Own neither XxxHoLiC nor InuYasha: a Feudal Fairytale. Pity. I'd love to get my hands on the royalties they produce, and to be able to claim credit for the brilliant writing in XxxHoLiC. Alas, 'twas not meant to be!

For time framing purposes, The Price of Hitsuzen starts just after chapter 14 of XxxHoLiC, meaning the travelers from Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE have just come to Yuuko's shop, and departed with the White Mokona. As for the InuYasha timeline, this is canon following ONLY the anime, as I gave up reading the manga in disgust at roughly the same point as the anime stopped. I only know how the manga ended because, out of pure curiosity as to how Rumiko Takahashi finally ended the thing, I read the last two chapters. So, this takes place roughly two and a half years after Kagome falls into the well for the first time, give or take a few months.

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Kagome knew better than to argue with hitsuzen. It wouldn't work, and besides, she had a sneaking suspicion that it would only cause hitsuzen to hate her even more than it already did, and the kami knew she couldn't afford that. So, she warily followed the tug hitsuzen's call, first entering the gated garden, then stepping onto the porch of the building. She raised her hand to knock on the closed door, when it was opened by two small girls.

"Welcome!" They chorused with bright smiles. Kagome smiled back, studying them.

"Thank you." While the two seemed happy enough, Kagome could see that their eyes were dull, and sensed a hollow void within them. She shivered slightly; as one who had once been in a similar position, she could tell that neither girl possessed a soul, although she didn't think that they had been stolen, as hers had been. Each girl moved to take one of her arms. The one on her left had long blue pig tails, and the one on her right had shoulder length neon pink hair, with a swirled bun on each side of her head, the unusual colors further leading Kagome to believe that these girls had been created without souls for whatever reason.

"You are the Master's guest!" The one with pigtails piped up cheerfully.

"You are the Master's guest!" The one with buns agreed, her voice equally bright. Kagome's eyebrows rose.

"If you say so." At her words, she found herself being towed along by the duo, and had to quicken her pace to keep from tripping over her own feet. Soon, she found herself in front of a set of sliding doors. The girls released her arms to open them, revealing a voluptuous woman in a rather revealing kimono reclining on a divan, with a long, narrow pipe in her hand. The pipe cast smoke throughout the room like incense, creating an air of mystery. Kagome was impressed in spite of herself; the woman was a master at creating a mysterious atmosphere, and being the most mysterious part of it. She, however, refused to be caught up in it. She looked the woman right in the eye, and spoke.

"Hello. I'm assuming that you're the one hitsuzen decided that I needed to meet?"

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Yuuko had to admit to being surprised by this girl. She had, of course, known for a few days now that the miko of the shikon no tama would be coming to visit, which was why she had given Watanuki the day off, but she had not expected the girl to be quite so aware of hitsuzen, and the way it played games with her life. Nor had she expected someone quite so confident in herself. In that respect, the girl was completely unlike Watanuki. Yuuko smiled.

"There are no coincidences in this world," she began her usual, highly mysterious line.

"Of course there aren't. When push comes to shove, hitsuzen decides every meeting." The girl agreed. Yuuko's eyebrows rose, and a smile played across her lips. She was going to like working with this one a great deal more than working with Watanuki.

"Indeed. An interesting answer for one so young." She said with a nod.

"Interesting answer! Interesting answer!" Maru and Moro repeated gleefully. A slightly bitter look crossed the girl's face.

"Let's just say that I'm not as young as I was a few years ago." She answered.

"Your name?" Yuuko asked, curious to see how the girl would react. She was not disappointed when the girl's expression immediately turned wary.

"...Kagome. Yours?"

"Yuuko. Your birthday?" At these words, Kagome's expression went from wary to flat.

"Why do you need to know?" Yuuko smiled approvingly.

"I don't. You are wise to hide such secrets carefully." Kagome's expression was still guarded as she answered.

"Thank you... I think. Would you mind telling me where I am?" Yuuko's smile widened.

"You are in my shop."

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"You are in my shop." Kagome nodded, eyes narrowed slightly. She was not stupid. She could feel the spiritual power rolling off this person. Whatever she did here, it wasn't likely to be selling groceries, or the like. This shop had something to do with power, even if Kagome couldn't tell if Yuuko worked for good... or for evil.

"Really? What do you sell?" She asked dryly. Yuuko's smile once again turned mysterious.

"This is a shop that grants wishes... for the appropriate price." That phrase was more illuminating than Kagome had expected. Yuuko was, in a way, like the shikon no tama. She would grant your wish... but you would have to pay a price for it, eventually. Usually, the price was equal to what you got from the wish, but something you would never want to pay. Kagome had seen that game played out a few too many times in the Sengoku Jidai.

"I see. And I suppose that there's a reason why hitsuzen dragged me in here?" She asked, politely.

"Dragged you in here! Dragged you in here!" The girls repeated happily. Yuuko's smile widened, if that was possible.

"But of course. You can only enter the shop if you have a wish. So... what do you wish? I can grant it." Kagome was a bit startled. Yes, of course she had a wish- more than one, as a matter of fact- but so did everyone. That wasn't, she knew, quite what Yuuko meant. Kagome was pretty sure that what she had really meant was 'You can only enter the shop if you have a wish that requires assistance to grant.' A student who wished for a good grade on a test, for example, wouldn't be able to enter the shop, because he or she was fully capable of getting that grade through their own hard work. A normal person who wished for a solution to a problem with an evil spirit, however, would most certainly be able to enter, as he or she would need as much help as he or she could get to deal with the problem. What wish did Kagome have that would meet those requirements. Her fingers went to play with the strand of prayer beads, a nervous habit that she had developed over the last year. Then it hit her. Of course she had a wish that required help to be achieved. She was just very, very careful never to phrase it as such, out loud, or in her mind, because she was very much afraid of the consequences.

"I can tell you have power, Yuuko-san." She said slowly, as she reached up to unfasten the prayer beads from around her neck, "Which means that you should know what this is." Kagome set the strand of beads down on a small table next to Yuuko's divan. Yuuko nodded.

"But of course. What person of power wouldn't recognize the famed shikon no tama?"

"Then you will understand why I don't really feel comfortable using the word 'wish' around it." At Yuuko's nod, Kagome continued. "I would very much appreciate it if the shikon no tama would disappear forever, so that it can never be called upon again to do either harm, or good. I want it gone. Completely gone, never to come back. The only thing I know of that might possibly do that is to make a pure and unselfish... request of it, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that it's possible to do such a thing. Any such... request would be selfish by definition" Her eyes looked challengingly into Yuuko's. "Can you grant my... request?"

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Yuuko was only half surprised at the girl's unusual wish. Most would have been selfish, and gone for the wish of opening up the well on her shrine again, but Kagome was intelligent enough, and aware enough, to realize that this wasn't what she really and truly wanted, or needed. What, exactly, Kagome needed, Yuuko doubted the girl herself knew. It was one of those things that only someone who could watch from the outside would be able to realize at first. What the girl needed was to find what she was meant to do in her own time. Having the shikon no tama hanging around her neck was a hindrance to that, forcing Kagome to remain stuck in the past, focusing on her former quest, and the shikon no tama itself. For her to move on with her life, the shikon no tama had to go, and the only way a miko such as Kagome would release it was if she was certain that it could do no more damage to anyone.

And that was something only Yuuko could arrange.

"Yes, I can. For a price."

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Kagome was startled by the prompt answer, and immediately went even deeper into caution mode.

"And what price, exactly, would that be?" Yuuko smile curved her lips again.

"Your price would come in two parts. First, the well you used in your travels– yes, I know about those– will never work for you again. You would never be able to return to the Sengoku Jidai." Kagome supposed she shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that Yuuko knew about the well, and her quest. The woman had power, after all, and she was certain that any fore-teller, or... whatever you called the opposite of a fore-teller, would be able to tell what she had spent a little more than a year of her life doing. Kagome nodded.

"That would be acceptable. However, as the well doesn't exactly work now, something tells me that wouldn't come near covering the whole price." Yuuko nodded approvingly.

"Very good. No, that wouldn't cover even half of your price. As you said, the well isn't working now, and just the possibility of it letting you through in the future isn't worth that much. Even you have started to give up on that, I believe." Kagome looked down, and nodded. Recently, she had only been jumping into the well because she had to try, even as she was almost certain that it wouldn't work. "Then it's definitely not valuable enough. To cover the rest of the price for your wish, you will work here, as a part-time job of sorts, until your debt is paid. Then, I would grant your wish." Kagome bit her lip, considering. Working in Yuuko's shop would certainly drag her into confrontations with spirits and youkai, which wouldn't be good as long as she had the jewel, but... did she really want to leave that world behind? Now that she knew it was there, and it knew that she was, she would always, always be a part of it. Working at Yuuko's would ensure that she had some clue of what was going on in the unseen world, and possibly give her better tools than simple purification to deal with it. It was a good arrangement for her all around. Even the well closing was, in the end, to her benefit. There would be no more pining over something that she could not have, because this time, she had made the choice to give it up herself. Her mind made up, she turned to Yuuko.

"It's a deal. When do I start?" The older woman smiled, looking very smug.

"You start tomorrow afternoon. I have another part-timer, a boy named Watanuki. He has the day off today, but tomorrow he can show you the ropes." Kagome nodded, and turned to leave. As she walked out the first set of sliding doors, Yuuko called out to her. "Do remember, Kagome-chan, hitsuzen called you here. You and I, and you and Watanuki, for that matter, were meant to meet." Kagome turned her head back to look at Yuuko, a look of defiance on her face.

"Hitsuzen may have called me here, and it may have dealt me this hand, but I'm the one who plays the cards, Yuuko-san. You and I were meant to meet, yes, but beyond that? My decisions are my own." And with that, Kagome left the shop, heading for the subway.

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So, here's the second chapter of The Price of Hitsuzen. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as you did the last one. It's significantly longer, which I imagine everyone appreciates. Now we all know what's in store for Kagome. Hopefully, she'll take being Yuuko's lackey better than Watanuki does. What do you think?

I received a rather pleasant surprise this morning, when I opened my email inbox. You see, concealed within were a grand total of fourteen story alert emails and six favorite story emails for The Price of Hitsuzen, in addition to four reviews. I posted this story less than twenty-four hours ago. The fact that it's received this many signs of favor already warms my writer's heart. Thanks to everyone, especially Lunamonki, kakashixangela, LeafeKnight7, and Bishounen'sFoxyMiko for reviewing!