memory that could just have easily been a dream. He had a wish, alright.

"I'm looking for someone."

She gave him a secretive smile, one that gave the impression that she already knew everything about him, knew everything he wanted to know, and was just waiting to see if he deserved that information. It looked a lot like his smile.

She reached out a perfectly manicured hand (yet another similarity, he thought), and gestured to him. "Shall we go inside?"

Without waiting for an answer, she gracefully turned and entered the house. The man hesitated, but after nervously patting the head of the foxworm that still lay on his shoulders, he followed.

"You can call me Yuuko," Yuuko said amiably when they sat down at her coffee table. "But it's not my real name."

"Leon Orcot," the man replied. Interesting. No hesitation in giving out his real name, even when she had told him she was hiding something. This was a man with nothing to lose.

"You're very good with animals, Mister Orcot," she observed, watching Mugetsu snuggling on his neck.

"Yeah," Leon replied with only a touch of nervousness. "I try to be. I thought that maybe it would help me find him…"

"You have a wish, Mister Orcot," she said, getting right down to business. It was obvious that he only had one thing on his mind.

"Yeah," he said. "I do." He looked her straight in the eyes. "I'm looking for someone called Count D."

Yuuko was silent for a long moment. She took a long drag from her pipe before answering, and sighed. "You've been searching for a long time."

"Years."

"The Ds are not easy people to find," she said. "Especially when they do not want to be found."

"Tell me about it," Leon said bitterly, and leaned back on his hand. He scratched Mugetsu's head again with the free one. "But I'll find him. If it takes me my whole life, I'll find that bastard again."

Yuuko watched the strange man play idly with the pipe fox. He was reclining back, legs spread and relaxed, looking for all the world as though he were perfectly comfortable in her shop. As if he was more at home among monsters and dreams than the world of humans into which he had been born and raised. He had completely ignored the warning in her voice, if he had noticed it at all. Whatever D's opinion on Leon's quest was, he didn't care. The only thing Leon cared about was finding him. He needed to find him.

In other words, he had a wish.

"I can help you find him," Yuuko said. "But there is a price."

He nodded. He'd obviously expected something like that.

She stared into his eyes and began, "You left your home, your job, your friends, your family, all for the sake of this wish. You dropped everything you had and left your country, your entire life behind. For years, you've been searching. Never stopping, never giving up. You have already paid an enormous price for this wish."

She took another drag from her pipe. "For that price," she said, "I can give you his address."

Leon looked at her in astonishment. "That's it?" he asked. "You'll just… give it to me? For free? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Yuuko agreed, "But not for free. Nothing is ever truly free. You were able to find my shop because you needed to. Because your payment of time and effort has only now added up to enough for your wish to be granted. It was not coincidence. It was hitsuzen."

"Hit-soo-zen?" Leon stumbled over the foreign word. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Yuuko smiled. "Hitsuzen. The simplest translation would be 'destiny,' I suppose, though that's not entirely accurate. Basically, you came here because you needed to come here."

Leon nodded, although he didn't really understand all that well. "I don't really get it, but… you'll give me his address, right?"

"Yes," Yuuko said. "I will." She pulled a pen and paper from somewhere within the depths of her sleeves, and neatly wrote down the address in both kanji and romaji. She held it out for him to take.

"Tokyo," she said, as he reached out and grasped the paper with a shaking hand.

"Tokyo," he repeated, and stared at the paper in awe, hardly daring to believe it could be that simple.

"But be warned, Mister Orcot. The Count may not take kindly to your visit. I've given you the means to find him, but that does not mean he will welcome you as you hope. He could, for all I know, throw you out, or even set his beasts upon you."

"Yeah, well!" He laughed. "That's just a risk I'm gonna hafta take, I guess." He stood and untangled Mugetsu from his neck. Handing the fox to her, he said, "Thanks a lot, Yuuko. I'd better get going, just in case he decides to disappear again before I can get to him."

"Wait," she called. With a small smile, she cooed to Mugetsu in Japanese, "Go fetch Watanuki-kun for me, would you?" As the fox bounced merrily off to the kitchen, she turned back to Leon. "Although I cannot guarantee what D's reaction to your visit will be, I can give you some things that may better your chances of success."

Leon hesitated in the doorway. "Yeah? For real?"

"Absolutely. But as I said before, everything has a price."

"Right."

The witch rose to her feet, and held out before her a beautiful lacquered box. It was about the size of a small jewelry box, black with a little gold clap and the simple design of a butterfly engraved on its lid. Leon had no idea where she'd pulled it from. He took it carefully in both hands.

"What's in it?"

"This box will help grant your wish for D to accept you," she explained. "Should you choose to open it, he will find it very difficult to refuse your request. The magic within will bind you to him in a way you cannot achieve as you are now. However, the granting of that wish will also act as its own price. If you open that box, you will lose your humanity. You will no longer have the option of going home and living a normal life."

"In other words…" Leon murmured, "I'll turn into an animal. And I'll have to spend my life as just another one of D's pets, is that it?"

Yuuko said nothing.

"That's such a load of crap!" he shouted. "I've done all of this shit just to find him! As a human! If he can't understand that, then he's just…" He stopped with a sigh, and ran a hand through his graying hair, staring down at the box in his arms. With a nervous chuckle, he asked, "Any idea what it'd turn me into?"

"That depends on you," Yuuko replied simply. "Whatever you are meant to be, you will be. And of course, it is your own choice whether you open the box at all. You don't have to do so here. Take it with you. Open it if and whenever you choose. I have no use for it here."

"Yeah, well…" he fell silent again, not sure what to say. He ran his fingers gently over the clasp.

"Aa, Yuuko-san?" called a voice from the other side of the room. Watanuki stood there, holding a neat white paper bag, Mugetsu nuzzling his cheek as he poked out from within the boy's shirt. Surrounding the boy was the delectable scent of chocolate.

Yuuko beckoned to him. To Leon, she said, "There is one more thing I can offer you to help in your quest."

Leon laughed bitterly as the boy came to stand behind his employer. "Yeah? And what's that gonna cost me?"

"How much money do you have?"

He blinked in surprise at the simple answer, but fished around in his pockets. "Er, 517 yen. Not very much."

"Give it to me."

Leon gave her the handful of coins as she took the bag of chocolates from her assistant. She handed the money to him, and he pocketed it, looking confused.

As he took the bag from Yuuko, Leon said, "This seems like a pretty small price compared to your other ones." Taking a quick glance inside the bag, he added, "Especially for such fancy chocolates! Did he make these?!"

"Your money has more worth than simple monetary value. It's all the money you had. The difficulty you will face getting to Tokyo without money should cover the difference in price."

He looked slightly disheartened at that news, but turned to leave with both the box and the chocolate, staring down at the address in his hand. "Yeah, well. Thanks again."

Yuuko waited until her customer had exited her shop, turning the corner around the black gate. Then she turned to Watanuki with a delighted smile and clapped her hands. "Well then! Now that that's over with, it's time for Watanuki-kun to make us more chocolates!"

"Whaaaaaaaaaaat?! I spent all day on those! I have homework to do, you know!"

"You'd better hurry then! You need to finish making the chocolate before Doumeki-kun comes by to pick you up!"
"I AM NOT MAKING ANY CHOCOLATE FOR THAT UNGRATEFUL BASTARD!"


It was late in the evening when there was a knock on the door. Most of the stores in the building were closed by now, the sun having long since set, and although the petshop always welcomed customers, it seemed highly unusual for there to be one at this time of night.

"I wonder who that could be?" D said to one of the cats on the couch. She shrugged.

Setting down his cup of tea, the Count called to the door, "Coming!" He straightened out his robes as he stood, and opened the door with his usual smile. "Irrasshaimas –"

He cut short when he saw his visitor, shocked. Leon gave him a sheepish grin. "Hey, D. Long time no see."

The Count gaped for a moment as he took in Leon's appearance: the dirty jacket, the messy start of a beard, graying blond hair…His face was haggard, but wore a somewhat hopeful expression. D's eyes wandered over the strange box he had tucked under his arm, and they lingered involuntarily on the small white bag he carried in the other, the unmistakable scent of chocolate wafting out of its contents.

With a half resigned, half amused sigh, D stepped back from the doorway and gestured for Leon to come in. "Indeed it has been, my dear detective." And just as if nothing had changed between them in all those long years, he said amiably, "I was just sitting down for some tea. Would you care to join me?"

End Notes: I was considering continuing this chapter and having it go into more of D and Leon's interactions... but this is an xxxHolic fic, right? So I didn't. If anyone would like me to write out the remainder of my idea, let me know. Maybe I will.

For anyone who's never gone into a Japanese restaurant, 'Irrasshaimase' means 'welcome (to our shop)'. 'Yamete' means 'stop'.

As before, if anyone has any questions or suggestions for future crossovers, drop me a review! Also drop me a review even if you don't have either of those! I like getting reviews!

See you next time...