This is a companion/ prequel to "Storm", explaining exactly what happened to Doumeki's arm... Oh, and the title is lame, but I couldn't think of anything more intelligent.

Doumeki would not pay his price in blood.

He realized that with a start some time after the first mission, when he was haunted by dreams of Watanuki falling. Doumeki woke that night with a gasp in the shifting shadows of the temple, a name on his tongue and hands grasping at phantom fingers—an inch too far away, a second too late. And he knew. Before he learned of hitsuzen, before he learned of exchanges and wishes and the way destiny could twist itself into knots like tangled rope, he understood. Blood was too easy. Death was too simple. The fates demanded something more of Doumeki Shizuka.

"Do I need my bow?"

That was the litmus test. Bow or no bow. Bow nights were bad. Bow nights meant things that crept and slobbered and shrieked unintelligible things and generally involved one or both of them getting dragged back home in a state of dishevelment. Bow nights involved close scrapes and fights to the death and other disturbingly routine occurrences in the archer's life.

On the other hand, bow-less nights indicated only that something might or might not happen, because Yuuko was being her usual infuriatingly subtle self and refusing to tell them anything that lay ahead. On normal days, Doumeki was of the opinion that this was an extremely important part of the natural order of things. On non-bow nights, though, he was generally of the opinion that the dimensional witch could take her hitsuzen and shove it in impolite places.

"Nah, Yuuko-san said you didn't need it today," Watanuki told him, looking harried and annoyed by the anticipation of whatever it was Yuuko had decided to put them through this time. The smaller boy stomped down the street waving his arms about as though trying to dissipate the muggy air around them and create something a little more breathable. His slender fingers twirled through the air, enchanting and pale. Doumeki had a sudden evil urge to catch the skinny frame in his arms and make the smaller boy appreciate the summer heat—preferably against the nearest fence or wall that lay along their immediate path—but he suspected that the action would not be taken well by either his quarry or the neighbors.

He sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"What are we doing?"

"She didn't say, idiot! Just where to be, and at what time."

"Hn."

They showed up at the lake at exactly six fifteen, just as the sky was starting to soften its intense blue for a sort of pale gray, and the sun disappearing. The heat did not go with it. But the people did, and from their perch on the thin strip of sand along the shore the two could see a long procession of boats and picnic lunches and people wrapped in towels splashing up out of the lukewarm water.

"He asked about his sister," Watanuki said suddenly.

"Eh?"

"His little sister. The client said she fell off the side of a boat when she was only eight or so, and recently he's been having dreams about her. He wanted us to find her ghost. It was weird."

"How weird?" Doumeki asked, noting the shiver in Watanuki's shoulders.

"Very." The smaller boy took a deep breath and continued hesitantly. "He said there was blood in the dream, and fish too, floating through the blood. His sister was there holding one of the fish... but I can't remember whether she was under water or what. He didn't seem very clear on the whole thing."

"How old was he?"

"Sixty-one. She was younger than him by four years."

"So it's been forty-nine years since she died."

"I guess," Watanuki said uncertainly, too hot and sleepy to do the math in his head. "Yuuko-san would say that's significant, I suppose."

Doumeki turned back to the lake and waited in silence, every muscle tensed and alert.

Doumeki would not pay his price in blood.

The blood, he figured, was to pay for all the bento Watanuki made, for the sake and chats with Yuuko, for the lunches and the incessant yelling and the slightest undertone of something else. Later Doumeki would learn to account for each small thing, to see how this scratch corresponded to that sideways look. He learned to be thankful for what the blood bought him.

But blood was not a part of the true deal he was making, the big one that cost so much more than a piece of body or soul. Blood was not part of the calculation in that; it was a separate affair. Doumeki was in the process of buying something for Watanuki. From Watanuki. And it, he knew, would be a burden heavier than blood.

The wave that rose up from the deep like the dorsal fin of a great shark took both of them by surprise—even though it was at the predicted time—giving Doumeki just enough warning so that he could use the sudden adrenaline to snatch a dumbstruck Watanuki from the sandy beach. Even with the archer shielding him, Watanuki gasped as the wall of water slammed down over them. It was dark, cold, insistent, curling around Doumeki's skin like liquid chains as he clung to Watanuki's uniform.

He barely even heard Watanuki scream through the bubbles.

And by that time the fish was gone, its long golden length disappeared into the depths, leaving the archer with nothing but an empty hand stinging from the cloth that had just been ripped out of it, and holding an empty armload of fear.

Doumeki cursed into the water, watching the trail of bubbles rise from the blackness. He could hear his pulse in his ears, reverberating. But instinct was enough to kick his limbs into action, flipping upside down and stroking hard toward the unseen bottom of the lake. Yuuko had said he wouldn't need the bow today, so like the idiot Watanuki claimed he was, the archer had let his guard down. And now he was going to pay for it. He kicked harder, sending a ripple toward the surface with his powerful legs.

Down into the blackness he dove, uncertain as to why he suddenly felt no need to swim back to the surface and take a breath. Down here the water was even colder than before, nothing like the warm shallows where the beachgoers had in the afternoon sun. It was heavier, too, it seemed, like metal pressing in around his body in a vice-like grip.

A loop of seaweed caught on his pant leg and he kicked it away without even a second thought. The fact that there was seaweed at all was a positive sign. It meant that he was nearing the bottom, which was lucky because the trail of bubbles had long since risen and dissipated. But now he could see a light burning far down in the inky landscape, taunting him with the glint of golden scales he could see for a split second around the edges.

It was a fishbowl.

The light emanated from a curved sphere three times Doumeki's height, a silvery membrane that seemed more liquid than solid with its shifting surface. Inside he could see shadows fluttering, the outlines occasionally resembling a draping tail or a staring eye.

Fish. There were fish inside, hundreds of them, crammed into a space that should barely have held half their number. And worse, Doumeki could see that every so often one of them was not all aqueous, for here and there a leg or an arm extruded from strange spots, or a human eye glared out from the round socket of the glittering creatures.

"Watanuki!" Doumeki called out, his hands slicing through a few more feet of water, but there was no answer.

"Watanuki! Oi! Watanuki!"

There's a new one.

Huh? Doumeki spun around in confusion, looking for the source of the noise.

There's a new one. And he's got someone looking for him, oh yes. Not lucky...

The fishbowl?

Hmm, did you find us? You should go back, not-lucky. The Big One will come back soon. He is hungry.

"Will he eat Watanuki?" Doumeki questioned, letting his feet come to rest on the sandy floor beside the globe. His shoes kicked up a fountain of dust that settled slowly about him.

Wa...tanuki? Ah, the new one, he says. No, he will not eat the new one. Not for many years yet. He eats us first. A ripple of panic seemed to flow outward from the globe, raw and fearful. He will eat us first. Who has been here fifty years? Bright scales? Aya? Notch-tooth? Oh, Aya! It is her, it is her...

"How do I get in?" Doumeki reached out toward the membrane, only to draw his hand back in pain as something stung the skin. Looking down, he could see the blood welling up from a series of small cuts on his finger.

Ah! No good! Came the multitude of voices. The Big One will smell it! Blood, blood!

"Oi!" Doumeki yelled, restraining himself from whacking the side of the bowl. When he was sure there was quiet he spoke in a low voice. "Can you find him for me?"

The new one? He is here somewhere, but...

But...

Doumeki stared at the globe, watching the bulbous eyes that danced within.

"Please," he said simply, and waited.

A hand reached blindly through the mass of scales, towing behind it an arm, then a shoulder, and finally the head and torso of a bedraggled high school boy. Watanuki's glasses were gone; he gaped at Doumeki as though he were some sort of strange apparition. His mouth moved but the archer could hear nothing at all.

He took a deep breath and plunged his arm through the barrier, allowing the pain to rush through him and away.

Watanuki.

Doumeki would not pay his price in blood.

Blood could be replenished, it could be renewed and the pain forgotten. But that kind of easy trade would buy nothing for Watanuki. Instead, Doumeki wanted to take something from the smaller boy, to steal a burden off those slender shoulders. He wanted Watanuki's fear.

Paranoia cannot just disappear, he reasoned, it must be borne and held and struggled with. That was what he traded with fate for—Watanuki's anxiety for his own, Watanuki's skittishness and nerves. If he could only arrange the world so that the medium need never worry again, then Doumeki would gladly take the nightmares all for himself. Better that he should do the worrying for Watanuki's sake, than to see those haunted eyes roving from now until forever.

Doumeki would pay his price in fear.

They found their way to the surface somehow, inexplicably, alive, Watanuki caught under Doumeki's good arm and helping to kick hard away from the monster that stirred in the depths. The fish bowl had broken open behind them, shattered either by Doumeki's spirit or by the way he had yanked Watanuki from within the globe. Strangely, Watanuki had not been at all marred by the amorphous barrier, the skin of his hands and face still mercifully smooth. When Doumeki finally dragged them, coughing and spitting, onto the beach, Watanuki caught him and let the blood run over his pale skin in silent apology.

"Were you afraid?" was all Doumeki asked.

"O-of course I was, stupid," Watanuki muttered, wrapping his soaking jacket around the seeping lacerations in a futile gesture.

"How afraid?" Doumeki leaned forward into Watanuki's shoulder, supporting himself with his undamaged hand. "Did you think I wouldn't come?"

"I knew you would come," Watanuki said softly, strangely. "You always do."

"So... was that better?"

"I guess so," Watanuki replied as the archer coughed deeply and attempted to stand, one arm slung over the other boy's shoulder for support.

"Good," Doumeki said, and meant it.

It was, after all, a fair price to pay.

buh... yeah, I just wrote this and it's late and I'm sleepy... please forgive all weirdness.