Cat Skin

a xxxHOLiC fanfiction by Wyrdley

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Notes: PG-13 for violence and language. Release date – October 10, 2005.

Disclaimer: I do not own xxxHOLiC, but I do own any original characters that may appear in this story. Please read the original books by CLAMP, because they rock.

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Part 5

In a strange space that wasn't quite part of the city, the witch of dimension smoked her pipe on the porch of her peculiar home. Her charges, Maru and Moro, played in the yard under the light of the veiled moon, laughing and chasing, angel wings pursuing devil wings, then devil wings charging angelic. Yuuko blew smoke serenely, while Larg sipped on an enormous root beer float with two straws.

The boys were in for an interesting time. She laid down her pipe and lifted the float, sipping out of the second straw. The things we do for love, she thought absently. Human and inhuman.

Even at the cost of lives. Even at the cost of hate.

Even if the cost was total disaster…

Yuuko had faith that Watanuki and the young priest would be able to stop the deaths of the maneki neko. If they couldn't, then it was entirely possible that the entire ward would fall into misfortune with its small and unnoticed guardians gone. It was difficult, imagining those children's homes becoming part of a slum.

A shop had luck. A home had luck. A neighborhood, a city, a nation… All of these things had luck. The maneki neko were not the bringers of good fortune, but the symptom of it. They enhanced the ordinary fortunes of those who cherished them. They destroyed the small and malicious things that fed on the misery of others; it would be like the great plagues of Europe centuries ago, when the cats that hunted the rats that carried the fleas that carried the disease were burned because the humans of time feared they were witches' familiars.

The dark ages were past, but even dark ages start somewhere.

The witch of dimensions grinned, thinking of a very immature witchchild carrying a cat across his shoulders. He despised his heritage; she hoped that he was beginning to understand what it was, even if he didn't exactly know what it was.

He wanted to lay it aside. Clow had tried, but he was a magician, a human force of nature, not a witch, who simply bargained with nature. The differences were more philosophical than anything else, but the philosophies in question shaped the course of lives and were nearly impossible to change. Yuuko would do her best for the boy and let him make up his own mind. Maybe he would stop hating himself so much.

She watched the moon and how her breath wafted away in the breeze. The one who was harvesting the cats didn't care about the mortal humans the cats watched over. That one probably didn't care much about what any creature thought, which was ironic, considering the reason behind the skinnings.

Love, and the hope of love, makes us so stupid, she thought fondly, placing the float down on the porch, where Larg was resting.

"Yuuko is very quiet," he said, using one black paw to clutch at the glass. He opened one eye, examining the level of ice cream and root beer. "Is Yuuko worried about Watanuki and Doumeki?"

The witch tipped her head, then stroked one silky ear through her fingers, touching the charm on Larg's earring thoughtfully. "A little. This particular job is really going to test their mettle. It will give Doumeki-kun a chance to live up to his name, too."

"Mokona thinks that Yuuko might need to go, too." The magical creature suddenly downed the rest of the drink in one loud, noisy slurp.

Yuuko thought of the boys and what they didn't know. Watanuki might be angry enough with her after this job to forbid her from drinking. One of these days, his words might actually become powerful enough to make her obey, especially if he they were evoked in a moment of passion. His powers were so erratic…

It would be a crucial point, and she had no desire to lose her booze when it came.

"Let's give them a little bit of time, first, my wondrous Mokona," she temporized, standing up, her silk falling in gentle ripples. "The first part of this task is easy, after all."

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The moon was high overhead when the cat stopped leading them. Kimihiro lurched to a halt, trying to keep his heavy breaths from being too noisy. He knew that Doumeki wouldn't keep him from the task, but at the same time, he didn't want to oaf distracted from more important things.

His arm ached, a mass of bruises. The creature had been after the lucky cat on his shoulder, not him, which was probably the only reason he was still alive. It had treated Kimihiro like a roadblock, just plowing through him without caring that he was there or not. His knee, which had just been sore, had been wrenched when it had knocked him over. Both arm and leg were occupying more of his attention than he liked.

The monster was crawling now, dragging itself towards an empty lot. It was mostly dirt and concrete, with the treads of a bulldozer making odd trails and crisscrosses. There was a chain link fence surrounding the entire area with a sign posted: "No Trespassing." Kimihiro watched the porcine creature pull itself through a trench that ran underneath the fence.

The air rippled and the beast vanished like it had never existed. Kimihiro saw Doumeki frown and run his hands up the shaft of his bow absently. "Where did it go?"

Kimihiro squinted through his glasses and cautiously limped to the hole under the fence. "It disappeared when it went through this pit, here." He touched the links warily.

A force of energy pushed him away harshly and threw him to the ground. Doumeki was at his side immediately, an arrow fitted to his bow and half-cocked, pointing at the fence. Watanuki pulled himself into a sitting position, the lucky cat inching into the hollow of his hip, the hair on her spine hackling.

"A barrier?" the exorcist whispered curtly.

"Yeah…" Kimihiro tried to see beyond the fence, hoping to detect something, anything about the site beyond the fence. He stood and approached the chain links slowly, his right hand feeling ahead of him gingerly. The cat was following so closely, he could feel her tail fluttering in and out of the bottom of his pant leg, occasionally bumping his ankle. Doumeki held still, his bow ready.

Kimihiro didn't touch the fence this time, but held his fingers just shy of its links. There was a pulse there, he realized, not warm or cold, but very much like a gust of wind breathing against a heavy curtain. He lowered himself to the ground and laid on his side so that he could look through the trench.

His eyes widened and he felt all the blood drain from his head.

Beyond the rusting chain links stood a building. It hunched on the ravaged ground ungracefully, its shape an inelegant conglomeration of rough boards and thatch. Kimihiro recognized it as a hut, but it was a hut the size of a barn. He must have gasped, because Doumeki crowded behind him instantly. "Th-there's a house on the other side." He shoved the archer out of his way and backed up a few paces, his heart slamming into his ribs.

Doumeki laid down his bow and hugged the ground, the long sleeves of his happi jacket and the legs of his hakama dragging into the churned earth. He tilted into the hole and held still for a long moment, then began to slide under the fence. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Kimihiro hissed.

Doumeki's feet vanished and then he reached his arm back. "Give me my bow."

"Are you nuts?"

"This is the job, right? That thing went to that house." Doumeki's voice was muffled, but his stark tone was all business.

"Did you see the size of the door? Moron, some giant lives in that hovel! Do you want to get eaten or something?"

"Not really. Are you going to sit and bellow at a hole in the ground all night? Someone might have you picked up for idiocy."

Kimihiro seethed, but the lucky cat slinked into the trench and disappeared. He couldn't see either cat or suicidal jerk on the other side of the links and felt his scowl fade into a nervous tick in his jaw. He stared around himself, taking in the deserted surroundings.

He shivered and knelt to crawl through the hole.

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To be continued…

Reviewers:

Thank you to everyone who has left reviews! I'm glad you're all enjoying this story so much. I wish I had more time to work on it, but I have a few other projects competing for my free moments.

To address a few things:

There is definitely more going on than is apparent, which I'm sure this part helped show. Yuuko knows more than she tells.

The new volumes of both xxxHOLiC and TRC will be released on October 25. For those who wait for the English releases, volume six of HOLiC is going to rock your socks.

Volume seven, due out next May/April? It's gonna make your head go boom.