| Chapter 12 |

In the mornings, Watanuki meets with customers. Afternoons Kochoushu watzes in the door after school and refuses to sit still, and she tracks Watanuki's every move with eyes as sharp as a beady-eyed crow's. She doesn't miss much.

When he finally gets her settled and meditating on the task of the day he has given her, she appears poised. It is still a struggle for her to limit herself to the present, and sometimes she slips into the future (to the effect of giving herself dejá vù a few seconds later). When Watanuki feels confident in her abilities, he teaches her how to spin illusions, and assigns her the task of recreating the perceptions she isolates. Watanuki conscientiously makes sure the practice is for Kochoushu's benefit, but he uses her work to help him attach sensory and memory details to the canary construct he will use as an anchor. Day in, day out, Watanuki works beside her on the same task in preparation, and doesn't breathe a word about why.

Still later in the day, Watanuki shoos her out the door and ushers Subaru onto the doorstep, who will look slightly bemused, and the two set out for the park where they always practice.

Subaru is not that much taller than her actually, Kochoushu muses one day after a particularly intense bout of summoning practice; but his intimidating presence makes him seem higher than her. "Subaru-san," she says, to capture his attention. She leans back on her arms and looks at Subaru, angling her chin regally at him. Then she narrows her eyes and asks, "When are we going to learn how to make a shikigami?"

Subaru blinks slowly. He settles back on the wooden park bench. "Not for months yet, I think. It's a fairly high-level technique, the way the Sumeragi clan practice it. The Sakurazuka clan also," he muses, "has their own technique, which is probably more involved, and more dangerous. As a rule—" He winces and reaches up suddenly and flaps at the air over his shoulder, as if a bug was bothering him; the next moment, he hides the motion by pretending to readjust his shoulder, looking the other way.

By now she knows that he does this when the blood sakura bothers him. Kouchoushu squints at the air over his shoulder, but sees nothing. Yet. "Is it hurting you?"

Subaru shrugs, but he doesn't shake his head, either. "It was only curious," he says vaguely, and his hand falls from his shoulder.

"Do you need to go...?" Kochoushu makes a little hook-like question mark with her finger, then draws it over her neck.

Subaru shakes his head. "No, I won't need to hunt, not for a while. What prompted you to ask about that technique?"

Kochoushu sits up suddenly. "A-aaah..." she stalls, sensing that she has opened some kind of trap. "When you first agreed to teach me, Watanuki said he wanted me to learn it before he passed me on to you," she says neutrally, after a moment. "Though he hasn't gotten around to it. He always seems to avoid me when I want to mention it."

Subaru's green and grey eyes suddenly glint with humor. "Oh, he did, did he?" A certain amusement seeps through his nobility. Kochoushu hadn't seen him so near laughter before.

"What's wrong?"

"Ha." Subaru only laughs. "He still has no idea what to do with you."

"Oh," she says. Kochoushu's face falls.

"It's nothing wrong," says Subaru, thoughtfully. "It's not his fault. It's just how he learned. The way he was taught—hard things first. He considers shikigami fundamental, basic."

"Hard things...first?" Kochoushu said, puzzled, a little incredulously. "Why?"

"Because it was necessary," Subaru replies. "Because he had to. And one learns what one needs fast, and well. After all, the hardest things are also often the most simple. After that, he never had to look back."

Kochoushu draws her knees up, and wraps her arms around them. "I don't understand."

Subaru holds up a finger. "I know. Hold that thought—I'm searching for a metaphor." He sits forward and thinks for a while. Finally, he looks up. "All right. I think I have it."

"Okay."

"First—what do you learn first about kanji?"

"What they mean, then how to say them, and to write them."

"But if you learned how to write them first? And then the other matters? What would that do?"

"You mean, you memorize the stroke order...?" Kochoushu guesses.

"Yes. It's boring when you do it that way, isn't it? Because you don't know what you are trying to do. That makes it hard. But if you can set aside the big picture for a moment, you can simply memorize the sequence."

"I suppose so."

"Now imagine that, although the task itself was still boring, your life depended on it. Trying to accomplish that meticulous thing became a little too exciting."

Kochoushu's nostrils flare, her eyes widening. "Oh."

"You see." Subaru nods to her. "His first lessons were with a witch who called herself Yuuko Ichihara. She was called the Dimension Witch, or the Witch of Time and Space."

"Huh?" says Kochoushu, a little faintly, because her ears are buzzing unpleasantly. She blinks again, and the sound is gone.

Subaru is looking at her carefully. Perhaps I should not have told her that. "She did not teach him per se. He was working to clear his debt for his wish not to see spirits anymore. The Sumeragi clan knows because she had written to us of her intent to do so," he adds. "Whenever a magic user is discovered, it takes special permission to remove their powers, even if it is at their own request. This is to make sure that other options can be found before...well, there are so few of us; if possible, everyone should be taken care of. He wasn't, at the time. He was fifteen, and he had slipped under the radar, and had made his wish. The Dimension Witch lives by her own rules, and those rules required her to grant the wish. She wrote the letter of explanation, and we stamped the request. We had no free practitioners left to teach him; we were busy preparing for 1999, and we had no counter-offer. But he didn't need it."

"Then what happened?"

"The Dimension Witch never apprenticed him officially. She used him as a part-time worker. He got practical experience with hardly any prior preparation or explanation at all."

"That doesn't sound safe."

"Hardly. But he wasn't working with magic itself, only with the common objects and beings and customs, with which he could relate. His wits were enough, and wits can't be learned."

"I see."

"When the Dimension Witch disappeared, the boy took her place. The office was too big for him." Subaru's voice became very quiet. "The most useful spells for what he needed were often moderately powerful. He learned them by rote, and only later taught himself the details and the prior steps that he required to make sense of why they worked. It only mattered that they did. He thought I needed you to know how to make a shikigami..." Subaru snorts softly, shaking his head. "That's how it is. That's what he thinks my teaching style must be, or should be, too." He stares at the ground, thinking.

"Subaru-san. What is it?" Kochoushu prods.

He startles a little. "Oh, that. I was just beginning to think it would be a good idea to teach you after all." He falls silent again.

Kochoushu doesn't quite follow, but she lifts an eyebrow. "Why?"

Subaru shifts a little on the bench. "Well, he's right about one thing, it's just that I would never have required it; that's what I found funny. It's good to know an advanced technique or two among the basics. You never know what you might need, and you have the raw power to make it work. And the shikigami is fairly versatile for a spell of its caliber. He probably learned it early on, is my guess." Subaru stands and turns out his wrists, stretching, then lets them fall to his sides. "Shall we try?"

Kochoushu scrambles to her feet and bounces on her toes. "Yes!" she exclaims. "Thank you, Subaru-san!" She punches the air, hair scattering every which way. Unlike the witch he knew so long ago, she is alive and young, innocent, without restraint. Eccentric and exuberant like Hokuto. If Hokuto had lived, would she have grown into the young witch's grace? May she always be this way, Subaru finds himself wishing fervently. May she always be this way. The wish leaves him aching...

"Don't thank me yet," Subaru warns her, clearing his throat. "This lesson will be difficult."

"Like I care." Kochoushu tosses her hair and spins to meet Subaru's eyes and smiles widely. Her red-brick eyes shine with eagerness and excitement. "At last, a challenge!"

When Watanuki cannot count the snippets of sensation and time he and Kochoushu have collected, he knows it is time to make the bird a physical space. He can construct the framework. He has the materials to work with, and the imagination... And he's running out of time. It is near the end of the month. Already he has less time than he would like to deal with the wards.

He sends Kochoushu home that day, and tells Shizuka not to come until he is done. The process could be upsetting to watch, and it will take a lot of time. He's not sure how it will look on the outside, since so much of it will be in his own mind.

He sits down at the porch with a bowl of water mixed with blood at his side, sunlight from the sky above, and a bowl of bones, and another bowl of fresh flesh, and a pile of feathers. The chicken flesh is dead, but he can use the tissue to spin new flesh from it.

Beak first: hard, folded and triangular, two bumps and nostrils. A sharp tongue in the beak. A wide throat. Metal bones. Skull. Beady eyes, inky black. Down the spine, all the way to the tail. Wings. A heart—shaped just so, and beat, beat, beat—lungs—sacs upon sacs upon sacs of air, expanding, contracting—veins, arteries, an blood vessels. Legs, and spread the tail. Feathers over all: the quill, the main shaft, the vane, the down, layering, layering. Smaller here, bigger there. Fanned out here—flexible there. Now, complete. The bird must be animated by magic...

At last Watanuki casts the shikigami spell, imbuing it with the memories of the shop that he and Kochoushu have collected. Taking one last deep, collected breath, he softly breathes out and blows the canary spell-creature forward, and the shikigami spirit of the bird glides into the object. For a moment he doesn't think the spell will take, but then the shikigami settles in, and the yellow bird blinks, and moves: "alive."

Watanuki blinks and looks at the clock. It's been twelve hours. He's been sitting outside that long and he feels ready to collapse.

Watanuki crawls inside, finds the phone and dials Shizuka. The answering machine kicks in so he has to talk, and he babbles, "Hey, Shizuka, come as soon as you get off work. Please. It's Watanuki."

On the other end, Shizuka snatches up the phone in apparent haste. "What? Hello? Watanuki?"

"Shizuka...can you come over now? Hurry. Bring food, if you can? I overestimated my strength. I don't think I have the energy to cook tonight."

"Understood. I'm at work, but I'll be over soon." Click.

Watanuki crawls over to the couch and lies down.

The bird has started singing. Kagome, kagome...

Watanuki throws an arm over his face and groans. Why did I ever let that boy give it such a creepy song?

...kagome no naka tori wa... The bird stops and chirps inquiringly.

"Go away," Watanuki mutters. "Shut up."

The bird flutters over to perch on the couch, next to his face instead.

Watanuki mumbles, "How could Clow stand to make so many measly creatures like you? What if you had failed? All that effort would be wasted, huh?"

The canary chirrups.

"Poor thing like you needs a name... What goes with dandelions? Shall I call you Tampopo the Second?"

The bird preens impatiently.

No, of course not. Tampopo's name belongs to Himawari. Watanuki closes his eyes. "Yuuko liked puns. Didn't she? What do you think—Tanetori? Seed-bringer? Gathering news? What do you think, Tanetori? How would you like that, to be my messenger and my guardian?"

Tanetori utters a single keen, piercing note.

I guess it likes it, then. "Be my eyes and ears," Watanuki orders the newly dubbed Tanetori, rolls over, and falls asleep.

He's roused when the thud of Chinese takeout hits the floor beside him. He blinks and opens his eyes; as he sits up, the bird startles, stumbling from his chest, and falls into hand. Watanuki cradles it unthinkingly, and it bites him none too gently. Wincing, Watanuki turns his hand and allows the canary to crawl onto his finger.

Shizuka stares at it. "That's..."

"Artificial life, yes. This is Tanetori, the new anchor to be," says Watanuki, still feeling rather woozy. "Pretty, isn't it?" Tanetori chooses that moment to walk back up Watanuki's arm and nest in his hair, looking snooty and possessive in a way that reminds Shizuka of the pipe fox Mugetsu. Tanetori beats his wings, and settles down. Watanuki's rather pliant hair now looks like a bird's nest. "He'll be my substitute."

Shizuka inclines his head.

"Right, so I'm hungry," Watanuki announces, taking the bird and launching it into the air. Tanetori lands on Shizuka's shoulder and nibbles on his ear, making the man wince. Watanuki stands up and steadies himself with a hand tugging Shizuka's armsleeve. "Let's eat before I fall over, shall we? Making this little guy was thirsty work. Did you bring anything to drink?" Shizuka hands him a bottle of green tea. "I'm going to take the liberty of going first." Watanuki unscrews the top and gulps it down, gasping, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before taking a napkin from the plastic bag. He sits heavily. "Aaaah." He sighs.

Shizuka hastily sits and unpacks the takeout and goes into the kitchen to find suitable plates and utensils. Watanuki waits only long enough for Shizuka to serve him before tearing into his food and inhaling it ravenously.

Shizuka just watches. Tanetori sinks down to rest on his shoulder.

Finally Watanuki stops in the middle of his meal and looks up. "What?" He clicks his chopsticks nervously.

"I've never seen you eat this ravenously before," says Shizuka.

"Huh?" Watanuki blinks.

"Can you taste it?" Shizuka asks intently.

"What? No. I needed food." Watanuki scoops another clump of rice onto his chopsticks and bites it. Then his eyes narrow. "Who told you that?"

Shizuka looks mildly unnerved. "Uh—"

"That fact came from Doumeki, obviously," Watanuki says, stabbing a piece of cooked celery. "Tell him nothing's changed. I just spent a lot of energy. Nothing to worry about."

"I— Okay." Shizuka settles down, and looks into himself without protest. Watanuki watches the flashes of expression that cross his face, until at last Shizuka looks up. "I see."

"He's not hounding you right now, is he?" Watanuki cocks his head to look at him through one eye.

"No."

"Good." Watanuki nods, and reaches for a refill. Shizuka swiftly takes the box and doles some out for him instead, and Watanuki frowns. "You should eat something for yourself, Mr. Bottomless Stomach. You're acting strange yourself."

"Right." Shizuka picks up his chopsticks reluctantly. "I could, but until you're done starving like a stray cat, I could pick something up on the way home..."

Watanuki shakes his head. "No, eat anyway. I'll be fine now." Shizuka looks at him sideways. Already? "I should thank you for coming out here for me," says Watanuki, moving restlessly as if he would like to stand up and end the conversation; but it seems he can't tear himself away from the food entirely. "Really, it was a help. I'll repay the favor sometime."

Shizuka glances at him sharply and puts the chopsticks down. He'll repay the favor? How? "It seemed like it." Shizuka cranes his neck to look at the bird. "So that...wasn't a dream at all."

"He actually sings that creepy folksong you taught it in my dreams," Watanuki says, in a somewhat aggrieved tone. "In your voice, too."

"Kagome." Shizuka laughs, surprised. "Well then," he says quietly, "I may teach it something else."

"Do that," Watanuki grumbles, plucking out a water chestnut. "Perhaps make it something cheerful this time..."

"Hmm," Shizuka hums noncommittally. He has other ideas. He puts up two fingers for the Tanetori to hop onto, and walks away from the couch.

"If you're lacking something to do, I am sure Mokona will have suggestions." Watanuki rolls his eyes.

"The weather's getting warmer," says Shizuka.

"Yes."

"May will arrive soon."

"Yes. Tanetori will be ready in time. There only a few more days of preparation to bind the shop's magic to the bird's, and then I will be done." Watanuki puts down his own chopsticks. "Shizuka, all will be well. I promise."

Shizuka lifts his fingers and the bird takes to flight. He moves to Watanuki again, who stands to meet him, gazing at him steadily. "I'm glad to hear it." Shizuka nuzzles Watanuki's cheek, and kisses him lightly. "Try not to wear yourself out."

"Of course...not," says Watanuki, pulling back. Watanuki's eyes flicker down, then up. Shizuka's hands lower to his waist, bracing him there. "I'll try not to. I don't want to." He smiles, and leans back against Shizuka's embrace, which he tightens. Watanuki says, looking into Shizuka's eyes, "But you have to understand: it's going to take all of me to make this happen."

Shizuka kisses him again. "Then it's all right. You were right to call me. Now I have to go back to work."

"I'll walk you to the door," Watanuki says automatically, taking Shizuka's arm.

"Hn," Shizuka agrees, allowing Watanuki to wrap his fingers around his elbow.

At the door, Watanuki kisses him one last time, sure and slow. When he's done, Shizuka touches two fingers to his lips and rests his fingers on Watanuki's cheek, and then he leaves, bidding him good night.

In his heart, Watanuki feels the sharpness of regret that he cannot follow.

The next day, rather than seeking Watanuki to follow him around, Kochoushu is distracted by her discovery of the new bird. She immediately crouches down on her toes to examine it. It is a soft, pastel yellow, and it is shaped like a canary, except for two crests of feathers at the back of its head that make it appear to have fox ears, and it has lovely long and curled tail-feathers. The bird chirps at her, and says, "Tanetori."

"Tanetori," she says back, and it chirps again and repeats its name. Kochoushu smiles. "Nice to meet you. Are you the price for a wish?" she asks it, tentatively stroking its feathers, and then looks at Watanuki inquiringly. Tanetori chirps.

Watanuki ignores the question. "Kochoushu." Watanuki beckons. "I need your help all day today. I informed Subaru-san."

Kochoushu tucks her hair behind her ear. "All right." She sucks in her breath.

"I want you to look back in time, looking specifically at the energies that flow through this shop. Help me identify them and put them in a pattern while I look into the present state of affairs. This will take time, but knowing where the previous owner placed the shop wards, and where they have shifted to, will aid me greatly. Depending on how far they have shifted, I may need to realign the shop's energies in addition to anchoring them. Could you help me with the scrying?" Watanuki asks politely.

"Of course." Kochoushu falls in step beside her teacher. She looks at him askance. She is a little taller now than she was when she first met him, so the top of her head comes up to the middle of his neck. He's looking back at her now...

She averts her eyes.

They start at the gates of the house and move slowly throughout the garden. As expected, there are two strong wards on both sides of the front gate and wards at the four corners of the house. There is a stray but strong ward fixed over the garden well that leads to the Zashiki-warashi's mountain, but as it seems an appropriate placement, even possibly an improvement, so Watanuki doesn't seriously consider moving it. One ward that Watanuki does think about moving, or perhaps splitting, has woven itself about the porch; originally, there had been two, and Kochoushu reports that the twin ward collapsed relatively recently. Reweaving it will be difficult, but not beyond what Watanuki can do. The clusters of ward-magic pooling around the plants, particularly the magic-affinitive ones, moved over the centuries and was currently drawn to Watanuki's herb-garden. Kochoushu discovered interesting layouts in the past that Watanuki bade her to write down so he could study them to improve and reorganize the wards' latticework of power. Lastly, the crescent towers on top of the house link the magical structures of the shop itself to the garden wards.

Within the house itself, the wards are less straightforward. Wards run along each of the great main beams, and into the foundation stones. Where there are cracks in the house, magic seals them, too. Some of the lines of power follow the pipes from behind the walls. In the kitchen, there is a strong ward over the oven and the stovetop, with smaller wards over the refrigerator and the sink. In the bathroom, there is the bath. The study, which is located in a corner, has a single strong ward; likewise with the bedrooms, though the four-poster bed has special protections. The living room has a strong ward for the fireplace. There is an untethered, fluctuating ward that leads to the couch, and seems to be drawn to Yuuko's kiseru. To Watanuki's dismay, there is a bad imbalance of power flooding the storeroom. In the formal sunroom, the giant grandfather clock anchors yet another ward. Kochoushu claims that certain wards are missing, and the rest are proving quite asymmetrical, spontaneously formed, and thus weak, which concerns Watanuki. He needs to consider moving some furniture around, and planning this will take another day.

Kochoushu stays after hours to help him chart their discoveries of the ward's original and current placements on a map, and promises to draw the gardening patterns she saw as a bonus that night. In the morning, Kochoushu drops off the gardening patterns before walking off to school. Watanuki reminds her not to come back in the afternoon.

Watanuki once more pulls out the drawings of the original grounds they had completed last night and recopies them onto a more detailed sketch. He takes another piece of paper and begins fretfully sketching out the map of he wants to place the wards. The balance isn't working. Sketching it and re-sketching it brings on a headache. There is a structure to this building's construction, a logic to it that he can't seem to find, or to capture in his drawings.

Finding himself unable to make progress, Watanuki takes a break for lunch and remembers just in time that Subaru had promised to stop by. The two teachers have a short chat over tea about Kochoushu's progress (good, but advancing more quickly than anticipated) and Subaru's decision to teach her to summon a shikigami. Then Watanuki mentions something about renewing the wards and Subaru lets out a knowing, "Aaaah."

"You say the wards are due for a change before you attach them to the anchor. Of course it would be much more tricky to renew them after they are attached, but it is also very bad to leave the wards this way for long, Shopkeeper. How long have they stood?" asks Subaru.

"At least one hundred years, but before that...since whenever Yuuko renewed them, or when the old anchors died: that's probably when they started drifting. That would be ten years ago."

Subaru winces. "It would have been better," he says, leaning forward, "if you had gotten to them sooner."

"I made a ward for Doumeki's temple before," says Watanuki. "That wasn't too hard."

Subaru shakes his head. "You know that's different. You spun magic into the ward, and stored it in ink and paper, didn't you? Then the Buddhists or Shintoists could move it around and eyeball where it should go. Besides, the place where the ward is going—those places aren't magic in and of themselves. No. This building is partly sentient magic. You would need power on a scale that's off the charts even if you were the original owner and you knew the ins and outs of it intimately. Otherwise, the process will be far more delicate, and if you are not prepared, the operation could become a trap."

"And besides that, it's off-set in time and space." Watanuki bites his lip. "That might affect things, I suppose."

"...right," says Subaru, after a poignant pause. He had forgotten, and that was an even more perilous complication. He was starting to look slightly anxious now, though he was trying to hide it for Watanuki's sake. "Right. But...as I was saying...the wards are going to respond best to the person who built them, and secondly, for the next person to be familiar with them. You understand?"

"I've lived here for..."

"It doesn't matter. Places become...a thing of their own. And the magic of a place does too. It's unique. It turns...personable. Particular."

"I always thought so," Watanuki frowns. "The storeroom has certainly been..."

"You must have interacted with it, at least a little?" Subaru presses.

"Naturally. I've walked these halls and touched every cabinet, every wall, thousands of times. Cleaned it inside and out and I've done all my magic here for a hundred years. I've had to be aware of the nearest wards, and so it must know me," Watanuki insists, then continues desperately, "I've even dealt with the sentient ward heigushi before. It can't be that complicated, can it? The shop has never manifested itself. If it could do that, I wouldn't need an anchor."

Subaru's face says clearly that this wasn't enough, and it would be easier if the shop wards had manifested, but he doesn't have the heart to say it out loud. "Then, just...loosen up the wards first, if you can. Try to work with them. Good luck, Shopkeeper."

"You're saying that if I fail, I might rip this place out of the universe?" Watanuki cocks his head and folds his arms. "I won't do that."

Subaru presses his lips tightly together, and says, "Don't even suggest..." His hands fly, making the magical gesture of unbinding.

Watanuki nods. "You're right. But I have been in that place before, and I don't fear it. I don't have time." He reaches for the door.

Subaru looks even more stricken, and he steps closer to Watanuki, his voice low and urgent. "Listen to me, Shopkeeper. If you had any...if I were you, and there was any way to put this project off, I would. I wish I could be of help, but it's not my...I've never been any good with the great wards. Checking them for security was all I ever did professionally, though my grandmother taught me the basics. Trust me, you must be gentle and careful with them. They are basic, simple magic and therefore the most tricky to get right."

"I will." Watanuki twists his fingers together. "Something has always turned up before." He holds open the door.

Subaru goes through and stops. "If Kochoushu-san—" Subaru bites off what he was about to say, looking torn. "You know what her specialty is, I think, if you let her—"

"Kochoushu?" Watanuki turns sharply. "Why should she be involved?"

"You must know, that child, the person who she is," Subaru stammers, "aside from you, she has to be the one who is naturally compatible with these wards—" and stops dead at the brittle look in Watanuki's blue and green eyes. Watanuki has no intention of letting the untrained girl anywhere near the dangerous stage of his pet project, where she might get hurt. "I—I've already said too much, it seems," Subaru falters. He hastily bids Watanuki goodbye, and flees.

Watanuki gazes after him, troubled, and then his gaze drifts past the gates and down to the street. More visitors.

Kurogane and Fai bow slightly as they pass the running Sakurazukamori, and they walk into the wishing shop. "Seems people are always coming in and out of here lately," says Fai, as a matter of greeting, while Kurogane murmurs, "Afternoon."

"Yes, it's been rather busy," says Watanuki. "I haven't seen you two in a while. And Kochoushu might be along soon, though she should get my message. Will you be long? I was hoping to get to some maintenance issues today..."

"Oh?" Fai raises an eyebrow. "Can I help?"

"I admit it would be wonderful if you could, as a mage, but I think I will be all right on my own. It's the wards," Watanuki explains. "I'm the most familiar with them, and they haven't been tampered with in a long time. I hesitate to let someone who isn't familiar with them to touch them, although I am sure you are very skilled."

Fai nods. Kurogane glances at him, and Fai says, "They can be temperamental, and I'm not an expert in them myself; Ashura-Ou set up the ones on Celes, and, as you know, that ended disastrously. Valeria never had wards to begin with, which made it easy for Fei-Wong to open a gate and work magic there. All I know is that the more unusual a place is," Fai gestures to the shop, "the more unexpected its reactions can be. Still, you only need to call." His smile disappears as a thought occurs to him. "It must be even more difficult with the shop slightly off-set in spacetime as it is; I've always thought the shop was very delicately placed to begin with. When you untether the wards, you will have to take care not to unbalance its precarious position. You're not trying this on a deadline, are you? I heard you were going somewhere for Golden Week—that's coming up pretty soon, isn't it?"

"I know." Watanuki's eyes wander over Fai's shoulder.

Fai looks at him. "But..."

"There's a lot to prepare, but I have been making steady progress. I'm sure I can make it."

Fai shakes his head, worried. Kurogane mutters a vague threat: "If I have to call up Syaoran and have you explain yourself because you were taking risks and rushing..."

But though Kurogane's words are right on the mark, they have the opposite effect as intended, and he can see it the moment his words impact Watanuki, for his cheeks almost instantly suffuse a wounded pink. Watanuki's expression is torn between hope to see Syaoran and...something else, wrestling powerfully with two different desires. Kurogane instantly regrets saying anything. Watanuki put more than enough pressure on himself on his own.

With his gaze turned savagely inwards, Watanuki bitterly shoves his feelings back into the ground. He cannot... He will not... This is not the reason he is doing this... Why would he have this wild urge to...? As if it wasn't a temptation already. He mustn't rush. Stupid, stupid... And it's all useless: he will do what he was going to do... As he promised... As if it wasn't hard enough to... But Syaoran—

Before his face can quite turn into an ugly scowl, Watanuki wrenches out of that train of thought and masters himself. "I'll be careful," he says, brushing off the warning. Fai and Kurogane look doubtful. Watanuki shrugs and forces himself to say indifferently, "But you must have had another reason to come by today."

Kurogane nods. "Only to pick up Doumeki-san's work address, or his phone number. We had a question to ask him about some everyday issues. Taxes, and so forth. We just got part-time jobs at the drug store down the street."

"Congratulations," Watanuki beams. "Come inside, then, and I'll find it." Watanuki ushers the pair in and walks over to a little stand in the foyer. They follow. "He wrote it down in the guest book for me not too long ago." With a little concentration, Watanuki performs a search spell, tosses the guest book in the air, and flips the book open to the correct page. "Here it is." He hands the book to Kurogane, who takes out a memo pad and a mechanical pencil and jots down the address, while Fai practices reading over his shoulder.

"You're working at the drug store, you said? The Green Drugstore?" Watanuki checks.

Kurogane nods again, still scribbling, and after a moment, Fai looks up and nods too.

Watanuki groans and lightly smacks his forehead. "I should have thought of that. I could have referred you; I have worked with them before. You should tell the shop owners you know me. Probably haven't aged a day since... They used to have these two high school workers, Kazahaya and his partner Rikuo, and I had them do some work for me in exchange for a few services. I could have you do similar things for me. I haven't been in contact since because they haven't picked up any young people with potential magical power since those two moved on in their lives," he said thoughtfully, "but I know they collect orphans, castaways, and the like, and take them under their wing for a time. They understand. I suppose they still go by the names of Kakei and Saiga...?"

"They do," Fai confirms. "They have other names?"

"Yes," Watanuki says evasively, "but you should know there are many reasons why a magic-worker would hide their names. Are you both set for now?"

They nod. "Yes, I think so. Thank you for your help," Fai says, eyes lighting up. He hesitates before turning serious. "Please do be careful. I wish you good luck with the wards."

Fai and Kurogane leave. They stay quiet, keeping their heads down until they are down the street and far out of earshot.

"Is he...? Do you think Watanuki will be all right? He seemed odd," Fai whispers to Kurogane.

"Mage, you know better than I," Kurogane says in a low voice, and shakes his head. "I don't know. I shouldn't have pushed him." He frowns and quickens his pace. "He's too much like you, Fai. I should have known he's the type to hide it and bottle it inside. All the pressure that's on him, it comes from within. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Kurogane!" Fai lopes to keep up. "He's been simmering over leaving the shop for a long time—four months now, I think? Couldn't he be patient for a while longer? I don't understand why he's acting strange now."

"He knows what is right, but that doesn't mean he can stop rushing. Now that the end is in sight, and he's realized he wants it..."

"Then what can we do?" asks Fai.

Kurogane takes one more stride before stopping to consider, and Fai almost runs into him. "Make sure Kochoushu keeps an eye on him," Kurogane says finally. "He might not tell her what he's doing, but he lets her in. He'll listen to her. If she knows what he's doing."

"So—"

"Fai, you keep an eye on the shop and watch for...whatever you need to. And make sure she knows. Intercept her on the way to school or something; she passes by the Green Drugstore on the way to and from school. I've seen her through the windows."

"I can do that, but will it work?" Fai bites his lip.

Kurogane responds grimly, "It will have to."

"Supposing we have to, we'll be throwing her into something she's not even remotely prepared for," Fai murmurs. "If worse comes to worst."

"She must prove herself," Kurogane says hollowly. "Someday, she will learn who she really is. When she does, if her teacher is lost..."

Fai sighs. "Out of all the possible decisions she could make, she could try to take over the shop only half-understanding, and repeat the past."

"Just so. Their fates are too intertwined, and the pattern becomes too strong. The power of choice will diminish in their lives: they become trapped in old souls. Tomoyo once told me such a fate was possible. She was warning me about what might happen to Syaoran and Sakura and their clones for living on rewound time. But for Watanuki, that outcome may be even more likely." Kurogane pauses. "It's too easy. You have only to imagine a world in which Watanuki and Yuuko keep handing over ownership to each other before dying. In the worst case, an accident in spacetime like the one Watanuki appears to be risking could cause their lives to loop on themselves."

Fai whips his head around to look at Kurogane, and his eyes widen, horrified. "Because the shop is dislocated from the world, that would make it harder for anyone to interfere and disrupt the pattern."

"Yes. That's what we need to prevent." Kurogane's right hand fists, then relaxes. He misses his sword, its weight, its simplicity.

"Then wouldn't it be better to keep her out of there?" Fai questions him. "A pattern can't begin if she's not there."

"And then we lose Watanuki." Kurogane shakes his head. "No one else can save Watanuki from himself. That's the catch. If Kochoushu doesn't break the pattern and save Watanuki's life, it's all lost anyway. Just as when we fought Fei-Wong, history would erase or repeat itself if we had failed."

"But Kochoushu doesn't even know that there's a time to go back to..."

"That's right," says Kurogane grimly. "And if she knows, will that make a difference?"

Fai opens his mouth, closes it. His lips thin. "No. It might even worsen the probability. If she knows, the precedent will be in her mind. She could choose to ignore our warnings if the idea is too strong or we are too forbidding. If she doesn't know, she could decide to rewind time as if it was the first time the thought had occurred to her, which will make it more unlikely."

Kurogane clamps a hand on Fai's shoulder. "Listen, here is what we do know: Kochoushu won't let her teacher do something stupid without a fight. We have to trust her. He may not want her there, but she needs to be there."

For a time, I know not how long, we

passed time on a midsummer afternoon

until darkness settled behind our backs.

Just by groping around in that weak and dimming light,

no matter what, I tried to do the best I could do.

Better than anyone I know, I can trick myself at any time

into believing that I hold the power.

With which words should I have told you?

Putting your dear wishes and my lies together,

let's swear forever in a kiss one June night;

and I will do whatever I can to gather up the light, to gather light...

—"Ougon no Tsuki" or "Golden Moon" by Shikao Suga [translated and remixed]

種取り / Tanetori: "seed-raising; gathering news; seed-sowing (breeding)"

Author's Note: Kochoushu and Watanuki could actually survive for a while in an unmoored wishing shop, but not forever. However, there's not telling how much time might pass if that happened. And probably, for drama's sake, Fei-Wong Reed might pay Watanuki an extra-heartbreaking visit.