Title: Pythia

Summary: Being reincarnated into your favorite anime is a dream come true until you realize your crush is gay, your father's a psycho, and your employer is a madwoman hellbent on having you traipse through dimensions in the company of vampire twins running from said psycho (sort of) who also happen to be—you guessed it—painfully gay for each other. (Semi SI-OC, world drop)

Warning: Explicit language, slander. Character thoughts do not reflect my own.

Death, short of words, is horribly anticlimactic.

Half of you expects the sky to fall and the sun jump out of its orbit; the other half envisions the world falling to their knees at your loss. But the truth stands as it is—a single life is but a candlelight. The sun rises and sets, the seasons change, the earth will continue to spin with it—and in time, people, too, will forget.

Buddhists describe enlightenment as a four-step process of ridding oneself of worldly desires. Death, too, breeds a synonymous state—but cuts off everything cold turkey. One minute, you feel everything, and the next, absolutely nothing.

Sure, there's pain—but hey, whether you're getting hit by a bus or free-falling five-thousand feet from Mount Kilimanjaro, shit's bound to hurt. Better it be a bus than scaphism, am I right?

Naturally, you'd want your death to be quick and painless.

Me? I bled out. It wasn't a terrible way to die, but it wasn't the most creative option, either—I'd always assumed I'd go out with a bang. Smoke and fire, all that jazz—quite literally, might I add, since I was well on my way to lung cancer. Now that's a shitty way to die.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Go away, Kyle." Unfortunately, it seems that some annoyances follow you to the afterlife. I realize 'why the fuck are you here' would've been a more appropriate response, but knowing Kyle Rondart, he'd just smile that revolting smile of his and say "who knows?" in all his vapid vagueness.

Now, I've noted an overwhelming urge to pummel him, but I'd chalked it down to my general dislike of people. My animosity was justified, however, when the fucker handed me a knife and told me to kill myself when my ex-husband ruined my life.

And now, here I sit, very annoyed and very dead. Words to live by—never take advice from a ponytailed fucker that runs a manga store. These weebs are out for blood, I'm telling you.

"I'm hurt." If I were solid, I'd sock him straight across that stupid face of his. "Even in death, you remain cruel. Is it too much of an old friend to ask for your last words?"

"And whose fault is that?" I roll my eyes, crossing my legs. "Seriously—convincing me to commit suicide wasn't enough for you? If you're here to gloat, there's something seriously wrong with you." I frown. "Nevermind—there is something wrong with you. Last I checked, you were pretty damn alive."

"So it would seem."

"Were you so smitten that you couldn't bear a world without me in it?" I ask, faux saccharine and cheerfulness. It's hard to not sound dead inside when you're, well, dead, but for the sake of narration, I tried.

He chuckles. "I have to say, your lackadaisical attitude towards all of this is… unexpected."

"Would you rather me cry? Throw a fit? Rise from the dead as a poltergeist and drive you mad?" I sigh, resting my head on my palm. "I'm not stupid, Kyle—I'm dead, and I know I can't change that. And, on the contrary, I don't have any regrets."

Kyle's brows shoot upwards. He looks quizzical, frowning over my last statement. "You wish for me to believe that you harbor no animosity towards me? Or the word?" He presses, seemingly upset.

I stare at him. "Wow, Kyle, I didn't know you cared that much. Don't tell me you actually give a shit about me?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

The two of us stare at each other. Kyle looks perplexed, some semblance of annoyance reflected in his eyes.

The afterlife is monochrome. Or, at least, it is for now. I sit on a bench at a train station, conveniently labeled "the crossroads" in bright, neon signs. Around me are other (presumably dead) people, all faceless and gray, waiting. Despite the silence, nobody seemed to concern themselves with our conversation.

I hear a train at the end of the tunnel. Tractors screeching, smoke sputtering—it won't be long now.

"I guess it's time for me to go." If he's irked, he doesn't let it show. Just stares forward, silent. "Look, I honestly don't give a shit what happens to you, but don't beat yourself up over it. Everyone dies, and believe it or not, I was headed down this road... for a while. Even without your… input, I'm sure I would've ended up this way. I guess I was too weak to live in that world."

The train screeches to a stop. The passengers file in one by one, leaving us at a standstill.

"You should head back now, Kyle." I turn, but before I can take a step, a hand forms bars around my forearm, yanking me backwards. The shock of feeling human touch outweighs everything else; I stare at a suddenly smiling Kyle, feeling something akin to dread bubble through me.

Had I been human, gooseflesh would've surely broken across my arm.

"And where do you think you're going?"

"...to die..?"

"Surely, you remember our deal." His breath ghosts over me like a stray hair.

"...deal?"

"We had a promise, love—a wish. I told you I'd grant one wish."

It takes approximately three seconds for the memories to churn in.

"One wish, darling—anything you so desire."

Once again, I am Atlas, cursed to carry the weight of a world I can't bear. "I don't want to hear anything anymore. I don't want to see anything anymore."

"Tell me your wish, and I'll make it come true…"

"...this world… I don't want to live in it anymore."

Thus, I was given a razor and knife, and the rest is history.

"...I wished to die—"

"And there, darling, is where you're wrong." A hand on the waist, the other pulling my hand—Kyle turns me into a puppet, his personal marionette. "Your wish was not to die, but to stop living in the world you so dearly despised. Never did you ask for death, and never did I promise to give it to you."

"I don't understand—"

"Poor, unfortunate soul," he croons, spinning me round and round, forcing the world around me to contort. "Don't you know not to make deals with the devil? I've upheld my end of the bargain—"

He stops me with a single hand. I fall into his arms, staring into his eyes—stretching, empty and blue, like the sky. "...and now, I'm afraid your soul is mine to do with as I please."

"You lying piece of shit," is the last thing I utter, before I fall—rather, am dragged to God-knows-where, surrounded (and nauseated) by Kyle's laughter.

And deep into the earth we go, straight into the arms of Hades.

The Time-Space Witch yearns.

She is the only one of herself left. Every other, in all versions of reality, have long returned to dust; only she remains, stagnant, never dying, but never truly living, either.

"How could you do this to me?"

For love, she knows is the answer. Time and time again, for love.

There is nothing she hates more than those words.

"So you have a wish, do you?" Fei Wang Reed remains as impassive as ever, though she can feel him gloating. She'd sworn to herself, after all, to never wish again—desire is what kept humans alive, and that was the one thing she couldn't allow herself to have. "Witch."

When she doesn't answer, he snaps his fingers; and she sees her, in blood and flesh, as if she were still warm and alive. Her breath catches in her throat; she knows it's an illusion, but she can't help but long.

"You want her to live, Witch?" He drags a finger down her spine, from the soft flesh of her back round to her breast. Rage fills her; there is nothing more she wants than to blast off that finger, and his head with it. "I have no qualms about it; all you have to do is say the word."

She is quiet.

"How could you do this to me?" She knows she will ask, broken and betrayed and accusing. "Why couldn't you let me stay dead?"

"For love," she will answer. "Time and time again, for love—"

"I want her to live."

She ignores his triumphant smirk. Ignores the universe yelling, as yet another rift tears into it. Ignores the yells of Gods and men alike; youshouldn'thavedonethat—

"Your wish is my command."

"—Because there is nothing more I want than for you to simply exist."

Perhaps, she thinks, as she prepares herself for the wrath of the universe, you and I weren't so unalike after all…

...Clow...

The last circle of hell does not burn. It is frozen. In his last glimpse of Hell, Dante sees Satan upside-down in the ice.

I wonder, had he looked back, would he see the eyes of God reflected back at him?

I held a globe once, traced every ocean and jagged line. Mountains, ridges, tectonic plates—had anyone bothered to ask if the Earth was hurting?

"Where does it hurt?"

Here. There. Everywhere.

I never considered myself depressed. There were people who had it worse than me, people whose worlds ended every morning just to live again. Poverty, hunger, disease—I knew none of these. It amazes me how much I was hurting.

"Rate your pain, on a scale of one to ten."

"Five," I'd say, reluctantly—because surely, there could be nothing more excruciating than ten? "Six," I uttered, rarely.

"Five is nothing," my doctor would tell me. "Six means pop an Advil and sleep it off."

And so, I iced myself at night, waking up numb in the morning.

I wonder when five had become my new zero, and what that meant when I went back to my physician the next time, again with a "five".

I can't compare myself to a child in the slums of Nairobi, nor a soldier that camps out in barracks with bullet wounds in his shoulder. But I know, in that moment, there was nobody in the world hurting more than me, nobody weaker—

Wake up.

I open my eyes to a world submerged. A woman floats above me, sad eyes and a sadder mouth, moving slowly, surely, with a flick of her tail—

I'm drowning. I'm drowning.

The last thing I see is Fei Wang Reed's face, smiling through the ice, and then, everything goes white.

From ashes, I am I reborn, living as I had died—in blood. Blood in my eyes, in my hair; blood in my nose and the apples of my cheeks. Blood everywhere.

The face of my new mother drops into the light like a starlet; tired, sallow cheeks, bruised eyes, and a face of wonder.

"Freya," she breathes, a name that was sung to the gospels. Freya, I am named, after magic and bewilderment and destiny. Fre-ya, a name no poet could give justice—Freya, a name amongst a thousand, but the only name that would foretell who I am and who I would become. "Freya."

"She's beautiful," murmurs another, voice foreign. I struggle to twist my head, causing the stranger to chuckle. A tuft of blonde hair drowns my vision, then lightly freckled skin, and bluer-than-blue eyes—

Wait.

"Why isn't it crying?" Asks the blonde girl, wrinkling her nose. "It looks like an alien."

Dear God, please tell me this is some sick joke, this can't be happening—

"Elda, don't make fun of your sister."

My face turns white.

"What's wrong with it? Why does it look so pasty? Shouldn't it be crying?"

"Elda, shut up." The man turns to me, smiling, arms open. "Freya's perfect, isn't she?"

...my new family consists of CLAMP's not-so-dead girl Kobato, loli bot, and gay magician.

"It's turning red. Why is it turning red?"

Only then, forced at five minutes into my birth to confront my new destiny, do I begin to cry.

A/N: Hello Tsubasa family! *waves hand excitedly* Just a rabid CLAMP fangirl here, who decided it was time to pay homage to the fandom. Been a fan of TRC, CCS, and xxxHolic for years, had very strong feelings (?) about X/1999. Anywho, I thought this fic was long overdue, so here it is! A slightly depressing, slightly crack-y OC fic. My specialty.

Basically, OC dies, is stolen by Kyle and given to FWR for questionable purposes, and is reborn into the xxxHolic world. Her mother is Kobato, her sister is human!Elda (or Chii, as you may be more familiar with), and Fai (sort of). Note—this Fai isn't TRC!Fai; this is an alternate version of him in Holic!universe. The real him is still in Celes.

This will not be Tsubasa-family centric. Syaoran, Sakura, Fai, and Kurogane will be important parallels and make cameos, but Watanuki, Yuuko, and Vamp/Hunter brothers will be more central characters to this fic.

What'd you think? Depressing? Funny? Stupid? Is OC a talentless slut like all my other OC's? Let me know!

—helxium