Inevitable
By Tyger.

Watanuki's sweeping off the front deck - again! He has no idea how everything Yuuko-san touches gets dirty so quickly, but it does! Everything! It's like she's a mess-magnet! - when the person in the coat walks in. It's a nice coat, he supposes, though it's really quite. Scary. Not the sort of coat you'd want to see walking towards you, on a dark night. The fact he can't see the face inside just makes it creepier.

Yuuko's. You get all sorts.

The coat walks up to the stairs, and looks at him. Well. Watanuki assumes it looks at him. It's not like he can tell. The hood swivels towards him, anyway.

"You're not the witch," it says. It's the sort of voice you'd expect, from a coat like that. Kind of. It seems sort of... empty. Like it can't really be bothered, when gang-types are usually obsessed with their appearance, and that sort of thing. Weird, but everything's weird, nowadays.

"Uh, no," he says.

"Interesting," the coat says. Watanuki blinks and - oh. He closes his own eye, and - yeah. The guy's less there, in that one. Still there, but you really have to think about looking at him. He opens his eye again, walks inside.

"Yuuko-san!" he calls.

"Send him in," she says, draped all over her divan, hair sprawling everywhere, smoking pipe in one hand. She's wearing a kimono, today, indecently loose - like that's a surprise - in dark blue, with a phoenix pattern; red flowers in her hair, silver and rubies at her wrists. Mokona is nowhere to be seen.

Watanuki shows the coat in, busies himself with tea, snacks - the coat doesn't sit, and Yuuko-san mostly ignores them - for once! Probably because there's no booze, the drunkard - but it's his job, and it gives him something to do, so he doesn't stare.

"You're not surprised to see me," the coat says, not even bothering to attempt to look Yuuko-san in the eyes.

"It was inevitable," she says, puffing on her pipe. The smoke she breathes out clings to the coat, not to her, and that's odd, even for here.

"Then you know why I'm here."

"Of course," Yuuko-san says, smiling lazily up at him. "Everyone comes for the same reason, after all."

"Then can you give me what I want?" The coat doesn't sound like he cares, but if there's one thing Watanuki's learnt, it's that anyone that can see the shop really, really wants something. Sometimes they even get it.

"I can give you what you ask for, provided you pay the equivalent price," says Yuuko-san, with that smile that speaks of mysteries and power.

"And if I can't pay?"

"You would not be here, if you couldn't." Yuuko-san leans forward, her chin on the palm of one hand. "Now tell me, what is your wish?"

The coat waits a long moment, before speaking. "I want Roxas to live. As himself, not Sora." It's not the sort of wish Watanuki was expecting to hear at all.

Yuuko-san, of course, doesn't even blink. "I will grant your wish," she says.

"What's the price," says the coat, hands clenching as if to hold something, one foot stepping back, and crouching a little.

"The memories," says Yuuko-san, smiling that enigmatic smile, "that you have of him."

"My memories..." says the coat, softly, relaxing his pose and looking down at the floor. He laughs, sharp and harsh. "Inevitable, huh? I'll pay."

Yuuko-san smiles.

The coat looks around, as if confused, then dissolves into dust.

.

Half a galaxy away, the remains of a keyblade master step out from his complete self, and breathe.