A/n: Thanks for all the support and reviews. Things are getting hectic, so my writing schedule is getting narrow, but I will try to get the next chapter out on time, the key word here is try.

That damn spider…

It had predicted we would try to break the curse and had sent a doppelganger after us, a replacement, just to throw us off and make it that much easier for it to get its claws into Watanuki.

I hadn't expected it to do something like that.

And the only thing that came to mind when I thought back on it was Yuko and the knowing smile she had flashed at me while I was walking away. Had she predicted this? It wouldn't surprise me…but then why did she not say anything? Why didn't she warn Watanuki?

Yuko surely didn't want Watanuki to get hurt…

But then why?

"…but keep in mind, that this spider is not to be trifled with. It will eventually find out what you are trying to do and it will come for penance. And when that time comes Shizuka, I will not be able to help you. Even if you are my dear grandson."

"…I will not be able to help you."

Was…was that it? Was that the reason why Yuko hadn't warned Watanuki, because she couldn't? She couldn't get involved? She was just the wish giver, not the helper, or the aid this time around…

And I had to remember that this was my wish. I couldn't come to her for anything. She had banished me from her shop—in kinder words—but nonetheless, banished.

This wasn't Watanuki's wish. I had set all of this in motion with my own doing and stupidity. I hadn't had the foresight to see the outcome of my actions. I hadn't had the intuition to interpret the words in the spell correctly…

Horuda uramigoto meant grudge holder. It was specific. It had never said anything about a damn spider and that woman had not taken the form of a spider. It had been me depending on my eyes, my flawed eyes. I couldn't see ghost like Watanuki, but when I had seen that spider climbing down the pine tree in my front yard, I'd forgotten for a second about that fact. What was the reason I could see the spider had never crossed my mind and now I was regretting it, because that stupid thing had purposefully let me see it. Had led me on and baited me into all my thoughtless actions.

…stupid!

I'm pulling him by the hand, my pace fast and focused, as I do not want to further give myself the chance to remember where I am, what I've just done, who I'm with, who I've broken in a tiny, but not unimportant way.

I hate this feeling.

I hate how disorientated I feel.

So I pull Watanuki harder and he stumbles behind me, because I've increased my pace.

I don't know how long I've been walking.

I don't know much.

I just want an entrance to open up before me. Anything, even if it's the gateway to hell, right now I would rather that over the bleak, black silence of this place that weighs down on me like stone.

It's too quiet.

I can't even hear our footsteps, but only our combined breathing. Mine is sharper than his, quicker, because I'm panicking and I just want to get out of here.

"Shizuka." Watanuki says my name and it's enough to knock me out of my daze. I turn around and stare at him, and I have to beat down the urge to look at the floor, because Watanuki's looking directly at me and it hurts to see my failure reflected in those white, marble-like eyes. He puts his hand on my shoulder and it feels cold, just as cold as the mute white in his gaze. "I don't know what the hell is going on here," his voice cracks, "but we have to figure a way out of this…I..." He gives up and rubs at his eyes harshly, as if his eyesight will come back with that gesture. "This is so…"

Unfair, cruel, fucked up…

My mouth already has enough words to describe this situation, but when I reach for them, they scatter under my touch and I end up speechless with no words of comfort or reassurance.

I'm so useless.

Watanuki squeezes the shoulder under his palm and slips his other hand under my neck, trying to coax me in a hug that I'm all to ready to accept. I practically fall into him with a sigh and he pets my hair and doesn't say anything. And I'm thankful, I'm finally thankful for the silence and I just want to stay here and not have to think about anything, but the way Watanuki's fingers comb through my hair and the secure hold around my shoulders.

I close my eyes, not even trying to bring my arms around Watanuki's own shoulders, my hands dangling uselessly at my sides and all I want is for Watanuki to hold onto me.

"Are you hungry?" Watanuki says, quietly and in my ear.

"Mmhmm." I answer, because I am a bit hungry now that I think about it and tired. I want to fall asleep. I just want to go to sleep right here, with Watanuki warmly cradling me and nothing but the silence wrapping around us.

"When we get back I'll make you something." Watanuki says, and the only words I can focus on in that sentence are when we get back…

Watanuki still believes…

He still believes that we aren't trapped here, with him sightless and me numb to everything but his touches.

I want to believe, but it's so hard and all my faith seemed to have left me when I'd shot my arrow into that woman…that spider. I know, that if I start believing, I'm going to want to make another promise, and eventually I'm going to end up breaking that promise and hurting Watanuki even more than I already have.

Watanuki draws himself away from me, walking forward on his own, and it surprises me as I wonder after him. I know he can't see, and I know there isn't anything that he'll run into, but still…it makes me uneasy.

I forget sometimes that Watanuki is so much stronger than me. He understands what suffering is. He's seen things that I can't comprehend, but can only limitedly share with him through his experiences. He knows more about life than he lets on and I know so little and yet that doesn't stop me from being pompous and spouting on about things.

My grandfather's always seen that and he's warned me about it. He's warned me about my sheltered life and about my decisions that may seem altruistic but are more selfish in turn.

I've never had things to bear and drag behind me. Not like Watanuki and for a second I had wanted his burden, I had wanted it as much as I had wanted him. I had thought it would be easy to protect him, to let him turn to me and let me comfort him. I thought that if I had pestered him enough, if I stuck by him, he would notice me and love me and that I could give him every single thing that he had dreamed of.

I would give him his freedom from the ghost plaguing him and I thought proudly that he would love me more for it. That he wouldn't--couldn't leave me because I was his savior. I wasn't even considering the bigger picture, or the fact that something could come in and disrupt my plans, my dreams, my egocentric wishes…

I see Watanuki reach his hands out in front of him, like he's finally bumped up against the walls in this place. I notice his fingers and how the tips are no longer visible, the area in front of him seeming to give under his steady prodding, the black inkiness suddenly encompassing one of his pale arms up to the elbow.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

It's undeterminable minutes later, and we've passed through the black, glob of wall and entered into a strange white room, pebbles crunching under our feet and a twisted pine tree and an almost slanted 1.torii off in the distance.

The room on closer inspection is actually a bared landscape, the sky completely white, like a god had wiped his hand across the sky and created a blank slate on which to draw life.

It almost looks like a painting.

"Where are we?" Watanuki asks, and since he can't see anything, I know his question is more interested in a description.

"I wouldn't know where to start," I answer, and he makes a grab for my hand. He notices the crunching sound at his feet and he makes a weird face.

"It's not bones." I say just to let him know.

He doesn't say anything and I don't say anything either, even when I do actually spot the skull of a skeleton resting near a pike jammed into the ground of what looks to me like a normal rock garden. The path winding like a river, and the scenery looking like it had just been raked and maintained. It was serene, and disquieting and beautiful in its own morbid way, the crows flying above us and circling our position wherever we went.

I can still see the torii and I walk towards it, because if there was ever a good sign to the grandson of a priest, it would have to be this, the red, oaken wood standing out drastically against the backdrop of pure white. I don't alert Watanuki to anything as I silently pass through the structure, but he almost immediately notices the atmosphere change, something like a sixth sense firing off like nerve synapses.

There was a rosebush two feet from where we were standing, spread out like a dress on a bed of verdant linen, the flowers so bright that you could see the dew on each rose petal and smell its too sweet fragrance.

Watanuki wrinkles his nose. "What is that?"

If I didn't know better, I'd think we stepped into the setup for a Renaissance play, the scenery a cultured reflection of one of those Italian villa gardens that always served to be good rendezvous spots between lovers in poetry.

It was so picturesque it was scary. The weather clear and blue, the sun shining, but hidden away, like a shy face draped in a veil. It had to be somewhere here, maybe hidden behind one of the little pavilions that dotted the garden in random. There were at least ten that I could make out from where I was standing; ornamental walls fluting out and curtsying like a lady. I noticed there wasn't a main house only Gazebos and enough garden space too stretch on for unseen miles.

There was a terraced walkway winding and hitching up and down, lined with red roses, like someone had taken a paint brush dipped in blood and had swept their peripheral while they walked. There were benches dotting the same path, white wood curling in vine motifs and a water fountain that could be reached by climbing over a hill.

This was where I made Watanuki sit; right on the ledge so I could figure out in which direction I should head toward. The running water seemed to ease some tension in me; a white, stone sculpture of a woman with a harp was seated in the middle, the water coming from her mouth, as she opened it in accompaniment to her playing. There were water clovers and hyacinths, and a weird, red colored fish that I had never seen before but seemed to have made itself at home in the beatifully decorated fountain.

"I would ask you where we are, but I have a feeling you'd just say it wasn't important." Watanuki chimes out and he was bracing his arms behind him, almost looking like another beautifully arranged sculpture that belonged to the water fountain.

"You'd probably laugh if I told you," I answer back, reaching out for his hand and pulling him to his feet.

"Why would I"--I notice that Watanuki's eyes go wide and that he's looking over my shoulder and at something that's caught his attention. I turn around and I see the funny bobbing of a head, as someone makes their way up the small slope that we'd taken to get here.

"Hello there!" It calls out, and what was standing in front of us, wasn't a spider, but a boy that looked to be around our age dressed in a black waistcoat and trousers. A 2.cravat slung around his neck.

"You two are harder to catch up with than I'd have thought, but hmm…" He trails off and one of his white-gloved hands, make a dismissive gesture as if he's lost his train of thought.

I take one good look at him and then pull Watanuki forward in an attempt to get away from whatever this was.

"Hey, none of that." He says and I can hear him following closely behind us, his black, polished shoes tapping the stone path. "You don't think you can run from me so easily, do you?" He asks teasingly and I continue to ignore him as he follows.

"Please leave us alone." I tell him, the tone of my voice not really asking, so much as telling.

"That's a bit thick-headed, isn't it?" He poses and his gaze is as red as the roses that had dotted the path near the bench. "I can't simply do as you say. I have a job to complete here. You think it's easy in the debt collecting business." When he sees that I'm not really paying him any attention, he adds, "Damn you persistent types are my least favorite."

He then grabs onto Watanuki's wrist, walking in the other direction like I'm not even holding onto the other hand.

I yank at Watanuki's hand and the boy comes up short. He looks at his bare hands. "You're making this more difficult than it should be. I'm not like the dearly departed Missy Black Widow." He glances at the mark on the back of my hand, and then quite obnoxiously he makes another attempt to grab onto Watanuki's wrist.

I tug Watanuki out of reach and step in front of him. The boy looks me right in the eye and then laughs, "I won't just bow out because you shoot some measly cupid arrows at me. We all have our place here, and you've disrupted it well and good enough. It's time for payment. We spirits have needs to, yuh know." And he walks right up to my face with a grin, his hand suddenly shooting right past me and grabbing onto Watanuki again.

And before I could even think properly, my own hand, my own clenched hand shoots out and I deck him solidly in the face.

He stumbles backwards and using that time wisely, I grab onto Watanuki's hand again and take off in the other direction; behind me I can hear his enraged shouts of "You arrogant bastard!"

Watanuki, who was probably well aware of what I'd just done by the shouting and the noises of the skirmish, holds onto my hand with the equal force that I was caging in his. I look behind me and even though I shouldn't have been, I was surprised that the "debt collector" was chasing after us. The anger on his face apparent, even from the distance we had on him and suddenly, like in a nightmare, I could see something like black spider legs unfurling from his back, four pairs of them, long and sharp-looking and framing his body like wings.

Well that answered the question as to what he was.

We run over another hill, but I was met with something that discouraged me to a jog.

I stop in front of a black, iron gate that takes off for what looks like miles and miles on either side of me. The vine designs on it looking like they would be useful footholds. Quickly ducking down--due to time constraints--I grab Watanuki around the waist and lift. He was startled, but I didn't give too much consideration to that.

"There's a gate in front of you. Grab onto it and jump over." I say, looking behind me to see that the spider was already making his way over the hill.

Watanuki did as was told, his feet slipping off the foothold only once, before connecting again.

The boy hadn't even waited, but had instantly charged into me, my back hitting into the gate and upsetting Watanuki's balance, but thankfully with him falling over and landing on the other side. I could see that his hands had braced him from a nasty fall.

"Go." I say, and the thing in front of me has caged me in on either side with the black spider legs that had sprouted from his back. He bares menacing fangs at me and I shove my forearm under his neck and use all the strength in my upper body to keep those sharp teeth away from my head.

"Shizuka!" Watanuki calls out and he's right behind me. His fingers clutching the fence and his eyes unseeing, but his ears attuned to the clanging of the gate and my harsh breathing as I try to fight this thing off.

"Go. Just keep going. I'll catch up with you."

"But I can't just leave yo-

"Go!" I shout and I can hear his hesitant feet and the way they were shuffling over the ground, not wanting to take another step forward and stuck helplessly to his spot.

"I'll catch up with you. I promise!" I say and finally my words are enough to sway him, the sounds of his footfalls becoming lighter and lighter as he runs in the other direction towards unknown territory.

A/n: So yeah, I guess I'm sticking in my own make believe characters, because bad guys are fun and when they get to mess with the "heroes" in the story, it makes for a better day in my book. That makes me sound like a nice little psycho. Please ignore that last part and if you have anything to say about this chapter, reviews much appreciated.

1.torii-traditional Japanese gate, commonly found at the entry to a Shinto shrine. It has two upright supports and two crossbars on the top, and is frequently painted vermilion.

2.cravat- let's see, the predecessor to the tie I'd say. Worn probably around the time of the Renaissance, which is a big hint as to what fashionable period Mr. Spider # two is mimicking.

All definitions ripped shamelessly from Wikipedia, because I'm lazy and Wikipedia is a writer's friend.