The Missing Eyes. Ch 2.

Language Notes:
-Kansai-jinn is a popular way to bunch every person from the Kansai region. They speak a different dialect, they're 'coarser' although you'd never catch anybody saying that outright in Japan, and they have a different culture. So if you found a Kansai-jinn in Tokyo, they're far more likely to be referred to as'kansai-jinn' then by their names for a while. Like an American in England or a gaijin in Japan...
-July and August: typhoons. Typhoons rarely hit Osaka.There hasn't beena typhoon's eye crossing Osaka directly for as long as I can remember- even if Osaka gets strong wind and rain, the worst of the damage veers out.
-Reading numbers as words happens in Japan all the time. Watanuki isn't justinto numerology. (4: shi: death and therefore not good for apartments / 919: kyu-ichi-kyu: quick in a certain telephone number...)

"You had better be ready to leave as soon as you finish eating."

Those were the first words out of the Kansai-jinn's mouth at the dinner table. Technically speaking, he'd also muttered something along the lines of fried food going straight to his gut. Since Watanuki was too busy glaring at Doumeki wolfing down his cooking, nobody replied for a moment. Watanuki processed the man's words, then nearly flipped over backwards.

"Now?"

"Do you have a better timetable? You do realize that Tokyo will flood to the extent that businesses will close tomorrow in under five hours?"

"What does that have to do with me?"

Doumeki looked at him as though he'd started babbling in Greek.

"The guy brings typhoons. Your boss exchanged your service in bringing his kid here, and until you do, the typhoon will not move."

Watanuki opened and closed his mouth, then settled for a general complaint when nothing came up.

"Yuuko-sann, that's not fair! There was that rain demon girl, then that Raijyuu, and nothing good ever comes of weather people-"

Watanuki was interrupted by cold water raining on his head. He yelped. When he took off his glasses to wipe them, he saw a storm cloud had formed over his head, and he turned to glare at the Kansai-jinn only to find him glaring back.

"Gossip was right. You are a troublesome child. Bachiatari."

"Trouble, trouble, Watanuki's trouble!"

Mokona was drunk again and Doumeki was shoveling food again. Yuuko-sann looked amused and Watanuki was sulking. He shoved in a mouthful of food that he could no longer taste and stood up.

"Gochisousama. If that's all, I'll leave the cleanup to you and head out. How do you suggest I get to Kansai and get back within the aforementioned five hours, sir?"

He tossed the most formal form of keigo he knew at the Kansai-jinn sarcastically.

"Take me, April-Fools-Watanuki! And don't forget your beloved Doumeki-kunn!"

Sometimes, Watanuki knew that Yuuko-sann had created and programmed Mokona specifically to irritate him. He looked at her accusingly but she only smiled languidly at the overcast sky.

"I'll send you on the Ginza as soon as Doumeki-kun finishes dinner. Shuichi-kun didn't joke about the time limit. I'll be very disappointed if the city flooded, and I'm sure you and Doumeki-kun would like to go to school tomorrow."

"Don't raise objections."

Doumeki rose and stepped between Watanuki and Yuuko-sann, silencing any potential complaints. He then nodded at Yuuko-sann.

"Thanks for dinner. Can you send us out, then?"

Watanuki followed Doumeki with his mouth agape and long limbs flailing. The last he heard before he followed Yuuko-sann through the door with Mokona in tow was a rumbling, "funny movements that kid makes" and two high pitched giggles belonging to two little girls that never ate. Which was really odd, now that he thought about it, but then he was on the Ginza and he was too busy falling over his own feet to think about anything beyond a meter away.

Yuuko-sann was completely out of her mind. That was the only explanation for the Ginza walk they'd just finished. She'd left them sitting on a bench in a train station at seven pm in a small Kyoto city called Karasuma because 'that was the main Kansai crossroads in the ginza, and besides, with Hankyu and JR on their sides they should have no problems' getting to the address printed on the small scroll they'd been handed. They had to do this before trains shut down for the night. Then there was the other set of problems glaring at them. They were on a platform with no ticket, no money unless Doumeki had his wallet still, only a yukata on Watanuki and an odd black stuffed toy that talked sitting on Watanuki's left shoulder. All this –while Yuuko-sann probably got rip-roaring drunk on sake that he made the snacks for with a strange guest –he wasn't going to think about it any more.

Doumeki stood.

"Train."

Watanuki jumped up as the train rushed into the platform and consulted his scroll.

Shibana Sakurai

4-8-7 Garden Heights Apartment

Kamibanaku, Ibaraki-shi

Osakafu 562-0422

"Do you even know where this train is going?"

Watanuki looked up and Doumeki was already sitting in the half-empty train. He hollered in surprise as Mokona bounced gleefully and bolted into the train seconds before the doors whooshed shut behind him.

The emptiness of the train to the degree that he could sit even at seven pm was bizarre to his Tokyo sensibility. He gingerly sat near Doumeki and spread the small scroll between them.

"Do you know where this train is going?"

Doumeki looked at him.

"While you were busy with your motion sickness, I was reading the train maps. This will take us to Ibaraki city."

"Tell me, next time, before you hop on a train and leave me behind!"

"Next time, pay attention."

"What?"

"Watch it, people are staring."

Doumeki looked ahead in stony silence. Watanuki sighed and got back to his original point.

"This address. Don't you think there's something wrong with it somehow?"

Doumeki looked over the address.

"What, the references to the flowers? Sakura, shibana, kamibana: half of which are probably not real. And in a Garden Heights Apartment? Sakurai probably thought it was a good joke when she bought the apartment."

"Well, yes, that too. But look at the numbers. 4-8-7; shi-hachi-nana, shi-ba-na. Death flower. And 0422, shi-ni-ni. To die. Don't you think this is weird?"

"I wouldn't think too much about it."

"Don't you care?"

This last statement cracked Watanuki's voice to an embarrassing degree. Doumeki thought about it.

"No."

Watanuki re-rolled the scroll and sat for another twenty minutes in silence before he realized that he'd crossed prefectural lines and that he was now in northern Osaka, the place that the typhoon carrier had been kicked out of. Typhoons were rare in Osaka. Even when typhoon clouds hovered over Osaka, their center was surely outside the prefecture. The typhoon that had devastated other prefectures nearby had skirted past this place: the crops got a good rain and the wind hadn't touched a thing. This was Ibaraki.

"We're here."

Watanuki walked off the train, hoping Doumeki would follow, and stalked over to the dozing man in the ticket booth. He rapped on the window and watched the man jerk upright.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

"We're looking for a Garden Heights Apartment in Kamibanaku?"

The man stretched his neck and pulled out a map from his desk.

"Kamibanaku, you say? Number of the apartment, please?"

"4-8-7."

"All right, found it. Ride to the next stop going south, head out the East gate and walk straight. Turn right at the closest Wendy's and you should see the apartment to your left hand side. Have a good night."

The man nodded courteously before staring at Mokona with a strange look on his face. Ducking in embarrassment, Watanuki pulled Doumeki down the stairs he had just come up.

The ticket man had given decent instructions, that much was true. Without a ticket, though, Doumeki and Watanuki had resorted to climbing the fence at the far end of the thankfully dark platform and had escaped the yelling security officer by a mile. Their search for the East exit had taken another precious five minutes before they could start walking. By the time they had found the Wendy's, Watanuki was dying for a cup of water.

"Can we go in and ask for water?"

"Still sick from the Ginza?"

"No! We walked a long way and the air was dry in the train because of the air conditioners!"

Doumeki had walked into the shop and approached the counter before Watanuki could finish his sentence. Or so it had appeared to Watanuki until he, too, walked into the empty shop and attempted to approach the counter.

"Where is this?"

Watanuki attempted to sit up and noticed that his body was too heavy to move. He was fairly sure his eyes were open, but it was dark and he couldn't tell either way. Just then, a ceiling panel opened overhead and flooded.

"What are you doing down there?"

"I don't know! I was walking and then I was lying here!"

Doumeki's familiar voice calmed his nerves somewhat, and at least he now knew he wasn't blind. Watanuki looked to his side and flinched when he saw snakes twining around his wrists and across his torso.

"Snakes!"

He struggled but the snakes proved heavier than they appeared. Just then, a pale and beautiful woman with snakes draped across her body walked over to the panel Doumeki had removed, and jumped down.

"You've arrived."

"Huh?"

"Mokona-sann, it is my pleasure to meet you in this less than pleasant set of circumstances."

"Yo! Watanuki fell down your trapdoor when he came in upstairs to ask for water. I followed."

"So I see. It was rather fortunate that you appeared thus, because I was just going to send my snakes to fetch you three."

Watanuki thought about screaming, then thought better of it.

"Who are you? Do you control these snakes?"

The woman held out an arm and allowed the snakes, one by one, to crawl up her torso. Watanuki sat up but didn't bother to stand.

"I know about you. I was listening in on Shuichi's conversations at Yuuko's house. I am called Kushinada. I was blessed by a god for my promise to watch over the Orochi that tried to eat me when I was young."

"What Orochi? And you're still young, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Young," the woman repeated, "was a few thousand years ago. Now I travel with snakes because I am too old for sunlight. Aren't you familiar with the story of Orochi?"

The woman proceeded to inform him that the gigantic eight-headed serpent Orochi ate virgins annually until Kushinada was the last virgin left in her valley some thousand years ago. The warrior god had shown up and gotten the Orochi drunk and full, then cut off its heads. Unfortunately, Orochi had a companion. The warrior god and the sun god had blessed Kushinada and granted her with the speech of serpents in exchange for her promise to guard Orochi number two. The trick to this was that she had forgotten to ask for a time limit, and she was stuck playing with snakes for all infinity.

"So why did you want to bring me here?"

"That's easy," laughed Kushinada. "This ring is going to help you deal with the woman who has trapped the girl you are looking for. What Yuuko and Shuichi has forgotten to tell you is that the woman, Shibana, is a minor goddess in her own right. She is the daughter of the goddess of typhoons. The girl you seek is the goddess of the rainy season in Osaka. Fairly specific and small, but a goddess is a goddess."

"I said nothing good comes of weather types."

Kushinada ignored him.

"This ring, should you decide to use it, will take your life line from the hand you wear it on. In exchange, it will grant you immunity from her curses for an hour. I should know, she gave it to me herself- and I engineered it to add the life line clause."

Watanuki thought over Kushinada's offer.

"What if I don't decide to use it?"

"You pay nothing, and I will have my snakes retrieve the ring from you. But I have an interest in seeing this child free too. Shuichi was a favorite of mine while he was growing up."

"Why are you interested in my life line?"

Kushinada held out her hands. They were bland and smooth. Not a fingerprint in sight, and pale enough to put paper to shame.

"I think I would like an end to this Orochi business. I'm sure that if I left my post, they would find a suitable hero to kill it instead of hiring a keeper. You see, with your life line, I could die in time."

Kushinada bowed and retreated into the darkness. Watanuki, feeling like a great weight had left his shoulders, kicked the pins and needles out of his knees as he stood.

"What's taking you so long? I got your water and the ice has melted."

Doumeki's head reached into the opening and dropped a coat sleeve to him.

"You've been talking to thin air for the past half-hour. I found this coat sitting around, so climb."

A/N: I was clearly dreaming when I thought I could ignore Kafka and Wilde and Wrede to write fanfiction yesterday. But an update is here- I realize that I have had readers if none have left reviews- guys, if this story stinks you could tell me; I would liketo have more good xxxHOLiC fanfic out there! pause same rules apply, I will edit any grammar error you spot, alter dialogue that doesn't work and I take requests for plot with sufficient motivation (roses, chocolate, you know the drill). Smileys are still good reviews because I totally whore for attention.