#fai

I’m mostly too excited to see the Tsubasa family again to really sit down with this cover and spend a long time with it, but what I WILL say is that I love Watanuki’s pose. The way he’s staring Up and out of frame, with his hand half reaching toward it, is such a nice little way of portraying what he’s doing every single day. He spends all his efforts waiting for the far off day when he’ll see Yuuko again, and every little thing he does is another way of reaching further toward that future. 

I’m also not immune to Mokona sitting on a flower doing the same thing in the other direction. Mostly because it’s adorable, but also because Mokona is kind of on the opposing side of Watanuki’s point of view, and is constantly helping Doumeki keep tabs on Watanuki and watch out for his welfare. If Watanuki has the luxury of devoting his entire life to bringing back Yuuko, it is only BECAUSE he has Mokona and Doumeki working so hard to keeping him going. They work in the present, helping the people who are still alive, rather than whatever it is exactly that Watanuki is doing. 

Though all that considered the big (lotus?) flowers in the background DO almost look like they’re growing OUT OF Watanuki, which could represent his flowering wish that is very slowly coming to fruition, since they only rise up that far in the direction he’s gazing. Meanwhile Mokona is looking more in the direction of the flowers in the border (since they only appear in that part of the border), as if Mokona’s achieving something slightly different, like maintaining the stability of the life around him, or putting in effort to make life beautiful, since the border is plain everywhere else. And Mokona DOES put remarkable energy towards lifting the spirits of everyone around him, especially in this time where it’s otherwise very depressing. 

We love and appreciate Mokona in this house. 

And now the chapter!

We open on Watanuki trying to design his personal seal, which they explain as they’re talking about it (thank you Clamp). 

And I immediately love this as a premise, because (a) it’s something that you need to function in society, so it shows that Watanuki is at least on some level still functioning in society, which is very good to see (if at the very least to show that he hasn’t cut himself off entirely), but also (b) it raises a question around Watanuki’s identity that (I assume?) will be a core idea of the chapter. 

Mokona brings some much needed levity to the situation because THIS IS A VERY PIVOTAL PART OF WATANUKI’S ENTIRE ARC AT THE MOMENT. The choice over who and what he is IS something he’s forever on the edges of in the cage arc, always hedging himself away from the people around him and who he used to be, changing his essence at a fundamental level to make himself increasingly supernatural, living his life devoted to an obsession that threatens to delete everything he was before. 

So, I am THRILLED that this is the question we get immediately, and EVEN MORE SO AT THIS NEXT PAGE. 

Because when Watanuki tries to think of a symbol that represents himself he immediately goes to Yuuko’s symbols. 

Which is telling enough on its own, but I am absolutely in LOVE with Mokona’s reaction. Mokona just. Has no response. 

He just silently stares right at Watanuki as the point of view shifts to outside, watching at them as only silhouettes from a space in the rain. 

And it wasn’t raining before. 

Which I’m sure will have plot reasons as well but it serves as such a PERFECT MOOD SHIFT. 

Watanuki suggests Yuuko’s symbol as his only identifier and not only does MOKONA NOT APPROVE, it cuts Mokona’s joyful approach immediately into silence and then IT STARTS TO RAIN. It’s perfect. A 10/10 little interaction to show that Watanuki is wrong. 

If Watanuki thinks the core of his existence is only Yuuko Ichihara he is incorrect. And there is so much more to him that, again, he is either forgetting, trying to forget, or actively erasing in order to feed his obsession. And Mokona doesn’t know how to correct him, but at the very least Mokona can’t endorse the choice.

Especially since if we go back to the very first page of this chapter there is an alternative answer waiting for him right there already. In fact lets go back and look there now:

Because even though Watanuki is sitting in the moon house with the moon gates, in front of the moon door, wearing the moon on his clothes, and smoking Yuuko’s pipe - he is not Yuuko Ichihara. He is Syaoran. He is Tsubasa. 

And there are BIRDS in the sky above him right now that he doesn’t see, but they see him. Which I’m hoping is a sign that the answer to this dilemma is for him to remember that THEY are his namesake and not the butterfly, but this is CLAMP and there are so many ways this chapter could go, so let’s see what hitsuzen has in store.

And I didn’t know Watanuki was about to say Hitsuzen as well but this is xxxHolic after all, I think we can admit this isn’t the biggest coincidence in the world. 

But I DO love how his eyes show their different colour here, as Watanuki decides to repeat the process Yuuko talked him through the first time a sudden sunshower happened in the series. 

WHICH, also resulted in the Tsubasa family arriving, and SPOILER I know they’re in this one, SO I’M IMMEDIATELY THRILLED. 

But also it’s worth noting that the mirror Watanuki is holding here IS the exact same one he held the first time around, and it’s suddenly much more fun how much these last few chapters are going back to the FIRST volume of xxxHolic and deliberately touching on everything that happened there too.

Here is a page from that much earlier chapter that shows it:

And Watanuki repeats this process in the present:

AND I’M SCREAMING HE DOESN’T EVEN JUST HEAR THE BIRD

GUESS WHAT THE BIRD IS AN OMEN OF? 

JUST KIDDING! IT’S HIMSELF.

So I think we can safely say we were correctly divining the hints at the start of the chapter, since HERE IS LAVA LAMP HOLDING THE ACTUAL BIRD AS AN OMEN OF WHAT WATANUKI NEEDS MOST RIGHT NOW - HIMSELF. 

It’s another 10/10 moment that it was worth a little misery just to get to this point. UGH it’s beautiful. 

AND LOOK THERE THEY ARE. THE TSUBASA FAMILY. 

For the first time since the end of Tsubasa the Syaorans are reunited, and it’s just SO fitting that it’s in the exact same way that Watanuki first met (the other) Syaoran at the beginning of Tsubasa. 

And gosh it’s been ten years for Watanuki since he last saw Lava Lamp. I am hoping that with the difference in time between the worlds it hasn’t been ten years for Lava Lamp as well, but it might have been! Either way look how GENTLY HAPPY he is to be here. 

And how fun that Fai and Kurogane appear in the same poses they did back when they first appeared here, with Fai standing up and Kurogane crouching down. 

And if you really wanted a metaphor, the last time around Syaoran (clone) was holding Sakura (clone), and this time we have Lava Lamp (real) holding a bird (as a symbol of their real name)(and the answer to who Watanuki really is).

Magical moment all around!

AND THEN WE GET A MOKONA REUNION I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. I ALMOST THOUGHT THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. MOKONA REUNION AT LAST. 

Oh! And considering how little is left of xxxHolic, do you think this is the Last Crossover chapter?

Is the last crossover chapter an echo and mirror of the FIRST crossover chapter? Is the final crossover the reunion of the Mokonas that have been separated for the entirety of both narratives? I can’t think of a better way to write it if that ends up being the case.

OH STOP IT I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CRYING. 

THE GENTLENESS OF IT ALL

AND KUROGANE SMILING TOO? ALL THE MIRACLES ARE COMING TRUE AT ONCE!

BLESSED IMAGE

MOKONA CUDDLE PILE

THE MOKONAS HAPPILY SLEEPING TOGETHER IN A BLANKET BURRITO

THE TSUBASA DADS HAPPILY WATCHING THEM TOGETHER

KUROGANE OPENLY SMILING AT THIS MOMENT TOO AHHHHH

I don’t know anything about what happens in either sequel series but even if they didn’t exist I think THIS is such a golden barometer of what their lives are and how their personal arcs have ended with them being genuinely happy and able to express that happiness openly and without reservation around each other. 

THIS IS ALL I EVER COULD HAVE HOPED FOR, FOR EITHER OF THEM! This page is enough. I’m keeping this one forever.

AHH AND LOOK AT THIS, FAI ONCE AGAIN COMING IN CLUTCH AND EXPLAINING THE LORE QUESTIONS FOR US SPECIFICALLY. 

It’s been less than two years for them, but many more for Watanuki. 

Except I guess this also comes with a dose of confusion for me because Kurogane seems to be referring to them coming to the store after the end of Tsubasa. He mentions them wearing their Clow Kingdom Outfits specifically, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this visit they’re talking about? I’m even double checking just to be sure, but no this is the first time they’ve shown up on page after the end of Tsubasa. 

So, I guess this is just them writing backwards and letting us know (now) that they came here after the end of Tsubasa, and that it’s been 520 days since then. 

I think for me personally it would work out best in my head if they came here FIRST after the Clow Kingdom, and that way the gap between visits becomes a way of measuring both journeys the boys have been on. For Lava Lamp, it’s been less than a year and a half since the end of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. For Watanuki, it has been a decade.

This doesn’t have to be true, and might not be true, but I’m just going to say it’s true until proven otherwise. It makes the most sense to me that way. 

Ok yeah it can’t have been very long after the end of Tsubasa AT ALL if Watanuki hadn’t fully taken over the store on their last visit, since he does that pretty much right away. Watanuki declares it to Doumeki the moment he gets back from the Tsubasa finale, and just after that we get our first big time skip, so it must have been very, very soon after that if it hadn’t properly happened when they arrived. 

Also it’s a little funny that Watanuki apologies for breaking the gasses Lava Lamp gave to him, since they were… his glasses… that Lava Lamp was just returning to him from when he lost them in the world of dreams. Maybe if the translation has used the word “returned” it would read better. I’m just going to pretend it says that. 

Ohoho I like that this is just becoming our big Post-Series update. It’s been a year and a half and they haven’t reunited with Not!Sakura just yet, so they’ve been to many of the other worlds but not back to Clow. And I wonder how long it’s been on Clow, and if it’s closer to Lava Lamp’s timeline or Watanuki’s?

Ahaha and THIS is a big touchstone for the difference between their post-Tsubasa arcs. Lava Lamp is OPTIMISTICALLY looking towards the future, confident in all the reunions he will have in the future. Watanuki is sadly looking downward, perhaps not sure how long he will have to keep on paying this exaggeratedly long price to eventually be reunited with Yuuko again. 

Just the MOOD of xxxHolic Cage Arc compared to Post-Tsubasa Lava Lamp is such a marked difference. At least Clamp know and are doing it all on purpose. But! It does come with the knowledge that one of these stories might be a bit more fun to experience, and it’s not the series we’re reading currently.

Even Watanuki’s words here are ominous for xxxHolic, considering everything that’s happened for the last ten years, but they become a much more positive framing for Lava Lamp’s future. (And look, Watanuki is looking up the same way he was in the cover!)

And I do kind of love that this and the previous chapter illustrate these two as two halves of the same person, moving towards the same goal but with different experiences. Just like the shape of their soul being the yin yang symbol, their lives are opposite but equal in direction and drive. Which is something we’ve seen about them before but it’s always a nice full circle moment when we see it in effect! 

OH MY GOODNESS THEY STAYED FOR FIVE DAYS?

THIS IS HEAVENLY, I’M SO GLAD. INFINITE TIME FOR OFF SCREEN BONDING AND SHENANIGANS FOR ALL OF THEM. 

FAI AND KUROGANE LOOSE ON THE STREETS OF MODERN DAY TOKYO? 

LAVA LAMP AND WATANUKI TALKING THROUGH EVERYTHING THEY’VE BEEN THROUGH?

DOUMEKI AND KOHANE GETTING TO MEET THE OTHER SIDE OF WATANUKI?

I WANT TO SEE IT ALL!

I will happily write this all myself in my head. It’s all canon now. 

OH OH SEE IT REALLY DID HAPPEN! THEY MET DOUMEKI! Oh gosh I would LOVE to see how that went down. Especially with Fai and Kurogane being able to read so many subtleties out of people, and Doumeki always dripping with concern over Watanuki and all his choices. I’m 100% sure that the dads (at least) are aware of what Watanuki has been up to, and all the associated risks, and if there is any justice Lava Lamp will know too, if preferably from Watanuki himself.

I’m just so thrilled it all did happen. 

OH?????

WATANUKI ABLE TO STEER MOKONA BACK TO THE CLOW KINGDOM?

GORGEOUS. 

And their reunion being payment enough for it is huge considering how big such world choices have been for them in the past. I suppose this is less “all of existence depends on this” so the cost would naturally be much, much less than it has been previously, but still nice that it means that their reunion was so valuable! 

Especially valuable FOR Watanuki. And I think PARTICULARLY since it’s helping him answer the issue of identity he had been lingering on right when they arrived.

And even though the Mokonas have another teary separation at least we know another reunion will happen, and it’s very sweet that Lava Lamp is going to keep her in the loop of Watanuki’s involvement as well. I love them all being connected as they are.

YES!

Y E S!

SEE THERE WE GO HE GOT THERE!

HE MADE TSUBASA HIS SEAL! HE DID IT IN THE SHAPE OF THE TSUBASA!

OH IT ALL CAME TOGETHER JUST AS I HAD HOPED. 

PERFECT ENDING. 

I don’t even need the rest this was a perfect wrap up.

And with Watanuki making a decision about his identity here, does this mean a shift in the direction his narrative has been taking? I sure hope so!

Actually it's probably worth noting that the outfit he's wearing in this final scene no longer has a moon on it, and it's a bit more reminiscent of the cloak that Lava Lamp is wearing, so visually he has aligned himself back with who he used to be, AND his seal is a reference to his own original name, and not Yuuko.

OH it also adds to the symmetry of how Tsubasa ended with both Lava Lamp and Not!Sakura revealing their names were Tsubasa - now we have Watanuki ALSO claiming the Tsubasa name once again, right here near the end of xxxHolic. All three of them ending their narratives with a reassertion of their true identities is a very fun thread to tie them all together. Now we just have to get Watanuki across his finish line too!

Though, um. There is this.

Which, ok! 

This is in reference to the unseen child, but here at the end of this chapter instead? Ominous as fuck but go off I guess?