| Chapter 13 |

Bothered by Fai's and Subaru's warnings, Watanuki makes one last-ditch effort to search Yuuko's archives one more time for information on the wards and how to deal with them, or at least for information on the construction of the house itself. To his dismay, he can find little worth scrutinizing. Throwing up his hands, Watanuki begins working on the final stages of his project, and takes the time to put up magical markers on the spots where he would prefer the wards to be replaced, just in case, as his last task for the day. Just in case, so that Kochoushu won't come in and walk into the middle of the spelling even though he told her not to come, Watanuki slaps an obnoxiously lettered KEEP OUT - SPELLING IN PROGRESS sign on the front gate. Sleep is hard to come by that night.

After all that preparation, this is the day. This is it. The end.

Watanuki claps his hands and looks about for his companions, and then he remembers. The doll girls are gone. Mokona is with Kurogane and Fai. The only ones left are Mugetsu, who is still hibernating, and now Tanetori. The lapse makes him uneasy. Tanetori is untried.

Well, it can't be helped.

"Tanetori," Watanuki says clearly, holding out his hand, and the canary heeds the call. He swoops and alights on Watanuki's finger. "Come..."

It sings, in a soft man's whisper.

Kagome, kagome, kago no naka no tori wa / Caged, caged, the bird in the cage

Itsu itsu deyaru / When, when, will it go out

As always, the hair rises on the back of Watanuki's neck, but he shakes himself out of it. He's wasting time. Watanuki closes his eyes, and raises his hands. He's tugged on the wards before, allowed them to snap back into place. This is not on that scale. This will require all his effort to pull the wards from their roots. Straining with all of his senses, he points to each corner where the wards lie, and yanks them towards himself.

The wards spring to him, bright and strong, like pillars of light and fire, pure power merges into a giant tree, weaving and braiding a trunk, and branches. For a moment it seems to be within Watanuki's control. But then it keeps growing, up, up, and up, stretching into a canopy, and then the light pours through Watanuki's hands and it forms a sparkling dome over his head, and expands, and expands too quickly for him to snatch it back. The dome thins and the wards snap back into their places as if they had never been gone, and thin into the air.

Watanuki is left grasping nothing, doubled over and gasping, trembling with effort, drenched in sweat, only to find that the ordeal has lasted less than five minutes.

The wards will be wound much more tightly now. And he has to try again.

Watanuki sits down, and takes the time to meditate. After some time he is dry again, and his breathing has calmed.

This time Watanuki picks each ward individually, or two at a time at most, and ties them down in their new positions. Yet a humming tension grows in the shop, and by the time Watanuki gets to the seventh and eighth wards, he is almost fully strung out. He fumbles the "knot," and the backlash rips the other wards out of place and sends shockwaves to their roots. The shop trembles. Watanuki tries to stand, and falls over.

Tanetori's song continues to murmur:

Yoake no ban ni / In the night of dawn

Tsuru to kame ga subetta / Crane and turtle slipped

On the other side of the city, the Sakurazukamori flinches and accidentally snaps a twig from the sakura tree. It writhes in his hand before dying and breaking itself into kindling.

At that, though sleepily engrossed in the middle of feeding, the tree stirs powerfully.

What troubles...my predator... Its branches sway in a mesmerizing pattern.

"Nothing," the Sakurazukamori finds himself saying, staring out into the mist. "I already sent her a warning of what I think I know. It may not be in time. I should go to her..." he takes a step forward.

A branch of the tree snakes out and strokes his cheek, leaving a heady mixture of blood and sap and nectar in its wake. The tree might hurt the Sakurazukamori, but it would not let its prey hurt itself, as this one was prone to do. Though he fights it, the Sakurazukamori's eyelids begin to fall shut, closing.

You can't fight me...you can't fight fate, the tree whispers. Useless.

The Sakurazukamori twitches fretfully as he falls under its fatalistic spell, and slips down the tree's roots, resting his head against the trunk. "But I wish. If she..."

I will take away your worries. Sleep. The tree brushes against the Sakurazukamori's eyes, drinking his sweat and tears. Such a delicate taste, it never could understand, and the tree had never bonded before with a blood-hunter who cried so readily. It had decided, after many years, that it liked the taste almost as much as the blood that quenched its thirst. The man wasn't weak, but he was tediously delicate, and it took much of the tree's energy and care to keep him young and calm and cooperative. He had resisted submission far longer than most, and there were parts of him still unclaimed. The tree almost admired such strength, and had indulged him almost as much as it had the one before, of whom it had been fond. In retrospect the previous blood-hunter had always had good taste, better even than the tree itself. But the tree could not seem to make the new one understand. The tree was patient. They always understood, in the end. It was only a matter of time. I take care of you...no one else. You take care of...no one else. That is the way. You should...accept

"Won't..." His head lolls.

Hussssssshhhhhhh. The leaves of the tree shimmered. My predator.

Shortly after the bell rings for classes to end, Kochoushu finds the letter taped neatly to her school locker. When she reads it her heart pounds with a peculiar sense of urgency that immediately develops into outright worry once Kochoushu fully comprehends the contents. Kochoushu throws her school bag over her shoulder, takes off without a second thought, throwing herself into a sprint. Thankfully, she had changed her shoes before retrieving the note or she might have forgotten to do so in her haste.

"Kurogane." The mage nudges the ninja under the ribs. "It's happening. I can feel it. The air—it's warping... It snaps." He stands stiffly at attention, listening hard.

"Wait for the girl," comes the reply, with a quiet growl that rumbles like the scrape of a knife pulled from its sheath.

Fai takes a quick breath. "I'd rather run for her." He tugs at his uniform apron.

"I know." Kurogane's heavy hand settles in Fai's hair, and scrunches it. They wait until Fai breathes "Kochoushu" and Kurogane surreptitiously steers the mage out from behind the drugstore counter and gives him a little push on the back. Fai almost runs into the girl right outside; they pause for a moment, and then they start to jog down the street, back toward the wishing shop. Kochoushu pulls ahead, running faster. Her long jet-black hair streams out behind her, flickering and waving eerily in the wind.

For the moment, Watanuki simply rests, allowing the wards to resettle, wondering what his next move should be. Tanetori swoops in the air above him, gliding in a tight circle. Watanuki can't move the wards altogether. He can't tackle them in pieces. He has to make them easier to manage, to control.

Watanuki rolls over and gets to his feet. One more time. One more time, and then he can concede defeat, he tells himself. He can see the stars... Watanuki hastily sits down again, and the ghostly apparitions go away. A little more cautiously, Watanuki stands again, and this time he feels steady. He can still do this. Once again, Tanetori perches politely on his finger, and chirps.

In all his years, Watanuki has hated the shop. He has loved the shop. He still loves it dearly. So much of his life had been spent in this place, and he thought he had been content. Yet now he has great impatience to leave it. He wants to meet Doumeki, and Syaoran, and Kochoushu, and everyone else outside, free to roam the open world. His imprisonment felt bitter as it never had before: there is so much that he has willfully missed, so much he has lost. Now that he has made his decision, he feels there is no time to waste.

If only he could bring all of his energy to bear onto the situation... If he could tear his own magic from the task of holding onto the earth and the sky and holding up the building, and fixing this "piece" to the surrounding world... If he could do that, then... Watanuki swallows and looks up at the ceiling. Then he would really be risking everything. He breathes in, he breathes out. It would be worth it. It is his wish, after all. He had been too cautious before, and now he would not. He would not hesitate, but act with complete conviction.

Power begins to gather in his palms, streaking from the shop itself, and Watanuki begins to gather it and concentrate it: here, there, he brings the power close, all of it, so much more of it than he is usually aware of, too much to stay within his own body. Does the shop contain you, or do you contain the shop? Someone had asked that question, surely...well that was the question, wasn't it?

Light streaks through the fingers of his left hand clenched around great balls of energy, casting light and shadows in tiger stripes and illuminating the motes in the air. Watanuki slowly loosens his hands until they are flat, and shapes the energy into disks, then to lithe and responsive ropes. He casts his power at the wards and pulls them towards him, decouples his own power feeding their stability and quickly replaces the connection with the magic of the bird Tanetori, waiting until he can feel the center of the shop transferring from himself to the bird on his finger, from one to the other. Tanetori grows, one moment a small canary, next the size of a white crow, then a yellow raven, then a falcon, then a golden eagle. Tanetori beats his wings and resettles on Watanuki's wrist, shrieking with delight. Watanuki tastes joy and victory coursing from his body: Tanetori becomes more and more real, closer to a personality, closer to the intention of the shop itself.

Upon meeting Kochoushu outside the drugstore, she appears vaguely upset to Fai. They quickly exchange stories in low voices and hurry down the road, and she tells him about finding the letter. Fai halts abruptly in front of the gates, pulling Kochoushu in front of him, and tells her sharply, "There's no time to lose. Watanuki has been doing big magic for a solid hour now, and I would expect he ought to run out of his strength soon. He won't like it, but he needs your help. I'll do what I can from the outside—to keep the shop bounded to the here-and-now for as long as I can—but you're going to have to help him with the interior work. Hurry."

Kochoushu nods to him very quickly, eyes wide, and pushes past the gates and the stupid sign stuck to them without another word. The strange touch of the gates makes her shiver. Halfway across the threshold, time slows down to a sickening pace. She hears her heart beat in her ears once, twice, three times, before she pitches over the invisible border. "Oof!" she lands on hands and knees. Scrambling back to her feet, she screams, "Sensei!" There is no answer.

She looks behind her. There is Fai, looking tense, but his image seems to waver, as if steam or water shimmered between them.

She trots briskly to the doors and tries to open them by the three golden handles, but the doors only shake and clatter. On instinct, Kochoushu gets down on one knee to look at the lock. She begins muttering to it, cajoling, then crooning, and yet what the meaning of the sounds she makes is completely escapes her, except that she knows she is pleading with the lock and the shop to let her in. In a few moments, the lock swings open on its own with the barest touch.

Kochoushu gets up, feeling somewhat stupid, and walks inside. The air is tense and thick with alarm, and she can feel a current of magic moving sluggishly, almost pulsing.

"Sensei!" she calls out, but gets no response. Kochoushu picks up her pace. "Watanuki-sensei—" she turns the corner to the living room and there he is. The magic current is flooding towards Tanetori, perched on his shoulder. His eyes are closed, and he is muttering under his breath. His spindly arms are stiffly held out in front of him, as if pushing at an invisible wall. Kochoushu walks in front of him, and directs her words to his face: "Watanuki-sensei!" she says once more, insisting.

His eyes flash open, blue and green, bright and vivid with horror. "Kochoushu!"

"I'm here, Sensei." Kochoushu steps forward, and says grimly, "And you can't make me leave."

"What are you—doing here, I can't—" Watanuki's arms start shaking badly. "You have to leave—I can't protect us both." If you stay, and I fail, we'll both die.

"Sensei, let me help." He only looks at her. Kochoushu stares him in the eyes. "You're stuck, aren't you." She challenges him.

He licks his lips. "I have to keep the shop from falling apart. I thought I would have more strength. Go."

Kochoushu ignores the command. "Fai's outside. He's helping."

"Fai?" Watanuki blinks. "So that's—I felt something bracing—"

"Sensei." She needs to break through to him now. He has to decide to trust her now. "What do you need me to do?"

"I can't let go of the shop." The very tips of his fingers are trembling. "The, the wards, they need shifting."

"Okay," Kochoushu says tersely. "You're saying that if I shift the wards, you won't have to hold the shop together. Right?"

He nods once. "Take the bird," he whispers. "Tanetori contains the wards. Be careful; they're tricky. Once the wards are in place the shop will stabilize. I left...markers..."

Kochoushu coaxes the bird to step onto her finger and she pulls back. "Understood. That should help. Please concentrate, Sensei. If you can be strong for just a little longer..." she tells him, anxious.

Watanuki obediently closes his eyes again and sinks to the floor, conserving his strength. She sees his shoulders relax as he concentrates on his single task.

Now it's up to her to create an opening so he can put down his burden.

She finds the markers without too much trouble, but seeing them makes her instantly and inexplicably cross. Putting a marker here will not work. Watanuki had done his best, but even she could sense the balance was bad. Experimentally, she closes her eyes and guides a strand of magic light out from Tanetori, and tries to stick it to the marker. As she expected, no matter what she does, it won't stick or cleave to the shop at all. Kochoushu scowls. The placement is incompatible. After all of that planning, and Watanuki's guide is next to useless. Even supposing the shop would be receptive to his placement of the wards, for one thing, it is too rigidly reliant on symmetry that is contrary the organic nature of the shop. Even if she could force the pieces into place, which she hasn't the power to do, the balance would forever on edge.

Sitting crosslegged in front of the marker, Kochoushu throws herself into meditation, hovering over and through the shop and sensing where, if anywhere, the wards should go.

They won't go. Everywhere feels wrong.

Frowning, Kochoushu returns to her body and covers her face with her hand. I can't do this. I don't have the power to force the wards back to where they should be, and even if I did, there's no guarantee that the shop wouldn't splinter itself apart because I forced them. I have to help Watanuki. I don't know what to do. Something's wrong.

Another voice from inside her seemed to answer. The woman's.

This place has grown. It has fed like a parasite on the magic of the enchanter who lives trapped within its walls like a beloved pet. It recognizes him, it accommodates him, but it does not respect him, and it will not trust him to govern it. It will not let slip its vulnerable secrets. But as living things require replanting, so the foundations of the shop must shift to fill this space properly. Its borders fold. Its cabinets are cramped. It will not balance. It yearns for expansion. Even now, it is trying to slip into another universe: for that will give it the room it needs...

Kochoushu claps her hands to make a crisp, clean sound, and reaches out her hand. Wind, light, smoke and stars swirls about her.

You are the Witch of Time and Space. The wards know you, and you have the authority. Remind them that this place was once yours, and you have the rights to recreate them. Kochoushu opens her hand. Sculpt it. Craft it. Build it. Make this place, and turn it back to what it ought to be! Power rushes through Kochoushu's palms. And then—a glittering hive of bees. Kochoushu feels faintly surprised. These were shiki, surely, but... Don't think, act! the voice commands, and Kochoushu obeys, and pushes with all her might. She becomes the swarming bees.

She divides. Half the bees hover around Tanetori, weaving scraps of wards together. The other half scatter throughout the house, and where they go, she goes with them. Where they sense pressure, she knows that is where space has folded. Then her spies came back to her, and she begins to walk the floor at a slow but relentless pace. Everything begins to happen frighteningly fast.

"Hall!" she shouts, responding to a need, and shoves the space aside with her hands, and a new hall comes to be. "Walls, now, and floor!" She stretches the sea of wood in front of her. "Turn!" The corner crooks sharply. She walks into kitchen and eases its walls gently apart, and gently adjusts the cabinetry and counter space, and fiddles with the oven and the refrigerator. The storeroom desires to plunge underground, and she obliges it with a basement, adding lights and stairs. The storeroom, nearly animate as always, plops an official-looking blank book at her feet, its pages filled with grids and columns and blank rectangles: expressing a wish for a filing system. There is some part of Kochoushu that is exuding gentle amusement at this discovery, though she cannot pinpoint the source of it. Kochoushu sighs and adjusts the room's shelving, then leaves with a promise that all will be dealt with in time. She walks back to the living room, moves on to the sun-filled parlor, and thrusts open another door and raises another room on the other side of it, one made of thick and thin glittering glass with cement floors, with firm and well-insulated doors. The room quickly becomes warm. Kochoushu blinks. "A conservatory," she begins to say, and stops. Well!

Kochoushu departs for the attics, where more space waits for her to unleash its folds. The change there is alarmingly extensive rather than detailed. The roof raises, the floors widen, closets grow, doors to nowhere open to a new room—a small study with an impressive-looking desk is inserted between two bedrooms and a bathroom. At the end of the hall, she pulls, and a set of stairs spring into existence and fall without warning from the ceiling, almost crushing her. When she follows the stairs, they lead to a rickety-looking hatch. Somewhat apprehensively, Kochoushu mounts the stairs and finds herself in a small tower. Kochoushu descends to the ground floor again and runs back to the house entrance.

After making some very slight changes there, she turns back, and returns to the living room. While she was gone, Watanuki had lit the kiseru pipe. Soft smoke fills the room, making her eyes water. The smoke snakes through the house, and clings to Kochoushu's clothes.

The living room was the site of the central ward, and the kiseru itself used to house a very old one. "Now," Kochoushu whispers, and becomes the bees again. The bees fly the ropes of light to the kiseru, and weave the magic inside it. Then they hover about the fireplace, and drop another ray of light into the grate. The ward sets a fire burning immediately, warming the room. The bees move back through the house, finding the best spots for the wards and reporting back to carry mere gossamer threads. Wards are dropped into the tower, into a bedroom closet, into the oven and refrigerator, into the storeroom, into the entrance doors, into the conservatory, into the grandfather clock, into the four-poster, into the desk, and into the bath. Wherever they go, they take. Finally, trembling with effort, Kochoushu instinctively sinks the last ward into the foundational rock by herself, and dismisses the bees. The ward net is whole, strong, without weakness or too much overlap, and flexible too.

It is done. Kochoushu sinks to her knees, left wondering how, exactly, she had done it. Wondering how something so draining and powerful could feel like taking the path of least resistance, as if someone was directing her steps, pointing her fingers, paving the way so all she had to do was follow. She hadn't imagined the rooms, had no hand in shaping them. She had merely brought them to be. That was either the intention of the shop itself, or the wordless yet intense pressure from the presence of That Woman in the back of mind— Kochoushu was suddenly sure that a whole chunk of the experience was missing, and had nothing to do with her. She had been a vessel.

She lets Tanetori crawl from her finger to Watanuki's shoulder, and strokes its wings one last time. Tanetori chirps at her.

Watanuki's eyes flicker open. "You did it all." His voice is quiet with awe. "I was watching." So saying, he appears to relax. As if anticipating something, Tanetori suddenly launches from Watanuki's shoulder and glides somewhere behind the couch.

The well-meaning words strike a nerve. Kochoushu tries to restrain herself for a moment and promptly explodes. "No!" Kochoushu shouts savagely. "That—that wasn't even me! It was like I was taken over! Well it wasn't—I did it, but it wasn't me!" She can't allow him to think this. "If I had done it, nothing would have changed, and one of us might have died! What you were trying to do was impossible!"

"But how—"

"None of your markers were right!" Kochoushu snaps, and accuses him: "Didn't you try to figure out why?!"

Watanuki winces. "Oh. I thought..." he puts down the pipe.

"Well, you thought wrong!" Kochoushu glares at him. An angry tear slips down. "You would have killed yourself trying to fix the house the wrong way! And I can't believe you did this! Without me! Without even telling me!" Tears are filling her eyes and she doesn't know why. She swiped them away and glares defiantly harder. "I don't care if you were trying to protect me, Sensei, I'm here for you now but I don't even know what I did! You were supposed to teach me, so this wouldn't happen! You tried this when I didn't even know enough to keep you out of trouble! If it hadn't been for—if it hadn't been for—" she gulps, swallowing bitter tears. She knows she's barely making sense. "I shouldn't have been able to save you. And if two of us couldn't—couldn't— I can't believe you thought you could attempt it alone."

That's it. Loss. These are tears because she could have lost him.

"I...I know. Kochoushu, I'm sorry." She can hear that Watanuki means it sincerely. But now Kochoushu won't look him in the eyes.

"But you—you didn't even know why it didn't work! You don't know anything!" she wails. "What if I couldn't do anything? What if I couldn't save you? What if—" She's trembling. It bothers her. "What if you need me to do that again someday, and I can't?" Her voice cracks. "I was almost too late."

"Kochoushu..." Watanuki tries to say soothingly, and grunts as Kochoushu throws herself into his arms, knocking him flat, and she proceeds to sob silently and unconsolably into his dress shirt. Watanuki looks down at her in surprise.

Sighing, Watanuki stretches out on the ground, and allows her to hold him; she has been through an ordeal. "I had to get out," says Watanuki quietly, lifting his hand to stroke the back of her hair. "I had to get out of this place, and I only realized how much I needed to very recently. I panicked, because I was desperate, and I tried to keep that a secret. I'm sorry, Kochoushu. But I couldn't put you in danger just so I could...fix it myself. I really thought I could. I didn't think that I would fail, but I knew that if I did it would be very bad, and I couldn't let you take that risk. Your hard work helped me greatly while I was preparing. I mean, I did try to prepare. I'm sorry. I thought I had done all that I could." He sits up and pushes her gently off of him, and settles her down to sit, hands on her shoulders. "I was wrong. Clearly...I didn't understand something. Something fundamental. For that, Kochoushu, there is no excuse. I am sorry."

Spellbound, she finally lets him look into her eyes, and he takes his hand away. Kochoushu sits up and moves aside, putting some distance between them again. They don't say anything for several minutes, but let their emotions boil off of them in silence.

Finally, Fai walks in and clears his throat from the entrance to the shop. Tanetori flutters onto his shoulder and casually nibbles on the neck of Fai's apron. Fai glances at it in muted surprise before continuing, "I hope I'm not interrupting. I just wanted to say, let's just all agree that this never has to happen again? Grounding the shop from the outside was enormously strenuous." He lightly strokes the top of the canary's smooth head.

"Never," Watanuki promises. "Thank you for your help, Fai-san." Fai cocks his head and continues smiling innocuously. Kochoushu remains mildly mutinous. "I promise!" Watanuki cries.

Arms crossed, Kochoushu looks to Fai-san. "So...how far can we trust him?" she asks warily.

Fai-san shrugs. "Beats me. It's up to you." Kochoushu looks at the ground and shrugs half-heartedly.

Watanuki starts to stand before Kochoushu can move stop him. "I won't do anything strenuous for a while. Although I'm afraid we need to replant the gardens soon. But that...can...wait...'til after...Golden Week..." Watanuki appears to sigh, his legs buckle, and he slips to the ground in a faint. Tanetori chooses to flit down to the ground, and hops about in the vicinity of Watanukis' head as if to examine him carefully.

"Sensei," Kochoushu sighs with some asperity, knowing he can't possibly hear her, "You're an idiot." She stares at him helplessly, too tired to be angry or upset and confused.

Fai says, "I think we'd better call Doumeki-san now." Fai strides away to find the telephone. It seems to be taking him a while to find it. Kochoushu's not sure, it ought to have been in the entrance foyer, but it might have been moved...

Watanuki moans and moves feebly on the ground. "What? Why?"

"Could you fetch me that heavy blanket from the open cabinet?" Kochoushu asks. Fai tosses it to her, and she flaps it to spread and settle over Watanuki. Watanuki promptly collapses back to the floor and groans. "Look. You've got to let yourself replenish your strength. Stop moving about," she orders him, crouching. "Stay put, or I'll sit on you... Sensei!" she barks, and this time Watanuki freezes, and obeys.

She watches until he falls asleep naturally (as he does when he settles down for any length of time), and then allows Tanetori to hop up her arm and onto her shoulder. Fai finds the phone and makes his call. Finished, he comes back around the corner and leans his shoulder on the doorframe. "I heard what you said, that it wasn't you who did it," says Fai. "Is that true?"

"Yeah." Kochoushu scratches her neck. "I needed to do it, and I just did it. It was as if somebody else knew what to do, and I was only cooperating. Subaru-san only taught me the theory of summoning a shiki yesterday, but today I actually summoned a whole swarm." She shakes her head. "I couldn't have done that. I haven't the faintest idea of how I did it. Someone else was moving my power and my body, and they had memories that I didn't. But they belonged with me there, because they're the person I'm growing to be." The girl hiccups and wraps her arms around her legs. Tanetori hastily scrambles onto the top of her head. "But I'm not there yet. I don't know if I'll ever will," Kochoushu says miserably. "I don't know if I'm ever going to grow up. I may never know what she knows. But I wanna know who She is, at least. Because I'm sure She was someone b-beautiful. I know I probably sound crazy..."

"I'm pretty sure she paid a heavy price for that beauty," says Fai, not thinking of the wishing shop rules so much as of the unfairness of life. "And who says you aren't beautiful? In your own way?"

"But I want to be her. I think when I become her, I'll remember everything."

"No, no you don't," says Fai gently. "Trust me, you don't want to become her."

"Why not? You—met her?"

"A lot of us have—Watanuki, me, and Kurogane, and some others—a long time ago. Someone very like you. Almost on another world." Fai purses his lips. "We all know you are your own person, so we didn't say anything. You had better ask the shopkeeper when he's feeling better. He knows more. Though I can't promise he'll tell you." He pauses. "Kochoushu-san, you're doing just fine. Sometimes magic is simply inexplicable. You don't need to push yourself to grow up any faster than you have to. In fact, it's probably better if you don't. Take it from someone who was forced to grow up too fast."

Kochoushu takes a deep breath. "I know. It's just, sometimes I want to."

"I think you have more in common with him than you realize." Fai nods to the sleeping shopkeeper. "This man's poor besotted lover is bringing dinner. He deserves to know what happened, and he'll probably want a few words with him. Aren't you hungry?"

"Famished." Kochoushu smiles guiltily. "Though I daresay I could help myself to some of his leftovers for the time being, if he has any in the fridge."

"Exactly! I say it's a reward for a hard day's work. We'll have Kurogane over after his shift ends. Speaking of which, I need to get back there, too. Can you stay with him?" Fai asks.

"Of course." Kouchoushu smiles wearily at Fai. He bids her farewell, turns, and promptly vanishes from her sight.

Kochoushu moves the blanket away from Watanuki's face and strokes his cheek with slow, even swipes of her thumb. "You still don't get it," she whispers. "You have someone who loves you, and you're not alone, even if you used to be trapped here. I'm sorry I shouted at you. I was scared. When I understood what you did, it frightened me."

She pulls away. Something in her always crumbles when she looks at Watanuki. She's drawn to her teacher, but it's not attraction, not even a crush. It's not romantic love. It's only that she's fonder of him than she should be. She wishes only that he could be safe and happy. Sometimes she feels older than him, like he's a boy in need of guidance, and it doesn't make sense, not when he's guiding her. He feels like family. Sad family.

Tanetori softly croons,

Kagome, kagome, kako no naka no tori wa / Trap, trap the bird trapped in the past

Itsu itsu deau / When will, when will it meet?

Yoake no ban ni / While it was still morning

Tsuru to kame ga subetta / crane and turtle slipped.

Ushiro no shoumen dare? / Who now stands behind my back?

Shizuka walks in that night with dinner again, more haggard than usual. Fai and Kurogane are done with their workshift; they have helped themselves to the shop's liquor cabinet and are drinking quietly over a low square table in the corner. They nod to him, motion to the doorway, and continue talking. Shizuka leaves the plastic bag of food on their table, and directs his footsteps to the living room as silently instructed. He finds Kochoushu lying in a limp heap, half sprawled over another chair beside Watanuki's body, having fallen asleep herself sometime midway through her watch duty. Shizuka carefully steps over her legs to a safe spot, and crouches to rouse Watanuki, brushing the sweaty bangs from his eyes.

Watanuki's eyes flutter open, blinking more and more slowly until he awakes. "Hey."

"Hey yourself. You're a sight for sore eyes." Shizuka kneels and gently turns Watanuki's face, sweeping his cheek softly with his thumb, and keeps his tone gentle. "Fai told me everything. Did you do this because of me?" It's an important question, but adding pressure won't help him get an honest answer.

Watanuki sighs. "Yes...and no. I rushed it because I was eager to meet you. But I could have done it anytime as I became more and more desperate to leave. You merely gave me a deadline, and forced me to plan. If you hadn't, I might have tried it without a plan at all. I think that would have been worse."

Shizuka hums, seeming to accept that. "And Kochoushu?"

"She saved me. I tried to make sure she wouldn't be anywhere near here, because I knew I was being...reckless... I didn't want her caught up in it. But I was betrayed. Subaru warned her, and Fai ran with her here to help, and she saved me." Watanuki takes Shizuka's hand from his face and places it over his chest, over his heart. "I owe her. Yuuko...is going to be much more present in her life now."

"Did you misjudge your strength?" Shizuka asks him.

"Both yes and no," Watanuki answers. "I have a huge amount of raw magical strength—more than I expected, actually, once I had disengaged it from the shop—but not enough stamina to sustain it and control it while every ounce of it was working at once. After some time, I realized I was grappling with both the containment of the shop and also of myself. I didn't have anything left to lift the shop back into alignment with this version of Earth, or to tether it securely, much less to relocate and strengthen the wards."

"And now?"

"Kochoushu re-tethered it as it was meant to be. As you probably saw...the architecture of the shop has changed."

Shizuka looks around. The rooms do seem...odd, different from before, but also more solid, less like a sleepy someday-it-might-be and more like a firm should-have-always-been. He blinks.

"Perhaps it matured," Watanuki murmurs.

"What are you going to do with all of your strength now?" Shizuka wonders.

Watanuki shrugs. "Naturally, I must learn to control it. That ought to be a full-time job. Did you know that there is a class of enchanters who have so much power, they can make things happen simply as they speak? And Yuuko once knew a man so powerful, he stopped her death with just a thought."

"You won't become like..." Shizuka halts.

"Gods, no," said Watanuki. "I will do all that I can and do everything in my power to stop that from happening." He shudders. "I know my own desires all too well. I couldn't bear such a fate, and that man couldn't either."

"But if your power continues to grow..."

Watanuki shakes his head. "It will grow a little, yes, but not unchecked as it did before. Now that my power has nothing to feed, the need for increased power is gone, and when I finally cut all ties to the wishing shop, over time my power will begin to diminish and fade. That is what I intend to do."

And Shizuka says, "Very well."

Watanuki asks, "Are you angry?"

"No. I am not angry," says Shizuka. "I am disappointed, but also greatly relieved." He casts his mind about. In the back of his mind, securely locked away, he knows that his great-grandfather is wound with a slow-burning anger, one cloaked in concern. "It was I who tempted you," Shizuka says, and he feels Doumeki turn, his mind, focused and tense and heavy like a sinking stone. Now Doumeki's attention is riveted on Shizuka.

Watanuki shakes his head. "No. I never intended to tell you how much it meant to me; you couldn't have known. Please, don't be sorry."

Shizuka clutches Watanuki's hand. "I don't think that's possible." He can't help it; Doumeki's frustration seeps through somewhat, like a fever. And some of it is his own.

"We're alive, aren't we?" Watanuki says vaguely. "Somehow. That's all that matters. That, and that I love you."

"And I, you," Shizuka says, and looks at him for a moment. "You bother us. You make us hurt for you. I don't want you to ever be hurt again. We don't want you to willingly walk into danger alone again." In one fluid motion, he picks up the shopkeeper on one knee and stands. Watanuki obligingly hooks an arm around his neck. His feet dangle from Shizuka's other arm. The blanket over Watanuki slowly slips to the ground. Watanuki is always so unnervingly light, like a hollow-boned bird, like he's made of air and sunshine and dew and cobweb and precious little else. Sometimes that's what it seems like. And Shizuka thinks, he deserves more earth. More substance.

"I have the strength to stand on my own now, you know. Where are you going?" Watanuki cranes his neck to look up at Shizuka.

"To where no one will disturb us," Shizuka replies. "I'm of half a mind to bind you to me, if you'll have me. Immediately." Shizuka turns and steps carefully back over Kochoushu, and walks through the living room, where Fai and Kurogane scrupulously pretend not to see, and ascends the stairs to the living quarters carefully. Shutting his eyes, Watanuki turns his face into Shizuka's neck and inhales his scent, woody and clean and calm, and Shizuka gently lets Watanuki down onto the bed, and sits beside him. "I must show you what I mean," Shizuka says, and waits.

Watanuki sits up and looks at him, incredulous. "You want me...now?" Shizuka nods. "What changed?"

"I want us to be permanent. I want you to be permanent." Shizuka takes off his jacket, and unbuttons his shirtsleeves. "I want you to feel the desperation that I feel to make you stay." He opens his collar.

Watanuki exhales. "Yes. Me, too." He already aches for that. "I want to stay. I always have." He feels dizzy. "You—both of you—need to know that."

"You scared us today," says Shizuka, parting the button of his shirt. "You could have died. In my head, Doumeki was angry, and worried, and hurt. And I care for you more than ever, but you can't keep on this way, or I will become like him, bleeding whenever you do. Or before you do." The shirt goes over his head. "I need proof. I want you to prove to me that you're alive and that you like it that way." Shizuka's chest is lean and beautiful in form, far more robust, the muscles unimpressive to look at but quite firm. His dusky skin looks warm to the touch.

"Through sex." Just to be clear. The hysterical urge wells up...but Watanuki doesn't quite laugh; he doesn't want to.

"Do you follow? I want a memory that won't ever go away, that belongs just to us. I want you to have it with me." Watanuki meets Shizuka's dark olive-green eyes. The urge mercifully dies away as quickly as it sprung up. His mouth goes dry.

"Yes. Yes, I want you to know me. Now." Watanuki kisses Shizuka and falls backwards, pulling him with him. Shizuka kisses him roughly and undoes the fastenings of Watanuki's clothing, and pulls each arm out of the sleeves one by one while Watanuki kisses a line down his jaw and readjusts to meet his mouth, guiding his face with his hands hungrily. Watanuki pushes and pulls Shizuka's pants down, and Shizuka strips himself out of his boxers and trousers and socks, tossing them across the room. Watanuki's underwear comes off more awkwardly, but at last they are lying skin against skin, light against tan. Watanuki needs a moment. Shizuka smooths his hair and reassures him it's all right as Watanuki trembles.

"Too tired?" he asks, after a moment, but with no hint of disappointment or reproof in his voice. It is simply a matter-of-fact question.

Watanuki shakes his head. "No. But you'll have to..." Watanuki stretches and winces. "Take me. I can't do you. Not today."

"Ah." Shizuka pauses, and gently suggests, "I will, but you should take a moment to explore and touch me. It's no good if you're not comfortable, I think."

True to his word, Shizuka stays very still while Watanuki passes his cold fingers over Shizuka's body, flinching only when he nicked his ribs and touched a fairly deep scar over his belly. "What's this?" Watanuki asks, pressing the slight dip in the skin tissue experimentally. "I think it was an accident," says Shizuka, quite unconcerned. "I fell during a hiking trip and landed on a large sharp rock. It took a chunk out of my flesh, because it cut deep. I was younger then." "And this?" Watanuki strokes a long slice along his arm. "An underclassman's arrow," Shizuka replies. "I was teaching them, and they neglected one of the rules of safety. I should have been watching more closely, so the fault is partly mine." Lacking a reply, Watanuki kisses Shizuka, and moves with him, gradually getting more comfortable. When they're done, breath escapes from Shizuka with a soft chuckled sigh, and another light kiss. Watanuki grips him tightly in readiness. So Shizuka whispers, "Yes, I'll take you now."

And he does. Shizuka takes every inch of Watanuki. He is driven and taken relentlessly, relentlessly, until he cannot possibly feel any more, until Watanuki has cried out from the exquisite pleasure, a cry unexpected and heedless of volume, it is life, and the effort leaves Watanuki panting and squashed flat to the bed, and Shizuka is nearing the last of his own strength. Shizuka picks him back up and comforts him. Shizuka curls around his body and wraps his arms around and protects him with his warmth, and kicks and drags the blankets over them both, and makes sure Watanuki can still breathe. They have breathed the same breath. Legs tangle. Shizuka whispers, I want you, I love you, I love you; and in his ear, Watanuki whispers, I'll try to live, I want to live, I'll stay I'll stay I'll stay with you, and rejoices for one last tie that can never be broken, until every pore leaks tears of happiness, not sweat, and he is dreaming, because that simply isn't possible but it is truly wonderful...and the one who lies with him holds out their hand in his dream, and says, See, I am here. I am yours, your shield, and you are ours, our eyes. Let us go forth together, and it shall not be undone, as it was meant to be... AndWatanuki believes that could have been true.

When I heard you say those uncharacteristically kind words,

I was awfully ashamed of myself.

As someone once disgraced me, that is how I also

came to betray others.

Far away the waves are overlapping;

All the painful things, the wonderful things—

Despite myself, I no longer want to ground them down.

The moment I shut my eyes against the sudden wind,

I found myself floating in a wine-dark sea:

and opening my eyes in a hurry,

at last I saw the brightness of the light that had always been there.

—"Hakou" or "Wave Height" by Shikao Suga [translated and remixed]

Author's Note: Ugh, I'm so sorry. I've been trying to revise this into something I like and it's been really hard. (The last couple of chapters have been through a ridiculous number of rewrites.) Please continue to bear with me.